The Amazon Tax

https://seths.blog/wp-content/themes/godin/img/seth.webp
Amazon's search ads distort results, prioritizing sellers' budgets over product quality and customer needs. This system creates a cycle of inefficiency, driving up costs for consumers and stifling innovation in the market.

Using the railway network as a flatbed scanner

https://philo.gay/linecam/blogpics_full/video_preview.jpg
The author built a digital scanning camera to capture wide photos of moving vehicles, using an industrial linear scanning camera and processing the data in post-processing. The project involved overcoming challenges such as speed measurement, parallax correction, and displaying large images.

Fixing a Bricked Framework Laptop

https://quantum5.ca/assets/fwbios/framework-bad-flash-751da0b6e55fd26c1fd6d7ef7cb0cba2912c22b56cc32d139128d6f64c9957a4a0591d4ce488b52a5cbb72570b33fc878e2703cd95ed494f661d5a4eb62c4737.webp
The user's Framework laptop failed to update its BIOS via the official framework updater, resulting in a "bricked" system. The user attempted to flash the BIOS themselves using a CH347 programmer and successfully restored their laptop, but encountered issues with customizations being lost during the process.

Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM

Python Polars Cheatsheet (based on our O'Reilly book)

https://opensource.posit.co/resources/cheatsheets/polars/ppdg_1625_hu_9e05b5e4b64e1e92.jpg
Polars is a library for data transformation, analysis, and visualization with a fast DataFrame API. It supports various operations like filtering, grouping, joining, and plotting.

Teaching my kid to code with a modern MUD

https://tau.dev/assets/canon/canon.webp
The author created a text-based game called Canon, where players can build and interact with their own games using a simple scripting language called Cant. The game is designed to teach programming concepts in an accessible way for beginners.

Kent Beck: Composable Tests

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Isolation in testing ensures each test runs independently, while composition involves combining tests to maintain predictability and specificity. This approach allows for more efficient testing with fewer tests, improving overall code quality and shipping speed.

Fairphone is now officially available in the United States

https://www.fairphone.com/web/image/3527652-a1e33722/300ea266-9a80-11f1-b78e-8e62b86b5ce1?access_token=d9fdf55f-531a-4d3c-90ba-af0303e43e6d
The Fairphone (Gen. 6+) is launched with upgraded internal hardware, including a Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 processor and up to 12GB RAM, for improved performance and smoother multitasking. The new device retains the original's industry-leading repairability standards while introducing features like Android 16 and exclusive colorways.

Google buys crashed airline Spirit's data at auction, because AI

https://image.theregister.com/5271547.webp?imageId=5271547&width=360&height=360
Spirit Airlines filed for liquidation and sold its data to Google for $10 million, which includes 100m emails, 500m Microsoft Teams items, and customer service records. The deidentified data will be used by Google to improve its AI services.

Meta Files Patent for Facial Recognition, Automatic Recording of People

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1572635196237-14b3f281503f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fHJheSUyMGJhbnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzg3MDA1MjE5fDA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=720
Meta filed a patent for a "memory recall" system that uses facial recognition to record people automatically, raising concerns about privacy. The company's Ray-Ban smart glasses have been criticized for their ability to surreptitiously record people using the onboard camera.

NeoBrowser: An MCP server that drives real Chrome with your logged-in sessions

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pitiflautico/neobrowser/main/docs/assets/demo.gif
NeoBrowser is a tool that allows AI models to browse the web like humans, using real Chrome profiles and authenticating with genuine sessions. It detects bot walls, CAPTCHAs, and login gates on any site and provides robust core features for tasks such as navigation, typing, and form submission.

Show HN: I canceled my AI code reviewer and wrote a free local one

https://repository-images.githubusercontent.com/1312017997/eed8069b-df0f-499e-9c1a-7aec7003c172
Avouch is a lightweight, Git-aware static analysis CLI for Python that reviews code changes before pushing to ensure structural problems are fixed. It uses the standard ast module and reports findings in a human-readable format with optional JSON output.

How Bluesky draws its logo on screenshots

https://timmarinin.net/2026/bluesky-screenshots/skeet.jpg
User noticed a hidden Bluesky logo in a screenshot, which disappears when taking the actual screenshot. The logo is actually rendered as part of a secure text field that gets blanked by iOS during the screenshot process.

Deus Ex creator Warren Spector is retiring from game development

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/files/2019/05/31957465_10156266296628764_8581449025113292800_o-320x240.jpg
John Spector, a renowned game developer, is retiring after a career spanning decades. He feels accomplished and ready to move on from the industry that has changed significantly over time.

Show HN: A local MitM proxy to control TLS fingerprints

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ytkoka/impersonate-proxy/main/image/chrome-extension.png
A tool for custom TLS and HTTP fingerprints via YAML config, with a Chrome extension for runtime adjustments. It aids in testing WAF bot-detection systems by simulating various client fingerprints.

Finger: Social network that never died

https://en.andros.dev/static/img/footer/org-social.svg
The first social network, Finger, was created in 1971 at Stanford University and allowed users to share their status updates with others. It remains a simple yet functional protocol that has been revived in recent years with modern implementations like Happy Net Box and plan.cat.

Rethinking Database Programming

Baking a Model: A Metaphor for LLM Training

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!PlwL!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F961d0b32-94f1-43bf-84a9-af749bcc28c9_768x1024.jpeg
The author reflects on their fascination with AI models, comparing the process of creating them to baking and understanding how a model is constructed. They break down the model into its user interface and core components, explaining that training involves tweaking numbers through pre-training, post-training, and mid-training processes.

Oxford Electric Bell

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/Oxford_Electric_Bell.jpg/250px-Oxford_Electric_Bell.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=parser&utm_content=thumbnail
The Oxford Electric Bell, set up in 1840, uses electrostatic forces to ring every half second with minimal charge transfer, allowing it to run continuously for nearly two centuries. It holds the Guinness World Record for the most durable battery, ringing over 10 billion times without requiring maintenance.

Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

https://fabiensanglard.net/quake_shareware_cd/compusa.webp
id Software released Quake shareware on a CD-ROM in 1996, allowing gamers to buy the game and unlock it with a phone call. However, hackers quickly discovered that they could bypass the system by decrypting the full version of the game from the shareware CD using QCRACK.EXE.

GPT-5.6 Sol Pricing Cut by 50%

https://t0.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://nousresearch.com&size=256
OpenRouter compares different companies' models based on routing modes and metrics like price, speed, accuracy, and performance. It provides a ranking system to help users choose the best model for their needs.

Israel creates fake think tank in likely attempt to dupe AI chatbots

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/media-library/screenshot-of-the-hanover-institute-s-website-taken-on-aug-16-2026.png?id=67630219&width=1800&height=900&quality=74&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C65
The Hanover Institute for Public Policy appears to be a fake think tank created by the Israeli government to influence chatbots and AI systems, producing reports on Israel/Palestine issues. The organization's publications are designed to appeal to chatbots like Claude or Gemini, with formulaic questions and neutral tone arguments.

Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HP72MdaaEAAAX7z?format=webp&name=medium
It's crazy to imagine that we can just do this if we feel like it, a few years ago no one would've even bothered to program this 😭

Fairphone 6 and PostmarketOS working main camera

https://catcrafts.net/media/e2924a02871d8548.png
The author has successfully integrated a wide lens camera into their Linux phone, improved image quality with color correction, and is now working on shipping the Fairphone 6+ worldwide except for US and Canada due to insurance issues. They are also planning to create a non-profit company to back their future projects, including making an RISCV-based Linux phone.

Babies born under sugar rationing grew into adults with lower cancer risk

https://images.theconversation.com/files/754389/original/file-20260817-50-s3fxyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&rect=0%2C389%2C5086%2C2543&q=45&auto=format&w=1356&h=668&fit=crop
A study links early-life sugar exposure to long-term health outcomes, showing lower cancer risk and slower biological aging in those with less sugar during their first 1,000 days. Early sugar exposure also shapes lifelong dietary habits, with reduced sugar consumption and healthier diets observed decades later.

IBM Simon (1994): the original smartphone, explained in its own ad [video]

A Preview of DuckDB v2.0

https://duckdb.org/images/blog/thumbs/github-40k-stars.svg
DuckDB v2.0, codenamed "Cyanoptera", is coming this fall with several key features including a server mode, triggers, the VARIANT type and asynchronous I/O. The new version will also introduce a modern SQL parser and improved storage format.

Exercise intensity modulates interorgan communication and is associated with

Olo (Color)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Olo_color_approximation.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=index&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled
Researchers at UC Berkeley discovered an imaginary color called olo, which can only be seen using specialized tools that target M cone cells. Olo is described as a blue-green color with unprecedented saturation, but some scientists question its existence as a genuinely new color.

AI-Generated GitHub Copilot “Autofix” Allowed Compromise of Snowflake's Jira

https://www.datocms-assets.com/75231/1786964856-image.png?fm=webp
Wiz Research's Red Agent tool identified a critical GitHub Actions workflow vulnerability in Snowflake's public repository, which was introduced by an AI-powered commit. The vulnerability allowed an unauthenticated user to execute arbitrary commands within a GitHub Actions runner, but was patched by Snowflake on the same day it was reported.