Monday, 28 July 2025

New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: I made a tool to generate photomosaics with your pictures

Show HN: I made a tool to generate photomosaics with your pictures
18 by jakemanger | 4 comments on Hacker News.
Hi HN! I wanted to make some photomosaics for an anniversary gift, but I ended up building this tool and turning it into a free website that anyone can use. For those who don’t know, a photomosaic is an image made up of many smaller tile images, arranged in a way that forms a larger, recognisable picture. The best part? Everything runs directly in your browser. No files are uploaded, and there’s no sign-up required.

New top story on Hacker News: Debian isn't waiting for 2038 to blow up, switches to 64-bit time for everything

Debian isn't waiting for 2038 to blow up, switches to 64-bit time for everything
28 by pseudolus | 4 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: Generative AI. "Slop Generators, are unsuitable for use [ ]"

Generative AI. "Slop Generators, are unsuitable for use [ ]"
25 by aleksjess | 15 comments on Hacker News.


Friday, 25 July 2025

New top story on Hacker News: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed

When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
7 by prismatic | 2 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Apple Health MCP Server

Show HN: Apple Health MCP Server
5 by _neil | 0 comments on Hacker News.
Hey HN, This is an MCP server to chat with Apple Health data. I built it because I'm working on (yet another) personal trainer tool that keeps track of my workout goals, etc. and does scheduling for me. Part of that is weekly check-ins. I thought pairing those check-ins with sensor data could be useful, so here we are. It seems there isn't a way to automate access to Apple Health data, so this relies on an iOS app that can quickly/easily export key data to CSV. So the process at the moment is to export the data every Sunday before doing a check-in. More steps than I'd like, but in practice isn't a big lift. Under the hood this is mostly a thin wrapper around duckdb. There's a video of it in action here: https://ift.tt/qD76TC1

New top story on Hacker News: Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507

Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507
13 by tosh | 3 comments on Hacker News.


Wednesday, 23 July 2025

New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Header-only GIF decoder in pure C – no malloc, easy to use

Show HN: Header-only GIF decoder in pure C – no malloc, easy to use
20 by FerkiHN | 16 comments on Hacker News.
I built a lightweight GIF decoder in pure C, ideal for embedded or performance-critical environments. It’s header-only, zero dynamic memory allocations, and fully platform-independent. Supports both static and animated GIFs, with turbo and safe decoding modes. Works great on microcontrollers, IoT devices, and anything with a framebuffer. Would love feedback or ideas where this could be useful. Github: https://ift.tt/KkpMeDY...

New top story on Hacker News: Brave blocks Microsoft Recall by default

Brave blocks Microsoft Recall by default
29 by XzetaU8 | 13 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: Has Brazil Invented the Future of Money?

Has Brazil Invented the Future of Money?
8 by Qem | 1 comments on Hacker News.


Tuesday, 22 July 2025

New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: The Magic of Code – book about the wonders and weirdness of computation

Show HN: The Magic of Code – book about the wonders and weirdness of computation
8 by arbesman | 3 comments on Hacker News.
I recently published a book called “The Magic of Code” which is about the delights of the computational world, examining computing as a kind of “humanistic liberal art” that connects to so many topics, from art and biology to philosophy and language. The link I’ve shared is to a page on my book’s website where you can download a pdf of the introduction, to give HN readers a taste of what is inside. Right now there is so much worry and concern around technology that I feel like some people—though not the folks here—have forgotten how much fun that code and computation can also be. So I wanted to rekindle some of that sense of wonder. But, as I’ve written elsewhere, this is also the kind of book I wish I had when I was younger and getting interested in computers. I’ve always enjoyed the kinds of writing that talks about computing but in the context of so many other big ideas, especially ones I’ve explored at various points in my own life, from evolution to simulation. And that’s what I tried to do. But while “The Magic of Code” is certainly for a wide audience, and for people who are unfamiliar with programming and code, I’ve also (hopefully!) designed it to be of interest to those who are more expert in this realm, with lots of rabbit holes and strange ideas to pursue. And if there exists a genre of book to explain to outsiders why you love a topic, this is in that genre, for computing and code. I think the HN community will really enjoy it.

New top story on Hacker News: Replit's CEO apologizes after its AI agent wiped a company's code base

Replit's CEO apologizes after its AI agent wiped a company's code base
47 by jgalt212 | 32 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: The Hater's Guide to the AI Bubble

The Hater's Guide to the AI Bubble
106 by lukebennett | 49 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: How to Firefox

How to Firefox
3 by Vinnl | 0 comments on Hacker News.


Sunday, 13 July 2025

New top story on Hacker News: Gaming Cancer: How Citizen Science Games Could Help Cure Disease

Gaming Cancer: How Citizen Science Games Could Help Cure Disease
9 by pseudolus | 0 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: AGI Is Mathematically Impossible (3): Kolmogorov Complexity

AGI Is Mathematically Impossible (3): Kolmogorov Complexity
16 by ICBTheory | 5 comments on Hacker News.
Hi folks. This is the third part in an ongoing theory I’ve been developing over the last few years called the Infinite Choice Barrier (ICB). The core idea is simple: General intelligence—especially AGI—is structurally impossible under certain epistemic conditions. Not morally, not practically. Mathematically. The argument splits across three barriers: 1.Computability (Gödel, Turing, Rice): You can’t decide what your system can’t see. 2.Entropy (Shannon): Beyond a certain point, signal breaks down structurally. 3.Complexity (Kolmogorov, Chaitin): Most real-world problems are fundamentally incompressible. This paper focuses on (3): Kolmogorov Complexity. It argues that most of what humans care about is not just hard to model, but formally unmodellable—because the shortest description of a problem is the problem. In other words: you can’t generalize from what can’t be compressed. ⸻ Here’s the abstract: There is a common misconception that artificial general intelligence (AGI) will emerge through scale, memory, or recursive optimization. This paper argues the opposite: that as systems scale, they approach the structural limit of generalization itself. Using Kolmogorov complexity, we show that many real-world problems—particularly those involving social meaning, context divergence, and semantic volatility—are formally incompressible and thus unlearnable by any finite algorithm. This is not a performance issue. It’s a mathematical wall. And it doesn’t care how many tokens you’ve got The paper isn’t light, but it’s precise. If you’re into limits, structures, and why most intelligence happens outside of optimization, it might be worth your time. https://ift.tt/uASHYDq Happy to read your view.

Thursday, 10 July 2025

New top story on Hacker News: Kite – News App by Kagi

Kite – News App by Kagi
20 by tigroferoce | 2 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Typeform was too expensive so I built my own forms

Show HN: Typeform was too expensive so I built my own forms
13 by preetsuthar17 | 2 comments on Hacker News.
Hey HN, I'm a solopreneur and run a web design agency. I create open-source apps, but I also work as a freelancer and designer. I was accepting any new freelance project via forms on my agency website. I was using Typeform, but as time went by and more people submitted forms, it got more and more expensive. That time, I thought to use Google Form, but it was way too blocky and looked very unprofessional on my agency website. So I thought to build my own forms for my own usage, and it turns out it almost doubled form submissions and inquiry calls. I was happy, so I thought to build it for everyone and make it open-source. I added AI functionalities using Vercel AISDK. I can generate forms almost instantly using AI and also added analytics AI so that users can talk with their forms—more like talk with their analytics data. I hope this product will be as helpful to you as it was for me. Would love your feedback pls Preet

Wednesday, 9 July 2025

New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Dev atrophy test – Can you still code without AI?

Show HN: Dev atrophy test – Can you still code without AI?
7 by mrborgen | 2 comments on Hacker News.
Hey HN, I'm Per from Scrimba (YC S20), the code-learning platform. There's been a lot of talk lately about whether AI tools are causing skill atrophy amongst developers. We get a front-row seat to this, and we see more and more students struggle with basic concepts, and building apps on their own. This is almost always a consequence of relying too much on ChatGPT and vibe coding tools. So we built a small side project: https://devatrophy.com It's a test of your core web dev knowledge — no handholding, no back rubs, no AI autocomplete. Just you, your brain, and 10 questions. There are three levels (Noobie, Le Chad, Hardcore), and the questions cover HTML, CSS, JavaScript, databases, and Node. You’ll get a score at the end, plus a downloadable certificate for bragging rights (or public shaming). Would love for you to try it and tell us what you think. And would be curious to hear if you're feeling any signs of "dev atrophy" yourself, or in your team? PS: Ironically we decided to produce it by vibe coding on V0. Oh the irony.

Monday, 7 July 2025

New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Any resources for finding non-smart appliances?

Ask HN: Any resources for finding non-smart appliances?
43 by everyone | 25 comments on Hacker News.
My washing machine broke down. I need a replacement. I must avoid getting a "smart" one though. Are there any lists of products that arent "smart" so I can know which models are viable options to buy? Or other resources? I'm based in Ireland.

New top story on Hacker News: Poland's clean energy usage overtakes coal for first time

Poland's clean energy usage overtakes coal for first time
29 by stared | 4 comments on Hacker News.


Sunday, 6 July 2025

New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: BreakerMachines – Modern Circuit Breaker for Rails with Async Support

Show HN: BreakerMachines – Modern Circuit Breaker for Rails with Async Support
7 by seuros | 1 comments on Hacker News.
BreakerMachines is a production-ready circuit breaker for Ruby/Rails with built-in async/fiber support, fallback chains, and rich monitoring. Unlike existing gems, it handles modern Ruby's fiber scheduler and avoids dangerous thread timeouts.

New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: If AGI were invented tomorrow which countries would fare better?

Ask HN: If AGI were invented tomorrow which countries would fare better?
8 by mattigames | 12 comments on Hacker News.
I know it's unlikely to be available tomorrow or sometime soon but as an hypothetical question. Also, which countries would fare worse? And why?

New top story on Hacker News: Valve conquered PC gaming – what comes next?

Valve conquered PC gaming – what comes next?
7 by HelloUsername | 1 comments on Hacker News.


New top story on Hacker News: What Makes Someone Cool? A New Study Offers Clues

What Makes Someone Cool? A New Study Offers Clues
5 by _tk_ | 0 comments on Hacker News.