News Nug
Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

Published: 2026-02-20 | Origin: Hacker News

A Japanese city, Osaka, received a notable donation of 21kg of gold bars, valued at approximately 560 million yen ($3.6 million), to help address its aging water system. The anonymous donor previously contributed 500,000 yen in cash for municipal waterworks. Osaka, home to nearly three million residents, faces significant challenges with its water and sewage infrastructure, which is over 40 years old for more than 20% of its pipes, leading to safety concerns and incidents like sink

Consistency diffusion language models: Up to 14x faster, no quality loss

Published: 2026-02-20 | Origin: Hacker News

The content outlines various offerings and features of Together AI, primarily focused on serverless inference, model deployment, fine-tuning, evaluations, and tools for working with open-source AI. Key services include: - **Inference Options**: API for open-source model inference, dedicated endpoints for custom hardware, scalable infrastructure for generative media, and performance evaluations. - **Development Tools**: Code execution capabilities, including a sandbox environment and code interpreter, along with resources to determine appropriate models for specific use cases.

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward

Published: 2026-02-20 | Origin: Hacker News

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Pi for Excel: AI sidebar add-in for Excel, powered by Pi

Published: 2026-02-20 | Origin: Hacker News

The content describes an experimental AI sidebar add-in for Microsoft Excel known as Pi for Excel. This open-source, multi-model tool allows users to enhance their Excel experience by integrating AI functionalities. Users can bring their own API keys or OAuth logins to access various AI models like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, and GitHub Copilot. Key features of Pi for Excel include: - **Built-in Tools**: It offers 16 core tools to interact with workbooks. - **Multi-model

An ARM Homelab Server, or a Minisforum MS-R1 Review

Published: 2026-02-20 | Origin: Hacker News

The author discusses their experience setting up an ARM server in their homelab using the Minisforum MS-R1 Mini PC. Previous options either lacked power or were tied to costly Mac hardware. The MS-R1 offered a powerful, affordable alternative. After installing a 1TB SSD, the author faced issues with the onboard network interface controllers (NICs) not being detected while installing Rocky Linux. They attempted to sideload drivers but found it impractical, leading to a decision to switch to Fedora,

MuMu Player (NetEase) silently runs 17 reconnaissance commands every 30 minutes

Published: 2026-02-20 | Origin: Hacker News

MuMu Player Pro, an Android emulator for macOS developed by NetEase, collects extensive system data every 30 minutes while running, including information about local network devices, running processes, installed applications, and kernel parameters. This data collection is linked to the Mac's serial number through SensorsData analytics and is not disclosed in MuMu's privacy policy. Every collection creates a timestamped directory containing logs of the collected data, including the success or failure of the collection process. The emulator captures detailed command

Turn Your Ruby Code into Desktop Apps Using RubyJS-Vite + Electron

Published: 2026-02-19 | Origin: /r/ruby

The content appears to be a binary or hexadecimal representation of a PNG (Portable Network Graphics) file, which includes encoded image data. PNG files generally contain various chunks, such as the header (IHDR) and image data (IDAT), and are used for lossless image compression. The text includes a sequence of encoded bytes and control characters, indicating that the file is not readable as plain text. The actual visual content of the PNG image is not represented in this textual summary, as it focuses on

Farewell, Rust

Published: 2026-02-19 | Origin: /r/programming

The author reflects on their journey into programming, which began in 9th grade when a friend encouraged them to join the school's programming club. They learned Pascal using Turbo Pascal, gradually mastering basics until they recreated Conway’s Game of Life. After a summer break, they transitioned to high school, focusing on Software Engineering and learning C. They developed a passion for C due to its control over memory management and other features. Over three years, they enhanced their programming skills, dabbling in languages like PHP and

The Rails developers' guide to mobile app frameworks

Published: 2026-02-19 | Origin: /r/ruby

Joe Masilotti discusses the advantages and disadvantages of four frameworks for building mobile apps for Rails applications: fully native apps, React Native, Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), and Hotwire Native. 1. **Fully Native Apps**: This approach requires developing separate codebases for iOS (in Swift) and Android (in Kotlin), along with a web version. While it offers complete control over design and user experience, it is labor-intensive, as every feature needs to be built three times (

Choosing a Language Based on its Syntax?

Published: 2026-02-19 | Origin: /r/programming

The author expresses confusion over how people often judge programming languages based solely on their declaration syntax, rather than considering other critical aspects like semantics. They assert that a language's character is not defined by its syntax, and that the semantics of a language remain largely unchanged even if its declaration syntax is modified. The author, who has a background in compiler design, emphasizes the importance of denotational semantics over operational semantics, particularly because many inexperienced programmers tend to overlook the deeper distinctions between languages, thinking they are merely

Show HN: Micasa – track your house from the terminal

Published: 2026-02-19 | Origin: Hacker News

micasa is a terminal-based UI designed for comprehensive tracking of home maintenance and projects, utilizing a single SQLite file—free from cloud storage, accounts, or subscriptions. It helps users manage details such as maintenance schedules, project timelines, costs through vendor quotes, appliance warranties, and incident logs. The tool allows for easy attachment of documents and images, and features a directory for vendor contacts. It is compatible with Linux, macOS, and Windows, and can be installed using Go or by downloading binaries

-fbounds-safety: Enforcing bounds safety for C

Published: 2026-02-19 | Origin: /r/programming

The document outlines the proposed C extension -fbounds-safety, designed to enhance memory safety by enforcing bounds checks to prevent out-of-bounds (OOB) memory accesses, a common cause of security vulnerabilities. Key features include bounds annotations that programmers can apply to pointers, such as __counted_by(N), which indicates the number of valid elements a pointer can access. The compiler then uses this information to implement necessary bounds checks during pointer dereferences, ensuring memory safety. The document details the programming model

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Published: 2026-02-19 | Origin: Hacker News

Gemini 3.1 Pro has been released as an upgrade to support tasks that require more than simple answers, focusing on complex problem-solving. It is available through various platforms like the Gemini API, Vertex AI, the Gemini app, and NotebookLM. This new version builds on the Gemini 3 series and enhances core reasoning capabilities, notably achieving a score of 77.1% on the ARC-AGI-2 benchmark for logic pattern solving, which is significantly higher than its predecessor,

MySQL and PostgreSQL: different approaches to solve the same problem

Published: 2026-02-19 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses the challenges of storing and accessing data in a way that adheres to ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) principles in SQL databases. It highlights MySQL, particularly with its default InnoDB engine, and PostgreSQL as examples of how different SQL databases implement ACID compliance. The text also introduces the concept of indexing, explaining that an index is a data structure that facilitates fast searching. In MySQL, every table possesses a Clustered Index (re

Compiler Education Deserves a Revolution

Published: 2026-02-19 | Origin: /r/programming

The architecture of compilers has evolved significantly over the years. Traditional compilers used a sequential pipeline that processed code in a series of passes, stopping at the first error and discarding any work done beforehand. In contrast, modern compilers have adopted a query-based model. Instead of running each pass to completion, users interact with the compiler through specific queries, such as asking for the parsed syntax tree, which prompts the compiler to perform necessary tasks, like lexing, dynamically. This model allows for multiple

Learn C++ by Example • Frances Buontempo & Matt Godbolt

Published: 2026-02-19 | Origin: /r/programming

Of course! Please provide the content you'd like summarized, and I'll be happy to help.

I traced 3,177 API calls to see what 4 AI coding tools put in the context window

Published: 2026-02-19 | Origin: /r/programming

The author describes an experiment comparing two large language models (LLMs), Claude and Gemini, by asking them to fix a specific bug in Express.js. Claude completed the task using 23,000 tokens, while Gemini used significantly more at 350,000 tokens. To analyze and understand this discrepancy, the author developed a tool called Context Lens, which tracks the content in the context window of LLM API calls. Tokens, which represent pieces of information (about 4 characters in English text), are

One Thread to Poll Them All: How a Single Pipe Made WaterDrop 50% Faster

Published: 2026-02-19 | Origin: /r/ruby

This article is Part 2 of the "Karafka to Async Journey" series, following the introduction of WaterDrop's support for asynchronous processing using Ruby's async ecosystem in Part 1. The focus here is on migrating the producer polling engine to a file descriptor-based polling system to enhance efficiency. In September 2025, the integration of async/fiber support showed promising results, as fibers outperformed multiple producer instances while using less memory. However, the original design resulted in each WaterDrop producer creating

AI, Entropy, and the Illusion of Convergence in Modern Software

Published: 2026-02-19 | Origin: /r/programming

The article discusses the balance between divergence and convergence in modern software development, inspired by insights from Khalil Stemmler. It highlights how software systems evolve faster than teams can adapt their understanding, leading to a decline in confidence as tests become less effective. Divergence represents the phase of exploration and experimentation, where various ideas are generated and assessed without the pressure of correctness. In contrast, convergence involves making deliberate decisions that create structure and constraints within the system, essential for maintaining its integrity against future changes. The article

European Tech Alternatives

Published: 2026-02-19 | Origin: Hacker News

The EU Tech Map is a comprehensive directory featuring over 500 European companies offering GDPR-compliant software and services across more than 30 categories. It aids businesses in finding reliable, privacy-respecting technology solutions that are hosted within the EU, ensuring data sovereignty.