News Nug
Old payphones get new life, thanks to Vermont engineer

Published: 2025-06-05 | Origin: Hacker News

Electrical engineer Patrick Schlott has taken up a hobby of buying and reworking secondhand payphones to provide free public phone service in rural Vermont through his company, RandTel. Recognizing that not everyone has reliable cell phone access, especially in remote areas, Schlott aims to educate the community about the long history of the US telephone system while offering a valuable service. RandTel currently operates three payphones, with one notable installation being a solar-powered rotary phone from the 1950s at Randolph's

Modeling land value taxes

Published: 2025-06-05 | Origin: Hacker News

The author has recently published two reports analyzing the impact of land value tax (LVT) shifts in South Bend, IN, and Syracuse, NY. These reports illustrate how taxing land more heavily than buildings could affect residents and the economy in these cities. To facilitate further analysis, the author created an open-source repository called LVTShift, which allows users to model their own LVT scenarios. This includes a step-by-step guide for replicating the findings from the South Bend report. The author encourages readers

Show HN: I made a 3D SVG Renderer that projects textures without rasterization

Published: 2025-06-05 | Origin: Hacker News

The author is developing a simple 3D object to SVG renderer in TypeScript for rendering circuit boards in React and has discovered a method to achieve perspective transformations in SVGs, which do not inherently support them. Instead of creating large SVGs, the author suggests simulating perspective using affine transformations, which are limited to 2D. To approximate the necessary transformations, several ideas were considered: 1. Redraw images with distortion, which can be costly and would require converting SVGs to bitmaps,

A Spiral Structure in the Inner Oort Cloud

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: Hacker News

The website requires users to confirm they are human by ticking a box. If users encounter issues, they should contact the website through the provided link and include a screenshot of the problem.

What was the role of MS-DOS in Windows 95?

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: /r/programming

The article explains the role of MS-DOS in Windows 95, emphasizing two key functions. First, upon startup, a customized version of MS-DOS initializes and processes important system files (CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT) to launch Windows 95. This version is operational enough for single MS-DOS application mode. Second, as Windows transitions into protected mode after launching WIN.COM, MS-DOS is gradually phased out. The virtual device drivers take over, managing tasks and routing future

After court order, OpenAI is now preserving all ChatGPT user logs

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: Hacker News

Of course! Please provide the content you would like me to summarize.

Cursor 1.0

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: Hacker News

On June 4, 2025, Cursor 1.0 was released, introducing several new features aimed at enhancing the coding experience. Key highlights include: - **BugBot:** An automated tool for code review that identifies potential bugs in pull requests (PRs) on GitHub and allows users to quickly fix issues through a pre-filled prompt. - **Background Agent:** Now available to all users, this remote coding agent enhances collaboration and efficiency in coding tasks. - **Jupyter Support:** Users

Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: Hacker News

A team from TU Delft won first place at the A2RL Drone Championship in Abu Dhabi, an international race featuring fully autonomous drones that use a single camera. Competing against 13 drones and human champions, the TU Delft drone utilized innovative training methods for deep neural networks, showcasing advancements in robust AI applicable to various robotics fields. On April 14, 2025, the TU Delft drone not only secured the A2RL Grand Challenge title but also triumphed over human pilots, including former

The Art of SQL Query Optimization

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: /r/programming

Jan Nidzwetzki's blog post from June 3, 2025, discusses SQL as a declarative language where users specify query results, leaving the process of obtaining those results to the database management system (DBMS). The query optimizer is crucial for determining the most efficient execution plan, weighing different options like using an index versus a full table scan. Nidzwetzki shares his experience developing a plan explorer tool for PostgreSQL, which visualizes the outcomes of various execution plans and helps users

A proposal to restrict sites from accessing a users’ local network

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses a proposal from the Chrome Secure Web and Network team aimed at preventing public websites from accessing users' local networks without permission. Currently, such access can lead to security vulnerabilities, allowing attacks on local devices. The proposed solution suggests deprecating direct access to private IPs from public sites and requiring user permission for local network connections. This approach is seen as enhancing user control while simplifying the process, compared to an earlier Private Network Access proposal. The proposal is still in the early stages and has

Chocolate Quake -- minimalist source port focused on preserving the original experience even including bugs and quirks (inspired by Chocolate Doom)

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: /r/programming

Chocolate Quake is a minimalist source port of the classic game Quake that aims to preserve the original experience of version 1.09 and earlier. It focuses on accuracy and authenticity without modern enhancements or visual upgrades, catering specifically to purists who want to experience the game as it was in the '90s. The port also supports external music playback in OGG format, following a specific naming convention for tracks. Feedback from users is taken seriously, and further documentation is available for additional details.

FFmpeg merges WebRTC support

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: Hacker News

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

No More Shading Languages: Compiling C++ to Vulkan Shaders

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: /r/programming

The content appears to be a portion of a PDF file structure, specifically its binary data representation. It includes object identifiers, cross-reference tables, and metadata commonly found in PDF files. The raw content includes encoding details (like /FlateDecode) and some binary data, but no readable text or specific information regarding the content itself is provided. The data is likely compressed and requires a PDF reader or parser to interpret fully.

How Compiler Explorer Works in 2025

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses the operational details of Compiler Explorer, a site that facilitates code compilation, which has seen substantial growth, reaching 92 million compilations annually. The creator reflects on the site's humble beginnings and offers an insight into the complexities of managing over 3,000 compiler versions across 81 programming languages. When users compile code, the system can dynamically scale to accommodate varying demand, maintaining CPU load below a specified threshold. However, the flexibility of allowing users to run arbitrary code raises significant security concerns

jujutsu v0.30.0 released

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: /r/programming

The feedback from users is valued, and all suggestions are carefully considered. For full details on available qualifiers, refer to the documentation. There was an error loading the page, and a reload is necessary. The tool "jj" is a Git-compatible version control system that emphasizes simplicity and power, with installation instructions provided. In version 0.29.0, default support for transferring change IDs between Git remotes has been implemented, stored in the Git commit header. Users may disable this feature if required

Designing better file organization around tags, not hierarchies (2017)

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: /r/programming

The author discusses the limitations of hierarchical file organization systems (HFSes) commonly used in various operating systems, noting their inadequacy in reflecting the complexity of human knowledge. After years of struggling with file organization, the author proposes a new tagging-based system that aims to address these shortcomings. The article serves as a brainstorming piece rather than a detailed guide, highlighting how alternative systems like Git and Danbooru offer improved user experiences. The proposal includes a step-by-step model for a new file organization system with

Machine Code Isn't Scary

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: /r/programming

The author reflects on their journey learning programming, starting with ActionScript and primarily focusing on high-level web languages, which made low-level languages seem intimidating. Despite initial discouragement while researching machine code, the author decided to confront this fear. They discovered that machine code isn't as daunting as it seems and compared the ability to conform JSON to a schema with writing machine code. The article aims to demystify machine code by discussing the basics, highlighting that there are various instruction sets for different processors, with a

New episode of Code and the Coding Coders who Code it! Episode 51 with with Chris Oliver

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: /r/ruby

The content discusses a podcast that releases new episodes on the first and third Tuesdays of each month, focusing on Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, and related topics. Each episode addresses three questions: what the hosts are working on, what's blocking them, and something cool they want to share. The highlights include a feature on the last RailsConf in Philadelphia this summer, with co-chair Chris Oliver sharing details about the event's planning and its significance for the Rails community. The episode emphasizes the importance of in-person

The time bomb in the tax code that's fueling mass tech layoffs

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: Hacker News

For the past two years, a subtle change to the U.S. tax code, specifically Section 174, has significantly altered how American companies approach research and development investments, leading to the loss of hundreds of thousands of high-paying tech jobs. This change, buried in the 2017 tax law, went largely unnoticed outside of financial circles until now. Since early 2023, over half a million tech workers have been laid off, a trend attributed to over-hiring during the pandemic and advancements in

Why I wrote the BEAM book

Published: 2025-06-04 | Origin: Hacker News

Happi Hacking ABKIVRA, based in Stockholm, has contact details including a phone number and email addresses for general inquiries and careers. The author reflects on their experience maintaining Klarna's core system and the challenges faced while writing "The BEAM Book." Initiated in October 2012 with high hopes, progress was hampered by technical difficulties and content management issues. After switching format from DocBook to AsciiDoc and facing setbacks with publishing partner O'Reilly, the project was ultimately