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List animals until failure Published: 2026-02-01 | Origin: Hacker News The content describes a game where players must list animals that have Wikipedia articles within a limited time. Players gain extra time for each unique animal listed, but overlapping terms (like "bear" and "polar bear") do not earn points or time bonuses. The order of listing does not matter. The game, created by Vivian Rose, utilizes Wikipedia and Wikidata without the use of language models. Players are encouraged to contact the creator for feedback or inquiries. |
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Sparse File LRU Cache Published: 2026-02-01 | Origin: Hacker News The content discusses the concept of sparse files in file systems, which allow the creation of files with empty, unallocated blocks that only take up physical space when data is written to them. It describes how this feature enables efficient storage management, as exemplified by Amplitude's use case involving analytics data stored in cold storage (Amazon S3) and cached locally on expensive SSDs. The efficiency of sparse files is highlighted in the context of columnar data formats, where analytics queries typically access only a small |
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Cells use 'bioelectricity' to coordinate and make group decisions Published: 2026-02-01 | Origin: Hacker News A recent study published in Nature reveals that cells in the body, much like those in the brain, utilize bioelectric signals to coordinate a crucial process called extrusion, which ejects unhealthy or struggling cells from tissues to ensure overall health. This process is essential for maintaining the integrity of protective epithelial tissues; when it malfunctions, it can lead to diseases such as cancer and asthma. The research indicates that as epithelial tissue grows denser, electrical currents increase, and cells that are weak or low in energy may |
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Real engineering failures instead of success stories Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: /r/programming FailHub is a platform that aims to help individuals learn from others' mistakes in the tech industry by sharing experiences. It features stories of real failures from different people each week, aimed at providing insights. One example shared illustrates how a project initially had clear requirements and alignment, but gradually became muddled due to small, unaddressed changes that led to scope creep. The team became overly focused on unnecessary details instead of addressing the core business problem, resulting in a loss of clarity and direction. A crucial |
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Essay: Why Big Tech Leaders Destroy Value - When Identity Outlives Purpose Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: /r/programming Failed to fetch content - HTTP Status - 403 |
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The 80% Problem in Agentic Coding | Addy Osmani Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: /r/programming Andrej Karpathy recently noted a significant shift in coding practices, stating that he now spends 80% of his time coding with AI agents and only 20% on manual edits. This transition took place over a few weeks in late 2025 and is more pronounced in new projects compared to legacy systems. Similarly, Boris Cherney, creator of Claude Code, reported that all of his coding is now done by AI. This trend suggests a growing reliance on AI tools for coding, with many developers |
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C3 Programming Language 0.7.9 - migrating away from generic modules Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: /r/programming The update in version 0.7.9 revamps the generics system by shifting from a module-based approach to a more conventional generic system while retaining certain module-based benefits. In the previous system, generating one symbol in a module led to the generation of all symbols, allowing for centralized constraints but requiring the heavyweight creation of new modules for each generic, increasing reliance on macros. The new system introduces "module groups," where declarations with the same argument names within a module are grouped, enabling shared constraints |
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Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025 Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: Hacker News Wiki Education has been analyzing the impact of generative AI (GenAI) on Wikipedia as it runs programs that significantly contribute to new editor engagement on the platform. With the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT, there is growing interest among users to utilize these technologies for drafting Wikipedia contributions. Wiki Education aims to share insights through a blog post to help various stakeholders, including Wikipedia editors and Wikimedia Foundation members, navigate the integration of GenAI in content creation while preserving the integrity of Wikipedia. The key takeaway is |
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Outsourcing thinking Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: Hacker News The blog post addresses the debate surrounding large language models (LLMs) and their potential impact on cognitive skills. The author acknowledges that a common criticism is that relying on LLMs could lead to mental atrophy by outsourcing tasks that might otherwise engage our cognitive abilities. While this raises valid concerns, the author highlights a more nuanced question regarding the quality of engagement with these tools. Referencing Andy Masley’s blog post on the "lump of cognition fallacy," the author argues against the idea that |
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In Praise of –dry-run Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: /r/programming The author has been developing a reporting application that generates reports on weekdays. To facilitate testing, they added a –dry-run option to the run command, inspired by similar options in tools like Subversion. This option allows users to preview what actions will occur without making any actual changes. When using –dry-run, the application shows which reports will be generated, which files will be zipped and uploaded, and it verifies FTP uploads. The author has found this tool immensely helpful, utilizing it daily as a safe |
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The Hardest Bugs Exist Only In Organizational Charts Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: /r/programming The text discusses how many failures in software systems stem from organizational issues rather than technical bugs. These organizational failures arise from team structures, ownership gaps, incentive misalignment, and communication breakdowns, which influence how code behaves even before it is written. As software engineering emphasizes technical aspects, such as tools and frameworks, the focus often overlooks the foundational organizational dynamics that lead to inefficiencies. It points out that software systems are built by people working within organizational frameworks, which, if misaligned, result in flawed |
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Why I am moving away from Scala Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: /r/programming Failed to fetch content - HTTP Status - 403 |
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Mobile carriers can get your GPS location Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: Hacker News In the recent iOS 26.3 update, Apple introduced a privacy feature that limits precise location data shared with cellular networks via cell towers, applicable only to devices with Apple’s in-house modem from 2025. While cellular networks have historically determined user location through the connection to cell towers—yielding accuracy of tens to hundreds of meters—there are also protocols in place in cellular standards that allow devices to share GNSS (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou) data with carriers |
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The dumbest performance fix ever Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: /r/programming Leónidas Neftalí González Campos recounts a frustrating optimization task he faced at his job in an appointment management company, where he dealt with a complex and unwieldy codebase comprised of thousands of files and built by different outsourcing teams. The environment was problematic, as the company prioritized feature accumulation over sound software practices, treating their development team like a factory rather than valuing their input on technical debt. The optimization issue wasn't a real crash; rather, it stemmed from the backend taking |
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The worst programmer is your past self (and other egoless programming principles) Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: /r/programming The content discusses the themes of developer experience and systems thinking, focusing on the importance of separating personal identity from code quality. The author shares a personal anecdote about initially critiquing their past code harshly before realizing the need to adopt an egoless programming mentality—where feedback should be constructive, aimed at improving code rather than criticizing the coder. Key principles from this mindset include offering positive comments, focusing on team standards instead of personal flaws, and understanding that code reviews are not personal attacks but opportunities |
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Show HN: Phage Explorer Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: Hacker News Of course! Please provide the content you would like summarized. |
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AI code review prompts initiative making progress for the Linux kernel Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: /r/programming Michael Larabel is the founder and principal author of Phoronix.com, a site established in 2004 that focuses on enhancing the Linux hardware experience. He has authored over 20,000 articles on Linux hardware support, performance, and graphics drivers. Additionally, he leads the development of several benchmarking software tools, including the Phoronix Test Suite and OpenBenchmarking.org. Phoronix Premium offers ad-free access and other features to support the site's operations. Contributions can also be made via tips |
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The Most Important Code Is The Code No One Owns Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: /r/programming The content discusses the significant risks posed by orphaned dependencies, abandoned libraries, and volunteer maintainers in the modern software supply chain. While software may appear stable and mature, much of it relies on code without formal ownership, accountability, or guaranteed funding. This creates a fragile infrastructure where many applications are built from external packages that can lack proper maintenance and support. Developers often assume these dependencies are reliable, but that assumption can be misguided due to the absence of organizations responsible for their upkeep. Instead, maintenance relies |
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Kindler: A New, lua-based build system designed to run anywhere Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: /r/programming Kindler is a simple, Lua-based build system created by Setsuna Software, designed to be unobtrusive, portable, and flexible. It operates by generating build files (such as Makefiles and Ninja files) that are executed by native build tools rather than building software directly. Kindler is free software licensed under the MIT License and employs a declarative and cached approach to build systems. The system uses a project description parser in UCL format, containing a database of platforms and targets to create the |
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Show HN: I trained a 9M speech model to fix my Mandarin tones Published: 2026-01-31 | Origin: Hacker News The author struggled with Mandarin pronunciation due to issues with tones and the inability to identify their own mistakes without a teacher. To improve, they initially attempted to create a pitch visualizer using FFT for audio analysis, but faced challenges with noise and variability. Instead, they built a deep learning-based Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) system to run on-device, viewing it as a specialized Automatic Speech Recognition task. The system uses a Conformer encoder with CTC (Connectionist Temporal Classification) loss |