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So What Should We Call This – A Grue Jay? Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: Hacker News A rare hybrid bird, resulting from the mating of a male blue jay and a female green jay, has been discovered in suburban San Antonio, Texas. Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin believe this hybrid is one of the first instances of vertebrate hybridization due to climate-related range shifts of both parent species. Traditionally separated by about 7 million years of evolution and with non-overlapping ranges only a few decades ago, both species have expanded their habitats in response to changing weather patterns. Green j |
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How Computers Store Decimal Numbers Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: /r/programming The article discusses the challenges and solutions in representing decimal numbers in computing, as most everyday numbers are non-integers and computers originally focused on integers. Different numeric formats have been developed over time to handle these representations, with no single solution fitting all domains. The "double" is highlighted as the most common numerical type in modern computing, widely used in scientific libraries, graphics engines, and machine learning frameworks due to its speed and efficiency. Defined by the IEEE-754 standard, a double is a |
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I failed to recreate the 1996 Space Jam website with Claude Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: Hacker News The article discusses an attempt to recreate the original 1996 Space Jam website using Claude, an AI developed by Anthropic. The author expresses frustration with their inability to successfully prompt Claude for this task and seeks help in preserving the retro website, which Warner Bros still hosts as a nostalgic piece of internet history. The author plans to track Claude's interactions through a man-in-the-middle proxy to analyze the AI's performance better. They refer to their technical background as an engineering manager with a computer science degree, |
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He set out to walk around the world. After 27 years, his quest is nearly over Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: Hacker News Failed to fetch content - HTTP Error - Net::ReadTimeout with #<TCPSocket:(closed)> |
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Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: Hacker News A Guardian investigation has uncovered that Dollar General and Family Dollar frequently fail to honor their shelf prices, leading customers to be charged more at checkout for various items. During an inspection in Windsor, North Carolina, state inspector Ryan Coffield scanned 300 items, finding a 23% error rate with prices ringing up higher than displayed—far exceeding the state's acceptable limit. Items like frozen pizzas and paper towels were among those mispriced, and the store had failed inspections consecutively with fines imposed for previous violations. |
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Spinlocks vs. Mutexes: When to Spin and When to Sleep Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: /r/programming The content discusses the differences between mutexes and spinlocks as synchronization primitives in programming. It highlights how engineers often fall into the "synchronization primitive trap" by choosing the inappropriate primitive for their scenario. Mutexes allow threads to sleep, which is beneficial for short critical sections but can be detrimental when latency is critical. Spinlocks, on the other hand, keep the CPU busy while waiting, which can waste resources, especially in scenarios with contention. A spinlock uses a continuous loop with atomic operations |
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Surface Tension of Software: why systems hold together Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: /r/programming The content discusses how systems maintain their integrity and shape through constraints, comparing this to the surface tension of water that resists external pressure. In software, integrity is crucial; it allows systems to manage side effects and maintain coherence when changed. The text highlights the importance of type systems, invariants, and defined boundaries that specify what is allowed within a system, preventing ambiguity that could lead to instability. It explains that some systems are well-structured with clear rules that prevent errors, while others can become chaotic |
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Google Titans architecture, helping AI have long-term memory Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: Hacker News The content highlights the mission of creating a supportive research environment at Google Research, emphasizing the importance of both fundamental and applied research in advancing computer science. Researchers engage in open-sourcing projects, collaborating with the broader academic community, and sharing their work to foster a collaborative ecosystem. They also focus on supporting emerging researchers and participating in academic events. In a specific research advancement, the document introduces the Titans architecture and the MIRAS framework, which enhance the efficiency and context-handling abilities of AI models while they |
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Authentication Explained: When to Use Basic, Bearer, OAuth2, JWT & SSO Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: /r/programming ByteByteGo is offering a structured preparation program for system design interviews, currently with a 50% discount on their lifetime plan. A key focus in designing modern distributed systems is the importance of authentication, which heavily influences scalability, user experience, latency, and communication between microservices. Candidates often neglect this aspect during interviews, leading to gaps in their understanding of system architecture. The guide aims to provide a solid grasp of authentication models, their trade-offs, and how to apply them in large applications. |
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[OSS] HashSmith – High-performance open-addressing hash tables for Java (SwissTable / Robin Hood) Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: /r/programming The content expresses a commitment to valuing user feedback and encourages users to refer to documentation for available qualifiers. It highlights the availability of fast and memory-efficient open-addressing hash tables for Java, specifically mentioning SwissMap with SIMD and RobinHoodMap with Robin Hood probing techniques. Additionally, there is a note about encountering an error while loading the page, prompting users to reload it. |
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One of Those Bugs Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: /r/programming The writer reflects on their experiences with bugs in coding projects, particularly emphasizing a challenging bug encountered while working on their "margarine" project. They lament the abandonment of their previous RISC-V Emulator project due to a frustrating virtual memory issue. As they begin to tackle Advent of Code challenges with margarine, they initially find success with the first day’s tasks, adding various features and fixing bugs easily. However, they encounter problems with the second day’s tasks when new code disrupts the previous functionality |
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DragonRuby Game Toolkit - My Submission to 20s Game Jam 2025 Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: /r/ruby Failed to fetch content - HTTP Status - 403 |
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Rio de Janeiro's talipot palm trees bloom for the first and only time Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: Hacker News In Rio de Janeiro, several Talipot palm trees, primarily found in Flamengo Park and the Botanical Garden, are experiencing a rare and remarkable flowering event, marking the end of their long life cycle. This spectacle attracts both residents and botany enthusiasts, prompting discussions about conservation and urban landscapes. The Talipot palm (Corypha umbraculifera), native to southern India and Sri Lanka, is a notable monocarpic species that flowers only once, after reaching between 40 to 80 years |
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Z2 – Lithographically fabricated IC in a garage fab Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: Hacker News Sam Zeloof, a college senior who originally created integrated circuits in his garage, has developed a new chip called the Z2, which features a 100-transistor array built on a 10µm polysilicon gate process, similar to that used in Intel's first processor. His earlier Z1 chip had only 6 transistors and served as a test for his fabrication techniques. The Z2 chip, with its capabilities, is a significant advancement towards more sophisticated DIY computer chips, especially as |
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Eurydice: a Rust to C compiler (yes) Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: Hacker News The content discusses the growing interest in compiling Rust code to C, highlighting the surprising realization that this topic has garnered significant attention over the past two years. The author notes the increasing adoption of Rust, particularly in new projects, including Windows kernel drivers. However, challenges arise when dealing with diverse target architectures and the legacy use cases that may not support Rust. The text introduces Eurydice, a new compiler designed to translate Rust into readable C code, enabling greater compatibility and addressing specific scenarios where Rust cannot be |
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Using LLMs at Oxide Published: 2025-12-07 | Origin: Hacker News Large language models (LLMs) have emerged as a significant advancement over the past five years, with the potential to transform work practices. However, their use comes with both advantages and risks, raising questions about appropriate applications. At Oxide, the approach to LLM usage is guided by core values, prioritized as follows: 1. **Responsibility**: Employees are accountable for the outputs generated with LLMs, emphasizing that human judgment is essential, even when automation is employed. 2. **R |
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Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015) Published: 2025-12-06 | Origin: Hacker News In 2002, the author collected and later republished screenshots of developers' Unix desktops, noticing renewed interest after 13 years. They sought updates from the original contributors, albeit acknowledging that some, like Dennis Ritchie and itojun, had passed away. Many respondents shared that their desktops remained quite simple and utilitarian. For instance, one user stated their setup was mostly xterm windows, using a mix of X and terminal environments. In 2015, they noted they were primarily working |
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The past was not that cute Published: 2025-12-06 | Origin: Hacker News Julia Wise reflects on the allure of cottagecore and its romanticized view of the past, particularly in relation to her own experiences with folk music and family dynamics. She acknowledges the charm of works like Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House on the Prairie," despite recognizing their problematic aspects, including the harsh realities behind the romanticized narrative. Wise critiques her own misconceptions about past personalities and relationships, having grown up influenced by folk culture, while realizing that the reality was often much harsher than the idyllic portray |
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Ferrari's Formula 1 Handovers: Handovers from Surgery to Intensive Care 2008;pdf Published: 2025-12-06 | Origin: Hacker News The provided content appears to be a portion of a PDF file and contains binary data, which is not easily interpretable. It includes PDF-specific information like version numbers, object types, and various binary content, potentially representing compressed or encoded data. Consequently, it lacks meaningful textual content that can be summarized. Please provide a more specific text or information for summarization. |
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Perl's decline was cultural Published: 2025-12-06 | Origin: Hacker News The discussion on tech forums about the decline of Perl reflects on its cultural roots, particularly its conservative and reactionary community values, which inhibited its evolution as a mature programming language ecosystem. The author, who wrote Perl in the mid-90s and worked on major web projects with mod_perl in the early 2000s, attributes Perl's stagnation to a "BOFH" culture derived from its UNIX sysadmin origins. This culture fosters a tribal, introverted community with social norms and elit |