News Nug
14-year-old Miles Wu folded origami pattern that holds 10k times its own weight

Published: 2026-02-16 | Origin: Hacker News

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One of the most annoying programming challenges I've ever faced

Published: 2026-02-16 | Origin: /r/programming

The author reflects on the challenges faced in developing a highly requested feature for Sniffnet: process identification, which reveals the applications responsible for network connections by examining open TCP/UDP ports. Despite seeming straightforward, the implementation has proven complex due to platform-specific requirements and a lack of suitable Rust libraries. Existing tools like netstat and lsof are not viable solutions for real-time monitoring, as they are not designed for library use and do not provide all necessary information. The key challenge lies in creating a system

Read, then write: batching DB queries as a practical middle ground

Published: 2026-02-16 | Origin: /r/programming

The article discusses an alternative approach to database transactions known as batching (or pipelining), which strikes a balance between interactive transactions and common table expressions (CTEs). It highlights the inefficiencies of the N+1 query problem, where placing a database query inside a loop results in multiple round trips, adversely impacting performance. Although CTEs can reduce these round trips, they can complicate code structure. The author provides an example comparing traditional interactive transactions, which can incur multiple round trips, with C

PostgreSQL Bloat Is a Feature, Not a Bug

Published: 2026-02-16 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses the concept of "bloat" in PostgreSQL databases, which refers to the phenomenon of increasing disk usage despite a stable number of rows. This is not due to a bug, but rather an inherent aspect of PostgreSQL's design involving its storage architecture, which utilizes fixed-size pages (8 KB blocks) to store data as tuples (physical representations of rows). When a row is inserted into the database, it fills the first available page. If that page fills up, PostgreSQL alloc

What your Bluetooth devices reveal

Published: 2026-02-16 | Origin: Hacker News

The author created Bluehood, a Bluetooth scanner designed to expose the information leaks associated with having Bluetooth enabled on devices. Motivated by a strong focus on privacy, they built the tool to understand the data being unintentionally shared, especially in light of a recent critical vulnerability in Bluetooth audio devices disclosed by researchers, which highlights the risks associated with always-on Bluetooth. Despite the normalization of having Bluetooth enabled in various devices such as phones and smartwatches, the author emphasizes that users are often unaware of the information

How I cheated on transactions. Or how to make tradeoffs based on my Cloudflare D1 support

Published: 2026-02-16 | Origin: /r/programming

In the field of software design, making tradeoffs is a nuanced process that isn't always explicitly taught. The author reflects on this challenge while sharing their own experience with a project called Dumbo, an Open Source tool aimed at simplifying the use of databases across different relational systems. Dumbo serves as a shared dependency for other projects, such as Pongo and Emmett, and aims to abstract the complexities of SQL databases so developers can focus more on their applications. Dumbo requires setting up a specific database driver

Why “Skip the Code, Ship the Binary” Is a Category Error

Published: 2026-02-16 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses system design and AI implementation, focusing on the important tradeoffs in these areas. The author shares insights from their experience in building products, aiming to help others avoid the mistakes they encountered along the way.

Defer Available in GCC and Clang

Published: 2026-02-16 | Origin: Hacker News

The author provides an update on the availability of the "defer" feature for C programming, indicating that it is now accessible for users of Clang starting from version 22. While they have not yet tested the GCC implementation, they mention it is more straightforward to use the feature with Clang. They suggest that developers should consider adopting "defer" for managing cleanup in their C code, as it functions well with GCC version 9 and newer and Clang version 22 and newer.

Regular Expression Matching Can Be Simple And Fast (but is slow in Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, …)

Published: 2026-02-16 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses two different approaches to regular expression matching, highlighting their contrasting performance characteristics. The widely used method, exemplified by Perl, exhibits drastically slower matching times compared to the Thompson NFA approach, which is used in some implementations like awk and grep. When matching a certain regular expression (a?3a3) against a 29-character string, Perl takes over sixty seconds, while the Thompson NFA does so in just twenty microseconds—making it a million times faster for this specific case

Arm wants a bigger slice of the chip business

Published: 2026-02-16 | Origin: Hacker News

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How to build a browser-based 3D modeling app (technical overview)

Published: 2026-02-16 | Origin: /r/programming

Kokraf is a browser-based 3D modeling tool designed for real-time creativity, catering to hobbyists, designers, and developers. It offers an intuitive interface for modeling and viewing 3D objects without requiring installation. Users can try it live at kokraf.com, ideally using a desktop browser like Chrome. For local use, the project can be run by opening it in Visual Studio Code and using the Live Server extension to view the index.html file. The application encourages feedback and provides documentation for

Building a Self-Hosted Google Trends Alternative with DuckDB

Published: 2026-02-16 | Origin: /r/programming

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JavaScript-heavy approaches are not compatible with long-term performance goals

Published: 2026-02-16 | Origin: Hacker News

The author presents a long opinion piece advocating for server-centric approaches over client-heavy ones in web development, particularly criticizing the reliance on excessive JavaScript in both Single-page Applications (SPAs) and Multi-page Applications (MPAs). With a background in web performance at Automattic, the author shares insights gained from extensive experience dealing with loading performance and runtime issues, highlighting common problems such as large bundle sizes and framework-specific inefficiencies. While acknowledging that their views are based on personal experiences rather than extensive data

Error payloads in Zig

Published: 2026-02-15 | Origin: Hacker News

The author describes a method for handling error payloads in Zig using a union-based `Diagnostics` type for each function. This approach minimizes code bloat at call sites by allowing the `Diagnostics` type to be defined inline, with an error set generated directly from an enum tag. The generated type acts as a wrapper for an optional payload. The `withContext` method is key to associating a payload with an error, exemplified by using `sqlite.ErrorPayload.init` to save a significant amount

Lightweight Markdown publishing inside Rails (no CMS, no DB)

Published: 2026-02-15 | Origin: /r/ruby

The content appears to be a corrupted or encoded PNG image file, specifically its header (IHDR) and data (IDAT) sections. This type of data is typically binary and not interpretable as text, which likely explains why it is not comprehensible in a traditional sense. It includes various data signatures and characteristics typical of image file formatting. If you need assistance with PNG files specifically or any image processing, please provide more context or a specific question!

Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

Published: 2026-02-15 | Origin: Hacker News

Magnus Carlsen (Norway) has won the 2026 FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship, defeating Fabiano Caruana (USA) with a final match score of 2.5–1.5 in Weissenhaus, Germany. Carlsen secured his victory after drawing the final game, having turned around the match in game three from a losing position. This championship is notable as it is the first officially recognized Freestyle Chess World Championship by FIDE and marks Carlsen's

The Economics of a Super Bowl Ad

Published: 2026-02-15 | Origin: Hacker News

The content outlines various health and wellness services provided by Ro, focusing on areas like weight loss, sexual health, fertility, hair, and skin care. Key highlights include: - **Weight Loss**: Various treatments and medications like GLP-1s, Wegovy (both in pill and pen form), Ozempic, and Zepbound. - **Sexual Health**: Products for erectile dysfunction, including Viagra and its generics, along with supplements for performance and treatment options for genital herpes

I’m joining OpenAI

Published: 2026-02-15 | Origin: Hacker News

The author announces that they are joining OpenAI to work on making AI agents accessible to everyone while transitioning their project, OpenClaw, to an independent foundation. They express surprise at the widespread interest generated by their previous work and feel overwhelmed by various opportunities and offers. Their goal is to create user-friendly AI tools and they believe that partnering with OpenAI will facilitate this process due to access to cutting-edge research and shared vision. The author emphasizes the importance of keeping OpenClaw open-source and appreciates the

Local WebSocket: Building Real-Time Apps That Work Without the Cloud

Published: 2026-02-15 | Origin: /r/programming

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Built Splitwise MCP(implemented in ruby)

Published: 2026-02-15 | Origin: /r/ruby

The content emphasizes the importance of user feedback and provides guidance on using a Ruby MCP server that exposes 35 Splitwise API tools through the Model Context Protocol. The server is compatible with various MCP clients like Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and Cursor. Users are instructed to add their Splitwise API key through the .env file or the client configuration. It also notes that either the SPLITWISE_API_KEY or SPLITWISE_OAUTH_ACCESS_TOKEN is mandatory. Additionally, the content suggests how to configure JSON