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Precious Plastic is in trouble

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: Hacker News

The message discusses the current challenges facing Precious Plastic, an initiative aimed at recycling plastic through collaborative efforts and open-source innovation. It highlights the significant achievements since the release of Version 4 in 2020, which involved over 100 volunteers and resulted in a global impact that included 1,100 organizations across 56 countries recycling 1.4 million kg of plastic and generating over $3.7 million in revenue. However, the project now faces critical issues related to its development model, which relies

Show HN: Ephe – A minimalist open-source Markdown paper for today

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: Hacker News

The content emphasizes the importance of user feedback and encourages users to refer to the documentation for available features. It introduces "Ephe," an ephemeral markdown paper designed for daily organization of tasks and thoughts. Unlike traditional todo apps that can be overwhelming, Ephe offers a clean, simple page that uses plain markdown for task management. The guide provides additional details, but multiple loading errors hinder access to some information.

A deep dive into self-improving AI and the Darwin-Gödel Machine

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: Hacker News

The article explores the concept of self-improving AI, highlighting the limitations of current AI systems that are constrained by human-designed architectures. These systems cannot autonomously evolve, akin to a car that can't change its structure regardless of the engine's specifications. It introduces the idea of meta-learning, which focuses on creating AI that can improve its own problem-solving strategies over time. A significant example discussed is the Gödel Machine, a theoretical construct proposed by Jürgen Schmidhuber. The Gödel Machine can

Implementing Embedded TypedData Objects

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: /r/ruby

The blog post discusses TypedData objects in CRuby, which are used to store a native pointer to arbitrary data and are implemented in native extensions like Nokogiri and mysql2. In Ruby 3.3, concepts like Variable Width Allocation were introduced to improve performance and memory usage for TypedData objects. These objects are similar to other Ruby objects in appearance but differ in functionality, as they facilitate faster data handling without the overhead of instance variable lookups. A new type of TypedData object,

(On | No) Syntactic Support for Error Handling

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: /r/programming

The content outlines various aspects of the Go programming language, including its common applications, benefits, code writing tips, and resources for developers, such as documentation and networking opportunities. It highlights the persistent issue of verbose error handling, which has been a major complaint among users. This problem results in code that is cluttered with error-checking lines, overshadowing the actual logic. The Go team has acknowledged this through user feedback and has been working on potential solutions since 2018, particularly as part of the

What Happens If We Inline Everything?

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses the concept of inlining in programming, which is a critical optimization technique in compilers regarded highly by experts in the field. Inlining essentially replaces a function call with the actual code of the function, which can enhance performance. However, it also has drawbacks, including code duplication, increased executable size, and higher pressure on register allocation. These drawbacks can lead to longer compile times and larger binaries, potentially affecting runtime performance negatively. The video referenced takes a different approach by focusing solely on runtime

Improvements to RISC-V vector code generation in LLVM

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: /r/programming

Alex recently presented on "Improvements to RISC-V vector code generation in LLVM" at the RISC-V Summit Europe in Paris. In his talk, he focused on the high-level objectives and challenges associated with compiler optimizations, particularly for RISC-V. The current state of RISC-V vector code generation is in a solid position, with basic functionalities enabled by default and ongoing work aimed at performance analysis and tuning. While the task of enhancing compiler performance is extensive and never fully completed, initial phases

Swift at Apple: migrating the Password Monitoring service from Java

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: /r/programming

Apple has successfully adopted Swift for building cloud services, achieving impressive results. Last year, the Password Monitoring service was rewritten in Swift, resulting in a 40% performance improvement compared to its previous Java version, alongside enhanced scalability, security, and availability. The newly introduced Passwords app in fall 2024 allows users to manage their passwords, passkeys, and verification codes, featuring storage, autofill, and sharing capabilities. A key feature, Password Monitoring, alerts users if their passwords appear in data

GUIs are built at least 2.5 times

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: /r/programming

In her recent post, Patricia Aas reflects on discussions from LinkedIn and Mastodon regarding the need to understand software on its own terms, separate from analogies like factories or sports. She appreciates Robert Smallshire's desire to move away from these comparisons and recognizes Peter Sommerlad's connection between the factory metaphor and the "Pipes and Filters" architectural pattern. Aas expresses her initial belief that progress had been made in understanding software, but now feels that the community may be further away from a shared

Become a Hanami, Dry and Rom patron. Help us build a diverse future for Ruby.

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: /r/ruby

The Hanami, Dry, and Rom teams are launching a paid maintenance initiative to secure ongoing support for their projects. They aim to raise $70,000 annually, with current funding sitting at $26,000, thanks to initial contributors like Sidekiq and Ruby Central. The funding will enable dedicated maintenance work and promote community activities. Patrons supporting these projects will help foster a diverse and inclusive future for the Ruby ecosystem. Over the next six weeks, the team will provide updates and recognize contributors as

The HTTP QUERY Method (published on 27 May 2025)

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: /r/programming

The document proposes a new HTTP method called QUERY, described as a safe and idempotent method capable of carrying request content. It outlines that discussions regarding this draft occur on the HTTP working group mailing list and provides links for further information, including the source code and issue tracker for this draft. The draft is presented as an Internet-Draft, which is temporary and subject to updates or replacement, expiring on November 28, 2025. It emphasizes the document's compliance with certain IETF provisions

Germany and France to accelerate the construction of clouds in the EU (German)

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: /r/programming

The content discusses the usage of Golem.de with advertisements and tracking through consent to cookies. JavaScript and cookies must be enabled in the browser to agree to the site's cookies. Issues with loading the consent dialog are mentioned, and users can find information on how to revoke consent in the privacy policy. A subscription option, "Golem pur," is available for €3 per month, allowing ad-free access with only essential cookies. The site collects personal data and shares it with up to 160 third parties

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (1994)

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: Hacker News

Caroline Frances Hubert had three main claims to fame. First, she was the thirty-seventh oldest living person, a fact she found unimpressive and boring. Second, she once survived rabies, which she took pride in despite it being a long-ago incident; she was notable for having been dead for fifty-six hours before an advanced entity called Prime Intellect restored her. Lastly, and most importantly, she was the undisputed Queen of the Death Jockeys, a title that required continuous

AI makes the humanities more important, but also weirder

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: Hacker News

In a recent New Yorker piece, historian D. Graham Burnett discussed the academic response to AI, particularly within universities. He noted a failed initial attempt to implement an anti-AI policy in his department that would have prohibited assignments involving AI. Following an external review, the need to address AI's impact on teaching and research was highlighted but received little enthusiasm. Burnett criticized the prevailing attitude of ignoring the significant transformations AI is bringing, particularly in the humanities, arguing against simply prohibiting its use. He

IT workers struggling in New Zealand's tight job market

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: Hacker News

In 2025, IT professionals are facing increased job insecurity due to economic challenges and the rising implementation of artificial intelligence in the workplace. Microsoft announced a reduction of about 6,000 jobs, approximately 3% of its global workforce, as part of a strategy to streamline operations and enhance AI efforts. Similarly, Health New Zealand revealed plans to cut hundreds of IT positions, equating to around a third of its IT workforce. Job seekers describe the current tech job market as highly competitive and difficult,

What is NLWeb? Microsoft's new protocol for conversational web search

Published: 2025-06-03 | Origin: /r/programming

On June 1, 2025, Frank Fiegel announced that Microsoft has open-sourced NLWeb, a protocol designed to enable conversational interfaces on websites. NLWeb utilizes existing Schema.org structured data and supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP) for facilitating both human interactions and agent-to-agent communication. This protocol aims to standardize how conversational access to web content is achieved, overcoming the limitations of traditional, bespoke implementations of search interfaces. NLWeb allows for natural querying by both AI agents and humans

Text undo that doesn't lose your edit history

Published: 2025-06-02 | Origin: /r/programming

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

Conformance checking at MongoDB: Testing that our code matches our TLA+ specs

Published: 2025-06-02 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses the challenges of ensuring that implementations of distributed algorithms at MongoDB conform to their formal specifications written in TLA+. This process, known as conformance checking, is critical due to the complexity and potential consequences of errors in such algorithms. In 2020, the author and colleagues explored the conformance of two MongoDB products to their TLA+ specs, reflecting on their experiences and methodologies. They were inspired by a 2011 paper on eXtreme Modelling, which promotes agile

Gauntlet is a Programming Language that Fixes Go's Frustrating Design Choices

Published: 2025-06-02 | Origin: /r/programming

Gauntlet is a programming language created to address the design flaws in Golang while maintaining its strengths. It transpiles exclusively to Go code, fully supports all its features, and integrates seamlessly into the Go ecosystem without requiring bindings. Full documentation and examples are available, and contributions are welcomed. Feedback is taken seriously, and there's a guide for potential contributors.

My AI skeptic friends are all nuts

Published: 2025-06-02 | Origin: Hacker News

The author expresses concern about the rapid push for AI-assisted programming, particularly regarding large language models (LLMs) by tech executives, which they view as a flawed strategy. While some experts believe AI, like LLMs, is merely a passing trend—similar to NFTs—the author argues that such opinions overlook the significant advancements LLMs have made in software development. They emphasize that talented developers are still performing tasks that LLMs can already execute more efficiently, often out of resistance to adopting the technology