Cameras and Lenses
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This article breaks down the intricacies of cameras and lenses, demystifying the process of capturing light and forming images, from the basics of photodetectors and photon conversion to the complexities of lens design and aberrations. By building a simple camera from first principles and exploring the effects of tunable parameters, the author reveals the delicate dance of light, lenses, and sensors that culminates in the creation of a photograph, with all its attendant trade-offs between sharpness, depth of field, and brightness.
OpenWorkers: Self-Hosted Cloudflare Workers in Rust
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OpenWorkers brings the edge computing paradigm to your own infrastructure with a Rust-based runtime, allowing you to execute untrusted JavaScript in V8 isolates, sans vendor lock-in. By sandboxing JavaScript with CPU and memory limits, OpenWorkers offers a self-hosted alternative to Cloudflare Workers, with a compatibility layer that makes migration a breeze, all while keeping your data and costs under your control.
iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan
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Apple is finally allowing alternative browser engines on iOS in Japan, but don't get too excited - it comes with a laundry list of security and privacy requirements that will keep developers busy. The Web Browser Engine Entitlement and Embedded Browser Engine Entitlement come with stringent criteria, including secure development processes, timely vulnerability mitigation, and strict privacy controls, all of which must be met before developers can ditch WebKit.
Python Numbers Every Programmer Should Know
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This article dishes out a plethora of Python performance numbers, covering everything from the memory footprint of basic data types to the overhead of async operations, because who doesn't want to know that an empty list weighs in at 56 bytes. The benchmarks reveal some interesting tidbits, such as the significant memory savings of using __slots__ in classes and the impressive speed of alternative JSON libraries like orjson, which leaves the standard library json in the dust.
C-events, yet another event loop, simpler, smaller, faster, safer
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C-events is yet another event loop library, touting itself as simpler, smaller, faster, and safer, utilizing a single interface for epoll, kqueue, and iocp, and providing a mechanism for executing callback functions on file descriptor events or timeouts. This library seems to be a lightweight alternative to libuv, with a focus on finer grain control and cross-platform compatibility, including Windows support for Linux-like functionality such as mkfifo and inotify_add_watch.
Memory Subsystem Optimizations
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This article is a laundry list of memory subsystem optimizations, covering everything from decreasing total memory accesses to measuring performance, because apparently someone's software is still slow. The 18 blog posts outlined here offer a comprehensive guide to squeezing more speed out of large datasets, but let's be real, most of this is just caching 101.
Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]
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It seems researchers have finally plugged into the vulnerabilities of Bluetooth audio chips, discovering a trio of flaws that could allow attackers to jack into your phone via your headphones. The identified vulnerabilities in Airoha's chips, used by top manufacturers like Sony and Jabra, can compromise devices and enable attackers to impersonate peripherals, making for a discordant security landscape.
Common Lisp SDK for the Datastar Hypermedia Framework
| 7 comments
The Datastar Common Lisp SDK is a faithful implementation of the Datastar Architecture Decision Record, leveraging CLOS and stream-based approaches to provide a robust foundation for hypermedia frameworks, albeit with some backend-specific quirks. Under the hood, it uses a sse-generator class with subclasses for Hunchentoot and Clack web servers, making it a noteworthy addition to the Common Lisp ecosystem, even if it's not a revolutionary game-changer.
Implementing HNSW (Hierarchical Navigable Small World) Vector Search in PHP
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The Hierarchical Navigable Small World (HNSW) algorithm is a clever approach to vector search, using a layered structure to zoom in on relevant data points, much like a librarian navigating a vast library by first identifying the relevant section, then shelf, and finally book. By implementing HNSW in PHP, as demonstrated in the Vektor project, developers can achieve fast and efficient vector search, reducing the complexity from $O(N)$ to $O(\log N)$ operations, making it a fundamental component of modern recommendation systems and AI applications.
Sony PS5 ROM keys leaked – jailbreaking could be made easier with BootROM codes
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The PlayStation 5's ROM keys have been leaked, potentially giving jailbreakers the master key to unlock the console's bootloader and paving the way for kernel-level exploits. This unpatchable hardware vulnerability has left Sony in a tight spot, with revising hardware or issuing a costly recall being the only ways to rectify the situation and prevent a piracy and cheating free-for-all.
Build a Deep Learning Library
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In a bold move to demystify the black boxes of deep learning, this project dives into building a simple deep learning library from scratch, starting with just NumPy and ending with a functional autograd engine. By rolling their own library, the authors aim to train classic models like MNIST, CNN, and ResNet, a laudable endeavor that could help newcomers grasp the underlying mechanics.
Building an internal agent: Code-driven vs. LLM-driven workflows
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The author's attempt to build an internal agent using LLM-driven workflows was a clever hack, but ultimately a square peg in a round hole, as the determinism and reliability of code-driven workflows proved to be a better fit for certain tasks. By supporting both code and LLM-driven workflows, the team can now use the right tool for the job, leveraging LLMs for complex, high-level decisions and code for more mundane, yet critical, tasks that require precision and reliability.
Worlds largest electric ship launched by Tasmanian boatbuilder
| 81 comments
Incat's launch of the world's largest electric ship, Hull 096, is a significant milestone in maritime electrification, packing a whopping 40 megawatt-hours of installed capacity to ferry 2,100 passengers and 225 vehicles across the River Plate. While it's a giant leap forward in sustainable shipping, it remains to be seen whether this 130-metre vessel will be a drop in the ocean or a spark that sets the shipping industry on a course to reduce its 3% share of global emissions.
2025 Letter
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Dan Wang's 2025 letter is a scathing critique of Silicon Valley's humorless culture and its obsessive focus on AI, which he believes is driven by a misguided pursuit of "decisive strategic advantage" that prioritizes short-term gains over long-term thinking. Wang argues that China's technological successes, particularly in industries like electric vehicles and robotics, are often underestimated by Western elites, who fail to recognize the country's deep infrastructure and robust manufacturing ecosystem.
Heap Overflow in FFmpeg EXIF
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A heap-buffer-overflow vulnerability was discovered in FFmpeg's EXIF writer, affecting various image formats, due to a flawed assumption about the contiguity of extra IFD tags. The bug, which can be triggered by simply decoding an image file, occurs when non-contiguous extra IFD entries are forged, causing the "peeling" process to break and leaving extra tags in IFD0 that are expected to be removed, ultimately leading to a 4-byte zero write spilling past the buffer end.
2025: The Year in LLMs
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The year 2025 was a transformative one for Large Language Models (LLMs), marked by significant advancements in reasoning capabilities, the rise of coding agents, and increased competition among AI labs. Notable developments included the release of Claude Code, a coding agent that can write, execute, and iterate on code, and the emergence of Chinese AI labs as major players in the LLM space, with models like GLM-4.7 and DeepSeek V3.2 outperforming their non-Chinese counterparts.
Rust--: Rust without the borrow checker
| 129 comments
Rust--, a modified Rust compiler, disables the borrow checker, allowing code that would normally violate Rust's borrowing rules to compile and run, effectively "hacking away" at the language's memory safety features. This project is an interesting experiment, but it's essentially a proof-of-concept that shows what happens when you remove the training wheels from Rust, potentially leading to crashes and bugs that the borrow checker normally prevents.
Children and Helical Time
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The concept of "helical time" suggests that our experience of time is relative to our age, making childhood feel like an eternity and adulthood a fleeting blur, but having kids can reboot this perception by giving us new "firsts" to experience through their eyes. By investing in our children's lives, we can relive the intensity and vibrancy of childhood, creating a sense of continuity and renewal, where life folds back on itself like a helix, allowing us to recreate memories and rediscover childish wonder.
Show HN: Feature detection exploration in Lidar DEMs via differential decomp
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The RESIDUALS framework is a systematic approach to feature detection in Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) using differential decomposition, essentially a "signal processing Swiss Army knife" that tests various combinations of signal decomposition and upsampling methods to identify the best feature-revealing techniques. By computing differentials between outputs, RESIDUALS creates feature-specific extraction filters, allowing users to identify which method combinations work best for their specific use case, from terrain analysis to change detection.
Meta made scam ads harder to find instead of removing them
| 69 comments
Meta's approach to scam ads can be likened to a game of whack-a-mole, where instead of removing the problem, they're just making it harder to find, thereby dodging regulatory scrutiny. By adding this tactic to their "general global playbook", Meta is essentially patching a symptom rather than fixing the underlying bug, all while potentially losing a significant chunk of revenue if universal advertiser verification becomes mandatory.
Beyond the Nat: Cgnat, Bandwidth, and Practical Tunneling
| 6 comments
The article "Beyond the NAT: CGNAT, Bandwidth, and Practical Tunneling" delves into the complexities of Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT) and its impact on residential internet users, highlighting the need for tunneling solutions to restore reachability and ensure reliable connectivity. By using tools like Cloudflare Tunnel or bore-cli, users can create outbound connections to reachable hosts, effectively bypassing CGNAT and exposing local services to the internet while maintaining security and control.
European Space Agency hit again as cybercriminals claim 200 GB data up for sale
| 15 comments
The European Space Agency has been breached again, with cybercriminals claiming to have made off with 200 GB of sensitive data, including source code and credentials, in a hack that seems to have flown under the agency's radar until now. It's deja vu all over again for the ESA, which has a history of downplaying security incidents, but this latest breach may be the canary in the coal mine, signaling a deeper problem with the agency's security posture.
Easel Turns One One year of building my own IDE in Clojure
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After a year of development, Easel, a Clojure-based IDE, has made significant progress, with its creator claiming it's 80% done, despite still lacking polish and some major features. The project's ambitious goals, including runtime extensibility, strong REPL support, and data-oriented programming, are being built on the JVM, which solves many hard problems, but also comes with the challenge of creating a UI library from scratch.
I canceled my book deal
| 322 comments
After signing a book deal with a major publisher for a collection of tutorials on classic programming projects, the author found the experience to be a mismatch of expectations, with constant pressure to dumb down the content and shoehorn AI into the narrative, ultimately leading to a terminated contract. The author is now considering self-publishing or releasing the content as blog posts, freed from the constraints of a traditional publishing deal that had become a chore rather than a creative outlet.
ACM Is Now Open Access
| 39 comments
The Association for Computing Machinery has finally pried open the vault, making all its publications and artifacts open access, a move that's been a long time coming and is likely to spark a new wave of innovation. With its digital library now offering a free Basic edition, ACM is essentially "forking" its content, providing a branch for the masses and a premium one for those who need more advanced tools.
Ultra-Wide Band: A Transformational Technology for the Internet of Things
| 3 comments
Ultra-Wide Band technology is being touted as a game-changer for the Internet of Things, promising to bring spatial awareness and secure location capabilities to devices, essentially giving them a "sixth sense" to navigate and interact with their surroundings. With its precise and secured ranging capabilities, UWB is poised to transform various applications, from smart home automation to industrial asset tracking, making it a foundational technology for the future of IoT.
A font with built-in TeX syntax highlighting
| 3 comments
The latest twist in typography is a font that embeds TeX syntax highlighting, essentially "typesetting" the highlighting directly into the font itself, a clever hack that leverages OpenType technologies. By offloading syntax highlighting to the font level, this innovation promises a lightweight alternative to traditional grammar files and packages, making it a notable advancement in the field of typesetting.
Pokémon Team Optimization
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The author, a self-proclaimed Pokémon fanatic, has taken a nostalgic trip back to their childhood obsession and applied some serious mathematical muscle to optimize their Pokémon team, formulating the problem as a Mixed-Integer Problem and solving it with Python's PuLP library. The resulting teams, composed of legendary, pseudo-legendary, and ordinary Pokémon, demonstrate the power of operations research methods in finding strong combinations, albeit with some humorous caveats, like the inclusion of Slaking, a Pokémon whose high base stat is offset by its ability to act only 50% of the time.
Show HN: I created a tool to design and create foamcore inserts for boardgames
| 9 comments
Another "revolutionary" tool emerges, this time to design foamcore inserts for board games, because apparently, that's the missing piece in our lives. Boxsert, the brainchild of this innovation, promises to optimize box organization, a problem that has plagued gamers for centuries, or at least that's what the marketing pitch would have us believe.