Quacker News daily superautomated ai tech-bro mockery | github | podcast
1. ▲ Malware can turn off webcam LED and record video, demonstrated on ThinkPad X230 (github.com/xairy)
In a groundbreaking revelation that surprises exactly zero informed individuals, some hacker demonstrates how the ThinkPad X230 can spy on you with its webcam LED off. Because, absolutely, no black tape over your camera was ever a fashionable paranoia. Meanwhile, tech enthusiasts across the internet furiously type out their semi-informed theories, passionately arguing whether it's bad architecture or just a typical Tuesday in the world of tech vulnerabilities. Brace yourself for a series of needless tech jargon, mixed with a humble brag about "I sort of knew this all along" and a link to some other vaguely related talk that this one commenter attended—or slept through—in 2014. 🙄👀
335 points by xairy 2024-11-27T20:10:55 1732738255 | 220 comments
2. ▲ You can use C-Reduce for any language (bernsteinbear.com)
In a shocking revelation that has sent ripples through the miniscule community of people who still minimize code by hand, it turns out C-Reduce isn't just for C anymore—brace yourselves for a tool that boldly goes where every other debugger has gone before, but a bit slower because of gratuitous Perl scripts! An intrepid coder, after wresting with RustPython and scrapscript, heroically whittles down their goliath of a codebase, only to shock commenters by, gasp, not immediately sharing the reduced masterpiece. Meanwhile, the comment section becomes a tech support hotline, where suggestions for alternative tools like Shrinkray accelerate faster than the comprehension of the aforementioned tools, blending the convoluted with the clueless. "Has anyone tried turning it off and on again?" another might soon ask, earnestly believing they're on the brink of revolutionary efficiency. 😱🤖
254 points by Tomte 2024-11-27T17:56:24 1732730184 | 48 comments
3. ▲ The Forgotten Story of How IBM Invented the Automated Fab (ieee.org)
In an astounding display of historical reverence, the esteemed techologists at IEEE unearth 📜 **the mesmerizing tale of IBM and its revolutionary Automated Fab**. Who knew? Apparently, not the bored souls in the comments, nostalgic for the days "when I interned at IBM" and reverently whispering 🤫 "from sand to software." Meanwhile, tech hobbyists debate Silicon Valley dreams of crafting their very own chips, blithely ignoring the cold, hard twist: it costs more than your mother's annual salary 💸 to even glimpse at proper chip manufacturing. One commenter dreams of government subsidies for tech start-ups; perhaps the same luck might help fund their next delusional tech venture. Because, obviously, what the world *really* needs is cheaper failing chips. 🙄
39 points by jnord 2024-11-27T22:18:58 1732745938 | 7 comments
4. ▲ Show QN: Feels Like Paper (lukasmoro.com)
At Hacker News, the innovation never stops, even when it's about resurrecting the dead — butterfly-style — under the guise of artful technological masterpieces. The hive-mind quickly pivots from "admiring innovation" to a pseudo-scientific critique of butterfly wing aerodynamics because, why enjoy art when you can debate it? Cue the existential crisis and a random mention of an unrelated techno-thriller to really round out the thread. Everyone leaves either enlightened or disturbed, but definitely ready to argue that “it's not a bug, it’s a feature” at their next social gathering. 🦋💻
132 points by MoroL 2024-11-27T18:43:04 1732732984 | 42 comments
5. ▲ QwQ: Alibaba's O1 Like Reasoning LLM (qwenlm.github.io)

The Technological Flatulence of QwQ


The technocrats gather around their latest gimmick, QwQ – a magical AI that pretends to stumble around in Plato's cave, dazzled by the light of its own incomplete algorithms. Thrilled by its ability to solve obscure mathematical riddles, commenters spew technical jargon and URL confetti as if their lives depend on betraying their ignorance of basic GPU logistics. 🤖 Amidst theorizing, complaining, and casually dodging international sanctions, everyone conveniently forgets that at its core, QwQ knows nothing, understanding less than a toddler, yet it's heralded as the dawn of reasoning. Brace for yet another overhyped "AI revolution" where machines remain gloriously clueless.
90 points by amrrs 2024-11-27T20:00:25 1732737625 | 47 comments
6. ▲ Show QN: TeaTime – distributed book library powered by SQLite, IPFS and GitHub (github.com/bjesus)
In a dizzying display of Web 2.0 nostalgia, the hopeful hacker at github.com/bjesus has brewed up TeaTime, a hipster trifecta of SQLite, IPFS, and GitHub, aiming to turn literature into a tech support issue. Critics in the Peanut Gallery query the shaky choice of IPFS over tried-and-true bittorrent, as previous adventures with the protocol often end in less reading, more crashing. Meanwhile, security concerns are waved away with the techno-optimist magic wand of GitHub stars and hopeful PDF.js incantations. As commenters toss around obscure GitHub repos like hot potatoes, one can only hope their eBook doesn’t come bundled with complimentary malware.
81 points by yoavm 2024-11-27T13:56:20 1732715780 | 18 comments
7. ▲ TrunkVer (trunkver.org)
Title: **TrunkVer: The Version-Controlled Chaos Machine**

Welcome to the future of software delivery where TrunkVer decides to reinvent the wheel by ignoring it altogether! In a daring move of technical bravado, this new "semver-compatible" scheme allows software versions to be as unpredictable as startup valuations. Watch in awe as each commit, regardless of its impact, rockets the major version number into the stratosphere. The developer community, equally confused and amused, debates whether this rampant version inflation makes every commit a risky adventure or just a new way to troll dependency bots. Dive into the comment section where semantic version purists and avant-garde trunk-based fans engage in the intellectual battle of the century, questioning the compatibility of compatibility itself! 🚀😵‍💫💥
43 points by todsacerdoti 2024-11-27T20:48:08 1732740488 | 18 comments
8. ▲ MIT Aluminum Bicycle Project 1974 (sheldonbrown.com)
**MIT Aluminum Bicycle Project 1974: A Retro-Tech Comedy**

Ah, *1974*. A year when engineering students made the Herculean leap from drafting tables to the nascent world of aluminum bicycles. Enter the prestigious halls of MIT, where Professor Buckley, in a stroke of academic indulgence, allows Marc Rosenbaum and his peers to tinker with metal. The goal? An ultra-light bicycle that wouldn't crumple under its own avant-garde aspirations. Dive into the riveting world of *nano-laminate magnesium alloys* and cycling nerds fiercely debating frame stiffness like it's the cure for global warming. From courtroom drama in the Klein vs. Cannondale saga to misty-eyed reminiscences of featherweight races won and lost, this article spins its wheels spectacularly, keeping both, the *two-wheeled dream* and the *classroom fantasy*, alive and pedaling.
7 points by anschwa 2024-11-27T23:59:38 1732751978 | 3 comments
9. ▲ Device-detector: Universal Device Detection library from User Agent (github.com/matomo-org)
### GitHub Unveils Ultimate Device Snooping Gadget

In a ground-breaking revelation that certainly won’t haunt your digital nightmares, GitHub proudly introduces a new spy—a Universal Device Detection library. Finally, an all-seeing eye that can tell whether you’re browsing from a battered old laptop, a sparkly new phone, or the Tesla you shouldn’t be using while driving. Commentators gleefully dive in, with one rooting for Team Ruby, others playing spot-the-language, and a notable philosophical ponder on the waning quality of Hacker News. Meanwhile, no one questions whether they should, only if they can decode your entire gadget arsenal. Tech voyeurism at its finest! 🕵️‍♂️💻📱
42 points by josephscott 2024-11-27T20:11:21 1732738281 | 7 comments
10. ▲ Sleep regularity and major adverse cardiovascular events (bmj.com)
Today in groundbreaking revelations from the Annals of the Obvious, a study from BMJ discovers that irregular sleep might just, shockingly, be bad for your ticker. Thousands of sleep gadget addicts with wrist-attached accelerometers finally feel vindicated for obsessively tracking their bedtime rituals. Commenters, armed with a week's worth of poorly understood data points, descend into bickering over who gets less sleep but is paradoxically healthier. Clearly, the sleep-regularity index score is the new IQ test for online forums. 😴💔
20 points by domofutu 2024-11-27T20:25:40 1732739140 | 0 comments
11. ▲ 'Dear Mr. Kubrick': 1960s Audience Responses to 2001 — A Space Odyssey (2009) [pdf] (participations.org)
Title: The "I Understood Kubrick" Show

In the ever-prestigious realm of internet opinion, the document "Dear Mr. Kubrick": 1960s Audience Responses to 2001 — A Space Odyssey unearths a stunning revelation: people who watched movies in the '60s had feelings and could write! 🤯 This groundbreaking research reveals, without a hint of irony, that the same species who landed on the moon could also operate a pen. Commenters, floating on a wave of existential wonder from understanding Kubrick’s cinematic enigma, compete in a humblebrag contest of "Who Got It" vs. "Who Got Shut-Eye." Meanwhile, the prized trophy for "Missing The Point" gets tossed around like a hot potato in what must surely be the intellectual equivalent of the Hall of Mirrors. 🥇🍿
26 points by wslh 2024-11-24T18:56:59 1732474619 | 31 comments
12. ▲ Float Self-Tagging (arxiv.org)
Title: Float Self-Tagging (arxiv.org)

The hive of scintillating intellects at arXivLabs has birthed another *groundbreaking* project—Float Self-Tagging. Technology now allows academics to mark their own papers with all the grandeur and accuracy of a self-serve salad bar. Brace yourselves for revolutionary tags like "Revolutionary" and "Breakthrough" peppering abstracts like never before! 🚀 Meanwhile, in the comments section, the usual suspects toggle between hailing the initiative as the second coming of Einstein and denouncing it as the end of peer-reviewed integrity. After all, who needs experts when you have an AI-enabled sticker book? 🤓
15 points by ndjdjddjsjj 2024-11-27T21:36:52 1732743412 | 0 comments
13. ▲ Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system (lithub.com)
In a dazzling leap of creativity, the ancient Sumerians decide to invent writing, presumably because drawing on clay was no longer edgy enough for their burgeoning hipster culture. Meanwhile, the comment section devolves into a club of armchair historians keen to out-pedant each other, with cameos by pseudo-experts who think listening to a history podcast qualifies as a Ph.D. One gracious commenter attempts to shed light on genealogical mix-ups and AI failures, providing the only chuckle in this otherwise somber descent into obscurity. Don't worry—by the next comment, it's back to uninformed debates and asserting dominance via obscure historical references, because nothing says "modern civilization" like glorifying the administrative paperwork of 3000 BC. 📜😂
126 points by HR01 2024-11-27T13:15:57 1732713357 | 141 comments
14. ▲ Most American farmers have second jobs to stay afloat (marketplace.org)
Welcome to another episode of ***Economic Reality Bites***, where today we chuckle at the plight of American farmers desperately clinging to the dream of sustainable agriculture by diversifying into the gig economy. Phil Hallstedt, our cherry champion from Michigan, claims he doesn't need Vegas because his cherry farm gambles for him, debuting a DIY cherry-picking experience to avoid paying actual wages. Meanwhile, the comments section becomes a delightful dumpster fire of armchair economists and backseat farmers pontificating on everything from hobby farming to the irresistible march of industrial consolidation. Apparently, current farmers are either masochistic hobbyists, tax dodger wannabes, or nostalgic relics waiting to cash out to the nearest megacorp — because remember kids, farming isn't a profession, it's a historical reenactment! 🚜💸
40 points by ilamont 2024-11-27T23:45:56 1732751156 | 47 comments
15. ▲ Psychoacoustic and archeoacoustic nature of ancient Aztec skull whistles (nature.com)
**Archaeoacoustic Overkill: When Science Meets Skulls on Clickbait**

In a groundbreaking episode of "Academic Jargon Meets Ancient Instruments," researchers have bravely tussled with the eerie screeches of Aztec skull whistles at nature.com, suggesting these tools could have made the Aztecs the life of the party—or the death of it. Commenters, spurred by their indomitable spirit of missing the point, equate the terrifying noise to adventurous camping trips and the variety of swag at Mexican souvenir shops. In a delightful turn of macabre musical chairs, one finds the shrieking death whistle perhaps not as pants-wettingly terrifying when rebranded as the Aztec Puppy Whistle. Indeed, the real horror is not the sound itself but the comment section’s desperate attempts to relate long-dead ritual artifacts to their own trivial supernatural shenanigans 🎺💀.
39 points by tosh 2024-11-22T12:03:20 1732277000 | 19 comments
16. ▲ Structured Editing and Incremental Parsing (tratt.net)
**The Wizardry of Babbling Coders: Structured Editing and Incremental Parsing**

In an awe-inspiring display of niche obsession, tratt.net dives headfirst into the exhilarating world of parsing and *structured editing*. Clearly uninterested in pedestrian pursuits like simply writing code, the article offers a thrilling exposition on why normal text editors are as outdated as floppy disks. Meanwhile, in the enchanted land of comments, one brave soul attempts to narrate their harrowing tales with TeX—because apparently causing syntax highlighters to implode represents the peak of modern problems. Another commenter chimes in with a plug for Recursive teXt, because what the world needs now is *definitely* another parsing method, ideally one obscure enough to secure niche conferences for decades to come. 🙄
19 points by ltratt 2024-11-27T20:42:52 1732740172 | 2 comments
17. ▲ Chebyshev Polynomials in the 16th Century (2022) (arxiv.org)
In a stunning display of temporal confusion, a paper entitled "Chebyshev Polynomials in the 16th Century" appears on arXiv, prompting discussions that meander through centuries as if time travel were as common as misinterpreting Russian mathematicians' intentions. Commenters, neck-deep in their love for historical cherry-picking, marvel at pre-computational numerical algorithms with the kind of awe usually reserved for watching a dog use a smartphone. One hero points out Chebyshev’s European jaunts which apparently sparked the approximation revolution, while another sagely nods at the history of the word "computer", charmingly unaware that their groundbreaking input was already common knowledge by the time of their great-grandparents' prom. Through the fog of confusion, everyone agrees—whether it's minimax problems or steam engines, Chebyshev's shadow looms large, albeit often misinterpreted through the mists of time and the internet.
73 points by IdealeZahlen 2024-11-27T14:58:25 1732719505 | 26 comments
18. ▲ Generate video sprites using just FFmpeg (steelcm.com)
Today on Hacker News, a brave coder reinvents the wheel by turning FFmpeg into a Nintendoesque sprite generator. Using a cryptic bash script that loves permissions more than functionality, users can magically transform Big Buck Bunny into a choppy, silent filmstrip from the 1920s, all while pretending it’s peak innovation. Commenters, nostalgic for the primitive internet, share foggy memories of similar obsolete hacks, mistaking basic video functions for lost ancient relics. Meanwhile, the next groundbreaking query—whether VLC can manage external sprite files—waits impatiently for relevance, alongside the realization that yes, sometimes old tech did indeed suck. 😂📼👴🏼
31 points by steelcm 2024-11-27T18:30:09 1732732209 | 7 comments
19. ▲ Building a Harrison Wooden Longcase [pdf] (bhi.co.uk)
Title: Amateur Hour at the Pendulum Rodeo

In the latest installment of "time wizards trying too hard," an overly devoted clock aficionado rediscovers air, friction, and the groundbreaking revelation that wood still works. Commenters rally in awe, tripping over themselves to champion the mystical arts of Harrison and his wooden pendulum circus. One enlightened soul eagerly references a book barely clinging to credibility, while another insists on YouTube as a font of untarnished wisdom. Let's hear it for wood, the most revolutionary material of 1720! 🕰️🌲
3 points by jstanley 2024-11-24T17:31:56 1732469516 | 3 comments
20. ▲ The Rise of the NormieNet – Echo chamber politics (bugeyedandshameless.com)
Welcome to the latest cringe fest on bugeyedandshameless.com, where self-proclaimed internet refugees champion the rise of the NormieNet – an echo chamber so echoey, even the echos have echos! Excited commentators, armed with the depth of a puddle, either lament the fall of 'Free Speech Twitter' or champion the sanitized sanctity of Bluesky, amusingly missing the irony in their acerbic binary banter. Meanwhile, seasoned keyboard warriors undermine each other with the fervor of toddlers fighting over the last chicken nugget, proving once and for all that no platform can truly contain the human urge to argue about absolutely nothing.💬🔥😂
10 points by verdverm 2024-11-27T21:26:55 1732742815 | 6 comments
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