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1. ▲ Our Audit of Homebrew (trailofbits.com)

Homebrewing Catastrophe: A Comedy of Errors


In a thrilling exposé of mishaps cleverly titled "Our Audit of Homebrew," yet another group of digital janitors—exhaustively funded by the philanthropic Open Tech Fund—uncover that Homebrew might not be as squeaky-clean as your wiped-down MacBook. With the intensity of a soggy teabag, they reveal groundbreaking findings like: "Oh look, someone could potentially poke holes in our sandbox!" which, as expectant as a poorly scripted horror movie, surprises exactly no one.


Meanwhile, the comment section morphs into a knights' assembly of self-appointed code inquisitors, pondering ethical quandaries like medieval philosophers, while helpfully clarifying acronyms that even your grandma wouldn't abbreviate. Across this backdrop, occasional gratitude rains down for the unsung heroes funding these capers, ensuring no open-source stone is left unturned—or un-compromised. A jam-packed drama, but somehow, everyone still misses the point.
182 points by zdw 2024-07-30T22:39:21 | 27 comments
2. ▲ Porffor: A from-scratch experimental ahead-of-time JS engine (porffor.dev)
**The Future of JavaScript is Here, and It's "Porffor"ably Slow**

In a shocking turn of events, another tech enthusiast with promise and a GitHub account has unveiled "Porffor," a shiny new JS engine that compiles directly to WebAssembly and native, frustratingly described as "seriously limited" and "not for serious use" (because, why not?). The dev world holds its breath as Oliver pumps his life into re-implementing JavaScript's inferiorities, now with exclusive features like type misunderstandings and mystifying performance claims. Commenters, quick to worship anything with a GitHub link and a sprinkle of WebAssembly, are tripping over themselves to envision a world where this spaghetti code morphs into the backbone of modern web development. Because, clearly, what the tech sphere needs is yet another experimental JS engine, as the current 5,000 aren't quite enough. 🙃
267 points by bpierre 2024-07-30T18:55:10 | 58 comments
3. ▲ Troubleshooting: Terminal Lag (cmpxchg8b.com)
Hacker News Solves Terminal Lag, Saves Civilization
The mighty minds of Hacker News bravely tackle the world-altering issue of enduring whole seconds—entire seconds!—to open a terminal window. Witness the harrowing tale of Tavis Ormandy, hero amongst men, as he valiantly wrestles with the innate complexities of having two computers that almost work the same way. Commentators earnestly dissect the profound implications of using 'hyperfine' to time terminal launches, contributing groundbreaking insights like "it was a fun read" to the philosophy of software performance. 🐢💻🕓🚀
67 points by janvdberg 2024-07-30T22:04:39 | 2 comments
4. ▲ Launch QN: SSOReady (YC W24) – Making SAML SSO painless and open source
**Title: Launch HN: SSOReady – Turning SAML SSO from Pain to Open Source Pleasure... Supposedly**

In an inspiring leap of faith, SSOReady is here to make SAML SSO "painless," completely unaware of the preceding decades where IT veterans wrestled this multi-headed beast into bleak corporate silos. Readers, mostly survivors of integration wars, swap stories resembling PTSD episodes—each tale embellished with the "magic" (read: surprise) of making something work once in a blue moon. Despite the enthusiastic pitch, a chorus of harrowed techies chant a reality check: "Painless? Ha!" Usability remains a mythical afterthought, especially when your documentation portal greets with a friendly 502 error. Ah, enterprise software, where 'integration hell' is the feature, not the bug. 🎉🔥
201 points by ucarion 2024-07-30T16:19:45 | 71 comments
5. ▲ Metaphysical Experiments Probe Our Hidden Assumptions About Reality (quantamagazine.org)
Title: Metaphysical Experiments Probe Our Hidden Assumptions About Reality
Quanta Magazine decides again that philosophy is not just for the tweed jacket crowd and dives headlong into the *crisp, cool waters* of metaphysics, where "untestable" is just a fancy word for "please fund my thought experiment." Our brave Contributing Writer throws around terms like "nature of space" and "foundations of reality" like they're going out of style, conveniently ignoring that most readers were just hoping to get through the day without a metaphysical crisis. In the comments, armchair philosophers emerge from every dark corner of the internet, hurling half-baked interpretations of quantum mechanics at each other, each more confident than the last that they've cracked the code of the universe with their liberal arts degree. Truly, how did humanity ever manage to contemplate reality before the internet? ⌛🤔
18 points by Gooblebrai 2024-07-30T22:56:07 | 0 comments
6. ▲ Missing Henry VIII portrait found after random X post (bbc.com)
**Henry VIII Portrait Finally Spotted on Social Media: Art Detectives Rejoice Online**

In what is being heralded as a 'digital renaissance' for lost paintings, an art historian has stumbled upon a long-missing Henry VIII portrait because someone happened to hang it on a council wall and post a picture on X. Adam Busiakiewicz, who might just be Sherlock Holmes reincarnated— if Sherlock swapped his detective hat for an art historian's spectacles—triumphs by recognizing a dusty old painting as a masterpiece in less than an hour. While he celebrates his "exciting" find, the cyber-audience weighs in: from admiring BBC's polite content warning, debating if art is just fancy money-laundering storage, to metaphysical musings on tacit knowledge in our data-saturated dystopia. Comments range from insightful to "my nephew can recognize Teslas", proving that everyone on the internet has a slightly relevant anecdote that absolutely must be shared. 🎨🕵️‍♂️💬
162 points by Archelaos 2024-07-30T01:10:28 | 46 comments
7. ▲ The Truth About Linear Regression (2015) (cmu.edu)
In an act of dazzling intellectual revelation, a 2015 article from Carnegie Mellon has stood the test of time by clarifying that, heavens be startled, linear regression exists and is actually useful. Cue the procession of statistical commentators: from those eager to explain the cosmic intertwining of sin(x) functions in boardroom strategies, to the wizard suggesting that "shrinkage" isn't just a Seinfeld episode but an earth-shattering statistical revelation. Each contributor, wrapped in their delusion of clarity, competes in the Sage of Obviousness Olympics, peddling insights so incredibly intuitive that readers can barely contain their yawns. Meanwhile, real business decisions continue in their merrily unmodelable chaos, undisturbed by the statistical puppet show in the comments section. 📊🎭
192 points by sebg 2024-07-30T16:38:40 | 41 comments
8. ▲ Ngtop – Request analytics from the Nginx access logs (github.com/facundoolano)
🎉👾 Introducing **Ngtop**, yet another groundbreaking tool that promises to revolutionize the way three people in the world analyze Nginx logs. This covetous piece of tech wizardry enables the overzealous server admin to count how many lost souls visited their "About Me" blog page in the past hour—or second, because timing is everything! While the developers reassure us they take the cries—err, feedback—from their users "very seriously," inquisitive minds in the comments are already busy planning how to use Ngtop to win their next office popularity contest by logging coworker visits to the intranet lunch menu. Surely, the path to promotion is paved with access logs and unnecessary data crunching! 📊💻
13 points by facundo_olano 2024-07-30T23:31:33 | 0 comments
9. ▲ Swift Homomorphic Encryption (swift.org)
In a brave new world where Swift.org inadvertently confirms the existence of both homomorphic encryption and communal existential dread among developers, commenters engage in a delightful joust with the dark lords of BigTechCo interviews. One hapless hero recounts a tale of spellcasting using forbidden encryption lore, only to be smote down by an interviewer's ignorance. Meanwhile, others share their war stories of technological heresies that defy the laws of physics, as defined by corporate gatekeepers who still think cloud computing involves actual clouds. The comment section, a tragicomic battlefield of misinformation and misunderstood genius, serves as a poignant reminder that no matter how advanced the code, there's no patch available for human stubbornness. 💻🛡️😩
195 points by yAak 2024-07-30T16:40:13 | 83 comments
10. ▲ Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization (shwin.co)
**Hive Mind Revelations on Creativity: It's Just Fancy Memorization**

In the latest unsurprising twist, a blog post (shwin.co) authoritatively declares that creativity is nothing but a glorified memory contest. "Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization," the author proclaims, bravely dismissing centuries of philosophical pondering and artistic struggle with a wave of the maximization wand. Commenters leap into the fray, one soul "bristling" at the word memorization yet unable to escape its semantic clutches, while another has an existential crisis triggered by Natural Language Models. A defiant voice insists creativity is about applying knowledge in new contexts, only to be schooled about the sublime art of pattern-matching, otherwise known as memorization. As intellects duel pretentiously over definitions, the rest of the world wonders: if we rename memorization to "creative recall," does it count as innovation? 🎭🤔
14 points by shw1n 2024-07-30T22:37:24 | 7 comments
11. ▲ Show QN: Stempad – Fast Online Scientific Writing (stempad.io)
**Show HN: Stempad – Fast Online Scientific Writing (stempad.io)**

Welcome to Stempad, the latest niche in the overcrowded world of tools that promise to revolutionize scientific writing by turning equations for butterfly-shaped plots into the main attraction. Users, in awe of this groundbreaking functionality, pour out their excitement in the comments, revealing an adorable ignorance of existing, superior solutions. One user, battling through the academia-induced PTSD, dreams of a utopian future where papers are actually reproducible and not just pretty PDFs destined for a dusty digital drawer. Meanwhile, another spends too much time worrying about OCR technology for reading street signs, perhaps forgetting the real aim of scientific progress.
75 points by ralph_r 2024-07-28T22:54:16 | 25 comments
12. ▲ Was the Internet created to survive a nuclear strike? (2022) (siliconfolklore.com)
In a stunning display of missing the point, siliconfolklore.com embarks on another quest to debunk Internet myths with the subtlety of a sledgehammer at a smartphone screen repair convention. Titled "Was the Internet created to survive a nuclear strike?", the article essentially discovers water is wet by acknowledging the early Internet's vulnerability—surprise, it wouldn't outlast a cockroach in a fallout shelter. Commentators, in a valiant effort to out-pedant each other, dive into a history lesson peppered with enough "actually" and inane technical minutiae to make a Wikipedia editor blush. Stunning revelations unearthed include: packet-switching was invented (gasp), and early ARPANET was as resilient to nuclear fallout as a house of cards in a tornado. Conclusion? Internet not bomb-proof, commentators still revel in missing the forest for the trees. 🍄🎉👏
154 points by edward 2024-07-30T13:20:14 | 111 comments
13. ▲ The Hitchhiker's Guide to Logical Verification [pdf] (2023) (browncs1951x.github.io)
Welcome to another episode of "Intellectuals Pretend to Understand Things They Barely Can Spell," brought to you by the latest PDF to hit the digital shelves of academia: "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Logical Verification." Here, a quaint document whimsically promises to demystify software verification with Lean—not the body mass kind, but something presumably more exciting to people who use 'thrice' non-ironically in conversation. Diving headfirst into the comment section, we find a gallery of the lost, the curious, and the over-enthusiastic, trading URLs like Pokémon cards and reminiscing about the golden age of logic with the exuberance of conspiracy theorists at a UFO convention. They toss around terms like "matching logic," "OBJ," and "Maude" like confetti, perhaps hoping that naming enough systems will accidentally summon a coherent argument. 🧐👽
56 points by nextos 2024-07-30T17:51:08 | 12 comments
14. ▲ Functional programming languages should be better at mutation than they are (cohost.org)
In the latest earth-shattering revelation on cohost.org, an armchair developer explains how functional programming languages, like Haskell, are tragically unable to emulate a burst appendix when trying to simulate mutation, leaving all dedicated programmers in devastating despair. Commenters, quick to flex their computer science degrees from the University of Wikipedia, dive into a heated debate over OCaml's performance—because clearly, the ability to iterate over a distorted linked list defines the apex of modern computing. Meanwhile, everyone conveniently ignores the elephant in the room: maybe, just maybe, the languages are fine, and it's the programmers expecting one tool to fix all problems who are not. As the discourse spirals into the abyss of compiler optimizations, the real mutation occurs in the commenters' expectations—evolving from hopeful curiosity to the bitter acceptance that no, your bespoke OCaml dynarray hack won’t power the next SpaceX launch. 🚀😢
66 points by thunderbong 2024-07-30T19:18:16 | 55 comments
15. ▲ Building static binaries with Go on Linux (thegreenplace.net)
In the groundbreaking exposé from thegreenplace.net, tech wizards have once again unlocked the mythical power of churning out static binaries with Go on Linux—because, clearly, what the tech world lacks is yet another how-to on compiling code. Readers are treated to a suspense-filled adventure of using go build, only to find the climax with the riveting revelation that binaries can indeed be "statically linked." The comment section, a veritable Colosseum of self-proclaimed savants, explodes with fierce debates over the best tools to uncover binary secrets, offering an enlightening peek into the critical issues keeping the tech community up at night. 🧙‍♂️💻🔍
11 points by ingve 2024-07-30T22:07:53 | 0 comments
16. ▲ Zuo: A Tiny Racket for Scripting (github.com/racket)
Title: Zuo: A Tiny Racket for Scripting (github.com/racket)

In a mystical union of layers upon layers of #langs, the world is gifted "Zuo: A Tiny Racket for Scripting," because evidently what the universe lacked was another dialect of Racket small enough to fit into the gaps between the existential despair of every programmer’s soul. The creators speak of primitives and an embedded make-like DSL, as if summoning forth a smaller, more arcane demon from the netherworld of forgotten programming languages. Meanwhile, the earnest technomancers in the comment section either tout its virtues like it’s the second coming of Lisp or scratch their heads while accidentally scripting the coffee machine to start an online business instead. Truly, the apex of "We asked for feedback, got it, and ignored all practical suggestions." 😱👾
14 points by pretext 2024-07-25T12:45:36 | 4 comments
17. ▲ Implementing and Improving Skiplists (mattjhall.co.uk)
In a thrilling display of navigating barely-understood computer science concepts, mattjhall.co.uk boldly presents "Implementing and Improving Skiplists," a titanic struggle through an article almost nobody asked for. Here, the author heroically tries to make skiplists sound like the cooler, lazier cousin of balanced binary trees, because who really understands or implements those correctly outside of a CS classroom? Commenters join in, one blissfully mixing up skiplists with ski pistes, perhaps hinting that discussing data structures is as convoluted as planning a vacation in the Alps. Another admits defeat in the face of traditional tree structures, evidently deciding that skimming on guarantees is a fair price for not having to remember what an "aunt" node is. 🎿🌲
15 points by tosh 2024-07-26T17:06:36 | 2 comments
18. ▲ Translating All C to Rust (TRACTOR) (darpa.mil)
In a thrilling display of bureaucratic optimism, DARPA ambitiously initiates a project aptly named TRACTOR (Translating All C to Rust). The prospect of translating the ancient runes of C into the shiny, safety-first dialect of Rust triggers a virtual standing ovation across tech forums, as armchair programmers and hopeful contractors salivate over the technicalities they barely grasp. Amidst cries of *"but lifetimes!"* and *"static analysis woes!"*, the online crowd blissfully ignores the mountain of complexities in favor of buzzword bingo and dreams of government checks. Just another day at the fantasy factory, fueling Silicon Valley echo chambers with more hot air on taxpayer dollars. 🚜💸
229 points by steveklabnik 2024-07-30T15:42:06 | 197 comments
19. ▲ Butterflies accumulate static electricity to attract pollen without contact (bristol.ac.uk)
In a stunning display of eleventh-hour research, scientists from Bristol have deduced that flying butterflies aren't just Instagram fodder but static electricity champs, enchanting pollen across gaping air rifts like tiny, winged wizards. Dr. Sam England and colleagues bravely proclaim this "first evidence" of evolution playing favorites with static cling, daring to imagine a world where flapping equals charging. Meanwhile, the peanut gallery dives into a profound debate on urban tree sexism, tossing about remedies from electrostatic air cleaners to an increased feline workforce, deftly solving issues no one realized were pressing. Between lamentations over ecological mismanagement and sarcastic jabs at hypothetical technologies, it's clear that humans are indeed equipped to create infinitely complex solutions for problems as persistent as their misunderstanding of natural selection. 🌸⚡🦋
174 points by thunderbong 2024-07-30T09:32:56 | 46 comments
20. ▲ Taking command of the Context Menu in macOS (gingerbeardman.com)
In yesterday's breaking news from the dusty corners of programmer nobility, a daring soul on Twitter unveiled a command line magic trick to shrink videos directly from the all-powerful right-click menu, sending shockwaves through the formidable macOS-using tech populace—who gloriously finished binge-watching their screen recordings just to bask in this newfound power. Meanwhile, in the awe-inspiring blog realm, a mastermind demonstrated such wizardries with *ContextMenu* and *Automator*, because why click three times when you can automate a digital Rube Goldberg machine to do it in twenty? 🧙💻 The comment section, an ever-giving fountain of "nice tip, thanks" and unsolicited workflow novellas, boasts civilians transforming into power users by merely tagging their folders—ironically syncing their life one iCloud error message at a time. Who knew right-clicking in macOS could feel like hacking the matrix, provided you have the patience to both develop and debug a symphony of Automator scripts intended to save those precious two seconds? 🕹️👾
79 points by msephton 2024-07-30T16:20:45 | 49 comments
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