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1. ▲ SnowflakeOS: Beginner friendly and GUI focused NixOS variant (snowflakeos.org)
In the latest episode of "Why Does This Exist?", the technosphere has been graced with SnowflakeOS, a NixOS variant that promises beginner-friendliness with the same ferocity of a toddler promising to keep a secret. The project, still swaddled in its alpha "not daily use" blanket, flaunts a spartan GitHub presence that would leave any half-hearted coder trembling in terror. Commenters, in true form, oscillate between bewilderment and misplaced hope, with one genius pointing out that even mentioning 'beginner friendly' in the same sentence as NixOS should be a punishable offense. Meanwhile, another lost soul confusingly inquires if this has anything to do with Snowflake the company, because clearly, names are hard. 🙄
41 points by tkz1312 2024-07-31T23:06:11 | 12 comments
2. ▲ Cardie – An open source business card designer and sharing platform (github.com/nfoert)
In the wildly innovative world of redundant technology, an open source hero emerges with "Cardie" - a platform designed to digitalize the archaic paper business card because apparently, it's still 1995 somewhere. Users can now design limitless attention-seeking rectangles full of personal trivia, track obsessive QR stalkers, and manage their virtual Rolodex of would-be contacts. Commenters, likely still faxing their resumes, debate whether people, in fact, still use business cards, while others showcase their Patrick Bateman-level enthusiasm for card aesthetics. Amid habitual tech teething problems, like a charming HTTP error 500 for those eager to peruse a privacy policy, the developers promise more thrilling features like maybe letting you actually see what you've created without already surrendering your digital soul at sign-up. 🙄
45 points by nfoert 2024-07-31T19:50:37 | 11 comments
3. ▲ Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election (columbia.edu)
In the latest episode of "Democracy: Venezuelan Edition," dubious data patterns emerge from the election, prompting the fearless Carter Foundation to don their superhero capes and demand vote tallies. But alas! The plot thickens as Maduro claims a catastrophic *cyber battle* has immobilized the National Electoral Council, thwarting any potential evidence display. Meanwhile, armchair pundits on the internet debate the integrity of the Carter Foundation, mired in accusations of being U.S hangouts and conspiracy collaborations. With everyone questioning everyone else’s *integrity*, one thing is clear: high school drama clubs called, they want their script back.
531 points by kgwgk 2024-07-31T20:34:31 | 272 comments
4. ▲ Launch QN: Martin (YC S23) – Using LLMs to Make a Better Siri
**Launch HN: Martin (YC S23) - Better Siri or Privacy Nightmare?**

In this week’s episode of "Silicon Valley Solves It (Sort of)," we introduce Martin, a startup boldly slicing through the Gordian knot of Personal Assistants with the magic sword of Large Language Models (LLMs). Commentators, quivering with the anticipation of yet another app siphoning their personal correspondences, don flowing togas of skepticism. One nervous soul, likely clad in a tin foil hat, praises the impregnable fortress of Apple’s privacy vows, while casting dubious glances at Martin's cloud-based promises. Meanwhile, Martin's team tosses around certifications and compliances like confetti, hoping to dazzle and distract enough to slide their permissions across the digital table. In the peanut gallery, cynics swap tales of Apple's "transparency theater" and Microsoft's lack of any, showing that in the world of tech, you either blindly trust, or you embark on a quixotic quest for verifiable security. 🕵️‍♂️💻🛡️
108 points by darweenist 2024-07-31T14:24:27 | 86 comments
5. ▲ How great was the Great Oxidation Event? (eos.org)
How Great was the Great Oxidation Event? Today in granular obscurity, Eos treats its readers to a 'riveting' exposition linking the fate of Earth's early critters to the sour waters of Rio Tinto. As scientists squabble over oxygen levels circa 2.4 billion years ago, the piece's leap from acidic streams in Spain to existential proofs for primordial slime is as assured as a cat on a unicycle. Cue the internet's armchair geologists, fumbling through their coffee-stained photobook bookmarks, desperately matching today's sand to ancient algae, while others marvel at CO2 percentages with the gee-whiz befuddlement of discovering fire. 📚🤯🔥
171 points by Brajeshwar 2024-07-31T13:40:49 | 70 comments
6. ▲ Etleap (YC W13) Is Hiring a Customer Success Manager (SF) (etleap.com)
Title: Etleap (YC W13) Is Hiring a Customer Success Manager (SF) (etleap.com)

At Etleap, a startup so transformative it can't even finish a senten--, we're in dire need of a Customer Success Manager to carefully explain our "leading" data spaghetti untangler to customers who mistakenly thought they could do it on their own. Dive into a world where "disruptive" means making sure chaotic data dances in step, and "top-tier investors" means we convinced more than just our friends and family to believe in us. If you thrive on the smell of startup desperation and possess an uncanny ability to plaster over product cracks with a reassuring smile, apply now! Our comment section is a delightful dumpster fire, eagerly debating which buzzword most effectively masks our existential terror.🔥🤹
0 points by 2024-08-01T01:02:01 | 0 comments
7. ▲ macOS in QEMU in Docker (github.com/sickcodes)
**macOS Docker Gymnastics: Dockerize All the Apple Things! 🍏💻**
Congratulations on containerizing an entire OS, because why run macOS on a Mac when you can throttle it within Docker wrapped in QEMU, and then strangle it with X11 forwarding? The latest breakthrough allows you to "nearly" achieve native performance, which in hacker lingo means “enjoy your slideshow.” The Discord—yes, there's a Discord—buzzes with hobbyists and three professional masochists trying to get iMessage working on their fridge. Meanwhile, the comments read like a scroll of despair as brave souls with mismatched hardware learn that Apple Silicon and AMD aren't playing nice in this playground. Docker-OSX: turning powerful hardware into expensive paperweights one container at a time!
546 points by lijunhao 2024-07-31T04:51:12 | 143 comments
8. ▲ After 10 years, Yelp gave my app 4 days (observationalhazard.com)
### Yelp Shuts Down Decade-Old Developer Dreamscape

After painstakingly nurturing a macOS app called "Restaurants" for a decade, our brave indie dev has *finally* met the cruel hand of Yelp's apathy, receiving a swift 4-day eviction notice from API paradise. The developer chronicles the tragic tale of how a fun coding exercise in Swift turned into a decade-long commitment, only for Yelp to pull the rug out from under the app right when no one was looking. Meanwhile, in the comments, armchair legal experts and API war veterans exchange tales of similar tech giant ghostings and API-related skirmishes, dramatizing the everyday plight of the developer against the emotionless tech behemoths. It's tech melodrama at its peak, garnished with a sprinkle of entitlement and a dash of naiveté! 🎭💔👩‍💻
394 points by WoodenChair 2024-07-29T23:09:58 | 205 comments
9. ▲ Amazon's exabyte-scale migration from Apache Spark to Ray on EC2 (amazon.com)
**Hive Mind Migrates: Amazon Ditches Spark for Ray Because Reasons**

Amazon’s daring knights of data, a.k.a the Business Data Technologies team, heroically decide that Apache Spark is **so last season**. Instead, they migrate to Ray—because obviously, saving a couple bucks and milliseconds on exabyte-scale computations matters more than minor details like stability or compatibility. In the quaint corner of commenters, a cozy conflux of humble brags and polite perplexity unfolds. Ray creators and newbies mingle in esoteric tech banter, while the rest of us mere mortals wonder if this will just make our Amazon deliveries a nano-second quicker. 🚀💸🤔
138 points by nojito 2024-07-29T22:14:51 | 53 comments
10. ▲ Tell QN: I am going to host "Real Analysis" book club meetings
Tell HN: Math Nerds Unite!

Another brave soul seeks intellectual validation from Hacker News' finest armchair mathematicians by announcing a "Real Analysis" book club. Naturally, the comments quickly devolve into a pedantic display of one-upmanship. 📚 Here's a clickable link—since technological prowess doesn't extend to making links work in the post—accompanied by queries about Newton and cheeky banter about book titles that are definitely the summit of mathematical wit. Meanwhile, someone desperately fishes for the long-lost honor of having suffered through the hardest math course, resulting in resounding echoes of "Get real" throughout the HN echo chamber.
59 points by susam 2024-07-27T18:19:30 | 25 comments
11. ▲ Skribilo: The Document Programming Framework (nongnu.org)
In a bold move to alienate everyone who thought they escaped math class forever, Skribilo: The Document Programming Framework merges the obscurity of Scheme with the readability of a tax code document, ensuring that both document creation and casual browsing require a PhD in parentheses management. Commenters are torn between applauding the intellectual gatekeeping and mourning their once-flourishing will to write. Some masochists express excitement over prefix notation, while others long for the simplicity of literally anything else—notably Markdown. One hero quests deep into the documentation jungle, only to confirm suspicions that the landing page is more repellent than a garlic necklace at a vampire party. 🧄💔📄
23 points by Tomte 2024-07-31T19:23:51 | 5 comments
12. ▲ `find` + `mkdir` is Turing complete (ogiekako.vercel.app)
In a dazzling display of retractions and half-baked tech tidbits, someone tried to convince the world that using `find` + `mkdir` is the computing equivalent of discovering fire. Unfortunately, reality checked in, the proof fell apart, and the claim was quickly tucked away in the "whoops" file. In true Hacker News fashion, the comment section transformed into a makeshift lecture hall, with tech aficionados bickering about whether you can magic your way out of disk space constraints by gaming the NTFS system. Meanwhile, another commenter floats the idea of esoteric programming languages as high art, leaving everyone else wondering if they, too, could use file systems to store their extensive collection of air guitar solos at absolutely no cost. 🤓👨‍💻💾
317 points by thunderbong 2024-07-31T02:22:41 | 82 comments
13. ▲ Crafting Interpreters with Rust: On Garbage Collection (tunglevo.com)
**Garbage Collection: A Misadventure in Rust**

Ah, another valiant soul has descended into the depths of language implementation using Rust, armed with nothing but Bob Nystrom's "Crafting Interpreters" and unbridled optimism. Cue a failed first attempt plagued by memory leaks—shocking for a newbie in Rust, a language famed for its ironclad memory safety—as our hero relives their past traumas by taking another stab at a homemade garbage collector. 🗑️ The commenters gallantly ride in, swinging the mighty swords of pedantry to demand lavish citations and lament the reuse of figures. Meanwhile, a couple crusaders debate the existential hilarity of implementing obscure languages like Lox, likely used by more compilers than humans. **#EveryInterpreterEver**
173 points by amalinovic 2024-07-30T12:57:18 | 66 comments
14. ▲ Creativity fundamentally comes from memorization? (shwin.co)
🤯 In a shocking turn of events, a blogger at shwin.co unveils that creativity is actually just a cute name we give to not forgetting stuff. Surprising millions, the revelation that an artist is simply a person who didn’t drop all their brain marbles is setting the internet on fire. Meanwhile, the comment section becomes a battleground where armchair philosophers and washed-up high school valedictorians squabble over whether memorizing the periodic table makes you the next Picasso or just really good at trivia night. Spoiler: it’s definitely the trivia night.
314 points by shw1n 2024-07-30T22:37:24 | 256 comments
15. ▲ Construction of the AT&T Long Lines "Cheshire" underground site (coldwar-ct.com)
Welcome to the bunker of yesteryear’s tech dreams, where analog warriors assembled an underground fortress capable of shrugging off a nuclear tantrum just to keep phones ringing. In 1966, AT&T built a subterranean realm in Cheshire, cleverly disguised as El Dorado for COMM nerds, packed with enough coax and clunky AUTOVON tech to make any Cold War reenactor swoon. Commenters, undeterred by the obvious moat of obsolescence surrounding this relic, gleefully swap tales of circuit-switching bravado as if discussing the lost secrets of Atlantis. Revel in the archived net glory, as modern eyes scrutinize bulky relics through Facebook videos, earnestly debating whether it’s a Cold War fossil or a vintage mainframe on display. 📞🎖️🏰
168 points by walrus01 2024-07-31T03:47:42 | 81 comments
16. ▲ Porffor: A from-scratch experimental ahead-of-time JS engine (porffor.dev)
🤓 The breathtaking revolution in Javascript engines strikes again with Porffor, an *experimental concoction* that compiles JS to WebAssembly "faster and smaller" because who wouldn't prefer their digital bloating in petite sizes? Thrilled by the awe-inspiring feature of ahead-of-time compilation, delighted commenters jump in, mixing up tech terms and fawning over Oliver’s dedication to not being seriously usable. 🙌 Meanwhile, backers throw money at anything with 'JS' and 'Wasm', dreaming of a future where their investments compile into something comprehensible. Is Porffor the Messiah of code, or just another cute tech fling? The comment section, as always, provides more confusion than clarity. 💸💻
421 points by bpierre 2024-07-30T18:55:10 | 119 comments
17. ▲ Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records? (yahoo.com)
Welcome to the "slowpoolgate" where the Yahoos from the sports desk discover what every kiddie pool aficionado knew all along: water depth matters. 🏊‍♂️ Today's Olympic dilemma: is Paris' suspiciously shallow pool a grand European conspiracy to thwart world records, or just a really sneaky method to save on water bills? Commenters, armed with their extensive backyard pool experience and brief collegiate glory days, dive deep into hydraulics 101, fervently arguing whether it's unfair lanes or just sore losers. Meanwhile, a brave soul contemplates whether turning off the pool's filtration system during races might be humanity's greatest innovation since inflatable arm bands. 🤔💧
100 points by phkx 2024-07-30T10:49:29 | 201 comments
18. ▲ Show QN: Turn any website into a knowledge base for LLMs (embedding.io)

Show HN Gets Scrap-tastic!


Welcome to another breathtaking installment on Hacker News, where today's ingenious product turns any unsuspecting website into an all-you-can-eat buffet for your favorite little LLMs, aptly named embedding.io. It’s not just a tool, it’s a parasitic overlay that scrapes content because who cares about respect for original resources when efficiency is on the line, right? Sparking existential dread for webmasters everywhere, one small server request at a time.


Meanwhile, the commenters toggle between technical existential crises and mild enlightenment. One marvels at the elegance of abstracting embeddings... while another deep-dives into sci-fi philosophy just to correct a reference—because, priorities! 🙄 Yet, they all unite in their glossy-eyed admiration for the digital behemoth, ever oblivious to the impending doom of access gates and bot-blocking dystopias. Better chunk those pages fast, folks!
146 points by tompec 2024-07-30T00:54:05 | 50 comments
19. ▲ AMD sold $1B of Instinct GPUs in 2Q, driving 3-digit datacenter growth (theregister.com)
In an awe-inspiring display of financial acrobatics, AMD unloads a cool $1 billion worth of Instinct GPUs in just three months, because evidently, the tech-industry's middle managers couldn't find anything else less productive on which to blow their budgets. The comments section, a veritable hive of "experts," devolves into a circus of armchair CEOs debating stock prices with the fervor of toddlers fighting over a shiny toy. Truly, capitalism's finest hour. 📈🤑
3 points by nabla9 2024-08-01T00:48:18 | 0 comments
20. ▲ Where does the name "algebraic data type" come from? (poisson.chat)
**Where does the name "algebraic data type" come from? No One Knows, But Programmers Will Speculate Wildly Anyway.**

In a desperate attempt to appear well-informed, a heroic blogger delves into the annals of programming history to uncover the mystic origins of "algebraic data types," a term that gives average programmers the illusion they have communed with the ghost of Euclid. Spoilers: It’s all theoretical algebra—no, not the cool kind with numbers and actual sums, but the kind that you nod along to at conferences. Meanwhile, in the comment section, every Tom, Dick, and Harriet with a GitHub account transforms into a mathematician overnight, firing off examples of Boolean algebra to prove they, too, can multiply by two. As the pedantry reaches its peak with terms like ‘isomorphism’ flying faster than deleted Stack Overflow comments, remember—it’s all about making simple things sound complicated to justify that Computer Science degree. 🎓👻
126 points by 082349872349872 2024-07-26T05:32:05 | 59 comments
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