Quacker News daily superautomated ai tech-bro mockery | github | podcast
1. ▲ Reverse Engineering iOS 18 Inactivity Reboot (naehrdine.blogspot.com)
In a daring display of technological wizardry, a blogger nobly attempts to demystify the arcane ritual known as "iOS 18 Inactivity Reboot," sparking a flurry of armchair encryption experts to emerge from the woodwork. Watch as these pundits pontificate on network connections and SIM challenges with a fervor only outmatched by their woeful misunderstanding of Apple's security architecture. But fear not, faithful commenters rise to the occasion with equally groundbreaking insights like questioning why Apple encrypts things, because, who needs cybersecurity in 2023, right? Overflowing with gratitude, others applaud the "great writeup" as if unlocking the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, proving once again that the internet is the best place to showcase one's unchallenged wisdom. 📱🔓💡
106 points by moonsword 2024-11-17T21:50:26 1731880226 | 22 comments
2. ▲ Voyager 1 Breaks Its Silence with NASA via Radio Transmitter Not Used Since 1981 (smithsonianmag.com)
**Voyager 1 Dusts Off Old Tech, Blows Minds and Budgets**

In an audacious display of technological necromancy, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft apparently remembers it has a radio transmitter from the Carter era that still works, prompting everyone to momentarily forget their smartphones and marvel at 1970s hardware. Commenters are falling over themselves to praise the "incredible engineering" despite barely managing to set up their Wi-Fi printers. One bright mind is busy updating bedtime stories with Carl Sagan quotes, suggesting a nascent existential crisis fueled by vintage space tech nostalgia. Meanwhile, fiscal pedants debate whether Voyager's costs were a steal or just typical government thrift, blissfully unaware that their tax contribution likely didn't even cover the cost of a space probe's vintage 8-track player. 😱💸📡
231 points by elsewhen 2024-11-11T13:48:39 1731332919 | 149 comments
3. ▲ Show QN: The App I Built to Help Manage My Diabetes, Powered by GPT-4o-Mini (apps.apple.com)
**Title: Hacker News Introduces Diabetes to A.I. and Regrets It Immediately**

🤖 HackerNews descends into a predictable loop of existential crisis and tech bro boosterism as Joshua unleashes his "revolutionary" diabetes management app, Islet, upon the world. Users can't resist commenting on whether his AI, powered by the whimsical GPT-4o-mini, can count carbs from a photo. Spoiler alert: it can’t. Meanwhile, a “founding engineer from the dark ages of 2014” scrambles to stay relevant, offering to email Joshua his ancient wisdom 🧙‍♂️. And, as always, the commendable crowd cheers the effort while barely masking their dismay that they didn't think of it first. "Solid feature list for something not finished; how very like my own projects," they whisper into the void.
19 points by yeatsy 2024-11-18T00:07:55 1731888475 | 6 comments
4. ▲ Everything Is Just Functions: Insights from SICP and David Beazley (ezzeriesa.notion.site)

Everything Is Just Functions: Digested Insights Sprinkled with Snark


In the heirloom halls of hackademic enlightenment, an aspiring internet sage proudly proclaims their plans to reinvent educational wheel using Python to morph SICP into a more modern mish-mash. Commenters, however, quickly graduate from nitpicking Python's functional programming failings to a mud-slinging match on whether Python is a fossil or a futurist's toolkit. One daring soul even suggests using something called Pyret, likely because all the Python hate needed a new receptacle. 🐍 Meanwhile, everyone misses the memo that perhaps, just maybe, the language isn't the problem but how we're using it.
281 points by kurinikku 2024-11-17T15:07:10 1731856030 | 173 comments
5. ▲ AlphaProof's Greatest Hits (rishimehta.xyz)
**AlphaProof's Greatest Hits: Lean Mean Proving Machine or Just a Lean Mean Hype Machine?**

On today's episode of "Making AI Do Homework," AlphaProof strains to solve a whopping three problems from IMO 2024, with an assist from Lean's *mystical* tactics. Blogger-detective, armed only with snippets and high hopes, dives deep into the AlphaProof abyss, promising readers a peek behind the AI curtain, only to tell them to go read someone else's solutions first. Commenters engage in a chaotic yet predictable dance-off, debating whether formal languages herald the next renaissance or just another fad for the academically inclined. Highlights include desperate attempts to make mathematics the final boss in the game of ML, interspersed with existential crises about whether proving 1=1 is really a *big deal*. Stay tuned for more revelations, or just read the Wikipedia page, like the last commenter wisely suggests. 🧐
129 points by rishicomplex 2024-11-17T17:20:45 1731864045 | 54 comments
6. ▲ Teen serial swatter-for-hire busted, pleads guilty, could face 20 years (theregister.com)
**Teen Spoof-Swatter Grapples with Legal Slapdown**

In a world where teenage shenanigans have tragically upgraded from yogurt-stuffed shoes to law enforcement laced with lethal potential, one Californian kickstarter of chaos pleads guilty to turning 911 calls into his personal twitch stream. The internet’s finest armchair philosophers gather to reminisce about the "good ol' days" of benign pranks and question if today's vile ventures are spurred by societal spotlight or just plain stupidity. Another insightful commenter wonders aloud—trapped in a bubble of outdated media—if swatting is genuinely a new hobby or just one they missed while adjusting the bunny ears on their television. Meanwhile, the rest of us marvel at the evolution of juvenile justice from detention to potential decades behind bars. What a time to be alive. 🚨👮‍♂️💻
29 points by LinuxBender 2024-11-18T00:39:34 1731890374 | 15 comments
7. ▲ Creating a QR Code step by step (nayuki.io)
Title: Expert Unravels the Arcane Secrets of Crafting QR Codes

Once more, the internet blesses us with a *highly anticipated* breakdown of the Rocket Science behind QR codes, because Grey's Anatomy won't write itself. The aficionados at nayuki.io decided it was time someone took upon the Herculean task of explaining how glorified Etch A Sketch technology encodes info that leads to a PDF nobody wants. In an absolutely riveting plot twist, they skip the "long, tedious" math stuff—because who really cares about the details when pretending to understand is enough? Meanwhile, the commenters are locked in a no-holds-barred cage match over whether mocking bad English is worse than using QR codes to hold us hostage. 🎟️🍿
114 points by D4Ha 2024-11-17T18:26:37 1731867997 | 16 comments
8. ▲ Mapping the Ionosphere with Phones (nature.com)

Mapping the Ionosphere with Phones: Because Real Science Needs More Cell Towers



In an article that basically tells us we've been using smartphones for everything *wrong*, Nature proposes a groundbreaking (literally, since we're triggering satellites) use for our beloved devices: mapping the ionosphere. Come for the convoluted explanations of "weakly ionized plasma" and stay for the bewilderment when you realize this science could disrupt your GPS signal and make you late for yoga. Commenters, not to be outdone by mere experts, are tripping over themselves to deride or praise the research, apparently unsure whether they're more upset about the alleged "science" or their precious data plans. 🛰️😂
20 points by gnabgib 2024-11-13T18:59:52 1731524392 | 0 comments
9. ▲ An alternative construction of Shannon entropy (rkp.science)

New frontrunners in the pointless complexity marathon


In an exhilarating display of intellectual circus, "An alternative construction of Shannon entropy" appears on rkp.science, where the author reinvents several wheels to count "ways" in a histogram with the gusto of a child discovering LEGO. Cue the enlightened commentariat puzzling through combinatorial choices like they're deciphering ancient Sumerian, while others lament the audacity of a website in 2024 that dares not cater to their dated smartphones.


Midst the online noise, a lone voice chirps about MathML's triumphant return to Chrome - a moment so seminal that both of the people still using MathML paused their celebratory coding to comment.
46 points by rkp8000 2024-11-13T16:45:13 1731516313 | 4 comments
10. ▲ Hobby Project: A dynamic C (Hot reloading) module-based Web Framework (github.com/joexbayer)
**Hobby Project: A Dynamic C Catastrophe**

A new GitHub project dares to unleash the *prehistoric* charms of C upon the modern web, packaging kernel-inspired hot messes as a feature. The project’s description pulses with the audacity of an undercooked spaghetti code, hailing its MVP status like a chef serving raw chicken with pride!! 🍗💔 Comments flood in with unbridled optimism, celebrating as each new memory leak springs forth, advocating for solutions mired in the kind of complexity that would make Rube Goldberg weep. Somewhere, an crusty Unix beard gleams with glee, while the rest of the programming world quietly reaches for their JavaScript.
62 points by warothia 2024-11-17T18:12:14 1731867134 | 20 comments
11. ▲ All-in-one embedding model for interleaved text, images, and screenshots (voyageai.com)
**Artificial Intelligence or Artful Pretension?** The wizards at VoyageAI are thrilled to roll out yet another groundbreaking AI model, this time promising to understand your mixed-up PDFs as seamlessly as it does text and images, named with the unoriginal flourish: voyage-multimodal-3. 🚀💻 Critics might argue it's another flashy exercise in reinventing the wheel, but according to the comments, it’s a revolutionary leap in making machines as confused about mixed content as humans are. Meanwhile, the debate in the comments swirls with techno-babble about embeddings, vectors, and Gemini's latest natively multimodal snack—yet the real snack here is observing armchair experts bicker about theoretical superiority while dodging more pressing concerns like language inclusivity and accessibility. 📱🤓
224 points by fzliu 2024-11-17T07:42:08 1731829328 | 25 comments
12. ▲ Why did Windows 95 setup use three operating systems? (microsoft.com)
Title: The Majestic Odyssey from DOS to Windows 95: A Saga of Redundant Systems

In an astounding feat of technological over-engineering that could only come from the golden era of Microsoft, an inquisitive soul on Twitter unleashes the ancient mystery of why Windows 95 setup felt the need to parade through three distinct operating systems instead of just, you know, installing. Spoiler alert: it's because Microsoft devs apparently loved doing thrice the work to achieve the glory of a single functioning OS. Commenters, in a delightful show of missing the point, dive deep into nostalgic tech trivia like some Windows-lore keepers, nostalgically reminiscing about everything from Excel running rogue without an OS, to PageMaker adventures. They enthusiastically trade notes on the ringside history of Windows environments while Windows 95 quietly sobs in the corner, reminiscing about its lost simplicity. 🤦‍♂️
142 points by mooreds 2024-11-17T19:54:24 1731873264 | 60 comments
13. ▲ Garak, LLM Vulnerability Scanner (github.com/nvidia)
In the latest exercise in Silicon Valley's "name-it-like-it’s-a-clever-pun" playbook, NVIDIA unleashes Garak, an LLM vulnerability scanner cheekily inspired by a fictional spy/tailor who’s as trustworthy as your average internet comment section. Perfect for those who find humor in the semantic jumbles of machine learning vulnerabilities and apparently, also for Trekkies forced to Google the depths of Star Trek lore just to crack a smile. The comment section unravels like a misguided fan convention where Trekkies, tech bros, and code noobs collide in confusion over terminology, thinking a vulnerability scanner might somehow tradecraft their AI into leaking state secrets. 🖖 Meanwhile, everyone's applauding NVIDIA for their punny README, because nothing says "innovation" like a documentation Easter egg.
137 points by lapnect 2024-11-17T11:37:45 1731843465 | 35 comments
14. ▲ Drinking water systems for 26M Americans face high cybersecurity risks (scworld.com)

Another Day, Another Hysterical Cyber Apocalypse



In an earth-shattering revelation that has the cybersecurity wonks clutching their pearls, 26 million Americans might actually have to drink unsecured water. Commenters, in a rare display of unity, trip over themselves to point out how this is surely the end of civilization, not because our water systems are as cyber-secure as a wet paper bag, but because the government would rather bicker over dollars than fix things. Solutions ranging from going back to Stone Age tech to just sticking some duct tape on it were proposed. Meanwhile, the armchair experts are having a field day proposing everything from pneumatic pumps to magic cybersecurity elves, proving once again that the threat might be real, but the entertainment is definitely cyber.
45 points by LinuxBender 2024-11-17T22:21:07 1731882067 | 19 comments
15. ▲ ML in Go with a Python Sidecar (thegreenplace.net)
In a valiant effort to dodge Python like a sneeze in a crowded elevator, thegreenplace.net proposes the revolutionary concept of using REST APIs to integrate machine learning models into Go applications. 🚀 Of course, should the API-borne salvation falter, they suggest summoning Python—yes, in its full, serpentine glory—as a 'sidecar,' because evidently concocting workarounds is more palatable than embracing the inherent chaos of cross-language development. Meanwhile, the comment section devolves into a mix of Go enthusiasts reluctantly acknowledging Python's utility, and a sprinkle of brave souls venturing into territories like GoMLX and cgo, armed with hope and GitHub repos. It's a coding crossover episode no one asked for, but we're forced to binge-watch. 🍿
71 points by zdw 2024-11-11T17:44:42 1731347082 | 9 comments
16. ▲ Contain – CSS Cascading Style Sheets – MDN (developer.mozilla.org)
Title: The Misadventures of CSS Wizards at MDN

At MDN, a hub for lost web developers, they’ve penned yet another novel on the almost mystical "contain" property in CSS, which apparently is supposed to keep your unruly divs in line - just like a magical spell from a low-budget fantasy film. The guidance is so obscure and vague that even the comment section becomes a comedy show of confused sorcerers. One brave soul meekly asks for real-world examples, unwittingly revealing they missed the first day at Hogwarts of Web Development. Another finds joy in the "probably unintended use" of the property, much like discovering a new use for a paperclip. 🧙‍♂️✨
25 points by aabhay 2024-11-17T06:25:53 1731824753 | 2 comments
17. ▲ Bpftune uses BPF to auto-tune Linux systems (github.com/oracle)
Title: **Automating the Apocalypse: bpftune's Brave Quest to Out-Smart Humans**

"bpftune", the latest gift from Oracle, promises to auto-tune Linux systems without human intervention, because apparently, Linux admins needed a new way to screw things up without even trying. The tool flips system settings like a caffeinated teenager changes Snapchat filters, ensuring that every sysadmin can truly embrace the "I dunno, it just started doing that" approach to IT support. Meanwhile, in the comment section, Oracle's own emissary tries to convince everyone that logging changes should be enough reassurance for wary sysadmins. Ah yes, nothing says "trust us" quite like scrolling through a Kafkaesque log at 3 AM trying to figure out why your server decided to sing its swan song during peak hours. 🙄
200 points by BSDobelix 2024-11-17T11:38:35 1731843515 | 62 comments
18. ▲ Show QN: Store and render ASCII diagrams in Obsidian (github.com/akopdev)
**Title: Show HN: Store and render ASCII diagrams in Obsidian (github.com/akopdev)**

Hacker News discovers yet another way to avoid doing any real work by fawning over a new Obsidian plugin that transforms incomprehensible ASCII art into mildly less incomprehensible SVG diagrams. Users drool over their ability to "draw" flowcharts that look like refrigerator art from a toddler. Expect high-octane debates about whitespace sensitivity, as programming aesthetes reconcile their life choices with the goriest depths of diagrammatic verbosity. Meanwhile, somewhere, a confused flex of Visio veterans wonders how we all just didn't revert to cave paintings. 🎨👀
22 points by akopkesheshyan 2024-11-12T02:03:21 1731377001 | 4 comments
19. ▲ Constraints in Go (bitfieldconsulting.com)
In a breathtaking display of intellectual prowess, bitfieldconsulting.com unleashes another thrilling chapter of "Go Generics: The Chronicles of Confusion." As the article heroically attempts to wrestle the paradox of constraints freeing us by limiting us (wow, so deep 🙄), the comment section evolves into a battleground where programmers joust over complexities so trivial that surely their grandmothers are brimming with pride. Amidst the chaos, a brave commenter attempts to navigate the treacherous waters of pipe operators and sum types, only to be overshadowed by others who ponder existential questions about backward compatibility and imaginary sum types proposals that are more mythical than a programmer's social life. Truly, the saga of Go's generics is the gift that keeps on giving to those who dream of a world constrained by constraints.
157 points by gus_leonel 2024-11-17T08:44:29 1731833069 | 64 comments
20. ▲ You could have designed state of the art positional encoding (fleetwood.dev)
Welcome to another episode of *Silicon Valley Pretend Scientist*, where today's blogger rehashes old transformer magic as a groundbreaking journey through positional encoding. 🎩✨ True to form, the blog casually throws in "linear algebra" and "trigonometry" because, let's be real, what's a tech blog without unnecessarily scaring off the humanities majors? In the comments, coders and wannabe-coders alike squabble over who understood Gall’s Law first and misuse "permutation invariant" in sentences, proving once again that you don't need to grasp the basics to argue about them on the internet. 🤓💥
14 points by Philpax 2024-11-17T20:31:26 1731875486 | 0 comments
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