14849
Top stories from https://news.ycombinator.com (with 100+ score) Contribute to the development here: https://github.com/phil-r/hackernewsbot Also check https://t.me/designer_news Contacts: @philr
Brian Kernighan Reflects on Unix: A History and a Memoir [video] (Score: 151+ in 21 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hMjX
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hMjX
Optimizing a WebGPU Matmul Kernel for 1 TFLOP (Score: 150+ in 18 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hMza
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hMza
The Silurian Hypothesis (Score: 150+ in 21 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hLTn
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hLTn
This morning for no obvious reason, I remembered the Fuel Rats (Score: 150+ in 8 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hNA7
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hNA7
YubiKey still selling old stock with vulnerable firmware (Score: 154+ in 7 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/c/6hNep
FYI, YubiKey is apparently still selling old stock with firmware vulnerable to the EUCLEAK attack instead of disposing of them, as a reader of Fefe's Blog reported:
https://blog.fefe.de/?ts=99ccc8dc
Bjorn: A powerful network scanning and offensive security tool for Raspberry Pi (Score: 150+ in 1 day)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hKhS
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hKhS
How I ship projects at big tech companies (🔥 Score: 161+ in 3 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hNgH
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hNgH
All the data can be yours: reverse engineering APIs (❄️ Score: 154+ in 5 days)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hvjZ
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hvjZ
The death and life of prediction markets at Google (Score: 154+ in 4 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hMr2
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hMr2
Welcome to the Antarctic Fire Department (Score: 150+ in 16 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hL5J
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hL5J
Show HN: Krita RGBA Tech – Bringing Realistic Metal to Life in Open-Source Art (Score: 153+ in 10 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hL7a
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hL7a
Krita's v4.2+ RGBA brushtips let you paint with dimensionality, and it's a technology that Photoshop doesn't have (≖‿ゝ≖)
It lets the creator do things like emulating light direction, making brushstrokes look 3D.
I used them to make a set of metallic brushes. If there are any FOSS artists around, feel free to test them out.
(p.s. Yes, I am learning Github so I probably made repository mistakes - apologies in advance lol)
I Sent an Ethernet Packet (Score: 156+ in 5 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hLqq
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hLqq
Apple threatened workers over their talk about pay and remote work, feds charge (🔥 Score: 151+ in 3 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hLgL
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hLgL
Is 3D printing being held back by an invalid patent? (Score: 150+ in 10 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/c/6hKtD
Parts made using the FFM (FDM) process are stronger in some directions than in others. This is due to imperfect adhesion between printed layers. This directional or anisotropic structural strength is a significant limiting factor for the structural integrity of 3d printed parts made with the common FFM process.
A method to drastically reduce this effect is described in an expired Stratasys patent, US1997/5653925A. As of this writing, I have not seen this feature implemented in any of the common open-source slicers. I would have expected this now-public-domain knowledge to have made its way into the slicers we use since the patent expired in 2017.
With some investigation, I believe this may be because of the 2023 patent US2023/11813789B2, to my knowledge only implemented as a proprietary in-house product of a 3d printing service house which appears to make the same claims illustrated in the 1997 Stratasys patent.
I am not expertly versed in patent law, but this patent would seem to have been granted in error. The fact that the 2023 patent actually references the Stratasys patent from 1997* makes the issuance of this patent even more baffling. At any rate, this seems like a low-hanging opportunity for a significant improvement in print strength that could benefit millions of users.
*The 2023 patent references the 1997 Stratasys patent as “teaching a process for adjusting the deposition rate .. to provide a predetermined porosity rate” but neglects to mention that the core claim of the patent was the staggered bead heights claimed.
In referencing the 1997 patent the 2023 work also gives a single-digit error in the patent number, as well as other “minor” errors in other patent numbers referenced in the patent. These misleading references could have impeded the examiner’s role in determining the validity of the patent.
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/08/f6/2b/d3d9964...
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/ea/e7/3c/2b836c9...
Looking up the 2023 patent filer leads to this:
https://www.addmangroup.com/
Ractor – a Rust Actor Framework (❄️ Score: 150+ in 1 week)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hkCT
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hkCT
Leaving and Waving (Score: 154+ in 7 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hNVT
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hNVT
Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying (❄️ Score: 151+ in 2 days)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hJgv
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hJgv
Bus Number – The GitHub plugin my coworkers asked me not to write (Score: 150+ in 10 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hNkN
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hNkN
Adventures in Probability (❄️ Score: 150+ in 1 week)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hpqh
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hpqh
I Don't Have Spotify (Score: 150+ in 5 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hNdX
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hNdX
Improving Steam Client Stability on Linux (Score: 154+ in 4 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hNap
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hNap
The business of gutting failed Bay Area tech companies (Score: 150+ in 10 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hMgg
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hMgg
Standing desk might be as bad as sitting all day (Score: 150+ in 20 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hKWT
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hKWT
Virtual Windows 3.11 Computer (Score: 150+ in 15 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hLcD
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hLcD
Behaviors reveal sophisticated tool use and possible “pranking” among pachyderms (Score: 150+ in 8 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hLnL
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hLnL
Show HN: Chonkie – A Fast, Lightweight Text Chunking Library for RAG (Score: 150+ in 21 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hK2m
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hK2m
I built Chonkie because I was tired of rewriting chunking code for RAG applications. Existing libraries were either too bloated (80MB+) or too basic, with no middle ground.
Core features:
- 21MB default install vs 80-171MB alternatives
- 33x faster token chunking than popular alternatives
- Supports multiple chunking strategies: token, word, sentence, and semantic
- Works with all major tokenizers (transformers, tokenizers, tiktoken)
- Zero external dependencies for basic functionality
Technical optimizations:
- Uses tiktoken with multi-threading for faster tokenization
- Implements aggressive caching and precomputation
- Running mean pooling for efficient semantic chunking
- Modular dependency system (install only what you need)
Benchmarks and code: https://github.com/bhavnicksm/chonkie
Looking for feedback on the architecture and performance optimizations. What other chunking strategies would be useful for RAG applications?
Visual Basic 6 rebuilt in C# – complete with form designer and IDE in browser (🔥 Score: 153+ in 1 hour)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hLCx
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hLCx
MdBook – a command line tool to create books with Markdown (Score: 153+ in 12 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hKu8
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hKu8
Australia's 3G Shutdown – Why your 4G/5G Phone is now Blocked (Score: 150+ in 6 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hKMT
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hKMT
Algorithms We Develop Software By (Score: 150+ in 9 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6hKiB
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6hKiB