Some Unusual Trees
One of my favorite pastimes is exploring old bookstores. A few months ago, I spotted a complete set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, published in 1975, but that particular set was too expensive for me. A couple of weeks ago, however, I found a good deal in an another bookstore and bought it. What […]
Signals, the push-pull based algorithm
We have been using Signals in production for years via several modern front-end frameworks like Solid, Vue, and others, but few of us are able to explain how they work internally. I wanted to dig into it, especially diving deep into the push-pull based algorithm, the core mechanism behind their reactivity. The subject is fascinating. […]
Eighteen Years of Greytrapping – Is the Weirdness Finally Paying Off?
Eighteen Years of Greytrapping – Is the Weirdness Finally Paying Off? © 2025 Peter N. M. Hansteen With the imaginary friends, also known as spamtraps, now more numerous than the inhabitants of their virtual landlord’s home country, a greytrapping retrospective is in order. Friends, it finally happened. On August 7th, 2025, the number of spamtraps […]
Endian wars and anti-portability: this again?
Note: This is another really technical post. Those who do not know the difference between a PowerPC and an ARM can probably skip this one – we’ll be back to general audience posts tomorrow! One of my friends made the mistake this evening of linking me to a thread about endianness on that bastion of […]
Emotion concepts and their function in a large language model
All modern language models sometimes act like they have emotions. They may say they’re happy to help you, or sorry when they make a mistake. Sometimes they even appear to become frustrated or anxious when struggling with tasks. What’s behind these behaviors? The way modern AI models are trained pushes them to act like a […]
Europe asks if reviving nuclear is the answer to energy shocks
In 1990, Europe produced around a third of its electricity from nuclear power. That has now fallen to an average of 15%, leaving the continent ”completely dependent on expensive and volatile imports” of fossil fuels, she said, putting Europe at a disadvantage compared with other regions of the world.
Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset
Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the world’s largest foreign reserve asset in 2026: Gold has climbed past U.S. government bonds to become the largest foreign reserve asset held by central banks worldwide, marking a major shift in global financial markets. The total value of gold held by foreign official institutions is now approaching $4 trillion, […]
Show HN: Travel Hacking Toolkit – Points search and trip planning with AI
AI-powered travel hacking with points, miles, and award flights. Drop-in skills and MCP servers for OpenCode and Claude Code. Ask your AI to find you a 60,000-mile business class flight to Tokyo. It’ll search award availability across 25+ programs, compare against cash prices, check your loyalty balances, and tell you the best play. Quick Start […]
Native Americans had dice 12,000 years ago
In dusty excavation reports and antiquarian volumes, a lawyer-turned-archaeologist has uncovered evidence that upends the known history of human gambling. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. The findings, published Thursday in the journal American Antiquity, suggest that Native Americans had dice and games of probability 12,000 […]
The FAA’s flight restriction for drones is an attempt to criminalize filming ICE
Legal intern Raj Gambhir was the principal author of this post. The Trump administration has restricted the First Amendment right to record law enforcement by issuing an unprecedented nationwide flight restriction preventing private drone operators, including professional and citizen journalists, from flying drones within half a mile of any ICE or CBP vehicle. In January, […]