Anna's Archive: An Update from the Team
annas-archive.org — annas-archive.li/blog, 2025-08-17 ANNA, 1
Show HN: We started building an AI dev tool but it turned into a Sims-style game
news.ycombinator.com — Hi HN! We’re Max and Peyton from The Interface (https://www.theinterface.com/). STARTED, 2
My Retro TVs
myretrotvs.com — You need to enable JavaScript to run this app. RETRO, 3
Show HN: Whispering – Open-source, local-first dictation you can trust
news.ycombinator.com — Hey HN! Braden here, creator of Whispering, an open-source speech-to-text app. WHISPERING, 4
Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels
news.ycombinator.com — I wanted to find a way to use Instagram without ending up scrolling for two hours every time I open the app to see a friend's story. APP, 5
FFmpeg Assembly Language Lessons
github.com — FFMPEG Assembly Language Lessons FFMPEG, 6
The Cutaway Illustrations of Fred Freeman
5wgraphicsblog.com — During the two-year research for our book LOOK INSIDE we discovered many amazing illustrations and artists that, for one reason or another, did not make it into the final version of the book. It would be a pity to leave these forgotten on a drawer, so during the next few weeks we will present here some of these masters of the cutaway. CUTAWAY, 7
The Weight of a Cell
asimov.press — Microbes are so small that tens of thousands could fit in the space of the period at the end of this sentence. And yet, for two of the most widely studied kinds — S. cerevisiae and E. coli — we know their weight with remarkable precision: A single yeast cell weighs about 100 picograms and a single E. coli bacterium weighs about one picogram, or 60 million times less than a grain of sand. WEIGHT, 8
TREAD: Token Routing for Efficient Architecture-Agnostic Diffusion Training
arxiv.org — arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. TREAD, 9
Launch HN: Reality Defender (YC W22) – API for Deepfake and GenAI Detection
news.ycombinator.com — Hi HN! This is Ben from Reality Defender (https://www.realitydefender.com). We build real-time multimodal and multi-model deepfake detection for Fortune 100s and governments all over the world. (We even won the RSAC Innovation Showcase award for our work: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/reality-defender-wi...) LAUNCH, 10
Web apps in a single, portable, self-updating, vanilla HTML file
hyperclay.com — Build web apps like you're sculpting clay, not managing infrastructure. WEB, 11
Who Invented Backpropagation?
idsia.ch — Jürgen Schmidhuber (2014, updated 2020, 2022, 2025) Pronounce: You_again Shmidhoobuh See also this LinkedIn post (2025) AI Blog @SchmidhuberAI Who Invented Backpropagation? WHO, 12
Typechecker Zoo
sdiehl.github.io — This is a pet project of mine I’ve been working on for a while. We’re going to create minimal implementations of the most successful static type systems of the last 50 years. This will involve making toy implementations of programming languages and the core typechecking algorithms. These obviously have evolved a lot over the years, so we’ll start with the simple ones and proceed all the way up to modern dependent types. Basically a fun romp through half a century of programming language design. TYPECHECKER, 13
Finding a Successor to the FHS
lwn.net — Welcome to LWN.net The following subscription-only content has been made available to you by an LWN subscriber. Thousands of subscribers depend on LWN for the best news from the Linux and free software communities. If you enjoy this article, please consider subscribing to LWN. Thank you for visiting LWN.net! By Joe BrockmeierAugust 15, 2025 The purpose of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) is to provide a specification for filesystem layout; it specifies the location for files and directories on a Linux system to simplify application development for multiple distributions. In its heyday it had some success at this, but the standard has been frozen in time since 2015, and much has changed since then. There is a slow-moving effort to revive the FHS and create a FHS 4.0, but a... FINDING, 14
Electromechanical reshaping, an alternative to laser eye surgery
medicalxpress.com — by American Chemical Society ELECTROMECHANICAL, 15
The lottery ticket hypothesis: why neural networks work
nearlyright.com — The lottery ticket hypothesis explains why massive neural networks succeed despite centuries of theory predicting they should fail TICKET, 16
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Mindless Machines, Mindless Myths
lareviewofbooks.org — Mindless: The Human Condition in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Robert Skidelsky. Other Press, 2024. 384 pages. MINDLESS, 17
A gigantic jet caught on camera: A spritacular moment for NASA astronaut
nasa.gov — Did you see that gorgeous photo NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers took on July 3, 2025? Originally thought to be a sprite, Ayers confirmed catching an even rarer form of a Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) — a gigantic jet. GIGANTIC, 18
Turning an iPad Pro into the Ultimate Classic Macintosh (2021)
gingerbeardman.com — I’ve started work on the next in my 1-bit Woodblocks series: “Tekagami” (Ito Shinsui’s “Hand Mirror”). So it’s a good time to talk about how I turned an iPad Pro into the ultimate Classic Macintosh. TURNING, 19
Image Fulgurator (2011)
juliusvonbismarck.com — Image Fulgurator, 2008, Beijing (video) IMAGE, 20
T-Mobile claimed selling location data without consent is legal–judges disagree
arstechnica.com — T-Mobile can't overturn $92 million fine; AT&T and Verizon verdicts still to come. T-MOBILE, 21
Vibe coding tips and tricks
github.com — There was an error while loading. Please reload this page. VIBE, 22
Macintosh Drawing Software Compared
gingerbeardman.com — Below is a list of various drawing applications that are available to use with System 7 (68K). MACINTOSH, 23
Countrywide natural experiment links built environment to physical activity
nature.com — Nature (2025)Cite this article COUNTRYWIDE, 24
SystemD Service Hardening
roguesecurity.dev — Controversy aside, systemd provides us a very complete, robust method of controlling services (amongst a multitude of other Linux things). For a lot of things though, this is optimized for success out of the box and not necessarily security. Such is the way of many IT endeavors. This doc though is meant to provide a snapshot of a number of hardening options that you can apply to systemd service units and podman quadlets to increase the overall security posture and reduce both the likelihood of compromise, as well as the blast radius post-exploitation. SYSTEMD, 25
Sky Calendar
abramsplanetarium.org — The Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar promotes skywatching for people of all ages. As its name implies, the sheet for each month takes the form of a calendar. Diagrams in the boxes invite the reader to track the moon's rapid motion past the planets and bright stars of the zodiac, as well as to follow the more leisurely pace of the planets in their gatherings with bright stars and other planets. The reverse side consists of a simplified star map of the month's evening sky. The sky maps are designed for use at a convenient time in mid-evening, for a latitude useful for the entire continental U.S. (40 degrees north). SKY, 26
MCP doesn't need tools, it needs code
pocoo.org — I wrote a while back about why code performs better than MCP (Model Context Protocol) for some tasks. In particular, I pointed out that if you have command line tools available, agentic coding tools seem very happy to use those. In the meantime, I learned a few more things that put some nuance to this. There are a handful of challenges with CLI-based tools that are rather hard to resolve and require further examination. MCP, 27
The Lives and Loves of James Baldwin
news.ycombinator.com — https://web.archive.org/web/20250818083559/https://www.newyo..., https://archive.ph/i2TSJ LIVES, 28
8x19 Text Mode Font Origins
os2museum.com — I was recently made aware of something that I had noticed before, but never paid much attention to. Consider this screenshot of a BIOS POST screen: 8X19, 29
Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator
technoblogy.com — The Walkie-Textie is a simple handheld device with a 12-key keypad and OLED display that allows you to send and receive text messages using the LoRa wireless protocol. It's ideal for situations where there's no mobile signal, such as when you're camping or hiking in a remote area, when you don't want the cost of a mobile network, or for children to have fun without running up a bill: WALKIE-TEXTIE, 30
Ashby (YC W19) Is Hiring Design Engineers in AMER and EMEA ashbyhq.com
EasyPost (YC S13) Is Hiring easypost.com
Tesorio (YC S15) Is Hiring a Senior GenAI Engineer (100% Remote) tesorio.com