Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship
368 by Kerrick | 337 comments on Hacker News.
Sunday, 30 November 2025
Saturday, 29 November 2025
Friday, 28 November 2025
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: Glasses to detect smart-glasses that have cameras
Show HN: Glasses to detect smart-glasses that have cameras
443 by nullpxl | 162 comments on Hacker News.
Hi! Recently smart-glasses with cameras like the Meta Ray-bans seem to be getting more popular. As does some people's desire to remove/cover up the recording indicator LED. I wanted to see if there's a way to detect when people are recording with these types of glasses, so a little bit ago I started working this project. I've hit a little bit of a wall though so I'm very much open to ideas! I've written a bunch more on the link (+photos are there), but essentially this uses 2 fingerprinting approaches: - retro-reflectivity of the camera sensor by looking at IR reflections. mixed results here. - wireless traffic (primarily BLE, also looking into BTC and wifi) For the latter, I'm currently just using an ESP32, and I can consistently detect when the Meta Raybans are 1) pairing, 2) first powered on, 3) (less consistently) when they're taken out of the charging case. When they do detect something, it plays a little jingle next to your ear. Ideally I want to be able to detect them when they're in use, and not just at boot. I've come across the nRF52840, which seems like it can follow directed BLE traffic beyond the initial broadcast, but from my understanding it would still need to catch the first CONNECT_REQ event regardless. On the bluetooth classic side of things, all the hardware looks really expensive! Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks!
443 by nullpxl | 162 comments on Hacker News.
Hi! Recently smart-glasses with cameras like the Meta Ray-bans seem to be getting more popular. As does some people's desire to remove/cover up the recording indicator LED. I wanted to see if there's a way to detect when people are recording with these types of glasses, so a little bit ago I started working this project. I've hit a little bit of a wall though so I'm very much open to ideas! I've written a bunch more on the link (+photos are there), but essentially this uses 2 fingerprinting approaches: - retro-reflectivity of the camera sensor by looking at IR reflections. mixed results here. - wireless traffic (primarily BLE, also looking into BTC and wifi) For the latter, I'm currently just using an ESP32, and I can consistently detect when the Meta Raybans are 1) pairing, 2) first powered on, 3) (less consistently) when they're taken out of the charging case. When they do detect something, it plays a little jingle next to your ear. Ideally I want to be able to detect them when they're in use, and not just at boot. I've come across the nRF52840, which seems like it can follow directed BLE traffic beyond the initial broadcast, but from my understanding it would still need to catch the first CONNECT_REQ event regardless. On the bluetooth classic side of things, all the hardware looks really expensive! Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks!
Thursday, 27 November 2025
Why Is the U.S. Threatening Venezuela?
By Julian E. Barnes, Katrin Bennhold, Nikolay Nikolov, Leila Medina, Lazaro Gamio, Samuel Granados and Stephanie Swart from NYT World https://ift.tt/ot8Rlc7
via IFTTT
Wednesday, 26 November 2025
Tuesday, 25 November 2025
New best story on Hacker News: Show HN: I built an interactive HN Simulator
Show HN: I built an interactive HN Simulator
456 by johnsillings | 202 comments on Hacker News.
Hey HN! Just for fun, I built an interactive Hacker News Simulator. You can submit text posts and links, just like the real HN. But on HN Simulator, all of the comments are generated by LLMs + generate instantly. The best way to use it (IMHO) is to submit a text post or a curl-able URL here: https://news.ysimulator.run/submit . You don't need an account to post. When you do that, various prompts will be built from a library of commenter archetypes, moods, and shapes. The AI commenters will actually respond to your text post and/or submitted link. I really wanted it to feel real, and I think the project mostly delivers on that. When I was developing it, I kept getting confused between which tab was the "real" HN and which was the simulator, and accidentally submitted some junk to HN. (Sorry dang and team – I did clean up after myself). The app itself is built with Node + Express + Postgres, and all of the inference runs on Replicate. Speaking of Replicate, they generously loaded me up with some free credits for the inference – so shoutout to the team there. The most technically interesting part of the app is how the comments work. You can read more about it here, as well as explore all of the available archetypes, moods, and shapes that get combined into prompts: https://news.ysimulator.run/comments.html I hope you all have as much fun playing with it as I did making it!
456 by johnsillings | 202 comments on Hacker News.
Hey HN! Just for fun, I built an interactive Hacker News Simulator. You can submit text posts and links, just like the real HN. But on HN Simulator, all of the comments are generated by LLMs + generate instantly. The best way to use it (IMHO) is to submit a text post or a curl-able URL here: https://news.ysimulator.run/submit . You don't need an account to post. When you do that, various prompts will be built from a library of commenter archetypes, moods, and shapes. The AI commenters will actually respond to your text post and/or submitted link. I really wanted it to feel real, and I think the project mostly delivers on that. When I was developing it, I kept getting confused between which tab was the "real" HN and which was the simulator, and accidentally submitted some junk to HN. (Sorry dang and team – I did clean up after myself). The app itself is built with Node + Express + Postgres, and all of the inference runs on Replicate. Speaking of Replicate, they generously loaded me up with some free credits for the inference – so shoutout to the team there. The most technically interesting part of the app is how the comments work. You can read more about it here, as well as explore all of the available archetypes, moods, and shapes that get combined into prompts: https://news.ysimulator.run/comments.html I hope you all have as much fun playing with it as I did making it!
Monday, 24 November 2025
Sunday, 23 November 2025
The Danish Model for Immigration Crackdown
By Jeanna Smialek, Katrin Bennhold, Nikolay Nikolov, Leila Medina and James Surdam from NYT World https://ift.tt/cs37IBl
via IFTTT
Saturday, 22 November 2025
Friday, 21 November 2025
Thursday, 20 November 2025
Wednesday, 19 November 2025
Tuesday, 18 November 2025
New best story on Hacker News: Gemini 3
Gemini 3
426 by preek | 389 comments on Hacker News.
https://ift.tt/3b0T8pX... https://ift.tt/8bisDSy...
426 by preek | 389 comments on Hacker News.
https://ift.tt/3b0T8pX... https://ift.tt/8bisDSy...
Monday, 17 November 2025
Sunday, 16 November 2025
Saturday, 15 November 2025
Friday, 14 November 2025
Thursday, 13 November 2025
Wednesday, 12 November 2025
Tuesday, 11 November 2025
New best story on Hacker News: iPhone Pocket
iPhone Pocket
373 by soheilpro | 986 comments on Hacker News.
See also iPod Socks - https://ift.tt/AKvlHgc
373 by soheilpro | 986 comments on Hacker News.
See also iPod Socks - https://ift.tt/AKvlHgc
Monday, 10 November 2025
New best story on Hacker News: Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)
Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)
347 by david927 | 1053 comments on Hacker News.
What are you working on? Any new ideas that you're thinking about?
347 by david927 | 1053 comments on Hacker News.
What are you working on? Any new ideas that you're thinking about?
Sunday, 9 November 2025
New best story on Hacker News: Study identifies weaknesses in how AI systems are evaluated
Study identifies weaknesses in how AI systems are evaluated
396 by pseudolus | 186 comments on Hacker News.
Paper: https://ift.tt/SIwRsMi Related: https://ift.tt/fmXu8j2...
396 by pseudolus | 186 comments on Hacker News.
Paper: https://ift.tt/SIwRsMi Related: https://ift.tt/fmXu8j2...
Saturday, 8 November 2025
Friday, 7 November 2025
Thursday, 6 November 2025
Why Is Trump Threatening to Intervene In Nigeria?
By Ruth Maclean, Katrin Bennhold, Christina Thornell, Leila Medina, Nikolay Nikolov and Stephanie Swart from NYT World https://ift.tt/vEX4b0f
via IFTTT
Wednesday, 5 November 2025
Tuesday, 4 November 2025
U.S. Seeks Two-Year U.N. Mandate for Gaza Stabilization Force
By Adam Rasgon, Catherine Porter and Michael D. Shear from NYT World https://ift.tt/xXRBE2V
via IFTTT
New best story on Hacker News: Tell HN: X is opening any tweet link in a webview whether you press it or not
Tell HN: X is opening any tweet link in a webview whether you press it or not
382 by stillatit | 338 comments on Hacker News.
Just saw the CEO of Substack celebrating traffic from X/Twitter shooting up thinking they stopped suppressing tweets with links[0]. Actually, this traffic is because now any time you open a tweet with a link, the in-app webview loads in the background, and displays when you press the link. I run an ecom store that gets a lot of its customers from Twitter. I was also shocked to see my traffic double or triple overnight and thought the algorithm had blessed me and my business. Soon realized what was actually happening. Thought other traffic-monitors might appreciate this explanation. Meanwhile Nikita Bier is pretending they never suppressed tweets with links to begin with, offering the alternative explanation: "a common complaint is that posts with links tend to get lower reach. This is because the web browser covers the post and people forget to Like or Reply. So X doesn't get a clear signal whether the content is any good"[1]. A bit of a rewriting of history since Elon and his mom both tweeted about how it wasn't fair to use his platform to promote other links/platforms, even banning people who shared profiles of other social networks (including Paul Graham for a period). They suppressed all links shortly after. [0] https://ift.tt/HB3VP9W [1] https://ift.tt/idXNQu5
382 by stillatit | 338 comments on Hacker News.
Just saw the CEO of Substack celebrating traffic from X/Twitter shooting up thinking they stopped suppressing tweets with links[0]. Actually, this traffic is because now any time you open a tweet with a link, the in-app webview loads in the background, and displays when you press the link. I run an ecom store that gets a lot of its customers from Twitter. I was also shocked to see my traffic double or triple overnight and thought the algorithm had blessed me and my business. Soon realized what was actually happening. Thought other traffic-monitors might appreciate this explanation. Meanwhile Nikita Bier is pretending they never suppressed tweets with links to begin with, offering the alternative explanation: "a common complaint is that posts with links tend to get lower reach. This is because the web browser covers the post and people forget to Like or Reply. So X doesn't get a clear signal whether the content is any good"[1]. A bit of a rewriting of history since Elon and his mom both tweeted about how it wasn't fair to use his platform to promote other links/platforms, even banning people who shared profiles of other social networks (including Paul Graham for a period). They suppressed all links shortly after. [0] https://ift.tt/HB3VP9W [1] https://ift.tt/idXNQu5
