top 50% hacker news stories for 2026-08-09

How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

https://laurentiugabriel.github.io/blog/articles/how-i-use-llms-to-learn/

2 months ago

1 change
830 upvotes – 548 comments

Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Windows-11-s-built-in-Weather-app-wastes-more-than-1-GB-of-RAM.1364205.0.html

2 months ago

668 upvotes – 596 comments

Mea Culpa – Dark Hours

https://blog.terrygodier.com/2026/08/09/mea-culpa-dark-hours.html

2 months ago

2 changes
611 upvotes – 283 comments

Everything you do is being recorded

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/05/ai-wearable-surveillance-countermeasures/687203/

2 months ago

4 changes
438 upvotes – 377 comments

Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's

https://theconversation.com/taxi-drivers-rarely-die-of-alzheimers-how-complex-mental-maps-and-spatial-reasoning-protect-your-brain-286650

2 months ago

394 upvotes – 285 comments

Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was a Correct Rejection

https://daringfireball.net/2026/08/retraction_app_store_rejection_of_the_week

2 months ago

1 change
348 upvotes – 69 comments

Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49233423

2 months ago

322 upvotes – 1190 comments

Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/09/historian-jill-lepore-says-the-tech-industry-is-led-by-bad-readers-who-are-undermining-democracy/

2 months ago

296 upvotes – 282 comments

Cool URIs Don't Change (1998)

https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI

2 months ago

1 change
292 upvotes – 69 comments

Tom Stanton's supersonic trebuchet breaks sound barrier with gravity alone

https://www.techeblog.com/tom-stanton-supersonic-trebuchet/

2 months ago

281 upvotes – 103 comments

I made tinnitus my friend, then it disappeared [video]

https://mynoise.net/vlog.php?ep=20260803

2 months ago

2 changes
231 upvotes – 174 comments

The original URL for this prediction will no longer be available in 11 years (2011)

http://longbets.org/601/

2 months ago

2 changes
209 upvotes – 101 comments

The mathematical beauty of hyperbezier curves

https://linebender.org/blog/hyperbezier/

2 months ago

198 upvotes – 43 comments

Analyzing data from Silicon Valley ventures and founders prosecuted for fraud

https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/full/10.1287/orsc.2024.19981

2 months ago

1 change
198 upvotes – 100 comments

There Are Magic Hexagons of Every Order

https://gukov.dev/math/2026/08/02/new-magic-hexagons.html

2 months ago

197 upvotes – 33 comments

OpenChamber: An Agentic Development Environment

https://openchamber.dev/

2 months ago

190 upvotes – 92 comments

Melatonin impairs morning cognition in healthy young adults (2023)

https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article/46/Supplement_1/A34/7181621

2 months ago

1 change
186 upvotes – 208 comments

The main way I've seen people turn ideologically crazy (2025)

https://blog.andymasley.com/p/the-main-way-ive-seen-people-turn

2 months ago

1 change
175 upvotes – 211 comments

Microsoft Word for Windows 1.1a, Native X64 Port

https://github.com/jmarshall23/msword

2 months ago

★ 402 C
173 upvotes – 76 comments

Incentives are for losers

https://www.experimental-history.com/p/incentives-are-for-losers

2 months ago

1 change
171 upvotes – 124 comments

Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2

https://oskrim.github.io/hardware/2026/08/09/remarkable-over-ssh.html

2 months ago

1 change
164 upvotes – 106 comments

John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

https://kibotronics.net/unlisted/lilly-machines/

2 months ago

148 upvotes – 135 comments

The tragedy of the commons, AI edition

https://www.economist.com/britain/2026/08/06/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-ai-edition

2 months ago

146 upvotes – 117 comments

Differential Heuristics

https://www.redblobgames.com/blog/2026-08-08-differential-heuristics/

2 months ago

141 upvotes – 8 comments

Georgia police officers fired after Flock camera misuse

https://www.wtoc.com/2026/08/07/savannah-police-department-fires-6-employees-over-flock-safety-system-misuse/

2 months ago

139 upvotes – 138 comments

Illinois just told every operating system to start reporting your kid's age

https://itsfoss.com/news/illinois-age-verification-bill/

2 months ago

1 change
135 upvotes – 128 comments

New Zealand lost its music media, and what we're building to replace it

https://propelmusic.co.nz/articles/the-sound-went-quiet-nz-music-media

2 months ago

133 upvotes – 93 comments

Poland now 6th-largest EU economy, ahead of Switzerland and Belgium

https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/08/09/poland-now-sixth-largest-eu-economy-ahead-of-switzerland-and-belgium

2 months ago

132 upvotes – 183 comments

Tuxedo No. 2 – Cocktail recipes

https://tuxedono2.com

2 months ago

131 upvotes – 39 comments

Better Gaussian Splatting in Julia

https://pxl-th.github.io/blog/better-gs-julia/

2 months ago

126 upvotes – 27 comments

The Hacker's Renaissance (2025)

https://phrack.org/issues/72/19#article

2 months ago

1 change
125 upvotes – 103 comments

Saying No

https://rozumem.xyz/posts/19

2 months ago

124 upvotes – 106 comments

Show HN: A Project Oberon System version running on RISC-V instead of RISC-5

https://github.com/rochus-keller/OberonSystem/tree/op2-rv32

2 months ago

★ 94 C++
121 upvotes – 19 comments

FCC moves to ban Lidar-equipped foreign drones from US

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/drones/fcc-moves-to-ban-lidar-equipped-foreign-drones-from-us-classifies-the-technology-as-military-grade-in-a-proposal-that-could-also-hit-thermal-models-and-the-swarms-used-drone-light-shows

2 months ago

118 upvotes – 123 comments

Show HN: Ember – Redshift safe color palettes

https://github.com/carpdiem/ember

2 months ago

★ 132 Python MIT
114 upvotes – 23 comments

ChatGPT starts blocking direct requests to copy an author's style

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/chatgpt-stops-cloning-famous-writers-voices-but-may-capture-a-similar-feeling/

2 months ago

111 upvotes – 84 comments

Why Wall Street is ignoring big tech's debt [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NufJ7g63KSY

2 months ago

1 change
108 upvotes – 191 comments

The Alpha 21264 CPU: NT's Greatest RISC (1998)

https://halfhill.com/byte/1998-12_alpha.html

2 months ago

105 upvotes – 86 comments

TheoremDB – A public workspace for machine mathematics

https://theoremdb.org/

2 months ago

1 change
104 upvotes – 20 comments

SAP stops most travel and hiring because of AI's soaring cost

https://www.404media.co/software-giant-sap-stops-most-travel-and-hiring-because-of-ais-soaring-cost/

2 months ago

1 change
102 upvotes – 68 comments

CSS: The bomb inside your inbox

https://portswigger.net/research/css-the-bomb-inside-your-inbox

2 months ago

99 upvotes – 45 comments

Is it all just vapourware?

https://kirahowe.com/2026/aug/8/is-it-all-just-vapourware

2 months ago

98 upvotes – 192 comments

Plug-In Solar Panels Starting to Sprout in U.S. Backyards

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/business/energy-environment/plug-in-balcony-solar.html

2 months ago

93 upvotes – 91 comments

A Tale of Dynamic Programming (2022)

https://iagoleal.com/posts/dynamic-programming/

2 months ago

1 change
91 upvotes – 13 comments

Tech sucks: You have to vote with your wallet, or nothing will change

https://82mhz.net/posts/2026/08/tech-sucks-you-have-to-vote-with-your-wallet-or-nothing-will-change/

2 months ago

86 upvotes – 78 comments

If experience is the goal, then you always win

https://www.startingfromnix.com/p/if-experience-is-the-goal-then-you

2 months ago

76 upvotes – 9 comments

AI assistant hacks gym website in first known Australian autonomous cyber attack

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-10/ai-assistant-hacks-gym-website-aus-cyber-attack/107007986

2 months ago

76 upvotes – 60 comments

70% of AI revenue comes from OpenAI and Anthropic [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68X8yEatepQ

2 months ago

1 change
76 upvotes – 96 comments

Every fast write moves work somewhere else

https://www.shayon.dev/post/2026/220/every-fast-write-moves-work-somewhere-else/

2 months ago

73 upvotes – 24 comments

Ransomware gangs skip the CEO, head straight for the 40-something IT manager

https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/08/09/ransomware-gangs-skip-the-ceo-head-straight-for-the-40-something-it-manager/5284499

2 months ago

72 upvotes – 39 comments

Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution (2025)

https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/12/gas-propane-stoves-nitrogen-dioxide-exposure-health-risks-switching-electric

2 months ago

1 change
72 upvotes – 134 comments

The Legend of the Novell NE2000 [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNXzQ7V1S_k

2 months ago

65 upvotes – 25 comments

Deletes all instances of Microsoft's GDID and prevents minting of new ones

https://github.com/yegors/deGDID

2 months ago

★ 785 PowerShell MIT
64 upvotes – 56 comments

An OpenAI Strategist Says AI Labs Should Rival Government Power

https://ai-updates.net/an-openai-strategist-says-ai-labs-should-rival-government-power/

2 months ago

63 upvotes – 70 comments

To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/28/business/affordable-housing-schools-teachers.html

2 months ago

1 change
63 upvotes – 67 comments

Interview with Amit Patel, Creator of “Solar Realms Elite” (2013)

https://breakintochat.com/blog/2013/02/18/amit-patel-creator-of-solar-realms-elite/

2 months ago

1 change
61 upvotes – 14 comments

Amazon circumvents Gilroy community vote for AI data center

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/amazon-secretly-circumvents-community-vote-for-massive-ai-data-center-45-year-old-rules-lock-gilroy-residents-out-of-public-comment-window

2 months ago

60 upvotes – 69 comments

Idol Mahjong Final Romance: A Slideshow Disguised as a Video Game

https://nicole.express/2026/more-like-idle-mahjong.html

2 months ago

60 upvotes – 12 comments

The Ambition Project

https://www.betonit.ai/p/the-ambition-project

2 months ago

58 upvotes – 11 comments

Why MySpace fans want it back as relaunch hinted

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g64152v71o

2 months ago

57 upvotes – 72 comments

Israeli startup was linked to rogue AI hacks at OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/09/israeli-startup-irregular-linked-to-ai-hacks-openai-anthropic-meta.html

2 months ago

55 upvotes – 19 comments

Human vs. AI – Diff-based line-level provenance for text under agentic editing

https://github.com/eighttrigrams/us-vs-them

2 months ago

★ 44 Clojure
54 upvotes – 15 comments
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