GoKawiil
Tech News
Author and engineering leader Will Larson describes his hands-on attempt to apply the 'software factory' pattern within his organization. The post outlines his motivations and early experiences testing this approach to structuring engineering work. Larson, known for books like Staff Engineer and An Elegant Puzzle, frames this as a practical exploration rather than a finished framework.
Stephen A. Weis says he factored a large RSA challenge number he calls RSA-896 with help from Anthropic's Claude AI model on September 19, 2026. He published the full modulus along with its two prime factors, p and q, as evidence of the result.
Valve's Steam Deck supports a built-in factory reset option accessible through Settings > System > Advanced, without needing a PC or USB drive. The reset process takes about 10-15 minutes and requires an internet connection if reinstalling SteamOS afterward, while microSD cards remain unaffected but should still be removed as a precaution.
Crusoe, the data center developer behind OpenAI's Abilene, Texas site, closed a $3.9 billion Series F funding round led by Atreides Management, Mubadala Capital, and Valor Equity Partners, valuing the company at $30.9 billion. The funds will support both large-scale data center builds and Crusoe's new modular 'Spark' AI factories, which can be manufactured off-site and deployed quickly. The company also added three board members, including Redwood Materials CEO JB Straubel and Cloudflare CFO Thomas Seifert.
A Hacker News user described being locked out of Google, banking, email and Drive accounts after their phone was stolen, since 2FA and account recovery relied on that device and an old email they could no longer access. The poster noted Google's automated recovery flow offers only options tied to the lost phone or an outdated backup email, leaving no clear path to a human for help.
Crusoe, the company behind construction of one of OpenAI's largest data center projects, has closed a $3.9 billion funding round valuing it at nearly $31 billion. The company is now expanding into factory-built, smaller-scale data centers alongside its large infrastructure work.
SK Hynix is in talks with Intel about producing RAM chips in the United States, according to a Reuters report citing unnamed sources. Options under discussion include leasing space at Intel's planned Ohio plant or forming a joint venture, possibly with cloud-service providers involved, though SK Hynix says no final decisions have been made.
Researchers from the BASE Collaboration at CERN sealed 92 antiprotons inside a specialized ultrahigh-vacuum trap, then drove them 7.5 kilometers around the lab's grounds without losing them. The experiment, published in Nature, demonstrates that antimatter can survive real-world transport rather than staying confined to the site where it's produced.
Researchers show that mitochondrial fission factor (MFF) controls a chain of events during ferroptosis, linking mitochondrial dysfunction, peroxisomal and mitochondrial ROS production, and release of mitochondrial DNA into the cytosol through VDAC1 oligomerization. Using CRISPR knockouts, rescue experiments and pharmacological inhibitors in HeLa cells, they mapped how loss of MFF or its downstream partners (PEX5, MFN1/2, DRP1) alters cell survival after RSL3-induced ferroptotic stress.
AI coding startup Factory has raised $200 million in new funding, pushing its valuation past $5 billion—more than triple its previous mark. Investors in the round include Khosla Ventures, Blackstone and Marc Benioff.
A math blog post derives a quick approximation for the number of digits in n!, using the formula n·log10(n/e)+2. Applied to 52!, the estimate yields 69 digits versus the actual 68, demonstrating strong accuracy for large factorials. The post also walks through the underlying derivation using the Gamma function and integration by parts.
A researcher used AI to scan thousands of digitized construction trade journal issues dating back to the 1850s, tracking every historical attempt to automate building tasks. The analysis found that successful automation clusters into two categories: off-site factory processes like steel fabrication and precast concrete, and on-site tasks simple enough to be performed by a machine repeating the same motion along a fixed path. Nearly everything outside these two categories failed to gain lasting adoption.