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A user posted an 'Ask HN' question inspired by DHH's 'AI shed' concept, asking the community what services are actually worth keeping running on a cheap $5-10/month VPS or mini PC. The poster, a self-described Linux user, questions whether maintaining a personal server is worth it compared to just using a laptop, and is seeking examples of tools that saved time or replaced paid subscriptions.
A researcher at Russia's Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute died of unexplained severe pneumonia after reportedly breaking a test tube, prompting quarantine of the treating hospital and isolation of her coworkers. The CDC said the case's circumstances remain unconfirmed and there's no sign of broader threat to the US, while the WHO said it has contacted Russian authorities and assesses public health risk as very low.
Jonathan Blow, creator of Braid and The Witness, is releasing The Order of the Sinking Star this Thursday after a decade of development with a small team. He describes it as containing roughly 1,500 puzzles, which he estimates could take around 500 hours to finish.
A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, led by UBC's Professor Raymond Lam, compared the health effects of permanently adopting standard time versus permanently adopting daylight saving time. The researchers concluded that permanent standard time better aligns with human circadian biology, citing the importance of morning light exposure for sleep and mood, especially in winter when permanent daylight saving would delay sunrise by an hour in cities like Toronto and Calgary.
Some desktop PCs include two Ethernet ports to give users more networking flexibility, such as failover backup connections or access to separate networks. The dual ports can also enable link aggregation (also called NIC teaming or bonding), which combines two Ethernet links into one connection for added bandwidth and redundancy, provided both ends support and configure it.
A Threads user discovered that Amazon's account settings include a page of behavioral assumptions based on purchase history, among them a note suggesting she 'has flat buttocks.' The post went viral, prompting other users to check their own Amazon profiles for similarly personal inferences, which can be found under 'Your Shopping preferences' in account settings.
Bloomberg reports Apple is partnering with LG on a new line of smart home devices, including a smart lock, thermostat and doorbell, designed to work with Apple's rumored smart home hub expected to launch October 13th. The companies are also said to be developing indoor, outdoor and floodlight security cameras, with the products reportedly carrying the LG brand despite joint development.
A post on Hacker News poses a hypothetical in which a US government nationalizes Alphabet via constitutional amendment to restore Google Search to its 2010-era quality and strip out all LLM features. The author asks commenters what they would be willing to accept or trade for a search engine that works again, after what they describe as years of commercial degradation of the product.
Melius, founded by former Ramp engineers Joowon Kim, Young Kim and Arnav Ramu, has raised $25 million total — a $20 million Series A led by CRV plus a $5 million seed round led by General Catalyst. The company originally built an AI performance-marketing tool but scrapped that codebase after six months, relaunching as a platform for generating ad creative, images and video. Melius says it has surpassed $1 million in annualized revenue within two months of exiting stealth in July.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple collaborated with LG Electronics to develop a line of smart home accessories, including a doorbell, thermostat, deadbolt lock, indoor and outdoor cameras, and a floodlight camera. These devices will be sold under LG's brand, with LG handling manufacturing and support, while Apple is expected to launch its own hub device, a new HomePod Mini and a TV set-top box around the same time.
Amazon has launched the Kindle Click, a Bluetooth page-turning remote, more than a year after Rakuten's Kobo introduced its own Kobo Remote. Both devices let readers flip pages without touching their ereader's screen, useful for reading in bed or while exercising, and both offer an optional wrist lanyard. Despite similar basic functionality, the two accessories differ in price, design, battery setup and device compatibility.
On CNBC's Mad Money, Jim Cramer said established tech giants like Meta and Microsoft remain among the best ways to invest in AI, citing their management and multiple revenue avenues. He noted his CNBC Investing Club holds both stocks, pointing to Meta's Muse monetization plans and Microsoft's Copilot and Azure growth as reasons for confidence, with Microsoft shares recovering from a 52-week low of $350 to around $529. Cramer also mentioned AMD and Intel as semiconductor plays worth watching.