Tell HN: I underestimated how lonely building solo can be
No feedback, no one to bounce ideas off, no “nice job” at the end of the day. The freedom is great, but it gets weirdly quiet. Anyone else relate?
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No feedback, no one to bounce ideas off, no “nice job” at the end of the day. The freedom is great, but it gets weirdly quiet. Anyone else relate?
No Comment I received a few emails after last time along the lines of "Oh. Perl. Homebrew CMS. That's why you don't allow people to post comments." Well, no, but it was definitely a conscious decision. The Web 2.0 answer is that I'm outsourcing comments to reddit and Hacker News. The real reason is this: The negativity of online technical discussions makes me bitter, and even though I'm sometimes drawn to them I need to stay away. To be fair, this isn't true only of technical discussions. Bac
No, AI is not Making Engineers 10x as Productive Curing Your AI 10x Engineer Imposter Syndrome 05 August 2025 AI A few months ago I went through a bit of a mental slump. I've always been confident of my abilities as an engineer, but I couldn't help but feel like my skills were falling hopelessly behind as I scrolled places like LinkedIn and Twitter. If these sources were to be believed, engineering had moved on from the medieval practice of typing code into an editor. Real engineers were now
While no one has figured out how to make money from generative artificial intelligence, that hasn't stopped Google DeepMind from pushing the boundaries of what's possible with a big pile of inference. The capabilities (and costs) of these models have been on an impressive upward trajectory, a trend exemplified by the reveal of Genie 3. A mere seven months after showing off the Genie 2 "foundational world model," which was itself a significant improvement over its predecessor, Google now has Geni
Google DeepMind has revealed Genie 3, its latest foundation world model that the AI lab says presents a crucial stepping stone on the path to artificial general intelligence, or human-like intelligence. “Genie 3 is the first real-time interactive general purpose world model,” Shlomi Fruchter, a research director at DeepMind, said during a press briefing. “It goes beyond narrow world models that existed before. It’s not specific to any particular environment. It can generate both photo-realistic
What just happened? TSMC says has taken strict disciplinary action and launched legal proceedings against a number of employees over potential trade secret leaks. The world's largest chipmaker said that the discovery was made after it detected unauthorized activities on its network during routine monitoring. TSMC said in a statement that its comprehensive and robust monitoring mechanisms allowed it to identify the potential crime early. It started an internal investigation, which led to discipl
In brief: The end of a cloud storage subscription does not immediately erase your files, but it does set a countdown clock in motion. Timelines and policies differ, but the underlying risk is the same: unless quick action is taken to download, move, or delete files, the content may eventually be lost for good. For many consumers, digital subscriptions have become a routine monthly expense. They cover a wide range of services – music, video, software, games, and increasingly, cloud storage. As t
Apple chipmaker TSMC has said that several then-employees tried to steal trade secrets relating to the company’s most advanced chip process. TSMC fired the individuals concerned and is now taking legal action against them. The former employees may also face criminal prosecution. The report relates to the company’s 2-nanometer chip process, which is expected to be used for the A20 chips across next year’s iPhone 18 lineup … TSMC 2nm process expected to debut in iPhone 18 TSMC leads the world i
Apple chipmaker TSMC has said that several then-employees tried to steal trade secrets relating to the company’s most advanced chip process. TSMC fired the individuals concerned and is now taking legal action against them. The former employees may also face criminal prosecution. The report relates to the company’s 2-nanometer chip process, which is expected to be used for the A20 chips across next year’s iPhone 18 lineup … TSMC 2nm process expected to debut in iPhone 18 TSMC leads the world i
Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET ZDNET's key takeaways There are now several AI tools available that can generate humanlike speech. Some AI voices can now whisper, laugh, and perform other expressive feats. TTS tools vary in terms of their level of realism and their intended audiences. Synthetic voices generated by artificial intelligence are, for better or worse, becoming commonplace. Meanwhile, the number of companies developing this technology is growing rapidly. Recent innovations in AI, s
Honorable Mentions Photograph: Molly Higgins New West Knifeworks Joy Bauer 6-Inch Chef Knife for $225: Like my New West Knifeworks pick above, this luxe knife is absolutely gorgeous with a bold red and white handle and accompanying embossed leather sheath. Created in collaboration with nutritionist and TV personality Joy Bauer, this 6-inch blade is a Japanese Santoku style, with a downward blade and sturdy top slope made from American-made 440C stainless steel. I found that food stuck to the s
Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority TL;DR Fitbit has updated its algorithm for more accurate sleep tracking. The new algorithm now accounts for awake times better, supposedly rendering more accurate data about different phases. However, users have complained of increased sensitivity, resulting in their devices capturing shorter sleep durations than the actual time. Fitbit isn’t nearly as popular as it once was, and that is partly because Google, which completed its acquisition of the company
I’ve always thought that the iMac G4 was one of the most beautiful products Apple has ever made. It’s now more than two decades old, but I still think it looks as futuristic as it did on the day it launched. I’d also say that Apple’s 2025 Mac operating system looks somehow just right on this 2002 machine, as ably achieved by self-described tinkerer Colby Sheets … Sheets described his creation of the iMac G4 with an M1 chip as a passion project in celebration of the life and inspiration of Stev
Leveraging meal kit coupons is the extreme couponing of our times—a capitalism hack-a-thon right up there with trial yoga classes and attempting to cancel your Adobe subscription. Meal kits like HelloFresh have always been a better deal than they get credit for, even at full price: It’s actually hard to recreate meal kit meals for less than you can get the recipes delivered to your home. But it’s especially worth it when you can find a HelloFresh coupon, promo code, or discount at more than half
There are a ton of models for less than $1,000 on the market at any given moment, and a large fraction of those are less than $500. As long as you manage your expectations regarding options and specs, you can still get quite a bit from a budget laptop model, including good battery life and a reasonably lightweight laptop body. (If you're replacing an old Windows laptop that's not up to running Windows anymore, consider turning it into a Chromebook.) Price If the statistics Intel and PC manufac
Choose wisely! The correct answer, the explanation, and an intriguing story await. Correct Answer: IBM Deep Blue (1996) When Verizon bought AOL in 2015, how many people were still paying for dial-up Internet? IBM's Deep Blue became the first computer to defeat a reigning world chess champion under standard tournament time controls, a major milestone in both chess and artificial intelligence history. On February 10, 1996, Deep Blue won the first game of a six-game match against Garry Kasparov
Marvel Rivals season 2.5 may have taken our heroes off-world as they battled across Arakko, but season 3 is throwing us into the furthest reaches of space to fight a new threat: Knull and his symbiote army. Stopping one symbiote is tough enough. Fighting off an army of them is going to require a whole new wardrobe's worth of battle gear. Luckily for you, there are many ways to unlock some free skins in the hit hero shooter right now -- including the Milano Repair Logs event that evens the odds
Recap: GOG recently launched Freedomtobuy.games, a new initiative designed to fight censorship attempts against NSFW-themed games. For 48 hours, the CD Projekt subsidiary game offered users the ability to reclaim 13 games at risk of disappearing – for free. The giveaway has now ended, and downloads were so massive that the company struggled to maintain platform stability. GOG originally launched as "Good Old Games" in 2008, offering DRM-free copies of classic titles updated to run on modern Win
Home Depot has given its giant skeleton-led collection of Halloween decorations quite an upgrade for 2025, with more animatronic capabilities that are even more perfectly suited to terrify your neighborhood all year long. New for this year is the 6.5 ft. Grave & Bones Animated Ultra Skelly with “Life Eyes,” which can blink, move, and be changed to fit various expressions and holiday themes—such as heart eyes for Valentine’s Day. With an LED app, you can control not just the eyes and lights on S
The on-screen text can be saved as a WAV, MP3, MP4, OGG or WMA file. The program can read the clipboard content, view the text from AZW, CHM, DjVu, DOC, EPUB, FB2, HTML, LIT, MOBI, ODT, PRC, PDF and RTF files, customize font and background colour, control reading from the system tray or by the global hotkeys. The program uses various versions of Microsoft Speech API (SAPI); it allows to alter a voice's parameters, including rate and pitch. The user can apply a special substitution list to impro
“Memory oppresses me.” - Severian, The Book of the New Sun Interviewer: “What happens if you allocate memory with C’s malloc and try to free it with Rust’s dealloc, if you get a pointer to the memory from C?” Me: “If we do it via FFI then there’s a possibility the program may continue working (because the underlying structs share the same memory layout? right? …right?)” Now if you have any experience working with memory management, you know that this is a dangerous answer. But I didn’t know it a
With a buzz and a whirl, my laptop begins to unfurl. In less than six seconds after the press of a button, my petit 14-inch ThinkBook stands erect over my desk with a taller 16.7-inch display. There is literally nothing else like Lenovo’s ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable, and that’s partially why it costs a whopping $3,300. And you know what? There are few things cooler in laptop world than watching your screen expand from its original size. When you’re dropping a hefty chunk of change on a laptop
Google’s AI-powered bug hunter has just reported its first batch of security vulnerabilities. Heather Adkins, Google’s vice president of security, announced Monday that its LLM-based vulnerability researcher Big Sleep found and reported 20 flaws in various popular open source software. Adkins said that Big Sleep, which is developed by the company’s AI department DeepMind as well as its elite team of hackers Project Zero, reported its first-ever vulnerabilities, mostly in open source software s
This wallet I’ve been testing from Supcase is one of the few I’ve found that supports six cards and still strikes a nice balance between slim and functional. It has a kickstand. It has strong magnets. It also doesn’t feel like I’ve strapped a brack to the back of my iPhone either. Some of my favorite gear eufyCam 2C Upgrade your home security with wireless cameras that includes HomeKit compatibility. MagSafe Monday: Every Monday, Bradley Chambers looks at the latest and greatest in the MagSafe
Apple’s Siri-related news hasn’t been great so far this year, but the company sounds confident it can turn things around. Here’s the Siri update that software head Craig Federighi reportedly shared in Apple’s all-hands meeting. Last week, Apple reported huge quarterly earnings. But concerns around the company’s AI efforts were still clearly on Wall Street’s minds. And no doubt those questions were partly what prompted a rare all-hands meeting at Apple Park shortly afterwards. That meeting, whi
Lyft and Baidu have shed more light on their plan for a worldwide fleet of autonomous vehicles . After the first rollouts — which are earmarked for Asia and the Middle East later this year — the companies have their designs set on Europe. They're aiming to deploy robotaxis in the UK and Germany in 2026, as long as they get approval from regulators. The goal is to then expand the European fleet to thousands of vehicles across the continent in the following years. Baidu is using its sixth-generat
Google / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Two weeks ago, Google and OpenAI touted their models' award-winning performance at the International Math Olympiad (IMO). Now, Google is making a version of its model available to the public. Also: This one feature could make GPT-5 a true game changer (if OpenAI gets it right) On Friday, Google launched Deep Think in the Gemini app for Google Ultra subscribers, a premium subscription tier that costs $250 per year or $125 for the first three months. Althou
“Memory oppresses me.” - Severian, The Book of the New Sun Interviewer: “What happens if you allocate memory with C’s malloc and try to free it with Rust’s dealloc, if you get a pointer to the memory from C?” Me: “If we do it via FFI then there’s a possibility the program may continue working (because the underlying structs share the same memory layout? right? …right?)” Now if you have any experience working with memory management, you know that this is a dangerous answer. But I didn’t know it a
With a buzz and a whirl, my laptop begins to unfurl. In less than six seconds after the press of a button, my petit 14-inch ThinkBook stands erect over my desk with a taller 16.7-inch display. There is literally nothing else like Lenovo’s ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable, and that’s partially why it costs a whopping $3,300. And you know what? There are few things cooler in laptop world than watching your screen expand from its original size. When you’re dropping a hefty chunk of change on a laptop
Why it matters: Samsung's Z Flip series has long been more popular than the Z Fold, mostly due to being half the price. But is the latest version of the flippable more durable than the foldable? YouTube channel JerryRigEverything put the two handsets through torture tests to find out. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 did well in Zack Nelson's famed durability challenge recently (bottom of the page), surviving two bend tests despite having a 4.3mm-thin (unfolded) chassis. Nelson has just carried out the sam