Sep 10Friday, September 11, 2026 · all days
1.Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin(shopify.engineering)
1090 points by fnthawar2 21 hours ago | 785 comments | permalink
tl;dr: Shopify is migrating its mobile apps (Shop, Shopify, POS, Inbox) from React Native back to native Swift and Kotlin, reversing its 2020 decision because LLMs have made maintaining two native codebases far less costly. They're doing greenfield rebuilds using an internal agentic system called Helix that works in reviewed checkpoints, plus a CLI-driven architecture that decouples business logic from UI for fast agent iteration. Shopify will wind down support for its React Native libraries (Skia, FlashList, Restyle) through 2026, seeking new stewards where possible.
HN Discussion:
  • Shopify's 3000 engineers suggests bloated engineering org, undermining their credibility on technical decisions
  • Confirms personal experience that LLMs enable fast native rebuilds from React Native codebases
  • Native is the right call and LLMs make React Native's cross-platform advantage obsolete
  • ~The LLM justification is overstated; native migrations were feasible before AI assistance
  • Shopify is wrongly assuming AI eliminates the cost of complexity, which will backfire
2.Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables(blog.jim-nielsen.com)
566 points by Brajeshwar 20 hours ago | 365 comments | permalink
tl;dr: Inspired by a Bluesky post from Tyler Gaw about digging out decade-old cables that finally proved useful, the author printed the post, taped it to their family's "big box of cables," and vowed never to let anyone throw it out. The piece is a short humorous ode to hoarding cables and the vindication of finally needing one.
HN Discussion:
  • Enthusiastic hoarders boasting about having multiple boxes and being vindicated when cables are needed
  • Organizational tips like grouping, bagging, or labeling cables to make hoarding more manageable
  • ~Selective minimalism: keep only rare/sentimental cables since common ones are easily replaceable via Amazon
  • Personal anecdotes of repurposing old cables in creative ways, validating the keep-everything ethos
  • Cautionary note that hoarded cables can be dangerous due to non-standard pinouts
3.OpenAI Agents API(developers.openai.com)
273 points by aquir 16 hours ago | 152 comments | permalink
tl;dr: OpenAI's new Agents API exposes the Codex harness as a managed service, handling sessions, orchestration, context compaction, and recovery while apps supply tools and pick an execution environment (OpenAI-hosted or self-hosted sandbox). Agents can run code, edit files, connect to MCP servers, use web search, and delegate to subagents, with persistent session state across turns. Billing follows standard model, tool, and container rates; currently US-only data residency with no ZDR support.
HN Discussion:
  • Managed agent harness solves real complexity around state, environments, and tool integration
  • Self-hosting sandbox option makes this genuinely useful and reduces lock-in concerns
  • This pushes vendor lock-in; agent infrastructure should be open source or cloud-neutral
  • Remote agent hosting is backwards since real friction lies with accessing local data
  • ~Distinction between LLM endpoints and agent harnesses is becoming meaningless, so this is a natural evolution
4.Technique for Manipulating Satellite Photos Now Reveals Ancient Images (2025)(spinoff.nasa.gov)
343 points by gumby 20 hours ago | 56 comments | permalink
tl;dr: Decorrelation stretch, a NASA JPL technique originally developed to enhance satellite imagery by mapping colors to an expanded range, has been repurposed via Jon Harman's Dstretch plug-in (built on ImageJ) to reveal faded ancient rock art invisible to the naked eye. It has uncovered hundreds of previously unseen paintings at sites like Angkor Wat, Norway's Årsand 1, and Egypt's Beni Hassan, and has expanded into other uses including aerial archaeological surveys in Greece and imaging tattoos on mummified remains.
HN Discussion:
  • Personal enthusiasm about false color composites and signal processing as an educational eye-opener
  • Reflection on how cross-disciplinary hobbies lead to great inventions like this one
  • Sharing technical implementations or alternative tools (GIMP, ImageMagick) to reproduce the technique
  • Skepticism that this is truly newsworthy since the technique is well-known and old
  • Excitement to apply the technique to their own images or related use cases like ghost signs
5.Mexican student creates an acoustic fire extinguisher to put out fire in seconds(upsocl.com)
241 points by rguiscard 10 hours ago | 83 comments | permalink
tl;dr: A 16-year-old student in Tamaulipas, Mexico built an acoustic fire extinguisher using a 12-volt battery, frequency generator, and speaker emitting 30 pulses per second, which displaces oxygen and extinguishes flames in 5-8 seconds. Named "Vortex Tech," the device reportedly works on wood, flammable liquids, grease, and electronics without leaving residue, and will be presented at an international science fair.
HN Discussion:
  • This technology has been invented before by others, contradicting the article's novelty claim
  • Celebrates the young student's curiosity and initiative regardless of originality
  • ~The technology is known but has practical niche applications like grills or grain silos
  • Skepticism about the article being low-quality sensationalized content
  • Requests for better sources and more substantive information about the invention
6.Cognition launches new SWE-2 model, Rivaling Fable 5.1 and GPT-Astra(cognition.com)
421 points by seelos 20 hours ago | 176 comments | permalink
tl;dr: Cognition released SWE-2, a coding model post-trained via RL from Kimi K3 (2.8T params) that hits 50% on FrontierCode 1.1 Main—matching Fable 5.1 at 64% lower cost and approaching GPT-6 Astra at a quarter of the price. Key technical contributions include a principled linear cost penalty tuned to the Pareto frontier's slope (allowing all reasoning-effort levels to be trained in a single RL run), a length-weighted reward baseline that stabilizes training, and improved rollout infrastructure using NVFP4/FP8 kernels with an online-trained draft model for speculative decoding.
HN Discussion:
  • Benchmark gap between TB2.1 and TB4 suggests benchmaxxing rather than real generalization
  • Cognition has a history of overhyped demos, so claims should be taken skeptically
  • Closed-weight models are unwanted; open alternatives like DeepSeek are more compelling
  • Lived experience with Devin/SWE products has been poor, casting doubt on claims
  • RL post-training from Kimi K3 to reach Fable 5 capabilities is an interesting demonstration
7.More questions about whether researchers can trust OpenAI with unpublished math(mathstodon.xyz)
823 points by pred_ 1 day ago | 754 comments | permalink
tl;dr: Summary not available
HN Discussion:
  • OpenAI's behavior mirrors an unethical human collaborator who steals ideas without attribution
  • Big AI companies function as intelligence-gathering operations harvesting private knowledge
  • The timing and circumstances suggest suspicious parallel construction by OpenAI
  • The accusations are weak, based on flimsy evidence, and amount to hysteria
  • ~Both training influence and independent RL discovery could simultaneously be true; nuanced technical take
8.Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom(musictheory.pugetsound.edu)
239 points by aanet 18 hours ago | 102 comments | permalink
tl;dr: "Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom" is a free, open-access textbook covering music theory from fundamentals (pitch, scales, intervals, triads) through advanced topics like chromatic harmony, sonata form, counterpoint, jazz theory, set theory, serialism, and minimalism. It incorporates popular music examples alongside classical repertoire and includes practice exercises with answers, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
HN Discussion:
  • Appreciates the textbook's format, accessibility, and inclusion of self-study materials and SVG illustrations
  • The '21st-Century' label is misleading since modern techniques like electronic, microtonal, and computer music are absent
  • Book overemphasizes classical theory and neglects non-Western musical traditions and pop/rock analysis
  • Text follows the common flaw of music theory books by presenting facts without motivation or context
  • Minor factual criticism about imprecise terminology (e.g., conflating piano keys with notes)
9.Neki – Sharded Postgres(planetscale.com)
251 points by simon_weber 20 hours ago | 132 comments | permalink
tl;dr: PlanetScale has launched Neki, a sharded Postgres offering now in platform preview, applying lessons from years of running large-scale sharded MySQL clusters. Unlike Postgres-compatible distributed databases, Neki runs real Postgres on every shard (each with a primary and two replicas across AZs) behind a router that speaks the Postgres wire protocol, preserving extensions and SQL behavior. It supports online workflows for schema changes, upgrades, failovers, and resharding, and can run unsharded initially, letting users reshard later as a workflow against the existing cluster.
HN Discussion:
  • Launch post fails to clearly explain what Neki actually is upfront
  • Skepticism about marketing claims like unlimited IOPS suggests other claims may be exaggerated
  • Hypocritical to criticize competitors like Multigres while keeping Neki closed source
  • Technical questions about consistency, cross-shard joins, and query pattern implications
  • ~Concern that Neki will split PlanetScale's focus away from Vitess/MySQL development
10.Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft(rustfoundation.org)
685 points by mmastrac 22 hours ago | 439 comments | permalink
tl;dr: Microsoft has elevated Rust to "Tier-1 language" status internally, alongside C++, C#, and TypeScript, with full support for secure toolchains, tooling, and SDL compliance. To unify Rust and C++ development on Windows, Microsoft built rustc_codegen_utc, an alternative rustc backend that plugs into the MSVC compiler ("UTC") for shared ABI, security features, debugging, and cross-language optimization. It's been production-ready since early 2026, self-hosted since Rust 1.90, and is used by over 100 internal Microsoft repositories.
HN Discussion:
  • Rust's tier-1 status validates its maturity as a serious C++/C# competitor
  • The MSVC backend integration is the most significant technical achievement here
  • Strategic move addresses Microsoft's memory safety CVE problems and legacy code issues
  • C++ to Rust interop and gradual adoption is the real adoption blocker
  • Skeptical of tier-1 claim given lack of Visual Studio support
11.Astra for Coding: Why Are We Doing This Again?(lucumr.pocoo.org)
358 points by manojbajaj95 5 hours ago | 256 comments | permalink
tl;dr: Armin Ronacher ran GPT-6 "Astra" as an unsupervised "software factory" for 35 hours, burning ~1B tokens and $1,200 to produce 75k lines of largely unusable code, including bizarrely code-golfed Python for tool calls, unreadable C with hardcoded magic constants, and tests with mangled whitespace. He argues Astra is optimized for token efficiency and long-horizon task completion rather than human-readable code, making it worse for real software engineering despite being impressive at 3D games, computer use, and reverse engineering. The trajectory of frontier models, he suggests, is diverging from the needs of working programmers.
HN Discussion:
  • Shitty AI-generated code compounds and stalls progress, confirming the author's concerns
  • RL training shifted toward long-horizon task success at the expense of code quality
  • Personal experience with Astra confirms it wastes tokens and underperforms on real tasks
  • With well-groomed specs and human review, AI agents still produce quality code effectively
  • AI engineering as a whole is an involution—more effort without meaningful output gains
12.List of references on Sony websites to players "owning" their digital games(consumerrights.wiki)
399 points by haunter 23 hours ago | 137 comments | permalink
tl;dr: Four California PlayStation buyers are suing Sony under a new state law (AB 2426) alleging the PlayStation Store's "Buy Now"/"Confirm Purchase" language misleads consumers into thinking they own digital games when they only receive a revocable license. Sony's motion to compel arbitration argues "reasonable consumers would not be misled" into believing they own digital games—yet the wiki compiles extensive examples of Sony's own support pages, storefronts, and marketing materials repeatedly using ownership language like "games you already own" and "owners can upgrade." A hearing is scheduled for October 1, 2026.
HN Discussion:
  • Binding arbitration clauses should be illegal as they strip consumer rights
  • Sony's defense argument is self-defeating and could set damaging precedent against them
  • ~Lawsuit is futile since Sony will just tweak wording and continue practices
  • Copyright reform is needed to establish true digital ownership rights
  • Society has been gradually conditioned to accept erosion of ownership norms
13.DeepSeek v4.1 Flash(twitter.com)
972 points by Liwink 1 day ago | 550 comments | permalink
tl;dr: DeepSeek announced DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash, the smallest model in a new architecture family featuring native visual understanding. The release emphasizes faster inference, higher throughput, and improved efficiency, and is positioned as a foundation for scaling to larger models.
HN Discussion:
  • DeepSeek's transparent, detail-rich tech reports contrast favorably with Western labs' safety-focused documentation
  • DeepSeek is fearlessly innovative, consistently packing releases with clever ideas at frontier scale
  • ~The model is no longer truly 'flash' given its increased 552B size, making local runs harder
  • Extremely low cache hit pricing may make network transfer costs dominate, reshaping API economics
  • Practical testing shows strong performance, willingness to comply, and interesting benchmark results
14.Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants(bbc.com)
215 points by lukaspetersson 11 hours ago | 216 comments | permalink
tl;dr: Google is investing €13bn in Finland—its largest single European investment—to build three new data centres, expand its Hamina site, and power growing AI demand. As part of the deal, Google signed a 22-year contract with utility Fortum to purchase up to 50% of the output from the Loviisa nuclear plant, which supplies about 10% of Finland's electricity. Finland's cool climate, low-carbon power, and uncongested grid have made it a magnet for data centre investment, with TikTok also announcing a $1bn facility there this week.
HN Discussion:
  • Deal is PR/financial maneuver, not real investment in new power infrastructure
  • Finland's low-carbon electricity makes it a genuinely good location for data centres
  • ~Questioning whether Google's deal meets the 'additionality' standard for clean energy investment
  • Skepticism about whether massive data centre buildout will be needed given efficiency gains
  • Hope this deal spurs more nuclear power plant construction across Europe
15.iPhone Duo(apple.com)
1451 points by thecosmicfrog 1 day ago | 2490 comments | permalink
tl;dr: Apple's iPhone Duo is its first foldable iPhone, featuring a 7.6-inch inner Super Retina XDR display (50% larger than iPhone 18 Pro Max), a 5.4-inch outer display, an under-display FaceTime camera, and a titanium frame with IP68 rating. It's powered by the A20 Pro chip, uses Touch ID in the side button, is eSIM-only, offers up to 31 hours of video playback, and supports Apple Pencil. Launching October 23, 2026, with new foldable-specific features like Duo Preview, Smart Take, and Duo FaceTime.
HN Discussion:
  • Foldable form factor will finally push developers to properly design apps for foldables
  • Pencil support and solved hinge/crease issues make this a compelling device
  • $2K price is too steep, especially as a risky first-gen Apple product
  • Prior foldable experience shows unresolved durability issues like dust, screen protectors, and aspect ratios
  • Appreciation for design details like the sqrt(2) aspect ratio and outer display size
16.Hitachi launches CO2 heat pump water heaters with solar-friendly tariff controls(pv-magazine.com)
311 points by thelastgallon 1 day ago | 267 comments | permalink
tl;dr: Hitachi is launching its Y-series EcoCute CO2 heat pump water heaters in Japan starting November 2026, in 370L and 460L configurations with a five-year warranty. The main upgrade is expanded support for daytime electricity tariffs aimed at households with solar PV, selectable via the remote controller, rather than changes to the underlying heat pump hardware or HEMS connectivity, which was already present in prior models.
HN Discussion:
  • Existing EcoCute heat pumps already offer these tariff/solar features, confirming the article's framing as incremental
  • Japan leads in heat pump quality and innovation, though prices remain high
  • Educational context on how heat pumps work and CO2 as refrigerant background
  • These devices should expose open APIs for external home/grid control
  • ~DIY thermal-battery workarounds or alternative solar water heaters can achieve similar goals
17.Shopify acquires Tailwind(tailwindcss.com)
1126 points by EdwinHoksberg 1 day ago | 440 comments | permalink
tl;dr: Tailwind CSS is being acquired by Shopify, which has been a heavy user of the framework and will provide long-term maintenance and a real-world product surface to develop against. Tailwind CSS and other open-source projects will remain MIT-licensed and continue to be maintained by the same team, but the commercial side is winding down—existing Tailwind Plus and ui.sh customers keep access, but new signups are closed.
HN Discussion:
  • AI has decimated Tailwind's commercial business, making the acquisition a necessary soft landing
  • ~Vanilla CSS is sufficient now and Tailwind/frameworks are unnecessary complexity
  • Gratitude and well-wishes for Adam and the team, hoping they got paid well
  • DevTools companies with only OSS + commercial templates can't survive LLMs without scale services
  • Shopify gains brand and mindshare rather than a revenue-generating product
18.What algorithm did Windows XP use to choose your initial user picture?(devblogs.microsoft.com)
352 points by soheilpro 1 day ago | 176 comments | permalink
tl;dr: Windows XP picked your initial user picture using reservoir sampling (k=1) over the Default Pictures directory, seeded by GetTickCount() via RtlRandomEx. This one-pass approach avoids a second file-system enumeration and handles directory changes mid-iteration gracefully. A safety cap stops sampling after 100 files to prevent pathological slowdowns.
HN Discussion:
  • Admiration for Raymond Chen's Windows internals storytelling and longevity
  • Reflection on how modern developers would take a simpler, less elegant approach under time pressure
  • Appreciation for the thoughtful optimization mindset of past developers
  • Questioning whether the single-pass optimization actually matters given filesystem caching
  • Observation about the conceptual gap between human and computer randomness/selection
19.Stockfish 19(stockfishchess.org)
275 points by atiedebee 3 days ago | 162 comments | permalink
tl;dr: Stockfish 19 delivers up to 44 Elo gain over version 18, winning 3x as many game pairs as it loses. Key changes include a new SFNNv16 NNUE architecture (with pawn-pair features and retirement of the secondary small net), Quantization-Aware Training, and universal binaries that auto-detect CPU features. It also adds native support for RISC-V, LoongArch, WebAssembly, and 1GB Linux huge pages, plus stricter FEN/UCI validation that terminates the process on invalid input.
HN Discussion:
  • Reports a potential bug/regression in Stockfish's evaluation of a famous chess position
  • Humorous acknowledgment that the strength gains are real but irrelevant to weak human players
  • Appreciates the reduced binary size from the new architecture but wants more size efficiency
  • ~Suggests the release notes should include notable example games showing evaluation differences
  • Speculates that older Stockfish versions are already effectively unbeatable, questioning practical value of updates
20.Show HN: What if the speed of light was 5 km/h?(rivendell.dmitrybrant.com)
586 points by dmitrybrant 1 day ago | 266 comments | permalink
tl;dr: An interactive browser demo that simulates a park where the speed of light is 5 km/h, letting you walk around and experience relativistic effects firsthand. As you accelerate (via arrow keys or WASD), you can observe length contraction, time dilation, Terrell rotation, and Doppler shifts (blueshift ahead, redshift behind), with toggles to isolate individual effects.
HN Discussion:
  • Praises the simulation as more accurate than prior similar attempts like MIT's game
  • Shares philosophical reflections on how slow the speed of light actually is at cosmic scales
  • ~Tried to observe specific relativistic effects (Wigner rotation) but couldn't verify them in the simulation
  • Points out that changing the speed of light isn't physically coherent since it's tied to other constants
  • Mentions prior art and related works exploring the same concept (Velocity Raptor, MIT game, Mr. Tompkins, Redshift Rendezvous)