Sunday, September 13, 2026 · No. 30
23 articles · ~5h 35m read · 7 sections
A personal morning paper, assembled daily; the selection is the reader's, the words are the authors'.
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Top Stories
My last six months at Evernote
Alex · Hacker News: Front Page · alexkras.com · 9 min
Business & economics · First personEvernote acquisition · Bending Spoons playbook · layoffs
Matched interests: Note-TakingStartupsCommonplace Books
A former engineering manager recounts Bending Spoons’ takeover of Evernote, dissecting the playbook that transformed an unprofitable $100 million ARR unicorn into a profitable business. By eliminating third-party software contracts, doubling subscription fees to $129.99 on locked-in customers, and migrating operations to Europe, the Italian acquirer preserves the core product while systematically dismantling the company that built it.
I made a build profiler to understand Bun’s compile times
lalitm.com by lalitm · Lobsters · lalitm.com · 14 min
Software engineering · First personbuild profiling · link-time optimization · Rust vs Zig builds
Matched interests: Performance ProfilingCompilersRust
Tracing process trees with a custom tool reveals why Bun’s Rust rewrite appeared over five times faster than its preceding Zig codebase. While switching to ThinLTO and recompiling upstream WebKit dependencies slashes the Zig clean build from 24 to 15 minutes, the remaining gap is structural. Rust parallelizes compilation across more than ninety crates, whereas the older codebase funnels all work through a single module.
Microcode in Intel's 8087 floating-point chip: the scale instruction
Ken Shirriff · righto.com · 33 min
Hardware · First personIntel 8087 microcode · floating-point internals · chip reverse engineering
Matched interests: SIMDInform7Gaussian Splatting
High-resolution die photography of the 1980 coprocessor reveals that scaling a number by a power of two is unexpectedly intricate. Reverse-engineering the control ROM shows that FSCALE demands over 140 micro-instructions and three subroutine levels to navigate 80-bit temporary registers, inspect hidden tag bits, and resolve masked hardware exceptions.
Cormac McCarthy’s Midlife Crisis
Michael O’Donnell · The Atlantic · theatlantic.com · 10 min
Books & writing · AnalysisCormac McCarthy · literary biography · Blood Meridian
Matched interests: Creative WritingLongform EssaysShort Fiction
Facing commercial obscurity and a failing marriage at forty, Cormac McCarthy abandons Tennessee with only his boots and typewriter to head west. Tracy Daugherty’s biography traces how this flight trades dense Appalachian gothicism for the elemental violence of Blood Meridian. Demythologizing the author’s ascetic poverty, Daugherty uncovers a calculated reinvention sparked by the realization that cowboys sell far better than hillbillies.
Tech & Engineering
Testing race conditions with memory access tracing and stack-based delay injection
projectzero.google via fro · Lobsters · projectzero.google · 17 min
Software engineering · First personrace condition testing · delay injection · Linux kernel fuzzing
Matched interests: ConcurrencyFuzzingMemory Allocators
MAccConc combines outline-mode ASAN instrumentation with KCOV to record concurrent Linux kernel memory operations. Instead of relying on virtual machine snapshots, it stably identifies communication points across executions using count-augmented stack traces. A custom ioctl then injects spin-waits at targeted frames, allowing automated evaluation of A-B-A thread interleavings alongside terminal and graphical interfaces.
Hacker News: 64 points · 3 commentsLobsters: 1 points · 0 commentsComments
Metacarp
blog.veitheller.de via jtm · Lobsters · blog.veitheller.de · 8 min
Software engineering · First personcompiler self-hosting · incremental JIT · Carp language
Matched interests: CompilersMemory AllocatorsRust
Spanning 42,000 lines of Carp, a new self-hosting compiler achieves byte-identical C across bootstrap generations while establishing a modular alternative to the language's decade-old Haskell reference implementation. A persistent session library caches standard-library analysis to support stateful notebook environments without re-inferring unchanged definitions. Paired with a companion LLVM backend and incremental JIT, the architecture lowers warm evaluation times to roughly sixty milliseconds per cell.
Optimizing a single Rust Clippy lint by 3133X
blog.goose.love via lsh · Lobsters · blog.goose.love · 4 min
Software engineering · First personClippy lint performance · Rust macro expansion hygiene · compiler benchmarking
Matched interests: RustZero-CopyStatic Analysis
Because macro braces vanish after expansion, the clippy::nonstandard_macro_braces lint recursively inspects raw source spans for every expression, repeatedly locking session globals and the symbol interner to consume 25% of Clippy's runtime. Rewriting the check as an unconventional pre-expansion lint resolves the bottleneck in under two hundred lines of code, bypassing compiler locks and manual span calculations.
Reducing build time of my blog by 88% by optimizing cross-language invocations
Ulysses’ trip · tyler's Top Finds on Scour Today · ulysseszh.github.io · 7 min
Software engineering · First personbuild performance · cross-language FFI · Jekyll/Pandoc pipeline
Matched interests: Query OptimizationMarkdownPerformance Profiling
Spawning sequential Haskell, Ruby, and Rust processes to run Pandoc filters bloats Jekyll site generation to 156 seconds on CI runners. Replacing the CLI pipeline with a multithreaded Haskell FFI library and embedded MiniRacer JavaScript contexts eliminates process churn, while MessagePack cuts AST serialization to two passes. The overhaul slashes full site rendering to 19 seconds.
Base84 deserves a place in file names
00f.net via untitaker · Lobsters · 00f.net · 3 min
Software engineering · Analysisfilename-safe encoding · Base84 alphabet · encrypted filenames
Matched interests: Compression AlgorithmsCryptographyBloom Filters
Excluding nine Windows-restricted characters and the dot creates an 84-character ASCII alphabet safe across Linux, macOS, and Windows. A Zig encoder packs data into five-character groups for a 25.2% average expansion, outperforming Base64 while mathematically preventing collisions with reserved device names like CON and COM1. Because 255-byte filesystem limits divide evenly by five, strings store up to 197 bytes without padding.
Hacker News: 4 points · 1 commentsLobsters: 22 points · 8 commentsComments
Science & Space
Rope, Twine and Thread: Invisible Technologies of the Stone Age
Benjamin Taub · Nautilus · 9 min
History · Analysispaleolithic cordage · experimental archaeology · hafting technology
Matched interests: Tech HistoryLow-TechScience
Reconstructing a 35,000-year-old mammoth ivory baton from Germany’s Hohle Fels cave reveals that its spiral-grooved holes can twist five meters of plant cordage in ten minutes. Archaeologists argue that durable stone tools create a severe preservation bias, obscuring how perishable bindings transformed prehistoric transport and hunting. Botanical and ethnographic evidence shows that harvesting seasonal fibers and twisting cord dictated ancient nomadic schedules.
Scientists Create a New Form of Ice at More Than 2000°C
jnord · Hacker News: Front Page · sciencealert.com · 5 min
Science & space · Reportedsuperionic ice · high-pressure physics · ice giant interiors
Matched interests: ScienceScience WritingScience News
Squeezing water between diamond anvils to 230 gigapascals and heating it with lasers past 2,600 kelvins, physicists isolate a long-predicted hexagonal close-packed phase of superionic ice. Synchrotron X-ray diffraction confirms oxygen atoms locked in a rigid lattice while hydrogen nuclei diffuse like a liquid. Dominating above 200 gigapascals, the phase could reshape internal models of magnetic field generation inside Uranus and Neptune.
A New Design For A Plasma Engine Fuels On Only Thin Air
Universe Today · tyler's Top Finds on Scour Today · universetoday.com · 5 min
Science & space · Analysisatmosphere-breathing propulsion · VLEO satellites · RF helicon thruster
Matched interests: AerospaceSpace TechnologyAviation
To counter orbital drag without onboard xenon, Francesco Romano couples a specular intake with a contactless helicon plasma thruster. The parabolic collector captures 94.3% of incoming atmospheric molecules, while an MRI-inspired birdcage antenna delivers 99% of its radio-frequency power to generate plasma. By expelling a quasi-neutral jet that eliminates corroding cathodes, the system can maintain very low Earth orbits on under 1.6 kilowatts.
AI & Machine Learning
Porting ALE Linux CLI: I Looked at the Data of a Frontier Benchmark and Found some Issues
sankalp's blog · tyler's Top Finds on Scour Today · sankalp.bearblog.dev · 28 min
AI & ML · First personLLM benchmark evaluation · Agents' Last Exam defects · agent rollout harnesses
Matched interests: LLM EvalsBioinformaticsLLMs
Adapting the Agents’ Last Exam terminal benchmark to Prime Intellect’s Verifiers platform uncovers severe defects across its 105 tasks, from missing system dependencies to unstated schema requirements that fail correct model outputs. Addressing these failures and runtime sandbox bottlenecks yields ALE-Gold, a cleaned 96-task evaluation suite that excludes nine tasks with unresolved defects.
Benchmark: CadQuery vs. OpenSCAD for agentic CAD work
jetter · Hacker News: Front Page · modelrift.com · 13 min
Software engineering · First personCadQuery · OpenSCAD · agentic CAD
Matched interests: ManufacturingAgent-Based SimulationsWriting Tools
An empirical benchmark tests Claude Opus 5 driving OpenSCAD and CadQuery across three unattended mechanical design tasks, from snap-fit enclosures to helical hose-barb adapters. While both CAD tools produce printable, watertight STLs in eleven iterations each, CadQuery fails loudly on geometry errors, whereas OpenSCAD quietly exports corrupted meshes under clean status reports. Programmatic volume and interference assertions catch subtle defects that visual renders miss entirely.
AI is breaking our proxies for expertise
seangoedecke.com · 8 min
AI & ML · AnalysisAI and expertise · prestige proxies · software engineering culture
Matched interests: AI CriticismAIMachine Learning
A declaration signed by nearly five thousand mathematicians, including twenty-five Fields medalists, warns that automated proofs solve prestigious problems without fostering conceptual insight. By cracking legible puzzles without introducing intuitive frameworks, machine solutions subvert the traditional measures of intellectual progress. The dynamic mirrors software engineering, where milestone artifacts like toy operating systems no longer reliably certify human technical competence.
Culture & Essays
Fuck it, make it anyway
joelotter.com via rcalixte · Hacker News: Front Page · joelotter.com · 4 min
Culture & arts · First persongenerative AI and craft · creative burnout · game development
Matched interests: Generative ArtCreative CodingCreative Writing
Facing creative paralysis as generative AI devalues bespoke software, an engineer laments the lost pride in writing hand-crafted utilities and games. A conversation about designer friend Shad’s AI-free iOS camera app and his own custom C++ game engine reframes the dilemma. Rather than optimizing for speed, he resolves to keep building things the hard way purely for the intrinsic pleasure of the craft.
The secret quest to preserve Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh's diaries
Daniel Estrin · News : NPR · NPR · 8 min
Books & writing · Interviewdiary archiving · Palestinian history · digitized personal papers
Matched interests: Personal ArchivingWritingJournaling
Fearing his Ramallah garage archive faces destruction in military operations, Raja Shehadeh details a two-year effort to spirit decades of personal journals out of the West Bank. A small team digitizes thousands of pages before quietly mailing the physical manuscripts to Scotland. The rescued records document unvarnished reactions to 1990s peace negotiations, West Bank landscape shifts, and a forty-year inquiry into his father's assassination.
'That Spiritual Pepys'
Anecdotal Evidence · tyler's Top Finds on Scour Today · evidenceanecdotal.blogspot.com · 4 min
Books & writing · AnalysisMontaigne · James Russell Lowell · literary criticism
Matched interests: EssaysLiteraturePoetry
James Russell Lowell’s 1848 satire A Fable for Critics dismisses contemporaries like Emerson in favor of older masters, canonizing Montaigne alongside George Herbert and Sir Thomas Browne. Re-examining Montaigne’s counsel to the pregnant Comtesse de Gurson on educating children reveals an expansive curriculum rooted in Plutarch and Seneca. His broad-minded approach champions learning from the wider world and cultivating an intellect incapable of submitting to force.
tonight i said goodbye to my cat
woolgathering · Bear Blog Trending Posts · woolgathering.bearblog.dev · 4 min
Outdoors & lifestyle · First personpet loss · feline leukemia · grief
Matched interests: CatsGitNature
An emergency veterinary stay ends in heartbreak when Godfather, an outdoor cat not even a year old, collapses from concurrent feline leukemia and blood parasites. Stopping at a new neighborhood matcha cafe immediately after saying goodbye, a writer and their father confront the jarring dissonance of watching strangers happily go about their evening amid fresh grief.
Niche Corner
A Dick Smith VZ200 without the Dick Smith (but with a serial port)
ClassicHasClass · oldvcr.blogspot.com · 116 min
Hardware · First personretro computing · keyboard repair · VTech history
Matched interests: Mechanical KeyboardsRetro ComputingE-Ink Displays
Reviving a neglected 1983 VTech home computer prompts a deep dive into Hong Kong’s early microcomputing boom, tracing how manufacturers cloned the TRS-80 to supply overseas retailers like Australia’s Dick Smith Electronics. Between recounting EACA's legal battles with Tandy over the Video Genie, the project restores faulty video hardware and bolts on a USB interface, hitting 57.6kbps using cycle-counted Z80 assembly.
Designing Cycle-Exact Delays on Several 8-Bit CPUs
Michael Martin · Bumbershoot Software · bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com · 13 min
Hardware · How-tocycle-exact delays · 6502/Z80/6809 · assembly timing
Matched interests: SIMDCode GenerationCompression Algorithms
Constructing deterministic timing loops across microprocessors like the 6502, Z80, and SM83 pairs a tight decrement loop parameterized as An + B with precalculated padding instructions to absorb remainder cycles. Closing those gaps exposes architecture-specific quirks, ranging from 6502 page-crossing branch penalties and zero-page read side effects to exploiting failing conditional returns on the Z80.
I spent $4,000 on a robot dog from China
Timothy B. Lee · Ars Technica · 15 min
Hardware · First personquadruped robots · Unitree · Chinese robotics manufacturing
Matched interests: ManufacturingBoston TechElectronics
Commuting two miles through Washington, D.C. with a $4,017 Unitree Go2 Pro ends when the quadruped reaches 84°C and collapses upside down outside the front door. An engineering teardown explains how the manufacturer undercuts Boston Dynamics’ $75,000 Spot: utilizing twelve identical in-house motors and simple 6.33-to-1 gearboxes instead of expensive reducers. The looser, backdriveable hardware relies on flexible control software to compensate for mechanical imprecision.
Rethinking Conway’s Game of Life: Dynamic Environments in Processing
deconbatch's Land of 1000 Creative Codings. · tyler's Top Finds on Scour Today · deconbatch.com · 8 min
Culture & arts · How-tocellular automata · creative coding in Processing · rule-bending environments
Matched interests: Cellular AutomataAgent-Based SimulationsGame Mechanics
Refactoring a 2019 cellular automaton sketch replaces subtle 3D Perlin noise with a unified global factor that shifts survival thresholds across the grid. Instead of binary alive-or-dead states, cells carry continuous health values evaluated against relative neighbor vitality rather than fixed counts. A dedicated field controller decouples state logic from individual cells, while directional neighbor mappings selectively round cell corners during rendering.