Reinvent the Wheel
endler.dev — Published on 24th of May, 2025Reinvent the WheelTagged withdevcultureOne of the most harmful pieces of advice is to not reinvent the wheel.It usually comes from a good place, but is typically given by two groups of people:those who tried to invent a wheel themselves and know how hard it isthose who never tried to invent a wheel and blindly follow the adviceEither way, both positions lead to a climate where curiosity and exploration gets discouraged. I’m glad that some people didn’t follow that advice; we owe them many of the conveniences of modern life.Even on a surface level, the advice is bad: We have much better wheels today than 4500–3300 BCE when the first wheel was invented. It was also crucially important that wheels got reinvented throughout civilizations and cultures.Note: When I ... REINVENT, 1
I used o3 to find a remote zeroday in the Linux SMB implementation
heelan.io — In this post I’ll show you how I found a zeroday vulnerability in the Linux kernel using OpenAI’s o3 model. I found the vulnerability with nothing more complicated than the o3 API – no scaffolding, no agentic frameworks, no tool use. USED, 2
Tachy0n: The Last 0day Jailbreak
siguza.net — Hey.
Long time no see, huh?
People have speculated over the years that someone “bought my silence”, or asked me whether I had moved my blog posts to some other place, but no. Life just got in the way.
This is not the blog post with which I planned to return, but it’s the one for which all the research is said and done, so that’s what you’re getting. I have plenty more that I wanna do, but I’ll be happy if I can even manage to put out two a year. TACHY0N, 3
How to Install Windows NT 4 Server on Proxmox
pipetogrep.org — Windows NT 4 doesn't virtualise well. This guide shows how to do it with Proxmox with a minimal amount of pain. HOW, 4
CAPTCHAs are over (in ticketing)
pretix.eu — One of the issues in ticketing is that many events have much more demand for tickets than they can supply.
Obviously, this is a good problem to have (better than empty halls), but it attracts certain types of bad actors trying to get as many tickets as possible in order to resell them (“ticket scalping”).
While this is possible of course just by buying tickets like a regular customer, many of them use computer programs (“bots”) to enhance either their chance of claiming a ticket or their scale of operation by buying more tickets. CAPTCHAS, 5
Using the Apple ][+ with the RetroTink-5X
nicole.express —
May 24, 2025
USING, 6
Good Writing
paulgraham.com — May 2025There are two senses in which writing can be good: it can
sound good, and the ideas can be right. It can have nice,
flowing sentences, and it can draw correct conclusions
about important things. It might seem as if these two
kinds of good would be unrelated, like the speed of a car
and the color it's painted. And yet I don't think they
are. I think writing that sounds good is more likely to
be right.So here we have the most exciting kind of idea: one that
seems both preposterous and true. Let's examine it. How
can this possibly be true?I know it's true from writing. You can't simultaneously
optimize two unrelated things; when you push one far
enough, you always end up sacrificing the other. And yet
no matter how hard I push, I never find myself having to
choose between... GOOD, 7
The Logistics of Road War in the Wasteland
acoup.blog — This week, we’re doing another ‘silly’ topic, but this being me, it is a silly logistics topic, because – as the saying goes – amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. So we’re going to be professionally silly this week and talk about the logistics of vehicle warfare in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting, in part because this is a good way to also think about why militaries (of various description) use the vehicles they use, from a logistics standpoint. THE, 8
The WinRAR Approach
basicappleguy.com — The WinRAR Approach: a small tweak in how I distribute content to keep the site free, sustainable, & ad-free. THE, 9
Show HN: Rotary Phone Dial Linux Kernel Driver
news.ycombinator.com — A Linux kernel driver that turns a rotary phone dial into an evdev input device. You might be interested in this driver if you ROTARY, 10
Lone coder cracks 50-year puzzle to find Boggle's top-scoring board
ft.com — FT Digital Edition: today’s FT, cover to cover on any device. This subscription does not include access to ft.com or the FT App. LONE, 11
The Xenon Death Flash: How a Camera Nearly Killed the Raspberry Pi 2
magnus919.com — The Raspberry Pi 2’s vulnerability to xenon flashes became one of the most unusual hardware bugs in computing history. THE, 12
One of the Most Popular Games on the Planet
kotaku.com — It’s likely that you’ve never played or even heard of Grow a Garden, a new user-created experience in Roblox. But millions of people have. In fact, the very simple farming sim at one point had over 5 million active players, beating out games like Counter-Strike 2 and Marvel Rivals on Steam. It’s likely Grow a Garden is one of the most played games on the planet right now. And it was developed by a teenager in a few days. ONE, 13
Hong Kong's Famous Bamboo Scaffolding Hangs on (For Now)
nytimes.com — Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker HONG, 14
The Next-Gen Mainboard Designed with AmigaOS4 and MorphOS in Mind
vitasys.nl — A community driven, fast and affordable mainboard is coming! THE, 15
An Almost Pointless Exercise in GPU Optimization
speechmatics.com — Not everyone is able to write funky
fused
operators to make ML models run faster on GPUs using clever quantisation tricks. However lots of
developers work with algorithms that feel like they should be able to leverage the thousands of
cores in a GPU to run faster than using the dozens of cores on a server CPU. To see what is possible
and what is involved, I revisited the first problem I ever considered trying to accelerate with a
GPU. What is unusual about my chosen problem is that it is officially
pointless, so you ought not to
be able to find any library that will accelerate this algorithm, because it isn’t worth writing one!
That makes it an interesting proxy for algorithms which aren’t catered for by high-performance
libraries written by experts, but can be structured to run thousands of threads in parallel. ALMOST, 16
Show HN: I built StickerFacet to turn photos into high quality vinyl stickers
news.ycombinator.com — I decided to focus on pets because my girlfriend and I have this cute little cat called Lola and I immediately needed to produce as many stickers of her as possible. BUILT, 17
Scientific conferences are leaving the US amid border fears
nature.com — You can also search for this author in PubMed
Google Scholar
SCIENTIFIC, 18
Domain Theory Lecture Notes
liamoc.net — DOMAIN, 19
The Verse Calculus: A Core Calculus for Functional Logic Programming [pdf]
peytonjones.org — THE, 20
Failure Mechanisms in Democratic Regimes – An Army's Role
angrystaffofficer.com — The United States was born of a desire to leave behind monarchial government and instead live under a republic. Although the structure of the United States was explicitly crafted to have both democratic and anti-democratic elements, the perils of democracy have been part of the American discussion from the beginning (“When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest, both the public good and the rights of other citizens”). The allure of democracy is simple: by allowing people to collectively express their collective will, a representative government should be entitled to rely on their support in carrying out its political agenda. This social contract between the governed and those who gove... FAILURE, 21
Exposed Industrial Control Systems and Honeypots in the Wild [pdf]
gsmaragd.github.io — EXPOSED, 22
Peer Programming with LLMs, for Senior+ Engineers
pmbanugo.me — Programming with LLMs is both promising and frustrating. While these AI assistants can help with coding and debugging, they often waste time too. Yet for senior engineers, pair peer programming with LLMs shows real potential. PEER, 23
Is Astrophotography Without Tracking Possible?
astroimagery.com — Astrophotography without tracking is absolutely possible and can produce stunning results with the right techniques. By choosing bright and stationary targets like the Milky Way, using a sturdy tripod, and applying methods like the 500 Rule, you can capture breathtaking night sky photos without the need for expensive tracking equipment. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know to master astrophotography without tracking, even as a beginner. ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY, 24
The Last Nomads
thedial.world — I first visited the highland villages of Adjara, a remote region in Georgia’s southwest near the Turkish border and the Black Sea, in 2013. Over the next decade, I would return at least twice a year, wanting to understand it more intimately. THE, 25
Show HN: F2 – Cross-Platform CLI Batch Renaming Tool
news.ycombinator.com — Hey HN! CROSS-PLATFORM, 26
Root for your friends
josephthacker.com —
Heads‑up: The concept of this post might seem trivial, but it can improve your career, happiness, and the people you care about. Proceed without caution. It only takes about 10 minutes to read. ROOT, 27
Goethe's Faustian Life
commonwealmagazine.org — In the English-speaking world today, Goethe is still, in A. N. Wilson’s pithy phrase, “the Great Unread.” This was not always the case. “Close thy Byron,” wrote the reactionary prophet Thomas Carlyle in the 1830s; “Open thy Goethe.” The Victorians––Hapsburg-descended Queen Victoria and Saxon Prince Albert among them––were steeped in Goethe. George Eliot, whose worldview was profoundly shaped by nineteenth-century German thought, called him “the last true polymath ever to walk the earth.” To Wilson, his newest English biographer, Goethe possessed “surely the most interesting brain which ever inhabited a human skull.” GOETHE, 28
Trellis (YC W24) Is Hiring founding SDR to help automate healthcare paperwork
Harper (YC W25) Is Hiring Applied AI / AI Context Engineers and Data Scientist