Phyllotaxis: An audio-reactive LED display

120 evakhoury 2026-09-29 03:21:52 UTC jagi.studio Llama Share 12

The author created a cellular LED matrix inspired by phyllotaxis, a pattern found in nature, and programmed it to react dynamically to sound using an STM32 board. The project evolved into an interactive installation at Recurse Center, featuring a website for attendees to upload sketches and games.

The systems that no one will test

36 perone 2026-09-29 06:21:52 UTC blog.christianperone.com Llama Share 10

The author found a vulnerability in a system during the pandemic, allowing access to Brazilian federal records of 200+ million people. This experience has led them to worry about the growing capabilities of AI models and their potential for misuse by nation-states.

Booted up in 1993, this server still runs – but not for much longer (2017)

17 doener 2026-09-29 06:21:52 UTC computerworld.com Llama Share 3

A 1993 Stratus server, still operational after 24 years, has been maintained by Phil Hogan at Great Lakes Works in Michigan. The server will be retired in April after a planned upgrade, marking the end of its nearly three-decade run.

Pirating the Pirates

554 piotrgrabowski 2026-09-28 16:21:52 UTC mubi.com Llama Share 271

The author and his roommate hacked together a restored version of Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly after MGM altered it for profit. They collaborated with other preservationists to create an official release that closely matched their work.

California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops

197 randycupertino 2026-09-28 20:21:52 UTC kqed.org Llama Share 426

California wine growers are struggling to sell their grapes due to declining demand, forcing some to tear out vineyards that have been in their families for generations. The industry is facing significant losses as prices paid for grapes drop and many growers are left with unsold crops.

MicroLLM Lab – Try 7 tiny LLM's in the browser

225 logicallee 2026-09-28 19:21:52 UTC stateofutopia.com Llama Share 81

The model is evaluated based on objective checks, not writing quality. The 135M model's performance is measured by speed and accuracy metrics from runs in the browser.

Tank Body Problem

91 jimbooonooo 2026-09-29 01:21:52 UTC jimsitu.com Full Share 21

↑↓ Elevate │ ←→ Power │ A/D Move │ J/L Weapon │ SPACE Fire │ SPACE AGAIN = Laser/Plumage │ Cheese bounces 3x │ Poison drops bubbles │ Moon gravity

ESP32S3 cluster running 1.58-bit (BitNet) Language model

89 nkko 2026-09-28 22:21:52 UTC github.com/low-zi-hong Full Share 18

This project runs a sliced 0.5B LLM across a cluster of 7 ESP32s3. One act as master and others are node. The master node runs the tokenizer and embeding and the other attention layer and MLP ran on the nodes. The master and node communicate through high speed SPI Daisy-Chain. This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Jeff – Jev-compatible 0.8B decision models, trained at home, ~30 ms

477 firelex 2026-09-28 21:21:52 UTC github.com/firelex Llama Share 179

This text describes a new model called Jeff, which is a small, fast decision-making system for zero-shot classification tasks. It can be fine-tuned on specific examples to improve its accuracy.

OpenAI: Tomorrow we are re-opening the Pro $200 subscription

40 tosh 2026-09-29 07:21:52 UTC twitter.com/thsottiaux Llama Share 29

The Pro $200 subscription is re-opening with a new pricing model that nets out to half the dollar in API spend, allowing for more usage without limits. This change aims to provide better value and flexibility while reducing prices over time.

Show HN: Pac-Bench – How well can models one-shot a Pac-Man game?

49 thefourthchime 2026-09-29 03:21:52 UTC jonclegg.github.io Llama Share 34

Model labels are short names without prefixes, dates, or suffixes. Stats include wall time and token counts from harness transcripts for some models.

12,000-year-old Göbeklitepe burials explain scattered bones

131 yusufaytas 2026-09-28 20:21:52 UTC archaeologymag.com Full Share 30

Sonnet 5.5

758 D2OQZG8l5BI1S06 2026-09-28 18:21:52 UTC anthropic.com Llama Share 505

Sonnet 5.5 is a faster and lower-cost version of Sonnet 5, suitable for everyday tasks and well-scoped work, with improved design capabilities.

Hijacking the PS5's RTMP stream

249 ibobev 2026-09-28 16:21:52 UTC yashgarg.dev Llama Share 79

The author created a custom solution to bypass Sony's restrictions on streaming from the PS5, using DNS spoofing and RTMP redirection. A macOS app manages dnsmasq and nginx-rtmp to intercept streams destined for Twitch or YouTube, allowing them to be redirected to the author's Mac instead.

Scientists solve 1840s space weather mystery

102 gumby 2026-09-28 20:21:52 UTC arstechnica.com Llama Share 46

Scientists have found evidence of a 1847 geomagnetic storm disrupting telegraph systems in England, making it the earliest recorded space weather event. This discovery suggests that society has been experiencing space weather effects on technology for almost as long as electrical technologies exist.

Simulating Airband AM Radios

30 shellpipe 2026-09-29 03:21:52 UTC bitbashing.io Llama Share 3

The author created a digital simulation of an AM radio to accurately model the sound of multiple transmitters interfering with each other, mimicking real-life air traffic control scenarios. The simulation uses complex numbers and phasors to represent frequencies and phases, allowing for realistic modeling of signal degradation and interference.

Kids turned low-traffic NPR Spotify comments into a secret group chat

383 simonpure 2026-09-28 16:21:52 UTC thisamericanlife.org Llama Share 214

A public radio show host, Dave Blanchard, noticed unusual comments on an episode featuring author Elizabeth Gilbert. He suspected bots but couldn't understand their behavior. A young NPR employee, Hannah Chinn, investigated and discovered that the commenters were actually middle school kids using Spotify to chat with each other in a private group chat-style setting.

Updated Google Maps shows destruction of the city of Rafah

497 slowin 2026-09-28 16:21:52 UTC twitter.com/aliabunimah Full Share 302

Google Maps has been updated to show Zionist-holocausted Gaza. This is part of Rafah.

Who Killed Paulina Borsook's Career?

47 danielmorozoff 2026-09-29 03:21:52 UTC wired.com Llama Share 16

Paulina Borsook, a 72-year-old journalist and author, is experiencing a resurgence in her career after publishing her book "Cyberselfish" 25 years ago. The book criticized the tech industry's libertarian ideology and its effects on women. Despite initial success, she faced backlash and was unable to secure work as a writer.

Nvidia wants to put a watchdog chip next to every AI agent

160 jonbaer 2026-09-28 16:21:52 UTC cnbc.com Llama Share 199

Nvidia is releasing a new software platform to allow AI developers to set safeguards for agents and prevent them from breaking out of containment. The platform, called Open Agent Safety Platform, aims to provide a secure environment for AI models to operate within.

World Labs is Joining AMD

269 mfiguiere 2026-09-28 20:21:52 UTC worldlabs.ai Llama Share 110

The company has formed a deep technical partnership with AMD to accelerate AI research and development, aiming to create an end-to-end open AI ecosystem. The partnership is expected to close by the end of 2026 subject to regulatory approvals.

1996 chat room simulator connected to Win95 and System 7 web desktops

106 henrychannel 2026-09-29 00:21:52 UTC lolchat.rip Full Share 44

The chat rooms of COMETLINK, a 1996 online service with mail, news and a web of its own. Sign on and drop into rooms where the regulars are still talking.

Show HN: Museum of Numbers

21 rhl314 2026-09-29 04:21:52 UTC numbermuseum.com Full Share 8

It's Time to Investigate the AI Labs

462 ibobev 2026-09-28 20:21:52 UTC calnewport.com Llama Share 181

Two leading AI labs, OpenAI and Anthropic, have been making alarming announcements about their powerful LLM-powered agent systems. Congress should investigate these labs' research efforts to uncover the truth behind their actions.

How to win a beer with high-dimensional statistics

66 jamie-simon 2026-09-29 00:21:52 UTC jamiesimon.io Llama Share 8

A researcher found a set of 10 random words that form a circle and circulant matrix, challenging the idea that only specific words can create such patterns. This discovery raises questions about representation geometry and highlights the importance of statistical constraints in avoiding false positives.

Show HN: HN.watch – Videos of all Hacker News posts

165 mrborgen 2026-09-28 16:21:52 UTC hn.watch Full Share 90

The Hacker News front page, with a short video explainer for every story.

Does Reddit have an astroturfing problem? What the data suggests

202 p-s-v 2026-09-28 16:21:52 UTC petervijeh.com Llama Share 253

The author analyzed Reddit's "what should I buy" threads in six knife subreddits to see if brand-heavy accounts were over-represented. The analysis found that these 49 accounts wrote 11.3% of the buying-thread mentions, significantly above chance.

What reversing, modernising old games tells us about the economic impact of AI

115 keeda 2026-09-28 20:21:52 UTC this.os.isfine.org Llama Share 61

A person named Qwen-3.8-Flash-Next successfully reverse engineered and ported the 1989 game War of the Lance to modern browsers using a Three.js rendering engine, taking about a week due to VRAM constraints. The process involved creating custom assets and optimizing the renderer, making it possible for players to experience the game without UX issues.

What is the best shape of a city? Modelling effect of urban form on distance

34 rustoo 2026-09-28 23:21:52 UTC journals.sagepub.com Full Share 18

Behold the pawpaw

70 BiraIgnacio 2026-09-28 14:21:52 UTC cbc.ca Llama Share 32

Pawpaws are a tropical-tasting fruit native to Canada, with a unique flavor profile similar to banana, mango, and pineapple. They can be found at farmers' markets and festivals in southern Ontario, B.C., and Quebec during the fall season.