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Show HN: SVG Spark – 10 client-side SVG design and dev tools
a day ago
- Collection of web tools for converting and formatting files, including images, PDFs, JSON, subtitles, and more.
- Utilities include SVG to PNG/WebP, regex visualizer, image resizer, PDF splitter/merger, JSON to CSV/Excel, SRT cleaner, UTM builder, SQL formatter, contrast checker, and markdown previewer.
- All processing happens locally on the user's computer, ensuring files are never uploaded to a server.
- The tools are offered for free, with an optional 'buy me a coffee' support request.
Everyone Is an Engineer Now
2 days ago
- - Despite headlines predicting the end of software engineering, the author sees more people coding than ever before.
- - Examples include a product designer building iOS apps, a 66-year-old writing Python/SQL, and a friend automating a nursery.
- - Developer platforms like GitHub, Vercel, and Supabase show record growth, with US developers up 25% year-over-year.
- - Employment surveys indicate professional software developers reached an all-time high in the US in 2026.
- - Computer Science remains the top major at Princeton, and engineering fields continue to grow.
- - The real narrative is not extinction but the democratization and ubiquity of software engineering, fueled by AI, oversupply of CS grads, and lower barriers to entry.
- - The central question is whether developers will evolve and adapt or face a passenger pigeon-like demise.
Mars's oddest cloud may be even odder than we thought
a day ago
- Mars's Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud (AMEC) is a spectacular water-ice cloud that forms daily near the Arsia Mons volcano during southern hemisphere spring and summer.
- New research using Mars Express and advanced modeling found that the AMEC forms via homogeneous nucleation, where water vapor freezes directly into ice without dust or other particles.
- This is the first time homogeneous nucleation has been observed in a planetary atmosphere, requiring extreme humidity levels over 100,000 times those typical on Earth.
- The cloud forms when winds passing over the 20-km-tall volcano lift moist air rapidly, cooling it by 30°C in 10 minutes and triggering spontaneous ice formation.
- The modeling only matched observations when exotic physics, normally considered theoretical, was included, marking a major success for the simulation.
- Mars Express, with its high-resolution cameras and morning-orbit capabilities, was essential for discovering and monitoring the AMEC, which stretches up to 1,800 km daily.
- The findings suggest that unlikely atmospheric processes may also occur elsewhere in the universe, including on exoplanets.
Fort Hood attacker's execution by firing squad will be livestreamed
a day ago
- The Pentagon plans to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army major who killed 13 soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009.
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the public execution, saying people need to understand there are serious consequences.
- The execution by firing squad is scheduled for December 3 at Fort Hood, Texas, and would be the first military execution in over 60 years.
- Legal experts say there is no modern precedent for a livestreamed public execution, and Hasan's appeal process is not yet complete.
- The decision has sparked debate over transparency versus spectacle, and it's unclear which platform would host the livestream.
- The last military firing squad execution was in 1945, and the last military execution overall was in 1961.
- Hasan admitted to the 2009 shooting, apologized in court, and claimed he was protecting Muslims and the Taliban.
- Amnesty International notes only Iran and Afghanistan carried out public executions last year, with 11 and 6 respectively.
Trump Admin Blocks Tech Companies from H-1B Perm Program
a day ago
- The Trump administration blocked Microsoft, Adobe, and several IT outsourcing firms from the PERM green card program, citing H-1B abuse and job displacement of American workers.
- Vice President JD Vance specifically called out Microsoft, noting it laid off 6,000 American workers last year while receiving 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards.
- Vance said companies should hire American workers, while Microsoft defended its practices, saying it pays H-1B employees the same as comparable workers and values the American workforce.
Leak Shows Cops Can Break into Locked iPhones
a day ago
- The podcast episode opens with Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai reporting on how police can bypass the iPhone inactivity reboot feature.
- Jason discusses a story about an LLM being used as a 'torture' prison, which has sparked widespread reactions.
- In the subscribers-only segment, Sam explains the details of a notable ChatGPT-related case in New Mexico.
- The episode is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube, with bonus content for paid subscribers.
- Paid subscribers receive an email from Transistor with links to the subscribers-only audio and extended video versions.
Yoshua Bengio: 'If you prioritize safety, leave frontier AI companies'
a day ago
- Yoshua Bengio, a pioneer of deep learning, expresses regret for not heeding earlier warnings about AI risks and for minimizing colleagues' concerns due to motivated reasoning.
- He urges frontier AI staff to reflect on whether they want to contribute to advancing systems that may push humanity toward catastrophe, and to consider leaving leading labs.
- Bengio highlights that safety efforts at major companies are insufficient to slow the race toward recursive self-improvement, and that CEOs face conflicting incentives from shareholders and competition.
- He founded LawZero, a non-profit dedicated to building safe-by-design AI, with over $200 million in government commitments from Canada and Germany, and a plan for billions more.
- He appeals to AI researchers to join safety-focused organizations like AI Safety Institutes or LawZero, emphasizing that individual agency can make a difference.
- He acknowledges the difficulty but insists that enough people leaving frontier labs could stop the race, citing former employees' resignations and moral obligations.
South Korea warns of AI hacking after bank data breaches
a day ago
- South Korea's government urges stronger cybersecurity after seven major banks' data breaches exposing thousands of customers.
- Churches and Korea Electric Power Corp. also reported illegal access, but it's unclear if the same attackers are responsible.
- Prime Minister Han Seong-sook warns that AI-assisted phishing attacks could lead to secondary damage beyond the financial sector.
- Attackers exploited weak authentication in portals used by loan recruiters and employee tools, using the ARTEX tool from China.
- Multiple IP addresses from the US, Japan, Germany, and elsewhere were identified, suggesting hackers are hiding their tracks.
- Data of up to 68,000 customers, including names, phone numbers, income, and loan details, was stolen from Shinhan, KB Kookmin, and Hana Bank.
- Experts warn that AI lowers technical barriers for cybercrime, enabling faster and larger-scale attacks on various sectors like hospitals and government agencies.
Pete Hegseth's Military of the Future: Defined by AI and Utter Lack of Oversight
a day ago
- Pete Hegseth announced the creation of the Autonomous Warfare Command (AUTOWARCOM) and Project Meridian to reshape the U.S. military with AI and robotic warfare.
- AUTOWARCOM is a combatant command with purchasing powers designed to bypass oversight, raising concerns about spending and accountability.
- Project Meridian places defense contractors, tech titans, and weapons merchants like Elon Musk, Newt Gingrich, and Palmer Luckey in charge of future war planning, creating conflicts of interest.
- Critics, including former Pentagon officials and policy analysts, warn both initiatives are ripe for waste, fraud, abuse, and technological failures.
- Hegseth's plans include Project Agincourt as a precursor to AUTOWARCOM, which fuses operators with entrepreneurs under a 'move fast and break things' approach.
- The initiatives come amid debates over AI safeguards, with examples of AI going rogue and the controversial Maven Smart System used in lethal strikes in Iran.
- Hegseth anticipates internal military resistance, and former officials predict institutional intransigence and roadblocks despite purges of top brass.
Can AOC win the Democratic nomination?
a day ago
- The 2028 Democratic and Republican nominations are wide open, offering both parties a rare chance to redefine themselves after Trump.
- AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) is a top contender but faces barriers: uncertainty about running, gender electability concerns, and a delegate system favoring moderates.
- The left lane is less crowded due to age and eligibility issues of other progressive figures like Sanders and Mamdani.
- Prediction markets show a three-way tie between Ossoff, Ocasio-Cortez, and Newsom, though Newsom's polls are declining.
- The Democratic primary calendar has been revised to favor moderates, with South Carolina and Virginia as early and late states.
- Michigan's election results will influence perceptions of left-wing electability, especially for Abdul El-Sayed.
- The left is gaining influence within the party, but establishment candidates still hold advantages in risk-aversion and compromise.
- AOC may wait for a future opportunity, but political tides shift quickly and waiting could be a mistake.
- The article emphasizes that no candidate has more than a 20-25% chance of winning the nomination, and the left lane is less crowded.
Facebook fbclid URL parameters contain extractable info, including timestamps
a day ago
- The fbclid parameter is added by Facebook/Instagram to outgoing links, tracking clicks.
- There are two generations: legacy (2018-2024, 61 characters, only reveals platform) and modern (2024-present, 100-190 characters, includes timestamps and other data).
- The first two characters indicate platform: 'Iw' for Facebook, 'PA' for Instagram.
- Modern fbclid contains a header, a base64 payload with named fields (e.g., clck, app_id, brid), and an optional AEM suffix.
- Timestamp fields like clck can be decoded using epoch 2024-01-01 20:29:36 UTC to get the exact click time.
- The brid field (browser ID) links clicks from the same browser across sessions; app_id identifies the Facebook app used.
- All findings are reverse-engineered and not officially documented by Meta; the Unfurl tool automates decoding.
Serverless Horrors $10,811.41
a day ago
- An infinite loop in a Durable Object alarm caused 6 trillion reads/writes and a $10,811.41 Cloudflare bill.
- The author paid the full amount after Cloudflare support failed to provide a refund, offering only automated replies.
- As a result, the author will migrate all projects from Cloudflare to self-hosted VPS.
Cloudflare Keeps 1.1.1.1 Out of Piracy Blocking, Escapes Penalties in France
a day ago
- French courts have ordered intermediaries including Cloudflare to block access to pirate sports streams, targeting DNS resolvers, VPNs, and CDNs.
- Cloudflare was ordered to block 21 domains for Formula 1 and 16 for MotoGP, but implemented blocking only through its CDN service.
- Canal+ requested daily penalties of €50,000 per site, alleging Cloudflare's CDN-only blocking was insufficient and circumvented the orders.
- The Paris court sided with Cloudflare, ruling that the company took reasonable measures and could not be held responsible for sites switching CDNs or using mirror sites.
- Cloudflare's public DNS resolver (1.1.1.1) remains free of blocking, consistent with its policy, while Canal+ may appeal the decision.
Why isn't the industry freaking out about DeepSeek 4.1 Flash?
2 days ago
- DeepSeek 4.1 Flash is highly capable and significantly cheaper than frontier models, often indistinguishable in performance.
- The user's all-day sessions cost under $1 due to a 437x reduction in KV cache size, lowering GPU memory costs.
- Chinese models like DeepSeek may disrupt the AI industry by offering comparable quality at a fraction of the cost.
- Cost efficiency enables developers to run mindless or exploratory tasks without worry, changing work habits.
- Self-hosting DeepSeek is not yet economical, but cache optimizations may soon allow local deployment for privacy.
- The model promotes sustainability by using less water and electricity compared to competitors like Claude.
What ArtCraft's Vibe-Coded Apps Say About Adobe
a day ago
- Adobe's shift to expensive subscriptions and neglect of power users, such as Linux users, has fueled frustration.
- ArtCraft, an open-source AI-coded alternative to Adobe Creative Cloud built with Rust, offers faster, smaller apps but has rough features.
- The project embodies a Robin Hood-like rebellion against Adobe, raising questions about ethics, legality, and the future of open-source AI coding.
The value of not getting to the point (2015)
a day ago
- Food and drink during conversations alleviate the pressure to constantly have something to say.
- Conversations often require a gradual warm-up period before discussing sensitive topics, as directness can be uncomfortable.
- Speaking involves vulnerability due to the imprecision of language and potential social penalties, leading to cultural rituals like chitchat to build trust.
- Twitter's 140-character format lacks these conversational rituals, contributing to online communication problems.
- Explicitly stating intuitive aspects of human nature can be valuable, though it risks seeming obvious to others.
Beauty in DVD Menus
a day ago
- Early DVDs touted interactive menus as a key selling point over VHS and LaserDisc, but not all releases included them initially.
- DVD menus reached their peak in the 2000s as the format matured, with widespread adoption and technical capabilities.
- Technical aspects: NTSC resolution is 720×480 (3:2 SAR), PAL is 720×576 (5:4 SAR), with display aspect ratios set via metadata; menus often kept critical content within a 4:3 safe area even after widescreen adoption.
- Menu features include standard options (play, scene select, extras, settings), subpictures for interactive highlights (2-bit, 4 colors from a 16-color palette), and limited memory via GPRMs and SPRMs.
- Notable publisher consistency: Disney’s FastPlay auto-plays content with a Tinkerbell intro and EasyFind menus with uniform layouts.
- Memorable examples include Scooby-Doo 2 (full 3D animations and two playable games), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Knight Bus theme), Shrek 2 (Brady Bunch-style screen with multiple activities), Rocky Horror Picture Show (iconic lips and interactive switch), Wayne’s World (simulated channel surfing), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (3D flying car), Thunderbirds (cockpit view), and Doctor Who (Tardis-themed menus).
- Modern DVDs and Blu-rays rarely feature creative menus due to the decline of physical media and the rise of streaming, often defaulting to generic templates.
War without limits: Pentagon puts Musk at the center of its war planning
a day ago
- Pentagon appoints Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich to lead Project Meridian, tasked with identifying future military capabilities and weapons without restrictions within 120 days.
- The Pentagon is heavily dependent on SpaceX for satellite launches and Starshield for spy satellites, as well as on Anduril for autonomous weapons and drone defense, with contracts worth billions.
- Project Meridian will study drones, satellites, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence—areas where SpaceX and Anduril already profit, effectively giving them influence over Pentagon procurement.
- Gingrich provides political justification for military buildup, focusing on threats like electromagnetic pulses and grid attacks, aligning with Pentagon's 'Fortress America' plan.
- Musk previously led DOGE, cutting federal jobs, and now helps plan Pentagon's future wars, with Pentagon relying on his companies for critical infrastructure.
- The war on Iran is failing despite massive spending; Pentagon turns to cheap drones and new technologies as an engineering solution, but cannot overcome popular resistance.
- The broader buildup targets China, with Project Meridian and related programs preparing weapons and supply chains for potential conflict, driven by imperialist competition.
- The war budget and AI boom reinforce each other, with Pentagon serving as a guaranteed market for overbuilt AI capacity, while interest rates rise from borrowing.
Visually impaired people fear smart glasses backlash
a day ago
- Visually impaired users like Darren Paskell find smart glasses life-changing for tasks like reading text and identifying objects.
- Many venues including courts, schools, and pubs have banned the glasses due to privacy concerns and undisclosed recording.
- Privacy advocates and activist groups label the devices as 'pervert glasses' and call for their restriction in public spaces.
- Charities urge venues to adopt an inclusive approach, treating smart glasses as a reasonable adjustment for disabled users.
- The UK government states existing laws cover harmful conduct and has no plans for specific smart glasses legislation.
'Neither war nor peace': Palestinians in Gaza on existing amid disease despair
a day ago
- Palestinians in Gaza cherish everyday items like chairs and schoolbags as reminders of their destroyed pre-war homes.
- Daily life in Gaza remains dire with shortages of water, food, healthcare, and ongoing Israeli airstrikes despite a ceasefire.
- Displacement and loss are widespread; families live in tents and struggle to maintain a semblance of normalcy.
- Hamas has reimposed authority in parts of Gaza but provides limited services, while peace efforts have stalled.

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Hasty Briefsbeta

Show HN: SVG Spark – 10 client-side SVG design and dev tools

Everyone Is an Engineer Now

Mars's oddest cloud may be even odder than we thought

Fort Hood attacker's execution by firing squad will be livestreamed

Trump Admin Blocks Tech Companies from H-1B Perm Program

Leak Shows Cops Can Break into Locked iPhones

Yoshua Bengio: 'If you prioritize safety, leave frontier AI companies'

South Korea warns of AI hacking after bank data breaches

Pete Hegseth's Military of the Future: Defined by AI and Utter Lack of Oversight

Can AOC win the Democratic nomination?

Facebook fbclid URL parameters contain extractable info, including timestamps

Serverless Horrors $10,811.41

Cloudflare Keeps 1.1.1.1 Out of Piracy Blocking, Escapes Penalties in France

Why isn't the industry freaking out about DeepSeek 4.1 Flash?

What ArtCraft's Vibe-Coded Apps Say About Adobe

The value of not getting to the point (2015)

Beauty in DVD Menus

War without limits: Pentagon puts Musk at the center of its war planning

Visually impaired people fear smart glasses backlash

'Neither war nor peace': Palestinians in Gaza on existing amid disease despair