Hacker News Daily — July 23, 2026
30 stories · July 23, 2026
In this issue
- 1
Writing by hand is good for your brain
nealstephenson.substack.com · 750 points · Discussion
Because I am known to write using a fountain pen on paper, a number of people have pointed me to this post and its underlying research. I won’t rehash what is said in those sources, but the gist of it…
- 2
Startup founders urge U.S. government not to shut off Chinese open weight AI
politico.com · 577 points · Discussion
https://littletech.org/ https://static.politico.com/4a/bf/9c4021d8404386b0a311dcccf0...
- 3
AI Companies Are Trying to Hide a Staggering Amount of Debt
futurism.com · 498 points · Discussion
Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Shutterstock Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech AI companies are pouring untold…
- 4
What happened to TheNumbers.com
stephenfollows.com · 204 points · Discussion
If you work in or around the film industry, there is a decent chance you have used the work of The Numbers this month, whether you realise it or not. Its hand-researched data is the highest quality,…
- 5
Software rendering in 500 lines of bare C++
haqr.eu · 202 points · Discussion
Software rendering in 500 lines of bare C++ In this series of articles, I aim to demonstrate how OpenGL, Vulkan, Metal, and DirectX work by writing a simplified clone from scratch. Surprisingly, many…
- 6
Astronomers may have found the first exomoon
eso.org · 168 points · Discussion
Press Release 22 July 2026 Observations made with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have revealed evidence for a moon-like object in the CD-35 2722 system. Unlike…
- 7
Learn OpenGL, extensive tutorial resource for learning Modern OpenGL
learnopengl.com · 140 points · Discussion
Welcome to OpenGL Welcome to the online book for learning OpenGL! Whether you are trying to learn OpenGL for academic purposes, to pursue a career or simply looking for a hobby, this book will teach…
- 8
DARPA, U.S. Air Force fly AI-controlled F-16
darpa.mil · 128 points · Discussion
Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. — A U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jet, recently modified to serve as an autonomous flying testbed, is undergoing in-air testing using an artificial intelligence (AI) agent to…
- 9
The arguments against open source AI are bad
tombedor.dev · 128 points · Discussion
The release of Kimi K3 has opened a fresh round of angst and confused discourse. There's a loud cohort of journalists, business leaders, and politicians arguing that open source AI is a dangerous…
- 10
Show HN: Echo – Fable-level results at 1/3 the cost using open-weight models
97 points · Discussion
I’ve been building Echo ( https://echo.tracerml.ai/ ), an experiment in making one AI system out of a pool of open-weight models rather than choosing a single model and using it for every task. It…
- 11
Fields Medals 2026
mathunion.org · 91 points · Discussion
Fields Medals 2026 The Fields Medal is awarded to recognize outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement. The medals and cash prizes are funded by a…
- 12
OpenStreetMap: Admin_level for All Countries
wiki.openstreetmap.org · 88 points · Discussion
Country ( admin_level = 2 ) admin_level =* 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Afghanistan (proposed) Province (ولايت wilayah) Districts (Wuleswali) Albania (proposed) counties (qark) municipalities (bashkia)…
- 13
Building on ATProto
lukekanies.com · 85 points · Discussion
Building on ATProto Posted 7/20/26 Bluesky’s Atmosphere Protocol has the chance to become the base for a whole generation of applications. But it’s developing in surprising and disappointing ways. I…
- 14
JEP 540: Simple JSON API (Now in Incubator)
openjdk.org · 77 points · Discussion
Summary Define a simple, standard API for parsing and generating JSON documents so that doing so does not require an external library. Enable many JSON processing tasks to be accomplished with little…
- 15
Hybrid-Electric Aicraft Engine Targeting 30% Fuel Efficiency
rtx.com · 75 points · Discussion
Read via the links — full text wasn’t available.
- 16
Show HN: Palmier Pro – Open-source macOS video editor built for AI
github.com · 75 points · Discussion
Hi HN, we are Marcos and Harrison, cofounders of Palmier ( https://palmier.io ). We are building Palmier Pro, an open source macOS video editor, with built-in AI generation and a local MCP server that…
- 17
Show HN: Remux – an open-source tmux workspace designed for iPhone
github.com · 72 points · Discussion
A native iOS client for remote tmux workspaces. remux-readme.mp4 Join the beta on TestFlight About Remux is a native iOS client for remote tmux workspaces, built on Ghostty. It brings tmux's session,…
- 18
Free way to get your data out of ChatGPT Business accounts
github.com · 69 points · Discussion
Leaving a ChatGPT business account? This tool saves your conversations before they're gone. ChatGPT's business and Team accounts often have no "Export data" button — the one-click archive that…
- 19
Emacs Is a Lispboard
en.andros.dev · 68 points · Discussion
What would have happened if Emacs' default buffer had been a terminal emulator? Conceptually, from the outside, it would be perceived as a terminal on steroids with Lisp as its scripting language.…
- 20
Learn WebGPU for C++
eliemichel.github.io · 62 points · Discussion
For native graphics in C++. This documentation walks you through the use of the WebGPU graphics API to create native 3D applications in C++ from scratch, for Windows, Linux and macOS. Quick Start!…
- 21
Show HN: OneCLI – OSS credential gateway that keeps secrets out of AI agents
github.com · 58 points · Discussion
hey HN, Jonathan and Guy here, creators of OneCLI ( https://onecli.sh/ ). OneCLI is an open source vault for AI Agents. Traditional vaults are used to store your secrets and, on demand, provide them…
- 22
A solid-state “atomic channel” for separating rare earth elements
pme.uchicago.edu · 46 points · Discussion
Rare earth elements like lanthanum, neodymium, and dysprosium are used to build the electric motor in your car, the LED lights in your house, and the MRI machine at your doctor’s office. But first,…
- 23
Show HN: Claude-thermos – keeps your Claude session warm for you
github.com · 41 points · Discussion
Stop paying to rebuild your Claude Code cache. When your main agent waits on a subagent for more than 5 minutes, its prompt cache silently expires, and the next turn re-encodes your entire…
- 24
Launch HN: Screenpipe (YC S26) – Record how you work and turn that into agents
38 points · Discussion
Hi Hacker News, I'm Louis. I built Screenpipe ( https://screenpipe.com ), an app that records your screen and audio locally (only!), and gives AI agents a searchable memory of what you've seen, said,…
- 25
Converting Files into Minecraft Worlds
wuemeli.com · 29 points · Discussion
Did you ever want to store the Minecraft movie in Minecraft? No? Too bad, because now you can. The Idea I recently had the silly idea to convert a file into a Minecraft world. This led me down a…
- 26
- 27
Selfie for sign-in: a new, easy way to access your Google Account
blog.google · 23 points · Discussion
Skip to main content Introducing selfie for sign-in: a new, easy way to access your Google Account Feed Introducing selfie for sign-in: a new, easy way to access your Google Account Selfie video gives…
- 28
Show HN: Trifle – Open-source analytics that stores answers, not events
trifle.io · 21 points · Discussion
Trifle is an open-source time-series analytics library that aggregates nested counters instead of storing raw events. All in the database you already have. After rebuilding it twice over 10 years, it…
- 29
Meta Garbage Collection: Using OCaml's GC to GC Rust
soteria-tools.com · 21 points · Discussion
Back to Blog Tracking Rust's aliasing model can be quadratically expensive if done naively. Learn how we fixed this in Soteria Rust by doing meta garbage collection. Soteria Rust is a…
- 30
The Beam Engine
glinscott.github.io · 18 points · Discussion
Power from Steam in the Industrial Revolution This is a beam engine. It produced about fifteen horsepower continuously, roughly as much power as 150 people. Engines like this turned steam into the…