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Top stories from https://news.ycombinator.com (with 100+ score) Contribute to the development here: https://github.com/phil-r/hackernewsbot Also check https://t.me/designer_news Contacts: @philr
Which colours dominate movie posters and why? (❄️ Score: 151+ in 2 days)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6Bxxr
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6Bxxr
Cannabis use associated with quadrupled risk of developing type 2 diabetes (Score: 150+ in 14 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BDgd
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BDgd
RustGPT: A pure-Rust transformer LLM built from scratch (🔥 Score: 151+ in 2 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BEy4
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BEy4
Gentoo AI Policy (Score: 150+ in 9 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BDpR
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BDpR
Nicu's test website made with SVG (2007) (Score: 150+ in 15 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BCa9
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BCa9
Introduction to GrapheneOS (❄️ Score: 150+ in 4 days)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6Bpjf
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6Bpjf
Refurb Weekend: Silicon Graphics Indigo² Impact 10000 (Score: 150+ in 22 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BBip
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BBip
Grapevine cellulose makes stronger plastic alternative, biodegrades in 17 days (🔥 Score: 156+ in 3 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BDf5
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BDf5
Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes (🔥 Score: 159+ in 3 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BDc5
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BDc5
You’re a slow thinker. Now what? (❄️ Score: 153+ in 3 days)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BqJM
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BqJM
Geedge and MESA leak: Analyzing the great firewall’s largest document leak (Score: 155+ in 17 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BzVz
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BzVz
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/chinas-great-fire...
https://x.com/gfw_report/status/1966669581302309018
Show HN: I made a generative online drum machine with ClojureScript (Score: 150+ in 11 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BvFf
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BvFf
After two years of development, I'm super excited to release Beat Maker! This is my take on what I hope is the best free, web-based drum machine.
My goal was to build something that was not only fun and easy to use for beginners but also powerful enough for serious producers. I did extensive research on existing drum machines, analyzed their UX, and tried to build something that adds something new.
It's a nearly 100% client-side app, written in ClojureScript, and is a PWA so you can install it to your home screen for an app-like experience.
Besides the standard grid editor, Beat Maker has some unique features that I think HN readers might find interesting:
- Procedural sample generation. One annoying thing about writing beats is searching through folders full of samples. I wanted to improve this and so I added the ability to generate new samples with a single click, giving you an infinite supply of unique drum samples.
* Generative beat creation. If you're looking for inspiration, Beat Maker can generate entire patterns for you as a starting point. You can then edit and tweak the beat to your liking. Great for solving the "blank canvas" problem and giving you something good to start from.
* Advanced export options. This is where it really shines for producers. You can export your work as:
* A standard WAV loop
* Individual stems (ZIP)
* A MIDI file
* A ZIP file of all your samples as WAVs
* A SoundFont (.sf2) drum kit from your generated samples
* An Impulse Tracker (.it) file for use in trackers like Renoise, OpenMPT or a Polyend
* Pocket Operator/Volca sync. It can output a sync signal on the left audio channel to sync with these hardware devices for perfect timing.
* Per-Note FX. You can add effects like volume slides, repeats, and start volume changes to individual notes for more complex drum phrases incorporating flam and roll.
As an old school tracker guy, I'm particularly excited about the Impulse Tracker export mode. I was surprised to discover how many DAWs (including hardware like Polyend) can import this format. Of course, you can also pull up Impulse Tracker on DOSBox, or the more modern re-implementation, Schismtracker for that retro experience.
By the way, the beat generator feature is not trained on any artists or anything like that. It's an algorithm I built from scratch myself.
The audio engine is built on a declarative audio graph (using `virtual-audio-graph`), inspired by React's virtual DOM, which makes managing the Web Audio API much cleaner. If you're building web based audio apps I highly recommend checking out this library.
I'd love for you to try it out and let me know what you think. Feedback (and the inevitable bug reports) most welcome! Thank you!
P.S. Also, here's a video summary: https://youtu.be/qVmEn9z3H24
Clojure's Solutions to the Expression Problem (❄️ Score: 150+ in 4 days)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BaXL
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BaXL
Ireland will not participate in Eurovision if Israel takes part (Score: 150+ in 6 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BsJV
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BsJV
Spiral (🔥 Score: 152+ in 2 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6Btqi
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6Btqi
Denmark's Justice Minister calls encrypted messaging a false civil liberty (🔥 Score: 169+ in 1 hour)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BEQk
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BEQk
Folks, we have the best π (Score: 152+ in 5 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BEfj
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BEfj
Language Models Pack Billions of Concepts into 12k Dimensions (Score: 154+ in 5 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BDVn
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BDVn
The unreasonable effectiveness of modern sort algorithms (❄️ Score: 150+ in 3 days)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6Bs6w
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6Bs6w
OCSP Service Has Reached End of Life (Score: 152+ in 9 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BCRr
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BCRr
Read to forget (Score: 151+ in 15 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BBU3
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BBU3
Website is hosted on a disposable vape (Score: 150+ in 5 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BDf2
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BDf2
How FOSS Projects Handle Legal Takedown Requests (❄️ Score: 150+ in 2 days)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6Bx4X
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6Bx4X
Rust: A quest for performant, reliable software [video] (❄️ Score: 150+ in 2 days)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BvAK
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BvAK
Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1SoDsm_m_pb_gS6Y98Hgh...
Why We Spiral (Score: 150+ in 6 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BC5L
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BC5L
Show HN: Vicinae – A native, Raycast-compatible launcher for Linux (❄️ Score: 150+ in 4 days)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BjuE
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BjuE
Hi HN!
I’ve always been a fan of application launchers, and I was impressed by the approach the Raycast team took — especially their extension system. About six months ago I started building something similar for Linux, aiming to integrate deeply at the OS level and give extensions a lot of power.
Vicinae is written in C++ with Qt Widgets. I chose Widgets over QML for more imperative control of the UI, especially around extension handling. So far that’s worked well — modern C++ is great.
To support my goals I built a number of custom widgets, including a fully virtualized list that can efficiently render tens of thousands of items. That gave me a lot of respect for Qt — it’s a powerful framework that mostly stayed out of my way.
A key feature is support for Raycast extensions (React + TypeScript), most of which can be installed and used directly inside the launcher (though not all features are implemented yet). There’s also a native API package (@vicinae/api) for writing Vicinae-specific extensions with additional capabilities. This required writing a custom React reconciler — surprisingly straightforward, though still unpolished.
Like Raycast, Vicinae ships with powerful built-in modules, but the goal isn’t to make a clone. I want it to grow into its own project that fits the FOSS model better, while staying compatible with the Raycast ecosystem. I also plan to bring it to other OSes eventually.
I’d love feedback on the technical approach, and suggestions for what would make this useful to you. Contributions are very welcome — I’ve already been pleasantly surprised by how quickly people started helping.
Docs: https://docs.vicinae.com
Repo: https://github.com/vicinaehq/vicinae
Top model scores may be skewed by Git history leaks in SWE-bench (🔥 Score: 156+ in 2 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BtWQ
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BtWQ
Native ACME support comes to Nginx (🔥 Score: 152+ in 2 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BtKh
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BtKh
The US is now the largest investor in commercial spyware (🔥 Score: 150+ in 3 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6BtdL
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6BtdL
GrapheneOS accessed Android security patches but not allowed to publish sources (Score: 155+ in 9 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6Bs8f
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6Bs8f