Entertainment

Estimates – a necessary evil?

💥 Check out this must-read post from Hacker News 📖 📂 Category: 📌 Here’s what you’ll learn: Product Owner: Hey, how long do you believe Feature F will take? Developer: Idk. We haven’t even started working on it and it’s bound to stir up some old issues. Estimates come in various disguises, but when you peek under the trench coat there is always the question: "How long -- and using what amount of resources -- will be required to do X?" When I wear the developer hat, it can be infuriating to attempt to give an answer. It’s difficult to…
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OpenAI Disables ChatGPT App Suggestions That Users Mistook for Paid Ads

OpenAI Disables ChatGPT App Suggestions That Users Mistook for Paid Ads

✨ Read this insightful post from Hacker News 📖 📂 Category: 💡 Here’s what you’ll learn: OpenAI has disabled a feature in ChatGPT that suggested third-party applications after users complained the recommendations resembled advertisements. Mark Chen, the company’s Chief Research Officer, acknowledged that the artificial intelligence firm “fell short” in its execution of the recent promotional messages. The controversy arose after paying subscribers to ChatGPT reported seeing messages promoting companies such as Peloton and Target. The backlash was immediate, with one user responding to the company’s initial explanations with scepticism, writing: “Don’t insult your paying users.” In response to the…
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How the dollar-store industry overcharges cash-strapped customers while promising low prices | US news

How the dollar-store industry overcharges cash-strapped customers while promising low prices | US news

💥 Explore this trending post from Hacker News 📖 📂 Category: 💡 Main takeaway: On a cloudy winter day, a state government inspector named Ryan Coffield walked into a Family Dollar store in Windsor, North Carolina, carrying a scanner gun and a laptop.Inside the store, which sits along a three-lane road in a county of peanut growers and poultry workers, Coffield scanned 300 items and recorded their shelf prices. He carried the scanned bar codes to the cashier and watched as item after item rang up at a higher price.Red Baron frozen pizzas, listed on the shelf at $5, rang…
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Goodbye, Microsoft: Schleswig-Holstein relies on Open Source and saves millions

Goodbye, Microsoft: Schleswig-Holstein relies on Open Source and saves millions

✨ Explore this trending post from Hacker News 📖 📂 Category: ✅ Here’s what you’ll learn: The state administration of Schleswig-Holstein is making a remarkable U-turn in its IT strategy and consistently relying on open source. After the migration from proprietary Microsoft software to free solutions was initially accompanied by problems and criticism, Digitalization Minister Dirk Schrödter (CDU) can now report a significant success: According to his ministry, the state will save over 15 million euros in license costs for Windows, Microsoft Office & Co. next year alone. It is expected to be similar in the following years. In contrast,…
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Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015

Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015

💥 Read this insightful post from Hacker News 📖 📂 Category: 📌 Here’s what you’ll learn: How things have (and have not changed). I'm still a command-line junkie with at least two xterm windows open. I'm still using a 3x3 virtual desktop. However, instead of fvwm, it is now LXDE. I've also switched from FreeBSD to Linux and I'm running Lubuntu as my distribution. There are a lot of indispensable GUI tools that I use. These include Firefox, lyx, Gimp, KeepassX, Shutter, viking, dia, Wireshark, calibre, audacity, Handbrake and VLC. But where possible I still prefer to script things. My…
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Saving Japan’s exceptionally rare ‘snow monsters’

Saving Japan’s exceptionally rare ‘snow monsters’

🔥 Read this insightful post from Hacker News 📖 📂 Category: ✅ Here’s what you’ll learn: Across Japan's alpine zones, temperatures have been rising faster than the global average since the 1980s. "In scenarios where climate change continues to advance significantly by the end of this century, it is possible that in warmer-than-usual winters, juhyo may no longer form at all," Ito says.The threat has prompted action across Yamagata. In March 2023, the prefecture launched the Juhyo Revival Conference – a permanent council bringing together researchers, officials, local businesses and residents to coordinate long-term efforts to restore the fir forests…
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a better Blasto game for the Commodore 64

a better Blasto game for the Commodore 64

✨ Explore this awesome post from Hacker News 📖 📂 Category: 📌 Main takeaway: Way back (well, six months ago, anyway), when I was wiring up a Gremlin Blasto arcade board, we talked at length about this 1978 arcade game's history and its sole official home computer port by Milton Bradley to the Texas Instruments 99/4A. In the single player mode you run around in a maze and try to blow up all the mines, which can set off sometimes impressive chain reactions, all the while making sure you yourself don't go up in flames in the process. The TI-99/4A…
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Second IC :) – Sam Zeloof

Second IC :) – Sam Zeloof

🔥 Discover this awesome post from Hacker News 📖 📂 Category: 📌 Key idea: Homemade 1000+ transistor array chip  In 2018 I made the first lithographically fabricated integrated circuits in my garage fab. I was a senior in high school when I made the Z1 amplifier, and now I’m a senior in college so there are some long overdue improvements to the amateur silicon process.The Z1 had 6 transistors and was a great test chip to develop all the processes and equipment. The Z2 has 100 transistors on a 10µm polysilicon gate process – same technology as Intel’s first processor. My chip is a simple…
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Discovering the indieweb with calm tech

🚀 Explore this insightful post from Hacker News 📖 📂 Category: 📌 Key idea: Blog HomeWhen social media first entered my life, it came with a promise of connection. Facebook connected college-aged adults in a way that was previously impossible, helping to shape our digital generation. Social media was our super-power and we wielded it to great effect.Yet social media today is a noisy, needy, mental health hazard. They push distracting notifications, constantly begging us to “like and subscribe”, and trying to trap us in endless scrolling. They have become sirens that lure us into their ad-infested shores with their…
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