frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Bob Beck (OpenBSD) on why vi should stay vi (2006)

https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=115820462402673&w=2
1•birdculture•1m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Glimpsh – exploring gaze input inside the terminal

https://github.com/dchrty/glimpsh
1•dochrty•2m ago•0 comments

The Optima-l Situation: A deep dive into the classic humanist sans-serif

https://micahblachman.beehiiv.com/p/the-optima-l-situation
1•subdomain•2m ago•0 comments

Barn Owls Know When to Wait

https://blog.typeobject.com/posts/2026-barn-owls-know-when-to-wait/
1•fintler•2m ago•0 comments

Implementing TCP Echo Server in Rust [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjOBZ_Xzuio
1•sheerluck•3m ago•0 comments

LicGen – Offline License Generator (CLI and Web UI)

1•tejavvo•6m ago•0 comments

Service Degradation in West US Region

https://azure.status.microsoft/en-gb/status?gsid=5616bb85-f380-4a04-85ed-95674eec3d87&utm_source=...
2•_____k•6m ago•0 comments

The Janitor on Mars

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/10/26/the-janitor-on-mars
1•evo_9•8m ago•0 comments

Bringing Polars to .NET

https://github.com/ErrorLSC/Polars.NET
2•CurtHagenlocher•10m ago•0 comments

Adventures in Guix Packaging

https://nemin.hu/guix-packaging.html
1•todsacerdoti•11m ago•0 comments

Show HN: We had 20 Claude terminals open, so we built Orcha

1•buildingwdavid•11m ago•0 comments

Your Best Thinking Is Wasted on the Wrong Decisions

https://www.iankduncan.com/engineering/2026-02-07-your-best-thinking-is-wasted-on-the-wrong-decis...
1•iand675•11m ago•0 comments

Warcraftcn/UI – UI component library inspired by classic Warcraft III aesthetics

https://www.warcraftcn.com/
1•vyrotek•12m ago•0 comments

Trump Vodka Becomes Available for Pre-Orders

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kirkogunrinde/2025/12/01/trump-vodka-becomes-available-for-pre-order...
1•stopbulying•14m ago•0 comments

Velocity of Money

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money
1•gurjeet•16m ago•0 comments

Stop building automations. Start running your business

https://www.fluxtopus.com/automate-your-business
1•valboa•20m ago•1 comments

You can't QA your way to the frontier

https://www.scorecard.io/blog/you-cant-qa-your-way-to-the-frontier
1•gk1•22m ago•0 comments

Show HN: PalettePoint – AI color palette generator from text or images

https://palettepoint.com
1•latentio•22m ago•0 comments

Robust and Interactable World Models in Computer Vision [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B4kkaGOozA
2•Anon84•26m ago•0 comments

Nestlé couldn't crack Japan's coffee market.Then they hired a child psychologist

https://twitter.com/BigBrainMkting/status/2019792335509541220
1•rmason•27m ago•1 comments

Notes for February 2-7

https://taoofmac.com/space/notes/2026/02/07/2000
2•rcarmo•29m ago•0 comments

Study confirms experience beats youthful enthusiasm

https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/07/boomers_vs_zoomers_workplace/
2•Willingham•36m ago•0 comments

The Big Hunger by Walter J Miller, Jr. (1952)

https://lauriepenny.substack.com/p/the-big-hunger
2•shervinafshar•37m ago•0 comments

The Genus Amanita

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/amanita.html
1•rolph•42m ago•0 comments

We have broken SHA-1 in practice

https://shattered.io/
10•mooreds•43m ago•3 comments

Ask HN: Was my first management job bad, or is this what management is like?

1•Buttons840•44m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How to Reduce Time Spent Crimping?

2•pinkmuffinere•45m ago•0 comments

KV Cache Transform Coding for Compact Storage in LLM Inference

https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.01815
1•walterbell•50m ago•0 comments

A quantitative, multimodal wearable bioelectronic device for stress assessment

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-67747-9
1•PaulHoule•52m ago•0 comments

Why Big Tech Is Throwing Cash into India in Quest for AI Supremacy

https://www.wsj.com/world/india/why-big-tech-is-throwing-cash-into-india-in-quest-for-ai-supremac...
3•saikatsg•52m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Ask HN: Do You Believe in Aliens?

9•otherayden•5mo ago
Seems like a topic that doesn’t come up so much in popular discourse now that we have AI taking up a lot of air time. I personally do, but I wonder if some of you have some thoughts about it

Comments

jimbo808•5mo ago
I think it would be absurd to believe we're the only place life is has happened. But I also think it's absurd to believe that life has come here.
_heimdall•5mo ago
I'd be curious to hear a few more details for the question.

Does it matter whether the aliens have visited earth, or only that life exists elsewhere in the universe?

Do they need to be intelligent aliens, by some definition of intelligent?

And do they have to still exist today, or is it enough to think life may gave existed elsewhere at some point?

otherayden•5mo ago
Let’s focus specifically on aliens that exist somewhere in the universe, regardless of intelligence. My one criteria is that if it was seen by an average human that they would think “yep, this is definitely life”
mindcrime•5mo ago
1. Do I believe other life has existed, does exist, and/or will exist elsewhere in the universe? Yes, with pretty close to 100% confidence.

2. Do I believe other intelligent life forms visit earth in their flying saucers, abduct people, anal probe them, abduct and slaughter cows, build pyramids, and - apparently - crash often? No, not really. I mean, I can't rule it out, but my personal subjective Bayesian prior towards this notion would probably be something like 0.001 or so. But that's actually up from years past, as we learn more about more possibly inhabitable planets that are closer to Earth than was previously known, etc.

pillefitz•5mo ago
Reading "UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry", albeit a bit dry, changed my mind on the topic - I now believe with reasonable confidence alien visitations took place.
gaoryrt•5mo ago
No. I think the appearance of life on Earth was the result of a long series of coincidences. If even a small part of that had been different, life wouldn’t have emerged.

I’ve come to believe in the Great Filter theory more and more in recent years.

fullstackwife•5mo ago
Just thinking opposite direction: if you were to spawn a new planet with life somewhere in the universe, how would you do that? Micro manage every detail, or rather prepare proper conditions, and see what happens? Wouldn't the "proper conditions" eventually look like series of coincidences?
unfixed•5mo ago
I assume that the universe is almost infinite, so I belive that almost every creature that I can think of has existed, does exist or will exist somewhere.
carlnewton•5mo ago
Intuitively it seems likely that alien life would exist elsewhere in the universe, but I tend to favour evidence over intuition, and I haven't read any compelling evidence. The Wow Signal might be the most interesting thing we've observed in that regard, but it's still not enough for me personally.
krapp•5mo ago
Do I believe extraterrestrial life exists somewhere in the universe? Yes. I think it's more probable that it does than doesn't.

I don't assume the existence of extraterrestrial life, even intelligent life, means interstellar colonization or the consumption of the galaxy by swarms of Von Neumann probes must be a certainty.

Do I believe any of the transdimensional NHI booga sphere abduction Majestic 12 nonsense? No. I don't believe faster than light travel is possible, I don't believe aliens have ever been here. I think that's just folklore, like Bigfoot, ghosts and Finland.

_heimdall•5mo ago
I can only assume there must be other life in the universe. If intelligence is emergent, there should be other intelligent life as well.

I do find the great filter theory as an interesting explanation tot he Fermi paradox. We humans sure seem on a path to wipe ourselves out, hopefully we won't destroy the planet entirely but similarly we seem on that path. Maybe all intelligent civilizations destroy themselves before ever reaching the level of intergalactic travel.

incomingpain•5mo ago
Yes aliens for sure exist; too many planets for there not to be. Alien Life for sure exists in the milky way.

I do believe aliens have been to earth many times. The last time was thousands of years ago though. Everyone claiming to be abducted is lying.

leet_thow•5mo ago
Yes, and the working hypothesis as to why they have been here in the last century, with sightings mainly in the southwest US, is because they were checking in on our nuclear arms development.
krapp•5mo ago
Why would they care about our nuclear arms development?

To any species capable of interstellar travel, nuclear weapons would be about as threatening as a match is to us.

CM30•5mo ago
Yeah I believe there's other life in the universe, and that some of it is probably sentient.

Whether it's visited Earth on the other hand... that's a lot less likely. Feels like the distances you need to travel for that kind of space exploration are vast enough that even an advanced species might not take it lightly.