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Ask HN: Opus 4.6 ignoring instructions, how to use 4.5 in Claude Code instead?

1•Chance-Device•1m ago•0 comments

We Mourn Our Craft

https://nolanlawson.com/2026/02/07/we-mourn-our-craft/
1•ColinWright•3m ago•0 comments

Jim Fan calls pixels the ultimate motor controller

https://robotsandstartups.substack.com/p/humanoids-platform-urdf-kitchen-nvidias
1•robotlaunch•7m ago•0 comments

Exploring a Modern SMTPE 2110 Broadcast Truck with My Dad

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/exploring-a-modern-smpte-2110-broadcast-truck-with-my-dad/
1•HotGarbage•7m ago•0 comments

AI UX Playground: Real-world examples of AI interaction design

https://www.aiuxplayground.com/
1•javiercr•8m ago•0 comments

The Field Guide to Design Futures

https://designfutures.guide/
1•andyjohnson0•8m ago•0 comments

The Other Leverage in Software and AI

https://tomtunguz.com/the-other-leverage-in-software-and-ai/
1•gmays•10m ago•0 comments

AUR malware scanner written in Rust

https://github.com/Sohimaster/traur
3•sohimaster•12m ago•1 comments

Free FFmpeg API [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RAuSVa4MLI
3•harshalone•12m ago•1 comments

Are AI agents ready for the workplace? A new benchmark raises doubts

https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/22/are-ai-agents-ready-for-the-workplace-a-new-benchmark-raises-do...
2•PaulHoule•17m ago•0 comments

Show HN: AI Watermark and Stego Scanner

https://ulrischa.github.io/AIWatermarkDetector/
1•ulrischa•18m ago•0 comments

Clarity vs. complexity: the invisible work of subtraction

https://www.alexscamp.com/p/clarity-vs-complexity-the-invisible
1•dovhyi•19m ago•0 comments

Solid-State Freezer Needs No Refrigerants

https://spectrum.ieee.org/subzero-elastocaloric-cooling
2•Brajeshwar•19m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Will LLMs/AI Decrease Human Intelligence and Make Expertise a Commodity?

1•mc-0•21m ago•1 comments

From Zero to Hero: A Brief Introduction to Spring Boot

https://jcob-sikorski.github.io/me/writing/from-zero-to-hello-world-spring-boot
1•jcob_sikorski•21m ago•1 comments

NSA detected phone call between foreign intelligence and person close to Trump

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/07/nsa-foreign-intelligence-trump-whistleblower
8•c420•21m ago•1 comments

How to Fake a Robotics Result

https://itcanthink.substack.com/p/how-to-fake-a-robotics-result
1•ai_critic•22m ago•0 comments

It's time for the world to boycott the US

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2026/2/5/its-time-for-the-world-to-boycott-the-us
3•HotGarbage•22m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Semantic Search for terminal commands in the Browser (No Back end)

https://jslambda.github.io/tldr-vsearch/
1•jslambda•22m ago•1 comments

The AI CEO Experiment

https://yukicapital.com/blog/the-ai-ceo-experiment/
2•romainsimon•24m ago•0 comments

Speed up responses with fast mode

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/fast-mode
4•surprisetalk•27m ago•0 comments

MS-DOS game copy protection and cracks

https://www.dosdays.co.uk/topics/game_cracks.php
4•TheCraiggers•28m ago•0 comments

Updates on GNU/Hurd progress [video]

https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/7FZXHF-updates_on_gnuhurd_progress_rump_drivers_64bit_smp_...
2•birdculture•29m ago•0 comments

Epstein took a photo of his 2015 dinner with Zuckerberg and Musk

https://xcancel.com/search?f=tweets&q=davenewworld_2%2Fstatus%2F2020128223850316274
14•doener•29m ago•2 comments

MyFlames: View MySQL execution plans as interactive FlameGraphs and BarCharts

https://github.com/vgrippa/myflames
1•tanelpoder•31m ago•0 comments

Show HN: LLM of Babel

https://clairefro.github.io/llm-of-babel/
1•marjipan200•31m ago•0 comments

A modern iperf3 alternative with a live TUI, multi-client server, QUIC support

https://github.com/lance0/xfr
3•tanelpoder•32m ago•0 comments

Famfamfam Silk icons – also with CSS spritesheet

https://github.com/legacy-icons/famfamfam-silk
1•thunderbong•33m ago•0 comments

Apple is the only Big Tech company whose capex declined last quarter

https://sherwood.news/tech/apple-is-the-only-big-tech-company-whose-capex-declined-last-quarter/
4•elsewhen•36m ago•0 comments

Reverse-Engineering Raiders of the Lost Ark for the Atari 2600

https://github.com/joshuanwalker/Raiders2600
2•todsacerdoti•37m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Study: Probability of extraterrestrials in the Milky Way low

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Study-Probability-of-extraterrestrials-in-the-Milky-Way-extremely-low-10661878.html
6•LordGrey•4mo ago

Comments

A_D_E_P_T•4mo ago
> The probability of two civilizations with highly developed technology existing simultaneously in the Milky Way is so low that another would have to be at least 280,000 years old to exist alongside us now. At least, that is what two researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences have calculated, based on their estimates of how many rocky planets with plate tectonics and an atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen appear to exist.

Oh man, I have about 200 science fiction books to recommend to these guys.

To summarze: Extraterrestrial life doesn't have to be just like us. It could very well be aquatic, it could very well be post-biological in any of a million different ways. (See, e.g., Accelerando.) We don't even know if there's life on Ganymede; it's absolutely absurd -- frankly, it hardly even seems sane -- to rule out extraterrestrial life in the Milky Way on such shaky and unimaginative grounds.

elmerfud•4mo ago
You're missing out on key phrase "highly developed technology". Science fiction books are fiction, it's right in the name. They do offer some nice explorations of ideas and some are based on sound scientific principles I can assure you that none of them talking about advanced extraterrestrial life are built upon any known scientific testable principles that we have today.

Talking about Ganymede, if there was highly developed extraterrestrial life on par with technology within 100 years of ours we would have detected it. Nothing about what they say excludes undeveloped extraterrestrial life or microorganisms.

Aquatic life, we have examples of intelligent aquatic life on this planet but that life does not fit the "highly developed technology" requirement. We don't know how intelligent the aquatic life is but we know it is intelligent and appears to be self-aware.

Is the development of technology a key factor in determining intelligence? That seems like a philosophical question more than a scientific question but not having the answer to that does not negate the calculations that were made which require highly developed technology of two or more civilizations simultaneously.

A_D_E_P_T•4mo ago
If we don't destroy ourselves, mankind is perhaps 100 years from going post-human, post-biological. At a relatively early stage in our technological development -- ~10,000 years since developing agriculture -- we're leaving behind the paradigm where we require biomarkers that are (supposedly) common to Earthlike life. A "highly developed technological society" is unlikely to require plate tectonics, lol.

Ganymede's an extreme example as it's quite literally next door, and we still have absolutely no idea what swims in its 60-mile-deep oceans, save to say that they're not shooting lasers through the ice or launching satellites. Do you know from what distance we'd be able to detect an Earthlike planet with extraterrestrials who are at a current-Earth tech level?

> none of them talking about advanced extraterrestrial life are built upon any known scientific testable principles that we have today.

And what testable principles are those?

Last I checked, biopoiesis is an unsolved problem, and chemical space is extremely vast -- there are many different ways to organize CHONS life, and there are also ways to organize other forms of life entirely.

Surely "they have to be just like us" is one of the most annoying scientific fallacies.

elmerfud•4mo ago
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. What evidence do you have that we are 100 years from going post-human or post biological? Technology is fascinating but all of the technology that we have ever created has not even come close to the complexity of the most simple biology. All existing evidence is that biological life is far more complex, and adaptable, than any technological creation that can be made. While scientists understand these biological compounds It has alluded them on how to organize them into even the most simple microbe that we know about.

The far more likely thing is that in the next hundred years we will see our crude technology come to mimic biology.

So you're talking about an unsolved problem that has no evidence pointing to any solution. You're claiming there are different ways to organize life but where is the evidence there is different ways to organize life than what we have seen? That's how you formulate a hypothesis and then you begin to test it. Without that you're simply speaking fantasy. There are definitely unknowns but all the evidence points to life would be like us in the generic sense that it is biological and based upon similar biological compounds. It's form may take different shapes It's perception maybe things that we don't understand yet but there is zero evidence of life being capable organizing itself around a completely foreign system than what we've seen.

I welcome research in that direction to show that life can be organized around fundamentally different things than what we've seen but fantastical ideas from science fantasy stories do not help actual research happen.