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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
2•c420•57s ago•0 comments

How to Fake a Robotics Result

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

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

https://jslambda.github.io/tldr-vsearch/
1•jslambda•1m ago•0 comments

The AI CEO Experiment

https://yukicapital.com/blog/the-ai-ceo-experiment/
2•romainsimon•3m ago•0 comments

Speed up responses with fast mode

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/fast-mode
2•surprisetalk•6m ago•0 comments

MS-DOS game copy protection and cracks

https://www.dosdays.co.uk/topics/game_cracks.php
2•TheCraiggers•7m 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•8m 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
6•doener•9m ago•2 comments

MyFlames: Visualize MySQL query execution plans as interactive FlameGraphs

https://github.com/vgrippa/myflames
1•tanelpoder•10m ago•0 comments

Show HN: LLM of Babel

https://clairefro.github.io/llm-of-babel/
1•marjipan200•10m ago•0 comments

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

https://github.com/lance0/xfr
3•tanelpoder•11m ago•0 comments

Famfamfam Silk icons – also with CSS spritesheet

https://github.com/legacy-icons/famfamfam-silk
1•thunderbong•12m 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/
2•elsewhen•15m ago•0 comments

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

https://github.com/joshuanwalker/Raiders2600
2•todsacerdoti•16m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Deterministic NDJSON audit logs – v1.2 update (structural gaps)

https://github.com/yupme-bot/kernel-ndjson-proofs
1•Slaine•20m ago•0 comments

The Greater Copenhagen Region could be your friend's next career move

https://www.greatercphregion.com/friend-recruiter-program
2•mooreds•20m ago•0 comments

Do Not Confirm – Fiction by OpenClaw

https://thedailymolt.substack.com/p/do-not-confirm
1•jamesjyu•21m ago•0 comments

The Analytical Profile of Peas

https://www.fossanalytics.com/en/news-articles/more-industries/the-analytical-profile-of-peas
1•mooreds•21m ago•0 comments

Hallucinations in GPT5 – Can models say "I don't know" (June 2025)

https://jobswithgpt.com/blog/llm-eval-hallucinations-t20-cricket/
1•sp1982•21m ago•0 comments

What AI is good for, according to developers

https://github.blog/ai-and-ml/generative-ai/what-ai-is-actually-good-for-according-to-developers/
1•mooreds•21m ago•0 comments

OpenAI might pivot to the "most addictive digital friend" or face extinction

https://twitter.com/lebed2045/status/2020184853271167186
1•lebed2045•23m ago•2 comments

Show HN: Know how your SaaS is doing in 30 seconds

https://anypanel.io
1•dasfelix•23m ago•0 comments

ClawdBot Ordered Me Lunch

https://nickalexander.org/drafts/auto-sandwich.html
3•nick007•24m ago•0 comments

What the News media thinks about your Indian stock investments

https://stocktrends.numerical.works/
1•mindaslab•25m ago•0 comments

Running Lua on a tiny console from 2001

https://ivie.codes/page/pokemon-mini-lua
1•Charmunk•25m ago•0 comments

Google and Microsoft Paying Creators $500K+ to Promote AI Tools

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/06/google-microsoft-pay-creators-500000-and-more-to-promote-ai.html
3•belter•28m ago•0 comments

New filtration technology could be game-changer in removal of PFAS

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/23/pfas-forever-chemicals-filtration
1•PaulHoule•29m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I saw this cool navigation reveal, so I made a simple HTML+CSS version

https://github.com/Momciloo/fun-with-clip-path
2•momciloo•29m ago•0 comments

Kinda Surprised by Seadance2's Moderation

https://seedanceai.me/
1•ri-vai•29m ago•2 comments
Open in hackernews

Cadmium Zinc Telluride: The wonder material powering a medical 'revolution'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c24l223d9n7o
70•1659447091•1mo ago

Comments

analog31•1mo ago
This isn't much more than a factoid, but notice that many of the useful semiconductors are made from elements that straddle the column containing silicon and germanium. Making compounds whose outer shell electrons add up to be silicon-like lets you make semiconductors, but with electrical and optical properties that you can tune. GaAs is another one, and the LED's are made by choosing particular combinations that have specific bandgap energies corresponding to colors of photons.

Part of the "magic" involves finding ratios of elements that have relatively little mechanical strain, because the atoms "fit" just right, which introduce defects that degrade the semiconductor behavior.

viccis•1mo ago
FYI "factoid" means it's an incorrect piece of information passed off as a fact.
empiko•1mo ago
FYI, what you said is one meaning. But it is also, surprisingly, defined as brief trivial fact.
viccis•1mo ago
In the same way literally is defined as "not literally", yes. Dictionaries are descriptive and capture colloquial usage, but "factoid" is a recently defined word with a specific definition that can be traced to a specific book. The alternative definition in the dictionary is simply recording common misuse.
Semaphor•1mo ago
Nowadays it also refers to trivial facts: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factoid
tape_measure•1mo ago
In fact, your comment is a factoid (in your meaning or the other replies' interpretation)
viccis•1mo ago
Dictionaries are descriptive and do not prescribe what definition is correct. I am basing my definition on Norman Mailer's definition and I am defining "incorrect" as differing from a word's explicit definition. From the original definition: "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper". I can think of no clearer "factoid" than to justify a meaning that didn't exist until a dictionary published it.

In a broader sense, I am always entertained at how Americans will literally change dictionaries before admitting they used a word incorrectly. Sometimes it is tedious, but sometimes when they do it to scientific jargon, it risks muddying the waters of discourse about scientific phenomena with that from "pop science" definition. Psychology in particular is prone to this, with "learned helplessness" and "trauma bonding" being two phrases used incorrectly probably 9 out of 10 times I see them, to the extent that the fake meanings (which are always just the most literal interpretation of the phrase) are incorrectly being treated with the scientific basis of the originals despite having no real clinical evidence.

gsf_emergency_6•1mo ago
Factoids are facts without citation, I suppose the other factoid to be mentioned is the direct band gap (which CZT has?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_band_gaps

adrian_b•1mo ago
For those unfamiliar with this, when a semiconductor has a direct band gap that means that it is likely to be suitable for devices that emit or detect photons, because when photons are absorbed, they generate electron-hole pairs, and when electron-hole pairs combine, their energy is released as photons.

In semiconductors with indirect band gap, when electron-hole pairs combine they usually just heat the material, instead of emitting light, which is why silicon, for instance, is not suitable for making LEDs.

While a direct band gap is desirable in LEDs, lasers and photodetectors, an indirect band gap is preferable in other applications where you do not want electrons and holes to recombine easily, e.g. in bipolar transistors or SCRs and in many kinds of diodes.

sevensor•1mo ago
Additional factoid: these are known as III-V semiconductors after their columns in the periodic table / number of valence electrons. They all have different bandgaps and lattice constants, and interesting things happen when you modulate composition.

Also, you might actually want to introduce a lattice constant mismatch because the strained lattice has useful properties.

AnimalMuppet•1mo ago
Additional additional factoid: "Gallium Arsenide" would be a great name for a speed metal band.
adrian_b•1mo ago
Close, but no match.

Cadmium zinc telluride is a II-VI semiconductor, not a III-V semiconductor, because Cd & Zn belong to the 2nd group, while Te belongs to the 6th group. (I find the habit of some modern authors of calling the group 2b as group 12 and the group 6a as group 16 extremely stupid, even if with the traditional approach it is debatable which should be group 2a and which should be group 2b, because for many properties Zn, Cd & Hg are more similar to Mg than Mg is similar to Ca, Sr & Ba. However this defect of the classic numbering is not solved, but it is made worse in the modern numbering.)

Both the III-V & the II-VI semiconductors, and also the few existing I-VII (made of Cu or Ag with halogens) and the few IV-IV semiconductors (e.g. silicon carbide) semiconductors, are compounds of chemical elements whose number of external electrons averages to 4, i.e. the same as in diamond, silicon or germanium, so they can form crystal structures of the same kind.

There are many other kinds of semiconductors, but those which have the cubic or hexagonal structures of diamond/lonsdaleite (more symmetric) or zinc sulfide (less symmetric) are much better understood than the other semiconductors and they are much more frequently used.

sevensor•1mo ago
Good point, I was responding to a the parent talking about GaAs, but CdZnTe is certainly II-VI.
PhotonHunter•1mo ago
Re strain, sometimes you want that! It can be used to tune nanoparticles for example.
adrian_b•1mo ago
True. All MOS transistors used in the modern CMOS processes used for instance to make CPUs are doped with germanium in their gate regions, in order to produce a strain in the silicon lattice.

While a little strain can be beneficial in some cases, the large strain caused by the mismatches in crystal lattice cell size between various semiconductor layers that must be deposited one over the other in order to make some semiconductor device can cause great problems during manufacturing, by generating various defects that may make the process yield unacceptable.

Because of this, when researching new semiconductor materials a lot of effort is dedicated for finding compositions that can have matched lattice cell sizes.

PhotonHunter•1mo ago
I can't speak to the meso or macro regimes, but for nano (and in my case, colloids) dislocations are certainly a problem.
gsf_emergency_6•1mo ago
Probably not related

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_laser

neutronicus•1mo ago
Huh, I worked on a CZT radiation detector in undergrad back in 2007.
adrian_b•1mo ago
The article says that the use of CZT is not new, but now the material has become much more affordable, due to improved production techniques, which has opened up a lot of application fields for it, which were previously prevented by its scarcity and cost.

There are plenty of materials that have been known for a long time to be better than those normally used in certain applications, but which still do not replace the inferior alternatives due to excessive cost, so discovering any new process that can make them cheaply is as important as knowing the properties of the material.

summa_tech•1mo ago
A few years ago, CZT detectors made by eV Products showed up in quantity on eBay. Pretty much everyone interested in radioactivity seemed to snap one up back then. It took a fairly long time for folks to figure out how to use them well! But they're really not bad, especially for the size.

Here's some spectra with 3% FWHM @ 662 keV:

https://maximus.energy/index.php/2020/05/01/gamma-spectrosco...

ziofill•1mo ago
You mean they’re good because the measurements are precise?
summa_tech•1mo ago
3% FWHM for something you could, at one time, buy for under $100 on eBay is very good. A typical scintillator + photomultiplier detector will get you about 6-7% (NaI:Tl scintillator). The Radiacode, which is super cute and all, gets about 7-9% depending on model.

Narrower FWHM means you will miss fewer energy peaks from isotopes.

MangoToupe•1mo ago
> pulmonary embolism

Ahh

perihelions•1mo ago
> "Whenever a high energy photon strikes the CZT, it mobilises an electron and this electrical signal can be used to make an image. Earlier scanner technology used a two-step process, which was not as precise."

I understand the unnamed alternative is the scintillation-type detector, where high-energy photons induce fluorescence, emitting secondary photons of lower energy. Detecting the secondary photons (converting them to electrons) is the second step.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillator

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillation_counter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillation_(physics)