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Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs

https://github.com/xoreaxeaxeax/rosenbridge
130•epestr•4h ago•41 comments

A Physicist Rigged His Pet Hamster’s Wheel to Upload to Strava

https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a73355106/hamster-wheel-strava-running/
235•aanet•2d ago•47 comments

DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731

https://arcprize.org/results/deepseek-v4-flash-0731
649•tosh•17h ago•394 comments

U.S. Department of Energy Launches the Genesis Open Models Initiative

https://genesisopenmodels.anl.gov/
250•moelf•12h ago•89 comments

New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/08/climate/amazon-data-center-texas-pollution.html
46•sbulaev•1h ago•28 comments

What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

https://www.noemamag.com/why-is-everyone-in-tech-so-sad/
707•RickJWagner•22h ago•796 comments

Assembly Hall of Shame

https://github.com/xoreaxeaxeax/asm-hall-of-shame
355•piotrgrabowski•17h ago•90 comments

ao486: x86-compatible Verilog core implementing all features of a 486 SX (2014)

https://github.com/alfikpl/ao486
26•csmantle•6d ago•2 comments

Europe's free satellite service just made it easier to track wildfires

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/08/europes-free-satellite-service-just-made-it-easier-to-tra...
18•01-_-•1h ago•1 comments

NASA figured out how to keep its Voyager 2 probe running for another year

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/voyager/nasa-figured-out-how-to-keep-its-48-year-old-voya...
251•wglb•9h ago•47 comments

SupererDuperer

https://www.shirtpocket.com/blog/supererduperer
115•zdw•6d ago•24 comments

Ancient Library – 1,060 Greek/Latin texts, click any word to parse it

https://ancientlibrary.net/
210•aagha•16h ago•69 comments

US Military's Cyber Command Unit Grapples with Cluster of Deaths by Suicide

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-06/us-military-s-cyber-command-unit-grapples-with...
17•rbanffy•1h ago•9 comments

Apple Introduces Leasing Program for iPhones and Other Devices

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/28/technology/apple-leasing-program.html
8•Korwell•1h ago•9 comments

2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

https://www.ign.com/articles/ramageddon-continues-another-year-as-2027-memory-capacity-is-reporte...
381•inigyou•1d ago•350 comments

Managing AI Coding Costs at Scale

https://www.databricks.com/blog/managing-ai-coding-costs-scale
249•moonikakiss•16h ago•207 comments

The Nixpkgs core team has disbanded

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nixpkgs-core-team-has-disbanded/79413
312•Meleagris•10h ago•152 comments

Workers Drilling in Romania Broke into a Cave Sealed for 5.5M Years

https://travelandtannins.com/workers-drilling-in-romania-broke-into-a-cave-sealed-for-5-5-million...
98•yk•3d ago•45 comments

Tell Abu Hureyra (prehistoric archaeological site)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_Abu_Hureyra
8•dieselgate•4d ago•0 comments

From One Seed to a Thousand Leaves – Merkle's Authentication Tree

https://0xkrt26.github.io/math_behind_security/2026/08/03/merkle-tree.html
19•denismenace•3d ago•0 comments

An all-sky map of half a million supermassive black holes

https://www.sdss.org/black-hole-mapper-release-20/
169•MarcoDewey•19h ago•38 comments

Show HN: Sign language translation with smart glasses

https://github.com/aadisang/hand-wave
4•aadisang•3d ago•2 comments

Responding to the next frontier of critical cyber capabilities

https://openai.com/index/responding-next-frontier-critical-cyber-capabilities/
188•artninja1988•18h ago•180 comments

Carl's Required Reading

https://carlkolon.com/reading/
180•cckolon•6d ago•22 comments

Oracle bans AI-generated code from OpenJDK

https://app.dealroom.co/news/feed/oracle-bans-ai-generated-code-from-openjdk-despite-ellison-s-cl...
481•delduca•17h ago•341 comments

Radical Study Suggests Life on Earth Arose Twice

https://www.sciencealert.com/radical-study-suggests-life-on-earth-arose-from-non-living-matter-twice
155•jnord•22h ago•102 comments

Making Postgres 300x faster for analytics: batching, operator fusion, and SIMD

https://malisper.me/how-we-made-postgres-hundreds-of-times-faster-the-query-engine/
292•poly2it•1d ago•145 comments

Kitesurf: Agent-first browser that runs in V8 isolates

https://blog.cloudflare.com/kitesurf/
196•m3h•1d ago•52 comments

Psychological Warfare in Reverse Engineering (2015)

https://github.com/xoreaxeaxeax/repsych
72•theanonymousone•16h ago•4 comments

Guarded Methods in OCaml (2025)

https://xvw.lol/en/articles/oop-refl.html
72•birdculture•4d ago•7 comments
Open in hackernews

Extending a Language – Writing Powerful Macros in Scheme

https://mnieper.github.io/scheme-macros/README.html
92•textread•1y ago

Comments

neilv•1y ago
A few formatting changes might make this advanced example easier to understand:

    (define-syntax trace-let
      (syntax-rules ()
        [(trace-let name ([var expr] ...) body1 ... body2)
         (let f ([depth 0] [var expr] ...)
           (define name
             (lambda (var ...)
               (f (+ depth 1) var ...)))
           (indent depth)
           (display "(")
           (display 'name)
           (begin
             (display " ")
             (display var))
           ...
           (display ")")
           (newline)
           (call-with-values
               (lambda ()
                 body1 ... body2)
             (lambda val*
               (indent depth)
               (fold-left
                (lambda (sep val)
                  (display sep)
                  (display val)
                  " ")
                "" val*)
               (newline)
               (apply values val*))))]))
The biggest one is to make the rule template pattern variables all-uppercase. I also made a few other tweaks, including using indentation a little more, and naming the named-`let` variable as "loop" (I usually name it `loop` or prefix the name with `loop-` if there's more than one):

    (define-syntax trace-let
      (syntax-rules ()
        ((trace-let NAME ((VAR EXPR) ...) BODY1 ... BODY2)
         (let loop ((depth 0)
                    (VAR   EXPR) ...)
           (define NAME
             (lambda (VAR ...)
               (loop (+ depth 1) VAR ...)))
           (indent depth)
           (display "(")
           (display (quote NAME))
           (begin (display " ")
                  (display VAR)) ...
           (display ")")
           (newline)
           (call-with-values (lambda ()
                               BODY1 ... BODY2)
             (lambda val*
               (indent depth)
               (fold-left (lambda (sep val)
                            (display sep)
                            (display val)
                            " ")
                          ""
                          val*)
               (newline)
               (apply values val*)))))))
Incidentally, all-uppercase Scheme pattern variables is one of the all-time best uses of all-uppercase in any language. Second only to all-uppercase for the C preprocessor, where a preprocessor macro can introduce almost arbitrary text. Using all-uppercase for constants in some language that has constants, however, is an abomination.

(My suspicion of why Java did all-caps is that they were developing a language for embedded systems developers who were currently using C and C++, and they wanted to make it superficially look similar, even though it was an entirely different language. And then, ironically, the language ended up being used mostly by the analogue of a very different developer of the time: corporate internal information systems developers, who, as a field, didn't use anything like C. It's too late to save Java, but to all other language and API developers, please stop the insanity of all-caps constants, enum values, etc. It's not the most important thing that needs to jump out from the code above all other things.)

Y_Y•1y ago
FWIW, all-caps makes this look much worse to me. I understand that people like things like Hungarian notation, arrows over vector names, and shouting Common Lisp symbols. I understand the argument that it can make reading easier. I just can't appreciate that benefit, and it seems to me an ugly hack which obscures the abstract and general symbolic manipulation going on.

This is all highly subjective of course, de gustibus non disputandem.

neilv•1y ago
You mean aesthetically, in that interspersed all-caps makes the code visually less soothingly sensual?

I can sympathize, but let me make a non-aesthetic argument...

In large blocks of code, with all-caps, you can see at a glance where all the template substitutions are happening, and also instantly know as you're reading code what are variables and what are template substitutions?

I'm asking because one of my realizations in recent years is that not everyone reads or sees code the same way.

For example, maybe some people are stronger "visual" and some people are stronger "verbal".

For another example of a different in how people perceive and think, some people can visualize an object in their mind almost as if they're looking at it, but other people can only know and describe what it looks like without bringing a visual of it into their head.

With the benefit of the all-caps, I can glance at this and immediately see much of the structure of the template. Without all-caps, I'd have to work harder to find all the pattern variables, and the structure would be obscured.

For a bit kludgy practical matter, as I'm quickly looking at pieces of code in a template, with all-caps, I can look at a fragment of code in isolation and know what are and aren't pattern variables. Without that, I have to go read the top of the template clause (and read through any syntactic scopes of `let-syntax`) and get that in my head, until I get to the fragment of code I originally wanted to look at.

IDE support can make this unnecessary, with a hypothetical great IDE, with familiar syntax coloring. But still, if there is one thing that all-caps should be reserved for, it's something like this.

With all-caps, your code can be sensual, and the jolting all-caps bits are look out, potentially arbitrary code gets pasted into here.

mnemenaut•1y ago
https://github.com/rogerturner/scheme-macros/blob/main/examp... shows stepwise development of a trace-let [the `(example: (fn arg) => result)` forms are tests - see check-examples library]
Y_Y
•
1y ago
Since you asked, my objection is both aesthetic and semantic, though I was really referring to the semantic part above.

I think you've hit the nail on the head with this visual vs. verbal distinction.

I can add a few clarifying details. I don't use IDEs as much as basic text editors maybe with highlighting, and I try not to rely on any fancy features. It does worry me that the allcaps use you describe is (afaik) not known to the editor or interpreter, so if you make a mistake or the symbol gets out of sync with its meaning (re: pattern variables) you may have a false signal. Finally I'll say that in the end I can't suggest a good way to treat these special variables, and so maybe I don't get it, or tastes like mine would be better served by a different formalism for macros.