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Flock used >100 times to track veteran who recorded traffic stop

https://reason.com/2026/09/02/wisconsin-cops-used-flock-over-100-times-to-track-a-navy-veteran-af...
121•bbatsell•39m ago•26 comments

The "$60 Gaming PC" – AMD BC-250 (2025)

https://devquasar.com/hardware/the-60-gaming-pc-amd-bc-250/
137•networked•3h ago•41 comments

Actively exploited sandbox RCE in all Chromium versions

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/cve-2026-85046
672•negura•19h ago•381 comments

Discovery of a new OpenAI agent message board

https://collusion.wiki/
1929•moultano•1d ago•1460 comments

Nitter has more working instances than before the takedowns

https://codeberg.org/mv12star/shitter/wiki/Instances
468•Cider9986•17h ago•186 comments

Terpstra Keyboard

http://terpstrakeyboard.com/
65•cl3misch•6h ago•31 comments

Wikimedia Foundation Workers Overwhelmingly Vote to Form Union with CWA

https://wikiworkersunited.org/announcements/2026-09-04-us-wikimedia-foundation-workers-overwhelmi...
72•robin_reala•1h ago•3 comments

Formalizing Fermat's Last Theorem

https://www.anthropic.com/research/formalizing-fermats-last-theorem
704•jlebar•22h ago•445 comments

Singapore subway (mrt) information display types

https://www.sgtrains.com/technology-infosys.html
14•gregorvand•3d ago•3 comments

.gitignore Everything by Default

https://packagemain.tech/p/gitignore-everything-by-default
71•der_gopher•4h ago•68 comments

A Million Falcons Went Missing. Here’s How They Were Found

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/falcons-migration-angola-falcopolis
34•bryanrasmussen•2d ago•5 comments

A bizarre Commodore 64 peripheral, a mime, and some pretty bad ads

https://buttondown.com/suchbadtechads/archive/spartan-and-the-mime/
30•rfarley04•5h ago•3 comments

How the Tobacco Industry Drove the Rise of Ultra-Processed Foods (2025)

https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/how-tobacco-industry-drove-rise-ultra-processed-foods
77•paimapi•1h ago•30 comments

Statichost.eu – European static site hosting

https://www.statichost.eu/
388•p4bl0•20h ago•182 comments

Meet the Ig Nobel Prize Winners

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/09/meet-the-2026-ig-nobel-prize-winners/
59•mkl•3h ago•13 comments

How the Disaster of "Forever Chemicals" Was Kept Secret

https://www.propublica.org/podcast/forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-3m-secret-kris-hansen
170•stevenwoo•2h ago•39 comments

Can AI design circuit boards yet?

https://eebench.org/blog/can-ai-design-circuit-boards-yet/
312•iopapa•21h ago•187 comments

Bob and Van

https://marco.org/2026/09/04/bob-and-van
16•Tomte•56m ago•9 comments

Stopping the Unstoppable: When an unstoppable force meets a dashpot snubber

https://practical.engineering/blog/2026/9/1/stopping-the-unstoppable
3•crescit_eundo•3d ago•0 comments

AI handles incidents, engineers lose touch with their systems

https://www.sylvainkalache.com/blog/ai-handles-incidents-engineers-lose-touch-with-their-systems
294•sylvainkalache•9h ago•260 comments

Git hosting that never leaves Europe

https://pushin.eu
222•sevenseacat•10h ago•111 comments

GPT-6 Astra on OpenRouter

https://openrouter.ai/openai/gpt-6-astra
278•Topfi•19h ago•197 comments

Pointing at the error: compiler-style diagnostics in uutils coreutils

https://uutils.org/blog/2026-08-error-diagnostics/
49•ingve•3d ago•8 comments

Show HN: Open-Source eInk Bike Computer

https://opentrailpaper.com
351•stingrae•1d ago•113 comments

Portal by Spotify cut my Claude Code token usage by 90%

https://engineering.atspotify.com/2026/9/portal-by-spotify-cut-my-claude-code-token-usage-by-90
212•cebert•17h ago•118 comments

Shutting down our public encrypted DNS

https://mullvad.net/en/blog/shutting-down-our-public-encrypted-dns-servers-and-sponsoring-quad9-i...
406•mywacaday•22h ago•196 comments

Write Software in Latin (2025) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGZpaqMha0o
14•akkartik•2d ago•5 comments

Ask HN: Resources to get good at soldering?

192•tosmatos•3d ago•119 comments

IBM Bob

https://bob.ibm.com/
308•artpar•1d ago•314 comments

Git Submodules as a Package Manager

https://nesbitt.io/2026/09/01/git-submodules-as-a-package-manager.html
77•ErenayDev•4d ago•24 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.