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OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III

https://openciv3.org/
450•klaussilveira•6h ago•109 comments

The Waymo World Model

https://waymo.com/blog/2026/02/the-waymo-world-model-a-new-frontier-for-autonomous-driving-simula...
791•xnx•12h ago•481 comments

Show HN: Look Ma, No Linux: Shell, App Installer, Vi, Cc on ESP32-S3 / BreezyBox

https://github.com/valdanylchuk/breezydemo
152•isitcontent•6h ago•15 comments

Monty: A minimal, secure Python interpreter written in Rust for use by AI

https://github.com/pydantic/monty
143•dmpetrov•7h ago•63 comments

How we made geo joins 400× faster with H3 indexes

https://floedb.ai/blog/how-we-made-geo-joins-400-faster-with-h3-indexes
19•matheusalmeida•1d ago•0 comments

Dark Alley Mathematics

https://blog.szczepan.org/blog/three-points/
46•quibono•4d ago•4 comments

A century of hair samples proves leaded gas ban worked

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/02/a-century-of-hair-samples-proves-leaded-gas-ban-worked/
84•jnord•3d ago•8 comments

Show HN: I spent 4 years building a UI design tool with only the features I use

https://vecti.com
257•vecti•8h ago•120 comments

Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

https://eljojo.github.io/rememory/
191•eljojo•9h ago•127 comments

Microsoft open-sources LiteBox, a security-focused library OS

https://github.com/microsoft/litebox
320•aktau•13h ago•155 comments

Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/
317•ostacke•12h ago•85 comments

Hackers (1995) Animated Experience

https://hackers-1995.vercel.app/
403•todsacerdoti•14h ago•218 comments

An Update on Heroku

https://www.heroku.com/blog/an-update-on-heroku/
328•lstoll•13h ago•236 comments

PC Floppy Copy Protection: Vault Prolok

https://martypc.blogspot.com/2024/09/pc-floppy-copy-protection-vault-prolok.html
19•kmm•4d ago•1 comments

Show HN: R3forth, a ColorForth-inspired language with a tiny VM

https://github.com/phreda4/r3
50•phreda4•6h ago•8 comments

I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

https://infisical.com/blog/devops-to-solutions-engineering
110•vmatsiiako•11h ago•34 comments

How to effectively write quality code with AI

https://heidenstedt.org/posts/2026/how-to-effectively-write-quality-code-with-ai/
189•i5heu•9h ago•132 comments

Learning from context is harder than we thought

https://hy.tencent.com/research/100025?langVersion=en
149•limoce•3d ago•79 comments

Make Trust Irrelevant: A Gamer's Take on Agentic AI Safety

https://github.com/Deso-PK/make-trust-irrelevant
7•DesoPK•1h ago•3 comments

Understanding Neural Network, Visually

https://visualrambling.space/neural-network/
240•surprisetalk•3d ago•31 comments

I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

https://kirkville.com/i-now-assume-that-all-ads-on-apple-news-are-scams/
985•cdrnsf•16h ago•417 comments

Introducing the Developer Knowledge API and MCP Server

https://developers.googleblog.com/introducing-the-developer-knowledge-api-and-mcp-server/
21•gfortaine•4h ago•2 comments

FORTH? Really!?

https://rescrv.net/w/2026/02/06/associative
43•rescrv•14h ago•17 comments

I'm going to cure my girlfriend's brain tumor

https://andrewjrod.substack.com/p/im-going-to-cure-my-girlfriends-brain
58•ray__•3h ago•14 comments

Evaluating and mitigating the growing risk of LLM-discovered 0-days

https://red.anthropic.com/2026/zero-days/
36•lebovic•1d ago•11 comments

Female Asian Elephant Calf Born at the Smithsonian National Zoo

https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/female-asian-elephant-calf-born-smithsonians-national-zoo-an...
5•gmays•1h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Smooth CLI – Token-efficient browser for AI agents

https://docs.smooth.sh/cli/overview
77•antves•1d ago•57 comments

Show HN: Slack CLI for Agents

https://github.com/stablyai/agent-slack
40•nwparker•1d ago•10 comments

The Oklahoma Architect Who Turned Kitsch into Art

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-01-31/oklahoma-architect-bruce-goff-s-wild-home-desi...
20•MarlonPro•3d ago•4 comments

How virtual textures work

https://www.shlom.dev/articles/how-virtual-textures-really-work/
28•betamark•13h ago•23 comments
Open in hackernews

Living microbial cement supercapacitors with reactivatable energy storage

https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(25)00409-6
88•PaulHoule•4mo ago

Comments

thesebas•4mo ago
"Well that Sounds Like Slavery With Extra Steps"
Telemakhos•4mo ago
No more so than brewing beer with yeast or fermenting wine or growing crops.
zenmac•4mo ago
Yeah that may be true, but how do we feel about using actual brain tissues to train AI like:

https://corticallabs.com

roughly•4mo ago
The fact that brain organelles start spontaneously firing in synchronized patterns when they reach a certain size is enough to give me serious pause about anything trying to use brain tissue. We don’t quite know what consciousness is, but we know what it looks like from the outside.
NonHyloMorph•4mo ago
Oh my. Shot from the hip: Not good.
PaulHoule•4mo ago
You've got plenty of bacteria working for you (and sometimes against you) in your gut. Microbe-enhanced cement is a significant research topic. And the most plausible route to a chemical "factory factory" that space colonists would need to make middle and top-of-pyramid chemicals is a synthetic biology platform where you could make bespoke bacteria and yeasts that could make just about anything for you.
siavosh•4mo ago
I’m not sure if I’m joking or not, but the difference between your two examples is one of them is a choice and the other is not. Maybe we’re going to enter a new era of microorganism ethics (or morality?).
roughly•4mo ago
Microorganisms get interesting because they’re simple enough that we can see all the parts involved, but complex enough that we can see what looks like intentionality in their actions. We consider them Alive, but we also know all the mechanisms making them seem that way - there’s nowhere for the ghost to hide. They’re a fascinating case for ethics, especially since there’s effectively no way we could operate in this world without both relying on them and killing them in droves, because they’re also parts of the mechanism almost anywhere we look at biology. Hell, human cells are outnumbered 10:1 - by number, we’re outvoted.
siavosh•4mo ago
Yeah I think if ethics are involved it has to be based on intentions and hence choice. Accidentally stepping on a few million microorganisms is probably ethically ok. Building your civilization in the “enslavement” of gazzilions of microorganisms might be more ethically discussion worthy. I do wonder how plants are different than microorganisms if at all since obviously we farm and eat them.
roughly•4mo ago
With microorganisms it’s particularly interesting because the time and space scales are so different there’s no coherent narrative between humans and bacteria - it’d be like a species of sentient space nebulas seeding a promising planet with proto-humans so we’d eventually plant fruit trees there or something. In one sense, yes, if you were one of the eventual resulting humans, you’re the result of an alien species enslaving humans to do their bidding, but you’re living your entire life just generally doing what you’d do as a human totally unaware of your apparent enslavement and with no apparent restrictions on your movement or decision-space. I’m not an ethicist - anything that doesn’t involve the full consent of all parties gives me pause, but I’m not quite sure what the conversation there looks like.
siavosh•4mo ago
Well these humans would be totally ignorant of what’s going on but that I think would be besides the point because the space nebula would know what they’re doing!
NonHyloMorph•4mo ago
And then one of the space nebula decided to take the form of their creation. Thus it came down to earth to walk amongst them humans as one of them and this is how linus became benevolent dictator for life.
cycomanic•4mo ago
Plants are orders of magnitude more complex than microorganisms and we "intentionally kill/enslave" them in huge amounts. If you think it's ethically questionable to "enslave" microorganisms, what do you think of eating plant based food, and how do you propose we live?
roughly•4mo ago
It’s the fact that there’s no good answer that makes it a dilemma
layla5alive•4mo ago
The fact that you don't have an alternative other than suicide removes much of the dilemma..
roughly•4mo ago
No, that’s precisely what creates the dilemma - do you have a moral or ethical right to take the life of a sentient being to save your own? Do you have a right to do so repeatedly over time? What makes your life worth more than those you’re taking?
lazide•4mo ago
How do the microbes in someone’s gut have a choice in the matter?
siavosh•4mo ago
I should have been more clear, I meant our choice as in we did not choose or coerce them to be in our gut but we would have chosen to use them in our civilization’s infrastructure.
pfdietz•4mo ago
Don't anthropomorphize microbes. They hate it when you do that.
pengaru•4mo ago
Wait til you learn where honey comes from
BolexNOLA•4mo ago
Eek barba dirkle, someone got laid in college
bix6•4mo ago
Exciting for a proof of concept. Hope to see this further developed!
VladVladikoff•4mo ago
>Achieves 178.7 Wh/kg energy density and 8.3 kW/kg power density

Can someone explain this to me please. What is “energy” measuring here? How is it different from power?

lexicality•4mo ago
presumably energy is how much it can store and power is how fast you can get it out?
billyjmc•4mo ago
Energy is how much work you can do. Power is how fast you can do it. When you express these in terms of densities, it’s how much energy a certain quantity of material can store, and how quickly that energy can be released from a certain quantity of material.

If you short out a AA battery, it will get warm for a little while. If you short out a 14500 Li-ion battery (which is the same size and comparable energy density), you might get a small explosion as it dumps its energy very quickly.

simpsond•4mo ago
W = Watt. h = hour. One kg supply one watt of power for 178.7 hours (without considering other factors). Power is how much energy can it supply at a moment. Up to 8.3 kW instantaneous.
detourdog•4mo ago
Does it follow that 8.3 kW instance lasts .1787th of an hour?
Workaccount2•4mo ago
No, it would last .0215th of an hour or ~77.5 seconds.
detourdog•4mo ago
Is it a base 60 thing, how did you do the math?
sushibowl•4mo ago
There's no base 60 involved, it's the energy available divided by the power delivered:

178.8 Watt hours / 8300 Watts ≈ 0.0215 hours

detourdog•4mo ago
Thanks, Not sure where my math went wrong.
NonHyloMorph•4mo ago
Hours to seconds conversion probably, the number 60 plays a role there. (Albeit not base 60 but mod 60, but I'm not firm enough in the math to rule out that there is some correspondence between the concepts)
dreamcompiler•4mo ago
Power is the time derivative of energy.
taminka•4mo ago
yeah I'm sure that someone who doesn't understand the difference between power and energy definitely understands derivatives...

you somehow managed to be perfectly unhelpful, condescending and insecure at the same time?

lexicality•4mo ago
Always exciting to see people taking steps towards a wetware future, one of my favourite scifi horror tropes. Bring on the flesh!
johnohara•4mo ago
> Our findings establish a new paradigm for bio-integrated, cement-based energy materials, paving the way for energy-autonomous infrastructure.

"You see what I did there? Paving. Get it?"

Right. Now unleash the academic peer review puns. They've given permission.

seemaze•4mo ago
Modern concrete is ubiquitously reinforced with steel. I wonder what effect on oxidation (modern concrete's primary failure mode) this would have?
lazide•4mo ago
Steel would presumably cause dead shorts, which are a even more direct failure mode.
brotchie•4mo ago
What’s the downside here? Lithium ion batteries have an energy density of 150-350 Wh/kg, so this is firmly at the bottom of that range.

Naive, back of the napkin is 446 kWh / m^3. There’s a lot of content out there!

grues-dinner•4mo ago
"Sorry the power is out - the concrete got sick".

And ensuring electrode integrity is probably quite fiddly during construction and maintenance is presumably also fiddly.

imtringued•4mo ago
I haven't read the paper in detail yet but the easiest way to cheat is to calculate the density of a single layer, "capacitor plate" or surface or whatever it is that the microbes are living on and consider the "structural" cement as not counting towards the density calculation because theoretically speaking, there could be a manufacturing method to make a cement that creates the promised surface area even though such a process would be completely impractical to commercialise.
Nevermark•4mo ago
Morpheus steps forward, coat brushing his legs like a pendulum.

He lifts a slab of rough, gray cement from a conjured table, its weight palpable in his hand.

Morpheus: “For millennia, cement has been regarded as inert structural material. Here, we challenge this long-standing perception by transforming cement into a ‘living’ energy device, ... through the development of a microbial cement supercapacitor.”

He sets it down with a resonant thud. Immediately, thin blue veins of light snake across its surface, the fluorescence of a living substrate.

Neo takes a half-step closer, eyes narrowing.

Neo: “You’re saying… walls could think?”

Morpheus circles him, slow, deliberate, his voice low and electric.

Morpheus: “Not think. Store. The very foundations of their prisons becoming batteries. Imagine—every tower in the Matrix, a living entity, feeding the machine’s hunger, while we believed them empty stone.”

The slab flares green, light coursing outward in a pulse. Neo instinctively shifts back, fists tightening.

Neo: “And you want me to believe we can turn their biopower into ours?”

Morpheus stops directly in front of him, their eyes locked. A faint smile.

Morpheus: “I don’t want you to believe it, Neo. I want you to feel it.”

Neo reaches, fingers splayed, toward the slab.

It dissolves into motes of red light, scattering into the infinite.

ben_ja_min•4mo ago
Neo: "Woah."
calibas•4mo ago
I was wondering if it makes the cement weaker, but it looks like the bacteria actually make it stronger.

> At 3 days, EAM-containing samples exhibit increased overall porosity compared to the control, indicating an initial disruption in matrix densification. However, by 28 days, this effect diminishes, suggesting that hydration and subsequent microstructural stabilization mitigate the early porosity increase. Further analysis of pore size distribution (Figure 2F) shows that EAM incorporation leads to an increase in middle and large capillary mesopores, whereas coarse mesopores decrease, indicating a shift in the microstructure toward a more refined network. Despite these microstructural modifications, compressive strength measurements (Figure 2G) show that EAM incorporation does not compromise the structural integrity of cement. At 3 days, samples with higher EAM content exhibit a reduction in strength. However, by 28 days, strength recovery is observed, and EAM-containing samples exhibit a slight improvement compared to the control. This enhancement may be attributed to the formation of additional calcium carbonate, which contributes to matrix densification and mechanical reinforcement.