Hacker NewsMonday, February 2

NetBird is an open source zero trust networking solution that enables secure connections between devices and resources without relying on traditional perimeter-based security models, implementing zero trust principles for modern distributed network architecture.

When the author got Dish Network in 2007, he discovered his RF remote could control his neighbor's TV due to frequency interference. After the rude neighbor slammed the door when he tried to explain, he used this to his advantage - turning off the neighbor's TV whenever the volume got too loud, eventually training him through Pavlovian conditioning to keep the volume low.

OpenAI's market share decline makes partnerships less valuable. Nvidia faces growing competition from Google's TPUs, Amazon's Trainium, and other custom chips. Major tech companies are moving away from Nvidia's expensive GPUs toward their own silicon solutions.

The author built their own coding agent harness called "pi-coding-agent" after becoming frustrated with existing tools like Claude Code that became too complex and unpredictable. They created a unified LLM API supporting multiple providers, a terminal UI framework, and an agent core focused on simplicity and control. The system allows seamless switching between different AI models mid-conversation and provides clean session management without unnecessary features.

This is a time-based game where players must list as many animals as possible that have Wikipedia articles. Players earn time bonuses for each valid animal named, but the game ends when time runs out. No overlapping terms are allowed - for example, listing both "bear" and "polar bear" only counts as one point since they overlap, though different bear species would count separately.

The author compares Rust and Swift programming languages, noting their striking similarities in features like tagged enums, match expressions, and LLVM compilation. However, Rust takes a bottom-up approach starting from low-level systems programming, while Swift takes a top-down approach starting from high-level abstractions. Swift cleverly disguises functional programming concepts in familiar C-like syntax, making it more accessible to developers. While Rust is faster by default, Swift prioritizes ease of use and is becoming increasingly cross-platform beyond just Apple devices.

The author developed a reporting application and added a --dry-run option that shows what the command would do without making actual changes. This feature proved surprisingly useful for daily testing and validation, allowing quick sanity checks and system testing without side effects, though it required adding conditional logic throughout the code.

The author distinguishes between "vibe coding" (describing software in general terms and letting AI generate whatever) and "automatic programming" (actively guiding AI with design vision and understanding). They argue that when programmers use AI assistance while maintaining control and vision, the resulting code is truly theirs, comparing it to Redis which succeeded due to ideas rather than technical novelty.

Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is free, open-source software for creating point-and-click adventure games. It features a Windows-based IDE with integrated tools and supports multiple platforms. The site showcases recent games like Brainrot and Nothmere, has active community forums, and accepts donations to support operations.

This blog post critically examines the use of large language models (LLMs) and challenges the "lump of cognition fallacy" - the idea that outsourcing thinking to AI is harmless because it frees us to think about other things. The author argues that using LLMs for personal communication, writing, and learning can be detrimental, as it deprives us of cognitive development opportunities and authentic self-expression. While acknowledging some utilitarian benefits, the author contends that LLMs often make people weaker rather than stronger by replacing genuine thinking and learning processes with machine-generated content.