Hacker NewsWednesday, November 5

The article draws parallels between 1995 internet adoption and today's AI revolution, arguing both optimists and pessimists are partially wrong. Using radiology as an example, it shows AI hasn't replaced jobs as predicted but increased demand through Jevons Paradox. Employment outcomes depend on whether unfulfilled market demand growth outpaces automation productivity gains. Different industries will experience varying impacts based on demand saturation levels. The piece also addresses whether AI represents a bubble, suggesting that like the internet, transformative technologies often see initial hype cycles before delivering real value, though the timeline and specific applications may differ from early predictions.

The author created an app to quickly check travel eligibility after getting frustrated with the 20-minute process of verifying visa requirements, passport validity, and residency rules when booking cheap flights. The app simulates different immigration systems' requirements locally on-device to predict potential issues before purchase, helping avoid expensive mistakes from complex and conflicting international travel regulations.

A petrochemical plant worker and aspiring writer describes his ingenious solution for finding time to write during work breaks by building portable desks for various vehicles over the years. After losing his beloved F-150 truck and custom "Truck Desk," he adapts by creating a simple plank that fits across any pickup truck's armrests, allowing him to continue his literary work during the precious moments of downtime at his blue-collar job.

This article explains the basics of diodes, which are often overlooked semiconductor components. It covers how p-n junctions work, with electrons moving from n-type to p-type material creating a voltage threshold around 600mV for conduction. The piece discusses practical applications including circuit protection using TVS diodes, voltage regulation with Zener diodes, and AC-to-DC conversion through rectifier circuits. Despite being overshadowed by transistors, diodes serve essential functions in electronics.

The author argues that while pgvector for Postgres is popular in theory for vector databases, it faces significant production challenges that most blog posts ignore. Key issues include poor indexing options (IVFFlat vs HNSW both have major tradeoffs), difficulty with real-time search due to slow index updates, complex pre vs post-filtering decisions that affect query performance, memory management problems during index builds, and scaling limitations that make it unsuitable for high-velocity applications despite the appealing simplicity of keeping everything in one database.

Xiao Xiao was a groundbreaking Flash animation series created by Chinese artist Zhu Zhiqiang from 2000-2002, featuring violent stick figure kung fu fights. Despite having no formal animation training, Zhu's simple but stylish martial arts sequences became a global internet phenomenon, reaching millions of viewers and inspiring countless imitators. The series helped define China's early Flash animation scene and made Zhu an unlikely e-celebrity, though the medium eventually declined as technology evolved.

This article analyzes Arthur Whitney's extremely compact C code style, specifically examining his 50-line interpreter for the K programming language. Whitney, creator of APL-influenced languages like A, K, and Q used in finance, writes dense, macro-heavy code that fits complex logic on one screen to avoid scrolling. The author goes line-by-line through Whitney's cryptic code, explaining unusual techniques like using char pointers for both integers and strings, extensive macro definitions, and non-standard C extensions. While the style is widely considered incomprehensible, the author explores whether this compact approach might actually help understand complex software faster by exposing all the complexity at once rather than spreading it across hundreds of lines.

Carson Gross announces htmx 4.0, skipping version 3 as promised. The major update rebuilds htmx internals using fetch() instead of XMLHttpRequest, makes attribute inheritance explicit rather than implicit, and removes local history caching. Despite breaking changes, most core functionality remains the same, with new features like streaming responses, morphing swaps, and improved view transitions support included.