Hacker NewsThursday, January 8

Tailwind's creator explains they laid off 75% of their engineering team due to AI's impact on their business, with docs traffic down 40% and revenue down 80% despite Tailwind's growing popularity. They want to add LLM-optimized docs but can't prioritize it while fighting for business survival.

The author changed their mind about AI coding agents after using Claude Opus 4.5, which successfully built four complete applications including a Windows image converter, video editor, Facebook posting utility, and order tracking app. Unlike previous AI tools that produced poor code, Opus 4.5 handled complex tasks like backend integration, authentication, and Firebase setup autonomously, leading the author to believe AI can now replace developers entirely for many projects.

Newly discovered documents reveal that the sugar industry paid Harvard scientists $50,000 in the 1960s to write a literature review downplaying sugar's role in heart disease while emphasizing fat and cholesterol as the main culprits. The industry-funded review was published in a prestigious medical journal without disclosing the financial relationship, helping shape decades of public health policy that focused on reducing fat rather than sugar consumption.

The author set up a mobile coding environment using Tailscale, an old laptop, Claude Code, and Termius, allowing them to code from their phone anywhere with internet access. They find this setup particularly useful for coding at social events when they'd prefer to be working on projects at home.

President Trump announced plans to ban Wall Street firms from buying single-family homes to reduce housing costs, causing homebuilder and private equity stocks to drop sharply. Institutional investors own about 450,000 homes or 3% of single-family rentals nationally. Trump faces pressure over cost of living concerns ahead of midterm elections, though home price increases have recently slowed significantly.

The Gmail app has grown to 760.7 MB, making it one of the most bloated apps among top free iOS apps, compared to just 12 MB in 2013-2017. Google and Microsoft apps are generally much larger than Apple's native alternatives, with Gmail being 80x larger than the native Mail app despite similar functionality.

This interactive map shows global merchant fleet movements throughout 2012, displaying ship routes, CO2 emissions, and cargo data. Created by Kiln using UCL Energy Institute data, it features five ship categories with filtering options, timeline controls, and high-resolution print versions available for purchase.

Volkswagen is reversing its trend toward touch controls by introducing physical buttons in the refreshed ID. Polo's cockpit design. The new interior features traditional switches for climate control, steering wheel buttons for cruise control and music, marking a significant departure from the brand's previous capacitive button approach. This change may extend to other VW electric vehicles like the upcoming ID.4 refresh.

Barry created Prism.Tools, a collection of 40+ privacy-focused developer utilities that run entirely in browsers without tracking or data collection. Each tool is a standalone HTML file with no frameworks or build processes, including JSON formatters, regex testers, base64 encoders, and Git helpers, all accessible without signup.