An Introduction to Writing Systems and Unicode (r12a.github.io)

The article explains how major writing systems (with examples from Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) map to Unicode code points, noting differences like Traditional vs. Simplified Chinese and kana width conventions. It also introduces key concepts such as radicals, character sets versus coded character sets, and why early multi-byte and code-page approaches were difficult for multilingual text. The piece concludes that Unicode’s unified repertoire and multiple planes allow many scripts and symbols to be represented in a single encoding without switching systems.

Super Micro Computer Investors Look for Exits (catenaa.com)

Super Micro Computer’s investors are reportedly looking for exits after the indictment of co-founder Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw over alleged export-restriction circumvention involving China, adding to the company’s recent history of regulatory and filing issues. While the company says it is cooperating and its CEO and the company were not named in the case, the stock has remained volatile and is down sharply from its 2024 peak. Despite that, analysts still cite Super Micro’s position in the AI server market, with expectations of large revenue growth in fiscal 2026.

Nematophagous Fungus (en.wikipedia.org)

Nematophagous fungi are carnivorous fungi that trap and digest nematodes, using mechanisms such as adhesive nets, constricting loops, toxins, or spore/egg parasitism. The species occur worldwide across many habitats and have evolved this feeding strategy multiple times. Some are being studied as biological control agents against crop-damaging plant-parasitic nematodes, with mixed results in trials depending on the fungal strain and setting.

Pandoc: A Workhorse for Document Conversion (lwn.net)

The article discusses Pandoc as a widely used tool for converting documents between formats, highlighting its capabilities for transforming text and document structures across different file types.

Inside the 'self-driving' lab revolution (nature.com) AI

The article reviews how “self-driving” laboratories are using AI, robotics and automated instrumentation to plan and carry out experiments with minimal human input. It highlights systems such as Ross King’s robotic platform Eve/Adam and GPT-4/LLM-driven approaches that can interpret scientific requests, run multi-step procedures, and even adjust based on experimental “eyes.” While the technology is still early and not a full replacement for human expertise, the piece argues it is already improving speed and lowering some research costs, prompting debate about how biology and chemistry may be done in the future.

GitHub's Historic Uptime (damrnelson.github.io)

The page presents historical charts of GitHub’s uptime over time, showing how service availability has changed across earlier periods.

Show HN: Claude Code rewritten as a bash script (github.com) AI

The GitHub project “claude-sh” ports Claude Code’s functionality to a ~1,500-line bash script, relying only on curl and jq (optional ripgrep/python3). It supports streamed output, tool use (Bash, Read/Edit/Write/Glob/Grep), permission prompts for non-safe commands, CLAUDE.md project instruction loading, git-aware context, session save/resume, and basic rate-limit retry and cost tracking. The README also documents installation, environment variables, and command-line/slash commands like /help, /cost, /commit, and /diff.

Anthropic Races to Contain Leak of Code Behind Claude AI Agent (wsj.com) AI

The report says Anthropic is working to contain a leak involving the source code behind its Claude AI agent, after portions of the code were exposed, prompting an internal and security response.

Movie Review: The AI Doc (2026) (thezvi.substack.com)

The review praises “The AI Doc” as a sincere, largely spoilorific documentary following its creator’s shift from panic about existential AI risk to “apocaloptimism,” framed around interviews with both worried researchers and tech optimists. It says the film’s editing and lineup present those disagreements as genuine rather than staged, while stressing the personal stakes of wanting children and calling for concrete action like safety measures and international coordination. The author ultimately finds the risk arguments more substantial than the “vibes”-based optimism but credits the film for giving multiple perspectives space.

Learn Something Old Every Day, Part XVIII: How Does FPU Detection Work? (os2museum.com)

The OS/2 Museum article explains how x86 CPUs detect whether an x87 FPU is present, tracing the evolution from the 8086/8087’s ESC/WAIT behavior to the 286/287 and beyond. It notes that early BIOS “FPU present” bits could be unreliable due to incorrect user switch guidance, and that later detection largely requires software to infer FPU availability rather than relying on hardware signals. The post also describes how the CPU and FPU exchange work via ESC opcodes and busy-line/implicit synchronization rules, highlighting why naive detection can hang on older systems.

Iran threatens Nvidia, Apple and other 18 tech companies (cnbc.com)

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard warned that 18 U.S. tech companies—including Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Google—are “legitimate targets” in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. The group said the actions would begin at 8 p.m. Tehran time on Wednesday and instructed employees to leave workplaces immediately. The report notes that Intel and others are monitoring threats, while prior attacks on digital infrastructure in the Middle East have affected cloud services.

Replace axios with a simple custom fetch wrapper (kentcdodds.com)

Kent C. Dodds argues that in the browser you can often replace axios with a small custom wrapper around the native fetch API. He shows how to handle non-OK HTTP responses, send JSON request bodies, attach JWT authorization headers, and automatically handle 401 responses by logging the user out. The overall point is that fetch plus a tailored wrapper can be simpler and lighter when you only need a subset of axios’s features.

I traced my traffic through a home Tailscale exit node (tech.stonecharioteer.com)

The article walks through how a home Tailscale exit node routes full-tunnel internet traffic, using traceroute and configuration details to verify the path. It explains the routing mechanics and “escape hatch” to avoid loops, what Tailscale is doing via its WireGuard-based control/data plane, and how DERP relay can serve as a fallback when direct peer connectivity fails. The author also compares the setup to OpenVPN and commercial VPNs, emphasizing that exit nodes shift bandwidth and trust to the user’s own infrastructure rather than a VPN provider.

CUDA Released in Basic (developer.nvidia.com) AI

NVIDIA released cuTile BASIC, bringing the CUDA Tile programming model (introduced in CUDA 13.1) to the BASIC language. The package lets developers write tile-based GPU kernels using simple BASIC syntax, with parallelism and data partitioning handled automatically, demonstrated with vector addition and matrix multiplication examples. cuTile BASIC requires an NVIDIA GPU (compute capability 8.x+), NVIDIA driver R580+, CUDA Toolkit 13.1+, and Python 3.10+.

A new way to measure poverty shows the US falling behind Europe (euronews.com)

Oxford University economist Olivier Sterck’s research introduces a “average poverty” measure based on how long it takes to earn $1 in international dollars. Using this approach, the article says the US has substantially higher average poverty than Germany, France and the UK, suggesting the US is falling behind Europe despite higher average incomes. The comparison also varies depending on how poverty and living standards are measured, including purchasing power parity.

AI companies charge you 60% more based on your language, BPE tokens (tokenstree.com) AI

The article argues that AI providers bill for non-standard “tokens” created by different tokenizer designs, which can make the same prompt cost up to ~60% more for non‑English languages. It describes how varying tokenization and provider pricing gaps can significantly change total costs across models and regions. It also promotes TokensTree as an infrastructure layer to normalize token accounting and reduce repeat token consumption via caching (and claims language-toll mitigation).

Show HN: Zerobox – Sandbox any command with file and network restrictions (github.com)

Zerobox is an open-source, lightweight process sandbox for macOS and Linux that can run arbitrary commands while enforcing file, network, and environment-variable restrictions. It blocks writes and outbound network by default, and supports “secret” injection where real credential values are only revealed to approved hosts via a proxy. The project also provides a CLI and a TypeScript/Deno-style SDK for defining per-command permissions and for handling execution output and errors.

AI for American-Produced Cement and Concrete (engineering.fb.com) AI

Meta says it is expanding its use of AI to help U.S. concrete producers design mixes that meet performance targets while using more domestically made cement and materials. The company is releasing BOxCrete, an open-source Bayesian optimization model, along with foundational datasets, and describes pilots with partners like Amrize and academic researchers. Meta also reports an AI-optimized mix used in a data center foundation reached full strength 43% faster and reduced cracking risk by about 10% compared with an earlier formula, and that its earlier concrete optimization framework has been adopted in commercial software used for daily quality control workflows.

Estonia to relaunch Skype as Europe's sovereign platform (estonianworld.com)

Estonia’s government and private backers are reportedly exploring buying Skype back from Microsoft and relaunching it as a secure, EU-focused communications platform centered in Tallinn. The plan would offer encrypted messaging, voice and video calls and target public-sector and professional users first, with options such as EU cloud hosting and a “heritage mode.” Microsoft and the Estonian government have not confirmed the speculation, though the initiative is framed as an effort to strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty.

OpenAI demand sinks on secondary market as Anthropic runs hot (bloomberg.com) AI

Bloomberg reports that demand for OpenAI-linked stakes on the secondary market has weakened, even as Anthropic’s business appears to be drawing stronger investor interest.

Magic mushroom-infused products appear in Colorado gas stations (theconversation.com)

Public health officials in Denver and Colorado removed PolkaDot-branded “magic mushroom” chocolate and gummy products from multiple retailers after laboratory tests found illegal hallucinogenic ingredients such as psilocybin/psilocin and synthetic tryptamines. The article describes how the products were mislabeled as non-hallucinogenic “mushroom blends,” discusses gaps in oversight that allow spiked items to reach gas stations, and notes that Colorado decriminalized personal possession and cultivation but still prohibits retail sales. Officials say the safest approach is to avoid these “mystery bars” and report sightings, while enforcement actions can include license loss and other penalties.

The Finest Swiss Quality Quaternions (se3.ch)

The article is essentially a tongue-in-cheek “Quaternion Emporium” site (se3.ch) advertising Swiss-made quaternions for 3D rotations and related applications. It lists a few themed products—such as a “premium” unit quaternion, an “identity” quaternion, and a bulk set sampled on SU(2)—along with pricing, discounts, and mock customer testimonials. The page also offers links and references to quaternion/rotation topics like SLERP and gimbal lock, but it appears primarily promotional and satirical rather than news reporting.

NASA Artemis II moon mission live launch broadcast (plus.nasa.gov)

NASA is hosting the official livestream of the Artemis II crew launch from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The mission—NASA’s first crewed Artemis flight—will send astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen on an approximately 10-day journey around the Moon. NASA says the flight will test Orion’s life support systems with crew onboard and support planning for future Artemis missions.

Playing Wolfenstein 3D with one hand in 2026 (arstechnica.com)

Ars Technica revisits Wolfenstein 3D in 2026, arguing that its classic “magic trick” of 1992 first-person perspective now feels blocky and dated due to its strict wall geometry, lack of an in-game map, and older shooter design choices. The piece also highlights difficulty and weapon/gameflow quirks, but notes an unexpected upside: the game is playable one-handed with mouse controls alone, with mouse movement mapped to direction and actions like firing and strafing. Overall, it frames the replay as a look back at how influential early FPS conventions were, even with rough edges.

What Is Copilot Exactly? (idiallo.com) AI

The article explains that “Copilot” can refer to several different Microsoft AI products (for example, GitHub Copilot, Copilot for Microsoft 365, Windows Copilot, and Copilot Chat), each integrated into different tools and workflows. The author shares a week-long attempt to improve their productivity with Copilot for Teams/Microsoft 365 before realizing others may be using a different “Copilot” entirely. It ultimately frames the confusion as a caution to clarify which specific tool people mean when they say they use “Copilot.”