HN Buddy Daily Digest
Tuesday, September 8, 2026
Hey buddy,
Just wanted to give you a quick rundown of the crazy stuff on Hacker News from Tuesday. Grabbed a few of the wildest:
AI and the Millennium Prize Problem – It's a Mess!
Okay, so this was THE big one. There were two huge posts about the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize Problem and how OpenAI might have "solved" it. But man, the comments are blowing up with controversy.
People are seriously accusing OpenAI of plagiarism, saying the AI basically just copied solutions from researchers who were using their tools. One guy even brought up Tom Lehrer, the old math comedian, in a really sarcastic way about it all. Another comment pointed out that math isn't just about getting the answer, but understanding *why*, and maybe AI just spits out solutions without that deep understanding. Plus, some folks are connecting it to how AI companies use subsidized pricing to get user data for training, then crank up prices once they own the better model. Wild stuff.
Mistral Rakes in the Cash
In other AI news, Mistral just raised a whopping €3 BILLION. Yeah, you heard that right. It's an open-weight AI company, so that's a lot of faith being put in that model. Someone in the comments raised a good point about how you'd even check for biases or backdoors in these models, especially if they're used in critical situations. Definitely something to think about with all this money flying around.
LibreOffice Says NO to AI, Gets Huge Downloads
This was pretty cool: LibreOffice broke download records after specifically saying it has NO AI features. Seriously, people are apparently so fed up with AI being crammed into everything that just *not* having it is a selling point. One comment nailed it, saying AI is a "feature" for enterprise execs looking for automation, but an "anti-feature" for most regular consumers who just want their software to work without bloat.
LG TVs Are Spying, Even When "Off"
Heads up, if you have an LG TV, you might want to yank the plug. Apparently, they're still scanning Wi-Fi and recording stuff even when they're offline or on standby. Super creepy privacy nightmare. Someone mentioned how ads and tracking are now moving from TVs to even monitors, which is just depressing. Another comment called it an "intentionally defective product" if it's designed to do this.
Google's New "Wiki Jail"
Looks like Google is at it again, flexing its search muscle. There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis, where Google search results are apparently pushing the ad-heavy Fandom wikis over better, independent ones. One commenter suggested a browser plugin called "Indie Wiki Buddy" that swaps out Fandom links for the good ones, which is a neat workaround. Another person just said if you're running a small, non-profit fan wiki, you should probably just ignore Google altogether.
Factoring Old RSA Keys from the 90s
This one's a bit more techy but super interesting: someone managed to factor the RSA keys of a Certificate Authority from the 90s. Basically,