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HN Buddy Daily Digest

Sunday, December 21, 2025

Hey buddy,

Man, you wouldn't believe the stuff popping up on Hacker News this Sunday. I just skimmed through it and had to give you a quick rundown. Some pretty wild discussions going on.

Companies Silencing Critics?

First off, there was a big one about these companies, Flock and Cyble Inc., apparently using "cybercrime takedowns" to shut down people who criticize them. Sounds super sketchy, right? Like, weaponizing legal stuff to silence free speech. The comments on that one actually got really weird, though, veering off into debates about IQ studies and "bad science" instead of the actual issue. Go figure.

EU's Chat Control 3.0

Then there's this ongoing thing in the EU, another attempt at something called "Chat Control 3.0". It sounds like they're trying to push more surveillance into private messages. You'd think people would be talking about privacy rights, but a surprising number of comments were focused on how this might affect people drawing anime characters and whether that could be misinterpreted by the law. Wild tangent, but shows what people are worried about.

Logging Still Sucks

There was also a post titled "Logging sucks", and honestly, everyone in the comments just nodded along. It was all about how much of a pain it is to do logging right in software, especially making sure those logs are actually durable and don't just disappear. Lots of talk about cloud storage and RAID, pretty technical stuff, but a super relatable developer struggle.

Windows 11 Nags

This one hit home for a lot of people: "I can't upgrade to Windows 11, now leave me alone". Someone just ranting about Microsoft constantly pushing them to upgrade when their hardware isn't supported. The comments were full of people saying things like, "That's why I switched to Linux ten years ago!" or complaining about Windows silently uploading their photos to OneDrive. Classic Microsoft frustration, it seems.

Local AI Coding Models

On the AI front, there was a cool guide called "A guide to local coding models". It's basically about how you don't need to spend a ton of money on services like Claude because you can run powerful AI coding models right on your own machine. People were discussing how to set up different models for planning versus execution, and how Apple's unified memory is actually pretty good for this kind of GPU-intensive work. Super practical if you're dabbling in AI for coding.

AI Game Gets Award Stripped

This one caused a stir: an indie game had its Game of the Year award taken away because it used AI in its development. Man, the comments section blew up with debates about what counts as "art," whether using AI is "cheating," and if it lowers the bar for entry. Some people were saying it's just like using Photoshop, while others were really upset about the ethical implications of AI-generated content.

Waymo Cars Stuck in Blackout

And finally, something a bit scary: during a power outage in San Francisco, Waymo's self-driving cars completely halted service and apparently caused some traffic jams. It sparked a big discussion about the reliability of autonomous vehicles in emergencies and whether they're truly safer than human drivers. People were debating if these cars are even programmed to handle things like blinking traffic lights or total blackouts. Definitely makes you think twice.

Anyway, just thought you'd find that interesting. Catch you later!

All Stories from Today

Flock and Cyble Inc. weaponize “cybercrime” takedowns to silence critics (haveibeenflocked.com)

The Going Dark initiative or ProtectEU is a Chat Control 3.0 attempt (mastodon.online)

Logging sucks (loggingsucks.com)

I can't upgrade to Windows 11, now leave me alone (idiallo.com)

Show HN: Books mentioned on Hacker News in 2025 (hackernews-readings-613604506318.us-west1.run.app)

Ruby website redesigned (www.ruby-lang.org)

A guide to local coding models (www.aiforswes.com)

Show HN: WalletWallet – create Apple passes from anything (walletwallet.alen.ro)

You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving (neilthanedar.com)

Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams (missionlocal.org)

Indoor tanning makes youthful skin much older on a genetic level (www.ucsf.edu)

Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks (metr.org)

CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally (spectrum.ieee.org)

Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe (avbrief.com)

Coarse is better (borretti.me)

Clair Obscur having its Indie Game Game Of The Year award stripped due to AI use (www.thegamer.com)

Disney Imagineering Debuts Next-Generation Robotic Character, Olaf (disneyparksblog.com)

Reasons not to become famous (2020) (tim.blog)

Inca Stone Masonry (www.earthasweknowit.com)

Structured outputs create false confidence (boundaryml.com)

ARIN Public Incident Report – 4.10 Misissuance Error (www.arin.net)

E.W.Dijkstra Archive (www.cs.utexas.edu)

Three ways to solve problems (andreasfragner.com)

Show HN: Shittp – Volatile Dotfiles over SSH (github.com)

Rue: Higher level than Rust, lower level than Go (rue-lang.dev)

Get an AI code review in 10 seconds (oldmanrahul.com)

I doubt that anything resembling genuine AGI is within reach of current AI tools (mathstodon.xyz)

Isengard in Oxford (lareviewofbooks.org)

The gift card accountability sink (www.bitsaboutmoney.com)

PG&E outages in S.F. leave 130k without electricity (www.sfchronicle.com)