Hey buddy,

Man, you wouldn't believe the stuff that popped up on Hacker News yesterday, Saturday. I gotta give you the quick rundown. Grab a coffee, this is wild.

Hyatt Hotels using algorithmic "smoking detectors"

First off, get this: Hyatt Hotels are apparently using these new "algorithmic smoking detectors." Sounds kinda sci-fi, right? Like, how does an algorithm detect smoking? The comments were all over it, talking about privacy and how companies keep finding new ways to, well, deny people stuff or just make things weirdly complicated. Someone even pointed out how responsibility gets so spread out that no one's really accountable for the fraud. Wild stuff.

Check out the link if you want the full scoop: Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”

OpenAI claims gold-medal performance at IMO 2025

Then there's the AI news, of course. OpenAI is apparently claiming they got a gold medal in the International Math Olympiad! Super impressive, but the comments were pretty split. Some folks were like, "Is this *real* intelligence, or just pattern matching?" Someone else brought up how AI will just make corporations and governments even more powerful, not really help regular people. And one guy had a good point: the AI didn't get 18 years to study like a human, so it's a different kind of "brain." Still, crazy to think about AI doing that kind of math.

Here's the link: OpenAI claims gold-medal performance at IMO 2025

My Self-Hosting Setup

Something more practical, but still super cool: this dude shared his "ultimate self-hosting setup." You know, running your own servers for everything. He talked about how Docker is great but a pain to update, and someone in the comments mentioned they turned their old server into a "JBOD" (Just a Bunch Of Disks) and it's super quiet. But the best comment? Someone wrote a whole document for their family in case they die, explaining how to shut down their smart home and move self-hosted services! That's next-level preparedness, man.

Read about it here: My Self-Hosting Setup

Ring introducing new feature to allow police to live-stream access to cameras

Okay, this one's a bit scary. Ring, you know, Amazon's doorbell camera, is apparently adding a feature that lets police live-stream access to cameras. Yep, you heard that right. The comments were, understandably, freaking out about mass surveillance. People were talking about how Ring's terms of service probably already let them do "wild things" behind your back. Definitely makes you think about those smart home devices, huh?

Here’s the lowdown: Ring introducing new feature to allow police to live-stream access to cameras

A 14kb page can load much faster than a 15kb page (2022)

This was a neat tech deep dive: a website that's 14 kilobytes can actually load way faster than one that's 15 kilobytes. It's all about how TCP (the internet's backbone) handles initial data packets. The comments got into the weeds about "over-optimization" and how our network speeds have changed but some old internet rules still apply. One guy, a former computer science teacher, said these kinds of conversations are what inspire future techies. Pretty cool.

Check out the explanation: A 14kb page can load much faster than a 15kb page (2022)

Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

This one really resonated: the article basically says nobody really knows how to build good stuff with AI yet. Like, engineers are still just figuring it out. The comments were interesting – some worried that young engineers using LLMs won't learn "real" programming, but others pushed back, saying every new tech brings similar fears. One person made a good point: maybe all that "minutiae" and pain of old-school programming is what makes you good enough to even use LLMs effectively in the first place.

Read the article: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

Death by AI

And for a laugh, or maybe a cry, Dave Barry (the humorist) wrote about how AI incorrectly reported his death! It's a funny piece about how confidently wrong AI can be. The comments backed it up, with people sharing stories of AI or even Wikipedia getting basic facts hilariously wrong, like someone's sister being wrongly listed as Irish. Just shows you, AI still has a ways to go before it's always reliable.

You gotta read this one: Death by AI

Anyway, that's the gist of it for Saturday. Talk soon, man!