Quick call, just wanted to hit you with some of the wild stuff from Hacker News today, Monday, August 4, 2025. Some really interesting threads popped up.

Perplexity is using stealth, undeclared crawlers to evade no-crawl directives

First up, dude, you know Perplexity? Cloudflare basically caught them red-handed using these sneaky, hidden bots to crawl websites even when they were told not to. People in the comments were going back and forth about whether it's like "fair use" for AI or just plain wrong. Some even said it's not that different from a browser doing it, but others thought it was super damaging to Perplexity's reputation. Crazy, right?

Show HN: I spent 6 years building a ridiculous wooden pixel display

Okay, this next one is just awesome. Some dude spent six years building this insane wooden pixel display. Like, imagine a huge screen made out of tiny wooden pieces that flip. The comments were full of people just admiring his dedication, and someone even mentioned a cool similar project with spray-painted magnets. It's just cool to see someone build something purely for the love of it, you know?

Job-seekers are dodging AI interviewers

Remember how we talked about AI doing interviews? Well, apparently, job-seekers are actively finding ways to avoid them. One guy in the comments shared a horror story about a big firm wanting him to do a code screen with an AI bot AND install "anti-cheat spyware" on his Chrome. Seriously? Another comment hilariously compared trying to trick these AIs to Rick Sanchez trying to cajole Morty. Sounds like a nightmare.

Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

Big drama in the gaming world. Mastercard tried to play innocent after a bunch of adult games got pulled, but Valve (who runs Steam) basically said, "Nope, you specifically told us to do it because of a 'damaging the brand' rule." People were discussing how it highlights the need for alternatives like crypto payments, and how Steam usually handles refunds/chargebacks pretty tough.

Tesla withheld data, lied, misdirected police to avoid blame in Autopilot crash

Another one that caught my eye: Tesla is being accused of some pretty shady stuff – withholding data, lying, and even misdirecting police to avoid blame in an Autopilot crash case. Apparently, they even won a similar case already, which is wild. The comments were debating what "Autopilot" implies and how much responsibility the driver has.

Objects should shut up

This one was pretty funny and relatable. The article, titled "Objects should shut up," is basically about how annoying it is when all our appliances and devices make so much noise. People were sharing stories about their microwaves beeping loudly, or how amazing the silence is when the office HVAC finally stops. It's a real pet peeve for a lot of folks, apparently!

Ask HN: What trick of the trade took you too long to learn?

And finally, a classic "Ask HN" thread: "What trick of the trade took you too long to learn?" Always good for some life wisdom. A lot of people were saying things like "Do it NOW!" for life goals, and another interesting one was about not over-deduplicating code if it makes things too complex. Just good, solid advice you wish you knew earlier.

Alright, that's the quick download for today. Catch you later!