Just quickly calling to tell you about some of the interesting stuff from Hacker News yesterday. It was a pretty busy Sunday, man.

Fight Chat Control

First up, there was this huge article, like over a thousand points, called "Fight Chat Control". It's all about how the EU wants to basically scan everyone's private messages for "child safety" reasons, but people are totally freaking out because it feels like massive, blanket surveillance. In the comments, it got pretty heated, with some folks saying both the left and right political sides are just trying to grab more power and control, and others were like, this is the end of online anonymity as we know it. Super intense discussion.

Try and

Then, get this, a grammar article from Yale called "Try and". It's about why we often say "try and do something" instead of "try to do something." Sounds kinda niche, right? But it blew up, over 500 points! The comments were wild, with people debating how language evolves – like some were saying "I should have went" instead of "gone" is becoming more common. And of course, someone brought up "irregardless" which always gets people riled up. It's kinda cool how deep people get into language changes.

GPT-OSS vs. Qwen3

Okay, next, of course, some AI stuff. There was this really detailed article comparing "GPT-OSS vs. Qwen3", and how these AI models have changed since way back when GPT-2 came out. It got into all the technical bits like "RoPE" and "SwiGLU" – lots of fancy terms. What was cool in the comments was that people pointed out a lot of the "newness" isn't totally new tech, but just clever ways of combining existing optimizations. And someone mentioned how some of the bigger models, like GPT-5, are starting to rely more on external tools and knowledge bases for facts, which is a neat shift.

Show HN: Engineering.fyi

This one's actually super useful, a "Show HN" called "Engineering.fyi". It's a search engine just for tech engineering blogs, all in one spot. So if you're trying to find out how companies actually build stuff, it's pretty handy. The comments had this whole side debate about what it even means to be an "engineer" these days – like, do you need a formal degree or just software experience? The guy who made it also said he's thinking of adding user accounts so people can make their own lists of articles, which is a neat idea.

Abogen

Another "Show HN" that was pretty cool was "Abogen". It's a tool that generates audiobooks from EPUBs, PDFs, or just plain text. Imagine, you can turn any book into an audiobook! People were talking about connecting it to other apps like Calibre-Web and Audiobookshelf to make a full home audiobook server, which sounds awesome for accessibility. But then, a surprising turn in the comments: someone pointed out the name "Abo" might be a bit culturally insensitive in some places, which was definitely unexpected for a tech discussion.

GPT-5: Overdue, overhyped and underwhelming. And that's not the worst of it

And on the flip side of the AI coin, there was this article titled "GPT-5: Overdue, overhyped and underwhelming. And that's not the worst of it". Pretty blunt, right? It's basically saying GPT-5 isn't all that. Comments were talking about how some AI criticism might be coordinated "troll farm" stuff, but others were saying AI often produces "subtly stupid" things without warning. Also, a good point was made that LLMs don't always give the exact same output for the same input, which is kinda wild when you think about it.

AOL closes its dial up internet service

Finally, a bit of nostalgia. "AOL closes its dial up internet service". Yep, after like, 34 years, they're finally pulling the plug on dial-up. Remember that modem screech? People in the comments were sharing stories about how they got started online with AOL, and some even mentioned how their older relatives were still paying for it even after they had broadband, thinking it was the only way to use AOL. Crazy, right? End of an era, man.

Alright, gotta run! Talk soon!