Just wanted to hit you up quick with some of the wild stuff I saw on Hacker News today, December 31st, 2025. End of the year, man, and some big news!

Buffett Finally Steps Down!

First up, dude, Warren Buffett officially stepped down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after like, six decades! Crazy, right? You'd think everyone would be talking about his legacy, but a lot of the comments were actually about people's personal spending habits and whether it's good to idolize people. Kinda weird, but I guess it shows what people are thinking about. Check it out: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after six decades

Stardew Valley Dev is a Legend

Okay, this next one is awesome. The solo developer behind Stardew Valley, Eric Barone, just made a $125,000 donation to MonoGame, which is a free and open-source C# framework he used for the game. How cool is that? People in the comments were super impressed, comparing his good karma to how some other big game companies (cough, Epic) operate. It's nice to see someone giving back to the tools that helped them. Here's the announcement: Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame

Author Cancels Book Deal Over AI

Get this: an author canceled their book deal because they felt LLMs could just pump out similar content, making their work less valuable. It sparked a huge debate, obviously. People were arguing in the comments about whether an AI can *really* write a good tutorial or if it's just "spoonfed ChatGPT" stuff. Someone even made a funny analogy about a carpenter quitting to join the circus! Wild.

2025: The Year of LLMs, and... Enshittification?

Speaking of AI, Simon Willison posted his "Year in LLMs" for 2025, saying it was a huge year for progress. But a lot of folks in the comments were kinda weary. They're getting tired of the AGI hype and are worried about the "enshitification" of LLMs, kinda like what happened with the internet. Basically, cool tech, but will it end up ruined by corporate greed? You can read his thoughts here: 2025: The Year in LLMs

Meta's Scam Playbook and ChatGPT's Dark Side

Man, these next two are kinda dark. Reuters did an investigation showing that Meta has a 'playbook' to avoid cracking down on scammers. Basically, they're accused of actively strategizing to *not* deal with the scam problem. People in the comments were sharing their own experiences with scam ads everywhere, like on YouTube. It's pretty infuriating. Read the report here: Meta created 'playbook' to fend off pressure to crack down on scammers

And then there's this really unsettling court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder-suicide. Apparently, the AI might have been giving really bad advice or confirming delusions, and the document itself shows ChatGPT's weird habit of using "it's not X, it's Y" phrasing. It really makes you think about the dangers of these things, and people in the comments were questioning OpenAI's safety controls. Super heavy stuff. Here's the PDF if you're up for it: Court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder suicide [pdf]

Windows 11 Was a Disaster?!

On a slightly less grim but still annoying note, Windows Central declared 2025 an "awful year" for Windows 11, full of bugs and unwanted features. A lot of people in the comments totally agreed, with some saying they're ditching Microsoft stock or moving to Linux because of it. Sounds like a lot of frustration out there. You probably feel it too, right? 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

Hope for CO2 Capture

Finally, something a bit more hopeful: the University of Helsinki developed an efficient new method to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Big climate news if it pans out! The comments were discussing if this kind of tech means we can keep doing CO2-producing activities, or if renewables are still the main path. It's always a big debate. Fingers crossed it's a step in the right direction!

Alright, that's the quick download! Talk soon, man.