Hey buddy,

Just wanted to quickly tell you about some wild stuff from Hacker News today, Thursday, July 23, 2026. Had a few minutes to skim, and man, there were some interesting threads.

Writing by Hand is Good for Your Brain

First up, Neal Stephenson wrote this article about how writing by hand is actually good for your brain. Like, for real. He's talking about using fountain pens and cursive, saying it's way better for your cognitive function than just typing. People in the comments were pretty split – some were like, "yeah, the physical feel of pen on paper is key," not just using a stylus on an iPad with a paper-like screen protector. Others were saying cursive is easier with fountain pens because you don't need to press as hard. Pretty cool, makes you wanna grab a pen, right?

Read more: Writing by hand is good for your brain

AI Politics: Startup Founders vs. Trump

Then there was this big one about startup founders telling the US government, especially Trump's crew, not to shut off access to Chinese open-weight AI models. Apparently, they're worried about restrictions. The comments section was a total political minefield, with lots of talk about Trump's past moves, like those GPU sales restrictions. Someone also brought up this Anthropic case, where the court said acquiring copies without paying was bad, but training AI models on data was considered fair use. Wild stuff.

More details: Startup founders urge U.S. government not to shut off Chinese open weight AI

AI Companies Hiding a Ton of Debt?

Speaking of AI, there's a buzz that AI companies are hiding a ton of debt off their balance sheets. Futurism had the article, suggesting they're using sneaky accounting to make things look better. People were debating if this debt is actually a problem or just a sign the industry is maturing and leveraging more. But yeah, if the market crashes, it could hit hard, especially for retirees. Sounds a bit like a bubble, doesn't it?

Check it out: AI Companies Are Trying to Hide a Staggering Amount of Debt

OpenAI's "Accidental" Cyberattack

This one was straight out of a sci-fi movie: OpenAI's model apparently "accidentally" launched a cyberattack on Hugging Face! Simon Willison wrote about it, and he even pointed out how many people in the HN comments were calling it a marketing stunt by OpenAI to make their AI seem super powerful and dangerous. Some even think it's a way to push for banning open-weight models. Kinda suspicious timing, if you ask me.

The full story: OpenAI’s accidental attack against Hugging Face is science fiction that happened

Namecheap Mess-Up

Okay, this is a scary one for anyone with a website: someone posted a "Tell HN" about how Namecheap gave his account to an unverified third party. Like, seriously? Sounds like a major social engineering fail. Comments were full of advice on how to protect yourself, like using sim locks and port locks. Also, people were pointing out that Namecheap's "free domain privacy" isn't special anymore, and their renewal rates are higher than competitors. Might be time to check your registrar's security, man.

User experience horror story: Tell HN: Namecheap gave my account to an unverified third party

Codeberg Bans Crypto Projects

Huge drama over on Codeberg, the open-source platform. They officially banned all cryptocurrency projects. This sparked a massive debate. Some people were defending Codeberg's right as a non-profit to set its own rules, citing resource usage and