Hey buddy,

Man, Sunday on Hacker News had some wild stuff, lemme give you the quick rundown. Grab a coffee, this is gonna be quick!

ICE Using Palantir, Sucking Up Medicaid Data

First off, this one's kinda scary: apparently, ICE is using some Palantir tool that’s pulling in Medicaid data. Seriously, Medicaid! People were super freaked out about government overreach and privacy. One comment really hit it, saying how people often want the federal government to have more power for "good" things, but then it gets used for stuff like this, and you can't assume a "good natured centralized power will persist." It's a classic "nothing to hide" argument, but with real-world implications.

Super Famous Academic Paper Flawed, Cited 6,000+ Times

Then there was this academic bombshell: a paper in management science that’s been cited over 6,000 times turns out to be totally flawed. Six thousand times! The comments were pretty much a collective groan about academic honesty, with people wondering if anyone actually reads these papers critically or just scans them to get a citation. Someone even joked that maybe software engineering will finally become a "real engineering discipline" while civil engineering stops being one because of this kind of academic sloppiness. Wild, right?

Deutsche Telekom Throttling Internet

Net neutrality vibes here: Deutsche Telekom is apparently throttling internet speeds and blocking ports on dynamic IPs. You can get full speed and open ports, but only if you pay an extra 2 euros a month for a static IP. People were pretty annoyed. Someone pointed out how Romania has insane internet because of brutal competition, and how Australia has a government-owned "last mile" network that's just a wholesaler, which works really well. Makes you wonder why we can't have nice things.

EVs Actually Reduce Air Pollution, Study Says

Good news for the environment: a new study found that more electric vehicles on the road actually lead to real-world reductions in air pollution. Not super surprising, but good to see. The comments had the usual "coal in the EV" debate, questioning where the electricity comes from. But someone also made a good point about how bikes are way, way more accessible than cars, EV or not, costing only a few hundred bucks with basically no barrier to entry compared to a car.

macOS App Blurs Screen When You Slouch

This one's pretty cool and kinda funny: someone built a macOS app that uses your webcam to detect if you're slouching and then blurs your screen to guilt-trip you into sitting up straight. Genius! A comment highlighted something interesting – that slouching might not just be a bad habit, but actually caused by bad chair design. So maybe the app's just treating the symptom, not the cause!

OnePlus Phone Update Locks You In with Hardware Anti-Rollback

For the phone geeks: OnePlus pushed an update that includes hardware anti-rollback. This means you can't easily downgrade your phone to an older software version, even if you wanted to. It's a bummer for people who like to tinker or prefer older, stable OS versions. One commenter had a funny take, asking if phone thieves even understand "expected value" when considering if this feature deters them. Probably not!

Doom Running on an Earbud

And finally, just because it's awesome: someone ported Doom to an earbud! Yes, a tiny earbud. It's totally impractical but super impressive technically. The comments dove deep into the tech, like why they used SRAM instead of DRAM for memory (basically, SRAM is faster and closer to the CPU, even if it's smaller) and if it's efficient on a general-purpose CPU. Just a wild flex of engineering skill.

Anyway, that’s the gist of it. Talk soon!