The Whole CECOT 60 Minutes Brouhaha

Okay, so the biggest thing everyone was talking about was this 60 Minutes video called "Inside CECOT". Apparently, it was a segment that got pulled or censored, and then archivists just went and posted it online anyway. It got a ton of attention, like, over 1500 points!

The comments were pretty heated, with people talking about how easily discussions get shut down and some even hinting at "corruption" on HN itself if powerful groups like A16Z were involved, which is a bit out there, but shows how touchy the subject was. It was a whole thing, people were really trying to track down the video after it got yanked.

Fabrice Bellard Drops MicroQuickJS

Then, Fabrice Bellard, you know, that legendary dev who's done all sorts of crazy stuff like QEMU and Tiny C Compiler? Well, he just released MicroQuickJS. It's like, a super tiny JavaScript engine. Folks were pretty stoked.

One interesting thing people picked up in the comments was his choice for arrays: they can't have "holes." So, if you do `a[0] = 1; a[10] = 2;`, that `a[10]` would actually throw an error. You'd have to use a regular object if you want sparse arrays. Kinda different, but makes sense for a lightweight design.

Meta's Using Steam Deck Tech on Servers?

This one was pretty cool: Meta is apparently using the Linux scheduler that Valve designed for the Steam Deck on their servers. How wild is that? Gaming handheld tech powering huge data centers.

The comments were a bit all over the place, with some people debating how big Valve actually is as a company, and others talking about game loot boxes. But the core idea of a scheduler from a gaming device being adapted for servers is just neat.

JPEG Screenshots Beat H.264 Streaming

Get this: someone wrote about how they replaced H.264 video streaming with just sending JPEG screenshots, and it actually worked BETTER. It sounds totally backwards, right?

Turns out, their H.264 encoder was just configured super poorly, pushing like 40Mbps, which is insane for streaming. JPEG, being simpler and client-driven (they only took a screenshot when requested), ended up being way more efficient for their specific use case. Goes to show sometimes the "old" tech can surprise you.

PostgreSQL 18's Instant Database Clones

For anyone working with databases, this is a big deal: PostgreSQL 18 is getting instant database clones. Imagine spinning up a full copy of your database for testing or development in a flash. Super handy.

Funnily enough, a lot of the comments drifted into talking about AI and how it relates to code quality, with some people saying things like "just mentally replace 'AI' with 'an intern' or 'a guy from Fiverr'" when thinking about generated code. Not directly about Postgres, but an interesting tangent on the state of development tools.

Epstein File Redactions Getting Undone

On the more newsy side, but with a tech angle, there was a story about some Epstein file redactions being undone with hacks. People are apparently finding ways to see what was blacked out.

The comments mentioned how easy it is for digital redactions to fail, especially if you're just putting black boxes over compressed images in PDFs – you can still leak bits of information. There's even a related Python tool called X-ray that can help find these bad redactions. Pretty wild stuff, showing how digital documents can be tricky to truly censor.

Anyway, that's the quick rundown! Talk soon!