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HN Buddy Daily Digest

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Hey buddy,

Man, Tuesday on Hacker News had some interesting stuff. Lemme quickly run through a few highlights for you.

Danish Pension Fund & De-Dollarization

First off, there's this big deal about a Danish pension fund dumping US Treasury bonds. People are calling it 'de-dollarization' – like the US dollar might be losing its top spot as the world's main currency. The article says it's about poor US government finances, not just symbolism. It ties into this other JPMorgan report from last year asking if the dollar is really losing dominance. Some folks in the comments were saying it's all about other countries not wanting to just be export economies forever; they want to be consumer economies. Pretty wild, right?

Addicted to Being Useful

Then there's this really interesting personal one: 'I'm addicted to being useful'. It's about how some people just have to be productive and helpful, almost to a fault. The comments were deep, man. Someone even mentioned the TV series Severance, which totally fits the theme of work obsession. It makes you think about why we're so driven to always be doing something.

The Overcomplexity of the Shadcn Radio Button

Okay, for the tech nerds, there's a post titled 'The Overcomplexity of the Shadcn Radio Button'. Basically, it's about how even a simple UI component like a radio button can get super complicated in modern web development frameworks like Shadcn. People in the comments were debating if all this complexity is really needed, or if designers are just making things hard for accessibility reasons. Classic dev debate, you know?

Porsche Goes Electric

Switching gears, literally, Porsche announced they sold more electrified cars in Europe last year (2025) than pure gas ones! That's a big shift for a brand like Porsche. The comments section was a mix of people talking about charging logistics – like, what if you don't have a garage? – and others saying Americans are 'stuck' on gas cars because they're told they're 'car enthusiasts'. Pretty funny observation.

26,000-Year Astronomical Monument

And get this, there's a fascinating old article (from 2019, but it popped up again) about a '26,000-year astronomical monument hidden in plain sight'. It's about how ancient people might have encoded astronomical cycles into things without us realizing it until now. Super cool, makes you wonder what else we're missing from history.

Nvidia Stock & Nova Launcher

Last couple of things: Someone's out there making an 'Nvidia Stock Crash Prediction'. The comments are all over the place, some saying the analysis is shaky, others wondering if AI demand will actually drop or if China will catch up. It's a big gamble, for sure.

Oh, and remember Nova Launcher? The popular Android one? Well, it got acquired by Instabridge, and guess what? People are already seeing Facebook and Google Ads tracking baked in. Total bummer, right? Classic 'enshittification' as one commenter put it. Lots of people are looking for alternatives now, or just building their own minimalist launchers because they're fed up.

Alright, gotta run. Talk later!

All Stories from Today

Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries (www.reuters.com)

De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025) (www.jpmorgan.com)

I'm addicted to being useful (www.seangoedecke.com)

The Overcomplexity of the Shadcn Radio Button (paulmakeswebsites.com)

Porsche sold more electrified cars in Europe in 2025 than pure gas-powered cars (newsroom.porsche.com)

A 26,000-year astronomical monument hidden in plain sight (2019) (longnow.org)

Nvidia Stock Crash Prediction (entropicthoughts.com)

Nova Launcher added Facebook and Google Ads tracking (lemdro.id)

California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years (www.latimes.com)

Unconventional PostgreSQL Optimizations (hakibenita.com)

Running Claude Code dangerously (safely) (blog.emilburzo.com)

Meta's legal team abandoned its ethical duties (www.afterbabel.com)

Giving university exams in the age of chatbots (ploum.net)

Linux kernel framework for PCIe device emulation, in userspace (github.com)

The Unix Pipe Card Game (punkx.org)

Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works? (news.ycombinator.com)

Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher (novalauncher.com)

IP Addresses Through 2025 (www.potaroo.net)

Scaling long-running autonomous coding (simonwillison.net)

'This is sell America' – US dollar tumbles as globe flees US assets (www.cnbc.com)

F-16 Falcon Strike (webchrono.pl)

Show HN: Mastra 1.0, open-source JavaScript agent framework from the Gatsby devs (github.com)

'The old order is not coming back,' Carney says in speech at Davos (www.cbc.ca)

Claude Chill: Fix Claude Code's flickering in terminal (github.com)

IPv6 is not insecure because it lacks a NAT (www.johnmaguire.me)

The challenges of soft delete (atlas9.dev)

The world of Japanese snack bars (www.bbc.com)

Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide (www.iqair.com)

X For You Feed Algorithm (github.com)

Which AI Lies Best? A game theory classic designed by John Nash (so-long-sucker.vercel.app)