HackerNews Digest

The author documents a personal modification of MacBook aluminum unibody cases by filing down the sharp corners, especially around the notch, to improve wrist comfort. The post notes that Apple’s design creates a very acute edge, which the author mitigates using a rough file followed by progressive sanding with 150‑ and 400‑grit paper. Precautions taken include taping over the speakers and keyboard, clamping the laptop to a workbench, and filing in incremental steps to avoid penetrating the chassis. The resulting surface is described as smooth, with later photographs showing typical wear over time. The author states this alteration was performed on a work machine, intends to repeat it on future devices, and offers assistance to others interested in similar modifications.

Reentry for Artemis II is scheduled to begin at 7:53 p.m. ET. Twenty‑four seconds after entry, at roughly 1,950 mi from the splashdown zone, plasma generated by the 16.5‑ft heat shield will block communications. One minute 22 seconds into descent the shield temperature peaks near 5,000 °F (≈½ the Sun’s surface temperature). The blackout lasts about six minutes, after which the capsule is traveling ~9,000 mph and is <200 mi from the target point. At ~8 min post‑entry the vehicle reaches ~100,000 ft altitude; one minute later it falls below Mach 1. At ~50,000 ft and ~300 mph, 11 parachutes deploy sequentially, followed by three pilot chutes that extract three 116‑ft main chutes at ~6,000 ft. These reduce the descent rate to ~17 mph for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego.

1D‑Chess is a linear chess variant featuring only three piece types—King, Knight, and Rook—played on a single‑dimensional board. The King moves one square in either direction; the Knight moves exactly two squares forward or backward, jumping over intervening pieces; the Rook moves any number of squares in a straight line in either direction. Victory is achieved by checkmating the opponent’s king, i.e., delivering check with no legal escape. Draws occur by stalemate (king not in check with no moves), three‑fold repetition, or insufficient material (only kings remaining). The game can be played against an AI, and a sample forced‑win line for White is given: N4 N5, N6 K7, R4 K6, R2 K7, R5++. The variant was originally described by Martin Gardner in the July 1980 issue of *Scientific American* (Mathematical Games column).

Researchers led by anthropologist Aaron Sandel of the University of Texas, co‑director of the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project, report that chimpanzee communities in Uganda are engaged in intense, territorial conflicts described as a “civil war.” The study documents frequent hostile encounters between neighboring groups, including aggressive displays, fights, and lethal attacks. These interactions underscore the species’ strong territoriality and suggest that inter‑group competition can drive sustained violence comparable to human warfare. Field observations detail the patterns of aggression, group boundaries, and the social dynamics that fuel the conflict, providing new insights into chimpanzee behavior and the ecological pressures shaping their societies.

The author scraped the entire Mozilla Add‑ons API to collect every public Firefox extension. Using the `/api/v5/addons/search/` endpoint with various sort parameters (recommended, users, created, updated, downloads) and the `exclude_addons` filter, they fetched all pages in parallel, ultimately obtaining 84 235 unique extensions—about 99.94 % of the ~84 000 listed. The dataset (≈49 GB, avg 585 kB per extension) is hosted on Hugging Face as `all_extensions.json`. Analysis shows the largest extensions range from 115 MB to 196 MB (e.g., dmitlichess, ReactBot Web, AI‑based tools) while the smallest is a 7.5 kB tab‑saver. The lowest‑rated extension (≥10 ratings) is “Tab Stack for Firefox.” The earliest extension is “Web Developer.” The most‑screenshot‑rich add‑on is RDS Bar (54 screenshots). The most prolific developer, “Dr. Bis,” has 84 published extensions. The author identified phishing extensions (homoglyph attacks, clipboard theft) and SEO‑spam extensions with fabricated homepage links, as well as a large group of “Custom Web Search” PUAs linked to Innover Online Group Ltd, collectively accounting for >700 k users.

Split locks are atomic operations that span two cache lines, causing CPUs to fall back to a bus‑lock‑like mechanism because they cannot lock multiple lines simultaneously. This dramatically increases latency and reduces memory bandwidth, especially when accesses miss L1/L2 caches. Benchmarks using InterlockedCompareExchange64 on various x86‑64 CPUs show split‑lock latencies ranging from ~500 ns on Zen 5 to >7 µs on Intel Arrow Lake, with severe performance regressions (≈10×) for L2/L3 accesses and DRAM bandwidth cuts. Architectures differ: AMD Piledriver and Intel Goldmont Plus exhibit relatively modest penalties, while modern Intel (Arrow Lake, Alder Lake) and AMD Zen 2/Zen 5 suffer large slowdowns, though Alder Lake’s memory subsystem isolates other workloads. Linux traps split locks and adds millisecond‑level delays to mitigate noisy‑neighbor effects, which the author argues is appropriate for servers but overkill for desktops. Overall, developers should avoid split‑lock usage, and hardware vendors need clearer documentation and better handling of these operations.

WireGuardNT v0.11 and WireGuard for Windows v0.6 have been released, updating both the low‑level kernel driver/API (WireGuardNT) and the higher‑level management UI, CLI tools, and utilities (WireGuard for Windows). New capabilities include removal of individual allowed IPs without dropping traffic and support for very low IPv4 MTUs. The release focuses on extensive bug fixes, performance gains, and code simplification achieved by raising the minimum supported Windows version, eliminating legacy compatibility layers. Toolchain components have been upgraded: a newer EWDK for the driver, updated Clang/LLVM/MingW for userspace, a recent Go release for the UI, and refreshed EV code‑signing infrastructure. The built‑in updater will prompt users to install the update; the installer is also available at https://download.wireguard.com/windows-client/wireguard-installer.exe. Testing has been performed on Windows 10 build 10240 (the oldest supported version). A prior Microsoft signing‑certificate block was resolved after brief bureaucratic delay, allowing the release to proceed.

The repository supplies production‑grade CAD assets for Keychron keyboards and mice, covering 88 device models and more than 686 files in STEP, DXF, DWG, and PDF formats. Files are organized by series (C‑Pro, Q, Q‑HE, Q‑Pro, Q‑Max, Q‑Ultra‑8K, K‑Pro, K‑Max, K‑HE, V‑Max, P‑HE, L, and M series mice) and include plates, cases, full models, stabilizers, and keycap profiles. The source‑available license permits personal, educational, and commercial use for compatible accessories, while prohibiting copying or selling Keychron products and use of Keychron trademarks. Documentation provides a file‑format guide, getting‑started guide, 3‑D‑printing guide, and scripts for inventory generation. The repo encourages community contributions (bug fixes, ISO layouts, documentation) and offers a Discord for collaboration. Recent updates (April 2026) added K0 Max, Q12 HE, Q6 Max, K10 HE, and mouse designs. The project aims to lower entry barriers for hobbyists and engineers, enable hardware remixing, and support an ecosystem of compatible add‑ons.

The document outlines how AI tools may assist in Linux kernel development while adhering to existing processes and licensing rules. Contributions must follow the standard kernel development workflow, including the development‑process, coding‑style, and patch‑submission guidelines. All code must be GPL‑2.0‑only compatible and use proper SPDX identifiers, as detailed in the license‑rules documentation. AI agents are prohibited from adding “Signed‑off‑by” tags; only human submitters can certify the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) and must review any AI‑generated code, ensure licensing compliance, add their own Signed‑off‑by, and assume full responsibility. When AI assistance is used, an “Assisted‑by” tag should be added, formatted as Assisted‑by: AGENT_NAME:MODEL_VERSION [TOOL1] [TOOL2], where optional tools may include analysis utilities such as coccinelle, sparse, smatch, or clang‑tidy. Basic development tools are excluded from this tag.

The site offers a series of Bevy game‑development guides originally created for a private learning group and now expanded for public use. Authored by a programmer with a decade of Ruby web experience, the site itself is generated with a custom Ruby‑based static site generator called Staticky. It includes links to additional resources such as a Bevy starter project, a curated collection of notable Bevy repositories, and a Rust‑on‑Solana blog (Soldev). All tutorials target Bevy version 0.18. New users are directed to the “Pong Tutorial” for introductory learning, while more experienced developers are encouraged to start with the concise “TLDR” guide.