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SMS URLS

The 'sms:' URL scheme, defined in RFC 5724, enables sending text messages, similar to 'mailto:' for email.

HOW TO SLOW DOWN A PROGRAM? AND WHY IT CAN BE USEFUL

Slowing programs down can help developers find race conditions, simulate speedups, and assess how accurate profilers are.

THE $1T OPPORTUNITY TO BUILD THE NEXT AMAZON IN RETAIL

This essay looks at eight historical technology transformations in retail and predicts five ways in which the AI revolution might transform the industry in the future.

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COMING SOON TO WHOLE FOODS STAFF: A JOB OFFER FROM AMAZON

Amazon plans to extend new employment offers to Whole Foods' US corporate employees on November 10.

SPOTIFY IS ADDING DMS

Spotify's messaging feature lets users share content and start messages with other users they have interacted with or people with whom they share a Spotify plan.

THE ELECTRIC SLIDE (6 HOUR READ)

The number of things that can economically go electric increases every year as their components get cheaper and more performant.

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SPACEX'S GIANT MARS ROCKET COMPLETES NEARLY FLAWLESS TEST FLIGHT

SpaceX's Starship made it all the way up to space and back down to Earth during its 10th test flight. The test appeared to achieve all of SpaceX's test objectives and puts SpaceX back on track after several failed attempts. Some problems did occur during the tests, including the shutdown of one of the booster's 33 engines, the rear flaps used for controlling the vehicle being partially burned through, and the explosion of a part of the aft portion of the spacecraft. Elon Musk recently said that SpaceX's goal of launching the first Starships to Mars (without any people aboard) by 2026 is still achievable.

GOOGLE IMPROVES GEMINI AI IMAGE EDITING WITH “NANO BANANA” MODEL

Nano banana is a model from Google DeepMind that allows users to modify images with prompts. The model has unrivaled consistency across edits as it can remember details. It can also merge multiple images, combining them to generate new scenes. The new image editing abilities are now available in the Gemini app. The model will roll out soon in the Gemini API, AI Studio, and Vertex AI for developers.

CHINA'S GUOWANG MEGACONSTELLATION IS MORE THAN ANOTHER VERSION OF STARLINK

There's mounting evidence that China's Guowang megaconstellation may give Chinese military forces a tactical edge in any future armed conflict in the Western Pacific. The megaconstellation is managed by a secretive company called China SatNet, established by the Chinese government in 2021. The network consists of satellites manufactured by multiple companies launched on several types of rockets. The launch pace of Guowang satellites has approached that of Starlink's in recent weeks. Guowang's satellites have higher altitude limits than Starlink satellites, so fewer units are required for global coverage.

A PILL TO FIGHT OBESITY IS ON THE VERGE OF APPROVAL

Eli Lilly has just released positive Phase III trial results for its experimental oral GLP-1 drug, orforglipron. People taking the drug experienced substantial improvements in weight loss and blood sugar control compared to those taking a placebo. It appeared to be as safe and tolerable as other existing GLP-1 drugs. The company now plans to apply for approval from the Food and Drug Administration, with a decision expected next year.

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RV, A NEW KIND OF RUBY MANAGEMENT TOOL

rv is a dependency manager for Ruby written in Rust. It manages both Ruby versions and gems at once, so developers can run whatever they want to run without having to worry about the environment being correct. rv brings all the tricks and innovations of cargo, npm, and uv into a tool for Ruby. It can currently auto-switch between installed Ruby versions in zsh and install precompiled Ruby 3.4.x on macOS and Ubuntu in one second flat.

CONVENIENT 'COPY AS CURL': EXPLICIT, EXECUTABLE, EDITABLE REQUEST REPLAYS

The network tab of a browser's developer tools shows a list of requests. The dev tools UI provides a 'Copy as cURL' functionality for users to extract an executable 'replay' of the request that can be easily edited. This makes communicating and debugging issues with HTTP requests much easier. Just be careful about sharing any data that might have confidential information in it, like authentication tokens or session cookies.

REPORTS OF AI NOT PROGRESSING OR OFFERING MUNDANE UTILITY ARE OFTEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED

There have been many claims that AI isn't progressing or that it won't create much value due to the results of a recent study. It is still early days - companies have only really had enough time to look for ways to integrate AI into existing structures. The timeline to the largest visible-in-GDP gains will take a while to show up. Future AIs will not abide by current standard economic rules.

THERE IS NOW CLEARER EVIDENCE AI IS WRECKING YOUNG AMERICANS' JOB PROSPECTS

New research by Stanford University economists shows that AI is profoundly limiting some young Americans' employment prospects. Fields where generative AI tools can most easily automate tasks, such as software development, are being affected the most. However, employment in fields where AI can help people in their work rather than replace them is improving. More about the study, which has yet to be peer reviewed or published, is available in the article.

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THE LEVERAGE PARADOX

AI decreases the effort required to perform tasks, but increases the amount of effort required to remain competitive.

APPLE STILL DEBATING MISTRAL AND PERPLEXITY M&A AMID LOOMING GOOGLE SEARCH SHAKEUP

Apple has told bankers that it is carrying on with its strategy of focusing on smaller deals in AI.

PRISCILLA CHAN (ZUCK'S WIFE) AND JENNIFER DOUDNA (NOBEL FOR CRISPR-CAS9) JUST LAUNCHED A CENTER FOR PERSONALIZED CRISPR CURES

The center will offer tailor-made CRISPR therapies to cure children with rare diseases.

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ASK HN: WHY HASN'T X86 CAUGHT UP WITH APPLE M SERIES? (HACKER NEWS THREAD)

Apple is vertically integrated - its hardware is purpose-built for its operating systems and software - whereas x86 is not, and has never been.

WHY AI PROBABLY WON'T HELP YOUR TEAM SHIP MORE PRODUCT

Writing code faster won't magically unlock more product.

U.S. INTEL

The US government's 10% stake in Intel marks a dangerous turn in American industrial policy.

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NVIDIA'S NEW ‘ROBOT BRAIN' GOES ON SALE FOR $3,499 AS COMPANY TARGETS ROBOTICS FOR GROWTH

Nvidia's Jetson AGX Thor robotics chip module is now on sale for $3,499 as a developer kit. The first kits will ship next month. The chips will allow customers to create robots that run generative AI models. They can also be used for self-driving cars. The Jetson Thor chips are based on Nvidia's Blackwell graphics processor, which is also used in the company's current generation of AI chips and chips for computer games.

GOOGLE WILL BLOCK SIDELOADING OF UNVERIFIED ANDROID APPS STARTING NEXT YEAR

Google has announced plans to begin verifying the identities of all Android app developers, no matter where they offer their content. Apps without verification will stop working on most Android devices in the coming years. The company plans to create a streamlined Android Developer Console that devs can use if they plan to distribute apps outside of the Play Store. Google won't check the content or functionality of apps outside of the Play Store.

ULTRARAM SCALED FOR VOLUME PRODUCTION

UltraRAM promises DRAM-like speeds, 4,000x the durability of NAND, and data retention for up to a thousand years. Quinas Technology and IQE have successfully developed a scalable process for producing UltraRAM. The companies are now weighing pilot production with various foundries and other collaborators.

BUILDING ULTRA CHEAP ENERGY STORAGE FOR SOLAR PV

Standard Thermal is a company that aims to make energy from solar PV available at all times at a price that is competitive with US natural gas. The company's technology works by storing energy as heat in large piles of dirt. Electric heating elements embedded in the dirt convert electricity to heat, and pipes carrying fluid remove the heat to supply customers. The capital cost is comparable to natural gas storage at less than $0.10 per kilowatt-hour thermal and a thousand times cheaper than batteries. Standard Thermal's system can provide hundreds of megawatts of thermal demand as long as land is available.

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WICKED PYTHON TRICKERY - DYNAMICALLY PATCH A PYTHON FUNCTION'S SOURCE CODE AT RUNTIME

It's possible to dynamically change a function's source code at run time in Python using the compile and exec functions. This technique enables developers to build more flexible AI bots that can generate and execute code with access to the current environment. However, it also raises some serious security concerns. This post walks readers through how the technique works and the real security concerns with using the approach.

PREDICTION-ENCODED PIXELS

Prediction-Encoded Pixels is a format specifically designed for low-color pixel art. It uses 'Prediction by Partial Matching, Order-2' compression, which is able to compress packed-palette-indices smaller than GIF, PNG, and QOI. It's two to 10 times slower than GIF/PNG/QOI, depending on the image, but it often compresses images 20% to 50% smaller than GIF/PNG, and multiple times smaller than QOI. The format is still in an experimental phase.

PREDICTING OUR OWN DEMISE

Prediction markets don't provide better predictions about the future. The best, most efficient financial markets have standardized products, many participants, low transaction costs, and heterogeneous participants. Prediction markets lack participants with heterogeneous risk preferences. It's also possible for participants to manipulate some outcomes. Prediction markets are bad market design, and they induce bad incentives, so we should put the genie back in the box while there's still time.

INSIDE INTEL'S TRICKY DANCE WITH TRUMP

President Donald Trump told Lip-Bu Tan, Intel's chief executive, to step down five months into his tenure because of his past ties to the Chinese military. Tan eventually smoothed things over with Trump, but at a cost: in return for his support, the administration converted nearly $9 billion in grants promised to Intel as part of the 2022 Chips Act into a 10% equity stake in the company. The US government is now Intel's biggest shareholder. Tan still needs to resolve core business challenges to get Intel back on track. Without new commitments from customers, converting government grants to stock will only leave the company in a worse financial shape by diluting shareholders.

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THE SIMPLE TRUTH ABOUT MCPS

MCPs make your AI run other people's prompts, and those prompts send you to other people's code.

MY CURRENT AI DEV WORKFLOW

A combination of Ghostty, Claude Code, and minimal tooling results in maximum productivity.

APPLE'S RETREAT FROM LIVE SPORTS

Apple is ending its 'Friday Night Baseball' partnership with MLB after the 2025 season due to low viewership, high costs, and fan frustration with fragmented streaming access.

ON MEETINGS

Meetings are expensive, so people should default to asynchronous communication.