With all mobile ecosystems closing down, I am considering switching to dumb phone. It will be used for calls and SMS only. For all my personal computing and hobby projects I would like to have some additional device that runs open source software, and does not prevent me from building and running custom applications. It would be amazing to have some device similar to classig Palm Pilot, &quot;handheld PDA&quot;. Maybe even with stylus, 4&quot;-5&quot; touchscreen that easily fits anywhere. Are there any similar devices available? Tablets are way too large and are using same closed mobile ecosystems.

Ask HN: Are there any modern devices similar to Palm Pilot?

Most people browse Hacker News through the front page (top &#x2F; hot), since it&#x27;s already filtered for quality by the community.But the &quot;newest&quot; feed feels very different: it&#x27;s raw, unfiltered, and often low-quality. Yet I notice some users clearly dig into it, upvote good posts, and bring hidden gems to the front page.I&#x27;m curious:
- Who here regularly reads the &quot;newest&quot; feed? 
- What kind of content are you looking for (early projects, research papers, niche blogs, etc.)?
- Do you see yourselves as &quot;content scouts&quot; for the rest of the community, or just looking for things you personally enjoy?
- How do you filter signal from noise?I think this is an interesting part of HN culture that doesn&#x27;t get discussed much.

Ask HN: Who reads the "newest" feed, and what do you look for there?

I&#x27;m curious how effective it is and if it would be recommended or not.Is it any different than normal online application process of getting hired?

Ask HN: Did you get hired through 'Who wants to be hired?' by whoishiring?

On Sep 2, during a transfer at Istanbul SAW, Pegasus Airlines lost my checked baggage.It contained:
– OpenBCI brain-computer interface
– Legacy engine with 30+ years of research and personal archivesI contacted Pegasus multiple times — email, WhatsApp, forms — no human response.I’m outside Turkey, unable to visit the airport.This isn’t regular luggage — it’s scientific and personal infrastructure. Still no reply.

Pegasus Airlines lost my brain-computer interface – ignored 10 days

I got tired of manually copying numbers from Form 16 PDFs into India’s tax filing portal every year. 
So I built *Form16x*, a Python CLI + library that parses these PDFs into structured JSON.Beyond extraction, it can:
- Consolidate multiple Form 16s if you switched jobs
- Calculate taxes under both regimes → recommends the better one
- Show salary&#x2F;deduction breakdowns directly in the terminal (tree view, colored output)
- Suggest tax optimizations (80C, 80D, NPS, etc.)
- Provide a Python API (`TaxCalculationAPI`) with multi-year tax rules (AY 2020–2025)*Repo:* https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ri-sh&#x2F;Form16xForm 16 is similar to a W-2 in the US or a T4 in Canada — semi-structured PDFs with inconsistent layouts. Filing usually means manual data entry. 
Form16x tries to make that structured and automatable.Would love feedback from HN — both on the technical approach (PDF parsing + structured extraction) and whether this approach could extend to other countries’ tax forms.

Form16x – Simplify tax season: JSON output and regime comparisons from Form 16

I maintain an OSS project with a very involved CI setup. We&#x27;re at the point where it is worth having observability into which tests are flaky, especially within intra-test-run retries. An ideal solution would be a managed service that takes junit.xml exports from cargo nextest, vitest, playwright, pytest, and go test.
What do you all recommend?

Ask HN: What do you recommend for test observability?

Accessing google.com in Lynx now shows:<pre><code> Google
 Update your browser
 Your browser isn&#x27;t supported anymore. To continue your search, upgrade to a recent version. [Learn more]</code></pre>

Google Ends Support for Lynx Browser

I recently attempted to enroll a small 1-person company in the Apple Developer Program, and the process turned into a surprisingly terrible journey. I expected a quick online sign-up and a $99 payment – instead I got weeks of identity checks and problem after problem.Frustratingly, the whole thing started because I wanted to use Sign in with Apple. Apple forces you into the developer program just to enable it, and charges €99&#x2F;year for the privilege. Google and Amazon both offer their equivalent login services for free, set up in minutes. I can’t see how this policy benefits Apple’s ecosystem.So I needed:- D-U-N-S verification: Apple required a D-U-N-S Number for the company – very uncommon in the EU. Applying took several days and even a manual phone confirmation with an outsourced D&amp;B subsidiary.- Document uploads: Apple support then asked me to upload multiple documents: government ID, employment verification (odd when it’s just me), and business registration papers. I ended up uploading these three separate times, via the app and a special link. Different support reps (always friendly, but sending template replies) didn’t seem to see the same history. When I rated a feedback survey low, I got a standardized response that didn’t engage with my points at all.- Website scrutiny: After identity checks, Apple also reviewed my project website. They said it had “minimal content” and needed a proper support contact page before apps could be distributed. But I do have an issue tracker and contact info. What if you haven’t even launched yet?- Region mismatch: The system couldn’t handle that my personal Apple ID is in one EU country while the company is in another. To pay Apple €99, I was told to switch my iPad’s region to match the developer account — which would break my Apple One subscription amongst other things. I wouldn&#x27;t even use the iPad for development, so I thought I&#x27;ll just switch to my MacBook.- Device lock-in: I tried to continue on my MacBook with the developer Apple ID, but the system forces you to finish enrollment on the same device you started with. On the MacBook, I’d have to start from scratch and re-upload all documents. That’s not just bad UX, it’s inexplicable – especially for Apple.3 weeks later, and I am still not enrolled.I’m posting this because the experience felt utterly broken. I didn’t expect smooth sailing, but this was far beyond normal friction.Questions:- Have others run into the same issues with Apple’s developer enrollment, especially cross-region?- Do you think these hurdles discourage indie developers?- Do people at Apple consider this a great experience? Is this just bureaucracy, or is there a deeper rationale? Sometimes I wonder if the (often equally clumsy) EU regulations are actually a useful medicine here.

Ask HN: Why is enrolling in Apple's Developer Program so difficult in 2025?

I run a small business in Canada. Oddly, if you search my brand name, my own site doesn’t show up at all on the first page. Instead, Facebook, Instagram, and random sites that link to me outrank me.I’ve submitted my sitemap to GSC, checked indexing, and built branded backlinks—but Google still ignores my homepage. It’s bad because people looking for me are funneled into other platforms where I lose control of the user journey.Has anyone else experienced this? Is this Google punishing small&#x2F;new sites, or do I need to approach brand SEO differently? At this point it feels like Google wants me to buy ads just to show up for my own name.

Google Doesn't Rank My Site for My Own Brand Name

Its an idea, an abstract concept.Its not AI, not ML, not NN, not LLMs, not automation scripts like puppeteer or selenium.End result - the computer program browses internet.Its a vague idea.The question is not about technicalities involved.The intention of the question is to spark the thoughts.Its a single recursive function.Its a scattered thought, it would be cool to look such program working, and cooler to build one.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stackoverflow.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;79763073&#x2F;how-to-make-computer-browse-internet-automatically

Ask HN: How to make computer browse internet automatically?

Does anyone know of good resources to make your own animatronic Halloween displays?I&#x27;m a software engineer, and not skilled in hardware per se.I would love to make some things together with my kids. For reference, they are 8, 10, 12 and VERY smart and they use Ubuntu as their desktop computers and can use flatpak from the command line. Not that I am bragging....And, I would love to NOT spent $400 on just a single ridiculous junky thing from Lowes, and do that for multiple things. My budget is definitely tiny and the journey of building and troubleshooting is what I want for the kids, not necessarily a finished perfect project.I found this site and it looks interesting but I am unsure how well this would work for someone like me and whether I would be able to get it working. The site says &quot;Only 54 days until Halloween!&quot;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.frightprops.com&#x2F;pneumatics.htmlIf anyone knows of good projects on GitHub, please let me know?

Ask HN: Good resources for DIY-ish animatronic kits for Halloween?

All my dev docs are spread across Notion, Google Drive, a Github repo and text notes in Slack. I&#x27;m currently hiring devs and figured I should get these in order first.A place where you can save dev onboarding, design docs, api docs, devops stuff, emergency handbook, potentially connect Github for code search, connect Linear and maybe other frequently used dev tools. And it all feels effortless to maintain and sync.In my previous experiences at startups, we used Confluence and Phabricator. Is there anything new startups use these days?

Ask HN: What's a modern alternative to Confluence for small dev teams?

Share your information if you are looking for work. Please use this format:<pre><code> Location:
 Remote:
 Willing to relocate:
 Technologies:
 Résumé&#x2F;CV:
 Email:
</code></pre>
Please only post if you are personally looking for work. Agencies, recruiters, job boards,
and so on, are off topic here.Readers: please only email these addresses to discuss work opportunities.There&#x27;s a site for searching these posts at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wantstobehired.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wantstobehired.com</a>.

Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2025)

I used to use Karpathy&#x27;s gret arxiv-sanity.com but it now redirects to a paid product (undermind.ai). It&#x27;s been a while since I&#x27;ve tried to read new research papers on a daily&#x2F;weekly basis. How do others stay on top of new research papers?

Ask HN: How do you stay on top of new research?

I am exploring options for a headless CMS for a community website where a non technical admin will post details about events in the community like a meeting or volunteering done by the community. They don&#x27;t have funding. What is the cheapest option out there?

Ask HN: Looking for headless CMS recommendation

North America, Quebec.The network is good but the hotmail login page shows &quot;We can&#x27;t sign you in right now. Please try again later.&quot;. It has been like this for a few minutes.

Ask HN: Is MSFT hotmail down for you?

Please state the location and include REMOTE for remote work, REMOTE (US)
or similar if the country is restricted, and ONSITE when remote work is not an option.Please only post if you personally are part of the hiring company—no
recruiting firms or job boards. One post per company. If it isn&#x27;t a household name,
explain what your company does.Please only post if you are actively filling a position and are committed
to responding to applicants.Commenters: please don&#x27;t reply to job posts to complain about
something. It&#x27;s off topic here.Readers: please only email if you are personally interested in the job.Searchers: try <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dheerajck.github.io&#x2F;hnwhoishiring&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dheerajck.github.io&#x2F;hnwhoishiring&#x2F;</a>,
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;amber-williams.github.io&#x2F;hackernews-whos-hiring&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;amber-williams.github.io&#x2F;hackernews-whos-hiring&#x2F;</a>,
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;nchelluri.github.io&#x2F;hnjobs&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;nchelluri.github.io&#x2F;hnjobs&#x2F;</a>, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hnresumetojobs.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hnresumetojobs.com</a>,
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hnhired.fly.dev" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hnhired.fly.dev</a>, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kennytilton.github.io&#x2F;whoishiring&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kennytilton.github.io&#x2F;whoishiring&#x2F;</a>,
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hnjobs.emilburzo.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hnjobs.emilburzo.com</a>, or this (unofficial) Chrome extension:
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chromewebstore.google.com&#x2F;detail&#x2F;hn-hiring-pro&#x2F;mpfaljjblphnlloddaplgicpkinikjlp" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chromewebstore.google.com&#x2F;detail&#x2F;hn-hiring-pro&#x2F;mpfal...</a>.Don&#x27;t miss these other fine threads:Who wants to be hired? <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=45093190">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=45093190</a>Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=45093191">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=45093191</a>

Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2025)

Alexandria is a tool like linting or typechecking with a rules engine to help keep your documents up to date. Just add it to your precommit checks and your llm will do the rest. https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;a24z-ai&#x2F;a24z-memory