I&#x27;ll be here for the next 3 hours and then again at around 4 pm EST for another 3 hours. As usual, there are many possible topics and I&#x27;ll be guided by whatever you&#x27;re concerned with but as much as possible - because we&#x27;ve received so many questions about this the past few months - I&#x27;d like to focus on the impact of the new administration on U.S. immigration law and policy. Please remember that I can&#x27;t provide legal advice on specific cases for liability reasons because I won&#x27;t have access to all the facts. Please stick to a factual discussion in your questions and comments and I&#x27;ll try to do the same in my answers. Thanks!

I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney, who does work for YC and startups. AMA

(Part of) the team who recently reanimated the original ELIZA (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=42746506) is now working to reanimate what are often considered the first AIs -- the symbolic heuristic programs built by Newell and co at RAND in the 1950. Most of these programs were written in IPL-V, the fascinating (if ugly) machine level language for a stack machine that was the first to introduce list processing, recursion, and symbolic computing, among other innovations that we take for granted today.There were many implementations of IPL-V. According to the manual (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bitsavers.org&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;rand&#x2F;ipl&#x2F;Information_Processing_Language-V_Second_Edition_1964.pdf) implementations existed for at least these machines: B220, CDC 1604 and G-20, Ferranti Mercury, IBM 650, 704, 709-7090, 1620, Philco 2000, UNIVAC 1105 and 1107, and the AN&#x2F;FSQ-32 (whatever that was). And we know that it was also on the IBM 360 and 7094.If you have access to a code archive for any of these machines, and can search it for the IPL-V interpreter, we would greatly appreciate it. (A print out is fine -- preferred in fact!) We are building one ourselves in (ironically) Lisp, but it would be amazing to be able to run an original stack, as we did with the 7094-&gt;CTSS-&gt;MAD stack in reanimating ELIZA.We (obviously) open source everything we do.You can post here, or DM me (my email is in my &quot;HN about&quot;). Thanks!

Seeking an IPL-V Interpreter

I&#x27;ve now consulted ChatGPT on a solution for a vulnerability which I even filed a patent for long time ago and I feel less stupid right now.Say bank.com has SSL. Cool! Now how does Angular work? You visit angular-site.com&#x2F;some&#x2F;path and backend server rewrites the request to angular-site.com&#x2F;index.html. You still see angular-site.com&#x2F;some&#x2F;path. And it works and that&#x27;s how Angular servers that serve Angular apps work.Now, what prevents bank-malicious-url.com from acting like a viewer, where it access bank.com when you visit it hence the SSL encryption&#x2F;decryption is made between it and the legit bank.com, whilst malicious-bank.com url has a simple letsencrypt certificate that is showing you a not so legit green secured URL web address on the top of your web browser?Please help! I abandoned my patent, I&#x27;ve been building my Angular web app and now I think that the old me was not so dumb after all. Where to proceed from now?

Ask HN: What prevents the following vulnerability I found from being exploited?

I was talking to a friend and said there aren&#x27;t _that_ many companies with the scale to truly justify FAANGesque solutions. I&#x27;ve only had two projects where a server couldn&#x27;t just hold all hot data in 256gb. For most, services I&#x27;ve seen, a laptop + hard drive would suffice.I&#x27;m curious how big the DBs you touch are, how much ram all your microservices use or other such metrics.

How much RAM and Disk do you have in Prod?

Curious if any HNers are running successful businesses selling desktop&#x2F;downloadable software with a one-time payment model - not SaaS, not subscriptions. Something like the old days. How&#x27;s the market for that? What&#x27;s your experience with support and updates?

Ask HN: Is anyone making money selling traditional downloadable software?

Is Apple allowing fake reviews on the App Store? I find it very unlikely that TurboTax is beloved enough to merit 4.8 stars.I know this isn’t scientific, but take a scroll through the most recent reviews. They are made up of 1-3 star reviews with complaints of the customer experience.I may be jumping the gun here, but can we trust no one? Fraudulent reviews are rampant on the internet, but I assumed Apples App Store would be somewhat walled off through the requirement for an Apple ID.Please share any information HN may have on how reviews work on the App Store and if anyone knows of ways they are being manipulated (like Yelp, Amazon, and Google Maps do).

TurboTax has 4.8 stars on the App Store?

We’re in the early days of building something new. Our research has led us to the following value prop:Frictionless payments for Next.js developers: No more billing sync madness or reconciliation bullshit.We’d like to know, does this resonate with you? Why or why not?We’d also love to hear about your payments headaches.If you had a magic wand, what would you change about your payments integrations today?Bonus points for hopping on a call with us to treat us like your therapist (let me know in comments). In exchange - I’ll provide a design critique on anything you’d like (YC alum&#x2F;RISD&#x2F;founding designer of Imgur).

Any Next.js devs willing to share their headaches with payments?

I want to try out AI&#x2F;ML finetuning on a laptop.Nothing too involved. I just want to see the output of the model improve in a couple of hours as I finetune it.Is there a pre-trained model out there that is small enough to do this? (Ideally something that can be installed via a single Docker-Compose command.)

Ask HN: How to try out AIML finetuning on a laptop?

I&#x27;m a PM and Product Designer looking to transition into launching my own products. While I have basic programming knowledge, I&#x27;m trying to be strategic about what technical skills to develop given the current AI landscape.I&#x27;d love to hear your thoughts on what technical skills would give me the best value-for-effort ratio as a solo founder in 2025. Should I focus on learning prompt engineering and AI integration, dive deeper into a specific programming stack, or perhaps take a different approach entirely?Appreciate any insights from those who&#x27;ve been in similar positions!

How would you start to learn coding today?

Hello hn. I&#x27;m looking for a device that I can insert between the audio output and speaker to normalize the audio.The goal is to ensure that sudden loud noises don&#x27;t become overwhelming and quieter parts sound reasonably the same.My reason for doing this is because it&#x27;s so hard to watch movies these days because of the inconsistent volume levels (2x harder at night).Any suggestions or recommendations on specific products or solutions would be greatly appreciated! Any DIY suggestions are also welcome too.

Ask HN: Seeking device to normalize audio output for consistent volume levels

I’ve spent almost two decades in digital-focused roles, specialising in strategy, user research, and creating frameworks for better customer experiences (ostensibly UX I suppose).While I’ve found the work rewarding, I feel it’s time for a significant career change—potentially outside of this domain entirely.I’m seeking advice from others who have made mid-career transitions:• How did you pinpoint new directions that matched your skills and interests?• What were the most effective ways to reposition your experience in a new field?• Are there any resources or strategies you’d recommend for upskilling or building networks?I&#x27;ve often thought about cybersecurity as something I&#x27;d like to specialise in, but it seems like bootcamps and the like aren&#x27;t worth the money they charge (most advice has been starting at the bottom as an IT helpdesk worker and going from there, but I&#x27;m no spring chicken anymore. But I&#x27;m not against starting at the very bottom and working my way up).I realise this is quite a broad ask, and apologies for the throwaway. I’d appreciate any insights, especially from those who’ve shifted from established careers to something entirely different. Thanks in advance!

Ask HN: How can I realistically change careers?

I have a bunch of blog posts, with URLs like these:<pre><code> https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mywebsite&#x2F;1-post-title
 https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mywebsite&#x2F;2-post-title-second
 https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mywebsite&#x2F;3-post-title-third
 https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mywebsite&#x2F;4-etc
</code></pre>
For some reason, it tries every combination of numbers, so the requests look like this:<pre><code> https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mywebsite&#x2F;1-post-title&#x2F;2-post-title-second
 https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mywebsite&#x2F;1-post-title&#x2F;3-post-title-third
</code></pre>
etc.Since the blog engine simply discards everything after number (1,2,3...) and just serves the content for blog post #1, #2, #3,... the web server returns a valid page. However, all those pages are the same.The main problem here is that there is no website page that has such compound links like https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mywebsite&#x2F;1-post-title&#x2F;2-post-title-secondSo it&#x27;s clearly some bug in the crawler.Maybe OpenAI is using AI code for their crawler because it has so dumb bugs you cannot believe any human would write it.They will make 90000 requests to load my small blog with 300 posts.Cannot imagine what happens with larger websites that have thousands of blog posts.

OpenAI crawler burning money for nothing

Long story short, I&#x27;m building a new product and will likely launch it as a yearly SaaS with a permissive license. I&#x27;m later in my career and am mostly building it for fun, but I think it has potential to be a good, small business that I&#x27;d have fun fiddling with for a long time.I went through and set up the usual LLC, but was curious about how I could set it up to be a member or worker-owned company. Has anyone done anything like that from the beginning? Should I just worry about this later?With licensing, the typical model has been to make your core permissive, and keep the hosting &#x2F; billing application private. Has anyone made even that part of their SaaS open? I know that would make is really easy to fork the business, but was thinking something like a time-gated Functional Source License (FSL) might work?I&#x27;m open to ideas. I don&#x27;t see this discussed commonly on HN, so figured it was a good topic.

Ask HN: Has anyone tried alternative company models (like a co-op) for SaaS?

Need a dedicated. What&#x27;s the most reliable + reasonably-priced? Came across Datapacket.com, which seems pretty good. All insights welcome. I&#x27;m sure many will benefit with this info!

Ask HN: Best dedicated server in the US

Currently building a little app.To see if people would be interested in it, I want to build a little landing page that features some screenshots and has a waiting list (via email) at the bottom.Are there any services or open source projects for this? Preferably using shadcn&#x2F;react&#x2F;supabase. I don&#x27;t want to reinvent the wheel here.

Ask HN: Self hosted Waitlist with Landing page?

I use the + operator in my email address.For example, I just signed up for a second line of internet for my homelab with Spectrum. I provided my email address &quot;me+spectrum@example.com&quot;. The sales rep&#x27;s systems accepted it just fine, but when I try to create an account on their online portal, it&#x27;s suddenly not a valid email address.This is arguably worse than requiring passwords to contain symbols and numbers.I bet there&#x27;s more weird rules that are hurting other people as well.RFC 2822 Section 3.2.4 [1] says:<pre><code> atext = ALPHA &#x2F; DIGIT &#x2F; ; Any character except controls,
 &quot;!&quot; &#x2F; &quot;#&quot; &#x2F; ; SP, and specials.
 &quot;$&quot; &#x2F; &quot;%&quot; &#x2F; ; Used for atoms
 &quot;&amp;&quot; &#x2F; &quot;&#x27;&quot; &#x2F;
 &quot;*&quot; &#x2F; &quot;+&quot; &#x2F;
 &quot;-&quot; &#x2F; &quot;&#x2F;&quot; &#x2F;
 &quot;=&quot; &#x2F; &quot;?&quot; &#x2F;
 &quot;^&quot; &#x2F; &quot;_&quot; &#x2F;
 &quot;`&quot; &#x2F; &quot;{&quot; &#x2F;
 &quot;|&quot; &#x2F; &quot;}&quot; &#x2F;
 &quot;~&quot;
</code></pre>
+ is valid atext.I suspect what&#x27;s happening is they&#x27;ve got some rule against the word &quot;spectrum&quot; or something. Or perhaps they&#x27;re a bad company and just HAVE to have base-level addresses to sell to the advertisers?- [1]: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rfc-editor.org&#x2F;rfc&#x2F;rfc2822#section-3.4.1

Email address validity checks suck

Hello,
I would like to talk about a project I developed for Windsurf Memory, which provides a platform where users can easily share their own prompts (or “memory” as we call them) and import them into their own Windsurf editors.So what exactly does this feature do?
This system works in a similar way to the Cursor editor&#x27;s .cursorrules file. So, you can create custom rules for your own projects or define prompts specific to your Windsurf editor. This way, you can make your development processes more efficient and optimize your workflow.For example:
- You can create custom code styles or rules for your own project.
- You can create custom prompts to use in your Windsurf editor.
- You can share these prompts to make it easier for others.This project is designed especially for software developers. You can use these features to make your workflow smarter and more efficient. If you have any questions or would like more information on this topic, please feel free to contact me.Website: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;windmemory.vercel.app&#x2F;
Github: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Queaxtra&#x2F;windmemory

Windmemory

Hi everyone!I&#x27;ve come to the realization lately that I have a poor understanding of budding research&#x2F;engineering fields.In your opinion, what are some underrated research&#x2F;engineering fields that you believe have significant positive potential?For example, what are the &quot;AlexNet&quot;s in the fields of chemistry, biology, physics, computer science, mechanical engineering, etc?

Ask HN: Underrated emerging fields in science/engineering?

I have a friend who was in YC and he said software patents are a waste of time. He said in his entire career he&#x27;s never met or known someone to enforce a software patent. Thoughts?

Patent Worth It?

I see that the market strength of RAG-based solutions is in internal (proprietary) repositories of data.I built a small one for publicly accessible documents but the models (or models with internet access) are gaining ground.I wanted to hear more thoughts.

Ask HN: Is there money in RAG?

Dependency upgrades are a routine part of maintaining software projects.I’m curious to hear how different teams and individuals approach this. How do you handle frequent upgrades? Do you see it as essential, or do you take a different approach?What has your experience been?

Ask HN: Does frequently upgrading dependencies add real value to a product?

Its been some time since this question was asked. Every RSS reader I&#x27;ve used so far sucks. Either the built-in web support is poor or it stops fetching the feeds or renders then poorly. Sorry for my frustration, but I would like to know what everyone else is using and if they are satisfied with their RSS reader.

Ask HN: Which RSS reader do you use?

This is such a great website, but it&#x27;s becoming less interesting by the minute.Can we have a title detection system, similar to the existing automatic &quot;[YEAR]&quot; and &quot;How to&quot; → &quot;&quot; rules, which just marks a post as AI related?I know this might be a far harder task than I think, since AI is now the defacto topic.Or, can anyone suggest a Firefox addon that filters out post based on a blocklist of words?

Ask HN: Request to add an [AI] tag to posts?

I need to run a database (preferably Postgres-based, currently using TimescaleDB) to store about 20M rows of price data per day, with the option to discard or offload data after 7d to cold storage.It&#x27;s just a hobby project that doesn&#x27;t make me any money, so I want to run this as cheaply as possible. I was experimenting with TimescaleDB cloud but the pricing there starts at $40 a month not including storage.I tried running it myself on Fly.io but the DB imploded within hours of setting it up and was extremely difficult to recover, so I had to give up on that.

Ask HN: Cheapest way to run a time-series database in cloud?

Hello fellow HN guys,
My work mostly ends around 9 to 10:00 PM. I have this hangover of spending a few hours after dinner so it ends up me being able to sleep around 12:00PM-1:00 AM which is very late.
What can I do to get to sleep early?Thanks!

Ask HN: How do you sleep on time?

Ask HN: Is anyone still deploying Oracle Forms or Apex for new applications?

Hi HN,I&#x27;ve been a Discord user (namrog84) since Jan 2016 and it&#x27;s crucial for my personal friendships and professional game dev work. Three months ago, I was permanently banned (Oct 2026?) without any warnings. Apparently because an old server I created for the game Dark and Darker was left abandoned and unmoderated.Now, not only have I lost contact with friends and collaborators, but I&#x27;m also cut off from essential support channels for development tools and communities. Despite multiple appeal attempts (all seemingly automated rejections), I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;ve had a real conversation with Trust &amp; Safety. I acknowledge as a server creator I share responsibility for moderation, but without any prior warnings a permanent ban seems disproportionate.Discord was my primary social outlet after I left my role at Microsoft, so losing that network has been personally tough and professionally limiting.Is there any proven path forward or guidance from the HN Community? Are there lessons from others who&#x27;ve faced similar bans and found success either in reinstating their accounts or otherwise? any advice or insights would be greatly appreciated.Full additional details (timelines, appeals, screenshots, and such here): https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gist.github.com&#x2F;namrog84&#x2F;684f5e8ea854d7d04c149854b84bdce7For context, I&#x27;m a former Microsoft employee turned full-time indie game dev: 
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.linkedin.com&#x2F;in&#x2F;adam-gorman-b3544412&#x2F;Thanks for reading and any tips or advice is welcome.Adam (namrog84)

Ask HN: Banned from Discord (9-year user) over an abandoned server – Advice?

Hi my name is Johan and I built and maintain https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fireaid.info - a map and resource hub to connect those affected by the fires with aid as well as resources for people to give and volunteer. I started building the site on Jan 8, and launched it in 48 hours.I&#x27;m in the process of setting up an API to make these resources more widely accessible. However I need some assistance from someone familiar with Google Cloud, Postgres and Fast API.johan@fireaid.info

Ask HN: DevOps Assistance for LA Fires Relief Initiative

Is there any coincidence between the scene in &quot;Alien Prometheus&quot; where the engineer pilot ignites the spacecraft by a piccolo and 1960s phreaking(2600 Hz whistles)?https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=NegOHzcBlHQ (1:09)btw, In the real world, in addition to the early Ma Bell telephone system(in-band signaling), are there any complex systems that are controlled by tones (not human voice)?

Coincidence between the start spacecraft scene in Prometheus and 60s phreaking

I truly believe that I have some programming ideas (like hey lets do X thing but the twist of Y) (like decentralized link shorteners) which are really weird but could have some impact on the world.To me , it feels like I get overwhelmed , Like I wanted to automate signal-chat app (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;bbernhard&#x2F;signal-cli-rest-api&#x2F;issues&#x2F;643)I get to something which can be considered very decent for my age and I learn something new for my age (16 here) (though I used claude for this)but I just can&#x27;t justify it taking my head for like a week straight and eating my marks.I can&#x27;t actually seem to have balance. I have had enough. I wanted to create this really cool project that everybody likes and gets stars on github , I wanted to be the cool guy in coding (I know sounds cringe) , I look up to people like primagen , fireship , maybe even theo . But now I just feel like programming has become my tool of saying hey I know things , instead of actually having impact in the world.I feel like chasing the clout of internet people which just feels weird. I was once in a discord chat (not even related to foss) and there was this one guy who belittled me for not having enough stars (like I think I have 0 stars from anybody else or very less) and he had like 20 something. It just feels wrong. Open source doesn&#x27;t seem like the thing I had hoped it was. Some people star something if the project is great (maybe like signal) but doesn&#x27;t have a perfect api (I think)*It just feels like I am ranting. I used to get really good marks in studies untill I am daydreaming about how to proceed in this action. It has truly taken a toll at me. I feel like living a double life.I feel so distracted , fuzzed out. I just feel like Leaving coding for 2 years (I am in high school right now) and to join it after 2 years when I am officially in college and this would be the thing which would matter then.(I like maths , physics but chemistry has just taken another level of toll at me , I just can&#x27;t do organic chemistry because instead of organic chemistry , I am messing up with electron debugging and trying to find how to use signal to create decentralized shorteners &#x2F; storage using group avatars or some other idea like a alternative to bittorrent which can work over normal vpn )
I don&#x27;t even think that I can earn money with any of these things. Most of these are p2p-ish , the most I can earn is someone&#x27;s good will but I won&#x27;t forsake my mental health just for that , I suppose.

Ask HN: How to Implement Ideas and when to leave them?

&quot;I&#x27;m not a great programmer; I&#x27;m just a good programmer with great habits.&quot; - Kent Beck1. What are your great habits?2. How did you inculcate them?3. How do you follow them on a daily basis when things get hectic&#x2F;busy?

Ask HN: What are your "great" programmer habits?

If I had a say 50,000 sq ft. Building that had up to 1000 people on it at one time. What is the best way to track where each of them are down to a couple inches accuracy. I’d also love to be able to get the direction they are facing as well. This tracking would of course be opted in and I assume would require some hardware that the person wears.

Ask HN: Best technologies to track location of people in a large building?

In 2025, We still need Human in the Loop to make LLMs more powerful and effective.After 10 months of hard work, numerous ideas, and technology iterations, we are happy to launch NeuwarkEngaging customers across platforms while maintaining quality can be overwhelming. Neuwark simplifies this with real-time AI chatbots, human-in-the-loop capabilities, and training with enterprise data.Why Neuwark?Real-Time Human-in-the-Loop Chat: Ensure quality at all times.Customizable AI Agents: Optimize with advanced settings and prompt adjustments.Team-Friendly: Collaborate easily on training and management.Responses with References: Transparent and credible answers.Built-in Observability: Monitor agent working processes.Multi-Channel Engagement: Connect across Web, WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, and Instagram.We’ve built Neuwark to empower businesses to elevate customer engagement without compromising on quality. Whether automating support, scaling communication, or enhancing collaboration, Neuwark’s Human-in-the-Loop AI is here to help.This wouldn&#x27;t have been possible without the incredible support from the LlamaIndex and Chroma teams, who truly acted as extended teammates. A special thanks also to Microsoft for Startups for their generous support through Azure credits.I’d love to hear your feedback or answer any questions about Neuwark—ask me anything!Discover more on our Website: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;neuwark.com&#x2F;Stay connected: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.linkedin.com&#x2F;company&#x2F;neuwark&#x2F;