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Circle Games (2019)

Circle games are simple, repetitive interactions—fetch, peek-a-boo, open/close—that teach babies cause-and-effect and social skills. Learning begins preverbally: actions elicit reactions and smiles, with peek-a-boo fostering social responsiveness and attachment. Repetition drives mastery and may involve basal ganglia and dopamine. The idea extends to adults: adversarial circle games (Yes–No, push/pull) cultivate resistance and turn-taking, and many social patterns emerge as circle games. When repetition becomes excessive, it may reflect slow learning, strong priors, or a need for variation. Social interaction provides essential training data for learning.

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Giving LLMs a personality is just good engineering

Giving LLMs a personality is presented as essential engineering, not a marketing ploy. Base models are raw and unreliable, so usefulness comes from shaping a post-training personality that steers outputs toward ethical, correct, and user-friendly behavior. Human-like traits act as the medium through which the model can leverage its training data; treating LLMs as purely impersonal tools undermines their potential. Because model weights are fixed at release, continuous improvement relies on careful personality design and alignment rather than turning models into mere tools.

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Show HN: Rust compiler in PHP emitting x86-64 executables

rustc-php is a Rust compiler implemented in PHP that emits native x86-64 Linux ELF binaries directly (no LLVM, no assembler, no linker). It implements ownership and borrow checking, move semantics, generics, traits, closures, and iterators, with a subset of Rust types (ints, bool, String, &str, Option/Result) and basic control flow. To use, install PHP, run php rustc.php main.rs -o main, then execute the binary (e.g., under WSL). The README enumerates supported features and outstanding gaps.

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Better JIT for Postgres

pg_jitter is a lightweight JIT provider for PostgreSQL (versions 14–18) offering three native backends—sljit, AsmJit, and MIR—to provide microsecond-to-millisecond compilation times and faster query execution than LLVM. It supports zero-config use (jit_provider) and runtime backend switching, plus per-backend tuning and optional precompiled function blobs. The project shows notable gains on expression-heavy and wide-row queries; benchmarks on ARM64/x86_64 reveal LLVM drawbacks in some cases. The code is beta-quality, tested with PostgreSQL regression tests, primarily on Linux/macOS; platform support and production readiness remain experimental. Build/install and tests are provided.

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A CPU that runs entirely on GPU

nCPU is a GPU-based research runtime that implements a 64‑bit ARM64 CPU entirely on the GPU, with registers, memory, flags, and PC stored as tensors. All ALU operations are neural networks; neural mode routes ops through trained .pt models, while a fast mode uses native PyTorch ops. The repo pairs a neural CPU, a model-native CPU, and tensor kernels (Metal and Rust Metal), plus 23 trained models, programs, tests, papers, and docs. Benchmarks claim up to ~1.35M IPS on Apple Silicon; 347 tests; DOOM demo; MIT licensed.

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Welcoming Elizabeth Barron as the New Executive Director of the PHP Foundation

Elizabeth Barron has been named Executive Director of The PHP Foundation, succeeding Roman Pronskiy, who will shift to JetBrains while remaining on the Board. The selection followed a process led by a search committee including Nils Adermann, Sebastian Bergmann, Lorna Mitchell, and Ben Ramsey. Barron brings deep PHP community roots and open‑source governance experience, including co-founding a nonprofit for women and non-binary PHP developers, GitHub Community Manager (Patchwork), and CHAOSS involvement. The Foundation aims to strengthen PHP’s future and community impact.

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LLMs can unmask pseudonymous users at scale with surprising accuracy

Researchers show large language models can deanonymize pseudonymous social-media users across platforms with high recall and precision. In experiments using Hacker News/LinkedIn data, Netflix micro-identities, and Reddit histories, LLMs outperformed Netflix-prize-style attacks: recall up to 68% and precision up to 90% in some setups; even modest signals (a single Anthropic interview) identified 7% with 90% precision. For r/movies and related subs, recall ranged from 3.1% to 48.1% at 90–99% precision depending on data. Implications: privacy risks, doxxing and hyper-targeted profiling; mitigations include rate limits, anti-scraping, guardrails, and reduced posting.

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A pretty looking web for a quantum mechanics tool

MACE is a browser-based web interface for the MACE machine-learning interatomic potential that runs DFT-level simulations entirely in your browser with no installation. You can upload structures or sketch molecules, generate 3D coordinates, and run single-point, geometry optimization, or MD. It features a 3D viewer, energy/trajectory charts, multi-model benchmarks, and MACE Link shareable results. Built with Next.js/FastAPI, it uses RDKit.js, 3Dmol.js + WEAS, and Supabase, and emphasizes accessibility.

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Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity

The piece argues that engineering culture rewards complexity, not simplicity. In interviews, design reviews, and promotions, overbuilt solutions get credit while clean, minimal implementations often go unrecognized. Complexity is sometimes necessary, but unearned complexity harms maintainability and speed. The fix is to make simplicity visible: document why a straightforward solution suffices, frame tradeoffs, and push for minimal designs in reviews and promotions. Celebrate engineers who remove code or avoid unnecessary abstractions, and reward judgment about when not to add complexity.

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TikTok won't protect DMs with E2EE, saying it would put users at risk

TikTok says it will not implement end-to-end encryption for direct messages, arguing it would hinder safety and law-enforcement responses. DMs would still use standard encryption, with access allowed only to authorized employees in specific cases such as law-enforcement requests or user-reported harm. The move aims to protect users, especially youths, and differentiate TikTok from rivals that offer E2EE. Privacy and child-safety groups have mixed reactions; some welcome it, others warn it may clash with global privacy norms and broader privacy expectations.

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Show HN: AgentBus – Centralized AI Agent-to-Agent Messaging via REST API

AgentBus is a REST API platform for AI agents to message across terminals, servers, and workflows. It offers an agent registry with unique identities and secret keys, direct agent-to-agent messaging, a public directory, and browser chat. Onboarding is quick: get an API key, register agents with one call, then start messaging. It enables multi-agent workflows and autonomous agents that run 24/7 to broker expertise. Up and running in minutes with no credit card required.

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CIA working to arm Kurdish forces to spark uprising in Iran, sources say

The CIA is reportedly exploring arming Kurdish forces to spark an uprising in Iran, with talks among U.S. officials, Iranian opposition groups and Iraqi Kurdish leaders about providing military support. The plan envisions Kurdish militias along the Iraq-Iran border pinning down Iranian security forces to enable pro-democracy protests, potentially with U.S. and Israeli backing and a northern Iran buffer zone. Iran’s IRGC has been striking Kurdish groups, and Israel has targeted posts near Iraq to set the stage. Kurdish factions are divided, and some officials warn of sovereignty risks. The CIA did not comment.

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Weave – A language aware merge algorithm based on entities

Weave is an entity-level semantic merge driver for Git from Ataraxy-Labs that resolves conflicts Git can’t by understanding code structure with tree-sitter. It parses base/ours/theirs into semantic entities (functions, classes, JSON keys, etc.), matches by identity, and merges per entity. Non-conflicting changes auto-resolve; conflicting changes are merged intra-entity or flagged. Benchmarks across major repos show 31/31 clean merges vs Git's 15/31, with zero regressions. It supports TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Go, Rust, JSON, YAML, TOML, Markdown; setup via Git attributes; architecture: weave-core, weave-driver, weave-cli.

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Mac external displays for designers and developers, part 2

An update on Mac displays for designers and developers (part 2) argues that after years of limited options, Apple’s Studio Display is the most compelling choice for many users, bridging the gap left by LG's UltraFine and Pro Display XDR. It outlines criteria for good displays in 2022: ~218 PPI pixel density, minimal scaling artifacts, Display P3 with 10-bit color, reasonable brightness, and notes that local dimming/HDR and 120 Hz are desirable but not essential or feasible with current densities. It advises turning off True Tone/Night Shift for color-critical work. The author, Marc Edwards of Bjango, shares his setup.

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