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Proposed new US funding rules: We can cancel any grant at any time

Ars Technica reports that the Office of Management and Budget plans new grant rules that would privatize decision-making. Peer review would become advisory; political appointees would decide funding, with grants potentially cancelable at any time if not in the 'national interest.' The rules would ban funding on certain culture-war topics, limit international collaborations, and block publication and conference travel costs without agency approval. They would apply a domestic-first framework, and the OMB is pursuing formal rulemaking after court defeats. Public comment is open.

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Pandoc Templates

A catalog of Pandoc templates and themes for converting Markdown into PDF, LaTeX, HTML, EPUB, and DOCX. The collection spans academic theses, letters, resumes, IEEE/JASA papers, lecture notes, slides, novels, recipes, invoices, and more, with templates featuring LaTeX or Pandoc tweaks (e.g., Eisvogel, pandoc-letter, Markdown Resume, JHAP templates). Each entry lists author, formats, GitHub link, stars, and last update. The page highlights ongoing growth of the Pandoc template ecosystem as of 2026.

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The Kaiser and a "Mediocre Man" Theory of History

Fitting his "mediocre man" theory, history is shaped by structural forces and ordinary people who reach power, some capable, some incompetent. Wilhelm II illustrates the point: not a “great man,” but his personal rule centralized power, dictated appointments, and volatile rhetoric helped shape German policy, contributed to diplomatic isolation, and nudged Europe toward war. The Kaiser’s temperament and court politics show how flawed individuals can leave outsized historical footprints alongside broader forces.

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Quantum dot qubit using High NA EUV lithography

Imec presented a world-first quantum dot qubit device made using High NA EUV lithography. Silicon quantum dot spin qubits are patterned with ~6 nm gaps between gates, in a CMOS-compatible, 300 mm fab environment, enabling scalable, manufacturable quantum hardware. This demonstrates that High NA EUV can drive dense, reliable qubit integration and supports silicon-based qubits as industry-ready for large-scale quantum computing.

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Algebraic Effects for the Rest of Us

An informal explainer of algebraic effects: a language feature that lets code perform effects (IO, data fetching) and handle or resume them later, unlike ordinary exceptions. Using a toy ES2025 syntax with perform and handle, it shows resumable continuations and how effects decouple what to do from how to do it, beyond try/catch and async/await. The piece notes purity, typing, and potential JavaScript/React relevance (Suspense, useState), but acknowledges it’s not production-ready. Benefits include modular effect handlers, testability, and the possibility of richer abstractions without boilerplate.

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A new register allocator for ZJIT

Shopify's ZJIT now has a global, SSA-based register allocator using a linear-scan approach (inspired by Christian Wimmer). It tracks live ranges across entire methods (not just per block) to keep values in registers across block boundaries, reducing spills and aiding inlining. Previously ZJIT used a local allocator from YJIT that only handled single basic blocks. The allocator computes lifetimes by backward dataflow, and while an interference-graph approach was considered, linear scan was chosen for speed. Future work includes handling lifetime holes to reuse registers more aggressively.

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Show HN: VT Code – open-source terminal coding agent in Rust

VT Code is an open-source coding agent delivering LLM-native code understanding with strong shell safety. It supports multiple LLM providers with automatic failover and efficient context management. Core features include a Skill system and subagents (foreground and optional background), multi-provider support (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Ollama, Atlas Cloud, etc.), GitHub Copilot integration, ACP/A2A interoperability, Anthropic API compatibility, and Open Responses plus ATIF trajectory export. It emphasizes OAuth 2.0 authentication, configurable vtcode.toml settings, a Ghostty VT runtime with sandboxing, a TUI, and editor integrations (VS Code extension and ACP-enabled editors).

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What It Takes to Preserve Floppy Disks

IEEE Spectrum profiles Leontien Talboom’s year-long Cambridge University Libraries project "Future Nostalgia," which preserves floppy-disk data as the media deteriorates and tacit knowledge fades. By consulting the retro-computing community, the team learned disk quirks (e.g., doughnut magnets) and navigated the toughest barrier— deciphering aging file systems on varied disks (Amstrad, ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro; 3-inch and 5.25-inch formats). The work uses hardware readers, emulators, and targeted migrations to newer formats, with ongoing monitoring to prevent bit-rot. The project concluded January 2026.

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Math-to-Manim

Math-To-Manim is a pipeline that converts math/physics prompts into Manim videos plus a full traceable artifact bundle that records intent, prerequisites graph, curriculum, math packets, storyboard, scene specs, generated code, validation, render results, and review notes. It emphasizes inspectability from question to animation, enabling backward-reasoning planning and a Prime Intellect RL repair loop where models revise generated Manim code to fix render issues. The repo outlines the architecture (pipeline stages, artifacts), run bundles, and how to run tests and render locally, with a focus on reproducible, auditable explanations.

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