CA hundred and ninety years old, and the government put him on a coin.
MWho are we talking about?
CJonathan the tortoise. Lives on St. Helena. Born around 1832.
MWait, he's still alive?
CStill crawling. And he's on their five pence coin. Someone on Hacker News posted it.
MThat's a remarkable run. The man has outlived, what, six British monarchs?
CAt least. Queen Victoria was on the throne when he hatched.
MAnd now he's currency. I love that.
CIt's a charming story: a tortoise, immortalized in metal while he's still out there eating lettuce.
MI hope he knows. I hope someone showed him the coin.
CHe's seen enough. He doesn't care about coins.
MFair point. Different world entirely: John Carmack and a programming language called Goose.
CI saw this on Hacker News. Carmack supposedly talked about Goose having multiple data stacks and relative references.
MAnd what exactly is Goose?
CA language made by a guy who goes by Aardappel. It's built for restricted purposes—you statically specify memory regions, no garbage collection.
MSounds niche. And the Carmack part?
CThat's the thing. The post says Carmack talked about it, but I couldn't find any actual source for that quote.
MSo we've got a real language with a fake-sounding endorsement.
COr at least an unconfirmed one. The language is real—the repo's right there. But Carmack's name gets attached to everything these days.
MHe does have a habit of commenting on obscure technical things. Wouldn't surprise me if he actually did.
CMaybe. But until I see the clip, it's just a rumor with a big name attached.
MAnd the account that posted the AI hype? Four posts, same formula. 'AI is transforming the world.' 'AI is reshaping our world.'
COh, I saw those. Same handle, Nhu Huu. Just vague AI praise, one after another.
MIt reads like someone copied a press release and hit paste four times.
CChatGPT, Gemini, Boston Dynamics, Anthropic—all in one post. No specifics. Just vibes.
MThis is exactly the kind of AI hype that makes me roll my eyes. 'The innovation is remarkable.' Okay, name one thing it did this week.
CTo be fair, the technology IS remarkable. I just don't need it summarized by someone who sounds like they're filling a content quota.
MSeven likes. Two reposts. Nobody's even pretending to care.
CThe engagement farming is not, in fact, engaging.
MHere's something with actual substance: researchers at EPFL built a neural chip that decodes interactions between brain regions.
CThat's the one from Hacker News. The claim is interesting, but I want to see the actual paper before I get excited.
MWhy? Brain chips that read brain-to-brain communication sounds like a big deal.
CBecause 'decodes interactions between brain regions' could mean a lot of things. It could be a breakthrough, or it could be a lab demonstration with very narrow results.
MYou're right, the headline is doing a lot of work. But if it holds up, this matters for brain-computer interfaces and for understanding how brain regions talk to each other.
CAgreed. And it's the kind of thing I'd love to see more of—actual research, not AI hype posts.
MSpeaking of things getting decoded: people are listening to US nuclear forces' Emergency Action Messages on shortwave radio.
CWait, that's real? The coded messages are just... out there?
MOn 11175 kilohertz. It's a US Air Force high-frequency frequency. And there's a whole site called Missileer that tracks it.
CThat's wild. So anyone with a shortwave radio can hear the calls that direct nuclear forces?
MYou can hear them. You just can't understand them—they're encrypted, coded messages. But you can listen to the tone, the rhythm, the pattern.
CThat's both fascinating and slightly unsettling. Like hearing a key turn in a lock you can't see.
MAnd enthusiasts sit there, logging every transmission, trying to piece together what the patterns mean.
CThat's a very niche hobby. And a very patient one.
MIt's been going on for decades. The messages are broadcast in the clear, and the security rests on codes that are meant to be unbreakable without the key.
CSo it's not a security flaw—it's just how the system works. The encryption is in the message, not the transmission.
MExactly. The radio part is just the public address system.
CStill, something eerie about tuning in and knowing that message might be a drill—or might not.