The core of this article is a critical re-examination of terminal multiplexers like tmux, particularly questioning their necessity in modern development workflows. Drawing from over seven years of experience, the author highlights how tools such as tmux—long valued for session persistence and window management—can actually introduce friction when using contemporary terminal features. Notably, the article amplifies concerns, voiced by developers such as kitty’s creator, that multiplexers must intercept and modify terminal escape codes in ways that complicate or even block adoption of new protocols, leading to technical debt and compatibility headaches.

A technical exploration follows, where the author tests alternatives—notably shpool, abduco, and dtach—that strip session management down to its Unix roots of “doing one thing well.” By offloading window and split management to modern terminal emulators and desktop window managers (like sway and foot), and relying on simple session daemons via Unix sockets, the setup provides native scrollback, accurate color rendering, and better integration with features like notifications. Advanced usage—including SSH configuration and Neovim scripting—demonstrates that pairing these minimalist tools with modern environments can replace tmux’s attach/detach functionality without obvious loss, though with some trade-offs such as missing multiplayer support in shpool.

The Hacker News community echoed both the skepticism and curiosity found in the article, with heated debate on whether multiplexers’ feature complexity is worth the drawbacks. Some pointed to specific grievances—awkward scrollback, color bugs, and mouse support—in tmux, while others shared practical migration tips and clever workflow hacks. There’s an undercurrent of nostalgia and resistance, but also open-minded experimentation; many express appreciation for minimalist alternatives and debate if a streamlined, Unix-philosophy-driven approach could better serve devs as terminal emulators and protocols advance.

This web-based interactive experiment lets users draw a fish facing right and submit it to a convolutional neural network, which evaluates its resemblance to an actual fish. The key takeaway is the blend of playful creativity with accessible machine learning, as users iterate on their drawings to chase higher “fish-likeness” scores assigned by the AI model. The immediate feedback invites exploration of drawing styles, with the challenge often lying in depicting a fish clearly enough to satisfy the model’s learned criteria.

Technically, the platform’s implementation stands out for its robust backend moderation which filters out inappropriate content, while leveraging client-side and server-side checks for quality and safety. The convolutional neural network performs reliably, distinguishing genuine attempts from off-topic or mischievous inputs with impressive accuracy, even catching trick submissions like mirrored drawings or disguised inappropriate shapes. The site’s design includes a public leaderboard that fuels friendly competition, though some users speculate about automated submissions and the fairness of extremely high scores.

Community comments reflect appreciation for the engaging, humorous nature of the experience, noting the AI’s surprising nuance in flagging drawings and the revealing cognitive challenges faced by both children and adults attempting the task. Many discuss the technical aspects—praising the CNN’s discernment—while others share anecdotes about failed attempts and philosophical comments about machine judgment in art. The experiment also prompted comparisons to past collaborative digital art projects and raised suggestions for technical tweaks, such as supporting mirrored fish detection to accommodate a wider range of creative input.

Google has revised its approach to sunsetting the goo.gl URL shortener, opting to deactivate only inactive links rather than disabling the entire service on a hard cutoff date. Under this new policy, goo.gl URLs that continue to receive traffic will remain operational beyond August 25, 2025, while links without recent use will begin serving a deactivation notice starting in late 2024. This strategy aims to balance the technical and financial burden of legacy infrastructure with the recognition that many shortlinks are still actively referenced across numerous documents, videos, and online posts.

The decision reflects the broader challenges faced by large platforms in managing aging digital infrastructure while ensuring reliability for users. As Google seeks to control operational costs and address evolving privacy requirements, the measured deprecation of inactive links highlights a practical compromise between service continuity and responsible platform management. Additionally, users encountering a deactivation warning are encouraged to migrate to alternative URL shorteners, illustrating Google’s intent to give ample notice and support more deliberate transitions.

The Hacker News community response was notably skeptical of Google’s initial all-or-nothing shutdown, with many users arguing that deleting longstanding links disregards the implicit trust placed in online platforms to preserve digital content. Discussion emphasized that such actions can cause widespread “linkrot” and data loss, especially when organizations or creators depend on these links for years. Commenters highlighted the tension between big tech’s cost-saving decisions and public expectations of data stewardship, while also raising longstanding concerns about the security risks inherent in URL shorteners and questioning Google’s commitment to stable APIs and product reliability over time.

A 17-year-old homeschooled student, Hannah Cairo, made a landmark contribution to mathematics by disproving the 40-year-old Mizohata-Takeuchi conjecture in harmonic analysis—a problem that had resisted the efforts of leading experts for decades. Educated primarily through self-study and online resources like Khan Academy, Cairo advanced rapidly beyond conventional curriculum; by age 11, she was tackling calculus, and soon after, graduate-level mathematics. Finding school isolating, she described mathematics as an imaginative refuge that provided intellectual freedom and depth.

Her breakthrough was catalyzed by participation in advanced math circles and university classes taken via concurrent enrollment at Berkeley, where mentorship opened doors to graduate coursework despite her youth and lack of formal credentials. When her professor assigned a “warm-up” version of the Mizohata-Takeuchi conjecture, Cairo pursued it far beyond expectations—ultimately constructing a fractal-energy counterexample that violated accepted intuition in the field. This not only toppled the original conjecture but also forced a re-examination of related open problems within harmonic analysis, such as Stein’s conjecture.

The mathematical community on Hacker News reacted with astonishment at both the nature of the breakthrough and the barriers created by academic credentialism. Many applauded Cairo’s ingenuity and the elegance of her work, with some noting the paradox of her initial rejection by most graduate programs due to lack of a college degree. The comments also reflected on the role of self-directed learning platforms like Khan Academy, the power of mentorship, and the persistent tension between institutional gatekeeping and recognition of extraordinary individual achievement.