nasa.gov
NASA’s Pandora Small Satellite Launchedhttps://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasas-pandora-small-satellite-launched/In this photo from early January 2026, teams prepare to encapsulate NASA’s Pandora small satellite, NASA-sponsored Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS), and the Black Hole Coded Aperture Telescope (BlackCAT) CubeSat, inside a SpaceX Falcon 9 payload fairing. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA’s Pandora small satellite lifted off at 5:44 a.m. PST Sunday, Jan. […]Jan 13, 2026 9:39 PM
news.ycombinator.com
Tell HN: Intel could blow up the Console Wars if it had the gutshttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46607497Intel has spent the last decade chasing moonshots: AI accelerators, Optane, RealSense, Thunderbolt branding. All while slowly bleeding out cultural relevance. Meanwhile, gamers, devs and power users are quietly revolting against walled gardens and bloated software. Windows is being shoehorned into an "agentic OS," consoles are doubling down on subscription models, and users are mourning the loss of simplicity and control.When was the last time you were unpleasantly surprised by a big, required update when you try to play a game?Intel has a once-in-a-decade chance to blow the doors off the console wars and make Linux mainstream. But it requires something Intel hasn't shown in years: restraint and aggression.Here's the play:1. Build the box: Take Panther Lake. Stick it in a boring little box that fits under the TV. No RGB. No gimmicks. Just raw performance in a console-size form factor.2. Ship SteamOS: Boot it straight into Big Picture mode. No custom UI. No Intel launcher. No "ecosystemJan 13, 2026 8:33 PM
news.ycombinator.com
Show HN: Verdic Guard – Deterministic guardrails to prevent LLM hallucinationshttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602822I’ve been working on Verdic Guard, a validation layer for production LLM systems where prompts, filters, and monitoring aren’t enough.In many real deployments (fintech, enterprise workflows, agentic systems), the failure mode isn’t latency or cost — it’s hallucinations that sound confident and pass surface checks. Prompt engineering helps, but it doesn’t scale once systems grow long-running, tool-using, or multi-agent.Verdic takes a different approach:Define an explicit intent + scope contract for what the model is allowed to outputValidate LLM outputs before execution, not just inputsBlock or flag responses that drift semantically, contextually, or domain-wiseKeep enforcement deterministic and auditable (not “best effort” prompts)It’s designed to sit between the LLM and your application, acting as a guardrail rather than another model.This is still early, and I’m especially interested in feedback on:Where this breaks down in real systemsHow teams currently handle hallucinations beyondJan 13, 2026 4:05 PM
spacedaily.com
Pandora exoplanet mission checks in after launchhttps://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Pandora_exoplanet_mission_checks_in_after_launch_999.htmlLos Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 13, 2026 NASA mission controllers have acquired full signal from the agency's Pandora small satellite, confirming the health and initial operations of the exoplanet observatory following launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Jan. 11, 2026. The spacecraft rode to orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East, sharing the flight with the Star-Planet Activity ReJan 13, 2026 2:50 PM
news.ycombinator.com
Code Is Cheap. Coherence Is the New Bottleneckhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46600376TL;DR: Code is cheap now. Coherence is expensive. If you still treat an LLM like a smarter autocomplete, you will ship fast and drift faster. The next mental model is not "coder with AI" but "architect managing a synthetic team" — with constraints, contracts, evidence, and hard gates.Before I changed my approach, I had two incidents that forced the shift:1. I asked an agent to "make tests pass." It deleted three test files with failing tests.2. I asked an agent to "fix the schema mismatch between dev and prod." It wrote a migration that started with DROP DATABASE because "recreating from scratch is cleaner." I caught it in review. Barely.People keep describing LLMs as tools.A tool does exactly what you do, just faster. A tool does not invent. A tool does not "helpfully" reinterpret your intent. A tool does not optimize for praise. A tool does not create technical debt while sounding confident. LLM coding agents do all of that. They behave less like tools and more like eager juniors witJan 13, 2026 12:59 PM
news.ycombinator.com
A pink aesthetic wallpaper hub for makers/creators, with built-in AI edit toolshttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46599320This might be a bit of an unconventional Show HN, but I think many of us here (myself included) are tired of generic default wallpapers or overly busy designs. We stare at our screens for so long, and a visual environment that feels calm or joyful can have a real impact on focus and mood.So, I built Pink Canvas (https://pinkcanvas.net).The core is simple: a curated library of pink-themed wallpapers. But I wanted to make it genuinely useful, particularly for the tinkerers and creators among us:Precise Curation: Walls are well-tagged (Kawaii, Floral, Minimalist, Fantasy, etc.) and by resolution (Mobile, Desktop, 4K). It saves the time of sifting through Pinterest or Unsplash for that specific look for a specific device.Built-in Maker Tools: Here's the key feature and why I'm posting it here. I integrated AI Generate and AI Edit tools directly into the site. You can take any wallpaper and, using natural language, ask it to "add a small cat in the corner" or "make it cyberpunk" to create aJan 13, 2026 10:40 AM
spacenews.com
Aerospacelab to build eight satellites for Xona’s navigation constellationhttps://spacenews.com/aerospacelab-to-build-eight-satellites-for-xonas-navigation-constellation/Belgian manufacturer to support early rollout as U.S. commercial PNT startup builds in-house production The post Aerospacelab to build eight satellites for Xona’s navigation constellation appeared first on SpaceNews.Jan 13, 2026 10:00 AM
science.nasa.gov
NASA’s Webb Delivers Unprecedented Look Into Heart of Circinus Galaxyhttps://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-delivers-unprecedented-look-into-heart-of-circinus-galaxy/The Circinus Galaxy, a galaxy about 13 million light-years away, contains an active supermassive black hole that continues to influence its evolution. The largest source of infrared light from the region closest to the black hole itself was thought to be outflows, or streams of superheated matter that fire outward. Image: Circinus Galaxy (Hubble and […]Jan 13, 2026 10:00 AM
news.ycombinator.com
Ask HN: Why are AI coding agents not working for me?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46598278I'm really trying to use them with an open mind. I'm writing detailed specs. On failure, I adjust the initial spec, rather than go down the spiral of asking for many adjustments. I'm using Claude Opus 4.5 inside Cursor. My ambitions are also quite low. The latest was to split a mega Python file into a few submodules according to a pretty simple criterion. It's not even that it failed, it is more about the how. It was trying to action the refactor by writing some Python one-liners to edit the file, in an extremely clumsy way - in many cases failing to write syntactically correct Python.I'm torn, as I don't want to be an old man luddite shouting at the clouds "LLMs are garbage", and plenty of reasonable people seem to do well with them. But my experience is rather poor. So, maybe I'm holding it wrong?It's not only failures, to be fair. I found it fairly good at writing a lot of benign code, like tests, simple tools I wouldn't bother with that save me a few mins here and there. But certaiJan 13, 2026 7:44 AM
spacenews.com
Portugal signs the Artemis Accordshttps://spacenews.com/portugal-signs-the-artemis-accords/Portugal has become the latest country to sign the Artemis Accords outlining best practices for responsible space exploration, beating out another European country to be the 60th to join. The post Portugal signs the Artemis Accords appeared first on SpaceNews.Jan 12, 2026 11:46 PM
nasa.gov
NASA Welcomes Portugal as 60th Artemis Accords Signatoryhttps://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-welcomes-portugal-as-60th-artemis-accords-signatory/Portugal is the latest nation to sign the Artemis Accords alongside 59 other countries in a commitment to advancing principles for the responsible exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond with NASA. “Portugal joins a cadre of nations building the framework for safe, transparent, and prosperous activity in space,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman in […]Jan 12, 2026 6:32 PM
bing.com
Exercise May Be Just As Effective at Relieving Depression As Medication and Therapyhttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a8d10c5e5b24d969f53bc0cbf108e3f&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.everydayhealth.com%2Fmental-health-conditions%2Fexercise-may-be-as-effective-at-relieving-depression-as-medication%2F&c=1002438235515323758&mkt=en-usA new research review highlights the benefits of physical activity compared with other treatments for depression. “Exercise provides an option for people experiencing depressive symptoms, along with ...Jan 12, 2026 1:05 PM
news.ycombinator.com
Show HN: Touch grass – I built social media that wants you to close ithttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46587757I wanted old school social media back. Actual connections with friends. Not pity likes and performances and highlight reels.All my friends have stopped posting. Everyone's a lurker now. I'm a lurker. The only time I see what anyone's doing is when it's a humblebrag. I have no idea what's actually going on in my friends' lives besides the ones I see every week or so.So I built touch grass. You post once a week: 3 easy questions, max 3 photos. Sunday 6pm mountain time (yeah its my time zone) everyone's posts unlock at the same time. You catch up on what your people have been doing, then close the app. No likes, no comments, no algorithm, no advertisers, no bullshit, besides that one friend maybe.It's not about content. It's about keeping the connection warm. I see my friend went to the Cowboys game (Texans represent), I text him and ask how it was. That's it. That's the whole point. A reason to actually reach out.I've weirdly learned more about my parents in the last 5 weeks than the lasJan 12, 2026 12:53 PM
spacenews.com
This year must bring greater collaboration against orbital congestionhttps://spacenews.com/this-year-must-bring-greater-collaboration-against-orbital-congestion/The problem of overcrowding orbits and increasing space debris has never been more urgent. International organizations, policy makers, regulators, space operators and researchers are recognizing how critical this issue is and how it could impact all space services and operations, including, but not limited to, satellite broadband, global navigation satellite systems, scientific research and space […] The post This year must bring greater collaboration against orbital congestion appeared first on SpaceNews.Jan 12, 2026 12:00 PM
spacenews.com
Applied lessons for NASA’s science programshttps://spacenews.com/applied-lessons-for-nasas-science-programs/It took a year, but the Jared Isaacman era at NASA finally started. Sworn in Dec. 17, the new administrator spoke at a NASA town hall the next day to take questions about his plans for the agency. He offered few specifics about those plans, saying he had to learn about agency activities. But he […] The post Applied lessons for NASA’s science programs appeared first on SpaceNews.Jan 12, 2026 12:00 PM
spacedaily.com
Milky Way stars mapped as major source of ghost particle flux at Earthhttps://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Milky_Way_stars_mapped_as_major_source_of_ghost_particle_flux_at_Earth_999.htmlBerlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 09, 2026 Neutrinos, often called ghost particles, are elementary particles that are electrically neutral, extremely light, and interact only rarely with other matter. Trillions pass through Earth and the human body every second without leaving a trace, which makes them difficult to detect but valuable as probes of regions of the universe that are otherwise hidden. Researchers at the University of CJan 12, 2026 9:57 AM
spacedaily.com
Creating hallucination-free, psychedelic-like molecules by shining light on life's basic building blockshttps://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Creating_hallucination_free_psychedelic_like_molecules_by_shining_light_on_lifes_basic_building_blocks_999.htmlDavis CA (SPX) Jan 08, 2026 UC Davis researchers have developed a new method that uses light to transform amino acids - the building blocks of proteins - into molecules that are similar in structure to psychedelics and mimic their interaction with the brain. Like psychedelics, these molecules activate the brain's serotonin 5-HT2A receptors, which promote cortical neuron growth, and could be candidates to treat a host of brJan 12, 2026 9:57 AM
spacedaily.com
Jets from black hole drive record coronal gas stream in nearby galaxyhttps://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Jets_from_black_hole_drive_record_coronal_gas_stream_in_nearby_galaxy_999.htmlLos Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 09, 2026 Astronomers at the University of California, Irvine have identified the largest-known stream of super-heated gas in the universe flowing out of a nearby disk galaxy called VV 340a, with their findings reported in Science. The gas, traced using data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, emerges from both sides of the galaxy as two elongated nebulae powered by an active supermassive black hole aJan 12, 2026 9:57 AM
news.ycombinator.com
Ask HN: How to automate aesthetic photo cropping? (CV/AI)https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46583569Hi everyone,I am a backend developer currently engineering an in-house automation tool for a K-pop merchandise production company (photocards, postcards, etc.).I have built an MVP using Python (FastAPI) + Libvips + InsightFace to automate the process where designers previously had to manually crop thousands of high-resolution photos using Illustrator.While basic face detection and image quality preservation (CMYK conversion, etc.) are successful, I am hitting a bottleneck in automating the "Designer's Sense (Vibe/Aesthetics)."[Current Stack & Workflow]Tech Stack: Python 3.11, FastAPI, Libvips (Processing), InsightFace (Landmark Detection).Workflow: Bulk Upload $\rightarrow$ Landmark Extraction (InsightFace) $\rightarrow$ Auto-crop based on pre-defined ratios $\rightarrow$ Human-in-the-loop fine-tuning via Web UI.[The Challenges]Mechanical Logic vs. Aesthetic CropSimple centering logic fails to capture the "perfect shot" for K-pop idols who often have dynamic poses or varying camera angJan 12, 2026 3:10 AM
karmictail.net
Show HN: Karmic Tail Calculator – A Destiny Matrix Patternshttps://karmictail.netProject Name Karmic Tail CalculatorProject Link https://karmictail.net/One-sentence description A specialized Next.js-based tool for decoding the "Karmic Tail" within the Destiny Matrix system, focusing on past-life patterns through 22 Arcana algorithmic logic.Detailed Description Karmic Tail Calculator is an attempt to bridge the gap between esoteric numerology and modern web interaction. While the "Destiny Matrix" system is currently trending on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, most existing tools are either riddled with ads or lack technical depth. This project returns to the algorithmic roots of the system, focusing specifically on the most influential "Karmic Tail" section. We’ve stripped away the "woo-woo" clutter in favor of a high-precision Arcana reduction logic and a "Sacred Geometry" visual experience, providing users with a private, frictionless space to explore subconscious behavioral patterns.Core FeaturesPrecision Algorithmic Logic: Implements the strict 22 Major ArcJan 11, 2026 8:12 PM
