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Hacker Newsletter #780

Brief

Hacker Newsletter #780 is a weekly roundup of popular Hacker News links rather than a single deep article, so its value is as a signal of what the technical internet paid attention to in late January 2026. The issue skews toward software engineering, AI tooling, startup news, and internet curiosities, with notable technical entries including Google DeepMind’s Project Genie, OpenAI’s posts on its in-house data agent and PostgreSQL infrastructure for 800 million ChatGPT users, and practical engineering pieces on PostgreSQL indexes, soft deletes, SRE, and work estimation. Business and industry items included Amazon’s reported 16,000 job cuts, Amazon store closures, and Stratechery’s analysis of TSMC risk. Because the newsletter only lists titles, vote counts, comment counts, and sources, it provides discovery and prioritization signals but little methodological or technical detail on its own; the real substance lies in the linked originals.

Cleaned source text

title: Hacker Newsletter #780

author: Hacker Newsletter

content_type: newsletter

publication: hackernewsletter.com

published: 2026-01-30T13:44:26+00:00

source_url: gmail://19c0f2f19a7d3c35

word_count: 994

You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need. //Vernon Howard

hackernewsletter

Issue #780 _//_ 2026-01-30 _//_ View in your browser

Favorites

Airtable - From idea to app in an instant

//airtable.com sponsored Airfoil

//ciechanow.ski comments→ Project Genie: Experimenting with infinite, interactive worlds

//blog.google comments→ Gas Town's agent patterns, design bottlenecks, and vibecoding at scale

//maggieappleton.com comments→ How I estimate work

//seangoedecke.com comments→ OpenClaw - open source personal AI assistant

//github.com comments→ Moltbook

//moltbook.com comments→The browser is the sandbox

//simonwillison.net comments→ The tech monoculture is finally breaking

//jasonwillems.com comments→ Mental Models

//fs.blog comments→ Doing the thing is doing the thing

//softwaredesign.ing comments→ Making niche solutions is the point

//ntietz.com comments→

Ask HN

What's the current best local/open speech-to-speech setup? Gmail spam filtering suddenly marking everything as spam? How are you automating your coding work?

Classifieds

Localize iOS & Android apps with LLMs — right on your Mac //apps.apple.com Keep your customers in the loop with Onset, an all-in-one platform for release notes, roadmaps and more. //onset.io Debug MCP servers fast with the free MCP Workbench tool //orkes.io 👉 Buy a classified ad

Show HN

A macOS app that blurs your screen when you slouch //github.com comments→ A MitM proxy to see what your LLM tools are sending //github.com comments→ Flameshot //github.com comments→ An interactive map of US lighthouses and navigational aids //lighthouses.app comments→ Elo ranking for landing pages //landingleaderboard.com comments→ Transcribee: YouTube transcriber that builds a knowledge base //github.com comments→

Code

Mermaid ASCII: Render Mermaid diagrams in your terminal //github.com comments→ The future of software engineering is SRE //swizec.com comments→ Make.ts //matklad.github.io comments→ Notes on starting to use Django //jvns.ca comments→ Draig, a Welsh Programming Language //raku.land comments→

Data

Introduction to PostgreSQL Indexes //dlt.github.io comments→ The challenges of soft delete //atlas9.dev comments→ OpenAI's In-House Data Agent //openai.com comments→ Scaling PostgreSQL to power 800M ChatGPT users //openai.com comments→

Design

New YC homepage //ycombinator.com comments→ Web-based image editor modeled after Deluxe Paint //github.com comments→ San Francisco Graffiti //walzr.com comments→ Dithering – Part 2: The Ordered Dithering //visualrambling.space comments→

Books

The Agentic AI Handbook: Production-Ready Patterns //nibzard.com comments→ Ask HN: Books to learn 6502 ASM and the Apple II //news.ycombinator.com Shelvy Books //shelvybooks.com comments→

Working

AI’s impact on engineering jobs may be different than expected //semiengineering.com comments→ What “The Best” Looks Like //kuril.in comments→ Employers, please use postmarked letters for job applications //soapstone.mradford.com comments→ The Uncomfortable Math of Working for Yourself //thomasunise.com comments→

Learn

Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants //blog.ncase.me comments→ Television is 100 years old today //diamondgeezer.blogspot.com comments→ 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found //nytimes.com comments→ A lot of population numbers are fake //davidoks.blog comments→ Maine’s ‘Lobster Lady’ who fished for nearly a century dies aged 105 //theguardian.com comments→

Watching

I built a light that reacts to radio waves //youtube.com comments→ After two years of vibecoding, I'm back to writing by hand //youtube.com comments→ The all new Mecha Comet, live on Kickstarter //youtube.com comments→ The Engineer who invented the Mars Rover Suspension in his garage //youtube.com comments→ I Overengineered a Spinning Top //youtube.com comments→

Startup News

Amazon cuts 16k jobs //reuters.com comments→ Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday //news.ycombinator.com Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores //finance.yahoo.com comments→ TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin //bbc.com comments→ TSMC Risk //stratechery.com comments→ Notice of collective action lawsuit against Workday, Inc. //workdaycase.com comments→

Doom has been ported to an earbud //doombuds.com comments→ The HN Arcade //andrewgy8.github.io comments→ Super Monkey Ball ported to a website //monkeyball-online.pages.dev comments→ Video Games as Art //gwern.net comments→ Maze Algorithms //jamisbuck.org comments→

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