HN Top 10 — May 03, 2026
Today’s Top 10 on Hacker News
1. A couple million lines of Haskell: Production engineering at Mercury
⭐ 270 💬 110 👤 unignorant
The Mercury team shares insights from running millions of lines of Haskell in production, covering their engineering practices and experiences. They discuss how they manage large-scale Haskell codebases, type safety benefits, and the practical challenges of maintaining a production system at that scale.
2. Show HN: Apple’s Sharp Running in the Browser via ONNX Runtime Web
⭐ 23 💬 2 👤 bring-shrubbery
A browser-based Gaussian splat generator built on top of Apple’s SHARP model. Upload a single image and generate 3D Gaussian splats directly in the browser using ONNX Runtime Web, then preview and download the result as a .ply file. The project ports Apple’s research model to run client-side via WebAssembly.
3. This Month in Ladybird – April 2026
⭐ 366 💬 82 👤 richardboegli
Ladybird browser’s April 2026 newsletter covers recent progress on the independently-developed web browser. Highlights include continued layout engine improvements, networking stack enhancements, and updates on web standards compliance as the project moves closer to practical usability.
4. Dav2d
⭐ 502 💬 137 👤 dabinat
A new project from VideoLAN (the team behind VLC Media Player) hosting on their GitLab instance. Dav2d appears to be a video-related tool or framework, leveraging the expertise of the VLC development team. Given VideoLAN’s track record with open-source multimedia software, this could represent a new approach to video processing or playback.
5. Six Years Perfecting Maps on WatchOS
⭐ 328 💬 80 👤 valzevul
An independent iOS developer chronicles six years of work building maps for Apple Watch, detailing the unique challenges of designing navigation and mapping features for ultra-small screens. The post covers technical decisions around data compression, rendering optimization, and balancing feature richness with the constraints of wearable devices.
6. Group averages obscure how an individual’s brain controls behavior: study
⭐ 18 💬 1 👤 hhs
Stanford researchers found that averaging brain scan data across groups masks how individual brains actually control behavior. Their study shows that person-specific brain-behavior mappings are far more informative than population-level models, suggesting neuroscience should focus more on individual differences.
7. Windows quality update: Progress we’ve made since March
⭐ 63 💬 140 👤 jovial_cavalier
Microsoft provides an update on Windows quality improvements since March, covering bug fixes, performance enhancements, and new features in the Windows Insider program. The post outlines progress across various subsystems and previews upcoming changes for the Windows 11 platform.
8. Unverified Evaluations in Dusk’s PLONK
⭐ 26 💬 3 👤 deut-erium
A security vulnerability was discovered in Dusk’s PLONK implementation where the verifier never validated four of the prover’s polynomial commitments. This flaw was significant enough to potentially allow minting invalid DUSK tokens, highlighting the importance of rigorous cryptographic verification in blockchain systems.
9. Do_not_track
⭐ 363 💬 114 👤 RubyGuy
A new standard for respecting user privacy in CLI tools and software, addressing the problem of many command-line programs silently sending telemetry and tracking data. The DO_NOT_TRACK specification provides a simple way for developers to signal that their tools should not collect or transmit user data without explicit consent.
10. Neanderthals ran ‘fat factories’ 125,000 years ago (2025)
⭐ 210 💬 98 👤 andsoitis
Archaeologists at Leiden University discovered evidence that Neanderthals ran specialized fat-processing operations 125,000 years ago. Fat was an extremely calorie-dense food source crucial for survival, especially during winter months when other resources were scarce, suggesting sophisticated food processing knowledge.