Daily issue / 2026-10-17
Useful things that surfaced in Hacker News discussions on 2026-10-17. Open the context to see why each one caught our attention—or jump straight to the original thread.
What we found
Mac window streaming to iPhone or iPad; praised as faster and smoother than VNC.
Source discussion: Any window from your Mac, on your iPhone and iPad
“Brilliant! So much faster and seamless than VNC. Already helped me two times today.”
alin23 · recommendation · first hand use
Direct HN comment
Linux-based desktop inspired by BeOS and Haiku; recommended for its lightweight, pleasing interface.
Source discussion: BeBox is a Haiku application that emulates Be Inc.'s BeBox
“Pretty light on resource and the Be / Haiku GUI feels so good.”
thisislife2 · recommendation
Direct HN comment
Doom source port with fast software rendering; recommended as an SDL3 codebase to study.
Source discussion: I love software rendering
“I really admire Woof[1] sourceport of DOOM and how it can achieve high fps at modern resolutions using software rendering (Sure, there are still GPU apis at work behind the scenes managing swapchain and all but rendering logic is still software). Also it's worth checking out for anybody who wants to see a good SDL3 codebase.”
jiffygist · recommendation
Direct HN comment
Plan 9 fork for systems experiments; a user enjoyed surprisingly fast software-rendered Quake 2.
Source discussion: I love software rendering
“I recently got to try out Quake 2 on 9front, a Plan 9 fork, which ran surprisingly fast on my very, very modest Thinkpad T410i with a 2.4 GHz dual core i3 at 1440x900. Plan 9 has no GPU support so all rendering is software. Even had a little lan party with other devs. I really enjoyed the software rendering, it bought back early memories of playing Q2 before we bought our Voodoo2.”
MisterTea · recommendation · first hand use
Direct HN comment
AV1-based image format; a production user enthusiastically endorses it and shares FFmpeg encoding settings.
Source discussion: JPEG XL vs. AVIF for web use-cases
“AVIF is fantastic format and I use it in my production applications.”
Metricon · recommendation · production use
Direct HN comment
Experimental programming language encoded in directory trees; admired for its gloriously impractical creativity.
Source discussion: The Folders Programming Language
“This is so nuts and pointless... I love it!”
nunodonato · recommendation
Direct HN comment
Paul Erdkamp's study of Roman grain markets; recommended for understanding ancient economies on their own terms.
Source discussion: The Economic Complexity of the Western Roman Empire
“If this is your vibe, Erdkamp’s The Grain Market in the Roman Empire is worth a read. It’s easy to project modern markets onto ancient empires.”
JumpCrisscross · recommendation
Direct HN comment
Brian Moriarty's lecture on hidden meaning and puzzles, featured in The Witness.
Source discussion: '500-hour' Order of the Sinking Star is as complex and exhausting as it sounds
“I realized there was a puzzle about halfway through the movie. But there is no way I'm spending another 56min just to complete the challenge. It's a good movie, though.”
1una · recommendation · first hand use
Direct HN comment
Satirical SIGBOVIK paper testing whether OCR-transcribed paint splatters parse as valid Perl.
Source discussion: Yet another way to invoke functions without parentheses
“There's always this amazing paper:”
marcosdumay · recommendation
Direct HN comment