Retired couple converts derelict Cotswolds church into £700k holiday home

A couple in their 70s purchased a 160-year-old dilapidated church in the Cotswolds for £175,000 and undertook a major renovation project. They invested £370,000 into the restoration, bringing the property's total value to approximately £700,000. The renovation presented significant challenges, including damp, structural issues, a failing roof, and strict conservation regulations. The finished home now offers two bedrooms, a striking suspended glass bedroom pod, and luxury bathrooms alongside restored Victorian architectural details. The project transformed a long-neglected historic building into a high-end holiday retreat.

Developer Turns Discord Bot Experiment into Full AIOps Platform AcornOps

A developer maintaining the open-source project React ChatBotify began experimenting in mid-2025 with a Discord bot that could help troubleshoot infrastructure through conversation. The idea was shelved until January 2026, when a design thinking course reignited it through discussions with a collaborator named Ning. Together, they reimagined the concept beyond a simple chatbot, asking what a self-hosted, full-fledged AIOps platform would actually require. Months of iterative design and problem-solving led to the creation of AcornOps, a platform aimed at enabling AI to safely participate in operational tasks. The project is still evolving, with the team planning to share deeper details about its architecture, decisions, and lessons in a forthcoming article.

Blue Dart takes e-commerce delivery global

Developer Dives Deep into Spring Framework During Week 9 of 100DaysOfCode

A developer participating in the #100DaysOfCode challenge dedicated Week 9 to deepening their understanding of the Spring Framework rather than building new features. The week focused on core backend concepts including Spring AOP, JDBC, Caching, Reactive Programming, and Concurrency. A key insight gained was how Spring uses Aspect-Oriented Programming and proxy patterns to apply cross-cutting concerns like caching without embedding that logic directly in business methods. The developer also explored reactive design patterns, examining why non-blocking architecture matters for building scalable, modern applications. Alongside technical learning, they continued applying for backend engineering roles and preparing for technical interviews.

Raku Programming Language Handles Infinite Sequences With Lazy Evaluation

Raku, a programming language, natively supports infinite sequences using the infinity symbol (∞) and lazy evaluation, computing values only when explicitly requested. Developers can define sequences like the Fibonacci series with a simple pattern rule and retrieve any element on demand without pre-calculating the entire list. The language also allows mapping and filtering operations on infinite sequences, such as squaring numbers or extracting prime values, using built-in methods like map and grep. A laziness check via the is-lazy method confirms that such sequences are evaluated on demand rather than upfront. This is the first part of a series exploring Raku's capabilities with infinite and lazy data structures.

₹40,000 cr Japanese bazooka puts Shriram in fast lane

BJP's Ravneet Bittu Escalates 'One Family One Ticket' Row Against Congress

A political controversy over the 'One Family One Ticket' policy has gained momentum in Punjab, with BJP leader Ravneet Bittu targeting the Congress party over the issue. The dispute has further deepened the internal tensions within the Punjab Congress, bringing the rivalry between state chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring and senior leader Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa into sharper focus. Bittu's remarks have added an inter-party dimension to what was already a contentious intra-party debate. The row centers on the practice of allotting election tickets to multiple members of the same political family, a long-standing point of contention in Indian politics.

Developer Builds Blockchain Tool to Verify Dog Walks Using GPS Hashing on Solana

A developer created 'Proof of Walk,' an app that cryptographically verifies dog walking routes using Solana's devnet blockchain. The walker's phone records a GPS route, which is hashed in the browser and committed as a signed attestation on-chain, while the raw location data never leaves the device. Pet owners can later verify the walk by comparing a locally recomputed hash against the on-chain record, making route tampering detectable. Even shifting a single GPS coordinate by roughly 11 metres produces a completely different hash, instantly flagging any alteration. The developer acknowledges the tool narrows but does not eliminate the trust gap, as it proves a device recorded a route rather than confirming a dog was actually present.

Count Batch Loader Calls, Not Response Time, to Detect GraphQL N+1 Bugs

GraphQL N+1 problems often go undetected during development because fast local machines and small datasets make even inefficient queries appear responsive. The core issue arises when a resolver is called once per item rather than once for all items together — for example, fetching ten authors in ten separate batches instead of a single batch of ten. A practical detection method involves setting up a lightweight mock GraphQL server that records the size and frequency of each batch loader call, then asserting that the largest batch equals the number of unique keys requested. If the test reveals ten calls of size one instead of one call of size ten, the N+1 is caught before the code reaches production. This approach creates a reliable regression gate that is independent of network conditions, dataset size, or subjective performance intuition.

RBI moves to distance self from bank deposit ratings

How to Use Microsoft Graph API for O365 Shared Mailbox Test Automation

Testing email workflows such as OTP verification and password resets is essential for end-to-end automation, but traditional methods like UI logins and IMAP basic authentication are unreliable or deprecated in Microsoft 365. A more robust approach involves using the Microsoft Graph API with a Client Credentials flow, which allows programmatic mailbox access without triggering multi-factor authentication. Developers must register an app in Azure's Entra ID portal, configure the appropriate Mail.ReadWrite and Mail.Send permissions, and securely store credentials as environment variables in their CI/CD pipeline. Once authenticated, the API enables direct REST calls to read or send emails from a shared mailbox in milliseconds, eliminating the flakiness associated with browser-based Outlook automation. As a security measure, access can be scoped to a specific mailbox using an ApplicationAccessPolicy in Exchange Online PowerShell.

In pvt healthcare's rise, price points are a big pain

US: New cholesterol guidelines urge earlier action

Developer Builds Chrome Extension Statly to Rank Social Media Content Performance

A developer has created Statly, a Chrome extension designed to analyze content performance across Instagram, TikTok, and X without requiring login credentials. The tool generates ranked reports of top-performing posts for any public profile, aiming to fill a gap left by analytics platforms that only surface high-level metrics. Statly is built using Vanilla JavaScript with Chrome Extension API V3 on the frontend and Node.js on the backend, with payments handled via Lemon Squeezy. It is intended for creators and developers who want to study viral content formats and audit competitor growth directly from their browser. The extension is publicly available at trystatly.com, and the developer is actively seeking user feedback and feature requests.

Noida delivery agent killed by banned Chinese manjha while riding at 80kmph

A delivery agent in Noida lost his life after a Chinese manjha string sliced through his throat while he was riding on the expressway at high speed. The synthetic kite string caused severe bleeding that proved fatal. Police have made multiple arrests in connection with the illegal sale of the banned material. Authorities have launched inspections of kite shops in the area to curb its distribution. The incident has reignited concerns about the continued illegal trade of the hazardous string despite an existing ban.

Models Are Getting Dumber on Purpose

Article URL: https://w4g1.dev/blog/models-are-getting-dumber-on-purpose Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49322695 Points: 21 # Comments: 0

Software Engineer Warns Developers Against Over-Delegating Thinking to AI Tools

Zach, a software engineer with over seven years of experience, has written a personal account describing how his reliance on AI tools gradually expanded from simple idea validation to full code generation, system design, and content creation. He argues that excessive AI delegation has created a specific form of cognitive laziness, where developers lose genuine understanding of the systems they build. He highlights a real-world consequence: being unable to answer basic design questions from colleagues because AI agents, not the developer, made the key decisions. Zach also identifies 'agent FOMO' as a growing distraction, where the urge to monitor multiple running AI agents competes with focused, present thinking. His essay is a call for developers to reclaim active involvement in writing and problem-solving before critical thinking skills erode further.

Malls put eateries under scrutiny amid crackdown

Why one developer builds audit trails into AI workflows before trusting automation

A developer writing for DEV Community argues that observability — not prompt quality or output — should be the first thing engineers trust in AI workflows. They propose a structured logging contract that captures key fields such as workflow name, execution surface, risk level, human approval status, decision made, and estimated cost. The approach addresses common operational failures like invisible cost growth, scattered logs, and the inability to trace how context led to an automated action. A key insight is that human review outcomes — whether a suggestion was approved, edited, or rejected — are the most valuable signals for turning logs into an evaluation loop. The author also recommends routing trace payloads through an internal bridge rather than embedding observability credentials directly in workflow files, to reduce secret sprawl.

BJP revamp nears completion, wider churn likely