Article URL: https://mceglowski.substack.com/p/the-plight-of-the-martian-farmer Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48795303 Points: 3 # Comments: 0
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A new AI tutoring system has demonstrated notable effectiveness in a Dartmouth college course, achieving an effect size between 0.71 and 1.30 standard deviations. Effect sizes in this range are generally considered large by educational research standards, suggesting meaningful improvements in student learning outcomes. The findings were presented in a paper submitted to an educational technology workshop hosted by Utrecht University in 2026. The study adds to a growing body of research exploring the potential of AI-driven tools to enhance academic performance at the university level.
PostgreSQL offers planner configuration parameters like enable_seqscan and enable_indexscan that shape how query execution plans are generated, not how already-planned queries run. A key question arises with prepared statements: do these settings take effect at PREPARE time, at EXECUTE time, or both? Testing with a simple tasks table and a partial index shows that when enable_indexscan is turned off before EXECUTE, PostgreSQL generates a new plan using a sequential scan instead of the previously chosen index scan. This means planner settings applied before EXECUTE can trigger replanning, overriding the plan cached at PREPARE time. Developers should be aware that changing planner parameters between prepare and execute can significantly alter query behavior and performance.
A recent essay published on shub.club argues that webrings remain a valuable tool for connecting independent websites and communities online. The author contends that webrings, a concept popularized in the early internet era, can help smaller sites gain visibility outside of algorithm-driven platforms. The piece suggests that modern website owners should consider joining or creating webrings to foster organic discovery and community. The argument reflects a broader conversation about reclaiming decentralized, human-curated spaces on the web.
A solo developer building an image-processing tool in public documented week 17 of their project, focusing not on new features but on SEO infrastructure. After shipping an AI background remover the previous week, they discovered the new tool's pages were orphaned — reachable via sitemap but not linked from anywhere on the site. To fix this, they replaced scattered hardcoded link lists with a single source-of-truth constant that automatically cross-links a hub page and its use-case spoke pages. The same constant also drives layout logic and populates a footer column, meaning any future spoke page requires just one line of code to be fully integrated. A React hydration error caused by invalid HTML nesting was also caught and resolved during the process.
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