World

US-Israel War on Iran & Middle East

• Middle East war creating ‘largest supply disruption in the history of oil markets’ (The Guardian) | Economist — Oil above $100/barrel as the Hormuz closure chokes global supply. G7 agrees to a record release of emergency reserves; Asia scrambles with fuel caps and four-day work weeks. Trump shrugs off gas prices, claiming the US benefits from high oil. Russia earns an extra €6 billion in fossil fuel revenue from the price surge. Pentagon reportedly told senators the war cost $11.3bn in its first week. (Also covered in Norway, Tech)

• Iran vows to fight on in first message issued in name of Mojtaba Khamenei (The Guardian) | Al Jazeera — First statement from Iran’s new supreme leader: Hormuz stays closed, attacks on US bases will continue, all US bases in the region should close or face strikes. US intelligence assesses the Iranian government is not at risk of collapse.

• Outdated intel likely led US to carry out deadly strike on Iranian school (AP News) — At least 165 killed including children. Democrats have written to Hegseth demanding answers on US involvement. Separately, reports that Trump ditched plans to avoid civilian casualties before the strikes.

• Israel strikes Beirut and orders south Lebanon evacuation as conflict mounts (The Guardian) — Israel issued sweeping displacement orders reaching 25 miles from the border and struck central Beirut, killing at least 8 at a beachfront. Iran and Hezbollah confirm coordinated retaliatory strikes on Israeli military bases. Nearly 700 killed in Lebanon since the escalation began.

• Up to 3.2 million displaced across Iran amid US-Israeli attacks: UN (Al Jazeera) — UNHCR says forced displacement likely to increase as strikes continue. Explosions heard for a 13th consecutive day across Iran, Israel, and several Middle Eastern states.

• Dismay as ancient heritage sites across Iran damaged in US-Israel bombing (The Guardian) — Golestan Palace (UNESCO World Heritage Site) in Tehran and a palace in Isfahan damaged despite Unesco sending coordinates. Isfahan’s governor calls it a “declaration of war on a civilisation.”

• Iran appears to have conducted a significant cyberattack against a US company (NBC News) — First major cyberattack since the war started, opening a new front in the conflict.

Rest of the World

• China approves ‘ethnic unity’ law requiring minorities to learn Mandarin (BBC) | The Guardian — Schools must use Mandarin by default from before kindergarten through high school, taking priority over Tibetan, Uyghur, and Mongolian. Passed at the close of this year’s NPC, where the Economist notes China’s hereditary elite is taking shape.

• Unexplained Moscow internet blackouts spark fears of web censorship plan (The Guardian) — Muscovites turning to walkie-talkies and pagers as the Kremlin tests new “whitelist” restrictions and pushes people to state-owned apps.

• Three brothers arrested after explosion at US embassy in Oslo (BBC) — Norwegian police investigating whether a foreign state actor was involved. (Also covered in Norway)

• FBI reports ‘active shooter situation’ at Detroit-area synagogue (Al Jazeera) — Driver crashed vehicle into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, and shots were fired. (On the same day, armed police responded to the Trondheim synagogue — see Norway)

• Rapper-politician Balendra Shah’s party wins Nepal election (BBC) — The Rastriya Swatatantra Party won a large majority in an election dominated by anti-corruption sentiment, marking a generational shift in Nepali politics.

• ‘Invasive’ AI-led mass surveillance in Africa violating freedoms, warn experts (The Guardian) — Countries across the continent have spent more than $2bn on Chinese tracking technology found to be neither “necessary nor proportionate.”

• El Salvador’s mass arrest policy may have led to crimes against humanity, study shows (The Guardian) — Legal experts document murder, torture, and disappearances under Bukele’s policy that locked up 1.4% of the population.

• El Niño is set to take hold this summer, driving up global temperatures (NPR) — A potentially strong El Niño will likely emerge this summer and persist through the year.

cd ~/repos/ratatosk && claude --resume 22f02e9e-36c8-41bb-b4b0-ad05af927d7b

Ukraine

Ukrainian counterattacks are reshaping the battlefield in several directions. In the south, forces have nearly liberated all Dnipropetrovsk Oblast territory seized during Russia’s Oleksandrivka offensive — geolocated footage indicates Novohryhorivka has likely been recaptured — and the Hulyaipole front is now one of the hottest axes, with 18 engagements recorded since morning. Near Kupyansk, Ukrainian forces advanced north of Kivsharivka, and Russian command is reportedly redeploying units from Vovchansk to reinforce the sector. Critically, these southern and eastern counterattacks are pulling Russian resources away from Pokrovsk: Ukrainian commanders report a measurable drop in glide bomb strikes there, and Russian elements have been redeployed from the Pokrovsk direction.

On the strike front, the Storm Shadow hit on the Kremniy El microchip factory in Bryansk — Russia’s second-largest military chip producer — drew furious milblogger backlash over failed air defenses, while the Unmanned Systems Forces report destroying 19 Russian air defense systems in 12 days across occupied Zaporizhia, Luhansk, and Kherson oblasts. Ukraine also struck a major oil hub at Tikhoretsk in Krasnodar Krai, chemical plants in Samara and Perm oblasts, and an S-400 radar in Sevastopol. Russian forces launched 99 drones overnight, 90 of which were downed.

The Kremlin is signaling an expansion of its war aims: Peskov declared the 2022 Istanbul proposals no longer reflect “changed reality,” with senior officials amplifying the message — effectively discarding even Russia’s own prior negotiating framework. Putin envoy Ushakov met Witkoff and Kushner and claimed the US now understands the “destructive nature” of oil sanctions on Russia, though the G7 separately ruled out easing sanctions. Former US envoy Kellogg said Putin will not end the war until he faces failure, estimating Russian casualties at 1.2–1.4 million. The UN concluded Russia’s deportation of Ukrainian children amounts to a crime against humanity.

cd ~/repos/ratatosk && claude --resume 27eb626a-7438-48e9-9f35-413a35599460

Norway

The Iran crisis is reshaping Norway’s immediate economic outlook. The Sjøfartsdirektoratet has banned Norwegian-flagged ships from entering the Hormuz Strait after attacks on civilian vessels, and IEA calls the Gulf disruption the largest oil supply interruption in history — Gulf state production is down over ten million barrels per day. Oil crossed $100 again, pushing Oslo Børs up over 1% on the back of Equinor gains, but Wall Street fell on inflation fears. IEA released 400 million barrels from strategic reserves; analysts warn $150–200 is not impossible if the situation persists. Statsminister Støre says the war is at a tipping point and is considering expanding Norway’s fuel reserves, while Frp wants to open new areas for oil exploration — a move Støre rejected.

On a separate front, the Trump administration opened a Section 301 trade investigation against Norway and 15 other countries, accusing Norway of currency manipulation by channeling oil revenues into foreign currency through the sovereign wealth fund. A 10% tariff is already in effect through July; hearings are set for May. NHO warns of increased uncertainty, while Trade Minister Myrseth says there is “no basis” for the investigation.

Security tensions are elevated domestically. Armed police responded to suspicious activity at the Trondheim synagogue — one person was arrested — on the same day a car rammed a synagogue in Michigan. The Jewish community in Trondheim had already raised its security level after the US embassy bombing in Oslo on March 8. In that case, the third of three arrested brothers (Norwegian citizens of Iraqi origin) was interrogated Thursday; one has confessed to placing the bomb. Detention hearings are expected Friday. Separately, the man wanted after the Skien shootings Sunday turned himself in.

Det Norske Jentekor’s board voted to end Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s patronage over her contact with Jeffrey Epstein — the fourth Norwegian organization to do so. The Crown Princess, who met Epstein multiple times between 2011–2013 and has acknowledged “dårlig dømmekraft,” has not addressed the matter further, citing health issues ahead of a lung transplant.

Rough weather is hitting much of the country. A storm brought warnings across western and central Norway: Bergensbanen is closed after a landslide at Trengereid, signal failures disrupted trains around Oslo, and nearly 50,000 customers on Sunnmøre briefly lost power when both of Statnett’s main transformers failed simultaneously — an event that happens only once every several years.

cd ~/repos/ratatosk && claude --resume 732c2933-56a5-462f-a90f-8f69f8ab10f1

Norway — Street Level

A jittery day. The synagogue incident in Trondheim landed on top of the US Embassy device earlier this week, and Norwegians are noticing the pattern. The security mood is tense but measured; comments lean toward “we have armed guards at synagogues already” rather than panic.

Beyond security, the economic squeeze dominates. Students can’t get electricity support for their housing. Fuel prices spark a viral tip about checking road webcams instead of using the now-paywalled fuel price app — the thread doubles as a collective vent about enshittification, with users proposing a “worst enshittified app of the year” award. The bistand debate is running hot across multiple threads, with a populist framing gaining traction: why is Norway the world’s most generous donor when domestic services are under strain?

cd ~/repos/ratatosk && claude --resume 6357e34a-e3d5-48f4-81ed-8eeabf1fde42

Tech

• Temporal: The 9-Year Journey to Fix Time in JavaScript | Lobsters — Temporal has reached Stage 4 and is part of ES2026. Immutable date/time types with nanosecond precision, proper timezone/DST handling, multi-calendar support. Now shipping in Firefox 139+, Chrome 144+, Node 26+. Notable: multiple browser engines collaborated on temporal_rs, a shared Rust implementation passing all 4,500 spec tests.

• Parametricity, or Comptime is Bonkers | Lobsters — Argues that Zig’s comptime conflates staging and generic programming, sacrificing parametricity. A function with comptime T: type can silently branch on the type, so the signature tells you nothing about behavior. Rust’s trait system achieves specialization while preserving parametricity through explicit constraints.

• Secure Communication, Buried In A News App | Lobsters — The Guardian built CoverDrop: the news app constantly sends small encrypted packets (mostly meaningless cover traffic), and real tip-offs from sources are indistinguishable from the noise. Solves the metadata problem — hiding whether you’re communicating at all. Open source.

• //go:fix inline and the source-level inliner | Lobsters — Go 1.26 introduces a source-level inliner via //go:fix inline directives. Package authors annotate deprecated functions; go fix rewrites all call sites. Already used to prepare 18,000+ changelists in Google’s monorepo.

• Lf-lean: The frontier of verified software engineering | HN — Translated all 1,276 theorem statements from Logical Foundations (Rocq to Lean) with ~2 person-days of effort vs. an estimated 2.75 person-years manually — a 350x speedup. The key: “task-level specification generators” that define correctness once per task class, scaling human oversight from O(n) to O(1).

• Codespeak: Kotlin creator’s new language for talking to LLMs | HN — A specification language that compiles through LLMs into Python, Go, JS, or TypeScript — claiming 5-10x codebase reduction. HN reception is skeptical: models aren’t deterministic, specs drift from implementations. One interesting point: converting spec diffs to code diffs may be more stable than full regeneration.

• Understudy: Teach a desktop agent by demonstrating a task once | HN — Local-first desktop agent combining GUI automation, browser control, shell access, and messaging across 8 platforms. Extracts intent rather than recording coordinates, so skills survive UI changes. Progressive autonomy model — five stages from basic operation to proactive behavior.

• Gabagool: A fully snapshotable Wasm interpreter | Lobsters — Wasm interpreter in Rust where the entire execution state can be serialized, suspended, and resumed in a fresh process. Enables computation migration, checkpointing, and process forking. 96% of spec tests passing. Designed around serializability from the ground up.

• Reversing memory loss via gut-brain communication | HN — Stanford found that aging shifts gut bacteria composition, triggering inflammation that inhibits vagus nerve activity and impairs hippocampus function. Stimulating the vagus nerve in old mice restored cognitive performance to young-mouse levels. Mouse study; HN notes contradictions with existing literature on the same bacterium — but the mechanism is compelling.

• Faster asin() Was Hiding In Plain Sight | Lobsters — After building custom approximants, an LLM pointed the author to Nvidia’s 2012 Cg Toolkit documentation — a branchless polynomial evaluation 1.5–1.9x faster on Intel. The real lesson: research existing solutions before inventing your own.

• The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved | HN — Thought experiment: what if IPv4 had been extended to 128-bit addresses instead of replaced by IPv6? Uses the alternate history to argue that while IPv6’s clean-slate approach created deployment friction, it fixes deeper architectural problems.

• Lobsters interview with ngoldbaum | Lobsters — Interview with the developer leading Python’s free-threading (no-GIL) effort. Discusses moving the ecosystem to free-threaded builds, burnout in open-source, and why he prefers PRs that delete 1,000 lines. Also touches on Jujutsu.

cd ~/repos/ratatosk && claude --resume 4794df94-c9b2-4873-a77c-b866953a3974

Linux & Infrastructure

NixOS

• Ported NixOS to the Radxa Rock Pi S (newest kernel) — Fully automated flake generating a bootable SD card image, running kernel 6.18.16 instead of vendor 4.4/5.10. Built as a Wi-Fi gateway for a 3D printer homelab, working toward upstream nixpkgs integration.

• Reproducible NixOS deployment system for a 30-PC school lab — A teacher built a zero-internet NixOS deployment for 30 student PCs. Controller runs Harmonia (local binary cache) and PXE boots all clients over LAN. Student home directories reset on each boot. Uses Colmena for orchestrated rebuilds and Veyon for classroom monitoring.

• Full Time Nix — Nix Freaks 21 — Podcast covering nixos-facter for hardware detection, sandboxed dev shells (GSoC project), parallel evaluation, WebAssembly in nix-lang, Flack (web router via Nix Rust API), FPGA workflows, and the REPRO-HPC Workshop at ISC Hamburg.

Hyprland

• Sunshine Virtual Displays on Hyprland — Detailed guide for game streaming via Moonlight. Creates a headless virtual monitor matching client resolution, disables the physical display during streaming, restores on disconnect.

• ANyA — local voice launcher for Hyprland — Fully local voice launcher using Whisper for STT and Picovoice for wake word detection. Opens apps, runs commands, launches websites by voice. Not compositor-specific despite the Hyprland focus.

CLI Tools

• agentwatch — flight recorder for Claude Code sessions — Logs every tool invocation to JSONL via hooks. Commands: danger (flags risky actions), hotspots (most-modified files), live (tail -f), report (weekly summary). Optional web dashboard.

• claude-duet — share a Claude Code session between two terminals — Real-time collaborative sessions over WebRTC with NaCl E2E encryption. @claude prefixed messages go to the AI; regular messages stay between participants. Host can review partner prompts before execution.

• Matchmaker 0.0.14 — FZF reboot in Rust — SIMD-accelerated fuzzy matcher with typo tolerance. ~1.7x faster than Nucleo, ~2.1x faster than FZF. Work-stealing multithreading with near-linear core scaling. Author also built f:ist, a lighter yazi alternative.

Home Automation

• Voice Satellite Card — Registers any browser as a proper assist_satellite in Home Assistant. On-device wake word detection via microWakeWord/TFLite WASM, multi-turn conversations, visual timers, six skins. Optional LLM tools for image search, weather, etc.

• Home Assistant Version Control v1.2 — Git-based version control add-on with purpose-built UI. v1.2 adds custom folder tracking, selective .storage whitelisting, SSH key persistence, configurable commit retention, and resizable diff panels.

• Avoid Zigbee groups — they jam traffic — Experience report: broadcast storms, coordinator crashes, devices silently dropping groups. Binding remotes directly to devices still works well; better to control individual devices sequentially with short delays.

Self-Hosted

• NovaSCM — Open-source alternative to SCCM for zero-touch Windows deployment. WPF console, Flask API, cross-platform agents. Device discovery, deployment workflows, PXE/USB installs, 802.1X certificate management.

• Galaxy S10 as a self-hosted server — Running Ubuntu 24.04 natively on an old Galaxy S10 — not chroot, not proot — with kernel modifications for full namespace and cgroup support. Runs Jellyfin, Samba, and Tailscale at system level.

cd ~/repos/ratatosk && claude --resume 678a6418-668a-41ab-998d-5fa504792a67