2026-09-02 Discoveries

I trained a small transformer in 1.5hrs and it beats many LLMs

Movie Scene Map – 13,312 films, series, games, anime and manga

A free interactive map of real filming locations, built from Wikidata, plus the real places video games are set in. Search a title to see where it was shot, or a place to see what was made there.

Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1

Our most advanced models for coding and knowledge work. Their research capabilities also offer an early glimpse of how AI models will contribute to scientific progress.

How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?

The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

I was poking around in my ~/.cache/ folder using OmniDiskSweeper when I spotted something interesting. The OpenAI Codex desktop app (since rebranded to just ChatGPT) has 1.7GB of stuff in …

The efficient frontier of LLM inference

Inference techniques either move a deployment along the latency–throughput frontier or push the entire frontier out, creating more efficiency to allocate.

Pi-Sky flight-tracking dashboard

Build a local flight-tracking dashboard on Raspberry Pi with live maps, history, and replay.

Building An Airsoft Claymore Mine

The Claymore mine is a rather fearsome weapon of war, using explosives to blast a cone of shrapnel towards advancing enemies. It’s not really something you should try and build …

How Phone Addiction Keeps You from Achieving a Productive “Flow State”

If you have an iPhone, try pushing its side button three times in a row. Just like magic, the screen should turn from color into black-and-white, or rather grayscale. (To do the same on an Android phone, you’ll have to dive into settings, then “accessibility,” “vision enhancements,” and “color…

The latest AI news we announced in August 2026

Here are Google’s latest AI updates from August 2026

New Heart Attack Definitions Could Lead to Better Care for Women

Uncommon heart attack causes disproportionately affect them

How Gold Plastic Syndrome is Killing Toys and Game Consoles

In a recent video [Sqwerks] does a deep-dive into the problem of disintegrating plastic enclosures of Nintendo DS consoles. These original NDS handheld consoles have a metallic-like coating that appears …

Atlas: A World Model for Spatial Intelligence

Introducing Atlas, our new omni world model for spatial intelligence.

Milton Glaser’s 10 Rules for Life & Work: The Celebrated Designer Dispenses Wisdom…

“None of us has really the ability to understand our path until it’s over,” the celebrated graphic designer Milton Glaser mused less than a minute into the above video. The late Milton Glaser’s many contributions to pop culture—the I ❤ NY logo, the psychedelic portrait of a rainbow-haired Bob…

WaseiGo

Learn the 1,000+ Japanese words that only look like English

September Android Drop: Remember where you put things, ease motion sickness, and more

Keep track of important items, reduce motion sickness during your ride, create and edit notes right from your chat, and more.

Playful Patterns Adorn Ashley Percival’s Collections of Creatures

Ashley Percival imagines fanciful menagerie in which poodles, rotund birds, and boot-wearing insects try on a vast array of vibrant costumes. Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The…

Reactive Heat and Wind Come to VR, Thanks to Smart Plugs

Want to feel the heat of nearby fire, explosions, or radiation? Or even just the gentle warmth and breeze of a sunny day in the wasteland? If you said yes, …

Your Organs Age at Different Paces—And They’re Coordinating With Each Other

Your colon and prostate may have synchronized their watches

Launch HN: Nori Robotics (YC S26) – A low-cost humanoid robot for development

An affordable bimanual robot for home and office. Made in the US, shipping fall 2026. $1,688.

Introducing agentic video understanding with Gemini

We’re launching agentic video understanding across our latest Gemini models for improved accuracy and lower costs and token usage.

Gauth AI Course

AI courses you can watch, quiz through, and create

Twelve Centuries of Documents Illuminate Humans’ Quest for Knowledge in ‘World Unfolding’

The five-volume tome features more than 625 illustrations from The Huntington's vast collection. Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Twelve Centuries of Documents…

4 ways to tell a great story

Episode 7: Discover the 4 components of what makes a great storyteller, and the important role that stories play in audience connection. -- This is episode 7 of the animated series, “Public Speaking 101.” Ideas change everything — and…

Schizophrenia’s Cruel Roulette Wheel

Genetics and stress can combine in ways we don’t yet fully understand

ThunderPhone

Platform for building reliable AI phone agents (from 2c/min)

Watercolors by kelogsloops Traverse the Emotional Terrain of Love and Loss

For Hieu Thien Nguyen, who works as kelogsloops, death is a constant reminder, but not something to fear. Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Watercolors by kelogsloops…