9.17.26 | Nvidia announces native GPU programming in Rust, training a 4B model for faster query plans than Postgres, small programming tricks

This is a recap of the top 10 posts on Hacker News on Sep 17, 2026.

Feel free to leave feedback on Github: https://github.com/denolfe/hacker-news-highlights

• (00:00) - Intro
• (00:18) - Nvidia announces native GPU programming in Rust
• (01:39) - Training a 4B model to produce 81% faster query plans than Postgres
• (03:08) - Small programming tricks
• (04:18) - Xiaomi Mimo 2.6 live post-training dashboard
• (05:34) - AWS says it can't restore some data from mideast facilities struck by Iran
• (07:10) - Performance Improvements in .NET 11
• (08:13) - Backups Aren't Simple
• (09:16) - Reversing Factorio's RNG
• (10:50) - The engineering behind the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve
• (11:57) - Breaking the 1.58-bit Barrier for Ternary LLMs
• (13:09) - Outro

Nvidia announces native GPU programming in Rust
https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/introducing-cuda-rust-two-tracks-for-writing-gpu-kernels/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49724881

Training a 4B model to produce 81% faster query plans than Postgres
https://rohanbansal.com/qorl
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49731285

Small programming tricks
https://will-keleher.com/posts/small-programming-tricks-matter/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49729000

Xiaomi Mimo 2.6 live post-training dashboard
https://mimo.xiaomi.com/rl/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49732270

AWS says it can't restore some data from mideast facilities struck by Iran
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/aws-says-it-cant-restore-some-data-from-mideast-facilities-struck-by-iran-ddcb7e5d
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49719249

Performance Improvements in .NET 11
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance-improvements-in-net-11/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49711424

Backups Aren't Simple
https://filipovski.net/2026/09/16/backups-arent-simple.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49732513

Reversing Factorio's RNG
https://gegell.github.io/posts/factorio-rng/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49674451

The engineering behind the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve
https://johnjwang.com/post/2026/09/15/engineering-behind-us-strategic-petroleum-reserve
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49719596

Breaking the 1.58-bit Barrier for Ternary LLMs
https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.16338
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49732931