8.25.26 | Europe harming makers, Xiaomi's CPU performance, MS Paint and Photos watermarking

This is a recap of the top 10 posts on Hacker News on Aug 25, 2026.

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

• (00:00) - Intro
• (00:19) - How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
• (01:58) - Xiaomi: New CPU matches Apple cores single threaded, much faster multithreaded
• (03:16) - MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID
• (04:34) - The entire city of San Francisco as a video game
• (05:42) - iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com
• (07:02) - Jabber/XMPP: 25 Years of Digital Independence
• (08:12) - Where did all the public bathrooms go?
• (09:40) - SeL4 security proofs now complete on AArch64
• (11:07) - Moon (2024)
• (12:10) - Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation
• (13:27) - Outro

How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
https://lectronz.com/u/lectronz/articles/how-europe-is-killing-makers-and-micro-entrepreneurs
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49419237

Xiaomi: New CPU matches Apple cores single threaded, much faster multithreaded
https://twitter.com/lemire/status/2091894299289874926
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49420873

MS Paint and Photos inivisibly watermark even locally generated output with GUID
https://xusheng.dev/posts/reversing/mspaint_invisible_watermark/main/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49421158

The entire city of San Francisco as a video game
https://sf.thijs.gg/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49422784

iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com
https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=1ptvdtcm
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49426564

Jabber/XMPP: 25 Years of Digital Independence
https://gultsch.de/posts/25-years-of-digital-independence/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49421536

Where did all the public bathrooms go?
https://daily.jstor.org/where-did-all-the-public-bathrooms-go/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49422800

SeL4 security proofs now complete on AArch64
https://proofcraft.systems/news-2026/#2026-08-21
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49418255

Moon (2024)
https://ciechanow.ski/moon/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49426466

Octopus intelligence may be related to never-before-seen mutation
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-are-some-octopuses-so-smart-the-answer-might-lie-in-a-never-before-seen-mutation-that-helps-them-accurately-build-proteins-180989319/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49423539