Astral Joins OpenAI in Blockbuster Python Tooling Acquisition, Google Locks Down Android Sideloading, and Tiny TTS Models That Run on a Raspberry Pi

Kai and Maya cover the top stories from Hacker News for Thursday, March 19, 2026: - Astral, creator of uv and ruff, joins OpenAI in a blockbuster acquisition that sparks centralization fears across the Python ecosystem - Google adds a 24-hour cooling-off period for sideloading unverified Android apps, fueling walled-garden concerns - KittenTTS launches three new open-source TTS models with the smallest under 25MB, capable of running on a Raspberry Pi - A deep dive into Return of the Obra Dinn's spherical mapped dithering technique for stable 1-bit 3D rendering - The Iroh team launches noq, a new Rust QUIC implementation with multipath support, praised for respectful open-source fork etiquette - Cockpit, the web-based Linux server GUI, reignites the eternal CLI vs GUI debate