MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by paulryanrogers | 2025-04-26 12:57:20+00:00
Having talked to folks from the segregation era, you may be thinking of red-lining and white flight. As folks realized cities and schools were desegregating many moved out of urban environments to suburbs and rural areas, then excluded POC through zoning.

Even if we accept that as the primary cause (which I don't) that would mean cowardice and racism are the root cause. An irrational fear of people who don't look and talk like us.
by Spooky23 | 2025-04-26 12:58:09+00:00
Sure, but I’d more worried that the founders and management seem like they are short. The CEO left, announced a big stock sale, cancelled it, then dumped a bunch coincidentally when the CFO left (but before disclosure). Then the company hired an MLM CFO.

Oh, and the finance employees refused to sign off on the books and a few are suing the company.

It sucks, but Backblaze is cooked.
by sylens | 2025-04-26 12:58:38+00:00
I wonder how much the polarization of politics contributes to this. I have friends on opposite sides of the political spectrum than me, but were able to basically segment off that area of discussion to enjoy each others company in other areas. It may be because we go back 20+ years with many shared experiences. I would guess many friendships do not have that level of bedrock to ground them, so developments like the recent political climate can easily uproot them
by yellowapple | 2025-04-26 12:58:44+00:00
Re: the relay, that depends on your needs. My impression from these sorts of "run a relay on an RPi" projects is that they're only dealing with a subset of the full firehose Bluesky's relay has to deal with - be it a shorter timeline (as you mention) or only concerning themselves with specific accounts (like the relay operator's own "following" feed, in the case of someone running a personal relay) or what have you. Pretty sure even Bluesky's relay doesn't try to drink from the whole firehose (or if it does, it's tolerant of "dribbling" so to speak; I recall a Bluesky dev blog post about how temporarily dropping posts from users' feeds is acceptable if the relay can't keep up).

Re: write traffic, my understanding is that the appviews shift most (if not all) of that burden to the PDSes, no?
by roenxi | 2025-04-26 12:59:00+00:00
> It's mere cynicism to argue that the BBC must exist for propaganda purposes simply because the British government (very indirectly) pays for it.

So what's your complaint about RT? Because I'm seeing arguments here that suggest if it were subject to public scrutiny it isn't propaganda, if factions of the Russian government want to shut it down it isn't propaganda, if it says something critical of the Russian government it isn't propaganda. If it is funded by the Russians it isn't necessarily propaganda.

None of those arguments in defence of the BBC really get to the root of the issues, RT could sit on any pole of all those observations and it'd still be Russian propaganda. We don't need any of those details on how the sausage is being made. The issue is that the reason it exists is to push the Overton window in directions that are favourable to the state known as Russia - and the BBC serves the same purpose for Britain and hits the same triggers as RT for identifying propaganda.

> Contrary to what you suggest, the government of the day cannot simply direct the BBC's editorial output or defund the BBC if it displeases them.

I never put either of those things. They are both obviously untrue.
by intended | 2025-04-26 12:59:09+00:00
You may believe your position is: > should indeed be presented clearly. Exactly because I know some organisations like to shield themself from criticism, by having a intransparent process

but

> Because it is extremely hard to figure out what is going on. Lots of mysterious abbreviations. Unclear timeline.

> But in a real court, I can see the verdict and the laws that were broken. All in complicated, but readable english. Which makes it clear (usually). But in wikipedia to understand a indefinite ban, I have to understand global wiki community dynamics first?

your position aligns with someone who desires decision with serious consequences to be easy to understand.
by mrcwinn | 2025-04-26 12:59:43+00:00
I understand this case is about Facebook and not Instagram, but these quotes might offer another perspective.

>they appear to be reaching critical mass as a place you go to share photos

>[Instagram could] copy what we’re doing now … I view this as a big strategic risk for us if we don’t completely own the photos space.

In a way, this is effectively saying that Instagram could itself become a monopoly (or put differently, come to monopolize). Right? Isn't that what Meta fears?

It makes me wonder if, at least in the case of social networks, there's a natural tendency toward monopolization. In other words, is there not LESS utility to the consumer if we have a bunch of small, competitive social networks duking it out?

I'm not here to excuse Meta and certainly this is the case for federation. I guess I'm left wondering, what exactly was Meta supposed to do?
by mattfrommars | 2025-04-26 13:01:20+00:00
How do people go from web dev/gradle/java knowledge to build something like this.

For me, sometimes I wonder since I never did CS undergrad, I will never understand any of this no matter how many programming langauge I learn. I did dabble a bit with OPENLY, LIBGDX, GODOT, unity but to come to with cloth simulation from scratch, damn
by EvanAnderson | 2025-04-26 13:01:31+00:00
> A decade lifespan for a device that gives me metrics on my climate control and lets me tune it from my phone is pretty solid in my book.

That's the attitude I take issue with. The device should work as it did at the time of purchase in perpetuity. If it can't, because of the architecture of the product (i.e. needs third party servers on the Internet) it shouldn't be marketed as being sold, but rather rented.

Acceptance that products we buy will just stop working (or, in the case of this product, losing significant functionality) is only encouraging companies to ratchet down lifetimes and hurt consumers more.
by mschuster91 | 2025-04-26 13:02:43+00:00
> But if you buy a Nest, you're buying a network-connected device. A decade replacement cycle for network-connected computing devices is not crazy.

It should be, though. Okay, I get spare parts not being available after 10 years, particularly the "smart" chips simply don't get produced any more. But firmware and API support? How fucking hard can it be for a company raking in 90 fucking billion dollars in a single quarter of a year to keep a dozen people on payroll to keep the old servers, APIs and build tooling for the firmware up to date?!

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-stock-rises-after-it-b...
by zkmon | 2025-04-26 13:03:03+00:00
Back in the day, more children meant more wealth and prosperity for the family. More friends meant more support, bigger communities were stronger against others. It was need based, as they have a need to support and survive by themselves.

The nation concept now drains out the need and viability of communities, families and friendships. It's like a whale swallowing animals. Animals can no longer keep their own structure and identity once they are inside the whale. They will be disintegrated into individual molecules and become citizens of the whale. Nations do the same. The existence and strength of a nation requires disintegration of internal structures and autonomous bodies. Communities, families and friendships all go against the individualistic nation concept. The best citizens are individual workers with no connections and no opinions and maybe no gender.
by sgc | 2025-04-26 13:03:18+00:00
> Capital is allocated to where it makes most profits

We have worked ourselves into this frenzy over the past several hundred years, but especially over the past 25. We even describe it like you did, as an axiom or a law. But human action is people doing things, and modern economics masks unbridled greed as rules of 'science'.

It is enough to make a good living doing something worthwhile. There is no need to constantly seek highest returns. Nobility in action is possible. Capital does nothing, people do things with capital. Better choices are possible. All is not lost.

And of course, roughly 30% of all modern work-related activity is government. That part of our societal activity should be focused on creating guide rails to make sure that people do not pursue modern economic theory in the real world, but actually work to do good things.
by chaoskanzlerin | 2025-04-26 13:04:10+00:00
Over 180 million users in fantasy betting. Regular gambling has up to 370 million users during major tournaments. Truly harrowing numbers, considering India has about 1.1 billion adults...

Here in mainland Europe, it's hard to find a street in a city that doesn't have (fantasy) sports gambling establishments. The demographics here are mostly working-class immigrants, some unemployed people too. Pacifying the masses, I suppose.

A few articles for further reading:

https://restofworld.org/2022/fantasy-sports-apps-are-driving... https://www.dw.com/en/india-addicted-to-online-betting-and-f... https://restofworld.org/2024/philippines-gcash-online-gambli...
by Tycho | 2025-04-26 13:04:56+00:00
Consider the illegal immigration question. Tens of millions of people are in the country, knowingly in violation of the law. Many foreign criminal gangs are operating in the country. Yet the federal government was prevented from even constructing a simple wall to stop the situation getting worse. Not only that, but other authorities in the country are even declaring “sanctuary cities”, openly contravening the efforts of federal law enforcement. Latest thing we hear is district judges harbouring illegal immigrant gang members in their home. We are at a point of complete absurdity. So, yes, invoking the “Alien Enemies” act is quite reasonable, given the circumstances. We are not starting from a point of normality.
by gosub100 | 2025-04-26 13:05:18+00:00
it's not that difficult. in javascript, you represent each point in (x,y,z), give it a mass, and every frame apply gravity, maybe with some noise added. every time the particle tries to move, you use trigonometry to transmit the forces through the edges to the other points + some damping amount so it doesn't runaway. the mass determines how much each point is affected by subsequent forces.

If you aren't ready for it in 3d, do it in 2d.
by frob | 2025-04-26 13:06:21+00:00
Hi Tom.

You're burning your credibility here fast as the new moderator. dang derived his respect as an admin from not getting into fights in the threads. It additonaly tarnishes your credibility as you're doing this in defense of your employer. You look like a rage-poster who has the same response copied and ready to go from thread to thread.

Please take a moment to step back and examine if this is the image you want to be projecting as the official representative of YC and HN.
by kevincox | 2025-04-26 13:06:41+00:00
"lose support" Is such euphemistic phrasing.

Firstly "lose" is passive. Google is ending support.

But most importantly "support" sounds like they just won't be fixing bugs and security problems. What is really happening is that Google is disabling all online functionality.

"Google is shutting down all online functionality for 1st and 2nd gen Nest thermostats in Oct 2025" would be a much clearer headline.
by firesteelrain | 2025-04-26 13:06:57+00:00
Few years ago I had a Nest thermostat and Google did an update. It bricked my thermostat. I had to go buy a newer model from Home Depot that was unplanned. I called their help desk and they said no way that the device was bricked but I was able to prove that an update was pushed out that likely was the culprit.

Then, years later there was the push to move people to the Google Home app from the Nest app. I still have both. But Nest was better before Google bought them. I had better customer service when I called them for help wiring my thermostat.
by constantcrying | 2025-04-26 13:07:13+00:00
But why is lying so common in science?

Incentives like these exist in basically all areas of work. Perform well and you get "job security, promotion and prestige". Yet somehow there is no decade long ongoing crisis in industry of corporations lying about their products. When these cases happens (obviously they do), corporations and individuals get punished.

How would you reform the system? More funding definitely is not the answer.
by sameasiteverwas | 2025-04-26 13:07:19+00:00
I struggled with this after a divorce. I relied on my wife to be the inviter. When I lost her, I lost my social group too because I didn't take initiative to maintain friendships.

Now I'm 40, divorced, and have an atrophied social network. Forcing myself to become an inviter is the only path out of loneliness.
by klodolph | 2025-04-26 13:07:36+00:00
I recommend worrying about any service where you don’t pay a fee that scales with usage. This includes Backblaze. Yes, I recommend worrying about Backblaze and I’ve recommended worrying about it for a while.

Storage costs money. People love to dream up creative business models where your personal storage is subsidized by some other part of the business, but I think it’s just a matter of time before the business model changes. At the end of the day, there’s a massive gravitational pull that brings everything in line with market rates. These days, I think we have a pretty good idea of what market rates are for cloud storage. Anything less than market rates should be viewed with suspicion.

From another angle, in any long-term relationship with a vendor, you want the vendor to make money. We know that major cloud vendors do, or at least close enough, because they charge the same for small customers and big ones (or close enough). None of them offer unlimited data… or at least, not any more (most of them used to, but those parts of the business always get shut down).
by luotuoshangdui | 2025-04-26 13:07:52+00:00
According to the article, a secretive Russian satellite (Cosmos 2553) in space that US officials believe is connected to a nuclear anti-satellite weapons program has appeared to be spinning uncontrollably, suggesting it may no longer be functioning. The satellite was launched by Russia weeks before invading Ukraine in 2022, and has had various bouts of what appears to be errant spinning over the past year.
by camtarn | 2025-04-26 13:08:02+00:00
In practice, when latency is small enough (on the ~1ms level, which is trivial to achieve using even pretty cheap parts) it's imperceptible.

I sometimes develop control loops for prototype systems which use a motor to emulate a combination of spring + friction damper, and even though I know that my code only runs every 1ms, it's really remarkable how much it feels like a real continuous analogue system.

Another good example is power steering, which uses a motor to remove resistance instead of add it. If I understand it correctly, it senses you applying torque to the steering column and adds proportional amounts of boost - but because it happens so fast, it just feels like the steering is magically lighter.
by Spooky23 | 2025-04-26 13:08:18+00:00
Agreed, but it’s a risk/return decision. In my city, car theft is like 80% less than it was 20 years ago. 60% of stolen cars are running in the driveway (warming up in the winter), and 20% of the cars in the peak year a few years ago were Hyundai/Kia with the egregiously bad locks.

Good enough to stop crackheads is my desire in this space. Doubling the cost of a $400 key to reduce my chances of a loss by 3% is a hard no.
by akerl_ | 2025-04-26 13:08:28+00:00
This feels like a distinction without a difference.

If all the shelves at Lowes that sell network-connected IoT thermostats said "10 year rental price" instead of "purchase price", the average non-nerd consumer wouldn't change their shopping behavior. The nerds... maybe they would? but they're the ones who already realize the impact of a device needing cloud connectivity to function.

The reality is that vendors cannot and will not offer "in perpetuity" commitments to run the cloud portion of their gear. For strategic reasons like "they want to deprecate legacy endpoints and functionality on their end" but also unintentional reasons like "the company went out of business".

Everything you buy has a lifespan. Physical objects degrade over time, objects with cloud connectivity rely on external functionality, etc. Picking between them is part of the decision making process: do you buy the cheap furniture that falls apart the first time you move? Or the more expensive furniture that lasts decades?

Should smoke detectors be listed as "rentals" because they degrade and have to be replaced?
by EvanAnderson | 2025-04-26 13:08:38+00:00
> A decade replacement cycle for network-connected computing devices is not crazy.

The crazy part is that consumers are allowing the idiotic product lifecycles from the IT industry destroy products that, otherwise, had long and predictable lifecycles. It's shocking how the IT industry is successfully conditioning people to think it's normal to throw away otherwise working gear because "upgrades". The industry should be held to account before they take any more consumer goods hostage.
by xtiansimon | 2025-04-26 13:08:59+00:00
Of course the administration was lying when it said they would only target “criminals”.

Of course it’s impossible to know who “really” is a critical mastermind. (Comic book lives) /s

Everyone should pay attention and amplify these stories of targeted non-criminal families, because the “radical left” is next. Joking/not-Joking

Here’s another family in Washington state,

“A high schooler stays back as his family, separated by deportation, returns to Guatemala”

APRIL 26, 2025 WEEKEND EDITION SATURDAY

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/26/nx-s1-5330896/a-high-schooler...
by person101x | 2025-04-26 13:09:44+00:00
Once upon a time there was an ethos that employers, which were at that time called lords, had a duty and responsibility for the good of their employees, who were called serfs or peasants, and vice versa.

While nobody is advocating a return to that particular social structure, would it not be out of the realm of possibility for a similar ethos to be cultivated among leaders and employers?
by ta12653421 | 2025-04-26 13:10:53+00:00
well, the comparison is quite far off the track:

in case of Kennedy, there is a real case with whatever information hidden for the last 50 years.

in case of UFO, well - we have some smartphone video (which are by coincidence always blurred due to pixels, even on a 8k 2025 device) and some guys claiming whatever topic.

so, regarding a possible evidence for (X), i would dig into the former, while the latter would be much more fun
by scyzoryk_xyz | 2025-04-26 13:11:20+00:00
You're correct, this has been the prevailing culture in tech. This is the playbook.

But this isn't a good excuse. Players gonna play - we want them to play to win as hard as they can. But when we have safety guardrails and boundaries like antitrust, they're not supposed to just break through them.

Was he 'taught' by Thiel is that a thing that happened?
by seltzered_ | 2025-04-26 13:11:55+00:00
Did you read my last point about "a way for Home Assistant based HVAC control setups to work with energy company savings programs where appropriate" ?

Unless you're living off-grid, I think there's still some benefit to having one of the largest energy loads (building HVAC) coordinate a bit with utilities to ensure there aren't blackouts and such. Even better if there's an approach that works with open-source solutions like Home Assistant.

Where I live staring at the grid load and available energy is a thing during heatwaves and other inclement weather, and the utility generally issues "energy rush hour" limits to smart thermostats to help ensure grid reliability. The utility also incentivizes this I think by providing a small discount on the utility bill.
by bko | 2025-04-26 13:12:19+00:00
From the article

> CZI plans to donate $50 million to the communities and families affected by the closure, the school said in its note this week.

Again, the point is no one is going to experiment if you can't wind it down.

I don't know if it's a failure but I know the 300m zuck spent in Newark schools was a huge failure and waste of money and very well documented. If it was a success they would be making a big show and not shutting it down
by kace91 | 2025-04-26 13:12:20+00:00
That is true, but real hobbies will rarely take up your micropauses - going to the bathroom, coffee break at work, commuting, waiting between sets at the gym, and so on.

You won’t do social stuff in those micropauses anyway, that’s true, but I think those moments are where you’d normally “mentally review”. Wondering how a friend is, feeling like you miss a connection, etc.

Without that, I think we mentally drift away from social connections.
by oddthink | 2025-04-26 13:12:45+00:00
I don't really get where people with kids found these 6.5 hrs / wk to spend on friendships, or even the quoted current averages of 4 hrs / wk.

On a workday, there isn't much time. I roll out of bed at 6:30, get the kids up and fed breakfast and out the door. I finally get actually working at 8:30-9:30, depending on if I exercise or not. Stop work in the 5:30-6 range, switch into making dinner, getting kids to eat dinner, policing screen time and homework. Then bedtimes and such, following up on the zillion school emails, PTA newsletters, scheduling. If I have 45 min of downtime, typically in the 10-11pm range, if I'm lucky.

On weekends, there's all the deferred housework, like cleaning and laundry. Kids have swim and sports. Visits to grandparents, from grandparents. Every now and then we have someone over for a games afternoon, or someone is visiting from out of town, but I really doubt that adds up to 4 hr / wk.
by sjml | 2025-04-26 13:13:34+00:00
Article says they're losing customers to Wasabi, but as far as I can see on a quick perusal of their website, Wasabi is just straight storage? For me, a lot of the benefit of Backblaze comes from a (mostly) good client solution that handles the automated backup. The backup history upsell is also great for someone (like me) whose travel patterns often mean going months without reliable internet.

I know I could use some open source stuff to get similar functionality, but I feel almost as nervous rolling my own backup as I would rolling my own crypto. Does Wasabi have some client solution that I'm missing?
by EvanAnderson | 2025-04-26 13:13:39+00:00
> Everything you buy has a lifespan. Physical objects degrade over time, objects with cloud connectivity rely on external functionality, etc. Picking between them is part of the decision making process...

Exactly. Consumers have no way to know, right now, if something they "buy" is truly a purchase or a rental. They can't make informed decisions without that knowledge. A technical person can tell the difference, but the average consumer cannot. That's why the distinction needs to be explicit.