MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by PaulHoule | 2025-04-24 14:11:01+00:00
I've seen product owners who get blindsided every time by this sort of thing.

On the other hand, in some shops there is a dedicated DBA who is in charge of database schemas and possibly everything else. Before it became fashionable to create a "service layer" where people access the database (now database(s)) throw web endpoints, some organizations would put all the database access into a set of stored procedures managed by the DBA. Maybe that's extreme, but in the real world product owners come and go but the database is forever and deserves to have somebody speaking out for its interests.
by makeitdouble | 2025-04-24 14:11:05+00:00
> the idea of spending 30 years working for the same employer is mind boggling

I've never seen someone staying at a job for 10+ years explain it by loyalty.

For some it's pure habbit and no need to move on, for others it's an equilibrium and they get better benefits from staying than the money they'd get leaving.

And in so many places, the people who were staying there their whole life just loved the job. They loved what they were doing either for society or for themselves. Some actually hated their employer, but it was a price to pay to do the job (I'd expect a ton of the Publix service people to be in that bucket)
by kqr | 2025-04-24 14:11:24+00:00
What I mean is that 5 bushels of wheat purchased now and stored properly can be used just the same now as three months from now. On the other hand, at a fundamental level, 5 minutes of compute purchased now are gone forever if not used.

When a clould provider pretends to sell you five minutes of compute they are not really selling you five minutes of compute, but promising to split off five minutes of partial compute from other tenants to make room for you. It gets a little complicated...
by Workaccount2 | 2025-04-24 14:11:32+00:00
I'm a classic engineer, so lots of experience with systems and breaking down problems, but probably <150 hours programming experience over 15 years. I know how computers work and "think", but I an awful at communicating with them. Anytime I have needed to program something I gotta crash course the language for a few days.

Having LLMs like 2.5 now are total game changers. I can basically flow chart a program and have Gemini manifest it. I can break up the program into modules and keep spinning up new instances when context gets too full.

The program I am currently working on is up to ~5500 LOC, probably across 10ish 2.5 instances. It's basically an inventory and BOM management program that takes in bloated excel BOMs and inventory, and puts it in an SQLite database, and has a nice GUI. Absolutely insane how much faster SQLite is for databases than excel, lol.
by hermitcrab | 2025-04-24 14:11:45+00:00
I had a car that unlocked as soon as you walked near with the fob. I hated this feature, because you were never sure if the car (with your expensive laptop in the boot/trunk) was actually locked. I ended up giving the key to a family member and getting them to walk a distance away, so I could try the door handle and check it was actually locked.
by onion2k | 2025-04-24 14:11:46+00:00
f you're wildly successful at something with significant real world influence, why would you care so strongly about something as relatively inconsequential as a board game or a video game?

Zuck 'earning' another billion probably means nothing to him. I doubt he can even keep count. All of that sense of self-worth that people derive from their career or wealth is lost in the noise of Meta's stock price for him. But winning a board game is tangible. It's right there in front of him, as a direct result of his own actions. He can feel that.

If you couple that with him being surrounded by people who know that losing to him makes him feel good, and that Zuck is more generous when he's happy, you can see why people lose on purpose.
by dogleash | 2025-04-24 14:11:53+00:00
So what? I've worked places with lots of regulation. Part of every development job is learning the product domain. In that case devs become comfortable with reading standard/law/regulations and anticipating when software implementation might interact with the areas covered.

Sure there were people who's job was to offload as much compliance work from everyone else; by turning it into internal requirements, participating in design discussion and specializing in ensuring compliance. But trying to isolate the development team from it is just asking for micromanagers.
by smj-edison | 2025-04-24 14:11:53+00:00
> I think it’s fair to say a lot of gig workers, especially those with families, are having a very difficult time economically.

Great point. I wonder if this has to do with the current housing crisis and cost of utilities... Food has never been more affordable, in fact free with food banks and soup kitchens. But (IMHO) onerous zoning has really slowed down development and driven up prices.

Another cost is it's pretty much impossible to do anything without a smartphone and internet. I suppose libraries have free internet, but being able to get to said library is another issue.

And like you said, contract work trades flexibility for benefits, and that gets exploited by these companies.

I guess it just sucks sometimes because these issues are super hairy (shut down Uber, great, now you've just put everyone out of a job). "For every complex problem there is a solution which is clear, simple, and wrong."
by rwmj | 2025-04-24 14:12:02+00:00
Disappointed that International Reply Coupons are no longer a thing too! I used one back in the 1980s to write to the authors of the Power C compiler[1] in the US about a bug (yes, a bug report by mail). I enclosed an IRC in case they wanted to reply. They were kind enough to write back, and didn't use the IRC (but sent it back). They did however include a floppy disk with the fixed compiler, which was nice of them.

[1] Still around: http://mixsoftware.com/product/powerc.htm
by myrmidon | 2025-04-24 14:12:07+00:00
I'm not saying that you need laws to make the world better, just that some of them do.

This belongs in that category in my opinion because it is something that costs very little in absolute terms (manufacturer has to run some tests and print some numbers that they probably already had), but it makes the whole system work better because it enables people to vote with their wallet, and gets inefficient products eliminated because people can spot them before sale.

No company would advertise a "20% below average battery lifetime" without regulation like this, which is why objectively bad devices can still get sold easily on unregulated markets.
by optymizer | 2025-04-24 14:12:44+00:00
I was the TL on a Facebook app feature driven by us, the engineers, that was 100% in the category of "good for humanity and it solves a problem for billions of people". I had to fight internal org leads to launch it, because there was almost no benefit for FB.

Jane leaked the feature and put this entire 'evil Facebook' shade on it, with no real proof, just wildly false speculation based on what she thought the feature is. That's when I realized how easy it is to present anything Meta works on through the lens of "stealing people's data" and "ads bad". Oculus headsets? VR ads. Smart glasses? AR ads. Spyware. Facebook app feature? Must have some privacy issue.

I'm not saying it's not deserved, with all the scandals, just that at some point it was getting a bit ridiculous with all the "Facebook bad" articles, at least one of which I knew first-hand was complete nonsense. It did seem like news outlets were grasping at straws to write yet another article to put Facebook in a bad light.

It's low-hanging fear-mongering fruit that gets the clicks and it's hard to disprove (not that PR/Legal would let us refute anything in the first place) because the trust is broken.
by mrtksn | 2025-04-24 14:12:52+00:00
Apple, Google, Amazon, Netflix, Meta, Tesla and many more US companies operate internationally and their valuations are based on their ability to serve billions of people globally. You will have very different valuations, profits and salaries if those end up with a market of 330M people instead.

I suspect that more than %0.01 of the Americans will be impacted.
by stego-tech | 2025-04-24 14:12:53+00:00
I think we lost something important when company loyalty was thrown aside in favor of the present "every person for themselves" attitudes.

We lost long-term planning. When companies and employees both view their relationship as inherently limited to just a few years before one or the other tires of them and trades in for a new model, we lose the ability to envision a real, tangible future for the organization. We stopped building institutions meant to withstand the tests of time, and built an armada of startups solely designed to cash out as quickly as possible, sold to corporate conglomerates leaping from fad to fad without any inkling as to how everything comes together or integrates. We deluded ourselves with maths, formulas, models, spreadsheets of information demonstrating that this attitude was the most valuable approach, tacitly admitting that long-term planning and execution was so difficult that the only viable approach is making more money tomorrow than we did yesterday, and everything else will work out fine because that's someone else's job.

Not related to OP's article (which is excellent and concise, highly recommended in general), but just a personal mourning of a lost future by someone who thrives in said environments, but can't find any that exist in this world. I'm a literal dinosaur in that regard, I guess: thriving through consistent adaptation and execution on long-term strategies and plans, built for a fifty-year tenure but living in a society where gig work doesn't even last fifteen minutes.

Alas.
by rsynnott | 2025-04-24 14:12:56+00:00
Nah, definitely not exclusive to men, but you do see it more from men. I think possibly at least partially because it _is_ seen as somewhat more socially acceptable from men than from women; the boy who never grew up is viewed more favourably than the girl who ditto.

> All it takes is someone insecure enough to feel that losing a game threatens their sense of worth as a person

You also need them to think that they'll get away with this behaviour, whether it be just being very rich, or because there is some societal tolerance of Homer Simpson-esque emotionally immature men, or for some other reason.
by zzzeek | 2025-04-24 14:13:03+00:00
you're getting the order of events backwards. it's not "Become a billionaire, then become a baby who insists they be allowed to win board games". The order is, first you're an entitled, manipulative jackass with absolutely no bottom for unethical behavior and zero tolerance for "losing", then become a billionaire by being so brazenly shitty in all areas of life and getting people to go along with you. Caveat, you have to be a white guy for this to work and it works much better if you already inherited millions from your dad.

As an exercise, apply this rule to all the other billionaires you know.
by williamcotton | 2025-04-24 14:13:50+00:00
> And I think we do tend to (rightfully) look down on e.g. singers who lip-sync concerts or use autotune to sing at pitches they otherwise can't, nevermind how we'd react if one used AI singing instead of themselves.

Autotune is de rigueur for popular music.

In general, I'm not sure that I agree with looking down on people.
by Joker_vD | 2025-04-24 14:13:52+00:00
"The horse was the best worker in the kolkhoz, but never became its chairman". Heck, there is an entirely too depressing to read (but probably mostly correct) theory about how the office politics work [0] and I imagine it roughly translates to the other fields as well. Putting lots of efforts into some random thing most likely won't make you rich and/or powerful. It's putting the effort into becoming rich and powerful that gets you there — but that takes a rather particular personality and skill set.

[0] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
by DoneWithAllThat | 2025-04-24 14:13:55+00:00
I go to sci fi cons and telegram has become the de facto method of coordination for everything. Party, meal, event we all want to attend, any kind of meetup we create a channel for it to be used ephemerally and invite everyone who’s going. It’s a million times better than any event invite functionality of social networks, absolutely frictionless and without all the frankly stupid stuff social networks add.
by vintagedave | 2025-04-24 14:14:12+00:00
> Do you treat your people well? > Glassdoor is your friend.

I have read, here on HN, that Glassdoor is not accurate. How do you realistically tell from outside if a company does treat their people well, or has a difficult culture? I've heard people mention churn, but people stick around even in those environments (especially for financial reasons) and churn is not always an indicator.
by mananaysiempre | 2025-04-24 14:14:15+00:00
Right?.. Primorskiy Krai, official population 1.8M, of which the largest city of Vladivostok accounts for 600k and the next three largest cities for about 400k more, and the rest of the settlements are below 50k inhabitants each. China (Heilongjiang) to the west, North Korea to the south, Japan (Hokkaido) to the east. Literally six times closer to Tokyo than to Moscow (and only a bit closer to Moscow than to Vancouver), connected to Moscow by the longest train route in the world (six to seven days). A reputation for fierce independence and old Japanese left-hand-drive cars. That Primorskiy Krai.
by utkarsh858 | 2025-04-24 14:15:02+00:00
I always thought about the problem of AI taking jobs, that even if there are new jobs created to replace the older ones, it will come at a cost of decrease in satisfaction of overall populace.

The more people in general get disconnect from nature/physical world/reality. via layers of abstraction the more discontent they will become. These layers can be: 1) Automatics in agriculture. 2) Industries. 3) Electronics 4) Software 5) and now AI

Each higher layer depends on lower ones for its functioning without the need to worry about specifics and provides a framework for higher abstraction to work on.

The more we move up in hierarchy the more disconnected we become from the physical world.

To support this I observed that villagers in general are more jolly and content than city dwellers. In metropolis specially I saw that people are more rude, anxious and always agitated, while villagers are welcoming and peaceful.

Another good example is that of an artist finding it boring to guide AI even though he loves making paintings himself/herself.
by markus_zhang | 2025-04-24 14:15:09+00:00
I always think this is very biased. Basically there are two things to consider:

1. People at deathbed usually don't think very clearly, and it suggests the deathbed experience overrules everything before

2. Many people just have work. They don't have a calling, and neither do they have a career. It does sound reasonable to drop work for something else, as long as money is fine.
by cmrdporcupine | 2025-04-24 14:15:12+00:00
The only serious reason to go with the Gripen or any other alternative to the F-35 is if we seriously believe that there's been an actual realignment in the outlook of the USA. Carney asserts this is fact, as does Trump, but US liberals obviously believe they'll take power and "normalize" things again in 2026 and 2028.

And if they do so, it will look very foolish to have have pursued an aerospace program which provides less value for money.

If US politics and economics remains in this crisis state for an extended period of time, then I would see sticking with F-35 as a missed opportunity to realign Canada's economic-political-military relationships for the second half of the century.
by JeremyNT | 2025-04-24 14:15:21+00:00
My take: "winning the lottery" in a Facebook sense requires a floor of talent and work at the early stages, but the odds of winning don't correlate with how much talent and work exists, nor are continued talent and work required once a critical mass of success has occurred. External factors - being in the right place at the right time, having some cushion of familial wealth, etc - dominate once you're over the floor.
by corobo | 2025-04-24 14:15:36+00:00
I've just loaded my Facebook home page. 6 'pages' (I know it's infinite scroll but you know what I mean) before I saw an actual friend's post, and it was from 2 weeks ago.

Jeez Zucky, I wonder why social is dying. Is it because there's no bloody social between the ads and random algorithm shite anymore?

E: haha, the rest of the comments say likewise. Redundant comment but +1 anecdata.

Also for what it's worth I've checked a few profiles and yeah friends are still posting, I'm just not seeing it. I guess I scrolled past some post about something too quickly and now Facebook thinks I don't care? Maybe the algorithm is just broken lol.
by jajko | 2025-04-24 14:15:52+00:00
> The overwhelming predicate of significant business success is sociopathy

Bingo. Now good luck getting such message into heads of star-stuck young folks who dream of faang and similar jobs thinking there is some respect to get there in 2025, when its all about money.

I work in banking, much better job than startup/faangs could offer here in Europe, at least people aren't so naive when joining. Had a discussion with my boss recently and we figured we have around 40% of management visibly falling under various sociopathic definitions. Not requirement per se but certainly helps thrive up there.
by nyarlathotep_ | 2025-04-24 14:15:56+00:00
> Work will always be there!

I really wish this were true; I'd take a year off to work on "life", but any sort of career pause, especially in this environment, seems to be a huge risk.

Ageism is a concern--hell, even finding a new mediocre job in today's market is very difficult.

I think it's "make hay while the sun shines". Seems the future has less opportunity, and there's plenty of time for underemployment later.
by taylodl | 2025-04-24 14:16:05+00:00
Let me introduce you to "the game." You're an undergraduate, that means you're a nobody. You need to convince a "somebody" to consider your case and become the advocate. That's why I'm suggesting starting with your own computer science department. If they don't have any time on their docket, they may contact their colleagues from other universities whom they know may be interested in this problem.

Firing into the ether isn't the best way to go. I realize you'd like to believe that good ideas will rise on their own merit, but there's way too much being published for that to work. These people generally use one another to filter through the large volume of papers being published. When a colleague says hey, you should take a look at this, they tend to listen.
by seanhunter | 2025-04-24 14:16:05+00:00
Hedging can’t be the only point, which is something we have known since the ancient Babylonians invented futures.

For every person who is trying to hedge future volatility, there has to be a person on the other side of that contract who is speculating on the possibility that the hedge guy is more frightened that they should be.

You need hedgers and speculators to have a two-way market, and in markets where you have predominantly hedgers they get completely fleeced by the few speculators brave/dumb enough to take the other side of their trades. This is because many markets are structurally unbalanced such that the people who need to hedge long (producers) and people who need to hedge short (consumers) operate on different timeframes etc. So if I’m a farmer growing some crop I might want to sell the 1yr future, but the guy trying to hedge the price for purchase (wholesale grocer or whatever) will be hedging the front future like 1m out. So someone has to carry the risk in the forward curve between 1m and 1 year or noone gets the hedge they need and the market doesn’t work.

Quite aside from that, there are all sorts of things which are cash-settled because you literally can’t do a physical settlement but people need to hedge (yes and speculate) anyway. Take an index future on an equity index. How are you going to physically settle a future on the SPX or (god forbid) the Russell? The liquidity consequences would be devastating to markets.
by latexr | 2025-04-24 14:16:08+00:00
I tried it on dang’s handle, as it was one of the suggestions, and have got to say it didn’t feel anything like Dan. Responses were shallow, short, meaningless, repetitive, and evasive. It didn’t reply to things the real Dan would’ve (and has) answered, even something as simple and public as its own name, and it was pretty easy to get it stuck on a loop. It also got annoyed easily. Rather than a distillation of Dan’t comments, it behaved more like a “rules bot” to spew predetermined text.

I haven’t tested other users.

The interface is also frustrating to use on desktop: ↩ does not send a new message—we have instead to click the send button—and every time we do we have to click the message box again. So every message requires:

1. Take hand out of keyboard to the trackpad. 2. Move cursor over the text area. 3. Click. 4. Move hand back to keyboard. 5. Type message. 6. Take hand out of keyboard to the trackpad. 7. Move cursor to send button. 8. Click.

Rinse and repeat.
by Workaccount2 | 2025-04-24 14:16:13+00:00
Anyone who uses instagram should be abundantly aware of this. The default behavior of the app became "Serve you all content we think you would like, in the order we think you would enjoy it". This pretty much means "You may or may not see the content of channels/people you specifically follow".

The app went from just showing you a stream of posts from people you follow, to just showing you a stream of posts it thinks you would like.
by yjftsjthsd-h | 2025-04-24 14:16:19+00:00
If I follow correctly, then yes I agree that having more widely used standard licenses/contracts would be nice. One of my crazy legal fantasies is that all EULAs have to go through a central government authority that pushes back on new ones, because one of the things I love about FOSS is that there's only a handful of common licenses, so you can reasonably read them once and then just see them and know what you're getting. I don't need to re-read the GPL every time I use a new piece of software using it, because I already know what it says.

To a specific point, though,

> Guess what? Churches should follow a similar license. Letting priests or pastors move from town to town, abusing kids? That was completely bonkers insane. And I feel like a contract like this (and a registry, and etc.) could have helped. If people forced their daycares and churches to accept a license like this.

Er, yes, that does sound bonkers; where are you that every school, church, and daycare isn't already doing a background check on every single person working there?
by CopyOnWrite | 2025-04-24 14:16:43+00:00
Most comments here surprise me: I am using Githubs Copilot / ChatGPT 4.0 at work with a code base which is mostly implements a basic CRUD service... and outside of small/trivial example (where the generated code is mostly okay), prompting is more often than not a total waste of time. Now, I wonder if I am just totally unable to write/refine good prompts for the LLM (as it works for smaller samples, I hope I am not too far off) or what could explain the huge discrepancy of experience. (Just for the record: I would totally not mind if the LLM writes the code for the stuff I have to do at work.)

To clarify my questions: - Who here uses LLMs to generate code for bigger projects at work? (>= 20k lines of code) - If you use LLMs for bigger projects: Do you need to change your prompting strategy to get good results? - What programming languages are you using in your code bases? - Are there other people here who experience that LLMs are no help for non trivial problems?