MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by hnlmorg | 2025-04-06 13:14:20+00:00
It’s not just Ansible. I’ve ran into this problem many times using many different configuration systems. Even in the old days of hand-rolling deployment scripts in Bash and Perl.

Managing files instead of one big monolithic config is just easier because there’s less chance of you foobarring something in a moment of absentmindedness.

But as I said, I’m not criticising your approach either. Templating your config is definitely a smart approach to the same problem too.
by rlpb | 2025-04-06 13:14:49+00:00
The .d directories are important on Debian and Ubuntu where packaging needs to provide different snippets based on the set of installed packages, the VM environment, other configuration inputs like through cloud-init and so forth, and update them during upgrades, but also (as per policy) preserve user customisations on anything in /etc.

Since pretty much every file has different syntax, this is virtually impossible to do any other way.
by crazygringo | 2025-04-06 13:15:05+00:00
Yes, there's a difference in the number of items you're selling.

There isn't a difference in terms of the fact that it's advertising a sale. Nor is it relevant if you're doing so personally, as a sole proprietor, as a partnership, as an S corp or as a C corp. Advertising something for sale is advertising something for sale. Ads are ads.

Also, on the realtor's site they're listing hundreds of homes. Not any different from your local car dealership advertising their hundreds of vehicles. They're both corporations listing ads.

Advertising is advertising.
by Larrikin | 2025-04-06 13:15:30+00:00
So you think the the question was about a bad idea that nobody would make because there are central bases with powerful vacuums (one could almost call them central vacuums with an inlet that connects) that suck up the dirt with months of storage. My base is probably the loudest appliance in my house when it is sucking out the dirt with its powerful vacuum.

Nobody makes robot vacuums that hook up to your car or TV either. You are free to buy a hand vac or stick vac for the few places in your home the bot can't reach because it does not make sense to have a bigger vacuum anymore.

Also are you a troll account? The LLM summarized your first three pages of posts

Looking at their writing style, there are several characteristics that stand out:

Occasional missing articles ("a", "the") Some subject-verb agreement issues Certain sentence structure patterns that differ from native English Specific vocabulary choices and phrasing

Their comments about Ukraine suggest some familiarity with the region, particularly in how they discuss specific Ukrainian military events with detail. There's also a comment mentioning Israeli press and Israeli IRS, suggesting possible familiarity with Israel. While I can't definitively determine their native language, their writing patterns could be consistent with a Slavic language background like Russian or possibly Hebrew. The way they structure some sentences and occasional grammar patterns align with these language families.
by caseyy | 2025-04-06 13:15:51+00:00
I'd say you're underestimating how much anxiety there is in the world because advertisers and influencers bombard people with the idea that they are not enough, or that they don't have enough.

It becomes very clear when you move to a different country where you don't speak the language. Suddenly, advertisers cannot tell you that you need their products. And it is very emancipating mentally.
by HelloMcFly | 2025-04-06 13:16:07+00:00
Interesting. I basically feel the opposite - I love Hamilton's ideas and plotting but really think he writes characters that don't feel real, they feel too much like archetypes. I can think of a few exceptions to this, but almost all of his characters feel like programmed automatons to me. And boy has he MISSED BIG when writing female characters at times.

Unlike the others, I think Tchaikovsky's best writing is in Children of Ruin. I know it's not as popular as Children of Time, but I admired the way he didn't rinse/repeat and instead created a wholly different view of humanity's legacy intersecting with alien life. I though the "antagonist" in that book was far more alien and creative.
by LeonardoTolstoy | 2025-04-06 13:16:10+00:00
With today's knowledge of genetics it ain't happening. We have barely started gene editing for single point mutation diseases like sickle cell. The stuff described in this blog post (which is mostly gobbledygook by the way) are traits that are (1) hugely polygenic and (2) not known well enough from a genetic perspective anyways. It will be decades at best before they'd attempt genetic editing in that scale on a healthy person.

But if we want to solve the second one I welcome it as a person who works in genetics research, always good to have more money.
by goda90 | 2025-04-06 13:16:26+00:00
My employer was very quick to force return to office after covid lockdowns. Like they were willing to pour millions into subdividing offices into closets so people could isolate at work even, but the county health department gave them a stern look and they ended up scraping that and waiting another year to force RTO.

But they actually put their money where their mouth is. Ad-hoc conversations in the hallway, going to chat in person, etc were all encouraged. Holding a meeting over Teams when everyone was in office became almost a taboo. Even team building activities and events saw an increase in frequency.
by pmags | 2025-04-06 13:16:41+00:00
Also "with respect":

● The analysis you link to is exactly the same sort of analysis the OBR provides -- i.e. a synthesis of current and past data and updated projections of what that means looking ahead

● The OBR report links to detailed "Economic and fiscal outlook" (EFO) data that includes the actual data the conclusions are based on. I haven't tried to look at the linked data for many of the analyses in the OBR report, but for those I have I find data in the cited EFO documents that seems to backup the statements made. For example, Box 2.6 of the March 2022 EFO report: https://obr.uk/box/the-latest-evidence-on-the-impact-of-brex...

● I gather that the "Institute of Economic Affairs" (IEA) is a long running right wing think-tank/advocacy group -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Economic_Affairs

● The director of the IEA was apparently recorded by an undercover reporter telling funders that his organization was in "the Brexit influencing game" [1]. Why should I thus trust that the IEA isn't trying to spin Brexit outcomes to their funders advantage? This applies to the government too of course, but many of those OBR/EFO reports seem to have been prepared when the Conservatives were in power.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/29/rightwing-t...
by sunrunner | 2025-04-06 13:17:00+00:00
> Everything was rendered on the server.

Until rendering on the client was cool. But then search engines hate that, so maybe we'd better render on the server after all but then also re-render everything on the client ('reconciliation'). Ah wait, what's this? Now you can opt for 'partial pre-rendering', because it wasn't enough to send HTML from the server and make more HTML in the client, now we can mix client-only HTML rendering with reconciled server-rendered-client-re-rendered HTML.
by jsenn | 2025-04-06 13:17:18+00:00
> What makes this technique particular to LLM weights

This is my understanding as a non-expert.

LLM activations tend to be relatively sparse with large outliers. With linear quantization, this means you either have to clip off the outliers or you have to stretch your range to include the outliers, which wastes precious bits. Neither of these works well, so essentially all LLM quantization research is using various heuristics to get around these outliers. For example, you can do linear quantization but split the activations up into smaller blocks to make it less likely that any given block contains an outlier.

Another trick people have discovered (predates LLMs) is applying a random rotation/projection to the embeddings. This has the effect of making sure no one dimension in the vector dominates the others (which again hurts quantization). This works because in order for a single dimension to dominate, all the others have to "conspire" to be near zero. When you have 10,000+ dimensions, that's very unlikely.

This paper applies the latter trick. Instead of pre-generating the random projection matrices, they generate them on the fly on the accelerator from a seed that is fixed for each block. The seed is chosen from an offline brute-force search that needs only the weights of the network. This separates it from a lot of other quantization methods that either require calibration data or have to be simulated at training time so the network learns the quantization parameters itself.

You might think this is wasteful/might hurt performance, but it turns out that LLM inference is heavily memory-bound as it involves streaming a very large neural network into the accelerator (GPU/TPU/NPU/whatever) to operate on a relatively small amount of data, so there are lots of "free cycles" to generate these random numbers. Of course, if you care about power usage that might not be a great idea...
by CharlieDigital | 2025-04-06 13:18:31+00:00
> Has there ever been an instance where an offer has been rescinded because a prospective employee didn’t negotiate?

You're looking at it as a one-sided outcome where the company rescinds an offer.

How about the other side? Where the company sees you as an even more desirable candidate and increases the offer? Signing bonus, increased salary, other perks?

Author's whole point is "You always win if you negotiate the right way."

The author's point isn't that you aren't going to get the job by not negotiating, the author's point is that you're leaving money on the table by not negotiating. Potentially a lot of money by thinking that the other side is fair and transparent in their offer to you or doing you "a favor" by giving you a job rather than seeing that there is, unfortunately, a game that has to be played once you get to the offer stage.
by op00to | 2025-04-06 13:19:16+00:00
I'm not saying you need to stop using it, but I prefer to not indicate that in some situations I would lie, but in this one specifically I won't. I communicate with customers constantly in my job, and my integrity and reputation is most important to me. If I'm going to lie, I'd rather not call attention to it.

When an LLM says "honestly", it's just stupid. An LLM can't "lie".
by paulgb | 2025-04-06 13:20:33+00:00
> MCPs are opaque to the user and devs (unless they look at each source-code and pinpoint each inspected version).

This is true, but also generally true of any npm dependency that developers blindly trust.

The main difference with MCP is that it is pitched as a sort of extension mechanism (akin to browser extensions), but without the isolation/sandboxing that browser extensions have, and that even if you do run them in sandboxes there is a risk of prompt injection attacks.
by jtbayly | 2025-04-06 13:21:28+00:00
Yes, abortion also ends a human life. However, bringing up miscarriage is bizarre as a justification for feeling ok with it.

It’s the difference between a man dying of old age in his sleep vs putting a gun to his head in his sleep because he is old. As to percentages, 100% of people die eventually. Just because people die every day doesn't mean it’s ok for us to kill them.
by stog | 2025-04-06 13:23:37+00:00
You’re spot on with this. I recently converted a local history book from 1911 to Markdown, ePub and HTML and tracked the changes on GitHub. Only a handful of copies of this book exist in physical form and it has been photo copied (which is great).

However, I was completely shot down by the local library when I was discussing it with them. They said they already had a photo copy and didn’t need anymore digital editions, I tried to explain the benefits of having it in a machine readable format but they wouldn’t entertain it. I completed the project for me, so I wasn’t too bothered, but thought they might have been interested in archiving it but they weren’t.

My general feeling is that they didn’t like an outsider contributing and touching on a format they didn’t know so got slightly defensive.
by AbstractH24 | 2025-04-06 13:24:36+00:00
I’m part of the minority of folks who think the value of in office outweighs the cost. Particularly amongst those who aren’t in management.

But only if you are working in close proximity to those working on the same projects and leadership going up at least two levels. (leadership, not management)

Why large companies with globally distributed teams see value in having employees in office sitting side by side in isolation is beyond me.
by alyt | 2025-04-06 13:25:12+00:00
> Every time I need to specify output schema for LLMs, I need to write a converter from Pydantic models to the schema. Pydantic V2's model_json_schema is not supported by some platforms like OpenAI or n8n.

Interesting idea; I'm not familiar with n8n, but doesn't OpenAI's API natively support Pydantic models? You can just pass in the model directly as the `response_format` argument: https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/structured-outputs?a...

Definitely possible I'm missing which use cases you're thinking of. Would be cool to see some more concrete examples of how this has been useful for you!
by hackingonempty | 2025-04-06 13:25:51+00:00
All of the above. Most importantly, restaurant owners associate quiet with old and dead restaurants so they deliberately make things loud. They play music at loud levels which requires people to raise their voice. They prefer the look of hard surfaces and its certainly cheaper to leave wood, brick, and concrete exposed than to cover them up with material. Tablecloths impose ongoing costs and may not be in line with the ambiance the owners are going for.
by mettamage | 2025-04-06 13:26:32+00:00
I have 4 years of experience as a software engineer, 2 years of teaching it.

I studied computer science for 5 years up until the research master level, as well as game psychology for 4 years up until the master level which included both game-design and game programming.

I can be a data analyst, consultant and a software engineer and currently work in marketing tech.

Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands

US work authorization: yes

Remote: yes or hybrid

Willing to relocate: yes

Technologies (hobby): C, C++, Java, C#, Unity3D, x86-64 assembly, pentesting (binary & web) and many more

Skills: automizing workflows with LLMs & Python & JavaScript, data analysis (Jupyter), prototyping apps & web apps, brainstorming, reflection, story telling, teaching

Résumé/CV: on request

Email: see my profile
by gus_massa | 2025-04-06 13:26:55+00:00
This reads as es-es (perhaps es-es-corporate) instead of es-ar. I don't like "desplegando" because it's somewhat closer to "unfolding" instead of "laying out". I'm not sure it's incorrect, but I'd have chosen differently.

The problem is that I read the emails from my friends using their voice and speaking style.

I'd do the same with HN comments, but I never heard most (any?) of them. Anyway, each commenter has a personal style, or at least I have an informal list in my head of a few hundreds commenters. I remember someone made a few good comments about some topic, so it adds in my mind weight to their opinion. I remember some details of their lives, like where they live, family, work, unusual past events, which topics they are interested, ..., they are persons!

With too much AI, comments get bland. They all read like the same corporate speak. AI would not add pasta recipes to antirez comments, or yadayada to patio11 comments. Also, the topics I'd trust their opinions are very different.

I don't mind using AI to fix the text. Moreover, in one of my previous comments I recomendad to write it in Gmail. I guess Gmail is using a mix of an expert system and modern AI. I hope someday Google adds that feature to the textbox in Chrome.

The problem is that some people is using AI to write short "somewhat related" comments, that are not wrong but not very relevant. Also to write giant "walls of text" that discuss the topic and the 5 most important ramifications. So there is an overreaction to correct orthography, grammar and "AI style".

> The fact that some people on this platform get irritated by their use just means they’ll eventually become the dinosaurs of the future.

Remember that birds are dinosaurs. And if you think that nobody is scared of birds, you should visit a pen full of rheas (ostrich are a fine substitution). If you have any brilliant ornament on your cloth they will try to eat it and you will be hit by the peak. Also they will steal food from your hands and it hurts. We visit an open zoo with my older daughter when she was a kid. Rheas were locked inside a pen for security reasons, there were a lot of ducks and baby ducks that are cute, and the goose were scary because they are evil and come in organized groups to "ask" for food.
by numpad0 | 2025-04-06 13:29:26+00:00
No, I'm saying what I had said in the first paragraph of my comment. I'm saying, the reward might not be the fuel, but it could be fire retardant, and you might not want to cut it off.

People getting paid to do things do worse than otherwise[1]. They do better when not paid. The quality of work often gets worse when they get more. It's well established. As counterintuitive as sometimes it seem to be.

What I'm essentially saying is, if you think people are right now getting paid to do something bad to the society(e.g. ads), you might want to keep them hooked and tied to the money and not to something else, like advertising for its own sake.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect
by imiric | 2025-04-06 13:30:06+00:00
It's not the role of citizens to come up with regulation that protects them. It's not their role to protest or even acknowledge that they are being abused. It's the role of governments and law makers to ensure the safety of their citizens. This is literally what we elect and pay them to do.

If you can't see how the current system is harming not just individuals, but the stability of governments and our democratic processes, and the role of the advertising industry in all of this, then nothing I nor anyone else says can convince you otherwise.

You seem more interested in scrutinizing hastily put together arguments by laypeople on an internet forum, than acknowledging the issues put forth, and the fact that fixing this deeply rooted problem will require multi-faceted solutions over a very long period of time.

And for that reason, I'm out.
by contact9879 | 2025-04-06 13:30:10+00:00
since ebooks are primarily (only?) text you don't have to worry about UI elements and such which simplifies a lot of the css

footnotes aren't really a thing with ebooks (at least as far as displaying the note on the page with the text). Because it is just a html renderer, footnotes are presented as mutual <a> elements located in the endnotes at the end of the book
by Nemi | 2025-04-06 13:30:19+00:00
I hate ads as much as anyone (full disclosure, I use an ad blocker), but with all due respect, the reason there is no “practical” alternative to a service displaying ads is – someone has to pay for it. And before you say “I am paying or I am willing to pay”, it often costs more than you are willing to pay to run these services.

When you say it is “not practical” to go to the town hall, what you are really saying is “my time is valuable and I want someone else to expend their valuable time recording that information and disseminating it to me at low or no cost to me”. Believe me, I understand the desire. But if we were all honest, someone has to pay for this and capitalism has decided that this is the “best” way to do that.
by dpkirchner | 2025-04-06 13:31:57+00:00
> You jumped to examples of stuff that by far the majority of people on the right don’t believe.

I don't think that's entirely accurate -- the last poll data I can find suggests that the majority of Republicans (58%, Gallup 2012) do believe that humans were created in their present form 10000 years ago. Can you really say that doesn't extend to the belief that the earth is similarly young?
by xhighway999 | 2025-04-06 13:31:57+00:00
Hey, I’ve been building my own game engine over the last 4 years (not full-time, don’t worry, I’m not that insane) and figured I’d share some of the lessons learned along the way.

It’s a general reflection piece—no deep dives, just an overview of what worked and what really didn’t. Could be useful if you’re thinking about writing your own engine or already knee-deep in one.

If anyone wants a deeper dive on any of the topics, let me know. If it’s a big enough topic, I might write a follow-up.
by sixtram | 2025-04-06 13:33:24+00:00
We use an ultrasonic humidifier all the time. At the same time, we use only distilled water (we distill it at home every 2-3 days).

First, this removes minerals from the water, so the room isn't covered in "white dust" after using the humidifier. But even with this, biofilm can build up inside the machine, which is not visible, but you can touch it. I also remember that when I used just plain tap water, the biofilm built up faster.

This article definitely hit me, I realized that we need to clean the humidifier more often.
by sebastian_z | 2025-04-06 13:33:35+00:00
It is an interesting thought. What could be new business models for sites that currently rely on third party advertising? It seems big publishers are increasingly moving to first party advertising. But that seems difficult for small publishers.

While advertising messages may not be themselves particularly important for free speech and can be even detrimental to it, e.g., propaganda, sites themselves disseminate speech and are often third-party ad-financed. What could be a good business model for them (other than direct payments)?
by carterpaul | 2025-04-06 13:34:47+00:00
YouTube Premium dishes out your revenue to creators based on how much you watch. See Linus Tech Tips’ video on their income streams (skip to 4:40): https://youtu.be/GeCP-0nuziE?si=xH5gTvzglaPlQyJ4

Sure, YouTube probably takes more off the top than Patreon. But YouTube also splits it up based on who you’re watching. I probably watch 30+ YouTube channels per week, some of which I find on the explore page and don’t even know the name of. I would never subscribe to 30+ Patreons. I think YouTube Premium is a good compromise.
by sunrunner | 2025-04-06 13:34:48+00:00
> blame the engineers for the complexity

I was going to add that the engineers themselves do (or should, in a healthy organisation) have the mandate to knowingly choose not to bring in artifical complexity where it's not useful or required.

But then I thought that in a lot of situtations perhaps the engineers aren't really 'Knowingly choosing not to' but 'Unknowingly choosing to' bring in that complexity, because the volume of content and mindshare that goes into proposing new and alternate ways of working and tools that aren't actually different seems to dwarf the amount of information around fundamentals and things that don't change as often.

So perhaps any accountability really should go as much to CTOs, open source developers trying to make their mark, influencers.