MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by SoftTalker | 2025-04-17 15:02:53+00:00
Maps/GPS navigation is really nice. But it also is a crutch. If I get somewhere with maps, I probably can't find my way back without maps. When I used to plan in advance using a paper map, that was less often the case.

I like online banking, shopping, bill-paying.

Everything else is sort of bleh. I'm as guilty as anyone of killing a few hours on YouTube but don't think I would really miss it.
by 1970-01-01 | 2025-04-17 15:03:13+00:00
That's a different question. You asked how many people would have been harmed if weaker/no encryption was the standard. The USPS is a message system where federal employees are able to intercept suspicious content, and there is no built-in encryption for mail. Voting by mail is a great example of how a critical message can be sent without relying on encryption. Whistleblowers can still encrypt documents on a flash drive, and drop it into a mailbox. There is nothing stopping them from doing so.
by brendoelfrendo | 2025-04-17 15:03:43+00:00
> Haidt is not the world's most careful data analyst

We can, and probably should, just end the discussion there. Haidt is really good at finding data to support his claims, but then failing to mention that the correlation he's describing as "definitive" is, actually, really weak. This happens throughout "The Anxious Generation," at least.

Calling him "directionally correct" when he's pretty bad at actually showing the work as to why he is correct is just saying that you think he has a good point because his vibes match your vibes.
by elif | 2025-04-17 15:04:01+00:00
That's really not true.

Plaque bacteria are best killed by mouth wash, not by toothpaste, and fluoride doesn't remove plaque itself any better than grit does.

With CPC mouthwash available the "but we need to microdose neurotoxins" arguments sound like 1950's doctors advocating cigarettes more every year.
by blagie | 2025-04-17 15:04:26+00:00
The world is more complex than that.

There is plenty of evidence that drugs like opium were deliberately used to keep countries oppressed, but the dominant goal was to make money to pay for tea. There is plenty of evidence that alcohol was deliberately used, in some countries, to keep serfs oppressed and prevent them from organizing.

It's close to an accurate statement, but it would need to have a few changes to phrasing to be so, such as:

* "government-sponsored" -> "government-supported" or encouraged

* "destroy the minds of non-chinese children" -> "help Chinese kids maintain a competitive advantage over American kids"

As-is, it sounds more like a deliberate strawman.
by mystraline | 2025-04-17 15:04:35+00:00
True, I get where you're coming from, but I think there's more problems even in those implied answers.

Homoglyph attacks are a thing. And I can pay $10 for a homoglyph name. No issues. I can get a webserver on a VM and point DNS. From there I can get a Letsencrypt. Use Nginx to point towards real domain. Install a mailserver and send out spoofed mails. You can also even set up SPF/DKIM/DMARC and have a complete attested chain.

And its all based on a fake DNS, using nothing more than things like a Cyrillic 'o'.

And, the self-signed issue is also what we see with SSH. And it mostly just works too.
by 15155 | 2025-04-17 15:05:08+00:00
> The question specifically asked which one you are talking about, not about your dreams. Which one is like that?

After your five ninja edits, it's been hard to keep up:

Glass relocker mechanisms have existed (in reality) on safe doors for decades and will often result in the destruction of contents if triggered and opening is still required.

Governments are normally seeking evidence: a stack of cash or a quantity of bulk substances are substantially harder to rig to destroy (obviating evidence gathering) than documents or data.
by bee_rider | 2025-04-17 15:05:14+00:00
I at least vaguely get the idea of having law enforcement one-on-one message people who might be planning crimes. Well, I think it should be handled with a lot of care and documentation (I mean there’s a lot of risk of entrapment with this sort of stuff, right?), but at least it is possible that it could be done in a manner than is not a net negative.

Having a bot to help radicalize people on a public, open site like Reddit seems pretty bad, though. Isn’t it more likely to produce an environment of radicalization?
by NoMoreNicksLeft | 2025-04-17 15:05:19+00:00
In all seriousness, television has almost certainly harmed some not-insignificant fraction of our population. Nothing is more toxic than a bad idea, a malmeme, and some of them can be so subtle that they go unnoticed for years or decades. Ironically, music is probably less pathogenic, there's just less bandwidth for these memes to make use of. Lyrics, moods, and a single picture of album art? Compare that to a half-hour time slot with complex depictions of social interactions that humans model their own internal mental state from.

Everyone on every point of the political spectrum claims that the basic principle is true. That we can be manipulated to believe untrue things and to behave inappropriately and in maladaptive manners. We just tend to disagree on which media and which content does so.
by thesuperbigfrog | 2025-04-17 15:05:35+00:00
Indeed. That law and several others grant the president expanded powers to handle emergency situations. However, who determines what is an emergency and if the expanded powers are needed? In many cases, it is the president himself (or herself).

The underlying assumption is that the president would use such powers judiciously and that the expanded powers would enable emergency situations to be handled quickly since it would probably take more time for congress to respond and get things done.

The question now is: what if such powers are not used judiciously? What recourse is there?
by lolinder | 2025-04-17 15:05:51+00:00
This comment isn't so bad, but there were a bunch of comments earlier that were implying or stating outright that the author of TFA was targeting TikTok specifically for political reasons, which is clearly nonsense if you have even a passing familiarity with Haidt's body of work.

OP followed a similar pattern by starting with "please add YouTube to the list", but they did at least elaborate and didn't imply that TikTok was being targeted unfairly.
by freedomben | 2025-04-17 15:06:03+00:00
I think you are correct that GP is evading your reference, and further I think they are over the line of trolling, but I do think you are mistaken in your reading (or at least, you are reading more into the document than it reads itself). For example:

> shall coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear.

Their premise seems to be that programs (including performance reviews mentioned later in the document) which provide preferential or beneficial treatment to people based on DEIA characteristics are discriminatory and illegal under current laws, which prohibit discrimination on protected classes. I.e. you can't promote someone for being a man, or for being a woman, because sex is a protected class. If you create a program to help train/network people of a specific sex to the exclusion of the other sex, that violates the law (according to the argument being put forth here. IANAL so am not providing legal analysis, just doing my best to steel man their side here). The order you linked seems to be trying to stop this "illegal" practice in the US federal government. Note that the ADA is not illegal, in fact it is the law. Nothing in there is repealing the ADA or paring it back, at least that I read. I wouldn't be shocked if they are doing so through a different channel, but at a minimum the source you posted does not seem to validate your claims.
by jfultz | 2025-04-17 15:06:19+00:00
The 1200XL was my first computer. My family purchased it at a department store at a fire sale price (IIRC Montgomery Ward's, $199) after Atari stopped manufacturing and began dumping its inventory to make way for the 600XL/800XL. I had been researching a computer to get for ages, but my family was very careful about how we spent money, and it was a big purchase. We had seriously considered getting a TI-99/4A when TI exited the business, but we were concerned that it was just going to be a dead end. But the chance for a cheaper entry into an established ecosystem was great (that and me begging my mother to finally, finally get a computer!).

Re compatibility, I never came across software that didn't run on it. I'd read in magazines that there were issues, but never once experienced it. One interesting software change, though (but true of other XL computers, too) was that the color "artifacting" worked differently on it than it did the 400/800. For example, Ultima III used color artifacting, and so playing it on my system produced some incorrect colors...most notably the sea was red.

I did come across one hardware issue...a cheap third-party parallel interface adapter that didn't work, and that we thought at the time was defective, but I now think it's likely to have been affected by the incorrect power wiring in the 1200XL's SIO adapter. It was cheap enough that we didn't lose too much money on it, and I ended up getting the far superior ICD P:R: Connection instead.

The Atari community was a super great community to be in. And in so many ways, Atari was doing things that wouldn't be seen again for years, if not decades. Atari's SIO port is famously a predecessor/inspiration of USB. The APX Exchange was basically a third-party app store decades before Apple popularized the concept. The machine was hackable and moddable (I bought a 256KB upgrade kit for mine). When I migrated to PC for college use, it hurt to have to fall back to CGA...even EGA was just ugly, compared to what my 1200XL was capable of (although the 80 column displays were nice compared to Atari's 40-column).
by pjc50 | 2025-04-17 15:06:30+00:00
It's also especially vulnerable to "motte and bailey" arguments. Harassing people over competing fandoms is out of order. However, a lot of #metoo gets filed under "cancel culture" when often there is no other working means of getting redress for sexual harassment or assault other than going public, and hoping the perpetrator gets worse backlash than the victim.
by surgical_fire | 2025-04-17 15:06:32+00:00
> Do you have an example of ICE "disappearing" a US citizen

I mean, once they start disappearing people that are completely legal in the country, disappearing citizens is just a minor step forward.

By all means, I am not in the US, I'll keep enjoying my popcorn from afar. I wonder if when the ovens are turned on in some Central American death camp you will move the goalposts to "but, but we don't even have gas showers yet".

> cry wolf

The wolf has been here for a while buddy, we are just discussing what color and size it is.
by yapyap | 2025-04-17 15:06:35+00:00
Meta has the money to burn, 1. it’s easier to fight all this in court after having done it rather than to ask for permission from all the publishers beforehand. 2. sadly oftentimes the fines are minuscule when big tech does wrong. 3. CEOs in big tech don’t have or listen to morality, they have “sold their soul” so to say a long time ago
Ask HN: Do Quantum Computers Exist?
by LinuxBender | 2025-04-17 15:06:49+00:00
Serious question. Has anyone here actually:

- put their hands on one?

- logged into one?

- performed calculations or brute forced encryption with one?

I ask because several open source applications are implementing encryption schemes that are said to prevent being broken by quantum computers but I have no idea how they have tested their encryption outside of theory. I have seen pictures of things that purport to be quantum computers but they just look like the artwork that a former colleague created using failed components from the data-center.

If nobody from HN have touched one then I want to know where is the bubble that contains these experts?
by evacchi | 2025-04-17 15:07:01+00:00
cool!! you might also want to check out https://www.mcp.run/dylibso/eval-py

It's open source too :) https://github.com/dylibso/mcp.run-servlets/tree/main/servle...

We also use Wasm to sandbox all our servlets https://docs.mcp.run/blog/2025/04/07/mcp-run-security

(I work at Dylibso)
by alt227 | 2025-04-17 15:07:02+00:00
I do agree, and we have seen this in the past with things like the punk movement, which was a purely creative output from the working class in response to poor social conditions. Hopefully there is a similar movement against similar modern technological conditions at some point.

There are a couple of differences here though. For example everybody has the same tiktok. The upper classes and lower classes are for the first time being subjected to the same issues simultaneously.

Also the modern medium of tiktok has proven so addictive that people are not showing any signs of rising up against it, and so it is taking legislation to protect people from themselves.

These are all new factors which will change the swing somewhat, Im with you in hoping that it all works out.
by korse | 2025-04-17 15:07:23+00:00
This has been going on for years. A large part of it, at least in my experience, is people who object to scooters being parked in a manner that blocks pedestrian or cyclist paths.

One particularly funny incident I'm aware of involved an acquaintance who was overcharged by a scooter company and couldn't get a resolution via support. Being a 'frontier justice' sort of fellow, he rounded up 20+ scooters and chucked them all into a pond in the name of justice.
by monadgonad | 2025-04-17 15:07:29+00:00
Fruiter Aero is a term that retroactively applies to the style of a certain time. Look at Windows Vista. Windows Vista's design is what we now call Fruitger Aero. Windows Vista came out in 2007. It's a retroactive term, yes, but how can you claim the thing it refers to didn't exist before 2007, when Windows Vista is a shining example of it?
by itishappy | 2025-04-17 15:07:29+00:00
I don't get this response. Do we care about harm to children or no? This doesn't really address that, as is mentioned at the start of the article.

> Tomorrow, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether it should step in to block or delay the implementation of a law that would ban TikTok from operating in the U.S. If not blocked, the law will force TikTok to cease operations in the U.S. on January 19, unless its Chinese corporate owner (Bytedance) sells to a buyer not controlled by a foreign adversary. The case hinges entirely on constitutional arguments pertaining to national security and free speech. The Justices will hear no evidence about addiction, depression, sexual exploitation, or any of the many harms to children that have been alleged, in separate lawsuits filed by 14 state Attorneys General, to be widespread on TikTok.

A quite likely outcome here is that TikTok is allowed to continue targeting children with harmful content. I think "hey, what's our goal here, and are we accomplishing that goal with these actions" to be an entirely reasonable response. That's how I interpreted the comment you replied to.
by y33t | 2025-04-17 15:08:01+00:00
You should talk to some teachers who've been teaching since before 2010. They almost all say that kids got noticeably dumber around the time smartphones became common. They also say that grading standards today don't resemble anything they used to; most kids today would fail a 2009 curriculum.

College lit professors are now saying they get kids in their class who've never read a book from cover to cover. Those that have, say their favorite book is a YA book like Percy Jackson. Most can't even focus on something like a sonnet. This was described by a professor at Columbia, and they say that this is a recent phenomena and it's the majority of their students now.

Something has fundamentally changed, and there's evidence that points to kids missing key developmental windows. It's not just them on social media either, it's probably also their parents who are on their phones and not interacting with their kids who need that to develop normally.
by 9rx | 2025-04-17 15:08:29+00:00
> After your five ninja edits, it's been hard to keep up

No need to reply within the first second. Take your time.

In fact, consider taking a lot more time as you still haven't named the specific vault, or set of vaults, that is causing such a big problem for the government. If we don't know what vault it is, even if your description is vague, how would anyone come to think of it as a problem? Laws are not created by some all-knowing deity. It is just people.

That such a vault might be theoretically possible to build is irrelevant.
by quietbritishjim | 2025-04-17 15:08:44+00:00
(I can't edit so replying instead.) But this isn't allowed either. You can access a struct Foo variable through a char* pointer but you can't use struct Foo* to access an object whose actual type ("effective type" in the words of the standard) is char array. The standard says:

An object shall have its stored value accessed only by an lvalue expression that has one of the following types:

— a type compatible with the effective type of the object,

— a qualified version of a type compatible with the effective type of the object,

— a type that is the signed or unsigned type corresponding to the effective type of the object,

— a type that is the signed or unsigned type corresponding to a qualified version of the effective type of the object,

— an aggregate or union type that includes one of the aforementioned types among its members (including, recursively, a member of a subaggregate or contained union), or

— a character type.

https://www.iso-9899.info/n1570.html#6.5p7

I realise that many implementations will allow it anyway but if you're relying on that then you may as well fall back to a straight cast from Foo* to Bar*, which is also not allowed in theory.
by mikepurvis | 2025-04-17 15:08:53+00:00
I was a user of it for about a year and had to go cold turkey— I uninstalled, removed my account, and haven't touched it since, though I still follow a few of the more thoughtful creators who I found on there via their FB and YouTube presences. Fortunately for whatever reason I don't find it as challenging to avoid falling down a hole on those other platforms— like I can see that creator X posted something new, I can watch it, and then immediately go do something else.

It probably also helps that in most cases the short form videos aren't the person's "primary" output, but are teasers for longer-form content like video essays or podcasts.

But yes, the overall picture is extraordinarily dystopian, and it particularly preys on people who already struggle with attention management and guilt around productivity.
by wkat4242 | 2025-04-17 15:09:09+00:00
Yeah I can imagine.

When I was young I would go to the electronics store and give them a whole list of components I needed for a project. 2 resistors of 5 cents each, some capacitors, etc. The guys would spend 20 minutes scurrying up all the stuff, coming back to say they didn't have 220 ohm, would 2x 100 ohm do? Stuff like that. They spend half an hour on me for a total bill of 10 bucks. I don't know how that was sustainable then but it sure as hell isn't now.

Now I just buy components in bulk. Need a resistor? I just buy 100 of them. Though I don't really tend to use individual components so much anymore. ESP modules can replace a lot and they cost peanuts. If I need something complex I just design a PCB and send it to a PCB manufacturer in China and get 10 of them.

We still have an independent shop like this here in my city in Spain but another one closed up shop during the pandemic. I don't know how long this one will continue. It's a pain. But on the other hand they often don't have what I need so I tend to order online a lot too. But for tools it's nice to look at them in real life before buying them, or to be able to go there if I need something right now.
by BeetleB | 2025-04-17 15:09:12+00:00
> Wondering what others have found to address this. Or if they just stuck with Bash, since it's just not going away anytime soon.

If you're familiar with Python, give xonsh (https://xon.sh/) a go. It's a Bash-like shell but the syntax is Python. It has the same ease of writing shell scripts as Bash does, sans the insane language.

Been using it since 2018.
by runako | 2025-04-17 15:09:12+00:00
Spot on. I would extend your analysis to include the median middle-class person is probably better off in Spain vs most/all US states. This, even though the Spaniard personally earns less income. Largely as a result of the economically precarious nature of living in the US.

Healthcare, childcare, education, retirement are all big expensive things the US does incredibly poorly.
by carlosjobim | 2025-04-17 15:09:25+00:00
The reason why you don't understand the American perspective on the world and on life, is because everybody in Europe who didn't think exactly like you think moved to America, and everybody who thinks exactly like you think stayed in Europe.

No matter if you think the European or the American mindset is better, there was an enormous split of nations with the mass migration of Europeans to America. And it was a certain kind of person who would stay and a certain kind of person who would go. It's still that way.
by hn_throwaway_99 | 2025-04-17 15:09:39+00:00
> I read it a lot, but it's actually highly dubious that that is the main issue or a problem at all.

Nobody here said it was the main issue. But it is clearly problematic, and easy Google searches brings up tons of well-researched journalism as to why.

Algorithmic-driven feeds are brilliant from a psychological control perspective, because you don't need to outright censor stuff. You should need to downrake stuff you don't like so it shows up less often, and uprank stuff that shares your viewpoint. It's a very effective yet extremely subtle way to mold public opinion.
by xienze | 2025-04-17 15:09:40+00:00
> When I was growing up, those were what was harming children at an industrial scale.

Have you ever considered that maybe people were right about all that stuff? The problem so many people have is they either aren't forward thinking enough or only look back a few years at most when arguing against "moral crusaders."

Take for example violence in movies and videogames. Back in the 80s, the MPAA came down hard on the Friday the 13th movies, and the violence level in those movies absolutely pales in comparison to what you see now in Saw X, a mainstream R-rated horror movie. In the early 90s, there were federal hearings about violence in video games, Mortal Kombat being the prime example. Compare what gave people heart attacks back then to what the latest Mortal Kombat game features. Maybe those people were right all along, and we should have done something other than just laugh at their concerns?

With the benefit of decades of hindsight, there's a lot of issues in society where the "slippery slope"-ists turned out to be right.
by cootsnuck | 2025-04-17 15:09:44+00:00
I wouldn't call it a "middle" road rather a "nuanced" road (or even a "grounded" road IMO).

If its a "middle" road what is it in the middle of (i.e. what "scale")? And how so?

I'm not trying to be pedantic. I think our tendency to call nuanced, principled positions as "middle" encourages an inherent "hierarchy of ideas" which often leads to applying some sort of...valence to opinions and discourse. And I worry that makes it easier for people to "take sides" on topics which leads to more superficial, myopic, and repetitive takes that are much more about those "sides" than they are about the pertinent evidence, facts, reality, whatever.