MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by eddythompson80 | 2025-04-02 03:23:51+00:00
Surprising as it may seem, avalanches are easier to avoid [1] and easier to handle it comes to communication[2]. To an extent of course[3].

[1] I used to be terrified of the concept of an Avalanche. However, at the end of the day you're only exposed to an Avalanche if you choose to be or live next to a large mountain in the winter. It's not even like Hawaiians living next to an active volcano. All you have to do (in terms of living) is to move away during Avalanche season. Hawaiians atleast have the excuse of "it hasn't erupted in 10 years"-maybe. THe other example is if you're a skiing/winter-sport enthusiast (like me). And you simply balance your chance of an avalanche vs the reports and "how much fun it sounds to ski with your friends"

[2] If you find yourself in an avalanche situation, you need/must do your best to "swim" to the top of the avalanche. There is gear that can help you do so outside of beacons or "signal based" notifications. Once you've established all those unfeasible, you're left with the same tools a "sudden earthquake victim" is up against. You still have the upper hand because a simple handheld transceiver (from like Icom, Kenwood or Yaesu) will have 100x the range through snow vs one through liquid water or concrete.

[3] Physically speaking: ice is eventually going to behave like water under enough depth. I think.

[4] Avalanche Gear example: https://alpenglowsports.com/collections/avalanche-safety
by musicale | 2025-04-02 03:23:59+00:00
> If you compile all GUI apps statically, you'll end up with a monstorous distro that takes hundreds of gigabytes of disk space

And yet the original Macintosh toolbox was 64 kilobytes. Black and white though, and no themes out of the box.

Even a 1MB GUI library (enough for a full Smalltalk-80, or perhaps a compact modern GUI) would be in the noise for most apps.
by CobrastanJorji | 2025-04-02 03:24:49+00:00
Nah, it's even better. "These messages were printed on a variety of different printers on three separate dates, but all of the printers were in an Office Depot during that time. Now we just need to go through the footage of those days to see who was in that store on all three days." Meanwhile, you're in another state on those days, doing crime.
by naveen_k | 2025-04-02 03:24:52+00:00
That's exactly what I did first! I ran a CPU torture test at full clock speed and measured the power draw at the plug, then repeated the same test with the lowest clock speed setting. For the Epyc system, there was about 225W lower power draw at the reduced clock speed. Even at idle, capping the max frequency reduced the power draw by about 20+%.
by audiodude | 2025-04-02 03:25:00+00:00
What really blows my mind is not the fact that all these songs borrow from and remix one another, but the overall "problem of universals" from metaphysics. In the realm of music, how do we even identify specific characteristics that lead to properties of resemblence? How does your brain know "Oh, that's the Funky Drummer beat" when it's played on a different drum kit or at a different tempo, etc etc.

edit: Would love to see an AI driven project where you drag a slider to "mutate" a sample until it's no longer that sample but another piece of music. A "boil the frog" type thing.
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by xwolfi | 2025-04-02 03:26:34+00:00
But you compared two different things. CCP membership is like Republican Party affiliation: it is not reserved to politicians. The most common training of CCP politicians is... politics. The most common training of American members of the Republican Party is... whatever is trending and useful today in the US.

Your premises are so wrong that it is hard to argue with your conclusion. Ofc politicians, or policemen, or lawyers, train in law more than engineering. The US is more litigious than many countries because... it works better to litigate there, maybe ?
by somenameforme | 2025-04-02 03:26:45+00:00
On the contrary, I think the one and only thing that really enabled such widespread advances in science over the past few centuries was the same thing that initially enabled such for the Greeks - people were able to pursue things with near to no limitations, no taboo, no dogma. And it seems that perhaps such things are inherently liminal in nature. The Greeks would then go to on to execute perhaps the greatest thinker in humanity's history for wrongthink, and we ourselves are already well into the times of where not only is there taboo and dogma, but it's even overtly stated.

When you get into population stratification issues you're already again flirting with taboo depending on what is being studied. So yeah - low sample sized, poorly controlled, correlation exclusive GWAS studies are the gold standard in genetics publications. I'm so completely surprised that such, alongside the rusty hacksaw that's CRISPR, failed to live up to even a zillionth of their 'potential'.
by dralley | 2025-04-02 03:27:04+00:00
> which is basically advocating for and co-opting the core ideas of the current administration

How on earth do you come to this conclusion?

Trump is famously NIMBY, both in real estate and in infrastructure. He objects to solar and wind purely on the basis that "they ruin the view". He's anti-dense and pro-suburb, he hates zoning except when it actually comes to residential zoning, where he has pretty consistently tried to leverage it to destroy dense housing projects (other than his own presumably).

Aside from that "this administration" has no real consistent policy objectives other than kicking out immigrants. Not even cutting taxes, because tariffs are taxes.

DOGE barely even pretends to be a legitimate effort to make government more efficient as opposed to simply cutting things they don't like or understand without concern for the actual ROI. You don't slash the IRS if you care about government efficiency.
by LeonB | 2025-04-02 03:27:22+00:00
> if we dole out UBI to everyone to cover basic living costs, will that simply result in the cost of rent going up to absorb the whole amount?

For that to be true, rent-seeking would have to literally capture all surplus. In which case UBI wouldn’t be an option in the first place.

The marginal increase in the purchasing power of someone who went from having $0 to $n would always be greater than the increase in purchasing power for someone who went from $1 billion to $1 billion + n - even with inflation.
by macintux | 2025-04-02 03:27:33+00:00
There are echoes to discussions a few months ago about IMG_0001.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42314547

The site displays random, ancient videos uploaded from the early iPhone YouTube app, often without people understanding what they were doing.

I tend to err on the side of caution: I don't expect most people to be tech savvy, and I think those of us who are must exercise restraint to avoid trespassing.
by memalign | 2025-04-02 03:28:07+00:00
Relevant quote from the article:

“A preliminary report by the N.T.S.B. found that a helicopter and a commercial plane nearly collided at least once a month near Reagan from 2011 to 2024, raising concerns about how the F.A.A. had overlooked such a hazard at one of the nation’s busiest airports.”

Wow.
by pj_mukh | 2025-04-02 03:28:14+00:00
“ Okay. So the abundance agenda calls for an expert-laden, big-government apparatus to build high-speed rail, and a lean skeleton crew that outsources all the key logistics and execution layers to the private sector for a mass vaccination campaign. It’s difficult to detect a usable framework here.”

Having read about 4 different critiques of the book, this maybe closest to a well thought out one. However, it still gives in to the hyper-partisan times looking for a straightforward template to apply in every situation when actually “it depends” is the right answer.

How to build quickly and efficiently while managing everyone’s expectation is tricky business and not every situation will fall neatly under left-right (big government or small government?!) dichotomies!

The core thesis is to optimize to build quick not for some consistent politics du jour.
by macangus | 2025-04-02 03:29:00+00:00
Location: Cape Town, South Africa

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: Python, Node.js, Nest.js, Express, Javascript, Typescript, React, Next.js, React Native, PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB, GraphQL, Serverless, AI/ML, Docker, AWS, REST, Google Cloud

Resume/CV: https://angus-macapella-google.vercel.app

Email: angus.macapella1@gmail.com

Howdy, I'm Angus. I am a software engineer that loves hackathons and creating products. Please check out my work if you're looking a creative engineer or reach out on LinkedIn.
by Davertron | 2025-04-02 03:29:24+00:00
> Thing is, it's not even "too much theory".

I would agree with you. I feel like watching videos where someone goes "hey, so here's this pattern that completely unlocks the neck for you, don't be stuck in a box anymore!" and all they're showing you is where the various notes in a key are along the neck (now I know that, but I wouldn't have known that before...) and it's WAY more confusing than if you just learn how the pentatonic scale works and how to find the notes in a key etc. And the funny thing is, the only reason I was stuck in that box in the first place is because of silly rote memorization without understanding why you play the various notes in a scale etc., it just feels like this thing that kind of compounds when you just learn patterns vs. just learning the underlying principles.

But again, I'm completely amateur at this stuff still, and I don't have any experience teaching other folks an instrument, so it's hard for me to say with any certainty that we should be teaching it one way or another I guess.
by stego-tech | 2025-04-02 03:30:42+00:00
You’re not wrong, and that’s by design. Laws entrench power of those wealthy enough to afford competent lawyers, and thus build a system of rules that increases their advantage at the expense of others. Thus we have a society whose laws make it exceedingly easy to solely focus on profit per quarter, and impossibly difficult to plan or execute on a longer timeline (e.g., government policy). There’s always another election to campaign on, a scandal to dust up, a controversy to stir. Nothing gets done, apathy rises, and the empire wanes until - often suddenly - the floor falls out beneath it and the whole thing collapses.

Societies require vision of a future, something engineers are apt at creating. Empires require labyrinths of laws to entrench power, which lawyers excel at litigating. A thriving country requires both to be balanced, such that its benefits are distributed to all.
by tptacek | 2025-04-02 03:30:51+00:00
This is a downright weird review. The crux of the complaint against Klein's book is that it's about values and avoids specific policy prescriptions. The lack of those policy arguments leads the reviewer to question Klein's commitment. But there's nobody in all of American political discourse that complaint falls more flat on than Ezra Klein.

The review draws a comparison between Abundance and Marc Andreesen's "Time To Build" essay, for... no discernible reason. It then points out that pmarca was ultimately hypocritical about building (he opposed development in his own town, of Atherton). I don't understand what that has to do with anything. Klein is a YIMBY. So am I. I spent my spare time working to clear the way for multifamily housing to get built right next door to my own. What the fuck do I care what pmarca did?

I think that, to understand this review, you have to understand the internal dynamics of the Democratic coalition. Progressives (the left of the party) hate Klein, and, for reasons passing understanding, the YIMBY movement writ large. The progressives have a prescription for rehabilitating the national coalition: massive public spending programs and single-payer health care. Klein and Thompson advocate for a different strategy: building a track record of demonstrated competence, and stanching/reversing the outflow of residents from blue states to red states that actually build housing. That there might be a strategy that doesn't involve a progressive takeover of the state and national parties is a problem for the movement; hence: stuff like this.

You'll see the same thing happening with Matt Breunig and Malcolm Harris' reviews, posted upthread.
by k310 | 2025-04-02 03:31:26+00:00
Anil Dash on what DOGE really means. Procurement Capture [0]

> Tycoons don't like any game that's not rigged in their favor. And right now, government spending at the federal level is mostly controlled by an agency called the General Services Administration, which oversees procurement. Is it complicated? Sure! Sometimes the complexity is for the same reasons that processes are inefficient around the office at your job, and that's frustrating. But sometimes it's good, because they're trying to make sure nobody is buying $800 hammers. It's not perfect, and it's overly complex, but it is not totally captured by the richest guys in the world right now.

> Now, imagine you were a tycoon who is also a defense contractor that is trying to sell hundreds of billions of dollars of military equipment to the government, and you know that the procurement process requires them to go with the lowest bidder. But, since you're a dude with hundreds of billions of dollars, it doesn't seem fair that the system isn't even more rigged in your favor. How would you "fix" this system? Well, you'd have to capture procurement, so that it was rigged to only buy stuff from you and your friends, at whatever price you guys want. And if it could screw your competitors along the way, and punish them for not kissing your ass? That would be a bonus.

[0] https://www.anildash.com//2025/01/04/DOGE-procurement-captur...
by vvpan | 2025-04-02 03:32:12+00:00
I've come to loath Mark Andreessen as just an out-of-date reactionary who cannot take it that culture around him has moved on. Apparently he is also big hypocrite:

> Two years after Marc Andreessen published “It’s Time to Build,” The Atlantic’s Jerusalem Demsas uncovered that Andreessen’s town of Atherton, CA had planned to do just that — build multifamily homes! — but was met with ferocious opposition from, well, a venture capitalist by the name of Marc Andreessen. As he and his wife wrote in a letter to the mayor and town council:

>> Subject line: IMMENSELY AGAINST multifamily development! >> I am writing this letter to communicate our IMMENSE objection to the creation of multifamily overlay zones in Atherton … Please IMMEDIATELY REMOVE all multifamily overlay zoning projects from the Housing Element which will be submitted to the state in July. They will MASSIVELY decrease our home values, the quality of life of ourselves and our neighbors and IMMENSELY increase the noise pollution and traffic.
by davidw | 2025-04-02 03:32:13+00:00
I just started reading it, but the housing part of it is spot on, something I know very well from years of working to try and make my city and state's housing situation better.

The effects of the housing shortage are very real and something that can absolutely be worked on at the local and state level.

Not enough housing means:

* Longer commutes, which means more CO2, less time with friends and family, more stress, and more sprawl.

* People don't move to where the opportunities are any more.

* People do move there, but age out when they want to have a family and there's no appropriate housing.

The 'Abundance' idea is kind of vague. It makes for a good slogan, but the housing part of it is sorely needed, and it's one of the very rare issues in this day and age in the US that's not completely partisan.
by MengerSponge | 2025-04-02 03:33:15+00:00
Fascism and white supremacy aren't interchangeable terms. The formal definition has refined, although the colloquial usage hasn't kept up.

Check out this summary of Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism essay, with 14 characteristics of fascist movements/regimes.

https://www.openculture.com/2024/11/umberto-ecos-list-of-the...

Like many diagnostic criteria, it's not sufficient to only check one or two of the boxes. It's also worth being honest and examining the aspects of American culture that have made it particularly susceptible to fascism.
by velcrovan | 2025-04-02 03:33:17+00:00
From another good review of the book:

> “One of the personally amusing aspects of reading Abundance is that it kept reminding me of a two-hour discussion I had with Ezra Klein in 2019 about Medicare for All. […] In our discussion, Klein balked at making Medicare for All the centerpiece of a Democratic health care agenda because he thought it was not politically practical. […] At one point in the discussion, he asks how would I overcome employer opposition to the change, and I responded that we will just have to beat it, which he clearly did not find persuasive.

> “It’s not hard to imagine having the same conversation about Abundance but with the roles reversed. Whatever the merits of their proposals, Klein and Thompson are pushing an agenda that requires direct confrontation with many powerful, entrenched constituencies.”

https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2025/03/24/the-abundanc...
by rayiner | 2025-04-02 03:34:38+00:00
I like Ezra Klein a lot. But what’s odd about his Abundance theory is that he can’t bring himself to admit that nowhere in the U.S. comes closer to what he’s describing than Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon’s California.

The tragedy of muscular-government urbanism today is that it’s stuck in a political coalition with toxic empaths that will fill your nice public spaces with drug addicts, criminals, and illegal aliens. They won’t let you have nice public spaces until you first fix poverty, drug addiction, racism, and the economies of Latin American and Middle Eastern countries.
by owenpalmer | 2025-04-02 03:36:00+00:00
Concerning zoning laws, when my father built his house, he really had to be clever in order to dodge the local county's regulations.

1. He had to hire a biologist to convince the county inspectors that the property was not wetlands.

2. The county claimed that he couldn't put in a driveway due to regulations, but my dad found an old satellite image archive, which showed there was a prexisting logging road from decades earlier. This was a loophole that allowed him to install the driveway.

So much of the housing crisis is caused by overregulation, at least in my home state of Washington.
by gcanyon | 2025-04-02 03:36:11+00:00
I've only read maybe 30 pages of the book, but I think the article misses the point (I hope) the book is making: there are regulations that serve a purpose, and regulations that don't, and we can, to at least some extent, tell the difference based on the regulations themselves or their impact on past projects.

If that's true, then we can shed regulations, speed the process of government, and make it more effective at actually doing things.

It might be difficult to tell which regulations are causing problems, or which are needless, or maybe that's not the point of the book; but criticizing the book for not pre-identifying exactly which regulations need to end seems overly demanding: we first need to agree that there are needless regulations that slow progress. If the book helps us reach that conclusion, it's served a purpose.

Also, as a small nit: "even a positive-sum world contains winners and losers." That needs cites I think. I'm sure there's someone in the U.S. who is worse off than a 15th century peasant, but there are precious few of them, too few to use that phrase to describe them.
by defenestrated | 2025-04-02 03:36:13+00:00
This is great. Is there a version of this that does p2p off-grid messaging? Use cases from: 1. Coordination between group members during camping in the wilderness. A mesh solution that works across iOS and Android would be ideal but mesh isn't a hard requirement either. 2. Messaging within a group who's flying together but across different seats/sections at cruising altitude in a long haul flight.
by xedrac | 2025-04-02 03:36:33+00:00
That $140B is a very concrete number with documentation to back up all 7279 line items in great detail. Nearly 1000x more than this $200M Cybertruck inventory. So yes, peanuts compared to the waste and fraud they've found. Your somewhat unrelated claim about the IRS is from a pay-walled source, and one that is historically rather biased against conservatism I might add. Are they claiming that the reduction in force reduced audits or something which somehow equates to $500B? I'd like to see equally detailed evidence for their claim.
by 0dayz | 2025-04-02 03:36:38+00:00
While I don't disagree, issue is that this is something that was Jobst's responsibility for presenting to dispute Mitchell's evidence of having been harmed due to the allegation to have driven someone to suicide.

It's disappointing to Jobst credibility, especially since I remember Jobst hyping up/bragging about the court case as an easy slam dunk for Jobst.
by ttd | 2025-04-02 03:38:04+00:00
Bezier curves (the regular kind) cannot represent circles and ellipses, this is true. However, rational Bezier curves can [1]. I don't know if PostScript has a rational Bezier primitive, but some drawing libraries do. A prominent example of a library that does is Skia, the rendering engine behind Chrome and Android.

[1] - e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9zier_curve#Rational_B%C...
by tgma | 2025-04-02 03:38:20+00:00
Feel free to act outraged. I am not going to further debate this charged topic. The authors are literally on every podcast trying to contrast themselves from various aspects of DOGE or deregulation and ideas that came before from Peter Thiel et al. That proves the point is not as far-fetched and crazy to debate, even if you disagree with the conclusion.
by opello | 2025-04-02 03:39:05+00:00
> 1. Understand the system: Read the manual, read everything in depth, know the fundamentals, know the road map, understand your tools, and look up the details.

Maybe? Although it seems more like it's actually #5:

> 5. Change one thing at a time: Isolate the key factor, grab the brass bar with both hands (understand what's wrong before fixing), change one test at a time, compare it with a good one, and determine what you changed since the last time it worked.

where in my imagined scenario, a student that just finished the lab successfully could pull out their DIP-8 device and swap in the author's to validate that it was possible to make it work in a known good environment.