MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by grumpy-de-sre | 2025-04-13 08:57:32+00:00
From what I understand SAC305 if not exposed to corrosive environments has a relatively low (but nonzero) risk of whisker formation. But in practice in a hobby environment it's not going to be a big issue.

Pure tin (or Sn99.3Cu0.7 alloy) is garbage, the silver helps a bunch.

For demanding applications there's apparently some even more performant alloys available today, eg. Innolot [1].

1. https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/55827
by ben_w | 2025-04-13 08:57:46+00:00
There's many sayings about diplomacy, though I understand the reality is much more mundane.

One that comes to mind is "a diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip" — like all good quotes, attributed to a wide variety of famous people.

Competent governments send arse kissers to those who need pampering, and send blunt to those who need to see bluntness. But (in a competent government) these things are uncorrelated with the actual negotiation position — "speak softly and carry a big stick" etc.

Trump being bellicose to everyone at the same time is a sign of his own incompetence.
by rollcat | 2025-04-13 08:58:08+00:00
> I've tried many IDEs but I'll always come back to vim.

Vim and Emacs both have GUIs. As an Emacs user, I subjectively find the GUI superior - I can e.g. rebind Cmd-S to "save", and that's a reason enough.

> It's a language you learn [...]

You mean the serial lines and ANSI escape codes and termcap? I would say it's more like pidgin with a dozen obscure dialects, and a body language on top. Try writing a portable TUI application from scratch, without touching curses or termbox. <https://viewsourcecode.org/snaptoken/kilo/>

Or do you mean, how to drive a TUI application from the keyboard? Here's the painful truth: you can't quit a TUI application without learning it. In vi, it's "Esc-q!-Enter", in Emacs it's "C-x C-c", in screen it's "C-a C-\", in tmux it's "C-a C-d", and so on. Maybe pressing "q" or F10 or C-d will work, but good luck guessing. This is just to quit, and ironically - it's only the start.

By contrast, on macOS it's Cmd-Q; on Windows, it's Alt-F4; and so on. Innovation happens on stable foundations, not by pulling rugs.

> It's not a one size tool for all. There is no product that can be made for everyone. [...] Everyone's dotfiles are as unique as they themselves are.

You know non-TUI applications are also customisable? I have Hammerspoon scripts, a dozen custom keybindings in macOS, .xsession+.Xdefaults+.Xresources, .gitconfig (I use git via Emacs+Magit), various .config/*'s (for e.g. sway), .emacs (bankrupted several times), and so on - none of these are TUI applications.

Or do you mean the command line? I believe we can build a better REPL than a terminal emulator. Emacs is a decent PoC, you can also have a look at Swift Playgrounds. Maybe we can build a generic non-terminal REPL where Ctrl-C means "copy", and Ctrl-V means "paste", that would be a great start.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy if you're happy, I just don't understand the collective obsession. These tools exist, which is great, but we deserve better.
by globular-toast | 2025-04-13 08:58:18+00:00
In the UK people consider "speeding" to be going 10mph or more over the limit. So 20/30mph really means 30/40mph, and in addition there are still many places with 40mph (50mph) roads going through.

Speed limit signs don't work. People will drive at whatever speed feels right and this is usually way above 20mph. What works is narrowing the roads. When the carriage way is barely wider than your vehicle it magically makes 20mph feel appropriate and 30mph seem fast (which it is). This has the bonus effect that larger vehicles feel it more, which is perfect considering they are the most dangerous and should be driven by trained professionals who are used to such tight spaces.

It essentially makes driving much more stressful, which is exactly what it should be. The problem at the moment is drivers get everything: big, wide, smooth roads, with the best drainage and grading; the easiest and most convenient mode of transport; but none of the responsibility. We need to shift the balance back. You can drive, but it's a big responsibility and if you fuck up the consequences are serious.
by perihelions | 2025-04-13 08:58:44+00:00
- "they should dictate to the companies how they want to approach the problem"

No; I mean they should define the problem they need solved. If they're too unfocused to define that problem as "mass-produced reusable rockets", that's a strong signal they've already lost.

There's a dozen newspace startups pursuing reusability, and it's Europe's loss that none of them are in Europe.
by magicalhippo | 2025-04-13 08:59:44+00:00
As mentioned in the linked presentation, they envision using interconnected 300m (1000ft) long segments that can be changed using ROVs, using technology that's already available for underwater pipelines.

Also mentioned is that the LHC cryostats, some nice illustrations here[1], are very nearly neutrally buoyant. Given these would be built similarly, they wouldn't need significant infrastructure to keep them in place.

So no humans would need to go down there, if something breaks they could just replace the broken segment(s) and fix the broken one(s) on the surface.

[1]: https://cas.web.cern.ch/sites/default/files/lectures/bilbao-...
by kassner | 2025-04-13 09:00:34+00:00
> I've never been more productive

Maybe it’s because my approach is much closer to a Product Engineer than a Software Engineer, but code output is rarely the reason why projects that I worked on are delayed. All my productivity issues can attributed to poor specifications, or problems that someone just threw over the wall. Every time I’m blocked is because someone didn’t make a decision on something, or no one has thought further enough to see this decision was needed.

It irks me so much when I see the managers of adjacent teams pushing for AI coding tools when the only thing the developers know about the project is what was written in the current JIRA ticket.
by aitoorwrites | 2025-04-13 09:01:25+00:00
An experiment with more than 800 people shows that ChatGPT generates therapeutic responses that are more empathetic and aligned with the fundamental principles of psychotherapy than human therapists with decades of experience. The finding, published in February 2025 in PLOS Mental Health by a team of researchers from Brigham Young University, suggests that artificial intelligence could play a key role in the future of mental health.
by hwpythonner | 2025-04-13 09:01:54+00:00
I’m trying to understand if this depends on something specific to FM or TV signals, or if it’s more of a protocol-level idea (i.e., any time-synced, known-location transmitters would work).

If it’s not intrinsic to FM, why not use existing cellular towers to do this? They’re everywhere, and phones already receive broadcast messages (like Amber Alerts) even without a SIM (I think) — so it feels like this could be done without needing new radios.

What makes this more accurate than cell tower triangulation today? Is the limitation in timing sync across towers, or something else in how cell networks are structured?

And for indoor use — how does this handle multipath? Reflections from walls or even atmospheric bounce seem like they’d throw off timing accuracy, similar to what messes with GPS in dense areas.
by Const-me | 2025-04-13 09:03:02+00:00
> If you are using plain buffers the GPU and the CPU access data pretty much exactly the same way

Yeah, that will work fine for byte address buffers, to lesser extent constant buffers (they don’t convert data types but the access sematic and alignment are a bit tricky), but not much else. Vertex buffers, textures, and texel buffers / typed buffers in D3D are all widely used in real-time graphics.

> which you could write yourself in a shader and get same perf

Pretty sure it’s hardware. Emulating anisotropic texture sampler with HLSL codes would need hundreds of instructions, prohibitively expensive. Even simpler trilinear sampling is surprisingly tricky to emulate due to these screen-space partial derivatives on input.

> I have not seen an apples to apples benchmark about these format conversions.

Here’s a benchmark for vertex buffers https://wickedengine.net/2017/06/should-we-get-rid-of-vertex... As you see, on AMD GCN4 he indeed measured pretty much the same perf, however on nVidia Maxwell vertex buffers were 2-4 times faster.
by wizzwizz4 | 2025-04-13 09:03:46+00:00
Legacy archaeology in a 60MiB codebase far easier than digging through email archives, requirements docs, and old PowerPoint files that Microsoft Office won't even open properly any more (though LibreOffice can, if you're lucky). Handwritten code actually expresses something about the requirements and design decisions, whereas AI slop buries that signal in so much noise and makes "archaeology" almost impossible.

When insight from a long-departed dev is needed right now to explain why these rules work in this precise order, but fail when the order is changed, do you have time to git bisect to get an approximate date, then start trawling through chat logs in the hopes you'll happen to find an explanation?
by mckn1ght | 2025-04-13 09:05:22+00:00
There will still be people who care to go deeper and learn what an API is and how to design a good one. They will be able to build the services and clients faster and go deeper using AI code assistants.

And then, yes, you’ll have the legions of vibe coders living in Plato’s cave and churning out tinker toys.
by jen729w | 2025-04-13 09:05:27+00:00
I've been thinking about this a lot in the context of moving out of an old house that needs constant care.

Will the next residents understand that the drip-watering system 'blows out' sometimes, and needs fixing? How did I understand that? I've never lived in a house with a drip-watering system. But I heard these noises (high-pitched weeeeeee! as the air gets pushed out of the line; sound of water through pipes even though I hadn't turned a tap on), I wondered what it was, I investigated, I figured out it was the watering system.

And then one day those noises changed. Interesting. Investigate! Oh, one of the connectors has come loose. I should fix that.

Next year, the drip-watering system just doesn't work. Nothing happens. I remember when it turned on I could hear the solenoid tapping in and out. Now, nothing. A bit of figuring out later and I realise it froze in winter. The tap was full of water, it closed its relay, night came, it froze, it expanded. Damn. I bought a new unit and now I drain it come late autumn.

---

This plus one hundred other things.

---

So can I tell all this to the incoming residents, whomever they might be? I thought to write a 'house manual'. Maybe knock up a little website.

But, no. I can't. Because this is what we refer to as 'common sense'. Can I teach a stranger common sense? Alas.

Invent a thing that can teach an adult common sense and there's your next unicorn.
by 1dom | 2025-04-13 09:06:17+00:00
I do this occasionally, and have done for years. On earlier or lower resolution headsets with Fresnel lenses, it does force you to look at a screen slightly differently - everything has to be a bit larger, you have to move your head/eyes a bit more to deal with blurry edges.

Pancake lens devices like quest pro is fine though. I tend to favour one large virtual screen in vr though, whereas in real life, I prefer one large and one portrait second monitor. Being able to touchtype is useful.

Haven't tried virtual desktop recently, but immersedvr has always been the best work vr app, unfortunately. I say unfortunately because the company is a bit of a joke. They are a case study in everything wrong with silicon valley tech over the past decade. Name a shitty money making buzzword, and they've pivoted towards it and failed at it.
by mdp2021 | 2025-04-13 09:07:29+00:00
There also exists models such as the "Epson BT-35E Smart Glasses", which instead of Glasses+Computer (specialized Android device) are Glasses+Connector (HDMI and USB-C). The commercial stub:

> Seamlessly blend digital content into the outside world with the Moverio BT-35E smart glasses, featuring an interface unit with HDMI and USB Type-C ports to connect to popular output devices. It’s like having a wearable second screen, while still seeing the surrounding environment via the transparent HD display. Offering an easy out-of-box experience, the BT-35E connects to virtually any device - no need for special software. And, its interface does not require an external power source when used with a compatible USB Type-C output device

I guess you should realistic about configuring your workspace for optimality around this type of screen - it does not replace a big desk monitor... It is sort of a lower-resolution experience.

--

Edit: now are there people who drunkenly act over posts, besides the always pestiferous indecent habit of not justifying your actions, and hit posts that simply replied to poster's requests? "Can it do X", "Well, this model can". Where would be the problem?!
by immibis | 2025-04-13 09:07:55+00:00
Then you look up their IP address's abuse contact, send an email and get them to either stop attacking you or get booted off the internet so they can't attack you.

And if that doesn't happen, you go to their ISP's ISP and get their ISP booted off the Internet.

Actual ISPs and hosting providers take abuse reports extremely seriously, mostly because they're terrified of getting kicked off by their ISP. And there's no end to that - just a chain of ISPs from them to you and you might end with convincing your ISP or some intermediary to block traffic from them. However, as we've seen recently, rules don't apply if enough money is involved. But I'm not sure if these shitty interim solutions come from ISPs ignoring abuse when money is involved, or from not knowing that abuse reporting is taken seriously to begin with.

Anyone know if it's legal to return a never-ending stream of /dev/urandom based on the user-agent?
by maccard | 2025-04-13 09:08:07+00:00
That is quite the Wikipedia article.

It’s not often that I diss content, but if there was ever a summary of a topic written that tried to sound like it was a novel idea by labelling everything under the sun, this is it.

Maybe I’m not smart enough to understand it, but honestly after 4 tries I still don’t get what the point is.

Also, the topic of “reflexive” came about in the early to mid 20th century, so for many people here, our parents have always existed in this reflexive modern. That doesn’t mean things have gotten more complex in the last generation
by Jabbles | 2025-04-13 09:08:48+00:00
But one of her points is that many of the jobs of current physicists depend on the status quo. That seems almost tautological. She then alleges that that clouds their judgement on the best use of research funding.

I'm sure that if you asked a range of physicists if _their_ area of research should receive more funding instead of the FCC, you would see less support for the FCC.

So we, as outsiders, are stuck not knowing what to believe - and ultimately an outsider, a politician, must make the decision for funding.
by beloch | 2025-04-13 09:09:09+00:00
Factories, tooling, machinery, etc. must be amortized over a market and production run. If you're making toilet paper, the cost is relatively low and the market is huge. The TP you make today will still be good TP in a decade. No one toilet paper factory can serve the world, so you'll need many of them in many markets. The inputs can be found within the U.S.. Why not build one in the U.S.?

A factory that produces a specific model of phone is only going to be able to run for a few years before it needs to retool for a newer model. That means a huge investment goes into such a factory on a continual basis. If one factory can serve the entire world demand for that model, why build two?

If you're going to build just one factory, are you going to build it in a market that's walled off behind trade barriers, both for outputs and inputs? Only if that market is significantly bigger than the rest of the world combined. If the rest of the world is bigger, than you build outside the trade barriers and people inside of them will just have to pay more.

Tariff's might bring low-end, high-volume manufacturing back to the U.S.. Chip fabs, phone factories, or anything so high-end/low-volume that it must be amortized over a global market is not going to return to the U.S. because of tariff's. An administration that changes their minds every few hours only makes matters worse. Whether Trump has recognized this and is conceding defeat or he's bowing to pressure from companies like Apple is immaterial. That kind of factory is not coming to the U.S. anytime soon.
by puzzledobserver | 2025-04-13 09:09:44+00:00
It's also because making some of these decisions (choosing health insurance, deciding how much to save, etc.) involve two considerations---the first being purely analytic (mundane cost vs. probability of contracting major disease vs. cost of catastrophe) and the other being necessarily extra-analytic (how risk averse the individual is).

One can objectively reason through the first set of considerations, while the second involves a subjective element and is likely heavily influenced by their upbringing and life experiences.

Nobody knows how much to save or how much to spend on insurance. It's completely reasonable to seek advice, and one's parents might be a great starting point.
by Barrin92 | 2025-04-13 09:10:16+00:00
>Compared with other countries, adults in America spend less time doing household chores such as mopping and ironing;

I definitely noticed this with exchange students from the US a little more than a decade ago in uni. In Germany it's pretty common for 18 year old's to share an apartment in the city with one or two mates, you wash, you cook together, the drinking age is 16 etc.

When we interacted with US students, a lot of them even a bit older got wasted like teens and threw up everywhere, couldn't operate a washing machine, couldn't cook a normal homemade meal and so on. I think the US college experience has a lot to do with this. Over here you live on your own and it's like a job, nobody cares if you show up, apparently in the US it's like an adult daycare almost. No wonder people in their mid 20s can't do chores.
by mptest | 2025-04-13 09:11:09+00:00
>A German experiment has found that people are likely to continue working full-time even if they receive no-strings-attached universal basic income payments.

Surprising only to those who have not read literally any other study on UBI. They all come to this conclusion.

The only reason we don't have nice things like this: universal housing, healthcare, income, food security, is because a handful of dragons sit on and hoard unfathomably sized mountains of gold and convince the uneducated and those ignorant of economics and politics that the real problem is average people getting what they deserve - A dignified life where their basic needs are met and they have the dignified freedom to pursue a fulfilling life rather than spend it enriching aforementioned dragons for exploitative wages.
by HDThoreaun | 2025-04-13 09:12:32+00:00
> What if Israel is dissolved and becomes a different state and Jews and Arabs are both unharmed and free to live in it?

What if pigs fly? You know this was the original plan they tried right?

> is Likud, Israel's ruling party, genocidal or not?

I think they probably will be in the future, but right now they could be enacting a genocide and they are not. Hamas is unable to enact a genocide and empirically it really seems like they would do it asap.

> proposal to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip, made by Trump... genocide

Obviously but just like most of the shit he says its just a distraction, not something he actually meant. Not that thats a good thing, it just is what it is.

The problem with the "freedom" desired in the slogan is that it is the freedom to kill every israeli. You can pretend that Hamas wants peace with israel or would be open to a one state solution that gives the jews any amount of power/freedom but we both know that is not true. The same is true of the Israelis with respect to the palestinians. Everyone in this conflict has acted horrendously and nobody has any reason to work with anyone else so it does unfortunately seem to me that at least cultural genocide if not full blown racial genocide will be the eventual resolution here. The big question is which group will the genocider and which the genocidee. I wont lie, the Israeli cultural values align more closely to my own so not so hard for me to pick a side. Of course Id love a peaceful resolution but it really seems impossible to me.
by _Algernon_ | 2025-04-13 09:13:06+00:00
This article is basically a showcase of why one shouldn't take sociology seriously. Thin ideological concepts packaged in a veneer of scientific sounding terminology, performed as an exercise to basically only allow the ideological in-group to "understand" it. The entire field seems like an elaborate suppression technique against the ideological outgroup (and apparently quite a successful one at that.

Meanwhile sociology was hardest hit by the replication crisis and I see no sign that they have done anything to improve replicability of their "research"
by john_the_writer | 2025-04-13 09:13:36+00:00
Would be an easy thing to add. We always have to reach for the remote and look at what the parental control password is for amazon. My kids are old enough that most things are fine. The sentence "I am that guy" means something. They can handle it. We've watched BillyElliot, so swearing isn't a concern.

Totally agree, let us turn it off, full stop.
Show HN: ClipWizard – Privacy-First Clipboard Manager
by danebalia | 2025-04-13 09:13:55+00:00
Hi HN,

I’m excited to share ClipWizard, a macOS clipboard manager I built for developers and IT folks who handle sensitive data like passwords, API keys, or personal info. It keeps a searchable clipboard history (text and images), but what sets it apart is its privacy focus: it auto-sanitizes sensitive content using customizable regex rules.

Key features: Clipboard History: Persistent, searchable log of text and images, with one-click copy.

Privacy & Security: Detects and sanitizes sensitive data (mask, obfuscate, or remove) based on custom rules.

Image Handling: Smart previews, editing (rotate, brightness), filters (grayscale, blur), and OCR for text extraction.

Usability: Menu bar access, keyboard shortcuts, and tweakable settings (history size, themes).

I created ClipWizard because I wanted a clipboard tool that’s fast, private, and developer-friendly—no cloud nonsense, no data leaks. It’s built for macOS with a focus on performance and control . I’d love feedback from the HN community! How do you handle sensitive clipboard data in your workflows? Any features you’d want in a tool like this? Check it out here: [https://github.com/daneb/ClipWizard].

Thanks for taking a look! Dane
by silisili | 2025-04-13 09:14:08+00:00
I don't quite understand the problem here. On every device I use Netflix, it defaults to highlighting the last used profile. So essentially, it takes two 'OK's to login - once to launch the app, once to select the profile.

I don't see how the existence of a children's profile bothers anyone so much. It's not extra work. You don't have to scroll past it or anything. It's just a nonoffensive thing that sits there if you ever need it on the initial profile page.