MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by reverendsteveii | 2025-04-04 18:50:18+00:00
Ayn Rand is the ultimate proof of something I've realized as I've grown: doing the right thing is actually really simple. It's not easy as in "low difficulty of accomplishment", but it's simple as in "low difficulty of understanding". In fact, I've started to think of complex decision making as the moral equivalent of a code smell: if I'm waffling back and forth over what the right thing to do is sometimes it's a genuinely complex situation where principles are in conflict but much (Much, MUCH) more often it's just that I no what the right thing to do is and just don't wanna do it. Objectivism feels like the inverse of this: you can make anything feel like the right thing to do if you just expand, generalize, hypotheticalize and muddy the question until "Should I give a hungry person a sandwich when I've got one I won't miss?" becomes something like "How do you expect society to function if no one works?"
by IanWoodfill | 2025-04-04 18:50:25+00:00
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by bee_rider | 2025-04-04 18:51:13+00:00
If I have a mostly CPU code and I want to time the scenario: “I have just a couple subroutines that I am willing to offload to the GPU,” what’s wrong with sprinkling my code with normal old python timing calls?

If I don’t care what part of the CUDA ecosystem is taking time (from my point of view it is a black-box that does GEMMs) so why not measure “time until my normal code is running again?”
by Hammershaft | 2025-04-04 18:51:16+00:00
Studies have found if you JUST upzoned and deregulated SF & NYC 30 years the avg income across the country would be %25 - %35 richer today.

building out the VHCOL cities is the fastest path to high growth and social mobility. These are far and away the country's most productive places (even for low skilled work) and build up, reducing housing cost, and bringing in migrants and making them more productive turbocharges growth.
by Propelloni | 2025-04-04 18:51:25+00:00
Italy's parliament had for a long time a system where you could vote "no confidence" without picking a constructive option. It did not serve them well and they abolished it eventually.

While I understand the disenchantment, just adding "none of the above" without committing to one of the offered options is not going to change a thing. You getting out on the streets and into politics is what changes things.
by nielsbot | 2025-04-04 18:51:36+00:00
You can be 100% correct while not being mainstream.

And you're laundering what the linked page says--they try to paint a picture of JVP being anti-semitic, but don't specifically accuse them of that. They do call them anti-Israel and anti-Zionist but you must not conflate that with anti-Semitism.

Do you find the ADL credible anyway. Seems they themselves could be accused of anti-semitism: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5097676-elon-mus...

Saying Musk's anti-semitic behavior isn't anti-semitic is definitely stretching the truth.
by jruohonen | 2025-04-04 18:51:50+00:00
I'd tone down a little. (And the same goes for bigwigs such as Ioannidis et al.) There are several so-called meta-science projects ongoing, and their results indicate that the situation is hardly as bad as presented by laypeople and populists. And, yes, self-correction happens, as it has always done, but it takes time (read: decades).
by BosunoB | 2025-04-04 18:51:50+00:00
I fell into Rand in high school and it took me a few years to climb out.

The problem with believing in the primacy of reason is that it's incredibly distortionary. In reality, we all think and reason with respect to our ego and our emotions, and so if you believe that you are engaging in pure reason, it can lead you to pave over the ways in which your emotions are affecting your line of thought.

In this way it can quickly become a very dogmatic, self-reinforcing way of thinking. The ironic thing is that becoming a better thinker is not done by studying logic, but instead by learning to recognize and respect your own emotional responses.
by mtlmtlmtlmtl | 2025-04-04 18:52:00+00:00
You're confusing the qualia of colour("what it's like" to perceive colour) with the property of colour. Both can be referred to by the word "colour".

You're essentially just arguing that one definition of a noun is "more valid" than another, which is completely arbitrary.

And of course the qualia of colour is entirely subjective and only in the mind. That's literally the definition of qualia. That doesn't mean the property of colour is also subjective, just because it's referred to by the same noun. And besides, qualia is a philosophically controversial term in the first place.

If you were trying to cross a river and someone told you walk over that bridge over there, you wouldn't respond that it's impossible because a bridge is a device that links two computer networks together at the link layer, and couldn't possibly be used a cross a river, would you?
by dghlsakjg | 2025-04-04 18:52:13+00:00
> This rhymes with still developing your own film.

Well, guilty, I actually do occasionally develop my own film.

Film photography is actually expanding as an industry right now. We are well past the point where digital photography can do everything a film camera can do, and in most cases it can do it far better (very minor exceptions like large format photography still exist, where you can argue that film still has the edge).

I think that whether you embrace AI photo editing or not has more to do with the purpose of your photos. If you are trying to create marketing collateral for a valentines day ad campaign, AI is probably going to be the best tool. If you are trying to document reality, even for aesthetic purposes, AI isn't great. When I make a portrait of my wife, I don't need AI to reinterpret her face for me.
by WXLCKNO | 2025-04-04 18:52:15+00:00
I think you're discrediting yourself by talking about dark places and opening your parentheses with anti-depressants.

Not all brains function like they're supposed to, people getting help they need shouldn't be stigmatized.

You also make no argument about your take on things being the right one, you just oppose their worldview to yours and call theirs wrong like you know it is rather than just you thinking yours is right.
by nerdponx | 2025-04-04 18:52:34+00:00
That's the thing. Regardless of whether or not you think the Court was unconstitutionally packed (due to the Senate running out the clock on the Garland nomination under Obama), it doesn't matter, because SCOTUS rulings are precedent and therefore effectively law. So it's no longer true even in theory, unless Trump v. US is overturned.
by ein0p | 2025-04-04 18:52:39+00:00
>> Misuse occurs when a human deliberately uses an AI system for harmful purposes.

Writes the company that sells AI services to the country openly genociding and ethnically cleansing Palestinian civilians.

>> For instance, misuse of present-day generative AI includes producing harmful content or spreading inaccurate information. In the future, advanced AI systems may have the capacity to more significantly influence public beliefs and behaviors in ways that could lead to unintended societal consequences.

Ah yeah, of course. The most important thing is that AI does not veer off the approved narratives. Everything else is secondary.

Disgusting hypocrisy
by pjmlp | 2025-04-04 18:52:53+00:00
Yes they did, it is called Metal Compute, and everyone using Apple devices has to use it.

Vulkan you say?

It is only relevant on GNU/Linux and Android, because Google is pushing it, and still most folks still keep using OpenGL ES, no one else cares about it, and already turned into the same spaghetti mess as OpenGL, to the point that there was a roadmap talk at Vulkanised 2025 on how to sort things out.

NVidia and AMD keep designing their cards with Microsoft for DirectX first, and Vulkan, eventually.
by legitster | 2025-04-04 18:53:34+00:00
The Soviet union had an outsized role in this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_the_Soviet_Union_an...

To meet lucrative production quotas, the Soviet Union lied to international agencies about how many whales they were catching. While they didn't harvest the most amount of whales in the 20th century, they disregarded treaties that protected endangered whales and breeding populations.

https://www.i-deel.org/blog/mass-killing-for-no-reason-the-p...

The worst part is there was little to no actual demand for whaling products in the Soviet Union, so most of they collected was treated as a waste product or simply dumped.
by yorwba | 2025-04-04 18:53:44+00:00
That explains why they were listed separately, it doesn't explain how some ended up with higher-than-default tariffs. As the article points out, the other half of the puzzle is that sometimes people use the wrong ISO code (maybe a typo, maybe just guessing and getting it wrong). For places with little actual trade, such mistakes naturally make up the bulk of the trade volume recorded in official statistics.
by throw0101c | 2025-04-04 18:53:55+00:00
> Here's the best explanation I've found: https://x.com/BigJohn043/status/1907901081209766379

Yeah:

> First, we are getting ripped off in global trade.

So Americans buying whatever stuff they want is getting "ripped off"?

> We could tax the rich more, but the world learned in the post WW2 era that doesn't work very well.

??? The post-WW2 years were some of the most prosperous in the US, and the high tax rates did not hinder that. When Clinton raised rates in the 1990s there were predictions of 'collapse', but things continue chugging along. Inequality decreased during the post-WW2 years up to Reagan.

> So the short answer is that tariffs are a pretty efficient tax.

Not sure how accurate this is, but they're certainly regressive. And if folks have a finite income, and prices go up so each unit purchased is more expensive, then logically won't that mean fewer units will be purchased/produced? If fewer units are produced then fewer workers are needed, so layoffs may be more likely.
by aaronbrethorst | 2025-04-04 18:54:07+00:00
lol, are you seriously taking JD Vance and puppy-killer Kristi Noem[1] at their word when they claim he's part of MS-13? Good lord, dude.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-trump-accidentally-...

[1] why is this relevant? Because anyone who shoots a puppy that they considered untrainable and then brags about it in their own book is a stone-cold sociopath.
by johnea | 2025-04-04 18:54:07+00:00
I live in a house in San Diego, built in 1920.

It has 240v AC, which I use to charge.

I seriously doubt you need to "upgrade" anything, just plug in the car.

Unless you're trying to have the highest grade fast charging at home, your existing electrical connection is almost certainly adequate. But since a car at home can charge overnight, you almost certainly don't need any kind of fast charging...
by glenstein | 2025-04-04 18:54:11+00:00
I mean if it's a good explanation, then it most definitely is the same as lack of hypocrisy.

I do see how you can squint and feel that there's something there, after all Rand imagined a capitalist utopia. But it's not at all a crazy argument to understand accepting the benefits as a recovery of resources that were rightfully yours to begin with. It's actually refreshingly coherent and responsive, and a huge contrast with how modern public figures don't even pretend to address instances of personal hypocrisy.

I might raise a little bit of an eyebrow but I don't see the knockdown gotcha, and if you do, well, you've gotta make the argument.
by surgical_fire | 2025-04-04 18:54:31+00:00
This is not how it works.

Did you ever use the streets in front of your house? Ever went to a public park? Ever relied on police to protect your property? Ever needed the help of public health services? Firefighters?

It's funny that you get money stole from you (while you certainly use a ton on infrastructure society provides), but never once considered leaving it behind and go live as a hunter gatherer in some remote place.

After all, you are posting here.
by jug | 2025-04-04 18:54:46+00:00
> there are some new capabilities that are big, but they are still fundamentally next-token predictors

Anthropic recently released research where they saw how when Claude attempted to compose poetry, it didn't simply predict token by token and "react" to when it thought it might need a rhyme and then looked at its context to think of something appropriate, but actually saw several tokens ahead and adjusted for where it'd likely end up, ahead of time.

Anthropic also says this adds to evidence seen elsewhere that language models seem to sometimes "plan ahead".

Please check out the section "Planning in poems" here; it's pretty interesting!

https://transformer-circuits.pub/2025/attribution-graphs/bio...
by donnachangstein | 2025-04-04 18:55:11+00:00
No, because ⌘ is often mapped to the Windows key on a PC keyboard, and the physical position of those is swapped on the Mac layout. The key width is different too (Command being a wider key than Ctrl) on a traditional Mac layout.

If it were simply a visual thing I would agree; but it's a physical key placement issue.
by bigstrat2003 | 2025-04-04 18:55:25+00:00
You're engaging in a false dichotomy. The possibilities are not "Rand was a dum-dum" or "Rand was evil". There's also the (very likely) possibility that either she was wrong, or you are wrong (and yes, you could be wrong in your analysis even though I don't blame you for not thinking you are), through no fault of character. These sorts of big issues are hard to analyze and get right.
by mullingitover | 2025-04-04 18:55:28+00:00
Buried down at the bottom:

> ...countries that have strong labor support policies (like strong social safety nets) are generally much better able to garner the benefit from international trade without suffering social and political costs from it.

The US was absolutely wealthier due to free trade, but the idea of equitably distributing that wealth, supporting those who were disadvantaged by free trade, is so abhorrent to the ruling class that it's not even considered as the obvious solution here.

Nope, we just have to throw free trade in the dumpster, surely that will solve our problem of the weak being systematically exploited by the strong.
by dingnuts | 2025-04-04 18:55:48+00:00
The garment industry is an interesting one to make a cost argument about.

It produces an immense amount of ecological damage and human suffering to support prices so low that even poor people have way more clothing than they need.

The garment industry in Southeast Asia has some of the worst working conditions in the world, comparable without cynicism to modern day slavery.

Of all the things that I would like to see taxed, the garment industry is absolutely one.

Yes, it would be worth it to pay more per item of clothing if it was created by someone with human rights. Super worth it. Please tax the likes of Vietnam and kill fast fashion brands like Shien. The world would be 100% better.

In general I think these tariffs are terrible but taking the side of fast fashion is pretty much always morally wrong.
by bigyabai | 2025-04-04 18:55:55+00:00
> it is called Metal Compute, and everyone using Apple devices has to use it.

Sounds like a submarket absolutely teeming with competition. Like, you have Metal Compute, and Apple Accelerate Framework and MLX all sitting there in the same spot! Apple is really outdoing themselves, albeit in a fairly literal sense.

> It is only relevant on GNU/Linux and Android

Hmm... someone ought to remind me of the first stage of grief, I've forgotten it suddenly.
by ghostly_s | 2025-04-04 18:55:56+00:00
Well the teams in Pokemon Go aren't quite as generic as Teamred: they are Team Instinct, Team Mystic, and Team Valor. Presumably Nintendo has trademarks on those phrases, and I’m sure all the big print on demand houses have an API for rights-holders to preemptively submit their trademarks for takedowns.

Nintendo is also famously protective of their IP: to give another anecdote, I just bought one of the emulator handhelds on Aliexpress that are all the rage these days, and while they don't advertise it they usually come preloaded with a buttload or ROMs. Mine did, including a number of Nintendo properties — but nary an Italian plumber to be found. The Nintendo fear runs deep.
by FredPret | 2025-04-04 18:56:50+00:00
I love capitalism and am a former Rand fan.

But I don't think taxes are in and of themselves immoral.

A human being is a social animal, and each gets a lot of value from the people around us.

These are nice to have:

- clean streets

- police

- non-corrupt judges

- a stable legal framework

- living among educated people

- fire department that just shows up

- not getting bombed and invaded by a foreign army

- much more

These are "true expenses" in that if you didn't pay for them... you'd eventually pay the price for them when you're the victim of crime, fire, or exposure to the illiterate.

If you lived in Galt's Gulch or some gated community in an anarchic society, you'd pay a regular fee for these services, like voluntary taxes.

Taxes are infamously as inevitable as death because the expenses it's meant to pay for are also inevitable. We might as well set up a system.

Government waste is held up as an example of immorality, and some/most governments certainly should be leaner, but some waste & inertia would happen in any large organization, public or private. The only other time a government could be straight-up immoral is if it's persecuting innocent citizens or foreigners for no reason. Thinking through the implementation details of Galt's Gulch makes me think taxes aren't so bad after all.
by TechDebtDevin | 2025-04-04 18:57:03+00:00
Anyone who wants to demystify ML should read: The StatQuest Illustrated Guide to Machine Learning [0] By Josh Starmer. To this day I haven't found a teacher who could express complex ideas as clearly and concisely as Starmer does. It's written in an almost children's book like format that is very easy to read and understand. He also just published a book on NN that is just as good. Highly recommend even if you are already an expert as it will give you great ways to teach and communicate complex ideas in ML.

[0]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75622146-the-statquest-i...
by ameliaquining | 2025-04-04 18:57:15+00:00
At the risk of being That Guy, traffic on high-demand corridors is not caused by building too much or too little or the wrong things; it is caused by lack of congestion pricing. If you don't have that, then you'll have congestion anywhere people want to be, regardless of whether you build lots of roads or build lots of trains or don't build at all. Building roads or trains might (or might not) still be a good thing to do, in the sense of creating more economic value by increasing throughput and so making more marginal trips viable, but that induced demand means the roads will still be congested. Whereas if you have congestion pricing you can just decide how much congestion you want to tolerate and set it at whatever level achieves that.
by munk-a | 2025-04-04 18:57:59+00:00
I have a fundamental issue with the concept of large platform social media. Companies like Meta love to complain about the impossibility of moderating such huge public spaces - and they aren't lying, it's an immense issue - if you ever moderated a small forum you're well aware of the pain that a troll or two can cause you.

But they chose to create such an unscalable line of business, it never existed before because everyone realized it wasn't possible. It might just be that some of the AI enabled businesses aren't realistic and profitable.
by sahilagarwal | 2025-04-04 18:58:05+00:00
You reminded me of one of my favorite piece of media in gaming (HZD). It feels especially relevant in the current times, with how war and AI is progressing in tandem with geopolitical unrest.

Its an old recording that the main character listens to in the end cutscene while visiting Elisabet's grave, and (spoilers) the main character was created as a clone of Elisabet. It's very hard hitting after the whole experience.

> GAIA: Query: What did she say?

Elisabet Sobeck: She said I had to care. She said, "Elisabet, being smart will count for nothing if you don't make the world better. You have to use your smarts to count for something, to serve life, not death."

GAIA: You often tell stories of your mother. But you are childless.

Elisabet Sobeck: I never had time. I guess it was for the best.

GAIA: If you had had a child, Elisabet, what would you have wished for him or her?

Elisabet Sobeck: I guess... I would have wanted her to be... curious. And willful - unstoppable, even... but with enough compassion to... heal the world... just a little bit.
by cjbprime | 2025-04-04 18:58:10+00:00
It's a British thing -- another example is that Brits would use e.g. "Apple have decided to.." instead of "Apple has decided to.." (for every group of people including "the government", not just businesses).

I like this language quirk a lot. It almost feels subversive, pointing out through grammar that group entities are just people, responsible for their choices like everyone else.
by astrange | 2025-04-04 18:58:12+00:00
Well yeah, that's just some weird French place we bought and turned into a slave labor camp.

But memes about suicide nets aside, Chinese factory workers are there by their own choice, because it's better than their alternatives, and we've eliminated such choices by simply making it illegal to have the low cost of living it requires.

This was done to make the poor underclass go away (homeless people) but it also makes this type of working class (factory workers) go away. Luckily for us, we have a service economy with email jobs for them to work instead.
by yanko | 2025-04-04 18:58:31+00:00
US economy is about to collapse if continue with old liberal open way. That is why both forces agreed to allow Tump do to unpopular changes. You can bring back real manufacture of high value products back to USA OR left financial market as now to ruin the economics of money out of thin air to collapse the country. You cannot have both - because saving financial market will not allow development of real product manufacturing. Also prerequisites of real product manufacturing is to protect it with import taxes from foreign cheaper one. What ever the Trump way is - it is the only hope for USA as nobody else dare to make any changes or to propose better ideas.
by arp242 | 2025-04-04 18:58:31+00:00
Seems like an unpleasant person.

I read on his Wikipedia page that he called Obama's re-election "the worst political event ever to occur in the history of this continent" and "worse than the Civil War".

An estimated 600,000 to one million people died in the war. And many more suffered life-long injuries, had to deal with the loss of their child, spouse, etc. Also seems to me the slave system in the US – where people were born in to slavery with no realistic hope of freedom – is the ultimate in state control and stripping of individual rights that people like him are supposed to be against.

You can dislike Obama, nothing wrong with that. But is having a president you dislike for 4 years really worse than up to a million dead people? And the institute of slavery?

Also denies property rights to Palestinians and native Americans. The notion that individual rights are paramount again goes out of window at the first sign of inconvenience.

So not just unpleasant on a personal level, also morally decrepit and intellectually vapid.