MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by lysace | 2025-04-24 22:33:26+00:00
Still using VSCode, but you kind of know that's it's going to go sour eventually. It is Microsoft. :/

I figure e.g. emacs will always be there when that happens.

All I need is a Github Copilot clone and a good code search feature.

Oh and automatic reloads of open but unchanged buffers when switching between git branches.

Oh and the ssh remote extension.
by BLKNSLVR | 2025-04-24 22:33:29+00:00
"The free-market system, Hamm reminded Hitler, was based on trust, the rule of law, and adherence to contractual obligations."

Grimace emoji.

"But Hitler made no effort to reassure the markets, insisting that the tariffs were necessary and that he needed time to fix the ruined country his predecessors had left him."

Double grimace emoji.
by alabastervlog | 2025-04-24 22:33:41+00:00
I favor “made in [almost any OECD state]” (not just the USA) for goods I care about and plan to have a long time precisely because it’s a decent quality marker. It doesn’t make sense to shave a few pennies on materials and processes here and there when labor’s so expensive that you can’t compete on price anyway.

If you just tell me, or imply that, “these are identically made and QC’d, and made with the same amount and quality of materials, but made in two different countries” I’ll just take the cheaper one. Especially if the price difference is as large as in this experiment, JFC.
by snickerbockers | 2025-04-24 22:33:52+00:00
the usual license header has something along the lines of "either version [23], or at your discretion, any subsequent version", which clearly explains that there are specific versions with distinct rules. Many people opt not to include this clause because they (understandably) don't want to automatically agree to a contract that hasn't even been written yet. However if they fail to make the version clear that's on them.

Anyways I don't think this defense would ever fly in court. As soon as the plaintiff's lawyers produce evidence that you are aware of GPLv3 (such as pointing out that you have GPLv3 software on your PC or phone) the judge is going to see that you're trying to game the system on technicality and sanction you. Judges really don't like this sly loophole BS where it's extremely obvious that you're feigning ignorance for the sake of constructing an alternate reality where you hypothetically never knew there was a GPLv3.
by ben_w | 2025-04-24 22:35:07+00:00
> For narrow use cases we did have natural language interfaces in the 90s, yes. See e.g. IRC bots.

"Narrow" being the key word. Thing is, even in the 2010s, we were doing sentiment analysis by counting the number of positive words and negative words, because it doesn't go past "narrow".

Likewise, "A to B" is great… when it's narrow. I grew up on "Southbrook Road" — not the one in London, not the one in Southampton, not the one in Exeter, …

And then there's where I went to university. Ond mae hynny'n twyllo braidd, oherwydd y Gymraeg. But not cheating very much, because of bilingual rules and because of the large number of people with multi-lingual email content. Cinco de mayo etc.

I also grew up with text adventures, which don't work if you miss the expected keyword, or mis-spell it too hard. (And auto-correction has its own problems, as anyone who really wants to search for "adsorption" not "absorption" will tell you).

> That exact thing has been a feature of Gmail for over a decade. Remember the 2018 GCal spam?

Siri has something similar. It misses a lot and makes up a lot. Sometimes it sets the title to be the date and makes up a date.

These are examples of not doing things successfully with just a hundred hard-coded rules.
by rbanffy | 2025-04-24 22:35:29+00:00
You won't see mainframes doing AI training, but there is a lot of value in being able to do extremely low-latency inference (which is why they have their NPU on the same chip as the CPUs, just a few clock-cycles from the cores) during on-line transaction processing, and less timing-critical inference work on the dedicated cards (which are a few more nanoseconds away).
by bangaladore | 2025-04-24 22:35:33+00:00
To be clear, I'm don't like the Microsoft has a proprietary Marketplace, but a company openly violating the terms of use for their own profit is a bit much in my opinion.

> Cursor allegedly has been flouting Microsoft terms-of-service rules for some time now by setting up a reverse proxy to mask its network requests to the endpoints used by the Microsoft Visual Studio Marketplace. This allows Cursor users to install VS Code extensions from Microsoft's market. Other VS Code forks tend to point to Open VSX, an alternative extension marketplace.
by conductr | 2025-04-24 22:36:30+00:00
No, metrics and growth always existed and could be measured there wasn’t some technological breakthrough to enable that with Web 2.0. They, Facebook, decided to use it as their guiding principle. They decided to force the feed on their users. They knew their users had no real alternative and the value they had built with getting everyone on the network itself.

If anything, their move was anti-web 2.0. As they moved forum and blogs and news, pretty much all open and accessible content into their walled garden. Even the famous quote “know what’s cooler than being a millionaire? Being a billionaire.” Or however it goes, is a ruthless capitalist telling Zuck he needs to wake up and realized how valuable this thing he’s built really could be.

Carry on if you want but I think you’re very much the one that gets it backwards? Do you remember how it all transpired or are you too young to really understand what it was and what Web 2.0 really was about?
by tlogan | 2025-04-24 22:36:53+00:00
Before dismissing small businesses as just a tiny part of the economy, try this: count how many times you interact with them in a single day. They might make up a small percentage of GDP, but they are a huge part of our everyday lives - and probably critical part.

Here’s my quick list from just today:

- Dropped my kid off at daycare — small business

- Picked up a burrito from Express Burrito on Taraval — small business

- Ordered coffee — small business

- Called a handyman to fix the lights — small business

- Called my dentist — small business

- Wrote a rent check to my landlord — small business

And yeah, I’ll probably spend a good chunk of money at Costco this weekend… but that doesn’t change how deeply woven small businesses are into my daily life.
by claiir | 2025-04-24 22:37:22+00:00
> GoDaddy is actively experimenting to integrate image generation so customers can easily create logos that are editable [..]

I remember meeting someone on Discord 1-2 years ago (?) working on a GoDaddy effort to have customer-generated icons using bespoke foundation image gen models? Suppose that kind of bespoke model at that scale is ripe for replacement by gpt-image-1, given the instruction-following ability / steerability?
by arghwhat | 2025-04-24 22:37:29+00:00
There is no relation between the ability to communicate and a shared understanding of our concept of quantum transitions - case in point, our invention of the technology we use to communicate with deep space far predates us learning these concepts ourselves.

I'd also hold that the only thing this plaque could ever give is clear sign of artificial creation, and by virtue the (possibly past) existence of some entity capable of creating it. Maybe they'll get a vague idea of what we look like, but if "their" culture does not commonly depict themselves in 2D as we do, or "they" have vastly different morphologies, even that would be unclear. The context needed to understand our attempt at showing our location might also be lost if the thing went far enough.
by kridsdale3 | 2025-04-24 22:38:17+00:00
I don't dislike the analogy. I eventually reached a point where I couldn't stomach the TikTok-ification of the product that Zuck forced us to keep marching towards, so I left.

Personally I agree with your point, less social media is better. I personally never go to Facebook anymore and set up app limits on my phone for my health. I won't let my kids use it at all.

But I worked at a company and drew a considerable salary, so I did what I was expected to do to make the product make money.
by arp242 | 2025-04-24 22:38:23+00:00
John Major, who was prime minister of the UK in the 90s, has talked a bit about how isolated a position like that makes you, and how unprepared he was for it. Few of the normal pressures of life apply you in a position like that: you can't get fired (not really), you don't have to accept consequences (not really), and perhaps most importantly: you don't have anyone tell you "you idiot, that's fucking mental". No one that you can just dismiss anyway.

I can't find the interview right now, it was a while ago, but I thought it was pretty interesting. Major was a man in his 50s when he became PM. Zuck was in his early 20s. You have to wonder what that does to a person. People like Zuck are more or less like child actors that made it big: everyone bends over backwards to deepthroat them and they've got a view of the world that's just delusional. I'd feel sorry if it wasn't for the highly negative and caustic effects.
by TheBicPen | 2025-04-24 22:38:36+00:00
"want" is different from "will consume if offered". Arguably, the definition of "want" that most people use is one of higher-order desire. E.g. a drug addict wants drugs, but doesn't want to want drugs. People might choose a certain feature if offered and they aren't aware of its negative impact on their mental health. Then they might become cognizant of the negative effects but by then the choice to not use that feature is no longer available so they're stuck with what they have. Alternatively, the choice to not use the feature might still be present, but the neural reward pathways have already been built. The user then wants the feature, but they don't want to want it.
by kridsdale3 | 2025-04-24 22:41:44+00:00
Trust me, I came in there full of motivation for "do what is good for the actual humans", and most of the rank of file were the same. FB's employees are not evil or exploitative, though I won't say its unfair to describe the leadership in such terms.

Many times in product design meetings I would interject with "but this hurts people!" etc.

We hated that our personal careers were directly tied to increasing the junk-food factor. It didn't feel good at all. But the choice, as crafted by HR and senior directors was clear: Junk food this thing, or lose your jobs.
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by Macha | 2025-04-24 22:42:36+00:00
I went for 10 years not using a pen at home. That streak would be even longer, except for about a year I took up journalling as a hobby.

I'm not sure exactly what you think people must be handwriting:

- Notes? I use Obsidian for work notes, Google Keep for stuff like shopping lists

- Signatures? Delivery receipt signatures are done with a finger on a touch screen, stuff like employment contracts and finance paperwork have basically all moved to e-signatures. I genuinely think the last thing I signed with a pen might have been my mortgage, and that one I had to go to solicitor's office anyway as it had to be officially witnessed.

- Paper forms? Print, sign and scan was occasionally requested until a few years ago, but I did it in the office because I also didn't own a printer at that time. Even "important government forms" are done online now.
by Clubber | 2025-04-24 22:42:42+00:00
>I'm struggling with the CEO being increasingly focussed on investing heavily in AI. I'm not opposed to using this tech at all – it's amazing, and we incorporate a variety of different ML models across our stack where they are useful. But this strategy has evolved to the point where we are limiting resource on key teams aligned with core business to invest in an AI team.

This may or may not be bad. If done right, the majority of the new features will be AI related while the core team will do non-AI enhancements and bug fixes. If they aren't worked to death, the main product will remain stable, just with shifting priority to AI related features over regular features. Maybe 60/40 AI features, shifting to 70/30 over time, etc. Eventually you'll run out of AI ideas or tech.

Having said that, might as well get on the train, AI is a desired skill now so like anything, it'll keep you relevant for a while.
by andrewgr144 | 2025-04-24 22:42:52+00:00
Does anyone know if the thing that looks like a key in the middle of the four directional arrows is actually a key? If so, does it have a default key binding (it doesn't appear to have any symbol on it)? It it is an actual key, I assume that it can be mapped to something (presumably to replace one of the three super-common keys that they left out because this is intended as a meme keyboard, not a serious daily driver, but we all know that isn't going to stop some people from using it that way.)
by jonstewart | 2025-04-24 22:43:54+00:00
A number of the cool string processing SIMD techniques depend a _lot_ on register widths and instruction performance characteristics. There’s a fair argument to be made that x64 could be made more consistent/legible for these use cases, but this isn’t matmul—whether you have 128, 256, or 512 bits matters hugely and you may want entirely different algorithms that are contingent on this.
by signatoremo | 2025-04-24 22:44:16+00:00
Why deceptive? It shows how much their revenue was compared to how much they’d have to pay. No judgement, no misleads. Only facts. Anyone who reads can immediately have an idea of their financial strength. How does using profit help as opposed to revenue? And it’s not like FB can only use Canada’s profit to pay for expenses there.

Did you channel your own bias?
by carterschonwald | 2025-04-24 22:44:43+00:00
The thing is, if made in the USA does not come with a better, greener or more ethical, who cares?!

Water filtration is an area where sophisticated customers want the best filter that meets usage requirements and budgets! If you double the cost, and there’s no extra quality improvement, you’re SOL.

also: proprietary in a shower head is at best some sort of activated charcoal plus some spices. I did some reading after my sister and her husband got an osmotic filter plus de fluoridation for their pending infants. The reading gave me the take away that for good filtration you have a tough time actually doing a good job unless you’re using an osmotic filter plus filter media where the water has a long dwell time. Some of this is touched on in a recent prject farm video. Point being a filter in the shower head isn’t doing much nor efficiently.
by nicwolff | 2025-04-24 22:44:59+00:00
That's funny, that in 2010 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission specifically banned the insider trade that bankrupted the Duke Brothers at the end of Trading Places!

Here's a direct link to the testimony mentioned in the Wall Street Journal:

https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/SpeechesTestimony/opagensler-...
by BLKNSLVR | 2025-04-24 22:45:11+00:00
No. Buffet had been exiting positions to cash for a few months.

My impression is that he started that process once he got a whiff of the possibility of a second Trump term in combination with the likelihood of an incoming recession (based on historic indicators), no matter who won the presidential race.

That's smart as opposed to well connected / insider trading.
by kridsdale3 | 2025-04-24 22:45:43+00:00
The fact that the AVP gives you fully isolated video streams for each eye is what makes it kickass compared to any glasses-filtering based display. It's perfect stereo.

What sets it apart from things like Meta Quest is Apple's best-in-class video rental / stream / purchase infrastructure all going back to the original iTunes.

And then you have apps like Disney Plus that fully support it.
by immibis | 2025-04-24 22:45:53+00:00
They're both still alive.

IRC: irc.libera.chat, irc.efnet.org, something rizon something; there's technically ircnet but don't bother

Usenet: eternal-september.org - you might find others after a while but there are no other major free text servers. If you pay another company for binary access (these are mostly used for piracy) you can also use it for text though.
by TheNewsIsHere | 2025-04-24 22:45:59+00:00
Exactly. Tech has become a place where “funding” has become synonymous with “find a VC to fund you”. Most businesses don’t go that route, and plenty of tech ones don’t either.

Savings, bank loans, lines of credit, private loans between people, local angel investors, and so on are how most businesses bootstrap.

I co-own a technology business that has never taken outside money (well, we do have a credit card) and I’m not really interested in doing that. I think VCs are more trouble than they’re worth because they’re so obsessed with growth that little else matters to them, and we’ve seen where that gets us in terms of customer relationships and product quality. And they always want just enough control to eventually oust executives they don’t agree with.

We’ve built our business up the old fashioned way: from a personal capital contribution from each co-founder and modeling pricing based on what the business needs. Clients who see value in that approach from their critical technology vendors are not impossible to find at all.

Without the runway of functionally blank checks, you do have to continually monitor your business model though.
by scarface_74 | 2025-04-24 22:46:07+00:00
Every company does this. You don’t invest in your future these days by investing in a pipeline of “talent” knowing that the average tenure of a software developer is 3 years and at any time an employee can leave.

You have processes that outlive people. Companies don’t care about society - they care about their bottom line. They aren’t there to make society as a whole better

If you want a society of well trained software engineers ready to work in corporate America, you support your public education system. Just like if you want a society that has universal healthcare, you put the onus on society and not corporate America.

My job is to do what’s best for the company as long as it is not illegal or unethical. My job is not to make society better. I got one open req. I want to hire the best person my budget allows
by jszymborski | 2025-04-24 22:46:50+00:00
First, it's not an example I'm replying directly to the question.

Second, as a Canadian, I'm primarily concerned with the sovereignty of my country. Given both powers are expansionist, I'll take the one that isn't personally threatening me.

As mentioned in my previous comment, given a choice to deal with a non-expansionist, free democracy, I'd much quicker patronize them.
by hobs | 2025-04-24 22:47:21+00:00
Reminds when I excited to see Azure Data Studio adding Postgres support, but it was actually a binary extension with no ability to fix or change anything and no way for other useful databases to extend and use the functionality; they had spent all the time and effort to make sure nobody could do something like it but them.

Weird, ADS is dead and nobody spent any time on it, I wonder why.
by znpy | 2025-04-24 22:47:28+00:00
Emacs user here, have used vscode in the past.

Yep, vscode is more intuitive.

However emacs is mostly the kind of thing you dedicate a couple of months of discomfort and enjoy for the rest of your life. Quite literally.

Spending some money on the “mastering emacs” book (https://www.masteringemacs.org/) is worth imho.

Bonus point: little by little you start enjoying doing more stuff in emacs. It’s a meme, but it’s true.
by sachin_adlakha | 2025-04-24 22:47:44+00:00
Thanks for articulating this problem so well. I have dabbled in EdTech ideas as side projects but have always faced the dilemma you mentioned -- if you build it for schools districts, parents, you could make money but then you loose the purpose of teaching.

Technologies like ChatGPT etc. promised to revolutionized Ed-Tech but in my opinion have miserably failed (except if you count getting answers to your homework problems without trying revolutionary)

I also think that a lot of EdTech products and a lot of Youtube channels are also catering to "pop science" with videos on diverse topics. But we still lack a product that could teach someone say Calculus or Kinematics

Another area where technology has failed is the ability to understand where the student is struggling. And I don't mean evaluating them and putting them on basic, advanced, etc. levels. But say you are stuck on a Calculus problems and have made some progress, a teacher would be able to look at your solution and guide you effectively. Even current AI solutions will give you a generic hint (at best).

So your thoughts totally resonate -- EdTech truly is a tech disappointment. I am beginning to think that it is maybe not Tech but perhaps we do not fully understand the idea of learning OR maybe the current technologies are not built for learning.

I would love to hear thoughts from this community.
by ColinWright | 2025-04-24 22:48:09+00:00
I'm trying to point out that people have experience of Facebook and Twitter and other platforms, and they expect when they join a new platform that they can type in their friends' names and get results. They then find that Mastodon doesn't work like that, and complain about the lack of "discoverability".

And they're right ... discoverability on Mastodon is not like on other platforms, and it is harder to find things.

Yes, I know how to do these things, I am, after all, a moderator on an instance with over 20K users. I'm just trying to point out that for some people the fact that "discoverability" doesn't work as it does on other platforms is a huge stumbling block.
by ChrisMarshallNY | 2025-04-24 22:48:49+00:00
I think that greatness of mind needs to be coupled with ambition, a certain level of arrogance and self-absorbtion, and a personality that doesn't make you a pariah.

I suspect that combinations like that, are, indeed, as rare as hen's teeth.

Many great talents probably couldn't be arsed to play the rat race game, and keep their domain humble, or they piss off other people so much, that they never get a break.
by TheNewsIsHere | 2025-04-24 22:49:50+00:00
> Well, then you're bound to the amount of money customers can give you.

You’re _always_ bound by what the customer is willing to pay.

Speaking more expansively, it’s just a proxy for whether the market will bear your prices/wants your product, and whether you are in the right place and/or positioning your product correctly.

VCs just add a temporary runway so you don’t have to be as concerned about that.
by lysace | 2025-04-24 22:50:00+00:00
I spent 25 years using emacs before vscode (1997 to 2022-ish). I didn't go deep, I mostly just enjoyed the core parts of emacs + ccmode. I don't enjoy LISP but I still enjoy emacs, if that makes any sense.

MS made some very real and very usable innovations. Emacs hackers/maintainers would be wise to copy them, like I'm sure Microsoft copied things from emacs.

It's a bit like the UI aspect of the browser wars. Everyone wins when good things are cloned and then iteratively improved upon.