MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by blululu | 2025-04-15 22:28:18+00:00
In my experience Chinese academics are far more bilingual than western ones. I think that for Chinese academics the English publications are generally of a higher quality and more prestigious, but I’m sure that too will change over time. I can definitely say that Chinese publications have gotten much better in terms of quality over the last 20 years and there are now a lot of results worth translating.

At this point ML translation is sufficiently good that it does not make a material difference for the readership. This means that there is not a lot of political advantage around having a more dominant language. The bigger point is about the relative strength of the underlying research communities and this is definitely moving in favor of the Chinese.
by threecheese | 2025-04-15 22:28:28+00:00
I found it mildly amusing that the firm managing sponsorships - accepting the $75-200k - is named “Harbinger”.

Also interesting is 2024’s guidelines seem to have been abandoned: they were “must not include any questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes, or partisan political statements”; only time will tell if this is meaningful.

As an American though, I am pleasantly surprised (read: shocked) that all money will go to the White House Historical Association, and not directly to a PAC (or someone’s pocket).
by firesteelrain | 2025-04-15 22:28:59+00:00
Psychopaths can be whomever they want you to believe.

Lots of people hide behind “peace” just like the poor young boy who did supposedly good in school that murdered a classmate.

This guy is not a Buddhist. He is a terrorist loving activist. Deport him.

Do you really think this guy is a saint? https://x.com/shaidavidai/status/1911978781402669113?s=46
by refulgentis | 2025-04-15 22:29:00+00:00
I've done work that, for better or worse, required creating a color space.

It to enable dynamically generated UI palettes that also were numerically verifiable as accessible.

The way I model color blindness for a quick & cheap heuristic is, remove all hue-ness and saturation-ness. i.e. make the scene black and white.

That elides the exact compression in hue that is experienced by an actual individual (i.e. is it just red on green that's a problem? tetrachromate or x or y or z? at what severity (this is ~unmeasurable)) and leaves you with the raw problem, that there isn't sufficient contrast between the two colors.

Even though this elides information about the individual's exact experience, it is crucial for how to think about color, because even if color blindness didn't exist, it still would affect all of us

A cheap example of that is #FF0 text on a white background. Yellow is absurdly close to white (IIRC 97 L* versus 100 L*), so you can never quite focus on the yellow, it feels like its slippery and you get a headache trying to read.

(w/the tree x cardinal example, red is ~43? L*. A natural green w/o an absurd sunlight behind it would be somewhere around 55 L*. You want about 40 L* for good contrast, here we have ~10 L*, and once you lose the hue/saturation delta due to color blindness, it's quite difficult for the bird to "jump out", as it were. you could still find it scanning)
by johnea | 2025-04-15 22:29:03+00:00
Good article.

It highlights an impact of concentrated wealth on technological development in general, the third option: If a competing technology can't just be ignored, or crushed, the final veto is to simply purchase it.

Which is what M$ has been doing for the last 1/2 decade due to the ever increasingly crappy nature of their OS product.

To slightly modify the article's conclusion: no one should host anything on github...
by joe_the_user | 2025-04-15 22:29:15+00:00
I haven't seen people comment on just the wow factor here. Apparently Cursor produced a full integrated AI app and it orchestrated a self-destruct process in fashion emulating the way some human-managed companies have recently self-destructed. AI fails are easy and some require a lot of work, apparently.

Looking forward to apps trained on these Reddit threads.
by 6510 | 2025-04-15 22:29:39+00:00
The rich half of the US populus own about $156 trillion. Thus therefore as a conclusion therefrom you only have to take 23% from half the population. Lets make it progressive from 0% at average wealth to 52% at the top.

Much less than Roosevelt's 94%

But I'm neither democrat nor republican, it might not make sense to anyone :)
by wredcoll | 2025-04-15 22:30:20+00:00
And when big males compete against small males the big ones tend to win, so uh, what are we arguing about?

Female only categories are always going to be a compromise, their literal existence is defined by excluding people from being able to participate. So you have to draw the line somewhere and say "this person is allowed and this person isn't". I'm sorry it's not as easy as just asking if someone has a uterus or something but just because things are tricky is no excuse to give up.

And frankly, this whole argument is incredibly disingenuous. You didn't give a damn about the sanctity of women's sports 5 years ago and when the right finds a new minority to demonize, you'll happily forget all about them.

There's a word for this, mote and bailey fallacy? The advanced premise is that we should discriminate and hate transgender people and then when challenged you fall back to something something women's sports.

Are women's sports good? Sure, we should support them. Is that worth demonizing a minority and blaming them for society's ills? I hope not. There's like 5 transgender people PER STATE competing in female only sports and 99% of the time they aren't even winning. It really doesn't affect you or anyone else.

But because of this "issue" that people like you keep repeating, people are trying to pass laws that require genital inspectors for our child athletes. Think about that for a second. What exactly are we trying to accomplish here?
by sgregnt | 2025-04-15 22:30:56+00:00
>The idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy.

Could you share some sources to back this up? At least a sources to back up at least a few case studies would be curious. I'm interested in economics and never have been aware that free market self-correction is a well documented fantasy and would love to understand where is your claim coming from.
by killjoywashere | 2025-04-15 22:31:10+00:00
1) target universities have to accept the students

Yes! Which the US incentivizes by a) underfunding K-12 education, reducing the internal applicant pool, b) competing grants in a way that incentivizes PIs to grasp for cheap labor. Additionally, the individual states also incentivize this. Look at the UC's own statistics: since 2009 the highest chance of acceptance goes to foreign, ethnically Asian applicants. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20321493

2) RTS-game-esque control of the grad students

Yes! Having been in the room when one of those grad students got a very stressful call from home (like broke down crying multiple times), it's definitely not all carrots. And the removal of carrots eventually looks like a stick.

3) Seems like the rational decision for ambitious grad students

Yes! No amplification needed.
by Arch-TK | 2025-04-15 22:31:22+00:00
Uploading ASP as an image and having it execute server side is one thing.

But in this case, it's subtly different.

This issue relies more on a quirk of how PDF and PostScript relate (PDF is built on a subset of postscript).

Imagine you had an image format which was just C which when compiled and ran produced the width, height, and then stream of RGB values to form an image. And you formalised this such that it had to have a specific structure so that if someone wanted to, they didn't have to write a C compiler, they could just pull out the key bits from this file which looks like ordinary C and produce the same result.

Now imagine that your website supports uploading such image files, and you need to render them to produce a thumbnail, but instead of using a minimal implementation of the standard which doesn't need to compile the code, you go ahead and just run gcc on it and run the output.

That's kind of more or less what happened here.

It's worth noting here that it's not really common knowledge that PDF is basically just a subset of postscript. So it's actually a bit less surprising that these guys fell for this, as it's as if C had become some weird language nobody talks about, and GCC became known as "that tool to wrangle that image format" rather than a general purpose C compiler.

The attackers in this case relied on some ghostscript exploits, that's true, but if you never ran the resulting C-image-format binaries, you could still get pwned through GCC exploits.
by dextercd | 2025-04-15 22:32:11+00:00
Stealing a private key or getting a CA to misissue a certificate is hard. Then actually making use of this in a MITM attack is also difficult.

Still, oppressive states or hacked ISPs can perform these attacks on small scales (e.g. individual orgs/households) and go undetected.

For a technology the whole world depends on for secure communication, we shouldn't wait until we detect instances of this happening. Taking action to make these attacks harder, more expensive, and shorter lasting is being forward thinking.

Certificate transparency and Multi-Perspective Issuance Corroboration are examples of innovations without bothering people.

Problem is, the benefits of these improvements are limited if attackers can keep using the stolen keys or misissued certificates for 5 years (plus potentially whatever the DCV reuse limit is).

Next time a DigiNotar, Debian weak keys, or heartbleed -like event happens, we'll be glad that these certs exit the ecosystem sooner rather than later.
by paulvnickerson | 2025-04-15 22:32:17+00:00
Sam Altman is retaliating against Musk for Grok and Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI, trying to ride the wave of anti-Musk political heat, and figure out a way to pull in more training data due to copyright troubles.

If they launch, expect a big splash with many claiming it is the X-killer (i.e. the same people that claimed the same of Mastadon, Threads, and Bluesky), especially around here at HN, and then nobody will talk about it anymore after a few months.
by __MatrixMan__ | 2025-04-15 22:32:19+00:00
The point of cryptocurrencies is to reward people who make hardware available for in-public multiparty computation. The point of that is to be able to create rulesets and expect that they'll be followed within the confines of the system.

It's bonkers to me that the only rulesets people care to implement on such a platform are just reflections of money as we know it. How unimaginative. I wish we'd make something new rather than translating something old--bugs and all--into a new language.
by vkou | 2025-04-15 22:34:55+00:00
> The US debt is starting to become an existential problem.

1. No, it isn't. And if you think the finances of the US in 2025 are remotely similar to the finances and the world position of the British Empire in 1945, you are staggeringly wrong about either the past, or the present, or both.

2. And if it were, there's a million lower-ROI things that could be cut. Does an isolationist America really need eleven carrier groups, in a world where there are zero non-American ones?
by rsfern | 2025-04-15 22:35:23+00:00
NSF has actually been experimenting with this sort of funding model for a couple years through its new (as of 2019) convergence accelerator program, which I think is awesome. It’s explicitly a multi-sector program where academics partner with companies to do some proof of concept research in a phase 1 award and translate that into a viable commercial product or innovation in a phase 2 award. Potential for long term return on investment is explicitly part of the review criteria, which target this sort of historically underfunded middle ground between basic research and technology development

https://www.nsf.gov/funding/initiatives/convergence-accelera...
by dragonwriter | 2025-04-15 22:36:09+00:00
> The 14th has been thrown around in that context since it seems to make references to both due process and the people it is available to.

It makes references to who birthright citizenship applies to (the part that your "jurisdiction" bit comes from): "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."

It separately details due process rights against the states, and who they are applicable to, which is all persons: "...nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

Due process against the federal government comes from the 5th Amendment, which was around long before the 14th, but also applies to all persons. "No person [...] shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."

> The question is not what due process entails. The question is who gets access to it.

The 14th Amendment has nothing to do with that, when the party acting is the federal government. (OTOH, where it does apply, it says exactly the same thing as the provision that does apply to the federal government, that due process applies to every person.)

> Pretty sure you missed my point fairly thoroughly.

I'm pretty sure that you are the one missing the point -- both mine and the Constitution's.
by gibbitz | 2025-04-15 22:37:48+00:00
Is the suggestion that Porn creates this dominant male patriarchal society through its influence? That's kinda cart before the horse IMO. I think it hard to think of objectification without the fashion that is often the wrapper in the transaction where the woman is objectified. If Porn is advertising for the patriarchy, we can't forget fashion. High heels, red lipstick, garter belts and so on go part and parcel with Porn. All things created from the patriarchal machine do not exist in a vacuum. They work together to reinforce the system. If the real problem is smoking, it's the cigarette not the billboard that is the problem.

Don't get me wrong, Porn is not worthy of a defense. As an industry, it often mistreats and abuses it's subjects. Aesthetically most of it is bankrupt -- a documentation of depravity. However, provided it is legal, it is an expression of free speech featuring consenting adults. We may want to ban it, but, as we are discovering in the authoritarian times we live in, censorship is a slippery slope. We ask to take down pornhub today, it's vox tomorrow...

Gender politics are a complex topic that our society has been ignoring for a long time and though many on the right are conditioned to tune it out, we really need to find a way to have these conversations without superficial finger pointing.
by insane_dreamer | 2025-04-15 22:37:51+00:00
> we focus on the high-value stuff.

agreed but Trump just gutted the CHIPS act for no other reason than because it was enacted by Biden (the typical "undo everything the last prez did" just like Trump 1.0).

You can argue that Intel is a badly run company, not worth saving etc etc, but if want to save US manufacturing, then Intel, and its ecosystem, would be the first place to start. Otherwise, TSMC, Samsung and China (still playing second-fiddle but investing billions to catch up) will dominate. Certainly better than trying to keep coal plants open.

Ideology aside it's really hard to find _any_ rational thought behind these moves.
12-factor Agents: Patterns of reliable LLM applications
by dhorthy | 2025-04-15 22:38:04+00:00
I've been building AI agents for a while. After trying every framework out there and talking to many founders building with AI, I've noticed something interesting: most "AI Agents" that make it to production aren't actually that agentic. The best ones are mostly just well-engineered software with LLMs sprinkled in at key points.

So I set out to document what I've learned about building production-grade AI systems: https://github.com/humanlayer/12-factor-agents. It's a set of principles for building LLM-powered software that's reliable enough to put in the hands of production customers.

In the spirit of Heroku's 12 Factor Apps (https://12factor.net/), these principles focus on the engineering practices that make LLM applications more reliable, scalable, and maintainable. Even as models get exponentially more powerful, these core techniques will remain valuable.

I've seen many SaaS builders try to pivot towards AI by building greenfield new projects on agent frameworks, only to find that they couldn't get things past the 70-80% reliability bar with out-of-the-box tools. The ones that did succeed tended to take small, modular concepts from agent building, and incorporate them into their existing product, rather than starting from scratch.

The full guide goes into detail on each principle with examples and patterns to follow. I've seen these practices work well in production systems handling real user traffic.

I'm sharing this as a starting point—the field is moving quickly so these principles will evolve. I welcome your feedback and contributions to help figure out what "production grade" means for AI systems!
by alganet | 2025-04-15 22:38:06+00:00
Sometimes bad scary monsters lock people together in two different groups and trick them to fight each other.

Those groups always have funny weird names. It's a kind of uniform for them. Wherever the group goes, they use the same uniform.

"woke" is one of those uniforms, kid. If you see a funny weird group name, run from it and wear something else.
by woooooo | 2025-04-15 22:38:48+00:00
Libertarians took over a town in NH and abolished town wide garbage collection. The free market produced a bunch of trash in people's yards, which attracted bears, causing havoc all around town. True story.

That's not to say you can't solve a lot of problems with markets. It just means waving your hands at "the free market" like it's a magic talisman is a childish thing to do.
by belorn | 2025-04-15 22:39:15+00:00
I am not that knowledgeable with US law, but to my understanding, U.S department of education has a policy for higher education, based on the Higher Education Act of 1965, as well as educational policies set forth by Congress. The higher education act references universities as part of what it regulate.

So if I would attempt with a universal definition of what the goal of a university, it would start by being an institution that complies with the standards set by the Higher Education Act and is accredited by the U.S department of education. As part of the formal education system, the goal of the regulations and laws will be enforced onto those classified under it.

Which returns me to my original question. What benefit is there to be classified as formal education if they don't share the intention (and goals) of the formal education system?
by vkou | 2025-04-15 22:39:30+00:00
> Bond rates were already going up before the election,

Do you think the fact that there was a 40-70% (and I'm being optimistic, here) chance that the election would elect Trump [1] had anything at all to do with that?

---

[1] Who made his plans for destroying both the American hegemony and global trade, and its domestic economy quite clear.
by benjbrooks | 2025-04-15 22:39:30+00:00
I was trying my best to finish quickly, initially in hopes of making the NYC Marathon. The "best" way to do the trip is probably to take everything in and have a few zero days, potentially bake in some time for wandering. I think part of me was worried that if I stopped, I wouldn't have the gumption to start up again.

Sounds like you had a great experience riding too! Did you go across the U.S.?

I think I'll pause the bike tour travel for the foreseeable future. I think I like running better :)
by potato3732842 | 2025-04-15 22:39:53+00:00
I worked for a major internet company until 2020. HN would be aghast how much "if we failed to provide this service a good chunk of the internet would either go down or sites wouldn't function properly and the stock market probably would dip" stuff runs on redundant pairs of LAMP stacks and other unsophisticated old stuff HN would turn up its nose at.
by blululu | 2025-04-15 22:39:58+00:00
Was it tarrifs or just a large, highly educated population with a unified market? The US has always been one of the leaders in education and scientific research on a per capita basis. Even in the 1770s you har people like Franklin working on cutting edge physics (the standard sign convention for charge is still flipped because of him). At some point it also just outgrew all the other countries in terms of size and it naturally became the global leader around that time.
by api | 2025-04-15 22:40:26+00:00
I've been saying for a while that the next innovation beyond TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube is to get rid of human creators entirely. Just have a 100% AI-generated slop-feed tailor made for the user.

There's already a ton of AI slop on those platforms, so we're like half way there, but what I mean is eliminating the entire idea of humans submitting content. Just never-ending hypnotic slop guided by engagement maximizing algorithms.
by talkingtab | 2025-04-15 22:40:53+00:00
Very wrong headed in my opinion.

It assumes we are talking about a toddler and we are not. People find "ways" to survive - even toddlers. I knew a three year old. He found a way, and knew how to use it. It was very interesting to watch - until you realized the back story.

If something bad happened, as in he might be in trouble, he would run around the room as fast as possible and on the way create mayhem. He would knock over a paint jar, purposefully or not. Bump into another kid, knock over a chair. Soon all the adults in the room were dealing with an overwhelming set of emergencies. Todd was forgotten

This happened over and over again until the pattern clicked. Some adult had to keep focused on Todd.

It was a genius thing he came up with. He never faced consequences. One had to wonder how such a set of behaviors would evolve? Was he a bad kid? No. Mean, no. If you step back what you see is a survival skill for a very difficult situation. My guess is that the physical or psychological cost of being "caught" were so threatening that this response evolved as a life saving skill. In a three year old.

One has to think about how this person would be if they did not have some intervention. Would they evolve this particular skill into an increasingly sophisticated way? Certainly inherent in the success of this mode is a fairly strong sense of contempt for people in general. And perhaps this contempt is well earned when given by a three or even four year old. After all where was everyone else when he was in the original situation? But in an adult? Pitiful.

Fortunately for Todd, people took the time and had the care to help him feel safe without that mechanism. Unfortunately, this does not always happen, as we are seeing.

The response to this kind of pattern is the same though, for any age Todd - three or not three.

First the adults in the room have to focus on the source of the problems. And if not stopped, the blame must fall heavily on those so called adults.

Second, the distraction thing has to be addressed. The problem is not this or that is broken. The problem is the Todd.

So where are the adults in the room? We need to ask why the people in the room are not doing their job? And if we have no adults we need to get rid of the people in there. All of them.
by miles | 2025-04-15 22:41:37+00:00
4/10/25: Trump reportedly suspends Nvidia H20 export ban plan after $1 million dinner with Jensen Huang https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intell...

4/15/25: Nvidia says U.S. imposed new China restrictions on H20 chips https://financialpost.com/news/nvidia-us-new-china-restricti...
by skeptrune | 2025-04-15 22:41:47+00:00
I went ahead and hosted the app to test (https://gemini-tryon.trieve.ai/). It's solid! One note is that the social icons appear to have incorrect href's.

Performance wise, Gemini is so damn close to being able to do this reliably. I didn't test, but I would expect that OpenAI's image gen setup would be slightly better.