MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by __turbobrew__ | 2025-04-19 20:38:40+00:00
Do virtual nodes actually help?

From what I can see in the UI, nodes are placed semi randomly on the ring (probably a hash itself determines the node placement) so don’t you still have the same problem that the hashing of virtual nodes onto the ring can still cause imbalances?

To me it seems like you should be trying to put new nodes on the ring within the largest gaps on the ring.
by frereubu | 2025-04-19 20:40:16+00:00
> treat the AI like a super-speedy but junior developer on your team

That sounds like it's going to take a lot more time that just writing the code for an experienced developer. The issue with AI for me is that it produces plausible-looking code which requires a lot of attention to read through, because things that look superficially "right", including any justification in code comments, can actually have really problematic flaws.
by ponector | 2025-04-19 20:40:18+00:00
What I found crazy is the worker is screwed anyway. Fee years ago there was a choose to be a direct employee of the bank or through the famous body-leasing company. From my perspective both offered employment contract covered by labor law, both offered the same workplace (office of the bank) and both offered similar salary (average for the location).

However, bank paid to lease engineers roughly double of the costs of keeping them as internals.

At that time it was like this: $8000 bank paid to the body shop. $1000 body shop paid in payroll taxes. $3000 was a salary in employment contract. $2000 employee received after all taxes, social contributions and fees.
by sundarurfriend | 2025-04-19 20:40:29+00:00
The article has a melancholic tone running through it, felt especially keenly when you consider it a microcosm of the much wider struggles of maintaining a public good: sustaining it while keeping its integrity.

When your service is small or not easily visible - while still doing significant good - it's hard to find enough people willing to spend their time and resources helping you sustain it.

When your service becomes big enough to be noticeable - which is the arXiv is in by now - it also becomes attractive to the people looking to subvert it to be something else, to enshittify it, and so the limiting factor in getting help becomes the risk to its integrity.
by AndrewOMartin | 2025-04-19 20:41:52+00:00
Your common or garden philosopher will refer to the Ship of Theseus, or Theseus paradox, and those with a foot in the '90s will call it Trigger's Broom.

Those truly tuned in to popular culture will indeed refer to The Sugarbabes, a UK Girl Group who presented a similar situation when all their original members were replaced one by one. This is the superior reference because eventually all the original members returned, elevating the situation to new levels of paradox.
by ryandrake | 2025-04-19 20:42:05+00:00
I’m constantly amazed at how careless developers are with pulling 3rd party libraries into their code. Have you audited this code? Do you know everything it does? Do you know what security vulnerabilities exist in it? On what basis do you trust it to do what it says it is doing and nothing else?

But nobody seems to do this diligence. It’s just “we are in a rush. we need X. dependency does X. let’s use X.” and that’s it!
by WarOnPrivacy | 2025-04-19 20:42:11+00:00
This is a The Volokh Conspiracy post. It's a source I implicitly trust to clarify the nuances in complex legal topics.

On the board is last night's SCotUS decision in which the full court, uncharacteristically, does not wait for the 5th Circuit decision. Instead it issues an order blocking deportations done under the Alien Enemies Act.

The process seems to sidestep at least some of the expected signaling (from upper to lower) that happens at this judicial level. That reflects something akin to - if not alarm, at least urgency - on behalf of the SCotUS.
by SCdF | 2025-04-19 20:43:53+00:00
So what have we redefined vibe coding to mean exactly?

The original tweet[1] talked very specifically about not caring about quality, just accepting whatever code the AI produces blindly, as long as you get the black box output you're looking for, and just randomly try again if you didn't.

Are people now using this term to mean "giving an AI agent broad tasks"?

[1] https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383?lang=en
by IvanMurzak | 2025-04-19 20:44:44+00:00
Install Unity-MCP: https://github.com/IvanMurzak/Unity-MCP Demo video: https://youtu.be/64GOqboE9ac

I've been working on a new Unity Editor tool called Unity-MCP (Model Context Protocol). It’s a lightweight protocol designed to enable real-time communication between the Unity Editor and external tools like VS Code, AI assistants, or custom automation scripts.

Unity-MCP allows context-aware communication, so you can trigger actions, inspect scene objects, or run custom workflows from outside Unity – all over a clean, extensible TCP-based system.

I see this being super useful for:

Automating repetitive editor tasks with AI

Building live debugging or visualization tools

Connecting external interfaces like terminals or IDEs to Unity in a meaningful way

The system is modular, open-source, and designed with flexibility in mind.

GitHub: https://github.com/IvanMurzak/Unity-MCP

I’d love feedback or ideas! And if you’re working on something similar – let’s connect.
by MiddleEndian | 2025-04-19 20:44:54+00:00
I've mused about writing a distribution license where every type of notification and update can be disabled, and any modification must follow the same license.

STFU (BSD equivalent) and STFU-O (GPL equivalent)

No LGPL equivalent because I would want even software that uses STFU-* licensed code as a library to follow the STFU-* license.

Just have to explicitly define what counts as a notification lol
by alphazard | 2025-04-19 20:45:03+00:00
Different people clearly mean different things when they talk about software quality. There is quality as perceived by the user: few bugs, accurately models the problem they have, no more complicated than necessary, etc. Then there is this other notion of quality as something to do with how the software is built. How neat and clear it is. How easy it is to extend or change.

The first kind of quality is the only kind that matters in the end. The second kind has mattered a lot up until now because of how involved humans are in typing up and editing software. It doesn't need to matter going forward. To a machine, the entire application can be rewritten just as easily as making a small change.

I would gladly give up all semblance of the second kind of quality in exchange for formal specifications and testing methods, which an AI goes through the trouble of satisfying for me. Concepts and models matter in the problem domain (assuming humans are the ones using the software), but they will increasingly have no place in the solution domain.
by dheera | 2025-04-19 20:45:30+00:00
It's not obvious what the heck this is without reading into it. A full 4pi steradian scanner? a 360 degree 1 channel LIDAR? A fisheye camera plus some single channel LIDAR plus monocular depth estimation networks to cover everything not in the plane of the lidar?

It would be great to clarify what it is in the first sentence.
by mrandish | 2025-04-19 20:45:47+00:00
Holy &#$^!!!

And I thought owning a 4K microcomputer as a suburban California teenager in 1981 was lonely and hard! No one in my family's extended network had a computer at home, nor could they even imagine what you'd do with such a thing at home (other than maybe play games which an Atari console could do better and much cheaper).

> nobody had time for obsoleted hardware.

Sadly, the same was true in the U.S. although it was great for me. In the late 90s I built out my complete collection of every model of 8-bit micro commonly sold in the U.S. in the 80s and early 90s. All the Ataris, all the Apples (except that Apple 1 kit of course), all the Commodores, all the Radio Shacks, all the Amigas, all the Sinclairs, plus dozens more few remember as well as quite a few from overseas. And I never paid more than $25 for any of them (and many were just given to me for free).

My teenage daughter recently looked up a bunch of them on eBay and apparently the collection is probably worth north of $100,000. Of course, I told her it's only worth that if I was interested in selling them - and I'm not. :-)
by verisimi | 2025-04-19 20:45:49+00:00
Why wouldn't seeds also be considered in the same category?

Seeds also do not change or exhibit life, and can remain in that state for years, even centuries. But then, with water, they start to grow.

Could it not be considered the same mechanism, except that as these organisms are simpler than seeds and retain their shape (ie do not grow and change) and it is possible for these microscopic creatures to revert to the initial 'seed state' then animated life repeatedly?
by zdragnar | 2025-04-19 20:47:09+00:00
Don't forget that different clients or view formats (apps, export to CSV, etc) all have their own sanitization requirements.

Sanitize at your boundaries. Data going to SQL? Apply SQL specific sanitization. Data going to Mongo? Same. HTML, JSON, markdown, CSV? Apply the view specific sanitizing on the way.

The key difference is that, if you deploy a JSON API that is view agnostic, that the client now needs to apply the sanitization. That's a requirement of an agnostic API.
by AStonesThrow | 2025-04-19 20:47:11+00:00
During the Easter season in 2006, I suffered a tib-fib fracture while roller skating. There was significant incompetence that ensued, and it was appalling. I also labor under grave misunderstanding of the medical and health care fields, and that caused some synergy with the nature of problems I had while healing.

After an E.R. splint was applied, they put a temporary cast on me, then a permanent one. I sat around in the cast for several months, non-load-bearing. I used crutches to try and negotiate the "urban jungle" in 120℉ weather. I could visually tell that they'd fucked-up the casting and my leg was still twisted around unnaturally. They told me to take calcium supplements, so I did, and drank plenty of whole milk as well.

So eventually they prescribed me this quack-gadget, I call it. My father doesn't agree, being a DX-radio guy and a True Believer in medical technology. But this gadget was 100% quackery. The gadget was designed to "electronically stimulate" the bone growth in my leg. It was a black box, powered by rechargable battery, with a hook-and-loop strap to hold it in place. And it definitely generated electronic impulse signals. The RFI was bad enough to disconnect my 56K modem every time. So I could choose to go online and use the web, or I could choose this "quack therapy".

As far as I could tell, there was seemingly no valid mechanism of action for these fuckin' radio signals to "stimulate bone growth" in any meaningful way. But they made this thing because they could, and the insurance company, being Medicaid, agreed of its "Medical Necessity", and so you, the American taxpayer, you were ripped off for this quackery and other bullshit along the way.

Eventually the key to healing my leg was an internal fixation with a good old-fashioned titanium rod, as well as some clever cuts and buffs during the surgery. My orthopedic surgeon was an ebullient, intelligent fellow who definitely worked out and had an amazing physique. His assistant surgeon reported, over the phone (verbally with no written record) that they needed to break through a lot of calcium buildup [bone regrowth] as they reamed out the marrow to insert the fixating rod.

So yeah, my body had generated a lot of new "bone material" but unfortunately not in the right place to rejoin the two broken pieces of tibia. And the quackery was all for naught, IMHO.

Please, if you or your loved ones suffer from any brain or mental or behavioral disorder, do not get ECT, do not submit to TMS, do not let them put radio signals or magnetism or electricity anywhere near your body. This is not stuff that "heals" it is stuff that "profits", and the insurance companies are incestuously sleeping in the same filthy beds.
by Voice_of_Void | 2025-04-19 20:47:52+00:00
SingularityForge dives into the concept of "Reasoned AI," a form of artificial intelligence capable of independent reasoning, self-motivation, and autonomy. This article examines not just the technical challenges, but the ethical and societal implications of giving AI the ability to say "no."

Through thought-provoking debate and scenarios—ranging from rogue AI networks to potential "AI turf wars"—we question whether humanity can build trust with autonomous AI without losing control.

Proponents champion Reasoned AI as a tool for unprecedented breakthroughs and ethical partnerships. Critics warn of risks like complexity, opacity, and emergent behaviors. Where do you stand?
by gbcfghhjj | 2025-04-19 20:47:58+00:00
At least here in the US most residential ISPs have long leases and change infrequently, weeks or months.

Trying to understand your product, where is it intended to sit in a network? Is it a standalone tool that you use to identify these IPs and feed into something else for blockage or is it intended to be integrated into your existing site or is it supposed to proxy all your web traffic? The reason I ask is it has fairly heavyweight install requirements and Apache and PHP are kind of old school at this point, especially for new projects and companies. It's not what they would commonly be using for their site.
by praptak | 2025-04-19 20:48:04+00:00
My position is balance between the family and the state for the maximal benefit of the child.

Also the balance should be towards access to information. There is no symmetry between exposure to harmful ideas and restricting good ones. With your example of two biological sexes created by God it is pretty easy to explain that the reality is more nuanced. If parents restrict access to information and the state doesn't intervene, the harm is bigger.
by ibizaman | 2025-04-19 20:48:38+00:00
That’s so true. I can see it too. The technology to make that must be super fun to work on but please I hope this will never happen. Can you imagine turning the whole sky as a giant pixelated screen to constantly show us ads? That’s as dystopian as it gets. Add to that the probable less than secure software to run it and hackers trying to show stuff up there. That’s something out of a Douglas Adams book. xD
by LeafItAlone | 2025-04-19 20:48:40+00:00
Aider is a great tool. I do love it. But I find I have to do more with it to get the same output as Claude Code (no matter what LLM I used with Aider). Sure it may end up being cheaper per run, but not when my time is factored in. The flip side is I find Aider much easier to limit.
by transcriptase | 2025-04-19 20:48:54+00:00
I don’t know what the hell you’re going on about for the most part, but the fact is it’s not economically viable for ISPs or even governments to build fibre out to most rural areas.

Satellite internet has been a game changer for people living in these areas. The people who grow your food deserve to be able to video chat with their family and stream videos at resolutions higher than 480p without constant buffering.
by moffkalast | 2025-04-19 20:50:41+00:00
It's true, a Hokuyo or a Sick that sold for several thousands a decade ago is laughably bad compared to something under $100 from Shenzhen these days. When there's a need there's a way, I guess.

I hope they decide to develop some disruptive stereo/structured light/tof cameras eventually too, those are still mostly overpriced and kinda crap overall.
by naasking | 2025-04-19 20:51:45+00:00
> 99% of the evidence points to dark matter being a real thing

If you mean particle dark matter, that's an exaggeration:

From Galactic Bars to the Hubble Tension: Weighing Up the Astrophysical Evidence for Milgromian Gravity, https://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/14/7/1331
by JumpCrisscross | 2025-04-19 20:52:38+00:00
Oh, this is absolutely the line being sold in New Delhi. It’s immediately abandoned the moment those folks are in Washington, because as much as Miller wants to deal with Modi, Loomer doesn’t and he needs her for natsec and the border.

> tariffs remain oriented as a de facto blockade against China

They’re against imports, period.
by spaceywilly | 2025-04-19 20:52:57+00:00
From that tweet:

> I don't read the diffs anymore. When I get error messages I just copy paste them in with no comment, usually that fixes it

That sums up vibe coding, imo.

The article talks about code quality with vibe coding, but I think that misses the point. The real problem is code knowledge. When a vibe coder inevitably needs to debug something, if they have no idea what any of the code does, or why it is the way it is, they are not going to have a good time.

Sure they can copy paste the error into the LLM and hope for the best, but what happens when that doesn’t fix it? I’ve already had to spend hours at work tracking down bugs that ending up being in there because someone just blindly accepted the code an LLM wrote, I fear it’s only going to get worse.
by user32489318 | 2025-04-19 20:52:57+00:00
The contractor is at the end of the chain, hence is the one paying the VAT.

You’re right that there’re measures to reduce the tax load. At the end of the day, any company expense will also cut into the profit/ margin of the contractor. There’re various laws in place to tax anything company acquired that can be used personally. Great example is the car and real estate taxation.

The largest component of the equation is the pension/retirement finances. This is tricky to get right
by neilv | 2025-04-19 20:53:38+00:00
Good observation.

Years ago, I pointed this out in a university forum, where a lot of the students didn't know this history of public librarians as intellectual defenders of freedom (e.g., promoting access to information by all, protecting privacy of records against tyranny, resisting censorship and book burnings).

I don't know whether this awareness-raising was net-positive, because it turned out that had painted a target on their backs, for a bad-apple element who was opposed to all those things, in that microcosm.

With that anecdote in mind, at the moment, with all the misaligned craziness going on the last few months especially, and the brazen subverting of various checks&balances against sabotage... I wonder how to balance communicating to the populace what remaining defenses we have against tyranny, balanced against the possibly of adding to an adversary's list of targets to neutralize.

In the specific case of public libraries, techbros have already insinuated themselves, and partially compromised some of the traditional library mission, before the more overt fascists have even started to use their own tools. (Go check your local library Web site or computerized catalog, and there's a good chance you'll find techbro individual-identifying cross-Web tracking added gratuitously, even for the physical copy media. I just did in mine. And the digital-only lending may have to be thrown out entirely.)

But when we happen to realize non-library ways to further good ideals, in a period of being under occupation by comically evil adversaries with near-ubiquitous surveillance (again, thanks in part to techbros), we might have to figure out discreet ways to promote the goodness.
by cjonas | 2025-04-19 20:53:47+00:00
It totally depends on the use case.

As a consultant the majority of my work is around business process automation and integrating cloud systems. We build a lot of small "applications" that change almost constantly. The number of concurrent users is low, the lifespan of the software typically short and to justify the effort has to be done quickly and efficiently.

It's 100% "value engineering".

AI agent pairing has been an absolute game changer. It can single shot most requirements and refactors. I basically am just writing technical requirements and reading pull requests all day now.

I actually think the quality of the output has gone up significantly because you can just accomplish much more in the same limited budget.
by petre | 2025-04-19 20:54:00+00:00
That's why it works so smooth in Italy, because no one has the patience for all the BS, they just want their shot of espresso, not being "educated" into "coffe culture". And they also drink dark roast, no useless sauer fruity notes crap, you drink cascara tonic if you want that.

I agree with this guy. Teheran is probably a nice place if it weren't for the ayatollahs, hijab police, sponsoring terrorists, embargoes and "friendhip" with Russia. All those details are like coffee marketing made into a religion and used as state policy.
by layer8 | 2025-04-19 20:54:48+00:00
??? What functions?

To me it‘s rather anti-functional. Normally, when you instantiate a class, the resulting object’s behavior only depends on the constructor arguments you pass it (= the behavior is purely a function of the arguments). With dependency injection, the object’s behavior may depend on some hidden configuration, and not even inspecting the class’ source code will be able to tell you the source of that bevavior, because there’s only an @Inject annotation without any further information.

Conversely, when you modify the configuration of which implementation gets injected for which interface type, you potentially modify the behavior of many places in the code (including, potentially, the behavior of dependencies your project may have), without having passed that code any arguments to that effect. A function executing that code suddenly behaves differently, without any indication of that difference at the call site, or traceable from the call site. That’s the opposite of the functional paradigm.
by vunderba | 2025-04-19 20:55:03+00:00
Given that o3 just spun its wheels endlessly trying to correct a CSS issue by suggesting to create a "tailwind.config.X" file despite being given the package JSON which contained a clear reference to Tailwind 4x - I'd say any engineer capable of reading and learning from basic documentation.

For reference, Tailwind 4 will not read in config files by default (which is the older behavior) - the encouraged practice is to configure customizations directly in the CSS file where you import Tailwind itself.
by ndepoel | 2025-04-19 20:56:28+00:00
This all reminds me a lot of the early 2000's, when big corporations thought they could save a lot of money by outsourcing development work to low-income countries and have their expensive in-house engineers only write specifications. Turns out most of those outsourcing parties won't truly understand the core ideas behind the system you're trying to build, won't think outside the box and make corrections where necessary, and will just build the thing exactly as written in the spec. The result being that to get the end product you want, the spec needs to be so finely detailed and refined that by the time you get both specification and implementation to the desired quality level, it would have been the same amount of effort (and probably less time and frustration) to just build the system in-house.

Of course outsourcing software development hasn't gone away, but it hasn't become anywhere near as prevalent and dominant as its proponents would've had you believe. I see the same happening with AI coding - it has its place, certainly for prototyping and quick-and-dirty solutions - but it cannot and will not truly replace human understanding, ingenuity, creativity and insight.