MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by skissane | 2025-04-06 07:06:08+00:00
> We're teaching 2020s engineers to understand machine code written before MS-DOS existed

It has three on-board computers. Two of them (the CCS and AACS) are 18-bit word-oriented machines with 4096 words of memory – so in 8 bit bytes thats 9KB of RAM. Although 18-bit machines were reasonably common in the 1960s and 1970s (especially the DEC PDP-7 which was the birthplace of both UNIX and MUMPS, its predecessor the PDP-4 and its successors the PDP-9 and PDP-15), you'd never encounter them nowadays except in retrocomputing or ultra-legacy systems like this. The other one (FDS) is a 16-bit word oriented machine with 8198 words of memory – so a bit less esoteric, although the 16-bit systems most people would be familiar with (e.g. the Intel 8086/8088 used by MS-DOS) are byte-oriented not word-oriented. So yeah, even for people used to doing assembly programming, might take a bit of time to get your head around it.

Both computer architectures are NASA custom, not industry standard – although they were reused from the Viking Mars landers, so weren't a brand new thing to NASA at the time. Rather than a single chip CPU, their CPUs were built out of a large number of 7400 series TTL ICs – so essentially early third generation computers (small scale integration, SSI, became available in mid-1960s), as opposed to fourth generation computers (1970s, with LSI/VLSI, transistor counts on integrated circuits had become high enough that the whole CPU could fit on a whole microprocessor).

(There is this widely repeated legend that the Voyagers used RCA 1802 CPUs, but that appears to be mixing up Viking/Voyager which used NASA custom CPU architectures, with the Galileo probe launched in 1989, which used RCA 1802 CPUs for its main computer, plus Itek ATAC CPUs for the attitude control computers. The ATACs were also used by some US naval aircraft – and whereas the Voyager was all assembler, the Galileo ATAC CPUs were programmed using HAL/S, the same language used for the Space Shuttle flight software.)
by AuryGlenz | 2025-04-06 07:06:23+00:00
You jumped to examples of stuff that by far the majority of people on the right don’t believe.

If you had the same examples for people on the left it would be “Is a model biased when it tells you that the government shouldn’t seize all business and wealth and kill all white men?”

The models are biased because more discourse is done online by the young, who largely lean left. Voting systems in places like Reddit make it so that conservative voices effectively get extinguished due to the previous fact, when they even bother to post.
by kmutahar | 2025-04-06 07:06:58+00:00
Location: EMEA / MENA Remote: Yes Preferred Willing to relocate: YES Technologies: Project Management (love the techy stuff!), Agile, SDLC, IT Infrastructure, Electronic Payments (made banks play nice with tech!), Vendor Wrangling, Risk Spotting, Data Detective work, Making Tech Make Sense (Docs). Résumé/CV: https://www.mutahar.me/cv (Full Resume available with description and tasks by email) Email: contact@mutahar.me

Tech-focused Project Manager who enjoys bringing order to chaos, especially in complex areas like finance and payments. I've navigated the full project lifecycle from idea to launch, using Agile and other tools to keep things on track. Good at coordinating diverse teams (even vendors!), digging into data for improvements, and translating geek speak for everyone. Currently leveling up with PMP prep. Looking for a great remote (preferred) or relocatable role where I can help build cool things. Let's chat!
by kergonath | 2025-04-06 07:08:40+00:00
> Any position is a bias. A flat earther would consider a round-earther biased.

That’s bollocks. The Earth is measurably not flat.

You start from a position of moral relativism and then apply it to falsifiable propositions. It’s really not the same thing. Some ideas are provably false and saying that they are false is not "bias".
by ddimitrov | 2025-04-06 07:09:16+00:00
Some years ago, at the height of the Augmented Reality bubble, I had a hackathon idea about smart sunglasses that would replace any detected poster and billboard with information of your choosing - your favorite art, personal photos, notifications about upcoming alarms.

I am no longer into hackathons, but I would pay good money for such a product. Bonus points if it is styled like Nada's glasses from They Live.
by Nursie | 2025-04-06 07:09:43+00:00
How is that classist?

If someone is a professional, they are engaged in a middle class job on a middle class income. Unless you consider “working class” to be something that is indelibly stamped on someone’s soul at birth…

Being a professional or in management is pretty much the definition of middle class - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class_in_the_United_K...

This is what I mean by talking past each other - I don’t think we’re working from the same dictionary.
by or_am_i | 2025-04-06 07:11:22+00:00
What if we built a strong culture around actively avoiding advertising? What if we educated the general public about adverse effects of time after time giving up your attention, without getting anything in return besides a short lived dophamine kick? What if we showed how it's only in those moments of paying attention a person has a chance to exercise agency over their own life, and spending that scarce resource on doomscrolling is a catastrophic-group-mind-suicide, sadistically prolonged over the lifetime of an entire generation? That the illusion of community in the comments is just that, an illusion that dispels the moment the user clicks the dreaded "logout" button spitting them back into a gray heroine-withdrawal-like reality, isolated from their peers, all means of human connection monopolized by the attention sharecropping farms? That every moment a jingle on the radio captures your mind it's distracting you from something necessarily more important? That we are all in effect trapped in that externally-perpetuated procrastination loop, with all the neon-lit arrows pointing us further and further away from what truly matters -- our very lives?

Stay away from the algorithmic feeds, instead get to know your authors and choose them explicitly. Stay away from the personalized ads, pay for content you care about, block what can be blocked, avoid the rest. Learn active banner blindness: catch your attention drifting and look away. Uninstall reels, tiktok, youtube, sanitize your life from short term attention grabbers. Turn off that TV. Mute your car radio. Practice focus: take a book and set a timer. Lock yourself up in a room with a hobby project. Meditate. Set up a ritual with a friend or family, as long as you still got any. Make smalltalk to strangers. Get to know your neighbors. Plan that getaway. Choose your life!
by juliendorra | 2025-04-06 07:12:30+00:00
Yea, and Ken Kocienda would end up using a huge dictionary (bigger than any phone or the Newton which had one in 93 and a bigger one in 96) at the word level too. But only after this prototype, because the design goal here was to validate that there was any way at all to type the letter you wanted. Design is not a linear thing, and that’s what I wanted to make people feel by recreating this early prototype! Note that everyone in the team (15 developers) was busy creating their own weird keyboard too! Everything was halted because of the basic 1-to-1 keyboard failure to work
by wodenokoto | 2025-04-06 07:13:12+00:00
> Also their latest album (Random Access Memories) came more than a decade later than Discovery and was departure from their older techno roots.

I don’t know. When it came out it felt very off brand, but now another decade later looking back, it feels pretty on brand and more of an evolution than a revolution.

I feel the same about Radioheads Kid A. It was quite controversial when it came out, but looking back it’s like OK Computer was 1 step and Kid A another step.

As to sampling being in vogue, I think it’s more of a copyright enforcement thing that have pushed a lot of artist to create their own samples.
by AnthonyMouse | 2025-04-06 07:14:20+00:00
That's a fine attitude, but now you're describing your own beliefs rather than "the right" or "the left".

Statistically, white people make more money than black people and men make more money than women and there are differences in their proportions in various occupations. This could be caused by cultural differences that correlate with race, or hormonal differences that cause behavioral differences and correlate with sex, or it could be caused by racism and sexism. Much of the left takes it as an effectively religious position that the latter predominates even into present day. Many of them are quite militant and aggressive about it, and in particular will try to ruin anyone who presents evidence to the contrary or who opposes policies that would actively perpetrate injustice if their sacred assumptions weren't true anymore. Which isn't consistent with "live and let live".

And that's the nature of politics. You're never passing a law by a margin of 53 to 47 because everybody agrees with it. That's the 53% telling the 47% how to live.

"Only the other side does this" is false purity. There are no saints in Washington.
by laurencerowe | 2025-04-06 07:14:22+00:00
Isn’t FreeBSD a monolithic kernel? I don’t believe it provides the compartmentalisation that you talk about.

As I understand it Mach was based on BSD and was effectively a hybrid with much of the existing BSD kernel running as a single big task under the microkernel. Darwin has since updated the BSD kernel under microkernel with the current developments from FreeBSD.
by zeristor | 2025-04-06 07:14:44+00:00
Good points.

Meds. They never quite worked for me, others have noticed a change, but not me; and the side effects became too intrusive.

Working under pressure, I guess this is an issue for me. As mentioned it can be a load on the person you’re pairing with, but so often I can unlock skills pairing with someone that neither of us can ordinarily access.
by globular-toast | 2025-04-06 07:14:50+00:00
I have seen it suggested before, but not for a long time. Things have become even worse since then. What I saw suggested was to ban all forms of marketing, not just advertising. The argument was that it exists purely to mislead consumers rather than inform consumers which is vitally important for a free market to function. So that means standardised plain box packaging, for example. Companies like Apple would have to display the features that matter, like battery life, rather than hide behind clever marketing.

I really like the idea. Fuck advertising.
by piva00 | 2025-04-06 07:14:51+00:00
I don't think it's going out of style at all, there was a huge spike of chatter about Eurorack during COVID because many people's lives revolved around consumerism.

I still see plenty of acts using modulars, artists are just playing them instead of posting videos of jams on social media.

There's many more options of makers and modules than ever before, I think people are just making music instead of showing off. A quite nice change if I'm honest.
by Tabular-Iceberg | 2025-04-06 07:15:08+00:00
> “It’s not in our interest to share product with public or private agencies,” Jurasek said at the time. “You are not the first person to ask for us to give them fire retardant. It happens. It’s not something we do.”

I don’t get why they are acting like they have something to hide. Phosphate is mined from rock, rock contains all sorts of other elements including heavy metals. That’s simply how minerals work. It’s not by itself an indication that anyone has done anything wrong.
GlyphStay – Airbnb Clone Script, Would Love Feedback
by glyphstergo | 2025-04-06 07:15:45+00:00
I’d love some feedback on a project we’ve been working on: GlyphStay – a ready-to-use Airbnb clone script aimed at startups and agencies wanting to launch their own vacation rental platforms.

It’s built to be customizable, mobile-friendly, and feature-complete with booking, payments, vendor listings, and more. Our goal was to make it faster and easier for non-technical founders (or small dev teams) to go to market with their own branded rental marketplace.

This is my first time sharing on Hacker News, so I’m trying to do it the right way. Would love your honest feedback—on the product, positioning, or anything we can improve.

Also, if anyone has thoughts or feedbacks, I’d be grateful for tips.

URL: https://glyphstergo.com/airbnb-clone/

Thanks in advance!
by rsynnott | 2025-04-06 07:16:45+00:00
Argh, this isn’t how anything works. Do you think that EU products are VAT-exempt or something?

Also, I mean, realistically most stuff that Europe buys from the US isn’t _final consumer products_; the VAT gets applied further down the chain. I’m struggling to think of a major US import that _is_ a final consumer product. Some alcohol, I suppose?

(Also, per the World Bank, the EU’s weighted effective tariffs (ie based on what is actually traded) are 1.39% (a little lower than the US’s pre-Trump II positioning); not sure where you got 5%.)
by dragontamer | 2025-04-06 07:18:01+00:00
> The divergence/convergence stuff is the cuda/simt model

Even on NVidia, you're "allowed" to diverge and converge. But its not efficient.

Optimal NVidia coding will force more convergence than divergence. That's innate to GPU architecture. Its more efficient to run 32-at-a-time per NVidia warp, than a diverged 8-at-a-time warp.

Yes, NVidia _CAN_ diverge and properly execute a subwarp of 8-at-a-time per clocktick... including with complex atomics and all that. But running a full 32-at-a-time warp is 400% the speed because its ALWAYS better to do more per clock tick than less-per-clock tick.
by stirlo | 2025-04-06 07:18:35+00:00
Ryanair doesn’t have sneaky feees. It’s entirely possible to book a flight with them for the price advertised and first quoted when you search. They do prompt you to pay for heaps of extras but there are none that are unavoidable.

The real offenders are ticketing companies that charge mandatory service fees or convenience fees without providing a way to purchase the item at the advertised cost.
by huijzer | 2025-04-06 07:18:52+00:00
I found this part interesting:

> González Waite said that all of the large proprietary software companies ""are big bullies"". He has been called into the US embassy and been threatened because Mexico was using technology that was not from the US; those threats were dialed back when he explained that the government also used software and services from Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Various companies use the US government to bully other countries, but they also use license audits as a reaction to projects that move to open-source software. Every time a successful switch happened, ""six months later there was an audit""; having the right legal team helps defend against those tactics, he said.

It matches also what I heard from someone working for the Dutch government. He said that whenever they needed a new software system, that Microsoft would send multiple consultants for "free" which all could "help" the transition to a new service from Microsoft.
by troupo | 2025-04-06 07:19:05+00:00
I find these types of questions infuriating.

How exactly does it work in other countries but the US?

There's very little outside advertising in Sweden, for example, and mostly restricted to cultural advertising. Road shoulders belong to Traffic Authority, and all advertising and billboards are banned there, so you won't see the insanity pf billboard after billboard here.

So how did Sweden do that? By political will and persuasion perhaps?

Political advertising also adheres to certain rules. And while there's a lot of it in a few months before elections, it's still surprisingly contained compared to some countries
by switch007 | 2025-04-06 07:20:30+00:00
Looks somewhat promising. They've given the regulators a bit more power. Time will tell if companies are actually scared of the regulators. And if larger companies just take it as the cost of doing business and smaller companies give up, with the added burden of even more red tape (unfortunate timing with the trade war perhaps.)

The fake reviews part is just political theatre. It would take a multi year investigation by the regulators and probably will lead nowhere. And smaller companies may decide not to advertise their reviews for fear of investigation, so bigger companies will get away with it. Bigger companies are probably excited about this new law
by entuno | 2025-04-06 07:22:08+00:00
From the actual government announcement (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fake-reviews-and-sneaky-h...):

> Website hosts are accountable for the reviews on their page. Businesses and online platforms will be legally required to take steps to prevent and remove the publication of fake reviews that are published on their websites. This could include, for example, having adequate detection and removal procedures in place to prevent fake reviews being published.

I guess the big question is what that ends up meaning, and how well it's enforced. If companies start getting significant fines for hosting fake reviews (especially the likes of Google and Amazon) then that might encourage them to do something about them - but that requires an enforcement agency with teeth, and for them to prove that the reviews are fake, which often isn't easy.
by globular-toast | 2025-04-06 07:22:26+00:00
I've been using browser ad block for more than twenty years now. Back then it was to block flashing banners etc. I use Firefox everywhere so have it on my phone too. Due to this I haven't realised how bad it's become. I didn't even realise YouTube had ads until recently and how ridiculous they are.

I run DNS blocking at home which helps somewhat with shitty devices like Apple that don't give users any control. But my partner was looking at a local news site on her phone on the train the other day and I couldn't believe it. Literally an ad between every single paragraph plus one sticky ad at the bottom. It was like twice as much ad as content. Sickening.
by swapniljavanjal | 2025-04-06 07:23:05+00:00
You won’t be replaced by AI. You’ll be replaced by someone who knows how to use it better than you.

That’s not hype. It’s already happening.

→ Copywriters are losing gigs to ChatGPT. → Analysts are being outpaced by dashboards. → Designers are competing with AI-powered tools.

It’s not just automation. It’s transformation.

AI is removing repetitive tasks. One by one. Quietly. Consistently.

Until the only thing left… is you. Or the part of you AI can’t replicate.

Strategy Empathy Judgment Creativity

I wrote more on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/swapnil-javanjal_ai-futureofw...

Deep dive on this topic - https://open.substack.com/pub/swapniljavanjal/p/you-wont-be-...
by the_gipsy | 2025-04-06 07:25:24+00:00
Just understanding how negotiations work removes the frustration.

I read a book about negotiating. It had the usual breakdown of strategies, tactics and scenarios, and a lot of filler, but it was entertaining to read. Today I'm still not a good negotiator. Normally I just don't want to waste my time and just want to get something, or I don't want to "squeeze" the other side for little profit.

But I know that on big key deals, like buying a house, a car, or getting a job, there it is well worth to apply some pressure. And if I don't get to my goal, or if a deal fails, now I understand why and don't feel so much frustration as before.
by pydry | 2025-04-06 07:25:48+00:00
If you have psychological safety and develop a bond of trust with the person it is far less draining. Those things need to be developed and the working environment needs to make them possible, though.

I find that the fact that I rarely get stuck for long and the mistakes I make tend to get caught more quickly makes pairing vastly more productive in practice.

The productivity isnt directly in the speed of code output but the compounded effect over time of it being higher quality - meaning vastly less time doing post hoc debugging, bugfixing, reworking code, etc. It is invisible over the space of one or two tickets, visible over weeks and overwhelming over months.

At one company my pairing team routinely (and quietly) worked 9-3:30pm or 4pm while the surrounding nonpairing teams worked overtime and still delivered way less. If you can nail it it really is almost unreasonably effective.
by verisimi | 2025-04-06 07:25:53+00:00
How is it that sneaky fees were ever legal? Surely the legal principle is very well established that the price shown is 'the price'? And that sneaky fees were already illegal?

I can't help but wonder whether a blind eye was turned, in order to then require new legislation that includes onerous clauses. Such as requiring photo id/verification etc, as others say. Ie that whatever this legislation is, it may be an open ended expansion of legal powers.
by geden | 2025-04-06 07:26:32+00:00
I thought the second and third books were also great, but different flavours, he didn’t just repeat.

The second goes for more of a horror angle and has some incredible moments. The third is one of the most ambitious books SF novels I’ve read. Blurry and confusing on purpose, which is a fine line to tread (reminiscent of the latter Jeff Vandermeer Southern Reach books).

Recently went to a book reading and Q&A for his new one Shroud, really smart and humble chap. Deeply into his research.

Also, notably, he wrote a book a year for 17 (one seven) years before being published. And then it took 12? more novel before he had a hit with Children Of Time. He didn’t seem to have a shred of resentment about that which felt remarkable and and incredible example of perseverance and enjoyment of process over result.

A fourth Children Of book is imminent.
by physicsguy | 2025-04-06 07:27:01+00:00
It sounds great but how do you prevent it? The sellers are all based abroad.

If I look at any product on Amazon now, say a USB C cable, it’s full of fake reviews. Take this one as an example which came up as a sponsored link - 4.3/5 rated - https://amzn.eu/d/bHCXNQG - 7% of reviews are 1* and variously say that the description is misleading in capabilities of the cable, the cable broke, etc.

If you look at the 5* reviews and click through to any profile writing them, they’re giving out all 5* reviews on a totally random array of cheap Chinese products. On top of that they’re always on products that no real person would buy since they’re always a mixture of things aimed at young/old and male/female, and yet the reviews are all written in the first person. If you’re not at least skeptical you will end up wasting money on rubbish. You have to now look at the distribution of reviews rather than the overall average since fake ones at 4 and 5 star swamp all else.

Here in the U.K. I prefer Argos for small purchases I used to make from Amazon, but it’s not got the full range of items you might want to buy online unfortunately.
by kergonath | 2025-04-06 07:27:02+00:00
> Any position is a bias. A flat earther would consider a round-earther biased.

That is not what a religion is.

> Secular Americans are annoying because they believe they don't have one

Why is that a problem to you?

> and instead think they're just "good people", calling those who break their core values "bad people".

No, not really. Someone is not good or bad because you agree with them. Even a religious person can recognise that an atheist doing charitable work is being good, regardless of whether they share a specific set of belief.

The attitude you describe is wrong, and from my experience much more common in religious fundamentalists than radical atheists (the vast majority of people in western democracies do not care whether you have a religion). I have never seen an atheist saying that. But I’ve had priests telling me that I had not "rejected Satan" because I was not baptised.