MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by Aerbil313 | 2025-04-06 09:09:51+00:00
I hate advertising because it’s nonconsensual, subconscious manipulation. When I see an ad for product X, I’m more likely to buy it in the store than product Y because there’s artificially increased familiarity for it in my brain. If the purpose of advertising was to inform, you’d never see an ad for Coca Cola, since everybody on the planet knows about it already. The %0.01 of advertising that informs me of a product that I might actually purchase can die overnight, and I’d not notice a difference, because I use adblockers and when I need something, I search for it on the internet, Google, Amazon, and the like. When I need reviews I turn to Reddit and HN.

If advertising is a zero-sum game between companies competing for your eyeball-minutes, allocating double digits of their income to marketing departments, it’s a net drain on the economy. If it’s a positive-sum game for companies and you are purchasing more goods than you otherwise would because of the ads you see, it means you are purchasing stuff you don’t need, and it means advertising is a way to funnel your money to companies through nonconsensual means, i.e theft. In reality it’s a slightly positive sum game for companies.

Advertising is cancerous in the sense that if there was no advertising, nobody needs to advertise, but if somebody is advertising and you are not, then you’ll lose market share and die, so you advertise too and hence it spreads. It is parasitic in the sense that vast amounts of collective resources of society is spent on this redirecting-money-from-company-A-to-company-B scheme with no positive value generated.

Political advertising undermines democracy. Ads have a huge influence on the outcome of modern elections. You need billionaires backing you to fund your campaign, and guess what? Those billionaires will have some special requests when you take the seat. Fair elections and leaders caring for the people are only possible in a world without political advertising.

All arguments in favor of advertising are circular, they presume the current economy/society where everything is heavily dependent on advertising and then point out “Look, but X wouldn’t work without advertising!” In reality a world without advertising would look much different, and my hunch is it would be wealthier and with less inequality, too.
by pjmlp | 2025-04-06 09:10:11+00:00
A whole company, with our in-house version of AOLServer, using Apache and IIS plugins for the Tcl interpreter, running across AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Windows 2000/NT, Red-Hat Linux, with our own ActiveRecord like approach (a decade before Rails happened), with connectors for Sybase SQLServer, MS SQLServer, Informix, Oracle, DB2, Access, doing code generation from Oracle based ER diagrams, and an IDE written in VB 6.

Which became a business unit from Altitude Software, eventually due to our MSFT partnership level we got access to .NET builds before it was known to the world, as one of the key Portuguese partners, and started to replicate our stack in .NET, based on the learnings from our Tcl based product.

The founders and core devs, from the original startup, eventually left to create their no code/low code platform, based on the learnings from both technology stacks, what they managed to achieve, and what was not done quite right, out of that OutSystems was born, one of the most successful Portuguese IT companies from the last 20 years.

I think using Tcl for that startup on a tiny Lisbon basement back in the late 1990's, turned out quite alright.
by saagarjha | 2025-04-06 09:10:44+00:00
Also,

> As of iOS 15, Apple even allows virtualization on iOS (to run Linux inside an iPad app, for example, which some developers have demoed), indicating the XNU hypervisor is capable on mobile as well, though subject to entitlement.

Apple definitely does not allow this; in fact the hypervisor code has been removed from the kernel as of late.
by imiric | 2025-04-06 09:12:43+00:00
I'm not a lawyer, nor is it my job to come up with loophole-free regulation. People in those professions can think hard about this problem, and do a much better job than some layperson who thought about it for a few minutes on an internet forum. Even for them, though, coming up with laws without loopholes that are not too restrictive in legitimate situations is often impossible, so it's ridiculous that you would expect the same from me.

That said, after thinking about it for a few more minutes, I can think of one simple addendum to my initial criteria. I wrote about it here[1], so I won't repeat myself.

It's asinine that this discussion is taken to extreme ends. We don't need to ban all forms of advertising and get into endless discussions about semantics and free speech in order to stop the abuse of the current system. There is surely a middle ground that does it in a sensible way. The only reason we don't fix this is because the powers that be have no incentives to do so, and the general population is conditioned and literally brainwashed to not care about it.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43599948
by abduvik | 2025-04-06 09:13:34+00:00
Tech Insights You Can’t Miss This Week

Issue #17 is now published & live —here’s what caught my attention:

Trimodal Compensation: Why US, UK, and India tech salaries diverge wildly 23andMe’s Data Fire Sale: 15M users’ DNA for sale in bankruptcy fallout Zalando Loses Court Case over racist, unlawful dismissal EU’s Open Source Catalog goes live

Tech Summaries: 1⃣ Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange explained (and why forward secrecy matters) 2⃣ Managing multiple GitHub SSH accounts 3⃣ URL vs URI vs URN— what's the difference?

Watch of the Week: Step-by-step guide to launching a solo agency The world’s shortest UI/UX course (seriously efficient)
by barnabee | 2025-04-06 09:14:44+00:00
> “here’s the product, here’s what it does”

Belongs in catalogues, store listings, the manufacturers website, product search engines, not forced into view when you’re trying to do something else.

It’d be perfectly reasonable even to have sites listing or aggregating new and updated products, or social media accounts that post about interesting [new or otherwise] products, as long as they’re not paid to place or promote products, too.
by isaacremuant | 2025-04-06 09:14:47+00:00
It's always the same story. I'm mad trump or some "right leaning" party won so this is what we can do to prevent that by being authoritarian "to fight fascism" and "the greater good".

It's not an honest what if because it finds no downsides or tradeoffs nor does it try to define what exactly would be ilegal.
by tom89999 | 2025-04-06 09:15:32+00:00
Franchise is modern slavery. Not the first and the last one ended up in totally bankrupty. The chains know what they are doing and using such people as guinea pig for market research. They testing the waters if such a restaurant will make profit, if not, only a poor former owner will sue them, if he has money, energy and time for it.. They close that venue, picking up their machines and the owner is from now on without money. Self-employed people dont receive welfare benefits, nothing. Even if they have worked as employees before and paid taxes and insurances. Its suicide to run a business without money in the background. Not recommendable for unemployed, desperate and older workers.
by inkyoto | 2025-04-06 09:15:49+00:00
Yes, they did, but… it was more of a proof of concept and a promise rather than a production quality release. They also had the OS X Server product line at the time (no more), which ZFS would have been the best fit for at the time, and they also released the OS X ZFS port before the advent of the first iPhone.

It is not a given that ZFS would have performed well within the tight hardware constraints of the first ten or so generations of the iPhone – file systems such as APFS, btrfs or bcachefs are better suited for the needs of mobile platforms.

Another conundrum with ZFS is that ZFS disk pools really, really want a RAID setup, which is not a consumer grade thing, and Apple is a consumer company. Even if ZFS did see the light back then, there is no guarantee it would have lived on – I am not sure, anyway.
by plusmax1 | 2025-04-06 09:16:02+00:00
Proving reviews are fake is hard indeed. A few years back I fell for fake reviews. I was booking a trip and saw a fairly new "boutique hotel" with good reviews (on booking.com). Once we arrived, it was nothing of the sort. The hotel was grimy, the room was small, things were broken etc etc.

Once home I looked at the reviews again and I noticed a pattern: each review had only a few sentences and, in hindsight, odd language. For example, it was praising the management in quite a few of them. I don't know about you, but I've never considered the quality of "the management" of a hotel, let alone that I would be inclined to write about it in a review.

I'm sure they paid a shady company to post those reviews in order to boost their rating. I complained to booking.com, but of course they never did anything with it. I imagine it is hard for a platform to do, but I'm also sure they can do more than they do now.
by fmbb | 2025-04-06 09:16:22+00:00
> you are self-imposing a restriction that will give other nations an economic advantage and jeopardizing long-term sovereignty.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

What is your evidence that there is any economic advantage at all to have unregulated advertising?

I'm fairly sure advertising is regulated in all sovereign states. And I am also quite certain that the jurisdictions in which gambling advertisement is illegal fare better economically than those in which it is illegal. It only makes sense: gambling is not productive, the less of it you have the better your population spend their money on productive things, the more advertising you have the more people spend on gambling (otherwise what is the point of advertising?), if you forbid gamling advertising there will be less gambling advertising (if not, what is your complaint even?).

Nothing about this statement of yours makes sense.
by jenseidesolvang | 2025-04-06 09:16:41+00:00
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by jeroenhd | 2025-04-06 09:17:13+00:00
Relying on the inherent JavaScript compatibility hack has caused as many problems as it has solved. Plus, the additional of trailing commas made a mess of things once more, forcing developers to let go of the direct compatibility with many versions of JavaScript engines and redirecting them to specialised JSON APIs instead.

The easy solution would be to go the JavaScript route and make commas optional, like JavaScript does with semicolons. You could even introduce vague and easily forgotten rules about commas being inserted between oneliner dictionaries.

I think the question "why" is easily answered, but "why should it still" is more difficult.
by bgnn | 2025-04-06 09:17:14+00:00
The people you are enriching in other nations are also the same class of those nations. Actually, even a smaller percentage of them. It's so much more harder to raise capital in the EU for tech start-ups for this reason. They prefer investing in the SV. Biggest money markets around here is the London City, whose money flow doesn't drip to the UK population.

These tariffs wouldn't hit these privileged people though, both in US and abroad, as they are planned and implemented by the same people. It will hit the lower classes, mostly the middle class.
by rlupi | 2025-04-06 09:18:33+00:00
> if the people paying the salaries would rather make 1,000 bets on the Next Big Thing, and if 999 of them fail but one succeeds that is far better than 100 who fail and 900 which become medium-sized, profitable companies, then overproduction is what you get.

I think we are getting this equation wrong as a society.

We need figure out how to spin out the 900 that become medium-sized profitable companies. In a sense, companies like bending spoons are doing just that. We haven't found yet how to make 1000 bets, have one be the Next Big Thing, and profit from the 900 that are still profitable enterprises in their own but fail in the overproduction environment that we think we need for the Next Big Thing.
by barnabee | 2025-04-06 09:18:37+00:00
Sponsored content should be considered an ad too and banned in this scenario.

Many “influencers” would have to go back to being amateurs. That’s ok. Some would accept backhanders, but they risk prosecution, which is actually possible [0].

[0] https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/government-orders-maori-infl...
by parodysbird | 2025-04-06 09:19:47+00:00
Extreme combat superiority does not mean you are fighting a combat where that achieves your objectives. The reason the Taliban did not have to reckon with the full potential of the US military is because the US unleashing it's full power on them would be stupid. Your power is actually limited by the boundaries of rationality. The US (and to a lesser degree Russia) could in theory vaporize every city in any country, and kill everyone there. That's not actually a coherent goal (unless you like fantasizing about how powerful you are), and so it doesn't actually happen.

The development of nukes greatly reduced the possibilities of war between major nation states, and in the conflicts with minor states, nukes are not under consideration for use. Russia has never actually done any move with their nuclear weapon regiments to indicate using them, even though they are actively locked in a dumb war they underestimating that is costing hundreds of thousands of Russian lives. America kicked the Taliban out of power but could not keep the Taliban out of power, whether you left immediately or after 20 years. Your combat superiority doesn't mean you can defeat foreign militancies. Time and time again you have not defeated them. That is the reality. Fantasizing about unleashing the full combat superiority of the US military (nuking the entire landscape petulantly) to show that you are powerful is not a credible or coherent outcome... and lo it does not happen.

Finally, the US has waged total war since the end of WW2. Almost every substantial building in North Korea was destroyed in the Korean War. All of the dams and civilian infrastructure were entirely destroyed by US bombs. US bombers couldn't even find targets to indiscriminately bomb toward the end. And yet the US did not defeat the North Koreans.

(As a final note, DPRK started that war, not the US or its allies, so the primary objectives were inherently different and more defensive. Nonetheless, the use of total war did not achieve ultimate the victory it was aimed at.)
Solo-built SaaS for automating Meta/Google ads
by efeberkec | 2025-04-06 09:19:47+00:00
Hey HN,

I’m Efe, a solo founder currently based in Poland through the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs program. I’ve been working on a bootstrapped SaaS called Adgrow that automates paid advertising for small e-commerce brands.

This all started because I was running an email marketing agency and realized something: Most of the DTC and e-com brands I worked with either had no idea how to scale ads properly or were burning money on freelancers and agencies with no visibility or feedback loop. They needed automation — but without the bloated tools or 4-figure monthly retainers.

So I decided to build what I wish they had:

A lean dashboard to launch and manage Meta + Google campaigns

Lightweight performance analytics (think ROAS and attribution, minus the noise)

Pre-built workflows for lead generation, abandoned cart, promos etc.

Adgrow is now functional and live. I’m still in the early stages — no team, no funding, just learning in public. To validate early and get real user feedback, I’ve launched a lifetime deal that helps fund the project while giving early adopters a lot of value.

Here’s the link if you're curious or want to try it: https://www.adgrow.net/lifetime-deal

Would love your feedback — especially from other indie hackers, marketers, and SaaS builders. What would you expect from a tool like this? What’s missing? What’s too much?

Happy to answer any questions and iterate on this.

Thanks, Efe
by hnlmorg | 2025-04-06 09:21:51+00:00
Config directories are there to solve change management problems like idempotency.

If you have one big file then different tools, or even the same tool but different points of that tools life cycle, can result in old config not correctly removed, new config applied multiple times, or even a corrupt file entirely.

This isnt an issue if you’re running a personal system which you hand edit those config files. But when you have fleets of servers, it becomes a big problem very quickly.

With config directories, you then only need to track the lifecycle of files themselves rather than the content of those files. Which solves all of the above problems.
by jeroenhd | 2025-04-06 09:22:18+00:00
I don't find commas at the end of line adding any more readability than avoiding them, except for the oneliner counter case.

JavaScript has optional separators (semicolons) with some rules to avoid ambiguity. Not everyone like it (I use semicolons in JS unnecessarily because I can't be bothered to learn the three edge cases they're not optional). I think there's something to be said for "commas are optional except in oneliners".

Languages like Go describe structs without commas. It took me some getting used to, but it's really not more or less readable in my opinion.
by ahmedbaracat | 2025-04-06 09:24:26+00:00
ko-br | Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) | Europe/London (preferred) | Equity + Leadership Role

We’re ko-br—a London-based robotics AI startup automating variable warehouse operations (palletizing, kitting) with AI-powered robots that handle real-world chaos (grip slips, conveyor jams, dust storms). Our no-code solution plugs into ABB/KUKA/UR arms, saving clients 85% on emergency calls.

The Rebellion:

We’re fighting the “3AM cobot meltdown” industrial hangover. Our robots learn from humans, adapt to chaos, and recover autonomously—no coding, no all-nighters.

Our manifesto: https://ko-br.com/manifesto

The Role:

As CCO, you’ll co-lead our commercial strategy, build partnerships (ABB, KUKA), and scale revenue. This is a co-founder role with significant equity.

You:

- Built sales engines in robotics/AI/industrial tech

- Have logistics/manufacturing contacts

- Thrive in early-stage chaos

- Want to turn warehouse workers into robot mentors

Why Join?

- Founder: Ex-Amazon/Meta ML engineer, expertise in ML infrastructure, computer vision, distributed systems, and building Internet-scale ML pipelines.

- Team: 40+ years combined expertise in VR, ML, robotics, MLOps, data annotation and cybersecurity

Apply: Email hiring@ko-br.com with “CCO Rebellion” in subject. Let’s automate drudgery, not creativity.

No recruiters. Let’s build robots that respect humans.
by croes | 2025-04-06 09:24:34+00:00
And then MS makes changed like the ribbons for MA Office and you start training again.

Most people don’t know much about the OS or Office, so you have to train them anyway for the companies use cases and non standard programs.

MS just seems convenient, but isn’t. In large companies every update brings problems.

Things like Teams change the UI quite often which leads to support questions.

So for me the training costs don’t differ that much.
by Jabbles | 2025-04-06 09:24:42+00:00
If there were 280 drops of the DC-10 mentioned in the article, that is a maximum of 280 * 45000 = 12.6M litres of this, spread of 20 square miles.

That is 7.5 kg (16 lbs) of lead.

But what does that tell you? Is that a lot? The EPA warns against soil that is > 400ppm lead, which is a limit almost 1000 times higher than found in this.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-10/documents/le...
by delusional | 2025-04-06 09:25:15+00:00
Looking at some of the contemporary documentation it does look like it was essentially a historical accident. The interface it built to be all microkernel, but when it was adapted into a real system the microkernel concepts fell to the wayside as they were no longer useful, but where they didn't impose too much of a burden (as in the pager interface) they were allowed to stick around.
by CapricornNoble | 2025-04-06 09:25:19+00:00
> I think if you inspect your answer you’ll see why guns are not what is required for overthrowing a government. Citizens willing to risk their lives, property and liberty is the main requirement, usually because the current situation is so intolerable to them.

I don't disagree with that. People have to be invested in the cause first. Weapons are just tools there to both 1) discourage the powerful from attempting tyranny 2) ensure the people at least have access to the final arbiter of power: violence.

> Most overthrows result from the population refusing to cooperate

It would be interesting to see the data on this. Peaceful protests didn't work in Syria or Myanmar, for example. Eventual armed rebellion succeeded in Syria...but still hasn't succeeded in Myanmar despite decades of conflict. Peaceful protests in China got rolled over by tanks in the 1980s (Tianamen). The Arab Spring was shut down pretty fiercely in Bahrain despite being unarmed, but I'm not that familiar with the details.

> going to the seat of power en masse and forcing a change. Guns would be counterproductive in that process

You go to the seat of power, you kill or overpower the security forces, then you take the people inside who think they can oppress you, drag them out into the street, and shoot them. Show trials are optional but recommended. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_and_execution_of_Nicolae... )

> In addition, most armed rebellions bring out the worst characters as leaders and lead to dictatorship.

"The blade itself incites to deeds of violence." (great book series BTW) In all likelihood the US got really lucky with George Washington and that colors our national mythology, and by extension our perspective on armed rebellion. Because of course a military officer who breaks laws and uses violence against his government will be magnanimous, and not turn into a vicious and brutal druglord ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arturo_Guzm%C3%A1n_Decena ).
by mytailorisrich | 2025-04-06 09:26:10+00:00
Pro tip: when you have a restrictive licence and suddenly they ask you for details of your actual use you reply "we use it accordingly to the terms of our licence" or you politely reply that they should direct any questions to your legal and licensing department.

On a side note, I am puzzled as to why a "small non-profit" would pay $4k a year to license a single font in the first place.

IMO, they need to deny they are breaching the terms of their current license, then drop that font completely, and then wave the bully bye bye.
by pjmlp | 2025-04-06 09:26:32+00:00
Lots of love and work went into this article, as someone around for most of this history, ported code from NeXTSTEP into Windows, dived into the GNUStep attempts to clone the experience, remembers YellowBox and OpenStep, read the internals books, regular consumer of WWDC content, I would say the article matches pretty much my recollection on most of the systems have evolved.
by Tomte | 2025-04-06 09:27:08+00:00
> Well, yes. "It hasn't been tried in court yet" is not the same as "Precedent says this is explicitly allowed".

Please read my comment carefully, without simply assuming I must be on AI companies' side. I'm covering two exhaustive, mutually exclusive cases. In both cases I think your license does nothing, compared to a normal MIT license.

> they've already indicated that they know what the outcome is going to be

I agree with you! But even in the case where they are in the wrong, they are already in the wrong with a standard MIT license!

And in the other case: fair use trumps the license text. That's the point of it!