MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by rstuart4133 | 2025-04-02 22:12:18+00:00
One view of this is HN sports two ranking algorithms: the front page and /active. A few months after discovering /active, I found I was not looking at the front page. I've come to the conclusion it's gamed (not by HN of course, but the various tribes flighting for attention), and yes the primary mechanism for that is flagging.

Having two ranking algorithms is very bluesky'ish in some ways, and thank $DIETY it does. The front page reminds me of other sites that have voting systems. I don't know how to describe it - but I get the sense they all tend to favour articles the tribes like fighting about. /active has much less of that feel.

The comments on HN also suffer from the same tribal warfare effect - with the comments the tribes like fighting over rising to the top. That isn't so bad - because it means you can often just skip the top couple of comments to go fossicking for the insightful gems.
by taeric | 2025-04-02 22:12:24+00:00
I mean... ish? There is something to be said for a minimal styling, but there is clearly an aesthetic change to things. As an easy example, wallpaper used to be far more common, and was often far more busy than the neutral colors people insist on in homes nowadays. Not just more colorful, but with designs on them.

You can see the same with dishes. Clothes. Book covers.

I can agree that I don't want everything to look like a riot, as it were. I do sometimes think a bit more color would be nice.
Show HN: Website to help Canadian seniors check their benefit eligibility
by imheretolearn | 2025-04-02 22:12:45+00:00
Hey HN!

I’m working on a project called PensionHelper — a simple, accessible web app designed to help Canadian seniors (and their caregivers) check what government benefits they’re eligible for.

Too many older folks miss out on programs like GIS, CPP, and OAS because the process is confusing, full of jargon, and often hidden behind clunky Service Canada interfaces. PensionHelper aims to fix that. The app is mobile-first and designed with trust and calmness in mind — big fonts, soft visuals, no clutter. Would love your feedback!
by scoofy | 2025-04-02 22:13:47+00:00
I mean, I'm not going to change your mind. I don't want to. I've read the book. I found it very helpful in a practical sense, while at the same time as finding it horrifying.

>that's simply the way most, if not all, people are; it's a failing that's almost universal.

Again, I don't disagree with you that this is a problem for the median person. My point is that, for the most part, I'm not really interested in being close friends with the median person. Friends in a sense? Sure. Chat at a bar? Sure. But not people I really talking about interesting things with. The median person isn't going to mesh very well with my personality.

The ivory tower was an isolated tower for a reason. Intellectuals were literally under threat of execution for the vast majority of human history. The underlying currents for that are basically reflected in the assumptions that Carnegie makes.

I want intellectual friends. I want be shown that I'm wrong. I learn something when I'm wrong. I understand that's not a common trait, but it's how I am, and how I want to be.
Show HN: Is My App Secure?
by westche2222 | 2025-04-02 22:14:39+00:00
Hey! Just like the title says, I’m hoping for some (nice) feedback on whether my app is secure. For context I build this with cursor + supabase and I’ve seen some horror stories so I want to be certain I don’t have any serious security vulnerabilities as we grow 400+ users so far! Thanks in advance :)
by Arathorn | 2025-04-02 22:14:52+00:00
MAS can be used as an OIDC IdP, and in future MAS will be embeddable in Synapse so you can use your homeserver as an IdP in the way you want, all in one package.

That said, MAS is deliberately not a very featureful IdP - it's focused on being the glue between Matrix and OIDC. If you want a more sophisticated IdP then you'll still want to run a dedicated one.
by mgdev | 2025-04-02 22:15:30+00:00
Matt's only real problem is not owning his ambition openly.

Trying to publicly argue the moral high ground was a stupid, unforced error.

It didn't need to be moralized at all. Just make the changes you want to make, piss off a vocal minority, then get back to winning and making boatloads of money by executing exceptionally.

The problem, I suspect, is that Matt values how certain people perceive him more than he values winning. It's unfortunate, because he's clearly a very good executer and strategist. He's getting in his own way.
by falcor84 | 2025-04-02 22:15:44+00:00
> Non-profits have staff and they have to pay them.

Being the devil's advocate, there are are quite a lot of smaller non-profits that are entirely volunteer-run. While Wikipedia's mission might inherently be big enough to merit a few salaried employees, I can't fathom why they need so many. As per Wilde's famous quip, it seems to me that "the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy".
by jerheinze | 2025-04-02 22:16:40+00:00
> The Signal app can be used as a honeypot to plant a pseudo-secure messenger

Given its open source nature that would be exceedingly difficult.

> The Tor network was deemed the culprit of anonymity and secure connections not long ago. We all know how it went.

What are you talking about? Tor is still the uncontested king of low-latency anonymity networks.
by sunshine-o | 2025-04-02 22:17:14+00:00
Unless they pull out something really cool and revolutionary this is probably just a fax machine.

Outside of the corporate world email is almost a legacy protocol. Like phone numbers we have one because we need to but do not really use it that much anymore.

I believe email was de facto replaced by WhatsApp, iMessage, Social media and OpenID almost 20 years ago.

Just ask a gen Z or Alpha when was the last time he sent an email.

Now they are gonna try to ride the wave of the Big bad tech escape but Proton has a 10 years lead here.
by palata | 2025-04-02 22:17:37+00:00
> This is not entirely true.

My point is that it's generally harder to add those features in a privacy-preserving way. GMail couldn't do it if it couldn't read the content of the emails, period. It doesn't mean that there is no way to have nice features in a privacy-preserving way. I just said it's harder (sometimes impossible).

> I don't think Telegram's UX is tied to their permissive privacy

Not exclusively, but it is obviously a lot easier! Take a web client: if the server has access to the data, your client can just fetch it. If the server doesn't even know about the existence of the group, that's harder. Why do you think only the "secret chats" are E2EE in Telegram (and those don't support groups)?

> then do what's needed to support it

What do they do to support privacy? They don't have E2EE except in the secret chats! That hasn't changed in a decade!

> Instagram has terrible privacy and actively mines information from chat and their UX is only passably good

This keeps getting further from what I said :). Of course, it's possible to do worse than Telegram!
by ArneKombo | 2025-04-02 22:17:43+00:00
Kombo (YC S22) | Engineering Manager | Berlin | In-office (with flexibility) | 80k-110k + equity | https://kombo.dev We are a small (~35), fast-growing (tripled revenue last year) team building a unified API for HR systems. We are looking to hire an engineering manager to help us manage one of our product squads.

I haven't yet finished writing the job spec but I still wanted to put this out there already for the HN hiring thread. You can get a feel for what our engineering culture is like based on the job posting of our Product Engineering position: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Kombo/5446702e-cf0b-4a53-9400-0be2d...

Feel free to contact me at arne@kombo.dev - I'm the CTO and leading the hiring process!
by II2II | 2025-04-02 22:17:56+00:00
In my opinion, yes. On the other hand, I have been using KOReader for many years. When I started using it, it was very rough. At one point there was a fairly significant overhaul. Since then, there have been smaller incremental changes (which amount to a lot across the years). Of course, opinions of user interfaces will vary.

I am not going to claim that it is perfect. They cram a lot of functionality in there that serves a very diverse audience. The volume of options is going to have a negative impact is going to have a negative impact for anyone wanting a simple, to-the-point interface. The diverse audience bit means that virtually noone is going to be interested in a majority of the features, even though I suspect that a majority of users will interested in a combination of features that they won't find in other products.

While I may have been a bit unfair in saying that most commerical reading software is geared towards selling novels, I don't think that assessment is too far off base. Most software does appear to be designed for people who just read novels. KOReader is geared towards people who care about features that other reading software rarely provides.
by JohnBooty | 2025-04-02 22:17:59+00:00
I suppose scalping hadn't been as severe globally or in US until recent NVIDIA GPU launches?

For years, it was absolutely massive for iPhone launches.

It was amusing, if not a little frustrating. News coverage would always show it as evidence of fanatical Apple fans. But (especially after the first year or two) it was pretty clearly mostly flippers/scalpers.
by jrudin | 2025-04-02 22:18:08+00:00
Clad (YC W'23) | Full Stack Software Engineer | New York City

About: Clad is construction management software for infrastructure.

We're building a compound startup to build infrastructure (telecom, roads, utilities, etc.) faster and cheaper.

Progress: Since this time last year, we've 8x'd revenue, and >3x'd customers.

Role: Looking for a full stack software engineer to join our team of 4.

Tech Stack: Typescript using Remix

JD: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/clad/jobs/YHGyRSf-full...
by keyringlight | 2025-04-02 22:18:11+00:00
Something I found myself paying attention to as I was getting tired of cars and looking towards training for a motorcycle is what colors stand out, not just high-visibility clothes but the vehicle too because you want to be seen. Once you've tuned your eyes into looking it's shocking how many riders are pure black when they're more vulnerable on the roads. It's an interesting exercise when you're walking around a city onto a new street with cars parked up to see how quickly you can count how many there are, I found it can be difficult to separate out cars with how common black is now, and the less common brighter colors really stand out.
by mmooss | 2025-04-02 22:18:42+00:00
I hope for the best but plan for the worst:

I don't think people want to change email addresses very often. How do I know Mozilla will still be doing this in 5-10 years? (Edit: Others have pointed out that, if we can bring our own domains, technical users can retain their address. However, for non-technical users that's not an option.)

Also, I'm not sure about charging a fee at the start (except for TB contributors) and providing a free tier later - reverse of the usual way of launching a product. Maybe this is a soft launch to shake out the bugs and build a little momentum, and you can pay if you want to take part?

Mozilla could do something awesome here. I hate to say it, but here is a chance to start fresh and make big, legacy-breaking changes to Thunderbird. The new audience - which should become the vast majority if they are successful - won't care if it's not like the old Thunderbird (possibly unlike many on HN). Here is a chance to do something special and the mail client is all most users see or understand.
by TrackerFF | 2025-04-02 22:18:57+00:00
From what I understand, de minimis exemption has also been removed.

That is a huge, huge deal. It effectively means that all goods imported from China will be slapped with a 30% import tax, as soon as said goods arrive the US border / customs.

Usually what happens then, is that the courier will pay that tax, and then bill the recipient later on - as well as charge some fee/fees for the work done.

This is why in some European countries, that $1 item from China with free shipping can end up costing $10, because you're paying $0.25 in VAT or import taxes, and $10 to the shipping courier for doing the paperwork.

If that is the case in the US, I fully expect total chaos and mayhem when all the Temu / AliExpress/ Wish customers start receiving extra bills for their orders.

(That's just from the most obvious consumer example...then you have pretty much everything else. Goods, commodities, etc.)

EDIT: I found more info here https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-pr...

So it is even worse, you either pay $25 per shipment, or 30% - whichever is higher. Then later it moves up to $50 per shipment, or 30% - whichever is higher.

a $1 item with $1 shipping will end up costing you as much as $52 after June!
by littlestymaar | 2025-04-02 22:19:17+00:00
Right, Agent-based models are only useful as “exploration” tool, you cannot really use them for forecast because there's an impractically high number of parameter to tune.

Micro-founded macro economics models (say DSGE) are much easier to tune based on available historical data so they are much preferred, and nobody seams to care that they have the same predicting power as astrology.
by Klonoar | 2025-04-02 22:19:26+00:00
> Unless you're extremely privileged, privacy does play a role in every feature.

No, dude. Come on - you really think that plays a role in how smooth a listview renders? Or whether it follows the correct tab focus order? I don't think I could be more clear about what I'm saying in my last comment. Their client side app is incredibly smooth and well built. Signal, Element, etc do not stack up.

> Making a smooth app isn't that hard.

Yes, it surprisingly is. Multiple chat apps in 2025 still fail at this.

> Inventing the cryptographic protocols to enable group management without server-side control, and proving their security is the hard part. Something Telegram's developers haven't the faintest idea of how to do.

This isn't even in the realm of what my point was.
by _carbyau_ | 2025-04-02 22:20:23+00:00
Earlier in my career the clients system was not powered at all, I did:

"Is it plugged in and switched on?" A: Yes, to a powerboard.

"Is the powerboard plugged in and switched on?" A: Yes.

I did the onsite visit and found the powerboard plugged into itself.

Normally I would facepalm and curse the idiocy but... it was a care respite facility and they had more pressing issues to deal with that I wouldn't want to deal with - their role is heroic I feel.

And an easy win already makes my day so I sorted it, told them it was fixed with a smile, and continued on.
by Paradigm2020 | 2025-04-02 22:20:37+00:00
He's just asking what are the specific proposals that should be enacted... That's it... Like know that you've read the book which exact law has to be passed / destroyed to increase housing supply... Without causing mass civil unrest... Which law has to be passed to get the high speed rail build in the next 3 years... Without destroying nature / being routed through poor people's home under eminent domain and not through some rich ass hole with the right connections...

He's coming at if from his pov that he's aware of the problem but is looking for solutions... Which the author's don't give...

The problem is that human made laws deal with... Human beings... And hence with game theory...

So the intent of the law != Outcome of the law.

If you just throw away the law without considering Chesterton's fence etc you are probably throwing away the baby with the bathwater... And to fix it perfectly is basically impossible as it always is in complex matters... (if it was possible ie there wouldn't be accountants who can save millions/billions for cooperations...)

The book is describing problems that a lot of people, especially on this forum, are well aware off. However instead of saying - we need to do this, or even proposing a wiki/forum/whatever to specifically fix all those individual problems/ laws it just repeats what a lot of people are already aware off in a long spun out book.

Best other book I can think of that is similar in a way (and a best seller) is thinking fast and slow with the end conclusion being ~~~ eeeuhm there is no actual way to fix your thinking but hey maybe being aware off the 2 systems might help even though we've said this whole time that it doesn't really work.

So yeah, what specific solutions have you found in this book? If you agree that there aren't any... Maybe you just were looking for A and got A and he was hoping to get B and only got A ?

He's saying it's a problem book instead of a solution book and you are repeating but yes it's a great problem book... Why does there need to be a solution book. So maybe the marketing is at fault ?

(Anyway written at night on a phone so sorry for the badly written reply, I just noticed how you repeated more or less the same message and felt like communication was not being achieved despite lots of words being exchanged - I will clarify with a clearer head tomorrow to any reply - Hanoi time zone)
by siffin | 2025-04-02 22:21:01+00:00
What are you talking about? The burden is on you to explain how manipulating the chemical makeup of the atmosphere DOESN'T have a direct impact, even at the tiniest levels (1ppm).

At the levels we're at now, CO2e imbalances definitely impact every single weather event on the planet to some degree, and you'd have to be delusional not to accept that.
by dghlsakjg | 2025-04-02 22:21:10+00:00
I guess a more accurate way to say it is that I never heard of doing anything like that in my career on sailboats.

Its cheap and relatively low effort, but I just don't see the benefit. Modern cans typically already have a plastic coating on the inside that will take care of things getting in through any pinholes, and to preserve flavor.

I spent close to a decade as a professional sailboat captain, including on long offshore passages. I never saw a single can of suspect food, and it wasn't something that is ever talked about. Even in survival kits you would see canned goods that weren't wrapped in plastic.

Really, if you are in the business of minimizing risk, you don't undertake an open ocean voyage in a 19 ft. sailboat.
by crazygringo | 2025-04-02 22:21:27+00:00
Exactly. My work-provided chat app and email automatically contains the whole company's contacts. And the messages show up on people's work devices.

If I wanted to use a personal chat or personal email, I'd need to know their personal details, or copy-paste their work info, it would confuse which accounts they reply to... it would make no sense at all.

I keep my work convos and personal convos separate not just because it's company policy, but it's 100x easier for me.
by Klonoar | 2025-04-02 22:21:46+00:00
> its quality bar has very much been the target for Element X

I sincerely hope you get there, but it's really hard to believe it at the moment. You're not even at feature parity with the app (Element vs Element X) you're replacing, and it's been out for a bit now.

i.e, you have significant user experience related features that keep people using Element (open graph previews, just to name one).
by itishappy | 2025-04-02 22:22:14+00:00
Fair critique! I tried to find a more accessible Wikipedia article but they all look like this...

Simply put, it's a topological defect or discontinuity, but that makes it sounds worse than it really is. I find it easiest to visualize with magnets. They want to align with their neighbors, so in general you get big blocks (domains) where all particles are aligned. What happens at the border when blocks with different alignments meet? We call that a domain wall. That's literally all it is!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_defect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_domain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_wall_(magnetism)

You can find domains walls in magnets, metallic crystal grain structures, liquid crystals, pretty much anything that wants to self-align. One issue: gravity doesn't particularly want to self-align. Or does it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_mechanism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_symmetry_breaking

I've only got a surface understanding of this stuff myself. Best of luck in your research!
by iflores12 | 2025-04-02 22:22:22+00:00
Location: Netherlands

Remote: Open to any type of work. Remote preferred.

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: Python, AWS, Snowflake, SQL, Typescript, React, Postgres, Terraform

Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacfloreshuerta/

Email:isaac@flores-huerta.com

I'm in a bit of a chicken & egg situation as my partner recently landed a job in the Netherlands, so we're relocating soon. I'm currently job hunting and will need visa sponsorship for now. I'm a mid-career software engineer with a strong foundation in data engineering and a broad, generalist background, mostly working for startups. Open to any opportunities!
by mmooss | 2025-04-02 22:22:28+00:00
That's not my point of view at all, and I have little issue with what happened and have no concern about Mozilla and privacy.

The endless repetition of these comments is becoming spammy - they have nothing to say but the exact same thing again. We get it; you don't need to repeat it. It's like someone writing, at every opportunity, 'I don't trust Meta' and adding nothing more.
by acdha | 2025-04-02 22:22:30+00:00
Weren’t things like that 25% steel and aluminum tariff added in response to Trump’s earlier tariffs, and allowed to lapse in 2020?

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2018/886/oj/eng

https://www.gtlaw.com/en/insights/2025/3/eu-to-impose-tariff...
by inetknght | 2025-04-02 22:23:13+00:00
> I find myself unable to separate the coffee from that fact

Well at least you admit it.

> Now its so prevalent that no one can see the original causes.

I know plenty of people who drink coffee without taking a break to do so. I know plenty of people who drink coffee and are more productive outside of work than people who do not drink coffee at all. I know plenty of employers who do not provide coffee breaks nor free coffee.

Moreover, if drinking coffee makes someone pleasant to be around while not-drinking coffee makes that same person un-pleasant to be around, then perhaps the productivity benefits and original causes aren't so important anymore.
by hinkley | 2025-04-02 22:23:21+00:00
It's definitely now in the wrong spot. I assume that once upon a time there was one rack against the wall, and it was only slightly irresponsibly placed, and now there are two racks and hey kids, heat rises.

The extinguisher should be directly inside the door so as not to attract someone to traverse farther into the building without an escape plan.

Of course if he did so then there would be no extinguishers in the picture and then we would also bitch about it.
by johnnyanmac | 2025-04-02 22:24:02+00:00
Haven't heard much complaints about the hardware. Seems like a good iterative evolution. even the $450 price point was somewhat expected.

As always, it's the software pricing that makes everything absurd. They jumped straight to $80 in a mere 2-3 years for them after Tears of the Kingdom's $70. And Mario Kart hits further beyond with $90. I wonder how that will fare in this economy. Will consumers still take upon that because Mario?
by rvba | 2025-04-02 22:24:24+00:00
It is not wikipedia shaping things. It's politics, travel and lunches.

The foundation does not csre about wikipedia. They dont even try to clean it up from the agents who "shape" articles. You very often can see a situation where two admins help each other. Nobody reviews this really. I mean you can ask a "check user" - who will decline to check if the admins arent sock puppet accounts / multi accounts.

Nobody from foundation fights the deletionist, dishonest admin clique and people who discourage everyone feom editing wikipedia by racing to have the most reverts.

(Also what is with the random quotes added to every article now, that look like writing of 12 year olds. No more concise articles)