MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by ninetyninenine | 2025-04-27 05:57:45+00:00
>You might be billed for a new CPU for each request, but in practice this may not be how it's implemented by your provider. It may not be any more computationally expensive than Async callbacks you would implement yourself anyway.

Independent of costs, it's far easier to commit an async callback to your existing code then spin up new infra structure. This isn't just a cost issue. It's 100x simpler to use your existing code to do this.

>If your application needs to walk the files in a directory by name, you don't need to use 'ls' either. You can use standard library routines instead. However, by shipping 'ls' as a separate binary it is now significantly easier to reuse.

This is just an example of the ludicrousness of provisioning an external CPU to do it. What you are suggesting with a lambda is equal in stupidity. But for your example here, I'm saying we agree that it's stupid to provision an entire CPU to run ls. Where we don't agree is that you think it's fine to provision an entire CPU to wait for another database CPU.

>There isn't a universal best solution. But serverless does have technical merits.

First off, there is. Don't spin up a CPU and all the related infra to wait for a database when your existing server CAN already do this. There is no trade off here. When a server waits for a lambda that waits for a database it is definitively slower then the server just waiting for the database. To top it off it is also more expensive, and more complicated in infrastructure. Literally. No. Tradeoff. How can you be talking apples vs. organges when one solution is obviously superior?

Second I never said serverless doesn't have technical merits. I said using lambdas as task runners along side an existing server to do Database calls has no merit.

It's totally fine to use lambdas to do CPU intensive operations. That would be the point of a lambda right? That's why lambdas exist? If you don't have a server and you want to use "serverless architecture" this makes sense. Use the CPU to do computations.... don't use the CPU to wait on another CPU (the database) to do computations. That's kind of wtf??

I'll grant you that for "serverless architecture" at the very least you need to provision a CPU create the query in the first place. This makes sense. But if you already have some fargate server or ec2 instance.... why??

I can only assume that you are responsible for some major architectural decision where a server spins up a lambda to wait for the lambda, while the lambda waits for the database. Basically by being responsible for something that uses lambdas entirely incorrectly you become too biased to admit that something is obviously wrong. Literally you can't argue with the absurdity of spending more effort to provision and pay for additional CPUs to wait for the database when your existing server already can do the waiting. Spinning up more computer power to only pass off the actual computing action to a database? How many times have I repeated that this is absurd?
by flowerthoughts | 2025-04-27 05:58:55+00:00
Agreed.

Yuan is too closely regulated to stay in China. I doubt it would be viable unless China first steps up their _attitude_ towards being a currency provider.

The EMU is an amalgamation of countries that barely hold together, have vastly different opinions on government spending, and isn't already a "world currency."

I do think we'll eventually have a single currency on the planet, but the question is what happens in my lifetime. And that's much less certain.
by gsf_emergency | 2025-04-27 05:59:48+00:00
https://www.simonsfoundation.org/annual-reports/

Anecdata: a lot of bleeding edge stuff has been funded by SF not NSF.

They also do a lot of shortterm "Collaborations", something not quite done by NSF

https://www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons-collaborations...

https://hiddensymmetries.princeton.edu/
by 01100011 | 2025-04-27 06:00:13+00:00
After I got a divorce I was bored and melted down my wedding ring with a MAPP torch. Molten gold is simply beautiful. Liquid like mercury but shiny and glowing at the same time.

Anyway, ditto to everything you said. Fade the doomers who are calling for the collapse of the USD. There simply isn't an alternative. China won't give up the control as they would need to do to be the holder of the next reserve currency. The EU is a fractured joke of a union that can't be trusted to manage it either. The US continues to be the least bad option. We have deep markets to provide liquidity needed for the global economy. We still have, more or less, the rule of law and a system of checks and balances. The USD will eventually be replaced but it will likely take decades.
by briandear | 2025-04-27 06:00:28+00:00
> However, even if a tipped worker provides excellent service, studies have shown that certain biases can affect tipping, especially against women and women of color. Tipping creates a dining system where people of color, elders, women, and those of foreign descent get worse service.

Because those groups typically tip less or not at all. Although I never found that to be true with women. And “people of color” in the article really means black people. Asians and Hispanics seem to tip normally in my experience.

And for those thinking “omg how racist” — you clearly never worked in the restaurant business in the United States before.

Here is an interesting thread about black people and tipping: https://www.reddit.com/r/Serverlife/s/MGkkDmZgYq
by Teever | 2025-04-27 06:03:20+00:00
It's not so much that I see subjectively see them as openly corrupt and operating with impunity, it's that there are objectively corrupt officials operating openly with impunity[0]. Every institution has corruption -- it's just a matter of degree.

I'm not suggesting that only 'good' people will use drones that way, far from it. What I'm suggesting is that a moderating force that hasn't existed for a long while due to asymmetry in police ability vs. the ability to resist them will return. The return of this moderating force will eliminate those few 'bad apples' eliminating their ability to abuse their authority, create fear in other law enforcement officers who would do those kinds of things or at least tolerate them, and would see some sort of law enforcement effort to crack down on corruption.

I'm sure you're right that corrupt police will find new and exciting ways to terrorize innocent people with technology as corrupt police will always continue to be corrupt but there will just be less of them because they'll be struck down by vigilantes and there will be more official efforts made to clamp down on them out of necessity.

You can probably model this like population dynamics with predator and prey populations in the wild.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LASD_deputy_gangs
by bruce511 | 2025-04-27 06:03:23+00:00
>> I personally think it’s better to struggle early on than to give away money like candies to founders

I agree, and disagree. My business was bootstraped, we never took outside investment, and it succeeded and makes money. It employs 50 odd people and is a big fish in a fairly small pond.

We make the world better for a few thousand people (customers).

But our approach couldn't lead to a Facebook, or Amazon or Uber etc. Products like that work best once they achieve scale, and achieving scale is expensive. But Uber (goes example) works poorly with 50 drivers in 1 city.

For most businesses and most founders, more is achieved with less. Most businesses don't need scale to be effective.

But equally, the VC approach is necessary for some subset of problems.
by pengaru | 2025-04-27 06:03:45+00:00
> The version of Ghostscript was from 2012 and this allowed a specially crafted PDF file to execute a SUID binary and the attacker to gain access.

I don't care what version of Freebsd you're using. If your webapp is running Ghostscript against user-supplied data without doing so in a throwaway VM or at least container of some sort, no amount of updating will save you. That is an insane piece of software to be feeding untrusted input to without wearing a condom.
by csomar | 2025-04-27 06:05:33+00:00
> there is nothing like the USD in terms of function.

This might have been true 10 years ago but that's not the case today. I was in Chengdu last week and I paid at a store market with a TnG wallet using Malaysia MYR. Sure this is only South East Asia, but many countries now have their own ewallet thing and they can be ready in a short time to move.
by diss | 2025-04-27 06:06:54+00:00
It’s actually a lot simpler than you might think. I say that having written the “tearable cloth” demo linked elsewhere in this thread before I’d even started my SWE career.

In this case it’s basic “verlet” integration, which involves updating 2d vectors forming the grid based on their current and previous position, and constraining them to a certain distance from their immediate neighbours. Draw lines between them and you have a cloth. I first came across it because I was fascinated by physics simulation and it was one of the simplest things to implement. A lot of bang for your buck in terms of results. It gets far more complicated from there.
by remarkEon | 2025-04-27 06:07:40+00:00
I skimmed this and read a few sections closely. Most econometric papers spend too much time rambling on about stuff that most people who actually seek out and read these things already know. Anyway, +2.6% in wages for non-college educated natives, over 20 years, is not a ringing endorsement. I honestly doubt anyone would notice this, and over two decades that's just noise, frankly. If I'm understanding one of the central claims correctly, it's not that low skilled immigrants "took" jobs from natives, it's that natives ended up working more, and as a result their earning power increased. That's ... also not a ringing endorsement. Sure, you didn't get fired in favor of an immigrant, but you had to take a second shift to stay in the game. Wow what a benefit.

I'm also going to quibble a bit with how they constructed this Instrumental Variable. The way it's constructed, the higher the turnover (for lack of a better term) from native to foreign, the better the predictor it is (because in their theory, it's exogenous to wages at the local level). Does anyone really believe this? Immigrants respond to incentives just like anyone else. They're not choosing to immigrate to Sac City, Iowa, or any other low-COL/low-wage town, for a reason. It also doesn't answer my original question, which was central to my initial claim: why? The "why" is going to answer a lot of other layered questions about hostility to ever-increasing immigration. Are firms moving in that exploit low-wage immigrants, generating other adjacent economic activity? Probably! Not controlled for or referenced at all in this, and this paper is by no means a definitive conclusion that high low-skill immigration is good (even on a two decade timeline, which even typing that is just absurd).
by selcuka | 2025-04-27 06:09:14+00:00
> "A picture of a schema"? What does this mean?

A hand-drawn picture of a database schema. Something like this:

https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-database-schema-imag...

> And by SQL do you mean DDL?

DDL is a subset of SQL, so the distinction is moot.
by gehwartzen | 2025-04-27 06:09:35+00:00
There’s Habitat for Humanity which I think would fit this description.

I’ve personally never involved myself with it but over the last few months the group built a modest house on a small lot next to my ex-spouse’s place. Every weekend I saw a group of folks (ranging in age from early 20s to retirement) there building, chatting and generally being very friendly with one another. Really cool to see.
by BoorishBears | 2025-04-27 06:09:48+00:00
It's trivial to prove this is wrong: invert relationships it knows about and it fails to answer based on knowledge it previously demonstrated (even with loads of hints)

https://chatgpt.com/share/680dc86c-f0dc-800d-9f04-57ba2f126a...

https://chatgpt.com/share/680dc90b-de28-800d-92b6-f2ef824777...

Note how applying increasing pressure to answer was what caused the hallucination: hallucinations aren't tied to if the model "knows" something.

Once the tokens output don't fall into the start of some varation of "I don't know", the model is going to answer regardless of what it knows.
by throwawayqqq11 | 2025-04-27 06:12:50+00:00
"Filtering" is the imprortant part here and it is more then just finding good sources, because you still dont control the content and the more sources you get, the larger SNR becomes.

I've a gigantic list of RSS sources and at the top of that list are some must-read outlets ... and filters that only show new entries, when some keywords match. Without that, my feedreader would be borderline unusable too.
by uptownfunk | 2025-04-27 06:13:15+00:00
It’s not what it used to be. I find people are more self-centered than ever. What to speak of friends even family will not spare a moment for you. Many couples do not have kids for this reason. Who wants to make that sacrifice. Covid accelerated this. People got burned out, then realized they needed to take care of themselves better since no one else will (especially after layoffs). I don’t think the pendulum has swung back yet. Obviously I’m generalizing here and this is biased by my own experiences.
by 01100011 | 2025-04-27 06:13:46+00:00
I'm pretty skeptical based on my experiences so far but still believe we'll get there eventually. AI seems to work fine for folks who hate programming and prefer describing their problem in imprecise english in an iterative fashion as long as their problem can ultimately be implemented with high level libraries written by competent programmers.

At some point AI will have some conceptual model of software and that's when I think things start to change. How we get there is anyone's guess. I think we're heading in the right direction by using the AST and not simply tokenizing source code. I'm not an AI engineer though. I just help those sorts of things run faster.
by tomhow | 2025-04-27 06:14:39+00:00
Normally I'd rather not reply this kind of comment, but so as not to let it just sit here and be presumed to be the slam dunk it purports to be...

1) Yes, Jared posted (nearly three months ago) that DOGE reminded him of (and indeed is the same entity as) USDS, a program launched by Obama in 2014 – evidently a program that Jared liked and supported.

2) Yes, Garry was photographed with Joe Gebbia, a notable YC alum who is volunteering with DOGE.

The next day, Garry posted a photo of himself with prominent Democratic Senator Cory Booker:

https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/1907526506840003025

He also posted the full video of Sen. Booker giving a long, impassioned speech at a YC-hosted conference:

https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/1907537541550469410

People will make up their own minds as to whether the tweets cited by the parent pass the test of campaigning or advocating for the administration or any particular agenda.

They don't for me, given the full context.

Still, the relevant matter for HN moderation is the political signals that will influence us or cause us to be biased. The strongest signal is from pg and it’s in the opposite direction to what is being claimed in the comments that accuse us of bias. Of course we don’t want to be influenced in that direction either.
by arcfour | 2025-04-27 06:17:52+00:00
The TSA is - objectively, by their own audits - complete security theater. Why bother to defend them, exactly?

Also, the spirit of the 4th Amendment is most certainly not "here, this is the easy way!" (yes, we are conducting mass surveillance but you can sort of opt out of one piece of it by going through a manual process over here that we will make you feel like you are burdening us by requesting)
by MilnerRoute | 2025-04-27 06:17:58+00:00
I've heard professional writers recommend your way. I think it was Stephen King who said "First I wear my writer hat" (to get something out there to work with) -- "and then I wear my editor hat."

There's even a phrase for it. Anne Lamott wrote a really good book for aspiring (fiction) writers -- and one of the chapters urged them to accept and aspire to "shitty first drafts."

https://wrd.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/1-Shitty%20First%...
by intended | 2025-04-27 06:18:00+00:00
When it comes to America, we can say that its not the democracy which is an issue, its the information market is fragile.

Some of the counter views on misinformation, point out that the demand for misinformation can scarcely increase, it’s not like we lack supply in quantity or quality. Yet the total prevalence of Misinfo is relatively low in the content diet of Americans or Europeans. The issue, according to this view, is when authorities repeat misinfo, or use it themselves.

But why does that matter? IF you have a good media ecosystem, then such sale of bad information should be checked. Well, lies are cheap, and if you have a captive media ecosystem you don’t have to deal with such challenges.

This is the case in America. The issue here is not a media bias issue (which exists), it’s a market capture issue on the right, with a closed loop between Political creatures, and media enterprises.

The fragility of the US information market is a structural issue that needs to be resolved, for democracy in US to function effectively.
by gsf_emergency | 2025-04-27 06:20:19+00:00
Totally OT: have you looked at Taiwanese media and food culture? They are the masters of Sino-Japanese crossover.

Bonus: 1) beef-based cuisine 2) care (more) about contamination.

https://noteatingoutinny.com/2015/04/10/popcorn-mushrooms-wi...

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

https://www.global-market-surfer.com/pickup/detail/401/%5BTa...

https://www.inaturalrule.com/products/%E6%BD%A4%E4%B9%8B%E6%...
Memory Will Be Big Tech's Final Moat
by campbellalex11 | 2025-04-27 06:20:57+00:00
Throughout the history of technology, the same pattern plays out — over and over again.

New systems emerge that create huge value through connection: social graphs, attention graphs, behavioral graphs. They start out open, distributed, seemingly built to spread benefits across networks of participants.

But as soon as the data becomes valuable enough, the walls go up. Private platforms take control. Access tightens. Value capture begins.

We saw it happen with social networks. We watched it unfold with search and advertising. Now, we’re about to watch it happen again — only this time, it’s happening with memory.

Modern AI systems are building persistent memories of users — with a depth and granularity we haven’t seen before:

- Interaction histories that cut across contexts and platforms

- Emotional profiles built from language patterns and behavior

- Belief structures inferred through iteration and modeling

- Behavioral predictions getting sharper and harder to notice

These aren’t trivial datasets. They’re the raw material of identity — far deeper than clicks, likes, or friends lists ever were.

Whoever controls the richest memory graph of a user will control the personalization layer of the future.

Every new app trying to compete will face a structural disadvantage — forced either to rebuild memories from scratch, or to rely on the incumbents who already own them.

Memory won’t just drive engagement anymore. It will shape decisions, relationships, ambition, loyalty.

This is a deeper kind of capture than anything we’ve seen before online.

The window to stop this from happening is small — and closing fast.

We have to get this right, or we’re fucked.

Memory graphs have to be user-owned from the very beginning:

Portable by design, not patched on later

Permissioned by default, with clear scopes

Local-first whenever possible

Revocable at the user’s discretion, no questions asked

If we don’t set these principles now, memory will be fenced off, resold, optimized, and weaponized — just like every other layer before it.

Only this time, it won’t just be your friends list or your clicks that gets captured.

It will be your mind.
by remarkEon | 2025-04-27 06:22:50+00:00
A little difficult to parse your comment, but I think you're calling me naïve for asking the tech community on a message board for the incubator that has backed and does back the some of the most successful tech startups ever to think a little more deeply about how to solve these kinds of problems with technology. Wherein I posit that one of the reasons this tech community seemingly lacks interest - and surely the difficulty of the problem is also one of those reasons - is the availability of cheap labor, resulting in a weak argument for funding this kind of venture.

Interesting.
by zelphirkalt | 2025-04-27 06:23:26+00:00
Doesn't seem to work on mobile at all. Tables that I add are not shown in the diagram. The diagram area is not visible unless I scroll sideways.I cannot scroll sideways, unless I request desktop site and scroll there. But I still don't see any entities in the diagram. When I use the buttons to add tables in the diagram, they also do not show up in the grid, but only on the left in the textual list of tables. Seems like a complete non-functional tool on mobile.

Usually I wouldn't care too much about a tool like this running on mobile, but not at a PC right now, so that's all I can give feedback about.
by throwawayqqq11 | 2025-04-27 06:24:33+00:00
Id hold against this. Our world is getting more and more complex, we need expertise and far-sight, which is hard to come by with a lottery system.

But i also understand the positives about a "citizen council" to break up syndicates.

Maybe a mix of professional politicians, dedicating their life and getting compensated generously to bolster their indipendence and random rotating people with decent compensation and strong veto rights.

Oh, and strong punishment, maybe revokation of certain rights, for misconducting officials.
Show HN: Remote-Controlled IKEA Deathstar Lamp
by sephalon | 2025-04-27 06:25:44+00:00
Repainting the iconic IKEA PS 2014 lamp into the Deathstar from Star Wars has been a popular IKEA hack for quite some time.

This variant additionally replaces the manual, rope-operated mechanism to open and close the lamp with a remote-controlled motor.

The firmware is based on ESPHome, and its excellent Home Assistant integration enables one to implement higher-level features, like a "sundial" where the aperture of the Deathstar follows the sun elevation throughout the day (see the timelapse video).

That said, I will not consider this project as complete until the Imperial March can be played over the stepper motor (just like the legendary Floppotron) ;-)
by n4r9 | 2025-04-27 06:26:14+00:00
One of the linked studies has the following (emphasis mine):

> Server race has also been shown to affect tipping. Black cab drivers receive smaller tips on average than do white cab drivers ... This is true regardless of the race of the tipper – both black and white tippers give white drivers larger tips than black drivers

https://static.secure.website/wscfus/5261551/uploads/Busines... (p19)

That's about cab drivers but I don't see why the case would be very different in restaurants.
by justinnk | 2025-04-27 06:26:19+00:00
Reminds me a bit of Isaac Asimov‘s novel „I, Robot“ where they rely on positronic brains to do things. In the story, mathematics seems to have caught up and developed a framework to analyse the behavior of an AI system. I wonder if something similar will happen if CS becomes an empirical science, i.e., will we try to infer laws from empirical AI behavior measurements so that we can reason about it more effectively? This would then turn CS into Physics somewhat, but based on an artificial system. Very strange times.

> these AI systems will be flying our airplanes, running our power grids, and possibly even governing entire countries.

I guess we should figure out how to include the three laws of robotics in connectionist models asap…