MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by brightball | 2025-04-27 15:45:09+00:00
> I have investigated various matters throughout my career. That statement has all the symptoms of confirmation bias. The way to get an unbiased result is to do a large-scale, randomized (double-)blind study. You need quantified data, not emotional anecdotes. And if you have something specific in mind and the quantified info to back it up, then we can discuss. Otherwise, those assertions are moot. And for that matter, do you know that these symptoms are extremely hard to identify in infants? The timing of recognition of those symptoms is a rather unreliable indicator for anything.

If you have investigated then you already understand the biggest challenge to double blind studies here: control groups because of the variety of issues on the spectrum and the difficulty in measuring the severity of each of them. There’s a doctor in Indiana who’s been trying to categorize them all and has it narrowed to about 140 or so. It’s not an easy group to run studies on.

Autism is very much a digestive issue. People who just observe the behaviors without being close to treatment believe it’s purely neurological.

The core issue with everything you’re saying is that we have an information vacuum. With cancer, for example, we as a society are more than comfortable saying almost everything causes cancer. With autism, we’re not allowed to even speculate publicly. If we do it’s a simple “I don’t know what causes it but it’s DEFINITELY not the thing that I don’t want to believe is involved.”

Autism is a spectrum and there are a lot of severe cases. The severe cases often result in exactly what I’m describing above. Therapy helps in most cases but the experience described above is very real. In many cases it’s much less severe and kids are mainstreamed with some social awkwardness. The violent outbursts described in a scenario above, again, aren’t in most situations but they do happen consistently for some certain kids and when they do it’s a nightmare.

It’s not harmful to tell the truth, but it is to ignore it.

The problem with watching this discussion in real time on social media is seeing people who know one or two people who have a child who is autistic and that shapes their entire perspective. The parents who have children who are more severe on the spectrum often have very few people who know them because just the idea of time to socialize with others is often difficult to obtain.

The information vacuum is very real though and until we get a definitive answer on the cause of autism, people are going to speculate. You watch discussion of it be suppressed for over a decade and it creates trust issues.
by zarekr | 2025-04-27 15:45:18+00:00
Typst is really good for this. The syntax takes a little bit of getting used to but on the whole I’ve had a lot of success producing contracts and other legal documents with it. I tend to assemble the input files using a templating engine and then use the compiler in a subprocess. The compiler is very fast and the development is pretty active. The output is much easier to manage than with packages like reportlab.
by jandrewrogers | 2025-04-27 15:45:32+00:00
Most people don’t have an intuitive sense of just how technically difficult mapping from real geospatial coordinates to feature spaces is. This is a great example of a relatively simple case. You are essentially doing inference on a sparse data model with complex local non-linearities throughout. If you add in dynamic relationships, like things that move in space, it becomes another order of magnitude worse. We frequently don’t have enough data to make a reliable inference even in theory and you need a way of reliably determining that.

This problem has been the subject of intense interest by the defense research community for decades. It has been conjectured to be an AI-complete type problem for at least ten years, i.e. solving it is equivalent to solving AGI. The current crop of LLM type AI persistently fails at this class of problems, which is one of the arguments for why LLM tech can’t lead to true AGI.
by SideburnsOfDoom | 2025-04-27 15:46:37+00:00
> absolutely rubbish as a therapist unless it uses basic CBT concepts

I assume that CBT = "Cognitive Behavioural Therapy" ?

It seems that you're saying that a therapist will be "rubbish unless they use basic Cognitive Behavioural Therapy concepts" ? i.e. that this is the only valid approach to therapy?

I don't think that this is true at all.

But I do agree that a LLM that is basically "echo-chamber as a service" and will supply confirmation bias, but never push you even a single step out of your comfort zone. And this is useless for therapy. Absolutely pointless and counterproductive. It is not any of the valid approaches.
by Mystery-Machine | 2025-04-27 15:46:52+00:00
I use `site_id` in every model and keep everything in a single database. I think this is how Shopify started as well. You can see that because their product, variant, collection IDs are incremental across all shops. They might be using different solution today, but it feels like this is how they started.

What I like about having everything in one db, until it grows too big, is that I can do cross-users analytics/reporting. I also had it happen, like it was mentioned in the article, that I needed to share some data between users. Having everything in a single database made this much simpler problem than needing to move data between databases.
by WhatsName | 2025-04-27 15:47:07+00:00
Impersonation is a mean, which can often but does not always necessitate fraud. One might impersonate Arnold Schwarzenegger for comedic effect, one might also impersonate a daughter to steal money from a grandma. Stealing the money is the crime here, one does not impersonate without purpose, the purpose defines the severity (or lack of) crime...
by hagbard_c | 2025-04-27 15:47:29+00:00
In the situation I described there was no effort by anyone to make any of the alternative approaches look better or worse. Did you ever notice that in any field you might care to look at a small percentage of the people seem to end up outperforming the rest? In the arts, in sports (i.e. in ritualised warfare because that's what sports come down to), in the sciences, anywhere. One of the names this phenomenon is known under is the Pareto distribution (look it up or look at [1] for it application to wealth distribution).

Avoiding inequality invariably implies taking from some to distribute to others. When done so voluntarily by the givers to takers who are really in need this is a good thing. When done so by forcibly taking from some to distribute to others who are not in need but have come to rely on handouts because they've always been available so there has never been an incentive to provide for oneself this is a net-negative for all involved and a burden on society.

Wealth inequality will always exist and there's nothing wrong with that, it gives an incentive to dig that pit to trap the aurochs instead of always having to live on roasted rat. Excessive wealth inequality - where nobody but Gnurgh's descendents are allowed to trap aurochs because "the forest and all the animals in it are theirs" is another and certainly not inescapable story. Recognising the difference between "wealth inequality is a natural phenomenon which gives individuals incentives to work towards raising their own standards" and either "it is inescapable that nearly all resources end up in the hands of the 'elite' or 'nobility'" or "all wealth inequality is bad and resources should always be divided equally among everybody (i.e. "equity" or "equality of outcome" over "equality of opportunity") is where we seem to differ.

[1] https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/L...
by pphysch | 2025-04-27 15:47:29+00:00
> China has far more fascist features than any other major country - personality cult, courts compliant with the government, erasure of minority cultures - and actual genocide.

These are unsubstantiated allegations that come directly from the governments you are loyally defending.

They are definitely substantiated when it comes to USA: Trump has a legendary personality cult and recently released trading cards for it. Trump's FBI just arrested a judge for noncompliance. Trump is hosting genocidal mass-murderer Ben-Gvir in the country right now. This is all just this week! Spare us the vague "look over there, China bad" hand-waving.
by danaris | 2025-04-27 15:47:42+00:00
Talking about the putative dangers of "too little inequality" when the amount we have today is so absurdly high seems kind of disingenuous, even if that's not what's intended.

In order for there to be "too little inequality" to the extent that you describe, it would have to be impossible for anyone to, say, earn more than about $100k/yr (based on current median incomes in the US). So far as I know, no one with an iota of credibility has proposed anything remotely like this.

As it stands, any time any level of increase in taxes on the ultra-wealthy is proposed, people come out of the woodwork claiming that a higher tax rate on those making $100m, $500m, $1b/yr would just destroy all interest in striving and doing well, which is so clearly absurd.

...And, unfortunately, we also know that there are a fair number of people for whom reduced inequality would destroy their ambition, because their ambition has nothing to do with being reasonably wealthy themselves or having financial security: the reward, for them, is very explicitly being able to treat other people like they aren't even human. And that's not something society should ever accept, from anyone.
by lgg | 2025-04-27 15:47:56+00:00
That is ABSOLUTELY incorrect. SSDs have enormous amounts of error detection and correction builtin explicitly because errors on the raw medium are so common that without it you would never be able to read correct data from the device.

It has been years since I was familiar enough with the insides of SSDs to tell you exactly what they are doing now, but even ~10-15 years ago it was normal for each raw 2k block to actually be ~2176+ bytes and use at least 128 bytes for LDPC codes. Since then the block sizes have gone up (which reduces the number of bytes you need to achieve equivalent protection) and the lithography has shrunk (which increases the raw error rate).

Where exactly the error correction is implemented (individual dies, SSD controller, etc) and how it is reported can vary depending on the application, but I can say with assurance that there is no chance your OS sees uncorrected bits from your flash dies.
by methuselah_in | 2025-04-27 15:47:56+00:00
I am not very pro at using Linux. But trust me it's far better than anything else. Compared to windows it is good on battery, never hangs, no useless forceful update! 2gb size and you are sorted. And for gaming you can dual boot ! Rest tools like gimp etc does work just fine. It's one-sided article based on personal experience.
by Clubber | 2025-04-27 15:48:01+00:00
>It goes to show that the common system of employment, in which we spend our time toward the purposes and meanings of others, tends to provide no purpose or meaning for ourselves.

Work certainly provides meaning, you'll notice this when you can't find work for a while, ie. involuntarily unemployed. Also, you have to find deeper meaning outside of work: church, social clubs, raising kids, taking care of elderly parents, volunteering, etc. Getting paid to do moral work is rarely a thing and somewhat defeats the purpose.
by koolba | 2025-04-27 15:48:15+00:00
Of course. But they’re supposed to arrive at ports of entry and follow the process.

While it has no legal significance, that poem is written on base of the Statue of Liberty next to the immigration center at Ellis Island. It’s a pretty wild take to think that it’s means that people should cut down barbed wire fences and sneak into the country under the cover of darkness.
by svat | 2025-04-27 15:48:34+00:00
The paper by Craig Gidney:

> Falling with Style: Factoring up to 255 “with” a Quantum Computer

is brilliant in a straightforward way, and I also learned something about Shor's algorithm. The first paragraph of intro and the abstract say:

> Historically, most papers that claimed they “ran Shor’s algorithm” didn’t run Shor’s algorithm. It’s unfortunately common to run circuits inspired by Shor’s algorithm, but with key pieces replaced by trivial pieces.

> In this paper, I explain how I factored all numbers up to 255 using Shor’s algorithm on a real quantum computer. I performed exactly the classical preprocessing specified by Shor’s algorithm, exactly the quantum circuit requested by Shor’s algorithm, and exactly the post-processing specified by Shor’s algorithm.

and this is true! He used IBM's quantum service (https://quantum.ibm.com/services/resources?tab=systems) with:

> my circuit for factoring 15 weighs in at 44405 two-qubit gates. And my circuit for factoring 253 weighs in at 245750 two-qubit gates. Amazingly, despite the fact that they vastly exceed the allowed size, the system accepted these ridiculous circuits.

What's the catch? Well, it's that:

> I’ll quickly review the classical and quantum steps of Shor’s algorithm. Before talking to a quantum computer, Shor’s algorithm performs some classical preprocessing. First, it checks if n (the number to factor) is even, because even numbers would cause trouble later. If so, it succeeds by returning the factor 2. Second, it checks if n is prime. Prime numbers can’t be factored, so in this case the method returns an error saying no factor exists. Third, the algorithm picks a random number g between 2 and n − 2, and computes the greatest common divisor (gcd) of g and n. If gcd(g, n) ≠ 1, then it happens to be a factor of n and so is returned as the result. Fourth, it’s finally time to actually use the quantum computer (whether it be real, simulated, or replaced by a random number generator). This is the expensive step, and the step that I’m counting in order to compare the different samplers. A quantum circuit based on g and n is generated, and executed, producing a sample m. Fifth, Shor’s algorithm classically computes the fraction that’s closest to m/4^{⌈log_2(n)⌉}, limiting the fraction’s denominator d to be at most n. Sixth, a candidate factor is generated by computing gcd(n, 1 + g^{⌊d/2⌋} mod n). If the candidate is actually a factor of n, it’s returned as the answer. Otherwise the algorithm restarts.

because of which:

> In other words, for small numbers, Shor’s algorithm succeeds quickly regardless of how well your quantum computer works.

It also cites a serious 2013 paper in Nature that made the same point: Oversimplifying quantum factoring, DOI 10.1038/nature12290.
by ryao | 2025-04-27 15:48:58+00:00
ZFS has ditto blocks that allows it to self heal in the case of corrupt metadata as long as a good copy remains (and there would be at least 2 copies by default). ZFS only ever needs you to restore from backup if the damage is so severe that there is no making sense of things.

Minor things like the indirect blocks being missing for a regular file only affect that file. Major things like all 3 copies of the MOS (the equivalent to a superblock) being gone for all uberblock entries would require recovery from backup.

If all copies of any other filesystem’s superblock were gone too, that filesystem would be equally irrecoverable and would require restoring from backup.
by adverbly | 2025-04-27 15:49:26+00:00
Did you read the article?

The author speaks to this directly:

> Now, you might be thinking: that’s all well and good, but I’ve got a full-time job, two kids and a mortgage. I’m happy to recycle and eat some tofu now and then, but a “fundamental transformation”? No thanks.

In that case, moral ambition may not be for you. I mean, once you have a labradoodle, a set of cheese knives or a robot mower, there’s generally no going back. But if that’s irritating to hear – and I imagine it might be – then by all means, prove me wrong. I have learned that there are always exceptions, and I want to show that you can be that exception. It’s never too late to step up.
by coffeecat | 2025-04-27 15:50:08+00:00
"Risk of internalizing spurious explanations" is an excellent way of putting it. LLM output is, essentially, a polished-looking, authoritative-sounding summary of what the top few Google results probably say about a topic. Nine times out of ten, the explanation may be spot on. But "the first few google results" are not, in general, a reliable source. And after getting nine correct answers in a row from the LLM, it's unfortunately very tempting to accept the tenth at face value without consulting any primary sources.

I've been finding that ChatGPT is helpful when taking a "first dive" into an unfamiliar topic. But, after studying the topic at greater depth through primary sources, I'll start to see many subtle errors, or over-simplifications, or claims stated as facts which are actually controversial among experts, in the ChatGPT answers. Overall, I'd say ChatGPT can provide a good approximation of truth, which can speed up research by providing instant context. But it should not by any means be the final destination when researching a topic.
by AlotOfReading | 2025-04-27 15:50:17+00:00
I haven't found a better way do this than the Google maps solution [0]:

You write a query of all the different kinds of addresses you'd like to display. The query result is a list of valid candidate addresses for the point matching at least one format that you can rank based on whatever criteria you like.

[0] https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/r...
by jaybrendansmith | 2025-04-27 15:51:17+00:00
That takedown was boss. Thank you. As a parent of two autistic children, and uncle to many more in my family, I can say that it is clear their minds develop differently, and many high-functioning autists successfully mask it and make it later in life. And these are quite often extremely gifted intellectually and academically, to the degree that while life is a struggle for them socially, they are far better than their 'norm' peers in other areas. I've not seen anything from RFK Jr beyond trying to support his anti-vaccine stance and what I would at best call evidence for 'othering' autistic people. And if he thinks he is going to make them victims, I can assure you he will find myself, my family, and the community at large ready and eager to destroy him. One could make a more coherent argument that we should create a database of those who lack empathy, the narcissistic sociopaths among us, and place them in camps and let them tear each other apart.
by perching_aix | 2025-04-27 15:51:27+00:00
I was also very interested in finding a TF auto-diagramming tool at some point. After researching some examples however, I became convinced that it's not something I actually wanted or could make proper use of.

The issue I had with them is that they were just plain confusing and "noisy". After reflecting on it a bit, this made sense. Diagrams are only ever easy to follow if they have a clear purpose, but with minimal to no human semantic context, these auto generated diagrams could never be that way. They were just aimless scattershots of boxes with pretty icons on them.

Maybe it was just me not being used to them enough, and I could have grown to appreciate them and utilize them well if I bothered for long enough. But if I think about what I'd want from a diagram, it would be things like how data flows through an infrastructure, which Terraform cannot hope to have an exact idea about. And this only gets worse when you upload custom code, such as by using lambdas, containers, ec2 instances, what have you.
by readthenotes1 | 2025-04-27 15:56:20+00:00
Making 10k/mn of lira may not be that hard, but 10k of USD, gbp, or Eur is definitely beyond the grasp of most people.

Think about it. If everyone made $10k/month, the net value of that labor would have to increase about 10x over what it is now(1). I don't think that's an easy thing to do overnight.

And then there would still be variety in the outcome because a lot of us are too slothful or too unconscientious to actually go out and do the necessary. And that's ignoring how hard it would be for those with no network or access (refugee living in a favela in Bogotá, dlavevin Mauretania) regardless of their ambition.

(1)Https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-income-worldwide/
by JoshTriplett | 2025-04-27 15:56:24+00:00
> I did eventually get around to using dyn Write, but that still gave me headaches because of how I cannot use impl Write as a result type in closures,

I hope we manage to fix that! We're working on making `impl Trait` usable everywhere a type works. I'll check where "return type of a closure" is on the `impl Trait` radar.

https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/213817-t-lan...

> which I need to do if I want to use tracing_subscriber::fmt::with_writer() and pass in these trait objects.

Would https://docs.rs/tracing-subscriber/0.3.19/tracing_subscriber... help you?

> Thank you so much for taking the time to write this. Means a lot!

Thank you as well for taking the time to fill in more details!
by Dachande663 | 2025-04-27 15:57:45+00:00
Fun fact that was dredged up because the author mentions Australia: GPS points change. Their example coordinates give 6 decimal places, accurate to about 10-15cm. Australia a few years back shifted all locations 1.8m because of continental drift they’re moving north at ~7cm/year). So even storing coordinates as a source of truth can be hazardous. We had to move several thousand points for a client when this happened.
by insane_dreamer | 2025-04-27 15:59:04+00:00
I tip because I know that the servers are getting shit pay because business owners are counting on tips to make up the rest.

But I hate it. It's not "tipping" - which is to give some extra to show appreciation for service. It's an underhanded guilt trip to make you pay more than you thought you were going to pay for your meal.

I especially hate "tipping" for cases where no service was provided. It's really just a surcharge on the coffee/whatever.

Raise prices and drop the tipping.

I ate at a restaurant recently where they did just that. They had a little sign on the table that said something along the lines of "we've raised our prices 20% to pay living wages and we don't encourage tipping". I left a small tip anyway, but it was a true tip.
by dingnuts | 2025-04-27 15:59:09+00:00
I'm not immune to this kind of comment myself, but what is it about the comment section on this website that brings out these kinds of toxic comments? Like, this is just a cynical attack on anyone who succeeds in having a modestly comfortable life. What's the point? People don't like it when this website is compared to Reddit but honestly it's worse. You people are just mean.
by dreghgh | 2025-04-27 15:59:21+00:00
People also ran out of food a lot.

One theory about the Jacob and Esau story is that it's about a hunter gatherer (Esau) surrendering political power to a farmer (Jacob) because the farmer has much more reliable access to protein than the hunter, meaning that sooner or later, he can gain the upper hand in a negotiation with someone who's otherwise starving.

You might not ascribe value to this type of biblical 'economic history'. But the theory has explanatory power - if it wasn't for food shortages, why would our ancestors have given up 'hanging out together and having a good time' to embrace the toil of hoeing and herding?