MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by ZeroGravitas | 2025-04-17 13:14:39+00:00
A coalition of monarchies did gang up and wage war on the French republic, to stop their crazy ideas from spreading.

Kind of parallel to France demanding Haiti pay them compensation for slaves being freed.

In both cases we'd generally look more kindly on republics and freeing slaves from the modern perspective, and maybe put more blame on the people trying to undermine them.
by famouswaffles | 2025-04-17 13:14:51+00:00
It's the same model but not necessarily the same context. Like he said, those tools try to be very 'smart' with context to save costs.

You're not actually getting all the files you add in the context window, you're getting a RAG'd version of it, which is generally much worse if the un-RAG'd code is still within the effective context limit.
by nexcraft | 2025-04-17 13:15:02+00:00
We built Nexcraft to let you describe workflows (e.g. “Every day at 9 AM, pull GitHub issues and post to Slack”) in plain English. Instantly get a visual canvas, tweak or extend it, then deploy—no signup required.

Try it and let us know how accurate the generated workflow is or what integrations you’d like to see.
by that_guy_iain | 2025-04-17 13:15:08+00:00
Not really. It was around the same time Napster blew up and became worth tons of money. Realistically, it was probably worth millions at its peak and is probably worth a million or so now.

Edit: The company's filing says they have 1.2 million in assets. So realistically, to buy the company, you're looking at a few million. It's a 2 man show so I suspect they would want a few million or so to give up that revenue stream
by sceptic123 | 2025-04-17 13:15:15+00:00
I think "useful as an assistant for coding" and "being able to program" are two different things.

When I was trying to understand what is happening with hallucination GPT gave me this: > It's called hallucinating when LLMs get things wrong because the model generates content that sounds plausible but is factually incorrect or made-up—similar to how a person might "see" or "experience" things that aren't real during a hallucination.

From that we can see that they fundamentally don't know what is correct. While they can get better at predicting correct answers, no-one has explained how they are expected to cross the boundary from "sounding plausible" to "knowing they are factually correct". All the attempts so far seem to be about reducing the likelihood of hallucination, not fixing the problem that they fundamentally don't understand what they are saying.

Until/unless they are able to understand the output enough to verify the truth then there's a knowledge gap that seems dangerous given how much code we are allowing "AI" to write.
by red-iron-pine | 2025-04-17 13:15:15+00:00
weight loss pills are a holy grail of pharma.

insane money to be made -- Novo had an income that exceeded DK's GDP, for example.

most big pharma orgs flirted with it if not chasing it, so once it looks like there are working solutions they can retool, make knockoffs, steal secrets, bribe (aka hire with competitive rates) R&D staff from other orgs, etc.
by kubb | 2025-04-17 13:15:33+00:00
There's an abstract argument template that I've noticed floating around. It goes like this:

1. There's a thing T in the world, and that thing has negative outcomes X, Y, Z, and positive outcomes A, B, C. 2. Some people believe that Y and Z are so bad, that they want to partly compromise C to diminish them. 3. However that will never work! And they'll definitely also take B if we let them mess with C. 4. Besides, C is so important, that we should accept Y and Z to have it.

I've heard it many times before. Reading this post feels like watching a rerun of Friends.
by cosmic_quanta | 2025-04-17 13:15:36+00:00
My favourite thing about Haskell concurrency is that there are no colored functions [0]. Writing code in IO, or Async, or the next big thing (asychronous higher-order effect system of the future??), doesn't require language support like Python or Rust.

The one construct that unlocks this lack of colored functions, STM, did require runtime support (as opposed to language support), which at least is transparent to downstream developers

[0]: https://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2015/02/01/what-color-is-...
by olalonde | 2025-04-17 13:16:04+00:00
It's not about whether money frees up time-that's obvious. That argument could be used to justify handing out money to literally anyone. The issue is this aid is easily gamed, as the article shows, and strong incentives to pursue education already exist, like better job prospects. Not to mention that it's hard to justify asking less-educated workers to subsidize the upward mobility of those who may soon out-earn them.
by mohi-kalantari | 2025-04-17 13:16:14+00:00
It’s honestly annoying how often experts speak up about this, and still nothing changes. We’re stuck in the same cycle—fear gets in the way, and in the end, it’s our privacy and security that suffer. If anything, this should be a sign to invest in stronger encryption and better law enforcement tactics that don’t mess with the tools keeping us safe online.
by floor2 | 2025-04-17 13:16:15+00:00
> it’s generally accepted that requiring some level of skin in the game from those that benefit does a decent job of doing this

"Generally accepted" by who? Based on what?

Sometimes the reactions on this site are silly. We're talking about community college here. The people going to community college are trying to transition their life from minimum wage retail job to useful careers as things like dental hygienists, nurses, IT workers and daycare workers.

Their own increased future earnings will offset the subsidies through higher taxes and reduced burden on social services, and everyone in society benefits by having people in the types of jobs that community colleges prepare students for.

Community colleges are just a massive benefit to society at large, regardless of whether you're leftwing, rightwing, rich, poor, young or old. Literally everyone is benefiting here.
by perihelions | 2025-04-17 13:16:22+00:00
I'm going to double-down on my stubborn, unpopular opinion. This is my best attempt at explaining my criticism:

- Alien metabolites are a low-prior probability hypothesis. Dimethyl sulfide is a long-postulated biosignature with no natural source, so, it's low-prior

- The paper's model fits Webb data—a handful of photons—against no more than 20 candidate molecules, combined across all of their atmospheric models. Many of those gases are drawn from that low-prior "alien metabolite" class

- There's a much larger class of strongly infrared-absorbing gases, that can naturally occur in planetary atmospheres. Beyond those included in the 20 candidates. These (should!) have higher prior probability of occurring in Webb data than alien metabolites. (This class is so large and complicated, there's major spectral features in our own solar system's gas planets we haven't characterized yet)

- If you were to fit Webb data against that expanded class, those alternative hypotheses, you'd get a large number of 3-sigma detections by pure chance.

- The Webb data is too weak to distinguish between these. With only a few bits of information, you can distinguish between only a small set of alternative hypotheses

- This paper elevates the alien-metabolite hypothesis very highly, and that is why when it has a spurious statistical detection, it happens to be an alien metabolite detection. Because that hypothesis is overrepresented in their model

- The root problem is that since there's only a trickle of real data from this exoplanet, from Webb, it's unlikely one can infer anything super interesting from those few bits
by dfxm12 | 2025-04-17 13:16:29+00:00
Some discussions benefit from real time communication, some don't. More than considering what the "best" platform is, I wish my org would pick one thing in each category and stick with it. We don't need teams AND slack. We don't need teams AND zoom... I think that's where the real problem lies. It's harder to get comfortable with the software this way.
by lanfeust6 | 2025-04-17 13:16:45+00:00
Your degree had an impact on your hireability and marketability. It signals passing a threshold of work and knowledge, your self-edification doesn't. You can of course build something, but so do college grads, whom you compete against.

You also admitted that your wage is such that paying off the tuition was trivial. That makes it seem like a good deal, not a bad one. Even if you're strictly criticizing knowledge-transfer, most people would disagree and find some value in the format.
by ajross | 2025-04-17 13:16:46+00:00
> The problem with all the Atari's in my mind was that they were not dev-friendly machines.

That was true in the early days of the 400/800, but by 1982 when the 1200XL was released (a few months ahead of the C64) they'd corrected themselves. The board schematics and assembly source for the ROM was a book you could buy at the dealer, and sources like De Re Atari and Compute Magazine had collated all the relevant details of the handful of ASICs such that people could start playing weird tricks.

It wasn't Woz's Red Book (neither was Commodores documentation), but it told essentially the whole story of the devices down to the MMIO level.
by adev_ | 2025-04-17 13:17:00+00:00
Agreed. But all things considered:

The runtime cost of type checking is highly dependent on the type system / meta-programming complexity of your language.

For simple languages (Golang?) with a pretty well designed module system: it should be doable to reach ~500KLOC/sec (probably even 1MLOC/s in some case) so more than enough for an interactive usage.

And for complex languages with meta-programming capabilities: they are indeed slow to type check. But are also a giant pain in the butt to cache without side effects for incremental parsing. It is 2025 and clangd / intellisense still fail to do that reliably for C++ codebases that rely heavily on template usage.

So it does not seem a so-crazy approach to me: It is trading a complexity problem for a performance one.
by bluGill | 2025-04-17 13:17:23+00:00
I have no doubt that every woman in tech has been dismissed due to "not being technical". Even as a man I've been disrespected as not technical - I fit all the tech stereotypes. I'm well aware of the social norms that are against woman in tech that don't apply to me.

However there are a lot of well respected women in tech and with not much effort they can find places where they are respected.
by SecretDreams | 2025-04-17 13:17:27+00:00
I mean, I worked 20ish hours a week while doing engineering and I did well relative to my peers, but I can still recognize it was a lot. Full time in that world for 4-5 years would have been miserable.

Just because I can do something doesn't mean it's something I would want or would suggest for the rest of the population.
by ajsnigrutin | 2025-04-17 13:17:30+00:00
I think regulation could be done better...

Let's assign one or ideally two adults to each underage child, who are aware of the childs real age and can intervene and prevent the child from installing discord (and any other social media) in the first place or confiscate the equipment if the child breaks the rules. They could also regulate many other thing in the childs life, not just social network use.
by LinuxBender | 2025-04-17 13:17:36+00:00
Article is leaving out Number Lock (not to be confused with a SIM PIN). Many providers now have the option to lock the SIM to a phone number. This does not stop the provider from having bribed employees but it is better than nothing and limits bribed employees to your provider vs all the providers.

For email addresses use a canary email for each and every company. Canaries are really just aliases. Don't put their name in the alias. Some mail providers will allow you to create aliases using some of their domains and will also allow aliases for your own domains you point to them. Store the alias in your password database such as KeypassXC.

In terms of leaking ones number avoid any business that requires a number or use a throw-away VoIP number. If they reject the VoIP number consider that a red flag and avoid that business at all costs unless they are physically in short driving distance and you know where all the employees sit and you have a business relationship and contract with them meaning if you have a complaint they and their management have to listen to you, your lawyers and bodyguards in person.
by ignoramous | 2025-04-17 13:18:08+00:00
> Would someone be kind enough to post TL;DR of some sorts

I found o3 to have done a decent job of it:

- Technical as structural identity: Being "Technical" is a power‑laden designation that shapes reality and enforces belonging, not a neutral skill measure. - Dehumanization paradox: The system prizes flat emotions yet sustains itself by choosing emotions over efficacy, repeatedly devaluing human needs. - Excluded expertise: Human‑centered work — psychology, caregiving, storytelling — is repeatedly labeled illegitimate despite its practical and moral value. - Boundary policing: The "Technical" boundary is preserved by rejecting both outsiders and insiders who push its limits. - Caring as resistance: Genuine care, narrative, and solidarity with those left outside offer a path to rehumanize tech beyond mere "Technicality." - Collective rebuild: A hopeful call to action—tech builders possess the capacity to dismantle and reassemble systems to include humanity at their core.

Complete summary: https://chatgpt.com/share/6800ff57-3ff8-800e-b756-4ed88b6860...
by spacebanana7 | 2025-04-17 13:18:09+00:00
There is a definitely a textual privilege in media. You can write things in books that would never be allowed to be depicted in video. Even in Game of Thrones, Ramsay's sadism had to be sanitised a little for live action.

This is doubly so if your book is historic in some sense. Still find it crazy that Marquis de Sade's stuff is legal.
by rcruzeiro | 2025-04-17 13:18:20+00:00
Worse than that. Subcutaneous fat (which is the one you can trim off with liposuction) usually expands relying more in cell expansion and not in hyperplasia. Visceral fat on the other hand, is way more likely to involve hyperplasia and you cannot use liposuction against this type of fat. This is also the fat that is very hormonally active and increases the risks of diabetes, heart disease, cancers, strokes.
by timr | 2025-04-17 13:18:36+00:00
If you're trying to imply that the whole thing is about gender, then I submit that even the author disagrees with you:

> I am structurally incapable of being Technical because in the world we have built, Technical must always be conditional for people like me, buffeted around by some unearned privileges and some undeserved exclusions as mediated by people’s perceptions and the current social location of my gender, class, race, ideological perspective, the role-related identities that the label put on my work gives me, and all of the other categories our brains are using to slice up this planet in between meteor strikes.

So it's not just gender, it's a whole litany of stuff, including class, race and "ideological perspective" (whatever that means) that prevents "being technical".

You could be forgiven for missing this, though: the article isn't trying very hard to have a coherent point. Perhaps another reason the author isn't "technical" is an inability to write clearly.
by crazymoka | 2025-04-17 13:18:38+00:00
Started my mp3 collection with mIRC client. I believe my first mp3 was Killing in the Name by RATM followed up by Sober by Tool. Showed my friend how to play music on the computer and they were blown away. The good old days. Finding help for SQL, programming was a lot faster than today for some subjects.

Sometimes I pop into HexChat but the servers I used to use aren't there or not as good. Freenode? I think it was called.
by MrBuddyCasino | 2025-04-17 13:18:42+00:00
It is mostly an enormous wealth transfer from the young to the old, which now constitute the majority of voters in the western democracies.

Meanwhile both midwifes and children doctors are severely under-financed, even common treatments require months of waiting time because the reimbursements do not even cover the costs.

Considering that most countries are in a demographic crisis and will go insolvent with 100% certainty due to the mismatch between net payers and their future financial obligations, this is insane.
by AlexandrB | 2025-04-17 13:18:58+00:00
I went the other way - 2016-2020 I truly believed the US was sliding into dictatorship, but the constant cries of "Nazi" and "fascism" followed by nothing of the sort taking place have completely desensitized me to these accusations. I've also taken time to listen to the opinions of supposed "fascists" like Jordan Peterson and found them reasonable even if I don't always agree with them. The vaguely dictatorial vaccine mandate policy pursued by the Democrats and the way the trucker convoy was handled didn't help either.

Now I read every comparison to the Nazis with a huge grain of salt and I'm "somewhat neutral" on Trump.
by throwup238 | 2025-04-17 13:19:02+00:00
Moving to the US from Europe the quality of the produce was one of my biggest culture shocks. There was tons more availability especially out of season and it was cheaper but the fruit and vegetables here are so bland. Even the so called heirloom varieties are devoid of the flavor I’m used to.

It’s gotten better over the years as consumer awareness has grown but now there’s the trend of making fruit increasingly sweet like cosmic crisp apples, sumo mandarins, or cotton candy grapes.
by fenaer | 2025-04-17 13:19:03+00:00
Are you saying that this template is what the article is presenting?

If so I don't believe it applies, in particular because you have stated that only a partial compromise on C is needed to prevent Y and Z.

There is no "partial compromise" on encryption, so this argument is flawed. There is no way to have encryption that "only the good guys" can break. It is either secure, or it is not.
by 9rx | 2025-04-17 13:19:22+00:00
> It's not a crime to lock your home's door for protection, why would it be a crime to lock your digital door?

A locked home's door is still trivially opened. You can pick the lock or even apply simple brute force, neither of which all that difficult, and open happily it will. Similarly, I don't suppose anyone would be concerned about you using rot13 encryption. If a home could be sealed to the same degree as strong encryption, absolutely it would be a crime, for better or worse.
by Mountain_Skies | 2025-04-17 13:19:51+00:00
Only a few friends had Atari computers when I was a kid. The one thing that stuck out to me was it had a Help key but most programs told you to press 'H' or some other key for help instead of the Help key, which makes me wonder if knowledge of how to detect that key wasn't in the manual? Atari owners were passionate about their computers and seemed happy with them but at least in my little town, there just weren't very many of them.
by londons_explore | 2025-04-17 13:19:54+00:00
both sides are using fiber optic controls because they're using modded hobby grade drones which don't have phased array antennas, and fiber is far cheaper than a phased array antenna on a drone which is disposable.

But the next gen of drones will have phased arrays because they're things that are hard to design, and expensive to make a small quantity of, but when you start making 10M+ drones, they become cheap, and obviously have more utility than fiber.
by zer8k | 2025-04-17 13:20:10+00:00
This might shock your worldview but cheating is absolutely rampant in STEM programs in person too. I still remember the corrupt graduate students who would circulate exam answers and/or take money to get copies of exams. Tutoring services range from valid to straight up homework cheating. Students share answers all the time, sometimes innocently, because humans want to help each other. Students are much, much smarter than faculty when it comes to stopping cheating. Good luck stopping it in a lecture hall of 100 people!

Every accredited online course program requires proctoring. To think in person stops cheating is naive. We need to rethink how education works if people feel the need to cheat so much. I’ll give you a hint: when people pay 5,000 dollars a class they’re going to cheat because they’re financially incentivized to do so. Administrative bloat in university needs to be done away with immediately and costs of education fixed by the government to some number that is reasonable for most people. Education should not be for-profit. Right now it is, even at public universities.
by boroboro4 | 2025-04-17 13:20:17+00:00
Take a look on historical numbers (https://usafacts.org/articles/what-can-the-data-tell-us-abou...). You’ll find out what was happening during Biden administration is what was happening on average in 90s and beginning of 2000s. Somehow you don’t label this as criminal act of Bush administration? Somehow it wasn’t as huge of a problem back then as it’s labeled now? Think about why?

In fact it was during Obama times when illegal immigration got to the low levels.

Don’t get me wrong, I do think Biden administration should’ve done better job at protecting the border. But the solution and fix for this isn’t abandoning due process rights and turning authoritarian. This solution is much much worse than problem at hands we have.
by metawake | 2025-04-17 13:21:20+00:00
Hi HN,

I’ve been exploring whether prompt compression — done before sending input to LLMs — can help cut down on token usage and cost without losing key meaning.

Instead of using a neural model, I wrote a small open-source tool that uses handcrafted rules + spaCy NLP to reduce prompt verbosity while preserving named entities and domain terms. It’s mostly aimed at high-volume systems (e.g. support bots, moderation pipelines, embedding pipelines for vector DBs).

Tested it on 135 real prompts and got 22.4% average compression with high semantic fidelity.

GitHub: https://github.com/metawake/prompt_compressor

Would love feedback, use cases, or critiques!
by bluGill | 2025-04-17 13:21:46+00:00
It is fine if you are writing to a particular audience that will understand you. However even then essays written like this come off as only someone trained like me can figure out what this means and thus I must be great - even though a different writing style would be more accessible to not only the "layperson" but also their peers who are trained in that subject. As such I call this bad writing.
by Finnucane | 2025-04-17 13:21:50+00:00
As large as it is, income from the endowment covers about a third of the total operating costs of the university. There are contractual limits on what different funds can be spent on, though you can bet that as we speak, accountants at Harvard are going through ledgers to see what funds can be shifted around. You can bet that calls and letters are going out to donors and alumni. In fact, this is incentive to make the endowment bigger, so that it can cover more.