MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by mjr00 | 2025-04-28 15:10:01+00:00
You don't need a digital passport to do this. You just need to engage in communities where people actually know each other. As the article says, if you don't know someone they may as well be an NPC, and there's no point in treating an NPC with respect. Whether or not they're actually an LLM chatbot is irrelevant.

The contrast between large, mostly-anonymous communities like Reddit, HN, Bluesky, etc. and smaller group chats, forums and Discords where people actually know each other is stark. When a person you've played games and chatted with for years expresses a political opinion you disagree with, your reaction is very different from when some X/Bluesky user you've never seen before says that same political opinion in a reply to your (tw/sk)eet.
by ajross | 2025-04-28 15:10:13+00:00
This tracks with my experience here, watching tech thought leaders. Obviously Andreesen went very hard right, as did Musk, but just in general the tech elite suddenly and surprisingly turned Trumpy over the last few years; Ackman being a really good case study.

Note that pg himself took a fairly surpising reactionary turn in right about the 2020/2021 timeframe this article describes. A guy who'd always been a left-center pragmatist suddenly was yelling in public tweets about the Campus Left's Desire for Cancellation and whatnot.

Those of us closer to the trenches never really did get the ire here: I mean, yeah, kids are intemperate jerks, but they've always been intemperate jerks. And the tech community... has always celebrated the idea behind the intemperate jerk and an engine for change and disruption. Let the ideas fight it out and pick winners and all, right? Suddenly these billionaires were all snowflakes looking to a political realignment to save them?

This article goes a long way to explaining why.
by kube-system | 2025-04-28 15:10:21+00:00
You'd think, but that is largely not the way that political winds are blowing. There are very high rates of people who are driving vehicles illegally in states that consistently vote against public transit projects.

This is because there is a perception among many of lower socioeconomic status that "spending more will raise my taxes, and I already can't afford car insurance", and that public transit projects will not be built to their benefit.
by abiraja | 2025-04-28 15:11:02+00:00
Working on a web app builder that generates code via AI, much like hundreds of other tools out there. The differentiator is that the tool automatically sets up a Postgres DB (using Neon) for you. So, it's a lot easier to get started and it can handle large complex apps that require auth and database, but it can also build simple websites. The stack is next.js and code is easy to export and view.

Primarily uses Claude Sonnet 3.7 and Gemini Pro 2.5. But you can choose other models too.

You can try it for free while I'm beta testing it here: https://lumosbuilder.com?ref=hn
by matt_heimer | 2025-04-28 15:11:52+00:00
It tried out vibe coding this weekend. I've been using AI to get smaller examples and ask questions and its been great but past attempts to have it do everything for me have produced code that still needed a lot of changes.

I hit an OpenSearch bug this week where you can't get any browser based requests to work. Its due to zstd becoming a standard part of Accept-Encoding and OpenSearch not correctly supporting it so I wanted to install a browser plugin that modified the browser HTTP request headers to my servers.

I don't know about everyone else but I love that browser plugins are possible but I hate having to find them. Its mostly due to never knowing if you can trust a plugin and even if you find one, you have to worry about it being bought out in the future. With vibe coding I was able to build a browser extension in 45 minutes that had more features than I originally planned for.

I spend more time documenting the experience than building which is wild. If you are interesting you can look at the README in https://github.com/mattheimer/vibe-headers

But I left the experience with two thoughts.

Even seasoned developers will be using vibe coding in the future.

I think in the near future the browser plugin market will partially collapse because eventually browsers will build extensions themselves on the fly using natural language.
by mschuster91 | 2025-04-28 15:12:25+00:00
> Worrying because it could mean that the current owners don't even have access to the source code anymore, and it's sad to see the source of those games lost to time.

This is way too common. It even happens to the best and largest games - the code for CnC Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 is supposed to be lost to time [1].

Often times it's just IP rights that get passed on when a studio collapses or gets bought out, and in other cases source code for dependencies (e.g. music or video player SDKs) isn't available any more.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43197320
by graypegg | 2025-04-28 15:12:51+00:00
Really neat app! A button that says "instantly" and actually does the thing instantly already makes this better than every alternative! ;)

Maybe just an idea I think would be worth charging for to offset costs on yourself: if you could get a few accounts on different recruiting software packs (BambooHR, smartrecruiters, etc) and then let users test their resume with different recruiting software's AI filtering tools, that could help a ton of people. You'd have to make a lot of different job descriptions/postings in each one, but you could probably craft them all generically enough to fit most careers.

Once that's going, maybe a pay-per-use fee to test your resume that gives the paying user a couple unique recruiting links to a few job postings, and then use playwright or something to capture screenshots of their profile in the backend(s).
by kurthr | 2025-04-28 15:13:02+00:00
The typical fraud "accident" is a vehicle with 4-5 people (including a child) who slam on their brakes in heavy traffic on the freeway. If that doesn't work, they reverse into you, and then claim whiplash for all the people in the car with a doctor who has everything to gain. It's $50k minimum.

If someone backs into you, or slams on their breaks on the freeway without reason you can drive as defensively as you want and still get unlucky. People can cause "accidents" much more effectively than you can avoid one. Careful motorcyclists know that watching the behavior of all the people around them is critical to survival, but they still get into collisions.

If you do try to drive so "defensively" that you can never get into an accident another person tries to cause, then you end up with 7-10 car lengths of separation, and people will regularly cut you off increasing risks. Please don't be that guy stopped 70ft back from the traffic light and stopping on on-ramps.
by Jensson | 2025-04-28 15:13:16+00:00
If the Chinese rooms tells you "I just left the train, see you in 5 minutes", what do you think the Chinese room try to convey? Do you think it knows what it just said? LLMs say such things all the time if you don't RLHF them to stop, why do you think they wouldn't be just as clueless about other things?
by johnnyjeans | 2025-04-28 15:13:20+00:00
Only if you don't understand the history of C. B was a LCD grouping of assembler macros for a typical register machine, C just added a type system and a couple extra bits of syntax. C isn't novel in the slightest, you're structuring and thinking about your code pretty similar to a certain style of assembly programming on a register machine. And yes, that type of register machine is still the most popular way to design an architecture because it has qualities that end up being fertile middle ground between electrical engineers and programmers.

Also there are no languages that reflect what modern CPUs are like, because modern CPUs obfuscate and hide much of how the way they work. Not even assembly is that close to the metal anymore, and it even has undefined behavior these days. There was an attempt to make a more explicit version of the hardware with Itanium, and it was explicitly a failure for much of the same reason than iAPX432 was a failure. So we kept the simpler scalar register machine around, because both compilers and programmers are mostly too stupid to work with that much complexity. C didn't do shit, human mental capacity just failed to evolve fast enough to keep up with our technology. Things like Rust are more the descendant of C than the modern design of a CPU.
by hwpythonner | 2025-04-28 15:13:37+00:00
Thanks — really appreciate your insights.

You're absolutely right that CPython bytecode changes over time and isn’t perfectly documented — I’ve also had to read the CPython source directly at times because of unclear docs.

That said, I intentionally chose to target bytecode instead of AST at this stage. Adhering to the AST would actually make me more vulnerable to changes in the Python language itself (new syntax, new constructs), whereas bytecode changes are usually contained to VM-level behavior. It also made it much easier early on, because the PyXL compiler behaves more like a simple transpiler — taking known bytecode and mapping it directly to PySM instructions — which made validation and iteration faster.

Either way, some adaptation will always be needed when Python evolves — but my goal is to eventually get to a point where only the compiler (the software part of PyXL) needs updates, while keeping the hardware stable.
by looofooo0 | 2025-04-28 15:14:07+00:00
But the LLM interacts with the program and the world through debugger, run-time feedback, linter, fuzzer etc., we can collect all the user feedback, user pattern ... Moreover, it can also get visual feedback. Reason through other programs like physic simulation etc. Use a robot to interact with the device running the code physically. Can use proof verifier like lean, to ensure its logical model of the program is sound. Do some back and forth between the logical model and the actual program through experiments. Maybe not now, but I don't see why the LLM needs to be kept in the Chinese Room.
by dilap | 2025-04-28 15:14:17+00:00
I guess at a very high level, the question is, do you think the current system and what it incentives is fine/optimal (and are sanguine presumably then about things like the the Lesné Aβ*56 fraud or the OP article [the failure of over half the biomedical experiments tested to repro]), or do you think it can be improved?

To me it clearly seems like there is room for improvement!

Even granting that most scientific researchers are pure of heart and noble of purpose, the kinds of science we get (and how quickly we uncover spurious results) are still going to depend on the systemic incentives of funding, publishing, & prestige -- so it's worth trying to structure those systems in a way that rewards good science as much as possible.
by tikotus | 2025-04-28 15:14:23+00:00
You might be misinterpreting what "neighbor" means or what "to the left" means. There is always at least one choice that can be made logically. If the logical choice is, say, that Jess is innocent, and you say Jess is a criminal, the game won't let you do that choice. Maybe that's what happened to you?
by dbushell | 2025-04-28 15:14:52+00:00
> This API collates information about people from multiple web origins, which could be a significant risk to their privacy. To manage this risk, the information that is gathered is aggregated using an aggregation service that is trusted by the user-agent to perform aggregation within strict limits. Noise is added to the aggregates produced by this service to provide differential privacy. Websites may select an aggregation service from the list of approved aggregation services provided by the user-agent.

Now that Google have back-tracked on removing 3rd-party cookies[1] I can't help but think any attempts to standardise tracking APIs is only going to add more data to the mix. This seems like yet another source to abuse.

[1] https://privacysandbox.com/news/privacy-sandbox-next-steps/
by Jensson | 2025-04-28 15:15:03+00:00
> Arguments along the lines of "Machines can never do X, only humans can do that"

That isn't the argument though.

> If you took today's LLMs back to the 1960s when he proposed that argument, either Searle would be laughed out of town, or you would be burned as a witch.

Do you think humans were different in the 1960s? No they would see the same limitations as people point out today. 1960s was when AI optimism was still very high.
by alickz | 2025-04-28 15:15:54+00:00
>an incredibly complex system that can fall over even if no-one's being stupid

I only have a layman's understanding of power grids, but I thought they were incredibly hardened, with backups and contingencies in depth

Are the grids at this scale really this brittle? Would there be a death toll from this?

I also wouldn't blame malice without corroborating evidence
by vacuity | 2025-04-28 15:16:09+00:00
There is a critical distinction between tests and formal specification/verification. It is not sufficient to make a bunch of tests if you want to ensure behavior. Formal methods have long been recognized. If a programmer is only now realizing their necessity due to LLM code synthesis, I do not trust the programmer with human-generated code, let alone LLM-generated code. I don't expect everyone to formally verify all code for many reasons, but the principles should always be present for any program more serious than a hobby project. Take a look at [0]. Cautious design is needed at all levels; if tests or formal methods are relied upon, they count.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43818169
by camtarn | 2025-04-28 15:16:15+00:00
It's an interesting article, but the title ('we found fraud!') doesn't quite match the article, which continually points out that there are suspicious patterns in the data but that they aren't ironclad evidence of fraud.

That said ... yeah those particular VINs do look seriously dodgy to me! If nothing else, then the drivers reporting 5 crashes in a 12 month window probably shouldn't be driving.
by tlb | 2025-04-28 15:16:17+00:00
Robot walking. But really, a programming language and tools to make it easy to solve hard nonlinear control problems like walking. There are videos & source code for 2-legged walking robots (in simulation) at https://throbol.com/post/how-to-walk, and videos & source code for 4-legged walking robots (on real hardware) at https://throbol.com/
by 1oooqooq | 2025-04-28 15:16:27+00:00
decades(!) ago there was a German documentary about exactly this. on how the eu commission dictate the tone and everyone fall in line. the director of IT for the eu commission at the time is now responsible for HR. where people critical of this are barred with a "no political knowledge" stamp, which is the eu commission equivalent of "not a techbro culture fit" in silicon valley.
by bell-cot | 2025-04-28 15:16:43+00:00
My big problem with lab-leak theories is that their "useful for the common good" utility seems close to zero. (Vs. just forcing the damned labs follow their own long-standing safety rules - which the labs were regularly screwing up at, decades ago.)

Vs. less-benevolent uses of those theories seem rife - whether that's neutral "clicks pay the bills" journalism, or angry hotheads stirring up easily-turned-violent xenophobia.
by _Chief | 2025-04-28 15:17:06+00:00
Thanks! I started out with a Nextjs full stack on Vercel, with db on Turso but ended up with a React frontend (next on vercel) and Go backend (selfhosted on vps).

Decided to port the backend to Go + postgres (on a Hetzner VPS), and retain the frontend on Nextjs - A lighter weight client, moving most of the compute to the backend API. Few reasons for the port: I've had a lot more success/stability with Go backends, Turso pulled multi-tenant dbs which is what I mostly wanted them for, Nextjs is getting too hard for me.

Go backend is just the std lib (1.22+ server with the nice routing) - I mostly write all the lines in this

Frontend is textbook modern react: React19,next15,tailwind4 - AI mostly writes the code in the frontend (Cursor + Cline + sequentialthinking + context7 + my own custom "memory bank" process of breaking down tasks). AI is really, really good at this. I wrote this https://image-assets.etelej.com/ in literally 2 days 2 weekends ago with less than 10% of code being mine (mostly infra + hono APIs)
by smithkl42 | 2025-04-28 15:17:07+00:00
The Chinese Room argument is a great thought experiment for understanding why the computational model is an inadequate explanation of consciousness and qualia. But it proves nothing about reason, which LLMs have clearly shown needs to be distinguished from consciousness. And theories fall into the category of reason, not of consciousness. Or another way of putting it that you might find more acceptable: maybe a computer will never, internally, know that it has developed a theory - but it sure seems like it will be able to act and talk as if it had, much like a philosophical zombie.
by Matthyze | 2025-04-28 15:17:09+00:00
I'll give a somewhat simpler answer than Filligree has. The problem with renewable energy sources is that they are typically both highly variable and not dispatchable (i.e., controllable). The former leads to supply peaks that can exceed transmission capacity or supply lows that require compensating generation elsewhere. The latter means that energy generation can easily be increased or decreased as required, which is of course very helpful for grid management. Dispatchable generation can be increased if supply requires it, or multiple dispatchable generators can be 'redispatched' to relieve congestion in a part of the power grid (by rebalancing generation). Power from renewable sources can be decreased through curtailment, but that wastes the generated energy.
by Vox_Leone | 2025-04-28 15:17:27+00:00
The fewer resources we dedicate to grid resilience and modernization, the harder black starts become. And as grids get more complex and interdependent, recovering from total failure becomes exponentially harder.

A rare but sobering opportunity to reflect on something we usually take for granted: electricity.

We live in societies where everything depends on the grid — from logistics and healthcare to communications and financial systems. And yet, public awareness of the infrastructure behind it is shockingly low. We tend to notice the power grid only when it breaks.

We’ve neglected it for decades. In many regions, burying power lines is dismissed as “too expensive.” But compare that cost to the consequences of grid collapse in extreme weather, cyberattacks, or even solar storms — the stakes are existential. High-impact, low-frequency events are easy to ignore until they’re not.
by psychoslave | 2025-04-28 15:17:37+00:00
> To make this point stick, you would also have to show why it's not an illusion when humans "appear" to have a theory.

That burden of proof is on you, since you are presumably human and you are challenging the need of humans to have more than a mere appearance of having a theory when they claim to have one.

Note that even when the only theoretical assumption we go with is that we will have a good laugh watching other people going crazy after random bullshits thrown at them, we still have a theory.
by kageneko | 2025-04-28 15:18:08+00:00
I've always been into MUDs since the mid-90s and every now and then I get this idea to write one from scratch (again) and I get pretty far and then I lose interest.

The new one is browser based.

The mud engine runs in a web worker and takes advantage of some of the modern web tricks to do stuff. For instance, data files (think: area files that don't change often) can be stored remotely and then cached with a service worker. This allows the MUD to run offline. But that's only fun if you're playing solo.

IO between the UI and worker is handled by message passing.

Multiplayer is handled by the MUD opening an outbound connection (probably websocket) to a connection collector host. Other players would then connect to that host and have their IO routed appropriately. The host can even be smarter: it could be a specialized Discord client, allowing users to play from there. Firebase may also be involved. I don't know.

The important bit is that this is still basically message passing, so the engine won't need to know the difference between the local user and a remote user.

The MUD database would be an IndexedDB. Probably. I haven't thought as much about that yet.

I am sure all of this is theoretically possible, at least.
by earksiinni | 2025-04-28 15:18:28+00:00
AI bookkeeping for solopreneurs.

As a freelance web dev who also has an Airbnb side hustle, I got tired of expensive bookkeeping for a few transactions per month. I tried DIY, but my time is worth more than that.

Most importantly, both pros and DIY got subtle things wrong and caused me to miss out on thousands of dollars in deductions and credits.

So I’m making an AI bookkeeping chatbot that will handle all that for me. The aim is full automation while surfacing tax deduction and credit opportunities throughout the year. Like wouldn’t it be awesome to just have the research and tax credit or do home office deductions with zero effort?

At the end of the year, Kumbara puts together a series of financial reports that you plug into your tax software or hand to your CPA.

Working hand-in-hand with CPAs and some platform partners on this. Would love to hear from other solopreneurs or engineers who want to help build the future of financial freedom.

https://www.kumbara.money
by dxs | 2025-04-28 15:19:19+00:00
Education can never hurt.

True => "I am the only one in the company that has a degree (MSc compsci). I know stuff the others never heard of." -- RamblingCTO

Learning on the job will teach you part of what others know, and none of the rest. Learning on your own will teach you what you're interested in and none of what you hate.

I'm no shining example. My whole life has been a series of mistakes, but I've been happily unemployed 20 years as of July 7, 2025, after I quit my last job (in state government) after deciding that I'd rather die than to keep working there. I'm good at saving money, so I'm OK, and living in Ecuador now, which is nice.

The advice for decades has been to get to know people, and find work through your connections. I'd say now, looking back, as a pathologically shy person, that that sort of social engineering is probably the key, along with being helpful on the job and always appearing happy and upbeat. People really like enthusiastic people who are always cheerful, and that would be good for you if you can pile it on top of expertise, especially if it's accompanied by credentials.

Education is something that no one can ever take away from you. It's a tool you can use any way you see fit. What sort of education and how much are for you to decide. Me, I spent 10 years struggling after high school before finally getting a B.A in English.

Three years later, after deciding that I wasn't going anywhere, I started over and ultimately got a B.S. in physics and computer science with minors in math and chemistry, finishing that after 12 more years (with a big break in the middle to save up enough money to continue). And pretty much did shit work in state government for the rest of my working life.

If doing it over, I would be a LOT more aggressive and not hope that I'd get rewarded for doing good work. You have to go and grab what you need or fail boldly, I think. And you are the only one who cares how your life works out, despite what you might or might not hear from anyone else, let alone an employer.

A couple of interesting posts by David Heinemeier Hansson...

Why we won't hire a junior with five years of experience. (April 8, 2025) https://world.hey.com/dhh/why-we-won-t-hire-a-junior-with-fi...

We'll always need junior programmers. (April 24, 2025) https://world.hey.com/dhh/we-ll-always-need-junior-programme...