MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by bloppe | 2025-04-14 20:50:39+00:00
Probability is subjective though, because macrostates are subjective.

The notion of probability relies on the notion of repeatability: if you repeat a coin flip infinite times, what proportion of outcomes will be heads, etc. But if you actually repeated the toss exactly the same way every time, say with a finely-tuned coin-flipping machine in a perfectly still environment, you would always get the same result.

We say that a regular human flipping a coin is a single macrostate that represents infinite microstates (the distribution of trajectories and spins you could potentially impart on the coin). But who decides that? Some subjective observer. Another finely tuned machine could conceivably detect the exact trajectory and spin of the coin as it leaves your thumb and predict with perfect accuracy what the outcome will be. According to that machine, you're not repeating anything. You're doing a new thing every time.
by lukev | 2025-04-14 20:51:13+00:00
To agree and extend, that's actually how human language works too. The cultural connotations of "dog" in english might be quite different from "perro".

And it gets even more complex because the connotations of "dog" in the USA in 2025 are unquestionably different from "dog" in England in 1599. I can only assume these distinctions also hold across languages. They're not a direct translation.

Let alone extreme cultural specificities... To follow the same example, how would one define "doge" now?
by kzahel | 2025-04-14 20:51:42+00:00
I wrote the original version of this "simple web server" app (https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/web-server-for-chro...) because the built-in python http server is a bit buggy. It would hang on some connections when loading a webpage with a lot of small assets. I was surprised how many people found it useful. More so when Chrome web apps were supported on other platforms (mac/linux/windows).
by Tainnor | 2025-04-14 20:51:57+00:00
It's a shame that this is not the link that was submitted because that (long) article was a really interesting read that gave me some food for thought and also articulated a bunch of things rather clearly that I've been thinking in a similar form for a while. I'm not sure that I agree with all of it, though (I still prefer maps, folds etc. over explicit loops in many cases, but do agree that this is less important than the overall code architecture).
by insane_dreamer | 2025-04-14 20:52:11+00:00
I think the only way for the universities to escape this blackmail trap is to bind together in their response, refuting the Trump's claims that they're not doing enough to "stop antisemitism" (obviously a cover chosen by the WH because it immediately gathers public sympathy), and reject Trump's demands. If they cave in now, it will be used against them again.

Take the haircut and wait for either the next presidential elections, or maybe midterms if the GOP gets pummeled because of this and starts standing up to Trump. One thing we've seen about Trump is that he fairly easily reverses course when the right pressure is applied.

Granted Harvard's in an easier place than most, but I predict Columbia will come to seriously regret their decision.
by RobinL | 2025-04-14 20:53:40+00:00
The referral is just because a non expert can't be sure. The cost of the referral is relatively small, but the cost of getting it wrong is large.

Someone I know recently had a referral - it's pretty light touch, you just get a prompt appointment, and they do a minor op to remove the mole, and send it to the lab for testing. Luckily in their case, it wasn't cancer. But nothing in the process seemed weird, it was just the way of the GP escalating it because they couldn't be sure. Hypothetically, if the AI had been able to diagnose with higher certainty than the GP, all of this could have been avoided, so definitely room for improvement.
by freehorse | 2025-04-14 20:53:51+00:00
> Deprecating GPT-4.5 less than 2 months after introducing it also seems unlikely to be the original plan.

Well they actually hinted already of possible depreciation in their initial announcement of gpt4.5 [0]. Also, as others said, this model was already offered in the api as chatgpt-latest, but there was no checkpoint which made it unreliable for actual use.

[0] https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-4-5/#:~:text=we%E2%...
Ask HN: Looking for Retro Website
by kaishiro | 2025-04-14 20:54:03+00:00
A while back (I believe it was late last year, but my memory is foggy), there was a site posted on HN that had a bit of a retro feel to it. I genuinely cannot remember the contents of the post at all, I only remember the aesthetic. I recall it had a beige/pinkish background color, and I also recall that the name was something like...turnips? Or radish? Maybe cabbage?

Listen, I get that this is a longshot and a ridiculous Ask HN, but I really thought I favorited the post but alas, it is not on my list.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
by authorfly | 2025-04-14 20:55:01+00:00
the release and research cycles are still contracting

Not necessarily progress or benchmarks that as a broader picture you would look at (MMLU etc)

GPT-3 was an amazing step up from GPT-2, something scientists in the field really thought was 10-15 years out at least done in 2, instruct/RHLF for GPTs was a similar massive splash, making the second half of 2021 equally amazing.

However nothing since has really been that left field or unpredictable from then, and it's been almost 3 years since RHLF hit the field. We knew good image understanding as input, longer context, and improved prompting would improve results. The releases are common, but the progress feels like it has stalled for me.

What really has changed since Davinci-instruct or ChatGPT to you? When making an AI-using product, do you construct it differently? Are agents presently more than APIs talking to databases with private fields?
by PaulHoule | 2025-04-14 20:55:13+00:00
I think "life changing" and "universal" are contradictory.

A person who is ready to pick up the bar, for instance, would benefit from Rippetoe's Starting Strength but if you don't pick up the bar it's just another book (you might get something from just plain lifting Schwarzenegger's Modern Weighlifting though, if not the Misner, Thorne and Wheeler book Gravitation.) Similarly Super System will change your life if you are serious about playing poker, otherwise it's just a fun read like the D&D Monster Manual I'd say that Ashcroft and Mermin's Solid State Physics was a great adventure even if I didn't end up doing physics in the end, but I was a grad student in condensed matter and I took Ashcroft's class. When I was wanting to explore the edges of applied philosophy and literature I felt Alain Badiou's Being and Event was meaningful to me but a lot of people would say it is obscurantist French trash like Derrida and if you believe that I can't change your mind.

I'd tend to reject categorically that fiction could be life changing but maybe that's harsh. So often people nominate books that to me are trash like Atlas Shrugged, The Illuminati Trilogy or Hitchhiker's Guide. From time to time though I do discover an author with a large body of work that I'm obsessed with for a few months, like last year I rediscovered Poul Anderson (want to see Dominic Flandry have a fight with Kimball Kinnison) and got into Pratchett's Discworld.

I think a lot of books that offer simple answers to things like books by Malcolm Gladwell and Robert Greene are often harmful and also I think Man's Search for Meaning by Frankl is absolute poison for 21st century people.
by alistairSH | 2025-04-14 20:55:16+00:00
And why are skin cancers being referred to a hospital at all?

Personal experience in the US... treatment can be done on the spot at the primary dermatologist's office (curettage usually) or referred either to a Mohs specialist or a plastic surgeon (both of whom usually treat at their office). Short of a melanoma that's progressed/metastasized, I don't think I've ever heard of a skin cancer being treated at a hospital (not saying it doesn't happen, only that that would be an exception, based on personal/family/friend experiences).
by gazebo64 | 2025-04-14 20:55:32+00:00
>An economically viable solution to this problem would be simply force companies to pay all laborers, foreign or domestic, legal or illegal, a living wage

Do you think that the law has a cut-out to allow for paying illegal immigrants less than minimum wage? This is like solving the murder rate by making murder illegal -- it's already illegal to employ these people and pay them below minimum wage.
by breppp | 2025-04-14 20:55:41+00:00
I am sure you can read, but apart for the very numerous mentions of violent attacks against Jewish students, we have this quote:

Kates, the head of Samidoun, and leaders of other hard-line pro-Hamas groups, say they don’t randomly attack Jewish people at demonstrations. Rather, they said, protests turn violent due to clashes with the police and run-ins with Jewish counterprotesters who carry Israeli flags and become targets.

“If you were to carry other flags of countries and nations that have committed genocide, one might expect them to be taken away,” Kates told NBC News. “That’s really a very low-level of confrontation for actively going out and supporting the genocide of the Palestinian people.”

That's a pretty straight up claim admission of violence during demonstrations by a student group. This group that was part of the "student's" demonstrations in the universities was later on designated by both USA and Canada as affiliated with the PFLP terror group [1][2]

[1] https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2024/10/g...

[2] https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2646
by JumpCrisscross | 2025-04-14 20:55:50+00:00
> universities should probably be concerned with their credibility among democratically elected political representatives if they are going to be accepting public funds

Agree. I don’t think they should accept federal funds to the extent that they do. Maybe it’s time for elite institutions to get past the 70s camp era and start behaving (and wielding the power of) being elite.
by nihakue | 2025-04-14 20:56:07+00:00
I'm not in any way qualified to have a take here, but I have one anyway:

My understanding is that entropy is a way of quantifying how many different ways a thing could 'actually be' and yet still 'appear to be' how it is. So it is largely a result of an observer's limited ability to perceive / interrogate the 'true' nature of the system in question.

So for example you could observe that a single coin flip is heads, and entropy will help you quantify how many different ways that could have come to pass. e.g. is it a fair coin, a weighted coin, a coin with two head faces, etc. All these possibilities increase the entropy of the system. An arrangement _not_ counted towards the system's entropy is the arrangement where the coin has no heads face, only ever comes up tails, etc.

Related, my intuition about the observation that entropy tends to increase is that it's purely a result of more likely things happening more often on average.

Would be delighted if anyone wanted to correct either of these intuitions.
by matthewdgreen | 2025-04-14 20:56:21+00:00
The biggest problem here is that about a week ago, the Court reduced the legal protections afforded to potential deportees. They can still petition the Courts for due process, but it will have to be in local courts in Texas and Lousiana, and under a new interpretation of habeas that even Justice Amy Coney Barrett took issue with.

So to recap: weakened protection of law preventing you from being deported, once deported you can never come home. Excellent work by the Supreme Court.

https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/judge-labeled-radical...
by TheGuyWhoCodes | 2025-04-14 20:56:27+00:00
You still didn't define what's the proportional response.

Come on armchair commander show us your battle plans for Iran. Do we nuke it? Do we destroy all the dams? Do we hit just the nuclear facilities? Or do we eliminate their oil industry? Maybe just all the military bases, oh we forgot all the subterrains rocket facilities, do you want to invade Iraq style?

If the IDF would have Indiscriminately killing people then the number would have been 10x, and you know it.
by jmclnx | 2025-04-14 20:56:59+00:00
Interesting take, but I think there is another reason, Malaria.

It so devastated Africa that people started evolving resistance to it. That evolution also shortened the life of the "lucky" person who has it. Quote:

>Due to the high levels of mortality and morbidity ... has placed the greatest selective pressure on the human genetic factors provide some resistance to it including sickle cell trait

From:

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

Only recently has treatment started to work in Africa, but the damage done is still being felt. Plus the treatment is slow coming from the rich countries.
by ty6853 | 2025-04-14 20:57:33+00:00
They're 'not allowed to'.

But they did.

Trump & co pulled one over on you. Just because it's not in the GPoE does not mean it doesn't exist.

It appears to be an informally arranged contract. Federal judges and 'memos' also recognizes this contract. Bukele and Trump publicly have reiterated much of the terms. I do not know if you will ever see a single traditional looking contract paper you desire, but the evidence is everywhere, not the least of which that the memos statements and actual reality of El Salvador taking prisoners on behalf the US and publicly stating they have an agreement to do it.
by resource_waste | 2025-04-14 20:57:46+00:00
When I saw them say 'no more non COT models', I was minorly panicked.

While their competitors have made fantastic models, at the time I perceived ChatGPT4 was the best model for many applications. COT was often tricked by my prompts, assuming things to be true, when a non-COT model would say something like 'That isnt necessarily the case'.

I use both COT and non when I have an important problem.

Seeing them keep a non-COT model around is a good idea.
by darrenf | 2025-04-14 20:58:02+00:00
4 years ago I had my partner take photos of moles that had changed colour on my back. I used the MySkinDoctor app https://www.myskindoctor.co.uk/ to send them to my consultant dermatologist (who, at the time, I had never met -- having just moved to a new area). Upon review they arranged for an in-person appointment and I was seen within a week or so. All through the NHS.

So yes, taking the photo at home is perfectly doable. I still went to hospital though.
by alistairSH | 2025-04-14 20:58:15+00:00
Do all cases in the UK start with a GP? No ability to go straight to a dermatologist? And are all dermatologists based out of hospitals?

In the US, we'd just go straight to a dermatologist, who would either remove it on the spot, or for a location that's liable to scar badly, refer to a specialist surgeon. For somebody fair skinned with lots of sun damage like myself, it's an annual "ritual".
by ryandamm | 2025-04-14 20:58:23+00:00
Curious if anyone else reading this knows about the equivalent of US "pink sheets," publicly traded companies that have either never been listed or have been delisted due to low share price / market capitalization.

Here in the US, you can buy publicly traded companies in the US for a song; in fact, that was the source for the "acquiring" company in a lot of those reverse-acquisitions of the late 2000s / early 2010s: publicly traded companies that had a ticker, but were basically defunct. A company that wanted to go public without the scrutiny of an IPO process could "buy themselves" with the tiny, publicly traded company, thereby getting a ticker and access to retail investors. (This was not a good phenomenon, fwiw, though it definitely anticipated the SPAC craze... which was also not good, for similar reasons.)
by asdefghyk | 2025-04-14 20:58:34+00:00
Interesting information snipped from their website .... I'm in Australia so will try it out. Yes specifically says its not available in US

About SkinVision SkinVision was founded in 2012 and provides a mobile phone application, which supports individuals with the early detection of the most common forms of skin cancer (melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma, basal cell carcinoma, and precancerous actinic keratosis). SkinVision is the first CE marked skin cancer application based on extensive clinical trials, conducted in partnership with Erasmus Medical Center (EMC) and the university clinic of Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU). Research shows the app has a sensitivity of 95% and a specificity of 78%. The SkinVision app is commercially available worldwide on iOS and Android except for a few countries, such as the United States and Canada. SkinVision is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The SkinVision Service is a Medical Device and is registered with the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).
by TrapLord_Rhodo | 2025-04-14 20:58:39+00:00
>If you do demanding work, a full working week is 20-30 hours. Even 40 hours is too much and cannot be sustained in the long term. You can do more in the short term, but you'll eventually burn yourself out. Longer hours are only possible with routine and/or fake work that doesn't really make you more productive.

This line shows me that we will never agree. If i showed this to my boss he would laugh... and so would my entire team.

Silicon Valley runs on 80-hour weeks, sleepless nights, and a culture that glorifies obsession. It's a system that burns hot — and burns people out. Many of the engineers and founders who fuel these breakthroughs walk away in their 30s and 40s, exhausted but occasionally leaving billion-dollar companies in their wake.
by kjellsbells | 2025-04-14 20:59:03+00:00
The difference is that the people affected by whim were, by design, only supposed to be the political appointees, not the civil service rank and file. Those jobs existed for as long as Congress decided that they produced useful results for the American people. Positions could be eliminated by virtue of Congress deciding that a shift in policy was needed, eg fewer Kremlinologists after 1989, but that is not a whim, that is a result of debate.

The current administration is making all positions political, and in doing so, performing an end run around the legislative branch.
by JumpCrisscross | 2025-04-14 20:59:13+00:00
> there would be much more push back against this type of action if Harvard and other universities didn't alienate a large chunk of the population

Not in any meaningful way. And not in a way that would have mattered.

The elite universities got into this hole by trying to court pedestrian approval. Trump is at war with the professional managerial class, not the elites. Harvard’s brand remains unimpeached among the latter. Return to serving that group and ignore the broader population.
by anonymars | 2025-04-14 20:59:21+00:00
I'm confused, is familiarity with it somehow an argument for it?

As I understand, the complaint was that things get ruined once acquired. Great, we all know that it's in part because of unsustainable business models in the hope of getting acquired*. Does that mean we have to like it? Wouldn't it be nice to encourage companies to have sustainable business models?

*But also not entirely. Even if you build a sustainable business model, for you it's throwing off profit and that's gravy for you. But once someone buys it from you, suddenly they are in the hole and have an investment to recoup, especially if they overpaid. And so the temptation arises to goose things to pay back that investment more quickly
by dogline | 2025-04-14 20:59:45+00:00
*Update*: I tried writing a little Python code to read and write from a mailbox, reading worked great, but writing an email had the email disappear to some filter or spam or something somewhere. I've got to figure out where it went, but this is the warning that some people had about not trusting a messaging protocol (email in this case) when you can't control the servers. Messages can disappear.

I read that [Mailgun](https://www.mailgun.com/) might improve this. Haven't tried it yet.

Other alternatives for messages that I haven't tried. My requirement is to be able to send messages and send/receive on my mobile device. I do not want to write a mobile app.

* [Telegram](https://telegram.org/) (OP's system) with [bots](https://core.telegram.org/bots)

* [MQTT](https://mqtt.org/) with server

* [Notify (ntfy.sh)](https://ntfy.sh/)

* Email (ubiquitous)

* [Mailgun](https://www.mailgun.com/) * [CloudMailin](https://www.cloudmailin.com/)

Also, to [simonw](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=simonw) point, LLM calls are cheap now, especially with something as low tokens as this.

And, links don't format in HN markdown. I did the work to include them, they're staying in.
by hayst4ck | 2025-04-14 20:59:45+00:00
There are two fundamental political systems and they exist in respect to how they attempt to assess truth. The first uses reason, the second uses power.

People who believe in reason based truth look for contradictions. Do doctors take the same treatments they offer? Do doctors vaccinate their own kids? What did these doctors learn to do in college? When no or few contradictions are found, they are willing to offer trust.

People who believe in power based truth look to their power structure. What does my priest or parent say? What does my news channel say? What do people who are loyal to the same people I'm loyal to say? When the messaging within their power structure, such as fox news, declares something they believe it without question, after all, they wouldn't be in their position of power without having earned it. Likewise there are peer social relationships likely to punish dissent.

It's hard for people who believe in reason to communicate with people who believe in power because power is immune to reason. They don't care about their contradictions. While you are pointing out their contradictions, but not doing anything about it, you are dis-empowering yourself. There is truth in action, and in many ways reasoning is not action. Acting in a contradictory way, but experiencing no obvious consequences for doing so is itself empowering.
by cmurf | 2025-04-14 20:59:54+00:00
Four Republican Congresscritters (House of Representatives), and four Republican Senators, could announce their intent to caucus with the Democratic party from this point forward, consistent with their oath and legal obligation to support and defend the Constitution against an emerging dictatorship. And then force a vote to change the leadership of the House and the Senate.

It would require a simple majority vote. That's all.

The power of the purse can be taken back by Congress. It can reorganize the committees and resume investigations and oversight where there has been none.