MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by paulluuk | 2025-04-28 04:41:51+00:00
It depends; if you do that job or career for fun, then keep doing it! If you do that job because you like contributing to society and not because you like the job itself, then find another way to contribute to society.

Even in a scenario where all jobs are taken by AGI (a utopia if we can get rid of capitalism and wealth, but a dystopia if the billionaire class is the only one that benefits), you could do something as profound as raising children, or something as social as organizing music and art festivals.
by __MatrixMan__ | 2025-04-28 04:42:33+00:00
Wow, you see absolutes everywhere. Exposed once, spiritual death. World of friends, world of wars--pick one. It's all more complex than that.

Some relationships are easy because nobody is trying to sabotage them, others are hard because somebody is, others are hard for entirely different reasons. It's the middle case that I'm concerned with here. I agree that it's a pretty awful thing to harm a friendship by injecting it with unnecessary culture war bullshit but my claim is that in most cases it's neither of the friends who want that outcome, it's some remote third party who has decided to interfere. Sure it's a failing of one friend or the other if they take the bait, but they have not spiritually killed the other by doing so.
by thephyber | 2025-04-28 04:43:03+00:00
> which is the first time since the mid 19th century it's reached that level

The percentage of foreign born in the US from The Civil War until WW1 was always between 13%-15% which is comparable to now.[1]

You’re trying so hard to make a point, you’re veering into lie territory.

[1] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/imm...
by brigandish | 2025-04-28 04:43:31+00:00
I agree that falling back on "it's natural" can be a poor excuse, mainly because humans have the power and intellect (maybe not intelligence, but I digress) to change even what is considered nature, but I'm also not for social engineering, and I've seen such a wild increase in social engineering in media over the past 15, maybe 20 years, that I'd err on the naturalistic side now.
by rasz | 2025-04-28 04:44:00+00:00
Duke Nukem 3D is compiled with FPU emulation. Game engine is 99.9% fixed point math, only requires FPU for rarely used slopes (setupslopevlin_ and slopevlin_).

It just so happens first room when starting the game - rooftop - has sloped roof vents and later walls with sloped edge. Even on fast FPUless 90MHz NexGen Nx586 (AMD K6 father) FPS drops down to 10-14fps on that roof https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41O2bNG2qKA&t=234s while staying above 30 when facing away from slopes.
by YZF | 2025-04-28 04:44:01+00:00
I don't regret getting a degree fwiw. My degree was 100% focused on math and comp.sci. (not in North America where they force you to take other subjects).

If you have 20 years of experience I wonder if there are options for you to have that recognized towards a degree or even to get accepted into a Masters program (where presumably you'd have to make up some required courses but still).
by spl757 | 2025-04-28 04:44:40+00:00
Train crossings. I live in a port city with tracks that run right through the middle of the city. No, the safety lights don't always work. No, you can't always hear them coming. Yes, I've had to floor it to avoid being hit. This just seems like a bad idea on the face of it to me. It makes people drive in a way that other drivers may not expect them to, and that's always dangerous.
Ask HN: How to extract structured information from captured audio?
by sandreas | 2025-04-28 04:45:15+00:00
Hey HN,

I would like to extract structured information from captured audio on a device that is not too expensive (a small LLM would be an option, I got an old NVidia 1660 Super with 6GB VRAM).

OpenAI Whisper could be used to get the audio contents as text, but I don't really know how I could reliably extract the information in a structured way. There is always a "purpose", which is selected out of let's say 10 possible purposes and "required data", which is depending on the purpose and composed by key value pairs, that also have predefined values.

An example (spoken text):

Please apply for leave from 1st November to 8th november.

Result (structured data):

{ purpose: "apply for leave", data: { start: "2025-11-01", end: "2025-11-08" } }

What are my options to do this in a reliable way that can match different purposes with different data by "best match" approach?
by bsnnkv | 2025-04-28 04:46:46+00:00
I'm still mulling how to go about porting my tiling window manager for Windows[1] to another platform, or even if I'll do it at all. There is some demand, but I don't know if there is _enough_ demand

Regardless of if I target macOS or Linux first, this would be a pretty full time endeavour on my part. I could wait until the commercial use licenses of the Windows version sustain me enough to be able to work on this full time, or try to raise a Kickstarter for $X00,000 to be able to quit my 9-5 and work on porting full time for a year or so

[1]: https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi
by cryptonector | 2025-04-28 04:47:43+00:00
If women are not happy with the hookup culture, then maybe you need to add one more option to your "either" list: marriage. I know that sounds quaint, but look around this thread and see that marriage need not mean monogamy, for a lot of people anyways, but stability (emotional, financial, familial, sexual).

Besides, your list comes across as very male-centered[0]: how do we provide men with all the sex they neeEeEeddd?? And oddly enough one answer to _that_ question is also marriage.

Now, there are unhappy sex-less married couples, so of course one question is how to address that. But at least in my and -as far as I can tell- my friends' experience marriage does provide men and women with the level of sexual activity that they need/want.

BTW, your (1) is probably happening as testosterone levels go down. Or at least one would expect that to be the case. If it is then you're getting your wish.

None of this is judging anyone.

[0] If your list is not male-centered, then it is still centered on this idea that sex parties are the bomb, but that's almost certainly not what most people think. I've a ton of close friends from all walks, many of them coupled, many not, and not one has ever even hinted that sex parties are a thing they care about, let alone come right out and said so.
by flustercan | 2025-04-28 04:48:11+00:00
Ehh the roads are public property. I don't think its unreasonable that if you want your car to be registered to drive on a public road it needs some sort of speed limiter. Its about the same level of infringement on your personal rights as requiring a car have seatbelts. Feel free to buy a car with no limiter or no seatbelts and drive it on your own private roads as fast as your heart desires.
by semi-extrinsic | 2025-04-28 04:48:24+00:00
I think it's really unfortunate that this type of thing gets called "research". I get that it fits with what has unfortunately become modern day usage - "Karen did her own research before becoming a flat-earther" - but I really wish the AI companies would've had better faith in their future solutions than to call this research.

There's gotta be quite a few actual researchers at these companies who are shaking their heads.

To spare others the lookup, here's from the Oxford dictionary. Emphasis on the word "new":

To study a subject in detail, especially in order to discover new information or reach a new understanding. Example: They are carrying out/conducting/doing some fascinating research into/on the language of dolphins.
by dachris | 2025-04-28 04:48:55+00:00
If the internet would go offline "for real" even for days, all hell would break lose. It would not be as bad as electricity going offline, but it's in the same category now. No credit card payments payments (food, gas), no logistics. Prepper stuff.

The real scenario long-term is that quality content like Wikipedia could either be taken offline, be poisoned by AI or taken over or censored by authoritarians or corporations or interest groups. Like social media and parts of the normal internet already.

So archiving is good anyways.

To your actual question - quality non-fiction e-books would be valuable. Wikipedia is a superficial skimming of human knowledge, lots of the real stuff is in books (think medicine, agriculture, algorithms, engineering etc.).

Practically, a home WIFI has a very limited range, so just handing out sheets with instructions to your neighbors would work. And for a wider mesh network, you'd need to make do with whatever evolves in that scenario.
by barrell | 2025-04-28 04:48:56+00:00
I have been working on http://phrasing.app - a language learning & acquisition tool for polyglots. I’ve been using it to study ~12 languages (5 on maintaince, 2 seriously studying, 5 casually “studying”) and it’s starting to feel really good. If anyone is learning/maintaining several languages, please reach out! I’m looking for beta testers in as many languages as possible (it supports 120+).

In what I believe is still the spirit of the question though, I discovered Maltese these week and have added it to my casual study. It’s a Semitic language (closely related to Arabic), written in the latin script, with about 40-50% of its vocabulary being Italian/Sicilian based. It’s become my new obsession
by em-bee | 2025-04-28 04:49:29+00:00
because it's not evil development. what i have seen that actually happens is that the farmers get enough money to build a new house. it is based on the size of the house they had in the village which lead to the curious situation that people expanded their buildings even though they knew already that their village was slated to be wiped.

then the farmers pool their money and build multistory apartment buildings not far from the area where their village was so they are not being chased away and left helpless.
by dredmorbius | 2025-04-28 04:49:54+00:00
RMS still largely browses in this way:

I generally do not connect to web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites I have some special relationship with. I usually fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see <https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/womb/hacks.git>) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. Then I look at them using a web browser, unless it is easy to see the text in the HTML page directly. I usually try lynx first, then a graphical browser if the page needs it.

<https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html>
by Geo_ge | 2025-04-28 04:50:02+00:00
I'm running a Raspberry Pi based GNSS receiver from a 26 Ah SLA battery and an 80W panel. Just passed 2 weeks of uptime in a cloudy period of southern hemisphere autumn.

A monte carlo simulation using historical conditions said it had a ~95% chance of no downtime over 3 winter months. A slightly larger battery would bring that up to 99%.

The Pi (3b+), GNSS reciever (u-blox ZED F9P), and Waveshare 7600G 4G modem average about 3.5W idle. The GNSS reciever is about 0.1 - 0.2 W of that. Wifi would be more energy efficient, I imagine.
by whatevermang | 2025-04-28 04:50:47+00:00
This is one of the best things anyone interested in one of the most impressive engineering marvels ever can go and visit anywhere in the world. I cannot stress enough how good it is and how involved the tour gets (wearing waders to go waist deep in water to view the jet turbines used to pump water).

I strongly advise taking someone who can help translate Japanese with you as there's a huge amount of information to take in and it's a fantastic opportunity for anyone keen on photography as well.
by dcassett | 2025-04-28 04:51:27+00:00
> Does NetBSD natively support the 486DX CPUs which still have the FPU enabled?

According to [1] they do

"Any i486 or better CPU should work - genuine Intel or a compatible such as Cyrix, AMD, or NexGen."

[1] https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/
by rayiner | 2025-04-28 04:52:53+00:00
Science and medicine is what has defined autism as a disease or abnormality. Science and medicine are telling us that the rates of these diseases are growing dramatically, for decades now.

RFK isn’t the one who made autism concern happen. My three year old’s teacher asked us to get him tested with the county for autism. It’s a very common thing parents are dealing with these days. I’d argue that what you’re saying is exactly backward. The medical community has defined a lot of normal behavior as autism.

Now, I agree RFK’s views on what’s causing autism are anti-scientific, and I doubt he’ll be able to figure out what’s causing it. But RFK has a platform because the medical community has diagnosed all these kids as autistic but doesn’t have an explanation for what’s causing it. So looks like RFK fill the void.
by jtwaleson | 2025-04-28 04:52:55+00:00
Agreed, and it seems to stem from the NiMH requirement. Maybe designing a protective shell around a LiPO battery (to avoid puncture damage) would have made more sense?

Pretty impressive work though! I think you must have learned a lot. I've spent quite some time on about 5 different projects that were way less polished, but it seems we have picked up the same level of skills along the way. The post is very recognizable ;) Looking forward to the your project!
by tibbar | 2025-04-28 04:53:35+00:00
If I were in this situation, and the goal is to draw an owl, and I can spend a year on it, then I'm going to spend an hour tonight looking at owls and maybe doodling a bit. I'm not going to worry about getting the owl perfect right away. Maybe next week I'll get super into owl feet, and the week after into learning good drawing posture. At some point I'll definitely be attending some meetup of nature-drawing enthusiasts.

I'm going to combine a general direction with a lot of time and horsepower and exploration and I will end up with a great owl drawing at the end. The odds are that I end up drawing the owl after only a few weeks because it's not as hard as I thought, but I discover some other really cool goals with a better payoff by then.

There's a lot of alpha in spending an unreasonable amount of time on interesting goals.

To answer your questions directly:

> How will an otherwise relative newcomer know what would be considered challenging

Just pick something that sounds challenging to you! You will learn a lot about what the scene considers challenging/interesting as you go. You can always update the goal.

> how to go about making it happening

Research. Start with stupid questions about the parts that are initially apparent. Keep a list of things that you don't know how to even begin to tackle, and over time, deep dive into items on the list. You will find that the resources/tricks/approaches you have grows as you go.

> and that they can make it happen?

You just have to really, really believe in yourself and in what you're trying to do. If you keep your health, that is all you really need.
by jmkr | 2025-04-28 04:53:54+00:00
A midi sequencer, which does or is supposed to do what you expect.

In the process of adding stuff like euclydian sequences, and trying to figure out how to generate melodies. Been considering using something like a simple markov probability from a bunch of jazz standards, but also starting to read more music theory behind it.

It's a programming project but it's directly related to me trying to figure out music. So not a random sequence of notes in scale or not. The idea is more to generate backing tracks or song starters.
by seszett | 2025-04-28 04:55:49+00:00
There are several different things here.

One, in some of the countries I know (with universal healthcare and no centralised records) you don't go to a random doctor. You have a declared family doctor and you have to go to them unless they are unavailable, in which case the other doctor you go to has to declare that you couldn't go to your doctor. It's a small hurdle to prevent doctor shopping, but it means people are more likely to always see the same doctor. Specialists are given the relevant information by the family doctor when referring a patient to a specialist, and in most other cases records are not really needed, or the ER will contact whoever to get the information they think they need. It might sound hazardous but in practice it works fine.

Second, some places have centrally-stored records but the access is controlled by the patient. Every access to the record is disclosed to the patient and he has the possibility to revoke access to anyone at any time. That generally goes together with laws that fundamentally oppose any automated access or sharing of these records to third parties.

And third, I don't understand what any of this has to do with who whether healthcare access is universal or not? Universal healthcare without centralised records exists (in France, unless it has changed in recent years, but it at least existed for 60 years or so) and centralised records without universal healthcare could exist (maybe privately managed by insurance companies, since the absence of universal healthcare would indicate a pretty disengaged state).
by Aurornis | 2025-04-28 04:55:51+00:00
> These simplified “one researcher caused an entire field to go astray for decades” explanations are much too pat for me to have any confidence in them.

Anyone who believes that an entire field and decades of researched pivoted entirely around one researcher falsifying data is oversimplifying. The situation was not good, but it’s silly to act like it all came down to this one person and that there wasn’t anything else the industry was using as their basis for allocating research bets.
by jasonshen | 2025-04-28 04:56:04+00:00
With ChatGPT explicitly storing "memory" about the user and access to the history of all chats, that can also change. Not hard to imagine an AI-powered IDE like Cursor understanding that when you reran a prompt or gave it an error message it came to understand that its original result was wrong in some way and that it needs to "learn" to improve its outputs.
by alganet | 2025-04-28 04:56:11+00:00
That is irrelevant.

I can see the "complexity" of the world just as clear as the absolute points of view.

It's a choice. If I recover and see beauty again, it means it was all fine. It wasn't, it will never be.

People who use social triggers must not get away. There will be blood on their hands, and there is nothing that can be done to avoid it or hide it.
by D13Fd | 2025-04-28 04:56:56+00:00
> But yeah, as far as Starfield goes, I heard how barren everything was and decided I should just wait until maybe they make it better in a few years.

That’s the right call IMO. As a huge Bethesda fan, it was a massive let down. Honestly I think it’s not recoverable. They made exploration the core of the game, but the procedural generation makes everything feel samey, repetitive, and pointless. They discarded the environmental storytelling that made their previous games so fun.

I do think modern games can absolutely create incredible open worlds, even with procedural generation. That’s more or less what Valheim is doing, to great effect. Bethesda just fell down on the job.
by gmoque | 2025-04-28 04:57:30+00:00
Coding is another tool, just the same way you buy a piece of furniture online you can also build it yourself, if you have the tools and skills. It's up to you how you want to use your resources (time and money).

Coding is a tool to solve data problems, I've been doing it for close to two decades now and I still find it fulfilling and fun. Many years ago I used to think, I love my job that I would do my job for free ... I was wrong! Others will paid for doing things you find fun, make sure you know your worth.
by steveBK123 | 2025-04-28 04:57:32+00:00
Right this has always been and continues to be the problem with Tesla's solutions. 99% good enough / 1% terrifying is not a good way to travel 10k miles/year. Even 99.99% / 0.01% is insufficient.

One tell - the amount of FSD guys that will quietly admit, if you ask, that their wife won't let them use it when she is in the car :-). Certainly my wife felt that way about AP/EAP in all its variations.

Women have a higher bar for technology, in that they expect it to actually work, not just be a neat idea.
by Boldened15 | 2025-04-28 04:59:01+00:00
Don’t 2FA apps have the major downside that if you lose the specific mobile device you installed it on you’re SOL, unless you have backup codes that are too technical for most. SMS gets you more human support since you pay your carrier, I can walk into my nearest teleco branch with my ID if I lose my phone and change the SIM to another phone. So most of the time unless your SIM is hijacked it’s a good proxy for being actually you.

Plus having to download another app adds friction to the signup process and most users aren’t going to bother, so for most it’s SMS 2FA or nothing. Since apps often want your phone number anyway for bot prevention, and users are used to verification codes, it’s not a big deal.

Also a tail end of other issues with 2FA apps (and SMS 2FA predates the nice ones anyway); in other countries there are devices other than iOS/Android to suggest an authenticator app for, limited network speeds and device storage, etc. Heck, I know people in the U.S. with full device storage who can’t download new apps without deleting some stuff. If you’re a random app and not a tech company SMS 2FA is just going to be much easier to implement.
by bradly | 2025-04-28 04:59:49+00:00
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Mortality is so hot right now so why not celebrate with a custom urn to enjoy your journey into the spirit world in style.
by Agentlien | 2025-04-28 05:01:24+00:00
My experience is very similar but I will say that - as someone whose work is primarily in graphics and performance - that a lot of the math and theory has been really useful. The fawning over functional programming and formal proofs less so.

The biggest surprise when I got into the industry was how incredibly much necessary practical knowledge was not even hinted at in my education. Mainly related to actual tooling and processes required for large professional settings - not toy projects for five students doing something for a few weeks.
Ask HN: How do you get into systems programming
by otherayden | 2025-04-28 05:01:33+00:00
Hi all!

I'm looking for recommendations on where to start with learning systems programming. Ideally, I'd like to be able to get to a point where I can make a living doing it, but currently I just want to do fun stuff to build up curiosity around it.

Here's all of the "low-level" stuff that I know so far / imagine being useful. I... - Have enough of an understanding of networking to write a toy HTTP server on top of TCP - Know enough C to write some basic terminal tools + window applications if needed (on Linux) - Love terminal tools like neovim + several core utils - Have dabbled with Arduino/ESP32 & communicating via USB over the serial port with a host pc - Am pretty decent with Python, and have been using it for like 10 years

Some things that I've been curious about in the past - Converting parts of python libraries from pure python to C/C++ bindings for better performance - Writing a terminal based file manager to work with Google Chrome - Actually contributing to chromium (my laptop is a potato though so all of my builds fail)

About me: I'm in my junior year of uni studying CS, and I've been able to make money doing web dev for the past 2 years of my degree. For many reasons including curiosity and the fact that AI makes me feel replaceable doing many frontend + backend tasks, though I'm very curious about getting into lower level programming.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!