MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by ajross | 2025-04-10 20:44:35+00:00
Sure, but say it is: you assume a long-term trade barrier with China, invest in US factories and employee training, bring folks in from outside, start your production, get some competitive wins in the domestic (but obviously not international!) electronics market...

Then some future administration decides on detent and signs a free trade agreement to open markets or whatnot, yada yada. China marches right in and eats your lunch. Again.

Trade barriers do not do anything to address fundamental inequities in production efficiency. To be blunt: China is great at making electronics not because they have all the talent. They have all the talent because China is poor, still. The US is not (though it looks like we're aiming that way). Ergo Chinese production efficiency will be higher.

What trade barriers with China actually do isn't to bring manufacturing back to the US, of course. It's to move production from China to Vietnam or the Philippines or India or wherever isn't tariffed. Then of course we'll need to apply tariffs to them, and so on.
by devonnull | 2025-04-10 20:44:38+00:00
I'm ambivalent. My employer issued me with a touch screen laptop and I rarely touch the screen. So much so that I forget that the screen is touch sensitive.

It does get a bit annoying on those occasions when I try to wipe a bit of dust of something off the screen and accidentally hit the button to leave a meeting or close a window. That doesn't happen too often, though.
by kstrauser | 2025-04-10 20:45:07+00:00
Most excellent! I love f-strings and replaced all the various other string interpolation instances in my code with them, but they have the significant issue that you can't defer evaluating them. For instance, you can write:

>>> template = 'Hello, {name}' >>> template.format(name='Bob') 'Hello, Bob'

Until this, there wasn't a way to use f-strings formatting without interpolating the results at that moment:

>>> template = f'Hello, {name}' Traceback (most recent call last): File "<python-input-5>", line 1, in <module> template = f'Hello, {name}' ^^^^ NameError: name 'name' is not defined

It was annoying being able to use f-strings almost everywhere, but str.format in enough odd corners that you have to put up with it.
by mgce | 2025-04-10 20:45:54+00:00
> The most frustrating part of Bazel is how shoddy the workmanship is.

Without commenting on the above statement:

> For example, Bazel throws away your analysis cache when you change flags that have nothing to do with what's being built or how, like flags that change what tests are run.

I don't think this is a good example. Bazel's analysis cache clearing is to preserve correctness in the context of a legitimately algorithmically difficult problem. The fact Bazel has this limitation is a testament toward its correctness strengths. I'm not aware of systems that have solved that algorithmic problem but curious if anyone knows any.

Also Bazel avoids that problem for most "flags that change which tests are run", since that subset of the problem is more solvable. --test_env was a notable exception, which was fixed (https://github.com/fmeum/bazel/commit/eb494194c1c466f7fd7355...) but not sure if it's in the latest Bazel release yet? But generally changing --test* has much smaller performance impact.
by lukev | 2025-04-10 20:46:29+00:00
Ah, cool, didn't read close enough.

Yeah, I do think that LLMs acting as compilers for super high-level specs (the new "code") is a much better approach than chatting with a bot to try to get the right code written. LLM-derived code should not be "peer" to human-written code IMO; it should exist at some subordinate level.

The fact that they're non-deterministic makes it a bit different from a traditional compiler but as you say, caching a "known good" artifact could work.
by Paddywack | 2025-04-10 20:46:33+00:00
I may write a post. A lot of the effort was removing weight without killing the aesthetics. It has been an awesome outlet for creativity and fiddling. I have built everything myself, with input from tradies - everyone just loves helping. Maintanance I leave to the mechanics.

So far it has (a) back bench converted into sleeper area (b) slushie machines, foam machine, beer keg pourer, slide out bbq (c) built a roof that you can sleep in. (D) roof lifts with linear actuators to expose dj lights/smoke machine in the centre (e) plumbing / electrics etc so we can use off-grid.

It has heaps of storage space and is super fun and easy to drive!
by 827a | 2025-04-10 20:47:03+00:00
For sure; we don't have a way of comparing the architectural substrate of human intelligence versus LLM intelligence. We don't even have a way of comparing the architectural substrate of one human brain with another.

Here's my broad concern: On the one hand, we have an AI thought leader (Sam Altman) who defines super-intelligence as surpassing human intelligence at all measurable tasks. I don't believe it is controversial to say that we've established that the goal of LLM intelligence is something along these lines: it exists on the spectrum of human intelligence, its trained on human intelligence, and we want it to surpass human intelligence, on that spectrum.

On the other hand: we don't know how the statistical model of human intelligence works, at any level at all which would enable reproduction or comparison, and there's really good reason to believe that the human intelligence statistical model is vastly superior to the LLM model. The argument for this lies in my previous comment: the vast majority of contribution of intelligence advances in LLM intelligence comes from increasing the volume of training data. Some intelligence likely comes from statistical modeling breakthroughs since the transformer, but by and large its from training data. On the other hand: Comparatively speaking, the most intelligent humans are not more intelligent because they've been alive for longer and thus had access to more sensory data. Some minor level of intelligence comes from the quality of your sensory data (studying, reading, education). But the vast majority of intelligence difference between humans is inexplicable; Einstein was just Born Smarter; God granted him a unique and better statistical model.

This points to the undeniable reality that, at the very least, the statistical model of the human brain and that of an LLM is very different, which should cause you to raise eyebrows at Sam Altman's statement that superintelligence will evolve along the spectrum of human intelligence. It might, but its like arguing that the app you're building is going to be the highest quality and fastest MacOS app ever built, and you're building it using WPF and compiling it for x86 to run on WINE and Rosetta. GPT isn't human intelligence; at best, it might be emulating, extremely poorly and inefficiently, some parts of human intelligence. But, they didn't get the statistical model right, and without that its like forcing a square peg into a round hole.
by mre | 2025-04-10 20:47:39+00:00
It's true that he no longer steers the project, but his first version shaped the internet as we use it today. At least one could how a modern version of a similar idea would look like. What has changed since then? Which issues should be fixed? You might end up with Deno or perhaps WebAssembly or something else entirely, but it definitely helps to know the people behind the tools we use every day.
by prennert | 2025-04-10 20:47:48+00:00
In their terms [0], Cloudflare says

2.2.1 Restrictions

Unless otherwise expressly permitted in writing by Cloudflare, you will not and you have no right to:

(i) use the Services to store or transmit any “protected health information” as that term is defined in 45 C.F.R. 160.103 without Cloudflare’s written consent;

We plan to process PHI data, so I need written permission. It turns out that I need an enterprise license (it took a long time to get to that realisation, because it is not documented, and ticket lead times even with a business account are weeks). The catch is, you cannot just upgrade to enterprise, you need to talk to someone.

[0]: https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/terms/
by senko | 2025-04-10 20:47:53+00:00
Many libraries with the same approach suffer the same flaw: can't easily use the same function with different LLMs at runtime (ie. after importing the module where it is defined).

I initially used the same approach in my library, but changed it to explicitly pass the llm object around and in actual production code it's easier/more flexible to use.

Examples (2nd one also with docstring-based llm query and structured answer): https://github.com/senko/think?tab=readme-ov-file#examples
by sherdil2022 | 2025-04-10 20:48:30+00:00
Before the likes of Polyfjord, we had MusAnim - https://www.musanim.com/

https://www.musanim.com/watch_mam.html has the link to their YouTube channel and https://www.musanim.com/Background/ has more information as well as https://www.musanim.com/Method/ and https://www.musanim.com/ProductionNotes/synchronization.html

Enjoy!
by linuxftw | 2025-04-10 20:48:51+00:00
Here's the tension I find with projects like these: App developer knowledge seems to end with a helm chart. Anything more complex than that, they won't be able to deliver themselves. For platform/k8s admins, these tools are more cumbersome than just writing a dedicated operator in go.

What advantages does this offer over rolling my own CRD and operator? Assume it takes me 4 hours to write an operator end to end.
by cogman10 | 2025-04-10 20:49:57+00:00
Gotta be REAL careful about how you signal things if your intent is ultimately to take over a market. Telling manufacturers you intend to isolate could leak out and ultimately trigger pre-emptive tariffs.

Honestly, just subsidizing is a lot simpler to do and it doesn't run the risk of making the world mad at you or triggering retaliatory tariffs.
by kayge | 2025-04-10 20:50:19+00:00
I'm going to guess it was something along the lines of this [0]... wow now I kind of want to buy one of their larger versions for the back of my car to remind tailgaters "Yes I CAN go even slower" when I'm already going 5-10mph over the speed limit

[0] https://amzn.to/3GiMXaA
by surgical_fire | 2025-04-10 20:50:58+00:00
> what you're describing sounds like a centrally planned communist / state-directed economy or something. Is that really the way forward?

What they are describing is basically what every sane government does, and what the US used to do until, er, a few months ago.

If you consider most western countries to be centrally planned communist states (including the US up until very recently), then I don't have anything else to argue.
by _mlbt | 2025-04-10 20:51:03+00:00
We don’t have to guess or interpret the founders intentions on this. There are several quotes from them that affirm this as being intended as an individual right from the very beginning of our founding…

“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” -Thomas Jefferson

“The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition.” -James Madison

“The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.” -Alexander Hamilton

https://quotesanity.com/quotes-from-founding-fathers-of-the-...
by MetaWhirledPeas | 2025-04-10 20:51:52+00:00
> I wouldn't put too much stock in this. Asimov was a fantasy writer telling fictional stories about the future.

Why not? Who is this technology expert with flawless predictions? Talking about the future is inherently an exercise of the imagination, which is also what fiction writing is.

And nothing he's saying here contradicts our observations of AI up to this point. AI artwork has gotten good at copying the styles of humans, but it hasn't created any new styles that are at all compelling. So leave that to the humans. The same with writing; AI does a good job at mimicking existing writing styles, but has yet to demonstrate the ability to write anything that dazzles us with its originality. So his prediction is exactly right: AI does work that is really an insult to the complex human brain.
by levodelellis | 2025-04-10 20:52:38+00:00
Please gcc, let me have a `~/.config/gcc` config file or an ENV variable so I can ask for single lined error messages.

I literally do not need ascii art to point to my error, just tell me line:col and a unique looking error message so I can spend no more than 1 second understanding what went wrong

Also allow me to extend requires with my own error messages. I know it'll be non standard but it would be very nice tyvm
by ty6853 | 2025-04-10 20:55:10+00:00
Guy folded like a tent in 90 minutes and gave up his contacts. Attorneys talk a big game about remaining silent, but in the end can't even stand up to a 90 minute intimidation session.

I've been through the wringer including shackled, strip searched, locked up with crazy Mexicans, cbp tell me lies until their face turns blue about revoking passports or not being let through into your own country. Don't be like this guy, they will usually give up after locking you up for a day or so.
by cogman10 | 2025-04-10 20:55:50+00:00
I dislike this sort of binary thinking. It's why we are having the problems we have.

Just because some industry gets subsidized and/or ran by the government, doesn't mean we are now all communists. Every government has SOME industry that is ultimately state ran. Fire departments, police, and education are prime examples of nearly universally state ran systems.

There are some industries that just, frankly, work better when state directed, not all of them, but a few. Private fire departments don't work, neither do private police departments.

This is not nor has it ever been an all or nothing thing.
by ameliaquining | 2025-04-10 20:55:51+00:00
The most immediately obvious answer to that question, shared by Stephenson himself, is that the essay quickly failed the test of time because it did not anticipate Mac OS X, which breaks the dichotomy of user-friendly-but-anemic Classic Mac OS vs. powerful-but-forbidding Unix.

(I personally still don't really like Apple systems and don't use them, but I think it's clear that by the standards of the time OS X squared this circle.)
by pmags | 2025-04-10 20:56:14+00:00
To be clear -- the attorney is a US Citizen who was returning from a trip outside of the US.

Border agents pressured Makled to hand over his cell phone. He refused. After more than 90 minutes of back-and-forth, he eventually showed agents his contacts list. He was eventually released. Makled says he was never given a reason for his detainment.

However, one of his current clients is a student who has been charged in connection to a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Michigan.
by robertkluin | 2025-04-10 20:56:28+00:00
I wrote the core engine behind this and your comment made me laugh pretty hard because I agree. I debated a lot about the best syntax and we experimented with various alternatives approaches. The core engine actually isn't YAML centric at all, in fact it doesn't use YAML—it is just data structures in and out.

We wound up exposing this as YAML purely because there's a lot of tooling out there for dealing with YAML. I am not sure if that's a good reason or not.... Writing the language server was quite nasty because of that choice! Our hope was that the language server and structural type checking (which is very simplistic at the moment) and testing framework can make it feel more like a real language and less YAMLy.
by spudlyo | 2025-04-10 20:56:37+00:00
This is a long essay, and here is my pitch as to why you should read the whole thing if you have any interest in subjects like C programming, binary formats, kernel modules, or assembler.

Breadbox, the author, wants to make smaller binary executables. He explains about ELF binaries, a.out binaries, old MSDOS .COM binaries, and how the later had no metadata, and could be very small. He then explains how you can dynamically load code that deals with new executable binary formats into the Linux kernel, and how this process works. He walks through some sample C for building a "Hello World" kernel module. He then walks you through ~1 page of code for a kernel module that registers a new binary format, sets up some callbacks, and if conditions are right, will vm_mmap() the code into memory and call start_thread() on it.

Yay, it works! He has a tiny binary. This is where most articles would end, but Breadbox goes deeper. What if you want a stack and a heap? What if you want to access argc, argv, and envp? What if you want to append code at the end that automatically calls the exit syscall? All these details are covered, and I think it's glorious.

While this all may seem like pretty dry stuff, there is humor sprinkled throughout, which makes it more fun to read.
by hollerith | 2025-04-10 20:57:30+00:00
You are not alone. I've spent a lot of time over the years configuring Emacs not to split the frame unless I explicit ask for a split with C-x 2 (which I do very rarely). The first 6 ways I found to do it stopped working over the 33 years I've been using Emacs, so now I'm on version 7, which consists of (setq display-buffer-alist '((".*" (display-buffer-same-window)))) plus my own definition of compilation-goto-locus.

If I were a better Emacs citizen, I would lobby the maintainers to fix compilation-goto-locus so that it obeys display-buffer-alist like every other part of Emacs (that I know about, except for the *Completions* buffer, which does not need to be fixed IMHO because the *Completions* window reliably deletes itself when the user aborts or exits the minibuffer).
by robocat | 2025-04-10 20:58:52+00:00
> And cameras can't be permanently installed on the open ocean.

If the camera can self-calibrate against known objects then camera motion can be adjusted for. Could use visible reference points (sun, moon, stars) with clear skies. Stars may be visible by a sensitive camera in daytime with good collimation (bottom of well story https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/star-search/ ). There are also radio sources (GPS satellites) or more SciFi solution of noisy stellar objects??
by wongarsu | 2025-04-10 20:59:06+00:00
It's curious that even when length is a concern they still went with bonneted trucks instead of the cab-over-engine design that dominates Europe because of length and maneuverability considerations.

Compare for example these French forest fire trucks: http://www.sides.fr/en/french-standardised-vehicles/

Or this range of vehicles from a Spanish manufacturer: https://www.iturri.com/en/vehicles/emergencies-and-fire-figh...

Probably another example of path dependence?
by pama | 2025-04-10 20:59:35+00:00
I have more than a dozen special commands for splitting to multiple n*m windows filled with different types of buffers or transposing existing window splits; I occasionally need a split into 4x4 or 5x5 or even more windows to quickly/visually find the shell that logs something of interest to me. It is not neccessary, really, but occasionally helpful. I often switch between 1x3, 2x3, 2x4, or 2x2 layouts that it was worth putting in the time to organize all these splits and then adding some more felt easy and useful. My three different main monitors (home/work/laptop) often require different optimal splits and depending on the focus mode, fonts, or the presense of a browser window I may again need differnet splits. I often find it helpful to have follow mode on a 1x3 setup either a single document to have focus over a larger context. The main reason for all the splits, however, is managing several dozens of shells or code files.
by userbinator | 2025-04-10 21:00:35+00:00
This is a good reminder to add these to your HOSTS file if you don't already have them blocked (which I have done for over 2 decades now):

0.0.0.0 analytics.google.com 0.0.0.0 google-analytics.com 0.0.0.0 ssl.google-analytics.com 0.0.0.0 www.google-analytics.com 0.0.0.0 www.googletagservices.com
by namaria | 2025-04-10 21:00:45+00:00
It's overkill. The models do not capture knowledge about coding. They overfit to the dataset. When one distills data into a useful model the model can be used to predict future behavior of the system.

That is the premise of LLM-as-AI. By training these models on enough data, knowledge of the world is purported as having been captured, creating something useful that can be leveraged to process new input and get a prediction of the trajectory of the system in some phase space.

But this, I argue, is not the case. The models merely overfit to the training data. Hence the variable results perceived by people. When their intentions and prompt fit to the data in the training, the model appears to give good output. But the situation and prompt do not, the models do no "reason" about it and "infer" anything. It fails. It gives you gibberish or go in circles, or worse if there is some "agentic" arrangement if fails to terminate and burns tokens until you intervene.

It's overkill. And I am pointing out it is overkill. It's not a clever system for creating code for any given situation. It overfits to training data set. And your response is to claim that my argument is something else, not that it's overkill but that it can only kill dead things. I never said that. I see it's more than capable of spitting out useful code even if that exact same code is not in the training dataset. But it is just automating the process of going through google, docs and stack overflow and assembling something for you. You might be good at searching and lucky and it is just what you need. You might not be so used to using the right keywords or just be using some uncommon language, or in a domain that happens to not be well represented and then it feels less useful. But instead of just coming up short as search, the model overkills and wastes your time and god knows how much subsidized energy and compute. Lucky you if you're not burning tokens on some agentic monstosity.
by skydhash | 2025-04-10 21:01:25+00:00
> I don't understand this point - we can obviously collect sensory data and use that for training.

Sensory data is not the main issue, but how we interpret them.

In Jacob Bronowski's The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination, IIRC, there's an argument that our eyes are very coarse sensors. Instead they do basic analysis from which the brain can infer the real world around us with other data from other organs. Like Plato's cave, but with much more dimensions.

But we humans came with the same mechanisms that roughly interpret things the same way. So there's some commonality there about the final interpretation.

> Humans learn language by observing other humans use language, not by being taught explicit rules about when to use which word and why.

Words are symbols that refers to things and the relations between them. In the same book, there's a rough explanation for language which describe the three elements that define it: Symbols or terms, the grammar (or the rules for using the symbols), and a dictionary which maps the symbols to things and the rules to interactions in another domain that we already accept as truth.

Maybe we are not taught the rules explicitly, but there's a lot of training done with corrections when we say a sentence incorrectly. We also learn the symbols and the dictionary as we grow and explore.

So LLMs learn the symbols and the rules, but not the whole dictionary. It can use the rules to create correct sentences, and relates some symbols to other, but ultimately there's no dictionary behind it.
by compyman | 2025-04-10 21:01:37+00:00
I guess they are willing to take that risk to fulfil their religious obligations - If you aren't allowed to do business it doesn't really matter if that business is online or in the store.

But I think that if you are familiar with B&H this wouldn't really be a surprise and it's pretty rare that you find yourself unexpectedly needing a new SLR on saturday morning in my experience