MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by gmuslera | 2025-04-29 22:47:43+00:00
The difference between science fiction and fantasy is feeling that it might become possible somewhat, or that it is consistent. In present world our culture has advanced enough to rule out or at least make it too complex things like FTL or time travel, and our current civilization struggles don't put in a good way long term perspectives.

Somewhat aliens are not the saviors anymore, it is complex to impossible to travel, and worse, colonize, anywhere else in the universe, and the bringer of doom is already here, now, and it is us.

What is left? Going virtual and living in a digital world? Lena ( https://qntm.org/mmacevedo ) ended with that.
by qwerpy | 2025-04-29 22:48:49+00:00
Washington state is going in the other direction: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/wa-legisl...

I'm sure the targeted aspect of that one is applauded by the same side that is unhappy about this tariff.

At least in the tariff case, it's an objective numerical target and probably even achievable by other manufacturers. Ford is only 5% away from the target for some of its models.
by viraptor | 2025-04-29 22:48:50+00:00
It's not just the idea in isolation though. I don't think anyone would complain much if the rule was "in N mths the threshold is X". Everyone could do the necessary adjustments and play by the same rules. But if the rule applies immediately, favours the guy who gave you millions, and impacts the competition financially where they need to make me investments to comply with the rules... yeah, that stinks even if it looks like a generic rule.
by gjsman-1000 | 2025-04-29 22:49:06+00:00
You're exaggerating to try to make a point, but I'm not convinced.

You're saying that it could have been much worse if the mob had gotten into Congress, followed by if the mob had offed Democrats, followed by if the Republicans then rubber stamped it and didn't have their own objections, followed by if the Supreme Court was also killed or if the Supreme Court chose to take no action and if the states involved like California also decided to go along with everything and if the military leadership also had no objections assuming of course that no republicans or Trump himself died at any point through the process.

That's so implausible to chain it all together, I might as well make a similar case for a group of guys with bombs in their cars.
by pedalpete | 2025-04-29 22:49:38+00:00
I shouldn't be surprised by the number of comments of people saying "I'm going to uninstall Duolingo immediately", but I am.

AI is increasing our productivity just as the loom did back in the early 1800s. So are HN members now the luddites?

We're both the developers and the destroyers?

Why don't we all just go back to coding on punch cards if we're concerned improved productivity will take our jobs?

We need to look at what we're doing, and what we will be doing in the next 10 or 20 years.

Do we know what that will be? No. But should we get out the pitch forks when a company says "we're going to do more with less people because new technology allows us to do that"?
by zoogeny | 2025-04-29 22:49:47+00:00
This is one of the reasons I like the massive context window in Gemini. You can do this as part of the message chain. I don't try to one shot it, just use the same idea across 3 messages.

1. Figure out a plan (it responds with the plan)

2. Point out flaws in the plan (it responds with the flaws)

3. Update the plan to address the flaws (it responds with an up to date plan)

The other things I tend to ask are "what might we be missing?", "what are the [performance|security|legal|cost] considerations?". I can often iterate on the "anything else?" kind of nudging prompts, especially guiding it on topics to consider, for a few messages. After each: update the plan to take those into consideration.
by cosmicgadget | 2025-04-29 22:49:52+00:00
While I agree with the sentiment that he is not backing down from a lot of his batshit promises, let's not forget that he made a lot of promises. The Russian invasion didn't end on day 1 or day 100 and he decided to only strongarm one side - iirc he said he would threaten Ukraine with withdrawing support and threaten Russia with giving obscene amounts of support to Ukraine.
by socalgal2 | 2025-04-29 22:51:13+00:00
My biggest issue with most scifi now-a-days is it ignores the acceleration of tech. Of course there's "Accelerando" and "Marooned in Realtime" but lots of scifi has "race/society X has been doing Y for 1000s of years" and now I immediately tune out because no society is going to remain static enough to do Y for thousands of years unless there is some premise in the book preventing anyone from inventing anything new.

"Tales of Alvin Maker" had that. "Dune" did too but I didn't buy Dune's excuse because militaries always want new tech.

This is also one of the many reasons why I can't buy into Star Wars anymore because a society that can make droids can make droids that make droids which means they have the means make everything cheap and abundant. That they don't is just bad writing. The writers didn't think through the implications of their world building. Of course I get that Star Wars isn't hard sci-fi. It's fantasy sci-fi, hence we have droids that scream and get tortured ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

On the other hand, my first ride in a Waymo reminded me of the optimisim I used to feel about the future like when the Jetsons promised us moving sidewalks, flying cars, robot maids, etc..
by femiagbabiaka | 2025-04-29 22:51:20+00:00
This seems like self-perpetuating dysfunction. If people knew that the government would eventually meet everyone's needs, then it would be more sensible to not have to meet everyone's needs right away. But as it is, we build nothing, which meets nobodies needs, and creates a kind of zero-sum game of thrones for anything that has the potential to be built.
by Rapzid | 2025-04-29 22:52:13+00:00
I would be surprised if Ford does anything drastic with their supply chain. Probably just wait this out. POTUS is going to be stripped of this ridiculous tariff "power" one way or another.

* Bogus emergency is up for review

* Congress discussing stripping power

* Constitutionality in question

* Public going to to bury them in the midterms if this keeps up
by AIPedant | 2025-04-29 22:52:13+00:00
It would also cost more power to construct than humanity is currently capable of generating in 10,000 years, so I am not sure what your point is.

Presumably a 5% functional Dyson sphere would be a corrupt boondoggle in the same way as a power plant which is down for maintenance 95% of the year, but the financial calculation would use much larger numerators and denominators than we are used to.
by woah | 2025-04-29 22:52:15+00:00
You're so wedded to your overly simplistic and conspiratorial worldview that everything is a secret plan by "the elites", that now you've had to invent a new conspiracy about how they all had a secret plan to lose themselves billions of dollars.

Sometimes a stupid guy gets elected by low-information voters, and enacts stupid policies that crash the economy. There isn't any secret illuminati meeting where they can tell him to stop.
by ivape | 2025-04-29 22:52:45+00:00
Is Citizen's United the only thing that allowed one person to donate $150 million? This is the obvious flaw. We would need a RICO type framework to identify the basket of vectors that one person/organization can use to funnel money to a candidate. This is a bipartisan issue but I don't know how we can surface the narrative so more people can talk about it.
by LorenPechtel | 2025-04-29 22:53:03+00:00
Challenger wasn't really about cutting safety margins, but about kicking the can on a known problem: blowby in the motor joints. It was a gut feeling by the engineers that the problem was related to temperature, but there was enough of a random element to it that there was nothing specific to point to.

That should have been enough to scrub anyway, but there was clearly political pressure to launch.

I do agree that they need to specifically design anti-fragile.
by yencabulator | 2025-04-29 22:53:19+00:00
I think it's pretty random. qwen3:4b got it correct once, on re-run it told me the coin is actually behind the mirror, and then did this brilliant maneuver:

- The question is **not** asking for the location of the coin, but its **identity**. - The coin is simply a **coin**, and the trick is in the riddle's wording. --- ### Final Answer: $$ \boxed{coin} $$
by tim333 | 2025-04-29 22:53:40+00:00
It's hard to label Trump a free market ideologue. He's more Mr tarrif man.

If you want free markets look more to Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore (#1 on the "Index of Economic Freedom").

One of the virtues of proper free markets is the markets largely figure which companies win in a relatively non corrupt way, rather than politicians leaning on the scales.
by snowwrestler | 2025-04-29 22:54:15+00:00
Optimistic science fiction shows humanity applying unique ingenuity to solve tough problems. Our lived reality today is that we already know the technical solutions to many tough problems (hunger, homelessness, many diseases, overpopulation, climate change, war) but simply refuse to apply them. Of course people don’t believe optimistic sci-fi anymore.

Star Trek the original series is usually taken as an example of optimistic sci-fi. It’s set in a faster-than-light space ship, so it’s science fiction. But the optimism came primarily from the back story: having solved our problems on Earth, and created a peaceful society of plenty, humanity turned its thoughtful minds to exploring the stars.

Does that seem like the track we are on?

Science fiction, to be optimistic today, needs to show how our society gets from here to there. Social progress was taken for granted in the latter 20th century. It’s not anymore. Something is stopping us, something beyond science and engineering. In fact whatever it is, is driving us to actively attack and destroy the science and engineering we have already developed.

A better future is going to take something else: culture, or society, or kindness, or empathy. It will take choice, and effort, not antimatter and phasers.
by brudgers | 2025-04-29 22:54:18+00:00
If you are looking for a job, looking for a job is the simplest thing that might work.

It also involves the most work and involves the most risk of rejection…things we are often wired to avoid.

You have to get way down the road before failing a Leet Code problem is even possible. And six months of grinding on professional networking are much more likely to bear fruit. Both in the short term and in the long term because Leet Code is neither work experience, nor knowing someone.

In addition, there is a tendency to approach Leet Code as “level two fizz-buzz” based on the examples. That’s not how companies are likely to use it. Instead, they test candidate code with “interesting size data” so that “fizzy-buzzy” solutions fall over. Just as they will in production.

Maybe that’s not you…but if Leet Code problems don’t look like what you do daily at work or something you struggled against in a class that used “interesting size data” grinding may not get you anywhere. Except avoiding the rejection and networking of a job search. Good luck.
by k310 | 2025-04-29 22:54:59+00:00
This administration is (except for atrocities and depredations to citizens) a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Just a game of threats and feints to show off big (magnified by media) swinging magic twangers.

This is not a government but a personal game of revenge, grift and autocracy. Should there be any logic, it's broken, and seems to follow a fascist agenda "masterminded" by one S.M. following the pattern set by someone in the 30's.

Do not expect any logic, except for revenge, grift and autocracy. I say this as a veteran and lifelong engineer. Now, even the veneer of rationality is gone.
How to Register a U.S. Business Remotely (Even If You're Overseas)
by thebaxiq | 2025-04-29 22:55:08+00:00
If you're a founder outside the U.S. but want to tap into its massive startup ecosystem, here's a practical guide to registering your U.S. business—without ever stepping foot in the States. Why This Matters The U.S. is still the world’s most attractive market for launching and scaling startups—thanks to better access to funding, legal protections, and massive consumer potential. And now, you can set up your company from anywhere. What You’ll Need (and How to Do It) Choose a Structure: Most non-residents go with an LLC or C-Corp.

Pick a State: Delaware and Wyoming are top picks for tax and regulatory reasons.

File Your Company: You’ll need a U.S. registered agent, and file articles of incorporation.

Get an EIN: This is your company’s tax ID. You can apply online through the IRS.

Open a U.S. Bank Account: Look into fintech platforms that allow remote setup.

Build Business Credit: Use Net 30 vendor accounts that report to business credit bureaus.

Tools That Help Baxiq offers a full-service startup toolkit—from incorporation and legal support to pitch decks and branding.

Red Spectrum helps you build business credit fast, especially if you don’t want to rely on your personal credit.

Bonus: What the Data Says 5.5 million new U.S. businesses were registered in 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau)—many by international founders. Legal + financial infrastructure is becoming more remote-friendly. TL;DR You don’t need to be in the U.S. to start a U.S. business. With the right tools, EIN, bank account, and credit-building strategies, it’s fully possible—and increasingly common.
by DAGdug | 2025-04-29 22:57:18+00:00
They search space for criteria is practically limitless. They have and would absolutely fish for precisely the criteria benefiting Musk. This playbook has been applied well by the crony capitalist class in the 3rd world, and is always a moving target. Most players know that and will not chase the moving target, knowing that another set of rules will emerge that will create new hurdles protecting the crony capitalist. A few will, and get burned.

There are two reasons to believe this is applicable here: 1. Trump has a track record of quid pro quos (Adelson being a salient example). Musk is definitely seeking his pound of flesh 2. Lutnick urged people to buy Tesla (shocking and explicit favoritism) The view that this is just incentivizing local production is naive.
by ben_w | 2025-04-29 22:58:07+00:00
You may be interested in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where, due to a terrible miscalculation of scale, an entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog. The planet on which the dog was located then exploded, but not due to the battle fleet, instead it was because some people didn't want the planet to provide the right question to an answer they already had, but they didn't realise they didn't need to owing to the accidental interference of a dead species that had sent away all their telephone sanitisers before being wiped out in a pandemic caused by a dirty telephone.
by gcanyon | 2025-04-29 22:58:11+00:00
There is a science fiction story, I don’t remember who wrote it or the title, where humanity discovers a way to modify the speed of light within a region. Excited, they work incredibly hard to implement the technology, only to discover they can only make it slower.

Maybe it was jumping to a parallel universe to travel and then jumping back. But the same issue: the limit was lower.
by philipkglass | 2025-04-29 22:58:58+00:00
The remaining 11% of 5% would need about 8 seconds to generate more energy than humanity currently generates in 10,000 years.

Luminosity of the sun: ~380 yottawatts (3.8 * 10^26 watts)

Sunlight conversion efficiency of a silicon based solar panel: ~20%

A Dyson swarm around the sun built with silicon solar panels: ~76 yottawatts

A Dyson swarm around the sun where 5% of the panels work: ~3.8 yottawatts

The leftovers from a Dyson swarm around the sun where 5% of the panels work and 89% of the output has been used for interplanetary yachts: ~418 zetawatts (4.18 * 10^23 watts)

Primary power production on Earth: ~20 terawatts (2 * 10^13 watts)

10000 years times 20 terawatts is 10000 * 365.25 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 10^12 = 3.16 * 10^24 joules

Since a joule is just a watt-second, it takes 7.6 seconds for that 418 zetawatts of leftover Dyson swarm output to match up to 10,000 years of current human energy consumption.
by LorenPechtel | 2025-04-29 22:58:58+00:00
The post you are replying to is not talking about the Covid deaths, but rather about the deaths from other causes triggered by the Covid disruptions. When a trauma case dies of the lack of a ventilator because they're all in use on Covid patients. When the trauma case bleeds out at the scene because the ambulance is running a Covid patient to the hospital.

And a lot of people thinking it was an overreaction proves nothing. People don't get a vote on reality.
by Calwestjobs | 2025-04-29 22:59:45+00:00
actually materials may be not a problem, - 40% of all transport is for transporting of fossil fuels !

so after we lower amount of fossil fuels mined, transported, refined, we can start focusing on working with other materials or start using freed workforce/manufacturing capacity for other kinds of terraforming activities.

AI - how many connections in human brain? google says 100 trillion, how many transistors in one NVIDIA Blackwell GPU - 200 billion. so you need just 500 GPUs to have number of connections as brain does. those are transistors only for connections, you need much more transistors for processing which is connected thru said connections, so does one datacenter holds one brain worth of biological level processing already ?
by inftech | 2025-04-29 22:59:59+00:00
I didn't read the article so I don't know what they are saying nor what data they are using to support their points but I think this is just a bif lie.

They are saying AI is not replacing jobs but every week we get news about companies cutting hundreds or thousands of jobs and replacing these jobs with AI, and other news about companies halting hiring because of AI, so how AI is not replacing jobs?

And then markets are flooded with new unemployed workers replaced by AI, and it's is well known inside the Economics and by common folks too that when markets have abundant labor wages go down. So how AI is not hurting wages?
by hoc | 2025-04-29 23:00:24+00:00
Well, it seems it uses the word "research" quite a lot for what it's doing (first paragraph and last one with "deep research") but does choose some artificially constructed one as the result.

Personally I had similar results when searching for known terms for certain concepts that I didn't know the name for. And usually I had to guide the process to find the actual expression used in the domain (it usually made up a lot of fancy and well-fitted names itself). And sometimes it helped to gonback and change the query. Harder if you have to wait that long, though :)

So.. I guess I would trust its process (mentioning "research" a lot) more than its chosen result :) Not sure if it you wanted it to be a synthesizer or rather an assistant. I'd go with what is closer to your intention or what you think it resulted in in the end.

An interesting observation might be that guiding that (I don't dare to say it, but anyway) research process might still be an important part and the network's self-evaluation might not be as good as one would need it to be at this point in time. I'd guess it's about adding ones personal judgement early to not end up at the wrong spot after a long processing time. Then again you are using a certain selection of simple and more complex models, so I can't say if there might be a way to have that kind of harsher judgement that one would apply oneself emulated in the proces and what side effects might come form that choice of models you made.

In the end I was just surprised by the number of picky replies your post got, so I just thought that you discussing the perfect description with the LLM might make be a fun solution. Personally I am a big fan of interactively talking to LLMs at the moment though, so I might be the wrong guy to know your intended audience and use case enough. Just couldn't see how using the term "research" would be the problem.
by yongjik | 2025-04-29 23:00:28+00:00
I was thinking about buying an EV in the next several years, but I'll never buy a Tesla, until I see Elon Musk in prison. And I don't think I'm alone.

Major effect of Trump's trade war is yet to be felt. I think Americans' perception of Trump will get much worse soon, and Tesla's brand image will follow suit. A tariff exemption is cute but I don't think that's enough to save Tesla.
by godelski | 2025-04-29 23:00:35+00:00
> I can’t help but notice the government policy of sponsoring mass PhDs in the hope of raising a knowledge based society is itself changing the definition of knowledge here.

Honestly, I think more PhDs and "deep thinkers" does provide a net benefit to society. I actually wish we would scale it more. But I also think we often step on our own feet while doing this. In an effort to be "efficient" we create perverse incentives and it's clear that how we have things structured that people are more willing to pursue metric maximization than maximize a metric's intent[0].

If anything, I'm of the belief that you abandon the notion of efficiency as with governments, returns on investments can be long term (much longer than for a company). In general, people pursuing high levels of academia (or adjacent domains like research labs), are naturally interested in things that are pushing the bounds of our knowledge. We have a really bad track record at per-determining what is impactful and not. If anything, we're pretty good at rejecting things that have high impact (paradigm shifts). Frankly I'm aware of little to no fields that do not result in practical utility in the long run. There's plenty of math research that was long thought to be of no practical importance but did end up greatly influencing other domains

Research is expensive, but certainly we have the money for it. And frankly, a huge chunk in that cost is the administration. Which a large portion of that comes down to the measuring and determination. I wouldn't argue to distribute funds without question, but I'd wager that the amount we spend to ensure research funds are spent effectively is greater that the funds we would lost/spend ineffectively were we to perform significantly less administration.

[0] https://talyarkoni.org/blog/2018/10/02/no-its-not-the-incent...
by Aurornis | 2025-04-29 23:01:14+00:00
> where people say they're targeting specific companies and comments say "no, the rules are such than all companies over a certain size are covered".

The rules are written with full knowledge of the current market situation and the understanding that companies can't re-engineer their supply chains overnight.

The rule-writers had full knowledge about which companies would and would not immediately benefit from this rule. They wrote it accordingly.

This doesn't compare to the EU rulemaking discussion for that reason. If the EU rules were written so that only a single company was hit by the rule, people would be saying the same thing.
by nostrademons | 2025-04-29 23:01:44+00:00
Not under the Peninsula.

(The part of BART that extends through the Peninsula runs aboveground from Daly City to Millbrae. For that matter, the part of BART that runs through the East Bay goes along the former Western Pacific right-of-way, aboveground. And the Transbay Tube was constructed with the "immersed tube" technique, built on land, towed out to sea, and submerged. Where BART runs underground and was built with TBMs, it's usually in bedrock under the cities of SF and Oakland.)
by trilobyte | 2025-04-29 23:02:27+00:00
What do you do if it ruins your life on the way to getting your day in court? If you get fired, your employer won't be forced to rehire you, and they are likely protected from any retaliation against you because they were acting in good faith. You aren't going to sue in civil court and get financial restitution from an underage kid or someone with no assets worth seizing. You still lose in either case.