MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by deathanatos | 2025-04-29 20:39:32+00:00
So first, let me prefix this by saying I generally don't accept cookies from websites I don't explicitly first allow, my reasoning being "why am I granting disk read/write access to [mostly] shady actors to allow them to track me?"

(I don't think your blog qualifies as shady … but you're not in my allowlist, either.)

So if I visit https://anubis.techaro.lol/ (from the "Anubis" link), I get an infinite anime cat girl refresh loop — which honestly isn't the worst thing ever?

But if I go to https://xeiaso.net/blog/2025/anubis/ and click "To test Anubis, click here." … that one loads just fine.

Neither xeserv.us nor techaro.lol are in my allowlist. Curious that one seems to pass. IDK.

The blog post does have that lovely graph … but I suspect I'll loop around the "no cookie" loop in it, so the infinite cat girls are somewhat expected.

I was working on an extension that would store cookies very ephemerally for the more malicious instances of this, but I think its design would work here too. (In-RAM cookie jar, burns them after, say, 30s. Persisted long enough to load the page.)
by otterley | 2025-04-29 20:39:35+00:00
> Yes; in order for trade secrets to be protected, they have to be secret.

This is not true. See the Uniform Trade Secrets Act for the full text. People who know or have reason to know that the information is a secret are bound by the law, and the definition of "trade secret" does not require that the information never have been disclosed to an unauthorized person.
by jajko | 2025-04-29 20:39:54+00:00
You both are correct. You need tons of protein to gain and maintain that huge muscle mass when you do bodybuilding. 200 ain't even so extreme compared to many, especially in the past.

The idea that such intake will not fuck you up later is naive. Due to all the healthy stuff that you do with and around weightlifting your health state is most probably stellar compared to same you not doing any sport, so you build a 'health margin' or whatever we can call it. But it still fucks you up, just different parts of the body.

Unless thats how you earn money and thus have to do it, I very politely suggest moving down 2 notches in intensity (if its for women they will still adore you, if compensating for some bad childhood stuff this ain't the best solution anyway). Either add more endurance if you feel not doing enough or another sport, more endurance is anyway supremely usable in all aspects of life. But as said that's just a polite suggestion for optimizing for truly long term health.
by NegativeK | 2025-04-29 20:39:59+00:00
I regularly get to hear veterinarian rants. AI is being forced on them by the corporate owners in multiple fronts. The pattern goes:

Why aren’t you using the AI x-ray? Because it too often misdiagnoses things and I have to spend even more time double checking. And I still have to get a radiologist consult.

Why are you frustrated that we swapped out the blood testing thingamabob with an AI machine? Because it takes 10 minutes to do what took me 30 seconds with a microscope and is STILL not doing the full job, despite bringing this up multiple times.

Why aren’t you relying more on the AI text to speech for medical notes? Because the AVMA said that a doctor has to review all notes. I do, and it makes shit up in literally every instance. So I write my own and label the transcription as AI instead of having to spend even more time correcting it.

The best part is that the majority of vets (at least in this city) didn’t do medical notes for pets. Best you’d often get when asking is a list of costs slapped together in the 48 hours they had to respond. Now, they just use the AI notes without correcting them. We’ve gone from zero notes, so at least the next doctor knows to redo everything they need, to medical notes with very frequent significant technical flaws but potentially zero indication that it’s different from a competent doctor’s notes.

This is the wrong direction, and it’s not just new doctors. It’s doctors who are short on time doing what they can with tools that promised what isn’t being delivered. Or doctors being strong armed into using tools by the PE owners who paid for something without checking to see if it’s a good idea. I honestly do believe that AI will get there, but this is a horrible way to do it. It causes harm.
by sangeeth96 | 2025-04-29 20:40:16+00:00
The problem here is the govt/courts here downplay/ignore even the most straightforward RTI public (Right to Info) requests on many of these matters, the pegasus one still ongoing in courts even after all this time. Meta (FB’s) track record on these situations is spotty at best. WhatsApp is pretty much central to everything happening in India, whether for chatting with close ones, running businesses or amplifying political propaganda. IDK what WhatsApp looks like outside India but every govt. org, political party have verified accounts and directly message folks like me using the Biz APIs even though I’ve NEVER given them consent to do so before and AFAIK, there’s ZERO controls from user’s end to stop these.

I’d also have given WhatsApp a fair pass but Meta/Zuck has never shown any concrete proof that they stand by their users and not the ruling govt’s desires.

That along with all these events, quotes from ministry should suffice to have a reasonable assumption to not put trust on these platforms for private messages.
by m463 | 2025-04-29 20:40:21+00:00
> It seems to be super common

I've always wondered if this kind of thing is just embarassing to talk about.

Sort of like admitting "the trunk of my car is full of unresolved stuff" or "my refrigerator is where things go to die"

it's just recently that lots of tabs has become normalized and people talk about it.

Maybe telemetry normalized it ("lots of people use 100's of tabs")
by mnahkies | 2025-04-29 20:40:22+00:00
I think there's a related problem where profiling/measurements can be made poorly and not reflect the real world.

Eg: indexing or partitioning a database table may appear to make things slower if you don't have both a representative amount of data and representative query patterns when you're measuring the change.

You should still measure your changes, but sometimes you need to be careful about measuring them in the right way, and possibly simulating a future context (eg: more scale) before drawing a conclusion.

Intuition about how the context will evolve and what effect that might have on the tradeoffs of different approaches is helpful
by aaronbaugher | 2025-04-29 20:41:01+00:00
True. We've gotten used to searching the web being like this: Type in "how long to cook a frozen 20-pound turkey," scroll past a few ads, and then either spot the direct answer in the blurb of one of the results, or see a promising-looking one and click through.

There's a lot of skimming and scanning that we've come to expect as part of the process in locating a piece of information, and we do it quickly with practice, but that doesn't mean it has to be that way.
by an-unknown | 2025-04-29 20:41:04+00:00
Not sure why people always say it's so hard to build GraalVM ... all you need is roughly 2 prerequisites and one build command. The prerequisites are a "Labs JDK" which is essentially a slightly modified OpenJDK with more up to date JVMCI (the JIT interface used by Graal) and the build tool "mx".

Since you want to build completely from source, you start by installing OpenJDK. Then you clone the Labs JDK repo [0] and build it just like how you would build any other OpenJDK. Once you have the Labs JDK, you don't need the OpenJDK anymore, since that's only necessary to build the Labs JDK. If you use a normal OpenJDK instead of Labs JDK for Graal, the Graal build will most likely tell you something about "too old JVMCI" and fail. Don't do that.

Next you clone mx [1] and graal [2] into some folder and add the mx folder to PATH. You also need Python and Ninja installed, and maybe something else which I can't remember anymore (but you'd quickly figure it out if the build fails). Once you have that, you go to graal/vm and run the relevant "mx build" command. You specify the path to the Labs JDK via the "--java-home" CLI option and you have to decide which components to include by adding them to the build command line. I can't remember what exactly happens with just "mx build" but chances are this only gives you a bare GraalVM without anything else, which means also no SubstrateVM ("native-image"). By adding projects on the command line, you can include whatever languages/features are available. And that's it. After some time (depending on how beefy your computer is), you get the final GraalVM distribution in some folder, with a nice symlink to find it.

It's not exactly documented in a good way, but you can figure it out from the CI scripts which are in the git repos of Graal and Labs JDK. The "mx build" command is where you decide which languages and features to include; if you want to include languages from external repositories, you have to clone them next to the graal and mx folder and add the relevant projects to the mx build command.

[0] https://github.com/graalvm/labs-openjdk

[1] https://github.com/graalvm/mx

[2] https://github.com/oracle/graal
by ChadMoran | 2025-04-29 20:41:18+00:00
Fast Agent has this as a first-class citizen called "Evaluator Optimizer" pattern. Where it in a loop with a defined number of max refinements judge itself and give the output a rating, demanding it improve it's output.

Highly encourage others to check out Fast Agent. It has been delightful to use. It has interactive chat mode which I love and it's really tight and easy to implement.

https://github.com/evalstate/fast-agent
by cvhc | 2025-04-29 20:41:58+00:00
Wow. I love this. As a not very social language learner, I've used LLM to generate everyday conversation for me to practice. This tool streamlines this experience.

I don't think Google will continue the development. It'd be great if someone can create an open-source replica and add some enhancement like history for recap, more scenerio customization, and pre-defined scenerios, etc.

Implementation details from Google blog: https://developers.googleblog.com/en/how-its-made-little-lan...
Ask HN: Better Mutual Trust Online?
by tonymet | 2025-04-29 20:43:13+00:00
How can we improve _mutual_ trust online. Nearly all authentication puts the burden on the customer or client. Customers need to provide credentials, security questions, codes. Provider authentication is very flimsy. Even SSL certs & domains are hardly well maintained. My ~$10000 property tax bill is paid on a random domain with zero authentication that the funds go to my county treasurer.

The consequence is rampant fraud, phishing attacks. Look at the epidemic of IRS, Tolls, Tax, Bill Pay fraud. Scammers pose as billing departments using transient phone numbers. Wire transfer fraud is so common , but when I called my Title company to verify the receiving account, I was told no one ever does that.

My question to Hackernews is : what services should we create to establish true mutual trust? So when you receive a text message from Chase -- you have 100% confidence it is from Chase . When you talk to a customer service rep from Fidelity, you are 100% confident they are with Fidelity.

Phishing countermeasures like personal avatars / icons for your Bank have been used in the past, but none lasted or had widespread appeal. One-time codes could work, but they are clumsy.

What apps or solutions would you like to see to improve mutual authentication?
by teeray | 2025-04-29 20:43:22+00:00
> Imposing rules on developers like the requirement that they use AI for every task, no matter how small, and work through LLMs first instead of writing code feels like an idea that comes from non-developers looking to make a thought leadership splash.

Or trying to write an earnings call headline. The more you mention how much you use AI, the higher your share price climbs!
by scratcheee | 2025-04-29 20:43:52+00:00
And yet their statement makes perfect sense to me.

Caching and lower level calls are generic solutions that work everywhere, but are also generally the last and worst way to optimise (thus why they need such careful analysis since they so often have the opposite effect).

Better is to optimise the algorithms, where actual profiling is a lesser factor. Not a zero factor of course, as a rule of thumb it’s probably still wise to test your improvements, but if you manage to delete an n^2 loop then you really don’t need a profiler to tell you that you’ve made things better.
by octopoc | 2025-04-29 20:43:54+00:00
Allow me to refer you to Chesterton's Fence:

> There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, 'I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away.' To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: 'If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.' [1]

The problem with anti-border extremism is that it ignores the huge success national borders have had since pre-recorded history in building social cohesion, community, and more generally high-trust societies. All those things are precious, they are worth making sacrifices for, they are things small town America has only recently lost, and still remembers, and wants back. Maybe you haven't experienced those things, not like these people you so casually dismiss have.
by bee_rider | 2025-04-29 20:44:26+00:00
Can a business just say “no refunds, even if the device is completely non-functional.”

At least (maybe it varies state by state) Massachusetts has an “implied warranty of merchantability,” the thing has to basically work at least for a little bit.

I mean, if the bolt-holes don’t line up, they didn’t just sell you a bad <thing>, they sold you a random sheet of metal that is not <thing>.
by habinero | 2025-04-29 20:44:32+00:00
Speaking as a software engineer, I'm not at all threatened by it. I like Copilot as fancy autocomplete when I'm bashing out code, but that's the easy part of my job. The hard part is understanding problems and deciding what to build, and LLMs can't do that and will never be able to do that.

What I am annoyed by is having to tell users and management "no, LLMs can't do that" over and over and over and over and over. There's so much overhype and just flat out lying about capabilities and people buy into it and want to give decision making power to the statistics model that's only right by accident. Which: No.

It's a fun toy to play with and it has some limited uses, but fundamentally it's basically another blockchain: a solution in search of a problem. The set of real world problems where you want a lot of human-like writing but don't need it to be accurate is basically just "autocomplete" and "spam".
by SamPatt | 2025-04-29 20:44:35+00:00
Author here, I'm glad to see folks find this interesting.

I encourage everyone to try Geoguessr! I love it.

I'm seeing a lot of comments saying that the fact that the o3 model used web search in 2 of 5 rounds made this unfair, and the results invalid.

To determine if that's true, I re-ran the two rounds where o3 used search, and I've updated the post with the results.

Bottom line: It changed nothing. The guesses were nearly identical. You can verify the GPS coordinates in the post.

Here's an example of why it didn't matter. In the Austria round, check out how the model identifies the city based on the mountain in the background:

https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/sampatt/media@main/posts/2025-04...

It already has so much information that it doesn't need the search.

Would search ever be useful? Of course it would. But in this particular case, it was irrelevant.
by psunavy03 | 2025-04-29 20:45:01+00:00
It's "safer" not to do a lot of things you do in military aviation, for one. And second, the flight path was deliberately plotted out requiring aircrew to maintain certain altitudes and stay within certain lateral boundaries to avoid other traffic. This is no different than any number of corridors like it around the country.

At some point, it's like saying "isn't it 'safer' not to take the freeway because everyone drives so fast?"
by y33t | 2025-04-29 20:45:12+00:00
Personally I love the feature, but I really feel like window managers/desktop environments should be handling window tabs. Imagine your desktop handling all tabs across all programs the same exact way instead of being reimplemented differently for each program. You could window switch to Firefox with alt-tab, add a ctrl- to your key combo and cycle through tabs in that window. Or imagine typing the title of a tab in your desktop's searchbar and being taken directly to it.

At the very least it'd make managing 100+ open tabs more feasible.
by rapjr9 | 2025-04-29 20:45:24+00:00
I've been thinking for years about a safer alternative to chain saws. Something along the lines of a carbide coated wire driven by an electric motor and battery. Strap it to the tree, turn it on, walk away and some minutes later the tree falls down. The main difficulty is in how to drive the wire. Using friction would create fast wearing parts. Maybe a chain could be used instead of a wire. It could oscillate back and forth, instead of having to be wrapped and spliced to form a circle around the tree. It seems really strange that no one has come up with an alternative to chain saws for decades (except for large scale trucks that can process whole trees.) For small trees and branches even a sawz-all is safer than a chain saw. Inspired by spending some time sharing a hospital room with a guy who had a chain saw accident, but I still haven't come up with a workable idea. Maybe someone else can.
by kepler1 | 2025-04-29 20:46:02+00:00
This actually a legit question under the surface.

The problem, in my opinion, is that MZ/CC/AA-D, are feeling that they have to be releasing models of some flavor every month to stay competitive.

And when you have the rest of the company planning to throw you a on-stage party to announce whatever next model, and the venue and guests are paid for, you're gonna have the show whether the content is good or not.

Llama program right now is "we must go faster." But without a clear product direction or niche that they're trying to build towards. Very little is said no to. Just be the best at everything. And they started from behind, how can you think you're gonna catch up to 1-2 year head start, just with more people? The line they want to believe is "the best LLM, not just the best OSS LLM".

Because of the constant pressure to release something every month (nearly, but not a huge exaggeration), and the product direction coming from MZ himself, the team is not really great at anything. There is a huge apparatus of people working on it, yet half of it or more, I believe, is baggage required because of what Meta is.

I guess we'll see how long this can be maintained.
by eszed | 2025-04-29 20:46:36+00:00
> For any of you working in tech at the time, was there a similar gap in perceptions around the Internet back in the days of the dot com bubble?

I wasn't drawing a paycheck from tech at the time, but I was a massive nerd, and from my recollection: Yes, absolutely. Dialup modems were slow, and you only had The Internet on a desktop computer. Websites were ugly (yes, the remaining 1.0 sites are charming, but that's mainly our nostalgia speaking), and frequently broke. It was or could be) expensive: you had to pay for a second phone (land!) line (or else deal with the hassle of coordinating phone calls), and probably an "internet package" from your phone company, or else pay by the minute to connect; and, of course, rural phone providers were slow to adopt any of those avenues of adoption. Commerce, pre-PayPal, was difficult - I remember ordering things online and then mailing a paper check to the address on the invoice!

Above all, we underestimate (especially in fora like this) how few people actually were online. I don't remember exact numbers at any particular times, but I remember being astonished a few times - the 'net was so ubiquitous in my and my friends' lives that "What do you mean, only X minority of people have ever used the internet?" For people who weren't interested in tech (the vast majority), seeing web addresses and "e[Whatever]" all over the place was mainly irritating.

Those elements and attitudes are certainly analogous to AI Hype today. Whether everything else along that path will turn out roughly the same remains to be seen. From my point of view, looking back, the most-hyped (or maybe just most-memorable) 1.0 failures were fantastic ideas that just arrived ahead of their time. For instance, Webvan = InstaCart; Pets.com = Chewy; Netbank = any virtual bank you care to name; Broadcast.com = any streaming video company you care to name; honorable mention: Beenz (though this might be controversial) was the closest we ever came to a viable micro-payments model.

The necessary infrastructure for (love it or hate it) a commercialized web was the smart-phone, and 'always on' portable connectivity. By analogy, the necessary infrastructure for widespread, democratized AI (whether for good or for ill) may not yet exist.
by eieio | 2025-04-29 20:46:47+00:00
Hah, yes, but for testing I removed all my rate limits so I pushed 1 million moves in 2 or 3 seconds, whereas now I think I rate limit people to like 3 or 4 moves a second (which is beyond what I can achieve on a trackpad going as fast as I can!) so the test isn't quite comparable!

I definitely learned a lot here. Most of my projects like this are basically just "give the internet access to my computer's memory but with rules." And now I think I've got a really good framework for doing that performantly in golang, which should make the next set of projects like this much quicker to implement.

I also just...know how to write go now. Which I did not 6 weeks ago. So that's nice.
by justlikereddit | 2025-04-29 20:47:35+00:00
I like to to use LLMs for rude poetry.

No one is going to get a billion dollar investment due to that. It's why all the corporate speak and marketing is harping on about productivity, robot takeover and deus ex machina in corporate language.

Normal people will use it for creative writing aid, scrapbooking and other extremely unprofitable non-technical stuff.
by chigwel | 2025-04-29 20:48:36+00:00
There’s an OpenAI-compatible API at https://api.llm7.io/v1 that provides access to over 30 large language models, including GPT-4.1, o4-mini, Llama 4, DeepSeek-R1, and others. No authentication is required, and there’s no need for an API key or local GPU setup. The API supports the standard OpenAI client (openai Python package), as well as LangChain integrations in both Python and JavaScript. The rate limit is 150 requests per minute. Useful for quick tests, prototyping, or experimenting with different model architectures.
by the_snooze | 2025-04-29 20:48:44+00:00
>I think the concept that AI can be used to sell itself -- that a product is more valuable simply because it incorporates AI -- has to end, and soon.

I can't help but think of the iPhone 16 series's top-line marketing: "Built for Apple Intelligence." In practice, the use cases have been lackluster at best (e.g., Genmoji), if not outright garbage (e.g., misleading notification summaries).

I feel like a lot of AI use cases are solutions looking for a problem, and really sucking at solving those problems where the rubber meets the road. I can't even get something as low-stakes and well-bounded as accurate sports trivia and stats out of these systems reliably, and there's a plethora of good data on that out there.