MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by maerF0x0 | 2025-04-03 16:18:56+00:00
(US Centric opinion comment) in the wake of moving away from religions to more secular societies, it's shocking how much folks have simply switched from religions like Christianity et. al. to Republican or Democrat or Left or Right etc.

What I'd consider healthy exploratory debate is now treated like heresy punishable by metaphorical death.(eg cancellation)

That's why I often stay my tongue and let people believe I'm on their side. Frankly it's not worth the consequences and I'll let them live in their delusions because giving feedback is too dangerous nowadays.
by mystified5016 | 2025-04-03 16:19:15+00:00
While I know that Steam has DRM, it's never been as onerous as other types of DRM.

I also know that Steam DRM isn't that hard to bypass. Generally just some patched DLLs. But I've never had a real need to bypass it. Steam lets you play offline with no connection. My games are, to a first approximation, mine and Valve doesn't need to be informed every minute I'm playing if I so choose.

Gabe's premise is right on. We pirate from Netflix and Epic because it's orders of magnitude easier than playing by the rules. I buy from Steam because it's easier than piracy.

As a rule, I don't pirate steam games. If it's something I'm interested in, it's probably worth my money. I do pirate from EA and others because the Sims 4 is not worth $500 in any universe. I pirate shows and movies because it's too much time and money to even figure out who has what I want this week.

You beat pirates by making your service more attractive than piracy. Steam is a better experience than free, and a better experience than all the other paid options. This is how you win.
by sjakakznxx | 2025-04-03 16:19:17+00:00
> is that it implies that there must be "They" and "Us". You can't just get prosperous as a humanity

This idea of humanity transcending our genetic (due to geographic proximity) tribal groups is a uniquely European one. Pretending we can abandon all tribalism and integrate the entire world into a European model is either immensely incompetent or intentionally malicious (I tend to think the latter). The current billionaire class profits immensely from all the diversity (both generic and ideological) in the west. It’s much easier to parasitically rule a divided people than a unified one. Nationalism is a defense against these parasites.

> needs to be a subgroup like "Americans" or "Germans" that do amazing things and they are very unsatisfied that Chinese and Indians got advanced

The issue isn’t other countries improving. The issue is the average America should not have a degraded quality of life (barring major natural disasters etc) so that our billionaires can be richer. A nationalist elite class would correctly say “no, we keep those jobs here because it benefits my countryman even if I’m going to make less money”. We do not have this and the wealth gap continues to increase.

> If you're subscribe the idea that people should team around these things and if you think that you won't be suffering that much and you don't care that some people might suffer a lot

Do you think parents should prioritize their children? Not saying this snidely - there’s no black and white lines here, but I think universalism can only be accomplished by taking care of our own and growing our tent, as opposed to diminishing our own to lift up others (who in many cases do not share our universalist sentiments).
by technothrasher | 2025-04-03 16:19:20+00:00
> Second one because afaik it's legal to call "chocolate" something that does not contain any actual cocoa in the US.

Well, no. It cannot be called "chocolate" if it is something that consumers would expect to be made from actual chocolate. However, it can contain the term "chocolate" if cocoa or another cacao product is the sole source of its chocolate flavor, and as long as consumers have a pre-established understanding that it is likely to not be made from chocolate. For example, people generally understand that chocolate cake is likely made with cocoa, not chocolate, and so it can be labeled "chocolate cake". If there is no such general understanding, the product must be labeled "chocolate flavored".

(See the US FDA CPG Sec 515.800, "Labeling of Products Purporting to be 'Chocolate' or 'Chocolate Flavored'")

Now if we could just get them to stop calling chocolate products with dairy in them "dark" (I'm looking at you, Hershey...)
by SpaceManNabs | 2025-04-03 16:19:34+00:00
If Paul Graham is calling out conservatives for being driven stuff other than data, then you know people are losing it lol.

Usually on here you see a bunch of apologia for when republicans do inane economic policy and I am not seeing that bs on here for once...

Guess Trump really wasn't the crypto, AI, chips, wtv you wanna say president lmao. But nah all the naysayers just had TDS.

Guess Wall St and others are going to have to re-learn that sound policy beats vibes.
by freedomben | 2025-04-03 16:20:01+00:00
Yep, Tailscale takes a pretty reasonable approach to that IMHO. Open source on platforms that are open source. I think that works out pretty well because it meets people where they are. For example the people who care about open source (and thus are running linux or android) get their open source needs met, and people who don't care about open source strongly or at all (as evidenced in part by them running closed/proprietary OSes) such as mac or windows users are also met where they are. Of course this also helps protect their business model because then competitors can't just take the open source versions and run off with them, and the number of linux users is quite small compared to mac and windows so it keeps the majority of the client closed while still providing the openness to those who truly care about it.

*In my perfect world everybody would care about open source, but the evidence is pretty clear that only a tiny minority of people actually do, even among engineers
by nabla9 | 2025-04-03 16:20:11+00:00
You give him too much credit.

He is a conman, but not a good one. He attracts conmen who are better at the game than he is and they have been milking him for decades. He had eventually to get into business with shady East-European businessmen who used him as a front. He was in descent to money laundering when he won the elections 2016.
by leovingi | 2025-04-03 16:20:18+00:00
>Can you demonstrably prove white people were harmed by DEIA?

Sure, here you go. This is just one example, but it's been widely covered in tech circles as well as here on HN and I chose it simply because it's one of the most egregious and shockingly honest account of how DEI works in practice as opposed to nice-sounding social theories

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38634647

Things like this have been covered and talked about on HN for years, I am surprised you missed it, with a lot of commenters speaking out about their own experience which more often than not paints the same story each time - a company needs to reach a certain quota based on race or gender to avoid potential discrimination lawsuits, their hiring pipeline does not support that quota so the only options they have is to discriminate against the only group it is socially OK to discriminate against - white men. And on some level - asians - as is mentioned directly by the CEO of IBM in the leaked video posted above.
by griffzhowl | 2025-04-03 16:20:27+00:00
A currency is a social construct but it doesn't just come down to people who trade in the currency in a decentralized sense: the US govt imposes taxes on economic activity, and demands those taxes be paid in dollars (as other states do in their respective currencies), and this is enforced by the coercive power of the state, which is ultimately based on its military strength, since that's the ultimate guarantor of the continued existence of all the other institutions of the state.

Of course, there's more to it in the complex system of the global economy, but the power of the state is still an important central factor in a currencies' strength - it's not just about collective perceptions of value.
by LinuxAmbulance | 2025-04-03 16:20:32+00:00
As a backend person, sometimes I look at what's being done for front end stuff and pull back in ever so slight horror.

It's an excellent article, and the work within is very well done, but there's a part of me that screams "Why would you introduce this much complexity for what should be a simple scroll?" (overcoming technical hurdles to produce the desired end result aside).
by Lendal | 2025-04-03 16:20:51+00:00
What he means is that according to the graph if you call yourself an "independent thinker" then you can't be an extremist. You are automatically a centrist. All the dots on the "independent thinker" half are all centrist. None are left or right. An interesting bias that he's admitting to. Made me roll my eyes and stop reading right there, and just skim the rest for all the "independent thinker" tropes.

If you want to feel superior and virtue signal, just label yourself an "independent thinker." It's so easy.
by arghwhat | 2025-04-03 16:21:23+00:00
> Local produces also have VAT reduced by the value of goods they bought locally, so it is not such a burden for a local producer vs importer who doesn't benefit from such VAT reduction at all for his costs.

Huh? VAT is transparent to all involved companies regardless of import/export in such a way that the final transaction to a consumer cover the whole VAT of the value chain.

A quick VAT tutorial:

---

The local producer buys seeds, and pays a price that includes VAT. They then sell crop for a price that includes VAT. The difference is settled with the government: The local producer gets back all the VAT they paid, and instead give the government all the VAT they collected.

A reseller buys local produce at a price that includes VAT, and sells it at a price that includes VAT. They then get back all the VAT they paid (which is exactly what the government got from the local producer from this exact transaction!), and in turn give the government VAT they collect from the final consumer.

In the end, the amount of VAT retained by the government is exactly the price paid by the last recipient of the goods. No company in the chain ended up paying VAT out of their own pocket, and no other government earned VAT.

---

Now try with imported goods: The foreign producer buys seeds at a price that includes their local VAT. They then sell crops for export at a price with no VAT. The producer gets back all the VAT they paid, and give nothing to their government as they collected none during export.

The reseller buys the foreign produce at a price without VAT and instead report and pay VAT themselves to initiate the VAT chain. They sell it at a price that includes VAT. They get all the VAT they paid back, and in turn give the government the VAT they collect form the final consumer.

In the end, the amount of VAT retained by the government is exactly the price paid by the last recipient of the goods. No company in the chain ended up paying VAT out of their own pocket, and no other government earned VAT.

Granted, the importer's country is the one stuffing their pillows with the VAT, which does not benefit the foreign producer. That's the difference.
by Retric | 2025-04-03 16:21:51+00:00
If I buy and hold 1 kg of gold, in 50 years humanity still has that same 1kg of gold but it lost all the resources required to secure that gold from being stolen. As such buying gold “to hold” is actively harmful for humanity, the same is true of crypto.

I object to doing things that bring me wealth at the expense of humanity as IMO it’s just a diffuse form of theft. While you may disagree, I hope you can understand that such a stance is based on my personal morality.
by kylebenzle | 2025-04-03 16:22:11+00:00
Just take it literally, the US legal system is utterly broken, as in it does not function. It's the reason we literally put black men in jail for Life over and over again for minor crimes, because we have a broken legal system, it's why in America whoever has the most money wins it's why all of our politicians are lawyers because the legal system is broken.
by tzs | 2025-04-03 16:22:21+00:00
In my state (Washington) it is actually cheaper to get a non-Real ID driver's license plus a passport card if you take your own photo.

A passport card is $65 and good for 10 years. That's $6.50/year.

A Real ID driver's license driver's license in my state is $42 dollars more to renew for 6 years than a non-Real ID license. That's $7.00/year. It can also be renewed for 8 years for for $56 more than a non-Real ID license, which is again $7.00/year.

In addition to being cheaper a passport card can be used both as an ID and to show citizenship. A Real ID is only an ID.
by AshleyGrant | 2025-04-03 16:22:26+00:00
> but the government does not receive that benefit

Yes it does, through increased tax revenues due to the increased economic activity brought about by the road existing earlier than it would have if the government had to wait several years to save up the money to build that road.

Also, at least in the US, the government is nominally "We the People," so if the general population experiences increased economic activity, then the government is benefiting, as it exists (nominally) for the benefit of the people.
Show HN: AWS EC2 Pricing API – live spot pricing across regions
by crohr | 2025-04-03 16:22:39+00:00
Up-to-date API to retrieve available instance types per region and platform, as well as up to date on-demand and spot pricing across every region and availability zones. Also includes Single-Thread CPU performance and general info about instance types (vCPUs, Memory, GPUs, etc).

The database is updated every hour (about 80k data points).
by UncleMeat | 2025-04-03 16:22:56+00:00
In the US there are no federal antidiscrimination protections for LGBT people except in employment through Bostock (and conveniently, Trump's EEOC has stopped pursuing these cases). You can be evicted from your home for being gay but not for being black or Christian.

Access to gender affirming care for trans minors is banned in more than half of US states. The very same medicines are allowed to be given to cis minors.

In 13 US states bathroom bills prevent trans people from comfortably existing outside of their homes for more than a few hours at a time.

It has only been 22 years since sodomy laws were found unconstitutional. It has only been 10 years since gay marriage was legalized nationwide. Thomas wrote in his Dobbs concurrence that Lawrence should be revisited. Several state legislatures have passed resolutions calling for Obergefell to be overturned.

While less of a "basic right", the Trump administration has banned trans people from serving in the military. Visibility of gay or trans characters in media available for minors is also regularly threatened. Products for trans people sold at stores like Target have led to bomb threats.
Show HN: Geotreasure, a map-based trivia game about cities and geography
by etherealmachine | 2025-04-03 16:23:41+00:00
I made a small game about geography and cities. It's inspired by the board game Treasure Island - after playing I loved it but was so annoyed with the whiteboard markers I had a massive itch to implement the same mechanics digitally and I knew it was going to work when I spent more time playing and improving the map than working on the code.

Only two maps so far, SF and Paris, maybe more to come when I get bored of those.

Stack: Svelte 5 with Sveltkit Heavy lifting with Leaflet and turfjs. Deployed on a free instance at fly.io.

I have opinions on Svelte 5's developer ergonomics that I'll hopefully have time to post about soon.
by dekhn | 2025-04-03 16:23:50+00:00
I also found a DOE grant, about $800K.

I think this is the full list, NIH looks like a subset of overall HHS funding, and NSF is the actual single largest (around $2.5M)

https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=report&tin=U3...

Wesleyan falls into a really weird bucket: a private liberal arts university, generally considered a "little Ivy" with a modest, slightly better than its competitors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ivies) in terms of research clout. The impact of losing all scientific federal funding would be noticeable, but presumably, not fatal; I don't think they structured the operating costs of the university to be dependent on federal research funding like many other schools.

I grew up at Wesleyan- both my parents worked there, it paid for my university education, gave me access to the internet in the 1980s (via NSF funding), and gave me insight into liberal education, all of which prepared me to go off to a California university, maximize my education, and deploy that into my career. I think many people don't recognize the intense second order effects (mostly positive) of federal funding of research.
by solardev | 2025-04-03 16:23:53+00:00
It's not about what I (as a web dev) need, but what works for "halp, I need a website" clients who don't know anything about tech. Hugo still implies the need for a build setup and hosting, which in turn means DNS, SSL, CLI, etc. Which often means more dev time. Your average yoga teacher or restaurant or nonprofit would have no idea how to deal with all that (and they shouldn't have to). That's why the page builders are better for them, IMO.
by chistev | 2025-04-03 16:23:55+00:00
I have a personal blog where I share my life experiences: https://www.rxjourney.net

I've been writing for years—mostly sharing on my WhatsApp status for friends, posting some on Facebook (though my account got suspended last month for ‘account integrity’ issues), and saving some pieces in Google Drive just for myself. But late last year, I decided to take it a step further and start a blog.

Right now, I have just 21 subscribers, but it’s amazing to know that there are people who genuinely enjoy what I write. I got a heartwarming email with these words:

"Just keep writing. Not for readers or for any allure of income, but for yourself. You will thank yourself—I have no doubt."

That message, and others like it, mean a lot to me. Writing is something special. As Carl Sagan beautifully put it in Cosmos:

"Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of magic."

The full quote is -

“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic."

- Carl Sagan.
by kbutler | 2025-04-03 16:24:23+00:00
In a live orchestra performance, the conductor raises his hands. The audience quiets in anticipation.

He gives an up tick indicating the beginning of the music, then the downbeat of the start of the first measure.

No sound is heard.

The conductor continues to mark time. The silence is deep...profound.

The conductor continues to mark the time of the passing measures.

The audience listens.

At some point, positive sound breaks the silence - suddenly, loudly destroying the stillness! Or possibly very nearly silently - at the uncertain threshold of perception, the audible music begins...
by electriclove | 2025-04-03 16:24:28+00:00
While I agree those are great things, don’t fool yourself - someone IS paying for it

Those countries have a population that is a fraction of the US. I’m sure they make more effective use of their taxes too. In the US, taxes continue to rise and health care and education costs rise even more. There are many things that are broken. Painting all billionaires as the problem and thinking that confiscating their wealth via taxes will solve the issues… is a popular rallying cry but is not an actual solution
by atoav | 2025-04-03 16:24:29+00:00
On top of that if you strictly want avoid political topics, be aware that there are forces who profit from making topics "political" that probably shouldn't be.

So when someone else decides which topics are politicized and you want to avoid political discussions — congrats you just let others decide about which topics you are willing to discuss.

My opinion is that most topics have a political dimension anyways, also because most topics have a economic dimension. Or phrased differently: Everything is political.

When discussing politics with friends the "how" is probably much more important than the "if". Most people do not have a vetted political opinion, they just have a strong vibe that they can't really reason about. They aligned with some sources and read/watch news they like to hear and that forms their image of the world. They never really tried to form a logically coherent worldview that is backed by facts instead of pre-filtered annecdotes that may or may not have happened in that way.

With this as the starting point a healthy political discourse isn't possible. You can't argue against someones vibes.

But that doesn't mean good/interesting political discourse isn't possible. It just means that if someone lets the politicians turn them into a vibe-based party-before-issue follower that uncritically believes most of what politicians say, they can no longer think or discuss the topics that impact them with others on a reasonable level. And this is why topics get politicized in the first way.

And no-one is immune to this, especially not you guys over there with that two-party system. But we all need to remember that towing the line of a political party means they no longer represent us, but we represent them. Mental flexibility translates to voter agency and our democracies hinge on voters being well informed and not throwing their agency away.

TL;DR: Not discussing politics and blindly towing the party line is like throwing your own agency away.
Show HN: Agentic UI/UX Analyzer for Early-Stage User Insights
by Hashimm | 2025-04-03 16:24:34+00:00
I built a free tool called SitePerceive to help analyze UI/UX when there aren’t enough users to generate heatmap insights. It uses agent-based modeling: you define your site map and the type of user to emulate, and it deploys agents to navigate the flow step-by-step. This helps uncover potential usability issues early on.
by WolfeReader | 2025-04-03 16:25:03+00:00
It varies by game - if the devs created a default control scheme, the Deck will load that by default and you're good to go. (The green check mark means that Valve verified this behavior, as well as other things.) And if not, the Deck UI makes it pretty easy to create your own mappings and share them, or download "community layouts".

You don't need a Deck to try it - you can run Steam in "big picture mode" on any computer, with a controller, and get the same UI which the Deck uses.
by uptownfunk | 2025-04-03 16:25:30+00:00
What most people don’t see is that we are basically under “shadow austerity” to correct for the not so hyperinflation we saw post COVID.

It is a combination of post WW2 Britain (China is the US in that analogy) - this helps to explain the Canada and Greenland issue; and Volcker era stagflation economics. It will not get any better in the short term, but there is likely to be substantial growth in the long term as a result.

What that means is the fed likely won’t reduce rates, and it may reduce its rate decrease to 1 this year, if even that. It is entirely possible the rate doesn’t come down at all.

Expect Layoffs to come, as the fed doesn’t seem to care about unemployment as its target is on inflation. Many zirp era businesses and funds will fail. Less cereal and eggs for the same dollar.

I am really hoping we don’t start to de-anchor from 2% inflation as a result of all this. I wonder how various US infrastructure projects can and will be financed. Reduction in entitlements. Possibly some type of mandate to hold treasuries.