MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by rurp | 2025-04-19 02:51:00+00:00
I think you're only reinforcing the contrast. Yes databases are massivly useful and have been self evidently so for decades; and yet, none of the current outlandish AI claims were ever made about them. VCs weren't running around 30 or 40 years ago claiming that SQL would cure disease and usher in a utopia.

Yes LLMs are useful and might become vastly more useful, but the hype:value ratio is currently insane. Technologies that have produced like 9 orders of magnitude more value to date have never recieved the hype that LLMs are getting.
by Pet_Ant | 2025-04-19 02:51:07+00:00
In my experience programming is more about formalising the domain of the problem than it is about shuffling bits around. Take a minute more than need and you'll lose hundreds. Get the answer wrong? Lose millions. Domains where you deprioritise correctness for speed just... don't seem that interesting too me. No need to look down on memory managed languages. Personally, Haskell and APL impressive me more, but I don't have shit on the author for being stuck in an imperative paradigm.
by Loughla | 2025-04-19 02:51:28+00:00
I'm absolutely with you. It's the pointlessness of cozy games that gets me. It's just clicking around and a weird attempt at making you feel like you've accomplished something (instead of running on a hamster wheel).

Far Cry 4, half life 2, or fallout new Vegas are my go to destress games.

I also love Lovecraft and The King in Yellow when I need to space out and relax.
by fc417fc802 | 2025-04-19 02:51:50+00:00
I'm not trying to claim that it's generally equivalent or a viable alternative or whatever to fiber. That would be a ridiculous claim to make.

The original example cited people writing custom scripts to download all your stuff blowing your budget. A reasonable equivalent to that is shipping the interested party a storage device.

More generally, despite the two things being different their comparison can nonetheless be informative. In this case we can consider the up front cost of the supporting infrastructure in addition to the energy required to use that infrastructure in a given instance. The result appears to illustrate just how absurd the current pricing model is. Bandwidth limits notwithstanding, there is no way that the OPEX of the postal service should be lower than the OPEX of a fiber network. It just doesn't make sense.
by DavidPiper | 2025-04-19 02:54:05+00:00
I tend to agree with the author, but I think the real problem with hype is the opportunity cost. Somewhere along the way we bought into this idea that "the promise of X" is worth more than "the reality of X".

The longer the hype goes on - which is to say the longer it takes to demonstrate the hype is actually reality - the more people become more heavily invested in it.

If the hype never materialises, you basically build a larger and larger black swan when the crash arrives. The people who win are the few who got out early enough, and everyone else who ignored the hype.

If the hype does eventuate, the number of people you're now competing with in a new market is proportional to the length of time it took to eventuate, because for all those people that were onboard, some of them would enter the space in competition, not just as consumers. Again, the only outsized winners are those who got out early enough. The rest are now just working BAU. Like everyone else who ignored the hype.

In both cases, you're just as good or better off ignoring the hype because the chances of you winning big are tiny (unless you're a billionaire, but in that case you were already winning anyway).
by Animats | 2025-04-19 02:54:57+00:00
The ancestor of all those full screen terminal editors is the RAND editor, which was on Unix around 1974.[1] Few people outside the DoD research community saw it, because it wasn't free and only worked on some terminals. Functions were triggered by dedicated function keys, not key combos or a command line, and it was customary to use something with 8 to 10 function keys, such as the HP2645A. You could split the screen, edit two files, and do cut and paste. Way ahead of its time.

[1] https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2008/R217...

[2] https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/HP_2645A
by ay | 2025-04-19 02:55:46+00:00
Of course on the carrier boxes the fragmentation is done also not inline, so its behavior will depend on the aggressiveness of the CoPP configuration, and will be subject to the same pitfalls as the ICMP packet too big generation.

Thanks for keeping me straight here!

Based on the admittedly old study at [0] seems like some carriers just don’t bother to fragment, indeed - but by far not all of them.

Firewalls might do virtual reassembly, so the trick with the initial fragment won’t fly there.

This MTU subject is interesting for me because I have a little work in progress experiment: https://gerrit.fd.io/r/c/vpp/+/41914/1/src/plugins/pvti/pvti... (the code itself is already in, but has a few crashy bugs still and I need to take make it not suck performance wise, but that is my attempt to revisit the issue of MTU for tunnel use case. The thesis is that keeping the 5-tuple will make “chunking”/“de-chunking” at tunnel endpoints much much simpler on the endpoints of the tunnel.

The source of inspiration was a very practical setup at [1], which is, while looking horrible in theory (locally fragmented GRE over L2TP), actually gives a decent performance with 1500-byte end to end MTU over the tunnel.

The open question is which inner MTU will be sane, taking into account the increased probability of loss with bigger inner MTU… intuitively seems like something like ~2.5K should just double the loss probability (because it’s 2x packets) and might be a workable compromise in 2025….

One could also do the same trick over QUIC, of course, but i wanted something tiny and easier to experiment with - and the ability to go over IPSec or wireguard as well as a secured underlay.

[0] https://labs.ripe.net/author/emileaben/ripe-atlas-packet-siz...

[1] https://github.com/ayourtch/linode-ipv6-tunnel
by cosignal | 2025-04-19 02:56:10+00:00
Pardon my dumb query, as I'm a tech novice, but aren't QR just encodings of data? And the max amount of data a QR can encode is like 3kb, which would roughly correspond to 3000 or so plaintext characters. So the achievement here is that this Doom-like game can be run from an executable roughly of that size?
Show HN: QwQ AI – Aggregator of free LLMs answer generator
by zhangchengzc | 2025-04-19 02:56:59+00:00
I've built an aggregator for free Large Language Models that provides answer generation services. The project aims to make powerful AI accessible to everyone as I believe free LLMs may become a significant trend.

Currently supported models:

Qwen Series - Qwen 32B: Alibaba's 32B parameter model for Chinese/English content - Qwen 2.5 7B Instruct: Lightweight, responsive daily assistant

DeepSeek Series - DeepSeek V3 0324: Specialized in long-text and domain knowledge - DeepSeek R1: Focused on mathematical and logical reasoning

Google Series - Gemini 2.5 Pro: Google's latest multimodal model with extended context - Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking: Shows reasoning process step-by-step - Gemini 2.0 Flash: Speed-optimized for quick responses - Gemma 3.27B IT: Open-source balance of performance and efficiency

Mistral Series - Mistral Nemo: Flagship model with broad knowledge coverage - Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct: 24B parameter model for high-quality responses

Meta Series - Llama 4 Maverick: Latest generation with strong creative capabilities - Llama 4 Scout: Optimized for factual accuracy and reliability

This tool lets you compare outputs across different models and leverage their unique strengths without subscription costs.
by ryandamm | 2025-04-19 02:58:00+00:00
Valid concern, but it seems like the glide path—continued carbon dioxide buildup and climate change—might eventually be worse than the unknown unknowns. (I suppose how one makes that decision is the challenge, hence the need for further study, per the article.)

This is one of the few carbon capture approaches that appears to be able to approach global scale, so I'm rooting for it. Even enhanced weathering suffers from needing to move billions of tons of rock, but scattering trace minerals seems pretty high leverage. The sheer mass of material that must be removed from the atmosphere is otherwise very intimidating.
by mdaniel | 2025-04-19 02:59:01+00:00
While I agree with your sentiment, as a competing theory if one really did want to teach cloud-native things then I'll point out that AWS is not the only cloud API in town: https://docs.openstack.org/devstack/2025.1/ -> https://opendev.org/openstack/devstack#start-a-dev-cloud

My recollection is that it runs fairly well in a 8GB VM so it should positively scream on any one of the $25 32GB Dell or Thinkpad devices from Green Citizen (e.g. https://www.ebay.com/itm/316679014997 )

I haven't personally tried to set up a local network of them (to demonstrate how "AZ failure" works) but I can't imagine why it wouldn't work fine

---

obligatory reference: I downloaded Slackware over 28.8k onto all 32(?) floppies. I was thrilled out of my mind about learning how this "unix" thing works that I heard so much about
by Meekro | 2025-04-19 02:59:09+00:00
I have a different theory about why people don't read the articles: we miss forums where you could just start a conversation about something because you want to discuss it. Most articles get submitted to reddit and HN because someone is saying "hey guys, want to have a conversation about _____?" and they get upvoted because people say "sure, let's discuss that!" and the article is incidental to that.
by roenxi | 2025-04-19 03:00:41+00:00
Fair point; let me put it this way:

Database hype was relatively muted and databases made a massive impact on our ability to cure diseases. AI hype is wildly higher and there is a reasonable chance it will lead to the curing of all diseases - it is going to have a much bigger impact than databases did.

The 10-15 year timeframe is obviously impossible for logistic reasons if nothing else - but the end goal is plausible and the direction we need to head in next as a society is clear. As unreasonable claims go it is unobjectionable and I'd rather be standing with Hassabis in the push to end disease than with naysayers worried that we won't do it as quickly as an uninformed optimist expects.
by sudahtigabulan | 2025-04-19 03:01:12+00:00
> It's incredible how good of a design Vi is.

It's interesting how this design was forced into existence by the extremely limited hardware at the time:

TFA>> It was really hard to do because you've got to remember that I was trying to make it usable over a 300 baud modem. That's also the reason you have all these funny commands. It just barely worked to use a screen editor over a modem.

That's why we got commands like d), d{, D, etc. Trying to achieve the goal in one go, without any intermediate redraws.
by sarchertech | 2025-04-19 03:02:46+00:00
And now I’m clarifying that I should have been more precise when I said user base. Amazon clearly doesn’t care about users that aren’t going to make them money.

It also doesn’t matter what the user base is today. It matters what it might be tomorrow. It’s not easy to change your license. If you wait until Amazon is coming for you, it’s too late to do anything to stop it.
by hedora | 2025-04-19 03:03:29+00:00
Battery density doubled in the last ten years:

https://www.westchestercleanenergy.com/post/lithium-battery-...

Density is going up exponentially in the graph because it has been improving 18% for every doubling of the number shipped. Global EV market share is projected to cross 25% this year, so we should expect two more 18% improvements as it approaches 100%. That should improve density 39%. Then (ignoring batteries sold so far, and assuming there are no new markets for lithium batteries), we’ll see another 18% in 2 years (164% of current density), 4 (193%) 8 (228%), and so on until some theoretical limit is hit.

In all likelihood, some other technology will replace lithium batteries at some point. That further improves the density numbers.
by mcphage | 2025-04-19 03:04:38+00:00
Say you’re looking to hire 20 people. So you pick the 20 best, and you end up with the 17 best men and the 3 best women. Of course you claim to be gender-blind and it just happens that you got 17 men and only 3 women, these things happen, it’s nobody’s fault.

Now imagine if you were required to hire 50% men and 50% women. So you’d end up with the top 10 men, and the top 10 women. What that means is, you didn’t hire the 11th - 17th rated men, and instead did hire the 4th - 10th rated women.

Now: maybe you think that’s not a fair system, and you’re probably right. But it would mean you’re hiring better candidates. You pass on some lower rated candidates that only made it through because they were guys, and instead got some higher rated candidates that you had passed on previously because they were women.
by prmph | 2025-04-19 03:04:51+00:00
Pretty much all your claims are false, in my experience:

- LLMs do not have grad student-level competency in anything; they often make elementary mistakes in very basic reasoning.

- Image generators produce spooky pictures with garbled text

- Song generators produce nothing remarkable

- LLM code generation is still sloppy and prone to many blindspots
by theshackleford | 2025-04-19 03:04:58+00:00
I had an "incomplete" spinal cord injury back in 2020. Its left me with permanent pain and symptoms, this pain and these symptoms leaves within me a significant amount of ongoing stress.

As dumb as this sounds potentially, because in real life, i'm not that huge on it, I have found a big help is this VR game I play, walkabout minigolf. Once every few days, usually when pain levels etc are peaking, I play a slow 18 holes and something about the landscapes, the visuals etc...its like a zen garden for my mind. It just soothes me.

Primarily this course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6mt9ev2xQY
by AStonesThrow | 2025-04-19 03:05:02+00:00
Okay let's all forget that there's actually a Book in the Old Testament named "Esther" which is named after a Queen of the Hebrews, renowned for her heroic virtue, not to mention exceptional beauty, chastity, and modesty. Esther saved her people, the Israelites, from genocide and destruction. Esther represents a New Passover [Pesach] for her people in the Promised Land.

Esther should have been contemporarily famous and renowned, several millennia B.C.; let's just ignore and forget Esther???

And thus, Ishtar Ruins Easter: https://youtu.be/Qd-wvVNEfNk?si=oJqkKALfn4xBX-zb
by halosghost | 2025-04-19 03:05:53+00:00
What can I say? It's a habit I developed long ago… [0][1]

All the best,

-HG

[0] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1417817#p1417817

[1] for anyone who doesn't have an Arch BBS account: https://0x0.st/8OL4.png
by 9d | 2025-04-19 03:06:40+00:00
In the entire Passion, Jesus represented every individual person, the weakest, the most vulnerable, the guilty, the poor, the abandoned. However you treat them is how you treat him in that moment. So you can try to make that argument for him in context, but then you'd have to make the same argument for every instance where you could help someone but try to argue that you shouldn't have to. If an old lady falls and breaks a bone, will you call the hospital or blame her for not taking better care of her bone health? If you find a child crying in an alley, will you bring it to the authorities, or leave it there so you can look for the mom and find a way to blame her? People are meant to be helped, not victim-blamed. That's a very large point of Jesus and the Crucifixion. Whatever you do to him, you do to others, and whatever you do to the least in the world, you do to Him.
Tell HN: AI is cool, but my apps still suck
by babyent | 2025-04-19 03:07:00+00:00
I like using ChatGPT and whatever else. It is cool, when it works. I use it for as a coding assistant or a rubber duck, and it adds a good 15-20% productivity boost.

But honestly? Any actual software "tool" that I use on the daily feel like it has just stagnated.

There's AI slop for sure. The "Use AI for..." button is everywhere, and it is kind of a waste for most things.

I don't need AI to come up with a description. I don't need AI to tell me what's already in front of my face. And I also don't need AI to literally make up documentation or hallucinate with half baked information.

Why do the apps I use still load slowly?

Basic functionality is still missing in some of the apps I use, things that have had support tickets open for years and yet zero movement. But there's a AI button or some cutely named AI bot.

Why do exports still break when it is a large data set?

Why do some of these apps look like they have zero UI/UX people working on them? Why are there multiple clicks to get to things that could be done in one click?

Why are there 200 network requests when I load the page?

Seriously, can we stop with the AI/LLM slop and maybe focus on your core competency? I don't need AI jammed into everything. Fire those product managers who think that's a value-add. Maybe talk to your customers?

I just need software that works so I can do my job, and then go and play with ChatGPT and make cool images or come up with a weekend plan.
by nirui | 2025-04-19 03:07:57+00:00
I don't think it's the time. Morality only exists in people who has it. Some already do, some are growing, some never will.

Funny thing is, the individuals who never had morality maybe more mentally healthy than the others, since the consequences of their action never entered their brain. Gankers are happier than the ganked, I guess.

Maybe that's why the armies around the world loves to hire dumb people into their ranks, never think, never thought, and thus ruthless and don't cost much.
by ay | 2025-04-19 03:08:21+00:00
“You had an MTU problem. You enable jumbo frames. Now you have two MTU problems”

Unless you control the entire set of possible paths (can be many!) and set all the MTUs to match well, this (while maybe on surface helping with the problem, depending on many things) can set one up with a nasty footgun, whereby black hole will show in the most terrible moment of high traffic. See my PMTUD/PLPMTUD rant elsewhere in this thread.
by ltbarcly3 | 2025-04-19 03:08:31+00:00
By the time you realize someone is a fraud you've disrupted your progress for months compared to where you should have been, and firing people is not free in terms of culture and the psychological health of your other employees and their families. If you have to fire someone because they don't fit the profile you actually want you have severely fucked up. That's IF you can tell. Most people can't tell who is talented and who is not even after hiring them.

For every highly skilled / talented person there are 500 that think they are and have a resume that is consistent with that, but they are still trash.

If you are hiring/firing this much of the time your company culture will become a stalinist purge mentality where people have no trust or loyalty in each other and act primarily out of survival. That means they will withhold help from each other and even sabotage things to ensure they aren't the one the bear catches that month. Maybe you have only ever worked at terrible giant tech companies or come from a culture where this is normal, but it's literally death.

The culture you really really want to have is a group of genius misfits on a mission from god, very hard to join but steadfastly loyal to each other, and willing to pour their entire life into achieving their mission.

I think this is a theoretical exercise for you, you should revisit this after you have some experience.
by jcranmer | 2025-04-19 03:09:56+00:00
Steam locomotives: the first practical steam locomotive was Stephenson's Rocket in 1829, although maybe you want count from the earlier locomotive developed for the Stockington and Darlington in 1825. In either case, by 1830, there was already a successful company producing steam locomotives, and everyone pursing the building of railroads were using or imminently planning to convert to using steam locomotives for tractive power.

Naval technology can be even more stark. HMS Dreadnought was a revolution in terms of battleship design; all the major naval countries were building dreadnoughts before she was completed (actually, a few started before she was even laid down!).

That's a feature you see a lot of revolutionary technologies experience: even the earliest incarnations have enough "wow" factor to push people to using them and improving from the get-go.
by 1vuio0pswjnm7 | 2025-04-19 03:10:05+00:00
Flagging does not remove stories. It does not always result in killng them to "[dead]" status. It may not even demote stories off page 1. Flagging is not a effective solution to the submission of stories that anyone believes are inappropriate for HN, i.e., it does not stop further submissions on similar topics. They still get submitted. If anything, flagging may be a means of stopping discussion. If it works. Meanwhile "[flagged]" status was removed from this story. Discussion continues.
by halosghost | 2025-04-19 03:11:12+00:00
While I fully understand, and try hard to refrain from making such comments, given that the actual point of this article is about stress-relief, but it leverages design patterns which are genuinely awful for accessibility and positive, consistent experiences on the web, it does actually feel topical to me.

Put another way, I do not believe this is about a “tangential” annoyance.

All the best,

-HG
by babyent | 2025-04-19 03:13:14+00:00
Kind of a bad article (IMO) when it sideswipes cloud computing.

The "cloud" was actually useful, and helped to scale so many companies that could bring their products to millions of people quickly and without too many issues, and with good reliability.

Blockchain, hyper enabled gambling, cryptocurrency, and jamming "AI" into everything are bad though.
by zzo38computer | 2025-04-19 03:13:41+00:00
I disagree and I think that some of these things are some problems.

Forcing HTTPS was not really the best idea (and HSTS is bad for other reasons too). Let's Encrypt is a way to get a certificate easily in case you do want or need HTTPS, although it does lead to problems, such as some businesses will have certificates that do not contain the identification their address and that stuff, and some more problems. In addition, I think the design of Let's Encrypt automated certificates is not very good either.

I had not known what is Project Zero, but Wikipedia says they find vulnerabilities and documenting them so that you can defend against it, and this is helpful.

The authentication standards they made up aren't that good either. If you already have HTTPS, then you can use client certificates, which has many benefits and some more security compared with many of the other methods being used (e.g. TOTP) as well as not needing JavaScripts and cookies and that stuff.

V8 is not bad, but the designs that need this much speed (not only V8 but also HTTP/3 etc) means the design is probably already excessive. Making or using a browser should not require this for everything.

HTML5 has some good ideas as well as some bad ones, and so do the other web standards. But older versions have their own problems too. I also think they put too many things in the document and the script and styles in the document, that should better belong in separate user settings.

I also think that believing that JSON and Unicode and that stuff that they use, are not really that good either. (I think DER is better than JSON in many ways, anyways)