MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by yojo | 2025-04-17 15:35:22+00:00
I have an 8 year old and I just curate the hell out of things he's allowed to play, and limit time consistently and ruthlessly. Right now he gets 10 minutes/day for video games, and his options are Slay the Spire, Into the Breach, and Braid. He's happy to play the games provided, and I'm happy that he's basically choosing between a math test, chess, and logic puzzles.

I give him another 20 minutes a day of creative time that he can use for things like TinkerCad or drawing apps. He only takes me up on it about half the time.

I do a similar thing with video content. He can choose from a very limited list of educational-ish shows (1 per day). Total screen time is under an hour/day, and I don't feel like any of it is brain rot. It does take more work up front for me on the curation end, but we don't need to revisit options all that often.
by chrismdp | 2025-04-17 15:35:25+00:00
It's always true that you need to drop down a level of abstraction in order to extract the ultimate performance. (eg I wrote a decent-sized game + engine entirely in C about 10 years ago and played with SIMD vectors to optimise the render loop)

However, I think the vast majority of use cases will not require this level of control, and we will abandon prompts once the tools improve.

Langchain and DSPY are also not there for me either - I think the whole idea of prompting + evals needs a rethink.

(full disclaimer: I'm working on such a tool right now!)
by MisterTea | 2025-04-17 15:35:36+00:00
> They only listen "best parts of hits" – intro, beginning of first chorus, bridge and skip to next piece.

I know adults who do this. I believe it's a lack of patience created by always available convenience. When nothing is hard it's not worth the focus.

Growing up there was no next/skip/shuffle - pick a radio station and deal with it. That or dub to tape which takes effort, and skipping also takes effort. Same with video games, as another poster mentioned we only got one game at a time so that was our focus. You had the new game and a few old games. Deal with it.

No ones has to deal with much of anything anymore and companies know this. And people dont seem to mind because its so addicting.
by sebastiennight | 2025-04-17 15:36:42+00:00
Just found out that my Spotify client added a Shorts-like feature where instead of playing my entire playlist, it just plays "excerpts" from the songs!

And at the opposite end of the spectrum - I've been using Suno AI to literally extend pop songs I like where the originals are only 60-90 seconds because of gaming the Spotify algorithm :-)
by kurthr | 2025-04-17 15:36:43+00:00
It is sad to me that much of Asia went straight to the "publish or perish" phase of science. There once was an era when science was about pushing the edge of our understanding of nature rather than just pushing the edge of what is publishable for promotion. In the west that goal has been slowly lost (like many things it became infotainment), and some still strive for new knowledge. It's not that good research doesn't go on, it's just very product/engineering focused and business profit dominated. The majority of academic stuff everywhere that is not immediately verified is enshittified to varying degrees.

So this article still gives me both hope that it is real, and sadness that it probably isn't.
by pjc50 | 2025-04-17 15:36:46+00:00
> tomorrow I'm seeing recommendations for what I only recognize as "Intro to 5G Covid Conspiracy

A simple trick to see what conspiracy stuff is being pushed in your area is to open yt in incognito, accept cookies, and then watch one or two videos with titles in non-latin languages. Kpop fancams, NHK news, that kind of thing. Then look at the recommendation column. You will see two types:

- "related videos" (similar topic and language to what you were watching)

- "geo-IP videos" (not in the language that you were just watching, but clearly based in your country. These are almost always garbage)
by mm263 | 2025-04-17 15:36:59+00:00
I agree that Haidt is a poor champion for the cause.

He’s popular because we are seeing something real happening to our kids and Haidt is the only person who is trying to describe whatever’s going on. We agree with the conclusions because we see it in our own kids, not because of the “moral panic”. It’s a shame he gets there in such a sloppy way, but he’s describing a real phenomenon.

I, as a parent, do not need articles and longitudinal studies and double blind peer reviewed studies to tell me that the thing I can observe with my own eyes is real.
by alt227 | 2025-04-17 15:37:04+00:00
> It's totally the same as a good book you guys

Its nothing like a book, however it is very similar to addiction on MMO games like World of warcraft and Roblox.

> They can't watch TV or play games for hours because that gets boring and samey.

I would argue that its not because its boring, its because it doesnt give as frequent rewards for engagement and so becomes less attractive for the user.

> get immediately sabotaged by instagram shorts because it's so much more stimulating

Its not stimulation, its lazyness. I guarantee that anybody would get more stimulation from investment in a decent story in a book, movie, or game, but it takes more effort to get there. Its much easier to get that tiny hit of dopamine from a 10 second video than it is to invest 2 hours into a story to get a decent payoff. Its this lazyness of wanting the easy hit instead of putting the time in that is making people put down that book and jump on Instagram.
by CharlesW | 2025-04-17 15:37:05+00:00
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clown#History

> Unlike court jesters, clowns have traditionally served a socio-religious and psychological role, and traditionally the roles of priest and clown have been held by the same persons. Peter Berger writes, "It seems plausible that folly and fools, like religion and magic, meet some deeply rooted needs in human society." […] A society in which such clowns have an important position are termed clown societies, and a clown character involved in a religious or ritual capacity is known as a ritual clown.
by hn_throwaway_99 | 2025-04-17 15:37:06+00:00
This is actually great advice for any bad habit you're trying to break. In general, just thinking "Stop doing this thing" (or "do less of this thing"), doesn't really work. It's usually more effective to find something else that you do enjoy (and is better for you), and try to do more of that thing and have it "crowd out" your bad habit.

When it comes to eating, there is a nutritionist with a pretty sizable online following (Kylie Sakaida), and I love one of her mantras of "add, don't subtract". That is, don't think of abstaining from foods you like that might be unhealthy, but instead try to add more healthy things to that food to make it a balanced meal. For example, she gives the example of wanting a frozen waffle for breakfast. Instead of thinking "No, I can't have this frozen waffle", she instead makes a spread using Greek yogurt to add protein, then adds fresh fruit and nuts for more nutrients, fiber and healthy fats, so what started as an 'empty carbs' meal is turned into a pretty balanced, filling breakfast.
by throwaway875847 | 2025-04-17 15:37:13+00:00
> TikTok, Snapchat, Meta (FB, Instagram) - all this garbage needs to go, at least for anyone younger than 18.

All this garbage needs to go — period. We've seen time and time again that attempts to age-restrict Internet content with law just result in violations of privacy, while kids can still access such content with simple workarounds.
by hilbert42 | 2025-04-17 15:37:23+00:00
No doubt 'perception formed by media biases' has played a significant part and it's been exacerbated by modern communications and social media etc. but I'd contend there's more to it than just that.

What I didn't mention was that I've been to the US many times and I've relatives there, and I've even worked there and these factors have also influenced my perception.

Let me put it this way, if the Greatest Generation, aka the G.I. Generation were to come back today and saw what has happened they'd not only be dismayed but horrified. Right, much of that reaction is to be expected with intergenerational change, etc. but again I'd suggest it's more than that.

It's not possible for me to even begin to justify what I've said as even a précis would take me many pages. Instead, I'd refer you to journalist Tom Brokaw's 1998 book The Greatest Generation wherein he describes the values and beliefs of the people of this generation as well as the ethos of the era in which they lived. Far be it for me to tell American society what it ought to be doing but I'm of the opinion it wouldn't be a bad idea if all Americans read this book—after all, it's actually Brokaw who's making the suggestion that his countrymen read the book or he wouldn't have written it.

In short, Brokaw wrote this book because he sensed the same change in US society as I had done and no doubt much more acutely so. I'll now extrapolate: it's now over quarter century since he wrote it and I'd contend the contrast to which he referred is now even more extreme.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_Generation_(boo...

BTW, just don't take my word, I'd suggest you search out some of the book's reviews.

Incidentally, when I was working in NY some decades ago I shared my office with a GI of that generation and he became a great friend. I had many discussions with him about his past experiences. I consider it great privilege to have known him (his name would be familiar to some of you).
by onetimeusename | 2025-04-17 15:37:24+00:00
They almost certainly do. There were rumors of a Chinese student ban during Trump's last tenure and I remember reading news stories (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/11/29/university-il...) about universities having insurance policies to protect themselves from revenue loss. There should be enough Americans to fill the empty seats so it makes you wonder if university finances rely on international student tuition. So you would expect that to translate into admissions changes.

Reading other comments on here it almost seems like people feel it would be bad if American universities like Harvard had more Americans. Like there is something morally wrong with that. So that's probably a factor also.
by blagie | 2025-04-17 15:37:26+00:00
You'd still need to edit quite a few more words. For example, the world is much more opportunistic than that.

I know you're looking for a precise statement you can beat up (much as my edits are taking away the ludicrous parts), but the world is also not fully observable. Opposing governments (and individuals, and armies, and ...) often take swipes at each other, but knowing the precise chain of events, intent, players, etc. leading to each swipe is usually not possible without extensive insider knowledge. However, it is possible to observe one side taking a swipe at another, without knowing every detail behind it.
by spacebanana7 | 2025-04-17 15:37:50+00:00
Google isn't a monopoly in the Standard Oil sense of the term. Its ad revenue is big because it occupies so much user attention. I actually think many suggested remedies would actually make Google more profitable.

For example, prohibiting Apple-Style search deals would mean that Google gets a smaller amount of traffic, but that traffic would come with zero cost. That could end up being more profitable. A similar argument applies to Chrome or any other customer acquisition vehicle.

The real barriers to making Google competitive are fixable but require a different sort of regulation outside of antitrust.
by crabbone | 2025-04-17 15:37:59+00:00
Frozen is good for smoothies / shakes. You cannot put fresh berries in a mixer and get a smoothie back, instead you'll get an expensive lump of thick substance that you cannot push through the straw :)

The same process makes certain things difficult or impossible because the frozen fruits and vegetables will fall apart (quickly) when cooked.

Also, I will prefer frozen spinach to fresh any day because it takes less time to cook (you can measure enough of it right away into the pan instead of adding incrementally and waiting for it to whittle and cook down).

Also, I think all these compliments to fresh locally picked food vs the plainest cheap stuff from the supermarket exaggerate the difference... a lot. Sometimes there's indeed a noticeable difference because a particular sort of fruit or veg aren't grown industrially (eg. there are plenty of sorts of potatoes but in a supermarket you will find maybe two, which are probably the most resilient to pests). But if you were to grow the same sort of potato you buy from supermarket, I'm pretty sure the difference would be so small as not to be noticeable at all.
by haswell | 2025-04-17 15:38:14+00:00
Kids grow up in a world full of things that are not appropriate at a young age, but are perfectly fine later in life.

Personally, I worry about the mental models formed at an early age, and how distorting technology can be relative to the real world. It layers abstraction on top of abstraction on top of abstraction at a time when kids are trying to make sense of reality for the first time and establishing internal models that will stay with them into adulthood.

Sure, some carefully curated content may be fine, but I think there’s a deeper question to be asked about the impact of current technology on young brains. Adults certainly haven’t adjusted very well. The truth is, we don’t really know how harmful it is. Maybe we’ll survive the next 100 years to find out.
by chillfox | 2025-04-17 15:38:29+00:00
I have got 26 docker containers running on it. Looking at current utilization, it's 6% of cpu, 10GB ram out of 16gb. The issue is disk access. The thing has total shit bandwidth to storage, this was a surprise to me and a bit of a learning experience. It has an nvme ssd and a 3.5 hdd, but in the end usb drives attached to the usb 2 ports are much faster than either. It's a Lenovo, so I guess they cut costs somewhere and the usb 2 ports should have been a giveaway, but I was tricked by the nvme.
by kube-system | 2025-04-17 15:38:53+00:00
Colloquially, there is a perception among some that encryption is a thing that only the military, criminals, etc use.

Many people are unaware that they use it in everyday life.

If you listen to discussions on this topic outside of technical forums, this perception is not uncommon. It’s important to be clear to laypeople about the ubiquity of encryption, because they are the majority of voters.
by 9rx | 2025-04-17 15:38:55+00:00
> Glass relockers have been sold for decades

And...?

Let me ask again: Which vault(s) are currently, or at least in recent enough memory for anyone to recall, causing great strife for the government? Even a rough location would be sufficient. We can offer that in the case of encryption. There are countless news articles about police not being able to decrypt data they deem important.

Without that, it doesn't matter. Laws are not created based on imagined situations that you can dream up. They only are created after something has become a problem. You can use a perfectly impenetrable vault all day long and as long as the government doesn't want in, it is never going to care.

Of course, the greater subject is really about houses, not vaults. The government has good reason to want to get into your house. For example, you might perish in it, and it needs to get in to deal with your mess. This is a relatively frequent task placed upon government to carry out. If you've made your house impenetrable, government isn't going to remain amused for long. If the government starts encountering that problem often, absolutely it would become illegal.

It is not illegal today because it has never posed a real problem.
by potato3732842 | 2025-04-17 15:39:07+00:00
>potential for its messaging to more easily hit a critical mass.

Like that time we funded a minor regional insurgency that went on to a) kick out the Russians b) run their own country c) attack us d) kick us out e) run their own country.

The feds losing control of their assets has been a meme ever since Kennedy ate a bullet.
by ifuryst | 2025-04-17 15:39:09+00:00
Hey guys, I just open-sourced mcp-gateway, a lightweight, configuration-driven service that helps convert existing RESTful (and soon gRPC) APIs into MCP (Model Control Protocol) servers without rewriting your backend logic.

I'm using it internally in our company, and it’s been a big time saver. Would love feedback, suggestions, or even PRs from the community.

GitHub: https://github.com/mcp-ecosystem/mcp-gateway
by nativeit | 2025-04-17 15:39:19+00:00
This is an area where Americans’ lack of a functioning government is so incredibly glaring and obviously harmful, that I’m amazed nobody seems to mention it. Have regulations become so stigmatized that sensible, widely supported steps to protect the minds of our youth (arguably every bit as important as ensuring their food is not literal poison) isn’t even worth debating? I think this is another symptom of how totalitarian capitalism has been allowed to erode the common sense of society well past the point it can reasonably function.
by jampekka | 2025-04-17 15:39:42+00:00
This is in the footnote 12: "Of course, if TikTok is removed, many children will just move to TikTok’s competitors: Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. This is why it’s so important for countries to follow Australia’s lead: raise the age for opening social media accounts to 16 and require the companies to enforce it."

But indeed focusing on TikTok is probably counterproductive for establishing general regulation. Why not just apply the same regulation to TikTok?
by duxup | 2025-04-17 15:39:58+00:00
It's not even Idocracy at this point. Even President Camacho looked for help from smarter people.

You don't adjust rates just because you want them to be lower, there's second order effects. I'd like them to be lower all the time, but there's consequences for that. Trump is going to keep making policy based off snap judgments, listen to nobody, and just keep digging economic holes.
by ThinkBeat | 2025-04-17 15:39:59+00:00
I do not disagree that tiktok is a negative experience for anyone. However the hyperfocus on Tiktok these investiationds had on tiktok is entirely clear from the context.

What should be mentioned in an article ccondemming tiktok is that most other social media young people may try are horrible as well.

The amountr of sexual explitation that takes place on snapchat is quite staggering from what I have read.

I do not see how Tiktok would be any less of a threat and cause less harm if it is partially owned by a US company. There is no evidence that US social media doing a fanastic job avoiding harm for kids and teens.

I would go so far as to say modern social media is nearly founded on the idea of addiction, and endless attempe at behavioral manipulation to sell ever more ads.
by andreygrehov | 2025-04-17 15:40:10+00:00
What I’m doing is applying basic critical thinking instead of building a conspiracy theory on vibes.

Yes, DOGE is slashing budgets. Yes, CISA and MITRE took hits. That’s all true. And still doesn’t prove DOGE made the call to let the CVE contract lapse and then magically reverse it within hours. If this was a top-down DOGE directive, why the immediate reversal? Did DOGE suddenly change its mind? Or is it more likely that DHS made a blunder, got backlash, and scrambled to fix it? You’re calling your chain of assumptions a "reasonable inference" but here’s what it actually is: guilt by proximity. DOGE cuts here, DOGE cuts there, and now suddenly every erratic government decision is DOGE’s fault? That’s lazy logic.

The fact that the contract lasted 25 years _is_ relevant. It shows that this wasn't some minor side project. CVE is foundational infrastructure. You don’t accidentally let something like that expire unless someone either massively screwed up or there was serious internal confusion.

So no, I’m not ignoring the facts. I’m refusing to pretend correlation equals causation just because it fits the narrative everyone loves right now: "blame DOGE for everything". It’s easy, it’s trendy, and it completely bypasses deeper institutional dynamics.

What am I doing? I’m resisting the urge to jump on that bandwagon. You should try it.
by sebastiennight | 2025-04-17 15:40:22+00:00
I think GP means it as a symptom. If you can't remain on a single game (which is supposed to be a highly entertaining, dopamine-optimized experience) for more than 5 minutes, what is the likelihood you can stick with any harder task in everyday life for longer?

Plenty of valuable things are less exciting than a video game in their first 300 seconds, and last much longer than 5 minutes.
by thuanao | 2025-04-17 15:41:02+00:00
Correct? Anyone who has worked with concurrency in Haskell is probably laughing... :)

Haskell's IO type system doesn't model concurrency at all. `IO a` could be a fork and join, an infinite event loop, really anything, it's a black box in terms of "correctness". Better than using JavaScript maybe, but hardly "correct" in any sort of formal, tractable sense.
by pqtyw | 2025-04-17 15:41:06+00:00
> amount has been the same for centuries, and it can never be changed for any reason

That's only true in a narrow and a relatively obtuse way. For starters that varied to a huge degree between regions and types of contracts.

e.g. in England freeholds were indeterminate and or more or less worked the way you are saying.

However most peasants didn't have those, before the plague the overwhelming majority of peasants were villeins (i.e. serfs), inheritance was customary and lords were not legally obliged to pass it to the serf's descendants (also there were all kinds of fees, fines and stuff besides the fact that they weren't legally free and there was no legal system to protect your rights).

Leaseholds and copyholds became much more common due to labour shortages after the plague. leaseholds were not inherited and market price based. Copyholds were inherited and rents customary fixes (but again lords could and would impose all kinds of arbitrary fees to get their cut).

Then you had the enclosures starting the 1400s (a lot of the land peasants relied on was common)
by ssklash | 2025-04-17 15:41:17+00:00
You think a country of 1.4 billion people is utterly incapable of metallurgy, simply because some of their products are intentionally designed as cheaply as possible, to be sold on a market that wants products sold as cheaply as possible?

Are you also an expert on 3D nano-scale material science? It sounds like you only know a couple terms about stainless steel on a macro scale.
by dhorthy | 2025-04-17 15:41:26+00:00
i'd be interested to check it out

here's a take, I adapted this from someone on the notebookLM team on swyx's podcast

> the only way to build really impressive experiences in AI, is to find something right at the edge of the model's capability, and to get it right consistently.

So in order to build something very good / better than the rest, you will always benefit from being able to bring in every optimization you can.
by ChrisMarshallNY | 2025-04-17 15:41:39+00:00
That would be a really decent application of AI.

We already have the beginnings of "AI therapists." Not sure how well they'll work, but they probably won't make people's pathologies worse.

As opposed to just about Every. Single. Online. Social. Network.

There's just waaaay too much lovely money to be made, by feeding people's ids.
by cookiengineer | 2025-04-17 15:42:14+00:00
> It's not wrong to say that Libgen is something that Russia did for the world.

I think that everyone that helped with that project would be pretty mad if they heard this. It's definitely not Russia that did this, it's people working against Russian censorship that did this.

Also, a lot of the community behind the pirateb4y and 4nnas-archive and the-3ye helped build these projects. The sheer amount of resources that the archivist is contributing is insane by any normal (non-fortune100) standard.