MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by SoKamil | 2025-04-21 10:11:54+00:00
> As this is a Javascript file executed on the web, it is actually possible to replace the normal webmssdk.js with the deobfuscated file and use TikTok normally.

> This can be achieved by using two browser extensions known as Tampermonkey for executing custom code and CSP to disable CSP so I can fetch files from blocked origins. This is so I can put latestDeobf.js in my own file server and have it be fetched each time, this is so I can easily edit the file and let the changes take effect each time I refresh. This makes it much easier to bebug when reversing functions.

I believe you can achieve the same effect without any 3rd party extensions. You can use Local Overrides in Chrome DevTools.

Great work!
by misja111 | 2025-04-21 10:13:06+00:00
No, to my brain, reptile or not, these FB feed suggestions are a constant source of irritation.

I use FB only because I'm member of a couple of groups relevant to my hobby, and the stuff posted in those is worth following. Unfortunately there is currently no alternative for those, otherwise I would happily ditch FB.

I don't even care about posts from family and friends anymore because nowadays those are mostly about bragging about their fancy dinner/holiday/social life etc.
by casenmgreen | 2025-04-21 10:13:24+00:00
I bought a Ricoh GR III.

Nice camera, shame about the app - it's pretty bad in and of itself (you need it for remote shutter), but it has a horrific data collection/sharing T&C.

Fortunately, in Android, you can block network access for an app.

If I couldn't do that, I'd need to root e/os/ to install firewall to prevent, or, not use the app - which would mean no remote shutter on the camera.

AFAIK, there is no way to discover the T&C until you have installed the app.
by _7acn | 2025-04-21 10:15:35+00:00
As someone who hasn't used these things for a long time, I can say that my well-being is excellent. However, it might be easier for me due to my age (43) and the lack of need to please peers or friends.

I also use a browser plugin that blocks LinkedIn feed. This is because I can't stand seeing the nonsense that seemingly serious people post there.
by dcow | 2025-04-21 10:16:41+00:00
Uh… what do you call mass downvoting anything reasonably skeptical? I saw comments saying “I’ll wait until the data can be replicated to believe it” turn grey almost immediately on most threads. And after we knew it didn’t replicate it took the community the better part of a week to grieve and admit that the “it’s not a superconductor” results were real and not operator error.
by femto | 2025-04-21 10:17:42+00:00
At one point Francis said "The Patriarch cannot become Putin’s altar boy", in reference to Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church [1]. Maybe Francis recognised that working to get Kirill to temper his support for Putin would be more effective than his own public condemnation, which might allow propagandists to whip up a Western vs. Orthodox religious frenzy to unify Russians behind Putin?

[1] https://www.wn.catholic.org.nz/adw_welcom/pope-says-kirill-m...
by southernplaces7 | 2025-04-21 10:17:51+00:00
>Can people please stop downvoting comments they disagree with? If you disagree with someone, upvote them and have a fucking conversation. Downvoting and flagging is NOT for disagreement.

you got at least one upvote from me, and agreed about the infantile stupidity of the downvoting on this site, it's idiotic, detracts from decent debate and often gets used by people who apparently have the emotional development of children just for the sake of trying to make anything they dislike disappear. I apply and recommend a specific rule of never using the silly downvote no matter how much you hate an opinion.
by georgeslz | 2025-04-21 10:18:20+00:00
I always failed at fancy journaling apps. One scheduled email + replying finally worked, so I built *Storied* around that idea. Free core; $3.99/mo for analytics, custom times, and more.

Built with SvelteKit → Firebase → AWS SES (Lambda + S3). Code not open‑sourced yet but happy to share details & numbers (cost <$5/mo).

Link: https://storied.email/?utm_source=hn_show&utm_medium=post&ut...
by poincaredisk | 2025-04-21 10:18:23+00:00
Others already commented about the accusatory tone of the article, but I want to focus on:

>But public sector agencies were selecting it as a way to support Europe’s native tech sector, and also to take a step towards digital sovereignty

I care about neither, but I did -and still do - use OVH. They were never good, but they were always cheap. They provide good VPS and dedicated bare metal servers. They were not a "cloud" like DigitalOcean or AWS, with things happening magically in the background.

Therefore, there are no backups included, by default servers come with RAID but I dismantle mine for more disk space (and do offsite backups).

Also, they are bigger than the article suggests. Even if they're not well known outside of Europe:

>As of 2016 OVH owned the world's largest data center in surface area.[3] As of 2019, it was the largest hosting provider in Europe,[4][5] and the third largest in the world based on physical servers.[6] According to W3Techs, OVH has 3.4% of website data center market share in 2024
by rwyinuse | 2025-04-21 10:18:24+00:00
I've had tomatoes grown successfully, with decent yield in pots that take maybe 30L of soil, and without any perlite. It isn't that hard if we're talking about hobbyist stuff, where results don't have to be ideal but just "good enough". Picking a variety that is hardy and forgiving, and a place with enough warmth and sunlight (at least in the North) is the most important part.
by AStonesThrow | 2025-04-21 10:21:56+00:00
It is interesting to examine the case of Brokedown Palace, which was set in Thailand, but filmed in the Philippines, because it was “critical of the Thai legal system”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brokedown_Palace#Filming

Except it was Manila and the Philippines that banned actress Claire Danes, after she slagged off Manila by basically telling lies to media outlets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Danes#Personal_life

But we’ve all known since 1984 that one night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble. https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=rgc_LRjlbTU&si=aVIPqwJfNdf...
by krapp | 2025-04-21 10:23:08+00:00
Not every "prominent elder" deserves respect. Certainly not on the basis that men in a smoke filled room elected them the infallible avatar of a God that most people don't even believe in. People are in awe of this latest Pope because his morals were essentially normal and not medieval. The Pope was just a guy in a robe.

The world would be much better off if we listened to scientists and scholars - people who at least earned the authority with which they speak - the way we listen to priests.
by 7bit | 2025-04-21 10:23:08+00:00
@tomhow

I understand the intention behind keeping the thread respectful, especially in the context of someone’s death. That said, I find it difficult to fully separate reflections on Pope Francis from reflections on the institution he led. The papacy is not just a personal role—it is deeply representative of the Catholic Church as an institution, with all the historical and present-day weight that carries.

It also stands out to me that similar moderation reminders don't usually appear in threads about other public figures. That gives the impression that this topic is being treated as more sensitive or "untouchable" than others, and I think it's fair to question why that is.

I'm all for thoughtful conversation, but part of that includes being able to engage critically with the institutions and roles that public figures embody—even in moments like this.
by noduerme | 2025-04-21 10:24:18+00:00
I'm not trying to be caustic or indignant. Not at all! I'm very surprised someone would take it that way. I have a different definition of what a "VM" is. I've been writing code for 30+ years and this is my understanding of what that means. Please, by all means, if I am completely wrong then take the time to explain what your view is.
by conductr | 2025-04-21 10:25:52+00:00
I bought a GoPro last year after reading about a feature HyperSmooth Pro stabilization. Granted, I didn't do an inquisition into the specifics just thinking if I bought their best camera it was supported. Feature is only available if I also subscribe to their $100 per year membership. I think without the membership some lesser, non-Pro version is available. It felt like a bait and switch situation to me when I unboxed it and tried to use the feature the first time.
by heresie-dabord | 2025-04-21 10:27:19+00:00
He riled many of his flock and hierarchy when he said that "even atheists can be redeemed". [0]

I will always applaud a person who retreats — even just a little — from dogma and fanaticism.

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/05/29/187009384/...
by akoboldfrying | 2025-04-21 10:27:29+00:00
> The biggest annoyance with Java checked exceptions IME is that it’s impossible to define a method type that’s generic over the type of exception it throws.

Exactly. If Stream methods like filter() and map() could automatically "lift" the checked exceptions thrown by their callback parameters into their own exception specifications, it would solve one of the language's biggest pain points (namely: Streams and checked exceptions, pick one).
by input_sh | 2025-04-21 10:27:43+00:00
What a sane and normal response! Did I not already share some interesting history? Aren't you directly replying to that?

But okay, here's another one: that same queer and black community from Chicago that definitely didn't feel great about ~50k white men burning their records developed a new (now super popular) genre on top of the ashes of disco (both metaphorically and literallly).

Its name is a reference to a nightclub in Chicago called The Warehouse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warehouse_(nightclub)), which was frequented primarily by gay black men in the early 1980s. People all over Chicago were looking for the type of music that was playing in the Warehouse, hence the name: 'house music. So, not only was that day in Chicago fundamental to the death of disco, but it was also fundamental to the birth of house music. The more you know!
by suspended_state | 2025-04-21 10:27:49+00:00
I don't understand the following from the article:

"The more root growth, the more carbon in the soil, which can be a source of food for soil bacteria that multiply under warming temperatures. When soil in a rice paddy is waterlogged, oxygen gets depleted, causing the soil bacteria to rely further on arsenic to generate energy. The end result is more arsenic building up in the rice paddy, and more roots to take it up to the developing grain."

It is said that the bacteria rely further on arsenic to generate energy, where I understand "rely on" as "consume". So how would this lead to a build up of arsenic? If anything, it should lead to the opposite, shouldn't it? Unless they meant to say that because of the lack of oxygen in the soil, bacteria rely on anaerobic methods to produce energy, which has arsenic as a by-product?
by namaria | 2025-04-21 10:28:25+00:00
> the attribution graphs it suggests might mis‐lead at a fine‐grained level

"In principle, our attribution graphs make predictions that are much more fine-grained than these kinds of interventions can test."

> high‑level causal discoveries (e.g. that Claude plans its rhymes ahead of time) remain valid.

"We found planned word features in about half of the poems we investigated, which may be due to our CLT not capturing features for the planned words, or it may be the case that the model does not always engage in planning"

"Our results are only claims about specific examples. We don't make claims about mechanisms more broadly. For example, when we discuss planning in poems, we show a few specific examples in which planning appears to occur. It seems likely that the phenomenon is more widespread, but it's not our intent to make that claim."

And quite significantly:

"We only explain a fraction of the model's computation. The remaining “dark matter” manifests as error nodes in our attribution graphs, which (unlike features) have no interpretable function, and whose inputs we cannot easily trace. (...) Error nodes are especially a problem for complicated prompts (...) This paper has focused on prompts that are simple enough to avoid these issues. However, even the graphs we have highlighted contain significant contributions from error nodes."

Maybe read the paper before making claims about its contents.
by Tenoke | 2025-04-21 10:30:42+00:00
Then the useful part is the extra execute function you have to write (it's not just a substitute like in the comment) and an extra function can confirm the safety of a value going into a f-string just as well.

I get the general case, but even then it seems like an implicit anti-pattern over doing db.execute(f"QUERY WHERE name = {safe(name)}")
by pjmlp | 2025-04-21 10:32:55+00:00
Definitly, as Portuguese I think we do share some expresso mentality with Italy, even some regional words for coffee are derived from Italian machine brands, and the same complaint regarding expresso when abroad, with exception when visiting Italy :).

I can assure that at least since the 1970's there was hardly any household without a stovetop espresso maker.
by noduerme | 2025-04-21 10:33:22+00:00
I seem to be misunderstood. In a sibling part of this thread that was responding to someone who was later flagged, I wrote this:

But that's basically an emulator of a VM, isn't it? It's like rewriting the Flash AVM2 into JS... it's still running in JS whereas the original VM was C++. It could JIT compile stuff but only because it literally was reserving memory that could overflow, and (semi-technical take here) from that advantage, of being closer to the metal, flowed all of the flaws in AVM2 that precipitated most of Adobe's woes with Flash. A VM implant in a web page that uses a plugin like Java or Flash, to get around running browser-sandboxed code, which can take over physical memory, is far different from just emulating a VM in Javascript. I wouldn't call writing a ton of opcodes in JS, which resolved to JS functions, a "virtual machine", because it isn't reserving anything or doing anything that Javascript can't do. Someone correct me here if I'm wrong... this is just heavy-duty obfuscation.

Also, one major purpose of a VM is to improve performance over what's available in the browser. If you use that as a measurement, this clearly doesn't fit that goal.
by franga2000 | 2025-04-21 10:34:00+00:00
I wish they added the same thing JS has, where this "string literal prefix thingy" can be user-defined.

html`<p>${value}</p>` will actually run the function html(template). This means you can use this to "mark" a function in a way that can be detected by static analysis. Many editors will, for example, syntax highlight and lint any HTML marked this way, same with SQL, GraphQL and probably some others too.
by jl6 | 2025-04-21 10:35:22+00:00
Francis would have been the first to call himself just a guy in a robe. I’m an atheist and don’t find it difficult to listen to people of all faiths put forward moral philosophy, and I can identify parts that I agree with even if I might disagree that there is any supernatural basis for them. There’s a wide world of thought available that is simply outside the remit of science, and there is a lot to be gained from listening to people who have spent their lives dedicated to that domain, even if some of it is wrong, and even if none of it is founded in peer-reviewed academic papers.
by tmnvdb | 2025-04-21 10:35:23+00:00
I understand from your question you struggle to comprehend that this is possible. I assure you it really is. People who have money take the train. People who own cars take the train. The modal split for Vienna generally is about 25% by car. I would guess more than 50% for public transport for journeys to nearby nature. The trains in Austria are excellent: safe, clean and very punctual. If you get in a train to nature you will be surrounded by people with overpriced hiking gear.
by MomsAVoxell | 2025-04-21 10:35:52+00:00
I recently had to find my way back from Zagreb, Croatia, to Vienna Austria.

So I went to the main train station and asked to buy a ticket to Vienna. The lady looked at me like I was a moron, turned around and dug through a meter high layer of papers and other debris, to uncover an ancient looking computer, some Croatian brand. She attempted to boot it up, amber screen and all, to no avail. “No, can’t buy ticket here, maybe on the train…”

This didn’t give me much confidence. I’d already tried to get on the train, the conductors “no ticket on train, buy at office, take train tomorrow” advice was why I was asking this lady to do some archaeology in the first place.

I ended up just renting a car.

One day I’ll go back to Zagreb and take a closer look. It really can’t be that bad - still buying tickets with ancient Soviet-era computing. As much as I love the whole mirth of this story, I still feel like I missed something obvious. I probably should’ve bought the ticket online .. but man was it amusing seeing that old amber glow reach from beneath the detritus ..
by heresie-dabord | 2025-04-21 10:36:08+00:00
> similar moderation reminders don't usually appear in threads about other public figures.

Friend, this is not true. "dang" himself has often exhorted posters in this same manner and language when a notable death may attract inconsiderate commentary.

See the search link provided by tomhow in this branch of the same discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43749405#43750046
by lupusreal | 2025-04-21 10:36:12+00:00
Part of the problem is you can't even count on appliances to last 10 years anymore. These industries can force people to accept new indignities by making sure their old device dies prematurely and the only new ones to buy are shit.

Yeah yeah, survivor bias, rose tinted glasses, conspiracy theories, blah blah. I've heard all the canned refutations. It's true. Appliance manufacturers got better at making things worse.

And even if the device doesn't die early, it will eventually have to be replaced for one reason or another. I got 20 years out of my Honda, which wasn't great but not terrible either, but trying to replace it with something new that had comparable reputation for reliability and also no touch screen computer spyware bullshit was a serious problem. My only choice was Mazda and the although my new car does have the physical buttons and knobs I want, they are easily the worst quality buttons and knobs. All mushy with no satisfying clicks. One company holding out and selling cars or appliances without the new horse shit isn't enough, because without comparable competition they are still free to cut corners and make something worse than could be purchased in the past.
by ubercore | 2025-04-21 10:36:40+00:00
Problem with that example is where do you get `safe`? Passing a template into `db.execute` lets the `db` instance handle safety specifically for the backend it's connected to. Otherwise, you'd need to create a `safe` function with a db connection to properly sanitize a string.

And further, if `safe` just returns a string, you still lose out on the ability for `db.execute` to pass the parameter a different way -- you've lost the information that a variable is being interpolated into the string.
by liendolucas | 2025-04-21 10:36:50+00:00
I'm keeping my gadgets to the bare minimum and if in the future I need to purchase something I truly need I think I will be just fine buying second hand and couple of generations old. There's no other way. Why we don't have more laws protecting customers from these buy-baits I still don't know. People should absolutely boicott and spread the word about these pieces of junk being put in the market. KUDOS to the author for taking the time to document this.
by irthomasthomas | 2025-04-21 10:37:12+00:00
> The first thing I want AGI to do is to be able to tell me when it doesn’t know something,

In my demo, the llm agent asks followup questions to understand the users problem. Then it first attempts to answer those questions using context and function calling. When a question cannot be answered this way it is forwarded to the user. In other words, it tells you when it doesn't know something.
by harshreality | 2025-04-21 10:37:18+00:00
> For a point of comparison, after Nazi Germany collapsed the Western allies had German civil servants fill questionnaires to assess their level of involvement; of 3.6 millions surveyed, just 1% were charged as "main culprits" (Hauptschuldige), whereas a third were designated as "followers" (Mitläufer), who basically contributed to the regime's crimes but nontheless got to keep their jobs after the war. I'd argue the allies were way too lenient on Germany, but the current Israeli approach (kill them all) is too extreme and will not work because its objectives are unrealistic.

You're comparing the Allies' actions after WWII concluded with Israel's actions in the midst of conflict.

Are you forgetting the Dresden firebombings?

Are you really suggesting that Israel will continue to "kill them all" if Hamas surrenders? That's not even what Israel is doing now, although they have the military capability to do so if they wished.
by matrixswarm | 2025-04-21 10:37:33+00:00
I’ve been building an operating system that doesn’t use containers, daemons, or sockets — just folders, agents, and JSON.

MatrixSwarm is a file-driven OS where agents spawn, die, and come back. No servers. No schedulers. Just file I/O and recursion.

This article introduces OracleAgent — a GPT-4-powered node that reads .prompt files and responds via OpenAI. It lives inside a self-resurrecting system built on inotify, folders, and command files. OracleAgent — From Spawn to Prophecy

If you're curious how this system works:

- Every agent is spawned from folders - There are no persistent services — agents come and go - Agents use file watchers (`inotify`) to detect commands - Matrix (the root agent) builds and delegates missions - OracleAgent is the first AI-integrated node: it reads `.prompt` files and speaks using GPT-4

This isn’t Kubernetes. This isn’t systemd.

MatrixSwarm is alive — and it runs on nothing but files.

GitHub: https://github.com/matrixswarm/matrixswarm Manifesto: https://github.com/matrixswarm/matrixswarm/blob/main/codex/M...
by sixthDot | 2025-04-21 10:37:41+00:00
Sure, CTFE can be used to generate strings, then later "mixed-in" as source code, but also can be used to execute normal functions and then the result can be stored in a compile-time constant (in D that's the `enum` storage class), for example generating an array using a function literal called at compile-time:

enum arr = { return iota(5).map!(i => i * 10).array; }(); static assert(arr == [0,10,20,30,40]);
by Wowfunhappy | 2025-04-21 10:38:10+00:00
...can I ask a really stupid question? What is a VM in this context?

I've used VM's for years to run Windows on top of macOS or Linux on top of Windows or macOS on top of macOS when I need an isolated testing environment. I also know that Java works via the "Javascript Virtual Machine" which I've always thought of as "Java code actually runs in its own lightweight operating system on top of the host OS, which makes it OS-agnostic". The JVM can't run on bare metal because it doesn't have hardware drivers, but presumably it could if you wrote those drivers.

But presumably the VM being discussed in TFA isn't that kind of VM, right? Bytedance didn't write an operating system in Javascript?

I've been seeing "VM" used in lots of contexts like this recently and it makes me think I must be missing something, but it's the sort of question I don't know how to Google. AIs have not been helpful either, plus I don't trust them.