MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by throwanem | 2025-04-10 18:34:57+00:00
Oh, I've tried them a time or two. In the store they look great. The trouble is that I don't really shoot in camera stores often, and when I'm shooting wild wasps in close macro, I'm not autofocusing or even manually focusing but rather holding my breath and timing the insuppressible tiny movements of my body, and the contrast of the ommatidial boundaries in the wasp's eye as perceived through the carefully trained and practiced sensitivity of my eye, as I've learned to anticipate the moment in which my desired composition exists. This way, as the shutter release closes and the shutter itself opens, what's captured is a perfect portrait shot of the wasp, with the tack-sharp, razor-thin macro focal plane exactly where I want it - which almost always is indeed exactly at her eyes.

After all, most of the time she's watching me every bit as closely as I her, and I like to be able to show that. From the ways people look at and talk about that work, the effort has not been wholly wasted, but it is a more demanding task than I expect a median EVF, or if I'm honest really any even remotely affordable model, to handle. My eyes barely handle it, such that even in the D850's bright and generous viewfinder, the way I perceive this kind of focus is not as a clear sense of seeing those fine divisions between optical elements, but rather as minimizing a sort of unpleasant perceptual "static" or "interference," and it doesn't work at all even in my dominant eye through the lens of my glasses. (My cameras' eyepieces have diopter inserts adjusted to match my prescription.)

On reflection, maybe that's why the EVFs I've tried (Nikon Z5 and Z7 iirc, so previous generation) felt like they had a kind of weird shimmer I didn't like. I assume the Z8 does better, and sure, all the focus peaking and trick shot stuff in the viewfinder is nice. I'll even grant it feels like looking at the future. It's just that, so far at least, I find I seem to prefer looking through a camera.
by utopcell | 2025-04-10 18:35:21+00:00
This is simply using LLMs directly. Google has demonstrated that this is not the way to go when it comes to solving math problems. AlphaProof, which used AlphaZero code, got a silver medal in last year's IMO. It also didn't use any human proofs(!), only theorem statements in lean, without their corresponding proofs [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzXyPGEtseI
by bb88 | 2025-04-10 18:35:47+00:00
I think maybe a better approach I saw was to sweep and vacuum up NY City sidewalks for gemstones that have fallen out of people's jewelry.

It's similar to the idea of sweeping up the edges of high travelled roads looking for palladium. But I think the palladium recovered wasn't worth the effort. But the gem stones might be, even if they're tiny.
by pxc | 2025-04-10 18:35:59+00:00
> I expect someday clang will become the default [compiler for the Linux kernel].

Why? I don't personally use GCC except to compile other people's projects in a way that's mostly invisible to me, but it seems like it's still widely used and constantly improving, thanks in part to competition with LLVM/Clang. Is the situation really so dire?
by woodruffw | 2025-04-10 18:36:30+00:00
I think we're talking past each other. I'm not interested in defending symbolic AI at all; it's clear it's failed. All told, I would not say I'm particularly interested in any kind of AI.

I'm interested in theory of mind, and I think defeasibility with a huge number of dimensions is a stronger explanation of how humans behave and think than something resembling an LLM. This doesn't somehow mean that LLMs haven't "won" (they have); I just don't think they're winning at human-like cognition. This in turn does not mean we could build a better alternative, either.
RAG Without Vectors – Reasoning-Based RAG using PageIndex
by vectify_AI | 2025-04-10 18:37:10+00:00
Traditional vector-based RAG often struggles with retrieval accuracy because it optimizes for similarity, not relevance. But what we truly need in retrieval is relevance, which requires reasoning. When working with professional documents that require domain expertise and multi-step reasoning, vector-based RAG and similarity search often fall short.

So we started exploring a more reasoning-driven approach to RAG. Reasoning-based RAG enables LLMs to think and reason their way to the most relevant document sections. Inspired by AlphaGo, we propose to use tree search to perform structured document retrieval.

We open-sourced one of the key components: PageIndex. PageIndex is a hierarchical Document Indexing system that builds search trees from long documents (like financial reports, regulatory documents, or textbooks), making them ready for reasoning-based RAG.

Some highlights:

- Hierarchical Structure: Organizes lengthy PDFs into LLM-friendly trees — like a smart table of contents.

- Precise Referencing: Each node includes a summary and exact physical page numbers.

- Natural Segmentation: Nodes align with document sections, preserving context — no arbitrary chunking.

We've used PageIndex for financial document analysis with reasoning-based RAG and saw significant improvements in retrieval accuracy compared to vector-based systems.

Would love any feedback — especially thoughts on reasoning-based RAG, or ideas for where PageIndex could be applied!
by djanowski | 2025-04-10 18:37:16+00:00
Recently I started to work on a very simple tool to do this with a single command: it'll start all your projects in a given directory and expose them via HTTPS on https://[project].localhost

No daemons, and the only piece of configuration is adding a file to /etc/resolvers: https://github.com/djanowski/hostel

I've been using it for myself so it's lacking documentation and features. For example, it expects to run each project using `npm run dev`, but I want to add Procfile support.

Hopefully other people find it useful. Contributions very much welcome!
by torginus | 2025-04-10 18:37:28+00:00
I've often experienced that I had what I thought an obscure and very intellectually challenging coding problem, and after prompting the LLM, it basically one-shotted it.

I've been profoundly humbled by the the experience, but then it occurred to me that what I thought to be an unique problem has been solved by quite a few people before and the model had plenty of references to pull from.
by paddy_m | 2025-04-10 18:37:30+00:00
Another note about fire trucks. There has been a large private equity roll up of fire truck manufacturers resulting in longer lead times and much higher prices. [1]

I was surprised when I specifically checked on Pierce that they are owned by Oshkosh and publicly traded. [2][3]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/17/us/fire-engines-shortage-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierce_Manufacturing

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oshkosh_Corporation
by spankalee | 2025-04-10 18:37:48+00:00
Framework server rendering is framework specific... Seems like a framework problem.

At least custom elements can just be including in framework-specific templates and be included in the rendered output, even if not deeply server-rendered.

It's actually very difficult to do this correctly and at scale with a framework like React, because in React you need an ID and JS call to initialize each embedded component, when custom elements initialize themselves.

Anyway, you have an axe to grind, so have fun with that. I'll see you next time I make a positive comment about web components I guess.
by Suppafly | 2025-04-10 18:38:44+00:00
>I'm always charmed by museums that feel like this sort of "weird collection".

The more interested I am in a subject, the less I like them, because usually they aren't rigorous about data accuracy regarding what the item is and where it was found and how it was used. If it's something I don't particularly care about, I can still feel a little wonderment, but once I'm interested at all, the nagging feeling that it's impossible to actually know anything about the item starts creeping in.
by bloppe | 2025-04-10 18:38:45+00:00
Think of f as a function that takes a value and returns a value. Y takes a function and returns a function. Y(f) returns a new function that takes a value and applies f to it, recursively forever, ultimately converging on a value (or infinity).

In your example, f(...) would have to return a function that is then applied to x.

I realize there are no non-function values in LC.
by pera | 2025-04-10 18:39:04+00:00
> Global AI data center power demand could reach 68 GW by 2027 and 327 GW by 2030, compared with total global data center capacity of just 88 GW in 2022.

"AI's Power Requirements Under Exponential Growth", Jan 28, 2025:

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3572-1.html

As a point of reference: The current demand in the UK is 31.2 GW (https://grid.iamkate.com/)
by ty6853 | 2025-04-10 18:40:04+00:00
I would argue the spectra of human vocal speech is more constrained than the far wider spectra of radio waves. What most places do is just limit sound beyond a certain level rather than requiring a license to play electronic sounds or talk. In the end most forms of communication are constrained -- you can only cut down so many trees or tree alternatives for newspaper, so I don't think this argument about licensing holds as presented.
by sotix | 2025-04-10 18:40:10+00:00
There’s a reason why Isaac Bashevis Singer and Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz have made the comparison of factory farming to the holocaust. Factory farming is arguably the single most horrific thing humanity has done period. Its scale is terrifying.

> part of what made the holocaust so horrible is that people were being treated like animals. It's like trying to argue that dogs should be kept inside by saying "What if you made your toddler sleep outside in a dog house?", it's a comparison that defeats itself.

"In relation to [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka"

– Isaac Bashevis Singer

"I believe as long as man tortures and kills animals, he will torture and kill humans as well—and wars will be waged—for killing must be practiced and learned on a small scale".

– Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz
by sorokod | 2025-04-10 18:40:12+00:00
You may be interested in operation Mole Cricket 19 about ten years earlier.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F33h9-oUfDU&t=2s&pp=2AECkAIB

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mole_Cricket_19
by vlovich123 | 2025-04-10 18:40:21+00:00
It is a bug - you’ve violated the contract between the language and the compiler.

Just like segfault or logic bug, it’s a class of bugs. Why is special though is that in most bugs you just hit an invalid state. In UB you can end up executing code that never existed or not executing code that does exist. Or any number of other things can happen because the compiler applies an optimization assuming a runtime state you promised it would never occur but did.

It’s slightly different from being a strict subset because UB is actually exploited to perform optimizations - UB is not allowed so the compiler is able to emit more efficient code is taught to exploit that and the language allows for it (eg the niche optimization the blog describes)
by fc417fc802 | 2025-04-10 18:40:24+00:00
The training costs are amortized over inference. More lifetime queries means better efficiency.

Individual inferences are extremely low impact. Additionally it will be almost impossible to assess the net effect due to the complexity of the downstream interactions.

At 40M 700W GPU hours 160 million queries gets you 175Wh per query. That's less than the energy required to boil a pot of pasta. This is merely an upper bound - it's near certain that many times more queries will be run over the life of the model.
by dylan604 | 2025-04-10 18:40:36+00:00
I use the "runs home to mama" line a lot when describing an unexpected result from a black box we've integrated into our workflows.

I love the "You sold me" line too, as it shows how Mancuso is willing to listen to his men even when they have such an out of the box idea. It also helps make Mancuso listening to Jack's port/starboard Crazy Ivan maneuver. He's kind of already bought into Jack's idea by that point anyways. Otherwise, he'd already had Jack into quarters somewhere
by justin_oaks | 2025-04-10 18:40:49+00:00
I'd recommend using some other reserved IP address block like 169.254.0.0/16 or 100.64.0.0/16 and assigning it to your local loopback interface. (Nitpick: you can actually use all of 127.0.0.0/8 instead of just 127.0.0.0/24).

I previously used differing 127.0.0.0/8 addresses for each local service I ran on my machine. It worked fine for quite a while but this was in pre-Docker days.

Later on I started using Docker containers. Things got more complicated if I wanted to access an HTTP service both from my host machine and from other Docker containers. Instead of having your services exposed differently inside a docker network and outside of it, you can consistently use the IP and Ports you expose/map.

If you're 127.0.0.0/8 addresses then this won't work. The local loopback addresses aren't routed to the host computer when sent from a Docker container; they're routed to the container. In other words, 127.0.0.1 inside Docker means "this container" not "this machine".

For that reason I picked some other unused IP block [0] and assigned that block to the local loopback interface. Now I use those IPs for assigning to my docker containers.

I wouldn't recommend using the RFC 1918 IP blocks since those are frequently used in LANs and within Docker itself. You can use something like the link-local IP block (169.254.0.0/16) which I've never seen used outside of the AWS EC2 metadata service. Or you can use the carrier-grade NAT IP block (100.64.0.0/16). Or even some IP block that's assigned for public use, but is never used, although that can be risky.

I use Debian Bookworm. I can bind 100.64.0.0/16 to my local loopback interface by creating a file under /etc/network/interfaces.d/ with the following

auto lo:1 iface lo:1 inet static address 100.64.0.1 gateway 100.64.0.0 netmask 255.255.0.0

Once that's set up I can expose the port of one Docker container at 100.64.0.2:80, another at 100.64.0.3:80, etc.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserved_IP_addresses
by jenniferabowd | 2025-04-10 18:41:10+00:00
Location: Washington DC, USA

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: React, JavaScript/Typescript, Node, AWS, Next, Terraform

Résumé/CV: https://www.jenniferabowd.com/Jennifer_Abowd_Resume.pdf

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferabowd/

Email: jenniferabowd@gmail.com

I'm a Senior Full Stack Engineer with 7+ years of experience. I love working with JavaScript, React, and Node. I've worked at a variety of different companies over the years, so I've also dabbled in Java and Python. I worked extensively in PHP Laravel for 2 years. I am passionate about mentorship and code review as I see those as great ways to help the teams I'm on improve.
by helfire | 2025-04-10 18:41:25+00:00
It's really a great time to be a classic MacOS developer - tons of resources out there such as Retro68k, AmendHub, and a small but active community of people interested in sharing examples and help.

Back in the day when this stuff was modern I didn't have many resources or people to talk to about it, so exploring what could have been is an interesting endeavor.

https://github.com/autc04/Retro68 https://amendhub.com/
by o11c | 2025-04-10 18:41:47+00:00
Is there any reason to ask this? GCC plugins have been good since 4.8. 4.5 lacked some essential features; 4.6 would be fine if not for the annoyance of trying to support a plugin that works across the C++ transition. Of course, you can just use the Python plugin to save yourself a lot of sanity ...
by torginus | 2025-04-10 18:42:05+00:00
LLMs are a casino. They're probabilistic models which might come up with incredible solutions at a drop of a hat, then turn around and fumble even the most trivial stuff - I've had this same experience from GPT3.5 to the latest and greatest models.

They come up with something amazing once, and then never again, leading me to believe, it's operator error, not pure dumb luck or slight prompt wording that lead me to be humbled once, and then tear my hair out in frustration the next time.

Granted, newer models tend to do more hitting than missing, but it's still far from a certainty that it'll spit out something good.
by gnabgib | 2025-04-10 18:43:13+00:00
Discussion at $750M (125 points, 4 months ago, 167 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42291101

$700M (45 points, 11 months ago, 85 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40503678
by agentultra | 2025-04-10 18:43:23+00:00
> methodology has a second order effect on motivation

Can't agree more.

I think a lot of development teams overlook this.

I'm a fan of "Tigerstyle" so far.

Although I find bits in Zig a questionable. The way zig build-tools links libc is quixotic and leads to fun link errors from other build toolchains. Not sure if that is the Zig developers adopting a similar mindset but it does make linking and packaging Zig code a touch more difficult (we ended up having to use `patchelf` to set the headers properly in order to avoid linking issues with Tigerbeetle's C client). Or the way Zig turns asserts into assumes in ReleaseFast builds which leaves in UB?

However the tigerbeetle codebase is pretty great, Tigerstyle definitely seems to be working.

Update: re, motivation: if it's a pain, nobody wants to do it, and rarely will. docs are important!
by usr1106 | 2025-04-10 18:43:24+00:00
In my first aid class in a 230V country we were taught: Someone who got an electric shock always needs to visit the emergency room, even if they seem to be fine. Reason: fibrillation has to be ruled out or stopped.

So 230V stops it does not sound right. Whether there is any difference in probability I have no clue.
by the_af | 2025-04-10 18:44:16+00:00
> I mean this one is just reality. I’m not sure Garfield is a figment of Jon’s imagination

It's not reality. Hobbes it's not unambiguously stated to be a figment of Calvin's imagination either.

That's a fine interpretation but it's not canonical. Watterson wanted the ambiguity, as Wikipedia mentions (sorry, I don't have the interview with the direct quote where Watterson states this):

> "[Watteron] gave an example of this in discussing his opposition to a Hobbes plush toy: that if the essence of Hobbes' nature in the strip is that it remain unresolved whether he is a real tiger or a stuffed toy, then creating a real stuffed toy would only destroy the magic."
by dylan604 | 2025-04-10 18:45:34+00:00
RSR is one of my favorite Clancy books, and I return to it quite often. It was the first book I read in my teens with such a descriptive telling of what an attack on an air base could be like. How the attack allowed for the runways still able to be used with "minor" repairs and then reused by the over taking forces. Mike's journey is probably my favorite plot line.
by atoav | 2025-04-10 18:46:18+00:00
There are contemporary people who said the country in most danger of falling for communism is Germany, while Russia was seen to be in danger of turning fascist.

History has this weird thing of becoming invisible to many of the actors within it. I guess it takes a certain kind of mind (or is it just education?) to be the lobster that noticing the water becoming warmer. Without any frame of reference it could be train moving, or the landscape — those with some degree of historic education have some absolute frame of reference at least.
by overu589 | 2025-04-10 18:46:22+00:00
I tell all.

This research does not work out because thought control is so far more advanced than those (even scientifically curious), the entire process is curated by those experienced through a lifetime of development.

Right along with us, all throughout time (though like all things Americans have pushed beyond an industrialized scale) is a secret society and secret governance and whole communities who have been developed within those phenomena beyond our lifetimes. “Lines of Power.” These war among themselves, and over all of us.

You are thought controlled, we are not alone in our own minds, and the voices in our heads are real.

https://pastebin.com/3cPXbjhA
by slfnflctd | 2025-04-10 18:46:42+00:00
I've always thought there should be a 'minimum viable existence' option for those who are willing to forego most luxuries in exchange for not being required to do anything specific other than abide by reasonable laws.

It would be very interesting to see the percentage breakdowns of how such people chose to spend their time. In my opinion, there would be enough benefit to society at large to make it worthwhile. For a large group (if not the majority), I'm certain the situation would turn out to be completely temporary-- they would have the option to prepare themselves for some type of work they're better adapted to perform and/or enjoy, ultimately enhancing the culture and economy. Most of the rest could be useful as research subjects, if they were willing of course.

Obviously this is a bit of a utopian fantasy, but what can I say, Star Trek primed me to hope for such a future.
by throwaway6794 | 2025-04-10 18:46:43+00:00
ModernVivo | First Engineering Hire (Full Stack) | Seattle, WA (strongly preferred, otherwise remote for exceptional candidates

We’re seeking our first engineering hire (full-stack) at ModernVivo (https://www.modernvivo.com). We’re building literature review and study design tooling for life sciences researchers in the in vivo space. Our core software elucidates study design insights from scientific documents to reduce inefficient animal use, accelerate preclinical development timelines, and improve the probabilities of success for drug discovery.

Only hard requirements are proficiency in TypeScript/React and Python. Strong preference for proficiency in Django, experience with UI/UX design, and for candidates to be based in Seattle (although we are remote-friendly). We’re generally not looking for new graduates except for those with exceptional experience.

Please reach out to colin@modernvivo.com with either your resume or the resume/introduction for a candidate you can vouch for!
by Russell_Miller | 2025-04-10 18:47:25+00:00
I thought HN would appreciate seeing the actual metrics behind a recent B2B software exit. This company had:

$1-1.5M in EBITDA with 55-60% margins Sold for 6-6.25x multiple 83% cash at close, 17% seller note Went from LOI to close in 244 days

The company provides monitoring solutions to industrial and utility operators. What stood out to me was the strong recurring revenue model and loyal customer base.

Full details in the link for those interested in the M&A process or planning their own exit.
by el_benhameen | 2025-04-10 18:47:40+00:00
I think (worry?) that stumbleupon rearranged my brain much like drugs or alcohol rearrange the brain of an addict. Once you’ve been there, you can’t go back to being able to have “just one” beer or, in my case, “just one click” on a link aggregator. I think the novelty-seeking part of my brain was always there, but SU helped pathologize it. I found some cool stuff, but I kind of wish it had never existed.

HN has a gentle enough design that I can enjoy it without it sucking me in, but I make a conscious choice to avoid Reddit, twitter, et al.
by pxc | 2025-04-10 18:48:48+00:00
If you're using an OS that honors your font choices (i.e., not macOS), you can use a font like Symbola to provide emoji so that they're stylized, monochrome, and vectorized, rather than incongruous color bitmap images. That helps them play nice with terminal colorschemes and things like that.

I'm not aware of any emoji fonts like Symbola which provide a monospace typeface, though. That would be a great option.