MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by simonw | 2025-04-14 16:16:11+00:00
> Won’t he eventually ran out of context window?

The "memories" table has a date column which is used to record the data when the information is relevant. The prompt can then be fed just information for today and the next few days - which will always be tiny.

It's possible to save "memories" that are always included in the prompt, but even those will add up to not a lot of tokens over time.

> Won’t this be expensive when using hosted solutions?

You may be under-estimating how absurdly cheap hosted LLMs are these days. Most prompts against most models cost a fraction of a single cent, even for tens of thousands of tokens. Play around with my LLM pricing calculator for an illustration of that: https://tools.simonwillison.net/llm-prices

> If one were to build this locally, can Vector DB similarity search or a hybrid combined with fulltext search be used to achieve this?

Geoffrey's design is so simple it doesn't even need search - all it does is dump in context that's been stamped with a date, and there are so few tokens there's no need for FTS or vector search. If you wanted to build something more sophisticated you could absolutely use those. SQLite has surprisingly capable FTS built in and there are extensions like https://github.com/asg017/sqlite-vec for doing things with vectors.
by geocar | 2025-04-14 16:16:29+00:00
> Oh boy, I definitely know Oberon.

> You write the REPL like code you feel like on a pane, you can the use the sigils that map if the command (loaded dynamically as instances from Oberon commands in modules), refers to existing text, selected wigdet on another pane, or requests user for additional infortmation, mouse select the command and execute it.

Ok. I feel like I already explained why TextFrames is (a) not a REPL, and (b) absolutely worse than what you can do in a terminal.

> To people stuck in UNIX mindset, maybe.

I don't know man. I don't know anyone who doesn't use UNIX every day, and I don't know anyone who uses Oberon every day. I am telling you in a way why I don't think that's an accident, and we can talk about that aspect if you want, but I think the cobol forms on a 3270 are a way more interesting version of terminals than what UNIX does with them, and programming/scripting the terminal is really the thing I think that makes them better than any other human-computer-interface.
by bmandale | 2025-04-14 16:16:37+00:00
These are all such nonsensical misinterpretations of what people mean when they say C is "low level". You absolutely don't write C for the C abstract machine, because the C spec says nothing about performance, whereas performance is one of the primary reasons people write C.

The existence of undefined behaviour isn't proof that there is a C "virtual machine" that code is being run on. Undefined behaviour is a relaxation of requirements on the compiler. The C abstract machine doesn't not have signed overflow, rather it allows the compiler to do what it likes when signed overflow is encountered. This is originally a concession to portability, since the common saying is not that C is close to assembly, but rather that it is "portable" assembler. It is kept around because it benefits performance, which is again one of the primary reasons people write C.
by kiitos | 2025-04-14 16:17:06+00:00
I've recently written a custom MCP server.

> An MCP server is at it's heart some 'thing' that provides a set of 'tools' that an LLM can invoke.

A "tool" is one of several capabilities that a MCP server can provide to its callers. Other capabilities include "prompt" and "resource".

> This is done by adding a 'tool definition'. A 'tool definition' is content that goes into the LLM prompt. That's how it works. How do you imagine an LLM can decide to use a tool? It's only possible if the tool definition is in the prompt.

I think you're using an expansive definition of "prompt" that includes not just the input text as provided by the user -- which is generally what most people understand "prompt" to mean -- but also all available user- and client-specific metadata. That's fine, just want to make it explicit.

With this framing, I agree with you, that every MCP server added to a client -- whether that's Claude.app, or some MyAgent, or whatever -- adds some amount of overhead to that client. But that overhead is gonna be fixed-cost, and paid one-time at e.g. session initialization, not every time per e.g. request/response. So I'm struggling to imagine a situation where those costs are anything other than statistical line noise, compared to the costs of actually processing user requests.

> https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/build-with-claude/tool-us...

To be clear, this concept of "tool" is completely unrelated to MCP.

> https://github.com/invariantlabs-ai/mcp-injection-experiment...

I don't really understand this repo or its criticisms. The authors wrote a related blog post https://invariantlabs.ai/blog/whatsapp-mcp-exploited which says (among other things) that

> In this blog post, we will demonstrate how an untrusted MCP server ...

But there is no such thing as "an untrusted MCP server". Every MCP server is assumed to be trusted, at least as the protocol is defined today.
by SteveNuts | 2025-04-14 16:17:10+00:00
Totally unrelated, but I was once contacted by an Amazon recruiter and sent him my resume.

He called me to discuss my experience, one of which mentioned that I worked in an environment where my team managed "30,000+ servers". He took the opportunity to say something along the lines of "that's irrelevant, that's smaller than one datacenter in one of our regions".

I honestly have no idea why the recruiters from these places have such a superiority complex that they need to belittle people like that. It's not even the manager of the team you'd be working on, just some recruiter that probably doesn't have any of the skills/background the job they're recruiting for requires. Yet they need to make you feel small and worthless right out of the gate.

Is it just prepping you for how you'll be treated there? Trying to select for people that are okay with being belittled?
by blindstitch | 2025-04-14 16:17:32+00:00
I think that finding free camping outside when you are in some shit nothing town is probably the most important skill to have, which is easy with satellite maps. Once you get the hang of it you realize that every town has at least one site where you can definitely get away with pitching a tent for one night. I think I have camped this way about 80 times and have never even been asked what I'm doing. That said, state and national park campgrounds are a great deal and you sometimes meet other tourers there, so they're good for a day when you want to take it easy for a morning. I sometimes get a kick out of zooming in on nowhere, USA and looking for spots.

And some advice for anyone doing this for the first time and feels compelled to pay to camp - never stay at a KOA, consider them an absolute last resort. There is no bigger waste of money and RV culture is extremely cursed.
by Yizahi | 2025-04-14 16:17:51+00:00
Those people simply fail to make such connection. They are usually people who are heavily offended by the world injustice etc. and are looking to any anyone who can give them a simple solution. And because there no real simple solutions to most of the complex issues, they naturally turn to the authoritarian liars who do promise simple shit. Like fire everyone, take all money and gift them and so on.
by FilosofumRex | 2025-04-14 16:18:49+00:00
"It's tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." Maslow 1966. The essay is about physics, but all comments are about formatting and LLMs.

The conversationalist tone of the essay is misleading too. Hilbert, Minkowski, & Poincare, had done all the heavy lifting math and had held Einstein's hand all through 1915. As mathematicians they wouldn't qualify for Noble prize so made no claim to the discovery of GR.
by joshvm | 2025-04-14 16:19:02+00:00
I'm not convinced this is any worse than searching for results or reviews and being directed to content that is affiliate supported (or astroturfed by companies). Humans already do this sort of subtle nudging and lots of people position themselves as unbiased. So many blogs are annoying "buried lede" advertising where the article seems vaguely useful until you realise that it's just a veiled attempt to sell you something. Virtually every reviewer on YouTube seems obliged to open with "my thoughts are my own, the company doesn't get to edit my review, etc."

On the other hand, a good LLM would be able to suggest things that you might actually want, using genuine personal preferences. Whether you think that's an invasion of privacy is debatable, because it's perfectly possible for an LLM to provide product results without sharing your profile with anyone else.
by xandrius | 2025-04-14 16:19:36+00:00
Just to be fair, Supertramps are not controversial for those very valid reasons; those reasons require thought, empathy and actual understanding of the situation they are in.

Those kinds of lifestyles generally create a knee-jerk reaction to people merely because they are different than the "normalcy". That is clear because, while some people are indeed being lucky/foolish in their endeavours (totally fine by me unless they don't directly hurt others with their choices), some other people have a pretty solid plan/foundation for being able to handle such a lifestyle and people still give them grief.

My lifestyle is far from an extreme one and I still get puzzled questions and the usual "oh, one day, you'll stop and grow up" kind of comments. Imagine if I had decided to drop everything and start cycling around the world.
by ZeroCool2u | 2025-04-14 16:20:25+00:00
Wow, there's a lot of cynicism in this thread, even for HN.

Regardless of whether or not it works perfectly, surely we can all relate to the childhood desire to 'speak' to animals at one point or another?

You can call it a waste of resources or someones desperate attempt at keeping their job if you want, but these are marine biologists. I imagine cross species communication would be a major achievement and seems like a worthwhile endeavor to me.
by arandomusername | 2025-04-14 16:20:26+00:00
And the bleach argument was the supporting argument for the statement regarding intelligence.

> Not really.

Yes really.

> Exactly what you did to the other poster. The other poster was clearly saying there is great reason to not assume the best about Trump. Your response? Ignore that and bicker about a minor detail.

No. The poster used that bleach argument as the reason here - which is a completely dishonest argument. It's not a minor detail.

Is this how the discussion should go, in your dream world?

- Trump is bad!

- Trump is good!

- Trump is bad!

Since, according to you, actually discussing the exact cases/reasoning brought up is quibbling over minor details, nitpicking.
by JohnMakin | 2025-04-14 16:20:32+00:00
This is a wild read for someone that has spent the bulk of their career as a "mercenary" for small to mid-size largely non-tech companies (e.g., their product wasn't purely technical) and no matter what the official company Koolaid line was, you always know you are one "restructuring" away from being made redundant, the company doesn't give a crap about you or your contributions, and you very much are a "cog." I've been blessed to work for a company or two where this was less the case than others, and more or less bought into their own culture hype, but it's still fundamentally this way, the relationship between employer and employee. It's sad and interesting to me to see what sounds like an experienced developer for such a large company coming to this realization all at once. Given what I've read and learned about Google layoffs since ~2022 this seems pretty bog standard large company stuff.

Everyone is replaceable/expendable, even if you actually aren't, it doesn't matter. It isn't worth investing so much emotional energy and your personal identity into a company unless you are a major shareholder.
by dmwiens | 2025-04-14 16:21:06+00:00
Not OP, but I also went across America along the Northern Tier in 2023 with Schwalbe Marathon Plus's. I think I got 9 flats total, 7 of which were in Montana for some reason. I always tried to investigate and eliminate the source of the flat, but sometimes you are just repeatedly unlucky (in my experience).
by wkat4242 | 2025-04-14 16:21:21+00:00
Yeah here in Spain the taxis are great. They're plentiful, cheap and efficient. The city is kinda a mess and the rideshare drivers have to drive a route mapped out by the app which often is not optimal. The real taxis know the city well. I think this is why the rideshares are unpopular and thus there's not many of them leading to the long waiting times. They're also spread between different providers, Uber is popular with the tourists only and the locals mostly use Cabify (a local company).

However in Romania on the other hand many taxi drivers are scammers or even criminals (one of my colleagues was robbed by one of them). It's also because the maximum taxi fares are too low to actually make a wage so I can kinda understand so I always tip really well (like double the fare or more which is still nothing). Though if they try to scam me they don't get a cent of course.
by mturmon | 2025-04-14 16:21:27+00:00
Hmm, this take seems too all-or-nothing to me. (I made a similar trip with similar prep - bought the bike a month before going.)

The first chunk of the trip is very civilized, and you can use that to build skills before you get out in rural Utah.

If you have some experience with dry-country hiking, you understand about bringing water. That's the main threat. Most of the other mishaps you can think of are just inconvenient/unpleasant - "made poor time, got stuck at dusk in the middle of nowhere with only the snacks in my panniers, and had to camp by the roadside".

The author did prep for some other gotcha's, including having safety gear and doing some physical training in advance.
by FloorEgg | 2025-04-14 16:22:06+00:00
Its not something an LLM would do with simple chatGPT type prompts, but it's something I can imagine building an agentic system to do. It's not trivial but seems feasible with current day LLMs.

If you design the system to have this exact quality (among many others), where clues are dropped earlier in the quest line for later quests. It's a matter of breaking up the prompts and iteratively refining the outputs.
by DemocracyFTW2 | 2025-04-14 16:22:09+00:00
I'm absolutely positive that software complexity can decrease and in so far my post was not entirely serious. I have multiple instances at my hand where re-writing existing libraries with a better focus on simplicity, patterns better suited for the job, more stringent APIs and so on all contribute to produce new versions of software that are ~about as capable as the old version but internally much simpler. However I feel that when I just go on building on and on without tearing down entire edifices of code once in a while, software tends to become inscrutable, hard to maintain and hard to extend.
by alganet | 2025-04-14 16:22:10+00:00
Look for a Flash game called Punk-o-Matic. You can make songs with it, lots of different songs.

It's essentially a sampler, locked in a single chord progression. It can be used as "an instrument". It is very simple and intuitive to use.

If it had free chord choice, it would br harder and less intuitive. However, it would make the user think about what chord progressions really are. Closer to what an estabilished instrument that stood the test of time is.

Can you have both? A simple intuitive instrument that can play all that a "hard" instrument can, requiring no practice or cognition? (rethorical)

My comment deals on this kind of treshold. An instrument that both a "born talented musician" and "someone who tried very hard" can play in equal terms is a very good sweet spot in terms of inclusion and equality.
by Suppafly | 2025-04-14 16:22:39+00:00
>/r/The_Donald used this to much success and there have been others.

I read a post from a former reddit admin a while back that was talking about they managed that. Apparently they had one sticky post each day, and sticky posts are blocked from being on the frontpage but since they'd change the main post each day, once they un-stickied it, it'd immediately get picked up by the algorithm for the frontpage, inadvertently gaming the whole system.
by crazygringo | 2025-04-14 16:22:58+00:00
> Eh. That's a bad way of thinking, but one that I think is tempting to software engineers.

This has nothing to do with software engineering. It's about business risk management. I'm not justifying it, just explaining the sad reality of it.

> You know, you're not required hire those kinds of people in the first place. Hire people who get along with others.

I'm glad you have a crystal ball to perfectly predict how everybody will act in future situations. But sometimes it's the people who seem the most pleasant and helpful who take layoffs the worst, because they feel the most betrayed after everything they gave emotionally in good faith. Humans are complex and they can act unpredictably.
by rozap | 2025-04-14 16:23:27+00:00
Wait, I thought cryptocurrencies aren't securities? Why are our tax dollars being spent investigating this? If they're not securities (like coinbase etc would like us to believe), then he didn't do anything wrong and there are no other rules - code is law. If they are securities, then why are there so many illegal exchanges operating in plain sight?

Once again, crypto folks are all about decentralization until someone outsmarts them, then they go crying to daddy government to bail them out.
by Yizahi | 2025-04-14 16:23:28+00:00
Mandatory multiple opinions means that multiple doctors need to allocate the same amount of time for the patient as the original doctor. Then having two opinions is not enough, in case they differ you can't discern who is right. So you need three opinions for the tie breaker. So now each doctor has to see three times more patients, meaning admission wait times has now also increased three times. So the appointment in 1 week will happen in 3 weeks now, the non urgent appointment in 6 months is now 1.5 years away, and so on.
by orochimaaru | 2025-04-14 16:23:45+00:00
You’re always a cog. Don’t treat a job with passion unless you’re getting something more than a salary from it - e.g. more professional networking, expanded skill set for your next role, etc. This seems to happen too often. Be invested in your career not the company you work for.

All the talk about doing great things as a team is usually all b.s. It’s just excellent theater. Most of us are side actors in someone else’s script and believe we have the lead role.
by retrocryptid | 2025-04-14 16:23:49+00:00
Back in the day Convex Computer Corporation was laying off a large fraction of its staff.

The plan was to come into the warroom and just hang out. Your manager would come and get you and take you into a private conference room to discuss your package with an HR specialist. The packages were pretty decent, at least.

In gallows humor I drew some stick figures on a white board for each of my team with their unix logins below them. As people were RIFfed, I would go over and put a universal red circle and slash "no" symbol around the figures who were laid off.

My time came and I marked myself as a "no" and handed the red marker to a co-worker.

I remember being a little ticked off at my manager, but when I came back to say goodbye to everyone I noticed his figure / login name had been exed out. The last thing he did before metaphorically being shot in the head was to metaphorically strangle half his children.

"What was deluxe became debris, I never questioned loyalty. But this dead end demolishes the dream of an open highway."
by chrisfosterelli | 2025-04-14 16:24:02+00:00
Not every company is a unicorn. For bootstrapped companies that might never sell, multiple classes of stock can be extremely useful for a variety of legitimate accounting and dividend purposes. One of the local law firm's company setup packages uses a de facto _six_ share classes.

I agree with your concerns re. transparency but I don't think eliminating share classes would fix that.
by remyp | 2025-04-14 16:24:10+00:00
This happens when customer support spends too much time on password resets. As soon as someone in CS says "we need to hire another person, too many password resets" you get magic links. Bad number go down, good number go up.

It's really easy for us nerds to write off how confusing, cumbersome, and frustrating passwords are for most people.
by grepfru_it | 2025-04-14 16:24:12+00:00
In 2019 they didn’t need your $10k of funding. If you contacted them within the 6 months they were starting they would have said yes. In 2019 it was more time consuming than it was worth. So they encourage you to go through a pool of investors which you are scoffing at.

In reality, my project needs funding now. If i bootstrap and get customers, I don’t need to worry about your lunch money. I need someone (or customers) who can fund that same amount for a year.
Cursor IDE support hallucinates lockout policy, causes user cancellations
by scaredpelican | 2025-04-14 16:24:28+00:00
Earlier today Cursor, the magical AI-powered IDE started kicking users off when they logged in from multiple machines.

Like,you’d be working on your desktop, switch to your laptop, and all of a sudden you're forcibly logged out. No warning, no notification, just gone.

Naturally, people thought this was a new policy.

So they asked support.

And here’s where it gets batshit: Cursor has a support email, so users emailed them to find out. The support peson told everyone this was “expected behavior” under their new login policy.

One problem. There was no support team, it was an AI designed to 'mimic human responses'

That answer, totally made up by the bot, spread like wildfire.

Users assumed it was real (because why wouldn’t they? It's their own support system lol), and within hours the community was in revolt. Dozens of users publicly canceled their subscriptions, myself included. Multi-device workflows are table stakes for devs, and if you're going to pull something that disruptive, you'd at least expect a changelog entry or smth.

Nope.

And just as people started comparing notes and figuring out that the story didn’t quite add up… the main Reddit thread got locked. Then deleted. Like, no public resolution, no real response, just silence.

To be clear: this wasn’t an actual policy change, just a backend session bug, and a hallucinated excuse from a support bot that somehow did more damage than the bug itself.

But at that point, it didn’t matter. People were already gone.

Honestly one of the most surreal product screwups I’ve seen in a while. Not because they made a mistake, but because the AI support system invented a lie, and nobody caught it until the userbase imploded.
by lukeschlather | 2025-04-14 16:24:31+00:00
I get the impression their setup is very hard to maintain but it's worth every penny. They've done optimizations that wring incredible performance out of the hardware they have, but they also have specific machine configurations and I wouldn't be surprised if they have complicated hacks that get 100% speedups for some stuff but those speedups disappear if you have a slightly different motherboard configuration. Also there's suggestion they've made firmware hacks which are worth it at their scale, but might be very dangerous and difficult to apply especially on a small scale. (And some of their hacks might involve both firmware and cluster-level optimizations, which would be useless or counterproductive independently.)

And even if you have somewhat similar hardware, the code might not be that helpful, you might be better off with a sketch of the solution and implementing it yourself. If you've got a large enough cluster it's going to pay for itself anyway.