MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by TheAmazingRace | 2025-05-12 03:30:32+00:00
Jon Rubenstein was said to have been cooking up a NeXT computer prototype based on Motorola 88k chips and would have been a serious contender in the workstation market, had it been realized sooner. Sadly, it ended up getting canceled right around the time NeXT became a software-only shop.

Honestly, Motorola is entirely to blame for losing out on the workstation market. They iterated too slowly and never took Intel seriously enough. I say this as I wistfully eyeball the lonely 68060 CPU I have sitting on my desk for a future project...
by sargstuff | 2025-05-12 03:30:50+00:00
Was going to point out would have to be an embedded program that can be booted into without need of an OS; but then program would still rely on various external api/abi interfaces aka bios, drivers & protocols (usb, scsi, pci, ansi, etc). Given today's hardware, think there's not really a realizstic thing as a realistic reall world 'pure C' program -- way to much knowledge / effort even if exclude NDA's. VM environment for 'hardware' as software still has abi interface, so not 'pure' C at source code level.
by zelphirkalt | 2025-05-12 03:31:19+00:00
I have given up on doing frontend work for the time being, because of this crap. I used to do full stack with modern JS, TS, CSS, HTML and whatnot, but then someone made it all go to shit by advertising for NextJS and React, while there was zero interactivity on the whole platform, except for a couple of checkboxes. A few years later, there still isn't much. Some page transitions for when things happen in the backend. I told them in the beginning, that there is not much interactive stuff, but they all got flashed by some one minute low effort Material Design shit, and the idea of the whole thing being "modern" and hiring more React devs. So I stepped away from that while frontend part and let them dig their own hole.

Moving a navigation/menu from one app to another takes 3 people 2-3 weeks by now. Changing the "router" to update the TS version is just as time consuming. Things that would have taken 1 day max. take now 2-3 weeks. That is 1/14th of the productivity and people get paid for that, more than I did. Oh and did I mention the menu responsiveness was broken for months at a certain viewport width? I did report it, but apparently it was so hard to fix, that it could not be done in a quiet hour, so it took months laying around in the queue of things to fix.
by jonathanlb | 2025-05-12 03:31:50+00:00
Weirdly this is something similar to what Satya Nadella said.

> Yeah, I mean, it’s a it’s a very, very, very important question, the SaaS applications, or biz apps. So let me just speak of our own dynamics. The approach at least we’re taking is, I think, the notion that business applications exist, that’s probably where they’ll all collapse, right in the agent era, because if you think about it, right, they are essentially CRUD databases with a bunch of business logic. The business logic is all going to these agents, and these agents are going to be multi repo CRUD, right? So they’re not going to discriminate between what the back end is. They’re going to update multiple databases, and all the logic will be in the AI tier, so to speak. And once the AI tier becomes the place where all the logic is, then people will start replacing the back ends, right?

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/hey-why-do-i-need-e...
by majormajor | 2025-05-12 03:32:30+00:00
AWD is only standard on the fanciest Maverick trim and not an option picked by the couple of folks I know with them. But that + the bed length doesn't seem to be stopping them from loving their trucks. Tacos also start at 5' IIRC.

But if you have even just those once-a-year "need a truck bed" needs the gap between "SUV with fold down seats" and "actual truck" is pretty substantial.

I think the set of truck buyers with either:

* just occasional needs for a bed, without a need to put sheet goods flat or such (if you have that just get a minivan these days ;) )

* a fashion-driven desire compared to a van or SUV vs a practical-driven one

is substantial compared to the set of "needs a professional-grade truck" buyers.

The set of professional-grade buyers hasn't changed much in thirty or forty years, but the former two sets have exploded.
by rtpg | 2025-05-12 03:32:40+00:00
Right, totally see what you're saying. In the junk food example (assuming fast food a la McDs...) it feels fairly noncontroversial to say there's health costs. Just then you get into convenience discussions (or even just enjoyment discussions) and now you're weighing health vs convenience and these are totally not fungible quantities. So you're already veering into subjectivity if you're saying "on balance it's bad".

There has to be a point at which you pull in preferences. But at least then you can split the "objective" from the subjective, and think about the details in earnest. Even when conclusions differ.
by kerkeslager | 2025-05-12 03:33:31+00:00
I agree with Spolsky in theory. But in practice, I've been on one project in the last few decades which I actually think benefited from integrating a web framework. The majority of projects I've worked on absolutely did not need JavaScript, and the rest would have been served by an approach similar to what's described in the OP--a few minimal vanilla JS files to create a few web components.

And yet large teams of very smart people reach for NPM as just part of their initial setup process. It's so ubiquitous that I essentially had to learn to not write this way on my own, by asking myself "can I do this without JS"? Almost every time I asked that question, the answer was "yes", and the non-JS way was much easier. But for a long time I wondered if I was wrong--maybe the framework JS way is easier in some way I don't understand--because everyone around me was doing it the framework JS way. It's taken me years of experimentation to build up a preponderance of evidence to persuade myself that in fact, the framework JS way is just worse, most of the time.

Everybody wants to be Facebook or Google, but the fact is you probably just aren't. You probably don't have their problems and you probably don't need to use their tools.
by Aurornis | 2025-05-12 03:33:51+00:00
> I've purchased specialized woodworking tools online that simply involved filling out a form. I later received the parts with an invoice to send payment. You can simply not pay if you choose not to.

People romanticize businesses like this but there’s a reason you’re not posting the link. It only works when it’s for a small group of people who are in the know and refer trusted buyers.

It’s also trivial to set up any number of different online purchase options that would avoid all of the problems with this for a nearly trivial fee.

I guess I’ve spent enough time dealing with things like non-payment or doing work for trades that never arrive that I just don’t romanticize this stuff any more.
by godelski | 2025-05-12 03:34:22+00:00
> but! A lot, probably more than we imagine, would get bored and… do something.

I'm of the same belief. We're too antsy of creatures. I know in any long vacation I'll spend the first week, maybe even two (!), vegging out doing nothing. But after that I'm itching to do work. I spent 3 months unemployed before heading to college (laid off from work) and in that time taught myself programming, Linux, and other things that are critical to my career today. This seems like a fairly universal experience too! Maybe not the exact tasks, but people needing time to recover and then want to do things.

I'm not sure why we think everyone would just veg out WALL-E style and why the idea is so pervasive. Everyone says "well I wouldn't, but /they/ would". I think there's strong evidence that people would do things too. You only have to look at people who retire or the billionaire class. If the people with the greatest ability to check out and do nothing don't, why do we think so many would? People are people after all. And if there's a secret to why some still work, maybe we should really figure that out. Especially as we're now envisioning a future where robots do all the labor.
by nickevante | 2025-05-12 03:34:35+00:00
The incumbent being the concept of a car (EV or ICE) that you own and that you have to drive to get to places. Don't compare the Tesla MVP with an existing concept of a car.

Demand for new "car" is a noise. Austin FSD launch is the key differentiator and I foresee lot of sleeping on the floor moment from Elon to see it through. But if they do, the 100 year old concept of a "car" will be completely redefined.
by bradly | 2025-05-12 03:35:21+00:00
> How does the woodworking company ensure payment? Does the specialized nature ensure only "real" customers buy?

Yes, I believe it does. These are highly specific brass tacks for making oval shaker boxes. There are very few manufactures of a proper #2 brass tack these days, so I would very much want to stay on the good side and any suppliers.

I think they said in their faq that twice they haven't been paid in 20 years or something like that. Their online "store" appears to be down right now–hopefully they are still in business.

edit: It appears John passed in 2023 :( https://blog.lostartpress.com/2023/02/07/john-wilson-1939-20...
by crystal_revenge | 2025-05-12 03:35:51+00:00
Seriously. Choosing the skilled trade path makes a lot of sense right now if the default option for you is unskilled work, but the job market isn't so tough that one should abandon the option to get paid much more in a much more comfortable field of work.

Related is a certain actor, clearly following his passions, preaching the same nonsense: "give up on your dreams! go into skilled trade and wreck your body for okay pay!"

Part of the "follow your dreams" advice that a lot of people seemed to miss is that "following your dreams" doesn't mean "major in that subject and try to not get Cs", it means obsess over that thing and work so hard at it you're always in the top 1% or higher for that craft. The reason you should chase your dreams is they're the only thing you can reasonably hope to obsess over enough for long enough to have a competitive advantage.

While not all of them are "rich", everyone I know who sincerely followed their passion to the point that other people thought they were a bit crazy are all able to survive, often pretty well, doing something they love.
by nobody9999 | 2025-05-12 03:36:35+00:00
>People may hate google, but by god do they ever love the internet google created.

Actually, we don't. Google is a prime culprit in the 'enshittification' of the Internet. As Cory Doctorow can explain[0] to you.

[0] https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/08/who-broke-the-internet/#b...
by jmb99 | 2025-05-12 03:38:01+00:00
Only if you’re looking for top dollar when you graduate. Which unfortunately a lot of people are. It makes sense, most people pick this field for the salary and not out of passion (like the vast majority of professions).

But if you take a couple C/assembly/systems electives, look for internships at hardware companies, build a couple of toy projects on the side, and graduate with even a modicum of embedded experience, there will be companies that will hire you, pretty much guaranteed. You won’t be making 250k out of the gate, but you should still be making a more-than-livable salary (and frequently in a lower cost of living area than, say, the Bay), and if you pick companies correctly, you can be working with and learning from some truly genius engineers.

The pipeline’s there, it’s just not attractive (read: $$$$$$$) enough to pull in most people in the industry.
by grumpy-de-sre | 2025-05-12 03:38:38+00:00
Was actually quite surprised by how "civilized" the driving was in our recent China trip. Don't think I heard a horn once in probably 20h or so as a passenger, did find the drivers up in Heliongjiang a bit bold with their lane weaving but in Beijing they drove great!

Clear rules, and consistent enforcement works.

Noticed something similar with littering, right now they have to employ an army of old folks to pick up cigarette butts. But I suspect once people come to expect clean surroundings that enforcement of littering fines can become a thing and the culture around respecting public spaces will slowly change. We even caught a young kid full on lecturing their grandparent for spitting on the street.
by throwawaymaths | 2025-05-12 03:38:45+00:00
> I love these word-salad exaltations of LLMs - people don't even know what they're writing half the time but it sure is provocative!

Well FWIW I have done an implementation of Llama LLM (3 8-70b to be specific) in non-python so I do sort of know what I'm talking about.

I'm not the originator of the hash table analogy. I got it from here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDulhoQ2pro

Hell, the vectors that are generated are called K/V, so. Yeah it's a hash table.

And the idea that first order logic and other facets of intelligence can just be cleverly arranged lookup tables comes from here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_Concepts_and_Creative_An...
by Veedrac | 2025-05-12 03:39:47+00:00
Without speaking to all of the issues, this is all made much harder by the underlying hardware having extremely bad defaults. The idea that running code on the hardware is itself an unsafe operation means that any time you want to touch it you need proxies and intermediate languages and all this by default.

It's pretty easy for me to imagine a world where running code was safe by default, and this followed all the way to the top. It's obviously not that onerous, else JavaScript wouldn't be as successful as it is. Most of the details the post touches on are then just package management and grouping concerns.
by const_cast | 2025-05-12 03:40:08+00:00
Okay sure, for you, someone who didn't smoke and therefore did not become accustomed (tolerant?) to the immediate effects of a nicotine hit.

But, as a cessation tool, which is what they are, this has been my experience.

And, I would be hesitant about using nicotine patches or something like Zyn recreationally. Nicotine, even by itself, is harmful to the cardiovascular system over a long period of time.
by fastball | 2025-05-12 03:41:55+00:00
Agreed, that is what often happens. But after seeing this pattern before, that does not mean the solution going forward is to yell "hey everyone there is a gun" and hope management gets to it before the person with malicious intent.

Sure, maybe management will ignore you if you tell them about the gun privately. At that point, feel free to disclose publicly. But they are guaranteed to not do anything if they don't know about it and you don't tell them (before telling everyone else including bad actors).
by seanmcdirmid | 2025-05-12 03:43:15+00:00
Dongbei drivers are famous for their interesting driving (but I’m going by hearsay and that one famous song about it).

I don’t think horns were used much in Beijing even on my first trip in 1999, although I do remember the Japanese guy driving us from the airport in a Jeep using it (and also seeing lots of city buses out at night without headlights on, you don’t see that anymore).

I just got back from Beijing a couple of weeks ago and honestly…the traffic is still very horrible but fairly orderly. Just too many cars and not enough roads (but it’s always been like that).
by majormajor | 2025-05-12 03:43:56+00:00
> The problem is that in much of the anglosphere, housing is so scarce that you have to ignore such rules of thumb, or live in the middle of nowhere.

This is a bit circular, supply-and-demand-wise. Especially in the US - why is demand in some areas so high that people will bid houses in San Jose up to 2M+? Why aren't they buying the same thing for 450k in Dallas?

Why aren't the companies based in those crazy expensive areas and paying million-plus total comp to large sections of their workforce being eaten alive by ones with lower labor costs in other regions?

Housing is scarce in the areas that are already the most densely populated, which itself is a bit of yogi-berra moment.

Too much discussion about housing in the US focuses only on the supply side and ignores the geographic concentration of demand that has happened over the last few decades. Is that centralization good for the country in the long-run regardless? Obviously that centralization goes back way longer in many European countries, so was the distribution and the number of growing populaces in cheap, not-yet-established areas part of the secret sauce for the 20th century US? Could you start the companies that made the Bay Area what it is today in today's Bay Area? Could you even start them in somewhere cheaper today, or would you not be able to get the talent to join you there? We're five years into remote work being way more common than it ever was before, and it hasn't broken that stranglehold of concentration yet.
by christianqchung | 2025-05-12 03:44:42+00:00
Third party fine tuned open weighted LLMs tend to be good at a handful of benchmarks, but parity or lower on others compared to the original model. There are some exceptions like Nvidia's Nemotron series, but the differences generally are so small as to be imperceptible. Deepseek released finetunes of several Qwen and Llama models alongside R1, and while they were better in some select (mostly math) and coding domains, there were problems resulting from fine tuning that didn't result in them overtaking the original models in usage.
by aspenmayer | 2025-05-12 03:46:13+00:00
The Overton window dynamically shifts between “true socialism has never been tried” and “no true socialist,” but all growth or development in China must be attributed to China being sufficiently capitalist. Do you mean to say that China’s socialism is a mirage, a fig leaf for authoritarian state capitalism in a country that was once socialist, or do you mean that China was never even socialist to begin with, that it was just authoritarian all along?

Is socialism incompatible with capitalism or is it incompatible with democracy? Because if the successes of China can be attributed to capitalism while discounting socialism/communism, then why are we even talking about socialism in the first place, if it’s totalitarianism which is the problem?

Somehow, if China stopped being totalitarian tomorrow, but remained socialist, whatever that might mean to you or look like, if they kept doing the same things in the market and in the party, the US would probably still treat China like we do Mexico now, and I doubt anything would change in how US treats China.

Maybe I just lack faith in most folks in US. Since the “end” of the Cold War, there’s been a kind of search for economic, political, and cultural scapegoats. The potential end of demonizing China if it ever even happened for good cause would probably just cause transference of that moral outrage and social opprobrium to the next consent-decreed valid target for market-validated hate, which in this case would probably be Russia. The problem is that Russia doesn’t have much global economic impact on their own so US has to find a new big bad if China doesn’t fulfill that role anymore.
by hedora | 2025-05-12 03:47:29+00:00
> The idea that running code on the hardware is itself an unsafe operation

Ignoring microcontrollers, and tiny embedded stuff, no hardware or modern operating systems I know of works that way.

Modern hardware almost all has an MMU (which blocks I/O once the process table is set up), and most have an IOMMU (which partitions the hardware mutually distrusting operating systems can run directly on the same machine).

The remaining architectural holes are side channel / timing attacks that hit JS just as hard as bare metal.
by ak217 | 2025-05-12 03:49:11+00:00
I know Mazda makes good boring SUVs, I own one. I like Mazda's design philosophy, that's why I want them to succeed. In terms of vehicles sold, Mazda's sales peaked in 2017, the year before I bought my most recent one. As best I can tell, operating profit peaked in 2016.

Mazda maintained their relevance and independence by operating their own center of design, engineering, and manufacturing excellence in Hiroshima, and exporting the results to the rest of the world, since at least the 1960s. As I mentioned, that thread is now broken as far as EVs go, with the Changan JV making EVs for Mazda. China is now producing excellent EVs that surpass the capabilities of ICE cars at a fraction of the cost/price, thanks to continuous improvements in LFP battery technology. China also dominates solar, which (together with the batteries) solves the grid stress issue for large EV deployments in most regions of the world. Together these exports are likely to disrupt Japanese, US, and European ICE exports and energy markets throughout the world, no matter what tariffs the US chooses to enact.

Mazda and the rest of Japanese companies slept on it, led by Toyota's trust in the hydrogen-powered future that didn't materialize, even while Panasonic had the best batteries in the world. The time to invest in these platforms and technologies was 15 years ago - now they will have a far harder time financing this and finding technology development partners. Sure, they can survive - not thrive - on existing ICE exports for a while, but they will face a shrinking market and stronger headwinds - and are likely to lose their independence, which is what allowed them to design great cars. Don't believe me? Look into what's going on with Nissan (which squandered an even bigger lead - the world's first mass-produced EV).
by bradly | 2025-05-12 03:49:28+00:00
> People romanticize businesses like this but there’s a reason you’re not posting the link

You are correct that I was a worried about an HN hug of orders for brass tacks.

> I guess I’ve spent enough time dealing with things like non-payment or doing work for trades that never arrive that I just don’t romanticize this stuff any more.

In this case there isn't much of a choice. When the last manufacture of brass tacks closed down, John bought the machinery and is the only place I know of to get proper shaker-style brass tacks in the US. I wanted the tacks, so I had no choice in the method of payment.

I understand your sentiment but it was perfectly normal to pump gas before paying in the U.S. for a very long time and still is in many places. In other cities it is unheard of. Restaurants we can still eat before paying, but not many other places still give consumers much trust.
by tarun_anand | 2025-05-12 03:49:34+00:00
Folks, as MCP’s language ecosystem expands, we’re spending more time re‑implementing the same deterministic‑state logic than shipping new ideas. I’d like us to flip that ratio by standardizing on a single, battle‑hardened Rust core (rust‑sdk) that owns the heavy workflow engine— sessions, peering, transport, serialization—while each language surface (Python, JS/TS, Go, etc.) stays 100 % idiomatic and lightweight.

Rust gives us memory‑safe, no‑GC performance overhead, a stable FFI, and a proven path. The payoff is immediate: one quality, security and performance audit instead of five, feature parity across languages on day 1, and p99 latencies that drop from milliseconds to microseconds—without asking Python or JavaScript developers to learn Rust.

In short, one deterministic engine, many friendly faces. We have built a V 0.1 Python SDK based on this architecture so that we write less boilerplate and innovate faster on the parts that matter.