MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by TeMPOraL | 2025-05-30 21:38:08+00:00
GenAI models are meant to create, not retrieve. The model being able to sometimes reproduce copyrighted material in training data is an unintended side effect, and usually requires the user to intentionally cause it to happen. Their business model is indeed a "magic painter" (and/or "magic writer", "magic coder", etc.), which is IMHO valuable and fair - again, it's meant to create, not reproduce or retrieve.
by reaperducer | 2025-05-30 21:38:27+00:00
I wonder what kind of scam my generation will be falling for when we get old.

There was a study recently (last year?) that found Millennials are more likely to fall for online scams than Boomers and Gen-X.

The reason is because Boomers and Gen-X grew up during the advent of the internet, when there was a lot of media about the dangers online. Millennials (and presumably Z's, too) never knew life before the internet, and didn't get all those warnings when it was spinning up, so they trust what they see more.
by readthenotes1 | 2025-05-30 21:38:49+00:00
1973: Nazi cosplayers had been marching in the streets of Chicago for years.

Nazi Germany and the Holocaust was a living memory for most adults, including Mr Lewis who was Jewish.

How do you help people remember? By showing the horror.

https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/November-2016/Chicago-N...
by gcharbonnier | 2025-05-30 21:39:01+00:00
async with is just syntactic sugar. You could very well call __aenter__ and __aexit__ manually. You could also use an AsyncExitStack, call __aenter__ manually, then enter_async_context, and call aclose when you’re done. Since aclose method exists I guess this is not an anti-pattern.

https://docs.python.org/3/library/contextlib.html#contextlib...
by DonaldPShimoda | 2025-05-30 21:39:09+00:00
> If you were say, writing a programming language, it would be nice to understand the fundamentals.

I work in programming languages research. Nobody uses Turing machines for anything. We do talk about decidability when it comes to certain things (type-checking, for instance), but that doesn't use Turing machines directly.

The lambda calculus comes up frequently, on the other hand, but it's used as a base from which we build minimal languages to demonstrate a novel concept. It's a nice theoretical framework around which to model a language abstractly, but essentially no major languages are actually implemented as extensions to the lambda calculus. (The notable exception is, of course, Haskell, but Haskell was explicitly designed in this way because it was intended as a sort of playground for programming languages research — see "A History of Haskell: Being Lazy with Class" from HOPL-III, 2007.) For example, Rust's region-based memory management descends from Cyclone, and iirc (it's been a few years) Cyclone was formalized as an extended lambda calculus, but nobody would suggest that becoming a contributor to the Rust language would require understanding the lambda calculus.

> I don't think Turing machines or Lambda calculus are even that far removed to call them completely theoretical. You can easily implement a few functions in lambda calculus that already resemble modern programming interfaces.

1. Whether your second statement is true is irrelevant to the first. The lambda calculus and Turing machines are theoretical devices. That's a statement of fact, not an indictment of utility. They're abstract machines used to reason about the theory of computation.

2. Your second statement is just false, actually. The pure lambda calculus doesn't have any kind of value other than anonymous functions; you need to get into, e.g., Church encoding to take them anywhere "useful", and that's pretty far removed from how actual language implementations work. If you go to the simply typed lambda calculus with some base types (integers and Booleans, for instance), okay, great, but you still are so abstract as to be sufficiently removed from actual implementations that the connections are not direct. Even Haskell, the most lambda calculus-y language out there, is actually based on System-F — which is like STLC but adds universal quantification over types, allowing for parametric polymorphism. And that's such a significant addition that most theorists are pretty quick to argue that Haskell is really a System F derivative rather than a direct lambda calculus derivative (though, of course, all computation can be derived in terms of the lambda calculus).
by sholladay | 2025-05-30 21:39:20+00:00
I will re-frame it for you with emphasis. I do not want the complexity of npm compatibility in Deno. However, if they insist on it, then I at least want to be able to use my existing linting setup for consistency. That is the one silver lining that I would want to make use of. Yet, I can’t.

Instead, I got all the complexity without the benefit. That’s how I feel about it.
by zie | 2025-05-30 21:39:25+00:00
I have nothing against pg_boss[0] from the articel (I don't know anything about it), but there are plenty of queues and crons and schedulers for PG

Some others:

* https://github.com/LaunchPlatform/bq

* https://github.com/cybertec-postgresql/pg_timetable

* https://github.com/pgmq/pgmq

* https://github.com/riverqueue/river

* https://github.com/oban-bg/oban

* https://github.com/pgadmin-org/pgagent

* https://github.com/citusdata/pg_cron

etc. There are plenty of options to choose from.

0: https://github.com/timgit/pg-boss
by molsongolden | 2025-05-30 21:39:26+00:00
Lol, what triggered this absolute hatchet job targeting Mercury? I haven't read other posts from the author but are all of them of this style?

Most of it reads like a Muddy Waters style short-seller exposé. The author whirlwinds through a bunch of hot gossip, paints a customer-experience focus as some sort of evil scheme, dredges up a handful of old issues most of which seem to have been since remediated, cherry picks a handful of transactions out of millions, seems to blame Mercury for the actions of multiple other businesses and individuals, references a wire transfer doc that was pulled from some random Synapse server without knowing what else might have accompanied that doc in the original workflow and so on and on and on.

Banking, payments, and money movement are hard and absolutely ridden with fraud. Any company that moves money will encounter fraud, money laundering, all of this.

The focus on consent orders as proof that Mercury is breaking the law seems like fluff. Most of the banks that were willing to partner with fintechs at the start, and maybe still most of the banks doing this, are local or small regional banks that don't have the robust BSA/AML programs that larger banks have so some growing pains are expected here. The FDIC issued consent orders for 25 banks in 2024, at least 13 of those were for BSA violations and/or fintech partner oversight.

The request to make an exception for OnlyFans without changing the terms for all adult entertainment businesses does not seem at all damning? Immad calls out that they are a "very big specific client and they have a very strict content policy". That seems true and possibly exception-worthy when there's a blanket policy disallowing a specific type of customer?

The Axis Consulting invoice callout is pretty random and unsubstantiated. It's just a screenshot of an invoice then commentary saying "purports to be" and "no trace of 'Axis Consulting' at the listed address". With one minute of searching it is possible to see that Axis Consulting, LLC was registered with the New Mexico Secretary of State and the company that formed the entity does appear to be a marketing agency.

I'm sure there are issues at Mercury and they probably did cut some corners while growing rapidly and push some limits trying to streamline things for customers but what in the world is this post. It reads like a man scorned and on a rampage.

If this were actual journalism or research there would be some sort of "compared to what". What is Mercury doing today that is bad and why is it bad? What laws or regulations apply to their business and what are they failing to do properly?
by einpoklum | 2025-05-30 21:40:24+00:00
> will need less hand-holding, will be able to leverage AI to deliver more

Well, maybe it'll be the other way around: Maybe they'll need more hand-holding since they're used to relying on AI instead of doing things themselves, and when faced with tasks they need to do, they will be less able.

But, eh, what am I even talking about? The _senior_ developers in a many companies need a lot of hand-holding that they aren't getting, write bad code, with poor practices, and teach the newbies how to get used to doing that. So that's why the entry-level people are screwed, AI or no.
by bitpush | 2025-05-30 21:40:30+00:00
> I’m extremely privileged to have a job that I enjoy. My work is creative. The challenges are rewarding. I don’t take that for granted. When I imagine “AI” in the mix it does not spark joy. I tried the tab-completion slot machines; not my cup of tea. I tried image generation and was overcome with literal depression. I don’t want a future as a “prompt artist”. I’d rather pack up my privilege and find something else.

I’m incredibly fortunate to have a craft that I cherish. My work is visceral; the smell of the oils, the feel of the canvas beneath my brush. The challenges of translating vision to a tangible form are deeply fulfilling. I don’t take that for granted. When I imagine computers further encroaching on design, it does not spark inspiration. I’ve seen these digital drawing tablets and "design" software; they feel cold and disconnected, like painting by numbers with a sterile stylus. I’ve witnessed the rise of computer-generated graphics and felt a profound sense of loss for the handcrafted. I don’t want a future as a “graphic operator” or a “filter adjuster.” I’d rather pack up my easel and find something else entirely.
by IshKebab | 2025-05-30 21:40:55+00:00
I think it really depends on the job. In most jobs I've had the algorithms rarely get more complicated than just avoiding accidental O(N^2). The sort of thing where juniors would do a linear search.

But I did have one job working on an AI graph compiler which used fancy algorithms all over the place. In practice though I found the space between "use the standard library" and "it's NP-complete; use heuristics" where the answer is "you can use this neat dynamic programming trick" is basically nonexistent.
by ilamont | 2025-05-30 21:41:27+00:00
he stole a complete workprint of the film from the archives of its production studio in 1980 – and has been screening it for guests in his apartment ever since.

Former 35mm projectionist here. I suspect there are a lot of old stashes like this. In our booth we had a gigantic reel of old 1960s and 1970s horror film trailers that previous projectionists had spliced together until there was no more space on the reel. We were not supposed to save trailers, but no one checked what we did with them after removing them from the film reels at the end of the run and returning those prints to the distributor.

On a quiet summer night, after the last showing had ended and the customers had left, we employees would sometimes lock the doors, get some snacks, and watch these old treasures from previous decades spool by.

The trailer reel included several versions of The Shining trailer, including one that had a slow-motion scene of blood pouring from the elevator that was waaaay longer than the clip in the movie (possibly from one of the alternate cameras, see https://geektyrant.com/news/the-story-behind-the-infamous-bl...). The reel also had some long-forgotten stinkers, including for the 1966 British horror film Psychopath which I only remember because the trailer featured an unusual song structured like a nursery rhyme that I can still partially recall.

A corporate chain took over (Lowes) and sometime in the early 1990s the theater was closed. The space is now a Staples. This illicit reel, if it wasn't thrown out during the closure, is probably in someone's basement. The only way to know the contents is to play it, which is hard to do as not many traditional 35mm projectors are still around or available for screening a 50-year-old reel that might be brittle, gunky, or otherwise damage the machine.

I've heard of similar stashes. For instance, around the same time, I had friends who worked in a photo shop. They had several binders of, um, special photos that they had copied from customers' negatives during the on-site development process.

I visited this basement lair once, which was dominated by a modern color processing machine. I remember flipping through one of the binders. It was very, very strange stuff, like something out of Blue Velvet.
by kimixa | 2025-05-30 21:42:04+00:00
I'd argue that the entire point of using a shared open source kernel is that other users can benefit from additions.

Arguing "Who first added a feature" seems to be a losing spiral of needless tribalism. How many features does the Android kernel use that weren't developed by Google? Does that mean they wouldn't have developed those features? Or just that there's no point making a parallel implementation if there's already one existing.
by DonaldPShimoda | 2025-05-30 21:42:06+00:00
> You could do this with the C abstract machine.

I don't think there is a "C abstract machine". I think there are some, like, minimal versions of C (there's probably a Featherweight C out there or something), but the C specification is not given in terms of an abstract machine, and any abstraction of the machinery of C will necessarily lose important implementation details (e.g., undefined or unspecified behaviors, for instance).
by quantified | 2025-05-30 21:42:32+00:00
I grew up with a player piano, and watching it play was as good as listening to it. Intuitive, not complex in interactions but sizable, like an 96-bit data bus. Tubes to ferry air from the pump to 88 keys, plus volume and pedal controls. Of course with my first computer I wanted to digitize this, but breaking into the antique hardware was not a welcome idea to the owner.
by _DeadFred_ | 2025-05-30 21:43:17+00:00
Wow, glad you can tell I'm a liar based on absolutely nothing.

People can have down/shitty bits without just throwing them away/writing them off as irredeemable. Especially when they are frustrated over a specific event. Frustration that normally we try and help them leave behind. But for some reason in this situation 1. It's not true/didn't happen and 2. My son is trash for caring about it. I'm not around this stuff much, I don't do social media, I don't watch TV, and I live remote, but I'm getting a better sense of how my son went such the wrong direction over this.

Nowhere did I justify anything. I complained I want my son back and I refuse to write him off. Maybe check your lack of compassion, quickness to judge, willingness to write people off, and reading comprehension.
by yadaeno | 2025-05-30 21:44:00+00:00
Selling negative convenience very succinctly describes the issue.

You already have to spend time researching airlines, buying tickets in advance, etc. but now in addition to that there is a completely contrived layer of bullshit I need to know about.

You can extend this concept even further and imagine literal series of hoops that you must jump through to earn “cash back” on your ticket at the end of the flight.
by ChrisMarshallNY | 2025-05-30 21:44:12+00:00
> We need to learn a thing or two from blue collars.

A majority of my friends are blue-collar.

You might be surprised.

Unions are adversarial, but the relationships can still be quite warm.

I hear that German and Japanese unions are full-force stakeholders in their corporations, and the relationship is a lot more intricate.

It's like a marriage. There's always elements of control/power play, but the idea is to maximize the benefits.

It can be done. It has been done.

It's just kind of lost, in tech.
by nartho | 2025-05-30 21:44:19+00:00
>but how do they even know they're getting real information about Indian History

They do not. AI and LLMs are awesome tools when they're being used correctly, with their limitations in mind, but for a big majority of people who don't have a clue about how they work, it's going to be a disaster. We will see more and more of this garbage because it's easy money. AI generated podcasts, youtube videos etc, until people start believing hallucinated junk.
by gopher_space | 2025-05-30 21:44:29+00:00
> worried about being swept up into the guardianship system.

Functionally speaking you'd have to be incapable of calling a lawyer on your own, which means you'd already be under someone's care. Even if you're being scammed dry, the absolute last thing you want in that situation is a lack of funding.

Find someone who understands end of life financial planning and set up whatever trust-like scheme they recommend.
by einpoklum | 2025-05-30 21:45:13+00:00
I haven't worked in the US; and - have not yet worked in a company where such employees exist. Some are slower, some are fast or more efficient or productive - but they're all, everyone, under the pressure of too many tasks assigned to them, and it's always obvious that more personnel is needed but budget (supposedly) precludes it.

So, what you're describing is a mythical situation for me. But - US corporations are fabulously rich, or perhaps I should say highly-valued, and there are lots of investors to throw money at things I guess, so maybe that actually happens.
by TkTech | 2025-05-30 21:45:40+00:00
Gonna toss my own hat in the ring there for the python+postgres ecosystem :)

https://github.com/tktech/chancy

> As a rule of thumb, if you're processing less than 1000 jobs per day or your jobs are mostly lightweight operations (like sending emails or updating records), you can stick with this solution.

This seems... excessively low? Chancy is on the heavier side and happily does many millions of jobs per day. Postgres has no issue with such low throughput, even on resource constrained systems (think a $5 vps). Maybe they meant 1000 per second?
by hinkley | 2025-05-30 21:45:41+00:00
I wonder if he would have been better off making a device to hold a small mirror steady and used a telephoto lens pointed at it from one of the f holes.

It says he had a 5 mm hole to work with. That would pass an 8 gauge wire with plenty of room to maneuver. Mount a mirror to the end, thread a two or three foot wire through the hole from the inside out, clamp it to a surface the instrument is sitting in to keep it from moving, and set up your camera from a low angle and the light positioned to not cast a shadow.

Alternately you could J hook a long, large diameter scope, and composite two shots with the cable visible on opposite sides of each picture.
by TZubiri | 2025-05-30 21:45:46+00:00
This question but for every AI feature every company is going for.

I'm not sure at all why, but there seems to be some economic incentive to push for AI features. Is it because it's a buzzword? Is it because selling GPU time gives good margins? Is it because the all knowing efficient market demands it? I don't know, but users don't want it.
by redavni | 2025-05-30 21:46:07+00:00
Been using this in our Workplace account. Most people don't like it because they are luddites, but I absolutely love the summaries for those multi-week 50 email threads. Also the ability to quickly insert an absurdly overly formal response to a simple request as a joke is amusing.

I do wish it had the ability to respond to emails for me though with a prompt.
by chatmasta | 2025-05-30 21:47:10+00:00
In my case all the perishable shelves were empty - no fruit, no vegetables, no meat, no dairy. I checked every few days for multiple weeks and it wasn’t until three weeks after the incident I was able to buy chicken again.

It’s possible they were ordering some default level of stock and I just didn’t go at the right time to see it, but it sure looked like they were missing the inventory… when I first asked the lady “is the food missing because of the bank holiday?” and she said “no because of the cyber attack” I thought she was joking! It reminded me of the March 2020 shelves.
by ryandrake | 2025-05-30 21:48:01+00:00
This has been kind of happening in Customer Service for at least a decade now, just not "with AI": You send them an E-mail with a specific and detailed question about your bill, and their inbox triage bot reads it, sees the word "bill" and responds back with a generic "Hi, thank you for contacting us about [BILLING]. Please find information about [YOUR BILL] at this URL: xxxxxxxx"
by chongli | 2025-05-30 21:48:15+00:00
Tomorrow's interns will be accustomed to using AI, will need less hand-holding, will be able to leverage AI to deliver more.

Maybe tomorrow's interns will be "AI experts" who need less hand-holding, but the day after that will be kids who used AI throughout elementary school and high school and know nothing at all, deferring to AI on every question, and have zero ability to tell right from wrong among the AI responses.

I tutor a lot of high school students and this is my takeaway over the past few years: AI is absolutely laying waste to human capital. It's completely destroying students' ability to learn on their own. They are not getting an education anymore, they're outsourcing all their homework to the AI.
by molsongolden | 2025-05-30 21:49:03+00:00
I'll also note that I have multiple Mercury accounts and part of the way they have mitigated the risk of easier account opening and taking on higher risk customers is that they impose fairly low transaction limits on new customers and limit the ability to write checks without going through their platform. There are probably other similar limitations that I haven't hit yet.

These are annoying, especially if you don't know you are going to encounter them and a transaction gets held up, but they make sense for offsetting risk while speeding up account opening and expanding the profiles of customers you take on.
Tell HN: eBay doesn't allow changing country
by peterburkimsher | 2025-05-30 21:49:56+00:00
On 2025-05-30, I received an email from eBay saying "Peter, are you still using your account?"

I got a security code by email, and successfully spoke to a nice man from Florida on the phone.

I noticed that my address has changed, because my parents sold their house in France and moved to New Zealand. So I updated my address as well.

On 2025-05-31, I received another email from suspension@ebay.com saying "MC092 FPA NOTICE: eBay Registration Suspension - User Agreement - Abusing eBay - peterburk"

The first thing I did when I turned 18 years old was to open accounts on eBay and PayPal using my old iBook G3 (before even going downstairs to open birthday presents).

And now all my 88 positive reviews are for nought, because eBay blocked me.

If anybody reads this, please let me know an email address in eBay so I can contact a real human to verify that my account is real.

This is not AI, this is not a drill, this is the real world and life is just a little complicated.