MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by Art9681 | 2025-05-05 03:12:01+00:00
The moment the teacher realizes it was never about the perceived correct answer, but the questions that led to the paths taken. The sudden realization that teaching is more than the teacher initially perceived. Its not about teaching "this is so", but rather, "why do we know this is so?".

Which is what education should have always been about. It's not about responding with the correct answer. It's about asking the right questions. A famous Greek philosopher knew this, as did many before and after.

This is another after.
by ivape | 2025-05-05 03:12:17+00:00
When you watch those episodes of Maury where they have a father-less baby up on stage, and they are trying to figure who the daddy is, you have to contend with the fact that there's an entire audience in-person and at-home that are just taking part in the sheer entertainment of what will ultimately be that child's most embarrassing and deep sorrow in life. Not only that, but we film the spectacle. This was a hit show for decades and commonly accepted to be hilarious, especially those situations. At no point in those decades did society stand back and examine just how heinous it is.

I suspect this is true for large scale exhibitionism and voyeurism (which is what this is, you are either a subject or the voyeur in these pictures, and if you are both, then you are narcissist). It's been going on for decades and it's heinous. The sheer scale of it will not allow our society to stand back and examine it. I consider all these things part of our current public crucifixions. And like litter, the harmless gum wrappers (the selfies, the "look where I am" photos, etc) have accumulated into a pure garbage world. That's the power of accumulation, and now we all live in Garbage Land.

Our society is nasty and has been for as long as we can remember. It takes constant reflection to clean the grime and address our hygiene, in all its wonderous forms (put the fucking camera down please).

Rorschach out.

-----

I had an idea for a small short story about the after life where God pulls you into a small video editing room and makes you sit through every frame of what your eyes recorded. It would take a lifetime to get through, and every time you are committing a sin he pauses the giant film and you feel the utter presence of judgement. This goes on for every frame until you are begging for mercy with a newfound realization of just how damning the concept of an "observer" is. Smile, someone's watching. Sure as hell aint going to fool him with our curated album (can't we just look at the good stuff?). We look at all of it or none of it. Which brings us to the final point - did you fool anyone?
by throwup238 | 2025-05-05 03:12:56+00:00
Who is “you” in this case? Is you the Roman state or is you a random noble trying to curry favor and glory?

The former supported cavalry because it won battles but the latter did so because it earned them prestige among their peers. It also helped them feel powerful when they rode into battle literally hoisted above the common foot solider, as if they were closer to the gods.
by casey2 | 2025-05-05 03:13:13+00:00
His points flat suck and they aren't well thought out at all.

Right of the bat "the new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces" On what basis is this even defensible? Even if you just follow this single rule we'd all still be hunter-gatherers

And the last one his mask slips "It should not replace...anything...". Why privilege what already exists over what doesn't? It had it's time.
Show HN: Schedodo – Record your voice into structured text
by zasc | 2025-05-05 03:15:22+00:00
I built Schedodo to solve a problem I have where I'm busy with my hands but have ideas and want to jot down some thoughts, ex: while I'm cooking and I have an app idea, or when I want to just ramble for a while on a mind dump and have it organized for me into a cohesive thought.

Would appreciate any feedback
by makeitdouble | 2025-05-05 03:15:26+00:00
> Were they worth it, those childbirth photographs? Did they turn out well? One did. Only one

Three angles:

A - For that one picture that's worth you might need to take a dozen.

Or sometimes 60 in burst mode. Liking to take photos in the first place makes it a different exercise and one might spend more effort and be more critical of that one good photo, but I'd assume people not that into photo will also need more sample to find the ones they really like.

B - You only know which one turns out well after the fact. I'd push it further: if you want to live in the moment and not be pixel peeping next to your newborn, you better not care too much about the result and just snap at every chance, especially as you won't be handling you camera while holding your kid.

And that's the same for every occasion. Just snapping a bunch of pictures when it's less distracting is to me the best strategy yet.

C - Unsurprisingly the pictures I absolutely loved weren't the same as my kid's for instance. A decade later he actually looked at his birth photo, and stopped for almost a minute at each one of them, and the one that hit him the most wasn't his. but a random shot of his mother looking at him. I'd feel so sorry if I didn't take that shot, it was horribly framed and totally unthought, but that's the one that hit him. Btw I'm in almost none of these shots, didn't think of it and wouldn't have cared to at the time.
by tomr_stargazer | 2025-05-05 03:15:46+00:00
Bret (the author) does discuss the discipline of conscripted troops in another post, here:

https://acoup.blog/2022/06/17/collections-total-generalship-...

In particular, the concept of 'drill' gets a lot of attention:

"Fundamentally the principle behind using drill to build synchronized discipline is that the way to get a whole lot of humans to act effectively in concert together is to force them to practice doing exactly the things they’ll be asked to do on the battlefield a lot until the motions are practically second nature. Indeed, the ideal in developing this kind of drill was often to ingrain the actions the soldiers were to perform so deeply that in the midst of the terror of battle when they couldn’t even really think straight those soldiers would fall back on simply mechanically performing the actions they were trained to perform. That in turn creates an important element of predictability: an individual soldier does not need to be checking their action or position against the others around them as much because they’ve done this very maneuver with these very fellows and so already know where everyone is going to be.... The context that drill tends to emerge in (this is an idea invented more than once) tends to give it a highly regimented, fairly brutal character. For instance in early modern Europe, the structure of drill for gunpowder armies was conditioned by elite snobbery: European officer-aristocrats (in many cases the direct continuation of the medieval aristocracy) had an extremely poor view of their common soldiers (drawn from the peasantry). Assuming they lacked any natural valor, harsh drill was settled upon as a solution to make the actions of battle merely mechanical, to reduce the man to a machine."
by p_ing | 2025-05-05 03:15:49+00:00
Drawing a bow activates muscles not typically used in any other day to day scenarios and activates muscles beyond simply lifting/extending a dumb bell.

If you're interested in archery-focused exercises - https://www.morrelltargets.com/blogs/archery-blog/9-strength...

What makes it various bow styles exceptionally difficult is the draw style -- horsebow drawing by a single thumb is especially difficult; war bow has a strange draw style I've never attempted due to shoulder issues, recurve isn't difficult as you get three fingers, and compound archery is simply cheating.

Most of these draws aren't a draw and immediate release, but a draw and hold to aim. That's where archery becomes physically exhaustive. There was some recent YTer who showed off by drawing a 100#+ bow but couldn't hit worth shit. Hitting your target takes patience and practice.

As noted in another child, draw weights are typically measured at 30", but your draw may only be 29" or may be 31", etc. You'd want a bow that fits your draw length as close as possible, though.
by hinkley | 2025-05-05 03:19:11+00:00
Angles matter. There’s a famous rout that happened in France where an English army overstayed its welcome and was trying to make its way back to England when the locals decided it would be better to never have to deal with them again by finishing it now. I thought it was William of Orange but I cannot find anything to corroborate that.

They pinned his army down with a fresher army meaning to destroy them. The English infantry and cavalry were vastly outnumbered due to attrition, but what he did have were longbows. And somehow they beat a superior army while losing a fraction as many men.

The historical military analysis I saw was that with the front lines so thin, the archers essentially didn’t have to fire long arching volleys. The flatter angle of the arrow trajectory and shorter flight distance increased the penetration force, and they just absolutely destroyed every charge against them, confusing the attacking army. Arrows should not be dropping this many men. WTF.
by abrefeld | 2025-05-05 03:19:42+00:00
Data science / finance | Python (6+ years) | Looking for full-time | In-Person / Hybrid

Location: Denver, Colorado (greater metro area) Remote: Yes, for the right team. Prefer time in person. Willing to relocate: No Technologies: - Python: Pandas, Numpy, Scipy, Django, Natural Language Toolkit, SQLAlchemy, Pytorch, Pillow, Airflow - DB: PostgreSQL, MS-SQL, TimescaleDB, SQLite - Full-stack: Django, JavaScript, Bootstrap, CSS - Tableau, Advanced Excel, VBA Résumé/CV: Happy to share upon request Email: hnjobs [at] abrefeld.anonaddy.com

Hi everyone, I'm Alex, a data scientist / quantitative financial analyst with 6 years of Python experience and full-stack skills.

- 2 years as a trader and quant analyst market making in ETFs. My Python apps managed millions of shares and my research cut $100k's in costs.

- A year as a full-stack solo dev building web apps (Django, JavaScript, Bootstrap, etc). My MinimalistBookJournal app (https://github.com/alex-b1729/bookjournal) combines my interests in reading, journaling, and minimal web interfaces.

- Built a Natural Language Processing (NLP) pipeline, automating a finance journal's submission process.

- BA in Mathematics, Master's in Finance

If you're working on challenging projects in data science / finance, let's chat!

https://alexbrefeld.com | https://github.com/alex-b1729
by p_ing | 2025-05-05 03:19:47+00:00
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#History

> [I]n the war against the Welsh, one of the men of arms was struck by an arrow shot at him by a Welshman. It went right through his thigh, high up, where it was protected inside and outside the leg by his iron chausses, and then through the skirt of his leather tunic; next it penetrated that part of the saddle which is called the alva or seat; and finally it lodged in his horse, driving so deep that it killed the animal.

I wouldn't want to be shot by one, regardless.
by SpicyLemonZest | 2025-05-05 03:19:55+00:00
The purpose of the writing exercise is to produce a positive correlation between the possession of a degree and the skills that high-paying white collar jobs value. I don't blame students for not knowing that, or for not having the outside perspective to care. But positive signals of job competence are hard to come by, employers don't just blindly accept them despite what people like to say, and it's going to suck for new graduates if this one is eliminated.
by Mbwagava | 2025-05-05 03:20:08+00:00
For those completely lost on what MCP means: https://www.anthropic.com/news/model-context-protocol

It's not clear what benefit or use this is intended to provide (presumably they would have detailed its functionality if they intended to communicate this), but I assume it's ~super meaningful. I assume it's~ a scraping endpoint to add a url.

Edit: can't figure out how to use strikeout; please interpret the tildes as such.
by bell-cot | 2025-05-05 03:20:17+00:00
Re-skimming the article, I failed to spot the fact that this AI stuff is claiming more victims than earlier flavors of rabbit hole did. Was that in content which the article linked to?

Because if the new model cars aren't statistically more dangerous to pedestrians, then public safety efforts should be focused on things like getting the pedestrians to look up from their phones when crossing the street. Not "OMG! New 2025-model cars can hurt pedestrians who wander in front of them!" panics.

(Note that I'm old enough to remember when people were going down the rabbit hole of angry conspiracy theories spread via email. And when typical download speeds got high enough to make internet porn video addictions workable. And when loved ones started being lost to "EverCrack" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest ). And when ...)
by nico | 2025-05-05 03:21:58+00:00
That’s essentially what Google, Facebook, banks, financial institutions and even retail, have been doing for a long time now

People’s data rarely gets actually deleted. And it gets actively sold as well as used to track and influence us

Can’t say for the specifics of what ChatGPT is or will be doing, but imagine what Google already knows about us just with their maps app, search, chrome and Android phones
by kmoser | 2025-05-05 03:22:31+00:00
He's not wrong...unless you're planning to use that landscape photo in a way that will give you some sort of benefit in the future (emotional, financial, etc.).

It's easy (an often correct) to assume that most such photos will never be seen again, or maybe scrolled by quickly at best, but the fact is one doesn't know the motivation of the photographer, nor how they might change their motivation in the future to actually make use of that photo.
by sandworm101 | 2025-05-05 03:22:41+00:00
Question: What does this author think happened instead of the volley? Does he expect that archers just started randomly firing when they felt like doing so? Of course not. They waited for the order to start firing. So the first shots would, imho, constitute a "volley" in that everyone would be launching in the same few seconds. Subsequent shots would then become less coordinated, but that first wave would be a true volley. Then orders would come to stop/move/start, resulting in other coordinated volleys.
by magicalhippo | 2025-05-05 03:24:02+00:00
I'm quite certain I've got aphantasia as well, but despite that I have quite vivid memories.

Except I don't really visualize what was there, but I "feel" them. It's not just a grocery list of elements for a scene, rather I have a strong sensation of being in the moment.

Both my mom and my sister has multiple times expressed surprise at my recall.

On the other hand, old pictures doesn't really do that much for me. Sure it's fun to watch them, and maybe they jog some memories, but I don't feel I need them.

That said, I'm open to future me regretting not taking pictures, so when on vacation or similar I do try to take some pictures.
by omoikane | 2025-05-05 03:24:30+00:00
I find that the act of taking those pictures helps me remember the scene better. It's like back in school days when some professors allowed students to bring a small cheat sheet or card to the exams -- it's not so much the fact that you are allowed to bring auxiliary memory, but the act of preparing those notes helps you study better. I rarely made use of those cheat sheets during exams, and I rarely take the time to review old photos that I have taken.

I also bring a camera just because it feels like a security blanket of sorts, because you never know if something is going to come up, and the phone's wide angle lens might be insufficient.
by jhgaylor | 2025-05-05 03:24:37+00:00
I made my llms.txt by asking Claude to generate it from my resume and website.

You can run your own version pretty easily if you can spin up an express server. I haven't dialed in the readme yet but this package offers all the mcp functionality provided by my server https://github.com/jhgaylor/node-candidate-mcp-server . You basically just need to provide a configuration object describing yourself https://github.com/jhgaylor/ai-jakegaylor-com/blob/main/src/...
by FredPret | 2025-05-05 03:24:53+00:00
My wife and I went on a giant trip a couple of years back. I took tens of thousands of pictures. They're now our Apple TV background.

Every time a new photo comes on the slideshow, it sparks a memory and moment of joy.

It's like the trip is paying dividends.

Of course I wasn't glued to my camera and still enjoyed it, but there's definitely a balance, and I'd err on the side of overrecording. Especially if the memories can pop up every now and then.
by bruce511 | 2025-05-05 03:25:54+00:00
I did a comp science degree, so I can't speak for the liberal arts. However I imagine the same experience could apply.

For us the curriculum was the start of the learning, not the end. We'd get a weekly assignment that could be done in an afternoon. Most of the class did the assignments, and that was enough.

There was a small group of us that lived (pretty much) in the lab. We'd take the assignment and run with it, for days, nights, spare periods, whatever. That 10 line assignment? We turned it into 1000 lines every week.

For example the class on sorting might specify a specific algorithm. We'd do all of them. Compete against each other to make the fastest one. Compare one dataset to another. Investigate data distributions. You know, suck the marrow.

(Our professors would also swing by the lab from time to time to see how things were going, drop the odd hint, or prod the bear in a direction and so on. And this is all still undergrad.

I can imagine a History major doing the same. Researching beyond the curriculum. Going down rabbit holes.

My point is though is that you're right. You need to be interested. You need to have this compulsion. You can't tell a person "go, learn". All you can do is offer the environment, sit back, and see who grabs the opportunity.

I get that you cant imagine this playing out. To those interested only in the degree, it's unimaginable. And no, as long as burning-desire is not on the entry requirements, it most certainly will not be the majority.

In truth the lab resources eoild never have coped if the majority did what we did.
by giardini | 2025-05-05 03:26:55+00:00
To think all this could have been avoided if, 20 year ago, Chinese manufacturers learned to make two of most anything that a) worked and b) were interchangeable. But they never did. Going to the toolshop was like walking into the 17th century USA. So Sad!

Contrast Taiwan, which makes some of the absolutely finest goods in the world. I leap to buy a hand tool from Taiwan.
by sandworm101 | 2025-05-05 03:27:24+00:00
After the 18th century, virtually nobody would have used a war bow. Other than recreationists, everyone's archery experience would be of target and hunting bows. Both have much lower draws.

When I owned one, it had a 65lb draw with an 80% letoff. So it took maybe 10/15lbs to hold it at full draw. But my bow could still reliably throw arrows out to around 300m, basically double the range of an english longbow. Nobody ever aims a modern bow for max range. Doing so is incredibly dangerous. World record distance shots have broken 1000m.
by heavyset_go | 2025-05-05 03:28:01+00:00
> I'm terrified that people like him will push away friends and family because the LLM engages with their delusions.

There's that danger from the internet, as well as the danger of being exposed to conmen that are okay with exploiting mental illness for profit. Watched this happen to an old friend with schizophrenia.

There are online communities that are happy to affirm delusions and manipulate sick people for some easy cash. LLMs will only make their fraud schemes more efficient, as well.
by vel0city | 2025-05-05 03:28:12+00:00
FWIW, I used to pay more like 8.5-9c/kWh before the big freeze. Things got way more expensive after that. The TDSP (Oncor) had a big rate hike for all the upgrades/replacements coupled with an extra rider the state enforced to pay the stupid high gas prices of that time.
Show HN: I scraped 30M+ UK property records using LLM to fix a problem
by solomonlazio | 2025-05-05 03:28:46+00:00
If you’ve ever tried buying or investing in property in the UK, you already know how broken the process can feel. As a property investor myself, I know how frustrating and fragmented it is, jumping between outdated spreadsheets, buried planning application records, 10+ open tabs, and half-complete portal listings, confusing price trends… and even then, you’re still left guessing.

That’s exactly why I built HomePortfolio; a tool designed to cut through the noise and give everyday homebuyers and investors instant clarity and confidence.

I built an AI automated scraper that pulls live listings from 50+ sources, merges them with sold-price data from HM Land Registry, ONS neighbourhood stats, school stats, EPC ratings, and even flood-risk and planning data from local councils.

Then I ran it all through LLMs to extract everything you’d normally spend hours digging for: investment opportunities, valuations, price trends, beds/baths, floor area, energy score, crime rates, school proximity, flood zones, planning alerts, rental yields you name it.

The idea is simple: show a unified, data-rich view of any UK property in seconds, so no one has to rely on guesswork, scattered sources, or gut feel anymore.

Try the prototype → homeportfolio.com Here's a short demo showing it in action: Launch Video Link https://youtu.be/vuA_KeASxnE

Pro tips Flexible locations: query by address, city, or county Auto-extracted specs: “3 bed semi-detached, 1 bath, 1 200 ft²” parsed straight from descriptions Risk flags: instant alerts for flood-risk zones and high-noise areas Yield estimates: 5-year rental & capital growth forecasts from sold-price trends Neighbourhood snapshot: Demographics, crime, school quality, walkscore, air quality all in one view

It’s still early days but would love thoughts or feedback from this community on data quality, UX improvements, or new feature ideas. Especially curious if you’ve run into the same pain points and what else you'd want to see built. Follow updates at our PH page => https://www.producthunt.com/posts/homeportfolio or email me samos@homeportfolio.com