MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by kccqzy | 2025-05-29 17:28:41+00:00
> and most devs I’d imagine

What an awful imagination. Yes there are people who don't like CSS but are forced to use it by their job so they don't learn it properly, and that's why they think CSS is rote memorization.

But overall I agree with you that if a company is too cheap to hire a person who is actually skilled at CSS, it is still better to hoist that CSS job onto LLMs than an unwilling human. Because that unwilling human is not going to learn CSS well and won't enjoy writing CSS.

On the other hand, if the company is willing to hire someone who's actually good, LLMs can't compare. It's basically the old argument of LLMs only being able to replace less good developers. In this case, you admitted that you are not good at CSS and LLMs are better than you at CSS. It's not task-dependent it's skill-dependent.
by toomuchtodo | 2025-05-29 17:29:24+00:00
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44101287 (comment with citations on China being the first electrostate, how much energy is produced from low carbon sources)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44057045 (comment with citations on automated, electrical heavy haul vehicles in China)

Reminder to think in systems. Low carbon generation keeps pushing fossil generation out. Electric vehicles keep pushing combustion vehicles out. We’re still 10-15 years away still, but trajectories are clear.
by cj | 2025-05-29 17:29:33+00:00
This is a reminder of how prediction markets don't always accurately estimate probability of events happening.

The most interesting part of the article IMO was the fact that the 3% probability is artificially high because there is no one willing to take the otherside of the bet, because betting "No" requires you to give your money to the prediction market for 6+ months, and if you're only getting a 1% return if you win the bet, you'll make more money if you put the cash in a high yield savings account.

Seems like prediction/betting markets only really work well when there is a reasonable chance of either outcome occurring, and is less accurate the more obvious one outcome is compared to another?
by JKCalhoun | 2025-05-29 17:29:59+00:00
You need to swap left and right images to use the cross-eyed method on these. You can try downloading as an image, use an app like Preview to Flip Horizontal (that will work).

Otherwise you're seeing a kind of inverse stereo image.

(EDIT: Having said that, I tried a few of the images and the stereo effect is subtle. The soldier on the horse — I was not even able to get that to "snap" for me. I am not great with cross-eyed stereo though.)
by sixQuarks | 2025-05-29 17:30:07+00:00
Exactly! We’ve been seeing more and more posts like this, saying how AI will never take developer jobs or will never be as good as coders. I think it’s some sort of coping mechanism.

These posts are gonna look really silly in the not too distant future.

I get it, spending countless hours honing your craft and knowing that AI will soon make almost everything you learned useless is very scary.
by ehutch79 | 2025-05-29 17:30:48+00:00
Uh, no. I've seen the twitter posts saying llms will replace me. I've watched the youtube videos saying llms will code whole apps on one prompt, but are light on details or only show the most basic todo app from every tutorial.

We're being told that llms are now reasoning, which implies they can make logical leaps and employ creativity to solve problems.

The hype cycle is real and setting expectations that get higher with the less you know about how they work.
by Animats | 2025-05-29 17:30:55+00:00
> (Roger Penrose himself makes a version of that claim in "the Emperor's New Mind", so we're in good company...)

Right. That leads to the whole 'brains are special and analog and quantum or something and thus can't be emulated digitally' line of thought. That line of argument is looking rather threadbare since LLMs got good. That's a different issue than decidability, though. Penrose does raise a good question as to how biological brains get so much done with so little power and rather low-frequency signals.
by munksbeer | 2025-05-29 17:31:23+00:00
This is like asking me if steam power was a force for good, or the combustion engine, or computers. The answer is yes and no, but the more important point is that innovation and progress is inevitable. We lead vastly better lives than people 100 years ago. Why? Because of innovation.

I use LLM code completion in my IDE, and it is fairly useful, but not yet ideal. I use it all the time to ask technical questions rather than searching documentation first. It is extremely helpful for that task, and most of the time is correct - I always double check after it points me in the right direction.

I see a path where AI leads to the destruction of humanity, but it could equally lead to a post scarcity utopia.

You are being completely dogmatic in you view, and I can understand. If you truly believe AI is a force for evil, then it makes sense for you to rage against it. But keep in mind, no-one knows yet, and be open to the possibility that you're wrong.
by Mariefay | 2025-05-29 17:31:28+00:00
I've stuck to software all these years because I know hardware is be a dangerous hobby for me to start...I am going to end up with so much stuff because I'll want to try this and this and that but I guess it is worth it at this point! Seems to be so much on that front that I've never played with, and it'll probably push me to start new side projects which is good! Any specific fun tutorials or projects that you would recommend starting with?
by dpkirchner | 2025-05-29 17:31:34+00:00
You're right, however I think we've already gone through this before. Most of us (probably) couldn't tell you exactly how an optimizing compiler picks optimizations or exactly how JavaScript maps to processor instructions, etc -- we hopefully understand enough at one level of abstraction to do our jobs. Maybe LLM driving will be another level of abstraction, when it gets better at (say) architecting projects.
by ryandv | 2025-05-29 17:32:36+00:00
Then they should choose not to identify with a word that is defined by "social ownership of the means of production," [0] whose main proponent advocates that there is "only one way, [...] and that way is revolutionary terror." [1]

You can't equivocate terms like this, identifying with the more extreme definition but walking it back when pressed. This is active distortion and manipulation of language, and this is far from the only instance of such in society.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

[1] https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/11/06.htm
by hatradiowigwam | 2025-05-29 17:32:43+00:00
Religion (to me) is defined as a codified subset [or even superset] of beliefs, rituals, and culture.

The letters you speak of (penned by apostles of Jesus) are exactly as you describe. They were humans, trying to do what a divine being told them to do. It appears they went about it(at least partially) by writing letters. The passage I believe you are referring to, where Jesus instructs his disciples is:

> Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

This doesn't say to "spread religion", it literally tells them to teach and baptize all nations. They went and wrote letters, and here we are thousands of years later calling that "religion".

What is important to you? I see this conversation as attempting to make disciples of all nation. If it's successful for anyone(not you necessarily, maybe someone reading)...then hoo-ah! That's a win! If not, the instructions that preceded the passage you refer to say that I should "shake the dust from my feet", and leave the metaphorical house(s) that will not listen.

I don't know how we got from 0-50 A.D. to where we are now, regarding "religion", but I don't see even the most remote connection from the behavior of Jesus' disciples and their letter writing, to whatever the heck is going on in modern day.
by jaccola | 2025-05-29 17:33:51+00:00
I've found LLMs particularly bad for anything beyond basic styling since the effects can be quite hard to describe and/or don't have a universal description.

Also, there are often times multiple ways to achieve a certain style and they all work fine until you want a particular tweak, in which case only one will work and the LLM usually gets stuck in one of the ones that does not work.
by vjvjvjvjghv | 2025-05-29 17:34:45+00:00
I think we need to accept that in the not too far future LLMs will be able to do most of the mundane tasks we have to do every day. I don't see why an AI can't set up kubernetes, caching layers, testing, databases, scaling, check for security problems and so on. These things aren't easy but I think they are still very repetitive and therefore can be automated.

There will always be a place for really good devs but for average people (most of us are average) I think there will be less and less of a place.
by tshaddox | 2025-05-29 17:34:58+00:00
Your comment is seething with confirmation bias. You're seeing things only because you're looking for them.

You conflate "health" with the word "palliative," when the latter specifically refers specifically to serious health problems. I go to the gym for my physical health and my mental health, but that doesn't imply that skipping one gym session would lead to a serious physical or mental health problem. Same goes for "mental health days." There's nothing sensational about referring to one's health.

And yes, we always refer to people who survive natural disasters as "survivors." Google "survivors of hurricane helene" and you'll find countless articles with headlines like "Survivors Describe Their Frightening Experiences," "4 Ways to Help Hurricane Helene Survivors," "Federal Assistance for Hurricane Helene Survivors Surpasses $137 Million," etc.
by hunglee2 | 2025-05-29 17:35:20+00:00
What does this mean for companies who have actually paid the tariffs?

Presumably they have the right to sue for reimbursement, as well as perhaps costs incurred as a result of the now illegal tariff from US Gov. Also presumably, a business which failed as a result of the tariffs might also be sue. A fiasco is probably an understatement
by divbzero | 2025-05-29 17:35:38+00:00
> They dropped 60 eggs each from three different heights (8, 9, and 10 millimeters) onto a hard surface in three different orientations: horizontal, vertical on the sharp end, and vertical on the blunt end.

I find it hard to extrapolate from this experimental setup to an egg drop competition. A ~1cm drop onto a hard surface is quite different from a ~10m drop in protective packaging.
by wavemode | 2025-05-29 17:35:45+00:00
> don't separate declaration from assignment and it will never be unassigned

That's tricky when you want to write algorithms where you can start with an uninitialized object and are guaranteed to have initialized the object by the time the algorithm completes. (Simplest example - create an array B which contains the elements of array A in reverse order.)

You can either allow declaring B uninitialized (which can be a safety hazard) or force B to be given initial values for every element (which can be a big waste of time for large arrays).
by giantrobot | 2025-05-29 17:36:14+00:00
When AltaVista first appeared its landing page was much sparser than that. Even a year earlier [0] its homepage was pretty sparse and simple. Unfortunately AltaVista got hit with the web portal bug and the site got more bloated. Unfortunately the search also got worse as spammers figured out how to game its search algorithms.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/19980423064646/http://altavista....
by bediger4000 | 2025-05-29 17:36:19+00:00
The Republican controlled Congress, specifically the oversight committee in the House, didn't do anything about it. The Speaker of the House could also take measures, because constitutionally, the House imposed tariffs.

This is a case of an extra-constitutional entity, the Republican party, failing to take action to preserve institutional prerogative, and failing to do the famed checks and balances.
by exceptione | 2025-05-29 17:36:45+00:00
It is weird, but what we do know is that is surprisingly easy to compel people into self-harm.

> Patently counterproductive

Yes, but that is the gist. What you have got is the problem of the few who fear the numerous. Where you have power and wealth concentration, there will be a push to autocracy. Zero sum. Might makes right.

It is an international phenomenon, where (political) organizations and people copy and sync each others playbooks. Look at the Brexit, look at Orban, look at the tariffs, look at expelling talent and science, look at the killing of the free enterprise.

Fundamentally, parasites don't care about the host. If the host dies, they jump on the next one. That is why the Kremlin focuses on Ukraine and the rest, while the USA starts to talk about Greenland and Canada.

For normal people it is too crazy to believe, so we don't believe it.
by munificent | 2025-05-29 17:36:49+00:00
> On the web, the user is rarely a monolith.

Usability folks have understood this for decades. Alan Cooper was writing about defining multiple separate personas [1] to represent different cohorts of your userbase in the 90s.

> what I'm getting at is that it is less empirical than it might seem at first pass.

I would argue that it is still exactly as empirical. You just have to be careful how you aggregate your data and don't try to reduce things to too few clusters. Otherwise you end up making the classic mistake of offering a single T-shirt size at your conference that mostly only fits men because they are the majority of attendees.

> There is still an art to user centered design,

Agreed. No amount of analysis will do your synthesis for you. You still have to make.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_(user_experience)
by Ukv | 2025-05-29 17:37:13+00:00
I believe the problem there is that the constructed F(F) input itself would not run in finite space:

* F(F) internally runs its implementation of D's code on (F, F)

* ...which runs F(F) plus some constant-factor-overhead

* ...which runs its implementation of D's code on (F, F)

* ...which runs F(F) plus some constant-factor-overhead

* etc.

Ends up with the F emulating itself recursively, with the overhead adding up.

Note that the claim I make of D is that for any input system that runs in finite-but-unbounded space it will determine whether it halts in finite-but-unbounded space - not for input systems that already by themselves use infinite space.
by ljlolel | 2025-05-29 17:37:36+00:00
Seriously, he’s one of the best on the planet of course it’s not better than him. If so we’d be cooked.

99% of professional software developers don’t understand what he said much less can come up with it (or evaluate it like Gemini).

This feels a bit like a humblebrag about how well he can discuss with an LLM compared to others vibecoding.
by AnimalMuppet | 2025-05-29 17:37:51+00:00
So here's an analogy. (Yeah, I know, proof by analogy is fraud. But it's going to illustrate the question.)

Here's a kid out hoeing rows for corn. He sees someone planting with a tractor, and decides that's the way to go. Someone tells him, "If you get a tractor, you'll never develop the muscles that would make you really great at hoeing."

Different analogy: Here's someone trying to learn to paint. They see someone painting by numbers, and it looks a lot easier. Someone tells them, "If you paint by numbers, you'll never develop the eye that you need to really become good as a painter."

Which is the analogy that applies, and what makes it the right one?

I think the difference is how much of the job the tool can take over. The tractor can take over the job of digging the row, with far more power, far more speed, and honestly far more quality. The paint by numbers can take over the job of visualizing the painting, with some loss of quality and a total loss of creativity. (In painting, the creativity is considered a vital part; in digging corn rows, not so much.)

I think that software is more like painting, rather than row-hoeing. I think that AI (currently) is in the form of speeding things up with some loss of both quality and creativity.

Can anyone steelman this?
by yua_mikami | 2025-05-29 17:38:16+00:00
The thing everyone forgets when talking about LLMs replacing coders is that there is much more to software engineering than writing code, in fact that's probably one of the smaller aspects of the job.

One major aspect of software engineering is social, requirements analysis and figuring out what the customer actually wants, they often don't know.

If a human engineer struggles to figure out what a customer wants and a customer struggles to specify it, how can an LLM be expected to?
Show HN: ClickStack – open-source Datadog alternative by ClickHouse and HyperDX
by mikeshi42 | 2025-05-29 17:39:20+00:00
Hey HN! Mike & Warren here from HyperDX (now part of ClickHouse)! We’ve been building ClickStack, an open source observability stack that helps you collect, centralize, search/viz/alert on your telemetry (logs, metrics, traces) in just a few minutes - all powered by ClickHouse (Apache2) for storage, HyperDX (MIT) for visualization and OpenTelemetry (Apache2) for ingestion.

You can check out the quick start for spinning things up in the repo here: https://github.com/hyperdxio/hyperdx

ClickStack makes it really easy to instrument your application so you can go from bug reports of “my checkout didn’t go through” to a session replay of the user, backend API calls, to DB queries and infrastructure metrics related to that specific request in a single view.

For those that might be migrating from Very Expensive Observability Vendor (TM) to something open source, more performant, and doesn’t require extensive culling of retention limits and sampling rates - ClickStack gives a batteries-included way of starting that migration journey.

For those that aren’t familiar with ClickHouse, it’s a high performance database that has already been used by companies such as Anthropic, Cloudflare, and DoorDash to power their core observability at scale due to its flexibility, ease of use, and cost effectiveness. However, this required teams to dedicate engineers to building a custom observability stack, where it’s difficult to not only get their telemetry data easily into ClickHouse but also struggling without a native UI experience.

That’s why we’re building ClickStack - we wanted to bundle an easy way to get started ingesting your telemetry data whether it’s logs & traces from Node.js or Ruby to metrics from Kubernetes or your bare metal infrastructure. Just as important we wanted our users to enjoy a visualization experience that allowed users to quickly search using a familiar lucene-like search syntax (similar to what you’d use in Google!). We recognise though, that a SQL mode is needed for the most complex of queries. We've also added high cardinality outlier analysis by charting the delta between outlier and inlier events - which we've found really helpful in narrowing down causes of regressions/anomalies in our traces as well as log patterns to condense down clusters of similar logs.

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by wahern | 2025-05-29 17:39:25+00:00
Democratic in the modern sense. The past millennia of English history could be understood as a slow progression of the devolution of power. The actual politics were pretty messy, but the evolution in legal and political theory was more steady. Compare that to most other civilizations, where the evolution of democracy was much more abrupt and epochal, not to mention even bloodier and altogether much more recent.

There were democratic movements elsewhere, but almost all were squelched by king and tsars (domestic or foreign) and the legal and political environments reset to square 0.

Also, the modern notion of the history of democracy is the devolution of power to the masses. But I like to think of the evolution of English history, at least legally, as the (albeit slow and uneven) elevation of the masses to the aristocracy, and in that way something similar to how the Greek's viewed democracy--with power comes responsibility and stricture. Though, that was partially the product of the expulsion of certain groups from the island; yet, that process was carried over in the US where many of those groups landed.
by efortune | 2025-05-29 17:39:41+00:00
I wrote a first text about thoughts I had after working in IT support for most of the last 20 years. I published it on LinkedIn waiting to see if there is enough interest before putting it in a separate blog.

Imagine this situation: You are at the end of day at a conference on IT support. You go at the hotel bar and strike a interesting conversation with a stranger. He has nothing to sell you. While sipping his drink, he just hope his ideas could be considered more by IT managers.

That's the tone I wanted to give to this series of texts I plan to write. I hope you like it and that it could be useful to you.

I want to hear your comments about this subject. Thank you for your time.
by kazinator | 2025-05-29 17:40:21+00:00
For casual viewing with the unaided eye, you want to present stereograms in cross-your-eyes order not stare-into-distance order.

Most people are not able to cause their eyes to diverge, so the scale of images in a stare-into-distance stereogram is limited by the interocular distance.

In cross-eye configuration, larger images can be used.

(Of course, the use of magnification in stereoscopes relieves the issue, as well as making it easier for the eyes to focus, since the magnified virtual images appear farther away. Viewing stare-into-distance stereograms requires the eyes to believe they are looking far away due to the parallel gaze, while simultaneously focusing near on the images; magnification brings the images farther out.)
by Sohcahtoa82 | 2025-05-29 17:40:46+00:00
For sure, but consider it a "first draft" of what this type of generative AI can do.

The resolution is extremely low. The website doesn't specify, but I'd guess it's only 160x120. Such a low resolution was necessary to render it in real time and maintain a reasonable frame rate. To try to hide the blurring a bit, they apply some filters to add scan lines and other effects to make it look like an old TV.

That said, I'd be surprised if anybody could gather the hardware to work well enough to get it to a useable resolution, let alone even something like 1080p. It's literally over 100x the pixels of 160x120.