MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by dkbrk | 2025-05-03 17:37:02+00:00
The discussion near the end about how leadership taking responsibility can beneficially relieve accountability reminded me of the story of the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) [0].

[1]:

> When NTDS was eventually acclaimed not only a success, but also one of the most successful projects in the Navy; it amazed people. Especially because it had stayed within budget and schedule. A number of studies were commissioned to analyze the NTDS project to find why it had been so successful in spite of the odds against it. Sometimes it seems there was as much money spent on studying NTDS than was spent on NTDS development.

[2]:

> ...the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations authorized development of the Naval tactical Data System in April 1956, and assigned the Bureau of Ships as lead developing agency. The Bureau, in turn, assigned Commander Irvin McNally as NTDS project “coordinator” with Cdr. Edward Svendsen as his assistant. Over a period of two years the coordinating office would evolve to one of the Navy’s first true project offices having complete technical, management, and funds control over all life cycle aspects of the Naval Tactical Data System including research and development, production procurement, shipboard installation, lifetime maintenance and system improvement.

[1]:

The Freedom to Fail: McNally and Svendsen had an agreement with their seniors in the Bureau of Ships and in OPNAV that, if they wanted them to do in five years what normally took 14, they would have to forego the time consuming rounds of formal project reviews and just let them keep on working. This was reasonable because the two commanders were the ones who had defined the the new system and they knew better than any senior reviewing official whether they were on the right track or not. It was agreed, when the project officers needed help, they would ask for it, otherwise the seniors would stand clear and settle for informal progress briefings.

The key take-away is that the NTDS was set up as a siloed project office with Commanders McNally and Svendsen having responsibility for the ultimate success of the project, but other than that being completely unaccountable. There were many other things the NTDS project did well, but I believe that fundamental aspect of its organization was the critical necessary condition for its success. Lack of accountability can be bad, in other circumstances it can be useful, but diffusion of responsibility is always the enemy.

How many trillions of dollars are wasted on projects that go overbudget, get delayed and/or ultimately fail, and to what extent could that pernicious trend be remedied if such projects were led from inception to completion by one or two people with responsibility for its ultimate success who shield the project from accountability?

[0]: https://ethw.org/First-Hand:No_Damned_Computer_is_Going_to_T...

[1]: https://ethw.org/First-Hand:Legacy_of_NTDS_-_Chapter_9_of_th...

[2]: https://ethw.org/First-Hand:Building_the_U.S._Navy%27s_First...
by ilikescience | 2025-05-03 17:37:49+00:00
author here! sorry for the broken footnote links, i fixed 'em.

There's a lot of documentation of those players' heroin and alcohol use. Miles Davis' autobiography has a list in it somewhere of all the players that were abusing substances; a lot of it had to do with their need to play gigs back-to-back through the night to make a living. As for the schedules, I think it was Miles' book, but I can't find it exactly ... because they played all night, and rehearsed early in the morning after the clubs closed, it was hard to keep a group on a predictable recording schedule. The majors wanted big names with well-known hit songs, and the loose ensemble nature, original compositions, and unpredictable improv of bebop was pretty much the opposite of commercially viable at the time.

Scott DeVeaux's The Birth of Beebop is a great source, too.
by humbledrone | 2025-05-03 17:37:50+00:00
Some info about custom 3D models is here: https://anukari.com/support/faq#custom-skins

The animations have some subtlety, but the basic idea is that they all to from t=0 to t=1, and then Anukari drives that t parameter. So for example, the mallet would go from resting at t=0 to fully extended at t=1, and Anukari will animate it at the right speed from 0, up to some value based on the velocity, back to zero.

Some of the objects are cyclic, like the spinning oscillators, and those also use the t=0 to t=1 convention, but require that the animation is seamless (so it looks identical at t=0 and t=1, but does whatever you want in between).

I'm not aware of anyone fully customizing the 3D stuff yet, so the instructions may be a bit rough. If you try it, feel free to contact me at evan@anukari.com or on discord and I'd be happy to answer questions.
by Shorel | 2025-05-03 17:38:04+00:00
My own definition of mathematics for the sake of this comparison: - If you can write a formal proof, starting from some assumptions and proving some result, it is mathematics. The assumptions are the axioms. Then you use logic, which is the same programming logic, and then you get to some result.

It can be an invariant in a programming function, it can be a more general result, if you can write a proof, it is mathematics. Most algorithms involve proofs, so they are mathematics.

It has nothing to do with it being "sadism" or academic gatekeeping.

These people are doing mathematics without knowing it is mathematics. That's all.

> Why is it that the drop-outs are succeeding so wildly?

Here is where you can learn about confirmation bias and educate yourself.
by voidfunc | 2025-05-03 17:38:59+00:00
There's no incentive to do this, it's politically untenable to plan that far ahead. The beauty of humanity is we're always changing and evolving because we only do things within the scope of our lifetime.

The curse of humanity is having a brain that lets us think too hard about what we want to be rather than acknowledging what we are which is a bunch of mortal animals with finite time spans that like to fuck, make babies, raise families and occasionally we come together and do shit together in the form of work so we can further those three other priorities.
by RetroTechie | 2025-05-03 17:39:18+00:00
The public's attention often works like the beam of a searchlight, focussed on 1 spot/subject. Or (at best) everyone has their own searchlight, and @ times those of many people all shine on the same spot.

Whatever is in that focal point, gets burned, raised to fame, ridiculed, scrutinized extremely, subject to harassment, etc. While things nearby (but outside that focus) escape such treatment. Who or what is moving that searchlight's direction, is usually more fuzzy.

TV talent shows work like that. Social media do. Memes that go viral may have same effect. An influential book/science paper/movie etc, or a politician's speech may do it.

But the public's attention span is short, and the beam's focus moves on to burn something/someone else.
by nik8n | 2025-05-03 17:40:03+00:00
n8n | Senior AI PM | Remote (Europe timezones) | Full time | niklas@n8n.io

We're looking for an exceptional AI Product Manager to join us at n8n, and in my (biased) opinion this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. n8n is a fair code AI workflow automation for technical teams. It’s not just a place with a great culture, but is also seeing crazy growth right now: - We 5x’d our ARR last year, and are on track for a much higher multiple this year. - Every week, 100k+ new users try out n8n. - We have a fanatic community that absolutely loves the product.

We're right at the center of defining how people will build with AI in the coming years. But to truly lead this very competitive space, we need someone to tackle the massive challenge of define n8n's core AI strategy and execute the roadmap that makes us the undisputed default tool for AI building. That's where you come in.

What we’re looking for (the unicorn) - Great PM skills: You thrive in high-pace, high-uncertainty environments, can prioritize the most important things from a long list and ruthlessely focus on what’s important. You should also be technical and able to empathise with our technical user base. - AI Native: You bring a deep, nuanced understanding of the modern AI landscape, are well connected in the AI space (part of the "inner circle," know the key players/research) and have informed opinions on where the market’s heading - Humble & passionate: You bring a deep passion for product craft and making an impact. You’re humble, authentic, radically transparent but yet have strong convictions and can stand your ground.

Important: We only hire in Europe timezones, so you either need to live here or be willing to relocate.

We know this is a rare combination and a demanding role with incredibly high expectations. You'll be shaping the future of AI development for potentially millions of users. If you read this and thought "holy crap, that's exactly me," or you know the perfect person, we want to talk. Just ping me via email.
by zahlman | 2025-05-03 17:40:34+00:00
Yes and no.

Pip is nominally developed by separate people and isn't part of the standard library. However, it does ship with Python by default (Debian-based Linux distributions go out of their way to remove it), in the form of a wheel vendored within the standard library folders. The standard library module `ensurepip` is used to install that wheel - it bootstraps Pip's own code from within that wheel. This is also used indirectly by default when you create a new venv with the standard library `venv`.

(The reason uv can create environments quickly is that it skips that part, while otherwise following nominally the same logic. You can get the same effect by passing `--without-pip` to the `python -m venv` invocation, and it's actually faster (on my machine at least) than using uv. However, you then need to understand how to use pip cross-environment (it wasn't designed for that from the start, but modern pip offers support that's only a little bit buggy). I discuss this on my blog in https://zahlman.github.io/posts/2025/01/07/python-packaging-... .)
by pclmulqdq | 2025-05-03 17:40:55+00:00
I have had the problem with customer support that about 90% of the calls/chats I have placed should have been automated (on their side), and the remaining 10% needed escalation beyond the "customer service" escalation ladder. In America, sadly, that means one of two things: (1) you call a friend who works there or (2) you have your lawyer send a demand letter requesting something rather inane.
by Supermancho | 2025-05-03 17:41:00+00:00
> Involuntary uninformed human experimentation is a very serious matter.

Social experimentation is not serious or unserious. It's the human condition to be subject to it, at every interaction with every animate and inanimate signal that a human can react to. There is nothing nefarious about an open forum being fully, partly, or devoid of inputs that are not carefully curated by another human. The billboard you see on the highway is more impactful and overt than the referenced experiment. ie Yelling at the clouds will not make the world a better place.
by the_snooze | 2025-05-03 17:41:11+00:00
From the history you've summarized, I think we're at the right level of pessimism. All this tech is amazing, and the smart people who put in the work to make it happen should be proud of it.

But at the end of the day, economics and game theory will drive the values that get propagated through the tech. The past several decades of technological progress have shown that values like "resiliency," "reliability," and "user empowerment" aren't at the top of the list, so why should we believe otherwise with AI and give it the benefit of the doubt?

I like to put AI systems through its paces with low-stakes but easy-to-check sports trivia. It should absolutely ace that given the plethora of accurate data and text out there. Yet it fails again and again. "Reliability" is not a design priority for this technology.
by teachrdan | 2025-05-03 17:41:21+00:00
Before threatening small claims court (known to be a PITA for the plaintiff), I'll tell them that if they can't resolve it, then they should send me an email telling me so, which I'll forward to my credit card company so they can reverse the charges. Then I'll remind them that that's bad for the business because it increases their transaction fees and ask (again) if there's any way to just refund me. This works for me like 90% of the time.
by aiforecastthway | 2025-05-03 17:42:46+00:00
> It drives me crazy when people make argument like this without pointing to the actual legislation.

The first sentence of the article reads "A bill set to be heard by the Judiciary and Jurisprudence Committee at the Texas House is sparking criticism from small business owners across the state. ".

The text "Judiciary and Jurisprudence Committee" is a hyperlink. That hyperlink takes you to the bill tracker.

> After reading the bill, I don’t see the argument.

Introducing civil liability has a chilling effect on commerce (and, therefore, speech). From the article:

"The biggest concern that we have is that for small businesses, first of all, we can’t afford the lawsuits."
by HarHarVeryFunny | 2025-05-03 17:42:56+00:00
I see a lot of people here replying on the assumption that AI=LLMs, which I don't think will last for very long. LLMs have unlocked a primitive level of AI faster then many people expected, but it is only that. Where AI is going is surely going to be more complex/structured ANN-based architectures, built for the job (i.e. cognitive architectures), not simplistic pass-thru transformers which were never intended to be more than a seq-2-seq architecture.

I don't see any reason to suppose that we won't achieve human-level/human-like AGI, and do so fairly soon. Transformers may or may not be part of it, but I think we've now seen enough of what different ANN architectures can do, the "unexpected" power of prediction, have sufficient compute, etc, that the joke of AI/AGI always being 50(?) years away no longer applies.

I think achieving real human-level AGI is now within grasp as more of an engineering challenge (and not such a big one!) than an open-ended research problem. Of course (was it Chollet who said this?) LLMs have sucked all the oxygen/funding out of the room, so it may be a while until we see a radical "cognitive architecture" direction shift from any of the big players, although who knows what Sutskever or anyone else operating in stealth mode is working on?!

So, I think the interesting way to interpret the question of "where is this all going" is to assume that we do achieve this, and then ask what does that look like?

One consequence would seem to be that the vast majority of all white collar jobs (including lawyers, accountants, managers - not just tech jobs) will be done by computers, at least in countries where salaries are/were high enough to justify this, probably leading to the need for some type of universal basic income, meaning a big reduction in income for this segment of society. One could dream of an idyllic future where we're all working far less pursuing hobbies, etc, but it seems more likely that we're headed for a dystopian future where the masses live poorly and at the grace of the wealthy elite who are profiting from the AI labor, and only vote for UBI to extent of preventing the mass riots that would threaten their own existence.

While white collar and intellectual jobs disappear, and likely become devalued as the realm of computers rather than what makes humans special, it seems that (until that falls to AI too) manual and human-touch jobs/skills may become more valued and regarded as the new "what makes us special".

Over time even emotions and empathy will likely fall to AI, since these are easy to understand at mechanical level in terms of how they operate in the brain, although it'd take massive advances in robotics for them to be able to deliver the warm soft touch of a human.
by palmotea | 2025-05-03 17:43:26+00:00
> Most of the calls are going to be 'I forgot my password' and 'it's broken' anyways. So having a robot guide people along the FAQs in the 50+ languages is perfectly fine for ~90% (Zuck's number here) of the calls.

No it isn't. Attempts to do this are why I mash 0 repeatedly and chant "talk to an agent" after being in a phone tree for longer than a minute.
by beAbU | 2025-05-03 17:43:50+00:00
I've seen similar 'innovations' on other e-commerce sites. There is zero reason for me to believe that the statistic it's showing is real, and my first reaction is always to try and dismiss/remove it because it's distracting.

I'm slowly developing a new form of banner-blindness for all things present in a website's "gadget layer" - that place where all 3rd party add-ons go that actually hurt the user's experience. I'm talking about the social tab thing that we sometimes see, the Intercom chat bubble in the lower right, etc.

Sorry OP, it looks like a nice implementation of a truly terrible new e-commerce trend :(
by XCSme | 2025-05-03 17:44:25+00:00
Personally I hate Slack, it never works on my PC because of their organizations/workspace system, where you need a separate account for each community you are in. Also, it's really buggy and login often doesn't work, or switching accounts breaks things.

Telegram has a really good mobile app, and their BotFather makes it easy to create custom integrations. They display nicely a lot of notification formats (text/html/markdown) and it's free.

Slack is too bloated to simply use for notifications.
by bigyabai | 2025-05-03 17:44:27+00:00
LLMs are words. That's just it, you can anthropomorphize it as a "personality" or a "novel" or a "pair programmer" but it really just is text at the end of the day. Text is a lossy encoder for things like "work" and "thought" and "political principles" relative to how humans consider them. It might present a shortcut to those ideas, but it won't always extrapolate correctly.

I'm reminded of The Library of Babel by Borges, where different cults inhabit a library containing every possible permutation of a 410-page book. They all scour for different reasons, either searching for meaning in the randomness or to destroy works they considered nonsense. It was obvious to me a decade ago how pointless this search is - in the age of LLMs people gladly adopt this mindset though.
by calebhwin | 2025-05-03 17:45:54+00:00
I would really think about it as a serving engine like vllm but for browsers+LLMs. It handles caching, parallelism, scheduling, budget constraints for LLM cost and browser memory usage. Yes it currently has an OpenAI-compatible API but we will also implement MCP. (though we're working on something that will be way better than "MCP for web browsers")
by scarface_74 | 2025-05-03 17:46:09+00:00
You usually don’t. Licenses can be renewed online until you reach a certain age in some states where you have to go in to take an eye test. Car dealers will handle registration. If you buy from a private party you have to go in.

In metropolitan areas that have make you get car inspections like Atlanta, you go to a third party where the price is regulated and they send the results in. You still can do everything on line
by noahbp | 2025-05-03 17:46:55+00:00
Onnxruntime supports CoreML, though if my experience with converting an embedding model to CoreML using Apple's CoreML conversion tool is similar to the ORT maintainers', I can see why it would be unmaintained.

It took multiple tries to get the model to convert at all to the mlpackage format, and then a lot of experimenting to get it to run on the ANE instead of the GPU, only to discover that constant reshaping was killing any performance benefit (either you have a fixed multiplication size or don't bother), and even at a fixed size and using the attention mask, its operations were slower than saturating the GPU with large batches.

I discovered an issue where using the newer iOS 18 standard would cause the model conversion to break, and put an issue in on their GitHub, including an example repository for easy replication. I got a response quickly, but almost a year later, the bug is still unfixed.

Even when George Hotz attempted to hack it to use it without Apple's really bad and unmaintained CoreML library, he gave up because it was impossible without breaking some pretty core OS features (certificate signing IIRC).

The ANE/CoreML is just not serious at all about making their hardware usable at all. Even Apple's internal MLX team can't crack that nut.
by Aloisius | 2025-05-03 17:47:02+00:00
If the issue is that "include" somehow makes it sound like it's not markup, the solution seems obvious. Just use the src attribute on other tags:

<html src="/some/page.html">, <div src="/some/div.html">, <span src="/some/span.html">, etc.

Or create a new tag that's a noun like fragment, page, document, subdoc or something.

Surely that's no less markup than svg, img, script, video, iframe, and what not.
by zahlman | 2025-05-03 17:47:07+00:00
Ah, I misread your OP - the only part I really planned to support is "this package requires building from source, and may run arbitrary code now (not just after installation) to do so; are you sure you want to proceed?". Although the other stuff certainly seems worthwhile - I think it would be easier to plug into my design than into pip. Especially since I'm explicitly creating an internal API first and wrapping a separate CLI package around that.

The project is still in quite early development stages, and not yet really usable for anything - I've been struggling to make myself sit down and implement even simple things, just personal issues. But the repository is at https://github.com/zahlman/paper and I am planning a Show HN when it seems appropriate. Hopefully the existing code at least gives an idea of the top-level design. I also described it a bit in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43825508 .

I've also written a few posts on my blog (https://zahlman.github.io) about design problems with pip, and going forward I'll be continuing that, along with giving a basic overview of the PAPER design and explaining how it addresses the problems I've identified.
by homebrewer | 2025-05-03 17:47:23+00:00
If you're fine with running them blindly and having one of those scripts recursively remove your home directory, then sure. Otherwise it's very much not a zero effort affair. More like overseeing an overconfident overenthusiastic amphetamine-doped junior developer (or running his output blindly and hoping for the best).

I really do feel like we're living in completely separate worlds, so many people are very enthusiastic about LLMs, and every time I try them, they leave me completely disappointed.
by hdjrudni | 2025-05-03 17:48:40+00:00
> it's done by rebasing 'u' onto 's' and then rebasing 't' and 'v' onto the rebased 'u'.

That sounds like 2 operations, not 1. I think that's why I was confused.

The docs do clarify that there's an extra rebase going on though, so thanks!

Yes, -d sounds like what I expected.
by nullhole | 2025-05-03 17:49:09+00:00
I'd be neat to have information displayed while driving a car. A subset of information currently displayed on a dashboard would be an obvious first choice (speed for one).

You could also maybe perhaps tie in a car's knowledge of adjacent vehicles, which is something I've wanted for ages. Since some newer models have some level of awareness about the speed / distance to / relative location of cars around your car, you could eg overlay the speed/acceleration info onto adjacent cars, so you'd know if you'll need to pass or speed up. Seems at least possible since the glasses have awareness of your head's orientation, something missing from any existing windscreen-style HUD system.
by scsh | 2025-05-03 17:49:11+00:00
Yes in this particular case, where I'm trying to install fastapi, I'd rather it direct me to https://osv.dev/vulnerability/PYSEC-2024-38 which is more fastapi specific and mentions that the fixed version of fast api is 0.109.1. Or even better, give the link and print the fixed version from the advisory yaml https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/blob/main/vulns/fa...