MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by GuB-42 | 2025-05-27 12:45:02+00:00
> Being a developer will mean something else

Not really. Programming means explaining the machine what to do. How you do it has changed over the years. From writing machine language and punching cards to gluing frameworks and drawing boxes. But the core is always the same: take approximative and ambiguous requirements from someone who doesn't really knows what he wants and turn it into something precise the machine can execute reliably, without supervision.

Over the years, programmers have figured out that the best way to do it is with code. GUIs are usually not expressive enough, and English is too ambiguous and/or too verbose, that's why we have programming languages. There are fields that had specialized languages before electronic computers existed, like maths, and for the same reason.

LLMs are just the current step in the evolution of programming, but the role of the programmer is still the same: getting the machine to do what people want, be it by prompting, drawing, or writing code, and I suspect code will still prevail. LLMs are quite good at repeating what has been done before, but having them write something original using natural language descriptions is quite a frustrating experience, and if you are programming, there is a good chance there is at least something original to it, otherwise, why not use an off-the-shelf product?

We are at the peak of the hype cycle now, but things will settle down. Some things will change for sure, as always when some new technology emerges.
by cmrdporcupine | 2025-05-27 12:45:04+00:00
These are great machines and as an Atari ST user in the old days I was very intrigued by them. So some time ago I went out of my way to buy and import one from Japan at some expense. They're really nifty, and really quite far ahead of the Amiga and ST in terms of capabilities.

Great industrial design, too. The original black model has a wonderful case.

I had some idea I'd try to port EmuTOS to it, which wouldn't be super hard, but I never got around to it.

(But now it sits in my basement unused. So if there's anybody in southern Ontario who wants it, and will do something with it, let me know. I would just like to get back what I paid I guess. Trying to pair back the hobbies)
by jaza | 2025-05-27 12:45:29+00:00
Centralised and heavily censored, yes, but AFAICT the censoring by-and-large respects free speech and diversity of opinion, while effectively stopping spam / abuse, and thus maintaining the high quality of content that keeps us all coming back.

And surely HN is way less monetised (and therefore way more trustworthy) than virtually every other links site / every social media platform out there?
by gus_massa | 2025-05-27 12:46:03+00:00
I agree, but let's try to explain the microdetails of the scenario.

The new material is very hydrophilic, so the water prefer to be attached to it than been vapor.

If the wire is even more hydrophilic then the droplets will jump and collect around the wires, but they will be so attached that they will not fall down from the lower extreme of the wires.

If the wires are not so hydrophilic, the water will prefer to keep attached to the surface, or even the droplets will be smaller to avoid the wires and the collection will stop earlier.

Tweaking smartly the hydrophilic values and separations between the wires and the separation with the surface you may get interesting capillarity effect, but the water will be trapped again.

Anyway, it's difficult to look at all the details, but at the end of the day "The second law of thermodynamics. It's now trivially easy to create a free energy:"
by lolinder | 2025-05-27 12:46:36+00:00
> Internet Archive [important would be some pro bono legal help due to the recent turn of events, perhaps]

I have a really hard time with this one. Their current legal situation didn't just happen to them: they made an intentional choice to do something which ~everyone who knew anything about law warned them would be catastrophic and are now facing the catastrophe that they were warned about. They acted like a small activist group with nothing to lose rather than the essential piece of infrastructure that they have become.

I appreciate that the Internet Archive only exists because it took legal risks back in the day and those risks paid off. But from a strategic perspective you really have to stop being an activist organization once you've won enough ground that being ground to a pulp by the establishment would be a catastrophic loss for humanity. At that point it's time to let the little guys with nothing to lose take the mantle and just focus on preserving the ground that you've won.
by ljm | 2025-05-27 12:47:24+00:00
At a high level I think it's still appropriate to question the role MCP is playing, even if you can still blame AI enthusiasts for being cavalier in their approach to installing MCP servers and giving them blanket permissions.

The more people keep doing it and getting burned, the more it's going to force the issue and both the MCP spec and server authors are going to have to respond.
by intended | 2025-05-27 12:47:33+00:00
Yeah, our information and training systems are kinda failing at dealing with the reality of our actual information environment.

Take law for example and free speech - a central tenet to a functional democracy is effective ways to trade ideas.

A core response in our structure to falsehoods and rhetoric is counter speech.

But I can show you that counter speech fails. We have realms upon realms of data inside tech firms and online communities that shows us the mechanics of how our information economies actually work, and counter speech does diddly squat.

Education is also stuck in a bind. People need degrees to be employable today, but the idea of education is tied up with the idea of being a good educated thinking human being.

Meaning you are someone who is engaged with the ideas and concepts of your field, and have a mental model in your head, that takes calories, training and effort to use to do complex reasoning about the world.

This is often overkill for many jobs - the issue isn’t doing high level stats in a day science role, it’s doing boring data munging and actually getting the data in the first place. (Just an example).

High quality work is hard, and demanding, and in a market with unclear signals, people game the few systems that used to be signals.

Which eventually deteriorated signal till you get this mess.

We need jobs that give a living wage, or provide a pathway to achieving mastery while working, so that the pressure on the education lever can be reduced and spread elsewhere.
by kccqzy | 2025-05-27 12:47:45+00:00
Users' expectation changes. You ask someone who grew up with Windows 98 and they will tell you that d'oh of course onscreen buttons should have a depressed state to indicate they are pressed. You ask someone who grew up with Snapchat and the entire idea of having buttons is optional: tap on this area of the screen for this functionality, tap on that area for a different functionality, and swipe left for this swipe right for that with no indication that the UI is even swipeable.
by LocalH | 2025-05-27 12:47:50+00:00
You seem to be viewing this through a modern lens, and treating this like it's "new" terminology being used to gaslight people.

Some would say that the modern definition of "race" is what's not real, what is socially constructed. And that the "human race" is the only one with clear ties to biology.

"Human race" has never had anything to do with "racial identity" or "identity politics" or anything related to any of that. It has always just meant "human species" since the 1500s.
by azalemeth | 2025-05-27 12:47:52+00:00
I agree with you on all of this (and like the fact that GE uses linux as a base, and not, as Siemens and Philips do, Windows + cygwin + a separate box either running linux or vxWorks). I guess my point was I think it's interesting that GE's main competitors in the MRI space are...well, Siemens and Philips, both of whom independently have their historical origins in power engineering (and make gas turbines!). Both have been going for a long, long time from the early days of MRI. And if you look at CT as another example – well, that came out of BASF, another engineering conglomerate. Ultrasound, first proposed for medical use by the physicist Paul Langevin, found practical application much later, again under similar conditions.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: it's almost as if the combination of supporting physics and engineering without particular attention to the ultimate "core competency" or "end market segment" lets creative, interdisciplinary ideas like this flourish.
by ben_w | 2025-05-27 12:48:52+00:00
I can see current models replacing *fresh graduates*, on the basis of what I've seen from various fresh graduates over the last 20 years.

I don't disagree that models makes a lot of eye-rolling mistakes, it's just that I've seen such mistakes from juniors also, and this kind of AI is a junior in all fields simultaneously (unlike real graduates which are mediocre at only one thing and useless at the rest) and cost peanuts — literally, priced at an actual bag of peanuts.

Humans do have an advantage very quickly once they actually get any real-world experience, so I would also say it's not yet as good as someone with even just 2 years experience — but this comes with a caveat: I'm usually a few months behind on model quality, on the grounds that I think there's not much point paying for the latest and greatest when the best becomes obsolete (and thus free) over that timescale.
by johnisgood | 2025-05-27 12:48:57+00:00
I understand that it is intended as a joke, but jokes often reveal underlying truths. This particular one highlights very real issues, and humor helps us see it through a clearer lens. That said, how can we be certain that uutils is not a joke? Is it purely the intent behind it that distinguishes it?

This joke project has a lot of truths in it that others do dead seriously; something to think about.
Show HN: How Can I Play This Game? A gaming hardware recommendation site
by recvonline | 2025-05-27 12:49:04+00:00
I always loved following gaming news, hardware etc. Probably more than actually playing the game ;)

Since becoming older, and my time is more limited, I keep tabs open of the games I want to play, and check which hardware I would need to buy to play them.

Since I don't want to keep track of my list and supported platforms via a Google Sheet, I created this little helper tool.

Bonus: You can share your stack of games with others!

If people like it, I want to also offer "This is the PC build you would need to play your games".
by diggan | 2025-05-27 12:49:18+00:00
If I'd be using Clojure for this, it would look something like this:

1. Write a function that returns a LLM response

2. Play around with this function in a `comment` block, highlighting what I'm testing

3. If I find a response I'd like to "cement"/save and use for testing, Conjure (what I use to connect to the REPL) has a command that is basically "evaluate what's highlighted in the editor with whatever that returns when evaluated", so that basically copy-pastes the return value into the editor

4. Move it into a test somewhere

Not sure there is a better or faster workflow, from deciding "Hmm I want to test against this in the future" to "make test checks this" takes something like 2 minutes with a workflow like this.
by eadmund | 2025-05-27 12:49:42+00:00
> a union, trade organization, or government entity. Defined benefit plans work well when risk is spread, proper actuarial oversight is used

Note that all three of those are subject to democratic capture, in which low-information voters enable the pension managers to make poor risk and actuarial decisions. Of course, a defined-contribution plan is also subject to low-information control, but at least the damage is confined to the one making the mistake, not to those unwillingly along for the ride.

I understand that defined-contribution plans must offer similar terms to both executives and regular employees, specifically to help ensure that they are fair to employees.

You mentioned low-income workers twice, but I don’t see any inherent advantage to defined-benefit plans or inherent disadvantage of defined-contribution plans for them. It is arguable that low-income workers are also less educated and less likely to make wise or even reasonable investment decisions when in charge of their own funds. Of course, they are also less likely to make wise decisions in the choice of their pension managers.

Another huge advantage of defined-contribution funds is that one owns them and can pass them on to one’s heirs, unlike defined-benefit plans.

There is an advantage to defined-benefit plans which also come with insurance (e.g. disability), but I suspect it would be more efficient to unbundle them.
by arandomusername | 2025-05-27 12:49:42+00:00
I will yield that culture is nurture, but others are not. If my twin was adopted and raised in China, they will not be Chinese. They will still be European.

> Oh, like Paris?

Yeah, a complete shadow of it's former self. It is completely unrecognizable compared to even 15 years ago. Thieves everywhere.

> Honestly I'm trying to come up with a large city that didn't experience mass immigration

Tokyo? Warsaw (Before Ukrainian refugees)? Prague? All beautiful cities, safe and culturally rich. They have immigration, which is fine, but not mass immigration. Most of the people you will see are natives with some tourists.

> but mass immigration is something that pretty much defines being a large, culturally vibrant city

Completely false. Mass immigration is what kills cities. It's also illogical. Culture is built upon generations of people. When you mass import foreigners, you are diluting that culture, killing it. It's partially why US cities are less culturally rich compared to EU cities.

The Roman Empire fell, so not a great example.
by jstummbillig | 2025-05-27 12:49:51+00:00
Take a look at your life and the signals you use to operate. If you are anything like me, summarizing them in a somewhat reasonable fashion feels basically impossible.

For example, my mother calls and asks if I want to come over.

How is an AI ever going to have the context to decide that for me? Given the right amount and quality of sensors starting from birth or soon after – sure, it's not theoretically impossible.

But as a grown up person that has knowledge about the things we share, and don't share, the conflicts in our present and past, the things I never talked about to anyone and that I would find hard to verbalize if I wanted to, or admit to myself that I don't.

It can check my calendar. But it can't understand that I have been thinking about doing something for a while, and I just heard someone randomly talking about something else, that resurfaced that idea and now I would really rather do that. How would the AI know? (Again, not theoretically impossible given the right sensors, but it seems fairly far away.)

I could try and explain of course. But where to start? And how would I explain how to explain this to mum? It's really fucking complicated. I am not saying that llm's would not be helpful here by generalization monsters, actually it's both insane and sobering how helpful they can be giving the amount of context that they do not have about us.
by -__---____-ZXyw | 2025-05-27 12:50:32+00:00
Lisp supremacy approaches!

I'm reminded of definitively the most extreme writing on programming I've ever read, here https://llthw.common-lisp.dev/introduction.html, including but in no way limited to claims such as:

> The mind is capable of unconsciously understanding the structure of the computer through the Lisp language, and as such, is able to interface with the computer as if it was an extension to its own nervous system. This is Lisp Consciousness, where programmer and computer are one and the same; they drink of each other, and drink deep; and at least as long as the Lisp Hacker is there in the flow, riding the current of pure creativity and genius with their trusty companions Emacs and SLIME, neither programmer nor computer know where one ends and the other begins. In a manner of speaking, Lispers already know machine intelligence---and it is beautiful.

Has any other language produced such thoughts in the minds of human beings? Maybe yes, but I don't know of one. Maybe Forth, or Haskell, or Prolog, but I haven't found similar writing. Please do share.
by blooalien | 2025-05-27 12:50:34+00:00
> Saying no is not really denying, it's negotiating.

Sometimes. I have often had to say "no" because the customer request is genuinely impossible. Then comes the fun bit of explaining why the thing they want simply cannot exist, because often they'll try "But what if you just ... ?" – "No! It doesn't work that way, and here's why..."
by lioeters | 2025-05-27 12:51:00+00:00
I'm surprised not many people have pointed at this simpler explanation. It's not about providing a faster better service to the customers and citizens. It's about using their privileged position as the dominant players in the market and government, to secure their power and control by taking over a competing paradigm (cryptocurrency) that threaten their dominance. In the process they will neuter the concept to fit the existing power structure.
by nfriedly | 2025-05-27 12:51:08+00:00
This is my current list of monthly donations, loosely organized:

Content creators

- Sci Show https://www.youtube.com/scishow

- Escape Artists (short fiction podcasts) https://escapeartists.net/

- Technology Connections https://www.youtube.com/technologyconnections

- The Bible Project https://bibleproject.com/

- Liliputing https://liliputing.com/

- Radiotopia (99% Invisible & other podcasts) https://www.radiotopia.fm/

- PBS (local station) https://thinktv.org/

Online Services

- Internet Archive https://archive.org/

- Wikipedia https://www.wikipedia.org/

- Snopes https://www.snopes.com/

- MetaBrainz Foundation https://musicbrainz.org/

Justice

- Equal Justice Initiative https://eji.org/

- Innocence Project https://innocenceproject.org/

- International Justice Mission (IJM) https://www.ijm.org/

- Institute for Justice https://ij.org/support/give-now/?

Advocacy

- Right to Repair https://www.repair.org/

- Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) https://www.eff.org/

- Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) https://sfconservancy.org/

- Free Software Foundation (FSF) https://www.fsf.org/

Making the world a better place

- Partners in Health https://www.pih.org/

- World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/

Software

- ESLint https://eslint.org/

- FreshRSS https://freshrss.org/

- Open WRT (managed by SFC) https://openwrt.org/

- Mozilla Foundation (Firefox) https://www.mozilla.org/

Ad-blocking

- Pi-hole https://pi-hole.net/

- osid.nl domain blocklist https://www.patreon.com/sjhgvr

- Peter Lowe's domain blocklist https://www.patreon.com/blocklist

- Steven Black's blocklist https://github.com/sponsors/StevenBlack

- Ajayyy (SponsorBlock) https://sponsor.ajay.app/

Local (Troy, OH)

- Health Partners Free Clinic https://www.healthpartnersclinic.org/

- Brukner Nature Center https://www.bruknernaturecenter.com/

Past ones include VLC, Retroarch, mGBA, UNHCR, and some more local things
by aleph_minus_one | 2025-05-27 12:51:36+00:00
> I think that until LLMs can assertively say "no" to your requests, we won't be able to rely on them autonomously. The greatest downside of ChatGPT, Copilot, and similar tools is that they always give you something in return, they always provide some sort of answer and rarely challenge your original request.

Is this bad news? It means that managers who think too much of their "great" ideas (without having a deep knowledge of the respective area) and want "obedient" subordinates will be in for a nasty surprise. :-)
by FinnLobsien | 2025-05-27 12:51:52+00:00
From the current data, sure, things are fine. But societies and economies take decades to adapt to technologies.

This article is like writing in the early 90s that "Newspaper circulation is actually stable"—true if you're looking at a still, not true if you're watching the movie.

The "AI takes your job scenario" doesn't look like a company replacing your entire team with AI. It looks like the AI-enabled upstart with 100 people competing with your 2000 person company until it fails or replicates the AI-powered strategy.

=

Overall, I think this is a time of great upheaval (the combination of AI and post-ZIRP hangover) and we'll need to challenge a lot of the assumptions we had about careers and making money.
by sunegg | 2025-05-27 12:52:53+00:00
The issue with these AI systems is how incredibly well they function in isolated circumstances, and how much they crash and burn when they have to be integrated into a full tech stack (even if the tech stack is also written by the same model).

The current generation of generative AI based on LLMs simply won't be able to properly learn to code large code bases, and won't make the correct evaluative choices of products. Without being able to reason and evaluate objectively, you won't be a good "developer" replacement. Similar to how asking LLMs about (complex) integrals, it will often end it's answer with "solution proved by derivation", not because it has actually done it (it will also end with this on incorrect integrals), but because that's what its training data does.
by orbifold | 2025-05-27 12:53:40+00:00
That isn’t actually true. I‘ve personally worked on an embedded POWER processor https://github.com/electronicvisions/nux. It is used as a dual core embedded micro-controller in a neuromorphic chip. Each core has just 16kB of memory on chip and 4kB instruction cache. POWER has subsets of the instruction set which have a gcc and llvm target and are well suited for embedded use cases.

Main advantage of RISCV at this point is that it has a larger community. But at the time it didn’t even have a vector instruction set, whereas we could easily modify the POWER one for our purposes.
by intended | 2025-05-27 12:54:00+00:00
Thing is, this hits the scaling problem in education and fucking hard.

There’s such a shortfall of teachers globally, and the role is a public good, so it’s constantly underpaid.

And if you are good - why would you teach ? You’d get paid to just take advantage of your skills.

And now we have a tool that makes it impossible to know if you have taught anyone because they can pass your exams.
by schickling | 2025-05-27 12:54:26+00:00
Hi folks, creator of LiveStore here (prev. founder Prisma).

Very excited to launch LiveStore in beta today after having worked on it over the past 4 years. I've built it for myself working on Overtone, an ambitious music client aiming for a native-grade high-performance app feel.

LiveStore embraces SQLite by adding a signals-based reactivity layer and combines it with event-sourced based syncing (similar to Git).

Happy to answer any question! Looking forward to thoughts and feedback!
by ta1243 | 2025-05-27 12:54:35+00:00
The standard approach is be liberal in what you accept and be specific in what you emit.

You could

1) Filter the broken message

2) Drop the broken message

3) Ignore the broken attributes but pass them on

4) Break with the broken attributes

To me, only 4 (Arista) is the really unacceptable behaviour. 3 (Juniper) isn't desirable but it's not a devastating behaviour.

EDIT: Actually rereading it, Arista did 2 rather than 4. I think it just closed the connection as being invalid rather than completely crash. That's arguably acceptable, but not great for the users.