MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by tasuki | 2025-05-03 09:03:52+00:00
> There is always a higher level of abstraction where a human being is needed to oversee things.

These become progressively more difficult jobs. Not likely the truck drivers who find themselves out of job will implement these systems.

I can already see the LLMs becoming better at computer programming than I am: they're good at the very high level, and they're good at implementing any self contained function. What's left for me is the glue code, creating the API, deciding which functions should be exposed... Soon, I won't be needed either!
by anticodon | 2025-05-03 09:04:28+00:00
As a Russian I will explain my vision: one of the oldest Western traditions is to demonize Russia and Russian people. You can find plenty of examples in the Western literature from 100 years ago, from 400 years ago, and right now on CNN or Bloomberg or in any Hollywood movie.

E.g. movie Tenet starts from depicting a scene from "Russian life": under a low sun, in freezing cold, dirty hungry Russians are crawling in the dirt gathering "pieces of Uranium" with their bare hands.

Or you can open just about any publication/movie about Russia/Soviet Union from just about any period of time: there would be not a single good word. Western Media almost never publishes something like: "There's a new school/hospital/stadium/factory opened in Russia". Instead all you can see is "Russian corrupt government officials set a record of eating 100500 babies alive today.", "Weak Russian economy means that Russians will survive on a diet of two rotten potatoes a day in 2026", etc. etc.

It's just that Soviet period is demonized the most.
by rollcat | 2025-05-03 09:04:29+00:00
In 2012 I've spent almost the entire year hitchhiking around Europe. Mostly alone, sometimes in a small ad-hoc group that would part whenever we had to take different turns. Sometimes there is someone else to blame: a driver who dropped me off in a far worse place (like in the middle of a busy highway); a mate who almost blew all of us up when mishandling a gas cylinder; unsolicited exhibitionism; etc.

Well, shit happens. Pick your stuff up and carry on.
by svilen_dobrev | 2025-05-03 09:05:01+00:00
Here another two of Sustrik's gems..

Anti-social Punishment: https://250bpm.com/blog:132/

Technocratic Plimsoll Line: https://250bpm.com/blog:176/

seems lesswrong has all of them, older and newer: https://www.lesswrong.com/users/sustrik?from=post_header
by gdalle | 2025-05-03 09:05:29+00:00
Indeed, CasADi is among the precursors in this area! The key difference with our approach is their use of a domain-specific language, with distinct mathematical functions and array types. This has lots of benefits, but it expects users to rewrite their existing code in the CasADi formalism. What we seek to achieve in Julia is compatibility with native code, without a DSL-imposed refactor. We share this ambition with the broader Julia autodiff ecosystem, which is focused on differentiating the language as a whole. Of course it doesn't always work, but in many cases, it enables a plug-and-play approach to (sparse) autodiff which makes really cool applications possible.
by int_19h | 2025-05-03 09:05:36+00:00
What is the bold claim? That fascists refer to themselves as "third position"? That's literally textbook history. Or that modern-day GOP, now fully taken over by the Christian nationalist wing, is also a "third position" party, and that is why their de facto platform (as evidenced by what they're literally doing right now) is the way it is? That's a simple observation.
by polotics | 2025-05-03 09:06:44+00:00
Wow the money shot of this I think is the quote:

"...Or at least have a bit more financial security to show for it. My designs have generated roughly 2 billion dollars for the people lucky enough to be cashing in on it. Not bad surplus value for someone on an 88k salary."""

88k AUD is less than 60'000 USD, and as this art director worked one year on this, the raw ratio of wage earned to this is 0.00003, so 0.003 percent. Sure there were other people involved, but even if this art director's year of repetitive strain injuries is only worth one percent of the value of Bluey, then still it managed to capture only 0.3 percent of the value. This 99.7% makes the 30% Apple-tax on developers look good. I think it shouldn't.

The lesson for me is: creative endeavours are meant to die in our society.
by int_19h | 2025-05-03 09:08:41+00:00
This sounds a great deal like all the C++ devs who say "well just don't write code with buffer overflow bugs then".

The reason why this kind of thing should be the default is because it's unreasonable to expect this level of understanding from your average coder, yet most software is written by the later. That's why PL and framework design has been moving towards safety-by-default for quite some time now - because nothing else works, as proven by experience.
by cheschire | 2025-05-03 09:09:19+00:00
I always remind myself when I have to go to the DMV[0] that I should plan on leaving with nothing more than another action or set of actions to take. I never enter the DMV expecting to complete a process, and the workers behind the counter always have this visible, visceral response when I DONT lose my fucking mind at their response to something. When I continue to be pleasant and understanding it’s like they suddenly come alive. It’s a depressing state of affairs because I understand exactly what they expect and why.

0: for non-Americans and for Americans from other states that may use different terms, the DMV is the department of motor vehicles in many US states and is the central place to get your drivers license, take the drivers test, register your car, get vehicle license plates, etc. Many processes that have many requirements that often are unfulfilled when people show up asking for things.
by huxley | 2025-05-03 09:09:19+00:00
That is not true. DDT as a tool was preserved by the environmental movement not eliminated, it is pure propaganda to say that it has zero tolerance, it has been used as much as it has been necessary for it to be useful in public health.

The people who claim that it became a “Chemical Hitler” wanted it used excessively in areas like agriculture which would have eliminated its usefulness in reducing malaria and similar disease vectors.
by oleggromov | 2025-05-03 09:09:20+00:00
I once booked a plane ticket from my home town airport to another country. The purchase notification said something like "PVA" instead of "POV". I looked it up and turned out, the newly built airport that had this exact code was about to open. In a week or so, so I assumed that I'm indeed flying from the new one and forgot about it. The purchase was made through a booking aggregator similar to Expedia.

On the day of travel I took a taxi to the new airport, which is 40 km outside the city. The taxi driver couldn't care less about where I was going. Upon arrival, there was much fewer people than I expected but I shrugged it off. At the entrance though I was asked where I was going and if I was an employee. Apparently the new airport was still closed and my fight was from the old, still functioning one. The one with the code not shown in the ticket purchase receipts.

Panicking since it was only about an hour until departure, I took a taxi back to the old airport, which was a desperate 40-50 minute drive to only realize the plane had already left.

I was flying abroad, with a connection the next morning, about 10 hours later. So I thought that the problem could be solved by just arriving there by any other flight, which I booked almost immediately. However, the airline representative (yes, there was a human to speak to that I could reach easily by phone) told me that a no-show for any segment of the flight invalidates all subsequent ones. There was no way I could convince her that it wasn't my fault. Perhaps there was a rigid process in place that disallowed her from helping, even though I'd make it to the second flight on time.

I ended up buying 2 new tickets, of course more expensive and less convenient ones. This taught me an important and rather expensive lesson on why connected flights with a single airline are sometimes the worst.

Funnily enough, I was bitten by this rule one more time when I didn't show to a flight in to the country due to visa issues (it was covid time) and wasn't allowed on the flight out of it because I didn't show up to the 1st flight, the flights being 1 week apart - but booked in one go.

As to the previous situation, I managed to get compensated by the airline (not even the intermediary!) about a year later after posting a huge rant on Facebook and getting their attention to the situation.
by throwanem | 2025-05-03 09:10:04+00:00
Frankly, if the author has Google-style FU money and can find no better way than this to spend that and his time alike, ego isn't the first of his faculties I see cause to question.

Doesn't surprise me to learn he's big on LW, though. A bloodless, passionless dork who mistakes dollars for IQ points and of whom it's not obvious he ever had an original thought? He might have been made in a lab for those sad nerd wannabes to identify with.
by schobi | 2025-05-03 09:10:33+00:00
This is really awesome!

I was surprised about using dilation. I would have expected music21 to support rendering to a certain resolution/dpi setting directly and avoid rescaling the images. But from the music21 documentation this is not obvious how to do it. Rendering music to a low dpi screen nicely (pixel perfect) could circumvent some of the hardware limitations in the mid term.
by A_Duck | 2025-05-03 09:13:01+00:00
Can you run a company as a perfect free market? Inside Disco Corp

For over a decade, a $20bn manufacturer has been conducting a radical experiment. No one has a boss or takes orders. Their decisions are guided by one thing, an internal currency system called Will

--

It’s the start of another day for an ordinary Tokyo salaryman. On a rain-drenched Monday morning, the engineer stows his plastic umbrella in the entryway of one of the many vast office buildings in the suburban metropolis that stretches between here and Yokohama. The umbrella locks into place and the engineer’s phone beeps.

He straps a mask over his face, as everyone who enters the building must, and heads straight to the smoking room on the third floor, thinking about how much his habit is costing him before heading into the fug. He opens his smartphone and scrolls through the company app to decide what he is going to do at work today. There are plenty of options on the menu:

Translate 52-page legal document: 5mn Will

Test semiconductor grinding tool: 2mn Will

Join hiring interviews for graduates: 200,000 Will

Process invoices: 80,000 Will

Deliver technical training seminar at factory: 1.5mn Will

The engineer clicks “bid” on “Translate 52-page legal document”. The amount of Will on offer for the task is too big to turn down. Once the cigarette has burnt out, he heads up to the general administration department. On entering, he glances down. A knee-high soft-toy horse has been plonked inside the door. It serves as a reminder that his team is the worst performing and the biggest drain on the business of the precision tools maker. A cartoon tear drops out of one of its eyes.

“Ohayo gozaimasu,” the engineer says, greeting his team manager, who stopped instructing anyone to do any work 14 years ago. She asks him if he can organise the end of year work party, offering him 15,000 Will for the task. The engineer turns down the measly offer and books a meeting room for a briefing with lawyers about his translation. He checks his app again and lets out a sigh. His Will balance has dropped into negative territory, down from 50,000 when he last looked at it, during rush hour on the train. Hanging up his umbrella, using the smoking room and booking a meeting have all cost him Will this morning.

[Preview ends]
Ask HN: With AI Advancing Rapidly, What Are You Teaching Your Kids?
by gfai | 2025-05-03 09:15:02+00:00
With how fast AI is moving, I’ve been thinking a lot about what skills really matter for the next generation. As a parent, it's hard to know what will still be relevant in 5 or 10 years.

Are you teaching your kids to code? Focused more on soft skills like creativity, problem-solving, or emotional intelligence? Or maybe just helping them stay curious and adaptable?

Curious to hear what other parents (or educators) here are doing—what skills you’re prioritizing, and why.
by MaxikCZ | 2025-05-03 09:15:33+00:00
> The order describes its next change as protecting “confidential business information.” This change allows manufacturers to request the shielding of three data points about a crash that were previously disclosed: the answer to the question of whether the car had been driven in conditions in which it was designed to operate; a plain-language description of the circumstances of the crash; and the version of automated self-driving software that was in use.

Oh yes, let's protect privacy by not disclosing whether the crash happened where it shouldn't and version of the AI system that was in charge. I always worried about disclosing the version publicly, huge privacy concern!

What a joke
by ninalanyon | 2025-05-03 09:16:09+00:00
> Bad people react to this by getting angry at the gate attendant; good people walk away stewing with thwarted rage.

I disagree, slightly. We have to expect some degree of ethical behaviour from everyone, even those who nominally have no room to manoeuvre. If everyone in such positions were to disobey unjust orders the orders would eventually have to change.

Walking away stewing in rage does nothing except fill you with damaging hormones.
by rollcat | 2025-05-03 09:16:11+00:00
Sometimes failure comes from inherent risks. Sometimes we don't know what we don't know. You can't account for every possible factor, you'll be stuck in analysis paralysis while the world moves on.

If we're speaking of a justice system in more general terms, I agree with your line of thinking. I believe that repairing the damage and reintegrating with society would be far more effective than incarceration or other forms of punishment. Fear is a seed, you reap what you sow.

(Yes there are extreme cases. Still the long-term goal should be to minimise harm, not bring punishment.)
by weinzierl | 2025-05-03 09:17:14+00:00
We researched this thoroughly in the early 2000s and came to pretty much the same conclusion even back then.

For us the main problem was the reliability of the mover. If enough panels face the wrong direction for long enough it is worse than facing the sun in a good enough fixed position all the time.

Our angle was to use a simple motor that runs with constant speed and use a special patented gear (called VIAX) to turn that simple movement into a sun following motion. The bet was that a still simple mechanical gear would be more reliable than complicated electronics.

In the end none of our simulations made us confident any moving solution wouldn't eat the profits.

EDIT: For anyone interested, here is the patent. I think it is a really nice idea. https://patents.google.com/patent/EP0114240A1/en
Show HN: One app to monitor all your revenue streams (App Store, Stripe, etc.)
by rfbabeheer | 2025-05-03 09:19:30+00:00
As an indie developer, I got tired of the daily routine of jumping between App Store Connect, Stripe, RevenueCat, and Lemon Squeezy, just to see how my products were performing. Each platform had its own interface, and checking revenue across all of them became a tedious chore.

That’s why I built RevStash, a clean, simple app that brings all your earnings into one place.

Unified revenue tracking from App Store, Stripe, RevenueCat, and Lemon Squeezy Total earnings overview, with detailed transaction history per platform iOS home widget so you can glance at your revenue right from your home screen Secure API key storage using iOS Keychain, your data stays private and local

This started as a personal project to solve my own problem, but I quickly realized other indie devs and makers were facing the same pain. RevStash is meant to reduce the friction in your workflow, letting you focus more on building, and less on clicking through tabs.

I'll be adding support for more platforms based on user feedback, so if there's one you'd love to see, let me know!

Would love to hear what you think
by Etheryte | 2025-05-03 09:19:39+00:00
Despite their recent massive flops in the AI department, in a way this makes me excited about Apple's prospects in this regard in the long term. These are bigger than AirPods, but they're not _that_ much bigger. Shave off the USB-C connector for wireless charging, swap the battery out to accommodate for the shape and you're already pretty close. Apple is really good at fitting things into the smallest form factor possible, and given they could offload all the compute to the iPhone which already comes with some pretty good chips, this could lead to some really exciting tech in the long run. They need to get their act together before that can happen though.
by 1R053 | 2025-05-03 09:20:46+00:00
I think to be useful it needs a mode of playing, that is always musical / in tune.

Not yet sure how to really do it, but one concept I like from NI plugins is that you have multiple keyboard zones: one zone is for notes, others are e.g. for patterns or styles. Imagine a guitar where one zone is for the chord type and tone, another for the striking pattern...

The challenge here is probably the resonance algo for multiple systems based on multiple notes... Maybe the piano concept would be handy here... imagine instead of having 3 strings like on the piano the instrument to be one system for each key... that excite each other via air or direct resonance points... the systems should be automatically tuned based on one reference system (e.g. using automatic string length or tension scaling)

Anyway, amazing work and having it on GPU allows this really to scale.
by nullc | 2025-05-03 09:21:02+00:00
IBLT operates over sets though, your downloading example is not over a set (the data has a position). You can make it work over data with positions by adding a position number to every encoding unit, but it's pure overhead. Other codes are more efficient.

IBLT is also particularly bandwidth inefficient when the amount of correction data is not very large. Ordinary codes can recover a missing block (known error location) with just the amount of data missing or with twice the amount if the location(s) are unknown.

There are codes with quasi-linear performance, though for your example application the number of errors are few so it shouldn't really matter if the code is cubic in the number of errors to decode (which is about the worst any should be).
by voidspark | 2025-05-03 09:21:27+00:00
> You can study and do well in computer science with minimal knowledge of most of the core mathematical subjects.

You will fail at Theoretical Computer Science without mathematical proficiency. Go read some textbooks and papers in theoretical CS. It is a subfield of mathematics. Theorems and proofs. Rigorous and difficult mathematics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theoretical_computer_science
by ffsm8 | 2025-05-03 09:24:21+00:00
It's only related to what he wrote but it reminded me of something that low-key annoys me whenever I hear Americans talk about the Holocaust.

I know he only touches on it very slightly and indirectly raises a related point to what annoys me about most coverage about it.

It's pretty simply that the people that were systematically slaughtered during that time period were classified to be Jews, Gypsies and other "undesirables", but they were first and foremost German and identified as such. Nazi Germany didn't kill "other" people, it systematically alienated groups of the population to then eradicate them, by first walling them off to make communication impossible, then spreading enough propaganda to make the average Joe no longer consider them his neighbor.

Seeing the social climate all over the world change, chief among them Americas, does make me think this lesson hasn't been taken in whatsoever.

The first step to atrocities is always to cut of communication between the groups, and people nowadays are actively doing that themselves now - not artificially enforced like it was back then.
by uxhacker | 2025-05-03 09:24:33+00:00
I’m trying to understand something broader about the U.S. tech economy and wondering what others think. How much of the money flowing into U.S. tech — particularly advertising spend on platforms like Meta and Google — is actually, indirectly, the result of America running a massive trade deficit? If dollars are going out to pay for imports (like ultra-cheap goods from Shein and Temu), those dollars have to come back in some form — often as investment in U.S. assets, including digital advertising.

Add to that the role of U.S. universities in driving innovation and attracting international capital, and it starts to look like this whole engine is powered by the very things that Trump’s tariffs and restrictions are pushing back against. Doesn’t that make his actions — while ostensibly protecting U.S. jobs — potentially anti-university and anti-investment in the longer term?

I’m genuinely asking this as someone without a background in economics and curious how others see it. Does anyone else think this crackdown might undercut the very ecosystem that’s funded a huge part of American tech?
by franze | 2025-05-03 09:24:36+00:00
I'm now in a stage of my consulting career where I sometimes really get called into big organisation just to find out, that whatever they need to do is already panned out and they all want to do it! Still they call me cause ... it's a big decision and the "higher ups" (which quite often are not even part of the workshop/session then) want an external expert voice. cause the responsibility for this decision lies with them and they can not share it up or sideways, so they share the responsibility partly external.

As the plan quote often (not always) is already very good I mostly end up making sure the goal is measurable in a quantitative and qualitative way, trends towards to and away from the goal are visually available and distributed , and its clear who is responsible to look and report them.
by oleggromov | 2025-05-03 09:26:03+00:00
Leaving aside the no-show rule, which doesn't make much sense to me, this situation is a good example of an accountability sink.

The intermediary I booked the tickets with made an obvious mistake and showed the wrong airport code. Maybe the airport opening was meant to happen earlier, and the intermediary had already updated their emails or something like that. They refused to do anything meaningful and did not even acknowledge their mistake.

The fact that I was compensated by the airline that had nothing to do with this mistake is even more astonishing to me, although they were obviously protecting their brand reputation.
by xg15 | 2025-05-03 09:26:27+00:00
One example that's missing from the list is the TV series 24. A recurring plot point was that, yes, of course torture is bad and it's against the rules and we don't do it, etc etc, but it just so happens that here is such an exceptional, unprecedented, deeply urgent emergency situation where we need to have the information now or horrible things will happen, we need the hero who breaks the rules and goes on torturing anyway. [1]

Fast-forward a few years and you find there were in fact many such "heroes" in reality - in Abu Ghraib and in the Black Sites - and the situation weren't exceptional at all.

So accountability sinks can also be used as calculated ways to undermine your own ostensible ethical guardrails.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jan/30/24-jack...