MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by userbinator | 2025-05-17 21:25:11+00:00
(2020)

I have an old unbranded Chinese tablet that came with a CD-ROM containing the driver, configuration utility, their source code, and even a datasheet for the MCU it used. A huge contrast between merely selling a product, and trying to control the whole "experience". IMHO we need more of the former, but corporate attitudes strongly encourage the latter.
by paulryanrogers | 2025-05-17 21:26:40+00:00
And the biggest consumers of air passenger travel are the rich. They can be incentized to fly less with the stroke of a pen: tax usage. I'm sure the world will keep spinning despite them having only one of two trips to their private island each year.

Thankfully we don't have to stop at one thing. Or even limit ourselves to doing one thing at a time.
by AndrewSwift | 2025-05-17 21:26:54+00:00
You can see why planes stay in the air by sticking your hand out a car window.

If you know better contradict me, but:

An inclined flat surface will push air down, creating pressure below, and create an empty area above, creating a partial vacuum pulling up.

Airfoils are used instead of flat surfaces because they eliminate turbulence by creating laminar airflow.

Regular planes are not built for flying upside down and have airfoils optimized for regular flight — the airfoil section we're all familiar with.

At an airshow once, a pilot showed me that on a plane built for acrobatics, the wing section is vertically symmetrical.
by goji_berries | 2025-05-17 21:27:11+00:00
Now, imagine I use GenAI to flood the Internet with 100,000 pages praising Mr. Fox. These aren't crude spam pages—they're well-written articles with proper grammar, coherent arguments, and seemingly legitimate citations. Each page offers minor variations on the same theme: "Mr. Fox is innovative," "Mr. Fox shows exceptional leadership," "Studies confirm Mr. Fox's approach is effective."
by rufus_foreman | 2025-05-17 21:27:25+00:00
I listened to punk in the 70's and hardcore from 80 to 84, nothing was curated by some authoritative source. It was all word of mouth.

Hardcore wasn't on the radio, it wasn't on TV (OK, "TV Party" and "Institutionalized" were on MTV, both of which were "joke" hardcore songs), you couldn't buy the records in the record stores in my town until the mid-80s, you couldn't buy the zines in my town.

There was a tiny amount of it played on college radio, but it would be something like one show a week from 2 AM to 3 AM on Sunday morning. Kids would drive from where I lived to the "city" and drive around in their cars taping that show from the car radio to a boombox and then pass those tapes around to get copied. It was samizdat. And most hardcore they couldn't even play on those radio shows anyway. "We don't care what you say, fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you! FUCK YOU!!!" Great song, can't hear it on the radio. Can't hear it anywhere you go.

We found things. You had to really dig, but we found things. No one curated it for us. I hate the very idea of it. I mean my friend Joe "curated" music for me when he made me a tape of the Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, and DOA in 6th grade in 1981, but I don't think that is the meaning of curation that the title is referring to. If a kid got a record, it got passed around and taped. Then those tapes got passed around and taped. Etc.

No one tells me what music I should listen to, we told the musicians what kind of music we wanted to hear when we were in the pit. Many of them noped out from that. They were artists, not enablers of the violent tendencies of poorly parented 14 year olds. Fair enough. But we were finding things out.
by AlexandrB | 2025-05-17 21:28:17+00:00
Title is confusing because this seems to have nothing to do with mining (as in mineral extraction), but is instead about "zero people in tunnel" tunneling.

This paragraphs is also quite funny:

> This positions The Boring Company’s Zero-People-in-Tunnel technology within Elon Musk’s broader ecosystem of transportation innovations—from Tesla’s electric vehicles to autonomous driving systems, and potentially Hyperloop concepts.

Mentioning "Hyperloop concepts" as a positive example of innovation seems like a huge red flag.

Overall, this reads like a Boring Company press release.
by gwern | 2025-05-17 21:28:35+00:00
> It felt like the first 3 (or 2.5) paragraphs, which were arguing that Bjork needed an official website, were a bit of a tangent from the main argument of the article, which was that we need more professional critics, but social media has essentially defunded and dethroned them.

Not so much of a tangent as just the relevant argument not being made clearly. The Bjork example demonstrates the value of a central, canonical source for information in overcoming the costs of friction from direct messaging, which creates a chaotic cacophony of tiny bite-sized messages which are difficult and exhausting to piece together into a final meaningful message, and result in the interested Bjork fans living in their own little information-universes: in one universe, it's a film+documentary, in another, it's a film. So they can't even manage to agree on the most basic facts. (Which has downstream effects: a Bjork fan may not know they have access to the documentary or that they can assume most of the film-watchers saw the documentary and they can invoke it without confusion or spoilers.) The 'advantage' of social media and disintermediation proved to be illusory as they came with too much overhead and destruction of any canon or commons.
by jemmyw | 2025-05-17 21:29:09+00:00
Eye of the beholder. I personally think Red Dwarf series 1 to 6 was great. It even charts a course of British TV decline. Series 1 and 2, low budget sitcom, class warfare and the loneliness of space. Series 3, more budget, more sci-fi, but similar writing. Series 4 and 5, more budget, more sci-fi, becomes monster of the week, but the character building from the prior series keeps it funny. Series 6, even more budget, they start to explore some more interesting sci-fi themes. This turns out to be popular, so it gets more budget again and moves to BBC 1, more cast etc. Series 7, 8 just urgh, trying to appeal to "mainstream" was stupid because it was already popular enough, it loses the serious side. Everything they've done since then feels like they're trying to force the humour that came naturally before. The actors have aged but the writing didn't mature with them.

I watched some interviews with the cast and they would joke around in the canteen between filming and find their jokes had been overheard and incorporated into the script. It had this realistic dialogue.
by yhager | 2025-05-17 21:30:15+00:00
I had similar feeling over the past few years, trying futilely to escape the algorithm.. I recently discovered radiop aradise[1] which is exactly what I needed - free, old style, very little talk, human-curated radio. They have a vast selection of titles, and they simply play good music - stuff I know, stuff I don't.. it's just great.

They also have a world music channel, which I couldn't find any parallel anywhere else. They have wonderful music there when I'm in my "world music" mood. All in all, it's a gem, highly recommended for any music lovers who prefer curated over algorithmic.

[1] https://radioparadise.com/home
by johnea | 2025-05-17 21:30:38+00:00
In spite of the article being 5 years old, I still found it interesting and relevant.

The details of how the data was captured was helpful.

The things I found most interesting fall into 3 parts:

Part 1) It's heartening to see people enjoying their kids:

> I told my son to clear my schedule. He bashed two wooden blocks together in understanding, encouragement, and sheer admiration.

Go Dad! Enjoy it while you can!

If you have an experience like mine: as a 57yo at the time, and well aware of what was coming. When I went from daily interacting with my son, who was finally old enough to speak with as a adult, he suddenly moved away to college over a weekend and I almost never see him any more 8-(

I never expected the fully anticipated experience of empty-nest to affect me so strongly 8-/

Part 2)

> I care about this for two reasons.

> The first is a principled fuck you.

I had to laugh 8-) This somehow reminded me of a line in one of my favorite movies: The Live Aquatic.

Bill Murray's character is asked: This leopard shark is an endangered species. What would be the scientific purpose of killing it?

To which he replies: Revenge...

Part 3) The obligatory proprietary OS bashing:

Several times, the author states: "A device that is essentially a mouse..."

It should be pointed out, that a mouse is a USB class device. That is to say, it is a standard USB device that requires no proprietary driver (except for the purpose of exfiltrating data that the mouse maker has no functional need of, or other "value added" purposes)

Pretty much any special feature of the device can be implemented as a user space library.

The author is working on a Mac, the situation is even worse on windoze, where even a actual mouse will ask you to install a custom device driver.

This is why linux, with a broad support of standard USB class devices, is now significantly superior to windows in USB device support. For almost any typical type device, when you plug it into a linux computer, it just works. No driver install or other configuration needed.

Even if you need a driver to support your tablet on some version of an OS that doesn't provide support, there is a GPL waycom driver:

https://github.com/linuxwacom/input-wacom

tl;dr: linux good, windoze sux, mac getting worse...

In the current world, every computer company in any way associated with h/w or s/w or online activity is now also in the data borker business.

This is similar to the way the car dealership industry is now basically a subdivision of retail loan banking. Try buying a car with cash, versus a lease or loan. But, of course, it's not just milking the idiot herd for all it can, its "maximizing efficiency", for somebody...

So much for the glowing future brought to you by unbridled capitalism...

That's it. Try not to use Waycom, or at least not on Mac or windoze...
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by lexokoh | 2025-05-17 21:30:58+00:00
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I built Kage because I saw too many developers struggle to capture the value of their work. I'd love your thoughts if you’re building self-hosted software and want to turn it into predictable revenue.

Check out https://kagehq.com
by perching_aix | 2025-05-17 21:31:21+00:00
> I guess the answer for you, is that you have no other options.

Yes, which is exactly what I was getting at. I'm not in the situation where if only I spent some time on introspection and "asked myself", I'd all of a sudden have this lightbulb moment that hey, what if I just switched to Linux or bought a Mac instead, despite what people like GP might like to think.

This is a lot like when people try to - sometimes kindly, sometimes not - invite people's attention to the fact that e.g. they're fat. As if somehow this key piece of realization was the only thing keeping them from starting on a lifestyle change and taking ownership of their diet. It's juvenile there, and it's juvenile here too. Except in this case, I'd argue it goes even further: it's willfully dishonest. As if it was normal that the only way out were the options listed. As if all these options were playing on an equal field.
by AnthonyMouse | 2025-05-17 21:32:53+00:00
The rewards programs are the anti-competitive lock-in.

Visa and Mastercard charge high fees because their dominant market position forces merchants to accept them. Then they use part of the fees to bribe customers with rewards programs.

A new payment network doesn't have leverage against merchants so can't charge the same high fees and therefore can't offer the same rewards programs, but then they can't get consumers to use their card, which is what they would need in order to get any leverage.

The rewards programs are a grift. The price of everything goes up by 3% and if you get a rewards card you get 1-2% of it back, therefore you get one. Then you're still out the other 1-2% you wouldn't have been if the market was competitive, the people who don't get one get punished by being out the entire 3% (which inhibits competitors with lower fees), and Visa and Mastercard suck billions of dollars out of the economy into their Scrooge McDuck money bin because consumers have been defrauded into thinking this arrangement is to their advantage.
by dylan604 | 2025-05-17 21:32:55+00:00
I think it's less commitment and more of just waving the flag and just putting something on to just be mindless and zone out for a bit. The mental exhaustion of scrolling through banal entry after banal entry of pablum content just wears on a person. It's definitely first world problems though. I've started to just hit the power button when I find myself in that state and finding something else to do. Even if it's just playing with the four legged roommates.
by bartread | 2025-05-17 21:33:23+00:00
A big part of having good communication skills is knowing your audience. HN is a forum for people do discuss stories, not a forum for prompting LLMs. Moreover that discussion is supposed to be civil. You might see that civility as a waste of time but, if you do, you're likely to lose your audience, and that is a failure of communication.

Similarly, the intended audience for the author's post is people, not LLMs. So it doesn't really matter whether an LLM would struggle to properly understand and provide a useful response to it because I, as a human being, did understand the perspective, and found it both interesting and thought provoking.

You don't know anything at all about how the author uses an LLM, and nor do I. So when you draw a direct line between software engineers in general being "weak communicators" and the post author being a weak communicator, specifically with LLMs, you are jumping to a conclusion that is not supported by the evidence we can actually see.
by curun1r | 2025-05-17 21:33:52+00:00
> But what's missing is a shared cultural experience

This is my problem with the proliferation of streaming platforms when it comes to movies and TV. We’ve arguably got more and better content than we’ve ever had. But I find myself far less motivated to watch it. I used to watch content anticipating the conversations I’d have with friends and colleagues. Now, whenever we try to talk about it, it’s 30 seconds of, “Have you seen …?” “No, have you seen …?” “No.” Until we give up and talk about something else.

It’s made me realize that the sharing it with others part was always my favorite part of listening/watching and, without that, I can’t really become emotionally invested it the experience.
by echelon | 2025-05-17 21:34:04+00:00
I'm hoping we see a flood of LLMs just like that Zurich piece, but at 10,000x scale. Perhaps even open source platforms to run your hobby LLM bot farm.

Social media has turned into cancer. It'd be riveting to watch it turn into bots talking to other bots. Social media wouldn't go away, but I get the feeling people will engage more with real life again.

As the platforms see less growth and fewer real users, we might even see a return to protocols and open standards instead of monolithic walled gardens.
by Zak | 2025-05-17 21:34:08+00:00
> Wasn’t the sharpest knife

Sharpness is a product of sharpening, which should be done regularly for good results.

Benchmade's pricing is based on irrational customers being willing to pay premium prices for knives that really aren't competitive anymore.

If you want a replacement knife that's very similar for a more reasonable price, consider the crossbar lock version of the Vosteed Raccoon.
by CJefferson | 2025-05-17 21:34:23+00:00
Based on reading bad AI generated student essays it’s worse than that, LLMs are happy to “fill in the blanks” with whatever made up fact would make their argument look best.

Most people can’t lie that smoothly, and most readers don’t check carefully, unless they are already an expert in the area.

Any kind of maths proof is particularly bad, they will look convincing and clear until you read them very carefully and see all the holes.
by armchairhacker | 2025-05-17 21:34:47+00:00
LLMs also never get tired of arguing. They'll respond to every point from a gish-gallop and provide quality-sounding replies to points that are obviously (to an informed person) flawed or seem (but aren't necessarily) mal-intentioned.

EDIT: LLMs also aren't egocentric; they'll respond in the other person's style (grammar, tone, and perhaps maintain their "subtext" like assumptions), and they're less likely to omit important information that would be implicit to them but not the other person.
by westurner | 2025-05-17 21:35:04+00:00
Just found display3d today, too.

Maybe it was an ascii CLI video of a 3d scene that I remember seeing.

Maybe molecule visualizations? Is it possible to discern handedness from an objcurses render of a molecule like sugar or an amino protein?

Could a 3D CLI file browsing interface useful enough for a computer green scren in a movie like Jurassic Park or Hackers be built with objcurses? wgpu compiles to WASM and WebGL
by reducesuffering | 2025-05-17 21:35:49+00:00
We're fast approaching the point that any value someone can provide through a digital interface could be better done by a model. What do we use digital interfaces for? Practically everything.

Oh well not being a plumber, electrician, or farmer... but our society's current productivity, technology, automation reduced our need for 80% of the population needing to be farmers to now 1.3% in the US. Can you imagine what the equivalent of 1 billion digital engineers unlocks in understanding and implementing robotics?
by kragen | 2025-05-17 21:36:18+00:00
It matters if studies like this matter, that is, it matters to people who are interested in what has currently happened rather than what might happen in the future. 6 months of LLM progress keeps not looking like what I expected.

On the other hand, if you're content with your pre-existing predictions about what would happen, which I think is actually a reasonable position, there's no reason to read the paper.
by mdaniel | 2025-05-17 21:36:53+00:00
> It is exactly two strings that are required

It is exactly as I said, it's not just strings

$ python3.12 -c ' import re pat = re.compile("who knew") ma = re.match(pat, "who knew types matter") print(ma) ' <re.Match object; span=(0, 8), match='who knew'>

> The docs are there for flags etc, use them.

I guess it's good we're all using LLMs nowadays, since in general computers no read so good, that's why we write in specialized languages for their benefit. That would include this fancy new thing I've heard about where one writes down what the input and output domains are for functions

> Types were not entered directly into stdlib source for historical reasons.

Historical reasons defeats the purpose of having git tags, to say nothing of them having several concurrent branches named after the various release trains. I mean, historically print was a keyword, but you sure don't see them from __future__ import print_statement all over the 3.12 tree now do you? It's because they DGAF preferring there to be seemingly unlimited aftermarket tooling to try and drag python3000 into the 21st century

> If you would enjoy further support, install stubs from typeshed.

While trying to dig up whatever a sane person would use to "install stubs" -- because it for damn sure isn't $(pip install typeshed) -- I learned that you were even more incorrect - it accepts bytes, too https://github.com/python/typeshed/blob/9430260770b627c04313...

Anyway, they also go out of their way to say "don't install typeshed" and I guess that's why they don't have any git tags because releases are for children
by djcapelis | 2025-05-17 21:36:55+00:00
This article is not quite accurate like some of the others that have excitedly reported on this stretch a bit before it’s true. You cannot yet travel this all the way by passenger rail in either theory or practice. By only the narrowest of gaps: LCR ends in Vientiane and the train line to Bangkok terminates at Thanaleng outside town. The distance between them is not far, but it is not connected by rail with passenger service. I tried. I’ve ridden both the LCR, and the SRT service via the Thanaleng shuttle to Nong Khai prior to catching the sleeper to Bangkok. If there was a way to get from one station to another by rail between Thanaleng and Vientiane I would have done it!

This will change when the high speed rail to Bangkok is complete, but we’re not quite there yet.

Hopefully soon. :)
by bakkoting | 2025-05-17 21:37:23+00:00
For APIs which don't support this, you can still use `using` by using DisposableStack:

using disposer = new DisposableStack; const resource = disposer.adopt(new Resource, r => r.close());

This is still simpler than try/catch, especially if you have multiple resources, so it can be adopted as soon as your runtime supports the new syntax, without needing to wait for existing resources to update.
by bartread | 2025-05-17 21:38:11+00:00
> It's not a loop. It's the main() function.

No it isn't. I regularly use my car to travel to multiple destinations in a single "session".

The reason I use GPS is because the apps built on top of it often know about traffic issues along the way - even those that have recently developed - as well as normal patterns of traffic flow of which I may not be aware, or may only have a tenuous grasp of (and don't want to waste a lot of time studying).

But be in no doubt, when the machine creates a route for me it is very much doing what I tell it to do, not the other way around. I am in control at all times and will sometimes deviate from the prescribed route or choose a different destination along the way (e.g., if I've forgotten an errand I need to run that I remember and which could be conveniently achieved).

I just don't buy this argument that the car or the GPS system is the one in control, because it's simply not the case.
by Nevermark | 2025-05-17 21:38:54+00:00
A clear case where LLMs exceed humans is in identifying solutions to disparate shallow constraints involving what would normally require very wide searches of more knowledge than any of us will ever have.

A simple case I have found, is looking for existing or creating new terms. If I have a series of concepts, which I have names for which have a nice linguistic pattern to emphasize their close relationship, except for one. I can describe the regularly named concepts, then ask for suggestions for the remaining concept.

The LLM pulls from virtually every topic with domain terminology, repurposable languages (Greek, Roman), words from fiction, all the way to creative construction of new words, tenses, etc to come up with great proposals in seconds.

I could imagine that crafting persuasive wording would be a similar challenge. Choosing the right words, right phrasing, etc. to carry as much positive connotation, implication of solidity, avoiding anything sounding challenging or controlling, etc. from all of human language and its huge space of emotional constraints and composites.

Very shallow but very wide reasoning/searching/balancing done in very little time.

And with an ability to avoid giving any unnecessary purchase for disagreement, being informed of all the myriad of typical and idiosyncratic ways people get hung up on failed persuasions. Whether in general or specific topic related.

LLM generated writing can be stereotypical.

But the more constraints put on requested material, the more their ability to construct really very original high quality, or even cleverly unique, prose in real time shines.