MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by rickdeckard | 2025-05-05 14:48:09+00:00
(They also did the Soundtrack for Tron:Legacy, basically their fifth studio album)

Anyway, I keep remembering how panned 'Human After All' was, and how bad the reviews were because the album was too "mechanical" and was "missing the warmth of House", while this is EXACTLY how the genre evolved in the years to come and none of those music experts saw this.

Many journalists did a retrospective of it a few years later and admitted that they misjudged it.

It's not that Daft Punk drove the industry in this direction, the album wasn't well-received by most at that time. They showed the destination of a journey while people didn't even realize they are traveling...

In the end, it appears that 'Random Access Memories' is one of their least innovative and "lasting" albums. It's probably their most successful one, the most complex to conceptualize and produce, but IMO it has the least unique character of all their productions.

Looking at the whole picture, the product of "Random Access Memories" is less the music, but the duo celebrating the process of production itself...
by PaulDavisThe1st | 2025-05-05 14:48:16+00:00
I don't disagree with anything you've written there.

But I also don't see the US constitutional amendment process as anything particularly praiseworthy either, and do not think it is capable of being used as a way to rise to the occasion of, for example, the current president.

Of course, it goes beyond the amendment process to the wider US political and social culture, and we are currently living in the midst of an experiment to see just how much power can be simply taken by a president who wants to do so. As the line goes: it's not about who is going to let me, it's about who is going to stop me. The USA does not appear to have particularly robust mechanisms in place to stop a power grab by the administration when there's something roughly approximating a majority in Congress who do no oppose it.
by bombcar | 2025-05-05 14:48:43+00:00
The US has discovered that there's a substantial portion of the population (which for this could be 1%, 10%, 20% whatever) who is really bad at raising kids, basically. If the school doesn't provide lunch, the kids would simply not eat any lunch. So they provide lunches, because it's easier than handling the fallout from some kids not eating, etc.

As a child I never had "provided lunch" but I also went to private school; we didn't even have any option through elementary (grade 8, about 12). High school had a greasy burger joint (think: high school football game concession stand) but that was it.

Providing lunches involves enough work that providing breakfast, too isn't much more expensive.

(The programs may have started for other reasons but the above is usually why they continue. It's also hard to stop doing something like "provide kids food" once you start.)
by sizzzzlerz | 2025-05-05 14:48:50+00:00
This is equivalent to students using AI to complete computer programming assignments. They misconstrue the purpose of an assignment as just one of generating output instead something to teach the principles and techniques they'll require later if they want a job in the profession. While they may believe they're fooling the teacher, all they're really doing is fooling, and cheating, themselves.

Whether it be writing or computer programming, or exercising, for that matter, if you aren't willing to put in the work to achieve your goals, why bother?
by wink | 2025-05-05 14:49:13+00:00
But why would you take your lunch break according to the sun, especially if you work in an office?

I'm not trying to play dumb, but sun rises at 6 in the summer in Germany - most people take their lunch break at 12. Sun rises at, I dunno, 8? in the winter - lunch break at 12. Nothing changes and people are usually awake for a while already.

I couldn't tell you when the majority of office workers starts. I would say 9, especially as it's also averaging out 8 and 10 - but I am not sure. Do people in offices (who are not in media agencies) more typically start at 10 or 11?
by bubblyworld | 2025-05-05 14:49:25+00:00
I think the point is that OP is learning things about a wide variety of topics that aren't really relevant to their stated goal, i.e. solving the sensor/state inference problem.

Which, as you say, can be valuable! There's nothing wrong with that. But the more complexity you add the less likely you are to actually solve the problem (all else being equal, some problems are just inherently complex).
by NoMoreNicksLeft | 2025-05-05 14:49:32+00:00
The thing I find more hilarious even than the -4 that my original comment got, is that I wasn't talking about taxes, but "cost of living". I was under the mistaken impression that the term refers to the cost of groceries, housing, fuel, utilities, and so forth, rather than taxes. But I must have touched a nerve. Guess they don't call it Taxachusetts for nothing.

No one gets to live in that state unless they earn far more than I do, or suffer the misfortune of having been born their to parents too impoverished to leave decades ago.
by Krisando | 2025-05-05 14:49:37+00:00
> I have never seen any form of create generative model output (be that image, text, audio, or video) which I would rather see than the original prompt.

I've used LLM before to document command-line tools and APIs I've made; they aren't the final product since I also tweaked the writing and fixed misunderstandings from the LLM. I don't think the author would appreciate the original prompts, where I essentially just dump a lot of code and give instructions in bullet point form on what to output.

These generated documentation are immensely useful, and I use them all the time for myself. I prefer the documentation to reading the code because finding what I need at a glance is not trivial nor is remembering all the conditions, prerequisites, etc.

That being said, the article seems to focus on a use case where LLM is ill-suited. It's not suited for writing papers to pretend you wrote a paper.

> I say this because I believe that your original thoughts are far more interesting

Looking at the example posted, I'm not convinced that most people's original thoughts on gimbal lock will be more interesting than a succinct summary by an LLM.
by _1tem | 2025-05-05 14:50:14+00:00
You don’t even need embeddings or Ml. A simple search across dictionaries, thesauruses and the Wikipedia entry list (with disambiguations) should be enough.

- Find all 2 word phrases and compound words - search across all pairwise combinations of mutual synonyms, and determine whether the compound synonym is itself a word or phrase

https://chatgpt.com/share/6818d11d-f444-800a-96b0-7a932e9213...
by bunderbunder | 2025-05-05 14:50:38+00:00
It's about angular momentum and happens whenever the axis of rotation differs - even slightly - from the semi-major axis. Interaction with a fluid is not necessary.

You can demonstrate it at home with your smartphone (or, more canonically, a tennis racket), and see for yourself that the tumbling happens much too quickly to be explained by whatever force the air is imparting.
by gwern | 2025-05-05 14:51:12+00:00
My suggestion would be that, since you want a tiny integer-only NN tailored for a specific computer, are only occasionally training one for a specific task, and you have a simulator to generate unlimited data, you simply do random search or an evolutionary method like CMA-ES.

They are easy to understand and code up by hand in a few lines (which is one reason you won't find any libraries for them - they are the 'leftpad' or 'isEven' of NNs, the effort it would take to install and understand and use a library often exceeds what it would take to just write it yourself), will handle any NN topology or numeric type you can invent, and will train very fast in this scenario.
by chipsrafferty | 2025-05-05 14:51:18+00:00
# The Synesthetic Challenge Chamber

## Room Layout

The room is a simple 30-foot square with a single exit door that's currently sealed. In the center sits a large stone cube (roughly 5 feet on each side) covered in various textured surfaces - some rough like sandpaper, others smooth as glass, some with ridged patterns, and others with soft fabric-like textures.

Around the room, six distinct scent emitters are positioned, each releasing a different aroma (pine, cinnamon, ocean breeze, smoke, floral, and citrus). The room is otherwise empty except for a small stone pedestal near the entrance with a simple lever.

## The Puzzle Concept

This puzzle operates on "synesthetic translation" - converting sensory experiences across different senses. The core concept is entirely verbal and tactile, making it fully accessible without visual components.

## How It Works

When players pull the lever, one of the scent emitters activates strongly, filling the room with that particular aroma. Players must then approach the central cube and touch the texture that corresponds to that smell according to a hidden synesthetic logic.

The connection between smells and textures follows this pattern: - Pine scent → ridged texture (like tree bark) - Cinnamon → rough, granular texture (like spice) - Ocean → smooth, undulating surface (like waves) - Smoke → soft, cloudy texture (like mist) - Floral → velvet-like texture (like petals) - Citrus → bumpy, pitted texture (like orange peel)

After correctly matching three smell-texture pairs in sequence, the door unlocks. However, an incorrect match causes the lever to reset and a new random smell to emerge.

## Communication & Accessibility

The DM describes the smells verbally when they're activated and can describe the various textures when players explore the cube by touch. The entire puzzle can be solved through verbal description, touch, and smell without requiring sight.

For extra accessibility, the DM can add: - Distinct sounds that play when each scent is released - Textured surfaces that have subtle temperature differences - Verbal clues discovered through successful matches

## What Makes This Unique

This puzzle uniquely relies on cross-sensory associations that aren't commonly used in dungeons. It: - Doesn't rely on visuals at all - Uses smell as a primary puzzle component (rare in D&D) - Creates unusual connections between different senses - Has no mathematical, musical, or traditional riddle elements - Can be experienced fully regardless of vision status - Creates interesting roleplaying opportunities as players discuss how different scents "feel" texturally

For the DM, it's easy to describe and implement while still being conceptually unique. Players solve it through discussion, exploration, and experimentation rather than recalling common puzzle patterns.
by tripleseven | 2025-05-05 14:51:29+00:00
Thanks for your reply!

> does this support players signing themselves up? Or do they have to show up in person and the tournament director signs them up?

Ah this isn't implemented yet as I haven't really come up with this idea yet, but it would be great to have this feature so I created an issue for it :) https://github.com/evroon/bracket/issues/1200. Feel free to leave more feedback there as well.

> I'm also curious whether you've considered integrating this with Twilio or something similar, to send text messages

Interesting idea as well! I haven't implemented any kind of notifications so far yet either. But it seems very useful, also from my experience with hosting these kind of tournaments. I'll think about what the best way to implement this is that would be easy (and free/cheap) to selfhost. Maybe it can be done using javascript serviceworkers that just send web notifications. That would be free. AFAIK text messages would always cost money to send.
by Lerc | 2025-05-05 14:51:45+00:00
I'm not sure if Meta did anything illegal in 2. either.

I thought the copyright infringement was by the people who provided the copyrighted material when they did not have the rights to do so.

I may be wrong on this, but it would seem a reasonable protection for consumers in general. Meta is hardly an average consumer, but I doubt that matters in the case of the law. Having grounds to suspect that the provider did not have the rights might though.
by dtagames | 2025-05-05 14:52:14+00:00
This syntax does look strange the first time you encounter it, especially since the same syntax is used for two very different things. But once I adopted this religion, every other way of working with array or object values (combining, cutting, rearranging, copying, etc.) seems like an anti-pattern. These operators turn complex iterative testing and copying operations into simple declarative values.
by Spooky23 | 2025-05-05 14:53:02+00:00
We do. Table salt is iodized. We add vitamin A & D to milk and bread.

You’re looking for facts to stuff a straw man. There is clear, obvious correlation between fluoridation and improved oral health. They discovered this decades ago where it was observed that oral health was better in regions where groundwater was used and fluoride occurred naturally.

By my metric, we should take reasonable measures to improve public health. I don’t suppose you’re in favor of making dental care affordable to those who can’t afford it?

If you choose to align yourself with the pseudo intellectual descendants of the John Birch society to protect your “precious bodily fluids”, I’m sorry for you.
by alexvitkov | 2025-05-05 14:53:47+00:00
This is a very bold statement, you should consider substantiating it at least a little, maybe give just one example on what those absurdities collee students have to endure are, that prove they're good corporate drones?

From what I remember it was 4 years of learning stuff I signed up to learn, occasionally being quizzed on said stuff, and then they gave me a paper that claims I know the stuff.
by genewitch | 2025-05-05 14:53:52+00:00
You want a portable shortwave radio with external antenna. Amazon shows them ~$30 which is about what they cost. If you get a fancy one they go 3-4 times as expensive. I have a radio shack grundig battery powered one and it works fine.

Look at reviews, I guess, or try and find an old grundig. I'm sure other people have other brands/models.

If I can remember the last decent one I was looking at I'll comment again, but hopefully this will set you on the right track.
by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF | 2025-05-05 14:53:57+00:00
Hey there op. I don't know what your sensors are measuring (distance to a point maybe? Or angle from a Valve lighthouse for inside-out tracking?)

But here's my "why didn't you just"

Since you have a forward simulation function (pose to measurements), why didn't you use an iterative solver to reverse it? Coordinate descent is easy to code and if you have a constrained range of poses you can probably just use multiple starting points to avoid getting stuck with a local minimum. Then use the last solution as a starting point for the next one to save iterations.

Sure it's not closed-form like an NN and it can still have pathological cases, but the code is a little more transparent
by renatko | 2025-05-05 14:54:04+00:00
Location: Georgia, Tbilisi Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: Maybe

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by jschafer | 2025-05-05 14:54:12+00:00
Yes exactly, I was really excited when I found out that you do not need a FFT to do speech processing.

If you look at the code of (phone/voice) codecs GSM/Speex/Opus you can see that you can estimate the spectral envelope (or the configuration of a physical tube model for the vocal tract) in time domain with linear prediction coefficients (LPC).

And it is simple, e.g. the often used Levinson-Durbin algorithm is just 22 lines of C code. It is an interesting exercise to build your own vocoder from scratch that fits in a single screen page.

Many of the code snippets I have seen (which likely have already processed your voice) are just translations of the Fortran code of the book "Linear Prediction of Speech" by Markel and Gray (1976).
by blahaj | 2025-05-05 14:54:26+00:00
I don't think ISP caching would be a thing without https. It would bring a lot of additional complexity and resource requirements for them. I can hardly imagine that being worth it to save some bandwidth. Maybe it made sense in a world where bandwidth was very limited.

Also I am very happy that it is not a thing and that ISPs cannot do that. When I go to a website I want to get the website from the webserver exactly as the server delivers it and not some other page that my ISP thinks is how the website should look.

Besides with global CDNs we have something very similar but better anyway. I don't get the site from the other side of the world but from the closest CDN server that does caching. The important difference is that the CDN server is authorized by the website to cache the page and the webmaster has control over what it does.
by jq-r | 2025-05-05 14:54:29+00:00
Yeah its completely stupid.

I've witnessed a lady falling down the stairs banging her head hard, blood everywhere. Called 112 in my country, a guy answered, and I calmly explained what happened, and I wanted someone coming there stat. "Nah" he says, he needs to ask me some questions first. One of the questions was: "is it serious?". This is no joke, I said "yeah, its fucking serious". "Okay" he says, "You should have called emergency services directly, but he'll do me one and connect me anyways(!)".

Then I had to repeat everything again and they've then reluctantly sent a team which by the way arrived in double the time it would take me to get there from their place.

Reminds me of those endless accountability sinks. Nobody gives a shit about anything as there is no accountability.
by tines | 2025-05-05 14:54:48+00:00
This is the most important and impactful decision that an average person (i.e. all of us here) will make regarding the quality of his mental life.

This week I ordered a SIM card compatible with my Nokia dumb phone. I have a smartphone for work, and I intend for it to be off and in a drawer when I get home in the evenings.

I’ve realized also that having a dedicated space to do computing activities, the kind encouraged by having an immobile desktop computer rather than a phone, tablet or laptop, is immensely important for my mental integrity. I’m bringing that back too.
by mtalantikite | 2025-05-05 14:55:24+00:00
Oh I get it, I practice Vajrayana Buddhism and a lot of the tradition is still transmitted orally and in person.

But the gist of that method actually sounds a lot like how my music teacher approaches things, he won't let you move on in your improvisations on a new tune until you can get a feeling from playing just half and whole notes on the changes. His teacher was Lennie Tristano so he's very driven by developing that ear instinct.
by palmotea | 2025-05-05 14:55:31+00:00
> This is not as crazy as it sounds, and other engineers at SpaceX aside from Musk entertained the possibility, as some circumstantial evidence to support the notion of an outside actor existed. Most notably, the first rupture in the rocket occurred about 200 feet above the ground, on the side of the vehicle facing the southwest. In this direction, about one mile away, lay a building leased by SpaceX's main competitor in launch, United Launch Alliance.

It's completely kooky, so kooky in fact, there's a (IMHO very funny) sketch about turning business competition into a gunfight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpC_hO15IoA. It's funny because the idea is so absurd.

United Launch Alliance has lawyers. Blowing up your competitor's rocket with a gun would be about the stupidest thing you could possibly do. The upside is low (single rocket launch ruined), the downside is massive (huge civil and criminal penalties). It also suffers from the typical conspiracy theory weakness: everyone involved would need to keep their mouths shut forever, and realistically, at some point someone's gonna have loose lips.
by tekknik | 2025-05-05 14:55:41+00:00
for the record I like Grandpa Buffet, but this statement made by rich people is vomit inducing. If they are so eager to pay more, why not donate the money to the gov? Or instead why not take the money they would’ve donated and distribute it amongst the population based on income? People complain they don’t pay enough taxes, then continue because nobody else is doing it and it would put them at a disadvantage.
by formerly_proven | 2025-05-05 14:56:17+00:00
> The input to the ADC is clearly already chopped into discrete samples, with a new sample every 120 ns. We can discern a sine wave in the samples, but there’s a lot of noise on the signal too. Meanwhile the TDS684B CRT shows a nice and clean 1 MHz signal. I haven’t been able to figure out how that’s possible.

Is this maybe using some form of correlated double sampling?

> It looks like the signal doesn’t scan out of the CCD memory in the order it was received, hence the signal discontinuity in the middle.

Or maybe the samples are also interleaved in the low-order bits in some way. This could be because the organization of the CCD isn't symmetric for the input and output paths, perhaps to reduce area or power, since only one path has to be fast. This would make sense because if you implement the CCD using n parallel CCD bucket brigades you only have to put a fast S&H and multiplexer in front of it, then you can drive the CCD brigades at a fraction of the actual sample rate, and the capacitive load of each of those clock phases is much lower as well.
by majormajor | 2025-05-05 14:57:22+00:00
My point is not about match quality, it's about conversion rate and chemistry - which we don't know how to quantify precisely, but is majorly influenced by very concrete, non-abstract, social skills, styles, and tendencies.

Time spent chatting with a machine is time not spent interacting with people. That is mutually exclusive. Sure, it's not guaranteed that it's displacing time spent interacting with people - it may be displacing time spent dicking around with machines in other ways. Someone might already not be interacting with people. But then this doesn't fix this. If you're talking with ChatGPT instead of messaging people on a dating app, sending out messages on LinkedIn, or chatting on Reddit, you'll get even less social feedback than you do through those today.

The connections could be perfectly well-matched. But the conversion rate depends on things other than that match quality. And those are all the things that you can't practice in front of a screen. If someone fumbles the bag when meeting someone in person for the first time, the only thing that will help them is repetition and practice. It's hard. It's frustrating. It's demoralizing. But it will still be necessary even with "better okcupid."

> Imagine a matchmaker AI that is so smart that it can “intuit” what might work for you that you don’t even realize, based on data

I'm not imagining that here, I'm imagining the "merge our chat GPT conversation history contexts" scenario. A super-human AI could potentially do all sorts of things to help mitigate the lack of practice at live human interaction that today's tools result in. Or it could turn people into wireheads who abandon society altogether. I think we're enough years away from that that to not find it particularly worth addressing. It's not going to make anyone's life better in the immediate future. Practicing will. Talking to ChatGPT instead of getting out there won't.