MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by tough | 2025-05-17 00:12:25+00:00
> What makes something a good potential tool, if the shell command can (technically) can do anything - like running tests?

Think of it as -semantic- wrappers so the LLM can -decide- what action to take at any given moment given its context, the user prompt, and available tools names and descriptions.

creating wrappers for the most used basic tools even if they all pipe to terminal unix commands can be useful.

also giving it speicif knowledge base it can consult on demand like a wiki of its own stack etc
by refulgentis | 2025-05-17 00:12:42+00:00
I'd love to be able to take this into account, step back, and say "Ah yes - there is non-zero probability they are materially incapable of contributing back to their dependency" - in practice, if you're comfortable writing SWA in Go, you're going to be comfortable writing it in C++, and they are writing C++ already.

(it's also worth looking at the code linked for the model-specific impls, this isn't exactly 1000s of lines of complicated code. To wit, while they're working with Georgi...why not offer to help land it in llama.cpp?)
by Calwestjobs | 2025-05-17 00:13:43+00:00
If you prison someone in your basement and do not give them food and water, you are killer. Even tho you did not directly stopped their physiological functions.

If YOU act in a way that result of that act is death, then they are victim of YOUR act.

Current Russian establishment are responsible for situation which will not happen without them doing activities to start, sustain this situation. Situation which kills people. Current Russian establishments are therefor killers.

EDIT : this says 500 000 in 2023, 2 years ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/us/politics/ukraine-russi...

this says roughly 200 000 in 2025 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgkm7lly61do

EDIT2: people from current Russian establishment acknowledged 22 million dead because of soviets. so even then we are talking about more people dead than Germany, for soviet regime deaths.. so real number are not lower than 22 million (Russian gov) and not higher than 62 million ( R.J.Rummel university of Hawaii.

EDIT3: Victims ≣ dead.

For victims AS casualties (physical, mental, economic,...) we have to add BILLIONS more. So lets stay in tens of millions. It is simpler to calculate.
by jsheard | 2025-05-17 00:14:58+00:00
Maybe they do use watermarks, and the vendors which only offer hosted models can just log everything they've ever generated, but there's enough players all working on this stuff independently of each other that filtering out their own noise would only get them so far.

I noticed that a big chunk of the default Llama 4 system prompt is devoted to suppressing various GPT-isms, which to me implies they weren't able to keep their newer training set from being contaminated by competing models.

> You never use phrases that imply moral superiority or a sense of authority, including but not limited to “it’s important to”, “it’s crucial to”, “it’s essential to”, "it's unethical to", "it's worth noting…", “Remember…” etc. Avoid using these.
by BLKNSLVR | 2025-05-17 00:15:13+00:00
The leadership of some parts of the military is being decimated, and further cuts are being threatened by the defense secretary. This will shake the confidence and raise questions amongst the rest of the military such that it's performance will suffer - the extent of this won't be known until it's tested though.

Deploying US military might towards a previous ally or even just non-traditional enemy state might get sideways glances from those who have to get their boots on the ground.

If any group have questions about their leadership they will under perform their potential. Military training 'breeds out' such independent thought, but it can't do it completely due to the human factor.
by rthomas6 | 2025-05-17 00:15:21+00:00
No, it's not the United States's military dominance that makes American debt a safe bet. It's that the Dollar is the worlds reserve currency. Other countries need to transact regularly in dollars even if the United States is not involved in the transaction. And the only way for other countries to get those dollars is through 1. A trade surplus with the US, or 2. Buying US bonds.
by calebkaiser | 2025-05-17 00:16:55+00:00
You can learn an incredible amount. I do quite a bit of research as a core part of my job, and LLMs are amazing at helping me find relevant research to help me explore ideas. Something like "I'm thinking of X. Does this make sense and do you know of any similar research?" I also mentor some students whose educational journey has been fundamentally changed by them.

Like any other tool, it's more a question of how they're used. For example, I've seen incredible results for students who use ChatGPT to interrogate ideas as they synthesize them. So, for example, "I'm reading this passage PASSAGE and I'm confused about phrase X. The core idea seems similar to Y, which I am familiar with. if I had to explain X, I'd put it like this ATTEMPT Can you help me understand what I'm missing?"

The results are very impressive. I'd encourage you to try it out if you haven't.
by gruez | 2025-05-17 00:17:00+00:00
Maybe for now, but it's eventually going to run out of money, and what do you think is going to happen? You think all current and future retirees are just going to shrug and say "oh well, it was good while it was lasted", and not lobby their politicians?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States...
by cycomanic | 2025-05-17 00:17:14+00:00
For a while passive voice was recommended by lots of courses and some advisors, but I reality most journals never recommended passive voice and now many (most) actively discourage it (e.g. here is the nature style guide https://www.nature.com/nature-portfolio/for-authors/write) , because it makes texts much more difficult to understand. It is quite funny how passive voice became prevalent, it was not common in the beginning of the 20th century but somehow become quite common especially in engineering. It is only quite recently (~10 years) that the move is to back to active voice.
by kstrauser | 2025-05-17 00:18:27+00:00
That's true, but you can sometimes get a whole lot closer if you can share state between threads. Sometimes you can't help the size of the data. Maybe you have a thread reading frames from a video and passing them to workers for analysis. You might get crazy IO contention if you pass around "foo.vid;frame222" and "foo.vid;frame223" to the workers and make them retrieve that data themselves.

There may be another way to skin that specific cat. My point isn't to solve one specific problem, but to say that some problems are just inherently large. And with Python, today, if those workers are CPU-bound in Python-land, that means running separate processes and passing large hunks of state around (or shoving it through SHM; same idea, just a different way of passing state).
by JumpCrisscross | 2025-05-17 00:18:28+00:00
> these were the same people that were reporting A+ on junk bonds back then, weren't they?

Fun fact: those AAA securities paid out. We have obvious endogeneity issues with the bailouts. But the evidence is strong that even absent the bailouts, those senior tranches would pay out.

The problem was that most AAA securities are both highly solvent and high liquid. But these proved solvent but illiquid. That caused issues when their owners tried to dump them. But Moody’s rated solvency, not liquidity.
by yongjik | 2025-05-17 00:19:13+00:00
All the talks about US national debt being "unsustainable" rings hollow, when you consider that Trump did everything to tell debtors that the US government is no longer a trustable entity and lending it money might be a bad idea.

In other words, Trump made sure that the US debt situation is unsustainable. I don't know if it was sustainable before Trump (seemed pretty stable to me), but whatever the situation was, Trump made it infinitely worse.

To me this is just another example of Republicans saying the government is broken, when what they really mean is "because we will make it so."
by JumpCrisscross | 2025-05-17 00:19:25+00:00
> do they have any real insight on credit worthiness?

Yes. You can look at default rates by initial and proximate rating and see clear information.

> in light of the housing crisis proving they weren't providing any value at all?

Name me one AAA-rated security that defaulted. They were downgraded. They lost paper value. But to my knowledge, they didn’t default. (Those who held them did well [1].)

[1] https://www.nber.org/digest/aug18/evaluating-role-credit-rat...
by jack_h | 2025-05-17 00:20:15+00:00
> In point of fact outstanding debt as a fraction of GDP isn't even all that large, historically; it was much higher in the 80's and literally every one of those bonds is now paid off!

This[1] shows in the 80s the total debt to GDP ratio started at 31% and ended at 51%. We are currently at about 122% according to the same chart. I'm not sure what numbers you're referring to, could you provide a source?

In terms of the bonds being paid off that's true, but they were paid off by selling even more bonds to cover new spending and old, i.e. total debt grew even if individual bonds matured.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/gfdegdq188S
by _se | 2025-05-17 00:20:25+00:00
Most of us wish we could stop hearing about LLMs. A little reminder that every year since 2022 has been the last year that anyone will ever do anything by hand according to you prophets.

I'll give it 3-4 years before it's gone the way of crypto: still exists, still used (and still useful in the right cases), not something most people are talking about.

It's going to be really nice.
by delta_p_delta_x | 2025-05-17 00:21:01+00:00
> It’s backed by the fact that the United States, in conventional warfare, could hold its own against most of the planet for a long time

This is some of the most ridiculous, armchair-general bluster I've seen. Use the military to defend a debt? Truly one of the takes of all time.

Americans couldn't even stomach a proxy war in Vietnam or Afghanistan. Their shenanigans with the Mujahideen and the Taliban in the 1980s and '90s directly led to several thousand souls losing their lives on 11 September 2001.

In five months flat Canadians have gone from saying' Americans are my brothers' to 'boycott America'; Europeans are not far behind. The Chinese already don't care, and they hold significant leverage over the US, having bought trillions in foreign currency.

In the highly unlikely scenario that the US chooses to declare war—no, sorry, it's now a 'special military operation'—on a respectable Western country for wanting to collect debt, that is when the money backing the US will instantly evaporate, and therefore the money to fund that war will go with it.

Germany is already uncomfortable with its gold reserves sitting in the US, and is looking to repatriate. Is this a genuine casus belli, in your world?
by Swizec | 2025-05-17 00:21:01+00:00
> if it really is laziness, and not something else, e.g. a mental health issue.

Kids optimize. When I was in high school I was fully capable of getting straight F's in a class I didn't care about and straight A's in a class I enjoyed.

Why bother learning chemistry when you could instead spend that time coding cool plugins and websites in PHP that thousands of internet strangers are using? I really did build one of the most popular phpBB plugins and knew I was gonna be a software engineer. Not that my chemistry professor cared about any of that or even understood what I'm talking about.
by kazinator | 2025-05-17 00:22:35+00:00
I think that if the license plate appears as a URL parameter, you could just save a browser bookmark. Click on it, and there is your schedule for the next umpteen months.

Ideally, they wouldn't change it more than, say, nine months out. I.e it is set in stone for three quarters of a year. A month is added each month. No "tuning" anything closer than 9 months.

> we already need substantial work-arounds for critical can't move medical appointments.

Trivial workaround of free passes associated with counters tied to license plates, together with the stability of the schedule being set in stone for months into the future.

> And, traffic violations — especially accumulating traffic violations — are a LOT worse for low-income people, as the consequences tend to compound.

What's the difference? Low-income people will just drive past the cameras and get a shocking bill in the mail. Isn't that how it works?

It's not a "violation" because you called it a "toll": word semantics.

I think, go easy on the violations under the lottery system. E.g. send a warning to first time abusers and whatnot.
by bayarearefugee | 2025-05-17 00:23:05+00:00
It makes much more sense to just raise the social security tax cap than to means-test it. Means testing social programs tends to just add needless bureaucracy to them while also weakening support for them by adding an us vs them line of who benefits.

Someone who makes 10 million dollars (or 100 million, or...) a year pays the exact same social security tax as someone who makes $176,100.

You don't even have to raise the cap by very much to fix every foreseeable funding issue Social Security has
by ApolloFortyNine | 2025-05-17 00:23:42+00:00
There's no law against you overpaying Apple when you could get more value by going off app. If you want to spend $14 for something that's $10 on Epics website, your welcome to do so. Epic will still get their $10, and you can gift Apple $4 for making it easy to cancel your future subscriptions.
by fkfyshroglk | 2025-05-17 00:23:49+00:00
Social security is funded with a social security tax. 6% of your paycheck is paid by you, 6% by your employer. (Or 12% by you if you are self-employed.)That by law can only go to fund social security and nothing else. Similarly, the fund is by statute guaranteed to only fund social security payments. It is completely separate from the rest of the federal budget.
by akoboldfrying | 2025-05-17 00:26:27+00:00
>Not everyone does due diligence.

I don't think it makes sense for every single person or company considering investing in Company XYZ to do their own, separate due diligence on XYZ. The information they each would uncover is the same.

It's a lot more efficient to pay a ratings agency to rate XYZ once. The tricky part is getting the incentives right so that the ratings the ratings agency produces are accurate. (There already is a reputational risk incentive pushing towards doing this the right way, but as we saw in 2008, there are other incentives pushing the other way, and they might often be stronger.)
by harivpanjwani | 2025-05-17 00:26:32+00:00
Hi HN

I just launched a small but useful Chrome extension called Mnemonic Finder. It allows you to right-click any word on a webpage and instantly search for its mnemonic memory aid via MnemonicDictionary.com.

Why I built it: I was prepping for a vocab-heavy exam (GRE) and constantly Googling mnemonics for words. This extension eliminates that friction and makes vocabulary learning contextual and faster.

Features:

Right-click any word → “Search Mnemonic Meaning”

Automatically opens results in MnemonicDictionary.com

Lightweight (no trackers, no storage usage)

Great for students, writers, learners, and language geeks

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/mnemonic-finder-%E2...

Would love your thoughts and feedback!
by lacker | 2025-05-17 00:26:53+00:00
These are just the optical telescopes. There are also next-generation radio telescopes in the works, such as the DSA-2000:

https://www.deepsynoptic.org/overview

The most cutting-edge radio telescopes are arrays, which means hundreds or thousands of similar-looking dishes, typically spread out miles apart. The DSA-2000 will be in the Nevada desert, similar to how the VLA was built in the New Mexico desert.
by rudimentary_phy | 2025-05-17 00:27:10+00:00
AI has been really interesting. I definitely feel its benefits when I want to cram some learning in. On the other hand, it has introduced a new and novel issue for me that feels an awful lot like imposter syndrome. This sounded like the same issue.

Perhaps we will now suffer from AI-mposter syndrome as well. Ain't life wonderful?
by scoofy | 2025-05-17 00:27:15+00:00
The two theories that are competing right now are the:

* Dollar "Milkshake" Theory: the dollar (and treasuries) are so in demand that it kind of doesn't matter how far into debt we go, because the point is that treasuries are mostly used for financial collateral, not for earning interest payments. So whenever there is a crisis, there will be a rush to the dollar, not away from it.

* Traditional Fixed Income valuation: that fixed income buyers care about real returns, and will penalize nations that get themselves into situations where they must either default in actuality, by refusing to pay their debts, or by effectively defaulting (in real terms) by inflating their currencies to the point of writing off their debts.

I understand the argument from both perspectives, and I understand that politics can easily lead to defaults that don't technically need to happen. I still have no idea which of these two theories will prove more accurate going forward. I generally consider myself pretty fiscally conservative, so I tend to lean toward traditional theories of fixed income.
by baetylus | 2025-05-17 00:28:04+00:00
Hey HN!

I built VibePM to help me turn outlines/specs in my markdown files into small tasks for Cursor to execute.

Some task managers are very heavy duty, so I made this as a lightweight alternative.

Some cool features: - Directly integrates into your editor via MCP - Reusable prompts - Lets you track task implementation

Any feedback is welcome. It's free to try! You just have to make an account.

Thanks! -Will
by smcleod | 2025-05-17 00:28:26+00:00
Early on I wondered if things like this might happen.

But for me what has actually happened is almost the opposite, I seem to be experiencing more of a "tree of thoughts" with the ability to now perform rapid experimentation down a given branch, disposing branches that don't bare fruit.

I feel more liberated to explore creative thoughts than ever. I spend less time on the toil needed both bootstrap my thought process and to fending off cognitive dissonance when the feeling of sunk cost creeps in after going too deep down the wrong path.

I wonder if it's just perhaps a difference in how people explore and "complete" their thoughts? Or am I kidding myself and actually getting dumber and just fail to see it?
by ted537 | 2025-05-17 00:30:22+00:00
I don't think it would be too hard to scrape useful data out of my LLM convos.

If human response is "That's BS", "fuck off", or something similar, mark as bad assistant message.

If human response is "huh" or "cool", mark as good assistant message.

If on ChatGPT, watch how much scrolling user does. If there's a lot, its somewhat likely that the LLM outputted something useful.

That strategy would have holes of course but as long as its better than guessing something like that would be a useful heuristic.
by layer8 | 2025-05-17 00:30:35+00:00
From the article:

“The irony is that I now know more than I ever would have before AI. But I feel slightly dumber. A bit more dull. LLMs give me finished thoughts, polished and convincing, but none of the intellectual growth that comes from developing them myself. The output from AI answers questions. It teaches me facts. But it doesn’t really help me know anything new.”

I think the thesis is that with AI there is less need and incentive to “put the work in” instead of just consuming what the AI outputs, and that in consequence we do the needed work less and atrophy.
by zdragnar | 2025-05-17 00:31:28+00:00
Comparing extracting a square root my hand is rather different in scope than reducing / simplifying equations entirely. The TI-92 could basically do all of your coursework for you up to college level, if memory serves.

The real question isn't "is it okay to use a tool" but "how does using a tool affect what you learn".

In the cases of both LLMs and symbolic solving calculators, I believe the answer is "highly detrimental".
by wahern | 2025-05-17 00:31:35+00:00
It will have depleted it's reserves in approximately 10 years. Expenditures exceed revenue, but only by about 15-20% by then. So either there's going to be a cut in benefits and/or the retirement age will be bumped up, just like we did in 1983[1], and as originally intended when designed. Most likely the latter, but it seems legislators are too chicken to do it until their backs are up against the wall. And conservative legislatures are probably content to wait until it's an exigent crisis to maximize their chance at selling privatization.

[1] We only recently just reached the tail-end of the 1983 reforms' gradual shift in retirement age.
by kace91 | 2025-05-17 00:34:05+00:00
I find it funny that I use adaptive icons on android (the ones that switch color according to the OS color scheme) and I override non adaptive app icons the exact same way.

Local public transport app? Choose something resembling a bus, train or similar. Banking app? Pile of money or bill or whatever. Just as long as two apps don’t end up with the same icon it’s all fine.

What is old is new I guess.
by neom | 2025-05-17 00:34:15+00:00
For me thinking is kinda like: First draft thought > thinking > 2nd draft thought > thoughtfulness > thought. I suspect a lot of people just need to adjust the frame of their thinking style, LLMs are useful for getting to a more "final thought" quickly, but he says "I can just shove a few sloppy words into a prompt and almost instantly get a fully reasoned, researched, and completed thought." - Indeed, to my mind anyway: a complete draft thought. From "when my brain spontaneously forms a tiny sliver of a potentially interesting concept or idea" to quality thought typically needs some meaningful time/walking around to gestate into ideas and things worth sharing anyway. LLMs for me are mostly either a) draft thoughts or b) pure work related knowledge transfer - and they work great for those things.
by jacobsenscott | 2025-05-17 00:34:27+00:00
Today we have humans being trained on llm garbage - kids using it to do their homework - programmers using it to "learn" how to code, med students cheating their way through med school, etc. So the content the humans are producing and will produce is really just LLM statistical word jumbles - ie human generated content will soon be as useless as LLM generated content.
by astrange | 2025-05-17 00:35:07+00:00
> But nobody seems to talk about or care about C# except for Unity. Microsoft really missed the boat on getting mindshare for it back in the day.

There was this guy Miguel de Icaza. From when I followed the open source ecosystem at the time, it seemed to be his personal mission to promote independent clones of a bunch of Microsoft technologies like C# on his own time even though they didn't ask him to do it.

I don't think I ever understood why someone would do this. It's like in the 2000s where people seemed to think you could solve all technical problems by inventing new kinds of XML.
by richardw | 2025-05-17 00:35:08+00:00
The processes the people want the sql for are likely filled with algo’s. An exec wants info in a known domain, set up a text to sql system with lots of context and testing to generate queries. If they think they have something good, get an expert to test and productionise it.

“Thank you for your request. Can you walk me through the steps you’d use to do this manually? What things would you watch out for? What kind of number ranges are reasonable? I can propose an algorithm and you tell me if that’s correct. The admins have set up guidelines on how to reason about customer and purchase data. Is the following consistent with your expectations?”