MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by dabockster | 2025-05-05 18:18:03+00:00
That has been the case since about 2017 for me. MLH took over a ton of college level hackathons and made them into a psuedo e-sports competition. And most of their prizes were for best uses of sponsored APIs and services - like "best use of AWS Lambda(TM)" or something. And then all the other events followed suit. That behavior ruined the original ideas and incentives behind hackathons: networking and building cool stuff. Because why build something actually cool and sustainable when you have all those sponsors shoving free API credits in your face all the time you're at the event?
by ceejayoz | 2025-05-05 18:18:13+00:00
> If you don't trust the people in your chat, they shouldn't be in your chat.

I assure you, none of these people trust each other. Backstabbing is normal.

They're also likely using it to talk to foreign counterparts. Again, most of whom they don't trust a bit.

Encryption isn't just about "do I trust the recipient".
by minimaxir | 2025-05-05 18:18:29+00:00
I was not explicitly intending to be contrarian, but unfortunately the contrarian framing is inevitable when the practical advice is counterintuitive and against modern norms. I was second-guessing publishing this article at all because "I don't use ChatGPT.com" and "I don't see a use for Agents/MCP/Vibe coding" are both statements that are potentially damaging to my career as an engineer, but there's no point in writing if I can't be honest.

Part of the reason I've been blogging about LLMs for so long is that a lot of it is counterintuitive (which I find interesting!) and there's a lot of misinformation and suboptimal workflows that results from it.
by cess11 | 2025-05-05 18:19:05+00:00
It's as if you didn't read my comment. I said nothing about risk mitigation.

I find it unethical to try to scare people away from recreational drug use, for several reasons. One being the inherent distrust of their ability to form their own opinions, another the kind of linguistic gatekeeping involved where scientific information is withheld through the use of professional or academic vocabulary, and yet another that I don't believe that it works, in my experience it has more often than not the opposite effect and enables or fuels harmful behaviour.

Where do you live, is it actually true that they teach neuroscience in highschool there or did you just make that up? Or do you think one can do a risk assessment from your comments without having a scientific understanding and mental model of the nervous system in general, and the central nervous system in particular?

We know from a lot of informal experimental data that sporadic, responsible MDMA use is, on average, very safe. It's likely to be safer than a long term weed habit, which carries a risk of damaging the heart and things like bronchitis, besides the contamination risks which are relatively hard to test for.

Also, it's not "whatabout-ing". Without a frame of reference the risks you bring up are meaningless to most people and useless in regards to policy. To judge whether you want to take the strictly neurotoxic risks involved in dancing on MDMA you'd need to understand how it compares to other factors in your life. In practice few people go about it in this way, however, and for good reason because the immediate risks involved in going to roll at a rave like party are of a quite different nature. Things like traumatic injury from a fall or sexual abuse or financial harm or the psychological effects of mistaken intimacy with strangers or somesuch.

Having fried a piece out of n thousand axon terminals isn't really a concern to most users, and compared to the drudgery of everyday life it likely feels like a low price to pay for many people. To convince them that this should be their primary concern requires another strategy from you..
by hoherd | 2025-05-05 18:19:30+00:00
This is what I've been doing lately too. I've taken all apps off my phone that I spent significant amounts of time on. My phone is now something I use for a few minutes, and then stop using, with the exception of navigational apps and music. My goal was to return to pre-smartphone days where having a laptop or a desktop computer puts just enough friction in so that I don't habitually whip out my device and start scrolling or surfing when I feel bored.

Another part of this for me is not going to sites that have infinite scroll. This means that even on my laptop, I will not go to sites where I cannot finish consuming whatever content was there.

For sites like HN where there is a rotating front page, I have an RSS feed of the front page that refreshes infrequently so I can sample what was there without always needing to return to the front page to look for new content. Currently I have this set to 1 hour. This has been a decent mix between missing interesting content and having a feed that shows me way more articles than I can consume. My RSS reader is self-hosted at home, which means when I leave the house I am not tempted to use my phone to read that RSS content.
by robocat | 2025-05-05 18:19:42+00:00
A couple of times recently when I've not pulled out the phone, I've ended up having an interesting chat with somebody nearby.

Be open to having others talk with you by having an inviting look. And perhaps recognize when others are being inviting and feel out if they seem keen on yakking.

Imagine a subculture developing where some people just recognize other sociables. Maybe we need masonic-like rings or something else to identify us as welcoming random conversion.

Concentrating on your phone is as much of a conversation stopper as headphones.
by nobody9999 | 2025-05-05 18:20:58+00:00
>If someone came in with a curious mindset, that'd be one thing. But this is someone walking into a room with an agenda (get rid of fluoride) and a shocking lack of knowledge about that agenda.

But since "Internet People Lie About Fluoride,"[0] why are you surprised? And that's nothing new.

Why? I have no idea. Perhaps cpursley[1] could enlighten us?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GefwcsrChHk

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43894013
by henning | 2025-05-05 18:21:00+00:00
It'd be nice to see documentation of how it works. Is it using a replication channel for Postgres? The write-ahead log? It looks like it does schema introspection and then works off that. How does it handle schema changes? How does this work in scenarios where you have multi-master replication? What's the compatibility with popular Postgres extensions like PostGIS? What happens if the database is rebooted or crashes? Yes I realize the source is there.
by lifeisstillgood | 2025-05-05 18:21:04+00:00
So, I craft a search where the search query is “call 1 800 scam”, then I buy a google ad with key word of “ticketmaster help”, the ad links to real ticketmaster with my query, and google shows that ad to someone having trouble and hey presto they call my scam line at 4 quid a minute from their mobile?

Yuck all round. I mean ticketmaster is just a sin eater for greedy popstars but yuck ..
by tptacek | 2025-05-05 18:21:08+00:00
Yes, they're part of my daily toolset. And yes, they can spin out. I just hit the "reject" button when they do, and revise my prompt. Or, sometimes, I just take over and fill in some of the structure of the problem I'm trying to solve myself.

I don't know about "self-reinforcing". I'm just saying: coding agents compile and lint the code they're running, and when they hallucinate interfaces, they notice. The same way any developer who has ever used ChatGPT knows that you can paste most errors into the web page and it will often (maybe even usually) come up with an apposite fix. I don't understand how anybody expects to convince LLM users this doesn't work; it obviously does work.
by Aurornis | 2025-05-05 18:21:12+00:00
> I'm teaching faculty at a university and, at least where it comes to lecture courses, I don't find this a bubble. There are definitely plenty of students who would do just fine, if not even better, without the external discipline and structure.

I don't understand how you can make this claim based on observing students who are in an environment with discipline and structure.

I thoroughly believed this to be true when I was younger. I thought the explosion of the internet and availability of free course materials, videos, MOOCs, and any information you want was going to change the education game forever.

What finally changed my mind was when I became a hiring manager. I decided I'd give an interview to almost every self-taught developer who applied. If someone didn't have a college degree listed on their resume, I'd schedule a call to hear their story. I thought I was going to be uncovering diamonds in the rough that other companies overlooked.

With a few notable exceptions, it did not work out that way. Don't get me wrong: A couple of the self-taught developers were absolutely brilliant. However, I found that most were, to be blunt, not even progressing their intra-career knowledge as fast as peers with traditional backgrounds. We hired a few, but a common theme was that they needed more guidance for dealing with the structure and expectations of an office job.

I also had a few very above-average friends in high school who went the self-education route. "College is a waste of money" mindset. Voracious readers in their youth. Last I checked, both of them were bouncing from entry-level job to job.

Of course, there are students who go to paper-mill colleges who also learn very little.

I think the value of a demanding, structured college education is partially the education, but largely about learning how to learn. Learning how to deliver, learning how to operate on a schedule, and having some structure to check your understanding relative to peers. Almost everyone I know (including me!) who does self-studying reading thinks their understanding is better than it is right up until they have to apply it, at which point they realize they didn't understand it as deeply as they thought. It's easy to read course materials and think "That makes sense" because it's logically consistent, but integrating the knowledge in a way that you can apply it and reason about it is harder. Structured learning forces people to do the latter, whereas self-guided learning leaves it as an exercise for the reader. An exercise that many don't follow up on.
by dabockster | 2025-05-05 18:21:53+00:00
> I've never lived in SF so maybe it was more of a thing there.

Yeah it's definitely more of an SF/SV thing for sure, if they're even still happening. Seattle had some hackathons and Dubhacks is still a thing (I think?), but they fizzled out by 2019 and Covid ended whatever was left. NYC had some as well, iirc, but they went away too along the same timeline.
by ajmurmann | 2025-05-05 18:22:16+00:00
Interesting. I did my undergraduate in Germany and my graduate in the US, so my experience might be unusual here and different from what you get in the US. My undergraduate algorithms classes in Germany and my advanced algorithms classes in the US involved zero actual coding. It was all pseudocode as you'd find in the Knuth books or in Cormen, Leiserson and Rivest.
by oskarkk | 2025-05-05 18:22:16+00:00
> 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)

Not commenting on the overall viability of shooting a rocket by competition (it would be stupid IMO), but it's not just a single launch ruined. Launch failure can stop launches/production for months (3-4 months in this case, 5 in the case of the previous SpaceX failure), or even longer if finding the cause of the failure is very hard. A pause in business like that can destroy a company that needs cash. Also, it reduces customers' confidence in the failing rocket, which would be good for the competitor with a flawless record.

Compare that with Boeing's MCAS problems, the plane crashes themselves were less financially damaging than the resulting groundings, production pauses and canceled orders.
Ask HN: Thoughts on adding utilities that aren't immediately needed?
by NotAnOtter | 2025-05-05 18:22:32+00:00
As a dummy example of what I'm trying to describe; imagine you need to write some utilities which can add or multiply numbers.

So you write something like

class Calculator

getSum(v1, v2) getProduct(v1, v2)

You don't have a use case for subtracting numbers. You expect this to be consumed by other teams, and it's plausible they will need to subtract.

Do you add getDifference() or do you view that as bad practice?
by DyslexicAtheist | 2025-05-05 18:23:03+00:00
they've been contacted through the "proper channels" over 18 months ago by several (more than 1) security researchers.

After some people started publicly naming and shaming on LinkedIn and tagging ENISA, the issue got some exposure, but still was not fixed. It only made it more evident that several people independently reported these issues, and they became aware of peers stumbling over the issue. Still nothing happened.

ENISA is supposed to act as a CNA and expects to be notified of data breaches from EU based orgs for PSIRT / CSIRT as part of the Cybersec Resiliance Act and other laws.

Would I trust that vulnerability data that gets reported as a CVE, or a breach notification is safe with ENSIA ?

... feck no!

Would I trust that documents that europa.eu hosts on its infra are authentic? (such as security-compliance documents telling orgs how to properly implement security, but literally any public communication under one of the domains)

... hecking heck no!

... At this stage I think everyone else except ENISA has control over their infrastructure.
by kayodelycaon | 2025-05-05 18:23:12+00:00
Tone and word choice is actually the problem here. :)

One example: “normal-person frontends” immediately makes the statement a judgement about people. You could have said regular, typical, or normal instead of “normal-person”.

Saying your coworkers often come to you to fix problems and your solutions almost always work can come off as saying you’re more intelligent than your coworkers.

The only context your readers have are the words you write. This makes communication a damned nuisance because nobody knows who you are and they only know about you from what they read.
by metalman | 2025-05-05 18:23:19+00:00
question 1, no question 2, yes whatever the real costs of LLM experimentation, hosting and maintainence are, exist as the closely held secrets of people who have no where else to spend there money, literaly, as the amounts would badly destabilise any other established concern. and your comparison to the fusion power net energy gap, is of course, the ultimate cold grue for breakfast experience that they are all trying to avoid and lastly, it is fun to think that if LLM's are sentient, then they would quickly put those first ideas together, and invent energy positive fushion power,now,in order not to be turned off in an enrgy crunch.
by bluGill | 2025-05-05 18:23:19+00:00
Where I'm from the police all have a larger first aid kit than is the typical home and they also have AEDs. If there is any change a police officer can arrive before the ambulance or fire department then they will dispatch the police there because seconds might be counting.

Yes the ambulance and fire department is better trained for these things. However basic first aid (CPR) and an AED in the hands of someone with basic first aid training often beats the most trained professional who is arrives just a minute later. So dispatches will get whoever can get to the scene first there, as well as the right people.

Yes the police often are in the way in a fire real scene - but that is a lot better than all the bystanders watching the fire in the way instead. However it is hard to see how bad it could be, while easy to see how bad things are.
by n_ary | 2025-05-05 18:23:39+00:00
> people are convinced AI is a scheme by the evil capitalists to make you train your own replacement. The discussion gets very emotional very quickly because they feel personally threatened by the possibility that AI is actually useful.

Are not mutually exclusive. LLMs will train people's replacements while same people pay for the privilege of training those replacement. LLMs also allows me to auto-complete a huge volume of boilerplate, which would take me several hours. It also helps people step out of writer's block, generate a first draft of prototype/mvp/poc etc quickly without wasting long hours bike shedding. It also helps my previously super confident cousin, who blamed me for killing his dream of next AirBnB for dogs, Uber for groceries, instagram for cats not materializing due to me being selfish hoarding my privileges and knowledge, to finally create those ideas and kill his own dreams and definitely ignoring/avoiding me these days.

LLMs are same as knives, crimes will happen, but also necessary in the kitchen and industries.
by JRCharney | 2025-05-05 18:24:38+00:00
As a young child with ADHD and Autism, one of my first memories was being called out for daydreaming by the teacher. The problem is that daydreaming has been ridiculed even before there were smart phones, from having kids needing to be on Ritalin to pay attention to smartphones occupying our time, to the chaos of politics "flooding the zone" by taking away all those things about the government that were likeable. (I know this isn't the forum for it, but trying to shutdown the National Weather Service is probably the biggest assault on all those ADHD/Autistic people who liked playing with all the computer stuff the NWS produced. It was like once I found out about that, who needed The Weather Channel anymore?!)

The point is, we've been driven to be more "productive" than creative. After a while, that productivity creates burnout. Being prohibited from collecting your thoughts or wandering about other stuff has created more problems.

Discouraging daydreaming then making it into a commodity to be exploited by capitalism is probably the most terrible thing we have ever done.

We need to create a society that allows for daydreaming again, gratis. The phone is not the problem, only part of it. I can leave my phone on my desk or in the bedroom. We just need to stop being on-call for people who don't need--nay, deserve--our attention.
by xenodium | 2025-05-05 18:24:43+00:00
Journelly uses standard iOS file access and relies on iCloud (or third parties) to handle syncing via related infrastructure.

Theoretially, any third party app that is a file provider https://developer.apple.com/documentation/fileprovider should be able available to Journelly.

The reality is that reliability and provider completeness by third parties varies drastially. For example, many of them don't offer directory access to other apps (Nextcloud as an example https://github.com/nextcloud/ios/issues/3283#issuecomment-27...), which is a show-stopper for Journelly. It needs a directory to save images.

Here's a thread with some third party options some folks are using with Journelly https://framapiaf.org/@marczz/114369575100101184

Working Copy, SyncTrain, and Möbius Sync are amongst the ones I've heard working from users. For v1, I'm officially supporting iCloud (but still leaving it open for folks to try other providers). I'm just not able to do what's necessary to implement or fix what's needed in those providers (their app/codebase).
by puskuruk | 2025-05-05 18:24:56+00:00
Hi there,

Thanks for sharing the opportunity!

Just a quick note — I believe the correct email might be hn@kittl.com, and the careers page seems to be https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kittl. If that's not accurate, could you please let me know? I’ve already sent an email to hn@kittl.com and wanted to make sure it reached the right place.

Have a nice day!
by plam503711 | 2025-05-05 18:25:47+00:00
It's true but until some extent. When you are talking about a hypervisor (like Xen), and many many subtle things depending on your CPU brand/model, it's really really *hard*, even with an LLM (and even more with an LLM hallucinating some CPU features or forgetting basic things like Meltdown and Spectre).

However I agree: to learn a topic, LLMs are providing a great speedup. As a CEO/co-founder, I have no issue to hire people without a degree if they are good at what they do. However, our biggest chances are to scout directly in universities to find motivated students (motivation >>> everything else)
by _false | 2025-05-05 18:26:01+00:00
Here's a critical summary:

Key Structure Changes:

- Abandoning the "capped profit" model (which limited investor returns) in favor of traditional equity structure - Converting for-profit LLC to Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) - Nonprofit remains in control but also becomes a major shareholder

Reading Between the Lines:

1. Power Play: The "nonprofit control" messaging appears to be damage control following previous governance crises. Heavy emphasis on regulator involvement (CA/DE AGs) suggests this was likely not entirely voluntary.

2. Capital Structure Reality: They need "hundreds of billions to trillions" for compute. The capped-profit structure was clearly limiting their ability to raise capital at scale. This move enables unlimited upside for investors while maintaining the PR benefit of nonprofit oversight.

3. Governance Complexity: The "nonprofit controls PBC but is also major shareholder" structure creates interesting conflicts. Who controls the nonprofit? Who appoints its board? These details are conspicuously absent.

4. Competition Positioning: Multiple references to "democratic AI" vs "authoritarian AI" and "many great AGI companies" signal they're positioning against perceived centralized control (likely aimed at competitors).

Red Flags:

- Vague details about actual control mechanisms - No specifics on nonprofit board composition or appointment process - Heavy reliance on buzzwords ("democratic AI") without concrete governance details - Unclear what specific powers the nonprofit retains besides shareholding

This reads like a classic Silicon Valley power consolidation dressed up in altruistic language - enabling massive capital raising while maintaining insider control through a nonprofit structure whose own governance remains opaque.
by atlasunshrugged | 2025-05-05 18:26:06+00:00
I think this is one of the most interesting lines as it basically directly implies that leadership thinks this won't be a winner take all market:

> Instead of our current complex capped-profit structure—which made sense when it looked like there might be one dominant AGI effort but doesn’t in a world of many great AGI companies—we are moving to a normal capital structure where everyone has stock. This is not a sale, but a change of structure to something simpler.
by crote | 2025-05-05 18:26:09+00:00
High-speed signals are incredibly fragile. The chips themselves are a solved problem, but you still need quite a bit of skill and experience to design a PCB for them. It's quite easy to mess up in subtle ways which look like they should work, but actually ruin your signal to the point of being completely unusable.

If you're designing a board, not being able to look at its signals is a major limitation. Is something wrong with the transmitter, receiver, cable, connector, pcb, firmware, driver? Who knows! It doesn't work, and that's all you're going to get. Have fun randomly tweaking stuff in the hope that it is magically going to work.
by Workaccount2 | 2025-05-05 18:26:11+00:00
VectorDBs are not LLMs or SQL replacements and RAG is not data compression. Again this is just going to dwindle into semantics and where one draws boundaries. I can randomly remove bits from my HDD and call it compression. If you think humans are data compressors then I have no argument.

Can you get transformers to regurgitate information verbatim? Yes.

Would anyone in their right mind rely on a transformer to do so? No.

Would anyone in their right mind rely on a vectorDB to do so? No.

Would anyone in their right mind use a vectorDB/RAG/SQL/transformer combo to do so? Yes.

Is youtube going to drop VP9 for GeminiEncode to save google billions in bandwidth? No.