MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by dredmorbius | 2025-05-08 14:40:44+00:00
The benefit we're talking about here is food. Served in school lunchrooms. To students who are enrolled at that school. How exactly do you see this being abused?

People can only eat so much at a single sitting. Even highly-active, sports-team-member, teenaged boys. (I used to be one.) There are no massive opportunities for skimming or graft in the lunch line itself.

What could go wrong?

A child who's not otherwise likely to be in school decides to attend because they get fed. Win!

A child whose family are capable of affording a full-cost lunch free-ride. So what, that's a small fraction of total meals, make it up in taxes! (As I've discussed previously in this thread: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43895455>.)

Complaints about free meals are like complaining about penny-ante voter fraud. The big opportunities aren't in showing up to polling places, as that's simply too expensive (in direct, physical-space costs). Voter fraud as a viable tactic occurs through unwarranted voter-roll purges, by disinformation about voting times and places, very rarely through corruption of counting processes (voting machines, election judges, and the like). But not by having people showing up to vote multiple times.

Sure, there's opportunity for fraud in school lunch programmes, but it's not transacted through stomachs. It's lunchroom staff skimming the till, it's vendor fraud, it's political corruption, it's kickbacks and sweetheart deals.

All of which are in fact real fraud.

But they are not identified or mitigated through means testing. Rather you want forensic audits, oversight, management practices, and law-enforcement investigating and prosecuting actual political corruption.

The kids eat either way.
by bee_rider | 2025-05-08 14:41:05+00:00
Personally I’m skeptical of nuclear power given how much easier it is to incrementally add renewable capacity (sure, intermittence is a problem, but I think we can deal with it by being cleverer).

But anyway, if anybody (other than the government, which gave up long ago) can pay the upfront costs of nuclear, it is the big tech companies like Google.

> […] Google has set 2030 goals to reach net zero emissions across its operations and value chain, […]

Man, I remember when 2030 seemed like the future. But now it seems downright aggressive. Good luck Google.
by yubblegum | 2025-05-08 14:41:49+00:00
"services: - name: my-service # This is your service url: 'http://my-service.myco/' # For service listening on 0.0.0.0:80 friends: true

friends: - name: alice # This is your laptop ip: fd1f:2cd5:6feb:7aa7:d674:1b3c:c82c:dfc"

May I suggest r/friend/peer. This is not motivated by pedantry. Relational semantics that are not closed over by the domain of user-agent (in the broadest sense) should not be used in the infrastructure layer. My laptop's server is a user-agent of mine as is the instance running on my phone; they are peers.

Applications built on top of this substrate will be (generally) concerned with social relationships of users and 'friend' et al. will be of use in those layers.
by mousethatroared | 2025-05-08 14:42:09+00:00
Let's agree that the service should be subsidized. Let's establish that Im amenable to a free service 100% tax payer.

I am, in fact amenable to this.

How do you establish fairness though?

Best case scenario, say in the US ex-NYC, you will always have 20-40% of people needing to ride their cars because the tails of the distribution are prohibitively expensive.

Nor are these people necessarily wealthy - the economically wealthiest class of people are urban dinks.

So how to do you establish fairness to this 20-40% of people subsidizing the others?
by smoe | 2025-05-08 14:42:32+00:00
Ableton Live digital audio workstation, is a good example in my opinion. As with many professional tools, there is a steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes very productive. There are many nested collapsible sections, so you can choose to have an all-at-once view or focus on fewer elements.

Here is a blog post talking about the different ui elements http://nenadmilosevic.co/ableton-live-redesign/
by catkitcourt | 2025-05-08 14:42:45+00:00
A Linux distribution is free to define its own security policy, which serves as a common understanding between developers and users.

And not all packages require auditing. The primary concern here lies with D-Bus services. Many D-Bus services need to run as root while allowing non-root users to access them. This enables users to perform tasks such as mounting or unmounting block devices without relying on SUID or sudo.

Such services are often referred to as "security boundaries", because they help isolate different privilege levels. Thus, security of those service is vital, especially in enterprise-oriented distributions.
by bpodgursky | 2025-05-08 14:43:00+00:00
Every compute company knows that power shortage is a looming crisis. They don't have nuclear expertise in-house and are desperately looking for somewhere to put their money that seems to have experience and capability

This is a good thing, but will be fruitless unless the US NRC modernizes in parallel with the industry to actually approve a new reactor in less than geologic time.
by lesuorac | 2025-05-08 14:43:00+00:00
Eh, I'm pretty sure there's a big framing problem here.

1) We should expect that the share of income paid by the top to increase as GDP increases. As GDP / Capita increases the amount of people moving into a higher taxed bracket increases so the overall revenue increases.

2) The period with a higher tax rate also has a drastic decrease in Debt to GDP [1]. It seems prudent to cargo-cult your policies after ones that historically worked.

3) Instead of taxing the rich, they're borrowing money from the rich which further exacerbates the deficit.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_national_debt#/...
by layer8 | 2025-05-08 14:43:29+00:00
Java having an explicit ”interface” construct is one thing I didn’t like about it, because it muddles the notion of a class implicitly having an interface (a notion that clearly exists in C and C++, by way of header files if nothing else) with that construct, while on the other hand there is no a-priori reason to have a distinction between Java’s interfaces and pure abstract classes. Both specify an interface to be implemented. And Java 8+ muddles its concept further by allowing default methods and static members.

The important thing is to distinguish between interface and implementation, and that is relevant to any class, whether it implements a separately defined interface or not.
by anton-c | 2025-05-08 14:43:35+00:00
Idk why they have to make it so weird. My 2.1 setup just has the sub get the full signal and the built in filter takes care of it. Id been reading about how 'perfect' the atmos to stereo conversion is... what an odd issue to run into to throw a wrench in that(or just use it as a consumer). I guess theatres really need that LFE channel.
by 0dayz | 2025-05-08 14:43:44+00:00
Ironic your name is "strawman" when you constructed one.

And this has nothing to do whenever the tech is good or bad, this is literally about how "untraceable" tech will make it easier for criminals to turn the supporters into helpless victims.

Since the irony is with your absolutist argument that it goes the other way too, if we have a proper surveillance state for instance there would be clear and obvious benefits to this; however this doesn't mean that these benefits outweighs the negatives far from it, hence why a lot of the tech that are raising concerns is being discussed and tested out to see how far we can create a better world while not forsaking said tech.

The question about crypto isn't can it keep the feds from auditing it, it's whenever or not it's worth having an anonymous currency given all the implications, risks and general problematic aspect of it outweighs the benefits of it.

So far it seems that people have moved away from crypto due to that reason, and instead it's mostly seen as a speculative market.
by dredmorbius | 2025-05-08 14:43:46+00:00
As much as I'm in favour of such programmes, they are in fact social welfare and part of the social welfare state.

It's not absolute public ownership of all means of production. But within the continuum between reactionary caveat emptor lessez faire private absolutism and fully automated luxury gay space communism, it's a nudge or two toward the latter.

And an unarguable good, I hasten to add.
by chromy | 2025-05-08 14:43:59+00:00
I think intuitiveness and density are orthogonal properties (although often both desirable).

Regarding Blender specifically:

Do you have a background in 3D modeling?

I am genuinely curious.

I don't come from an digital art background and I bounced off Blenders UI several times but after doing a tutorial or two now I find I can use it for simple things. I have always wondered how much it was 3D modeling in general vs. Blender specifically.

In a similar case I have used both Inkscape and Illustrator as an amateur and, much as I love open source, there is no comparison. Illustrator was significantly easier to use and worked better.
by abraxas | 2025-05-08 14:44:06+00:00
I'd say the OLD Bank of Nova Scotia page is a good example. There are a lot of details and almost everything is a hyperlink but it's quite easy to navigate once you've used it a few times. The new UI they are trying to publish is the opposite of that and being resisted by long term customers. Currently both are in use. I'm sorry but can't put a screenshot without risking leaks of my personal info. here are a couple of screenshots I found on public pages:

https://d33v4339jhl8k0.cloudfront.net/docs/assets/5be07d872c...

https://www.scotiaitrade.com/content/dam/slf/images/HowToAcc...
by LosAlamosNerd | 2025-05-08 14:44:09+00:00
I'm in the process of building a solar powered Meshastic BBS running TC2|BBS on Femtofox/foxbuntu.

I'm surprised the article doesn't mention the Femtofox board.

My use case is emergency preparedness communications, but I'm still pondering the implications of an off grid low bandwith communcations network.

What do you think the future of meshtastic+bbs is?
by mrob | 2025-05-08 14:44:20+00:00
Galaxian was released in 1979 and features a smooth scrolling background and non-flickering sprites, all at 60 FPS. It's especially notable because it was the first game to use dedicated tiles + sprites graphics hardware, which would become the standard for arcade and console hardware and the main reason why those games looked different from computer games. The earlier Space Invaders (1978) had the CPU draw to a computer-style frame buffer with minimal hardware acceleration (only a barrel shifter to speed up horizontal movement). This was too slow to update all the aliens at 60 FPS so they would only speed up as the number remaining decreased (which worked out well from a gameplay point of view, but the original reason was a technical limitation).
by wing-_-nuts | 2025-05-08 14:44:57+00:00
If you can't see how what I said was relevant, perhaps you should work on your reading comprehension. At least half of Americans do care about the climate and the other half would gladly buy small trucks (for example) if those were available.

It's lazy to dunk on America as a whole, go look at the list of countries that have met their climate commitments and you'll see it's a pretty small list. Germany reopening coal production was not on my bingo card.
by lippihom | 2025-05-08 14:46:19+00:00
A note about hay fever - not sure how bad yours is but mine was debilitating (hated leave the house during spring). The last two years I've been doing immunotherapy shots in the winter and this year my allergies are almost completely gone. It's been an unbelievable quality of life change. Would highly recommend if you have insurance that covers it (tho looking back now, I'd also gladly pay out of pocket).
by kalleboo | 2025-05-08 14:46:26+00:00
> I don’t know if a pill reminder app rises to the level of importance where a critical alert is needed

Doesn't that depend a lot on the types of pills a person takes and their mental needs?

> If it’s time to take their atorvastatin I don’t give a shit their phone better stay shut the hell up.

I have it on good authority that some people's phones even make sounds when they get something as trivial as a phone call
by npteljes | 2025-05-08 14:46:36+00:00
>why we need sunscreen these days

It's not about foliage, it's because we like to look as young as possible - or put another way, as undamaged as possible. Sunscreen adds to that a lot, because it mitigates sun damage. At a given age, people used to look much older than we do now, and that is partly because of less sun exposure.
by PeterStuer | 2025-05-08 14:47:02+00:00
Honestly, for 'emergency' things a taxi service is a good complement. Busses are good at regular routes between frequent routes/hubs, not for 'I need point to point immediatly now'.

The goal should be more to cover peoples normal transit needs. So plenty of routes with stops very near most people's homes and destinations, and a high enough frequency at most hours of the day and night to not cause too much waiting frustration.
by alwa | 2025-05-08 14:47:10+00:00
Part of its pleasure is the way it reduces an intrinsically dense catalog of parts to such a consistent and sensibly-structured interface.

Even though it’s never failed to connect me with precisely the part I’m seeking, to this day their interface spooks me a little: where are they hiding the endless walls of text and part numbers, the kaleidoscopic wall of bins?!
by cj | 2025-05-08 14:47:21+00:00
I'm not sure how anyone accidentally fell into the smart TV trap, honestly.

From day 1, all smart TVs had horrible latency when it comes to navigating through menus and screens. I'm glad for that, because it stopped me from ever buying one in the first place!

Maybe it's the people that show up at best buy without doing any research and just buy the most expensive TV not realizing it's a crappy smart TV. Who knows. Do your research!
Show HN: Achilles – Automatic profiling and C++ optimization of Python via LLMs
by achennupati | 2025-05-08 14:47:26+00:00
Hey HN! We built Achilles, a tool that automatically accelerates your Python code. It identifies performance bottlenecks, rewrites those functions in optimized C++, and seamlessly patches them into your running program—without you changing a single line of code.

In CPU-intensive, loop-heavy tasks, we've observed performance improvements of 100-1000x.

Achilles can be installed via pip and works with just a single command.

We'd appreciate your feedback, and feel free to give us a star if you find it interesting!
by zahlman | 2025-05-08 14:47:34+00:00
The problem with the question as originally asked is not the difficulty or "obscurity".

The problem is complexity and scope.

We don't debug code for others. We expect them to find the specific part of the code that is causing a problem and showcase a minimal reproducible example. For performance issues, we expect them to profile code and isolate bottlenecks - and then they can ask a hard, obscure question about the bottleneck. Or a very easy one, as long as it's something that could make sense to ask after putting in the effort.

In short: we're looking for a question, not a problem. Stack Overflow "can't be bothered to grace itself with" hard niche problems, or with easy common problems. But it is about answering the question that results from an analysis of a problem. Whether that's understanding the exact semantics of argument passing, or just wanting to know how to concatenate lists.

And we're looking for one question at a time. If there are multiple issues in a piece of code, they need to be isolated and asked about separately. If the task clearly breaks down into a series of steps in one obvious way, then you need to figure out which of those steps is actually causing a problem first, and ask about whichever steps separately. (Or better yet, find the existing Q&A.)

(Questions seeking to figure out an algorithm are usually okay, but usually better asked on e.g. cs.stackexchange.com. And usually, an algorithm worth asking about isn't just "do X, then do Y, then do Z".)

Stack Overflow is full of highly competent people who are yearning for questions that demand their specific expertise - recently, not just in the 2010s.

Most questions I've asked since 2020 were deliberate hooks to deal with common beginner-level issues or close FAQs that didn't already have a clear duplicate target. (I've stopped contributing new Q&A, but still occasionally help out with curation tasks like editing.) But I asked https://stackoverflow.com/questions/75677825 because I actually wanted an answer, and it's an instructive example here.

Answering it required detailed expert-level knowledge of modern CPU architectures and reverse engineering of the Python implementation. Asking it required noticing a performance issue, then putting extensive effort into simplifying the examples as much as possible and diagnosing the exact qualities of the input that degrade performance - as well as ruling out other simple explanations and citing the existing Q&A about those.

But demonstrating it requires nothing more than a few invocations of the `timeit` standard library module.
by K0balt | 2025-05-08 14:47:38+00:00
I think the key feature of AI driven exploitation of cognitive flaws for the purpose of influencing people is the ability to remove any trace of hesitation or empathy from the process. Ai can adhere to the letter of ethical behaviour but remain blind to the the human consequences of manipulating a society into believing untruths and basing their resource choices on these lies about worth, beauty, desire, safety, or prosperity. This enables the zuckstrocity to turn up the cognitive dissonance up to eleven without creating an internal army of dissension and whistleblowers.
by colinlm | 2025-05-08 14:47:43+00:00
To be fair, starting with the Apple IIe, the $C019 softswitch is a good, light way of syncing to VBL. Doing it with the mouse IRQ has an advantage when one requires a mouse, though: it works the same way on the whole line of Apple II computers, starting with the II+.

Without the mouse IRQ, if one wants to support the whole line of Apple II computers, one has to vapor lock on the II+, remember that the IIgs's $C019 high bit means the inverse than the IIe, and the //c requires more trickery around it. (cf https://github.com/cc65/cc65/blob/master/libsrc/apple2/waitv...)
by rsynnott | 2025-05-08 14:48:20+00:00
> Then there's the diesel cost. A large bus must get ~ 10 mpg highway, but a city bus is all stop and go - disastrous for a vehicle as massive as a bus. Let's say it gets 4 mpg.

Increasingly, most buses would be either electric, or heavy hybrid (ie electric with a diesel generator).

But also, consider the money they take in. My local bus system's buses take up to 100 people. The charge is 2 euro for a journey where the last leg starts within 90 minutes of the first leg, on any mode of transport. However in practice the average journey would be in the 30 min range. So if the buses are constantly full, that's 400 euro per hour takings!

Of course, it's not really that high; the buses are not always full, some people are using monthly or annual tickets, which are cheaper, some people are kids or over 65 or otherwise get cheap or free travel, the trains and trams also have to be paid for, and so on. But it's sufficient that they were actually able to cut the price (it used to be up to 3.50 for a single bus journey); the increased use from the cheaper simpler system offset the reduction in revenue per journey.
by wink | 2025-05-08 14:48:49+00:00
We tried the included "converter" or whatever they called it on a work project and it only generated garbage.

A coworker from another team said they just started fresh and reformatted their project, but I hate the idea.

IMHO moving from one linter/formatter to another without like 90% ease of keeping your config/style is just a bad idea. Then I'll continue living with prettier and eslint...
by mcfriendsy | 2025-05-08 14:48:49+00:00
Hi everyone,

I started this project some months back called ExWrap with the goal of turning any application written in any programming language into an executable.

It works for MacOS, Windows, and Linux with support for cross-generation (i.e. you can generate a Windows executable on Linux).

I haven't worked on it for a while, but it's usable.

I'm looking for suggestions, ideas, corrections, and generally contributions. A reason to revisit the project.

It uses a pre-built launcher for the platform. During packaging, a config file is generated to tell the launcher how to launch the app based on the user's configuration.

For MacOS app bundles, the prebuilt launcher is the primary target of the bundle declared in the plist file while for Windows and Linux, the generated executable acts as a self-extracting archive that launches the app post extraction. On Windows and Linux, the extracted app can also be run directly if the extraction path is added to system path.

So basically on Linux and Windows, it also acts as an installer.

It's actually configurable and allows pre-installation and post-installation configuration that can run any command or script to do the installation of dependencies. You can also cleverly add the dependencies as part of the packaged data. This is very useful for packaging static libraries along with the executable.

If you were generating for OSX from Windows for example, all you need is to download the OSX libraries and point to it from your configuration. I believe there's room for more improvement.

All feedbacks and suggestions are welcomed.
by mbreese | 2025-05-08 14:49:08+00:00
I've been trying out Windsurf for the past two weeks with VS Code and I find it (and Copilot) very helpful, but also very annoying. Occasionally, the windsurf command overlays (explain, accept, etc...) will get stuck and make it impossible to see the code until I restart VS Code. But the biggest problem that I have is with automatic auto-complete. With both Windsurf and copilot, I have trouble figuring out when / if an autocompleted function or line of code will be accepted or generated. I'm still trying to figure out a good way to integrate my coding style with the tools, but I'm still trying because the work has been impressive thus far.

I'm now also trying the same with with Claude-code, which has been pretty useful too. It managed to figure out and explain a fairly technical code base (a few DNA processing algorithms). I haven't tried with with code I'm unfamiliar with yet.

So, my verdict so far: well worth the effort to try it and learn what's available. It's not that expensive to try. If it can help automate somethings (documentation and tests, for example), that's what I'm really hoping to use the AI assistants for. It works for actual coding too, but I still prefer to provide the main foundation.
Tired of messy thoughts? Try my AI voice note app
by brike | 2025-05-08 14:49:09+00:00
Hey! I'm building an AI voice journal app to clear your head to make your life faster!

I often think faster than I type, and traditional note-taking slows me down. So I'm working on Voice Notes — a lightweight journaling app powered by AI:

- Open the app → hit record → speak your mind - It transcribes & summarizes your notes (digest + action points) - All entries are saved in a clean, timeline-style feed

It’s still in early beta, but already part of my daily workflow.

I’m looking for early users! If you’re into journaling, productivity, or just want to try a new way to think out loud, I’d love your feedback:

1. Would you use something like this? 2. What would you expect from an AI voice journaling app like this? 3. How would you imagine using something like this in your life?

Join the beta here → https://voicenotes.framer.website/