MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Laptop Recommendations (FreeBSD / OpenBSD)
by rootnod3 | 2025-05-16 18:04:37+00:00
I went down a long road: for a while I used NixOS on my machines, still used it for my servers and at some point down the road, I switched to the M-series MacBooks for the battery life.

But, I want to customize and have more control over my personal machines again.

As much as I love Framework, they are not available in Japan yet. So for now, I might be looking at Thinkpads again. The goal is to run FreeBSD or OpenBSD (no full preference on either at the moment).

Are there any community recommendations on what to get for that in 2025? Workload is gonna be some SSHing/server management, some Lisp hacking, browsing, light coding.
by sam36 | 2025-05-16 18:04:59+00:00
> The threat actor appears to have obtained this information by paying multiple contractors or employees working in support roles outside the United States

yea that is what they get. Hope this hurts them bad.

At my last job for a "casual dating" app, all new account verification stuff was sent to some shop in the Philippines. I got involved with troubleshooting some random DB locks that were causing down time. Ended up discovering that this firm tried to automate the verification process with some scripts or something that would sometimes go haywire and send over 100 requests per second to the new account admin portal which would bring down the entire site. Management just asked them nicely to be more careful which brought the peaks down to 80 requests per second which the back end seemed to be able to cope with (just barely). They couldn't careless that there were supposed to be humans looking at this data and they were clearly trying to automate that part out. Even worse, once I started looking at the data that was in the portal, it was credit card name and billing addresses, and DL license or passport scans. Before I could really further fix the performance issue, I was laid off. Then a few months later they did another lay off which cleaned out every american employee. This was an american company that had ~150 american employees and now there are none. Just two execs at the top that get to watch the money roll in while they farm out everything to overseas. Really pisses me off bad >:(
by gus_massa | 2025-05-16 18:06:03+00:00
IIRC, [a long time ago?] you MUST give a piece of paper to a guy/gal near the exit, so they remember to mark your exit in the database. I don't think they check too much, just collect the pieces of papers? (I don't remember the details, but if there was a scary warning if you forget to give it and they forget to update the database.)
by orwin | 2025-05-16 18:06:22+00:00
Sorry if i implied anything, i must have missed part of the conversation, i was just confirming that did happen (taking the portugese residency to avoid crypto tax) a few years ago. In my opinion, police should protect even violent criminals from violence when possible, so of course i'm not advocating for anything to happen on tax "avoiders", and they should be protected. I was just stating that i know people in the crypto space, and if you are, i immediately peg you as a small-time sociopath from my past experience.

Also i don't care about them getting judged for tax evasion, i know they won't be and honestly, good for them. I also don't care for nonviolent thieves and think the same thing about them. Profiteering was not how i was raised, but i understand different people have different standards (and parents, luckily mine are great, it's not the case for everybody). People do what they need to do, i found some comportment sociopathic, but as long as it is nonviolent, i'm not mad.
by _gpvn | 2025-05-16 18:06:25+00:00
Hello! I do have concerns relating to the U.S. so I will put my questions out there. I know somebody who is a U.S. citizen, however they are originally from Perú. They have official citizenship meaning they went through the whole process and gotten those documents.

Are they at risk of losing their citizenship and being deported with the current administration's standing on immigration?
by ichiwells | 2025-05-16 18:06:57+00:00
Thank you so much for sharing this!

We are using ruby to build a powerful AI toolset in the construction space, and we love how simple all of the SaaS parts are and not reinventing the wheel, but the ruby LLM SDK ecosystem is a bit lagging, so we've written a lot of our own low-level tools.

(btw we are also hiring rubyists https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43865448)
by runako | 2025-05-16 18:07:05+00:00
As far as I know, they are sharing a single work tree. So I suppose that could get messy by default.

That said, it might be possible to tell each agent to create a branch and do work there? I haven't tried that.

I haven't seen anything about Zed using containers, but again you might be able to tell each agent to use some container tooling you have in place since it can run commands if you give it permission.
by EvanAnderson | 2025-05-16 18:07:37+00:00
> ...you master the machine. Now, increasingly, the machines will master you...

Today I bump into limitations of machines that were put there by manufacturers who are trying to assert ownership of the device after the purchase. In the "before times" limitations were either a fact of the hardware (i.e. you only have so much RAM, storage, CPU cycles, etc) or of your own ability (you don't know how to crack the protection, defeat the anti-debug tricks, etc). Today you're waging a nearly unwinnable battle against architectures of control baked-in to the hardware at a level below a level that the average end user has any hope of usurping.

The machine isn't trying to master me. The people who made the machine are. I wish people in the tech industry wouldn't be party to taking away computing freedom. It pays well, though, and they can console themselves with "It's not a computer, it's a phone"-type delusions (at least until the day "the man" comes for their PCs).
by xp84 | 2025-05-16 18:07:45+00:00
Hi, I just spent 2 months interviewing and hiring candidates for 4 open (remote) eng positions at a US startup. Answering "Yes" to 1 when you don't have a green card or US citizenship would be a way to guarantee that I would rescind your offer and make a mental note to never trust you. I don't think you should do that.

We actually hired some Canadian talent -- we just used an EOR in Canada. The EOR cost us about $600 a month per head as their cut, but it was worth it to get the excellent developers we have through that deal.

The reason why some/many firms would filter out anyone saying NO to (1) is that getting a visa sponsored requires significant work of a specialized nature and our company certainly is not equipped to do that because we don't have people who have the time and skills to deal with the insane demands of our government to obtain the necessary document (This is not a new or partisan issue btw, I remember losing a great developer in the Obama years due to the feds giving her the run-around).
by culebron21 | 2025-05-16 18:07:55+00:00
Russian speakers can produce the same, basically its cognate, папабельный (papabelniy), using the borrowed suffix -bel- (same as -bile), and Russian suffix -n- (passive voice maybe), plus the ending.

Examlpe of pure Russian word: смотрибельный (smotribelniy) = watcheable. Root smotr- (Slavic root, "to watch") + suffix -bel-, + -n- + gender ending.

I bet the German -bar suffix and Latin -bil- are cognates.
by lukaszkorecki | 2025-05-16 18:08:06+00:00
It's doable but you need a lot, and I mean a lot of documentation proving that you are indeed an alien with extraordinary ability. Any press mentions of you and your company, articles, proof that you're working with known companies in the US and more evidence like that will increase your chance.

In fact I worked with Peter on obtaining an O1 while not having a degree, I was a CTO of a startup, moving from the UK.
by Animats | 2025-05-16 18:08:07+00:00
Less open to the elements now.[1] The lorries now ride Eurotunnel in cars with a solid roof and steel truss sides. The roof is to prevent projecting objects such as antennas from contacting the overhead power line (that's happened) and the open sides are to allow fire extinguishing (that's happened, more than once.)

Such are the practical problems of a "rolling highway" Eurotunnel has had to solve.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8r0kjJvvIY
by Zenbit_UX | 2025-05-16 18:08:09+00:00
When it comes to Canadians working in the US on a TN, are we allowed to accept promotions (title, comp or both) without going through reapproval of our visa? Are there any nuances here like caps on how high a salary increase could be before needing a reassessment? Maybe increases in equity don’t count?

Also if the reassessment is denied does your original visa still remain valid or are you risking it all for the promotion?
by raffraffraff | 2025-05-16 18:08:37+00:00
Most of the time, Python's biggest issue isn't performance, it's the nightmare of trying to distribute it. If you want to merely run a python program you need to be educated in "python DevOps", or you'll get people gasping and saying "FFS, why don't you just create an env and activate it and pip install to it then make your own flipping shortcut to a script that activates that env and runs your code, you moron, Jeeeeeesus."
by hollerith | 2025-05-16 18:08:47+00:00
No. The endgame of most people who are pro-DEI is to smash or dismantle structures of oppression. The more ideological fraction views every matter of public policy through that lens. Too much crime? Let's not get hung up on dis-incentivizing crime or separating chronic criminals from society, particularly if doing so would harm an oppressed group. The proper response to crime is to dismantle the structures of oppression, after which the crime problem will probably take care of itself because people are basically good. If some group is committing a lot of crimes, it is probably a reaction to having been oppressed. Or so the ideologues believe. Dismantling oppression is also the best long-term solution to every other social problem, and probably the only lasting or sustainable solution.
by steveklabnik | 2025-05-16 18:08:49+00:00
Yep! Some interesting things in here:

`io fn`, there were three effects: io, state, and unsafe. There was also pure, for functions with no effect.

chan for channels. <| was a "semi-synchronous message send," it blocked if the queue was full.

square brackets for generics

int was two's compliment signed integer with machine dependent size

log for printing to the screen
by whstl | 2025-05-16 18:09:21+00:00
> The fact that a text box can temporarily hold some text in it doesn't make it stateful

And this is exactly what 90% of SPAs are doing, including the example in the article of doing a GET and then a POST request.

> The frontend code has a state and the backend code has a state, both of which may be different at any given time.

Same for a plain-HTML form.
by williamdclt | 2025-05-16 18:09:35+00:00
> the traditional route of building up a where clause with a bunch of if-statements where it's very hard to understand what the final where clause might look like without print(statement).

Seems similar on this front? You also need to print the final SQL to understand what the query looks like, what conditions have been dropped etc.

What you write still isn’t the sql that’s actually executed, it’s some sort of template.

In general I find that the right approach is to avoid the conditional clauses altogether: instead of repository methods with many options, make several dedicated repository methods. You repeat a good amount of sql, but it’s so much simpler, easier to understand what’s happening, closer to the use-case, easier to optimise…
by johnea | 2025-05-16 18:10:08+00:00
You haven't read the book, and apparently think modern LLM tech invented the word "transformer".

And based on that, you try to prevent other people from commenting on the post.

So, when's your Emily Latella mea culpa?

I actually found the subject of this book interesting, but the book review lacking. I was looking here in hopes of finding more info about the subject, or links with more detail about the book.

Instead, what I find is another example of brand identity cancel culture.

If you don't have interest (or knowledge) in something, maybe just try ignoring it, and let people who do have interest (and/or knowledge) comment on it...
by lanyard-textile | 2025-05-16 18:10:40+00:00
Ex-googler here. Yeesh :)

Not surprised to find this little nugget of googleyness: One of the experiments starts by internally asking Google designers for an opinion about their intents for a design, and basing further research off their answers.

https://m3.material.io/blog/testing-material-3

> We started by interviewing Google designers to ask what interfaces are intended to accomplish, and users to understand what they actually accomplish. One thing we learned from this process was how much apps use visual cues to communicate important information.

I get what they’re going for and they almost made a helpful feedback loop — but they involved their own noise in the research process, and that’s why we got something like this. It was doomed from the start.

Wonder how many Googlers were involved in the other 45 studies.

Also — if you’re age 65+ don’t worry about responding to a Google survey, your opinion about whether you favor an Expressive UI won’t make it to the final graph. :P
by ryangg | 2025-05-16 18:10:57+00:00
Just this week I tried giving this another chance to debug some weird CI failures for ruby tests. I’m on M-series macs so there is an inherent platform mismatch. That coupled with us using depot images as action runners. I was never able to get it running past the dry-run stage. There is just a lot of differences between CI runners and my local docker images. I even gave the image from catthehacker a try. Which is like >15GB. It still wouldn’t run. Finally gave up.
by pydry | 2025-05-16 18:11:10+00:00
Plenty (in not most) legal cases hinge upon non specifically defined terms hence lot of lawyering is not "this is definitely legal/illegal" but "what's the risk of this going wrong if we face a jury?"

Companies take tens of thousands of legal risks every day and they single out particular risks over others to try and indemnify themselves because they think that risk is serious.

Theyre not going to admit that theyre worried that the company is evil enough to qualify under a reasonable person's interpretation but thats what theyre thinking.

It's the same with your employment contract. The level of nasty bullshit they put in there ("lawyers made us!") is probably the most accurate meter of how horrible (or not) the company will be towards you as an employer.
by Ancapistani | 2025-05-16 18:11:21+00:00
I have both, and don't see that changing. The Vision Pro just isn't as portable as the iPad Pro.

My current iPad is an 11" 3rd-gen iPad Pro. I bought it in January 2019. I got Apple's keyboard case for it - I don't recall the exact name of that one, but it's the one that has a trackpad and holds the device magnetically. I've carried that thing with me everywhere I've gone for the past 5 1/2 years. The keyboard case is beginning to delaminate on the edges now, but I expect it'll last me another year or two before I upgrade, and even then I'll pass this one down to a family member.

My Vision Pro, on the other hand... I carry it in a dedicated case that's about the size of a shoebox. To use it, I have to remove it from the case, remove the battery from its compartment, plug it in, put it on, wait for it to boot up, log in via eye scan, and only then get the home screen. But wait! I still don't have internet access unless I'm somewhere I've connected to WiFi before. Now I have to connect to my iPhone or iPad to get online.

The point I'm trying to make is simple: they are very different devices, and serve very different niches. I see almost no overlap.

I'd be far more apt to get rid of my iPhone than my iPad. The only reasons I have a phone at all these days are because I use it to fly a couple of drones and that Apple seems to assume that you have an iPhone for much of their ecosystem. I can't set up my kid's Apple Watch from an iPad or Vision Pro.
by mzs | 2025-05-16 18:11:29+00:00
% gunzip -c arXiv-2412.17866v1.tar.gz | tar xOf - main.tex | grep '\bI have\b' To summarize, I have established three facts. First, AI substantially increases the average rate of materials discovery. Second, it disproportionately benefits researchers with high initial productivity. Third, this heterogeneity is driven almost entirely by differences in judgment. To understand the mechanisms behind these results, I investigate the dynamics of human-AI collaboration in science. \item Compared to other methods I have used, the AI tool generates potential materials that are more likely to possess desirable properties. \item The AI tool generates potential materials with physical structures that are more distinct than those produced by other methods I have used. % gunzip -c arXiv-2412.17866v1.tar.gz | tar xOf - main.tex | grep '\b I \b' | wc 25 1858 12791 %
by nluken | 2025-05-16 18:11:38+00:00
I think there's a disconnect between what you and the person you're replying to are defining as "tinkering". Your conception of it seems more focused on the end product when, to use your analogy, the original comment seems unconcerned with the size of castles.

If you derive enjoyment from actually assembling the castle, you lose out on that by using the wand that makes it happen instantly. Sure wand's castles may be larger, but you don't put a Lego castle together for the finished product.
by bmcahren | 2025-05-16 18:12:29+00:00
Counter-point A: AI coding assistance tools are rapidly advancing at a clip that is inarguably faster than humans.

Counter-point B: AI does not get tired, does not need space, does not need catering to their experience. AI is fine being interrupted and redirected. AI is fine spending two days on something that gets overwritten and thrown away (no morale loss).
by PathOfEclipse | 2025-05-16 18:12:29+00:00
> For example, starting with .NET 6 there is a pure C# threadpool implementation that acts differently under problematic scenarios.

We're seeing this issue entirely in .NET core. We started on .NET 6, are currently on .NET 8, and will likely migrate to 10 soon after it is released. It's again worth mentioning that you provide zero evidence that .NET 6 solves this problem in any way. Although, as we will see below, it seems like you don't even understand the problem!

> I'm certain you're basing this off of your personal experience from more than a decade ago of some forsaken codebase written in an especially sloppy way.

No, I'm referring to code written recently, at the job I work at now, at which I've been involved in discussions about, and implementations of, workarounds for the issue.

> Moreover, there isn't a single mention that the real way to get into actual deadlock situation is when dealing with applications enriched with synchronization context.

100% false. This deadlock issue has nothing to do with synchronization contexts. Please actually read the 2020 article I linked as it explains the issue much better.

> Pathetic attempt at strawman.

I realize responding to this is to just fight pettiness with more pettiness, but I can't resist. You should probably look up the definition of a strawman argument since you are using the word incorrectly.
by WorldMaker | 2025-05-16 18:12:38+00:00
Checking out the recommendations, out of curiosity, my first things that I notice:

- Mantine doesn't use Tailwind. It's overly React specific for many of its components that don't really need to be React components but could be Vanilla or Web Components, but it doesn't seem to be anything like the Tailwind approach.

- Daisy seems really funny to me because it seems the long way around to be a Vanilla CSS framework while still being too much Tailwind.

- (ShadCN is definitely the worst of both above things, utterly React-specific and taking the long way around from Tailwind back to things that resemble Vanilla CSS, only with extra React for React's sake)
by proberts | 2025-05-16 18:13:00+00:00
Without knowing all the facts, the delay probably is simply the result in the backlog in that green card category. Is your spouse eligible to become a U.S. citizen because this could speed up the process for you. Again without knowing all the facts, regarding travel, you are fine to travel; just carry your passport, advance parole, and marriage certificate (in your back pocket).
by rbanffy | 2025-05-16 18:13:03+00:00
These days laptops and customization don't walk well together - a lot of them are coming with memory soldered in the name of being thin and cheap.

Not running BSD, but Linux, but I guess the same applies - I try to get the most boring laptop possible, from either Dell or Lenovo. My advice is to go for laptops designed for corporate use - they won't get creative with GPUs and other usual sources of pain and distress. Going for new-ish but not bleeding edge CPUs is also wise, as it is going with integrated GPUs (those have a lot more exposure to developers). While some new chips (such as AMD's Strix Halo) have good support, YMMV).
by fucalost | 2025-05-16 18:13:16+00:00
For what it’s worth, I recently travelled to the US from the Middle East (into Houston) and was also concerned about this.

My solution was to delete apps I didn’t want to be searched (e.g. WhatsApp) after having made a cloud backup, then enabling airplane mode.

CBP’s website [1] states:

> Prior to beginning a basic or advanced search, CBP Officers will ensure all data and network connections are disabled

And no, I wasn’t searched (thankfully!)

[1] https://www.cbp.gov/travel/cbp-search-authority/border-searc...
by pier25 | 2025-05-16 18:13:25+00:00
Right but my question is rather if there's a big enough market to eg make something like the Bigscreen Beyond 2 much more affordable or the Pimax Crystal Light much lighter.

I'm not into VR stuff and it still seems like an extremely niche thing. I have friends who are into VR but they have spent way too much money into it considering a driving chair, steering wheel, pedals, high spec PC, etc.
by cmrdporcupine | 2025-05-16 18:13:37+00:00
And I think the use of spaces between pieces of nouns in English has more to do with the fact that -- in comparison to German -- the pronounciation is so unpredictable from the spelling that not having the visual indicator between pieces could leave you completely lost -- "what word is this?" Whereas German has very regular and consistent rules of pronounciation that map closely to spellings, so once habituated you can scan it from the page and spit it out more reliably.

Still, having grown up with English as my first language and (partially) learned German as a young man, learning German gave me more appreciation for English. Which only grew once I studied a bit of Anglo-Saxon. I love our language, there's just something about its character.

A spelling reform would be nice (though entirely impractical) though.
by yndoendo | 2025-05-16 18:13:37+00:00
NetGuard has the same inherent flaw that Android forces onto a solution. From their own FAQ:

(2) Can I use another VPN application while using NetGuard

If the VPN application is using the VPN service, then no, because NetGuard needs to use this service. Android allows only one application at a time to use this service.

* My understanding this that OS layer has the ability to circumvent Firewall that uses the VPN work-around.
by danans | 2025-05-16 18:13:49+00:00
What's interesting about Papua New Guinea's linguistic diversity is how it correlates with its topography. Sometimes steep mountain ranges have effectively separated peoples from each-other for thousands of years, to the point that their languages sometimes became mutually unintelligible even if they were only separated by a very small distance. This phenomenon also occurs in other parts of the world (the Caucuses, the Himalayas), but TTBOMK nowhere else to the degree of Papua New Guinea.