MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by PinkSheep | 2025-05-19 07:46:05+00:00
> the address of whoever has that wallet.

Good points overall, thank you. This one could be managed by wallet software that'd do its own account tracing in order to separate your histories by generating new addresses for incoming transfers.

> physically close to you could see that you're rich and decide to attack just on the chance

The wearers of premium watches or smartphones don't seem to be concerned for their safety. For an increased payout they could be followed to their home. I think https://xkcd.com/538/ strucks either way.

... I think this is a good counterargument: what's the difference between a wallet and a banking account when everyone today can issue a wire transfer from the comfort of their home. Instant payments and all that. It just adds an extra step of waiting a couple more minutes for the transaction to come through. I assume the money laundering step is figured out by the criminals doing this to you.
by Jarwain | 2025-05-19 07:46:22+00:00
Book is exactly what I was thinking of!

I think my only other question is around my preferred "Daily Journal" workflow and unreferenced tags

On one hand I feel some surprise that you're noting a distinction between metadata/tags for collections of notes vs collections of blocks. On the other hand, it's a bit of a peeve of mine that there's a distinction between "pages" and "blocks" in logseq when it comes to linking & referencing.
by ctchocula | 2025-05-19 07:47:15+00:00
What you're talking about sounds a lot like the post-scarcity world that Gene Roddenberry envisioned in the Star Trek universe, where everyone has enough to live on, so social status is attained by prestige and doing admirable things (i.e. working for Starfleet). However, there's a lot of work to be done getting from here to there.
by Aeyxen | 2025-05-19 07:48:00+00:00
Actually, I'll go a step further - in the long run, we probably won't need human forecasters at all.

The current human-in-the-loop model exists largely because our technology hasn't been good enough yet, not because there's something inherently special about human judgment in this context. Weather prediction is fundamentally a pattern recognition problem. Pattern analysis at scale is exactly what computers do better than us.

Perhaps someone could apply to YC with this idea. There is one YC startup doing this already: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/atmo
by brobdingnagians | 2025-05-19 07:49:19+00:00
I know this is probably a bit more advanced, but this suggestion reminds me of Blueprints w/ magic nodes in Unreal Engine. There is a plugin for Magic Nodes (https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/magic-nodes/121220) where you can enter C++ into a blueprint node that integrates into the blueprint system. Similar kind of UI could work well
by TheAceOfHearts | 2025-05-19 07:49:28+00:00
One of the things that isn't really mentioned here is that extreme wealth and power lets you bring your special interests to life even when they wouldn't be particularly practical or economically viable. For example: did you know there was a large community of animators in North Korea because it was a special interest of Kim Jong-Il [0]?

Another example is how inheritors of the Walton fortune helped build tons of biking infrastructure in an Arkansas City [1].

I wish more ultrarich people would compete on building thriving communities, instead of maximizing their own personal luxuries and walling themselves off from the world. Silicon Valley is a bit of a deranged version of this, where different companies create their own little kingdoms of community for employees, while the broader community ends up being rather dull and uninviting.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_animation

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/us/how-an-arkansas-city-b...
Notes Taking Along with Audio
by p0w3n3d | 2025-05-19 07:49:36+00:00
Hello, so my kids are attending Suzuki music school, which means that I am sitting behind them and taking notes. Meanwhile I need to record what's happening, because sometimes it's too hard to write it down.

Can you recommend any app (preferably android, but PC too) to help me show my kids the results of this note-taking along with references to the recording (at 3:45 teachers shows how to vibrate etc.)
by mellow_observer | 2025-05-19 07:49:50+00:00
If you spend some time working on Voynich yourself you'll find that it's actually fairly doable to come up with some translation where you can find a few words that seem to agree with each other. And when you allow yourself some permissions like unorthodox spellings or characters that can mean different things in different places, then it's not so hard to even be able to 'translate' a few seemingly reasonable sentences. This gives a lot of hope to the translator and any who follow them

So far none of these ideas have been shown to be applicable to the full text though. What you would expect with a real translation is that the further you get with your translation, the easier it becomes to translate more. But with the attempts so far is that we keep seeing that it becomes more and more difficult to pretend that other pages are just as translatable using the same scheme you came up initially. It eventually just dies a quiet death
by Helmut10001 | 2025-05-19 07:49:52+00:00
Most note-taking apps share the same fate: they either become obsolete over time (due to unsupported operating systems, security issues, or discontinued drivers) or end up locking you into a proprietary ecosystem.

My solution was to move to a file-based system — using plain folders, files, symlinks, and relative links. The filesystem is one of the most fundamental and enduring parts of computing infrastructure, which means I can rely on accessing my notes the same way 20+ years from now. It also allows me to plug in containerized tools for viewing or editing notes, without being tied to a specific app. Filesystem APIs are incredibly stable — basic commands like mkdir won’t suddenly be locked behind a subscription.

Plus, there are plenty of options for syncing and real-time collaboration, many of which are self-hostable and vendor-neutral.
by raphlinus | 2025-05-19 07:52:12+00:00
This is a longer and deeper conversation, but I think on topic for the original article, so I'll go into it a bit. The tl;dr is developer friction.

By all means if you're doing a game (or another app with similar build requirements), figure out a shader precompilation pipeline so you're able to compile down to the lowest portable IR for each target, and ship that in your app bundle. Slang is meant for that, and this pipeline will almost certainly contain other tools written in C++ or even without source available (DXC, the Apple shader compiler tools, etc).

There are two main use cases where we want different pieces of shaders to come from different sources of truth, and link them together downstream. One is integrating samplers for (vello_hybrid) sparse strip textures so those can be combined with user paint sources in the user's 2D or 3D app. The other is that we're trying to make the renderer more modular so we have separate libraries for color space conversion and image filters (blur etc). To get maximal performance, you don't want to write out the blur result to a full-resolution texture, but rather have a function that can sample from an intermediate result. See [1] for more context and discussion of that point.

Stitching together these separate pieces of shader is a major potential source of developer friction. There is a happy path in the Rust ecosystem, albeit with some compromises, which is to fully embrace WGSL as the source of truth. The pieces can be combined with string-pasting, though we're looking at WESL as a more systematic approach. With WGSL, you can either do all your shader compilation at runtime (using wgpu for native), or do a build.rs script invoking naga to precompile. See [2] for the main PR that implements the latter in vello_hybrid. In the former case, you can even have hot reloading of shaders; implemented in Vello main but not (yet) vello_hybrid.

To get the same quality of developer experience with Slang, you'd need an implementation in Rust. I think this would be a good thing for Slang.

I've consistently underestimated the importance of developer friction in the past. As a contrast, we're also doing a CPU-only version of Vello now, and it's absolutely night and day, both for development velocity and attracting users. I think it's possible the GPU world gets better, but at the moment it's quite painful. I personally believe doing a Rust implementation of the Slang compiler would be an important step in the right direction, and is worth funding. Whether the rest of the world agrees with me, we'll see.

[1]: https://xi.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/197075-vello/topic/...

[2]: https://github.com/linebender/vello/pull/1011
by melodyogonna | 2025-05-19 07:52:21+00:00
That is because the language is really just in alpha, not open-source yet, and not much useful for anything except GPU kernel programming.

In the future that will change, Modular is aiming to get it ready for open-source by Q4 2026. By then it'll have full Python interop, so you can use existing Python packages in Mojo. Unlike Rust/Julia, Mojo does not have to bootstrap a community and ecosystem from scratch.
by janmarsal | 2025-05-19 07:52:52+00:00
It's much easier to us the command line on unix-likes than on windows, but it's not really a necessity. I know linux users who say they never use the terminal because they don't want to, and they're doing just fine.

Have you guys even used linux in the recent years? Sure it's a bit janky sometimes but so is windows and only getting worse. You can get quite far with linux by using graphical package management apps only, and now with steam you can even install games as easily as on windows.

Linux is way easier and more intuitive to use even for a novice than windows. I don't get why people think windows is somehow easy to use.
by cyberax | 2025-05-19 07:54:16+00:00
Hah. It used to be that Microsoft products were sleek, fast, and just plain more convenient than Open Source products. E.g. OpenOffice vs MS Office.

And honestly, OS stuff still often sucks quite a bit.

It's just that MS software has degraded to the point of utter shittiness (see: Teams) that now it's just plain worse than their own software from 15 years ago.
by alex43578 | 2025-05-19 07:57:21+00:00
To the point about dollars, there very much is something the government can do about it: taxes.

If the government requires taxes to be paid in dollars, that sets a "floor" on the value of a dollar as a medium of exchange - for most people in the US living a "normal" life, you have to acquire some amount of dollars throughout the year, under penalty of jail/loss of property (property tax). Then, since you already have 300m+ consumers in a massive market using the currency, odds are you'll use it too.

The only way you'd truly render dollars worthless is through government action or malfeasance; the fictional scenario where every person on earth not only agrees dollars are worthless, but also agrees to forfeit all property in the US, all employment in the US, and interests in any US financial holdings is quite a few steps beyond the point where "the people just decide to rebuke the dollar's lack of backing".
by esskay | 2025-05-19 07:57:52+00:00
I long for the days of a note taking / personal "data store" system that isnt a pain in the arse to use. I really couldn't give a damn about apps i need to tweak like craxy or constantly maintain to work how I want. Obsidian is good but its just massive overkill for someone who just wants to wright stuff down and have it securely stored, and accessible anywhere anytime its needed.

The second someone says "oh just set up X server and add Y plugin and tweak Z settings" you've lost the whole point of the thing.
by sherr | 2025-05-19 07:58:57+00:00
I haven't visited the site in years but remember reading it every week back in the 90's, early 2000's. What I recall thinking was how it put th USA "freedoms" into sharp perspective compared to most of the rest of the world, including the UK (where I was). Some of the things he posted (the "eye-balling" secret sites, for instance) were things he'd be in jail for elsewhere. Or worse. Brave guy and it took some gumption.
by hamstergene | 2025-05-19 07:59:29+00:00
I think the question was pretty clearly worded:

> Title: What do insanely wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about?

> Text: I was just spending a second thinking of what insanely wealthy people buy, that the not insanely wealthy people aren't familiar with (as in they don't even know it's for sale)?

The comment just plain and straight doesn't answer the question being asked.

It's kinda amazing how much more it is upvoted than comments with relevant answers. Maybe because emotions from dreaming of what it's like being rich (that's what it actually goes about) are so strong, the interpretation of the question is getting bent towards experiencing them.
by melodyogonna | 2025-05-19 08:00:16+00:00
Obsidian is so useful to me, I don't mind paying for the sync to support Obsidian dev.

The notes being markdown is also very useful, I spend most of my time in a text editor, so I installed a Neovim plugin that works a bit like Obsidian [1]. So, for simple note-taking, I don't have to open Obsidian at all. It comes in useful when I need to use the massive collection of plugins, especially Excalidraw.

1. https://github.com/epwalsh/obsidian.nvim
by mkayokay | 2025-05-19 08:01:14+00:00
How are commands handled, that require user input? E.g. password for sudo in your example:

sshsync group web-servers "sudo systemctl restart nginx"

I like that you included a demo in the README, but it is too long for a gif, as I can't pause/rewind/forward. So splitting into multiple short gifs or converting into a video (if GitHub supports them) could improve the experience.
by refurb | 2025-05-19 08:01:20+00:00
It’s easy to determine what income would be if everyone made the same amount - average income, which is $72,000 per worker.

That includes everyone who filed a tax return from the kid working at McDonald’s to Warren Buffet.

Not sure what you’d call a comfortable life but a single mom making $72,000 per year would be struggling in many major cities.
by dontTREATonme | 2025-05-19 08:01:50+00:00
This is true for the general populace but not for the “important” or ultra wealthy. The VIPs will often get annual MRIs specifically to catch this sorta thing early, eg RBG, yes she eventually died from cancer but she had 6 separate cancers which all were detected early. Each time she was able to return to work after relatively short treatments. She was also old and at some point your body cannot fight anymore no matter how early you catch it.

In this case it truly appears like he/they(ie his family) knew a long time ago but either he didnt want to admit it or they didn’t want him to (which would force him to step down). So instead they hid it from the public and did what SJ did. Aka nothing.
by lazide | 2025-05-19 08:02:31+00:00
Over voltage protection is not provided by caps (generally), but MOV’s, Zenier Diodes, spark gaps, etc. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surge_protector].

Essentially, components that kick in when a voltage exceeds a certain limit to allow that excess voltage to shunt to ground instead of continue to build up in the circuit.

Similar devices in pneumatics or hydraulics are pressure relief valves [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relief_valve], and they provide similar functionality - giving a easier/lower resistance path for the high voltage/pressure, so delicate things downstream don’t fail.
Show HN: AI-Powered Food Label Verification Across the EU
by maxbauer | 2025-05-19 08:02:45+00:00
We are excited to announce the launch of IMERO Label Compliance, a streamlined solution that helps food producers and retailers ensure their product labels comply with EU regulations quickly and cost-effectively.

So, what is IMERO Label Compliance?

It is a digital platform that combines AI technology with expert validation to deliver legally compliant food labels across all EU countries. Users receive a certified label approval within 48 hours instead of weeks.

The process involves:

1. Upload: Submit your label design and specify the target countries and languages.

2. Pre-check: Our AI system will identify any potential issues and enable real-time collaboration with your designer.

3. Expert validation: A certified legal expert reviews the label and it is cross-checked by AI for maximum compliance and accuracy.

Why choose IMERO?

- Speed: Receive compliant label approvals within 48 hours. Cost-effective: Starting at just €89 per label and country, it's an affordable solution for businesses of all sizes.

- Comprehensive support: The platform includes tools for managing labels and collaborating with designers, validators, printers and other stakeholders.

We would be happy if you share it with your friends in the food & beverage sector:

https://www.imero.io/label-compliance

We welcome your feedback on our new product! :)
by lordnacho | 2025-05-19 08:03:37+00:00
> Didn't our parents also think our content was objectively inferior to theirs? I would personally agree with you but it may also be that we don't understand the new content well enough to properly value it.

I don't think there's any comparison. The parents could point at some mass production and decide it wasn't to their taste, but ultimately they lived in the same world. Our kids are watching amateur productions they find on YouTube. You can tell the production quality is lower from things like what the images look like, terrible planning, bad sound, and so on.
by sverhagen | 2025-05-19 08:05:02+00:00
Anyone can comment on this? Just reading this article, and not bothered by any relevant knowledge here, I'm scared that they're turning "harmless" wood into some sort of super product that is hard to break down later for recycling? Like how we did a nice job switching from Styrofoam to paper cups, except they now have a plastic liner that makes the paper hard or impossible to recycle? Or how I wonder what the city recycling is going to do with those "wooden" kitchen cabinets that I dropped off, that are completely covered in a plastic finish?
by Cthulhu_ | 2025-05-19 08:06:24+00:00
Does it rely on glues, epoxies, or other chemical processes?

It's kind of moot if the resulting product causes more emissions or is not reusable, bio-degradable or at the very least chemically inert, like steel is (citation needed).

If all of that isn't true, it's just aesthetics.

(most of what I know about this is from a video about making bamboo 'wood' products, which involves a lot of glue)
by collyw | 2025-05-19 08:07:07+00:00
I have downloaded 3 card decks for learning Spanish.

The main deck I use for verb conjugations expects me to use it for maybe half an hour per day or the list just build up (I have no idea if this is standard behaviour, but I don't seem to get the same build up on the other decks that I use less frequently).

While it end up being a bit of a chore some days, I appreciate that it does force me to use it every day, which is good for my discipline.
by paavope | 2025-05-19 08:07:07+00:00
I had pretty much the exact same experience with Game Maker too. In retrospect, feels like a very powerful pedagogical tool. Even when I wasn't really trying to "learn coding" but rather I just wanted to make some games, I ended up learning to code

The fact that _most_ things could be done with drag-and-drop, but for some features you had to drop down to scripting, served as a really nice and gentle stepping stone to writing code.
by pauletienney | 2025-05-19 08:07:11+00:00
As an illustration of it: I have been working for two years on a new national project for the french state. Le Référentiel National des Bâtiments (for National Buildings Registry) which aim at creating and distributing a id key to every building in the country.

The goal is to make databases about buildings much more interoperable.

One key aspect is to have a precise list of all buildings includings recent constructions and demolition. It gets interesting because we recognize nobody in the country has the perfect list of buildings so we radically open the data to let governement agencies, cities, companies, citizens write directly in the registry. Think OSM or Wikipédia but for an official dataset.

This approach is very experimental for the french state and we are encouraged to test it and disseminate our learnings in other state branches.
by fivestones | 2025-05-19 08:08:03+00:00
This looks amazing. I love your description

> …the FOSS lovechild of anki, duolingo, wikipedia, and MathAcadamy, with a more generalized surface area…

I haven’t read much in your blog and the answers are probably there, but what’s the current state? It looks like you’ve done a lot of work on it. Is it in a usable state at this point?
by alex43578 | 2025-05-19 08:09:51+00:00
I disagree. The changes a school would need to make to the school, the curriculum, and the faculty to switch from teaching accounting or gender studies to welding or HVAC would mean you'd be pasting an expensive University of Misc State logo and mascot onto a whole new enterprise, implicitly putting a premium on an educational path that's really all about ROI.
by fsloth | 2025-05-19 08:10:08+00:00
Geomagnetically induced currents generally become a problem over hundreds of kilometers. Long range electricity transmission lines are the main worry I believe and solar storm events have knocked off large grids occasionally.

I have no idea what the correlation is between particle flux (the metric reported here) and actual geomagnetic variation which induces the current (varying magnetic field causes voltage). Basically the charged particles zoom past earth, then loop back from the magnetotail towards the poles. The magnetohydrodynamics cause effects large enough to modulate the magnetic field on earths surface.

”We have this long conducting loop” is the issue. The Earth is one component of the loop.
by yathaid | 2025-05-19 08:10:11+00:00
> Obsidian charges $8 a month to access the same notes across multiple devices. While not a huge amount for such a useful app, it adds up to an eye-watering amount - almost $1,000 if I planned to use Obsidian for a decade.

This highlights one of my personal bugbears. People have a mental barrier when it comes to recurring, low-cost payments; even though the net sum is small in comparison to other things that they wouldn't think twice to pay for.

A $5 latte every workday comes to (260 * 5) $1300 annually. Obsidian sync is $96. Why would you not pay this amount for a tool you use everyday?
by ldunn | 2025-05-19 08:10:24+00:00
I agree that if you are freely falling and then you are suddenly not freely falling because you hit the surface of a planet and experienced a huge acceleration, you will notice. That doesn't have anything to do with anything I said, but it is undeniably true.

An event horizon is not like the surface of a planet - you will not be accelerated as you pass through it.

It is, once again, irrelevant that light cannot propagate outward once you're behind the horizon because, again, you are falling towards the center, and in particular you are falling through the future light cone of your feet. Please look at some spacetime diagrams if you do not believe me, preferably ones in Kruskal-Szekeres coordinates.

In GR spacetime is locally flat and for an inertial observer special relativity applies, up to tidal corrections which can be made arbitrarily small at the horizon by considering a suitably large black hole. This is a deep and important fact about GR. The idea that falling through the horizon causes you to suddenly not be able to see your feet anymore appears to obviously violate this basic principle, so if you think your assertion is true you should be able to explain why either this principle of GR is actually not true, or why your assertion does not actually violate this principle.