MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by AStonesThrow | 2025-06-05 17:46:43+00:00
rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu

It was actually the A.I. Lab at M.I.T. and they already had their own dedicated subdomain for it. This had to have been around 1990-91. And IIRC, the actual admins made a valiant effort to keep all the shell users away from "root" privileges, so it wasn't a total dumpster fire and the system stayed alive, mostly

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Computer_Science_and_Artif...
by AnthonyMouse | 2025-06-05 17:46:47+00:00
The general problem is the "democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner" thing. If you can get at least 51% of people to vote for "I've got mine" then you've created a system of injustice. Which is nominally why we use a republic rather than a direct democracy.

But those checks and balances have been eroded over time, or weren't strong enough to begin with, so then the majority e.g. votes to constrain new construction because they value their own short-term financial gain over the greater harm they're causing to the minority.

And then the same dynamic plays out for some other issue, but this time you're in the minority and you take -50 damage instead of a +10 gain. So the problem is that it's in everyone's interest to stop this from happening in general, but only in the minority's interest to do it on any particular issue, and democracy in and of itself isn't structured to handle that.
by tptacek | 2025-06-05 17:46:49+00:00
I like everything Matthew Garrett writes but I can't resist being annoying about this:

Signal has had forward secrecy forever, right? The modern practice of secure messaging was established by OTR (Borisov and Goldberg), which practically introduced the notions of "perfect forward secrecy" and repudiability (as opposed to non-repudiability) in the messaging security model. Signal was an evolution both of those ideas and of the engineering realization of those ideas (better cryptography, better code, better packaging).

What's so galling about this state of affairs is that people are launching new messaging systems that take us backwards, not just to "pre-Signal" levels, but to pre-modern levels; like, to 2001.
by vdupras | 2025-06-05 17:48:39+00:00
I don't think so. I'm not really concerned about whether Google's AI has an opinion about "Elon is Snowball". However, the answer I received is, I believe, the equivalent of "meaning not found". Out of all possible meanings for these 3 words, it couldn't find anything relevant. I'm just saying I'm surprised that despite its enormous corpus and inference capabilities, it couldn't do better.
by legacynl | 2025-06-05 17:49:02+00:00
that blog post isn't really convincing.

> Occasionally I notice a burst of traffic to Daring Fireball from Hacker News. It’s always short-lived, because for reasons I’ve never seen explained, Daring Fireball articles always get blacklisted from Hacker News once they hit their front page

It seems to me that he concludes that he's blacklisted because the traffic coming from Hacker News is short-lived?

> Daring Fireball articles seemed more or less appropriately popular there. Articles that I would think would resonate with the HN readership would hit, and get what always seemed to me an appropriate number of comments.

So this guy seems to think that he can predict what will be popular and what will not? I think he's burying the lede here, who cares about being blacklisted, this guy can tell the future !

Isn't it much more likely that his posts are just less popular, and drive less engagement than he hopes? Most people (even very smart people) are bad at meta-cognition, and are likely to fall in the trap of reasoning based on (hidden) assumptions.

If this guy actually has evidence of being blacklisted/botted I would be open to see it, but lack of engament isn't that.
by WalterBright | 2025-06-05 17:49:35+00:00
All the media reports about the MAX cannot be trusted. All the ones I've seen contained false information.

The first error was the claim that the MAX was "unstable". It just behaved differently due to the engine placement. I see this error all the time. And so on.

The errors in the MCAS design were not to save money. They were just sloppy engineering. There was nothing wrong with the MCAS concept. The proof is MCAS is still there, it just had its flaws corrected.

As for knowledgeable, I've talked with two 737 pilots. One told me it was pilot error and never would have happened to him. The other told me that his pilot buddies agreed with me but were afraid to speak up against the tidal wave of bad press. I also spent 3 years working on the 757 stab trim system, at one point I knew more about it than about anyone else. The 737 system is more primitive, but is easily understandable. (The 757 uses dual hydraulic motors driving a differential gearbox, the 737 has a single electric motor with manual drive for the backup. Both have a console mounted cutoff switch. Both have column thumb switches.)

> Boeing added MCAS so the MAX would handle similar to earlier 737 versions.

Which improves safety. This is never mentioned. (The 757 and 767, very different airplanes, were designed to fly similarly and have the same cockpits. It did save money on training because of that, saved money on production, and improved safety.)
by pombreda | 2025-06-05 17:50:15+00:00
That's actually the best explanation I have seen in a long time!

- in most cases, no guesses needed - you can use it in Cyclone, SPDX, and CSAF and still talk about the same package even if the format varies - CVE.org is considering it as an addition on the same footing as CPE - there a good bunch of databases that "speak" PURL, like Google OSV, Sonatype OSS Index, Deps.dev, and AboutCode's PurlDB and VulnerableCode (disclosure: I am a lead maintainer for AboutCode FOSS projects) - most scanners speak PURL too.

Note that same scanners and tools speak not exactly PURL but some "PURLish" dialect and we have a project to help streamline that and lift up the whole ecosystem of PURL users with https://nlnet.nl/project/purlvalidator/
by Ancapistani | 2025-06-05 17:50:31+00:00
If all cars had them, I think this would be a good idea. The biggest problem is that all cars won't have them, and it would be ~30 years before it even became noticeably rare to encounter a vehicle without them.

If you can't assume vehicles have front brake lights, the lack of an indicator has no direct meaning. If you see on one, great, that car is slowing down -- but without comprehensive deployment, you can't assume that no light means that the car isn't slowing.
by soulofmischief | 2025-06-05 17:50:58+00:00
> Your comment seems to disregard it

Because it's irrelevant.

> but if this was driven by a government, does Google really deserve all the blame?

Of course. If the government ordered Google to assist in a genocide against some demographic, and Google goes along with it, it doesn't matter if the government is also evil. Google is evil for playing ball.

And we don't have to speak in hypotheticals. Both Google and Amazon are actively engaging in tech-assisted genocide.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/23/what-is-project-nim...

I have boycotted Amazon for a while now and I'd boycott Google too if it wasn't so pervasive in my professional life.
by teitoklien | 2025-06-05 17:50:58+00:00
I don't know why you're getting downvoted when its very possibly true.

Just one month ago they found intentionally embedded Kill Switches in chinese provided solar panels [0][1].

Not even complex apps require capabilities of such self-modification, the fact that a DJI drone app, requires such capabilities, is quite suspicious especially as they are heavily involved in PLA Drone Warfare R&D and Capacity building.

[0](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/ghost-...)

[1](https://www.rickscott.senate.gov/2025/6/sens-rick-scott-mars...)
by exabrial | 2025-06-05 17:52:57+00:00
I hope someday where we get back to a simple HTML/CSS standard for "text" pages and that's it. No JavaScript, no DOM. This covers 70% of the web use cases.

"Everything else" would be a pluggable execution runtime that are distributed as browser plugins: [WASM Engine, JVM engine, SPIR-V Engine, BEAM Engine, etc] with SVG as the only display tech. The last thing we'd define is an interrupt and event model for system and user interactions.
by soulofmischief | 2025-06-05 17:53:04+00:00
To me it seems like fighting teen pregnancy by preaching abstinence. We should be teaching a higher baseline of computer literacy, and providing more secure systems that keep the user in control and in the know when it comes to their own device and the software running on it.

Attacking the problem by reducing user freedoms and increasingly monopolistic control is not the answer, even though Google's PR department would tell you otherwise.
by SAI_Peregrinus | 2025-06-05 17:55:10+00:00
> but technically I think it's signature algorithm (ecdsa) can be thought of as a hashing step, followed by a public-key based encryption step.

It really can't. If you're extremely drunk you can think of it as similar to hashing followed by a public-key based decryption step (signing uses the private key, as does decryption) but that's about as good an analogy as calling a tractor-trailer a container ship because both haul cargo. The actual elliptic-curve part of the operation isn't encryption or decryption, and thinking of it as such will lead to error.

RSA does have a simpler correspondence in that the fundamental modular multiplication operation is shared between decryption and signing (or between encryption and verification). But modular multiplication alone isn't secure, it's the "padding" that turns modular multiplication with a particularly-chosen modulus from some basic math into a secure encryption/signature system. And the padding differs, and the correspondence doesn't hold in real systems. RSA without padding is just sparkling multiplication.
by turkeygizzard | 2025-06-05 17:55:28+00:00
The Physiology of Climbing. I can mail you a free copy once I get back home this weekend - I’d love any feedback!

To be clear, I aimed to avoid prescribing certain routines through most of the book. I wanted to basically provide a knowledge foundation for readers to evaluate routines or create their own. So instead of saying eg you should campus board, I try to explain that power has to be trained separately from max strength if you care about increasing power
by WalterBright | 2025-06-05 17:55:30+00:00
I'm not so sure that was a myth. My dad drove long before power brakes. Women often had trouble executing a hard stop due to the pedal force required, along with the primitive brakes. He said the term "women drivers" came about because of the difficulty they had muscling the controls in emergency conditions. (Power steering, too.)

They also wanted to sell cars to little old ladies.
by diggan | 2025-06-05 17:55:34+00:00
> a software update could easily cripple its ability to run on your local machine

A software update collaborated on by Microsoft, Apple + countless of volunteer groups managing various other distributions?

The cat really is out of the bag. You could probably make it a death penalty in the whole world and some people would still use it secretly.

Once things like this run on consumer hardware, I think it's already too late to pull it down fully. You could regulate it though and probably have a better chance of limiting the damages, not sure an outright ban could even have the effect you want with a ban.
by JimDabell | 2025-06-05 17:55:57+00:00
As I’ve mentioned here before, sideloading is a genuine security concern, not merely an excuse for Apple to exert control. There is a never-ending stream of people losing their life savings. It happens on Android and not iOS because Android allows sideloading and iOS doesn’t. There is a very real human cost to this.

> Police warn new Android malware scam can factory reset phones; over S$10 million lost in first half of 2023

> There have been more than 750 cases of victims downloading the malware into their phones in the first half of 2023, with losses of at least S$10 million (US$7.3 million).

— https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/android-malware-sc...

> DBS, UOB become latest banks to restrict access if unverified apps are found on customers' phones

> They are the latest banks in Singapore to do so – after OCBC and Citibank – amid a spate of malware scams targeting users of Android devices.

— https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/dbs-uob-anti-scam-...

> 74-year-old man loses $70k after downloading third-party app to buy Peking duck

> “I couldn’t believe the news. I thought: Why am I so stupid? I was so angry at myself for being cheated of my life savings. My family is frustrated and I ended up quarrelling with my wife,” said Mr Loh, who has three children.

— https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/74-year-old-man-loses...

> Singapore Android users to be blocked from installing certain unverified apps as part of anti-scam trial

> "Based on our analysis of major fraud malware families that exploit these sensitive runtime permissions, we found that over 95 per cent of installations came from internet-sideloading sources," it added.

— https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/anduril-secures-305...

> CNA Explains: Are Android devices more prone to malware and how do you protect yourself from scams?

> Why are scammers more likely to target Android users? How do you spot a fake app and what should you do if your device is infected by malware?

— https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/android-malware-sc...

> Nearly 2,000 victims fell for Android malware scams, at least S$34.1 million lost in 2023

> In 2023, about 1,899 cases of Android malware scams were reported in Singapore. The average amount lost was about S$17,960.

— https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/android-malware-sc...

> Android users in Singapore tried to install unverified apps nearly 900,000 times in past 6 months

> These attempts were blocked by a security feature rolled out by Google six months ago as part of a trial to better protect users against malware scams, which led to at least S$34.1 million (US$25.8 million) in losses last year with about 1,900 cases reported.

— https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/android-users-inst...
by 3abiton | 2025-06-05 17:56:27+00:00
> I found all the previous Gemini models somewhat inferior even compared to Claude 3.7 Sonnet (and much worse than 4) as my coding assistants.

What are your usecases? Really not my experience, Claude disappoints in Data Science and complex ETL requests in python. O3 on the other hand really is phenomenal.
by mandevil | 2025-06-05 17:56:40+00:00
It is a bad example, but not for that reason. Instead, it's a bad example because Federal copyright law has a specific carve out for school educational purposes:

https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#110 "Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, the following are not infringements of copyright:

(1) performance or display of a work by instructors or pupils in the course of face-to-face teaching activities of a nonprofit educational institution, in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction, unless, in the case of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, the performance, or the display of individual images, is given by means of a copy that was not lawfully made under this title, and that the person responsible for the performance knew or had reason to believe was not lawfully made;"

That is why it is not a good comparison with the broader Fair Use Four Factors test (defined in section 107: https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107) because it doesn't need to even get to that analysis, it is exempted from copyright.
by diggan | 2025-06-05 17:57:03+00:00
> True, but the system only exists because it is currently economically viable.

The "system" isn't a thing, but more like running apps, some run on servers, other consumer hardware. And the parts that run on consumer hardware will be around even if 99% of the current hyped up ecosystem dies overnight, people won't suddenly stop trying to run these things locally.
by jfengel | 2025-06-05 17:57:30+00:00
The big number is in cell O70: Estimated revenues 2025-2034 down $3,764,990,000,000. That is the size of the tax breaks.

All of the other numbers pale in comparison. You can take $284 billion from Agriculture and $349 billion from Education and Workforce, and it's still dwarfed by the giant negative number. Even cutting a trillion dollars from Energy and Commerce doesn't cover the fact that on balance, this is a massive increase in the deficit and the debt -- while utterly destroying the ability of the government to provide any actual benefits for all of that spending.
by actinium226 | 2025-06-05 17:57:52+00:00
> Waymo was frequently mocked that they are heavily geofenced, and “it cannot drive anywhere”-mentality. I have to say that I was also a subscriber to this camp and it seemed like universal “no map”-approach was to go. I was cheering for Tesla Autopilot team.

I never thought this argument made much sense because that's not really how humans work. If you take someone who's an excellent driver in NYC and plop them in SF they'll need some time to learn the streets before they can be a really good driver in SF.

For sure they'll be able to navigate safely, but perhaps not well, and I don't want my robotaxi making a wrong turn onto a 1-way street or missing a turn.

Can a neural net be trained to drive well in NYC, SF, and elsewhere? Maybe, but why wait until it's perfect everywhere before starting somewhere?
by mousethatroared | 2025-06-05 17:58:30+00:00
> This all assumes that PI couldn't amend the rules or find other workarounds to its problems (as it had already done).

PI's rules were hierarchical. It only amended the interpretation of lower rules in conflict with higher ones.

PI is fundamentally unstable as evidenced that Lawerence has to babysit it and PI acknowledges this need by giving him special access with which to fix it.

And this is without getting at the unavoidable entropy problem - already PI was nipping away at the simulation detail of reality to conserve resources for an exponentially increasing population.

It was going to end.

> I don't trust their arguments, these were two extremely warped reactionaries who just happened to have root on the system. The story mentioned that there were people who just opted for pretty normal lives (before they were all exterminated by the protagonists). Nothing was preventing PI from deciding "this was a mistake, no more drugs and ultraviolence, it's making you into monsters" and calming things down.

That very decision is patronizing, therefore dehumanizing and instability inducing.

You see the paradox? For PI to save humans, to the Change parameter has to be > 1. The Death Matches lower it. But if what makes a human human, humanity, is curtailed - freedom - the parameter also drops.

Which is why PI reluctantly allows the death matches.

The book as a work of literature sucks; gratuitous violent sex poorly written. But the logic behind it is far better reasoned.
by soulofmischief | 2025-06-05 17:58:41+00:00
If you're incapable of recognizing the signs of an empire's collapse, slow as it may be initially, then you're trading a feeling of superiority in the present for being totally blindsided in the future when suddenly things accelerate and the world's governments begin to struggle under increasingly untenable energy and resource demands in the name of meeting quarterly growth quotas.

The fact is that the signs are there, whether you want to learn to recognize them or not. And the signs go way further back than... 2017.

Furthermore, "financial collapse" is a strawman. Who knows what will happen, and if the resulting government at the end is still technically "China". We're talking about increased economic strife and lack of resources for the common man.
by wiradikusuma | 2025-06-05 17:59:04+00:00
I have two issues with Gemini that I don't experience with Claude: 1. It RENAMES VARIABLE NAMES even in places where I don't tell it to change (I pass them just as context). and 2. Sometimes it's missing closing square brackets.

Sure I'm a lazy bum, I call the variable "json" instead of "jsonStringForX", but it's contextual (within a closure or function), and I appreciate the feedback, but it makes reviewing the changes difficult (too much noise).
by Ancapistani | 2025-06-05 17:59:16+00:00
Green is also the only color, to my knowledge, that isn't commonly restricted for accessory lighting. The laws governing strobes and sirens are written broadly enough that they cover any light that you could possibly make blink, even if you don't do o.

In most US states blue is for police and red is for fire. Some states let other vehicles, like tow trucks, use blue. Sometimes they'll use blue and red for police - but blue is always restricted to my knowledge.

Yellow/Orange/Amber is for "caution". Some states restrict that and some don't, but it has an understood meaning.

Purple signifies a hearse or funeral procession.

I learned about these laws in the early 2000s, when I was in my late teens and early twenties and wanting to drive a customize minitruck. It turned out that in my state, all colors of strobes and accessory underlighting were restricted... except green.

What's worse is that the law specifically includes a provision where possession is considered to be sufficient evidence of use. Technically it's illegal to buy a battery-powered toy with an LED strobe in it, if you drive home with it within reach of the driver.
by enragedcacti | 2025-06-05 17:59:38+00:00
It absolutely does take away from other models. Most automotive brands have a 50-60% loyalty rate and all sorts of general brand appeal/features that span models. Someone who wants an HR-V but can't get one is massively more likely to buy a Civic or CR-V than the average person. If the Model 3 didn't exist, most of those buyers would get a Y because they want the software, the supercharging, the range, the brand name, etc.

Having a large lineup is good for customer satisfaction and for attracting customers on the fence, but it definitely hurts you on this one very specific, mostly meaningless metric.
by valine | 2025-06-05 18:00:02+00:00
Embedding models are not always trained with the rest of the model. That’s the whole idea behind VLLMs. First layer embeddings are so interchangeable you can literally feed in the output of other models using linear projection layers.

And like the other commenter said, you can absolutely feed single tokens through the model. Your point doesn’t make any sense though regardless. How about priming the model with “You’re a helpful assistant” just like everyone else does.
by fazlerocks | 2025-06-05 18:00:06+00:00
Honestly X is still pretty good for this if you follow the right people. The AI/ML research community is super active there - Andrej Karpathy, François Chollet, Yann LeCun, etc. Plus a lot of the good startups announce stuff there first.

For more traditional dev stuff, I've been getting good signal from newsletters like Changelog, TLDR, and Morning Brew's tech section. Not as real-time as the old blog days but decent curation.

Reddit's r/MachineLearning and r/programming can be hit or miss but sometimes catch things early. GitHub trending is also underrated for spotting new tools.