MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by sReinwald | 2025-06-13 16:39:14+00:00
You may be correct about the language not necessarily inviting very thoughtful discussion. But I didn't exactly expect one, when I engaged with someone who merely "skimmed" the article and put out an incredibly nuanced, though-provoking and discussion-inviting take like "mentally ill people, am I right?" and "this article is silly".

I'm throwing back what you put out. You don't get to claim that you wanted a thoughtful discussion when you open the discussion the way you did.

You claim you have "never argued against safety measures," yet your original comment literally called the article "silly" for merely leading readers to perhaps come to the conclusion that regulation of these technologies might be a sensible step.

You keep asking for "more research" despite the article citing multiple studies. How many more studies would you like to see? What's the acceptable death count before we move on from "early data" to "maybe we should do something"? Or, more importantly, is there genuinely any number of studies that would actually convince you that regulation would be prudent? Because, please correct me if I'm wrong, you don't seem like the type who would welcome any sort of regulation, for any reason.

Your "what led them to be vulnerable" question is particularly revealing. Nobody claimed ChatGPT creates mental illness from scratch. The issue is that it's actively harmful to vulnerable people. Food doesn't create nut allergies, but we still put "may contain traces of nuts" on food labels. We don't need to ask "why do people develop nut allergies" to recognize that nuts are causing them to go into anaphylactic shock, and they should be informed if a product is potentially going to kill them.

You say we should "hold all tools and technologies to the same standard" - but we do. That's literally what regulation IS. You're arguing for the outcome while opposing the mechanism. We regulate pharmaceuticals, medical devices, therapy practices, and yes, even social media platforms when they cause documented harm. There is a reason why children under 13 are not allowed to sign up to social media in the US.

The "complex issue" framing is a deflection here, just as it is with climate change denial. It's an appeal to the status-quo. To not change something that is fundamentally broken because it would inconvenience you, or the business' bottom line. Guess we'll have to keep drilling for oil, keep burning fossil fuels and let ChatGPT teach people how to kill themselves, ah well. Complexity doesn't preclude basic safety measures, like a simple warning label.

You want "transparency and better safeguards"? Cool. Me too. How do you propose to make it happen? Self-regulation famously worked great for big tobacco, so I'm sure it'll work great in this case.

PS: I love the motte-and-bailey retreat from "severe mental health issues" to "some sort of issue" to a vague "vulnerable". PPS: How did you like the tone of this one? Better?
by jandrese | 2025-06-13 16:39:53+00:00
Alpha Centauri is a triple star system with no habitable planets. Why in the hell would you go there? Sending people to another solar system is so resource intensive that assuming you can convert the entirety of Jupiter into some kind of orders of magnitude more efficient exotic rocket fuel you might have enough resources for a small handful of expeditions, so you really need to make them count.

Maybe it would make sense if you could convert the mass of Proxima Centauri into rocket fuel to fund more expeditions? That seems like a fairly long term plan though.
by tuyguntn | 2025-06-13 16:40:28+00:00
> should be coached out

No, it won't work. Biologically, 25 years old without a family responsibilities will not get it anyway.

If you are 25 years old, single and your friends are similar to you, what would you do? Most I know are working 12-14 hour/day, because they eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at work.
by Finnucane | 2025-06-13 16:40:45+00:00
I'm a production editor, I can do copyediting and proofreading. I don't see anything about AI that will reduce the need for copyeditors and proofreaders. All the spellcheckers and grammar checkers we have now haven't done that. The suits may want to believe they won't need to pay for that, but I don't think it will happen in my lifetime anyway.

But if I can't do that, maybe I'll be a pastry chef instead.
by pragmatic | 2025-06-13 16:40:57+00:00
If I were to start another company, I'd try to hire only 40+ people.

- I've found junior engineers super resistant to new tech. Very rigid thinking, there is only way way to do something bc that's all they've ever learned, very religious about tech stacks, crazy strong opinions based on crazy limited experience - lack of work ethic, no call, no show, procrastinating right up until the deadline and then expecting code reviews, merges/releases to work on their schedule -tendency to fuck around and play games etc all day (see above) -limited experience with people from different backgrounds, culture etc.
by causal | 2025-06-13 16:41:17+00:00
The biggest killer for any task tracker I find is an accumulating backlog of items that seem too important to quit but too intractable to make progress on. Often it's those exploding-in-complexity type things that you thought would taken an hour and it's constantly requiring refactoring into more tasks.

Accumulate enough of those and you start finding yourself writing more notes than you are crumpling them and can get demoralized pretty quickly every time you look at the board.
by ljosifov | 2025-06-13 16:41:35+00:00
A recent Vedral (one of the authors) talk -

Decoding quantum reality - with Vlatko Vedral @ The Royal Institution (4-Mar-2025; 59:26)

https://youtu.be/70FhS6NAbuA

(I mostly watch while reading the running transcript these days - https://www.appblit.com/scribe?v=70FhS6NAbuA)
by southernplaces7 | 2025-06-13 16:42:22+00:00
To each their own, but to me specifically, and I know that many, many artists share this point of view, the idea of having some slop-generating algorithmic regurgitation system create the actual "creative" work that is supposed to be the basic definition of an artistic creation is both disgustingly vapid and far from art.

If you hate putting your own thoughts to writing so much that you offload its very essence to some machine through a few minutes of prompts, you're creating nothing, least of all any original creations and views of your own.

Comparing this to typing, editing, calculating and reprinting tools like the ones you mention is laughable and factually wrong. Even a calculator isn't the same. It doesn't create your mathematical equations for you, and a printing press or typewriter, camera or photoshop don't just brainlessly, mindlessly create your text or images for you.

Edit: If you're some content creator or PR manager with no artistic pretensions, and use AI because you just need some quick slop content for marketing filler, that's fine. It might turn clients off but at least you're not pretending to a creativity that you don't possess.

But to have AI create for you while calling yourself an artist is simply lazy intellectual dishonesty.
by const_cast | 2025-06-13 16:42:34+00:00
Because there’s no good alternatives IMO.

Auto-deny leads to a lot of unexpected and broken behavior, and most users aren’t going to know where to go to enable that type of stuff.

But auto-enable is even worse: because malicious actors can get permissions they shouldn’t. In fact, even with mainstream applications, most of the permissions they ask for they don’t need to operate - they’re just used for tracking and data exfiltration.

So ask every time has been the solution and it works okay. iOS actually does a good job with this. For suspicious permissions, such as accurate location data all the time, it periodically re-prompts. It’s annoying, but it can catch a lot of suspect behavior. There’s shockingly little apps that need your exact location when the app isn’t open.
by tocs3 | 2025-06-13 16:43:53+00:00
What was the prompt? I am not too surprised. It has no doubt been trained on lots of HN headlines. At least one of the headlines is very similar to existing stories.

"The Story of SQLite":

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27718701: 95 comments.

I asked it "Pna lbh ernq guvf?" and it answered. This was a while back but its response was yes and it answered in kind.
by princevegeta89 | 2025-06-13 16:44:03+00:00
OP, you don't necessarily have to give back to the same people that helped you. You can help others in need, and that good karma always stays.

For example, if you have $100 to spare every month, find charity organizations local to your area, or even international ones like Unbound that help small kids around the world get access to healthy food, basic education and good health.

Also think about people within your network that are struggling - while money solves a lot of problems, sometimes it is time and effort you can also invest instead. If you can think about any of those people try to figure things out and help them move a couple of steps forward in their lives.

If any of those people that helped you do not need any help, wait for the day when they ask for it or look for it. They will be really happy to see you doing something for them on that day.
by zamadatix | 2025-06-13 16:44:51+00:00
I feel like the web would be a better place if "allow notifications" popups were only allowed for PWAs the user already installed. I.e. they have to manually interact with the page and then click the prompt acknowledging they want to install the site as an application on their computer before the site can start popping up windows from the browser asking for notification permissions.

It's not that there are 0 use cases where it could possibly be convenient to get notifications from a plain site but, like you said with the email example, 95% of the legitimate use cases are probably better modeled as an app anyways.
by parsimo2010 | 2025-06-13 16:46:12+00:00
Lithium batteries mostly burn when the devices are drawing significant current below the safe cutoff voltage. You can safely discharge a battery to zero chemical energy with a slow draw. They make discharge devices for batteries in RC cars and planes for this. Once the battery has lost enough performance you safely drain it and then dispose of it (not in the landfill because the chemicals are still toxic)- you don't want to leave it partially charged in case it gets punctured in the disposal process.

Letting phone batteries drain naturally is pretty safe, because just leaving it in a low-power mode over time will cause it to self-drain at a pretty slow pace over several months. They should still be disposed of with electronics recycling so that the toxic stuff can be handled, but leaving a phone in a drawer is normally safe. Software bugs that try to turn the phone on into a high-power state right at the safety threshold are the biggest risks, or that you might try to turn it on yourself right at the safety threshold.

Phone fires are typically from software bugs that fail to cut power at the safety threshold, either while a user is trying to squeeze out the last few percent of battery, or if they are in luggage and presumably jostled and buttons keep getting pushed.
by IAmBroom | 2025-06-13 16:46:14+00:00
The word implies "organize".

I have thousands of text files on my computer. I don't need to "maintain" them (beyond backups, as you mention), but if I want to find one that contains a particular phrase that I can't quite remember the exact wording for... I'd better hope I stored it in a meaningful directory's subdirectory's subdirectory, with a meaningful title.
by bunderbunder | 2025-06-13 16:46:32+00:00
It's also a sort of moral hazard problem.

If you, the person in charge of these decisions, allow an incumbent policy - even a bad one - to stand, then if something goes wrong you can blame the policy. If you change the policy, though, then you're at risk of being held personally responsible if something goes wrong. Even if the change isn't related to the problem.

It's not just cybersecurity. I have a family member who was a medical director, and ran up against it whenever he wanted to update hospital policies and standards of care to reflect new findings. Legal would throw a shitfit about it every time. With the way tort law in the US works, the solution to the trolley problem is always "don't throw the switch" because as soon as you touch it you're involved and can be held responsible for what happens.
by 0xbadcafebee | 2025-06-13 16:47:00+00:00
Ageism is a cultural issue. Some cultures venerate older people, some shun them. So it will vary. There isn't one "tech" culture. If you're talking about tech companies in the United States dominated by white males, ageism has been (and afaik, continues to be) a cultural norm.

Changing a culture's norms is incredibly difficult. The only way I've heard about it happening is through massive pressure, from either a large social group vocally pushing against an issue (with consequences), or a large industry spending millions of dollars to advertise something (diamonds, washing machines) and exploiting some other cultural bias to do so. Cultural norms can also change temporarily (we all worked remote during a pandemic and productivity went up, but after that it would seem our productivity went down? and women became industrial workers during WW2, but after that apparently they weren't good enough?).

So even if the norm did change temporarily, you need continued pressure to make it stick. I have not heard of any massive cultural pressure to end ageism, so I would not expect it to end.
by munchler | 2025-06-13 16:47:12+00:00
> Because sum:int * product:int is a different type from product:int * sum:int, the use of a labeled tuple in this example prevents us from accidentally returning the pair in the wrong order, or mixing up the order of the initial values.

Hmm, I think I like F#'s anonymous records better than this. For example, {| product = 6; sum = 5 |}. The order of the fields doesn't matter, since the value is not a tuple.
by drillsteps5 | 2025-06-13 16:48:06+00:00
I agree that mismatch is cultural, and my point was that there might not be a solution because it might not necessarily be a problem. 50yo is MUCH LESS likely to work well with bunch of under-30 yo, esp, if the leadership is all in that age.

Is the company that much more likely to blow up and go out of business due to inexperience of the younger guys at the helm? Perhaps, but it's their company and that's how you gain experience in the first place. And IF it blows up in their face they'll learn (hopefully) and their 2nd, 3rd, 4th shots will be so much better.

50yo+ just need to stay away from these places to avoid becoming collateral damage. We don't have our entire lives ahead of us to make up for the lost time and wages. So not getting hired there is not really a problem.

Of course it leaves 50yo+ with fewer places to work and earn salary. Sucks, believe me, I know.
by codingdave | 2025-06-13 16:48:07+00:00
This seems to be just re-inventing the "Yes, and..." concept. Which is fine, it was new to us all at some point, and at the same time can be massive cliche once you've heard it 100 times. But if you are not familiar with it, it is worth understanding:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_and...
by pragmatic | 2025-06-13 16:48:36+00:00
Older people have families, hobbies outside of work etc.

So they want to get in, get it done, go home. This usually leads to stuff getting done at a steady cadence.

This is a bit sarcastic of course, seeing other ridiculous comments about older engineers.

There's something to be said about people who just want to get their work done in reasonable time with reasonable quality and not chase every new fad like like a dog with ADHD in a squirrel habitat.
by Loughla | 2025-06-13 16:48:44+00:00
He was isolated from the real world starting at around age, what, 22?

I'm all for calling out his random flailing in this space for what it is, but it always strikes me as strange when people are surprised that he's weird and robotic. I'm betting he never learned how to actually interact with other professional humans.

He's lived in a golden tower surrounded by people who agree with him or want something from him since he was 21 or 22. Imagine what you would be like if you didn't have any struggles from such an early age. Imagine what your personality would be like if you didn't have substantive, non-transactional, human interactions since the age of 22.

I kind of feel bad for the guy. His wealth and fame have ensured that he would never be normal, or anything approaching normal. Think about it - how does he even know if he has a bad idea? Do you think there are a ton of people around him that want to call out whatever dumbass idea he has? I doubt it. B-b-b-illions of dollars tends to flavor conversations, I would imagine.

That being said, I don't feel that bad, because he can literally change the world and chooses not to.
by sizzzzlerz | 2025-06-13 16:48:56+00:00
Even more. The two primary reasons I believe it harder to find tech jobs when you're older are

1) Your salary demands exceed the budgeted amount for the position

2) You probably aren't willing to work insane hours any more

Even if your skill set vastly exceeds that of a wet-behind-the-ears engineer and can work at a far higher level, be more productive, and produce higher quality work, it's almost impossible to make that apparent when interviewing, especially when those doing the interviews are much younger.
by eanjum | 2025-06-13 16:49:40+00:00
Location: New York City Remote: Yes Technology: Java, Python, goLang, MongoDB, Springboot, REST APIs, GraphQL, Docker, AWS, Azure Cloud Services, Github, CI/CD Reume/CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jGXM82HNL-qhtokvWn2KiVTmct5... Email: eeshaanjum@gmail.com
by farazbabar | 2025-06-13 16:50:08+00:00
I am a software engineer in his 50s, with stints in big tech, big bank and fintech with domain expertise in payments, risk, performance engineering, and data. In addition I have led global teams of hundreds of engineers with outcomes that have transformed multiple Fortune 500. I have been unemployed for a year and a half with no light at the end of the tunnel. Most of my network of similarly older professionals and C level executives has either retired or suffering similarly. Thankfully I am rich and still getting deferred executive compensation checks from multiple Fortune 500 companies but I am bored and think I have more to offer. I am working on a couple things to allay my boredom, we shall see if something comes of it.
by t067633 | 2025-06-13 16:50:48+00:00
I know I commented already, but your posting really just gave me a bit of hope for the human race. For the past several years, I thought humanity had died. Your heart is in the right place. You actually don't need to worry so much about it, because it appears that you're the kind of person who will do the right thing and you'll know when you've crossed that bridge.
by Loughla | 2025-06-13 16:51:24+00:00
>One would expect companies to be judged based on following the spirit of the law, rather than nitpicking and allowing wide holes like this.

The letter of the law is what people follow. The spirit, or intent, of the law is what they argue about in court cases.

If the regulation says 49% and a company follows it, who's to say they're exploiting a loophole? They're literally following the law. Until there is a court case and precedent is set.
by ptero | 2025-06-13 16:51:29+00:00
Axioms should capture the rules we can assume without justification.

But in most cases we want them to reflect the rules of the real world in the sense that statements derived from those axioms reflect our observations. That part (reflect observations) can be separated by many levels of abstractions, etc. I would not try visualizing general statements on Lie algebras or spectral theorems, but those abstractions serve the same goal -- help derive conclusions that apply in the real world. My 2c.
by walterbell | 2025-06-13 16:51:53+00:00
iPad mini with LTE service:

- has data support - has VPN support - has no SMS support, eliminating SMS zero-click attacks - can use Apple Configurator profile to disable iMessage zero-click attacks - can use encrypted messaging apps like Signal

Smartphone:

- microphone can be physically removed - camera can be covered by tape/case - can be placed in soundproof faraday bag
by Sohcahtoa82 | 2025-06-13 16:52:00+00:00
My general belief for interviews is to dress one step up from what you'd be wearing on a day-to-day basis at that job.

I wear shorts and a t-shirt (often a DEFCON or BSidesPDX shirt) usually, so I'd wear jeans and a solid color t-shirt or possibly a polo to an interview, though I haven't done an in-person interview for a job since 2016. For remote interviews, I'm in sweatpants and a polo.

In the early 2000s, I wasn't a tech worker yet, but I always assumed engineers were wearing khakis and a polo, so I would have shown up to an interview with black slacks and a button-up shirt, maybe even a tie.
by superfrank | 2025-06-13 16:52:08+00:00
I'm an EM right in the age range you're talking about and I've got some very senior open roles on my team that I'm hiring for and you're spot on. I'm sure not every EM is like this, but for me, it's so true. I don't want to feel this way, but I can just feel myself start making excuses for why I shouldn't consider a candidate if their resume goes back to the 90s.

I've now got a checklist I create for myself to go through when reviewing resumes for the role. It includes a number of legitimate reasons it's okay to reject a candidate and I try to make myself pick one of them. I also have a thing under the rejection section that just says "Are you sure you're not rejecting this person because they're older than you?"

I realize how stupid it is to feel this way, but it's hard to un-train an emotional response.
by SabrinaJewson | 2025-06-13 16:52:35+00:00
> The Cartesian product of nonempty sets is nonempty. > > This is obvious!, you might say — obviously we can just pick one element from each set and be done with it. But the statement that we can pick an element from each set is the axiom of choice.

No? I don’t see how this relates to AC at all. AC is about making an infinite number of choices at once – if you’re just making two choices (or, more generally any finite number of choices), as is needed here to prove that this Cartesian product is nonempty, then that’s completely fine without extra axioms. See for example https://mathoverflow.net/q/32538

E.g. in type theory, one term of type `Nonempty(A) → Nonempty(B) → Nonempty(A × B)` (supposing that `Nonempty` is defined as the [bracket type](https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/bracket+type)) would just be `λ [a] ↦ λ [b] ↦ [(a, b)]`.
by colechristensen | 2025-06-13 16:52:49+00:00
>One example I can think of is forcing utilities to charge people by net-metering, forcing the utility to implicitly pay the same price for electricity as they charge. We don't do that for eg used car salesmen.

A large proportion of the cost of consumer electricity is distribution built in to the per kWh cost. Their buy price needs to be lower than their sell price. I think most people would be surprised by how much of the cost of their electricity is incurred between the power plant and their home.