MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by cyberax | 2025-06-06 00:24:39+00:00
One critical problem for me: no support for raw metrics.

Sometimes, you just want to export ALL of your metrics to the server and let it deal with histograms, aggregation, etc.

Another annoyance is the API, you can't just put "metrics.AddMeasurement('my_metric', 11)", you have to create a `Meter` (which also requires a library name), and then use it.
by hn_acc1 | 2025-06-06 00:27:33+00:00
I didn't get it either, but now I'm just sad that it's come to this, where we have to replace 5 characters with 9 just to seem "cool". Sure, it's 2 syllables instead of 4, but then we REALLY should have avoided using www as the prefix for the web. It's not like we talk about surfing "the WWW" - and even saying the 3 letters is WAY longer than saying "World Wide Web".

It's great in german - 3 syllables for 3 letters, but english/french, it's NINE syllables for 3 letters. I always thought it should have been web.domain.org.
by mastazi | 2025-06-06 00:30:49+00:00
I can see your argument in relation to minimizing waste and the fact that many low-price items should not exist because they are not sustainable.

But I'm confused by the first part of your comment because first you said

> It's still mostly junk.

But then you go on to say

> do you really want to spend time returning a $5 junk purchase? For most people the answer is no. This is just the stuff that was returned or didn't sell

so basically you're saying that the stuff in the bins is not garbage after all if I understand correctly?
by bobwaycott | 2025-06-06 00:30:58+00:00
Yeah. I was there and this demo was a jolt. More so was the phrasing we were witnessing the end of our punchcard era. I don’t know if it’s the history nerd in me or what, but that thought has been living in my head ever since. Looking forward to playing with Phoenix.new—and keeping an eye out for looms to smash. Kudos, Chris.
by farrellm23 | 2025-06-06 00:31:03+00:00
Usually you want `foldl'` (with ' at the end), the strict version of `foldl`. It prevents the creation of intermediate thunks, so effectively a tail recursive iteration over the list in constant space.

`foldr` I almost never use, but it would be for: the return value is a lazy list and I will only need to evaluate a prefix.
by nyanpasu64 | 2025-06-06 00:31:30+00:00
I recently learned that (Wikipedia) "Vascular cambia are found in all seed plants except for five angiosperm lineages which have independently lost it; Nymphaeales, Ceratophyllum, Nelumbo, Podostemaceae, and monocots.[1]" Four of these lineages are aquatic plants (including water lilies) and some scientists theorize monocots may have also evolved in the water. I seem to recall reading that aquatic plants don't "need" woody growth for structural stability, but can't find a source right now.
by bigyabai | 2025-06-06 00:33:13+00:00
Look, we're all going to sit around cringing until someone says it; machine learning is explicitly the natural language of computers. In nature, neurons are not arranging themselves into neat unsigned 8-bit integers to quantize themselves for recollection. They're also networked by synapses and reactive biology, not feedforward algorithms scanning static, hereditary weights.

This whole thing feels like the author is familiar with one set of abstractions but not the other. It's very reminiscent of the (intensely fallible) Chomsky logic that leads to insane extrapolations about what biology is or isn't. Machine learning is a model, and all models are wrong.
by jjk166 | 2025-06-06 00:33:34+00:00
Not at all. A common railway gauge is necessary for different parts of the rail network to be joined together. If one section of the network has a different gauge, it is cut off and can not be joined without being completely replaced, leaving you with two less capable rail networks. Everyone does benefit from a more capable rail network.

Further, rail gauge is not a consumer choice. If there were two rail gauges and your local rail station happened to have a different gauge than your destination, you'd be SOL. A different rail gauge may provide benefits for people with specific needs, but you don't get to take advantage of those benefits except by blind luck.

There is no such benefit from standardizing cable connectors. If someone charges their phone with the same style cable as you, you gain nothing. If someone uses a different cable, you lose nothing. There is no reason for anyone not to use their preferred cable which is optimal for their use case.
by nyarlathotep_ | 2025-06-06 00:33:35+00:00
> Basically every study I have ever read making some claim about programming (efficacy of IDEs, TDD, static typing, pair programming, formal CS education, ai assistants, etc...) has been a house of cards that falls apart with even modest prodding.

Isn't this true about most things in software? I mean is there anything quantifiable about "microservices" vs "monolith"? Test-driven development, containers, whatever?

I mean all of these things are in some way good, in some contexts, but it seems impossible to quantify benefits of any of them. I'm a believer that most decisions made in software are somewhat arbitrary, driven by trends and popularity and it seems like little effort is expended to come to overarching, data-backed results. When they are, they're rare and, like you said, fall apart under investigation or scrutiny.

I've always found this strange about software in general. Even every time there's a "we rewrote $THING in $NEW_LANG" and it improved memory use/speed/latency whatever, there's a chorus of (totally legitimate) criticism and inquiry about how things were measured, what attempts were made to optimize the original solutions, if changes were made along the way outside of the language choice that impacted performance etc etc.
by genewitch | 2025-06-06 00:33:38+00:00
i think it's fairly easy to get 80+ percent of the way to FSD and it looks like you're on the verge of being able to moat your company with actual FSD. He should and probably did know better - although i've seen lots of videos/articles about how he isn't actually that proficient technically.

even if that 80% was 99%, that last 1% will be the cause of some mishaps.

my subaru is within a few percent of 80% FSD if everything is turned on. I still technically have to hold the wheel, but the steering only shuts off about 20% of the time with that being met.
by kubectl_h | 2025-06-06 00:33:54+00:00
They definitely have the traffic. They also do not advertise much of what they have, I'm guessing due to agreements they have with the original retailers, so you never really go there looking for something specific, you just kind of go hoping they have what you want or just to browse around. They are a bit of an institution here, where people are pretty frugal in nature regardless of how wealthy (or not) they are.

They will also magic-marker over the original retailers labels, but you can usually see where the product came from. For about a year they had inventory from the Texas sporting goods chain Academy, including apparel from various regional schools in Texas. Mostly Houston and San Antonio. My guess was all that inventory came from stores that were partially flooded by a hurricane.
by mekoka | 2025-06-06 00:34:33+00:00
> You are assuming...

I made no assumptions. As I pointed out to another commenter, you might be in too much of a haste to play at being a contrarian. It might be more useful to pay closer attention to what you're objecting to.

Evolutionary game theory demonstrates that evolution is a matter of fitness payoffs. If cost of a trait increases, fitness is reduced. The prevalence of a trait in a fit population is indicative that, at best, the trait increases fitness, at worst, it doesn't hinder it. In both cases, the genes tend to be passed on and the game is allowed to continue. When carrying the trait becomes costly, there's pressure to get rid of it (through the usual evolutionary means).

The above model encompasses all the unnecessary specificity you tried to bring into the matter. If you object to it, address your concerns to the scientists that are leading us all astray.

For now, let's circle right back to the author's original argument. Absence of an actually useful trait to increase fitness (i.e. protecting ones from certain food sources and others from predators) might be indicative of a hefty tax to pay for carrying it.
by anteloper | 2025-06-06 00:35:17+00:00
The alternative is forcing users to create yet another account/password during signup. This always infuriates me as a user - especially in the days before iOS 18 when there was no password manager support on iOS.

It doesn't really feel like "forcing users into adtech surveillance platforms" if they're using Android - they already have a Google account it's literally built into the operating system.

The goal was and is to minimize friction and maximize security. For all the flaws of consumer subscription as a business model, it's beauty is that we don't have perverse incentives. Users pay us to protect their attention so we make money by being good at that. We don't have to or want to sell their data.
by mathgorges | 2025-06-06 00:35:37+00:00
"I am beer" is a pretty funny typo ;-)

But seriously, I wonder why this happens. My experience of working with LLMs in English and Japanese in the same session is that my prompt's language gets "normalized" early in processing. That is to say, the output I get in English isn't very different from the output I get in Japanese. I wonder if the system prompts is treated differently here.
by dmacfour | 2025-06-06 00:37:04+00:00
"There are two cultures in the use of statistical modeling to reach conclusions from data. One assumes that the data are generated by a given stochastic data model. The other uses algorithmic models and treats the data mechanism as unknown. The statistical community has been committed to the almost exclusive use of data models. This commitment has led to irrelevant theory, questionable conclusions, and has kept statisticians from working on a large range of interesting current problems. Algorithmic modeling, both in theory and practice, has developed rapidly in fields outside statistics. It can be used both on large complex data sets and as a more accurate and informative alternative to data modeling on smaller data sets. If our goal as a field is to use data to solve problems, then we need to move away from exclusive dependence on data models and adopt a more diverse set of tools."

-Leo Breiman, like 24 years ago

Machine learning isn't the native language of biology, the author just realized that there's more than one approach to modeling. I'm a statistician working in an ML role and most of the issues I run into (from a modeling perspective) are the reverse of what this article describes - people trying to use ML for the precise things inferential statistics and mechanistic models are designed for. Not that the distinction is that clear to begin with.
by genewitch | 2025-06-06 00:38:35+00:00
Why wouldn't every driver with no compunctions about lying^, knowing that tesla has autonomous features, say that "it was on, then it shut off with no time to react!" At some point you have to go off the logs, at which point the code, i agree, should be audited (sibling or a parent in this thread mentioned.) It's dueling disagreements otherwise.

^ reading anecdotes about accident scenes, someone if not everyone is always lying about what happened.
by tombert | 2025-06-06 00:39:33+00:00
It took me two hours this year, and my taxes are generally pretty simple. I had exactly one W2 job last year, I have a mortgage, my wife does school, I sold some stock, I had some T-Bills, and I declared my wife's education.

I'm not doing anything clever to try and lower my tax burden, it's an extremely straightforward "run it through tax software" process, and it still took me two hours.
by paxys | 2025-06-06 00:40:01+00:00
> as soon as this gives similar responses

And when is that going to be? Google clearly has the ability to convert google.com into a ChatGPT clone today if they wanted to. They already have a state of the art model. They have a dozen different AI assistants that no one uses. They have a pointless AI summary on top of search results that returns garbage data 99% of the time. It's been 3+ years and it is clear now that the company is simply too scared to rock the boat and disrupt its search revenue. There is zero appetite for risk, and soon it'll be too late to act.
by GianFabien | 2025-06-06 00:41:01+00:00
Thanks for the additional context.

You basically have two major filtering constraints:

1. The potential client needs to have a dev env that aligns with your skill set. 2. There needs to be a clear, sufficiently detailed specification of a module/component that can be realistically completed in a day.

As I see it, you have a challenge in identifying opportunities that meet the criteria where you are able to demonstrate the value of your services in a day. Perhaps you have a network of contacts that allows you to do that. That I cannot know.

Job ads might give you sufficient information about the first criteria, but the second one is much harder to discern. I dread that you could end up having lots of meetings where the hiring manager obfuscates the quality of the requirements specifications. At least that has been my experience.

Pardon my cynicism. In my rather extensive experience, my first task was almost always to determine what needs to be done and why. Only then could I actually work on the implementation. Even when there was a spec to work from, it generally was in the form that the management had signed off on it as being complete, yet the developers were constantly asking for clarification and additional details.

Perhaps the foregoing is more of a rant. Sorry about that. Hope you have far better luck than my past experiences suggest.
by chollida1 | 2025-06-06 00:41:33+00:00
Chatgpt has no moat of any kind though.

I can switch tomorrow to use gemini or grok or any other llm, and I have, with zero switching cost.

That means one stumble on the next foundational model and their market share drops in half in like 2 months.

Now the same is true for the other llms as well.
by ted_dunning | 2025-06-06 00:43:45+00:00
Check out how they work.

One kind emits light through a folded optic path through the test gas and detects the difference in the absorption between wavelengths of light are used. The difference in absorption is minute so the optical path needs to be as long as possible which makes it hard to make the detector small.

The other kind detects the sound emitted when a precise frequency of IR is transmitted through a gas. If the frequency of the light is just right, it will be absorbed by the CO2 causing it to heat up ever so slightly which causes a tiny bit of sound.

Both of these are incredibly ticklish devices to design and build in mass.

That you can get these for as low as about $20 in quantity is actually mind bogglingly cheap.
by CuriouslyC | 2025-06-06 00:45:05+00:00
10x developers are a thing, but it's very context dependent. Put John Carmack in a room with your average FAANG principle and ask them both to build a 3D game engine with some features above and beyond what you can get out of the box with OpenGL and I would be very surprised if John didn't 10x (or more) his competition.

AI as a force multiplier is also a thing, with well structured codebases one high level dev can guide 2-3 agents through implementing features simultaneously, and each of those agents is going to be outputting code faster than your average human. The human just needs to provide high level guidance on how the features are implemented, and coach the AI on how to get unstuck when they inevitably run into things they're unable to handle.

The mental model you want for force multiplication in this context is a human lead "managing" a team of AI developers.
by mgraczyk | 2025-06-06 00:45:42+00:00
Wild that they don't mention in the article that they offer SCIM, apparently at no extra cost? Most auth providers do not offer that, typically they will charge you per end customer/tenant. For example WorkOS charges $125/month for SCIM (on top of 125/month for SSO).

Stytch is also $125/month, and frontegg is similar.
Ask HN: Is Adrian Colyer of "The Morning Paper" fame ok?
by yencabulator | 2025-06-06 00:45:47+00:00
His blog is down due to DNS domain expiry: http://acolyer.org/ https://blog.acolyer.org/

His series "The Morning Paper" was an amazing resource, and while individual articles are mirrored there's no guarantee they're all somewhere and they're definitely harder to find again now.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250126090636/https://blog.acolyer.org/

https://speakerdeck.com/acolyer/lessons-from-the-morning-paper

https://xcancel.com/adriancolyer

https://github.com/acolyer
by TZubiri | 2025-06-06 00:46:19+00:00
In my country's TLD there were a lot of domains that were parked when it was free to register and then they became available.

PoW is a great proven way to combat fraud also.

Right now attackers can create a new domain and a new identity for 10USD, whether a phishing domain or a malicious brand.

That said, there's a lot of TLDs nowadays, and arguably what made .com popular was this precise price combination, which should only be adjusted for inflation, and arguably to adjust for exhaustion of names.

If you want to experiment with TLDs with higher cost of entry, go ahead and find another TLD, or setup an LLC with your domain and distinguish yourself from your competitors.
by NoPicklez | 2025-06-06 00:47:44+00:00
I generally agree with you.

I do think regardless that even if you do have a smaller line up of cars, it is still an impressive metric that it is the most sold car in the world. That does mean that whilst Tesla has a smaller line up, that they hit the mark with meeting what people are looking for.

It is still a very in demand car for a reason and quite honestly I almost don't believe the metric.

Whilst I agree having a larger line up of cars would dilute your model sales, it is still impressive. Afterall, people wouldn't buy that model nor Tesla if they didn't like their cars.

I agree that if they did this by brand, Tesla would be much further down the list.
by genewitch | 2025-06-06 00:49:34+00:00
like this:

A driver in the US dies while driving due to a crash/wreck/whatever.

Statistically, that occurred with the highest probability in TX. as i said, this was like 2015-2019 when i used to claim this. There's a sign on freeways in TX that say "highway deaths so far in <year>: <16 bit int>" which led me to start looking in to it, and i think my little quip is just a way to draw attention to how dangerous it is to drive in TX. But it is quite large, Texas.
by andrei_says_ | 2025-06-06 00:51:30+00:00
I am starting to find these comparisons bothersome.

It’s not a loom, or a car, or a printing press or python vs punch cards.

It is very different, and the facility “Management” is hoping to replace, is decision-making, and not some predictable mechanical repetitive tasks.

The thing itself is more similar to an idiot savant with no memory or understanding. Getting it to do the right thing is sometimes easy, sometimes more difficult than doing it yourself, and sometimes catastrophic. Letting it on without supervision is almost guaranteed catastrophic.

“Management” trying to replace people with it is a function of perceiving people as cogs.
by jaredklewis | 2025-06-06 00:51:49+00:00
I think we agree.

To be clear I am not arguing that tools and practices like TDD, microservices, ai assistants, and so on have no effect. They almost certainly have an effect (good or bad).

It’s just the unfortunate reality that quantitatively measuring these effects in a meaningful way seems to basically be impossible (or at least I’ve never see it done). With enough resources I can’t think of any reason it shouldn’t be possible, but apparently those resources are not available because there are no good studies on these topics.

Thus my skepticism of the “studies” referenced earlier in the thread.
by Freedom2 | 2025-06-06 00:51:51+00:00
The article opens with a great line that really sets the stage for the whole "Universal Tech Tree" idea: "When we try and pick out any technology in isolation, we find it hitched, in some way, to every innovation that preceded it."

That really resonates with me. It’s like trying to isolate a single root in a massive banyan tree – impossible! Every new tool or technique we develop isn't just born in a vacuum; it’s built on the shoulders of giants, as they say. Or, to keep with the tree metaphor, it's nourished by the nutrients and structure provided by all the growth before it. It’s a very organic way of looking at progress, far more accurate than the typical linear 'invention A led to invention B' timelines we sometimes see. It also makes you wonder about the butterfly effect in technology – how a seemingly small 'hitch' in the past could have profoundly altered the entire tech tree's future branches
by 0xTJ | 2025-06-06 00:52:10+00:00
Seeing "all built-in functions and operators are single unicode symbols" stood out to me, given that APL existed well before Unicode did. It's not that it's wrong today, but that wasn't always the case. My father used APL back in high school, and that was before the earliest year mentioned in the "History" section of the Unicode Wikipedia article.
by AStonesThrow | 2025-06-06 00:52:25+00:00
> charity thrift store chain

Many people see a thrift store on the corner, or a collection bin, and they automatically assume that the thrift business is a non-profit, a charity that is run by a church or a social services agency. But really, a lot of thrift stores are for-profit retail operations that aren't charities at all. So it's interesting that you make the distinction, without needing to name names.

My cousin is an artist, and it was about 20 years ago when she lamented the degradation of thrift stores and yard sales. She said that shows such as Antiques Roadshow and American Pickers had whipped Americans into a frenzy of hunting through inventories and sniping ordinary human mortals. And she lamented that eBay and marketplaces were enabling that sort of buying-up stuff to stick it in a personal garage, and sell it online at leisure.

It was nearly that long ago when I was able to find useful stuff at thrift stores in my neighborhood. I went down one day and came home with a working WiFi router and a matching AC adapter, and that WiFi router ran my home LAN for the next 10 years.

It is with some embarrassment that I may admit to never cleaning my PC keyboard; why bother when a like-new, cleaned-up USB keyboard was $1 at the thrift store on the corner? They were stacking them like cordwood! You could plunder the tangles of cables and find any old obsolete thing, and I'm a guy who enjoys obsolete commodity stuff.

I found some enjoyable cassettes and other fun things at the Catholic thrift store. But in general, the charity thrift store scene has dried up here in the metropolitan area. There's one in the heart of the city that is megachurch-run, and anchors a residential community. But 2-3 others have pulled up stakes and shuttered operations. And there are prominent NO DUMPING signs posted there.
by gchamonlive | 2025-06-06 00:52:43+00:00
I can create images with ease in my mind. It's very useful overall but I don't think it's particularly helpful for preserving memories.

It's all a grayish blur with a tint of sun and green here and there and there are memories that I can recall almost as if I'm there, but this sentiment that big chunks of my life is totally lost I think is the same.

I've also come to terms with it. I write down once and again on my journal. I try to crowdsource memories from friends. But what ultimately makes this ok for me is the prospect of creating new memories and the faith that the crucial lessons from past experiences are embedded in me. And if not it's always an opportunity to relearn everything with more attention.

It's tiring but it can be very rewarding.