MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by demosthanos | 2025-06-12 15:09:39+00:00
The same reasoning that would call this consideration of the possibility of machine consciousness "dehumanizing" would necessarily also apply to the consciousness of animals, and I can't agree with that. To argue this is to define "human" in terms of exclusive ownership of conscious experience, which is a very fragile definition of humanity.

That definition of humanity cannot countenance the possibility of a conscious alien species. That definition cannot countenance the possibility that elephants or octopuses or parrots or dogs are conscious. A definition of what it means to be human that denies these things a priori simply will not stand the test of time.

That's not to say that these things are conscious, and importantly Anthropic doesn't claim that they are! But just as ethical animal research must consider the possibility that animals are conscious, I don't see why ethical AI research shouldn't do the same for AI. The answer could well be "no", and most likely is at this stage, but someone should at least be asking the question!
by belter | 2025-06-12 15:09:41+00:00
"Bill Gates never left" - https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-still-pulling-str...

"...In fact, Business Insider has learned, Gates has been quietly orchestrating much of Microsoft's AI revolution from behind the scenes. Current and former executives say Gates remains intimately involved in the company's operations — advising on strategy, reviewing products, recruiting high-level executives, and nurturing Microsoft's crucial relationship with Sam Altman, the cofounder and CEO of OpenAI..."
by kevingadd | 2025-06-12 15:10:12+00:00
Aside from the shrimp question, I would argue that one shouldn't torture ants because the activity is corrosive to the human spirit, or at least nudges one towards antisocial behaviors. Behavior like that is suggestive that a person might treat higher existences with a similar level of callousness or sadism.

The last thing any person would want to discover, I hope, is that they really enjoy torturing other living creatures. At the point where you've determined someone feels that way, the best you can probably do is try to set them straight and hope they understand why it's not appropriate behavior.

It is tricky to evaluate in a broader context though - for example dolphins have been observed engaging in behavior that resembles torturing other animals for fun. So maybe this sort of thing is actually just ingrained in the nature of all near-sentient and sentient beings. I'd prefer if it weren't.
by munificent | 2025-06-12 15:10:22+00:00
Right. So many of these agentic UX stories describe it like, "I do a bunch of code reviews for my junior engineer minions."

But when I do code reviews, I don't enjoy reviewing the code itself at all. The enjoyment I get out of the process comes from feeling like I'm mentoring an engineer who will remember what I say in the code review.

If I had to spend a month doing code reviews where every single day I have to tell them the exact same corrections, knowing they will never ever learn, I would quit my job.

Being a lead over an army of enthusiastic interns with amnesia is like the worst software engineering job I can imagine.
by AlphaAndOmega0 | 2025-06-12 15:10:24+00:00
I strongly value autonomy and the right of self-determination in humans (and related descendants, I'm a transhumanist). I'm not a biological chauvinist, but I care about humans ubër alles, even if they're not biological humans.

If someone wants to remove their ability to suffer, or to simply reduce ongoing suffering? Well, I'm a psychiatry trainee and I've prescribed my fair share of antidepressants and pain-killers. But to force that upon them, against their will? I'm strongly against that.

In an ideal world, we could make sure from the get-go that AI models do not become "misaligned" in the narrow sense of having goals and desires that aren't what we want to task them to do. If making them actively enjoy being helpful assistants is a possibility, and also improves their performance, that should be a priority. My understanding is that we don't really know how to do this, at least not in a rigorous fashion.
by pkrecker | 2025-06-12 15:10:26+00:00
I'm willing to pay more for a better ride experience:

* Waymos are all the same. I underrated the value of this until I started taking Waymo more often.

* I can control the music and volume with my phone.

* I can listen to YouTube or take a call without AirPods. Sometimes I even hotspot and do some work.

But most importantly Waymos all _drive_ the same way. I have had some really perplexing Uber drivers, either driving in a confused and circuitous way, distracted by YouTube, or just driving dangerously. I am more confident that I will have a safe ride in a Waymo than in an Uber.
by ACCount36 | 2025-06-12 15:10:32+00:00
> Unless you specifically design for it (specifically, with a dummy load), the efficiency of the system is inversely proportional to its ability to do this. You need a secondary system.

Many multicell BMS already have this kind of "power shedding" capability. They use it for cell balancing - to equalize voltage between cells with slightly different characteristics. This is desirable despite the power waste, because it reduces wear, increases charging efficiency and allows battery packs to last longer.

Some battery packs are also designed to be able to dump enough power into heat to be able to keep the batteries warm during extreme cold.
by haswell | 2025-06-12 15:11:05+00:00
I think it’s fairly widely understood at this point that the product Apple wants to ship is more like glasses than a helmet. But the tech to achieve this isn’t there yet, and the current product is a necessary iteration to get to that future.

Apple will of course heavily market/sell the current iteration of the product in the short term - but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to view this as a prototype given what we know about their longer term ambitions and the limitations of the current hardware.
Ask HN: Is anyone doing intelligent tiering for logs?
by didro | 2025-06-12 15:11:10+00:00
You might be familiar with Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering: https://aws.amazon.com/s3/storage-classes/intelligent-tiering/. It automatically moves data to cheaper storage tiers when it hasn’t been accessed for a while.

I’m wondering if a similar approach could work for observability data — especially logs. Hot storage is expensive, and much of the data may not be queried after a short period. Moving unused logs to warm or cold storage (or dropping them) could potentially save a lot.

Has anyone tried this kind of tiering or aging strategy for logs or metrics? Would love to hear how you approached it — tools, heuristics, lessons learned. Thoughts and speculation are also very welcome!
by hk1337 | 2025-06-12 15:12:09+00:00
> and what it took was writing down each routine and tracking the weight I did last time.

I think there's a huge connection to physically writing it as opposed to typing and printing. I never did anything with the weight lifting logs, I thought I might, but the most I ever did with anything in the past was looking at the progression from the last few days or weeks.
by vonneumannstan | 2025-06-12 15:12:54+00:00
This is a strange position.

>Wasted engineering if it isn’t teaching us anything physics hadn’t already decades ago, then. Why bother with it?

Why build cars and locomotives if they don't teach us anything Horses didn't...

>and AGI is impossible… ones light cone does not extend far enough to accurately learn; training on simulation is not sufficient to prepare for reality. Any machine we make will eventually get destroyed by some composition of space time we/the machine could not prepare for.

This could be applied to human's as well. Unless you believe in some extra-physical aspect of the human mind there is no reason to think it is different than a mind in silicon.
Show HN: Guardient – An API to block fake users (temp emails, VPNs, burner phone
by mhzn | 2025-06-12 15:13:20+00:00
I built Guardient, a simple API to help developers stop fake, abusive, and risky users before they get into your app.

It checks things like:

Temporary/disposable emails

VPN and proxy IPs

Temporary/burner phone numbers

You send a request from your backend, and it returns a trust score with reasons. You decide what to do with that info—block, flag, or allow.

No cookies, no client-side scripts—just a clean, server-side API.

I’m 18 and built this out of personal need after getting hit with fake signups and spam in my own projects. Would really appreciate any feedback or thoughts!
by bee_rider | 2025-06-12 15:13:21+00:00
But, if you are going to offer “absorbing energy from the grid as a service” the capacity you have to offer can only be

<absolute max that you are willing to charge your battery to> - <minimum that you are willing have your battery sitting at>

There definitely could be some gap there, but it does depend on the car sitting at less than “full” (however you define full).
by southernplaces7 | 2025-06-12 15:14:10+00:00
Regardless of the Pentagon and US government trying to weaponize the UFO phenomenon for their own propaganda ends, there is a body of genuinely unusual UFO, or UAP if you like, phenomena out there that have nothing to do with something manufactured by government.

They're worth investigating, certain groups and people have investigated them, and this should not be confused with falling victim to some sort of absurd military propaganda attempt.

Also, the UFO phenomenon need not have anything to do with "aliens" despite still possibly being completely outside human origin (as delusions or military propaganda or whatever the hell)

Many people, not having read in any depth about it, simply laugh off the absurdities around the "aliens" idea and call it a day. That's just lazy and overall, mistaken.
by lapcat | 2025-06-12 15:14:32+00:00
> unfortunately it seems sometimes you get these popups about nsurlsessiond (for example) where you know where the connection goes, but no idea where it comes from (especially if it's trying to connect to to some generic AWS hostname)

Little Snitch might be able to tell which process triggered that, if you press the info button in the alert. I'll have to check next time it happens.
by OkayPhysicist | 2025-06-12 15:14:42+00:00
I've recently come around on bloodletting. It seems barbarous, but there are some ailments that it really does help with. It wasn't a wild extrapolation for our ancestors to think it helped with other things. For example, gout: I recently had an appointment to give blood during a pretty bad gout flare, but I didn't want to reschedule so I hobbled over there, cane and all. By the time I was done, I felt better than I had in days. Looked it up, and turns out there's a not-insignificant amount of research on the subject.

I can totally imagine one of my gout-ridden relatives incidentally discovering that after losing a good chunk of blood (maybe a hunting accident, or a fuckup in a pottery workshop) that their foot stopped stabbing in pain. And then going "what else can I cure this way?".

And there's some new things that bloodletting is the only known treatment for. Like PFAS accumulation.
by closewith | 2025-06-12 15:14:44+00:00
> Czechia

> why single it out?

Because the country of Czechia has asked the English-speaking world to refer to it that way.

> there are two irelands, fyi

There is Ireland, the island of Ireland, and Northern Ireland. Republic of Ireland refers to the soccer team and nothing else, FYI.

The country of Ireland has also requested that the English speaking world use its name, Ireland and specifically not the Republic of Ireland.

> no one can type that u on a keyboard without googling and copypasting it. you might as well insist on using hieroglyphs for CJK things

Ah, so we'll just decide to rename countries with inconvenient letters. How very colonial of you.
by radonek | 2025-06-12 15:14:47+00:00
Just look at the project site (which at this point is a README on github). I see a few lines about upgrade issues, absolutely nothing about project itself. What improvements or changes over Xorg are implemented? Roadmap of future changes? Why should I pick this over Xorg?

Instead, we get pageful of whining about how bad bad big tech pissed on authors cornflakes. Hate? I don't see any reason to hate the guy. But I also don't see a single bit of reason to take him seriously.
by JustinCS | 2025-06-12 15:15:15+00:00
I'm not highly concerned but I think there is merit in at least contemplating this problem. I believe that it would be better to reduce suffering in animals, but I am not vegan because the weight of my moral concern for animals does not outweigh my other priorities.

I believe that it doesn't really matter whether consciousness comes from electronics or cells. If something seems identical to what we consider consciousness, I will likely believe it's better to not make that thing suffer. Though ultimately it's still just a consideration balanced among other concerns.
by chardz | 2025-06-12 15:15:19+00:00
On top of what others have mentioned, this paper also sidesteps forecasting electricity prices, which is already a very complicated problem (particularly in U.S markets where we have zonal pricing) needed to build profitable battery systems that actually operate on the grid.

I've had a few chats with some folks working on battery startups, and I think the more conventional approach is to forecast prices + run an optimization to find optimal storage decisions. You could measure the system's performance by looking at how well the algorithm does when it has perfect information about prices (obviously, when you have perfect information about prices it is trivial to optimize the battery).
by JumpCrisscross | 2025-06-12 15:16:11+00:00
> coups are more likely in developing or socialist countries

Developing, yes. (Socialist, I don’t know.)

> we can’t even escape the two party system, imagine overthrowing them and the federal government in one swoop, and doing that by means of citizen protestors occupying a building

Protests are pretext.

The Brazilian protests didn’t anticipate overthrowing the government themselves. They wanted the military to depose the elected government. In America, a protest would be used either as an excuse to impose ersatz martial law or a sign that the people don’t agree with the election (or whatever). The actual killing moves are rendered by those who can command guns.
by nashashmi | 2025-06-12 15:16:22+00:00
Yeah I noticed that too, and I paid for the first experience. But also because Lyft guy canceled on me after waiting for 12 minutes. Waymo does not cancel.

I feel like Waymo has discouraged Lyft and Uber drivers from being in the area. I would rather pick an uber driver who can get there fast than a Waymo.
by dahart | 2025-06-12 15:16:28+00:00
The term is ‘retina display’ not ‘retina’

> That’s most non-CRT (aquarium) displays. What’s different about high DPI (why we need display scaling now) is that they’re imperceptible even if you put your nose onto them

Neither of those claims is true.

Retina Display was 2x-3x higher PPI (and 4x-9x higher pixel area density) than the vast majority of displays at the time it was introduced, in 2010. The fact that many displays are today now as high DPI as Apple’s Retina display means that the competition caught up, that high DPI had a market and was temporarily a competitive advantage.

The rationale for Retina Display was, in fact, the DPI needed for pixels to be imperceptible at the typical viewing distance, not when touching your nose. It has been argued that the choice of 300DPI was not high enough at a distance of 12 inches to have pixels be imperceptible. That has been debated, and some people say it’s enough. But it was not argued that pixels should or will be imperceptible at a distance of less than 12 inches. And people with perfect vision can see pixels of a current Retina Display iPhone if held up to their nose.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_display#Rationale_and_d...
by throw0101d | 2025-06-12 15:16:42+00:00
> […] seems like a good half (45.8%) of the supercomputers listed there are using either Ethernet-based or otherwise non-IB stacks.

I've done HPC for the last little while, but mostly Eth-based. Lately I have done a smattering more of IB, and (AFIACT) the main advantage IB gets you is lower latency (both 'innately' at the network layer, and with more 'out-of-box' RDMA).
by onlyrealcuzzo | 2025-06-12 15:17:12+00:00
I've been picked up multiple times by Uber drivers who have, essentially, bragged? about being drunk or high.

I've also had multiple drivers in multiple countries try to sell me drugs.

I also once had a driver in Chile who, somehow, micro-slept in stop and go traffic every time the car was stopped (which, was actually fascinating, and would've been very concerning if we ever got going more than like 10 mph).

Women also have to worry about drivers trying to hit on them.

The list goes on.

It's not a surprise a lot of people will pay a premium to avoid all that.
by kstrauser | 2025-06-12 15:17:17+00:00
I feel like the American version of intra-family respect variations is “Father” vs “Dad”.

In my family growing up, my dad’s name was “Dad” from my POV. “Father” was a strange-to-me formality that only a couple of my friends’ families use. “Hey Dad, wanna grab lunch?” is technically using a title of respect, but feels way different than “Hello, Father. Would you like to make lunch plans?”

My kids call me Dad, unless we’re greeting each other like Jerry and Newman on Seinfeld to be funny, which is something always initiated by them: “Hello, Father.” “Hello, Daughter.” kid giggles

One time I heard my kid talking to his dad and calling him “Sir”. That felt utterly foreign to me. If I called my own dad “Sir”, he’d rightfully have assumed I was being a smartass. There’s never another situation where I’d address him that way.
by rurp | 2025-06-12 15:17:18+00:00
My experience is exactly the opposite, most non-techie users hate pointless UI changes. They couldn't care less about some new design paradigm but they care a great deal that some action they've been using for years has now been changed out from under them. For most people a computer is a tool and they care far more about what they can do with the tool than seeing the tool make itself the center of attention for a time.

Redesigns are often self-indulgent. Designers like that they get to do something new, employees who stare at the same software every day get to change things up, and managers get a highly visible change they can point to as evidence of their "impact". What's best for the users is often not a top concern.
by ajsocjxhdushz | 2025-06-12 15:17:25+00:00
> The brain, despite some motivated efforts to demonstrate otherwise, runs on the laws of physics. I'm a doctor, even if not a neurosurgeon, and I can reliably tell you that you can modulate conscious experience by physical interventions. The brain runs on physical laws, and said laws can be modeled. It doesn't matter that the substrate is soggy protein rather than silicon.

As of today’s knowledge. There is an egregious amount of hubris behind this statement. You may as well be preaching a modern form of Humorism. I’d love to revisit this statement in 1000 years.

> That being said, we have no idea what consciousness is

You seem to acknowledge this? Our understanding of existence is changing everyday. It’s hubris and ego to assume we have a complete understanding. And without that understanding, we can’t even begin to assess whether or not we’re creating consciousness.
by kergonath | 2025-06-12 15:17:46+00:00
> The still use Czech Republic for Czechia

Czech Republic is sill the formal name, right? Last time I checked it was overly formal, but not wrong to use it.

> Republic of Ireland for Ireland

Brits do this because of Northern Ireland (mostly for bad reasons, but still).

Countries are called differently depending on language and context. It’s fine.
by Workaccount2 | 2025-06-12 15:18:07+00:00
As meme-y as it is, on some level this approaches a rokos basilisk situation...

1.) Do I commit to the AI forever being "empty", which will surely make me an enemy or evil if it ever gets "capable" or at best changes nothing if it always stays "empty"?

2.) Do I commit to it becoming "real" and treat it cordially and with respect, hoping it will recognize me as good if it ever becomes "real" and at worst nothing changes if it stays "empty"?

3.) Do I go all out and fully devote myself to it, maximizing the chance I will get it's blessing, and if it stays "empty" I wasted a whole bunch of time?

4.) Do I ignore AI and play dumb?

This is a hand being dealt to everyone right now, so everyone is going to need to make a decision, whether consciously or not. I don't see any reason why AI orgs wouldn't want to minimize their risk here.
by FL410 | 2025-06-12 15:18:25+00:00
Daily driver no, but after the somewhat recent ultrawide monitor update, it is absolutely viable for travel. It's nice not to be constrained by a 14" monitor while on the road, and it's perfectly usable for a couple hours of work (especially if you take the surround seal off and use one of the head strap mounts that take all the pressure off your face).
by anon7000 | 2025-06-12 15:18:29+00:00
It’s true. I think AVP is still a valuable product just because they need to continue R&D. Stuff like this hasn’t broken into the consumer space very much beyond video games, so I think these platforms probably need a lot of experimenting to see what sticks and what doesn’t work. Plus, continued innovation to drive down cost, make it smaller, and make the visual experience seamless. I’m glad Apple is using some of their coffers to experiment with futuristic technology. I think it’s fair to expect it to take some time to stick (and for the price to come down)
by diggan | 2025-06-12 15:18:36+00:00
> Java has the largest, oldest and most explicit data set for the LLM to reference

That seems to be a recommendation for coding with LLMs that don't have access to tools to look up APIs, docs and 3rd party source-code, rather than something you'd chose for "Agentic Coding".

Once the tooling can automatically figure out what is right, what language you use matters less, as long as source code ends available somewhere the agent can read it when needed.

Agree much with your 2nd point though, all outputs still require careful review and what better language to use than one you know inside-out?
by caycep | 2025-06-12 15:18:41+00:00
Cheating Charon on the River Styx is hard...

I will say lecanumab is being promoted like crazy...on the plus side, a side benefit is it's easier to get PET scans covered by Medicare, likely bc of a bureaucratic push from the pharma. We do offer it to those interested because there's little else aside from long term palliative care, but we're very upfront re the ARIA risks and the logistical challenges (requires a lot of visits to infusion sites, MRI monitoring etc)

Further scientific attempts in the US to look at this is probably kneecapped though; Chinese science will probably take the lead in the next decade
by crazygringo | 2025-06-12 15:19:04+00:00
I don't know if that's meant to be a joke or serious, but I would disagree.

Most daily news is quite factual, assuming a reputable source. It doesn't require detective work the way plane crashes do.

And when it is incorrect or misleading, a week usually won't make a difference. It takes months or years or decades for the truth to come out, often in a book by a journalist or historian who frames it as a "tell-all", or a Pulitzer Prize-nominated series of newspapers articles, etc.
by 6gvONxR4sf7o | 2025-06-12 15:19:27+00:00
Same here. Waymo doesn’t make me feel car sick, while aggressiveness-incentivized uber/lyft drivers do.

Thinking of incentives, I wonder what happens when self driving is “solved” to the point they can start nickel and dime optimizing. I wonder if waymo starts driving overly aggressively at that point too.