MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by throw0101c | 2025-06-23 15:16:04+00:00
> I'm not familiar with the texas government, but doesn't the fact that it ended up on the governor's desk mean that the "narrowly focused, dogmatic" politicians run the two chambers?

The legislature has a 'mandate' from the people because it was elected. The governor has a 'mandate' from the people because he was elected.

Does one have more of a mandate than the other, or are they equal? What happens when they have different policies?

This is one of the weakness of presidential systems:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_system#Efficienci...
by joshvm | 2025-06-23 15:16:08+00:00
Music is a lot easier than visual media or books though. You can listen to new songs daily and have a good knowledge of the last century's music. It's also easy to listen and concentrate while doing something else, like walking or driving. You don't need light either.

Films are a 1-2 hour commitment. A TV series could be anywhere from 10-100 hours. A novella might be a couple of hours, but most people would take at least a day to read a novel. And these need close to 100% attention. Reading all the Hugo winners at a book a week would take 1.5 years, and you've not touched the nominees or books in series.
by sjsdaiuasgdia | 2025-06-23 15:16:24+00:00
It's amazing how thorough a cross section of society I see when I visit weed stores. Every age, every race. "I just got out of bed" clothes and business suits. Work boots and high heels.

In the last couple years, I've had several work conversations where someone off hand mentioned the edibles they took for a concert the previous weekend, or the weed vape they took camping, or some other personal life story involving weed. Not in a hushed private conversation, it's in the small talk before a meeting kicks off. It's become very normalized. Even 5 years ago I would be shocked at someone casually discussing their weed usage with coworkers.

And the tax money. Oh boy the tax money.
by dredmorbius | 2025-06-23 15:16:27+00:00
Following up on your pedantism: Chimborazo isn't in Ecuador because it's equatorial, but rather, it's equatorial because it's in Ecuador.

(Or, perhaps, because it lies near or on the equator.)

There are non-Ecuadorian equatorial locations.

:-)

(I do like, appreciate, and was previously aware of the various claims to "highest mountain". Interesting also to contemplate that the early Rockies, and perhaps Appalachian mountains (themselves older than dirt, literally), may once have exceeded thirty thousand feet (approaching 10,000 m). Though the Rockies figure might be an ambitious reading of the Teton Fault having experienced 20,000 -- 30,000 feet of vertical displacement. This is possible without peaks reaching such heights, given erosion. Estimates of the original height of the Appalachians is even more tenuous and indirect.)
by mystified5016 | 2025-06-23 15:16:59+00:00
Yeah I see this headline and all I can think is "humans can never travel faster than 30mph or they will die" or "buildings over ten stories will asphyxiate people at the top" or how black holes were "mathematically impossible" for a few decades.

Math doesn't prove anything about the real universe until you go and physically prove it with testable predictions.
by lisper | 2025-06-23 15:17:50+00:00
> observer doesn't feel change

It's not just that the observer doesn't feel change, it is that no experiment can demonstrate this change, not even in principle.

> tracing must be fundamentally unable to extract mortal's-eye view from god's-eye view

Why? Because that is manifestly not the case.

> Born rule is the same

Again, you are manifestly wrong. If someone had figured out how to derive the BR from the SE it would be Big News [1].

---

[1] https://blog.rongarret.info/2024/04/the-scientific-method-pa...
by Bhilai | 2025-06-23 15:18:42+00:00
This may be the only sensible thing Abbott has done in a while. Texas is trending towards a nanny state for quite a bit for things Republicans politicians don't like.

It's miracle that Dan Patrick is not in jail and wasn't impeached from his job last year. Tough on crime Republicans in Texas Senate acquitted him of 16 impeachment charges around bribery and corruption.
by allturtles | 2025-06-23 15:18:50+00:00
To elaborate on lapcat's point, you have to look at this from the point-of-view of a young, would-be aspiring literary fiction writer. From that vantage, it doesn't matter what the steady state of English/MFA professorships is, all that matters is your ability/chances to get one of those stable professorships. And the odds are very, very low, because lots of new PhDs are being produced, the turnover on those jobs is tiny (they are very comfortable positions, and there are few other job opportunities that use the same skills), and ~no new jobs of that kind are being created. Even if you get into a top-tier PhD program, chances are you will never get a tenure-track position, much less achieve tenure. You will either scrape by on a series of poorly-paid, labor intensive adjunct teaching positions, or abandon academia.

This is all very well-documented, search for "humanities phd job crisis" and you will find lots of information, e.g. [0].

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/upshot/academic-job-crisi...
by notjoemama | 2025-06-23 15:18:54+00:00
Is there a rating site or alignment test for wiki articles and their authors? I'm aware of the inherent left bias on wiki and while I still find it informative I am forced (because of their behavior) to consider the subtextual implications in the language they use as well as what is willingly (and sometimes very intentionally) addressed or omitted. it would be nice to have a wiki-bias chart like the media bias chart.
by vikingerik | 2025-06-23 15:18:55+00:00
This is correct (if cells higher than 2048 are allowed, which varies by implementation.) But the game can still be represented in fewer than 16×18 bits, because not every board state is reachable. There can't be more than one cell with the maximum value. And if that is present, then there can't be more than one cell with the next-highest value, and so on. So you could devise some scheme to enumerate all reachable states and skip unreachable ones, and it would take fewer than 16×18 bits to indicate which one. The upper bound is at least bounded by ignoring representing the maximum value and then using 4 bits to indicate its necessarily singular position. There are also some other unreachable configurations, like if many copies of the same value are touching each other, since at least one pair of them would have been combined on the previous move.
by account42 | 2025-06-23 15:19:28+00:00
> most of the rest of the world has regulated the heck out of these dyes

You may want to check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_number#E100%E2%80%93E199_(co...

Almost all dyes approved in the US are also approved in the EU. There are even a number of dyes approved in the EU but not in the US.

> often with warning labels required on packaging about the way this stuff makes kids ADHD

This does not happen.
by PaulHoule | 2025-06-23 15:19:29+00:00
I can't see how he's so sanguine about Google, see

http://www.seobook.com/blog

other successful firms like Facebook are poster children for the phenomenon. Skype didn't consistently get worse because its parent company was having financial problems.

Also the phenomenon he calls "being helpful" is a real problem. Often I am using a product that I don't use everyday because I am in a stressful situation and I don't need distractions. If they could just freakin' wait until I was done with the task I am working on that would make a big difference. If your mobile app asks me to leave a review first thing, I will leave a 1 star review 100% of the time so be warned.
by sorcerer-mar | 2025-06-23 15:19:33+00:00
What?

There's not "a lack of information." The information is there's a continuous curve of transmission. You could have complete information and you would still need to pick an "arbitrary" point.

> it is 6ft and that's the science, follow the rules or don't enter public spaces

Link to which guidance you feel most closely stated this. I have never seen any guidance from CDC, NIH, FDA, or anywhere else that resembles this.
by latexr | 2025-06-23 15:20:41+00:00
> Is that dirty?

That’s not what you should be worrying about.

> I have trees growing from the cracks of the building, and I think that's beautiful.

It probably is beautiful. It may also be inconvenient or outright dangerous. As the trees continue to grow and expand the cracks, the building’s structure becomes ever more compromised. Maybe the cracks will expand and more rain will come in, causing mold and making your home less effective at keeping its temperature. Or maybe they’ll expand in a way that a whole wall will fall off.

Seeing plants sprouting from the ground in cities is fun and aesthetically pleasing, I agree. But it is not always safe to let them keep growing.
by yesfitz | 2025-06-23 15:20:46+00:00
An additional concern: Even if you can require proof of humanity to enter an online space, how can you know that the human isn't communing with an AI and reposting whatever it says to?

I agree that there's no way to guarantee that you're interacting with a human online.

Optimistically, this could spark a return to the internet/real-world relationship that the author mentioned: "Back then, the internet felt like an addition to our in-person connecting..."

Rather than meeting people online, you meet them in real life and have the option to talk to them over the internet. Just like you trusted that they didn't hand off their account to another person before AI, you'll have to trust that it's them that you're talking to.

The biggest threat to that scenario is suburbanization and the lack of third spaces. How will you meet new people if there's nowhere to just exist? This was already happening to kids, and the pandemic really accelerated it.

Long story short, I think there's a possibility between assimilation and rebellion, but it's not in the suburbs. We need to work for it now, and fast, because the next generation won't have the frame of reference to do it themselves.
by corry | 2025-06-23 15:21:02+00:00
Beware, buying vintage watches on eBay is 'hard mode' even for longtime collectors. The number of 'Frankenstein' Omegas and other older pieces likely outnumbers the legit ones, and the degree to which -- and skill level with which -- things have been refinished or repaired is often very difficult to ascertain.

The other thing to beware is that the fake market ("replicas") is now unbelievably good - and also include vintage pieces. So scammers could buy very good fakes, artificially age them, and charge a fortune.

The only thing that works is to 'buy the seller' meaning: only buy from reputable sellers/dealers.

Chrono24 and (carefully) using r/WatchExchange are your best bets, but even there - diligence the sellers very well.
by Breza | 2025-06-23 15:21:43+00:00
Did it in <30 words with Gemini Pro.

Prompt: "Mongolians still live in gers even in 2025... WTF?! That seems like a total policy failure. Help me understand why it's not just a dumb culture being dumb?"

Beginning of response: "The sight of traditional gers, or yurts, persisting as common dwellings in Mongolia, even within the cityscapes of 2025, is not an indication of a 'dumb culture' or a simple 'policy failure.' Rather, it is a complex tapestry woven from deep-seated cultural identity, stark economic realities, and the practicalities of a unique way of life. To understand the prevalence of the ger is to understand the soul of Mongolia itself."

It goes on like that for a few more paragraphs that are, to be honest, quite convincing.
by coldpie | 2025-06-23 15:22:03+00:00
> What I've never seen is a nuclear roll-out simulation that argues that's a good option. Do you have one of those?

I don't know what a "nuclear roll-out simulation" is, exactly. As stated earlier, my position is that we should be building both nuclear and renewables. We should build whatever makes sense for the area in question. If renewable+storage can solve all of an area's needs, then that's fantastic and we should absolutely do that.

If I understand right, you are arguing we should not be building any nuclear, even in Minnesota. I'm unconvinced that renewables+storage alone can solve the Minnesota winter problem. I'm asking if you can provide a link to an analysis showing that we can feasibly and cost-effectively solve the Minnesota winter problem without any nuclear power. Can you please link to one?
by benterix | 2025-06-23 15:22:22+00:00
> I'm not saying an unwanted kiss is a good thing

There are literally hundreds of romantic comedies with such a scene. It's something very deep in our culture. At some point one part tries to kiss, and there is a certain unknowable how it will land for the first time. This is how people used to fall in love. I feel really sorry for the youth of both genders these days.
by lisper | 2025-06-23 15:22:26+00:00
> you didn't state clearly why you believe that MWI doesn't account for Born rule

That's what the whole post was about. The MWI doesn't account for the Born rule unless you add additional, questionable assumptions like branch indifference to the SE.

> You suggest that decoherence both produces and doesn't produce fully decohered branches?

No, that is not even remotely what I am saying. You are beginning to sound like a troll.
by incomingpain | 2025-06-23 15:22:49+00:00
stack overflow was declining for years, long before chatgpt. Clear in that graph.

https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/01/stack_exchange_contro...

It's completely within their right to eject people based on political opinions.

I dont understand why a gender neutral website of anonymous people talking about gender neutral tech has any reason to inject gender or even be concerned about it.

According the graph, 2017 peak, but when chatgpt launched, they were already 50% declined. After chatgpt, it increased the rate of decline but hardly was causal.

>Reddit and other forums

Reddit is declining just like Stack; for the same reasons.

>A new product similar to Stack Overflow but tailored to the AI era with better user experience might emerge to bridge the gaps. Developers could ask questions in a centralized place and LLM providers could access the difficult coding questions

The one thing I recommended to github.

Lets find a random issue for example:

https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/1330

Why couldnt various AI have commented some answer? Perhaps co-pilot could read it, produce a fully tested agentic patch that maintainers could look at?
by marvinvr | 2025-06-23 15:22:54+00:00
I recently launched WriteABookAI.com

My goal was to build a good UX and maintain context well over Book-Length content for non-fiction books, and allow without much technical knowledge to write an entire Book with AI. I tacked this from sort of two sides. First of all, I built features to actually generate these long form texts, and then I tried to build small, convenience features on top to make reviewing the text really easy. I took that approach because I think at the end of the day, the writer still needs to take the wheel about it all, no matter what.

Anyway, I'd love to hear some feedback, and I'm happy to drop some Vouchers for free Books in exchange for some feedback

Just comment and I'll get back to you
by tklenze | 2025-06-23 15:23:02+00:00
Thanks for your insights! Yes, real-life behavior is indeed interesting to look at, and for this purpose, two testnets are running right now (https://www.gmonads.com).

RaptorCast uses erasure coding to break a block proposal into smaller pieces with plenty of redundancy to allow for omissions. This means that if you receive sufficiently many chunks, you can decode the block proposal (no matter which of the chunks you received). The redundancy factor can be tweaked, but it’ll likely be >2x, to allow for networking issues and faulty/malicious nodes. Furthermore, the blockchain can make progress as long as >2/3 of the validators receive the block proposal and are honest. This means that at least in theory, you should be able to tolerate a lot of packet losses.

Re throughput: Monad has 2 blocks / s, each 2MB in size. So even with a redundancy factor of 3x, each validator only has to send 12MB per second.

Re backpressure: Not really an option for blockchains. If you have 100 peers and one of them is too slow, what are you going to do? If you back pressure to slow down consensus, you slow down the entire blockchain even though most peers are fast. There’s a recent paper about this problem: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.22080.

What’s important is that the amount of bandwidth required per validator remains constant in RaptorCast, no matter how many validators are part of the network. And you always just need one round-trip to broadcast a block proposal, as opposed to Gossip protocols that may involve more steps and have higher latency.
by globular-toast | 2025-06-23 15:23:43+00:00
This is all good advice. TRAMP is really quite good once you figure out what's slowing it down.

I had a problem that was making it hang at times. Of course, Emacs would respond to `C-g` still, though. Toggling `toggle-debug-on-quit` showed me what was causing it to hang. Something from the ESS package which I rarely use anyway, so I just disabled it.
by sandworm101 | 2025-06-23 15:25:21+00:00
It isnt thay simple. As i kid we had non-potable water in the pipes. (Middle east) It was recycled water heavy on chlorine, safe for washing but not drinkable. Pressure was never the issue. We drank from a "sweetwater" tap, which also fed the hot water tank and the dishwasher.

Using safe potable water to flush toilets is silly. Splitting drinking from other uses is far more efficient.
by dole | 2025-06-23 15:25:41+00:00
Texas where regular cannabis is still criminalized and there's no actual dispensaries, the tobacco, smoke shops and gas stations are flooded with the delta-8, 10, 12, etc products. Advertising on billboards for cannabis analogs with the leaf but no full cannabis (edit: delta-9 for those unaware.)

It's ridiculous. There's no enforcement on all the analogs that work maybe 50% as well as the actual thing. The state has to be happy and looking the other way on all the tax revenue now being brought in by these corner smoke shops.
by zahlman | 2025-06-23 15:25:54+00:00
> Yet everyone talks about performance when it comes to programming languages. Why?

I know this may come as a shock to the average HN reader, but most people do not think very clearly. Even programmers. And among those who do, it is quite rare that people speak precisely without putting in considerable effort.

> but even easier (and faster) to do on Perl.

You have no objective way to substantiate this claim (because such cannot exist), therefore it is in fact a matter of opinion.
by thfuran | 2025-06-23 15:26:45+00:00
> I don't understand how people can willingly spend every couple of hours every week to trim their lawn to a pristine, perfect cube of grass.

I once went out of town for two weeks figuring much the same and came back to a freshly cut lawn and a five-day-old notice from the town posted at my door stating that I had three days to trim the lawn or they'd do it for $300.
by somewhereoutth | 2025-06-23 15:26:46+00:00
My original reframing was: the only way of showing that artificial intelligence can be constructed is by showing that humans cannot compute more than the Turing computable.

I was assuming the word 'compute' to have broader meaning than Turing computable - otherwise that statement is a tautology of course.

I pointed out that Turing computable functions are a (vanishingly) small subset of all possible functions - of which some may be 'computable' outside of Turing machines even if they are not Turing computable.

An example might be the three-body problem, which has no general closed-form solution, meaning there is no equation that always solves it. However our solar system seems to be computing the positions of the planets just fine.

Could it be that human sapience exists largely or wholly in that space beyond Turing computability? (by Church-Turing thesis the same as computable by effective method, as you point out). In which case your AGI project as currently conceived is doomed.
by skeeter2020 | 2025-06-23 15:26:57+00:00
In Canada (and I assume everywhere) it's a race to the bottom. Both WalMart and BestBuy are dominated by 3rd party products in their online stores, and you never know what you will get. Some are perfectly fine and sell legit products; others as bad as Amazon.I've found books from Indigo are pretty close to Amazon in selection, price and delivery but that's such as small part of what people buy online now.
by renewiltord | 2025-06-23 15:27:08+00:00
Beautiful. I think a lot of what makes Japan wonderful in this respect is:

* Poor economic mobility

* Individual compliance with the social contract

* Liberty to run small businesses

* Good land use laws

Perfect mobility is awful because all the capable people get to maximize earnings. The better The Sort (as patio11 calls it) the more capable people move out of doing things with high positive externalities.
by hshdhdhj4444 | 2025-06-23 15:27:18+00:00
If one were cynical one would wonder why the push for directing resources towards nuclear energy right when solar and wind are not just significantly cheaper than nuclear but also cheaper than fossil fuels.

If one were not being cynical it makes sense to some degree in order to simply diversify our non fossil fuel energy sources.

An all of the above approach to decarbonizing makes sense, and nuclear will be a useful part of that.
by z0r | 2025-06-23 15:27:37+00:00
There is something to what you are saying, but there's also the truth that an increasing amount of software has been shifted into web browsers. Now the web is full of places where you can't control your own data by default, news is locked behind paywalls and an unbelievable number of ads, and the most successful websites like Facebook have replaced blogs with Skinner boxes. Maybe you can contrast the ways you used to talk with your friends online with the popular options now and see some of the differences - all of the dominant options mandate a closed source client and federation isn't even a joke to laugh about.
by stoneman24 | 2025-06-23 15:27:38+00:00
Every war needs Heroes. Gotta sell those war bonds! Boost favourable public opinion and control the positive narrative.

I believe that Stalin set 2 field marshals (Georgy Zhukov and Ivan Konev) on a race to Berlin in the last weeks of WW2 in Europe. Don’t think Stalin cared who won.