MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by floxy | 2025-06-04 20:35:05+00:00
Is there a way to quantify the "expected" muscle loss associated with extreme weight loss? I mean, for people who go from 400 lbs to 150 lbs, prior to the weight loss, they were essentially doing a 250 pound squat ever time they'd get up and out of a chair. I assume most people don't start taking up weight lifting, so then they'd lose a lot of muscle mass they are no longer are using.
by runako | 2025-06-04 20:35:12+00:00
First, I am glad you are here. Since you mention that you are an immigrant, it's worth noting that the ascendant anti-immigrant fervor is a direct expression of pessimism about our future. It's a statement that there's not enough to go around, that growth is not possible. It says that in order for me to do better, I must shrink the denominator because the numerator cannot get bigger.

The optimistic USA of the 1980s saw better days ahead, and so the presence of immigrants did not have the salience it has today. Ronald Reagan even had the latitude to enact an amnesty on the undocumented.

> I don't think that this is a defining characteristic of Americans

Here I would just ask you to look at our realized policy as the best expression of our characteristics. We don't build, or even really believe that building is possible. When we are asked to choose, we routinely cut education and healthcare. These are not signs of optimism.

The pessimism has only grown; twenty years ago, it was considered possible that Americans could enjoy universal healthcare of the sort that exists in the (generally poorer) countries of Western Europe. Today, in a much wealthier America, even the suggestion has vanished from the realm of the possible and we are headed in the opposite direction.
by haswell | 2025-06-04 20:35:16+00:00
I think you overestimate the degree to which some software can be standardized and sold in a set of well-defined SKUs, and the degree to which some buyers want to be intimately familiar with extremely granular pricing (e.g. something like AWS).

Again, speaking only for the places I worked, part of the reason pricing wasn't simple was that larger customer deployments were tuned to the customer based on a myriad of factors ranging from the specific software modules the customer purchased, use cases they intended to deploy and the load characteristics of those use cases, etc.

Setting aside for a moment any potential bad behavior, the bottom line is that for some kinds of software, bespoke pricing is a more accurate reflection of the reality of the deployment than trying to force some kind of standardized label on it. The places I worked also had pricing books they'd show customers, but due to their complexity, they would not publish these publicly.

> bespoke pricing is a cynical tactic, no matter how you dress it up

We'll have to agree to disagree. Having worked with quite a few large vendors over the years, there are clear and obvious differences between them, better and worse reasons for this type of pricing, and there's a reason that some companies have earned a negative reputation while others have not.

It's also not clear to me why you've concluded that this is all inherently cynical.
by HarHarVeryFunny | 2025-06-04 20:35:42+00:00
There is also this recent introduction to Claude Code by Boris Cherny who wrote it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eBSHbLKuN0

Interesting that about 80% of developers at Anthropic are now using it.

There's a question at the end of the presentation about why is Claude Code a command line tool, not an IDE... basic answer was because command line is ubiquitous so it fits into everyone's workflow regardless of tool choice, but second part was more interesting ... That internal to Anthropic they are seeing how fast Claude itself is improving, and are projecting that using IDEs to develop software may shortly no longer make sense!
by soulofmischief | 2025-06-04 20:36:01+00:00
Governments have interests, people have interests, both are interested in the future of their country, which is just land.

This is why I am careful to delineate my patriotism as to my country, land and people, but specifically not my corporate government, who are greedy, genocidal, parasitic traitors to the Constitution and to humanity. A kangaroo court controlled by organized crime.
by TimorousBestie | 2025-06-04 20:36:15+00:00
I’ve read LessWrong on and off since 2014. Read SSC and ACX semi-regularly. Scott’s a crank. He writes convincingly, he understands charisma and style, but he just can’t hold his own in an intellectual exchange.

Just last week he and Tyler Cowen of Marginial Revolution got into a dispute over USAID and DOGE and the degree to which Scott fails over and over again to read otherwise simple sentences is staggering.
by hinkley | 2025-06-04 20:36:32+00:00
New Belgium distilling used to take the dregs from their beer batches and ferment them again anaerobically to produce methane they then used to fire some of their boilers.

Then those dregs got composted and used on the landscaping.

There are ways to co-generate fuel for this but I don't want to lose the larger message that PP is producing toy solutions no matter how you zhuzh them up.

Could they get over that in version 5? Probably. But more likely on 6 or 7, and more likely still for another entrepreneur to scoop them and make something real.
by behnamoh | 2025-06-04 20:36:49+00:00
This is why I don't like open sourcing my projects anymore. Someone else with more resources just forks it and makes profits, thinking that merely acknowledging me pays my bills.

For years, ollama didn't acknowledge llama.cpp and r/localllama found it weird until they finally mentioned llama.cpp on their page, but the damage is done: most apps that support local LLMs only support ollama or LM Studio API, not the original llama.cpp.
by dheera | 2025-06-04 20:37:20+00:00
It's not that they deliberately made a math error, it's that it's a very crude algorithm that basically just blurs everything that's not within what's deemed as the subject with some triangular, Gaussian, or other computationally simple kernel.

What real optics does:

- The blur kernel is a function of the shape of the aperture, which is typically circular at wide aperture and hexagonal at smaller aperture. Not gaussian, not triangular, and the kernel being a function of the depth map itself, it does not parallelize efficiently

- The blurring is a function of the distance to the focal point, is typically closer to a hyperbola; most phone camera apps just use a constant blur and don't even account for this

- Lens aberrations, which are often thought of as defects, but if you generate something too perfect it looks fake

- Diffraction effects happen at sharp points of the mechanical aperture which create starbursts around highlights

- When out-of-focus highlights get blown out, they blow out more than just the center area, they also blow out some of the blurred area. If you clip and then blur, your blurred areas will be less-than-blown-out which also looks fake

Probably a bunch more things I'm not thinking of but you get the idea
by ekremkenter | 2025-06-04 20:37:25+00:00
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by xyzzy123 | 2025-06-04 20:37:28+00:00
> Is there any good literature about “burning” nonuniform durable materials in a rotary disc burner

Not that I'm aware of. A DVD write laser is maybe 200mW so it's not going to be able to engrave most materials or do it VERY slowly at best. The spot size is ridiculously small though (this is good) so they are still interesting.

Most people interested in light wood or thin plastic applications have moved on to the small 5-20W diode laser form factor, these are available for a few hundred dollars if you aren't too worried about safety (e.g. no kids in the house). Something with a proper enclosure, interlocks and air handling costs more but still sub $1k. The spot size is much bigger than a DVD laser though; you can't get anything like the same resolution.

Modding a DVD laser has much higher hack value but it seems to have gone out of style as hobby lasers became widely available as a product.

Re: materials, if you are not on the "happy path" (material supported by manufacturer or specifically designed for laser) you have to get samples and test.

There's a few different interactions with laser spot size, wavelength, power, passes etc and the material which means different people (with different systems) tend to get different results. The variability limits the "shareability" of results; probably the biggest sources material info / laser settings are in the forums of the laser manufacturers because it makes the most sense to share settings with other users of the same system.

As you noted, glue and nonuniformity are a big thing, most materials aren't designed to be burned / vaporised. For glass specifically I think the most practical way would be a CO2 laser which is different again.
by mystified5016 | 2025-06-04 20:37:36+00:00
I can't believe that anyone still thinks a popup permission modal offers any type of security. Windows UAC has shown quite definitively that users will always click through any modal in their way without thought or comprehension.

Besides that, approximately zero laypersons will have even the slightest clue what this permission means, the risks involved, or why they might want to prevent it. All they know is that the website they want is not working, and the website tells them to enable this or that permission. They will all blindly enable it every single time.
by morkalork | 2025-06-04 20:38:40+00:00
For real. Editing prompts bares no resemblance to engineering at all, there is no accuracy or precision. Say you have a benchmark to test against and you're trying to make an improvement. Will your change to the prompt make the benchmark go up? Down? Why? Can you predict? No, it is not a science at all. It's just throwing shit and examples at the wall in hopes and prayers.
by godelski | 2025-06-04 20:38:53+00:00
> Now I'm confused ... that even mathematical proofs could be "terrible"? That doesn't make sense to me.

You know there's plenty of ways to prove things, right? Like there's not a single proof. Here's a few proofs for pi being irrational[0]. The list is not comprehensive.

Take that like you do with code. They all generate the same final output. They're all correct. But is one better than another? Yes, yes it is. But which one that is depends on context.

> and crucially -- measurable

This is probably a point of contention. Measuring is far more difficult than people think. A lot of work goes into creating measurements and we get a nice ruler at the end. The problem isn't just that initial complexity, it is that every measure is a proxy. Even your meter stick doesn't measure a meter. What distinguishes the engineer from the hobbyist is the knowledge of alignment.

How well does my measure align with what I intend to measure?

That's a very hard problem. How often do you ask yourself that? I'm betting not enough. Frankly, most things aren't measurable.

[0] https://proofwiki.org/wiki/Pi_is_Irrational#:~:text=Hence%20...
by fracus | 2025-06-04 20:39:07+00:00
I don't understand these tech demos. Wasn't UE5 demoed by Epic themselves after they made it? Are 2nd party developers allowed to change the engine in any meaningful way? Wouldn't this just be CPR demoing how well they are using the engine? Doesn't that all it boil down to? So some developers learn and understand UE5 better than others?
by imglorp | 2025-06-04 20:39:09+00:00
It's common for people to ignore parking fines until they pile up. A city might "boot" the car to disable it, or they can tow it; either way extorting the owner to pay. Also, private parking areas contract with tow companies which incentivizes the tow companies to patrol proactively looking for violators and tow anyone without a permit or whatever. So a market was created.
by mmooss | 2025-06-04 20:39:27+00:00
It might be to destroy the bombers - I don't know enough to do more than ask the question about nuclear stability - my point is that dismissing factors, including via self-righteousness and denial, is a very dangerous and intentionally ignorant choice. All that matters for decision-making is the conquences of your actions. No matter whose fault it is, the outcomes are the same.

Ukraine does have to balance nuclear stability, and I expect they have - I can't say if they made the right choice, but it's a very serious question. On HN people can dismiss it in a thousand ways, but it's not a serious analysis.

I would guess that the primary things that should happen are,

NATO, especially the US, needs to make it clear that they will spend whatever it takes for however long it takes to win. If Russia believed that, they would leave Ukraine now. NATO and the US have order of magnitude more economic resources than Russia - Russia can't compete if NATO seriously invests.

And Ukranians need to defend their country. A large portion of their population refuses to fight. That undermines manpower, a critical issue; it raises questions in Russia's mind about Ukraine's motivation to win, which prolongs the war; and it must raise questions in international leaders' minds (though none talk about it, I would guess so they don't undermine support for Ukraine).

I don't know that either of those things will happen, and the status quo sadly continues.
by throwaway2037 | 2025-06-04 20:39:44+00:00
Okay, I understand your point. Basically, you rewrote an awful (clickbat-worthy) enterprisey Java web app into a reasonable, maintainable Python web app. I am sympathetic. Yes, I agree: I have seen, sadly, far more trashy Java enterprisey apps than not. Why? I don't know. The incentives are not well-aligned.

As a counterpoint: Look at Crazy Bob's (Lee/R.I.P.) Google Guice or Norman Maurer's Netty.IO or Tim Fox's Vert.x: All of them are examples of how to write ultra-lean, low-level, high-performance modern Java apps... but are frequently overlooked to hire cheap, low-skill Java devs to write "yet another Spring app".
by breppp | 2025-06-04 20:40:00+00:00
I think generally terrorism has some other connotations which is why this is raising antagonism among Ukraine supporters

I don't think this is causing fear as the citizens do not feel threatened, as these are military targets. I think the feeling is more of the sort of "humiliation", which can indeed have valid political implications that may affect the war.

Putting aside that, denying the enemy its strategic bombing methods has various advantages in a war, such as less damage to infrastructure and in this case increasing domestic morale due to military success, and reducing Russian ability to demoralize by bombing cities
by fallingknife | 2025-06-04 20:40:14+00:00
> Learning difficult subjects fundamentally changes how you think about and approach things.

Citation needed on this. But even if I accept the premise, what percentage of school is leaning difficult subjects? For me it was <5% and the other 95+% was stuff that could be beaten easily with rote memorization. The only classes in that 5% were upper level courses that only students who want to be there take anyway.
by Apocryphon | 2025-06-04 20:40:23+00:00
How far we've come since a dozen years ago, when TechCrunch was the first mainstream outlet to observe Moldbug and his ideological currents:

Geeks for Monarchy: The Rise of the Neoreactionaries (techcrunch.com) 54 points by davidgerard on Nov 23, 2013 | 109 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6785801
by Disposal8433 | 2025-06-04 20:40:27+00:00
It reminds me that we had the same hype and FOMO when Google became popular. Books were being written on the subject and you had to buy those or you would become a caveman in a near future. What happened is that anyone could learn the whole thing in a day and that was it, no need to debate about whether you would miss anything if you didn't knew all those tools.
by emporas | 2025-06-04 20:40:44+00:00
Urbit is also written in PHP. A clone of Urbit is written in Rust, i was reading it's source some years back, i don't even remember it's name, but i had this feeling of "Ok, what is that thing doing".

But one thing is clear to me. Blockchain technology + IPv6 opens a lot of possibilities to re-imagine networking, and that's what Urbit is mainly focused on: networking.

A good blockchain technology also has possibilities to re-imagine parts of OS.

For example we will not need to have local users if all identities can be verified using credentials stored online, immutable forever. Also we won't need to have local networks, DNS, Time servers etc. Everything will be global.

Many ideas there, but each one of those problems is unbelievably hard by itself, all of them together is half of the internet and computing infrastructure.
by r00m101 | 2025-06-04 20:41:08+00:00
Great question, the risk category is meant to reflect the potential sensitivity or legal/ethical complexity of a tool’s use. For example, tools that scrape private data or could be easily misused might be tagged higher risk, while something like a domain WHOIS lookup would be low risk. It’s not a legal judgment, just a way to help users assess how carefully they might need to tread.

Also, thanks for catching that, I just fixed the footer links!
by glookler | 2025-06-04 20:42:06+00:00
Around ~2010 I still had a lot of coworkers who claimed tech was basically incapable of defending its interests against other sectors. Maybe a bit different than today. I don't doubt that they thought they would get this repealed, but I would suspect the risk of the live grenade went to the sector with the least lobbying competence per revenue for the tax equations.
by r00m101 | 2025-06-04 20:42:10+00:00
Appreciate that, and agreed, Bellingcat’s toolkit is excellent.

Totally fair question. That particular tool is more situational, it can surface quotes tied to a username, which can help spot ideological lean, professional background, or even cross-platform clues if phrasing is reused elsewhere. It’s less about hard identifiers, more about building contextual profiles when attribution is subtle.

That said, I’m always reviewing which tools actually add value. If something feels out of place, I’m open to removing or recategorizing it.
by ceejayoz | 2025-06-04 20:42:14+00:00
To contextualize that claim, I'd quote the article:

> "'How dangerous is it that we are being linked?' Thiel wrote to Yarvin in 2014. “One reassuring thought: one of our hidden advantages is that these people”—social-justice warriors—'wouldn’t believe in a conspiracy if it hit them over the head (this is perhaps the best measure of the decline of the Left). Linkages make them sound really crazy, and they kinda know it.'"
by A_D_E_P_T | 2025-06-04 20:43:13+00:00
Rather the opposite, I think. To me it seems that the fact that he's an MP makes it all the more interesting. In the UK, as in the US and elsewhere, people across the political spectrum -- and at all levels, from MPs to "Gary the regional sales manager" -- are losing faith in democratic processes. (At least as they're currently implemented.)

As an aside, this is exactly what happens in Gibson's Jackpot.

> “Who runs it, then?”

> “Oligarchs, corporations, neomonarchists. Hereditary monarchies provided conveniently familiar armatures. Essentially feudal, according to its critics. Such as they are.”

That there's no way to vote your way out of this mess is most readily apparent in the UK, but it's true practically everywhere except Switzerland.

Switzerland, to some extent, shows that sometimes problems with democracy can be solved with. . . more democracy.
by dottjt | 2025-06-04 20:43:45+00:00
Not at all related (though I am Australian), but I was visiting a primary school one time and there was a large sand pit for the children to play in. Next to the sand pit was a newly installed drinking fountain. However funnily, the entire drinking fountain was completely clogged with sand, I assume from children bringing the sand to the drinking fountain in order to play with the water. Thought it was funny how by simple placement, defeated the utility of that device.
by danaris | 2025-06-04 20:44:09+00:00
Well, note that my conclusion is largely that we have not, in fact, decreased the number of hackers, nor their proportion within the general population—just their proportion within the computer-using population, and that only by adding a large number of non-hackers to that population. I'm skeptical that we can ever increase the proportion of the population that has the hacker mindset much higher than it is without some kind of overall cultural shift (something that's beyond our power to affect).

But it's also unquestionably true that it's much easier to be a "hacker", in the sense we think of from the 1960s-80s, in a time and field where the hardware and software is simpler, more open, and less obfuscated. As such, I think it's probably not helpful to long for those bygone days—especially the "simpler" part—which we are clearly never getting back until and unless we make a breakthrough that is just as revolutionary as the transistor and the microchip were (and I'm skeptical as to whether that's possible, both in terms of what physics allow ever, and in terms of the shape of the corporate landscape now and for the foreseeable future). Honestly, a lot of the things that were possible back then, a lot of the incentive to get into hacking, was stuff that's actually hugely dangerous or invasive. Instead, I think it's better to focus on what we can do to improve the latter two parts of that equation: more open, less obfuscated.

Personally, I would say that the way toward that is pushing for, creating, and working on more open protocols and open standards, and insisting that those be used to enable more interoperability in place of proprietary formats and integration only with other software and hardware from the same company.
by coldtea | 2025-06-04 20:44:23+00:00
Loopholes are "holes" and blind-spots in the law. A reduction in regulation involves opening more of those.

It's not about making something totally unregulated (in which case there wouldn't be a need for loopholes, as any bad practice would be fine).

More about reducing the more targeted and detailed parts of regulations that prevent loopholes and keeping the "core laws" - that then have gaping holes and blind spots.
by nickpsecurity | 2025-06-04 20:44:31+00:00
I think your argument is supported by the fact that many companies, in and outside of AI, have pricing upfront. That's for cloud platforms, OS's, frameworks like Sciter, shrink-wrap, semi-custom with value adds ("starts at..."), per-token pricing on models, etc.

Then, some companies wont give the slightest hint of pricing unless we talk to their paid salespeople. It's definitely a game to extract more money out of you. While they may or may not, they often ignore low-volume customers who could easily buy the product if it was on an online store. Your skepticism is warranted.
by nickcw | 2025-06-04 20:45:12+00:00
This has the potential to break rclone's oauth mechanism as it relies on setting the redirect URL to localhost so when the oauth is done rclone (which is running on your computer) gets called.

I guess if the permissions dialog is sensibly worded then the user will allow it.

I think this is probably a sensible proposal but I'm sure it will break stuff people are relying on.