MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by solardev | 2025-06-09 23:33:31+00:00
You've basically re-created the Kinect with a regular RGB webcam, right? It's a cool project, but if it's limited to emulating a controller (instead of, say, being able to control individual limb and weapon directions like with VR or Wiimote controllers), what do you think the target audience will be?

It seems like between the Kinect itself, Intel RealSense, the PlayStation Camera and other knockoffs, this has been tried many times without much market uptake. Maybe gamers are just lazy and prefer using only our thumbs instead of whole bodies, lol.

It might be fun for fitness games, though. Or any chance it could emulate VR controllers instead to let people without headsets play VR games with just their bodies?
by Micrococonut | 2025-06-09 23:34:23+00:00
The fact that it ever made it to this stage is troubling. It was quite literally the very first thing I thought when I saw their landing page for ios 17. https://www.apple.com/os/ios/ Look at the notifications front and center in the very middle of the screen. It's unbelievable. How are these the decisions being made at one of the biggest tech companies on the planet.
by nicbou | 2025-06-09 23:35:20+00:00
One aspect is missing: content creation.

AI is completely destroying the economics of putting out free information. LLMs still relies on human beings to experience and document the real world, but they strip those humans of the reward. Creators lose the income, credit and community that come with having an audience. In the long term, I fear that a lot of the quality information will disappear because it's no longer worth creating.

I wrote a bit about this earlier in a very relevant thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44099570
by KennyBlanken | 2025-06-09 23:35:31+00:00
Not only "exists", but has managed to fight off almost any form of regulation whatsoever. There are no regulations requiring they disclose everything that is in the supplement (so a vitamin C supplement can contain Vitamin E, at any concentration, with no mention of it on the label), or that the label have correct concentration information, or be free from substances known to be toxic to humans. I think the only thing they're required to do is meet manufacturing facility standards.

Labdoor and others have found high levels of Arsenic and other poisonous materials in protein powder. Protein powder! Which apparently gets to skip all FDA regulation by being called a "supplement."
by makeitdouble | 2025-06-09 23:36:03+00:00
IMHO this is precisely why clinging to old metaphors might not be optimal.

While the Shift key keeps some resemblance of the original object behavior, a shortcut like Cmd + Shift V makes no sense in the metaphor.

Same way holding Shift while selecting objects in the finder, or arrowing around breaks the mental image. In many ways, the Command key's higher abstraction makes it easier for newcomers to grasp that it just does magical things.

Cmd + S saving the document needs no additional lore or image of a past clunky machine would had somehow reacted in a Rube Goldberg way.

Interfaces should be simple to use for simple tasks anyway, getting rid of semantic noise is IMHO a better way.
by sokoloff | 2025-06-09 23:36:16+00:00
I think all of these schemes end up failing in environments other than academic papers.

If I was a wealthy person and the calculation was based on share of wealth donated, I’m pretty sure I’d find a way to become a massive employer of temporary labor locally at $100/hr but only for 8 hours, make clear my preference for the art museum or other causes, and that I like to learn about what causes matter to them.

Accordingly, those local workers for whom I like their cause and story of why it matters to them, I’ll match their donations (based on receipts showing their donations) and also setup a series of follow-up paid interviews in the future to learn about their on-going donations to a cause they obviously care so deeply about. They keep about half the money to compensate for their time and to grow their wealth, I get to socialize with some people who support the same causes I do, I no longer have an outsized donation in my name [we wouldn’t want me to have an outsized influence], and together, we can really do great things!
by sangeeth96 | 2025-06-09 23:36:49+00:00
> Linux has won

Needing two of the most famous non-Linux operating systems for the layman to sanely develop programs for Linux systems is not particularly a victory if you look at it from that perspective. Just highlights the piss-poor state of Linux desktop even after all these years. For the average person, it's still terrible on every front and something I still have a hard time recommending when things so often go belly up.

Before you jump on me, every year, I install the latest Fedora/Ubuntu (supposedly the noob-friendly recommendations) on a relatively modern PC/Laptop and not once have I stopped and thought "huh, this is actually pretty usable and stable".
by ufmace | 2025-06-09 23:36:50+00:00
I'll admit that I was not familiar with the strong version of it. But I am still surprised that nobody has done that. Has nobody even seriously attempted to see how LLMS do at that? Now I might just have to check for myself.

I would have presumed it would be a cake walk. Depending of course on exactly how we define "average interrogator". I would think if we gave a LLM enough pre-prepping to pretend it was a human, and the interrogator was not particularly familiar with ways of "jailbreaking" LLMs, they could pass the test.
by shivsak | 2025-06-09 23:36:54+00:00
I spent the last month writing with ChatGPT, and found some better ways to steer it.

After spending a lot of time on it, I believe ChatGPT’s generic writing is actually just a steering problem.

I believe you need A LOT more context than people expect. ~5k tokens for a 1k token blog post.

The big question is "How do you give an LLM enough context to steer it to write what you wanted to?"

Using voice to capture LOTS of raw tokens / notes, then refining them through AI is working pretty well for me, and I'd love to see what other people think.

There’s an interactive demo to try it out. I’d love your feedback and opinions!
by saltcured | 2025-06-09 23:37:07+00:00
Yes, I joked, but mostly just to soften the discomfort of the idea.

I think the argument a few posts up was that this is the humane way out, rather than dragging themselves or their loved ones through the burns, trauma, radiation poisoning, starvation, and/or depredation that they assume comes next. Having loved ones is not a counterpoint to this sort of thinking.

I can't necessarily imagine making these decisions, but it is not unprecedented that parents would do so for themselves and their children. It's happened with much less trigger than a nuclear holocaust.
by xp84 | 2025-06-09 23:37:48+00:00
> an iPad starts at $349; often available for less.

It's less about the cost and more about having to have another stupid device to charge, update, and keep track of, when a tablet is not a device that gets used enough by any one person to be worth all that. It would be much more convenient to have a single device on a coffee or end table which all family members could use when they need to do more than you can do on a phone.

> Laptops and desktops that run macOS, Linux, Windows which are multiuser operating systems have largely become single-user devices.

Maybe. Probably 90% of work laptops are single-user, I'm sure. But for home computers, multi-user can be very useful. And it's better than ever to use laptops as dumb terminals, since all most people's stuff is in the cloud. It's not nearly as much trouble to get your secondary user account on a spare laptop in the living room to be useful as it was in the Windows XP days. Just having a browser that's signed into your stuff, plus Messages or Whatsapp, and maybe Slack/Discord/etc. is enough.

> most people wouldn't share a single tablet.

Since iPads have never supported doing so in a sane way, that unfounded assertion is just as likely due to the fact that it's a terrible experience today, since if you share one today, someone else will be accidentally marking your messages as read, you'll be polluting their browser or YouTube history, etc.

It's also the kind of dismissive claim true Apple believers tend to trot out when someone points out a shortcoming: "Nobody wants to use a touchscreen laptop!" "Nobody wants USB-C on an iPhone when Lightning is slightly smaller!" "Nobody needs an HDMI port or SD slot on a MacBook Pro!" "Nobody needs a second port on the 12-inch MacBook!" Most of the above things have come true except the touch laptop, and somehow it hasn't hurt anyone, but the "nobody wants..." crew immediately stops when Apple finally [re-]embraces something
by hn_throwaway_99 | 2025-06-09 23:37:57+00:00
Nothing new probably - I just remember diving down the rabbit hole from the Wikipedia page on Forstall a couple years back, e.g. stuff like this: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20514464.

But more importantly, I take issue with the main theme of your first link, as it's stuff I've heard a bunch elsewhere. I can agree that "innovation requires some tension", but I think it's a huge mistake to think that because Forstall had some (or at least looked like he had some) of the qualities of Jobs that he was the right man for the <no pun intended> job. I.e the argument usually goes something like "Hey, Jobs was disagreeable and kind of an asshole, so since Forstall is disagreeable and even more of an asshole he should be CEO."

But that clearly misses the fact that Forstall could in no way engender the level of respect that Jobs had, and I don't think people would have respected him more if he became CEO. People really admired Jobs at a deep, deep level, and that was clearly not the case for Forstall based on the many other Apple execs who couldn't stand him.
by Aurornis | 2025-06-09 23:38:10+00:00
Methylene Blue is available as a prescription medication. It’s used in several conditions. You could even get your local compounding pharmacy to produce methylene blue capsules for you if you could find a doctor to write the prescription.

> Then you realize: methylene blue can't be patented and it's manufacture is no secret

This isn’t an impediment at all. There are numerous examples of old, simple drugs being repurposed for new conditions at different doses or different delivery mechanisms with very high price tags attached.

Selegiline is one such example. It was repurposed for depression as a transdermal patch and very high prices.

If methylene blue worked for the conditions claimed, it would be used clinically. The myth that big pharma is ignoring a compound that works doesn’t hold water.
by eadwu | 2025-06-09 23:38:41+00:00
I don't use any AI code editor. Not because it isn't useful, but the user experience of using it is so bad. I typically already have the solution at hand - I don't need an AI to give me an answer, I need it to implement the solution I have.

But not using AI is also idiotic right now, at the very least you should be using it for autocomplete, in the _vast_ majority of cases any current leading LLM will return _far more_ than not using it (in the scope of autocomplete).
by bitpush | 2025-06-09 23:38:47+00:00
Imagine if Microsoft had this event - "A brand new visual system that is translucent, a tiny on-device model, and a desktop mode to tablet" people would have been writing them off.

Apple gets a ton of slack here, but it is amazing to see the mental gymnastics some of the enthusiasts are going through. They truly want to believe, when there's nothing to see or believe.
by jldugger | 2025-06-09 23:39:06+00:00
> On what time scale? In a year, sure. But there are certainly days (weeks?) where the actual value produced by any one engineer is zero, or negative.

Well, that's what I had in mind, but the concept is why agile focuses on shipping early and often. Well, mostly it's to get in more feedback iterations, but engineer hours are not immune to time-value of money analysis.

> This is a categorically stupid thing to assert. It's a stupid thing to say and it's a stupid thing to believe. Payroll is an immediate cost, paying for the development of software is not remotely the same thing as purchasing a capital asset

But it's also not like paying a janitor to clean toilets and empty wastebins where we know there's no residual value accruing to the employer. Companies do buy and sell intellectual property in the form of copyrighted code, and in the form of patents. Heck, ARM basically makes a living licensing out the cores it designs.

This obviously isn't perfect and the disparate impact has unintended consequences that could make things worse overall, but the accusations against the senate are a non-sequitor given the power of the purse lies in the House.
by queenkjuul | 2025-06-09 23:39:09+00:00
I for one have been using docker on Linux for years and have to use a Mac at work, and I'm totally baffled by the fact i need to install docker desktop to use the CLI and don't get why you'd need or want the GUI.

And like I'm not all anti-GUI, it's just that docker is one of those things I've never even imagined using a GUI for
by throwanem | 2025-06-09 23:40:03+00:00
It might simply be because you've never put concern toward basic lighting theory. Within a basically moderate range of illumination, you get eyestrain not from bright or dark but from repeatedly forcing your eyes to reaccommodate between the two. Adjust your room lighting such that whatever sits behind your displays is about as bright as they are, and dark mode becomes the accommodation problem, while dark on light is as comfortable as reading. Too, in this configuration you can also see things that don't emit light...
by Aurornis | 2025-06-09 23:40:38+00:00
> understand that disrupting homeostasis in a durable and meaningful way is actually darn hard to do

This is a huge problem in online ADHD communities, too.

The ADHD subreddits are a constant stream of people having “Wow I feel amazing” reactions after taking their first stimulant dosage, followed a week later by complaints that it “stopped working”. It’s a constant cycle of informing people that the euphoria they experienced was a side effect, not how they’re going to feel for the rest of their life taking a stimulant.
by NotPractical | 2025-06-09 23:40:50+00:00
> You're either fully locked in, or fully on your own.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. You can trivially root a Pixel factory image. And if you're talking about how they will punish you for that by removing certain features: Apple does that too (but to a lesser extent).

https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/RecordingIndicatorUtili...
by Havoc | 2025-06-09 23:41:43+00:00
The response is usually the problem.

If I file a bug I get either:

1) nothing

2) a reasonable response that may or may not include resolution

3) a shared debugging journey that takes three hours of my life

Number 3 devs mean well and have admirable commitment…but I’d rather not sign up for an epic trek to throw a ring into mountain doom. I just want to point out an issue and provide some basic info.

So these days the only thing I do for the most part is send crash logs.
by paxys | 2025-06-09 23:41:52+00:00
Thinking more about this a bit, one immediate issue I see with adoption is that the idea of launching each container in its own VM to fully isolate it and give it its own IP, while neat, doesn't really translate to Linux or Windows. This means if you have a team of developers and a single one of them doesn't have a mac, your local dev model is already broken. So I can't see a way to easily replace Docker/Compose with this.
by jwarden | 2025-06-09 23:42:14+00:00
The authors of the QF paper describe it as "an extension of the logic of quadratic voting." They involve similar formulas and both are theoretically optimal (or efficient), and have a single equilibrium. These properties are proven using somewhat similar math.

But they apply to quite different settings and are not really the same thing. With Quadratic Voting, people pay for votes (with cost determined by a certain formula). With Quadratic Funding, people contribute to projects (with matching funds determined by a certain formula).

QV also makes many assumptions that rarely hold in reality, just like QF does. I may write an article about this someday.
by drob518 | 2025-06-09 23:42:36+00:00
Most companies don’t have a user accessible way to file bugs. Often, you have to call support, speak to a muppet, then convince them that your issue is real and they’ll file it. Trust me, I find bugs in products all the time and I actually try to file bug reports, but it’s rare that I can.

Some of this is because one of the worst bug-related metrics is “customer found bugs.” This means that your developers missed it during unit testing and your test team missed it during system and final testing. Nobody actually wants customers to be able to file bug reports because they make the team look bad.
by qubitcoder | 2025-06-09 23:42:52+00:00
Arguably, the opposite is true. Ars Technica and others have written about this extensively [0].

Having summarized results appear immediately with links to the sources is preferable to opening multiple tabs and sifting through low-quality content and clickbait.

Many real-world problems aren't as simple as "type some keywords" and get relevant results. AI excels as a "rubber duck", i.e., a tool to explore possible solutions, troubleshoot issues, discover new approaches, etc.

Yes, LLMs are useful for junior developers. But for experienced developers, they're more valuable.

It's a tool, just like search engines.

Airplanes are also a tool. Would you limit your travel to destinations within walking distance? Or avoid checking the weather because forecasts use Bayesian probability (and some mix of machine learning)? Or avoid power tools because they deny the freedom of doing things the hard way?

One can imagine that when early humans began wearing clothing to keep warm, there were naysayers who preferred to stay cold.

The most creative people I know are using AI to further their creativity. Example: storytelling, world building, voice models, game development, artwork, assistants that mimic their personality, helping loved ones enjoy a better quality of life as they age, smart home automations to help their grandmother, text-to-speech for the visually impaired or those who have trouble reading, custom voice commands, and so on.

Should I tell my mom to turn off Siri and avoid highlighting text and tapping "Speak" because it uses AI under the hood? I think not.

They embrace it, just like creative people have always done.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/google-is-reimaginin...
by dacox | 2025-06-09 23:42:56+00:00
I think it should fairly clear why I'm curious, as the article mentions

> Although it’s typically not viewed as a partisan board, the Biden administration had installed the entire committee.

After some degree of googling the history of ACIP I had not found any explanation and thought maybe someone here(who is actually American and maybe follows this kind of thing more closely?) would just know

Looks like there are actually some comments now that are more clarifying.

> Are you just asking questions to smokescreen for this executive power grab?

I’m just trying to understand the background. I get that this is a sensitive topic, but I’d ask that we keep things civil and give people the benefit of the doubt when they’re asking honest questions.
by hagbard_c | 2025-06-09 23:43:02+00:00
I did not claim that a hybrid diesel-electric car is more efficient than a battery EV so that question is off-base. Instead I questioned the premise of 'implicit diesel-electric cars' (i.e. battery EVs charged by means of diesel-powered fast charging stations) being more efficient than individual diesel cars or the proposed diesel-electric hybrid cars. There are losses involved in each phase, here starting with refined diesel since the energy losses from the oil well to the pump station are identical for both direct-drive diesel cars as well as battery EVs charged through diesel generators:

- the (modern) diesel engine itself has a thermal efficiency between ~43% (smaller direct injection engines as used in light cars) to > 50% (large truck engines, large generators), theoretical maximum thermal efficiency lies between 55% (achieved by the largest nautical diesel engines) and 60% (not yet available).

- for direct-drive diesel vehicles: transmission losses, commonly assumed to be around 15%

- for hybrid-drive diesel vehicles: generator losses + electrical motor losses + final drive losses

- for generator-charged battery EV vehicles: generator losses + electrical transmission losses + charger losses + battery charging losses + electrical motor losses + final drive losses

Average charging losses for battery EVs seem to lie around 15% with the lowest efficiency (75%, i.e. 25% of energy is lost) seen when using a single-phase AC charger and the highest efficiency (~90%, i.e. 10% of input energy is lost) using a HV DC fast charger. Using the latter does put an extra strain on the battery which shortens its lifetime and tends to be a lot more expensive than using a 3-phase home charger which ends up being the most cost efficient. The 'wire to wheel' efficiency of a typical EV is supposed to be around 77% (Natural Resources Canada (2022)), this includes charging losses. With drive train losses in direct-drive diesel vehicles being around 15% this leaves an 8% difference to the advantage of direct-drive diesel vehicles, some of which will be lost due to the lower efficiency of the small-bore high-speed diesel engines used in such vehicles compared to the larger-bore medium-speed engines used in larger generators. For relatively recent direct-drive diesel vehicles this comparison will probably end up showing them to be overall more efficient that the combination of a diesel-powered charging station and a recent EV.

https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/elektromobilitaet/lade...

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a36062942/evs-explaine...

https://insideevs.com/features/555906/tesla-charging-losses-...
by iamthefury | 2025-06-09 23:44:03+00:00
I wish I could upvote this comment twice. Thank you for the walk down memory lane.

I recall, in about 2010, hiring a young engineer to help with small marketing pages at an agency in New York City. His work was pixel-perfect at a time when we’d spend days just trying to get things looking reasonable in IE6. He was fast. It was incredible.

He was gone for the day when a last-minute change came in, so another dev went to update his latest work. Turns out he had been exporting the entire designs (from Photoshop, of course, no Sketch or Figma back then) as a BACKGROUND IMAGE and then ABSOLUTELY POSITIONING form fields.

I thought it was brilliant. No one else but the boss agreed. Testing for all of his work had been flawless cross-browser. It just didn’t work well on mobile. But he didn’t have to center things in a div - it was all smoke and mirrors.

I miss those days sometimes.
by ultimafan | 2025-06-09 23:44:40+00:00
On a personal level? Sure, I don't think anyone should be calling out, naming and shaming, or drawing attention to abnormal behavior that specific individuals have. Nobody should target a real human being doing something weird but otherwise harmless to others with the intention of causing them distress.

But on a societal level I think it's absolutely okay to look around and say, "Hey, have you noticed the <insert something out of the ordinary> behavior that's starting to happen? What's causing that? How did it become normalized? Is that something we should readily accept?"

Such cases can absolutely be symptoms of larger societal problems and we shouldn't brush them away without examining them first.
by sethherr | 2025-06-09 23:44:51+00:00
Sorry, "don't pay taxes" was hyperbole - what I meant was have a lower tax rate than the rest of us.

Isn't that the whole point of all sorts of tax strategies, for instance Buy, Borrow, Die?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrae/2022/07/14/how-the-ric...