MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by Whoppertime | 2025-06-24 18:15:29+00:00
I think contemporary events force people to be skeptical. For one generation it was the Vietnam War, the dissonance between what generals were saying and what was happening on the ground. Another generation had that happen with WMDs in Iraq. I think many in this generation had it happen with "2 weeks to flatten the curve" and the dissonance between promises made about COVID, the efficacy of lockdowns or the efficacy of vaccines.
by jerf | 2025-06-24 18:15:32+00:00
The system will never tell you how to escape from the system. Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

"Critical thinking" was never really taught in schools. It was always just training in how to dismiss any proposition by "criticizing" it selectively, with a heavy bias towards criticizing anything outside the system, and a token zone of approved disagreement to convince yourself that you really are free to disagree with things.
by purplesyringa | 2025-06-24 18:15:44+00:00
I'm surprised by the number of bad takes on LLMs in this thread.

LLMs spoon-feed you with information about how things are implemented. You are not supposed to know how everything works when you start these projects. You're supposed to try your best, inevitably fail, then research the topic and understand where you went wrong, then adjust your approach. If you know how everything works and just follow the tutorial, you won't know what makes other methods fail, and by proxy what makes the one you chose work.

Write a language parser with a regex. Find out that it can't parse recursive statements. You've now learnt that regex can only parse a specific subset of syntaxes. Try to workaround this by pattern-matching the most nested statement first. Find out that it blows up performance. You now know more about time complexity and know what to watch out for when you write a real parser.

Write a non-optimizing compiler from scratch. Find out that you can't make do with unsound optimizations because you can't keep track of what optimizations are applied where. Find out that implementing sound optimizations is hard because you need to track use-def chains. Then you'll understand why SSA is used. Find out that code motion is a mess. Learn about sea of nodes. Merge every optimization pass into one because you're unable to order passes right. Learn how e-graphs solve this.

Write a layout engine. Get stuck on being unable to define what a "width" is. Workaround this with min/max/natural widths, introduce binary search, etc. Learn how this stuff works in practice (this is something I haven't personally done yet).

They say we learn from mistakes. Please don't let the smart (or "smart", depending on how you look at it) machine stop you from making them. It's not a teacher and it doesn't know how to educate.
by mindslight | 2025-06-24 18:16:22+00:00
It's either ambiguous or a logical fallacy - the original concern is about government overreach in general, so it cannot be dismissed by focusing on the executive when it's obviously not the executive acting.

The commenter I responded to is an attorney who presumably just tried to cut out having to detail a longer argument based on the actual nuances that have been interpreted from the 4th amendment. Still, the argument bit off too much so in the interest of deeper analysis and rational discussion it seemed worth calling out.
by zemvpferreira | 2025-06-24 18:16:29+00:00
I'm an airbnb host with 5 apartments as a hobby business. As a traveller, I've stayed in hundreds since they started. There were no good old days and it's not horrible now. Like neighbourhood restaurants, there's massive variance in quality and it will be up to you to differentiate between the folks who care about their guests and those that rent apartments without windows.

I had a host in 2012 in SF -a sweet alcoholic of an old man- who flashed me full frontal nudity before check-out. I had an apartment in Shenzhen in 2014 literally covered in roaches. I lasted one night. This year I stayed in an apartment in Andermatt with beautiful cherry wood floors, a phenomenal kitchen, sauna, a huge outdoor space and full view of the mountains for half the price of the nearest hotel room. Worse now than before? Bullshit.

None of my guests have ever paid for a sheet. I comp extra nights if they're unbooked. I offer every towel under the sun, a warm body to check you in at any time and some wine and snacks if you arrive very late free of charge. I'm still nowhere close to being the most welcoming host in the city. There are great experiences to be had out there. If you want personality, to relate with the owners and get a good deal at the expense of total predictability, airbnb is for you. Ignore any listing that doesn't match the vibe. If you're looking for the travel equivalent of eating at Subway, a chain hotel will be a better option.
by yjp20 | 2025-06-24 18:16:46+00:00
> Maybe it was because OpenAI announced they would start to support MCP in their tools ? [0]

Author here, I assumed this would be the reason too, but the timelines don't really match up. Momentum was already strong by the time that OpenAI adopted it. And it's an educated guess on my part, but that's also probably why they adopted it in the first place.

Some sources point to the MCP talk at AI Engineer being the turning point (and the timelines match up), but like with all viral studies the answer is pretty complicated and multi-faceted, rather than having a single cause.

> Perhaps I'm being too harsh with the author, but this article definitely gives me vibes of "AI slop".

I think it's fine to be harsh! I don't like AI slop either but unfortunately this article was mostly handwritten, so it's just a skill-issue on my part. I'll try to do better next time
by feoren | 2025-06-24 18:16:49+00:00
> I don’t know any group who intentionally acts against their interests.

I do. I know a group of people that would happily let you shatter every window in their home if you also agreed to burn down the house of their brown-skinned neighbor next door. The same group of people that would cheerfully let you grope their own daughter's genitals if it meant that trans people suffered far worse. The same group of people who would gleefully give up their rights to due process if it meant that people who talk differently from them can be sent to prison camps en masse. The same group of people who cheer at the idea of letting the poor and sick die alone on the street, even as you do everything you can to keep them poor and sick themselves. This group will take any bargain against their own interests as long as others are suffering worse, and they will brag and cheer about it the whole time. And there are tens of millions of them.
by mipsol | 2025-06-24 18:17:09+00:00
A simpler approach uses mixed-integer LP (MIP) and a mathematical programming DSL like julia/JuMP or python/pyomo.

Here's a trivial and fast MIP solution using python/pulp, which would be essentially the same in any mathematical programming DSL:

from collections import defaultdict import pulp board = [ ["P", "P", "P", "P", "P", "P", "P", "P", "P"], ["P", "P", "R", "S", "S", "S", "L", "L", "L"], ["P", "R", "R", "W", "S", "L", "L", "L", "L"], ["P", "R", "W", "W", "S", "O", "O", "L", "L"], ["P", "R", "W", "Y", "Y", "Y", "O", "O", "L"], ["P", "R", "W", "W", "Y", "O", "O", "L", "L"], ["P", "R", "R", "W", "Y", "O", "B", "L", "L"], ["P", "R", "R", "G", "G", "G", "B", "B", "L"], ["P", "P", "R", "R", "G", "B", "B", "L", "L"], ] # group by color for color constraint def board_to_dict(board): nr = len(board) res = defaultdict(list) for i, row in enumerate(board): if len(row) != nr: raise ValueError("Input must be a square matrix") for j, color in enumerate(row): res[color].append((i, j)) return res color_regions = board_to_dict(board) N = len(color_regions) prob = pulp.LpProblem("Colored_N_Queens", pulp.LpMinimize) x = [[pulp.LpVariable(f"x_{i}_{j}", cat="Binary") for j in range(N)] for i in range(N)] # Row constraints for i in range(N): prob += pulp.lpSum(x[i][j] for j in range(N)) == 1 # Column constraints for j in range(N): prob += pulp.lpSum(x[i][j] for i in range(N)) == 1 # Color region constraints for positions in color_regions.values(): prob += pulp.lpSum(x[i][j] for (i, j) in positions) == 1 # No diagonal adjacency for i in range(N): for j in range(N): for di, dj in [(-1, -1), (-1, 1), (1, -1), (1, 1)]: ni, nj = i + di, j + dj if 0 <= ni < N and 0 <= nj < N: prob += x[i][j] + x[ni][nj] <= 1 # Trivial objective prob += 0 res = prob.solve() print(f"Solver status: {pulp.LpStatus[prob.status]}") if pulp.LpStatus[prob.status] == "Optimal": for i in range(N): row = "" for j in range(N): row += ("#" if pulp.value(x[i][j]) > 0.5 else " ") + board[i][j] + " " print(row)

and its output:

#P P P P P P P P P P P R S S #S L L L P R R W S L L L #L P R #W W S O O L L P R W Y Y Y O #O L P R W W #Y O O L L P #R R W Y O B L L P R R #G G G B B L P P R R G B #B L L
by RC_ITR | 2025-06-24 18:18:02+00:00
>Theoretically, credit should be used for one thing: to make more money. (not less)

This is prima fascia false. Credit, especially artificially low interest rate credit like this, can be used for a ton of reasons, including 'beating inflation.'

I bring this up because so many diligent savers in 2019/2020 got screwed by waiting to buy big tickets items.
by impossiblefork | 2025-06-24 18:18:02+00:00
I think the reason it's okay to charge rent for certain bits is that the space of bitstrings is so large.

Choosing someone's bitstrings is like choosing to harvest someone's fields in a world where there's infinite space of fertile fields. You picked his, instead of finding a space in the infinite expanse to farm on your own.

If you start writing something you'll never generate a copyrighted work at random. When the work isn't available nothing is taken away from you even if you were strictly forbidden from reproducing the work.

Choosing someone's particular bitstring is only done because there's someone who has expended effort in preparing it.
by staticman2 | 2025-06-24 18:18:22+00:00
I enjoyed reading your take on modern dating but I always find takes like this confusing in a "Did men and women stop making babies and I didn't notice?" Sort of way.

I've attempted to answer this puzzlement myself and PEW research says:

"Some age groups have a higher share of singles than others. Adults under 30 are the most likely age group to be single, with roughly half (47%) falling into this category. In contrast, 30- to 49-year-olds are the least likely to be single (21%). About three-in-ten adults ages 50 to 64 or 65 and older say they are single."

I suppose my personal bias is that while being single is a valid lifestyle that is a lot of singles at age 50 to 64.

I don't find the 30 to 49 range of 21% to be that big (at least a percent or two are likely single for expected reasons like entering a priesthood or being asexual) and while the below 30 single rate is a little surprising the difference between an 18 year old adult and 28 year old adult is too big to draw conclusions.
by immibis | 2025-06-24 18:18:27+00:00
Every business does this. Every business. Every institution, even.

Rules are there for a few reasons, but precisely enumerating the things you can and cannot do isn't one of them. (That's why programmers definitely shouldn't litigate pro se.)

One purpose is to try to indemnify the institution making the rules: "See, we said you're not allowed to do X. Damages resulting from X aren't our fault." Another purpose is to deter bad behaviour: if they say you're not allowed to do X, you're less likely to do X. A third purpose is to provide cover for their actions - most easily by writing a rule that literally everyone breaks and then selectively enforcing it, or by writing vague rules you can selectively interpret. If they can punish you and then point to a rule you allegedly broke, you're more likely to accept it and less likely to retaliate. Notice how all of these purposes have to do with manipulating other people. (Are you reminded of any countries?)

You should do it too, if you want to be successful in an amoral business environment. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Unless your customers pay extra for well-defined rules to create a stable environment for themselves. In that case, you should do that, and take their money. That sort of thing is, for example, why some people would rather pay more for a technically inferior Fairphone or Librem than a flagship Android phone or iPhone.
by cyberge99 | 2025-06-24 18:18:30+00:00
Not really. The people that pay interest on credit cards are the ones that pay for the luxuries/points/rewards of those who use credit cards wisely. If I get a 0% apr credit card for 18 months, i put all of my expenses on it for 16 months. I put that equivalent cash in to a high interest yield savings account (HYSA) and pay the card off before it’s due. I pocket the difference since the bank just gave me a free loan.
by drdeca | 2025-06-24 18:18:32+00:00
If you use ZFC+Consistent(ZFC) as your meta-theory, and within it consider a model of ZFC, then surely one can consider the set (in the meta theory) of sentences which pick out a unique real number in the model, and then the set of real numbers in the model which are picked out by some sentence? It might not be a set that belongs to the model, but it’s a set in the meta-theory, right?

And, I imagine that the set of real numbers of the meta theory could be (in the meta theory) the same set as the set of real numbers in the model?
by ProllyInfamous | 2025-06-24 18:18:41+00:00
This could be a neat addition to substack's platform/design/profits.

----

My local newspaper (the father of NYT) expects its largely-aged population to shell out $35/month for daily prints. Some bozo thought offering a free iPad would really jive with this population ( ̄_(ツ)_/ ̄)
by 12_throw_away | 2025-06-24 18:19:08+00:00
> the old school 1950s views

Hmmm, 1950s attitudes, hmm. What if we consider the hypothesis that the animus towards the CSB is for the absolute stupidest reasons possible? Here are the 3 current CSB board members [1-3].

[1] https://www.csb.gov/members/board-member-catherine-sandoval-...

[2] https://www.csb.gov/members/board-member-sylvia-e-johnson-ph...

[3] https://www.csb.gov/members/board-member-steve-owens-/
by alexsicart | 2025-06-24 18:19:16+00:00
Hi HN! I built Bennu, a simplified DeFi gateway specifically designed for Latin America.

*The Problem*: DeFi is intimidating for most people in emerging markets. Complex interfaces, high minimum deposits, and lack of Spanish support create barriers to financial inclusion.

*The Solution*: Bennu makes DeFi as simple as online banking: • Deposit with card/bank transfer (from $10 USD) • Automatic 8% annual yield through battle-tested protocols (Morpho, Sushi, Vertex) • Spanish interface with 24/7 support • Built on Katana Network (faster, cheaper than Ethereum)

*Tech Stack*: Next.js 15, TypeScript, Firebase, Tailwind CSS, Bridge API for fiat on/off ramps

*Live Demo*: https://bennu.app (demo mode enabled - safe to explore!)

The demo shows the full user journey: onboarding → deposit simulation → yield tracking → portfolio management. All data is simulated for privacy.

*What makes it different*: • Mobile-first design (most LatAm users are mobile-only) • Banking-like UX (familiar patterns instead of DeFi complexity) • Localized for emerging markets • Educational content in Spanish • Low barriers to entry ($10 minimum vs $1000+ elsewhere)

Started as a personal wealth tracker, evolved into a DeFi gateway. The goal is to bring DeFi benefits to underserved markets where traditional banking often fails.

Built solo over 6 months. Planning to expand to other emerging markets if this resonates.

Would love feedback from the HN community - especially on UX, security considerations, and market fit!
by reify | 2025-06-24 18:19:59+00:00
One of my favourite websites and of course Cory too

similarly, I got conned a few years ago by the christmas pricing scam at ARGOS.

My son, a heavy gamer, wanted a second gaming monitor as one of his christams presents.

So, trying to be an excellent father, I shoot down to the ARGOS store early December to buy said monitor.

The member of staff told me it was not in stock and had to order the gaming monitor, all well and good.

I asked if they wanted me to pay for it today.

Staff member said, "No need, you can pay when you collect it"

Fathers job done.

Went to collect said monitor a few days before christsmas. giving me time to wrap it.

I got out my wallet ready to pay. Unbelievably it was £100 more than when I ordered it two weeks previously.

I was trapped. do I let my son down or just pay for it.

I had to pay. scamming bastards.

I challenged this:

The member of staff told me, I could have paid on the day, but the staff had been instructed not to accept payments on the day of order by the managers. Wankers

I dont use argos anymore. once bitten twice shy
Show HN: Laboratory.love – Crowdfund plastic chemical testing for food and drink
by cjflog | 2025-06-24 18:20:08+00:00
https://laboratory.love

Last year PlasticList discovered that 86% of food products they tested contain plastic chemicals—including 100% of baby food tested. The EU just lowered their "safe" BPA limit by 20,000x. Meanwhile, the FDA allows levels 100x higher than what Europe considers safe.

This seemed like a solvable problem.

Laboratory.love lets you crowdfund independent testing of specific products you actually buy. Think Consumer Reports meets Kickstarter, but focused on detecting endocrine disruptors in your yogurt, your kid's snacks, whatever you're curious about.

Here's how it works: Find a product (or suggest one), contribute to its testing fund, get detailed lab results when testing completes. If a product doesn't reach its funding goal within 365 days, automatic refund. All results are published openly. We're using the same methodology as PlasticList.org, which found plastic chemicals in everything from prenatal vitamins to ice cream. But instead of researchers choosing what to test, you do.

The bigger picture: Companies respond to market pressure. Transparency creates that pressure. When consumers have data, supply chains get cleaner.

Technical details: We work with ISO 17025-accredited labs, test three samples from different production lots, detect chemicals down to parts per billion. The testing protocol is public.

You can browse products, add your own, or just follow specific items you're curious about: https://laboratory.love

We think radical transparency about chemical contamination is the fastest path to cleaner products. Turns out a lot of people agree.
by datamine007 | 2025-06-24 18:20:17+00:00
Hi HN!

I built LeadSynth AI to automatically find potential customers from Reddit conversations. Then

I had a crazy idea: what if I used it to promote itself?

The experiment: Instead of posting "Show HN" and hoping for the best, I fed LeadSynth AI its own use case: "Find founders struggling with customer acquisition and lead generation."

9 days later:

1,500+ visitors 30 active users Still working on converting to paid customers Zero cold emails sent Zero ads run

How it works:

You describe your product/solution, and it surfaces Reddit posts where people are discussing related problems. For LeadSynth, it found posts like:

"I've been manually checking 15 subreddits daily for 3 months looking for customers..." "Spending $2K/month on lead gen tools but still getting low-quality prospects" "Anyone know how to find people actually talking about problems my product solves?"

Instead of pitching, I'd join conversations with genuine advice, then casually mention the tool. The meta insight:

People don't buy products on Reddit - they buy outcomes. The tool finds conversations where people are already discussing pain points rather than interrupting them with ads.
by citizenpaul | 2025-06-24 18:20:37+00:00
I think one of the major issues I (and others) have with LLM's as search is they are heavily biased towards outdated data. The other day I was trying to have it get me the most updated versions of X, X, X from an old project. I tried several providers and all of them without exception gave me an "upgrade" to an older version than was in the project for at least 1 item(by years). I'm sure they are choosing LTS releases over the new ones because that is most popular overall in a dataset. However no matter how "hard" I prompt they keep giving me those old ones over "latest"
by NathanFlurry | 2025-06-24 18:20:50+00:00
A 1 CPU + 2 GB of RAM + 50 GB ephemeral storage on Cloudflare Containers is $74.90.

The same on Fly Machines is $31.00 (performance-1x, varies by region). Fly Machines has the same sleeping functionality as Cloudflare.

Rivet Containers also has a similar price point of $29.40, but takes a different approach to sleeping (opts for optimizing coldstarts + autoscaling over snapshotting). (I work at Rivet)
by jjani | 2025-06-24 18:21:02+00:00
Super cool project, but I think there's pretty valid nitpick here:

It should clearly state the container (when multiple are possible) as that's likely the origin of 99.9% of the microplastics, as well as temperature. Prime example: "Starbucks Matcha Latte". I bet there are orders of magnitude difference in microplastic content between getting a hot one in a plastic (coated, if not fully) takeaway cup vs an iced one in a mug.

In general, containers and the way they're used generally make the difference, but all the focus here is only on the food item.
by Kon-Peki | 2025-06-24 18:21:27+00:00
This is not going to go well:

> x50-class GeForce GPUs are among the most popular in the world, second only to the x60-class on Steam. Their price point and power profile are especially popular:

> For anyone upgrading an older x50-class system

> Each GeForce RTX 5050 graphics card is powered by a single PCIe 8-pin cable, drawing a maximum of 130 Watts at stock speeds, making it great for systems with power supplies delivering as little as 550 Watts.

The 1050, 2050 and 3050 were all bus-powered cards. I doubt 95% these systems even have the cable coming from their power supply. Imagine all the poor saps that excitedly swap out their old card for this, and... nothing works.

Source link: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/rtx-5050-desktop-g...
by ezekiel68 | 2025-06-24 18:21:30+00:00
AI coding tools have been improving/updating like craze over the past six months.

Honest question: what are some of the AI Dev tools (I prefer command line) that have leapt ahead recently, with good tool/function calling? Do you (or others) have a clear preference for Claude Code vs aider vs some other alternative? Or is the meta shifting toward the orchestrators like Taskmaster and Puppeteer?
by kbolino | 2025-06-24 18:21:52+00:00
Yes, the software firewall is one of the defense mechanisms of modern versions of Windows. I don't know what point you're driving at. "Regular users" don't care about any of these power-user arguments. The question is, do Secure Boot and other end-to-end trust mechanisms allow the software and hardware vendors to better ensure that people who don't know what they're doing are protected? This is the model that has been adopted or is being adopted in nearly every other consumer-facing Internet-connected device already.

The question of what's good for people who do know what they're doing is an important one but it is a bit beside the point. These security measures have a purpose and it's not just to take control away from the end user. There are some other paths that could be taken, of course, but many of them seem to be starting from the point of willful naivete about the reality of computer security today.
by lurkshark | 2025-06-24 18:21:56+00:00
If you pirate a book on software engineering and then use that knowledge to start a career, do you owe the author the royalties they would be paid had you bought the book?

If the career you start isn't software engineering directly but instead re-teaching the information you learned from that book to millions of paying students, is the regular royalty payment for the book still fair?