MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by aziaziazi | 2025-07-06 08:35:28+00:00
Meat: To Eat It or Not - Philip Glass

https://tricycle.org/magazine/meat-eat-it-or-not-philip-glas...

https://web.archive.org/web/20250321203216/https://tricycle....

A very poetic and spiritual take, however IMHO he missed the elephant in the room for the compassion argument: breeding is much more cruel than killing by the harsh, prolonged condition. The killing in comparaison is nearly instant and arrive as a relief of that condition. Both comes together though and only considering the quicker and "natural" one isn’t fair.
by einrealist | 2025-07-06 08:37:23+00:00
The major AI gatekeepers, with their powerful models, are already experiencing capacity and scale issues. This won't change unless the underlying technology (LLMs) undergoes a fundamental shift. As more and more things become AI-enabled, how dependent will we be on these gatekeepers and their computing capacity? And how much will they charge us for prioritised access to these resources? And we haven't really gotten to the wearable devices stage yet.

Also, everyone who requires these sophisticated models now needs to send everything to the gatekeepers. You could argue that we already send a lot of data to public clouds. However, there was no economically viable way for cloud vendors to read, interpret, and reuse my data — my intellectual property and private information. With more and more companies forcing AI capabilities on us, it's often unclear who runs those models and who receives the data and what is really happening to the data.

This aggregation of power and centralisation of data worries me as much as the shortcomings of LLMs. The technology is still not accurate enough. But we want it to be accurate because we are lazy. So I fear that we will end up with many things of diminished quality in favour of cheaper operating costs — time will tell.
by Synaesthesia | 2025-07-06 08:37:27+00:00
But they went ahead with the test anyway!

When you read about the near misses and accidents that almost were, it’s hair raising. The book command and control is about this. https://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Ill... https://thebulletin.org/premium/2023-05/introduction-near-mi...
by ohdeargodno | 2025-07-06 08:38:04+00:00
Dating apps prey on the weakest of us all, selling hopes and shattering egos. Not everyone can get good pictures, not everyone is a 10/10 attractive man, and "no icks" is such a vomit inducing term. They are perfectly happy that you don't have a good picture and you don't get matches, because then they can sell you boosts and superlikes and whatever bullshit they've made up today.

Tinder, Hinge and others are directly responsible for tens of thousands of cases of depression and in building up a perfect breeding ground for misogyny and misandry. Everyone involved in their self-worth-destroying app has blood on their hands.
by notepad0x90 | 2025-07-06 08:38:08+00:00
Social skills and and social knowledge learned over a long period of time is absolutely crucial. There are too many unspoken and implied etiquette.

But this is a good checklist. I'm a wreck if I don't eat & sleep enough prior to social activity. And the whole thing about a "social battery" is on point. No remedy for that other than a recharge.
by lars_francke | 2025-07-06 08:38:15+00:00
He also has an english language version of his channel: https://www.youtube.com/@electrictrucker

It's very worth watching.

I think he's proven that single driver long haul freight in Western Europe (which seems to be a good chunk of truck trips) is perfectly doable. Just two weeks ago he did a 4.500km trip around Europe which is about the maximum you can do given the law on driving times.

The same is then true for the shorter trips (round trips etc.)

And the European Commission has just decided that electric trucks don't have to pay road toll until at least 2031.

Better for the environment, more comfortable, quieter, cheaper in the long run, ... what's not to like.

And yes: There are still some use-cases where non-EV trucks are "better" by some metrics but that's definitely not the case anymore everywhere.
by Voultapher | 2025-07-06 08:38:15+00:00
Let's first define winning in this context, a stable population number of humans for the next 100k years. Pretty much every piece of evidence we have points towards this being utterly impossible with billions of humans, habitat destruction and food web damage is simply way too severe for such a large number to be sustainable. So probably somewhere in the 1-100 million, but realistically no one knows. All we know is that it would have to be drastically lower. Planes and cars are probably illegal, shared communal usage of resources is key. We strictly limit ourselves to materials that are proven to either decompose quickly or don't enter the food web like for example PFAS and micro-plastics do. We'd have to let go of a human supremacist world view, and rather see ourselves as a part in the community of life and the delicate balance it is in.

Zooming out, one could argue that we are on a roller coaster and our complex brains give us the impression that there is a little steering wheel in front of us and that we get to decide the fate of humanity. Life can be viewed as a parasite, it invades every area on the surface and the oceans of this world, doing so with fractal depth. And over longer periods it is prone to mass extinction events, there have been five big ones so far. Who knows, maybe the sixth one isn't a 72 teratonnes impact event or giant volcanic eruptions, but rather this time it's an all habitat outcompeting population explosion by one species.
by dgellow | 2025-07-06 08:39:06+00:00
You would think so, but that’s not how the term has been used for over a decade. It has always been a marketing tool. Any in game transaction is called micro transactions. For what it’s worth most games with so called micro transactions are free. Look at https://www.pathofexile.com/shop/category/armour-effects, 100 coins is $10. there is nothing „micro“ about those prices
by leakycap | 2025-07-06 08:39:31+00:00
> Eventually, people will learn to stop putting faith in things and just get the job done.

I don't see this tide turning. We already have really terrible human programmers who just "get it done" left and right. AI is sometimes much better than other coders I've had to work on projects with. I don't copy/paste anything, but it's great to help me consider ways to make my code better or to solve a problem.

Lately, I watched my nephew learn to code just from talking to Copilot (free version). I expected his interest to drop off, but Copilot fed tidbits of Godot code and he very quickly had some tiny tangible code right in front of him, and he has been using that leaky sledgehammer so effectively I cannot believe what he's managed to make. A real, playable game that's fun and he's very into.

At first, he just copy/pasted in the code so he could get the result. This very quickly fell apart, and now he reads and fixes scripts, add scenes, draws sprites, "discusses" ideas with Copilot nonstop.

I don't think this is going away, I think you haven't seen the potential. I was on the other side of the fence until I saw the potential it created in a human to do something they likely never would have achieved if they'd had to do it CS101 C++ var function loop etc
by ben_w | 2025-07-06 08:40:04+00:00
Looking at your other comment sibling to mine, I think part of the difficulty discussing these topics is how much these things are considered isolated magic artefacts (bad for engineering) or one tool amongst many where the magic word is "synergy".

So I agree with you: LLMs do know all written cultures on the internet and can mimic them acceptably — but they only actually do so when this is requested by some combination of the fine-tuning, RLHF, system prompt, and context.

In your example, having some current news injected, which is easy, but actually requires someone to plumb that in. And as you say, you'd not do that unless you thought you needed to.

But even easier to pick, lower-hanging fruit, often gets missed. When the "dangerous sycophancy" behaviour started getting in the news, I updated my custom ChatGPT "traits" setting to this:

Honesty and truthfulness are of primary importance. Avoid American-style positivity, instead aim for German-style bluntness: I absolutely *do not* want to be told everything I ask is "great", and that goes double when it's a dumb idea.

But cultural differences can be subtle, and there's a long tail of cultural traits of the same kind that means 1980s Text Adventure NLP doesn't scale to what ChatGPT itself does. While this can still be solved with fine-tuning or getting your staff to RLHF it, the number of examples current AI need in order to learn is high compared to a real human, so it won't learn your corporate culture from experience *as fast* as a new starter within your team, unless you're a sufficiently big corporation that it can be on enough (I don't know how many exactly) teams within your company at the same time.
by pkdpic | 2025-07-06 08:40:42+00:00
> "until the relentless get their way"

> "Shared anything brings out the worst in people"

> "the stubborn and mentally ill"

So on point... thank you for the reminders on these realities... Not sure how many times I'm going to need to learn my lesson with all this... (happens in the art hippie world too, and elsewhere I'm sure)

There's got to be some better way to keep it simple and break out of all that though right? Like keeping it a benevolent dictatorship? That doesn't seem great either obviously...
by tossandthrow | 2025-07-06 08:41:45+00:00
> make you comfortable while you exist

I don't think there are many proponents of that type of ubi.

The way, at least I, see ubi is absolute subsistence - with a right to earn above that without affecting your subsistence.

IMHO something along UBI is needed for a democratized market economy - and I think the Scandinavian countries are the support for this claim.
by thenaturalist | 2025-07-06 08:41:50+00:00
I do, of course.

But for the purpose of say me wanting my dog to show a certain behavior or perform an action.

I can’t explain it in human terms.

Talking works if I have previously taught my dog my desired outcome in ways the dog understands.

So in order to be able to speak, you first need to learn how to think like a dog and break a certain outcome down into intermediate smaller learning steps.

It’s kinda similar to programming, but in the context of bringing emotions into the mix (how do I teach calmly, and handle when my dog cannot immediately follow my instructions), it has made me incredibly more empathic.
by Biologist123 | 2025-07-06 08:42:44+00:00
I sometimes think of the internet as an alternative dimension: as mind space; it was Terra Nova and speculators rode in to grab the available real estate. But as the experience also showed us, there are maybe infinite mind spaces, and the job of anyone dissatisfied with the status quo is to open those new spaces where networks can be built around principles other than enshittification.
by PeterStuer | 2025-07-06 08:45:06+00:00
"how much will they charge us for prioritised access to these resources"

For the consumer side, you'll be the product, not the one paying in money just like before.

For the creator side, it will depend on how competition in the market sustains. Expect major regulatory capture efforts to eliminate all but a very few 'sanctioned' providers in the name of 'safety'. If only 2 or 3 remain, it might get realy expensive.
by AsapdaX | 2025-07-06 08:45:31+00:00
*Unlock the harmony of poetry and philosophy.* Immerse yourself in a serene experience where each launch greets you with a fresh Haiku inspired by the timeless I Ching (Book of Changes) diagrams. Whether you seek daily mindfulness, creative sparks, or a moment of calm, this app brings together the elegance of Japanese poetry and the depth of ancient Chinese wisdom.

- Receive a new Haiku derived from an I Ching hexagram every time you open the app - Minimalist, calming design for a peaceful user experience - Perfect for meditation, reflection, or a gentle start to your day - No distractions—just poetry and philosophy in harmony - AI integrated. Chat for deeper insights!

Let the words and symbols guide your thoughts, inspire your creativity, and bring tranquility to your routine.
by anuvrat1 | 2025-07-06 08:46:30+00:00
Cartels are already diversifying, thanks to bullish gold market they are going full tilt on gold. "In Colombia and Peru gangs are now thought to make more money from gold than from the sale of narcotics."[1]

[1]: https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2025/06/26/the-gold-b...
by bakugo | 2025-07-06 08:46:58+00:00
If all my years on the internet have taught me anything, it's that some people are just severely mentally unwell and will attempt to destroy anything they can get their hands on, purely because they can. Sometimes it's for attention, sometimes they just want to watch the world burn, but either way, asking "what did their target do to deserve it?" is pointless because the attacker likely never asked themselves that question either, and could very well just be a straight up sociopath.

As the internet grows, so grows the number of such people on it. In days gone, these people would've been rightly shunned from society, and their ability to cause harm to others was severely limited, unless they were willing to resort to more... extreme methods that would usually come with serious consequences. But the internet has given them a new outlet, a new way to ruin things for people from across the world that would've been far, far beyond their reach before, usually without any risk of punishment.
by jemmyw | 2025-07-06 08:47:01+00:00
Any plan should have been made between government and industry. The scientists aren't there to plan, they look at the data and try to figure out how the world works. Scientists told us long ago there might be a climate problem, and have steadily built up more and more data and models and evidence.

Activists shouldn't have existed at all. Science informs government there's a problem, government informs the population and creates multiple policies to address the problem, industry works within those policies to adapt the economy. Actual people shouldn't have to feel guilty about their own carbon emissions or second guess the science with their own opinion, but should vote on the policies that they like the best, knowing fully what the consequences will be.

That would be nice anyway. Instead just about every part of that chain tries to fuck with the other parts for money and power.
by kragen | 2025-07-06 08:47:29+00:00
It would be very difficult indeed to make it impossible to implement CGI scripts in Python; you'd have to remove its ability to either read environment variables or perform stdio, crippling it for many other purposes, so I didn't think they had done that. Even if they removed the whole http package, you could just copy its contents into your codebase. It's not about making Python less powerful.

As a side note, though, CGIHTTPRequestHandler is for launching CGI programs (perhaps written in Rust) from a Python web server, not for writing CGI programs in Python, which is what the cgi module is for. And CGIHTTPRequestHandler is slated for removal in Python 3.15.

The problem is gratuitous changes that break existing code, so you have to debug your code base and fix the new problems introduced by each new Python release. It's usually fairly straightforward and quick, but it means you can't ship the code to someone who has Python installed but doesn't know it (they're dependent on you for continued fixes), and you can't count on being able to run code you wrote yourself on an earlier Python version without a half-hour interruption to fix it. Which may break it on the older Python version.
by impossiblefork | 2025-07-06 08:48:00+00:00
Airliners don't have the wings going straight out, instead being swept back. You can also sweep them forward to get the same effect, but you will rarely want to do that due to other problems. This means that the cross sectional area of the aircraft varies less along the length and reduces wave drag.

If there's no lift there's no pressure different between the upper side of the wing and the lower side of the wing. But if there's lift there's higher pressure on the bottom and lower on top, so air wants to flow around the wing, from bottom to top, producing a wingtip vortex. This flow creates drag, and this drag is called lift-induced drag or just 'induced drag'.

The area rule is about minimizing wave drag by keeping the cross sectional area of different parts of the aircraft close to the cross sectional area of the corresponding cross-section of a minimal drag body. It leads to wing sweep and certain fuselage shapes.
by Pooge | 2025-07-06 08:48:14+00:00
> The trouble is that eating healthy is hard, expensive, and time consuming

It definitely is time consuming because you have to cook your own meals (which a lot of people in my country do in any case).

But "hard and expensive"? I don't believe it. I guess it could be expensive if you live in a country where vegetables and fruits are expensive, but this is not the case in my country—and I live in one of the most expensive countries in the world. And I guess it could be hard if you're a picky person or addicted to sugar/salt.

Eating out and prepared meals are the best way to spend your money on unhealthy food.
by chithanh | 2025-07-06 08:48:19+00:00
> The EU does not care about what Apple does in the US.

Well, partially they do. For example when it comes to the Right to be forgotten, there were attempts to apply this also to data which is stored and displayed outside the EU. Only after ECJ ruling (C-507/17) such attempts were stopped.

> For some time Microsoft had EU specific versions of Windows.

Microsoft does have the N (formerly called "Reduced Media") editions of Windows created in response to legal demands from the EU, but these are available worldwide. Other than that it is the same version of Windows, which just behaves differently when it comes to browser choice etc. depending on your location.
by latexr | 2025-07-06 08:49:34+00:00
> showing flashes of brilliance

A “flash” of anything is also called a fluke, or a coincidence. The dumbest moron can have a flash of brilliance on occasion. So could a random word masher. Consistency is what matters.

> and we're gaining more and more conviction that this is the right form factor

Are we? Who’s “we”? Because it looks to me like the LLM approach is lacklustre if you care about truth and correctness (which you should) but the people and companies invested don’t really have a better idea and are shoving them down everyone’s throats in pursuit of personal profit.
by sothatsit | 2025-07-06 08:50:42+00:00
Most people aren't looking to eliminate capitalism. They just want constraints to be put on it. Higher taxes on wealth, stricter antitrust enforcement, investing in social infrastructure, or passing laws that protect consumers don't prevent capitalism from working.

Australia has social healthcare and massive mining companies. They coexist just fine. There really is a lot of wiggle room between fully embracing socialism and going full anarcho-capitalist, and maybe the tradeoffs of shifting towards the socialism side of things are worth considering.

Although, George seems to just want to flip the table out of the belief that real reform that would impact most people positively will never get passed in a democracy. It would require too much change.
by mdhb | 2025-07-06 08:54:16+00:00
I just came across this podcast in the last week after wondering what ever happened to the FARC and AUC (right wing death squads) after the peace deal. How did things end up playing out relative compared to what was expected and feared at the time.

It’s a pretty batshit story that focuses on what became of the right wing death squads (they run the start of the cocaine supply chain it turns out among many other things) that’s extremely well researched and has amazing access. A strong recommendation from me https://insightcrime.org/audio-from-the-ground-up/the-shadow...
by chithanh | 2025-07-06 08:55:30+00:00
> Game publishers have chosen to revert to centralized servers, rather than allowing private servers. Thus they have also taken on the additional cost of running those servers.

I fail to see the principal difference between a "centralized" and a "private" server here. Just publish the code for running the "centralized" server, as you would do for the private server, and add a possibility to configure which server to connect to in the game?

I could see this becoming an issue when the server is hardwired to require some publisher SSO login, but given how everyone + their dog uses OIDC nowadays, a requirement to make authentication interoperable is only a very mild restriction.
by jasonsb | 2025-07-06 08:56:37+00:00
I’ve observed the opposite—not enough people are leveraging AI, especially in government institutions. Critical time and taxpayer money are wasted on tasks that could be automated with state-of-the-art models. Instead of embracing efficiency, these organizations perpetuate inefficiency at public expense.

The same issue plagues many private companies. I’ve seen employees spend days drafting documents that a free tool like Mistral could generate in seconds, leaving them 30-60 minutes to review and refine. There's a lot of resistance from the public. They're probably thinking that their job will be saved if they refuse to adopt AI tools.
by surgical_fire | 2025-07-06 08:56:52+00:00
> many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only

No problem. Per "Stop Killing Games" initiative, you will only have to provide means for the users to still be able to play those games after you decide to pull the plug on it.

You can, for example, release the server code so that players can keep playing the game somehow, if they so desire. No need to keep supporting your online rent-seeking scheme ad-eternum after it outlived its usefulness.

We need to be frank about what those developers really want though. They want to be able to take away games they previously sold so that players move on to their shiny new online rent-seeking scheme. Allowing people to actually own the games they bought is bad for business.

Fuck this noise and fuck those developers.