MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by fruitworks | 2025-07-25 14:52:24+00:00
At some point of development, the only way to progress without spiraling complexity is to break backwards compatibility. You might be interested in studying the internals of X11 and wayland to learn more.

In a commercial project like windows, this sort of project is a total no-go. However in a collaborative community project like linux userspace, developers have more freedom to make design decisions in spite of short-term consequences.

>The people that develop Linux desktop are deeply unserio

The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.

-Frank Herbert

Don't take yourself too seriously, it might ruin you!
by neutronicus | 2025-07-25 14:52:27+00:00
Yeah, it's honestly one of the things they're best at!

I've been working on implementing some E&M simulations with Claude Code and it's so-so on the C++ and TERRIBLE at the actual math (multiplying a couple 6x6 matrix differential operators is beyond it).

But I can dash off some notes and tell Claude to TeXify and the output is great.
by whatamidoingyo | 2025-07-25 14:52:29+00:00
> Why not Square?

I looked for alternatives, such as PayPal, and Square. They consider dating websites "high-risk", so they would most likely ban the account as well. It just seems like too much of a headache to rewrite the codebase to just have the account banned again.

> Why not crypto?

I thought about this as well. I don't dislike the idea of crypto, but what would users think? It would probably be a huge red flag and look like a scam site.

So, the dating sites that are already in existence are it - they own the market. I'm pretty sure I've read that the execs of Stripe are also invested in Tinder/Bumble*, etc. No wonder it's extremely difficult to compete.

* - not sure if this is actually true.
by elsjaako | 2025-07-25 14:52:31+00:00
I think this is one of those issues that only exists in theory, not in practice.

If a company reports a bug in a clear and helpful way, it's probably going to get looked at anyway.

Also, if a company cares enough about Wix to bother finding and documenting a bug, they should be willing to pay $60 for the software.

So this is only a problem in the case where a company finds a bug, decides to report it, refuses to pay a minimal fee, and the maintainers are strict enough with themselves to ignore it because of the source. That feels unlikely to me.
by fcarraldo | 2025-07-25 14:52:42+00:00
This sounds like a positive outcome? A manager built a proof-of-concept of a feature that clearly laid out and fulfilled the basic requirements, and an engineer took 30 mins to rewrite it once it's been specified.

How long does it typically take to spec something out? I'd say more than 20 mins, and typical artifacts to define requirements are much lossier than actual code - even if that code is buggy and sloppy.
by cestith | 2025-07-25 14:53:06+00:00
Confusingly enough, I’ve actually seen real, properly named DB-9 connectors. They were a cheaper version of a DB-25 to DE-9 converter. Instead of combining the extra pins properly, they just had a DE-9 on one end connected to only 9 pins on the DB end. They sometimes occasionally even worked properly at low enough line rates.
by bayindirh | 2025-07-25 14:53:39+00:00
> One disadvantage is that they have access to your data, but at least you choose the cloud provider (maybe you want one that is in your country).

You can apparently encrypt your Nextcloud data at rest at Hetzner. I host my own Nextcloud, and I know it supports encryption, but apparently Hetzner also allows you to do so.

On the other hand, if you want a standard cloud provider, pCloud provides good encryption support. Also they have a nice FUSE based client, and they're interoperable with tons of tools, too.

Returning to Nextcloud, you can share files/folders directly (with expiration/password) or add more users with limited access to your folders.

BTW, keeping a Nextcloud instance is really easy, let it be container based or bare-metal install. It never let me down over the years.
by the_snooze | 2025-07-25 14:54:16+00:00
For single-user single-device scenarios, that's totally doable. It's called a purely-local app.

Where it gets complicated is there's a (totally understandable) expectation these days that your data is synced across multiple devices, and you can collaborate with other users, who may also have multiple devices themselves. In practice, that necessitates some kind of always-on server that maintains state for everyone. A phone can technically do that, but you'd probably kill your battery in the process.
by mdaniel | 2025-07-25 14:54:51+00:00
I believe that's why some software engineers dread this new future, because it's no longer software but rather project management and code review, pretty much all day

I personally find code review more exhausting than code writing, and that goes 50x for when I'm reviewing code from an intern because they are trying to cheat me all the time. And I have always hated PM stuff, on both sides of that relationship
by armchairhacker | 2025-07-25 14:55:20+00:00
It seems like the main benefit of self-hosting (and community-hosting) is “what if the bigco SAAS enshittifies”? i.e. it’s a backup plan.

What if instead, you just store local copies of your data, possibly organized and synchronized? If necessary it can be done manually, just download anything important enough that you might want it later. If a service decays, then import it into another.

A big point the author makes is that many cloud providers don’t let you download the data. But any media that can’t be accessed outside bigco’s cloud can’t be uploaded to your cloud in the first place. If bigco’s cloud prevents you from downloading data that you create or upload, only then the solution is to use a (possibly self-hosted) alternative. However, in practice I rarely see this happening, for example downloading from Google Workspace and OneDrive is very easy (it can even synchronize a folder on your local machine), and if you’re worried about it happening in the future, again, you can backup important files.
by Oras | 2025-07-25 14:55:39+00:00
Is there an option to learn from mistakes? most coding agents I tried, including the Sonnet 4 based one will make same mistake again and again in a new chat.

It would be great to have the agent adding a memory (even locally) to avoid mistakes, checking for new versions of libraries, and write a list of tasks first before the execution (similar to Kiro and Trae SOLO).
by 9x39 | 2025-07-25 14:55:42+00:00
I agree with the title, but not the solution and that’s okay. Is the future endlessly tinkering with and running stuff out of your house? I think nope, that’s just your hobby.

I think of the centralization of content and the licensing as something that works so long as it’s a commodity market, that is, it’s hard to 2x the price of an ebook over a dead tree which I can own. Investors may wish otherwise, but they have to add tons of value to get consumers to play along.

I’m fine with commodities in my life. Power and water and gas come to mind. They cost what they cost and I don’t have problems with it.

I could build a nas and run software and admin it, or I could pay $20/mo to Adobe and another $33 to Apple for my family’s shared storage. Done. Of course, if the benefits of commoditization evaporate and it looks like the streaming market, then I’m wrong and would have to change track.
by Anon1096 | 2025-07-25 14:55:57+00:00
The author is very confused. For one, not having access to VISA/Mastercard isn't being unbanked. And more importantly, there is no need for the burden of supporting CC payments to fall on developers at all. Steam, itch, etc can just add it as a payment method. (personally I don't really think it's an amazing solution due to crypto volatility)

Seems that the West has just now realized that the payment processors are a threat to adult content and are getting in an uproar. Japanese sites selling adult content have been banned for years at this point, they've moved on to supporting JCB as the only accepted credit card and otherwise accepting site-specific points you buy at convenience stores. I've seen crypto as well by proxy via Bitcash.
by potato3732842 | 2025-07-25 14:56:14+00:00
Lost luggage gets opened and inventoried and tracked in a computer system. This should be easy to track down if they care.

What seems to have likely happened here is when the bag was on the way out of the lost stuff storage area someone noticed it had valuables and being one of the last people in the line of steps they took the valuables and put crap nobody would miss in its place.

Such a substitution must happen early, before the bag gets inventoried, or late when it's on its way out, because validating claims of what's in the bag is a key part in the process of how lost luggage is returned. It's less the bag would have gotten back to her if the substitution happened early because "hey I'm looking for a bag full of shoes" doesn't result in any hits when the shoes have been sub'd out for garbage. Furthermore, there's decent video and paper trailer for handling of baggage because otherwise it's a smuggling/theft/crime vector and the airports sell lost luggage in bulk so they don't want the good stuff going missing. The audit trail is less good for lost baggage exiting the system to its rightful owner because it was already subject to scrutiny on entry.

It is likely that this does ultimately get tracked down because lost luggage, at least in the US, is handled mostly by the airports themselves so the airline and airports will want to point the finger at each other and the truth should eventually come out. I'm sure when all the dust settles they'll fire a line employee and offer her $500 worth of air miles or some other completely unsatisfactory outome like that.
by cjbgkagh | 2025-07-25 14:56:40+00:00
This is becoming a pervasive problem and it almost seems like airlines are ok with it as another form of compensation. I left an item on my seat, noticed immediately after disembarking, went directly to the service desk and was given the runaround. Every step seemed to be set up to hinder any progress, never got my item back, but they were sure to let me know that I could possibly buy it back at a monthly auction.
by debrajpal | 2025-07-25 14:56:44+00:00
Completely agree. It's definitely a bubble, but it's like the Dotcom or housing bubble. Just because it bursts doesn't mean it's going away, just means it was overmarketed and PR'd. Companies spent billions on foundational models and the hype was necessary for their B2B sales, although they haven't met that yet probably so the hype will continue for some time and Money will be spent for some time too for sure. Although I do think it will take much longer for adoption of AI robots. Main device will be phones and better phones and things attached or pairable with phones for the next decade atleast. IoT will also get a revamp for sure
by notjoemama | 2025-07-25 14:56:44+00:00
> I have IRL facepalmed reading this. This comment gave me the equivalent exposure to 10 hours on X/Twitter.

I don't know man, jumping into a conversation like this is a great way to get people to NOT listen. I agree with your following point and would add I find these matters more complicated. For example, you wouldn't be typing a comment on this site without the kind of corporate freedom that raised the standard of living for the entire planet resulting in a shared technological advancement. Seems this is always a trade off, how much freedom are you willing to give up for centralized fascist governmental control?
by duxup | 2025-07-25 14:57:54+00:00
I think you're approaching this from a very narrow and naive standpoint. There's no magic that makes this app save anyone from abuse, makes information correct, and that's not even the entire intent of the app it seems. No reason an abuser couldn't use it just the same.

I think if you thought about it you'd realize that his app's format, people posting pics of other people without their permission and commenting on them follows the same mechanism as sites where the people posting ARE abusers, even help track people down...
by klaff | 2025-07-25 14:57:57+00:00
Best efficiency speed can be understood by considering impact of fixed losses like HVAC, lights, computing, which consume more energy the longer you drive (so the total energy for those would be minimized by going faster) and the aerodynamic losses in which force goes with speed squared, power w/ speed cubed, energy over a fixed distance back to squared because at higher speeds time is reduced (this component is theoretically minimized by going very slowly). In between is rolling resistance which requires a fixed energy per distance, so it doesn't care about speed.

For EVs, the drivetrain efficiency is so high that it's variability with operating point doesn't affect this calculation much, and so the most efficient speed of an EV is around the speed at which the fixed losses equal the aero ones. This will vary greatly with environmental conditions since AC or heating load can be large in hot or cold conditions but at the right temperature will go to near zero.

In ICE cars, the drivetrain efficiency is much lower and so the drivetrain efficiencies are a much more significant part of the optimization problem, but the basic physics of the aerodynamics are the same.

The model I used to use in my head is that for an ICE, the most efficient operating point is probably around the lowest speed the car can operate in the highest gear, so maybe around 40 mph / 60 km/h? Obviously a rough heuristic though.
by ahartmetz | 2025-07-25 14:57:59+00:00
You might like BeamNG.drive. It has soft-body physics simulation (also for driving dynamics, so it's not arcadey) and decent graphics. It's more like a sandbox with half-done "actual game" mods AFAIU, but happens to be quite popular and very highly rated anyway. I'm on the fence about buying it myself.
by takko_the_boss | 2025-07-25 14:58:06+00:00
I’ve been building a programming language called Hachi for the past couple of years. It’s a lightweight systems language that transpiles to C++, giving you native performance with a modern, simple syntax.

One of Hachi’s most unique feature is its memory management model: it uses static lifetime analysis to automatically insert free calls when values go out of scope. There’s no garbage collector, no runtime overhead, and you still get memory safety similar to RAII, but without the boilerplate.

Hachi also makes it easy to embed C or C++ code directly into your source files, so you can leverage existing libraries without fighting the toolchain. It’s been especially fun to use for security tooling and networking-related projects.

The language is still evolving, but it already works well for real-world code (I use it for work at my company). If you’re curious, check it out, try a small project, or even just skim the tutorials in the docs site. I’d love feedback, ideas, or just to know what folks think.
by 9rx | 2025-07-25 14:59:14+00:00
> You don't need to be rich to fund your own digital service business

You do if you want to transcend beyond the noise. Which you claim said business has. I'll take your word for it. It isn't technology that makes a technology company. Technology is easy. The hard part is getting to know the world. That's what takes tremendous resources nowadays (as before, it wasn't always so hard, but unless you have a time machine...).
by edent | 2025-07-25 14:59:31+00:00
About 60k academic citations about to die - https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=90&q=%22https://goo...

Countless books with irrevocably broken references - https://www.google.com/search?q=%22://goo.gl%22&sca_upv=1&sc...

And for what? The cost of keeping a few TB online and a little bit of CPU power?

An absolute act of cultural vandalism.
by inerte | 2025-07-25 15:00:00+00:00
"interest free" deserves quotes. It appears to be so because the installments have the same value but in reality it's priced in the overall length vs price.

The installment culture is so pervasive in Brazil a lot of places don't even bother to show the full price (a vista). And some of them refuse to give a discount if you want to pay the full price now. Not because it doesn't make economic sense, but it's simply not an option a regular employee in major retail stores is even allowed to do, as companies default marketing and systems to installment payments.
Show HN: StackDAG: Build and share application stacks as DAGs
by JavRedstone | 2025-07-25 15:00:30+00:00
I’ve just launched StackDAG into public beta. It’s a platform for building and sharing application stacks using Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs).

You can model anything from a classic PERN stack to your own infrastructure layout, using a flexible visual editor. It includes: - Templates for common stacks - A wide component library - Forking and sharing - Import/export as JSON - Community feed for trending DAGs

The idea is to make stack design more modular and shareable, especially for teams and devs working across multiple tools.

I’m very open to feedback at this stage, and there will be frequent updates during beta and beta testers will keep their role (plus early access to premium features later).

Try it here: https://stackdag.pages.dev

Discord: https://discord.gg/VqwqHmg5fn
by mrcslws | 2025-07-25 15:00:36+00:00
From the blog post: "more than 99% of them had no activity in the last month" https://developers.googleblog.com/en/google-url-shortener-li...

This is a classic product data decision-making fallacy. The right question is "how much total value do all of the links provide", not "what percent are used".
by chneu | 2025-07-25 15:01:20+00:00
Zero gain? Say that when your Google account is flagged because of any number of nonsense reasons. Or there's an issue that simply wipes your data from any number of services. Or a court requests access to your data and you have no idea.

You're leaving your entire digital existence up to companies who will and have ruined people's lives.

I think it says a lot about how much we've given up that control over your data and access to your data is seen as "zero gain" or "full of negative impact."

It's wild how little people care about their own rights. Capitalism and hustle culture make it so easy to give up so much while receiving so little in return. The pressure to give up more is constant and people willfully lean into it.
by myrmidon | 2025-07-25 15:01:23+00:00
I think you are arguing against a strawman.

No one is saying that trade makes war impossible-- but every bit of trade is an additional incentive to not start war, especially if it affects a broad slice of the population directly (=> the average German would be much more affected from losing car exports than the average Russian from lower gas exports).

Regarding Russia:

I believe that the main mistake on the western side was underestimating Russias imperialistic ambitions combined with the almost existential risk that a western aligned, economically successful Ukraine would have been for the current regime: Russian citizens getting overtaken economically by former compatriots makes it much harder to keep the kleptocracy running; Poland is one thing, but the same happening with the Ukraine would have hit much closer.

But regardless, I'm highly confident that Russia/Putin would have decided against the war with the benefit of hindsight.

You could even argue that insufficient economical consequences (from the Europeans-- basically the other, necessary side of the peace-by-trade playbook) after the 2014 annexation were a big factor in encouraging the war in the first place.
by Eisenstein | 2025-07-25 15:01:28+00:00
I don't know, I think that extending context windows is actually detrimental because people assume they can just dump things in there until it fills up. You still have to deal with the limited attention that the models have, and only filling the context with things relevant to the particular thing you are trying to solve is going to be the most effective approach. If you have too much information for it to fit into a 128K window, I think you just have too much information. The entirety of Don Quixote at over 1000 pages is less than 64,000 tokens.
by jeroenhd | 2025-07-25 15:01:50+00:00
I don't know if Rust code allocates more or less in general. It really depends on what kind of code you write. Once Rust code reaches the complexity of the Java stacks it's replacing, you get a lot of wrapper objects, locks, and intermediates to cross thread boundaries and to prove soundness to the borrow checker.

I recently encountered an example of someone writing a Rust version of a popular Java library by just taking the Java code, commenting it out, and writing the Rust equivalent almost line for line. The approach works great (no need to reinvent the wheel and you can point to the existing documentation and code samples) but in terms of allocations, you're not going to find many improvements.

There's a type of Java code that looks more like C code than anything else that runs blazing fast with minimal overhead. It's not the type of Java code you'll probably encounter when writing Java applications, but if you use Java as a kind of cross-platform C target, you can get pretty close to Rust (and for some use cases even beat it). Java has a LOT of tricks up its sleave (pointer compression, dynamic realignment) that Rust can't automatically take advantage of.

Your AbstractFunctorClassFactoryProducer isn't going to be very allocation efficient, but once you start seeing volatile ints all over the place, things quickly become a lot faster.
by shermantanktop | 2025-07-25 15:02:00+00:00
This is like King Canute and the tide. Technical pedantry is often interesting, as this is, and can lead to deeper understanding, though this doesn’t.

But language is for communication, and the most correct language is that which communicates best.

A conversation burdened with “well actually” tangents about one participant’s personal passion gets pretty tiresome.
by jowea | 2025-07-25 15:02:21+00:00
Cashback is just giving part of the profit margin of the fees charged on the transactions to the customer. I would rather that profit margin gets split between the customer (lower prices) and merchant. Also, didn't the EU eliminate cashbacks by precisely price capping transaction fees?

I've seen merchants giving a discount for payment with Pix. And a few stores refuse credit cards and only accept debit and Pix (and cash?).

Also, isn't the main competitor to CC the debit card? And now in some countries instant payments? Is debit that rare in the US?

Although to be honest I'm not 100% sure if it isn't some tax evasion thing.
by bob1029 | 2025-07-25 15:02:23+00:00
> What use-case does "one binary I wrote in Go" satisfy that isn't covered above?

In .NET land, one of the top reasons to go all-in with a single exe web server would be performance. Kestrel can be unbelievably fast if you remove all of the layers of indirection like IPC and hosted SQL. I've got dynamic HTML pages that render in <100uS and that includes managing session state and other queries into SQLite.

Concerns like accidentally showing up on the front page of HN or even petty DDOS attempts can be often be ignored when you are able to serve content this quickly.

The other major reason I like it is having everything in one type system and debugger experience. I can set a breakpoint anywhere and inspect everything.