MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by washadjeffmad | 2025-07-24 12:20:11+00:00
>I’d bet that LLMs are actually wrong less often than typical search results, because they pull from far greater training data. “Wisdom of the crowds”.

Is that relevant when we already have official truth sources: our websites? That information is ours and subject to change at our sole discretion. Google doesn't get to decide who our extensions are assigned to, what our hours of operation are, or what our business services do.

Our initial impression of AI Overview was positive, as well, until this happened to us.

And bear in mind the timeline. We didn't know that this was happening, and even after we realized there was a trend, we didn't know why. We're in the middle of a softphone transition, so we initially blamed ourselves (and panicked a little when what we saw didn't reflect what we assumed was happening - why would people just suddenly start calling wrong numbers?).

After we began collecting responses from misdirected callers and got a nearly unanimous answer of "Google" (don't be proud of that), I called a meeting with our communications and marketing departments and web team to figure out how we'd log and investigate incidents so we could fix the sources. What they turned up was that the numbers had never been publicly published or associated with any of what Google AI was telling them. This wasn't our fault.

So now we're concerned that bad info is being amplified elsewhere on the web. We even considered pulling back the Google-advertised phone extensions so they forward either to a message that tells them Google AI was wrong and to visit our website, or admit defeat and just forward it where Google says it should go (subject to change at Google's pleasure, obviously). We can't do this for established public facing numbers, though, and disrupt business services.

What a stupid saga, but that's how it works when Google treats the world like its personal QA team. (OT, but bince we're all working for them by generating training data for their models and fixing their global scale products, anyone for Google-sponsored UBI?)
by jcynix | 2025-07-24 12:20:48+00:00
The algorithms are way to primitive / stupid. When I watch just one video which explains rowing to show it to a visiting friend, my stream gets flooded with rowing videos afterwards.

When I watch a video describing a new lens for a Canon or Fuji system, I get flooded with videos for Nikon or Sony stuff later on. When I choose "not interested" I only get two options a) I watched this already (which YT should know obviously, as I'm a subscriber, or b) I don't like it. A useful option like "I don't have Nikon/Sony stuff" or something more specific like that isn't available.

Amazon for example uses an equally bad algorithm, it seems to be "industry standard" ...or even worse, because the don't need to offer me another fridge or washing machine once I ordered one. Idiocracy, sigh.
by aquariusDue | 2025-07-24 12:21:42+00:00
Sometimes I like to test whether I can actually construct or assemble a finished something in my mind from an inkling of a thought.

For example a few days ago I realized that I found it hard to reverse a word in my mind, even a simple one. Try for yourself, think of a word and then reverse it in your head with your eyes closed.

Some people might struggle with the above, some may find it doable in their heads, but most can agree that it's absurdly easy if you can externalize it to paper or a text editor at least.
by gorbachev | 2025-07-24 12:21:43+00:00
It's not going to happen this way, because these days for you to get somewhere near the top of Google results requires you to be an established content publisher, basically anyone with enough followers.

Someone who publishes content because they love the subject matter would only reach enough of an audience to have an impact if they work on it, a lot, and most people wouldn't do that without some expectation of return on investment, so they'd follow the influencer / commercial publication playbook and end up in the same place as the established players in the space are already.

If you're satisfied of being on the 50th page on the Google results, then that's fine. Nobody will find you though.
by jgalt212 | 2025-07-24 12:23:26+00:00
> Nowadays there's probably a solution based on LLMs, but I don't trust them with this kind of data

In practice, the flow from my perspective looks like LLM parser -> normalizer -> validator. So you only save one step (parser), and given the unique stochastic nature of the LLM output, the normalizer and validator can be trickier to write than one used for an old-fashioned rules-based parser. But each situation is different, or YMMV.
by ponys | 2025-07-24 12:23:29+00:00
I've written a bit about this issue as well, coming from someone working at a company that partially relies on organic search results. It's been interesting (And slightly worrying) to see the shift and layoffs happening here already.

https://sasjakoning.com/blog/how-google-s-new-ai-overview-is...

I have to say that the comments here do offer a great alternative perspective as to how terrible the web has been to navigate before AI Overviews became a thing.
by mettamage | 2025-07-24 12:24:25+00:00
> In all seriousness, the average HN comment thread feel a lot less pleasant than the average Reddit thread.

I disagree strongly actually. HN'ers to me make sense, in many ways. Redditors are a crap shoot. I go in with the HN mindset on Reddit and it's 50% reasonable and 50% "what the hell am I reading?"

HN is 95% reasonable.

I understand that to some it's an acquired taste but it was home to me from the moment I discovered it.

I don't mind the Reddit-esque comments here. It's on brand for the topic. I get that when someone has a more serious disposition in life, that this topic would feel a bit grating.

> HN compares more to a single (large/active) subreddit.

Yea, agreed.
by ceejayoz | 2025-07-24 12:24:39+00:00
> The Cleveland Clinic told NBC News that it has sent more than 250,000 letters to its Florida patients informing them of the fees ahead of their appointments, and said it posts signs at its offices saying that they are hospital outpatient departments. Medicare patients receive an additional notice at check-in. The letters that the Cleveland Clinic sent say patients may see “a change from how you were billed in the past” but do not explicitly note that patients may be charged more out of pocket. Many of the patients who spoke to NBC News did not recall receiving the letters.

Hitchhiker's Guide "beware of the leopard" vibes here.

That they give Medicare patients a separate, more carefully worded (but still as vague as possible) document because the Feds will spank them means they know exactly what they're doing.
by smcl | 2025-07-24 12:25:22+00:00
The broadcasters have absolutely no say whatsoever in how a groundsman prepares their pitch for an upcoming fixtures. In fact the kind of gamesmanship we are talking about happened as recently as the last few games of the most recent English season. Sunderland played Coventry in a two-legged playoff semi-final, having won the first leg 2-1 in Coventry they had a one-goal advantage going into the home fixture. Coventry had a player Milan van Ewijk who was able to deliver a very long and precise throw-in, so any throw in Sunderland conceded within 20-ish yards of their own goal would basically be like conceding a corner (a set-piece seen as a good goal-scoring opportunity). Sunderland mitigated against this by shrinking the distance between the touchline and the advertising boards at the side of the pitch, shortening the distance van Ewijk could run prior to taking his throw-in, and stunting his ability to turn it into a goal-scoring opportunity.
by pembrook | 2025-07-24 12:26:35+00:00
Yes, this is the experience on virtually every content website that used to be tolerable or even good.

But this is because there is no viable monetization model for non-editorial written word content anymore and hasn’t been for a decade. Google killed the ecosystem they helped create.

Google also killed the display ad market by monopolizing it with Adsense and then killed Adsense revenue sharing with creators to take all the money for themselves by turning their 10 blue links into 5 blue ads at the top of the search results. Search ads is now the most profitable monopoly business of all time.

YouTube is still young, but give it time. Google will eventually kill the golden goose there as well, by trying to harvest too many eggs for themselves.

The same will happen with AI results as well. Companies will be happy to lose money on it for a decade while they fight for dominance. But eventually the call for profits will come and the AI results will require scrolling through mountains of ads to see an answer.

This is the shape of this market. Search driven content in any form is and will always be a yellow pages business. Doesn’t matter if it’s on paper or some future AGI.
by impossiblefork | 2025-07-24 12:26:44+00:00
Yes, but in this case the investors will be ordinary people, and the payment will effectively be the products that ordinary people want.

Suppose that cheap electric car mass production is possible with new production technology, and that there's inflation because of high petrol costs. Suppose that interest rates are 5% to prevent inflation. Even if the automobile manufacturers understand that it has to be done and is feasible with some for them to survive they won't be able to do it.

However, with this interest rates can be lower because inflation is prevented by the mandatory savings. The resources to build the cheap thing will actually be available.

If done internationally this will also greatly reduce the profits of oil producing countries: suppose that the US, the EU, China and India, all big consumers of oil, agreed on a mandatory savings rate of at least 1%. Then the ordinary people have less money to bid up the price of oil against each other, but do have money to invest in businesses that substitute for oil production. The co-ordination allows ordinary people and non-resource extracting countries to get more of the pie.
by infecto | 2025-07-24 12:26:50+00:00
I am firmly in the camp that problems like these have less to do with being an EV and more to do with one of the following:

1) Aggressive driving which is easier to do in a number of EVs due to instant torque. 2) tire compound, a lot of oem tires are soft 3) something wrong with the cars drivetrain or suspension.

10k is comically low, my model y oem tires lasted to 30k before tread depth passed the safety threshold. I also keep it in chill mode.
by thenthenthen | 2025-07-24 12:27:00+00:00
Fairly confident I can do this…grabs calculator…no, I can do about half, 1200 pages per hours. My trick: Phone on tripod, scanning app with ‘auto’ shutter function and a piece of clear acrylic to flatten the pages. Snap two pages at the same time, lift acrylic, flip page, snap, takes about 3sec per spread.
by throwaw12 | 2025-07-24 12:27:54+00:00
> found that it was mostly measuring client implementation latencies and other internal inefficiencies...

As you said benchmarking is hard, but isn't the end to end latency customers will see in their workloads is usually including the client library overheads?

IMO, benchmarks should closely resemble the real world scenarios (excluding variables, e.g. network latency of different cloud providers)
by ericdallo | 2025-07-24 12:27:59+00:00
Hey everyone, over the past month, I've been working on a new project that focuses on standardizing AI pair programming capabilities across editors, similar to Cursor, Continue, and Claude, including chat, completion etc.

It follows a standard similar to LSP, describing a well-defined protocol with a server running in the background, making it easier for editors to integrate. LMK what you think, and feedback and help are very welcome!

https://github.com/editor-code-assistant/eca
by Traubenfuchs | 2025-07-24 12:28:18+00:00
One of our ex developers was a big kotlin fan and enabled it in every java/maven project he touched -that is actually quite easy and interoperability between java and kotlin is fine. He also refactored every class he touched to kotlin. After he left, no one else was really into continuing his work. Our mobile devs use kotlin though and they are happy.

I'd say it's nice and I would actually start every new (spring/java) project I do in kotlin now. But for existing projects, I actually see no value. It does not magically make code easier to understand and it doesn't reduce bugs, it's just a bit more fun and challenging to write and pads your resume...

We did have one issue where upgrading the kotlin version from 1.x to 2.x in a project broke all depending projects due to a classfile version issue though. I deferred it by just forcing the version back to 1.x. That's the kind of annoyance you can encounter.
Show HN: I built a replacement for Google Timeline
by forever_frey | 2025-07-24 12:28:23+00:00
Hey guys, I wanted to show you an application I built during the last year and a half or so.

It's called Dawarich and it's a free open-source self-hostable web app that is aimed to replace Google Timeline. And it did for me and couple of hundreds of self-hosters.

Recently my partner and I also launched a subscription-based cloud version, so those who don't have time or not interested in self-hosting could use it too.

So, what Dawarich can do for you?

- It visualized your movements

- You can track your movements with our iOS app (I partnered up with a friend to make it happen) or one of 3rd party mobile apps, both for iOS and Android: GPSLogger, OwnTracks, Overland

- It supports import of your existing data: from Google Takeout, GPX and GeoJSON data formats

- It has some nice map layers, such as fog of war, heatmap and photos layer (that is if you have configured Immich/Photoprism integration)

- It provides you with some stats to see distances traveled, split by month or year

- It has Trips feature where you can add notes and see where you've been, how long you have traveled, along with your pictures (also, if you have integration with Immich/Photoprism)

I personally use it from day 1 as replacement for Google Timeline and never looked back. There are still many things that can be implemented in order to make geodata yield more insights and traveling patterns, but it's already useful, and I'm working on it every day to make it more stable and feature-rich.

Hope you'll find it useful too :)

Cheers!
by hopelite | 2025-07-24 12:28:37+00:00
It’s primarily motivated by control; similar to how all narcissistic, abusive, controlling, murderous, “dominating” (as the document itself proclaims) people and systems are. That is not motivated by magnanimity and genuine shared interest or focus on precision and accuracy.

The controllers of the whole system want open weights and source to make sure models aren’t going to expose the population to unapproved ideas and allow the spread of unapproved thoughts or allow making unapproved connections or ask unapproved questions without them being suitably countered to keep everyone in line with the system.
by wkat4242 | 2025-07-24 12:28:44+00:00
That dependence on the US was by design of the US however. With all the military assistance they provided they also bought influence (which they will lose now of course). This paid itself back in many ways, like the dollar being the world reserve currency, having bases all over the world, being free to invade countries like Iraq etc.

Personally I hope the EU works more on the nuclear umbrella. It was the US that didn't really want us to have much of our own to establish dependency on them, but now that the US has become an unreliable partner we'll have to. France and perhaps the UK will have to scale theirs up. It's the only thing where we really need the US militarily, as any regular military is not sufficient to deter enemies like Russia and China, no matter how much we have.

But Big Tech is very hard to cut until the EU clouds step up a lot more. Maybe not for you yourself personally but for industry.
by roenxi | 2025-07-24 12:30:16+00:00
> Conservative ideology is based on the idea that certain people is just above others and they deserve more for free

Any ideology that accepts taxation - practically all of them - believes this. It is impossible [0] to come up with a system that taxes one group without accepting that there is another group who are above them (who impose & enforce the taxes) and a group that is more deserving of the wealth (hence the taxes).

As far as practical results go it isn't possible to describe a flat society where everyone is equal. It doesn't even work on a micro scale, let alone a macro one. And everyone has an opinion on what the ideal wealth distribution looks like too.

[0] Not technically impossible, an island of extremely obese rationalists who approximate friction-less spheres might be able to roll with the idea.
by al_borland | 2025-07-24 12:30:26+00:00
I’m from the US. “How are you,” is indeed a very shallow question that expects a very shallow and prescriptive response. I’ve seen where people answer it honestly, and when they walk away the person asking says something to the effect of, “god, I didn’t need his whole life story.” Experiences like this make me more hesitant to answer honestly.

The better you know someone, the more this rule starts to bend, but that doesn’t help with establishing new connections.

Even with people who are close, there is some expectation to keep things pleasant and not unload bad news on them, or seem like you’re bragging about good stuff, when asked how you are. This is why you’ll often see movies where someone asks, “how are you,” and then after the generic answer they follow it up with, “how are you really?”

In other situations, especially with good stuff, people feel like they need to be invited to talk about something exciting in their life. If they have something fun planned for the weekend or did something fun last weekend, they’ll ask someone else what they did, hoping to get that same question back, so they can have an excuse to talk about what they did. No one ever really told me this and it took me longer than I’d like to admit to figure it out.
by garyrob | 2025-07-24 12:30:32+00:00
I don't know. What if there happened to me some unimaginable pathogen that Earth animal life had no way of resisting, and that multiplied rapidly in the presence of our kind of life?

Extremely improbable. Astronomically improbable. Virtually impossible. All that is absolutely, 100% true.

But given the stakes, similarly astronomically high, I'm not sure it didn't actually make sense to do a quarantine for a few weeks. Yes, I know the indium seals didn't work. But the fact that we failed to create a quarantine doesn't mean it was worthless to at least make an attempt. It cost us virtually nothing in comparison to the stakes.

That's my personal response, anyway, and reflects the opinion I would have expressed at the time if I happened to have been involved in the project.
by nikolayasdf123 | 2025-07-24 12:31:53+00:00
you would be surprised how many complex and non-compelx bugs it finds all the time. and that is in addition to typos checks. super reliable. very useful bugs. amost 100% of the time I say "oh that's nice. saved me lots of time testing and debugging this. thanks!"

sometimes it recommends high-level architectural changes.

sometimes it detects "inconsistent" things that step out of the line of non-trivial patterns. saved me tons of time in K8S and other large config YAMLs and in just imperative code too (structures there repeats often too)

and about correctness of suggestions. they are obvious once you see them. tests pass by definition (if you have any, before Copilot kicks-in). so whatever Copilot suggests likely already passes the tests, yet not ... sit right with it. it's intuition is pretty remarkable.
by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 | 2025-07-24 12:31:54+00:00
That indeed is likely to come, but having experienced user hostile technology, the appropriate response is to prepare. Some trends suggest this is already happening ( though that only appears to be a part HN crowd so far ): moving more and more behind a local network. I know I am personally exploring local llm integration for some workflows to avoid the obvious low hanging fruit most providers will likely go for. But yes, the web in its current form might perish.
by 542354234235 | 2025-07-24 12:31:54+00:00
>Won't it be funny when someone finally gets to AGI and they realize it's about as smart as a normal person and they spent billions getting there?

Being able to copy/paste a human level intelligence program 1,000 or 10,000 times and have them all working together on a problem set 24 hours a day, 365 days a year would still be massively useful.
by MSFT_Edging | 2025-07-24 12:32:01+00:00
It's not that complex. Policing in general attracts certain kinds of people with a desire for authority. It should go without saying that it's not 100% of police officers joining.

Those with that fixation on authority want to maintain the authority. With various post 9/11 movements, the patriot act, tons of military spending, etc, there was both a desire for "security" as well as a lot of ex military gear going to police stations.

Israel just happens to be pros at violently suppressing groups of people, and just happen to be an ally and generally sorted into the "good guy" category. Additionally, Israel exports many "security" type goods and services, from cyber weapons, to traditional weapons. It only makes sense that Israeli physical security companies, where all of their employees have served under the IDF and received the training, would want to start a business offering said training.

So we have a police force who like their authority, are receiving ex-military gear to "protect" either themselves or the population at large, and are fed a constant stream of fearmongering about them being in constant danger. So they begin to act violently first as a means of defense. This creates a feedback loop where the police are seen as violent and corrupt, so criminals are more likely to try their hand at defending themselves or escaping, which makes the Police's job more dangerous.

So now their job is getting more dangerous because people can't trust that their lives wont be ruined by the luck of the draw, if they happen to get a shitty cop that's protected by the establishment. So the police want training to better protect themselves against this agitated populace. There just happens to be an ally known to export weapons and security products who offers training for subjugating a populace, and the police sign up.
by small_scombrus | 2025-07-24 12:32:09+00:00
The AI angle aside, I spend a lot of time wishing that people and companies could be happy with a good thing.

You don't need to crush your competition and drink from their skulls while squeezing every ounce of money out of your customers. You could just do something, be good at it, and be sustainability making a month-to-month profit instead of chasing exponential growth at all costs

:(
by StopDisinfo910 | 2025-07-24 12:32:13+00:00
> These days quality of the physical product is decent enough and the price of their different models are highly competitive in their respective segments. [...] The flaws in Teslas cars are mostly design choices

These two parts don't really go together from my point of view. Tesla is often pricing a car with mid-range quality as a premium model.

Personally, I think they are not very competitive anymore in the segments they operate in. They used to have first mover advantage but now historic manufacturers have similar cars on offer. At the entry level, in as much as they have a vehicle there, they are not competitive at all compared to the Asian manufacturers.

I am more worried about the plummeting sales than the AI investments.