MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by ben_w | 2025-07-18 09:51:48+00:00
> [1] https://www.otherbranch.com/shared/practice-coding-problem

Minesweeper?

Huh.

No wonder the PhD candidate who was supervising us was surprised I did that as a fun little side project in my first or second year at university.

Still, I'm not absolutely sure I'd have gotten to the end of step 5 (correctly working flood-fill) within 25 minutes despite having implemented the whole game in Java, REALBasic, and JavaScript over the years.

On the other hand, that's probably good. 25 minute coding challenge where you're not even expected to get to the end as per the instructions* is much better than "take this, do it over the next week, might take you 8 hours, we'll spend an hour talking about it" as I've been seeing.

* "Very few people will finish the full problem. You do not need to complete every step to pass our interview."
by newswasboring | 2025-07-18 09:51:49+00:00
> That's equal to 82% of our graduating class who are guaranteed jobs even before any Americans walk across the stage for their diploma.

This is such a weird phrasing. These people are not "guaranteed" jobs. They get a job and then apply for a visa which is granted because they have offer letters. In fact the whole article reads like American government is somehow giving these people jobs rather than allowing them to work on jobs they have already gotten.

The most uncharitable reading of this is usual racist dog whistle.
by corimaith | 2025-07-18 09:51:51+00:00
Assuming funding correlates to more slots, which is not really true. The number of important professors to take mentorship from, the number of research lab slots are certainly lagging the increased funding, if increasing at all.

The money might be going into nicer buildings or administrative costs, but it's also a white elephant once the foreign funding dries up as the domestic situation improves for many internationals. After which then these universities find themselves in major trouble.
by tornikeo | 2025-07-18 09:52:04+00:00
It seems that the average employee doesn't currently benefit from completing their job more efficiently; i.e., they have no interest in AI.

To accelerate mass AI adoption in workplaces, it may be necessary to expose the average worker to the risks and rewards of business ownership. However, it might be the case that the average worker simply doesn't want that risk.

If there's no risk, there can't be a reward. So I can't see a way AI adoption could be sped up.
by VonTum | 2025-07-18 09:52:24+00:00
For me the "should I use a library for this" comes down to if I want to be able to dip under the abstraction.

For instance: terminal color codes. I'm building for linux, but would like my code to be reasonably portable to other platforms. By inserting my own \033[m... Codes, I take responsibility for doing colors on other platforms too, whereas a dependency absolves me of that.

On the other hand, if I need a graph algorithm like Bellman-Ford, I don't want to reach for a library, because that immediately forces me to use their structs for every graph node. I might also want to tune BF specifically to my graph's shapes, etc.
by Expurple | 2025-07-18 09:53:07+00:00
> one thing that apparently I haven't gotten across is that they don't cover semantic changes, only grammar ones for the most part.

You have gotten it across just fine.

We're trying to get across that no one is ever going to do "global" incompatible semantic changes in editions. That's been understood from the start. Exactly because of the problems that you describe.

Although, it's still possible to "sneak in" surprisingly useful semantic changes if they are local to the function body: https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/edition-guide/rust-2024/tem...
by zelphirkalt | 2025-07-18 09:53:38+00:00
I am not sure most auditors work on that level of detail. If it is a library they don't consider audited yet, they might just call it a day and make a statement about your code excluding the dependencies they are not familiar with. Otherwise you would have to pay for all third party dependency audits, which no one else paid for yet or the auditor is not aware of someone else having audited already.
by chha | 2025-07-18 09:53:54+00:00
Absolutely. A bunch of them also predated the www, or started just when the www was gaining popularity, meaning that information on possible products might be more limited than it is today. Some have narrow use-cases, and some might have started as really narrow in terms of scope, but then ballooned after gaining popularity, sales (and feature requests), and some probably started because the alternative was deemed too expensive compared to just making it in-house.

I think the main point bob1029 was trying to make is that it can be worthwhile doing somehting in-house if the alternatives doesn't match the use-case, are too expensive or whatever else - but that you seriously need to consider if your architecture is the best way to solve the problem before going down that route.
by vasco | 2025-07-18 09:54:29+00:00
It doesn't even have to be related to quality of developers. Whatever tool chain or product you use, you're using someone else's dependencies. In some places more than others, but most people aren't implementing their own matrix multiplication code, and the ones that are, aren't implementing random library #24 which isn't in their core business. So this whole discussion happens on black and white terms when in fact people only care if they have regulatory obligations, or they have a particular personal interest in implementing something, or they got attached to that idea for a specific library. But nobody is applying this fully or they'd still be at the beach collecting sand.
by disgruntledphd2 | 2025-07-18 09:55:34+00:00
> But when I think of “suburbia” I think of a series of housing developments, strip malls p, golf courses just off all major highways/roads. Cul de sacs as opposed to grid pattern. Generally hostile to pedestrians getting fro residential to commercial and business areas. On,y part of the Valley is like this, mostly the richer areas more towards 280, such as Los Altos, Portola Valley, Cupertino.

I guess this is reflective of US/Europe suburbia. From my (Irish) perspective, the valley is clearly suburbia given the density. I'll never forget taking the caltrain from Palo Alto to SF and seeing basically low-density housing with sporadic strips of shops. That would be clearly suburban to me (but obviously other people's opinions will differ).
by 0xEF | 2025-07-18 09:56:59+00:00
This is not an apples to apples comparison. A single line in my cli letting me know one of my Rails project dependencies is requesting funding is _far_ less intrusive than Windows throwing popup notifications at me about some game they want me to play even though I requested to stop showing me that ad.

FOSS needs money, yes, but it also respects the user and can in no reasonable way be compared to Microsoft's abuse of power without some serious cognitive dissonance.
by intothemild | 2025-07-18 09:58:08+00:00
Similar situation to me. I got my Amazon account banned because I dared to use different Amazon websites with the same login. So amazon.de, .co.uk, .com ... I live in Norway where we don't have an official Amazon country..

Apparently I got flagged as suspicious, and every time I jump through the hoops to prove who I am, I get rejected.

I just stopped buying from Amazon.

Lost all my books, movies, tv shows. Everything. No recourse.
by kevinh456 | 2025-07-18 09:58:08+00:00
You anchor on what "AI" actually is. "Artificial Intelligence" is, IMO, useless phrase. Make them clearly define what they're talking about.

AI is a bunch of different technologies that have many uses—neural networks, natural language processing, OCR, speech recognition, machine learning, computer vision, image classification, upscaling models, and our favorite new friends "generative pre-trained transformers" (GPT) and "large language models" (LLM) that make up key parts of "generative AI."

Once you make them specify what they're talking about, you talk about the nature and inherent limitations in the technology.

I like to call GPT and LLM "statistical binary string predictors." IE: given a string of binary, predict the expected binary string based on the inputs. It's an amazing technology, don't get me wrong. We're starting to see the limits already though.

Limited context windows. Larger context/training == lower quality results. More input tokens = lower quality. In some respects, newer models are now regressing from earlier models because they're chasing benchmarks and not the real world use cases.

Start to dive into the details. Ask them to admit the problems with LLM and GPT. Ask them how they see these problems getting resolved. Most AI fanboys don't understand the technologies involved. Expose it.
by ACCount36 | 2025-07-18 09:58:37+00:00
Take an iPhone or a Switch. Then disable Secure Boot on it. Good fucking luck.

The reason why Apple or Nintendo go out of their way to make this impossible isn't user security. It's the "security" of their 30% App Store cut.

Out in the wild, Secure Boot exists to "secure" vendor revenue streams - and PCs are the only devices where it's even possible for the user to disable it. Most of the time.

What's happening in smartphone space is enough of a reason to treat Secure Boot on PC like an ongoing attack. The only reason why there are still legitimate ways to disable or adjust it is that most PC manufacturers don't have their own app store.
by disgruntledphd2 | 2025-07-18 09:58:49+00:00
Science doesn't require experimental designs, certainly they are incredibly helpful but they don't work for everything.

Like (I grumble about this approach a lot) observational studies at a population level are certainly science, even though there's no experiments. Granted, in medicine at least they end up feeding into RCTs and controlled studies which is good, but in a lot of cases (child development is a big one) lots of hypotheses can't ethically be tested using experimental designs.

We can't get sets of identical twins and raise one in a rich home and another in a poor home, holding everything else constant. Does this mean twin studies aren't science?

I actually kinda agree that a lot of economics is very poor science (far too much maths on far too little data) but that's reflective of the difficulty of collecting such data rather than an indictment of the approach.
by flexagoon | 2025-07-18 09:58:56+00:00
Secure Boot's benefits are definitely not as strong (I don't think flashing custom backdoored firmware is a common attack vector for personal computers), but FDE is still useful in case your laptop gets stolen, because thieves looking for sensitive data on a hard drive is a thing that does actually happen.

I also wouldn't really say it's much trouble. If you have a TPM and use systemd, you can set it up to unlock FDE automatically on boot, otherwise, you just have to input an extra password when turning on your machine.
by holowoodman | 2025-07-18 09:58:57+00:00
Yes, so much this. It used to be that important logs (filtered by severity and keywords) were even continuously live-printed by a line printer, so that there was always a current paper copy of the really important stuff for forensics.

See e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiEGoVzmyvs but dot-matrix was also used and at least a little less noisy.
by DaSHacka | 2025-07-18 09:59:00+00:00
> I dont think immigration is the reason for the job market sucking. theres no jobs to apply to, theres no jobs to take from americans in the first place

Are you sure about that?

Microsoft recently laid off 9,000 American workers while applying for 14,000 H1B visa workers [0]. They are transparently offshoring jobs from Americans to foreign workers.

[0] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/microsoft-applied-to...
by palata | 2025-07-18 09:59:03+00:00
It's a question of preference.

* Recent Macbooks have an incredible battery life, that's for sure.

* macOS is not Linux, and Linux is not macOS.

I personally like Linux a lot more than macOS, therefore I run Linux on my laptop. It's not a pain at all: just make sure you get a laptop that is well supported (seems a lot easier than 20 years ago, I personally run on ThinkPads).

The way you write (e.g. you see running Linux on a laptop as "a trouble"), you sound like you like macOS better but were using Linux because it was cheaper. In that case go for a Macbook if it's now affordable!
by mlnj | 2025-07-18 09:59:32+00:00
>I don't know what happened to them. When AI breakthrough happened, I expected them to put up a fight. They never did.

Apple always had the luxury of time. They work heavily on integrating deeply into their ecosystems without worrying about the pace of the latest development. eg. Widgets were a 2023 feature for iOS. They do it late, but do it well.

The development in the LLM space was and is too fast for Apple to compete in. They usually pave their own path and stay in their lane as a leader. The impact on Apple's brand image will be tarnished if Google, Meta, OpenAI, MS all leapfrog Apple's models every 2-3 months. That's just not what the Apple brand is associated with.
by yahoozoo | 2025-07-18 09:59:51+00:00
I still don’t get how people blow so much money per day if they were just on API usage. My tasks at work are either so trivial that it’s easier and quicker to just do them the old fashioned way, or complex enough that having to steer, correct, and edit the LLMs output is more effort than just writing it myself. What I mainly use LLMs for is “Run a `git diff master` and summarize the changes for a PR description” to save some time there.

I guess a lot of folks are vibe coding 90%+ their side hustles to the point they require 5 instances of CC, each running 8 subagents?
by echelon | 2025-07-18 10:00:17+00:00
> I'm saying that DNA is not a predictor of being a "good employee"

Sure it is.

Easy case in point: count the chromosomes. The wrong number alters gene dosage, leading to diseases such as down syndrome.

Neuroticism amongst many other personality traits is heavily genetically linked, obesity and cardiovascular health are genetically linked, ...

Lots of things an employer or insurer would be interested in if our laws do not protect us. Some may eventually be willing to skirt the law if it gives them an edge and the penalties don't outweigh the benefits.

We're not there yet, but give it 25-50 years.
by DarkNova6 | 2025-07-18 10:00:24+00:00
Maybe the most interesting paragraph: “The cost of [the special effects without AI] just wouldn’t have been feasible for a show in that budget,” Sarandos said.

But given the abysmal quality of CGI/FX these days (look at the new Mortal Kombat trailer ffs), I can’t imagine film deteriorating any further. But industry must seriously step up its game because soon, everyone can make movies like that.

What counts is not the monopoly on talent and technology, but distribution and how much artistic merit you can leverage.

Hollywood is rightfully afraid.
by potato3732842 | 2025-07-18 10:00:47+00:00
> do not think anyone is making that point.

There are a whole lot of weasels who are adding a bunch of filler words and alternate phrasing to stuff that amounts to something akin to that point or some point built around that core.

>From a geo political perspective, would you rather have these people working to build up US industry,

If it tears the nation apart what does it matter?

>Lastly, those non-US graduates pay a very hefty sum for the 'privilege' of attending school in the US.

First off, most H1B workers do not have american degrees so this blanket assertion is laughable on its face.

Second, even when they do have US degrees enriches institutions and people that at best about half the country approves of and approximately nobody not getting paid by them approves of the economic model of.

>except the lower 66th percentile of native US CS graduates.

Now reconcile this with the prevailing HN wisdom that the american middle class ought to pay a lot of taxes to benefit the lower classes as is the case in europe.

What makes one ok but not the other? This nation is in the shit is is because of you and people like you who adopt or condone policy positions based on something other than principals.
by isametry | 2025-07-18 10:00:59+00:00
I'm in the same boat. It seems like the mindset for consumer-grade hubs is to provide support for as many old, legacy devices as possible, rather than a higher number of new devices.

Another problem is that USB-A ports are dirt cheap and simple to implement, so hub makers feel like "leaving free IO on the table" by not sprinkling them on everything. Whereas each "decent" USB-C port has enough complexity to think twice about adding it.

Nevertheless, there are a couple of options. Try searching for "USB-C only hub". You will get some results, but they are basically the identical product (same IO card), just with different housings. So you can pretty much count with these specs: 1 USB-C in for power, 3–4 USB-C out, 5 or 10Gbps each, Power Delivery at various wattages. No video support.

I have one of these on my desk right now, it's from the brand "Minisopuru", I get power and four USB-C "3.2 Gen 2" ports. It's fine. But like I said, it's no Thunderbolt, and no video support, so I have to "waste" the other port on my MacBook just for my external display.

There are also Thunderbolt / USB4 devices which will give you a bonkers amount of IO, including good TB / USB-C ports usually (plus some USB-A of course, as a spit in the face – so you'd need to ignore those). But these are not hubs, they are docks, which is a different product class entirely (big and heavy, more expensive, dedicated power supply).

Something I've been doing recently to salvage the USB-A ports I still begrudgingly encounter, while continuing to (force myself to) upgrade all my devices to type-C, are these: [0]. 1-to-1 USB-A male to USB-C female adapters. I just stick them in all USB-A ports I encounter, leave them there all the time, and move on with my life. It's a bit bulky and looks kinda stupid, but it basically gives me USB-C everywhere I need (including work-issued PCs and docking stations) for just a couple of bucks. For low-bandwidth devices like headphones, keyboard / mice / gamepads, or even my phone, it works perfectly fine.

[0] – https://www.amazon.com/UGREEN-Adapter-10Gbps-Converter-Samsu...
by Letstalk123 | 2025-07-18 10:00:59+00:00
Every major platform is built around performance and retention. Followers, likes, endless scroll — all designed to keep attention high and depth low.

A few of us are trying to rebuild from the ground up. Mindfuse is a stripped-down alternative: one-on-one, anonymous voice chats with strangers around the world. No feed. No followers. No metrics. Just presence.

It’s not for scale. It’s for humans who are done with dopamine traps. https://mindfuse.io

Would love to hear from others building slow, intentional tech.
by meindnoch | 2025-07-18 10:01:05+00:00
Homomorphically encrypted services don't need a priori knowledge of the encryption key. That's literally the whole point.

Consider the following (very weak) encryption scheme:

m, k ∈ Z[p], E(m) = m * k mod p, D(c) = c * k⁻¹ mod p

With this, I can implement a service that receives two cyphertexts and computes their encrypted sum, without knowledge of the key k:

E(x) + E(y) = x * k + y * k mod p = (x + y) * k mod p = E(x + y)

Of course, such a service is not too interesting, but if you could devise an algebraic structure that supported sufficiently complex operations on cyphertexts (and with a stronger encryption), then by composing these operations one could implement arbitrarily complex computations.
by Mindfusefounder | 2025-07-18 10:01:30+00:00
Most people feel more isolated than ever, despite being more “connected” than ever. The internet solved scale — but not intimacy.

So we built Mindfuse: a platform for anonymous one-on-one voice conversations with strangers from around the world. No feed, no content, no social pressure — just humans, talking.

It’s meant for people who’ve outgrown noise and want something quieter, realer. https://mindfuse.io

Curious what others think about using tech to rebuild real connection.
by latexr | 2025-07-18 10:01:36+00:00
Did you write more code with Claude? Isn’t the point that you have in fact written less (because Claude wrote it for you)?

As for the cost, you are ignoring the situation where someone has depended on the tool so much that when it goes away they are atrophied and unable to continue as before. So no, in your scenario you’re not always left better off.
by IceDane | 2025-07-18 10:04:41+00:00
Tangentially related:

I bought a used MacBook air from my colleague to give to my girlfriend. It's the first apple device I've owned for more than a decade.

I was expecting smooth sailing. From afar it's supposed to be so well integrated and smooth.

What we experienced was the opposite. Even just the experience in macOS feels extremely janky. Lots of different UI paradigms, lack of feedback when logging into your apple account when it doesn't work in some cases.

Anyway, we updated everything and my gf even purchased something almost immediately - a nearly 100 dollar license for software from the app store.

She puts the laptop away for a couple of days and then we want to use it in the kitchen.. and we are told there's an issue with the account. We end up logging in online where we are finally told that its been blocked and we need to verify it. Whatever, I thought, it's probably just some filter. We verify with phone number and are told we'll need to wait a couple of days.

The result is that her apple id is just banned, and there is no recourse. No one can tell us anything at all except that we broke the terms of service. They can't even refund our purchase because they literally can't find our account in their system. We're literally instructed to do a charge back.

So we end up using another apple id that my girlfriend had, which she had forgotten about since it was only used for Apple tv... And it doesn't work. We are unable to login with it, and when we go online, we enter some sort of verification flow.. which just breaks. The final step is a website with a button which literally doesn't do anything when you press it. Except it does - it sends a request and I can see it return a 500.

We end up having to talk to support on the phone and they tell us this is all intentional, and he just needs to flip a switch in his system and we're good to go.

Literally the most asinine experience I've ever had with any tech company. Also the last time I'm buying anything Apple.
by zmgsabst | 2025-07-18 10:04:48+00:00
This is a false dichotomy.

There’s a third option besides unlimited H1Bs, etc and completely restricted market — which is preferencing US natives.

And this problem isn’t reserved to CS grads — but represents 2/3rds of prospective middle class US citizens experiencing a worse outcome. Which contrary to your glib dismissal, is politically unstable.