MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by PaulHoule | 2025-07-02 01:08:38+00:00
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_X-33

There have been some other discussions of this lately, but I would say the pursuit of SSTO resulted in a lost decade for spaceflight in the 1990s.

SSTO is just barely possible, the problem is that you have a big rocket that carries a tiny payload so you are driven to exotic engines, exotic materials, and various risky technologies.

If Musk had any good idea it was not only falling back to two-stage-to-orbit reusable rockets but also recognizing that it was worth just reusing the first stage. A SSTO gets closer to aircraft-like operations in that you don't need to stack two stages on top of each other, but given how much TSTO improves everything else it's probably worth just optimizing the stacking.
by Panzer04 | 2025-07-02 01:11:20+00:00
There are a whole lot of companies that are run to benefit their management and not their shareholders. At best, they might be making no money but keeping a bunch of people in work.

There's a good reason public shareholders historically demanded accountability - maybe it's fine for now, but all it takes is some management that you can't kick out, paying themselves extortionate salaries and driving the company into the ground at the same time to recognise the problems with "owning" a company you have no right to actually control (via replacing management and so on)
by t0lo | 2025-07-02 01:11:35+00:00
As an australian citizen i'm all for it. Look at how the internet and social media has destroyed our current youth and their naivety and sense of emotional security. They all act like they're living in soviet russia at this point and have become so hard and jaded.

Better I give a little bit of pii than some kid grows up too early.

Would you be able to tell the difference if this policy came from a place of compassion?
by bb88 | 2025-07-02 01:11:41+00:00
One thing I don't like about the default mac keyboard is the weird placement of the command key. If you are a touch typist and learned by rote to type with your pinky, the command key placement on the mac just sucked.

I'm not saying Windows got this right, but MS instead overloaded the left pinky with the windows key. And on the right pinky, it's function and menu keys. That made control and alt even harder to use.

I think the A500 keyboard layout was better in every respect where the control key is where the caps lock key is now. Less keyboard options forced people to think more about software design.
by grishka | 2025-07-02 01:13:56+00:00
Oh we had a bunch of Sun thin clients in my university, in a dedicated room where we went to get tortured with various tests. They were complete sets, with Sun branded monitors, keyboards, and mice. The system you got into was something very stripped-down unix-like (probably Solaris, but at the time I assumed it was Linux), and it ran only two things: Firefox that could only access the testing website, and a timer counting down your booked session time. The smart card functionality was completely unused. They turned those things on remotely for you when you checked in at the reception.

p.s. what's up with the capitalization in this article? Sentences not starting with capital letters are harder to read.
by wyldfire | 2025-07-02 01:15:25+00:00
> the effect (16deg Celsius)

Did I read that right? 16°C seems like an enormous effect.

Seems like trees would be a small investment to effectively get "outdoor AC-ish"?

EDIT: for those of us who are more comfortable with Freedom Units, that's like going from 104°F to 75°F!
by hilbert42 | 2025-07-02 01:16:10+00:00
A resident of said country here. Another questionable measure by Government to protect our mollycoddled, insufficiently-resilient society.

That said, a better approach would be to limit kids under certain age from owning smartphones with full internet access. Instead, they could have a phone without internet access—dumb phones—or ones with curated/limited access.

Personally, I'm not too worried about what risqué stuff they'll see online especially so teenagers (they'll find that one way or other) but it's more about the distraction smartphones cause.

Thinking back to my teenage years I'm almost certain I would have been tempted to waste too much time online when it would have been better for me to be doing homework or playing sport.

It goes without saying that smartphones are designed to be addictive and we need to protect kids more from this addiction than from from bad online content. That's not to say they should have unfettered access to extreme content, they should not.

It seems to me that having access to only filtered IP addresses would be a better solution.

This ill-considerd gut reaction involving the whole community isn't a sensible decision if for no other reason than it allows sites like Google to sap up even more of a user's personal information.
by pj_mukh | 2025-07-02 01:16:18+00:00
My point exactly. The App Store has no play in back office automation so the comparison doesn’t make sense. AFAICT, OpenAI is already making Billions on back office automation. I just came from a doctors visit where the she was using some medical grade ChatGPT wrapper to transcribe my medical conversation meanwhile I fight with instagram for the attention of my family members.

AI is already here [1]. Could there be better owners of super intelligence? Sure. Is OpenAI better than Meta. 100%

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/06/09/openai-hits-10-billion-i...
by trhway | 2025-07-02 01:17:07+00:00
Even without any evaporative effect, the air cooling of leaves (at least bringing them to the surrounding air temperature) happens more easily than that of concrete pavement due to height and larger surface area. The concrete can easily get heated much hotter than the air at even 10-20ft.

Wrt. water consumption - Mediterranean species like say olive trees are kind of optimized for low water consumption, by for example having leaves covered with wax-like stuff decreasing evaporation.
by ChadNauseam | 2025-07-02 01:17:37+00:00
> I'll also say that the prejudice of the oppressed shouldn't be seen the same as the prejudice of the oppressor. > > If a slave in the U.S. in 1840 believed white people were inherently incapable of empathy, I imagine that the only people focusing on their "anti-white racism" would be doing so to defend the status quo of slavery.

I understand the circumstances that lead Palestinians to be antisemitic. That said fair, the person you responded to said this:

> the entirety of the surrounding populations want them dead

I admit that it's a ridiculously hyperbolic comment, but most of Israel's surrounding countries do have an environment that's extremely inhospitable to jews and that can't really be attributed to Israel oppressing them all. They were ethnically cleansed from nearly every other country in the middle east - I think that just as we can understand why Palestinians ended up antisemitic, we can understand why jews in Israel ended up being uncomfortable with the idea of Israel not being an explicitly jewish state. Two wrongs don't make a right, but to make any progress towards a single state solution with equal rights for everyone, Israelis will need to be convinced that it won't result in a "two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner" situation.
by fc417fc802 | 2025-07-02 01:17:38+00:00
> When they are compelled to do it, they will not even know it is happening.

That ... might or might not be an issue, but it's not _this_ issue, ie the one we were originally talking about here.

A targeted order to wiretap (or otherwise spy on) a specific person or entity is entirely different from widespread data collection, retention, and sale for whatever corporate purpose. With widespread collection the data is then sitting there in a data lake waiting to be subpoenaed by law enforcement at their leisure for any arbitrary reason they happen to think up potentially years in the future.

> they are going to be legally compelled to do them, so the network structure’s form follows that function

You can't be compelled to hand over that which you do not have. Neither can you be compelled to modify your product in a particular manner absent market wide legislation; see FBI v Apple if you doubt that.
by usui | 2025-07-02 01:18:50+00:00
This is a strawman. The OP didn't mention trusting private institutions over public institutions, just that you can't ever trust American public institutions to do the right thing for you before being dragged kicking and screaming. What the poster says is true. Living in the US is coming to terms with "every person for themselves" is reality, and that it "does not square with the material wealth of the US". You can trust public institutions to some extent more than private, but interacting with them is still all about fending for yourself. Being familiar with the American government and living in another country that treats its citizens much better (at least for daily operations and processes) opens your eyes to how bad it is. It's a horror how much money the US has while failing to invest the majority of profits back into raising standards for everyone. Dozens of countries do better with much less.
by alexjplant | 2025-07-02 01:21:44+00:00
Different models have different quirks. I use 4o at work and it has an annoying habit of taking things absurdly literally and using emojis and formatting too liberally instead of giving me a useful answer. Claude is much more subdued and helpful because it's conversational when you ask something open-ended, succinct when you ask it something data-driven, and almost always asks a follow-up question.

The sci-fi trope of being able to tell "AIs" apart from one another is absolutely coming true in real-time.
by marcus_holmes | 2025-07-02 01:22:04+00:00
2025: if you're logged in, then we check your age to see if you can do or see some stuff

2027: the companies providing the logins must provide government with the identities

2028: because VPNs are being used to circumvent the law, if the logging entity knows you're an Australian citizen, even if you're not in Australia or using an Aussie IP address then they must still apply the law

2030: you must be logged in to visit these specific sites where you might see naked boobies, and if you're under age you can't - those sites must enforce logins and age limits

2031: Australian ISPs must enforce the login restrictions because some sites are refusing to and there are loopholes

2033: Australian ISPs must provide the government with a list of people who visited this list of specific sites, with dates and times of those visits

2035: you must be logged in to visit these other specific sites, regardless of your age

2036: you must have a valid login with one of these providers in order to use the internet

2037: all visits to all sites must be logged in

2038: all visits to all sites will be recorded

2039: this list of sites cannot be visited by any Australian of any age

2040: all visits to all sites will be reported to the government

2042: your browser history may be used as evidence in a criminal case

Australian politicians, police, and a good chunk of the population would love this.

Australia is quietly extremely authoritarian. It's all "beer and barbies on the beach" but that's all actually illegal.
by Sevrene | 2025-07-02 01:22:49+00:00
I’m an Australian who values privacy and civil liberties more than most I meet.

While I yearn for the more authentic and sincere days of the internet I grew up on, I recognize very quickly by visiting x or facebook how much it isn’t that, and hasn’t been for a long time.

I think this bill is a good thing and I support it.
by DaSHacka | 2025-07-02 01:24:57+00:00
That would be perfect, doubly so if the university switched to FIPS201-like student IDs for their door access too.

Just imagine, one ID that would work for both doors and computer access, no need for clunky username/password+2FA juggling. Just tap your card (and optionally, if a institution chooses, enter a pin for a second factor), and you're off to the races.

This could easily be implemented through mobile phones too, since most have NFC nowadays, if cost of credentials that can do asymmetric operations is a concern.

Of course, this would never happen, as both Academia and Access Control are extremely slow-moving fields stuck with decades of legacy solutions. The vast, vast majority of institutions still use what amounts to static unchanging ""passwords"" sent across the wire (usually unencrypted!) to authenticate users.

This is something I've been thinking of for a long time, and had no idea Sun had beat me to the punch long before I was even born! What a shame, they were really ahead of their time.
by bamboozled | 2025-07-02 01:25:53+00:00
We failed to give the kids the skills to think critically (because that's not in the ruling classes best interest), so now, to keep the population under some form of governability, information has to be restricted so people don't end up destroying their own society. Nice.

I agree though, most information is misinformation, even the most popular stuff, Joe Rogan et al.
by scrubs | 2025-07-02 01:26:00+00:00
Funny I should come across this. I am agreeing with op in a different way.

The more the software work is proper engineering the less other factors dominate. Roughly speaking rank as follows:

- safety/embedded (high)

- algorithm intense

- systems software development

- compilers

- other (low)

If you're in other the organization's engineering culture, management culture, ability to work cross functionally, plus operations maturity will likely dominate what you can do fast, well.

Worse it's bidirectional. In other even the ability to make a small improvement can be problematical because it engages how messy the code is, how well the requirements are known, and testing (beta, uat) is done, and how cdci works. The outside factors can make it a complete mess.

In my experience the idea that llm fixes these the non software factors is zero. It's a tech solution to address a root cause outside it's scope and a fool's errand.

I've worked at some decent plus companies. Since then I've worked for several that suck bad. The good company alas became a bad fit for my career objectives, but boy oh boy do i miss them.
by wat10000 | 2025-07-02 01:26:46+00:00
To me, there’s an enormous difference between “they pay well but we’re going to win the race” and “my employees belong to me and they’re stealing my property.”

Notably, I don’t see him condemning Meta’s “poaching” here, just commenting on it. Compare this with, for example, Steve Jobs getting into a fight with Adobe’s CEO about whether they’d recruit each other’s employees or consider them to be off limits.
by bamboozled | 2025-07-02 01:27:06+00:00
So is being fed propaganda 24/7, the KGB seems to be winning by reading some of these comments.

I don't see kids being banned from reading history books, which would be more like the world you're describing, I see a country which is pretty multicultural and open minded trying it's best to protect itself from the absolute nonsense that circulates online. When I was a kid, I could only watch certain TV shows because my bed time was 7:30-8pm, that's when the "naughty stuff" came on TV. Was that the ministry of truth at work?

Do you have any idea what kids are exposed to now ? I mean the answer is probably, no, you have no idea. But judging by the rot I see my younger friends and family members watch and regurgitate, I can tell you, it's not great.
by txtsum | 2025-07-02 01:27:17+00:00
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by claudioll | 2025-07-02 01:27:35+00:00
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by aspenmayer | 2025-07-02 01:28:03+00:00
> A targeted order to wiretap (or otherwise spy on) a specific person or entity is entirely different from widespread data collection, retention, and sale for whatever corporate purpose. With widespread collection the data is then sitting there in a data lake waiting to be subpoenaed by law enforcement at their leisure for any arbitrary reason they happen to think up potentially years in the future.

I do see what you mean, but they are differences of degree, not kind. It could be considered a best practice to minimize PII etc, but even other groups don’t do any better. Signal still uses phone numbers.

> > they are going to be legally compelled to do them, so the network structure’s form follows that function

> You can't be compelled to hand over that which you do not have. Neither can you be compelled to modify your product in a particular manner absent market wide legislation; see FBI v Apple if you doubt that.

I agree. However, Apple is also confident enough in their legal team, reasoning, funding, and likely legal outcomes that they will flout NSLs in America, and yet they will cave to UK in that they disabled Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (in UK) which means that iCloud files aren’t really E2EE if the government can just say that you can’t do that anymore. Not your keys, not your files and the security and privacy of said effects thereof.
by toomuchtodo | 2025-07-02 01:29:01+00:00
Call the builders and ask what the incentives are, seriously. My father surveys them as a mortgage originator on a weekly basis to know how much they're buying the buyer's rate down out of their margins. The fundamentals are showing weakness. These price levels for real estate are unsustainable, even assuming 50-100bps cuts by the Fed (rising insurance costs will also push prices down assuming buyers buy a PITI monthly payment, although insurance costs are a function of location and year of structure construction [based on building code and insurer risk appetite; the closer to the coast or older the structure, the more challenging and expensive to insure]).

https://www.marketplace.org/story/2025/07/01/construction-sp...

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/17/homebuilder-sentiment-june-2...

https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/homebuilder-price-cut-fl...

https://www.wtsp.com/article/money/tampa-housing-market-shif...
by litbear2022 | 2025-07-02 01:31:01+00:00
When rogue car companies and governments intimidate you with all kinds of excuses to prevent you from enjoying high-quality and low-priced products[1], you'd better re-examine your government.

- https://www.teslarati.com/volkswagen-sues-id-6-import-german...

- https://www.carscoops.com/2025/01/small-chinese-suv-beats-po...
by techpineapple | 2025-07-02 01:32:14+00:00
Ehh. The thing about Trump is I don’t think he’s acting, this is who he actually is. Is it still Kayfabe if Trump actually cuts Tesla and SpaceX support? It looks impossible until it happens and then everyone will say it’s inevitable.

It’s not that I think it’s definetly real, I just don’t think that line is particularly thick for Trump.
by t0lo | 2025-07-02 01:33:54+00:00
yep mutual deligitimation and hasbara are operating in full force. over 80 countries have "cyber troops" - there are so many countries trying to destroy the social fabric of the west. why shouldn't we shield our children who have no way of understanding or protecting themselves from it. plus the fact that the "thought and ideological leaders" of this generation have no thoughts or coherent ideologies is pretty telling.
by aspenmayer | 2025-07-02 01:34:14+00:00
What if the person saying that means “Friday this week” sometimes and “Friday next week” other times? How can you know that they don’t from an isolated utterance? Can you know with reasonable certainty that the person saying it knows what you think they mean?

From context you might know if it seems like they know how to use the phrase, but I always struggle to understand these quirks, perhaps because I heard these terms as an adult and haven’t used them much myself, or been exposed to them and the context enough to immerse myself in the colloquial usage by diffusion.

This is close to weird constructions like “x is deceptively y” like “the dog is deceptively large” which, without already knowing the size of the dog, makes me feel like a dunce because I don’t know while not giving me enough specificity to know if the the largeness is what is deceptive or just the perception of the largeness. It’s a syntactical tarpit.

> I use "<day> week" in conversation, but I'd say it's falling out of favour. I mostly use it with my parents.

I am a native English (US) speaker, and I think it’s a British English thing perhaps, as I heard it all the time in Australia, along with other week-related terms like fortnight.
by josephg | 2025-07-02 01:35:08+00:00
Fair point. I'm projecting a bit much, because I'm kinda pissed off about how much americans assume everything everywhere is about america and should be judged by american values. I agree that its not weird or creepy to follow whats going on in other countries. But you hit a nerve when you said this upthread: "Australia is such a draconian nanny state, hell-bent on surveillance and authoritarian control" because we require ID to get a phone number.

It would be cheap to shoot back with criticisms of the US. But that would be pointless. So, I think its a more interesting conversation to talk about where the wall should be here. How do we talk here, between our countries?

> It absolutely does not weaken my moral standing. I did not vote for the traitors currently making a farce of my country.

I don't agree. I don't think your voting habits in particular give you enough distance to absolve you entirely for anything your leader does internationally.

I see it as an API boundary question. Imagine if your company ships a buggy product. From inside the organisation, it's legitimate to say "The bug is not my fault!". But from the outside, nobody cares. The whole organisation is collectively responsible for their successes and failures. The reputation of the whole organisation is elevated when they put out good products. And that brand reputation suffers when they put out bad products. I don't care which engineer in particular implemented a bug on my iphone. I care that my iphone is buggy. And the inverse - my airpods are amazing, and that makes me want to buy more apple products.

Its the same with countries. You and I both live in representative democracies. We're represented by whoever wins our elections. Even if you didn't vote for Trump, collectively your country voted for Trump. Like him or not, as a nation, you've collectively decided to make him your leader & representative. He represents you on the world stage. In some sense, thats what a nation is: its a collection of people who tie their fate together. Who rally around a collective vision for the future.

Its the same for me. I would like it very much if our country stopped ruining our coral reefs. I didn't vote for those policies (and I personally pushed back against a lot of Australia's surveillance laws). But internationally I still have to wear some shame for what my country is doing.