MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by scythe | 2025-07-21 18:19:07+00:00
Solar and batteries have made a lot of strides. At the technology level, it looks great.

The problem is that energy is a concerted industry that requires all of the parts to work together. That requires institutions that are ready and willing to play ball. Otherwise you look like Brazil, which until this year had a really impressive trend of solar adoption which just... suddenly... stopped:

https://www.absolar.org.br/mercado/infografico/

You can see it clearly in the graph: solar adoption grows rapidly every year until 2024, going from under 5% to over 20% of Brazil's electricity matrix in a decade, and then we get to 2025. Solar farm expansions drop almost to zero, and rooftop adoption significantly slows. Why did this happen? Well, the grid wasn't ready:

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/brazils-grid-caps-po...

It's not like nobody could have seen this coming. The trend is smoothly exponential every year until 2025. They just didn't care. There simply was not enough pressure or attention from the government or the public to prevent a grid crunch.

These problems are not unavoidable. They are mostly political failures. In general, electricity markets do not exist without state support. China does not have this problem. In the West, our politicians seem to be too fond of the legacy energy industry and too timid about building infrastructure to address the issue, not to mention the popular tendency to think that the government should — or even can — just "get out of the way", or the ever-present NIMBY lawsuits.

It's not only Brazil, either; the UK has the same problem with wind:

https://archy.deberker.com/the-uk-is-wasting-a-lot-of-wind-p...

...which has been outstanding since 2023. There is not even enough grid capacity planned to address the problem, to say nothing of how little they've actually built. I believe there is currently a political controversy about the appearance of pylons.
by throw-qqqqq | 2025-07-21 18:19:25+00:00
Solar and wind are good complements. Solar is strong at day in the summer, and wind is strong at night in the winter. Most Northern european countries would need 2-10 days of storage with 2-5x required capacity of solar+wind installed. Noone wants to store a full season’s energy.

Tony Seba talks a lot about this stuff if you’re interested.
by topspin | 2025-07-21 18:19:56+00:00
Replying to myself.

io_uring is only a more ambitious manifestation of a pattern that has been commonplace for a long time. High performance network, storage and other hardware use circular buffers internally in their drivers to process commands and return results. io_uring is attempting to realize the same pattern, but for the entire operating system interface.

That's a really big idea. It has me asking whether this isn't how all "IPC" should be done, where one generalizes all of the running processes, including the "kernel." Ultimately it has significant implications for CPU architecture, supplanting traditional patterns.

When I wrote "given the nature of io_uring," I had something specific in mind wrt formal verification. io_uring fundamentally consumes a stream of bytes. At the front end of that is a great deal of validation code to ensure the steam contents are sane. At the backend, the commands are mapped to existing kernel functionality. It's the front end I think could be well served by formal verification.
by fxtentacle | 2025-07-21 18:20:24+00:00
I find it pretty fascinating that these "asia backpacking entrepreneur" types are in general so stuck with the "fake it, perception is everything" mindset, that they build products such as:

"Create Stunning Travel Photos at Popular Destinations Without Leaving Home. Our AI model crafts your perfect travel photos."

which is the featured example client on https://codefa.st - the vibe coding course by aforementioned Marc Lou.
by chimeracoder | 2025-07-21 18:20:31+00:00
> Content widely accepted to be immoral and/or illegal such as non-consensual pornography (that is explicit content posted without the consent of those filmed) and child sexual abuse material is forbidden. This is what the pornhub thing was about, allegedly, and why verified content is still allowed.

"Allegedly" is a very operative word there. Pornhub was actually extremely aggressive about removing CSAM and nonconsensual content, to the point where Facebook was actually a far larger problem for those actually concerned with stopping CSAM[0], with three orders of magnitude more instances on Facebook than all Mindgeek websites (including Pornhub) combined.

However, groups like the ones I mentioned only targeted Pornhub, because they don't actually care about CSAM. Their goal is to eliminate pornography and all "immoral" content, where "immoral" is defined according to an explicitly religious, right-wing interpretation of the term. That's not a secret; that's how they advertise themselves, and that includes the group in question here, Collective Shout[1], although the latter is now trying to hide that tie via futher censorship[2].

Because going after Facebook doesn't fit into an agenda of banning pornography, you'll never hear them mention one word about CSAM or other horrendous abuse that happens on Facebook and is facilitated by the platform.

> Furthermore, material considered a brand risk is also not allowed but payment processors a step down are the ones who make the guidelines on what that means in practice.

That's not quite true. Processors can set their own restrictions, but so can Visa/Mastercard/etc, and they absolutely do police perceived brand risk, which includes not just pornography, but also completely nonsexual content as well.,

[0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/facebook-a-hotbed-of-child-sex...

[1] https://www.notebookcheck.net/After-payment-processors-promp...

[2] https://bsky.app/profile/acvalens.net/post/3lufjdqmhxs2v
by zenmac | 2025-07-21 18:21:07+00:00
When FB first came out someone work in finance said

"this is personal file, but the intellgency agencies has just made it fashionable and making money for us to maintain our own personal files"

This is even worse then the Stasi. At least at that time people didn't see it as something operasive, but now we see it as fashionable.

It is more important to NOT have your personal data on the some else's hardware.
by freedomben | 2025-07-21 18:21:39+00:00
For those who didn't live through the era, it's hard to understate how much a Game Genie really did make things more fun and interesting. The thing basically gave you a huge menu of settings/tweaks you could make to a game, more common examples being "99 lives" or "Maximum HP" or something like that, but it could also make games more difficult for those who wanted that. It really felt to me like bumpers at a bowling alley, except the bumpers could be moved around to make it easier to get a strike or nearly impossible.

I never got one myself, but a friend did and we had endless fun tweaking different properties of all of our games. It was much more about exploration than it was about "cheating" at games. Game Genie was one of my first experiences of being mindblown at somebody's clever hack and use of technology, and I am grateful to have been able to live through that age.
by fsckboy | 2025-07-21 18:21:43+00:00
"non shale drillers turn on each other as toxic waste..."

would that headline surprise you? it has nothing to do with fracking. The news is that there is a fracking related toxic water issue, one entirely similar to what we are very familiar over a history of the handling of many toxic chemical industrial sites. It has nothing to do with turning on each other which is what the headline says is the news.
by Quarrelsome | 2025-07-21 18:21:46+00:00
I think its a pretty big deal when a UK citizen who is entirely willing and capable of buying a ticket to return home is needlessly detained[0] by ICE. Same goes for the Irish guy who was injured so missed his flight home and was over his visa by three days[1]. They detained him for 3 months and barred re-entry for 10 years.

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly67j35y99o

[1] https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41670047.html
by pembrook | 2025-07-21 18:22:31+00:00
They have not "begun" persecuting people for all sorts of things. Individual CBP agents have always had extreme authority relative to their position and have always had cases of denying people for extremely stupid reasons every year.

The idea that US citizens need to scrub their phones before entering the US is just a hysterical media narrative related to the drama around a certain middle east conflict right now (which I shall not mention because it will further devolve into a flame war).

I can tell you with certainty the amount of border agents who have a strong opinion about this certain middle eastern conflict is exceedingly small.
by JohnTHaller | 2025-07-21 18:22:38+00:00
ICE now uses Mobile Fortify that does instant facial recognition and fingerprint scanning against hundreds of millions of images that looks up DHS, State Department, and state law enforcement databases. It can then do a "Super Query" that can hit multiple databases on individuals, vehicles, airplanes, vessels, addresses, phone numbers and firearms. LexisNexis will be added in the near future.

They also use Clearview AI which does facial recognition against social media and the web.
by jasonephraim | 2025-07-21 18:23:07+00:00
I've been involved in a grassroots effort fighting a massive fracking project near our homes in SE Aurora, Colorado. If anyone's curious, I built this site with more details: https://savetheaurorareservoir.org/

The plan includes over 160 wells across a dozen pads—right next to a major reservoir serving Eastern Denver/Aurora, a Superfund site, a landfill, and a growing suburban community.

In April, Chevron had an uncontrolled blowout at their Bishop well in Galeton, CO. Cleanup is still ongoing. Meanwhile, a new study from the Colorado School of Public Health showed increased childhood leukemia risk linked to proximity to oil and gas wells. We've asked regulators to address how their current rules fall short in light of these findings.

There are over 40 existing pads nearby, all relying on a small volunteer fire department. We've documented consistent gaps in spill/leak reporting and monitoring. Despite this, the State and County continue approving new pads.

We organized over 2,000 public comments against the largest proposed pad—more than any public-works project in County history. Our group was also the first activist group in the state granted “affected party” status to participate in hearings for a Comprehensive Area Plan (CAP).

The CAP was approved anyway. So were the well pads. Regulators thank us for our feedback, then move forward regardless.

One example: I flagged that a pad's construction would disrupt Mule Deer mating season. The operator paid a $6,000 preemptive fine and got the green light.

Another time, I pointed out that a required public document wasn’t posted—an error that should’ve triggered a new comment period. It didn’t. The site was approved after a closed-door session to review the issue with the document not being made available.

To borrow from my recent comment:

"Lastly, I want to return to a point raised by one of the Commissioners today, drawing a comparison between Commission approval and a driver’s license: that by the time the license is stamped, the tests have been passed and the boxes checked.

It’s a fair analogy. In fact, I’ve used it myself to describe both the County and ECMC processes. But I would add this: imagine an applicant standing at the DMV counter, ready to be approved. Now imagine 100 people surrounding them—neighbors, relatives, retired law enforcement, health professionals—each holding documentation of prior violations or evidence of risks, warning that issuing the license could result in injury or death. Would that clerk still confidently apply the stamp?"

The pressure to approve these projects seems to outweigh the purpose of the review process itself. We’re still fighting.

If you want a real idea of the scope of these operations: Invite you to check out the Colorado GIS mapping tool https://cogccmap.state.co.us/cogcc_gis_online/?lat=39.572042...

click the toggle for "directional wellbores" and look north of Denver. Then, look at SE Denver and see how they are starting to build out around my home.
by leptons | 2025-07-21 18:23:20+00:00
But MRI machines can't be turned on and shut off that easily. As someone here explained, it takes up to 15 minutes for the magnet in an MRI to "shut down", and costs $50,000 each time.

Why not just control access to the room behind a metal detector? It would be really simple, but effective. I don't think any MRI should be allowed to operate without this basic level of protection.
Show HN: TheMCP.buzz – Minutes since MCP was last mentioned on HN
by ai_coder42 | 2025-07-21 18:23:41+00:00
I’ve been fascinated (and mildly haunted) by how often MCP shows up on Hacker News.

So I made themcp.buzz: a simple site that tracks how many minutes have passed since MCP was last mentioned on HN.

I'm curious to know, Which MCP servers are you actually using regularly? Are you building MCP servers?
by everybodyknows | 2025-07-21 18:24:54+00:00
Also an apparent high-level logic flaw:

> ... the entire project is optimised to fleece as much money from the US taxpayer as possible, and as such, that is all it will ever do.

But it is already failing now, Musk has apparently many years to live, so how could he hope to escape accountability? OTOH, if the locus of the fleecing is actually a cabal of highly-paid but unknown managers within SpaceX, they would have reason to keep the cash flowing as long as possible.
by ranger_danger | 2025-07-21 18:25:50+00:00
Does reporting on stories more often when the number of actual incidents stay the same really mean that anything is actually different besides political rhetoric?

> has begun

ICE has been arresting, detaining and exiling US citizens for at least 10 years:

https://migrantinsider.com/p/ice-has-deported-at-least-70-us...
by erentz | 2025-07-21 18:26:23+00:00
There was a deconstruction of his tweets timeline somewhere. He said he was questioned for two hours but the timeline shows the time his plane arrived and then an hour later his tweet that he was out. It leaves more like 20-30 minutes for questioning. There is speculation he actually was pulled aside for a routine Global Entry application on arrival interview since he had said he had applied for it in some prior episode.
by jazzyjackson | 2025-07-21 18:26:38+00:00
I think a 'purchase' ie a bank transfer like Zelle or even a paypal non-refundable 'gift' isn't likely to be blocked, it's just Visa and Mastercard that don't want to deal with offering fraud protection for vendors that see an extremely high number of chargebacks. So if you want to pay, pay by some method that doesn't offer money back in case of fraud.

I've also been prevented from sending money by e-check because my bank was concerned the form of payment was too suspicious, so I ETF'd money from another account instead. I don't think the law can force a 3rd party to facilitate a purchase.
by bee_rider | 2025-07-21 18:26:54+00:00
I don’t think it is about danger of “extinction.” But fast-food has been kind of a big deal for better or worse, so maybe it would be ok put a McDonalds on there?

Note that this particular article is about fairytale castles, so not real castles, and a slightly more unique thing. But there are real forts and castles in the thing as well.

We could possibly worry that fast food is not really worth commemorating. But then, historical forts and castles were sometimes put there for all sorts of nasty reasons, so I don’t know what’s disqualifying.
by bradfa | 2025-07-21 18:27:00+00:00
But there's no money in making a consumer Linux OS. The market has shown this time and again. ChromeOS is effectively a loss leader, getting consumers and students into the Google ecosystem. MacOS is what you get if you want Apple hardware. That's about it for consumer oriented desktop/laptop *nix operating systems today.

So if there's no money in something, then the only people who will show up to work on it are going to want to scratch their own itches because it's a hobby and fun/interesting to them.
by mrtksn | 2025-07-21 18:27:03+00:00
What I wonder is, are people just listing their social media accounts when asked? I would imagine that if I was an activist on social media or if I was expressing strong views not liked by somebody I would definitely not tell that somebody if they are in a position to make my life harder. Is this maybe like the "Are you planning to do a terrorist attack" question in the visa application form or maybe like the one that asks you if you committed a genocide or war crimes?

My bet is actually that it is intended to silence anyone who is NOT hostile to USA but has grievances with the current administration, i.e. someone who is smart and actually admires USA and aspires to visit/study/work in USA but wants USA to be better. I.e someone smart who has a chance to get into a prestigious US University and aspire to actually make the world a better place by someday make a huge contribution to science and wishes that USA was ethical country so their life work was put in a good use and not just some financial/political gain.

I'm pretty certain that USA will have a change in profile of the people they attract and that's probably the intention but I don't think that it will be good for America and the humanity. The message is clear, if you aspire to make the world a more fair place or a place that the humanity as a whole gets elevated then don't come, this place is about maximizing the power of the politicians and the profits of the shareholders.
by xdennis | 2025-07-21 18:27:17+00:00
I sympathize with some of the authors views, but deleting your accounts and going to press to brag about it seems kinda incongruent. It's like a chain smoker going to the liqueur store and bragging that he quit smoking.

No one who has 300,000 tweets has a healthy relation with social media. Not even Musk has that many!

He'll be back on ~~crack~~ social media in a month, tops.
by freedomben | 2025-07-21 18:27:45+00:00
Amen my friend. I don't think the people who make these kinds of laws have spent anywhere near enough time talking to people who are dying and suffering from extreme pain. I wrote a research paper in college about the subject and felt pretty agnostic about it (i.e. there were interesting arguments with merit on both sides) until watching my grandparents and many relatives and friends over the years die from cancer and other painful things. I am no longer agnostic on it. I think somebody making or supporting these types of laws are actively advocating for torture.
by creer | 2025-07-21 18:27:49+00:00
This discussion so far ignores cost. That's a problem.

And cost has to do with intensity of effort. In the case of construction, if there is less construction going on, then there is ("all other things being equal") more personnel available: so less delays and less hourly cost. If there is less construction going on, there is also less pressure on materials suppliers, so less expensive lumber, concrete, etc. So that it's easier to make a profit. So that it might make sense to build lower value housing. While when construction is booming, there is extra less incentive to build lower value housing.

Of course, if land availability is artificially constrained, then there is never much reason to build lower value housing. The profit is elsewhere.
by akomtu | 2025-07-21 18:27:55+00:00
Those who keep their identity in their intelligence are heading into the rough seas once the proto-AI becomes real-AI in the coming years. What's the value of your smart thoughts if AI on your smartwatch can do it better, faster and cheaper?

Also, how is AI going to change a society ruled by competitiveness, where the winner takes all? You may not want to replace your thinking with AI, but your colleagues will. Their smartwatches or smartglasses will outcompete you with ease and your boss will tell you one day that the company doesn't need you anymore.

Think of it again. Today advertisers fight each other with their ad budgets: those who spend more, get more attention and win. Tomorrow everyone will need a monthly subscription to AI for it will be the price of staying competitive, relevant and employed.
by grepfru_it | 2025-07-21 18:28:57+00:00
The game genie did not give you a menu, you inputed codes which would persistently modify the memory map of the cartridge allowing for things like 99 lives or max Hp. The “menu” you describe was a booklet containing every game and a list of code changes.

Of course you could write in your own codes and make your own hacks but a lot of the time you ended up with garbled graphics or an unbootable game. They did keep this developer documentation to a minimum and this was before the internet. Although my local BBS had an ascii document detailing game genie’s internals and how to write your own codes, it was far from the reach of most 10 year olds

The game genie knockoff clone (I forget the name but remember the ads lol) had all of the codes in memory and as such gave you a menu to choose from
by Python3267 | 2025-07-21 18:29:43+00:00
This is a principle that can be applied outside of this question, but is applicable here. Many non-engineers view software as an asset, *it is not*. Every line of code is a liability, so minimizing the size of a codebase and limiting the complexity of distributed systems (If posible avoid DS's) is key for good reliable software.

If the code needs to be fast (written in a systems language like C, C++, or Rust) write it in Rust. It will limit the amount your can shoot your foot both at the compilation stage and while writing the code (You have to think about what you're doing to avoid the compiler yelling at you. Otherwise, for the love of god write your project in a simple garbage collected language. Not having to handle memory directly removes a lot of what can go wrong.
by epistasis | 2025-07-21 18:29:45+00:00
The idea of showing a splash screen with the last app contents while the app loaded was a good idea on slower hardware.

Now that we have faster hardware with more memory, developers use frameworks which no longer load fast enough, so we have the splash screen with the last app state, followed by a complete load of up of UI from the ground up with something else.

And the splash screen becomes actively deceptive.
Show HN: MakePostAI AI that helps creators generate viral posts, reels and ideas
by branoco | 2025-07-21 18:30:23+00:00
Hey HN, We just launched an MVP for MakePostAI — a tool that helps people generate high-performing content for Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Twitter using AI.

It’s built for creators, marketers, and small teams who want to publish consistently but don’t have time (or energy) to write and design from scratch.

Right now we’re testing if this idea has legs...and we’re mostly focused on the landing page, positioning, and early feedback. If people show interest, we’ll add scheduling, auto-posting, and performance tracking.

We’d love honest feedback. Does this solve a real problem? Would you use this in your workflow? What’s missing?

Built by a small team bootstrapping from Europe. Happy to answer anything.
by petercooper | 2025-07-21 18:30:35+00:00
Not anywhere near as sophisticated as yours but I have something vaguely similar for simplifying JSON documents (while maintaining what the data also looks like) for feeding to LLMs to help them code against:

jq 'walk(if type == "array" then (if length > 0 then [.[0]] else . end) else . end)'

So that 70,000+ line Amazon example of yours would boil down to:

{ "syncToken": "1753114994", "createDate": "2025-07-21-16-23-14", "prefixes": [ { "ip_prefix": "3.4.12.4/32", "region": "eu-west-1", "service": "AMAZON", "network_border_group": "eu-west-1" } ], "ipv6_prefixes": [ { "ipv6_prefix": "2600:1f69:7400::/40", "region": "mx-central-1", "service": "AMAZON", "network_border_group": "mx-central-1" } ] }

.. which is easier/cheaper to feed to an LLM for getting it to write code to process, etc. than the multi-megabyte original.