MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by zzo38computer | 2025-07-20 23:25:08+00:00
Some people do want a good quality and do want to keep using the same one for many years, so what they say is not necessarily true of everyone. However, often the good quality things can be difficult to find (even if it is available, which in some cases it will be but often it isn't), or something has some advantages and some disadvantages over the other one which also makes it difficult to find an actually good one. Like they say sometimes people discard things for other reasons and buy new things too often, but some people don't want to do that, and shouldn't discard and keep buying new things too much. But, the quality is often bad too, with worse durabilty and worse quality in many other ways too. The other thing that is done is making it incompatible which can also make it difficult to actually have one which is of a good quality, especially if the specifications which may be required for such a thing are of a bad quality (which is also common). (It is true even with computer programs. FOSS can help a bit, although even programs that are made FOSS can be of a bad quality in many ways, it does at least allow people to try to improve them if they want to do. It is one part of one reason why I and some people might write some programs differently than others are commonly made.)
by nebula8804 | 2025-07-20 23:25:19+00:00
Did you develop anything of note while you were there? What was developed at this building? I wonder if the building design had any influence on how certain products turned out.

I didn't work for Microsoft but had a family member work there (I work for a well known payroll company thats the same corporate drab). These images are giving me PTSD and depression because my current arrangement of working remotely with a nice monitor and chair with a laid back team will eventually be gone one day and I will be thrown back into the fire. Im only 10 years into my career having tinkered with computers since 6 years old and I don't know how people get through decades of working in places like this. :/
by firecall | 2025-07-20 23:25:27+00:00
A big issue will be if we see a further decline in SDK and API documentation.

Anecdotally, I recently find myself building a simple enough Android app for a client based on an iOS app I have already built.

I don’t really know Android dev, but know enough to get started having patched an App somewhat recently.

So started from scratch and having heard that the Android SDK had something similar to SwiftUI that’s what I went for.

In building the App I have found that Gemini is far more useful than Googles own documentation and tutorials.

The tutorials for basic things like NavBars is just wrong in places, maybe due to being outdated.

I’ve reported issues using the feedback tool. But still….
by jauntywundrkind | 2025-07-20 23:26:41+00:00
Kind of reminds me of Sound Open Firmware (SOF), which can compile with e8ther unoptimized gcc, or using the proprietary Cadence XCC compiler that can can use the Xtensa HiFi SIMD intrinsics.

https://thesofproject.github.io/latest/introduction/index.ht...
by throwawaylaptop | 2025-07-20 23:27:41+00:00
Just shop at higher end stores. If I want to gamble and search for an item I go to Temu. If I want good enough, I go to value based US retailers. If I want 'a bit better' I go the slightly more expensive ones known for curating their for sale items a bit. If I want quality, I go to a specialty shop and ask a sales representative for the desired quality.
by etkmlm | 2025-07-20 23:28:03+00:00
Lightweight, useful, fabulously customizable, completely open source and free launcher for Minecraft.

Why should I use?

Because, It is lightweight. It is modular. It contains the CurseForge, Modrinth, and the OptiFine APIs. It is built with a useful and efficiency-based UI. It includes the most used modding APIs like Forge, NeoForge, Fabric, Quilt, etc. It supports CLI. It has its own Java Download Manager. You can download multiple modpacks in one profile. You can see your worlds (including seeds, game mode, and worlds' spawn point), and resources (mods, resourcepacks, modpacks, and worlds) on one page. You can easily back up, import, and share your profiles and worlds. Also, it supports offline and Microsoft authentication.

That is my hobby project to launch Minecraft. I am developing it to create an alternative to other launchers and grow the Minecraft developer community.
by cadamsdotcom | 2025-07-20 23:28:39+00:00
Having done a few months of this new “job” of agentic coding I strongly agree with everything in this post.

Frontier LLMs are easiest to work with for now. Open models _will_ catch up. We can be excited for that future.

You are able to learn things from LLMs, and you can ask them for recommendations for an approach to implement something. Or just tell your LLM the approach to take. Sometimes it overcomplicates things. You’ll develop an instinct for when that’s likely. You can head off the overcomplication ahead of time or ask for refactorings after the initial cut is built for you. After a while you get an instinct for which way will get the work done soonest. Most fascinating of all, it’ll all change again with the next round of frontier models.

You don’t need frontier models for every task. For instance I’ve been positively surprised by Github Copilot for straightforward features and fixes. When it’s obvious how to implement, and you won’t need to go back and forth to nail down finer design details, getting an initial PR from Copilot is a great starting place.

To everyone starting out, enjoy the ride, know that none of us know what we’re doing, and share what you learn along the way!
by holowoodman | 2025-07-20 23:29:51+00:00
Everyone with lower-level systems programming or hardware experience did know after taking a look that Java bytecode was unfit for direct execution by a CPU. All the bits that you need to make decoding and execution fast in hardware were just missing. And the instruction set is complex in a way that makes the most complex CISC instructions look almost like RISC. You basically would have to put another decoder stage into processors, to make java bytecode into CISC and that into RISC.

Only applications and web people did believe that particular part of the hype, because they didn't know what it took. And IBM consultants believed it because IBM always managed to sell some weird CPU extension for big dollars that did weird stuff, like their "decode XML extension".
by dddavid | 2025-07-20 23:30:19+00:00
Jake lived in Idaho - It's not a huge part of the book, but it's described as mentioned.

"Corvallis had, a few minutes ago, picked Jake Forthrast up at the train station downtown. He was in his late forties—a straggler, much younger than the other three Forthrast siblings. He lived in northern Idaho, in a remote community of like-minded people, which was to say extreme libertarians with a religious bent. He had a wife and a brood of kids there."
by Quarrelsome | 2025-07-20 23:31:11+00:00
To gain access to the better toolset you need v2 and v2 costs. Maybe the org doesn't have it, maybe getting a PO for it is annoying, maybe there's friction around getting it installed on a customer site. Perhaps its just a factor which resulted in everyone else sticking on 1.0. But it never took off in the way promised because of it.

That it is a fiercely declarative language makes it hard to integrate. Often developers are placed within an architecture that gives them limited options and only being able to use XSLT while trying to integrate other network calls or services is non-trivial and a complete headfuck sometimes, compared with more general purpose languages like python or javascript.
by jc__denton | 2025-07-20 23:31:15+00:00
Never understood the obsession with Tailscale. I've got an on-demand WireGuard VPN back into my home network with both split (DNS and local service access) and full tunnels. I externally host more prominent things on a VPS and have a tunnel back in for the few services I do want to expose. A mesh VPN just seems like another potential vector into my LAN and Yet Another Subscription in a time when I'm trying to cutback costs on subscription services.
by weinzierl | 2025-07-20 23:31:32+00:00
I might well be killing the ad financed web and that is good. I wouldn't be surprised if Google dies with it.

I do not see traditionally paid and paywalled content suffer. The discoverability in that segment already suffered from how Google treated it and AI only sped up the inevitable. Good content behind paywall will be fine.

The small sliver of the web that is popular on HN and that is, let's call it altruistically free, will only benefit. Less competition from ad supported content. As long as you only care about your content being read and not where and under which name, you will be good.
by al_borland | 2025-07-20 23:31:39+00:00
We’ve seen time and time again and that AI companies won’t respect any license you may use. When it comes to platforms you don’t own (Reddit, GitHub, etc), you don’t have much control in the matter.

Stop sharing stuff online, or if you do, put it behind some kind of login where you control the platform. Of course that that point you might as well just host stuff in a home lab without access to the public internet.
by Tainnor | 2025-07-20 23:32:07+00:00
It's true that it might be unexpected that there is no real solution. I also wouldn't have intuited that from the problem statement itself.

However, it's not like you have to go out of your way to look for the complex numbers in some creative way. At some point while solving the quadratic equation you'll have to take the root of a negative number. So the only choice is to reach for the complex numbers, your hand is kinda forced.
by Jtsummers | 2025-07-20 23:32:21+00:00
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44628060 - 18 comments

Discussed earlier but flagged, also most of the discussion was just noise about region blocking for some reason. Because we don't have enough discussions about that and I guess JumpCrisscross and others consider that more important than a family being told a man was dead when he's actually been deported to Guatemala.
by throwawaylaptop | 2025-07-20 23:32:24+00:00
I've noticed a similar 'this profit margin seems almost vulgar' on the same store shelf.

As you showed with slightly longer zippers.. I notice with car fob remote batteries. An 8 pack is $12 at the store. The same brand, a single will be $5. A 2pack is $7. And the 8pack $12. Do you really need to make $4 on selling me a single? I know shelf space is valuable, but the same store sells things for $1 too on another shelf so apparently <$1 profit shelf space is possible.
by quotemstr | 2025-07-20 23:32:44+00:00
libc allocates the FILE* from an array of them or a heap of some sort. It has a private capability on the start of the array and so can recover a full-capability pointer by offsetting its private capability by the distance encoded in the user FILE*. No actual memory access required, I'd think.

See https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd/pdfs/202306...
by joegahona | 2025-07-20 23:33:23+00:00
“Yet as Google does the Googling, humans no longer visit the websites from which the information is gleaned. ”

Can you blame them? These publishers’ content is buried under paywalls, logins, screen-engulfing ads, deceptive headlines, the list goes on forever. Publishers created such user-hostile experiences that people are desperate for a user interface that’s barely there and gives them what they want, and will gladly pay $20 per month for it.
by sgc | 2025-07-20 23:33:54+00:00
It has been many years, but there was a time when I was young, and I did not know about any of those publications other than the NYT (from seeing it on newstands). I did discover almost every other one via google, when looking for variety in my sources of news.

No matter how famous something is, for every individual, there is a first point of contact. The web has been the great filter for the last couple of decades until now, and it is extremely common to discover even main stream things that way.
by asdxrfx | 2025-07-20 23:34:01+00:00
I just canceled my Mailchimp account after hitting their "Standard" plan limits. $230/month to send emails to 15k subscribers feels insane when my entire server infrastructure costs $50/month. Started building my own newsletter platform (Fertit) and realized most of the "premium" features are just basic CRUD operations with SMTP integration. The math is wild: Mailchimp Standard: $230/month for 15k contacts My current costs: $50/month for unlimited (using my own SMTP) But then I realized why people pay it - the setup/maintenance time is brutal. Spent 3 weeks just getting subscriber management right. So the real question: would you pay $10/month for a middle ground? All the features of the big players, but you bring your own SMTP (SendGrid, Mailgun, etc.) and own your data? Currently testing this approach - curious if others see the same pricing/ownership gap I do. GitHub: https://github.com/rasadov/NewsletterManager
by perching_aix | 2025-07-20 23:34:27+00:00
I'd assume no. How would they do that though if we all stood up, regarded this as eugenics, and banned it for good?

Where do you draw the line between small and big things though? I can appreciate if someone tries to go for paraconsistent logic rather than classical when thinking about the real world, but then I think it's important to establish where we both land in there.
by doubled112 | 2025-07-20 23:34:29+00:00
You can only fit 3 cars across on most side streets near me. You have more space, but does it really create better flow?

Many of these side streets and neighbourhoods are designed and modified NOT to flow, because then people would use them to get to work. Would this change that?

While I admit I see these more in the ‘burbs, this is becoming more widespread and is no longer exclusive to them.
by jononor | 2025-07-20 23:35:00+00:00
That expert systems were not financially viable in the 80-90ies does not mean that LLM-as-modern-expert-systems cannot be now. The addressable market for such solutions has expanded enormously since then, thanks to PCs, servers, and mobile phones becoming ubiquitous. The opportunity is likely 1000x (or more) what is was back in those days - which shifts the equation a lot as to what is viable or not.

BTW, have you tried out your challenges with a LLM? I expect them to be tricky to answer direct. But the systems are getting quite good at code synthesis which seems suitable. And I even see some MCP implementations for using constraint solvers as tools.
by Quarrelsome | 2025-07-20 23:35:07+00:00
Most orgs don't transition to 2.0 which is a big part of why XSLT sucks.

> but it's not unlike how you have to change your thinking for functional programming generally

I'd write lisp any day of the week over XSLT. I don't think XSLT deserves a place alongside other functional languages because its bound so tightly to xml. Sure, one can argue it has its place when processing XML but I'd pick a general purpose language and process XML with that over XSLT every time.
by aseipp | 2025-07-20 23:35:14+00:00
Anthropic or Google offering a product and having margins they leverage is not "lock in" when there are dozens of alternatives at many various price points, including ones that can be run entirely locally (at high capex cost). It's like market fact #0 that, today, there is very little moat here other than capital, which is why OpenAI has now got multiple viable competitors despite their head start. Their APIs get copied, their tools get copied, the only way they remain competitive is with huge investments back into the core product to retain their leads. This is just what a competitive market looks like right now, and these offerings exist exactly because of downward pressure from other forces. The goal is of course to squeeze other players as much as possible, but these products have not yet proven to be sticky enough for their mere existence to do that. And there are many other players who have a lot of incentive to keep that downward pressure applied.

What you're describing is really just called "Offering a product for sale" and yes typically the people doing it will do, say, and offer things that encourage using their product over the competitors. That isn't "lock in" in any sense of the word. What are they supposed to do? Say "Our shit sucks and isn't price effective compared to others and we bring nothing to the table?" while giving you stuff for free?
by Spivak | 2025-07-20 23:35:55+00:00
I think you assume the fact that it's a winking reference means they have to use a winking reference. It seems like it would be legal for them to post a full guide for UK users on how to access their site using a VPN service.

There's literally "Best VPNs For Accessing Porn in the UK" articles, they'll be fine.
by burnt-resistor | 2025-07-20 23:36:35+00:00
I remember the Java hype c. 1999. It was such jumping the shark ultrahype of the platform, the language, and OOP. The one thing it did though, it allowed me to produce an installer for a niche DOS-based building code text search engine and JNI allowed calling the functions to produce a Windows 95/NT desktop shortcut (a .PIF). I even added a feature where it was per-customer skinnable with a .BMP.
by LargoLasskhyfv | 2025-07-20 23:38:33+00:00
They could be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submerged_floating_tunnel

Which btw. could enable a whole bunch of other nice to have things, out there, on the high seas. Global HVDC grid. Communication lines. Pipelines of all sorts. Fish farms. Floating towns at the nodes...Resorts...Casinos...Stock Exchanges...Navy/Coast Guard/SAR bases, research hubs...

Just need to grow that stuff responsible and sustainable. Dunno. Genetically modified 'Turbo Coral', or some 'shrooms' doing in-situ utilization of microplastics? Imagine the possibilities...(Hyping the loop here, harr harr!)
by flumpcakes | 2025-07-20 23:40:09+00:00
Damage to property is a form of violence. If someone broke into your home and destroyed medical equipment needed to care for your dying relative, I'm sure you would 100% call it an act of violence.

Also, the group has directly harmed people too:

> A police officer was taken to hospital after being hit with a sledgehammer while responding to reports of criminal damage.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mnnje4wlro
by aspenmayer | 2025-07-20 23:41:12+00:00
I was not sure if this was mere speculation on your part, but I think you might be onto something here.

https://www.muellershewrote.com/p/the-epstein-cover-up-at-th... | https://archive.is/RZqU0

> The process of reviewing the Epstein and Maxwell files was chaotic, and the orders were constantly changing - sometimes daily. One person I spoke to on the condition of anonymity said that many agents spent more time waiting for new instructions than they did processing files. But here’s what caught my attention: the files were stored on a shared drive that anyone in the division could access. Normally, access is only granted to those working on a project, but because of the hurried nature of the exercise, the usual permission restrictions were not in place. Additionally, the internal SharePoint site the bureau ended up using to distribute the files toward the end did not have the usual restricted permissions. This left the Epstein and Maxwell files open to viewing by a much larger group of people than previously thought.
by protocolture | 2025-07-20 23:43:00+00:00
>What I'm trying to say is: like in many offices, any slight change made users hostile,

I remember doing a Windows 7 deployment for a customer, and one of their staff had 3 A4 binders. Probably 1000 pages, of typed notes about how Windows XP works.

The second she sat down at her new Windows 7 machine it was like she had lost her memory. She was instantly aggravated and couldnt find the start menu. Dropped her windows xp binders in the bin and told me to effectively "get lost" so she can relearn it from scratch.

I was thrown. Like its basically the same system with some UI tweaks but she was acting like I had pushed her onto debian or something.
by gleenn | 2025-07-20 23:43:12+00:00
"This is bad, because you need to run all the dependency installs", you must be using Python or one of the other locally cached dependency language tookings. Is never understood why people wanto clone everything every time. Maven and its sibling use ~/.m2 so everything gets cached once. I ceinge every time I have to re-download the universe when I inevitably have to delete my venv and redo anything, what a waste of time and bandwidth and space.
by Charlieholtz | 2025-07-20 23:43:43+00:00
Sorry about that! We’re working on making this more intuitive.

Internally our workflow looks like this: - we have a script that sets up a repo — copies env variables, runs pnpm i, inits a db, etc - we have a field in the repo settings called “setup script.” every time you make a new workspace, that script runs

Hopefully will be much improved over the next week or two!
by xdennis | 2025-07-20 23:44:13+00:00
> This is more or less a completely imagined issue. The most dangerous form of transportation is personal vehicles, and its not even close.

I think GP was referring to lack of safety due to crime, not accidents.

My (European) understanding of US public transport is that you get stabbed or shot at every station. (Full disclosure, everything I know about US public transport comes from "Death Wish" (1974).)
by pj_mukh | 2025-07-20 23:44:20+00:00
I'm sorry but if I have to convince you that the last 15 years have been a serious continuous backsliding of physical connection and physical spaces towards online spaces and algorithmic feed, this is not a fruitful conversation. This is obvious to me from all the data.

It's also obvious to me, that anytime any worker feels financially comfortable to stay home, a huge chunk of them will inevitably be hijacked by algorithmic feeds. Everything else is just some version of "pick yourself up by the bootstraps".

I am expecting Social Media Managers to be paid hand over foot to handle this transition even though they might find other work more meaningful (much like Real Estate Agents now, who would rather be doing something else, but the money is too good).

These are not reasons not to do UBI, but if there is economic devastation after, you can expect a quick reversal and a generation-wide flopping of the idea. So might as well fix these underlying issues as you do UBI.
by actinium226 | 2025-07-20 23:44:50+00:00
> controls that ensure they stop doing that

I'm not sure you can do that. As humans, we need to make things up in order to have theories to test. Like back in the day before Einstein when people thought that light traveled through an "aether" whose properties we needed to figure out how to measure, or today when we can't explain the mass imbalance of the universe so we create this concept called "dark matter."

Also, in my experience the problem has been getting worse, or at least not better. I asked Claude 3.7 some time ago how to restore a snapshot to an active database on AWS, and it cheerfully told me to go to the console and press the button. Except there is no button, because AWS docs specifically say you can't restore a snapshot to an active database.
by skippyboxedhero | 2025-07-20 23:47:01+00:00
there is no limit to this in the UK

the solution to children stabbing each other was to attempt to ban knives

i believe they are also gearing up for a ban on cigars, cigarettes have a scale which will make them effectively illegal for children born today, more types of pornography are being banned

...this is the same country which has legalised heroin use regionally btw...you need a licence to watch porn but your neighbour can shoplift, shoot up heroin, and you pay his rent...

however bad you think it is, it is much worse