MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by gerdesj | 2025-07-16 23:51:10+00:00
I personally find that calling out something works best by being respectful. I specifically avoid starting off with: "I find it funny that ...".

You seem to have an axe to grind and that is fine. Someone might have wronged you in some way but you don't really say how or why.

If you need to vent, then feel free - we are all friends here, within reason (but don't say names - it's best that way).
by const_cast | 2025-07-16 23:51:10+00:00
This is true, but practically not relevant. If you store data in clear text, then there is risk there. If you don't, then there is much less risk. Not everything is the same as everything else.

I would never write my passwords in clear text and send them all over the internet. But, somehow, when we talk about SMS and Phone, this concept is lost.

Again, there are E2EE services available. These can be subpoenaed, but there's no data available.

In addition, there are automated surveillance methods such as Prism and whatever modern-day equivalent certainly exist. Me personally, I would not be surprised if all your texts are surveilled en-masse, no warrant or subpoena required. Again, that's only a risk if you use SMS or other clear text services. So, don't.
by imiric | 2025-07-16 23:51:29+00:00
That's great, and kudos to your friend.

Just two things:

- Wouldn't his firm be better served by website builders like WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, etc.? These services have enabled millions of less technical people to create and publish websites for decades now. Most of them support a large ecosystem of plugins and 3rd-party tools that make adding interactivity such as forms and CRMs a breeze.

I mean, it's great that your friend is enjoying getting into web development, and that LLMs are helping him, but I reckon he would be much more productive and deliver more value to his customers by using one of the established services on the market. Unless the projects require some bespoke solutions, or mobile apps, but it doesn't sound like it.

- What happens when one of his customers asks for authentication, session management, a comment system, payments, or something non-trivial or sensitive like that? If all requirements are trivial as you say, then a web site builder could handle it, but if they stop being trivial, then he is bound to run into issues.

LLMs will happily generate non-trivial code, but there are high chances that it will contain security issues or bugs that someone inexperienced won't be able to spot and fix.

So what happens then? He will deliver a seemingly working site to his customers with security issues and bugs, and it will only be a matter of time for them to be exploited. It doesn't matter that his customers don't know or care about "best practices". They surely care about a functioning product that doesn't leak or mishandle their customer data. These issues could be mitigated or avoided by hiring an experienced developer.

So I hope that he has the wisdom and humility to determine when a developer is still required and pay for them, instead of relying on the false confidence provided by LLMs. Or he could take the time to actually learn to program and adopt best practices instead of vibe coding, which sounds like he would be interested in doing anyway.
by pohuing | 2025-07-16 23:51:31+00:00
Not only is it not a very small phone, I can't even properly type this message one handed. It's also not a good phone which I regret purchasing.

Zenphones until the 10 had easy to unlock bootloaders, leading to long in official support by the community. However with the 10 ASUS stopped that tool and they've been lying ever since that they're still working on it.

My zenfone is now on its final major android update, the rather minor android 15 version, and I've only got two years of security updates left until I need to look for a new phone. That's one thousand euros for barely four years of software support, it's such a disappointment.

That aside the camera is lackluster, it's auto whitebalance is horrific, turning the same snowy scene into a sunset or illuminated by fluorescent light depending on the phase of the moon and it's sampling questionable making images much more blurry in a surreal way. But the optical stabilisation is seriously impressive. Overall I preferred the pixel 4a's images though. A smaller phone and my zenfone's predecessor.

At least I get to just plug it into my stereo thanks to the 3.5mm jack though.
by bluGill | 2025-07-16 23:51:34+00:00
The manufactures are aware of monopoly laws and will give you the 'key' to put your own thing on and even sell it - for a 'reasonable fee' which may be six figures and proff you will care about safety. Universities have got the key for student projects (under nda)

disclosure: I work for jonh deere but am not speaking for the company. The above is all I feel I can say on the subject
by TeMPOraL | 2025-07-16 23:52:07+00:00
You must be the org that operates this mysterious, legendary KB system that has any actual information in it.

None of the KB systems I've ever encountered, from orgs big and small, reputable or otherwise, had in them any useful information whatsoever. It's all just bullshit, roundabout sales, and a lot of answers to questions no actual human being would ever ask.

Whether or not to put LLM in the KB's search bar is immaterial. Myself, when I see a KA syste, I immediately close the tab and "bounce" back to the search engine.

> People don't skip the documentation because they can't find it; they skip because they don't want to read!

Yes, but also because they don't trust you to provide enough information to diagnose and solve their problem. There's no point wasting the time when experience tells you most customer-facing KBs are nothing but false hope and misleading headlines.

> They want to bug a live a person (and make it their problem)!*

Yes, but not because they hate that random support person - it's because it's the only remotely reliable way to solve the problem itself. Companies shouldn't complain, not after standardizing knowledgebases and phone menus, which are all implicitly and often explicitly designed to keep customers away from support staff - and instead of providing a solution, they're optimized to make the user think the solution exists somewhere and they're just too dumb to find it (therefore, user's own fault, not company's fault; customer's brand perception unaffected).

As for making it the support person's problem - that's literally their job. That's what they're paid for.
by JumpCrisscross | 2025-07-16 23:52:47+00:00
> carrying cost of land is very low compared to any overall project

In New York and San Francisco? And it's not just land, it's keeping all the environmental reviews and neighbourhood associations on board. It's delays in pre-selling, or, if you're pre-sold, customer service to impatient buyers. It's constantly redrawing plans because a community member wants an offset 3/8ths of an inch further so their petunias don't catch shade.

Again, these costs add hundreds of thousands of dollars to each and every apartment built in San Francisco.

> This just isn’t true

What are you responding to? The quoted text isn't mine.
by consumer451 | 2025-07-16 23:53:01+00:00
No need for AI. The future is now!

> RFK Jr. says autism database will use Medicare and Medicaid info

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/08/nx-s1-5391310/kennedy-autism-...

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43810561 (254 points, 357 comments, 80 days ago)
by wosined | 2025-07-16 23:53:08+00:00
I really don't get what is the point of articles such as this one. Maybe writers should focus on writing less bloated articles with clear prupose and AI reading would be unnecessary or at least not as frequent. At least there could be some claim or hypothesis, some evidence or counter-evidence, but this is just a string of weakly related observations without any real overarching explanation. Just a mind dump or barf.
by twoodfin | 2025-07-16 23:53:20+00:00
Real income has barely increased since 1980, as in 10% or less.

Real median household income is up over 36% since 1984 (the furthest back the linked chart goes: 1984 was in the middle of an economic expansion, so you’d expect a comparison with four years earlier to look even better).

And CPI has just as many potential substitution issues the other way: Hedonic adjustments are made, but it’s effectively impossible to quantify the value of decades worth of novel and improved goods that simply didn’t exist decades earlier.

HN in particular and tech in general is a bubble. It insulates you to a large degree from the median experience.

I linked decades of numbers about the median household, which you then numerically misrepresented. Bubble, pop thyself.
by boogieknite | 2025-07-16 23:53:28+00:00
our school had a top female sprinter in washington state who walked "in-toe" and i knew at least one other track athlete who looked up to her and intentionally changed gait to walk in-toe in order to be more like the star sprinter

when im walking by people facing my direction (past a row of seats at the airport, into a movie theater, etc) i become self aware and try to walk as relaxed and invisibly as possible. probably only makes things worse. i think lots of people, autistic or not, are sensitive and adjust their gait unnaturally all the time. however toe-walking certainly seems difficult and i cant think of a reason id do it intentionally
by codedokode | 2025-07-16 23:53:51+00:00
Maybe Linux distributions should do it other way; they do not need to provide every software package via trusted repositories. Instead, they should provide a small set of trusted packages to create a standard execution environment, and run everything else in a sandbox. This way one can install any third-party software safely and maintainers have less work to do. And software developers do not need to create a package for every of hundreds distributions.
by NHQ | 2025-07-16 23:54:50+00:00
This is a solved case, they were used for textiles. But to admit this would break history, so instead it is constantly rattled academically. Put one next to the Voynich Manuscript in the Museum or Jurassic Technology.

The cause behind this narrative hustle is the industrial historical arrogation which teaches that knitting was not invented until 1000 years after "The Romans". They had textiles, weaving, but no knitting.

This is early mere patent protection during the capitol rush of industrialism, claiming devices which were not actually invented as pretended, and therefor should have no claim to copyrights. The cotton gin was not invented in 1793.

Moreover it is a supremely ignorant and abstract notion, showing how detached academia is from reality. Anybody with time on their hands and some vines may invent weaving, knotting, knitting, and with metal slivers many ways to make pins. There has never been a people without this technology.
by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS | 2025-07-16 23:54:55+00:00
> (You can believe Portlanders hated Californians that moved up there. Or so I've been told.)

They still do, only it's not really Portlanders anymore, it's all the smaller cities that hate them. Why? A couple reasons: they came in and pay over asking price for housing, driving up prices across the board so those working for local non-conglomerates have a hard time affording housing. And then they vote contrary to how the locals do (locals, I might add, who didn't have any problem with how things were run before, even if their "betters" felt they were "backwards").

Basically, they end up burying the local culture and replacing it with California.
by ta8645 | 2025-07-16 23:55:06+00:00
They can only buy back stocks from people who want to sell them. The people who sell them do so because they believe it's a good deal. The process puts cash in the hands of those sellers, who can then go on to invest in something else, keeping the market more liquid rather than the first company sitting on cash reserves. The price of an individual stock is pretty much meaningless, you must multiply by the total number of stocks outstanding to determine the market cap. So it is not the buying back of stock that represents any fraud.

If there is any fraud, it would be having performance bonuses tied to individual stock price, rather than market cap. But blaming the buyback itself, is short-sighted.
by andrewflnr | 2025-07-16 23:56:29+00:00
I really considered one of the BuckleScript/js_of_ocaml languages for my current frontend project, but went with Typescript for basically conservatism/conventionalism reasons. I was already taking some arguably unnecessary technical risks on that project and wasn't sure I could afford more. I agree that I really wish OCaml or something close to it was mainstream.
by bryanlarsen | 2025-07-16 23:56:46+00:00
Reading between the lines, the author is a Haskell fan. Haskell is another "complicated" language, but the complexity feels much different than the C++ complexity. Perhaps I would describe it as "complexity that improves expressiveness". If you like Haskell for its expressiveness but dislike C++ for it's complexity, I suspect Rust is a language you're going to like.
by andai | 2025-07-16 23:57:12+00:00
I had a Samsung A3 (2016) which was almost the exact form factor of the iPhone Mini.

I loved it for being so small and light. The last few years it became too slow for regular use (and many apps refused to install) so I put it in airplane mode and used it as an mp3 player.

I'd still be using it today, but I lost it! I was very sad.

I also loved the LG K8 (2017), wonderful device. That one was a touch bigger, but had a really nice curved screen.

I used an iPhone SE (2016) until last year actually, which was even smaller.

It worked fine, until software updates made it useless. That's a recurring theme with my phones!
by redeux | 2025-07-16 23:57:41+00:00
You’re mistaking forefoot striking with toe walking. Having known someone that toe walks, it literally means they walk around on the balls of their feet, not just land on them first when they take a step. If you stand up, raise yourself on the the balls on your feet and then walk around without your heel ever touching the ground, that’s toe walking.

Incidentally(?) the only person I’ve ever seen do this was clearly neurodivergent.
by int_19h | 2025-07-16 23:57:49+00:00
> so the central idea of dependency injection, a concept with a wiki of like 5000 words [1], is just pass parameters to functions...

... instead of functions reaching out to obtain those dependencies from globals. Yes, that is exactly what it is about. Like much of 90-00s era OOP design discourse, it's vastly overcomplicated for no good reason.
by maz1b | 2025-07-16 23:58:11+00:00
I have on my desk, the Galaxy S8, iPhone SE (First generation), the iPhone 13 Mini, the iPhone 14 Pro and the Galaxy S22. I intentionally now choose and look for phones that are the smallest possible now (S25, iPhone 15pro or 16pro) etc

My favorite to take with me is the 13 Mini. Would love an iPhone 18 mini.
by jart | 2025-07-16 23:58:17+00:00
And you think scientists should be working for the communists instead of the capitalists? Well that's fine too. Scientists are like spoils of war. Scientists were treated well and able to do a lot of good work when they were all employed by the soviet state. Maybe not as good as the Americans did. They also seem to be doing well over in China. But just because you don't like someone or how they do business, that doesn't make them deadweight, and no I don't think you know how to get products to consumers cheaper.
by ignoramous | 2025-07-16 23:58:52+00:00
> What does that mean, and what is it about native programs (i.e. programs AOT-compiled to machine code) that makes them feel solid? BTW, such programs are often more, not less, sensitive to OS changes

TFA also concludes

Since I want native code ...

I think by "solid" they mean as close to metal as possible, because, as you suggest, one can go "native" with AOT. With JS/TS (languages TFA prefers), I'm not sure how far WASM's AOT will take you ... Go (the other language TFA prefers) even has PGO now on top of "AOT".
by theideaofcoffee | 2025-07-16 23:59:02+00:00
You don't automatically get to call yourself leadership once you get into "management" (more like manglement) roles. And really, you have to choose. Are you a leader, of people? Or are you a manager... of resources? Your choice there will affect your mindset, and thus how you are seen to your "subordinates". God, I hate that term too.

How about just listening to your "direct reports" (vomit), and having that inform your "leadership"? Stop being a robot which is how this guide makes it sound. Be human. You'll get so much more out of people than by aping some management how-to.

Some of the worst managers I have had have been hired or promoted into the role, whereas the better ones were pushed toward that by the people that they would soon lead. The world is being taken over by bad managers, don't be one of them. Listen first.

Edit: The individual writing this guide appears to have only had barely two years in a hard 'management' role, according to their LinkedIn. How can they possibly be qualified to give advice on a subject that takes years and years and years of developing and refining soft skills, let alone consulting on the particulars of leading people in that time? Might as well run for President. What arrogance thinking they can go into an organization and infect it with the Tech-leadership-style-du-jour and think they've done some good.
by scarface_74 | 2025-07-16 23:59:11+00:00
What Linux computer can you buy with the battery life, quietness, lack of heat and speed of a modern ARM based Mac?

As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.

And you still end up getting most apps from the Google Play Store.

By the way, iMessage supports SMS/MMS/RCS for interoperability. What else do you want?
by BobbyTables2 | 2025-07-16 23:59:51+00:00
Indeed. Take a look at late 1990s software, even things with complex toolbars (Word, Corel Draw, etc).

At 640x480 resolution, the toolbar was tiny but powerful.

Now at 1920x1080 resolution the toolbar is relatively huge and dumbed down.

All the benefits of higher resolutions and larger monitors have been lost on stupid UI trends.
by daxfohl | 2025-07-17 00:01:20+00:00
Not OP but same experience. If you're not overly concerned about a certain quality of life, number of cars, square footage of house, etc., then there's nothing to think about. Engineering is a fine career (granted, AI takeover notwithstanding) and a few-year gap isn't going to leave you on the street. Being a few years behind your peers in your 30's may gnaw at you a bit, but by your 40's things will have reasonably equalized. My "wealthier" friends have some nicer things, go on more lavish vacations, but it's never really bothered us. And they generally got that way because they're type-A personalities to begin with. So they're not the type of people who would even ask the question about taking time off. Maybe one downside is they can also afford private schools and tutors etc for their kids, though, IDK, we could afford to do the same (though it would be more than a blip in our finances), but they seem to be doing well and happy where they are.

So I think if you're the type of person that's even asking about it, then just do it.

[*] I'd say one caveat is, don't go broke doing so; save/invest enough and live cheaply enough that you're coming close to break-even. The other is, have a decent network so that when you want to re-enter the job market, you'll have people to contact. That makes job hunting an OOM easier.
by jjcm | 2025-07-17 00:01:22+00:00
To wargame the a rebuttal to this, the red tape might be circumvented just because there aren't rules to govern robotic work. You can fully agree to only use union labor, to only have humans working 8 hour days, or to only use certain contractors for hired work, simply because these systems aren't human operated (likely they will be early on, but you could spin it as this).

There are laws for people, but not necessarily for tools.
by cadamsdotcom | 2025-07-17 00:01:42+00:00
Construction robots can’t happen soon enough!

Eg. if bricklayers could talk to their machine the way we can with coding agents, and say “yep, wall here please, check the blueprints to confirm how high and where the holes for the windows go”, retired & injured tradespeople could choose to come back. Less injuries means cheaper insurance & better margins. People could work in multiple parts of a site by supervising several robots, and not be exhausted at the end of the day. The list of benefits to individuals and the industry is long.
by willmarch | 2025-07-17 00:01:59+00:00
Two quick clarifications show why those “only 1 %” calculations are misleading.

First, the 40 deaths are not an “LGBT share” of the national homicide database; they are cases that activists could confirm were LGBT. In Honduras the police almost never record a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity, families often conceal it, and many deaths of queer people are classified simply as “motive unknown.” Cattrachas (the local observatory you quoted) and Human Rights Watch both emphasize that their numbers are a floor, not a census. When the underlying variable is systematically under-reported, dividing it into the total homicide count will always understate the risk.

Second, vulnerability isn’t measured only by raw percentages but by the pattern of violence and the state’s response. Honduras’s Public Ministry reports a 90 % impunity rate for LGBT killings versus ~70 % for homicides overall. In other words, queer victims are far less likely to see a perpetrator arrested or tried, which is exactly what international law calls a “failure of state protection.” Add daily threats, police harassment, corrective rape, and forced displacement—none of which appear in the homicide tally—and you have a risk profile that far exceeds the simple population-share math you’re using.

So the point stands: Guatemala and Honduras remain dangerous places for LGBT asylum-seekers, and the U.S. cannot lawfully or morally treat them as safe havens by cherry-picking incomplete statistics.

Response to your edit: When you divide 40 LGBT murders by Honduras’ entire population (11 million) you’re using the wrong denominator. Risk has to be measured against the group that is actually at risk—i.e., LGBT people themselves. If we take the conservative estimate that 5 % of Hondurans are LGBT (≈550 000 people), 40 murders translate to roughly 7.3 killings per 100 000 LGBT residents. For comparison, the United States recorded about 30 anti-LGBT hate-motivated homicides in 2022; against an LGBT population of ~18 million that is ~0.17 per 100 000—over 40 times lower than Honduras. And that Honduran figure is almost certainly an undercount, because police reports rarely note a victim’s sexual orientation and families often conceal it; Cattrachas and Human Rights Watch call their tally “the floor, not the ceiling.”

Homicide numbers also capture only the tip of the danger. LGBT Hondurans face routine death threats, “corrective” rape, forced displacement, and police harassment, with a documented impunity rate of about 90 %. That systemic failure of protection—not just the body count—is exactly what international law treats as grounds for asylum and what makes forced returns unsafe. So the data, properly read, confirm the opposite of what you claim: Honduras remains one of the riskiest places in the hemisphere for LGBT people, and treating it as a “safe” destination for deportees ignores both math and reality.