MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Is it okay to stop chasing expertise?
by grandimam | 2025-07-16 20:13:29+00:00
I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between expertise and value. I'm someone who just wants to build products. I learn things like TypeScript or React only to the extent that I need to get something working. I don’t dive deep unless my product demands it.

But most of the industry seems to reward broad or deep expertise, knowledge of systems, protocols, or architectures, even when it’s not directly tied to delivering user value. This makes me wonder: am I doing it wrong?

It feels like we often judge engineers by how much they know, not by what they’ve shipped or how much impact they’ve had. It creates this pressure to keep learning things that might not ever help with what I’m actually trying to build. Has anyone else struggled with this? Is optimizing exclusively for value a valid path long term?

Would love to hear how others think about this.
by pjmlp | 2025-07-16 20:13:33+00:00
Windows doesn't have first party support for OpenGL and Vulkan.

It has a plugglable driver system, leftover from the Windows NT/OpenGL 1.1 days called ICD, that driver vendors use to add their OpenGL and Vulkan drivers.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/d...

In some subsystems like UWP, or Windows on ARM, ICDs aren't supported, and OpenGL/Vulkan have to be mapped on top of DirectX.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/announcing-the-opencl...
by PlunderBunny | 2025-07-16 20:13:41+00:00
I think once-in-one-hundred-year is a definition for weather events used in building standards (sorry to be vague and possibly misleading - if my resident architect/partner was here, I could be more specific). I've certainly heard of constructions like levies etc "build to withstand once-in-a-hundred-year storms". I wonder if these standards are being revised by appropriate international bodies?
by ltbarcly3 | 2025-07-16 20:13:45+00:00
Virtually everything about you is encoded in virtually everything you do. With enough intelligence and enough data, it's probably possible to determine with a high degree of accuracy what kind of mint you prefer (spearmint, peppermint, that other one) based on hearing you talk for 30s.

In a world with AI systems that can be trained in an unsupervised way against basically all the data we can collect, the amount of information that can be accurately predicted about you is probably proportional to the number of bits of observational data about you available to to the AI, and I would suspect there is a roughly logistic relationship between bits available and the % of information it can reliably guess.
by tensor | 2025-07-16 20:14:06+00:00
Obviously journals vary in their standards, but many of the more respected ones do require other scientists read and critique the paper. You can argue about the quality of these reviews, certainly it's a process that needs improving, but this is what "peer reviewed" means.

Trying to claim ArXiv papers are "peer reviewed" is utter nonsense. As you correctly point out, the only requirement to being on ArXiv is that someone with an account uploaded it there. There are no requirements that it passes any sort of verification or vetting process whatsoever, let alone having other scientists read and critique it.

There is a very vocal movement these days that is trying to argue that we should do away with the traditional peer review process. Apparently that sometimes includes trying to redefine the very definition of "peer review" as the OP did.
by Expurple | 2025-07-16 20:15:18+00:00
> frequently I could not _do_ a very straightforward thing, because, for example, some function is a fnOnce instead of fnMulti, or the other way around [..] It became clear to me eventually that some very minor changes in requirements could necessitate massive changes in how the whole data model is structured. Maybe eventually I'd get good enough at rust that this wouldn't be a huge issue, but I had no way of seeing how to get to that point from where I was.

I understand your frustration, and Rust does get too low-level sometimes (see https://without.boats/blog/notes-on-a-smaller-rust/). But the semantic difference between FnOnce and Fn is actually important. Fn consumes its environment and makes it unavailable later. This is an important property. When you don't want that, "just" use Fn, wrap everything in an Arc and clone everything (I understand that this is more ceremony than in other languages, and that can be unjustified).

> I really don't get when rust folks claim "memory safety" like this; we've had garbage collection since 1959.

Agree 100%! What Rust actually gives you is predictability, reliability and compile time checks, while still allowing to write relatively ergonomic imperative and "impure" code. And a sane ecosystem of tools that are designed to be reliable and helpful. I'm currently writing a post about this.

It also gives compile-time data race protection, which is still missing from some other memory-safe languages.

> I still wonder if I have really missed out on some benefit from learning to think more about data ownership in programs.

Yeah :) Affine types + RAII (ownership) allow you to express some really cool things, such as "Mutex<T> forces you to lock the mutex before accessing the T and automatically unlocks it when you're done", or "commits and rollbacks destroy the DatabaseTransaction and make it statically impossible to interact with", or "you'll never forget to run cleanup code for objects from external C libraries" (https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1l1nhwz/why_us...)
by ToucanLoucan | 2025-07-16 20:15:21+00:00
> “Regulatory oversight and validation of good practices are very difficult to document for compliance over the border,” he noted, “They are of course done much better here. And there are validated and official fair market agreements between wholesalers and retailers that require documentation and compliance.”

This is such a bullshit excuse (on the industry's part, to be clear, not the person speaking). If we cared to validate supply chains, it would be done, for this and everything else. We don't because the people in power do not want to know. They don't want to know how greenwashed avocados are, they don't want to know how many diamonds come from conflict zones, they don't want to know how much of their lithium was mined by kids, and all the rest.

We know how to solve these problems and we're choosing not to, and not only are we maintaining harms done overseas in the process, we're also destroying the ability for domestic producers of... everything, really, to compete in the market too.

But the lines gotta go up, so on we go.
by belorn | 2025-07-16 20:15:35+00:00
I don't see any discussion on the claim that cloudflare is acting as a host. Are they?

Usually we only describe the last link in the chain as the host. Everything else is usually not "the host" for a website. DNS providers, TLD registries, Domain registrars, IP address providers, VPNS, reverse proxies, web caching, CDN (which often, but not always, act as caches), DDOS protection, IT management layers, micro services, backups, IP management, (and many more) do not call themselves hosts for websites. The ones that call themselves as host are usually web hosting providers, web shops, "cloud", and vps. Hardware as a services seems like a bit more of a grey zone, similar to rented space in a data center.

The article specify that the pirate shops used cloudflares services of pass-through security and CDN. The more accurate description I would describe that is that cloudflare are selling services to pirate sites, and that this services has been blocked. How shocking that is depend on how much responsibility we as a society want to place on people who provide those kind of services. How much liability should a service provider have, say a security management services, when their customer is known to break local law?

Reminds me a bit of the specific case law in Sweden used in the pirate bay case. The law that the prosecutor used was a law directed toward biker gangs that targeted the bars that those gangs tended to use as a base. The law specified that even if the bar itself operated legally, the fact that the biker gang used it as a base made the owner legally liable if the bar provided services to those members.
by dylan604 | 2025-07-16 20:15:42+00:00
I clearly don't have the same conversations as you, but if someone tells me house is techno, I'll just roll my eyes as that's the same comment my mom would say. If you want to tell me that tech-house vs UK garage vs Detroit is all house, I'll have a bit of sympathy but they are not the same. These are not irrelevant details. Lots of DJs specialize in a style/genre/subgenre, and realizing why you like what a certain DJ plays and not what another DJ plays helps you find gigs that you will enjoy.

So knowing the differences is not unhelpful. You're just having boring conversations. It sounds to me like when Trekkies discuss their favorite episodes of which ever series they like, or why they like certain series over others. Or someone that can tell me the differences of hobbit, orc, wizard and the other books by that author. I don't begrudge them their fascination with whatever the topic is, I just find a way to move the conversation or a way to remove myself if that is the more expedient option. I'm not going to go to ComiCon and complain that people are talking about comics. I just don't go to ComiCon. There's no reason to be rude about. So you saying something that you don't care about while someone else does is tiring and unhelpful makes you the tiring and unhelpful person.
by geodel | 2025-07-16 20:16:20+00:00
The answer was right in Mira's resignation from OpenAI [1]

“I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration.”

To create time and space and even able to explore it is far beyond cutting edge physics of today. If she is able to do it in just few billion dollars it is investment worth making.

1. https://www.wired.com/story/mira-murati-thinking-machines-la...
by LeifCarrotson | 2025-07-16 20:17:25+00:00
> Huh, so anyone who can access my web server can access the installation script?

"Obviously", the server should not be accessible from the public Internet while you're still doing setup. I assume it should still behind a firewall and you're accessing it by VPN. Only after you're happy with all the configuration and have the security locked down tight would you publish it to the world. Right?
by consumer451 | 2025-07-16 20:17:54+00:00
Question for those currently living in the USA. How much do you pay for Hass avocados?

At Lidl in Poland, 2x (perfectly ripe, in a box) Hass can be currently purchased for ~$2.50. This blew my mind when I first saw it, coming from Seattle a few years ago. I believe they are all grown in the EU, in Spain.
by SoftTalker | 2025-07-16 20:18:05+00:00
The pace of advancement in human civilization, expecially in science and technology (and all the conveniences and economic multipliers that have resulted) was very slow until literacy became widespread.

Before most people could read, you would learn a trade from your father or as an apprentice. Knowledge was handed down but you pretty much learned "the way it has always been done" and improvements were slow.

Once we all could learn from books and publish our discoveries, the spread of knowledge and the pace of advancement exploded. We went from farming with animal labor to walking on the moon in under a century.
by _Algernon_ | 2025-07-16 20:18:10+00:00
The mixed funding model of customers paying directly + funding with advertisement has been a thing for decades. Chomsky commented on it in Manufacturing Consent published in 1988 and iirc it had already been a thing then for decades at that point.

In short publications that supplemented with advertising out-competed the alternatives that took a larger fee. Blame price sensitive customers' willingness to pay, not the publications.
by tensor | 2025-07-16 20:18:14+00:00
This is not true. In most of the top journals you need at least three other practitioners in your field to read it and sign off on it. The editor finds the appropriate reviewers, manages the process, does some basic format and other types of vetting, and also will accept or reject it based on the reviews from the reviewers.

The reviewers here are the "peers", and generally are expected to be qualified experts in the area that the paper deals with.
by bobbiechen | 2025-07-16 20:18:20+00:00
Agreed, I thought it was going to be something automated, but 250 accounts in 7 hours seems pretty manual. That does make it harder to stop.

* 2025-06-09 first user account created, verified, 2FA set up, API Token provisioned

* 2025-06-11 46 more user accounts created over the course of 3 hours

* 2025-06-24 207 more user accounts created over the course of 4 hours

I do run https://bademails.org , powered by the same disposable-email-domains project, and I'll be the first to say that it only cuts out the laziest of attempts. Anyone even slightly serious has cheap alternatives (25 to 100+ accounts for $1 on popular email hosts).
by bigyabai | 2025-07-16 20:18:54+00:00
It really doesn't matter, you're again conflating the "kernel" and "desktop" distinction that's important here. It's like saying that XNU isn't being used by gamers - in practice you're correct, but the kernel is used to run millions of iPhone games. It doesn't matter for the adoption of macOS as a gaming platform, but the kernel is used for it.

What matters, to me as a Linux user on the desktop, is that Nintendo and Google simply follow the license. I don't want them contributing patches to GNOME or Firefox, I want them downstream testing the kernel and contributing patches back for me to benefit from. And I do! My Switch Pro controller has official Linux support because of Nintendo. My day-to-day life on the desktop is improved by both company's contributions.

The idea that Nintendo or Google are neglecting their duty because Photoshop doesn't run on Linux is a facetious argument. It might be a major issue for you, but clearly millions of Linux users are perfectly happy without those trappings.

> Or Android users vis a vis the Linux desktop client, because Android can't readily run Linux GUI applications :)

A travesty for Android's adoption metrics, one can only imagine. Thankfully for Linux users, the inverse is not so true: https://waydro.id/
by owebmaster | 2025-07-16 20:19:04+00:00
> How did you know?

A recruiter profile disappeared from my inbox in linkedin after I sent a PR to a github project for a an interview so I got suspicious and checked if there was any unrecognized open connection usng `lsof -nPi | grep ESTABLISHED` and there was one, found the script, read it to see what it did - tried to steal crypto and browser credentials.

To be sure it did not install other stuff I could not find I did a full reinstall of the OS. Now I don't use npm ever again.
by bell-cot | 2025-07-16 20:19:18+00:00
As the article leads off acknowledging, solving social problems is never the actual objective, for companies doing "Women in Tech" or whatever. The objective is to gain shallow/short-term social approval (& maybe legal butt-coverage) for the company, at the minimum possible cost.

Which is not to say that ham-fisted companies can't make themselves look worse, while spend far too much in the process. Sounds like you've seen that.
by WarOnPrivacy | 2025-07-16 20:19:37+00:00
I just finished a call with a friend who is a power user of Gemini, to great benefit. I delivered a PC with tensor cores for when he wants to do more locally. AI is a critically helpful and growing presence in his career.

Conversely, I spent an hour one day trying to prevent Gmail from puking text onto every new email I begin. It turned out to be a Chrome feature and scrapping Chrome is the only way to stop it. Past that is more time spent working out how to disable Gemini and remove it's elements, so it's unwanted presence isn't triggered into being a problem.

Every month I have to review the list of registry edits I use to keep copilot's unwanted advances out of my users' workspace. Notably, there isn't one for Win11 notepad and MS CP has to be disabled manually thru the UI.

Of these two preferences, major tech respects just one. The other one is continually acted on, leveraged and intruded upon - with tech corps showing no more understanding of consent than Harvey Weinstein did. If AI is on the table, what we want is just an obstacle for UI devs to overcome.
by cardanome | 2025-07-16 20:19:58+00:00
In fact people with ADHD have also their peculiar walks: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/H1YsnuaYY-g

> based on outward behavior

Yes, neurodivergence can only be diagnosed based on how you work on the inside. It is not possible to diagnose based on outside behavior as people can show symptoms very differently and can mask their symptoms.

And no, you obviously can not diagnose people based on how they walk. If anything it can only give you hints or be a fun thing to talk about.

> over-diagnose

Both autism are ADHD are vastly under-diagnosed especially in women and adults. The fear of over-diagnosis makes no sense.

There are very hard criteria for an diagnosis and it requires that every other explanation for the behavior is excluded before a diagnosis can be made. The reality it that it is a huge struggle for anyone with autism or ADHD to get any form of help or even diagnosis.

Medication for ADHD works extremely well. Not for everyone but for like 70% and that is insanely good. Still there is so much fearmongering against it. But anti-depressants that can have much more serious side-effects and don't even work that well? Yes, they giving them like they are candy. Insanity.

Struggle mentally in any shape or form? Oh, you must be depressed? What causes the depression? We will not dig deeper. Have your pills and be happy! But stimulants, no those are of the devil!

Not to say that some people don't have just depression but the double standard is infuriating and often undiagnosed neurodivergence causes depression.
by wfn | 2025-07-16 20:20:11+00:00
Out of curiosity, what conflict resolution options exist in mysql and/or mysql cluster (never checked / exp. in PG)? Because you'll always have to address conflicts of course - we come to CAP / PACELC. Hm [1][2] - looks like they support more strategies (possibly) but I mean none of them are somehow magical, and timestamp comparison based methods comprise the better part of offered strategy set (looks like?) - and "latest timestamp wins" at least used to be the default (did not read thoroughly mind you, was just curious)?

But I could be totally wrong - (1) curious if someone could link to things / explain, and (2) fyi ('stephenr) last write wins based on timestamp is a thing im mysql world as well (though again maybe set of options / different conflict resolution methods available is larger in mysql?)

[1]: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.4/en/mysql-cluster-replic...

[2]: https://dev.mysql.com/blog-archive/enhanced-conflict-resolut... (nice writeup, maybe outdated idk?)
by jfengel | 2025-07-16 20:20:12+00:00
I'm betting it'll turn out pretty well.

There aren't all that many farmers. Americans love the idea of them, but they aren't actually a significant voting bloc. If they had been, we'd have had a more realistic position on migrant farm workers. Any complaints the farmers may have will be drowned out by the sound of how happy people are with the raids.

Those farmers are mostly in deep-red districts. Even if they're unhappy, they're not going to vote for the Democrat -- if there's even one on the ticket. The few who cross party lines won't suffice to to change the outcome in the district.

For the rest of the country... if it results in higher food prices, that might make a difference. Though perhaps less than you'd think. People's perceptions of inflation are only loosely correlated with the actual cost of things. Inflation of "only" 5% doesn't result in massive sticker shock, by itself. It's filtered through people's expectations. If people are generally happy, even substantial inflation will be passed off as merely trying times (for which we must double down on our bootstraps). If people are generally unhappy, it's easy to single out some specific item that has gone up in price and make it the be-all and end-all of consumer budgets.

The balance is close enough that at least one house will likely turn next November. But I've seen nothing to suggest it will be any kind of landslide. It's just enough to nudge a few 51-49 districts to 49-51 instead.
Show HN: We made GPT-4.1-mini beat 4.1 at Tic-Tac-Toe using dynamic context
by farouqaldori | 2025-07-16 20:21:09+00:00
We wanted to test if a smaller model like GPT-4.1-mini could beat its bigger brother 4.1 at the game Tic-Tac-Toe using only context engineering.

We put them in a 100-game tournament. For the smaller model, we gave it a few examples of winning moves from past games right before it made its own move.

The results were clear. Without the examples, the smaller model struggled against GPT-4.1. With the examples, its effectiveness increased by nearly 200%, and it consistently won.

It's a simple demonstration, but it shows that a smaller, faster model with good, timely examples can outperform a more capable base model.

The full write up and code are in the repo.
by bigyabai | 2025-07-16 20:21:43+00:00
That craze, as documented at the time, was due to the jump from a 10nm chip to a 5nm one. The way chips scale, that could add up to a 4x efficiency improvement in some areas, thus the M1 was faster than anything that wasn't fabbed on 7nm/5nm silicon. Even back then though, there were non-Intel chips that were still competitive with Apple Silicon, like the Ryzen 7 4800/5800u laptops.

Fast-forward to today, and Apple is arguably in the same boat as Intel. They have mediocre year-over-year density improvements (only a 1.5x-2x density improvement most years) and can't radically change their IPC with ISA updates. They pay hand-over-fist for TSMC's best nodes but lose out on profit margins to Nvidia's datacenter products. Adding insult to injury, Apple arguably has the worst modern desktop GPU architecture, which compounds the acceleration issues ARM has with SIMD and vector workloads. Apple Silicon is backed into a corner, from a design perspective. Ye olde "I'm a RISC machine that wishes I had CISC architecture" problem.

Still a great chip for browsing the web or editing video. But again, people cautioned back at the M1's launch that ARM is hardly a silver bullet. We still have x86 laptops because for >90% of PC use-cases, ARM isn't worth the licensing cost.
by em-bee | 2025-07-16 20:22:14+00:00
police said they can not do anything without an ID and asked me to get an ID (temporary or whatever from my embassy)

that makes no sense. in order to get a new passport/ID, even a temporary one from the embassy of my country i need to have a police report and my birth certificate (which could take time to get). in other words, police needs to act first. sounds like that cop had no clue.
by elric | 2025-07-16 20:22:17+00:00
Reading these comments I'm always amused by how different people/teams have radically different needs & preferences, and how other people seem to be dismissive of those. "I don't need anything more than maven", "maven is too slow", "if it's not bootstrappable I don't want it", "there should only be one ultimate build tool", "I hate programming my build", etc.

These opinions are all valid, but only if they don't discount the validity of other strategies. There is no universal law of optimal build practices. There are cases where build performance is critical, and others where it's not. There are cases where configurability is important, and there are cases where it's not. Etc.

Personally, I love having a programmable build in plain Java, which is why I enjoy bld [1] these days. I'm probably the only person you'll ever meet who actually enjoyed using ant, so you're welcome to take my opinion with as much salt as you need to digest that.

[1] https://rife2.com/bld