MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by lurking_swe | 2025-07-25 21:30:37+00:00
Google search has sucked for years, even before the AI stuff was added. To be brutally honest. My personal complaint with google search is that the AI overview is pushed prominently. The overview itself is not bad, especially if you’re just trying to look up something quickly that’s not that important. For example “which two colors make purple?” or “how far is NY from SF?” Expecting it to be 100% factually correct is an issue, and should not be relied on. But google doesn’t prominently point out that AI can make mistakes. Hence the user expectation problem…

And siri has been junk for years too. Not sure what LLM’s have to do with that. Siri activates via a machine learning model that runs on device, which listens for a “wake word”, and that tech has been around for 10 years at this point. It’s possible apple messed up their machine learning model in a recent update? Idk :) But that’s unrelated to LLM’s.

I agree hype has gone out of control! the tech companies are over-promising. Expectations are too high, like you said. That doesn’t mean LLM’s are useless like crypto though. It’s early days still. Crypto is not useful to _any_ normal person, unless you live in a handful of countries with crazy inflation, or you’re a crypto nerd, or you’re trying to move dirty money around.

But all of this is useful to almost anyone:

- quickly summarize a recipe online, removing all the junk ads from the website.

- Brainstorming a quick travel itinerary (as a starting point) in 5 seconds.

- Getting a quick layman’s understanding of a topic you’re unfamiliar in.

- teens can brainstorm career paths. (tell an llm what they are good at, what they enjoy, and what they dislike)

- need to find a product online (tool, part, etc), but don’t know what it’s called? Describe it to an LLM! Then start your google search journey.

All of that is genuinely useful i think? IMO you’re conflating the _tech_, with how it’s being pushed onto the masses by the tech giants (siri, google search, etc).
by kurthr | 2025-07-25 21:31:22+00:00
There are a few different realities here. First, it's not really whether you can get tenure with the publications, because almost none of the major respected journals accept simple null/negative results for publication. It's too "boring". Now, they do occasionally publish "surprising" null/negative results, but that's usually do to rivalry or scandal.

The counter example to some extent is medical/drug control trials, but those are pharma driven, and gov published though an academic could be on the paper, and it might find its way onto a tenure review.

Second, in the beginning there is funding. If you don't have a grant for it, you don't do the research. Most grants are for "discoveries" and those only come about from "positive" scientific results. So the first path to this is to pay people to run the experiments (that nobody wants to see "fail"). Then, you have to trust that the people running them don't screw up the actual experiment, because there are an almost infinite number of ways to do things wrong, and only experts can even make things work at all for difficult modern science. Then you hope that the statistics are done well and not skewed, and hope a major journal publishes.

Third, could a Journal of Negative Results that only published well run experiments, by respected experts, with good statistics and minimal bias be profitable? I don't know, a few exist, but I think it would take government or charity to get it off the ground, and a few big names to get people reading it for prestige. Otherwise, we're just talking about something on par with arXiv.org. It can't just be a journal that publishes every negative result or somehow reviewers have to experts in everything, since properly reviewing negative results from many fields is a HUGE challenge.

My experience writing, and getting grants/research funded, is that there's a lot of bootstrapping where you use some initial funding to do research on some interesting topics and get some initial results, before you then propose to "do" that research (which you have high confidence will succeed) so that you can get funding to finish the next phase of research (and confirm the original work) to get the next grant. It's a cycle, and you don't dare break it, because if you "fail" to get "good" results from your research, and you don't get published, then your proposals for the next set of grants will be viewed very negatively!
by anthk | 2025-07-25 21:31:26+00:00
Scheme has (trace), at least most interpreters (and his cousing Common Lisp) have some tracing and pretty-printing features. Far more powerful than anything Python could offer.

Oh, and of course it has functions like sdraw or draw-cons-tree when you can print the contents of a list in seconds as an ASCII-ART chart:

https://www.t3x.org/s9fes/draw-tree.scm.html

The file it's in the public domain.

Try that with Python.
by bigyabai | 2025-07-25 21:31:51+00:00
Bingo. Those Macbook internals are designed as show ponies you shoot the second they're injured. Raise your hand if you've ever had "replace topcase/logic board" as the solution to a component-level issue before. Yep.

It's startling to imagine what Apple would be capable of, if survivable hardware was a remote business priority for them.
by zahlman | 2025-07-25 21:32:16+00:00
> Whereas Python is excellent for teaching applied computer engineering, because it's essentially executable pseudocode for imperative languages

Python offers quite good multi-paradigm support and could absolutely be used to explore many key concepts from SICP (granted, nothing is as meta-programmable as the Lisp family, since AST manipulation in other languages requires additional steps to actually obtain an AST). In particular, since Python's object model includes functions, higher-order functions are possible (and indeed, `map` is a builtin, and `reduce` is in the standard library after previous demotion from builtin status). Nowadays of course it's fashionable to litter the code with manifest type hints, which are a distraction to that sort of pedagogy. However, they are still entirely optional, have zero-to-generally-irrelevant effect at runtime, and can simply be disregarded.
by vdqtp3 | 2025-07-25 21:32:17+00:00
That's disingenuous. There were plenty of legit business types included also. Directly from your link:

ammunition sales ATM operators cable box de-scramblers coin dealers credit card schemes credit repair services dating services debt consolidation scams drug paraphernalia escort services firearms sales fireworks sales get rich products government grants home-based charities lifetime guarantees lifetime memberships lottery sales mailing lists/personal info money transfer networks online gambling pawn shops payday loans pharmaceutical sales Ponzi schemes pornography[5] pyramid-type sales racist materials surveillance equipment telemarketing tobacco sales travel clubs
by djoldman | 2025-07-25 21:32:31+00:00
Indeed. Likewise with non-guaranteed bonuses (gotta love the "plus a discretionary bonus!" commentary during offer discussions).

It's always worth offering to take equity as long as they agree in writing to not ever dilute your shares and vest them immediately. However, it's unlikely that any company will agree.

It's best to imagine compensation as exactly one's salary. Then (virtually) all surprises are good.
Show HN: PromptCard – Quick prompt insert for ChatGPT web interface
by JohnnyZhang483 | 2025-07-25 21:32:35+00:00
I found myself constantly inputing similar prompts when using ChatGPT. I wanted a faster way to reuse and insert prompts without breaking my typing flow. And I also want a place to save & manage my frequently used prompts.

so I built PromptCard, a chrome extension to make prompt input faster and more comfortable. https://promptcard.online/

It works like this: - In ChatGPT input box, you can enter #prompt_shortcut. - When you hit send, the content from the selected prompt will be inserted to that place and sent to ChatGPT.

Example: Let's say you want ChatGPT to help draft an email to your boss to request a day off. You might sent this:

"My son has fever and I need to stay home tomorrow to take care of him. Please help me write a short, professional email to my manager. Write in a clear and professional tone suitable for workplace communication. Keep it polite, concise, and respectful."

If you saved the 2nd part above under #email_to_manager, the input will become:

"My son has a high fever and I need to stay home tomorrow to take care of him. #email_to_manager."

Notice that the prompt is much shorter, and #email_to_manager can be reused everytime you want to write email to manager. The extension also comes a website for prompts sharing and managemnt.

I would love to hear all the feedback/suggestions. Thanks!
by warbaker | 2025-07-25 21:32:54+00:00
16 years later, I'm still disappointed about this decision. The justification for it is just awful: "6.001 had been conceived to teach engineers how to take small parts that they understood entirely and use simple techniques to compose them into larger things that do what you want. But programming now isn’t so much like that, said Sussman. Nowadays you muck around with incomprehensible or nonexistent man pages for software you don’t know who wrote."

This is just false. Engineering is still about taking small parts you understand entirely and using simple techniques to compose them into larger things you want. Sussman's justification is an abject surrender to shitty complexity. Engineers need to develop a taste for simplicity and elegance, especially at the beginning of their education.

Incidentally, an overlooked advantage of teaching in Scheme is that it levels the playing field, as pre-undergrad programming classes almost never use functional languages.
by XorNot | 2025-07-25 21:33:11+00:00
It's irrelevant how long they last unless is starts to substantially exceed human lifespans though. 10 years or 20, eventually every product you put out there is replaced and you enter the steadystate waste phase of X tons per year.

Personally of course, I don't think this matters at all: old lithium batteries degrade into salt and don't contain harmful chemicals. There's no real indication we'd ever have a problem dealing with them, even if it was just throwing them all into a big hole till the hole looks enough like a natural lithium source to mine again.
by flumpcakes | 2025-07-25 21:33:45+00:00
This is my entire point: Valve and Itch do not police their store fronts (Itch actually does, it won't allow any games it thinks are 'hatred' but other content is OK) and now the payment processors think the risk is too great.

I think one solution for Valve/Itch to continue with the 'no policing policy' is for governments to step in and say all video games needed classification like films do.

I think a few of these video games that are sold would be found to breaking some law if anyone cared to test it.
by throw0101c | 2025-07-25 21:33:55+00:00
> They are shipping from one fixed location to a different fixed location. These railroads merging does not reduce their choices or give the combined entity more leverage.

If someone on the US west coast wants to ship to the US east (or vice versa) they can pit UP against BNSF, and then NS against CSX. There are a few pairs up because of the two negotiating points:

* UP-NS

* UP-CSX

* BNSF-NS

* BNSP-CSX

If the merger goes through you're now at:

* merged-UPNS

* BNSF-CSX

Do you think UPNS will give a cheaper price for a 'half-trip' and you go to their competitor the other half?

You don't think BNSF/CN/CP aren't looking at CSX right now?
by layer8 | 2025-07-25 21:34:19+00:00
The analogy doesn’t work too well, in my opinion. An e-bike can basically get you with low effort anywhere a regular bike can. The same is not true for AI vs. non-AI, in its current state. AI is limited in which goals you can reach with it with low effort, and using AI will steer you towards those goals if you don’t want to expend much effort. There’s a quality gradient with AI dependent on how much extra effort you want to spend, that isn’t there in the e-bike analogy of getting from A to B.
by DavidPeiffer | 2025-07-25 21:35:03+00:00
I think about a book I found in Texas at a thrift store. Poor's 1925 Railroad Section [1] is a thick book containing details about every (?) railroad in the US such as miles of track, tons hauled, revenue, recent mergers, etc.

I'm not sure whether there is digitized data for railroad performance from the era, but it seemed like it'd be a neat dataset to assemble and research.

https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/Poors-1925-Railroad-S...
by WarOnPrivacy | 2025-07-25 21:35:09+00:00
> Maybe Gawker shouldn’t have been digging into his private sex life including publishing a sex tape.

Even if one supports this revenge-based justification, it doesn't mitigate the societal harm done when a path is carved out for billionaires to shutter news orgs who print things they don't like.

The societal harm: Republicans weaponizing Gov power and billionaire resources against news outlets - which is happening at this moment.

ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44688663
by raylu | 2025-07-25 21:36:52+00:00
`git rebase -i` lets you reorder one branch of commits easily

in a stacked PR workflow, after the bottom PR merges, you now want to rebase the whole stack atop the main branch. if that's 3 PRs, that's 3 branches, 3 rebases

one thing `git rebase` doesn't let you do but `jj rebase -s source -d dest` does is move a commit from one branch to another (`git switch dest`, `git cherry-pick source`, `git switch -C source source^`, `git switch dest`)
by johnnienaked | 2025-07-25 21:37:52+00:00
Technology and the bureaucracy that is spawned from it destroys accountability. Who gets the blame when a giant corporation with thousands of employees cuts corners to re-design an old plane to keep up with the competition and two of those planes crash killing hundreds of people?

No one. Because you can't point the finger at any one or two individuals; decision making has been de-centralized and accountability with it.

When AI robots come to do surgery, it will be the same thing. They'll get personal rights and bear no responsibility.
by fc417fc802 | 2025-07-25 21:38:16+00:00
I'd suggest that foreign investors dictating domestic policy is a huge problem. For a core institution like banking there ought to be a law forbidding them from discriminating against otherwise legal activities except in the case that a different law permits or requires them to do so. That would also absolve them of any PR concerns because "everyone has to; legally speaking we don't have any choice".
by mauvehaus | 2025-07-25 21:38:28+00:00
As a working furnituremaker, it depends on the client's budget. I try to get a sense of budget early in the design process so that I can both provide the best bang for the buck for the client and also a uniform level of quality throughout the piece. If push comes to shove, though, I'm not going to turn a job down because there isn't budget for a frame and panel back. I'm not going to turn someone's work away because they can't afford a higher-end option that nobody will ever see. That's not how to treat people with dignity.

In a couple instances, I've turned down work because the budget and expectations were wildly incompatible, but that's as simple as saying "I can't do the work you're looking for at that price." I'll offer suggestions for a more cost-effective alternative if I can. In one instance, that's turned into work down the line when the client came back with a different project with a budget more in alignment with their goals.

Lastly, while everything Nancy Hiller (RIP) has ever written is worth reading, these two pieces are highly relevant to the question of standards, budgets, and delivering the whole project.

https://www.finewoodworking.com/2019/09/11/dont-knock-the-la...

https://www.popularwoodworking.com/editors-blog/lets-make-ev...
by alexose | 2025-07-25 21:39:01+00:00
The rules that govern American railroads are impressively weird and arcane. They seem almost impossible to unravel at this point. Which is a shame, because so many American cities sacrifice the central corridors of their city to huge railyards and slow-moving freight trains.

I think of Portland, Oregon, where the tracks run north/south along the river. You can see them sitting there empty while you're stuck in traffic on I-5, which runs parallel. Running a commuter rail or light rail on those things would make life a lot less miserable trying to get around the city.
by stouset | 2025-07-25 21:39:20+00:00
You are willfully ignoring the reality that building a competing rail network that services the same area is wildly impractical given the land requirements.

This is the same argument behind having multiple providers to share one set of power lines, telephone cables, etc. Duplicate copies of physical infrastructure are pointless, wasteful, and unlikely to occur in practice, so there’s rarely competitive pressure.
by usaar333 | 2025-07-25 21:39:28+00:00
Under any normal circumstance I've ever seen, you should be taking the higher equity/lower salary combination and should focus on equity rather than salary.

The only time it ever makes sense to push for more salary instead is if you literally cannot get a job at a public company (or even a near IPO unicorn). Plenty of startup employees can, so clearly they believe their startup equity is worth something.

Financially speaking, startup equity is actually worth a lot as an employee (https://www.amafinance.org/startup_comp/). Yah, over 50% it's going nowhere but expectation needs to consider how huge the win is even if it is lower probability.
by throw50928 | 2025-07-25 21:39:41+00:00
IMO, in addition to, the shaky belief that rape games promote rape in real life to the audience, etc., maybe there is the belief attacking the creators like, "there is a person/group of people we know profit off the fictional depictions of rape/see concept of rape itself as good for cash flow. Because these people went through all the trouble and effort creating, publishing this work focused on rape in gratuitous detail - so its significantly more likely they hold beliefs outside the safe norms society upholds, than someone whose only conception of rape is 'its horrible' and doesn't need to think about implementation, writing graphic scenes, going out of their way to create and market 'a rape simulator', and so on. As punishment for perception of being immoral people their income source needs to be shut down."
by aesh2Xa1 | 2025-07-25 21:39:58+00:00
I believe spam detection in the Google Phone app does work on GrapheneOS.

For spam, install their sandboxed Google Play, and then install Google's Phone and Speech Recognition & Synthesis apps. For SMS/MMS/RCS spam, you'd use an app supporting blocking (e.g., Google Messages).

I imagine that Hold For Me works if you also install the Google app and whatever other dependencies.
by Karrot_Kream | 2025-07-25 21:40:45+00:00
(Full disclosure: I have a lot of respect for RC and have thought about applying to attend myself. This will color my opinion.)

I really enjoyed this article. The numerous anecdotes from folks at RC was great. In particular thanks for sharing this video of voice coding [1].

This line in particular stood out to me that I use to think about LLMs myself:

"One particularly enthusiastic user of LLMs described having two modes: “shipping mode” and “learning mode,” with the former relying heavily on models and the latter involving no LLMs, at least for code generation."

Sometimes when I use Claude Code I either put it in Plan Mode or tell it to not write any code and just rubber duck with it until I come up with an approach I like and then just write the code myself. It's not as fast as writing the plan with Claude and asking it to write the code, but offers me more learning.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcpfyZ1yQRA
by varenc | 2025-07-25 21:40:49+00:00
What do you mean by 'interactive like a native app'? The article is focusing on two main parts of making things feel like an app: page view transitions and speed/preloading. To me, those seem like a big part of what makes a site/app feel interactive. And letting the browser do the work and having real URLs has other huge benefits I appreciate.

But agree that for things like GMail, etc, a SPA approach definitely makes sense. I just think most SPA sites I come across aren't in that category.
by codedokode | 2025-07-25 21:41:06+00:00
How do porn sites accept money then? Steam should just make a separate company for adult games and use the same payment methods as porn sites.

Also this reminds me of Apple that for example demanded Telegram to block adult channels (including non-porn channels where authors blog about their sex life) from AppStore's Telegram version.

Also if cryptocurrency were more popular and widespread, then banks would have less leverage to do this.
by zeroq | 2025-07-25 21:42:40+00:00
SPA is not only about seamless transitions but also being able to encapsulate a lot of user journey on the client side, without the need of bothering server too much.

Let me give you an example - one of my biggest gripes about web ux is the fact that in 2025 most shops still requires you to fully reload (and refetch) content when you change filters or drill down a category.

A common use case is when you come to a shop, click on "books" (request), then on "fantasy" subsection (another request), realize the book you're looking for is actually a "sci-fi", so you go back (request, hopefully cached) and go to "sci-fi" (another request).

It's much better ux when a user downloads the whole catalogue and then apply filters on the client without having to touch the server until he wants to get to the checkout.

But it's a lot of data - you may say - maybe on Amazon, but you can efficiently pack sections of most shops in data that will enable that pattern in less kilobytes that takes one product photo.

I've been building web apps like that since ca. 2005 and I still can't understand why it's not more common on the web.
by LegionMammal978 | 2025-07-25 21:42:40+00:00
There's still value in web applications what can perform most of their operations client-side, when feasible. Lots of websites seemingly operate under the assumption of "If the client manages to connect to the server once, then surely it can maintain a stable, low-latency connection in perpetuity." This renders those websites unusable on flaky connections or with very high latency. Of course, plenty of SPAs are guilty of using 15 million unnecessary round-trips, but I worry that the current SSR-everywhere push will worsen this effect.