MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by Aurornis | 2025-07-28 20:34:42+00:00
> guy was bragging about it on twitter yesterday. $13,200 of spend for his $200 account. he said he had like 4-5 opus only agents running nonstop and calling each other recursively.

Do you have a link?

I'm always curious to see these users after working at a startup that was the target of some creative use from some outlier customers.
by getpokedagain | 2025-07-28 20:35:00+00:00
Are we surprised at this outcome? Most of HN encourages forming companies to find a niche in the world, build an arbitrage over it and charge rent. Payment processors and banks do that. Just like startup founders they then listen to the stakeholders with the biggest wallets. It turns out prude Christians have fucking money and apparently more than horny gamer bros.
by specproc | 2025-07-28 20:35:01+00:00
Can we talk about the successful investments then?

What I see is every national asset, every successful company, and increasingly land and housing sold to (typically overseas) capital, with the proceeds sucked offshore.

Whether it's new housing in London, ARM, the water, the electricity, most products and most supermarkets: the beneficial owner is outside the country, being largely taxed outside the country, and spending their money outside the country.

We're discussing this in the context of a deeply dysfunctional Britain. If the "wealth creation" route were in any way effective, we'd be in a very different place right now. There's been concensus among pretty much every party in my lifetime around supporting "growth", "investment", number go up. It's clearly not working for most of us. Everyone but a select few in this country is living on the edge.

I personally see a major component of our malaise as the rentierism practiced by largely foreign interests throughout our economy. Alternative explanations are welcome, but it's hard to see how we'd be worse off without the vampire squid up each and every orifice.
by conductr | 2025-07-28 20:35:21+00:00
It's a fact that poverty and race are linked here, also because of the history.

You'd have to be an idiot in America not to know of all the wrongs against POC throughout history. It's all but obvious to a majority but just for good measure it's taught in grade school and a heavy component of a lot of movies/pop-culture. If you've made it far enough to be reading comments on HN, you're likely aware and don't need to be further educated.

Stats still show black people have very low rates of swimming skills. Who you know or who I know may differ, but stats are stats.

> Perhaps for yourself, as mentioned above 1964 was within my lifetime.

A generation is defined as 20-30 years, so this was 2-4 generations ago. My words hold true, you've seen a lot in your lifetime - despite all the issues we still have regarding race, I'd say you've seen blacks have a lot more mobility over your lifetime, but not a significant improvement of their swimming skills.
by watwut | 2025-07-28 20:35:29+00:00
None of that is contra argument to literally anything I said. And it is not even true that they would be refusing "charity" or were offered. They are refusing anything that could help, with whatever excuse they can find. They are even against government negotiating for better prices. They are against prices transparency. They are against improvement of insurance rules.

They are against crack down on fraud as long as that fraud is performed by companies. Which is the most common fraud in healthcare.

> From a financial standpoint, it doesn't seem like either party has succeeded at significantly slowing the growth in healthcare costs overall. How much more can it grow without breaking? The Dems haven't proposed a solution either.

There is one party consistently trying to prevent any measure that could lover the cost. This is really not both sides issue. That one party in particular turned against their own solution once the other party accepted and adopted it.

Stop blaming democrats and everyone else for what republicans and their voters actually do, believe in and push for.
by heavyset_go | 2025-07-28 20:36:06+00:00
> Meanwhile, US companies remain the global leaders in the development of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment. That development is often subsidized by US taxpayers and the remainder is largely recovered from US patients because the single-payer systems in other countries often impose price controls that largely don't exist in the US.

From the first link in the OP you're replying to:

> The United States Senate Committee on Finance launched an 18-month investigation of Gilead's Sovaldi pricing, and argued in its 2015 report that Gilead set prices high in disregard of the human cost and in order to set the stage for a higher eventual price for Sovaldi's successor, Harvoni. The committee's investigation, based in part on internal documents obtained from Gilead, revealed that the company had considered prices ranging from $50,000 to $115,000 per year, trying to strike a balance between revenue and predicted activist and public relations blowback, with little regard to research and development costs.

The pricing was found to be intentionally divorced from R&D costs. They are charging as much as they can because they can, not because of R&D.
by Saline9515 | 2025-07-28 20:36:06+00:00
Do I really need to?

An Atheist who burnt a Quran in Yookay and got stabbed by a muslim as a result (proving his point?) got a 325£ fine for "religiously motivated public disorder” whatever that means.

Peter Tatchell got arested by the police for holding a sign with "STOP Israel genocide! STOP Hamas executions! Odai Al-Rubai, aged 22, executed by Hamas! RIP!" because of "breach of peace" whatever that means.

During the recent riots in Yookay, a man was jailed for 20 months for "shooting at a dog", and "using racist slur". While it's sure distasteful, it's no different than Putin's technique of protest repression.

I could go on with Germany, where sharing benign memes about politicians lead you to get swatted and your house searched, the Yookay with its "non crime hate incidents" that require no proof, France and its extensive hate speech laws that prevent asking to boycott another state, Finland where burning the Bible is ok, but not the Quran, and so on.
by amluto | 2025-07-28 20:36:15+00:00
This sounds like a sort of plausible mechanism, but do you have any actual evidence that this occurs in real life? I admit that I’ve wondered whether the PrEP studies with lenacapavir actually measure what they thing they measure given that the same lenacapavir may prevent HIV from replicating enough to be detectable.

That being said, Wikipedia doesn’t really agree with your mechanism. See:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV_capsid_inhibition

It seems that the drug may inhibit disassembly of the capsid.
by currymj | 2025-07-28 20:36:18+00:00
a lot of "all you can eat" restaurants have to charge extra for uneaten food. there are people who just enjoy the feeling of abundance they get from paying a flat fee and then wasting something.

This is clearly what was happening with the most extreme Claude Code users, because it's not actually that smart yet and still requires a human to often be in the loop.

However, Anthropic can't really identify "wasted code".
by tguvot | 2025-07-28 20:36:20+00:00
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_Sudan_(2024%E2%80%93...

The Preparatory Committee of the Sudanese Doctors Union reported that over 522,000 infants have died from malnutrition since the outbreak of the war, with 286,000 additional cases of malnutrition recorded
by CalChris | 2025-07-28 20:36:34+00:00
There are certain unicorns; I've worked for one. There are maybe unicorns; I've worked for a few.

Then there are non-unicorns. These may even start as maybe unicorns. But as soon as you know it's never going to be a unicorn, you can leave. Or stay, prospects depending. If you know it's never going to be a unicorn before you even join, you can think of it as glorified contracting. Done that too. Maybe lean on compensation rather than options because a whole lot of nothing is, tap-tap-tap, nothing.

BTW, VCs think along similar lines.
by johnisgood | 2025-07-28 20:36:58+00:00
If it turns out Linus did something terrible in the past, I wonder how many people would stop using Linux based on that alone. We are not the same. To some people it matters a great deal, to others it does not matter at all, and there are some people somewhere in the middle I suppose. To me it is more about pragmatism. I may have an opinion on the developer as a person, but that would not stop me from using the project. For example I do not like the author of Odin much, but I do like the programming language. When it comes to contributing to the project, however, that he (author of Odin) reviews, I am not so eager because I have seen him being somewhat condescending before, which I think is more relevant than his personal life.

That said, when it comes to funding, it is not so clear cut to me. I actually do not have an answer. Transparency?
by arp242 | 2025-07-28 20:37:36+00:00
I'll just comment here and say that I support your right to participate in society. I don't think this entire thread is especially relevant here.

I don't have a clear comprehensive theory on what justice is (and if I did, it would be too large to fit in this margin), but forever being haunted by a criminal record for the rest of your life is not it.

There are no details on that page. No one here is in any position to judge anything because you need the full details of the case. But it's pretty obvious this is not Jeffery Epstein or Marc Dutroux we're talking about here.

I find many comments here unpleasant, hysterical, and even cruel.
by giantg2 | 2025-07-28 20:37:46+00:00
Becuase guns have higher protections, more stringent seller regulations, and advocacy groups. In some localities, things like swords can be illegal to own. The dealers generally don't need a special license. With guns, you have an FFL which is heavily regulated. So as a payment processor, there's a greater chance that a merchant selling a sword might be violating the law than an FFL selling a gun. Then the advocacy groups for guns are much more active than the ones for knives and swords.
by Maxious | 2025-07-28 20:38:18+00:00
> Mobile phone footage has emerged that appears to contradict Israel's account of why soldiers opened fire on a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck on March 23, killing 15 rescue workers.

> The video, published by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), shows the vehicles moving in darkness with headlights and emergency flashing lights switched on - before coming under fire. The PRCS said the video was obtained from the phone of a paramedic who was killed.

> The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initially denied the vehicles had their headlights or emergency signals on.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2z103nqxo
by JoshTriplett | 2025-07-28 20:39:02+00:00
We don't need a new law for this. We need to enforce monopoly law.

We just had a demonstration that the two biggest payment processors, together controlling the vast majority of credit card payments, made the same policy change at the same time and in the process completely suppressed many people's businesses.

Treat them as an anti-consumer oligopoly and regulate accordingly.
by cek | 2025-07-28 20:39:12+00:00
I know this is HN, and my instincts tell me posters here predominately are either ICs or managers "in the small" (line level, or at the most at the scale of the OP, in which the company is ~300).

That said, asserting that most meetings are either brainstorming or decision making, is naive. When an organization grows beyond ~100-150 people (Dumbar's Number) the org must metastasize into smaller, "self-contained", orgs that are far less than that number. Once this happens, there is need for meetings that drive accountability, closure, and alignment at scale. For example, monthly or quarterly business reviews.

These are NOT brainstorming meetings or decision-making meetings. They are meetings where leadership drives accountability and alignment by ensuring light is shined (in a way visible cross-org) on the right topics for the biz.
by Tokumei-no-hito | 2025-07-28 20:39:17+00:00
depends on your view of collectivist vs individualistic.

if your actions are defined by legal ToS then no, they didn't do anything wrong. they paid, it's the company's fault for not expecting someone to use 50-100x a reasonable usage.

if your actions are defined by ethical use then you understood that 50-100x the use would inevitably lead to ruining the party for everyone.

it's like a buffet. everyone pays a flat price and can enjoy a big meal for themselves. maybe sometimes having a few extra pieces of cake here and there. until someone shows up and starts stacking plates well beyond any reasonable expectation (not rule based) of a buffet customer. what's the result? stringent rules that are used for legal rather than rational enforcement.

it's obvious that even "reasonable use" is being subsidized, and the company was okay with doing so. until we have people running 10 opus instances in a glutinous orchestra of agents just because they can. now the party is over. and i'd love to know what these claude agencies were even producing running 24/7 on opus. i can't imagine what human being even has the context to process what 24/7 teams of opus can put out. much like i can't imagine the buffet abuser actually enjoying the distending feast. but here we are.
by jjcob | 2025-07-28 20:39:32+00:00
I don't understand this. There is a red light. You will have to stop. Why do people still cross a solid line (which will get you a fine if police sees you) to overtake me and then stop directly in front of me? It makes no sense.

It's even worse when they overtake me and stop in front of me at an intersection with two lanes where they could just stay in the fucking lane they used to overtake me.

I swear some driver are doing it on purpose because they hate everyone else on the road.
by dionian | 2025-07-28 20:40:08+00:00
afraid im in the 5%. not doing anything nefarious, just lots of parallel usage, no scripting or overnight or anything.

i just found ccusage, which is very helpful. i wish i could get it straight from the source, i dont know if i can trust it... according to this ive spent more my 200$ monthly subscription basically daily in token value.. 30x supposed cost

ive been trying to learn how to make ccode use opus for planning and sonnet for execution automatically, if anyone has a good example of this please share
by ewoodrich | 2025-07-28 20:40:12+00:00
Gemini 2.5 Pro made some big post-launch improvements for tool calling/agentic usage that made it go from “pulling teeth” to “almost as smooth as Claude” in Cline/Roo Code (which is saying something since Cline was originally built around Claude tool use specifically).

So the team at least seems to be aware of its shortcomings in that area and working to improve it with some success which I appreciate.

But you are correct that Gemini CLI still lags behind for whatever reason. It gets stuck in endless thought loops way too often for me, like maybe 1/15 tasks hits a thought loop burning API credits or it just never exits from the “Completing task, Verifying completion, Reviewing completion, Assessing completion status…” phase (watching the comical number of ways it rephrases it is pretty funny though).

Meanwhile I’ve only had maybe one loop over a period of a couple months using Gemini 2.5 Pro heavily in Roo Code with the most recent version so it seems like an issue with the CLI specifically.
by Fripplebubby | 2025-07-28 20:40:34+00:00
One interesting thing I learned from this was how they determined the probable size of this comet probabilistically, rather than using direct observation - basically, based on the observations, it could either be really big (10km) or really small (0.5km), and we can basically rule out really big because we've been looking for comets for years, and during that time, to see one that is that big implies that we _should have seen_ thousands that are quite small over that time period, because the size of space objects follows a power law since they're always whacking into each other and breaking up. Since we've only seen one small interstellar object during that time rather than thousands, a large comet is so impossibly unlikely that we can conclude that it is 0.5km in size. I'm sure at some point this will be confirmed in a more conventional way, as well.
by tremon | 2025-07-28 20:40:35+00:00
The only reason why a system can only represent the range from 1900-1999 is when the system uses characters (ascii decimal digits) or BCD encoded digits. It would have been very unlikely for any integer-based encoding system to have had a cutoff date at 1999 (e.g. int8 would need an epoch at 1872 to rollover after 1999), so I don't think signed vs unsigned makes a difference here.
by polotics | 2025-07-28 20:40:51+00:00
so sad, i had a few questions about the CCP, China's constitution, and very quickly on a very factual non challenging question:...

Question: what proportion of the NPC's seats is held by the CCP?

GLM-4.5 Uh-oh! There was an issue with the response. Content Security Warning: The content may contain inappropriate content.

I could see some decent thinking in gray, but bam, all hidden in red. How many of the NPC's seats are held by the Chinese Communist Party is already too edgy.

This is just sadness with Chinese characteristics.
by calvinmorrison | 2025-07-28 20:41:45+00:00
actually it's a huge issue. we had to use a non-good tech stack credit card provider that constantly went down becuase they were the only ones who would take us because we sold tobacco. No braintree or auth.net just some janky stuff from the 90s because that was the only company that fit our risk profile.

The amount of times we got paged because we coudlnt take cards was ridiculous, because we couldn't ever do anything about it.
by p_l | 2025-07-28 20:41:58+00:00
I think it was Tuxedo that accidentally ended up with GPLv3 drivers and no ability to relicense them.

Which means they can't be upstreamed because GPLv3 is not compatible with GPLv2 (for the same reason CDDLv1.0 is considered incompatible).

They either need to track every copyright from the contractors (who AFAIK didn't sign over licensing to Tuxedo) to relicense the code, or write drivers again from scratch.
by 9rx | 2025-07-28 20:42:05+00:00
> if you're hosting a meeting, only invite people who MUST [0] be there.

No! Do the opposite of this.

I enjoy the meetings where I can listen in and learn something from others. There can be a lot of value in these meetings — and if truly not, it is easy to slink away.

It is the meetings where the organizer thinks I "must" be there that are always a waste of time. Never fails. Keep me off these invite lists. They are useless.
by 3D30497420 | 2025-07-28 20:42:11+00:00
Maybe? I'm not super great with electrical work.

My understanding is that detecting an electrical current through a power cord typically doesn't work when measuring all the wires together, because the current in the live wire is canceled out by the return current in the neutral wire. This is why clamp-style meters are usually put at the electrical panel, where individual wires are accessible. Since I live in an apartment, that isn't an option for me.
by GuinansEyebrows | 2025-07-28 20:43:18+00:00
it's definitely the result of lobbying; i've experienced it firsthand in a former job. a private dark fiber provider successfully sued the county to prevent expansion of a previously-laid tax-funded municipal fiber project on anticompetitive grounds - he used every trick in the book including lobbying and it worked. and that was just one asshole who didn't want to compete with a small public project. scale that up to ILEC levels with billions in revenue and a revolving door economy and... yeah, i don't see this sort of thing playing out in the peoples' favor any time soon.
by bayindirh | 2025-07-28 20:43:24+00:00
The problem is not the PowerShell itself, maybe even not the fact it has telemetry, but how it collects the telemetry and how Microsoft sees telemetry as the only and ultimate way to measure things.

I understand that Microsoft believes in "show me numbers or GTFO", but the problem is they ignore Goodhart's law repeatedly, and they don't learn from their mistake. To recap; "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure".

So, to keep the line go up, Microsoft's all tools are enshittifed over time, and this metric collection is marred by internal power struggles, confirmation bias, and representation inequality (when a company uses a feature in all their installations because it runs a script developed and distributed by a single engineer, their representation is amplified, for example).

Do you remember how a single person gutted .NET Core to remove hot reload support because of a power struggle, despite the community and the numbers screamed the opposite? This is the Microsoft we know, and since we rank ourselves by our HN account creation dates, you know it way better than me.

In many software communities, it's shown over and over again a distilled stream of human feedback is way better than playing the numbers game with some automated number collection and crunching, because it's way better filtered than some raw numbers. Another problem is Microsoft is not merging the numbers with actual feedback, and going for a hybrid approach either. They are not a company like this. They are not formed like this, and their DNA doesn't allow that. They may be able to do it top down maybe in a decade, but today they're not there yet. Their community response is just fronting the issue trackers and let some feedback trickle to keep the community happy. Yes, I don't believe in or trust Microsoft a bit to care about their users unless it affects their bottom line.

Like it or not, regardless of Gates, Ballmer or Nadella; Microsoft has never changed at the core. It's a company based on IP, suppressive monopoly, and "win at all costs" mantra.

So, at the end of the day, the numbers are not there to secure user happiness, or giving clout to the Powershell team. They unfortunately have to do it for job security, and to have some arm's length distance from the shredder. You today have PowerShell because, some big customers said they need it, team can show it's being used by some other minions, and maybe a couple of internal teams benefit from its existence.

Don't get distracted. It's about money [0].

[0]: https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted

P.S.: ...and yes, Bash maybe a terse language, but it's better than PowerShell, a lot.
by kstrauser | 2025-07-28 20:43:25+00:00
Execs do care when the call center is so swamped with dealing with external BS that more common complaint calls can't get through, costs per customer skyrocket, and customer support satisfaction nosedives.

Don't think of it as some complaint calls. Think of it more like a mass protest. Mayors don't care if 5 people jaywalk. They start caring a whole lot when entire streets are blocked and their residents are demanding a response. Except in the call center case, callers are following the exact documented policy of contacting their bank to complain about bad service. What's Visa going to do, crack down on callers? That would be even worse for customer satisfaction and would probably get the board involved.

But a reminder: if you call, be unfailingly polite to the support person. Keep them on the phone as long as possible, but be kind to them. They don't set the policy. This isn't their fault. Visa and Mastercard should be dealing with the pain, not the regular employee who gets paid to help customers with their credit card issues.