MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by cameron_b | 2025-07-21 14:57:53+00:00
Price reduction against builder margins would be a more reasonable way to look at it than raw price change, and additionally factoring in the degree of financing vs cash and the cost of financing would possibly shed more light.

Stable firms, not out over their skis, can afford to entice buyers while still making a profit. Just like in a startup, the cost of money and the degree of leverage sets the [minimum] speed limit on the runway.
by nteleky | 2025-07-21 14:58:00+00:00
So I found out (they should have told me) that I have to pay taxes on the free shit I get from Amazon Vine and since I can't pay in crappy products I had to start a business to write off my losses, but you can learn how to start a business to write off all sorts of losses! Now, I'm just like a rich person, only without the money!
by farceSpherule | 2025-07-21 14:58:19+00:00
Everyone is trying to "copy" Pieter Levels "success" which as of now is "brand effect."

The guy started his thing over a decade ago and people look at it now and think they can replicate it.

The stuff the guy codes is garbage and what he does is far from solving any problems.

And, I do not believe his revenue numbers. At all. But people on the Internet see some shit posted, believe it, and then compare themselves to it.

Gleaning anything from his "1 in a million success" is falling prey to survivorship bias.
by thinkingtoilet | 2025-07-21 14:58:21+00:00
>Existing asset owners will be angry at losing (illusory/on-paper-only) money

I wouldn't be. I bought my house to live in it, not as a financial vehicle. I would be thrilled if prices came down and others in my generation could afford a house because I had the dumb luck of purchasing one in 2018 before the shit hit the fan. I couldn't even afford my own house now.
by t43562 | 2025-07-21 14:58:53+00:00
Fair enough point but for many years I wasn't aware of what bash COULD do. I mean one should get to learn more about [[]] and how it does regexps and while read loops:

ls *.txt | { while read FILENAME; do <something> to $FILENAME; done; }

and so on. Once you know, you can get a lot done on e.g. a docker image, without having to install lots of other things first.
by smokel | 2025-07-21 14:59:47+00:00
Perhaps we misunderstand each other. I'm saying that the mathematical optimization method differs from the algorithmic paradigm, as explained on this Wikipedia page for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_programming. That is to say, they serve different purposes and are distinct concepts. They sure have the same fundamental basis laid out by Bellman, but the applications have diverged quite a bit.

Do you mean to say that these two concepts also have exactly the same meaning?
by pastage | 2025-07-21 14:59:52+00:00
Hens live in cages the size of a piece of paper (A4/letter), they are kept there for 2 years. Very small percentage of them live in better circumstances. What leaves a bad taste is calling that "humanely hatched". EDIT: Apparently here in Sweden about 20% that have the guaranteed possibility of moving around outside then hen house, and less than 1% still live in solitary confinement so I was wrong at least over here. EDIT2: Apparently about 50% live in the worst kind of cages in the US.
by 827a | 2025-07-21 15:00:01+00:00
Theranos peaked at ~800 employees, FYI.

Reason 1: Because any company with one individual who leverages AI to achieve a billion dollar valuation would trivially & obviously be more valuable and be able to achieve more if they had two people leveraging AI. And, at a billion dollar valuation; why not pay that extra salary? Why not add a third? There's a huge difference in potential output by building with a founder team of 2 or 3 people versus 1; with not that much difference in cost.

Reason 2: The most capital efficient valuations in history are B2C companies (Instagram & Whatsapp are maybe the two best examples) during the VC boom era of the 2010s. B2C is naturally very capital efficient; you can do inbound marketing, no sales teams, just build. But, B2C success stories are more-and-more rare; the name of the game in the 2020s era has generally been B2B. Cursor might be the fastest company to reach $500M in revenue, and it got there on B2B, Notion isn't building its AI tools to sell to its consumer customers, etc. B2B is a lot harder; it requires outbound marketing & sales, as well as customer-led product development that usually requires interacting with people. AI will absorb some of those roles, but to suggest it can widdle down to one person per billion dollars in valuation in a year feels too accelerated to me. The world is complex, old, and crusty.

Just look at the YC batches for 2025 [1]: Of the 375 companies in the three batches, 20 are Consumer tech (~5%).

Reason 3: Weaker, but something I think about: AI is weirdly non-differentiating/egalitarian. You see some people try to differentiate it with crazy prompts or context engineering, but then next month Cursor ships an update and suddenly those aren't differentiating anymore. If you're an investor in a single-person unicorn-moonshot, you have to ask: Why can't some other company just come in and do the same thing you're doing? If that much can be automated through off-the-shelf systems. My feeling is that this concern would lead to lower revenue multiples on the valuation, which just makes it that much harder to hit unicorn status.

[1] https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?batch=Summer%202025&ba...
by nzach | 2025-07-21 15:00:18+00:00
I just want to share my recent personal experience.

Recently I've finally decided to try creating something new that people would find useful hoping that some day I would be able to turn a profit from that. So I vibe coded a pretty bare-bones (but fully functional) version of my idea and started to talk about it in several platforms, including IndieHackers.

And the main "advice" I've got after talking with a few people was "You are putting too much effort in your product, your focus should be on finding the right market fit for your idea". And after reading the logs in my server I found out nobody bothered to actually try what I built(and no, you don't need to create an account to use), which is fine. But why would you give this generic advice without even looking at the thing?

So, after a brief encounter with this community(people that are trying to build products) I can see how one could be tricked into the idea that success mainly comes from a good idea and not a good execution.

I get that many people are in this space only to make money and that finding the "magic idea" is probably a good advice if you don't care about what you will build and you need to make money fast. But I think we should also encourage people to build interesting things, even if it's not clear how one could make money from these ideas.
by Mistletoe | 2025-07-21 15:00:30+00:00
> What are the alternatives? We are pleased to see that research is being carried out to look into ways of sexing chicks at an early stage, whilst still in the egg. These new technologies aim to do the sexing and disposal before the embryo can feel pain, which happens at around seven days. We are following these developments with interest.

https://www.rspcaassured.org.uk/farmed-animal-welfare/egg-la...
by wtcactus | 2025-07-21 15:00:34+00:00
This is a sad episode, but you can see it in the language quoted from the wife's victim, that she already has an eye in some lawsuit to get money out of this.

"It was also not the first time that the employee had seen her husband's weight that he used for training, she said."

"She claimed an employee and her husband previously "had a conversation about it before: 'Oh that's a big chain'"."

"I'm saying, 'Could you turn off the machine?" she said. "Call 911. Do something. Turn this damn thing off!'"

This is really so sad, reminds me some facts about ancient Roman history and how everyone kept trying to sue somebody else for some easy money.
by ClaraForm | 2025-07-21 15:01:04+00:00
Couple more notes:

1. Stephen Hell has been theorizing about how to do super-res microscopy since the mid-90s, so the article saying it was sci-fi "20 years ago" is off by about 10 years.

2. Stephen Hell has recently given the world another new technique, MINFLUX, which seems to be his best gift to super-res researchers so far. :)
by blixt | 2025-07-21 15:01:29+00:00
I haven't used XSLT since 2007 but I used it as an alternative to ASP.NET for building some dynamic but not too advanced websites and it had a very impressive performance when cached properly (I believe it was over an order of magnitude faster than just default ASP.NET). I went sleuthing for the framework but I think it's lost. Also the Google Code archive is barely functional anymore, but I did find the XSLT cache function I built for it: https://github.com/blixt/old-google-code-svn/blob/main/trunk...

Pretty cool to see XSLT mentioned in 2025!
by Breza | 2025-07-21 15:02:03+00:00
The battery life of Garmin watches is astonishing. When I get a low battery alert, I still have several days to plug it in. If my phone dies, my watch stores my run until I get home, at which point it logs into my Wi-Fi network and uploads it automatically.

I had a bunch of Fitbits over the course of a decade and wish I'd made the change earlier.
by lillecarl | 2025-07-21 15:02:13+00:00
I think what you're saying is that you can make a logging system LARP metrics. At the end it's logging on fd 1 and 2 and metrics are usually over http, but ofc you can dump "metrics" into stout, it's not as practical with what tools are built for what.

In my local fun projects that run on my machine I might dump metrics into the logs because it's practical, but it doesn't make it "right".
by OliverWich | 2025-07-21 15:02:29+00:00
What's the product / domain?

How do you plan to maintain it?

Have you added a big feature after launch that required changes to multiple parts of the codebase?

I doubt that a codebase almost purely built with AI will survive in the long term. If there is no developer that understands what is happening, after a while the AI will start running in circles due to a lack of guidance and new features or patches become almost impossible to push out reliably.
by duxup | 2025-07-21 15:02:29+00:00
I wonder he he also receives that mail or was going to but someone caught it?

My post office for a good year was horrendous about delivering me my neighbor's mail. I felt like a Jr. Mail Carrier in training ;)

Last few years they've been SPOT on.

I tried informed delivery but honestly it's more of a hassle for me as my wife says "this should have arrived today" and of course it doesn't so she thinks it's stolen and ... it arrives 3 days later.
by ot | 2025-07-21 15:02:38+00:00
> Either the threads all do their separate “actually log”

But why? Often the purpose is just to log a "been here" signal with some additional details for diagnostics. You don't need to include an accumulation of everything that happened since the last log. All that you care about is that the log happens at most 1/period, say once per second.

If you do want to also log some data that accumulates everything that happened, you can accumulate the data in thread-local buffers, and in the "actually log" part collect all the buffers and log them. Since this only happens in the thread that "wins" the CAS, it is still very scalable. This is a very common technique.

If you throttle by count, you cannot avoid the contended atomic increment (you can with some sophistication and at the cost of some approximation).
by Telemakhos | 2025-07-21 15:02:46+00:00
I don't know where the "no painkillers" meme comes from, but opium's been around forever and is among the easiest drugs to harvest: just lightly score the poppy seed pod and collect the latex. It was as known and available in the middle ages as in the ancient Greek world.

https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.92.15_supplement.P...

Alcohol, though, is great for dissolving opium into an easily ingestible potion, whence one gets dwale or laudanum.
by tim333 | 2025-07-21 15:03:39+00:00
I'm surprised too. You'd think tech people would understand what's going on. But of the prior replies to your comment 7 out of 8 seem dismissive. I'm in the "obvious unstoppable progress" camp but we seem to be a minority.

I guess maybe it isn't that obvious - I've read quite a lot in the area. People saying LLMs aren't very good are a bit like people long ago saying chess programs aren't very good. It was true but there was an inevitable advance as the hardware got better and then that led to enthusiasm to improve the software and computers became better than humans in a rather predictable way. It's driven in the end by hardware improvements. Whether the software is LLM or some other algo is kind of unimportant.
by andsoitis | 2025-07-21 15:04:06+00:00
> New homeowners are not "buying a house". This is a misconception. They are agreeing to pay _double_ the home's present value for the next 30 years and then get it.

New homeowners, who take out a mortgage, are:

a) buying a home (they get it immediately, not 30 years later; their name is on the title, they can make changes to it, they can sell it, etc.)

b) borrowing money because they don't have the cash to buy outright (or prefer to borrow because it is cheaper than liquidating another asset that is increasing in value)

c) the loan is secured by the property (the lender saw a large sum of cash flowing out and there's a risk the borrower will default)
by XorNot | 2025-07-21 15:04:27+00:00
It's been studied and short answer is: no. The alternative is CO2 asphyxiation, but the process is very fast and severs the spine almost immediately.

The bigger problem is chicks getting crushed to death by other chicks during processing.

Like a lot less happens to those chicks then say, when a flock of chickens is processed.
by ecshafer | 2025-07-21 15:04:34+00:00
I absolutely care if its a developer or the city building it. If its the developer who puts a high rise on my block, they want to make money and they sell it for a profit. The people that move in are the people that can afford a condo in a high rise. If its the city building it, they don't want to make a profit, they want to get votes. So after they fill the high rise with their quota of homeless people and a drug dealers. Its going to have a very different population and affect my neighborhood in a much more negative way.
by o999 | 2025-07-21 15:05:15+00:00
Let's remember that there is no real "democracy" out there, activism and strikes are declared illegal/terrorism/threat in Europe and North America when it crosses the boundaries of the elite oligarchs.

US rail strikes, Canada truckers strikes, anti-genocide protests, anti-deportation protests, etc..

Online crackdown on journalism under the pretext of "graphic" content is an everyday occurrence.

So talking about ban on adult content in that context is naive at best.
by iFelix | 2025-07-21 15:05:34+00:00
Hello HN!

There’s a lot of focus (and money) on scaling LLMs, but while building Twenty [1] we’ve observed that current models are already capable enough for most use-cases. We think that what’s missing today is a new kind of software architecture. One that evolves, learns from feedback, and compile complex patterns to adapt to users. I wrote about this and some of our learnings in the article above, curious to hear your thoughts!

[1] https://github.com/twentyhq/twenty
by Breza | 2025-07-21 15:06:08+00:00
I had a similar reaction. OP has only run a few marathons, and most of his runs aren't exactly setting a record-breaking pace. That's a refreshing change from social media influencers who make it seem like anyone can run a near-4 or tackle Cocodona. I'm training for my first ultra, and so much of the experience is mental. OP is an inspiration in developing mental toughness and dedication.
by reaperducer | 2025-07-21 15:06:15+00:00
This is no big deal. From the photograph in the blog, it's clearly a problem with the mail handling machine. No big whoop.

As a reminder, there is no legal expectation of privacy for the outside of your mail. Envelopes are no different than post cards. Anyone can legally read them.

Years ago, I'd signed up for the Informed Delivery service, which is where these images originate.

When I moved, I forgot to cancel the service and so received pictures of the next person's mail. It was simple to cancel.
by jacurtis | 2025-07-21 15:06:31+00:00
Both you and the parent are correct.

The "bailout" for consumers is that they lower interest to 0%. That's what we did in 2007. If people can refinance their homes from 7% to ~2% then they save a fortune and it spurs buyers back into the market and current homeowners to move around and shuffle inventory.

Of course the Parent comment is also correct because banks get bailed out by low interest rates, but the government also bailed out several banks directly. Corporate bailouts are always a debatable topic. In one way we should let bad businesses fail, they failed because of the risks and choices they made and bailing them out is just inviting those mistakes to happen again. But on the flip side, consumers do need banks (as much as we refuse or hate to admit it). Yes banks make money off of us, but we as consumers also need banks. Which is why bailouts get approved.

We have seen this movie before. I'm not sure why everyone is debating the ending. We watched and lived the ending. It wasn't pretty in the middle there, but the market eventually recovered. Here we are getting ready to rewind and watch the movie again.
by garciasn | 2025-07-21 15:06:35+00:00
I get this semi-frequently too; but, the biggest problems for me w/this system are:

1. I get the pictures DAYS before the actual mail (weekends ignored). Why?!

2. I sometimes don't get pictures of the mail at all, particularly mail that's not bulk mail--it's from individual to individual.

I could give a flying fuck that I'm going to be getting 5 advertisements in a few days. I want to know when I'm getting ACTUAL mail and this system doesn't seem to capture that effectively.
by AlexandrB | 2025-07-21 15:07:02+00:00
There's an effect where the visceral emotional response to an execution method overrides the actual cruelty of the act. Lethal injection, for example, is probably horribly painful for at least some of those that experience it[1] but it looks humane to observers. Meanwhile, the trusty guillotine would be my chosen way to go since it's nearly instant.

[1] https://eji.org/news/lethal-injections-cause-suffocation-and...
by nashashmi | 2025-07-21 15:07:03+00:00
I am disturbed to find unwanted male chicks get “culled” because there is no market value for them in egg production. And there is no need for them in meat production.

This tech is able to select the female eggs only for hatching and redirect the male eggs for egging. The result is we have more eggs for people. And less waste of resources. Win win. Also a win for PETA. Something like this should be adopted en masse for market value reasons.
by andrewmutz | 2025-07-21 15:07:04+00:00
It is indeed a mess. It's full of strawmen, like:

> Price Drops Don’t Lead to Supply. They Kill It.

No one believes price drops cause an increase in supply. They believe an increase in supply causes price drops.

> If “build more” was going to bring prices down and stabilize the system, we wouldn’t be seeing these mixed signals.

People believe that increasing supply will lower prices, not "stabilize the system". The current system is plenty stable, and thats the problem.
by 1a527dd5 | 2025-07-21 15:07:27+00:00
I have a version of this; I have the email {{popular-asian-surname}}@gmail.com and I've seen _everything_.

I've had many many bank statements from India.

I've had someone in California order a brand new BMW and got the details for collection.

I've had paypal invoices and statements (this is one funny because they refuse to action the delink).

I used to reach out and tell them I didn't sign up for their service. But honestly, after doing it for a few years I gave up.

Now, I mark as junk and move on.

The best one I had was a dating site in Canada, I got it while sat next to me partner.
by hardolaf | 2025-07-21 15:07:43+00:00
I will agree that RHEL has gotten better about upgrading software when they do minor releases but I'm still painfully aware of the pre-9.X days when they would release a new version and the software was already a year out of date.

I personally used Fedora for a long time at the same time as I ran Arch Linux on servers. I honestly couldn't really tell the difference as long as I was updating Fedora every time a version bump came out. The release cadence was fast enough that it never caused problems. I ended up switching to it for my home devices entirely. Though now I run SteamOS and CachyOS because they're Arch without the headaches of Arch.
by schnebbau | 2025-07-21 15:07:47+00:00
> If the proponents of this truly believe that this is more humane, it really is targeting the wrong level

If something isn't more humane, it must be the same or less. I think it is you who needs to better articulate your position broski.

But that aside, one method kills living creatures and the other does not. If you cannot see a difference then I'm afraid you are lost.
by b112 | 2025-07-21 15:07:52+00:00
I have to say this, I'm sorry.

--

Isn't this carrying the pro life movement too far? Chickens do not have souls, in the biblical context.

If this isn't a religious thing, then note the article has two methods. One detecting feather differences, the other a genetic test.

The genetic test should be quite early. If at that stage, I imagine a blade of grass has more intelligence, there isn't a brain yet, and nerves don't even exist.

No pain, no feeling, just a few dozen cells hanging out.

Does this not seem OK to you, if the case?
by aaronbaugher | 2025-07-21 15:08:26+00:00
Pretty much. Small-time chicken owner here. The best ratio of hens to roosters is about 10-to-1. Each rooster will have his "harem" of hens that keep him busy, and the hens will be content. Any more roosters than that and they'll fight a lot, and the roosters that don't have their own group of hens will hang around the others looking for a chance to rape them while their regular rooster is occupied or too far away. It can be pretty hard on the hens.

I've never had a rooster kill hens, though. Each other, sure, but not the hens. I don't really buy that.

Some context for this article that most people don't know: there are chicken breeds for meat (Cornish Cross, mostly) and breeds for eggs. The egg breeds are skinny and won't become a good meat bird no matter how much you feed them. I guess you can caponize them and they'll gain more weight, but that's a process that costs money. You could use them for soup, but that probably wouldn't be cost-effective either, so that's why the large-scale operations just kill them.
by klik99 | 2025-07-21 15:08:33+00:00
Sure, but it's a hacker news comment, not a book. To be more clear I mean functionally run out of things. To be even more clear, when ROI on innovation becomes less than ROI on simply making product cheaper. There's always innovations, and some may even be missed, but when the perception of the industry is that future innovations cost more than the loss of good will of making worse product then it's obvious what will be picked.

I think the solution is to make "loss of good will" valued higher, right now it's valued very low by investors since people want to hold investments a short time and exit quickly. CEOs elected by boards controlled by shareholders are the same way. Short term growth is incentivized and that undervalues long term retention of customers, which makes it more likely "manufacture a worse product" a better option than "innovate and make a better product that more people will want".