MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by ColinEberhardt | 2025-07-28 13:23:39+00:00
Very cool. I actually created a shareware application that rendered Photomosaics 25 years ago! Here is a link to "Mosaic Magic" from the Wayback Engine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010405175706/http://fishsoft.c...

I managed to make a decent amount of spending money from that application during my University years.

One interesting lesson I learnt was about enterprise pricing. I think I charged ~$20 for Mosaic Magic, however, I started to get emails from organisations asking about pricing for commercial use. Nothing on my pricing page suggested that commercial use was prohibited, I guess they just thought $20 was rather cheap. From there-on, I charged $150 for "commercial use". Basically, anyone who thought they should be paying more, did!

Finally, Robert Silvers filed a patent and trademark for Photomosaics in ~2000, and was, for a while aggressively pursuing organisations that he felt was infringing. I assume this has all died down now.
by Const-me | 2025-07-28 13:26:26+00:00
> Actually there is - you can exploit the data parallelism

That doesn’t help much when you’re streaming the bytes, like many parsers or de-serializers do. You have to read bytes from the source stream one by one because each of the next byte might be the last one of the integer being decoded. You could workaround with a custom buffering adapter. Hard to do correctly, costs performance, and in some cases even impossible: when the encoded integers are coming in realtime from network, trying to read next few bytes into a RAM buffer may block.

With MKV variable integers, you typically know the encoded length from just the first byte. Or in very rare cases of huge uint64 numbers, you need 2 bytes for that. Once you know the encoded length, you can read the rest of the encoded bytes with a single read function.

Another thing, unless you are running on a modern AMD64 CPU which supports PDEP/PEXT instructions (parts of BMI2 ISA extension), it’s expensive to split/merge the input bits to/from these groups of 7 bits in every encoded byte. MKV variable integers don’t do that, they only need bit scan and byte swap, both instructions are available on all modern mainstream processors including ARM and are very cheap.
by bentt | 2025-07-28 13:28:04+00:00
This is a little bit folly IMO. A mouse and keyboard provide a less fatiguing and more precise mechanism for the type of 3D that Blender can do. What I imagine they will find is that the act of "tabletizing" Blender will force it to simplify its workflows. You can already see it in the screens. This will downgrade the power that Blender has, confuse the existing users, and generally serve nobody best.

If they insist on doing it, it would be a good idea to rebrand it so expectations are in line with what a tablet interface enables/prevents.

It's like saying "People with their mouths full of food couldn't perform Shakespeare so we translated Hamlet to a maximum of 2 syllable words. Now everyone can perform Shakespeare."
by kylebenzle | 2025-07-28 13:28:08+00:00
It took nearly a whole generation for young men to see what was going on but I think a lot of figured it out!

I know I'm doing my part to tell every young man I know to not have kids in the state of Ohio until they fix this evil and broken system.

My son has told me something similar, that he would never get married or have kids just because he's seen how stupid this whole thing is but I'm sure there's a lot like him :-(
OpenAI has once again set a new VC benchmark
by oxsatsuma | 2025-07-28 13:28:12+00:00
In yet another record-breaking round, OpenAI has once again set a new VC benchmark!

Sam Altman and OpenAI have opened a new $40B fundraising round, led by SoftBank, bringing the company’s valuation to $300B — nearly doubling in under six months, making it the highest-valued private startup.

“It doesn’t matter if we burn $500M a year, or $5B, or even $50B… as long as we’re on track to create far more value for society, it’s worth it.” — Sam Altman

Key stats about OpenAI:

Raised $10B so far in this round ($7.5B from SoftBank, $2.5B from others)

If restructuring is completed by year-end, the total round will reach $40B

Total fundraising to date: $63B+

Weekly active users: 400–500M

Daily messages processed: 2.5B+

2024 revenue: ~$3.7B; 2025 forecast: $12–13B

Annual burn rate: Could reach $46–50B in coming years; profitability expected around 2029

OpenAI isn’t just leading in AI innovation—it’s breaking fundraising records too. With explosive user growth, massive revenue projections, and the backing of top global investors, Altman and his team seem determined to burn whatever it takes—as long as they can build the future
by watwut | 2025-07-28 13:28:27+00:00
> And you don't think understanding how people delude themselves is good to 1) convince them 2) not fall prone to the same traps?

I think that if you project wrong motivations on them, you wont understand how they "deluded" themselves nor prevent yourself to fall for the same trap. If their motivation is "scientists are liberals and I want to hurt them" or "I want actually Christian conservative religious state and these institutions are threat to that goal", no amount of theorizing about money saving will get you to the understanding.

If you want to start with understanding someone's motivation, you can not start by projecting best most palatable motivations on them. Nor should you start be projecting worst ones ... but that is NOT where we are or were for years.

For years, conservatives and especially Trump had best possible motivations projected on them. And it only served to their benefit. The whole center ended up not believing their goals, even as they stated or wrote about them regularly. The whole center was busy policing those who actually listened to conservatives and very accurately predicted what they will do. Again and again.

> Personally I want to fix things, not pick random needless fights. I want to stop chaos, not create more.

You are not stopping the chaos by making what is going on more palatable by sane washing it. It just empowers the chaos.

> Picking fights is just what Trump wants you to do

No, Trump want us all to act like republicans do. Never argue with him, enable enable enable. Praise him and kiss his behind.
by NutriPal | 2025-07-28 13:28:29+00:00
Hi,

I’m Pablo Tapias Cantos, originally from Spain and now building NutriPal, an AI-powered nutrition app designed for regular people who want to better understand what they eat, without obsessing over calories or macros.

This started out of personal frustration. Most nutrition apps on the market today are either:

1. Designed for athletes and bodybuilders, or 2. Only support English and assume a very Western food system, or 3. Require obsessive logging habits that don’t scale for daily life.

When I started tracking my food, I noticed these tools either focused entirely on calories/macros or offered a very narrow database of foods, mostly American or UK-based brands. I just wanted to understand what I was eating, make small improvements, and set goals I could actually stick to, but nothing felt approachable, especially in Spanish or for my family and friends.

So I built NutriPal.

NutriPal uses your phone’s camera to scan your meals, just like some existing apps, but goes beyond just showing macros. It learns your goals and habits, offers realistic suggestions, and sets personalized weekly targets (think: increase fi bre, reduce added sugar, swap this ingredient for a better alternative, etc.). It’s not just about “logging,” it’s about becoming more aware of what you eat and building better food habits gradually.

Some technical notes:

● It uses image recognition + barcode scanning to estimate volume and macro breakdown ● We integrated a localized food database, so it's usable in Spain and other non-English countries out of the box ● The app recommends manageable weekly improvements, not aggressive calorie cuts ● It also avoids gamifying streaks or shaming users (something that turns many people off nutrition apps)

We’re currently in beta (on both iOS and Android) and onboarding early users to improve the experience before launching widely.

I’d love feedback from the community, especially on:

● How to better design food tracking tools for normal, busy users ● Balancing tech accuracy with user trust ● Making nutrition more accessible across cultures/languages

Thanks for reading, and happy to answer any questions.

– Pablo
by spacebanana7 | 2025-07-28 13:28:35+00:00
Only a small minority of immigrants to the UK come through the skilled visa pathway, even if the health & social care visa numbers were added.

See figure 1.3a - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migration-advisor...

Note that to the best of my knowledge, these numbers don't include the Afghan resettlement scheme which would further lower the proportion of employment driven visas.
by cesarb | 2025-07-28 13:28:52+00:00
> > Adding cpu instructions is something that you can't physically do

> You can physically do it with a microcode update.

Do these ARM CPUs even have microcode? Unlike on x86 CPUs where there are some very complex instructions which have to be microcoded, on ARM all instructions are simple enough that their decoding into micro-operations can be completely hard-coded in the decoder logic.
by kllrnohj | 2025-07-28 13:28:59+00:00
> Microkernel vs monolithic kernel is more of a marketing rhetoric than technical differences.

It's not, they have meanings and they can't just make up something different and pretend it's a microkernel when it isn't. That doesn't make it bad, it's just not what they are claiming. It also obviously isn't IPC, despite their continued use of the term throughout.

Also their isolation says it's ARM Watchpoint which is a debugger support? Maybe they are trapping unexpected address writes, but that isn't doing much for restricting privileges. It also lists Intel PKS, which Linux already supports/uses as well...
by 9rx | 2025-07-28 13:29:04+00:00
What is not factored into the above is how much is going to be grown anyway. Corn yield in particular can quickly surprise you. Even if you try to only grow enough for food, there will be years where you still have way more than you can handle.

That is why we started producing corn-based ethanol. It wasn't intended to see people grow corn for it, but rather clean up the unmanageable excesses realized in the due course of growing it for food-based reasons that otherwise would have been left out to rot. In that vein, J is insignificant as it is spent either way.

The problem is that humans aren't very good at moderation. A little ethanol production is quite sensible, but once humans get it into their head something might be sensible in small doses they have to take it to a ridiculous extreme... You see that in everything.
by lucumo | 2025-07-28 13:29:15+00:00
> it's the kind of rapid progress at all costs, bundled with lack of care who gets left behind by it

As opposed to the status quo at all costs, bundled with a lack of care for who gets to stay in the gutter?

They were just another special interest group that wanted to keep more of the pie for themselves, at the expense of people poorer than them. And they used violence to try to achieve that.
by kypro | 2025-07-28 13:29:27+00:00
> just mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up

This significantly underplays the situation here. The UK state views "anti-migrant" views as extreme: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/07/26/elite-police...

In the UK attending a protest against putting illegal immigrants from Afghanistan in a hotel by your kids school is likely to have you on a watch list or arrested. This might not sound that bad to our European friends, but you guys in the US might be quite surprised to hear this.

It's not just "right-wing" positions which are dealt like this either, I should note for legal reasons that I strongly disagree with the actions and views of "Palestine Action", but arrests of peaceful protestors who simply wish to voice support of them as a group (without actually being part of the group themselves) is in my mind absurd. It's one thing to make membership of the group illegal, but to also make debating that judgement illegal is highly problematic in my mind. For those interested you'll find videos of the police arresting elderly women for terror charges for simply peacefully voicing their opinions on Palestine Action. It's vile.
by mytailorisrich | 2025-07-28 13:29:39+00:00
That's different. Yes, everyone complains about the state of the NHS but the "religion" is that the NHS may not be criticised itself. So it is in a bad state because it does not receive enough money, that's it, nothing else. Any suggestion that the organisation itself might be improved or, god forbid, that patients might pay is indeed usually seen as "blasphemy".
by hrnnnnnn | 2025-07-28 13:29:40+00:00
I haven't played a linear isomorphic keyboard, but I do play guitar with an isomorphic tuning (EADGCF) and I have an Intuitive Instruments Exquis, which is a hex-grid. I feel like melody makes more sense linearly but harmony makes more sense in 2D.

https://dualo.com/en/exquis/
by happymellon | 2025-07-28 13:29:55+00:00
I think its highly relevant when we have people pushing the faulty logic narrative that the UK is China and using CCTV as a measurement for their case.

UK bad because online safety rules, let's ignore US states that already do this.

> Don't mind what we are doing, the UK is worse.

Not defending the UK, but they aren't the first and you dont get the same inflammatory racist language with other countries.
by ljf | 2025-07-28 13:29:59+00:00
I've been using Optimal Recognition Point (ORP) style apps (I use Balto Speed Reader) to comfortably read at 800wpm or more - for fact books and materials I can keep this up for quite some time - though for fiction I find it too fast to parse all the characters and tones of voice (https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Spritz-display-The-Optim... )
by jakemanger | 2025-07-28 13:30:08+00:00
Thanks for sharing! Both the link and the story. As a University student and someone that has here also made a photomosaic app, that is super relatable.

That's good to know about the pricing. It's free for now. Honestly didn't expect this level of interest (there's 307 people on the site right now according to analytics).

With that interest, I may add some plans - potentially for the commercial use in particular
by mosselman | 2025-07-28 13:30:31+00:00
That is crazy and at the same time so Belgian. Belgians have 0 understanding of anything to do with cars. Their roads are horrible, they are horrible drivers, it is crazy.

When I lived in Brussels all traffic lights of intersections would go green at the same time and red at the same time. So lights for pedestrians AND cars in ALL directions. People just can't drive at all, they can only honk their horn. Potholes in the highway are filled with pebbles and sand, etc

My theory is that it has to do with how they learn to drive: It used to be super easy to get a drivers license in Belgium back in the day. Basically you'd just go to the town hall and buy one. They now have a system where you get a special permit to driver with an 'experienced' supervisor. Usually one of your parents for a certain number of months before going to an exam to get your license.

Let's say that a professional driving instructor can get across 80-90% of their knowledge of driving cars to someone. Now imagine how poorly an amateur would do, 50%? 30%? So you learn 30% of someone who learned 30% of someone...

In general though, it just shows how unimportant the average Belgian finds cars or properly learning about driving them and traffic, etc. So maybe the learning how to drive is just a symptom of an overal lack of caring with regards to driving properly. As this strange pay-to-win driving schema also shows.
by Aurornis | 2025-07-28 13:31:35+00:00
> but for normal people from the U.K. or any other country, it’s barely a blip on their radar.

This isn’t true at all. Age verification to use services like Discord in the U.K. is very unusual.

The U.K.’s approach to online speech and freedoms is not shared by many countries.

I don’t understand why you’re trying to reduce this to a normal outcome when it’s not normal at all
by tim333 | 2025-07-28 13:31:57+00:00
>why the UK specifically is taking action

We have a history of trying banning bad stuff. Magna Carta in the 1200s against the right of kings, slavery abolition in the 1800s, now porn being pushed to kids.

I don't think child grooming or hate is particularly bad here but we tend to try to stop that kind of thing. We also had the first modern police force in 1829 and other innovations which have caught on in some other countries.

Some of the US alt right media pushes broken Britain stories because we have some muslim immigrants or something. The majority of the public support the bill https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-poll-finds-7-in-10-ad... I wonder if it's more the US is afraid of the their government that if they say they are promoting online saftey they are really going 1984 on the populace? Here people tend to assume they are in fact promoting what it says on the tin.
by const_cast | 2025-07-28 13:32:10+00:00
Then don't give your kid a smartphone. Even with a safety argument - a regular cell phone does that. The smartphone is just not necessary at a young age.

It's a choice and it comes with consequences. Parents can step up if they so choose - the problem is they don't choose.

If even the exact parents a child don't care, why should I? They've decided it's okay, and it's their kid. I'm inclined to just agree with them and move on.
by sunshine-o | 2025-07-28 13:32:16+00:00
Because they need to put a lid ASAP on internal discourse, so they are rushing any form of digital control.

People do not realise how dangerous the situation is. We are already in the kinetic phase of a world war with conflicts erupting everywhere, any major financial problem will trigger a chain reaction.

Just recently:

- A lot of people don't want to hear this but Trump just wiped the floor with Ursula with the new trade deal. It will collapse the EU economies even more.

- At few days earlier China humiliated the EU just by packing the official delegation in a bus with nobody to welcome them.

- And of course the EU inherited the Ukraine situation and is loosing a major war.

Once a major power find itself in this situation it get challenged from the inside. Individual countries will be tempted to elect Euro skeptic leaders and breakaway from the sinking ship by making deals with Russia, the US or China to save themselves.

The initial idea and force of the EU was "stronger together". But if a succession of strategic moves by its leadership make you weaker then the deal is off.
by vintermann | 2025-07-28 13:33:08+00:00
The first major isomophic keyboard, Jankó's, was allegedly praised by Liszt. But not enough for him to start all over again.

Jankó was a more than competent pianist himself, and had thought about these issues. You can reach everything you can on a normal keyboard and many things you can't, and the multiple ways to play the same tone gives plenty of ways to solve fingering challenges as well. The problem is no one is used to it, and no one wants to start out with it since instruments with the layout are extremely rare.
by hrnnnnnn | 2025-07-28 13:33:09+00:00
On guitar in fourths tuning, you only need to learn each interval and chord shape once, compared to multiple permutations in standard tuning. Not sure how much difference this makes over the long run as another poster pointed out, but for me it made the process seem much less overwhelming and motivated me to start learning how to make my own chord voicings, which is something I wouldn't have done in standard tuning.
by kubb | 2025-07-28 13:33:27+00:00
I think US republicans are going into panic mode because a lot of the people who get punished for this are right wing adjacent, not very bright people, and they misinterpret this as their equivalents in Europe somehow getting suppressed.

So they try the same tactics as they know from home, asserting their rights, conflating separate issues, slippery sloping etc. And they freak out when it doesn’t work.
by theideaofcoffee | 2025-07-28 13:34:01+00:00
People seemed to be brainwashed into thinking that meetings are ... actually necessary. If people can build the Linux kernel without meetings, solely over email, then your $1.99 app, or your project requiring coordinating more than two people can be done the same way. Write it down, debate and argue in text so anyone interested can see what's going on. There's your minutes, your agenda, your invite for future ones right there. Now go back to work (or continue, since you didn't have to leave it in the first place) and stop bothering people.

I would praise any leader that has the courage to call the meeting spade a spade knowing they're just corporate-sanctioned babysitting exercises, myth to be discarded.
by nickdothutton | 2025-07-28 13:35:25+00:00
Politicians have not taken action on a wide spectrum of problems (some of which are crime related, other problems in society below the level of crime) for many decades now. While the economy is good, this doesn't occupy the mind of the public too much, life is OK. Now that the economy is not good, and has not been good since at least 2008, the public has begun to notice these things. The public has even started to notice domestic opinion management (nudge unit, 77th Brigade etc). Passing this sort of "manage the symptom not the cause" legislation has become popular. It's easier to do than deal with the cause, it pushes the actions onto 3rd parties, and superficially it sounds good to the general public. At least for a while. To get an idea of how "off target" the state itself is in managing serious crimes look no further than [1] (warning, pretty grim story, but very typical).

[1]. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg87yvq529o

Edited for typo.
by Phui3ferubus | 2025-07-28 13:36:25+00:00
> All these endless data breaches could be reduced if we fixed the incentives, but that's difficult.

EU fixed the incentives with GPRS and DORA, that was the easy part. In theory company that doesn't follow "secure by design" will end up bankrupt by (revenue dependent) fines. In practice the enforcement is lack luster, courts are lenient and international cases take ages, even if both countries are in EU.
by talkingtab | 2025-07-28 13:36:40+00:00
An alternative: http://imagequilts.com/

The link comes from Edward Tufte's web site.

These are at least related to Edward Tufte. If you scroll to the bottom there is information about installing a Chrome Extension (disclaimer: I do not use Chrome) that will generate an image quilt.

The author of the Extension is given as Adam Schwartz.

[edit: Chrome store link is https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/imagequilts/ceebcpb... ]
by reflexco | 2025-07-28 13:37:28+00:00
I used to be optimistic that way, but if you look somewhere similar developments happened before like China: yes, people adapted to circumvent their regime's oppression, but the laws never changed.

Since surveillance is only a 2nd tier issue in terms of mind share (at best), it's untouched by electoral democracy. And because rulers automatically support more surveillance, there are no mechanisms for positive developments on that side, both in the UK and in China.
by amelius | 2025-07-28 13:38:00+00:00
But humans we can feed ascii, whereas LLMs require token inputs. My original question was about that: why can't we just feed the LLMs ascii, and let it figure out how it wants to encode that internally, __implicitly__? I.e., we just design a network and feed it ascii, as opposed to figuring out an encoding in a separate step and feeding it tokens in that encoding.