MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by jackdoe | 2025-07-11 16:41:40+00:00
Yes!

I am using old nokia phone for 3 months now, I am not going back to my iphone. (means no whatsapp, banking, uber, reddit, hn, whatever)

It took almost 1 week to get rid of the cravings "I am slightly bored, I *MUST* look at my phone"

Now, I am just bored, I had forgotten how nice it is to be bored, I just stare at things, poke something with a stick, look for patterns, ask questions, have ideas.. etc; when I have a meeting and the other person doesn't show up on time, I just watch the world and wait.

I also noticed I can watch movies properly, I have more patience, I dont look at my phone at the first "less exciting" moment. It is really nice especially for things like Star Trek where they have not algorithmically optimized every frame to keep you engaged because they were not competing with instagram for your attention.

I even bought a walkman. When the song is not very good, I just wait it out. Very quickly I got my sense of time back, just after few days I can measure time in 'songs' or 'cassette sides'.

I have also blocked all socials except hn on my local pihole.

If you survive the first week of cravings after that it gets nicer every day!

Some people say I am doing those things because of "nostalgia" but this is incorrect, I just want to be able to be bored.
I don't think LLM's are making us stupider
by monarchwadia | 2025-07-11 16:41:43+00:00
I think it's not that developers' skills are getting rusty with LLMs. It's that we're interpreting our code less linearly, and more spatially.

Code has two aspects, tree-like and web-like:

* In its tree-like aspect, code is seen like an express train on rails: full of branching pathways. Forks on the highway and roads not taken. Extremely technical and complex. This is more of an 'algorithmic' view.

* In its web-like aspect, code is seen like a city: diverse places of interest that have grown unevenly across your project. Those spaces can be zoned in different ways: low-rise commercial, high-density industrial. This is more of an 'architectural' view.

With LLMs, I'm interpreting my code less and less like a tree... and more and more like a web. It's less about the branching logic now, and more about the places and spaces. The LLM takes care of the algorithmic details, while I can do the higher-level urban planning.
by nick__m | 2025-07-11 16:41:53+00:00
there are plenty of psychedelics legal in Canada, I know of a few chemical suppliers that specialize in this. It's been at least a decade since I last ordered from them, but they are still in bussines.

However you said that your not knowledgeable and I guess that you doesn't have access to a milligrams scale, so your better to stay away and learn the theory first. A lot of psilocybin analog (alpha-MethylTryptamine was one of my favorite and it's still available) from Thikal are still legal in Canada so that book is a good place to start learning.
by dijksterhuis | 2025-07-11 16:42:00+00:00
“just one more”

“after this one i definitely need to stop”

“i can handle another”

“i’m fine, i can go for a bit longer”

“i can stop after this one”

“the next one will make me feel better”

^ the illusion/delusion of being in control. even when all evidence points to the opposite conclusion — that one more i had yesterday, and all the previous days, was never the last one.

when your in this shit it’s basically impossible to think your way out of it because most thoughts become “a drink will solve this” or some such. that right there is the core problem. the thinking process has become completely twisted and warped into “more is the solution”.

the powerlessness is over the compulsion, obsession and delusions in our own minds around <insert X here>.

-

i appreciate HN is often a more technical / scientific / rational / whatever audience who can maybe sometimes value their own thinking as paramount (coding etc. takes a lot of thinking after all). that’s not a bad thing. it just means it’ll be quite an understandably large leap for some folks to understand what it’s like at the bottom of a bottle.

-

edit - i’m not into the whole jeebus thing FYI
by vasusen | 2025-07-11 16:42:34+00:00
I grew up in India and now live in the US. My mom recently got some ground turmeric from our own farm when she visited us. I am was stunned by how much more duller, brownish-yellow it was compared to the turmeric I buy in Indian stores in the US. Those are usually really bright yellows.

Now, I am really scared that even stuff sold in California is probably lead paint tainted turmeric.
by daveguy | 2025-07-11 16:42:35+00:00
I agree with this. I really do not know why in the hell one person or entity owning 500 houses wouldn't pay more in taxes for the 500th house than the 1st house. You pay more income tax on the 500,000th dollar than the first dollar. Land is taxed regressively in favor of oligarchs.

First house is claimed as homestead and gains on sale aren't taxed, but the yearly property tax should work similarly.
by daneel_w | 2025-07-11 16:43:13+00:00
> How do you think it would be electrically connected to the CPU?

On the CPU's PCIe bus. NVMe drives are PCIe devices, designed specifically to facilitate such interfacing.

Edit: Pardon, misread the actual statement you responded to. Of course one shouldn't hook NAND directly to the CPU. I'll leave my response for whatever value the info has.
by potato3732842 | 2025-07-11 16:43:17+00:00
The powers that be keep changing how conspiracy theorists are measured to hide the true rate of conspiracy theorist-flation!!!1!1!1!!

Joking, but also not joking, back in the day a conspiracy theorist was someone who believed that something was explained by a literal conspiracy with literal conspiring going on. Now every Tom, Dick and Harry that thinks a press release isn't telling the whole truth gets to call themselves one. The reason the definition got watered down was for exactly the reason you state, various people found it useful to apply that label much more broadly.
by dkarl | 2025-07-11 16:44:10+00:00
> Keeping them somewhat less accessible tends to filter out people who don't do their homework

I strongly disagree. Your circles might be different, but in my experience, wanting to do your homework makes it less accessible, because it tends to put you at odds with the people who are otherwise eager to grant you access. They want people with a certain mindset and an up-front faith in the process. They want people who aren't careful about ingesting psychoactive substances, are eager to put their mental health in the hands of some guy they barely know, and are going to blame their own baggage or spiritual shortcomings if it doesn't go well.

These drugs, and many others, are already pretty accessible if you are willing to take that heedless approach.

In contrast, the approach described in the article is expressly tailored for people who want to be careful and do their homework. It's for people who have access to the drug and implicitly already have access to cruder ways of using it, but who want to put in extra effort for a more controlled experience.
by IlikeKitties | 2025-07-11 16:44:30+00:00
I think this is arguing semantics at this point but a charitable interpretation could be that one does not have control over the addiction and must therefore abstain from taking a particular substance, the abstinence being within the sphere of control of the individual.

It's the difference between someone who can just drink a beer once in a while and an alcoholic that must abstain completly.
by oschwartz10612 | 2025-07-11 16:44:43+00:00
Pangolin is "public ingress to private networks" and not a mesh VPN/network builder. As you say I think NetBird is an alternative to Tailscale and we are an alternative to Cloudflare tunnels, Ngrok, or Zscaler. It is more about exposing things publicly with authentication in the browser for people to access than about building a network for disparate devices to communicate.
by Majromax | 2025-07-11 16:44:57+00:00
> Here's an idea: treat conspiracy theory as theory, an explanation of a set of facts, rather than as social contagion or pathological disorder. Allow open discussion of all sides of an issue, admit controversial facts, and structure the discussion in such a way that truthfulness and explanatory power rises to the top.

That's well worth doing when evaluating the merits of a potential conspiracy theory for yourself. However, it's not evident that this approach will convince people who incorrectly believe conspiracy theories of their errors.

Eponymous conspiracy theories have a built in 'immune system' to reject logical, scientific argumentation, since most if not all refuting facts can be attributed to the untrustworthy or malicious conspiracy itself.

Ultimately, scientific argumentation depends upon all involved parties having a shared understanding of what observed facts are true or false, and if that agreement is not there then otherwise rational parties can still reach different conclusions with no persuasion possible.

> Sabine Hossenfelder handled "flat earth theory" in a way I found refreshing. She said, "Huh, this is interesting. I appreciate that they aren't afraid to question fundamental assumptions. That is a scientific attitude. But here's why I think they're wrong."

Was this approach persuasive to any 'flat earthers', or was it instead interesting to watch as a 'round earther'?
by ToValueFunfetti | 2025-07-11 16:45:08+00:00
But nobody reads them in the US[1], and many are about celebrities or cryptids or what-have-you rather than current events or private citizens. There's definitely a cultural difference here.

[1] UK has 1/4th of the population of the US but The Sun has 4x the circulation of The New York Post. The Daily Mirror every day puts out 4x the number of papers that The National Enquirer puts out in a week.
by burningChrome | 2025-07-11 16:45:12+00:00
ALex Jones was talking about Epstein during the Clinton years and all these flights powerful people were taking to his island. It was an open secret Epstein had a thing for young women so naturally Jones start inferring that Clinton and others were pedos.

Everybody labeled him a kook at the time, mainly because this was just one of the many outlandish theories he had on the Free Masons and Illuminati.
by disgruntledphd2 | 2025-07-11 16:45:22+00:00
OK, from 2018 so they were even more under-resourced (if that's possible).

Additionally, the Irish DPC got involved from other data authorities, which may have caused delays.

That being said, they were dead wrong not to take on that case, as it was clear violation of GDPR. I actually worked for Meta/Facebook at this point and got drunk and bitched about this exact screen with one of their privacy lawyers. It was total non-compliance and should have been punished much harder.

Note also that the Hamburg DPA is crazy, they kept pushing compliants that were never supported by anyone else. I'm a little annoyed at noyb for not putting their complaints to the appropriate authority, but they appear to have learned better in the intervening years.

> https://archive.ph/20230123014444/https://www.irishtimes.com...

This on the other hand, is a work of opinion by a Berlin correspondent for a pretty poor newspaper. There probably is a bunch of pressure/lobbying on the DPC to avoid massive, massive fines which shouldn't happen but does everywhere.

The conceptual difference here is important. The goal should be to preserve privacy, not fine arbitrary large amounts of money. Like, sometimes you do need to fine people but personally I'd prefer auditing requirements for Meta/Google et al rather than fines.

I'm gonna need to think about this, tbh. I do have a certain amount of sympathy for the Irish DPC given the resourcing constraints and the size of their opponents. I'm not sure where the right balance is, tbh.
by timr | 2025-07-11 16:46:25+00:00
> Anyway, I disagree with you: Japan is still a miracle in terms of the quality and service you get for the money. I saw this many times over.

I assume you mean "relative to other places" here, and in that sense, I agree. Japan is not yet entirely Epcot Center.

> Perhaps not in Kyoto, or in the most touristed areas of Tokyo. Or in whatever random place got featured in some anime, or whatnot.

Right, exactly. Except that I'm seeing this spread like cancer -- which it always does. Sort of like gentrification, the "authenticity seeking tourist" leaves Senso-ji a few blocks, and then before too long Kappabashi is no longer a functioning street of restaurant supply stores (instead becoming a dead zone of "japanese knife" and matcha retailers), and so on.

> But even in Kyoto, go off the beaten path a little, and you will find much to delight you

Yeah, I lived in Kyoto a decade ago, and I say that to my Japanese friends, too. The thing is, even vs. 2-3 years ago, the number of those authentic places is dramatically fewer. People have been complaining about tourism in Kyoto forever, but they're also not wrong.
by os2warpman | 2025-07-11 16:46:32+00:00
According to Amazon my first Lutron switch was delivered on August 18th, 2018 and after testing it (and the bridge) out for a couple of months I switched every single switch in my house to Lutron.

I currently have 20 Lutron devices, including switches, dimmers, lamp dimmers, and pico remotes.

Between August 18th, 2018 and today the number of times my Lutron devices have failed to operate as intended can be counted on zero fingers.

I wish their product line was more expansive but if focus is what it takes to ensure the level of reliability they have, then ok.
by intended | 2025-07-11 16:47:19+00:00
Yes. The left and center media is still traditional media with its broken business model and journalistic norms. They don't always live up to their standards, but that is entirely different from what Fox and the right created since the 1970s.

Politically, they decided to eschew Bipartisanship, primarying anyone who crossed party lines. Along side this came Limbaugh and later Fox, which became clearing houses to "just ask questions". See the success in platforming things like Intelligent Design, or Climate denial, giving them the imprimantur of credibility and authenticity. Republican politicans would then follow up by pointing to the news reports and rumors and stall bills, which would then become fodder for the news cycle, closing the loop.

There COULD have been independent thought and counter forces, but in the end consolidation of networks to stay afloat, and becoming part of the party means this is a pipe dream.

This is the engine that keeps our current doom loop going.
by arp242 | 2025-07-11 16:48:02+00:00
There are degrees of things. It's true that many people have some beliefs that are unconventional, irrational, or even radical, but many also realise at least to some level. There are many religious people who will admit they can't prove any of it.

Similarly, in general people tend to overestimate how much people agree with them, but you can overestimate by a little or by a whole lot.

It's my general observation that many conspiracy theorists are far more sure of "the truth" as they see it than the average person. This is also why so many keep banging on about it in any venue, whether appropriate or not.
by v5v3 | 2025-07-11 16:48:25+00:00
Yes, I read that some scientists believe that the reason women go through menopause and can longer have kids, and also lose their ability to attract male attention (relative to younger) is so they can focus on grand kids

The problem is that human being used to live in family clans, and the western state institutions deliberately pushed the nuclear family as family clans were powerful.

And then as cities became popular for jobs, kids moved away from family.

And presently the parents buy a house and raise kids, but with ever increasing house prices and gentrification many can't afford to then live down the street from their parents.
by Matthias247 | 2025-07-11 16:48:58+00:00
Clarification question:

> When a NOTIFY query is issued during a transaction, it acquires a global lock on the entire database (ref) during the commit phase of the transaction, effectively serializing all commits.

It only serializes commits where NOTIFY was issued as part of the transaction, right? Transactions which did not call NOTIFY should not be affected?
by ViktorRay | 2025-07-11 16:49:10+00:00
Social media was never a wholly cosy or useful place for me, although I was utterly addicted to it for a number of years because "being a journalist" in the 2010s felt synonymous with "being on social media all the time".

Wait what? Is this true? Can anyone familiar with the journalism field chime in here? Because if this is true then it would explain the general deterioration of the media environment we live in.

Hell sometimes I listen to NPR while driving and I here the jounralists talk about random reddit comments and I feel perturbed that browsing reddit would be considered journalism. But being on social media all the time is considered journalism apparently?
by jolmg | 2025-07-11 16:49:24+00:00
> but that doesn't change the meaning of words.

Words can have multiple similar definitions with small variations. If I look up "defamation" I get:

> Defamation is a legal term that refers to any statement made by a person, whether verbal or printed, that causes harm to another person’s reputation or character. --- https://legaldictionary.net/defamation/

> Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions that are falsifiable, and can extend to concepts that are more abstract than reputation – like dignity and honour. --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation
by andrewla | 2025-07-11 16:49:33+00:00
It is an interesting discussion, but I don't see anything in there about how to assess the accuracy of any of the methods against some sort of objective truth. I would have to read the underlying papers I think to get at this, but I don't feel a strong need because I feel like the larger epistemic point is unaddressed in any of the summaries.

The closest I saw was one study that compared the model to a human generated data set, which is just kicking the can down the road. The article semi-concludes

> I think it's quite plausible but not a slam dunk. That said, if the objection is, "valuing land separately from improvements is fundamentally impossible, and we can never get better at it, so we shouldn't try," I think that's plainly ruled out.

I do not agree with this assessment -- you can create a bunch of models and show that the models have good intra-model agreement, but the fundamental point has not been touched.
by NoMoreNicksLeft | 2025-07-11 16:50:08+00:00
>The UK legal system's ability to prosecute and penalize people without anything more than circumstantial evidence makes it unfit for purpose.

This defect is present in all justice systems to some degree or another. For that matter, most crimes (serious or otherwise) rarely have the sort of smoking gun evidence that would satisfy us all that it wasn't circumstantial. Worse still, when the evidence isn't circumstantial, it's still usually testimonial in nature... some witness is on the stand at trial, describing what they saw. Or, perhaps more accurately, misinterpreting what they saw/remember.

The only difference this time around is that they were misinterpreting what their software logic meant.
by intended | 2025-07-11 16:50:49+00:00
Well, what do we do about people who don't read the article? Even if you tell them what is being discussed, they will interject about their pet theory, and insist on having you discuss their PoV.

Discussion about the topic is now hostage to whoever has the least understanding but the most willingness to interject.

At that point, it wouldn't be surprising to find experts leaving the conversation, to form more specialized groups to discuss the topic.

How would you solve this?
by zkmon | 2025-07-11 16:50:53+00:00
You wrote a long blog post. Shows that you are not done yet. Social media is about craving for attention and spending your attention. That's not bad. Getting attention gives a purpose for what you do. Giving attention gives you new exposures. New exposures cause aging, like the scales in the wood. New attention you get, gives you existence. The idea is to grow bigger in existence without much aging.
by SamInTheShell | 2025-07-11 16:51:15+00:00
I think a lot of what you’re pointing this thread towards boils down to philosophical beliefs. Objectively throughout history there have been people resistive to technological advancement and those people have more often than not been the idea losers in history.

I’ll throw you something I believe that we might agree on though. I don’t think the colossus data center Musk setup in Tennessee is good for anyone. Those generators he’s been running are abhorrent and the guy needs realignment of his neurons through some percussive maintenance, but alas that’s probably illegal because he’s too much of a chump to accept a boxing match.
by stego-tech | 2025-07-11 16:51:47+00:00
That’s excellent to hear! Alas, I have not gotten to the point of replacing my iPhone (being in IT means I’ve long been married to a smartphone of some variety), but I’m with you on a lot of the above. For example:

> I also noticed I can watch movies properly, I have more patience, I dont look at my phone at the first "less exciting" moment.

I’ve started leaving my phone in the bedroom when I’m playing games or watching movies in the Living Room. It’s a PITA to extract myself from the sofa to retrieve it, and I find myself far more engrossed leaving it physically in a different space. The eventual goal is to have a designated “phone drop” for folks to drop the device on to charge that’s far away from living and sleeping areas, to further break that habit.

> I even bought a walkman.

Same! I turn off WiFi except for OS updates (it’s one of Sony’s new Android-based Walkmans), and have no streaming apps on it. It’s just my microSD card of music from my NAS, and it’s blissful. I need to use it more, but writing synchronization scripts has been a PITA.

> I just want to be able to be bored.

I’ll confess to using an “herbal” crutch for this of late, because of (diagnosed) OCD making it impossible to pause or stop on my own in most cases. Combined with an outdoor walk, I’ve developed a newfound appreciation for just laying on a bench and watching the clouds and planes go by in the sky, or watching cars on the highway. It’s helped me appreciate humanity more, forcing myself into a sort of bored observation of others instead of constantly rehearsing new work tasks, new project ideas, or new contingency plans.

More people need to be bored.
by nick__m | 2025-07-11 16:52:07+00:00
Aspirin mechanisms is known since the late 1970s, it's a COX inhibitor.

Acetaminophen is the one that still mysterious, there are credible theories but they don't explain everything the substance does. The latest one I know of is that one : https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2413811122
by kelnos | 2025-07-11 16:52:08+00:00
The latter implies that suicide just happened to the person, like they got hit by a bus.

The former correctly attributes the action to the person who killed themselves. Certainly the motivations and causes that drive people to suicide are complex, but ultimately it is a choice the person makes.

"Committed" is perhaps not the best word, since it's associated with crimes (and suicide is not a crime in many places anymore), but it's at least more active.
by JumpCrisscross | 2025-07-11 16:52:10+00:00
Shouldn’t be. Musk was a U.S. SGE and under the material influence of various foreign powers while directly influencing Grok and Twitter. If there is evidence he influenced any of these products against the interests of France in that time, particularly at the behest or in the interest of the U.S. or one of those foreign powers, the charges should stick.