MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by Arn_Thor | 2025-07-20 10:57:35+00:00
The parable of boots seems apt here. In the extreme, expensive pair can last for a decade while people who can only afford the cheap pair will have to keep buying a new one every year.

Yes, the fact that any family can afford a new shelving unit is great! But the fact that it’ll last them just a few years is not good; they’ll spend more in the long run
by Pasorrijer | 2025-07-20 10:57:48+00:00
I think you're crossing reliability and availability.

Reliability means 99.9% of the time when I hand something off to someone else it's what they want.

Availability means I'm at my desk and not at the coffee machine.

Humans very much are 99.9% accurate, and my deliverable even comes with a list of things I'm not confident about
by arendtio | 2025-07-20 10:58:40+00:00
I tend to think of LLMs more like 'thinking' than 'knowing'.

I mean, when you give an LLM good input, it seems to have a good chance of creating a good result. However, when you ask an LLM to retrieve facts, it often fails. And when you look at the inner workings of an LLMs that should not surprise us. After all, they are designed to apply logical relationships between input nodes. However, this is more akin to applying broad concepts than recalling detailed facts.

So if you want LLMs to succeed with their task, provide them with the knowledge they need for their task (or at least the tools to obtain the knowledge themself).
by sircastor | 2025-07-20 10:59:20+00:00
This is an incomplete thought, but a friend of mine has this idea around reputation built through a sort-of key signing. You get a key, your friend gets a key, you sign each other's keys. The key can serve as an indicator of trust, or validity that an individual's contributions are meaningful (or something). And if your friend suddenly turns into a corporate shill, you could revoke that trust. And if the people haven't established their own trust with that person, their trust goes when yours does. Transitive trust.

It obviously has some flaws, and could be gamed in the right circumstances, but I think it's an interesting idea.
by forgotusername6 | 2025-07-20 10:59:27+00:00
I owned a Nokia in 2003. The battery lasted a week and they were virtually indestructible. The phone never crashed or reset, the keys were so reliable and well placed that I could text without looking at the screen. The phone did not get slower with age. None of these things can be said about my current smart phone. Granted it does a lot more, but the quality of the things it does do is much worse.
by stinkbeetle | 2025-07-20 10:59:50+00:00
> That’s not really how the world works. Most governments already massively subsidises their agricultural sectors to create some desired eating habits in their population. The market just adjusts prices around those subsidies.

By global average, under 15% of farm revenue is derived from government subsidies. USA is below that, at about 10%. Not sure if I'd call that massive, but that's semantics so it's a little hard to argue against. Does potato agriculture get massive subsidies?

> If all subsidies were removed - in order to avoid the influence of moralising politicians - people would eat a lot more potatoes, and a lot less beef.

The assumptions being that 1. potato farming get relatively much less subsidies as beef (and other meat) farming; 2. cost is such a factor in consumption that price change would cause "a lot" of difference. I don't think either are very safe, and as a general statement it doesn't follow that just reducing agricultural subsidies increases ratio of beef to potato (or meat to vegetable): EU subsidies are much higher than US, but USA eats far more beef per capita.
by zer00eyz | 2025-07-20 10:59:51+00:00
> But given under 0.001% can self-host, I don't see how that can work

The place where the web is still great is where you have to be invested to be a real participant. Everyone can yell about politics in a text box on twiter/FB/reddit/HN or post photos to IG/Dataing site Or videos to twitch/YouTube.

If you can host something, even for a small number of people your one of the rare few. If your "into" something where there is a focused community then your back into one of those 1% pools where people vibe and participate.

To make an analogy of it: The web is now a tourist town. Everyone is interested in making money off the visitors with the flashy lights and signs luring them into the over priced tourist traps. The locals, the natives, the REAL .01% know where the cheap places with great food and local flavor are.
by mmcconnell1618 | 2025-07-20 11:00:05+00:00
I just read Technofeudalism by Yanis Varoufakis which has an interesting perspective that "cloud capitalism" is replacing traditional capitalism and competition. A few players are assembling their own fiefdoms inside dominant web/mobile platforms. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/751443/technofeudal...

The internet doesn't have a clear, simple, micro-payment system that would allow people to reward value, so instead we have an attention based system where the number of likes and followers grants social status and financial opportunity.
by imtringued | 2025-07-20 11:00:09+00:00
Eugenics has always been a technological problem, not an ideological one.

If there was a cheap and cost effective way to edit your genes as an adult in a 100% safe way, then everyone would be doing it.

The reason why eugenics has a bad reputation is that there are incredibly low tech solutions that require an authoritarian surveillance state and such states have indeed existed and abused their powers in the past. I'm talking about forced sterilisation.

The first problem with these low tech approaches is that their models suck and aren't founded by actual genetics research. E.g. fascists defining their own ethnic group as superior over other ethnic groups.

The second problem is that they didn't just think that they were helping the people born through eugenics avoid diseases or become better people, they were thinking that people with the wrong genes shouldn't procreate or exist at all, because they are a waste of resources and therefore should be killed even if they somehow manage to deal with their complications.

But if we take a step back and start off with a higher level of technology and scientific progress, these concerns turn out to be meaningless.

If there is a gene that objectively causes a disease or harm and it can be identified reliably, then having children with that disease becomes morally questionable. This means some people are prevented from having children that they would otherwise want. However, if there is a technology that allows people to have children without the disease, then suddenly the opposite happens. It becomes a moral imperative to give them access to the treatment so that they can have children. In the extreme limit, no matter how bigoted an eugenicist is, he must always allow even the most "inferior" people (in his eyes) to have children and procreate. The discriminatory part of eugenics collapses into itself as if it never existed.

This then leaves the actual problems with eugenics: lack of genetic diversity and unforeseen consequences of unrestricted gene editing.

The solution to this problem would be to never implement precise genetic editing in the first place. Instead, whole chromosomes should be swapped out. This will increase genetic diversity by allowing a single child to have the combined genes of multiple fathers and mothers.
by Iryna77 | 2025-07-20 11:01:14+00:00
When opening this I didn’t expect such an advanced level of insect infestation described in the library, so the entire collection is classified as infected and must be treated all at the same time. They have to remove about 100,000 handbound books and i guess bc of the age of some of these books the best treatment is oxygen deprivation but “the abbey hopes all the beetles will be destroyed” after 6 weeks is not a promising statement
by zkmon | 2025-07-20 11:02:55+00:00
I live in a developed country. People buy a new home here, and find the kitchen counter top surface bulges up easily when a hot plate is placed on it. Turns out that the surface is a laminate that is not heat resistant.

Family business houses used to invest in long-term success through brand, reputation and durability. Startups or hired CEOs focus on short-term goals and invest in creating superficial perceptions that can help the sale.
by leentee | 2025-07-20 11:03:29+00:00
First, I think the article provides false claim, the solution doesn't guarantee durability. Second, I believe good synchronous code is better than bad asynchronous code, and it's way easier to write good synchronous code than asynchronous code, especially with io_uring. Modern NVMe are fast, even with synchronous IO, enough for most applications. Before thinking about asynchronous, make sure your application use synchronous IO well.
by cantor_S_drug | 2025-07-20 11:03:46+00:00
That is uniquely american or first world experience. I won't comment on the mechanisms of wealth transfer from rest of the world to first world. The rest of the world has been very hardworking and trying to make it one day at a time. Here's an example.

A Day in Life of Africa’s Wooden Scooter Crew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzL3vZ6jDSk
by jstummbillig | 2025-07-20 11:05:19+00:00
> Cars are becoming prohibitively expensive.

Adjusted for inflation, car prices are actually lower now than decades ago, especially factoring in huge safety and tech improvements. Entry-level models remain affordable, while buyers voluntarily pay more for SUVs and tech-heavy EVs.

> Housing is becoming a luxury.

Rising housing prices are mostly driven by land scarcity and zoning. The actual cost per square meter of construction (build quality) has improved and remains stable.

> Even consumer products are becoming increasingly expensive.

Nope. Electronics, clothing, and appliances have become dramatically cheaper. Quality-adjusted prices for TVs and computers have plummeted.

> Safety largely improved but not craftsmanship.

Craftsmanship is alive and well, if you are willing to pay for it. Which most consumers are not; they prefer being able to afford more things at lower prices and quicker tech cycles.
by justlikereddit | 2025-07-20 11:05:47+00:00
No one ever looks at taxes and says

"hey guys between income tax, and VAT and other goods taxes we literally take more than 50% of the money that the entire lower and middle class is earning! This should be more than enough by a factor of two at the least to run our shitty bureaucracy and public services"

Nope it's always

"Who can we tax more? How to we steal more money for our shitty novelty projects and ideological madness"

Anyone resource strong enough to leave, that usually is the upper class, will eventually do so. Leaving even more predatory taxation pressure against the lower social strata
by rambambram | 2025-07-20 11:05:48+00:00
> Anyway this article is about AI replacing web search, not "killing the web"

Indeed, exaggerating title. But we all have to get the idea the web is really dying, so we give up working on it. We have to get that idea because the genie of the web is already out of the bottle for 30+ years. That stuff is going nowhere. The open web is a hindrance for big businesses. Big business wants to keep internet infrastructure to push apps, AI and what not, but does not want to keep the open web.
by bitlax | 2025-07-20 11:05:51+00:00
> I like your reasoning here.

Obviously not since you can't follow it.

> Seeing as most people on the internet are from Maryland, assuming that every poster has an opinion about Baltimore is both logical and useful for conversation.

I accounted for ignorance in my first sentence, and your conclusion doesn't even follow from your bad interpretation of my logic.

Baltimore has many problems and I can't do the history justice here. I'm not interested in writing a thoughtful essay from which someone cherry-picks a sentence, and I said as much in my second sentence. This isn't the SAT; the facts aren't all contained in the prompt. If someone is coming to this from a place of total ignorance, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, I think the best thing this person can do is simply read about Baltimore.

Baltimore isn't just something people from Maryland know about. It's a tragic national disgrace. Real suffering has been inflicted on the current and former residents of Charm City. In many ways they've caused their own suffering. There's a conversation that's worth having, and I'm willing to have it.

> One time I saw somebody post that they’d never been to that city so I assume that they were workshopping a character for an outlandish piece of speculative fiction.

If only OP's goals were that interesting.
by FerkiHN | 2025-07-20 11:06:03+00:00
Fair point! XID targets niche scenarios where its properties shine: 1. Resource-constrained environments (IoT/embedded) where UUIDs are too heavy 2. Offline systems needing collision resistance without coordination 3. Debuggability - timestamp extraction avoids DB lookups for audit trails 4. Zero-dependency projects (OS kernels, bootloaders, firmware)

It’s not for every use case, but fills gaps where UUIDv4/Snowflake can’t go. Curious what specific problems you’re solving where it feels less useful?
by nerdsniper | 2025-07-20 11:06:49+00:00
The study used a concentration of 6mM erythritol. This would be the mean (“bulk”) concentration found in the body after drinking 2-3 erythritol-sweetened soft drinks. I can find several with 10+ grams of it per bottle/can.

Erythritol Concentration: 6 mM (0.006 mol/L)

Molar Mass of Erythritol: 122.12 g/mol

Water in human body: 42 Liters

Calculated Total Mass: 30.77 grams (0.006 * 122.12 * 42)
by disintegrator | 2025-07-20 11:07:52+00:00
I know this won’t apply to everyone but I’ve been able to, relatively successfully, stick to the constraint that most of my dev tools are static binaries: zoxide, fzf, eza, btop and so on. There is one glaring exception which is docker but I let it pass.

By sticking to this I’m able to avoid Homebrew’s mess and Nix’s complexity. I use mise (https://mise.jdx.dev/) to manage the binaries and languages I have on my machine. It handles installing multiple versions and is directory-aware.
by weinzierl | 2025-07-20 11:08:11+00:00
According to the Kano model what is perceived as quality changes over time for a product category.

Ten years ago your phone reliably connecting to WiFi was a "Delighter" over the course of time it turned over a "Want" into a "Must Have".

I'd say empirical evidence of quality is strongest in the "Want" phase but if something is considered a given and ubiquitously fulfilled, can it still function as a strong empirical indicator of quality?
by zozbot234 | 2025-07-20 11:08:26+00:00
> Does this mean that a client could receive a success for a request, which if the system crashed immediately afterwards, when replayed, wouldn’t necessarily have that request recorded?

Yup. OP says "the intent record could just be sitting in a kernel buffer", but then the exact same issue applies to the completion record. So confirmation to the client cannot be issued until the completion record has been written to durable storage. Not really seeing the point of this blogpost.
by aziaziazi | 2025-07-20 11:08:35+00:00
"The entire population" doesn’t want to eat only beef and drink milk, however those are way more subsidized than other food. The real winners are food mega corps and a few rich farmers.

Remove the targeted subsidies and "the entire population" will eat less meat and more peas. Subsidize the peas and not the meat and you’ll see vegans skyrocket.
Show HN: Gix – A small CLI tool that adds AI to Git
by codebyagon | 2025-07-20 11:08:35+00:00
I’ve been working on Gix — a small CLI tool that brings a bit of AI into the Git workflow. Written in Go, cross-platform, and fully local (uses your own OpenAI key).

It helps split large diffs into smaller commits and suggests conventional commit messages. Still early-stage, but usable. Open to feedback, contributions, or a star if you find it helpful.

Repo: https://github.com/ademajagon/gix
by npteljes | 2025-07-20 11:08:58+00:00
The market decides the price, but politics decide the constraints of the market. Agriculture in particular is heavily involved with the government, because agriculture is very risky, and needs large investments. The government already decides what we care about, and is already pretty corrupt because of the "market" powers - the different lobbies - influence it.

A freer market doesn't solve these issues, just exacerbates it. A stronger, more independent, more democratic government would ease these problems.
by _nalply | 2025-07-20 11:09:38+00:00
AI is one sharp tool cutting slices from the old internet. But perpetrators have used different tools from the start: SEO spam, algorithmic feeds, embrace/extend/extinguish, building moats, the attention economy, and many others. AI is just the next newfangled sharp tool.

In other words, I don't think that AI is killing the web.

It's being profit-oriented and running amok in an unleashed way. It's prisoner's dilemma. You know, if you don't do it then someone else will do it and you lose. Enshittification is one consequence. The internet experienced it from the beginning. But only about fifteen years ago companies learnt how to squeeze the last drop out and, like in the tragedy of the commons, everybody is worse off.

And what's the most catastrophic? People are confused. They look at the tools but not at some famous people behind these rampages. Of course as leaders they just optimize the hell out of the internet with the target that their companies thrive. But in doing so they cause heavy damage.
Show HN: Hybrid Knowledge Graph and RAG for Legal Documents (Learning Project)
by srijanshukla18 | 2025-07-20 11:09:38+00:00
Built this as a toy project to understand knowledge graphs by tackling a real problem: traditional RAG fails badly on legal documents because it misses interconnections between sections.

The system actually combines both approaches on every query - gets semantic matches via TF-IDF, retrieves structural relationships from Neo4j, then feeds both contexts to OpenAI for comprehensive answers.

Used the Indian Income Tax Act as test data since legal documents have natural graph structures. Queries like "What sections reference Section 80C?" get both the reference network AND content explanations.

Full transparency: includes some AI-assisted code as I was learning Neo4j/graph concepts, but the hybrid architecture and problem framing are mine.

Tech stack: Python, Neo4j, OpenAI API, scikit-learn (TF-IDF), numpy. Docker + Makefile for easy setup.

Would love feedback on this pattern for other structured documents.
by kovac | 2025-07-20 11:10:22+00:00
I bought my dad a Nokia phone in 2008. A dumb phone, with just texting and calling features. It continues to work to this day, so, 17 years (the markings on the buttons are fully erased now, other than that it works). It outlived him. I don't know how they managed to build stuff like that. I would expect some electronic part to fail sometime along the way.
by imtringued | 2025-07-20 11:10:50+00:00
Yeah, I find it pretty telling that the person arguing against eugenics is in its distilled essence telling me to not reproduce, because I might have an undesirable trait I do not wish my children to inherit.

It's like he managed to be against eugenics, because it's eugenics, but not be against any of the negative consequences that eugenics brought in the past. For me this reeks of someone putting on a facade.
by TrackerFF | 2025-07-20 11:11:31+00:00
At least when it comes to musical instruments, cheap instruments today are astronomically better than the cheap instruments I grew up with - and they are cheaper. The manufacturing process has become so good that what you get for $350 today, is about the same standard as what you'd pay $500-$800 for 30 years ago (which is probably closer to $1000-$1500 today).

As far as clothes go - I the cheap junk back in the day didn't last too long, either. Cheap supermarket jeans would last me maybe 1 season, before something ripped. Granted they probably only cost $20 back then - but the quality isn't too different from the H&M you purchase today for $50.
by homebrewer | 2025-07-20 11:11:44+00:00
Depends on what you consider large; I looked at one of the machines (at random), and it backups about two terabytes of data spread across about a million files. Most of them aren't changing day to day. I ran another backup, and restic rescanned them & created a snapshot in exactly 35 seconds, using ~800 MiB of RAM at peak and about 600 on average.

The files are on HDD, and the machine doesn't have a lot of RAM, looking at high I/O wait times and low CPU load overall, I'm pretty sure the bottleneck is in loading filesystem metadata off disk.

I wouldn't backup billions of files or petabytes of data with either restic or borg; stick to ZFS for anything of this scale.

I don't remember what the initial scan time was (it was many years ago), but it wasn't unreasonable — pretty sure the bottleneck also was in disk I/O.
by bryanrasmussen | 2025-07-20 11:12:22+00:00
I was going to write something like this at one time, only mine would be better because it would make frequent mentions of The Space Merchants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants

>Through advertising, the public is constantly deluded into thinking that the quality of life is improved by all the products placed on the market.
by dvfjsdhgfv | 2025-07-20 11:12:24+00:00
> in a programming environment, you can immediately verify the answer by evaluating the code (at least for code snippets).

Well, it's a trap. You see a snippet is right, you accept it. Next time you do it faster, and faster. And then you get one that seems right but it's not. If you're lucky, it will cause an error.
by rmdashrfv | 2025-07-20 11:12:42+00:00
A bit part of this that people are not understanding is that a major part of the author's success is due to the fact that he clearly does not care at all how anything is implemented, mostly because he doesn't need to.

You get way farther when you have the AI drop in Tailwind templates or Shadcn for you and then just let it use those components. There is so much software outside that web domain though.

A lot of people just stop working on their AI projects because they don't realize how much work it's going to take to get the AI to do exactly what they want in the way that they want, and that it's basically going to be either you accept some sort of randomized variant of what you're thinking of, or you get a thing that doesn't work at all.
by AdrianB1 | 2025-07-20 11:13:21+00:00
Cars are becoming prohibitively expensive because they get more and more stuff included. I owned cars in the 90's and cars from 2015, the newer one came in the basic trim with stuff that adds to complexity and cost, from AC and electric windows to dozen aibags, sensors and driving aids.

For housing, there are 2 things that happened: regulations made houses more expensive to build (I personally built 3 houses in the past 35 years, I saw the increase in cost) and second thing is house prices are totally disconnected to cost, my current home is evaluated (for tax purpose) about 3 times the real cost to build it. Except the buyers, everyone is happy to have a huge increase in housing cost, builders make more money, local governments raise more taxes, buyers are screwed from all sides and not many people go build their own, even if it many places is still possible (I currently planning to build a house for some friends).

But in a way building a house is cheaper: tools, technology and new materials make it faster and cheaper to build. It should make houses more affordable, if the other factors would not completely eat this saving.