MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by KempyKolibri | 2025-08-19 07:25:40+00:00
I think the world would be a better place if everyone went vegan.

However, I’m not convinced that vegan activism via pointing out that many people’s behaviours are at odds with their stated ethical preferences is particularly effective.

I suspect this is because many vegan activists make the assumption that people have ethical preferences which then drive their behaviour. For many (most?) people, though, I think they act the way that feels good to them and then come up with justifications for it post-hoc, even if those justifications are illogical.

As such, I live in hope that lab-grown meat will be tasty and cheap enough that people switch across and stop consuming animal products, which will give humanity the space to look back and see the abhorrent nature of animal agriculture for what it is and ban it outright.

With any luck, we’ll view our current generation’s treatment of animals with the same confusion we feel when we consider our forebears’ tolerance of slavery.

Bring on the cultured salmon!
by Nextgrid | 2025-08-19 07:26:06+00:00
The Swiss public transport ticketing system. Their app uses location services to automatically determine your fare, so you don’t need to buy tickets in advance: https://www.sbb.ch/en/travel-information/apps/sbb-mobile/eas....

As a bonus there are no ticket barriers so no queues and no overheads of maintaining those machines.
by grues-dinner | 2025-08-19 07:28:19+00:00
The original idle clicker. With modern materials, vacuum pumps, and magnetic bearings for the mechanics and lithography for the writing, we can pump those numbers up!

All silent in the monastery except for the ultrasonic whine of thousands of prayer turbines.

Prayer ring gyros, encoding the prayers into ultra-fast laser pulses going round millions of turns of optic fibre may be a competing technology.
by sergiolema | 2025-08-19 07:29:31+00:00
Database migrations are a core part of modern application development. Without them, managing schema changes across different environments becomes a chaotic, error-prone mess. For years, I've been juggling between Flyway and Liquibase depending on the expertise of the developers.

If you’ve ever had to choose between them, you know it's not always a simple decision. Each tool has a different philosophy, and what works for one project might be a terrible fit for another. I've used both extensively, and this post is my take on the key differences, helping you figure out which one deserves a spot in your tech stack.
by dragonwriter | 2025-08-19 07:29:32+00:00
> But you agree this must be much better than random?

Well, no, without a definition of what domain it is supposed to be better in, and what the actual alternative it is being compared to more concretely than "random" (irreligious humans don't behave randomly, and, in fact, even without religion preserve traditions, some of which are useful), and probably some argument to make the case, no, I'm not going to agree with that.

> You definitely don't have to understand "how it works" to be able to make good predictions.

You have to actually make predictions to make predictions, certainly. And religion is manifestly very bad at making predictions where it does make them, and the things you are talking about are very much not predictions, they are memes in the original sense.
by lordofgibbons | 2025-08-19 07:30:01+00:00
> I think the world would be a better place if everyone went vegan.

Strongly disagree. I absolutely hate that animals have to be killed for us to eat meat. And the industrial scale cruelty of factory farming gives me existential dread. But I have yet to see a healthy looking vegan person.

I've lived in a couple of very liberal cities with vegans, and every single one I met looked... just sick and unhealthy.

But I think we're on the same page w.r.t the best end-goal. I can't wait for cultured meats so we can stop inflicting so much cruelty on farm animals.
by 0xbadcafebee | 2025-08-19 07:30:26+00:00
I have fond memories of CS, but I have more memories of the cheats making it miserable to play. Perhaps it was a good thing, as it drove me to find more mods and alternative games. Q3:RA and Q3:UT became my happy place, as well as DoD and others. I played newer games but they never felt as fun.
by agent327 | 2025-08-19 07:32:22+00:00
Same here. Three days of absolute hell. Even a single blue led was too much to bear. And like you I now need reading glasses, but I don't really care: I can see well enough in the distance, I'm not visually crippled throughout the day without my glasses.

I used to have dry eyes afterwards for quite some time (years) as well, but that seems to have gone away at some point.
Show HN: HackCubes- (AI-Tutor for CyberSecurity)
by devansh3008 | 2025-08-19 07:33:06+00:00
We’re experimenting with a different way to learn cybersecurity.

Instead of traditional courses, HackCubes focuses on hands-on hacking challenges.

What we’re really excited about: the idea of an AI tutor for hacking — something that doesn’t just give answers, but helps guide your thought process when you’re stuck, personalizes challenges, and maybe even suggests new ways to learn.

Right now, we’re bootstrapping this by starting with a certification exam to keep things sustainable. But the long-term vision is the AI tutor.

Would love feedback from the HN community:

Are you interested in using an AI tutor for learning hacking/cybersecurity? What kind of problems or features would you want it to solve for you?
by fuzzfactor | 2025-08-19 07:33:12+00:00
These look like the fonts from the IBM Selectric with the changeable typeballs.

When you needed a greek letter you had to stop there, change typeballs, type the greek letter, then put the regular typeball back on.

On the equations the big stuff would be drawn in by hand from stencils.

On a diagram it could be a mechanical (assisted) drawing that was labeled by typing the same font size, like sketch (a).

When you get to sketch (b) though, this one is a reduced photocopy of the original page that was typed on when labeling the mechanical drawing to begin with.

You can see the way that all of the equations and illustrations could very well be place-held in the text draft until a perfect equation or diagram could then be added later by cutting the proper size horizontal strip of paper containing the original drawing, and "pasting" it over the blank spot in the text where the figure goes. Before photocopying to arrive at the priceless original like this where you couldn't always tell where it was cut-and-pasted.

The Fortran printouts from the IBM line printer look like they could be pasted in both at full-size and photoreduced, on one page at page 20.

But a good typist could avoid that for most equations, they could blaze through the text but when an equation came up it took more time to get one equation right than to type many more pages of text.

As can be seen, it was obviously worth it :)
by map12345678 | 2025-08-19 07:34:10+00:00
1. Does the startup have a clear product strategy?

→ currently has a strategy of "quickly creating multiple SaaS products and seeing the market response." In other words, rather than a single large product, we are moving towards quickly releasing small MVPs and focusing on items that survive. So, strategically, it's more like an "idea experimentation portfolio".

2. What are the criteria for success? (Non-sales indicators)

→ I like to put paid conversion rates, user return rates, and the strength of feedback as the most important metrics.

I think the key success signal is whether there are users who pay money or actively give feedback rather than simply the number of subscribers.

Therefore, we want to define the initial success criteria as "getting the first 50 paying users".

3. What are the key questions you actually want to ask?

→ "What method/framework can a startup lead developer use to efficiently discover market needs and design idea testing experiments at the lowest cost?" In other words, prioritizing ideas → learning with metrics → low-cost validation → wondering how this cycle operates.

4. Does this depend on product strategy/go-to-market/industry?

→ right. I know that too, so to refine my case:

Industry: SaaS (developer tools, creator tools, small team collaboration tools are more of a priority)

Goto Market: Focused on global online communities/markets such as Product Hunt, Reddit, Twitter, and Gumroad

Product strategy: Create small tools quickly and expand them if they → respond, or retire them

In other words, from the perspective of a single founder/small startup,

How to discover needs,

What to experiment with first,

What are the criteria for quickly admitting failure? I would like to know this part specifically.

So to summarize my "real question": "When a solo SaaS founder uses channels like Product Hunt/Developer Community as their main GTM, what is the most practical method/checklist to find market needs and validate ideas?"
Ask HN: Dexcom Follow invitation expired or used b/c app store location
by stacktrust | 2025-08-19 07:34:33+00:00
Attempting to share glucose sensor data across country borders, via the Dexcom Follow app, yields an opaque error message to the recipient: "This invitation expired or was already used. Ask your Sharer to invite you again."

From https://www.reddit.com/r/dexcom/comments/1dhxnv9/comment/l90jytv/

"The CGM and Follow app have to both point to the same server region. The CGM data is stored in one of three regions, depending on where you live. USA customers have their data stored in the USA, Japanese and Singaporean customers have their data stored in Japan. Everybody else has their data stored in the EU, which should include Australia.. That’s why the invitation fails — it only exists in the region with your data."

The Dexcom sensor data collector app requires device geo-location permission when the app is installed, which is used to set country language and apparently the sensor data storage location.

The Dexcom Follow app appears to be using the device's app store country code as access control for sensor health data, which makes it impossible to share sensor data between US and non-US customers.

Is this data separation a regulatory requirement of some countries?
by troupo | 2025-08-19 07:37:35+00:00
> I do agree that youtube has made it much easier to self-promote

And Spotify. And Apple Music, to an extent. And even SoundCloud.

> They helped struggling musicians survive, giving them a chance to make it,

Survivorship bias. You're completely ignoring the artists that never got the attention of distributors, or got immediately dropped, or dropped after the first disappointing (by studio standards) sales, or screwed out of revenue and royalties, or...

Or those who never got a chance at all because Sony or Warner paid radio stations to promote who they wanted to promote: https://www.npr.org/2005/11/23/5024411/warner-agrees-to-sett...

> Labels still do this today, but it's just the number of opportunities for musicians is smaller.

Labels still do this to the same extent as before. They spend about as much money and, percentage wise, keep as much money as before. It's even easier for them because a whole layer of physically printing and distributing media (tapes and CDs) is gone.

And the number of opportunities for artists increased, but became more complex.

In 2012 an otherwise unknown outside South Korea artist reached a billion views on Youtube resulting in worldwide tours. Now there are millions of unknowns on the same platforms. It's never been easier to promote your art, and it's never been more complex because there are so many others.
by susam | 2025-08-19 07:37:35+00:00
Hello! I wrote this simple prime number grid visualiser last night, just for fun. It is inspired by the "Show HN" post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44888548 that I stumbled upon a few days ago.

My tool uses the Miller-Rabin primality test with prime bases drawn from https://oeis.org/A014233 to determine whether a number is prime. This allows it to handle numbers up to 3317044064679887385961980.

For example, https://susam.net/primegrid.html#3317044064679887385961781-2... shows the upper limit of the numbers this tool can check. The three circles displayed there represent the following prime numbers:

3317044064679887385961783 3317044064679887385961801 3317044064679887385961813

I hope this is fun for you too!
by map12345678 | 2025-08-19 07:38:28+00:00
Thank you for clearly organizing the good criteria.

In particular, I strongly agree with the statement that "Talk to real people who might have the problem you are solving". As a solo founder, I usually rely on online communities or analytics metrics when experimenting with SaaS ideas, but as you said, such a method can give false confidence. In the future, I think we should prioritize meeting potential customers directly from the early stages to identify and verify problems.

Also, the perspective of *"without competition, there is no market" is also impressive. I thought that small SaaS tools had no chance because the competition was too fierce, but after listening to them, I think it would be right to filter based on whether I can provide 10 times the value in the competition.

Additional Questions

Any advice would be appreciated:

Meet people – If I don't have a network at all in a particular industry, how do I find and contact the "first 10" people who have real problems? Which approach do you recommend: cold outreach, industry meetups, or leveraging existing communities?

10x value – How do you define and validate "10x value" in a SaaS tool market where there are already many competitors? There are many ways to differentiate features, price, user experience, and focus on specific segments, but I am curious about what early founders should pay special attention to.
Show HN: Awaken – A nofap tracker with video checkins and community
by Jasperio | 2025-08-19 07:38:41+00:00
I built Awaken, a habit tracker focused on nofap.

Features include: •Calendar-based daily logging (status, journal, video check-ins) •Progress charts & challenges •Community feed with comments/likes •Optional member content: meditation, Taoist/TCM practices, daily audio It’s still an MVP, but fully usable. I’d love your feedback to improve it. awakenhub.org
by PokerFacowaty | 2025-08-19 07:38:55+00:00
> In these situations a good manager is what makes the difference; some will fold to the pressure in the hopes that being a "team player" will get them brownie points from leadership (it wont), and some will stick up for their team out of decency and hoping it will get them brownie points from their colleagues (it will).

One of the dimensions I judge my managers on is the "I screwed up, what now?" factor. A good manager will be the shield between me and the higher-ups and will meet with me to discuss the issue to understand it better. A bad one will tell me everyone including them is angry at me. So far I've been lucky to mostly have seen the former.
by brna-2 | 2025-08-19 07:38:55+00:00
Still not to bad, don't scare people off. Here are some comparisons of cost of living - to Vienna, but you can choose what to compare.

For example living in Split is cca 26% cheaper than Vienna.

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
by exasperaited | 2025-08-19 07:39:19+00:00
It’s actually a terrible toxic idea that guarantees that anywhere beloved, prized, peaceful or beautiful becomes unaffordable as international jet setting tech people nurse a single cappuccino with their laptops in family-run cafés all around the world while driving up the price of property.

The only way a country should approach digital nomads is to charge them massive flat fees and change the law to allow local planners to zone them out of most accommodation.
by KempyKolibri | 2025-08-19 07:39:29+00:00
Eh, I think there are several reasons to favour the empirics we have on the subject over anecdotal experiences, which are going to be coloured by problematic biases (toupee fallacy, etc).

When we look at the data on the subject, both in terms of shorter term RCTs looking at biomarkers and longer term observational data, vegan diets seem non-inferior to the other top-tier dietary patterns we see for lifespan and healthspan (med, lacto-ovo vegetarian etc).

That said, I’m sympathetic to the view that with currently available foods one does have to be more mindful of diet than when on an omni diet - I think that’s true. But when an omni dieter looks unhealthy we just say “that guy looks rough” and when we see a vegan who looks unhealthy we say “vegan diets make you look rough”.
by mschuster91 | 2025-08-19 07:42:45+00:00
> I really doubt the classification of "data centers and other large, non-critical power consumers" extends to telecom infrastructure.

That's the point. Okay, cool, the datacenter is highly available, multiple power and data feeds, 24/7/365. But that highly available datacenter is useless when it cannot be reached because its data feed elements or the clients don't have power.
by rafaelmn | 2025-08-19 07:42:51+00:00
Depends on what you are looking at - but yes. Wages also rose considerably, below inflation, but still I think thats the same story as everywhere else.

I think the main difference is that (in my opinion) Croatia used to be unbeatable for the price/quality of life ratio, nowadays it's probably slightly overpriced, but depends on what you value.
by internet_points | 2025-08-19 07:43:40+00:00
OMG thank you, unhook solves my biggest issue with youtube: whenever I would click pause to look closely at a slide, there's a bunch of huge recommendations that block the screen (I mean what kind of depraved mind comes up with something as user-unfriendly as that "oh you wanted to pause the video it's probably because you wanted to be distracted into watching something else in the middle of it, not because you actually had your own reason for pausing it, let me throw up these unrelated links at your face")
by closewith | 2025-08-19 07:44:07+00:00
No, that's not the case for the most part. For example, the Croatian digital nomad residence permit that this article is about provides an exemption to income tax for earned income while working for a foreign company and living in Croatia. This means that most digital nomads can work tax-free in Croatia.

This contrasts with, for example, Ireland, where not only does a digital nomad's income become subject to local tax on day 1, so does their company (if they are the beneficial owner).

Croatia's approach is excellent if you want many wealthy (compared to local standards) people to bring an influx of hard currency into your economy, at the cost of inflation. Eventually the benefits outweigh the costs and the government begins to subject digital nomads to local taxation and stricter visa rules.
by marcyb5st | 2025-08-19 07:44:41+00:00
More than that (which is an amazing feature, don't get me wrong) is the fact that there is a single app for every public transportation system in the country.

Compare that to Italy/France/Spain (those that I know) where, depending where you are traveling to, you have to download, sign in, and give your credit card details to N different apps in different states of disrepair/being barely maintained.

Virtual credit cards (I use Revolut) that I then delete mitigate that, but still, what a mess.
by shlant | 2025-08-19 07:44:48+00:00
> But I have yet to see a healthy looking vegan person.

This anecdata is so wrong and only serves to degrade the conversation. I can only imagine you have some sort of bias that convinced you this was worth sharing.

There are a wide range of people who are vegan with various aesthetics, just as with any diet. There is also a selection bias as veganism can attract people who have health issues that they are treating with diet. Your judgement of the efficacy and impact of a lifestyle being based on some people you've met tells me your way of thinking about the world is deeply flawed and shallow.
by FirmwareBurner | 2025-08-19 07:45:25+00:00
It doesn't matter what they contribute to the government and local communities, the digital nomad visa wasn't built with that in mind.

Digital nomads make landlords and property owners richer so there's a high chance the system will be allowed indefinitely since a lot of Croatians are property owners so they directly or indirectly benefit from this gentrification.

The system will only be challenged in politics once enough young Croatian voters find themselves priced out of their own cities like in Barcelona or Lisbon.
by Validark | 2025-08-19 07:46:23+00:00
I would be interested in more examples where "assembly is faster than intrinsics". I.e., when the compiler screws up. I generally write Zig code with the expectation of a specific sequence of instructions being emitted, and I usually get it via the high level wrappers in std.simd + a few llvm intrinsics. If those fail I'll use inline assembly to force a particular instruction. On extremely rare occasions I'll rely on auto-vectorization, if it's good and I want it to fall back on scalar on less sophisticated CPU targets (although sometimes it's the compiler that lacks sophistication). Aside from the glaring holes in the VPTERNLOG finder, I feel that instruction selection is generally good enough that I can get whatever I want.

The bigger issue is instruction ordering and register allocation. On code where the compiler effectively has to lower serially-dependent small snippets independently, I think the compiler does a great job. However, when it comes to massive amounts of open code I'm shocked at how silly the decisions are that the compiler makes. I see super trivial optimizations available at a glance. Things like spilling x and y to memory, just so it can read them both in to do an AND, and spill it again. Constant re-use is unfortunately super easy to break: Often just changing the type in the IR makes it look different to the compiler. It also seems unable to merge partially poisoned (undefined) constants with other constants that are the same in all the defined portions. Even when you write the code in such a way where you use the same constant twice to get around the issue, it will give you two separate constants instead.

I hope we can fix these sorts of things in compilers. This is just my experience. Let me know if I left anything out.
by troupo | 2025-08-19 07:46:23+00:00
> Yes those quotes do not reflect well on the article.

And that's 90% of the article

> You still missed the part where leeches are used to help with tissue transplants.

Quote from my post: "There's a very tiny section in "why leech works" that only describes hirudin as anticoagulant."

That's it, that is the only thing that works in leaches. And in the same section about tissue transplants they literally talk about risk of infection, for example.

And yet the entire aticle is literally "we have no evidence if they work for all the other use cases, but who cares, the west is missing out in this good remedy".

> In my view it's fraud to sell healing crystals if you don‘t think they are.

It's fraud to sell non-working medicine even if you think it's working.
by rafaelmn | 2025-08-19 07:46:38+00:00
Yeah but you can't compare living in Vienna and Split - Vienna is a top tier city - huge regional capital with so many things going on and offerings. Split is a C tier city dead outside of tourist season, like the rest of the coast. 26% is kind of ridiculous when you compare the standard of living.

Again depends on what you value, some might find it worth, just saying the equation was much more in Croatia favor 5 years ago.