MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by mingtianzhang | 2025-08-30 09:40:36+00:00
A follow-up question is: what is the lossless way to represent knowledge? That would mean reading all the knowledge at once, which is the most accurate but also the least efficient method. Therefore, for different applications, we need to find an appropriate trade-off between accuracy and efficiency. In systems like real-time recommendation, we prefer efficiency over accuracy, so vector-based search is suitable. In domain-specific QA, we prefer accuracy over efficiency, so maybe a table-of-contents–based search may be the better choice.
by cernocky | 2025-08-30 09:41:03+00:00
one way to think about rock is to acknowledge it as an informational entity. an entity which is likely more passive then lets say a human or an app, yet by simply being part of the environment, it changes what can be done in the environment. if it wasn't there and if it didn't had a certain shape, the opportunities of other actors in the environment would surely be different. after all rock can be used as a tool and even as a computer. if its still not intuitive, think about Aeolian Harp which is a passive statue, yet a musical instrument, or think how you could encode a perceptron or a simple neural net into a stone (through which a water or air would flow for example). now, even if any ordinary rock doesn't exactly encode neural net, it should be more clear that it still affects information flow. does it help?
by mpweiher | 2025-08-30 09:41:13+00:00
And in the context of XP, which is where DTSTTCPW comes from:

The one you can use right now in order to get feedback from real world use, which will be much better at guiding you in improving the solution than what you thought was "best" before you had that feedback.

Real world feedback is the key. Get there as quickly as feasible, then iterate with that.
by 000ooo000 | 2025-08-30 09:42:30+00:00
Adding to this, IME, doco for .NET Framework is increasingly hard to find because the .NET Core stuff bubbles up in its place - possibly also because Google is absolute trash these days. Not a big deal if you have some hardcore .NET lifers who know Framework inside out.. but I'd say those are heavily outnumbered, and eventually going to move on to goose farming anyway.
by cryxnet | 2025-08-30 09:47:36+00:00
I’ve open-sourced DeepMCPAgent, a Python library for building LangChain/LangGraph agents that discover and call tools dynamically via MCP (Model Context Protocol).

Instead of hardcoding tools, the agent connects to MCP servers (HTTP/SSE), fetches JSON-Schema tool specs, converts them into typed LangChain tools, and uses them in a deep agent loop (via deepagents) or a LangGraph ReAct fallback.

Repo: https://github.com/cryxnet/deepmcpagent

PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/deepmcpagent/

Would love feedback on the design and potential use cases. I would love to see what you are going to build!
by tialaramex | 2025-08-30 09:48:15+00:00
Really? Premature stabilization is a much more recognisable problem. This is after all quietly why there's so much Rust adoption. Safety is nice, but perf is $$$.

C++ had this unhealthy commitment to stabilization and it meant that their "Don't pay for what you don't use" doctrine has always had so many asterisks it's practically Zalgo text or like you're reading an advert for prescription medicine. You're paying for that stabilization, everywhere, all the time, and too bad if you didn't need it.

Unwinding stabilizations you regret is a lot more work even in Rust, consider the Range types, landing improved Range types is considerable work and then they'll need an Edition to change which types you get for the syntax sugar like 1..=10

Or an example which happened a long time ago, the associated constants. There are whole stdlib sub-packages in Rust which exist either primarily or entirely as a place for constants of a type, std::f32::MAX is just f32::MAX but the associated constant f32::MAX only finally stabilized in 1.43 so older code uses std::f32::MAX nevertheless if you learned to write std::f32::MAX you may only finally get deprecation messages years from now and they're stuck with keeping the alias forever of course because it's stable.
by WalterBright | 2025-08-30 09:48:17+00:00
I may be the only person who ever understood every detail of C++, starting with the preprocessor. I can make that claim because I'm the only person who ever implemented all of it. (You cannot really know a language until you've implemented it.) I gave up on that in the 2000's. Modern C++ is simply terrifying in its complexity.

(I'm not including the C++ Standard Library, as I didn't implement it.)
by withinboredom | 2025-08-30 09:50:31+00:00
That’s why when we write, we use commas and periods. It tells the reader when a thought ends and the next begins. A semi-colon is the traditional period in programming. Not everything fits on one line. Python managed to pull it off and now everyone thinks it’s the right way… it’s just “a way” but by no means modern or right. JavaScript made them optional, but it results in ambiguous parsing sometimes, so it’s not a good idea there either.

In any case, I doubt a run on sentence is “meaningless” but it is hard to parse.
by harshreality | 2025-08-30 09:52:11+00:00
That's like asking for Adobe to open source their C2PA signing keys.

AI watermarking is adversarial, and anyone who generates a watermarked output either doesn't care, or wants the watermarked removed.

C2PA is cooperative: publishers want the signatures intact, so that the audience has trust in the publisher.

By "adversarial" and "cooperative", I mean in relation to the primary content distributor. There's an adversarial aspect to C2PA, too: bad actors want leaked keys so they can produce fake video and images with metadata attesting that they're real.

A lot of people have a large incentive to disrupt the AI watermark. Leaked C2PA keys will be a problem, but probably a minor one. C2PA is merely an additional assurance, beyond the reputation and representation of the publishing entity, of the origin of a piece of media.
by cb321 | 2025-08-30 09:52:51+00:00
You would probably enjoy the UFCS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_function_call_syntax of Nim, D, etc. Basically `h.g.f(x)` or in Nim you can drop the parens and say `h.g.f x` { but it may not scale past a single argument }. This tends to be only "an option" - more on the "allow/enable" side than the "force them" to do it side, though.
by mrkeen | 2025-08-30 09:54:13+00:00
> Am I missing something I need, but just ignorant, or is that just needless complexity that a lot of people fall for?

Ignorance plays a big role. If you don't perceive, e.g. a race condition happening, then it's much simpler to avoid complicated things like locking and synchronisation.

If you have the belief that your code will never be modified after you commit it, then it's much simpler to not write modifiable code.

If you believe there's no chance of failure, then it's simpler to not catch or think about exceptions.

The simplest thing is global variables, single-letter variable names, string-handling without consideration for escaping, etc.
by jacquesm | 2025-08-30 09:55:53+00:00
> to the point that we’re now rapidly deindustrialising

That's not exclusively due to the price of energy, though it is a factor, there are other factors (such as the price of wages) that are much larger factors.

The biggest simply being that China is outcompeting Germany on its own strengths through a combination of a lack of environmental regulations, cheap labor and state subsidies at a level that the EU would not tolerate.
by ii41 | 2025-08-30 09:56:57+00:00
Hard to say. Americas have been far less dense in population than the old world, and colonizers brought old world tech with which they immediately could start to make use of the land, so they face far less scarcity. For any group of people this is hugely beneficial to their development and helpful in solving their conflicts. Yet we still see some of world's the worst slavey and genocides there. Also today's Latin American isn't world famous for high living standards.
by kmarc | 2025-08-30 09:58:00+00:00
> is it the hacker spirit

I had this philosophical / existential crisis question lately about my project, and I think I'm at peace with it.

Yes. Gluing together stuff (AKA building on other giants' shoulders) can be done in a neglecting, "just hack it all up until starts to work" way, and it can also be done in a reproducible, "unit tested", documented way that enables you to eventually put even more "hacks" on top of it to deliver value.

Anything is "hacker spirit", as long as you make something _functional_ out of pieces that haven't functioning in a way you wanted before. Let it be witty, hackish, or beautiful, maintainable, as long as it holds up your business or gives you simply joy.
by sparrowhawking | 2025-08-30 09:58:10+00:00
This sounds good in theory, but a jack of all trades is a master of none. I once spent a semester building an interpreter compiler for very simple LR(1) parsable languages. I learned a lot, but that knowledge fades rather quickly and even despite this significant investment of time, I never came close to being able to touch anything production worthy.

Modern tech is too advanced to meaningfully learn about it by tinkering with small toy projects. These "foundational technologies" are gigantic specializations that require an extraordinary investment of time to master.

Looking back now over the years, I wish I tinkered less and narrowed my focus more.
by Herobrine2084 | 2025-08-30 09:58:19+00:00
I'm recommending some video games like Human Resource Machine: https://store.steampowered.com/app/375820/Human_Resource_Mac... It's always fun to "see" the logic being executed and have fun challenges.

On the next step, I believe things like Scratch are pretty good to introduce to programming.

On the web development part, I built a little "game" as a tutorial of my tool: https://luna-park.app/challenge . It's JS with visual nodes, this is used to learn algorithmic for students.
Show HN: Taskguru.so – Superhuman email, for tasks (for founders and PMs)
by byza | 2025-08-30 09:59:16+00:00
I built TaskGuru to solve a specific problem I faced as a founder, then as a banker working on many clients: switching between 10+ project tabs and losing track of what actually needs attention, when and why.

So I am trying to build Superhuman emails, but for Tasks/ToDos.

What TG does: - Immediate Board: Shows today's urgent tasks across all projects in one place - Cross-project visibility: See all your Trello-style boards on one page, able to see all your tasks at the same time - Built-in team chat: Chat happens inside tasks so you never lose track of where you were speaking about tasks (as what happens in Slack)

Tech stack: - React + TypeScript + Vite frontend - Supabase backend (PostgreSQL + real-time) - (Building) MCP (Model Context Protocol) integration for AI assistants

Key insight: Most project tools only allow you to see one project at a time (missing context or what tasks are truly priority). TaskGuru shows you the forest AND the trees.

I'd love feedback on the UX approach and any suggestions for the immediate board concept. What's your experience with project management tools?

https://taskguru.so/
by bluecalm | 2025-08-30 10:00:44+00:00
I think it's happening already. Chat GPT was able to connect my name to my project based on chess.com profile and one Hacker News post for example. It's not that hard to imagine that it learns a solution to a rare problem based on one input point. It may see one solution 1000 times an a rare solution 1 time and it can still be able to reference both.
by mnw21cam | 2025-08-30 10:01:40+00:00
The copper was widely used in the OS not just to change the entire colour palette half-way down the screen - it could change the display resolution half-way down the screen, along with other things such as the colour depth and memory location of the bitmap data. This allowed the OS to support having multiple "screens" with different resolutions, colour depths, and palettes, and you could drag the front one down to reveal the one behind it.

It would also be used to support double-buffering for displaying smooth videos or other moving graphics - you'd have the two buffers, and the copper would change which one was being displayed while the scan was in the flyback period between frames.
by gadsentz | 2025-08-30 10:02:27+00:00
Property management is one of the most detail-heavy industries. Every day, managers juggle tenant requests, maintenance schedules, budget reviews, compliance reports, and team coordination. Traditionally, this was done with spreadsheets, phone calls, and endless emails but that approach is no longer sustainable in today’s digital-first world.

Here’s why adopting project management software for property management is no longer optional:

Centralized Operations – Instead of using separate tools for communication, accounting, and task tracking, everything is accessible in one platform. This reduces wasted time and ensures no task is overlooked.

Automation of Repetitive Tasks – Lease renewal reminders, rent payment notifications, and maintenance scheduling can all be automated, freeing property managers to focus on more strategic tasks.

Transparency and Accountability – With clear dashboards and reporting, managers can see who is responsible for what, track deadlines, and measure performance across the team.

Scalability for Growth – As property portfolios expand, so do operational challenges. Software solutions scale seamlessly, allowing businesses to grow without chaos.

Improved Tenant Experience – Tenants benefit from fast communication, transparent updates, and easy access to documents—all of which foster trust and retention.

In short, project management software for property management is essential because it creates order, boosts efficiency, and supports business growth.
by anon35 | 2025-08-30 10:03:09+00:00
"Until then" means others will pay for your decision to ignore policy when it happens. It's never on the person who -- with every good intention, full of an instinct to "build a better world" -- willfully ignores the stuffy rules in handbooks and HR guidelines. Instead, when it backfires and someone does threaten to sue, it's precisely execs, HRs, legal who have to deal with it. The rules are there for good reason.
by pbowyer | 2025-08-30 10:03:49+00:00
The Laravel and Symfony communities are culturally very different. Laravel (and Taylor) are very US-American, Symfony (and Fabien) very European, and it comes through in communication style and presentation. Laravel has a share of users building products to sell to other Laravel users; Symfony doesn't. If I caricature, Laravel users are better at making money (as a Symfony user the social media presence looks like "grifting"); Symfony users at being architecture astronauts (and looking down on people "getting things done").

At a high level the WordPress community doesn't mesh because of having the WordPress way of doing things, and having a history of writing for old versions of PHP years after others have moved on and told users to upgrade. The WordPress community is fragmented into separate sub-communities which again don't mesh. There's the users who only build sites with page builders and hardly know how to code, those whose goal is to sell copies of their paid plugin (or hosting services), and those with permission to make changes to WordPress itself.

I've no recent experience of Drupal so can't comment on them.
by atmanactive | 2025-08-30 10:06:50+00:00
Alright, great, thank you.

To an IT expert like me this translates to: an always-on wireless microphone fed into a specially crafted LLM app. Sure. What mechanism is there to ensure my personal life data is not being sold to the highest bidder?

It seems that the more the civilization is progressing in computerized living, the more the question of privacy, trust and transparency becomes paramount.
by dgunay | 2025-08-30 10:07:34+00:00
I see a lot of debate about the definition and merits of unit, integration, and e2e testing here.

For my workplace, we have recognized a few issues with an overreliance on unit tests.

When you have important behaviors and invariants enforced by your database, you mock it out at your own peril. This literally caused a bug to slip through to prod this week. Unit tests just don't help here.

We use clean architecture. There are pockets of our codebase where, through deliberate or accidental deviations from our architecture, stuff like e.g. controllers with business logic in them exists. In some cases it is easier to just integration or e2e test this code instead of do the ugly refactoring to bring it into compliance. Doing the test first will even make the refactor easier.

Parts of our codebase are just big, pure functions. Arguments go in, return values come out. These are the ideal candidates for unit testing, and we do so extensively because they're cheap and fast.

I think what occurs to me as I write this is that if you live in an idyllic codebase which can express every single state transition in memory, without any dependency on external systems, sure, unit tests are great. For those of us who are not so lucky, e2e tests can be a lifeline and a way to maintain control with minimal mock-induced churn in the test suite.
by KingMob | 2025-08-30 10:08:57+00:00
> The world went downhill the moment people started obsessing over others instead of focusing on themselves. And anyone who truly cares about society’s well-being should stop meddling.

The problem is, meddling to interfere with others, and meddling to stop that interference, are not morally equivalent.

If a serial killer is trying to strangle me, and I'm fighting back, you wouldn't deplore "the violence on both sides", would you?
by mingtianzhang | 2025-08-30 10:08:58+00:00
1. One-sample detection is impossible. These detection methods work at the distributional level—more like a two-sample test in statistics—which means you need to collect a large amount of generated text from the same model to make the test significant. Detecting based on a short piece of generated text is theoretically impossible. For example, imagine two different Gaussian distributions: you can never be 100% certain whether a single sample comes from one Gaussian or the other, since both share the same support.

2. Adding watermarks may reduce the ability of an LLM, which is why I don’t think they will be widely adopted.

3. Consider this simple task: ask an LLM to repeat exactly what you said. Is the resulting text authored by you, or by the AI?
by edelwiess | 2025-08-30 10:10:03+00:00
I know there are comments here ridiculing the OP about posting this. Some asking OP to be stronger. All I want to say is posting something like this takes way more strength than what those commenters will ever allow themselves to experience. Expressing is a way of healing and no the internet is not a cold dry space. It is a place of feeling humans who could all use encouragement to show vulnerability like this. I don’t know if OP got some healing from this but a lot of similarly lost readers felt a little less alone.
by lozenge | 2025-08-30 10:10:09+00:00
> It’s not inequality per se. People don’t care if some people have more than them.

Actually it is. Inequality has been correlated with high crime, lower life expectancy and lower health (even for the rich subsection of the population, compared to a more equal country). In your example, high housing cost entrenches inequality and gives generational wealth a leg up.

Trying to make a country good but inequal is like trying to push water uphill.
by nicklaf | 2025-08-30 10:10:30+00:00
Mathematics texts with titles that would mislead a beginner who naïvely takes words such as "basic" and "elementary" at face value are a bit of a running joke, particularly when you go past the undergraduate level.

Just look, for example, at the table of contents to André Weil's "Basic" Number Theory book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-642-61945-8#toc
by gchadwick | 2025-08-30 10:10:43+00:00
Who knows what the closed source models use but certainly going by what's happening in open models all the big changes and corresponding gains in capability are in training techniques not model architecture. Things like GQA and MLA as discussed in this article are important techniques for getting better scaling but are relatively minor tweak vs the evolution in training techniques.

I suspect closed models aren't doing anything too radically different from what's presented here.
by ghusbands | 2025-08-30 10:12:34+00:00
> garbage collection, I just link the Boehm GC. Not ideal, but good enough

It's worth noting that on 32-bit, the Boehm GC can have consistent issues [1] [2] [3] that make it worth avoiding for anything long-running. The Mono team implemented their own GC due to this. If a runtime is aiming to be useful on such systems, it may be worth implementing or using a less conservative GC.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_%28software%29#Garbage_co...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3576396

[3] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8152374/
by tossandthrow | 2025-08-30 10:13:10+00:00
There is a strict separation between business and personal consumption.

If the Lego family uses business jets to go on vacation, then they need to 1) pay market rate for using the jets and 2) pay full income taxes, VAT etc.

Anyhow, when you are rich enough this tripling in cost does not really matter - but it does reflect in the income equality statistics.
by rich_sasha | 2025-08-30 10:14:45+00:00
I don't entirely follow. A lot of existing nuclear plants use ambient temperature for cooling, via cooling towers, no? They use pumped coolant to get the heat out of the reactor, sure, but the cold end is just air.

Also, I guess you could have the hot end very hot too..? This improving efficiency. Especially if, by virtue of cooling being safer, you could run it at a higher temperature (less safety margin needed).
by zkmon | 2025-08-30 10:14:52+00:00
From the book at the start of Chapter 2: "Chapter 1 introduced the fundamental quests of this book — namely error-correcting codes over some given alphabet and block length that achieve the best possible tradeoff between dimension and distance, and the asymptotics of these parameters. We refer to all the theory pertinent to this quest as coding theory"

So when they say "Coding" it is about error correcting codes, not about some programming. Sigh.

I suggest changing the title of the book to something like "Theory of error correcting codes"
by hatenberg | 2025-08-30 10:15:49+00:00
It’s explicitly part of Chinese science and technology strategy to think outside the box and it’s what’s pushing them forward on areas like semiconductors as well.

Given the massive advantage in talent they’ve built up while the Us reverts to Drill Baby Drill we know how this ends.

Eventually the Us with push for atmospheric dimming to “fix” the negative externalities of their approach which had the nice side effect of degrading solar ….

FMl
by maaaaattttt | 2025-08-30 10:17:54+00:00
I think this whole em dash topic should lead to some deeper (though not very deep) conversations:

* If it was not widely used before where/how did (chat)GPT picked it up?

* If it was widely used, then it shouldn't be a topic at all. But, there seems to be informal agreement that it wasn’t widely used. * Or, could GPT have inferred that even though it's not widely used, it's the better way to go (to use it). Which then makes one wonder about the whole probability of next token idea. Maybe this line of thinking falls too short of what might be really going on internally. * If it had picked up something that is widely used but in the wrong way, it should make us pause (again) about the future feedback loops these LLMs, which aren't going away, are already creating. Not just in terms of grammar and spelling but also in terms of way of thinking and seeing the world.

(edit: formatting)