MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by nsonha | 2025-08-25 02:26:20+00:00
> on its own

does it? Did you forget the prompts? MCP is just a protocol for tool/function calling which in turn is part of the prompt, quite an important part actually.

Did you think AI works by prompts like "make magic happen" and it... just happens? Anyone who makes dumb arguments like this should not deserve a job in tech.
by pixelatedindex | 2025-08-25 02:26:32+00:00
I mean… is adding an OAuth layer in 2025 adding that much complexity? If you’re scripting then there’s usually some package native to the language, if you’re using postman you’ll need to generate your authn URL (or do username/passwords for client ID/secret).

If you have sensitive resources they’ll be blocked behind some authz anyway. An exception I’ve seen is access to a sandbox env, those are easily generated at the press of a button.
by canpan | 2025-08-25 02:26:46+00:00
> many of your users will not be professional engineers. They may be salespeople, product managers, students, hobbyists, and so on.

This is not just true for authentication. If you work in a business setting, your APIs will be used by the most random set of users. They be able to google for how to call your api in python, but not be able to do things like converting UTC to their local time zone.
by s3p | 2025-08-25 02:27:32+00:00
>a stand-off has been engineered between UK censorship measures nobody asked for, and the constitutional rights of all Americans.

This is probably my favorite line in the entire piece. Some heads up in the UK Bureaucracy created this regulation out of the desire to protect children, and now they are being pitted against the constitutional rights of United States citizens.

Truly incredible work from the UK government. I imagine the United States will not be happy..
by godelski | 2025-08-25 02:31:10+00:00
Ah that makes sense. Thanks!

I'm not sure why your quotes got mangled. Maybe it was because when I quote I use two leading spaces? I do that because it makes text verbatim but I think the indentation just helps distinguish the quote better than the > alone. There's also this one that I always forget <https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc>
by asoneth | 2025-08-25 02:31:31+00:00
> for a lot of people that is also a complete dealbreaker for whatever reason

Seems like a perfectly reasonable dealbreaker to me. Terminal commands are a raw UI that is neither intuitive nor discoverable -- someone must either read documentation (man pages, tutorials, blog posts, etc) to learn the behavior and syntax or they must blindly copy strings from a trusted source.

There's a reason most stories of nontechnical people using software like Linux always seem to include an expert friend, family member, or IT person in the background.
by NoMoreNicksLeft | 2025-08-25 02:31:36+00:00
Over the last few years, it's become ever more apparent to me that technology can't fix what's broken. Even as we invent more ways to bypass censorship it becomes more so that people have less to say that I might want to hear with those technologies. And it's not just an ideological thing either, because best I can tell there's plenty of that stuff for whichever way you lean. What I mean is that people write less, there's less for me to read. But they have plenty of hustlely Youtube videos of the sort I have no inclination to watch. Less journalism, but plenty of opinions/editorials (I have enough opinions of my own, thanks). Less music... the whole recording industry seems to have imploded.

We're not in danger of censorship so much as we're in danger of there no longer being anything for them to censor away from me. I don't think it's just me either, I know some of you are seeing the same things I am.
by Balgair | 2025-08-25 02:31:37+00:00
You make a great point here. The quality of the grader may be higher with an AI than a stressed out grad student.

It's long been known that a longer essay answer is more likely to get a higher grade. And yeah, having been a student and a stressed out grad student, after about the 20th exam, only length is the real signal of grade.

Other comments point out that with the prices of tuition these days, students should be expecting a lot higher quality of feedback (grading) than what they are getting at any random R1.

It really does seem that the University system (as opposed to the college-esque system) is broken and that the additional AI fears are just another log on the already collapsed bridge. We're getting over the wrong thing.
by mvdtnz | 2025-08-25 02:33:22+00:00
> I personally think gamers, as a demographic, has some responsibility to say.. 'yeah, no. stop being dicks'

Well you don't play online games. Personally I care a great deal more about cheaters than I do about whether a company (who I already trust to install stuff on my computer) installs stuff on my computer. Cheaters absolutely ruin games.
by athrun | 2025-08-25 02:33:31+00:00
It's about provisioning for credit losses.

Roughly speaking, when a transaction needs to be unwound, if the merchant cannot cover the reversal (for example, because it has defaulted), then the payment processor needs to pony up instead. Note that this isn't an edge case, this is something that happens every day.

If the payment processor defaults (gasp!), then the processor's sponsor bank needs to cover it. This is why a sponsor bank will have a lot to say about what a processor can and cannot do.

If the sponsor bank is unable to meet its obligations (argh!), then it's the card Network itself that is on the hook. This is why card networks have a lot to say about what a sponsor bank can and cannot do ;)

The key to understanding payment processing is to realise that the risk is very asymmetrical. The processing party collects only a small fraction of the transaction amount as fees, but is effectively on the hook for the full amount if things go pear shaped.

That is why the cost is typically proportional to the value of the payment.

You'll see fixed/capped fees mostly on payment methods that don't allow reversals (ie: not very consumer friendly), or that take place between highly trusted parties where credit risk can be handled through other ways.
by slipperydippery | 2025-08-25 02:33:45+00:00
Part of the trouble is that an Earth with "ruined" habitability (let's throw together both severe climate change and also a nuclear exchange, why not?) is still far better & easier to live on than anywhere else we know about.

That's what I mean about space being just the worst. Like, it's so bad. Even Mars, which is relatively decent by space standards, is complete shit. Complete shit that's also insanely expensive to reach.
by xenotux | 2025-08-25 02:33:46+00:00
The main difference between democracies and secular autocracies isn't that they have a vastly different approach to run-of-the-mill moral vices, such as prostitution or porn. It's that democracies tolerate a much wider spectrum of political opinions in public discourse and don't kill or imprison people who try to start an opposition party.

I think we can agree that the UK is moving in the wrong direction without drawing parallels to a place where dissidents are disappeared, both off the internet and in real life.
by ggreer | 2025-08-25 02:34:03+00:00
It's not useful to compare timelines. Of course the Apollo program went fast. Adjusted for inflation, NASA's lunar program cost over $300 billion. It also killed three astronauts. And it didn't have the regulatory hurdles that exist today when trying to launch rockets.

Starship's budget is 2-3% of the Apollo program, and its goal is to become profitable long term. I would assume that given a sliver of the same budget, and a much harder problem (fully reusable super heavy lift vehicle), and more regulations than the 1960s, it would take significantly longer.

It's also not useful to compare failure rates yet, because Starship is currently a test program. SpaceX believes that it's cheaper to build, test, and revise rather than to try getting it right the first time. They know Starship is not reliable, which is why they don't have real payloads in their test flights. Contrast this to the Space Shuttle, which NASA thought was so safe that they put a schoolteacher on it and broadcast the launch to children across the country.
by poslathian | 2025-08-25 02:34:05+00:00
Is it odd or is it kinda central to the point?

It’s exceptional that people centrally organized a huge amount of effort and resources towards something imagined by countless humans since prehistory, was far from being a sure thing, had no possibility of revenue and only indirect value, planned and executed a full decade toward a single objective, and succeeded in a single moment shared by almost everyone with a television.

Arpanet, the transcontinental railroad, the pyramids…amazing still but lacked the 0 to 1 all at once factor. Starship is inspiring and also not a moonshot.
by adgsfhj | 2025-08-25 02:34:10+00:00
Fictionally, maybe the Mandelbrot Maze mentioned in Arthur C. Clarke’s 3001:

> Their approach was more subtle; they persuaded their host machine to initiate a program which could not be completed before the end of the universe, or which - the Mandelbrot Maze was the deadliest example - involved a literally infinite series of steps.

https://archive.org/stream/SpaceOdyssey_819/3001_The_Final_O...
by bigger_cheese | 2025-08-25 02:35:24+00:00
A lot of the Unix/Linux Syscall api has a version 2+

For example dup(), dup2(), dup3() and pipe(), pipe2() etc

LWN has an article: https://lwn.net/Articles/585415/

It talks about avoiding this by designing future APIs using a flags bitmask to allow API to be extended in future.
by jchw | 2025-08-25 02:35:47+00:00
> Counter example to what? Why should they not be able to run both a relatively open ecosystem and a mostly closed one?

> I don’t think Apple is arguing that it is impossible to allow more open ways to install apps on iPhones. I think they’re saying that they don’t want to, and that they shouldn’t have to.

Apple volunteers the position that they couldn't possibly open the iOS ecosystem themselves, not just that they don't want to, making some very amusing claims in the process.[1] They also don't want to, but the more you dig into possible "whys", you get into a lot of troubling realities quickly.

Epic Games, on the other hand, is arguing that they actually should have to, at least to some extent. There are actually a lot of reasons why Apple's App Store practices might violate the law, and to my understanding, Epic Games is alleging that Apple's App Store practices constitute "illegal tying" whereby Apple unlawfully ties its payment processing service with its app distribution. That's far from the only potential legal issue that the App Store could face just based on current, existing law. (Note: I am not a lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt; but nothing I am saying is too original or groundbreaking.)

And of course, it's always worth remembering that what's legal today can be regulated tomorrow. I don't really believe lawmakers or the general public really have had enough time to take a look at the impact that Apple/Google app stores have had on the software market and decide if these practices should be legal. The EU seems to think they shouldn't, and while I don't agree with the EU on everything, I tend to agree.

[1]: https://observer.com/2021/05/even-craig-federighi-apples-hea...
by rectang | 2025-08-25 02:37:32+00:00
Rape is not the only crime people get sent to jail for, and at least some fraction of the US population is capable of seeing the imprisoned as human beings.

I agree nevertheless that inflicting maximum misery and pain on prisoners is popular with a substantial segment of the US electorate, and thus there are negative incentives discouraging even simple fixes like the technology changes wished for in this article.
by gnabgib | 2025-08-25 02:39:06+00:00
Pipes have lifetimes of 2-10x roads... where's your data from?

Roads[0]: Asphalt (18 years), Concrete (25 years) - requires good expansion gaps, good substrate, zero roadwork over its lifetime.

Pipes[1]: HPDE (50-100 years), PVC (50-70 years), Reinforced Concrete (75-100 years) Vitrified Clay Pipes (Several centuries), Galvanised Steel (40-70 years)

[0]: https://www.ayresassociates.com/the-long-and-short-of-it-lif...

[1]: https://trenchlesspedia.com/the-lifespan-of-steel-clay-plast...
by armchairhacker | 2025-08-25 02:39:38+00:00
Store in each classroom a custom-made rack for the laptops (with at least one laptop per seat plus backups). Distribute the laptops at the start of exams and collect them at the end.

The rack charges the laptops, streamlines distributing/collecting tests, prevents tampering, and reports defects. A professor uploads the test to their LMS and specifies the exam time-frame and location. Before the exam, the LMS transfers the test to the correct rack, which saves it to the laptops. After the exam, the rack loads the student responses and transfers them to the LMS for the correct class. Each laptop has a light under it whose color indicates whether it's in standby, waiting to be distributed (shortly before exam start), has a submitted test, or is malfunctioning (the rack periodically pings laptops in storage to verify they still work). Multiple professors can queue exams to the same location, in different time-frames, and the LMS and rack know when to prepare each test on the laptops.

The hard part is to implement this well. The rack's hardware and software must be reliable; nonetheless it will fail (hardware breaks), and exams get moved and rescheduled, so there must be a way to transfer tests to another classroom and time-slot. The laptops can have slightly less reliability, since there are backups; but failures can't be clustered, and if a laptop is transferred from another rack during an exam, it should download the destination rack's test and become active (so if one rack's backup laptops run out, laptops can be borrowed from other classrooms). The laptops must periodically backup in-progress tests using wifi or bluetooth, and if a laptop breaks during the exam, the student can resume their progress on another. Tests must be downloaded well before exam time, in case there are problems (laptops should be able to store and queue multiple tests). Laptops must handle exams that start late (up to the official exam end time) and end late (including overlapping the next exam's start time, in which case the next exam is loaded when the laptop is put back into the rack). The rack must absolutely not indicate that a laptop is ready with an exam if it's not; and (since tests are downloaded before exam time) nothing unique should happen at exam start time (to reduce last-minute surprises, and let a professor who isn't convinced take out a laptop and check that it's functional 15 minutes before). Last but certainly not least, the UI to submit tests and grade responses should be intuitive, simple (not overwhelming) yet powerful (can handle edge-cases like rescheduled tests, randomized tests, accommodations; or be extensible enough to support these features).

Despite all the above requirements I actually think such a product is feasible. Unfortunately, with firsthand experience of typical EdTech and academic bureaucracy (and I'm not a professor so I don't know the worst of it), I'm skeptical it would be adequate quality unless the company designing it is uniquely motivated and capable.
by godelski | 2025-08-25 02:40:32+00:00
I think a little of both?

I think the problem is really down to monopoly abuse, or green. The Apple lawsuit is a good example of this. They want 30% of in app purchases but... why? An iPhone only has value because of its apps. (Just like how a computer's real value is its ability to run programs) Specifically, apps that Apple didn't also create. You could pay people for those apps and Apple would still benefit. Seems like a lot of these big companies are making categorically similar mistakes. They only can do this because users don't (meaningfully) have other choices.

I'd love to see OSS win, but not because CSS has abused their customers. I wish the fight was over the value of the product. I guess that means I wish profits were more dependent on product value. Shame we conflate market value with product value.
by rossdavidh | 2025-08-25 02:40:59+00:00
You're not wrong, but in this case I believe all I had to do was copy the line of text and paste it into a terminal (it's a while ago so I might be misremembering). But, given that is what people are doing, it does raise the question of whether requiring them to copy and paste is actually any more secure than allowing click-to-install...
by nxobject | 2025-08-25 02:41:46+00:00
I've done both – in my undergrad I staffed a drop-in help night for a required freshman comp class, and later on in grad school I made extra cash proctoring a "alternate testing center" for students needing retakes and ADA accommodations. I can see the comparison to drop-in homework help centers. But as a test proctor my job was to get out of the way of students as much as possible while keeping things quiet – I'm not sure it's worth idealizing as "caring".
by eggnet | 2025-08-25 02:43:24+00:00
We know aluminum accumulates in the brain at a rate that is indistinguishable between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

https://www.chop.edu/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-safety...

Goullé JP, Grangeot-Keros L. Aluminum and vaccines: Current state of knowledge. Med Mal Infect 2020 Feb;50:16-21.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0399077X1...

Although aluminum at high doses can cause a variety of clinical manifestations, the quantity of aluminum in vaccines is too small to cause a direct toxic effect. Indeed, the quantity of aluminum in biological specimens from those receiving aluminum-containing vaccines is indistinguishable from unvaccinated subjects. The concern that aluminum in vaccines might be associated with a rare autoimmune disease called macrophagic myofasciitis has been refuted by previous studies.
by briHass | 2025-08-25 02:44:01+00:00
I'd add that computing has changed in the last 5 years as well. The amount of actual apps a typical user installs is minimal. You really just need a web browser for most tasks, and obviously Linux can provide that.

Besides drivers for some weird hardware, the only daily application might be an office suite, which OSS still can't quite match the MS offering. However, I've found many are willing to deal with the differences given the licensing cost of Office.
by Mars008 | 2025-08-25 02:44:08+00:00
> 5: There is still considerable prejudice against using AI to make game assets. I think some people (myself included) are hesitant to release a game with lots of AI generated assets at the current moment, for fear of public backlash. Eventually that will calm down and it will become more socially acceptable to use AI to generate game assets.

This is mostly from artists themselves. Most people are ok with even fully generated content if it's fun and interesting. Anyway, solo developer cannot afford even single artist, musician, writer.

That's where LLM helps. I recently tried GPT5 for story telling. Gave it a single image (in a bar, women, man, and a gun) and asked for a short story. Then asked for the next part 6 times. Every time at the end for illustration. The result was consistent and readable. Images generated had even similar faces. Remember, that was a problem with earlier models. I'm sure this will be used fill Amazon's bookshelves.
by Aman4312 | 2025-08-25 02:45:13+00:00
We’ve been working on Nvestiq, a platform that lets traders go from an idea to a fully automated trading bot without writing code.

Most retail traders face three walls:

Technical barrier — serious backtesting usually requires Python, Pine Script, or MQL5.

Validation barrier — without robust simulation, it’s hard to separate luck from a real edge.

Deployment barrier — even validated strategies often die before they get translated into bug-free scripts.

We’re trying to remove all three. The workflow looks like this:

Describe your idea in plain English. Our semantic parser interprets abstract concepts (like supply/demand zones or liquidity grabs) and turns them into testable logic.

Run institutional-grade backtests. High-fidelity simulations provide detailed metrics and visualizations.

Deploy with one click. The system compiles the strategy into clean Pine Script or MQL5 for live execution.

We ran an invite-only beta earlier this year, gathered feedback, and have rebuilt core parts of the engine. Next week we’re opening up our second free beta and are looking for more quants and traders to test it.

Our aim isn’t to replace Python, R, or other quant stacks. Instead, we want to provide a bridge for discretionary and semi-systematic traders who don’t have the bandwidth to code everything from scratch but still want rigorous testing and automation.

Would love feedback from this community on:

Which validation methods would you consider essential?

How you’d want to see risk management and reporting handled?

Any concerns about using natural language for strategy definition?

Demo and beta sign-up: nvestiq.com
by rockemsockem | 2025-08-25 02:45:19+00:00
No he can't because the US is paying for that, it is the government's mission. And fwiw now the gray area of free starlink in Ukraine also taken care of, the US government is handling that contracting like they do with all weapons systems. Before starlink was made available for free in Ukraine for humanitarian purposes, but the military also obviously found good uses for it before the gray areas were resolved.
by eggnet | 2025-08-25 02:45:45+00:00
We know aluminum accumulates in the brain at a rate that is indistinguishable between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

In other words, we know where the aluminum is not coming from, namely, vaccines.

https://www.chop.edu/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-safety...

Goullé JP, Grangeot-Keros L. Aluminum and vaccines: Current state of knowledge. Med Mal Infect 2020 Feb;50:16-21.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0399077X1...

Although aluminum at high doses can cause a variety of clinical manifestations, the quantity of aluminum in vaccines is too small to cause a direct toxic effect. Indeed, the quantity of aluminum in biological specimens from those receiving aluminum-containing vaccines is indistinguishable from unvaccinated subjects. The concern that aluminum in vaccines might be associated with a rare autoimmune disease called macrophagic myofasciitis has been refuted by previous studies.
by marcus_holmes | 2025-08-25 02:46:24+00:00
We had shovelware games 25+ years ago (and probably 40 years ago, though I suspect the lack of microcomputers limited that). There were bargain-bin selections (literally bins full of CDs) that cost a few bucks and were utterly shite. I suspect the target audience was tech-unaware relatives who would be "little Johnny likes video games, I'll get him one of these...". Most of them were bad takes on popular games of the time.

Unity + Steam just makes this process a bit easier and more streamlined. I think the new thing is that as well as the dickwads who are trying to rip people off, there are well-intentioned newbie or indie developers releasing their unpolished attempts. These folks couldn't publish their work in the old days, because making CDs costs money, while now they can.