MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by hephaes7us | 2025-08-18 23:09:00+00:00
Thanks for sharing! Transcription suddenly became useful to me when LLMs started being able to generate somewhat useful code from natural language. (I don't think anybody wants to dictate code.) Now my workflow is similar to yours.

I have mixed feelings about OS-integration. I'm currently working on a project to use a foot-pedal for push-to-transcribe - it speaks USB-HID so it works anywhere without software, and it doesn't clobber my clipboard. That said, an app like yours really opens up some cool possibilities! For example, in a keyboard-emulation strategy like mine, I can't easily adjust the text prompt/hint for the transcription model.

With an application running on the host though, you can inject relevant context/prompts/hints (either for transcription, or during your post-transformations). These might be provided intentionally by the user, or, if they really trust your app, this context could even be scraped from what's currently on-screen (or which files are currently being worked on).

Another thing I've thought about doing is using a separate keybind (or button/pedal) that appends the transcription directly to a running notes file. I often want to make a note to reference later, but which I don't need immediately. It's a little extra friction to have to actually have my notes file open in a window somewhere.

Will keep an eye on epicenter, appreciate the ethos.
by gavmor | 2025-08-18 23:09:26+00:00
Unlike "value demand," which is genuine demand arising from customer needs, failure demand is demand caused by failures such as errors, defects, inefficiencies, or poor service delivery. For example, if a service does not fulfill a customer's need properly, the customer must come back, creating more demand that is essentially avoidable. Failure demand leads to inefficiency, additional costs, and deteriorated customer and employee experiences.
by kg | 2025-08-18 23:11:23+00:00
If we really want to increase turnout, we can just make voting mandatory like other countries have.

Requiring ID is a problem given that a lot of people don't have easy access (or access at all) to legal ID, for various reasons, some as simple as cost. Having a license costs money on an ongoing basis and you need to have access to documents to prove your identity like a birth certificate, and some citizens don't have those through no fault of their own, like losing everything in a fire or even the relevant records agency itself burning down. Thankfully there are often fee waivers for hardship but there are certainly corner cases where saying 'if you want to vote you need ID' is basically a poll tax, something we rightfully banned in the US a long time ago.
by lenkite | 2025-08-18 23:11:33+00:00
OK, that didn't really do a comparison. But here are the examples that are considered better run than corporate infrastructure:

Singapore MRT (Mass Rapid Transit)

Fully government-owned and operated through Temasek holdings. Known worldwide for punctuality, efficiency, affordability, and cleanliness. Consistently outperforms privatized systems like the UK railways in reliability and customer satisfaction.

Paris Métro & RATP (France)

State-owned, with fares subsidized for accessibility. High ridership, integration with buses and trams, and affordable tickets outperform privatized systems in cost to the public.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (USA)

The largest municipal utility in the U.S. Provides electricity and water at lower rates than surrounding private utilities (like PG&E), and is often more reliable due to public accountability.

Norway’s Energy Sector (Statkraft, state-owned hydropower)

Provides cheap, renewable electricity. Profits flow back to the public treasury instead of shareholders. Norway has among the lowest power costs in Europe.

Germany’s Municipal Waterworks

Almost all publicly owned; provide safe, affordable, and reliable water with strong reinvestment in infrastructure, outperforming privatized systems in the UK (like Thames Water, plagued by leaks and debt).

Singapore Changi Airport

State-owned and consistently ranked as the world’s best airport. Clean, efficient, profitable, and reinvests in expansion. Private-run airports often prioritize concessions and profits over passenger experience.

Dallas–Fort Worth Airport (USA)

A publicly owned joint venture between Dallas and Fort Worth. It is one of the busiest and best-managed airports in the world, consistently profitable and reinvesting in facilities.

ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation)

While not "utilities" per se, ISRO’s infrastructure (satellite launch facilities, tracking networks) is a prime example of state-run infrastructure outperforming expectations at extraordinary low cost.

Has launched satellites at a fraction of the budget of Western private and public space agencies, and even provides launch services internationally.

There are many more such examples. Public ownership tends to work best in natural monopolies (water, power grids, rail systems, airports, healthcare infrastructure), where competition doesn’t function well and the priority is universal service rather than profit.
by scyzoryk_xyz | 2025-08-18 23:12:25+00:00
An "oh shit" moment where folks find themselves in a concentration camp because of data leaked from their devices would probably do the trick.

Now I don't actually have the knowledge but isn't something like the FCC partially there to ensure that this sector continues evolving in the same direction as any ol' utility?

Anyhow, I'm writing this from the EU where we actually have effective GDPR regulation. Fines for crossing that line are more than just wrist slaps. Outside of that somewhat similar on that oligopoly telecom front.
by tbird24 | 2025-08-18 23:12:30+00:00
Here's the thing, and I'm open to thoughts here. But I've found that candidate A can be a great fit for company B, but a terrible fit for company C. I think a match is way more subjective than folks tend to give it credit for, and a rating system (like Uber) makes it seem more objective than it actually is. It works for things like Uber, where you can have hundreds of ratings very quickly, and so it converges on a natural truth. But with fractional clients, I think the N is so small that there's might just be too much noise.

Thoughts?
by threatripper | 2025-08-18 23:12:31+00:00
1) Shrinking compared to Mobile, GPU/AI, Non-x86-Server. Manufacturing only x86-CPU will not pay for the next fab anymore.

3) PM me your number.

The fact is just that x86-CPU gets less and less important in the overall picture. It's not shrinking in total volume but in relative volume and fabs get exponentially more expensive. If Intel can make it in this generation they can't finance the next generation making only their own CPUs. They missed the big growth markets. They lost Apple as a customer. They have no GPU and no mobile chip that matters. They invested billions and billions into technology that went nowhere. Now they have to ask TSMC already to manufacture competitive CPUs. The only way this could change if Apple and/or NVidia massively start buying future capacity at intel. But why would they?
by mapt | 2025-08-18 23:12:51+00:00
> To make their product, the food company’s scientists collect living cells from Pacific salmon and grow them in cell cultivators that mimic the inside of a wild fish—controlling factors like temperature, pH and nutrients, per their website. After harvesting them, the team incorporates plant-based ingredients to make the hunk of cells taste, feel and look like salmon fillets.

So... Like a wild fish, but with NO IMMUNE SYSTEM WHATSOEVER, which requires your sterilization protocols to be effectively perfect.

NASA has tried and failed to get their sterilization protocols to perfection levels for Mars landers, and consistently failed despite using basically zero organic materials.

We're going to cook this stuff, yes, sure (aren't we?)... but the squick is rational. And the problem gets inherently worse at larger scale production.
by foobazgt | 2025-08-18 23:12:53+00:00
> For batteries, 80% of the initial capacity is referred to as the point

The publication cites sources from 15 years ago for this "fact" [0]. That's ancient history in the context of EVs (even before the first reliable mass production EV - Tesla's Model S - was initially released). As a practical matter, the article points out that most EV manufacturers (Tesla included) warranty their batteries for at least 70% capacity at timespans near a decade, which would bankrupt them all if EV batteries just up and died at 80%.

0) [35] O. Erdinc, B. Vural, and M. Uzunoglu, ‘‘A dynamic lithium-ion battery model considering the effects of temperature and capacity fading,’’ in Proc. Int. Conf. Clean Electr. Power, Jun. 2009, pp. 383–386.

[36] K. Smith, T. Markel, G.-H. Kim, and A. Pesaran, ‘‘Design of electric drive vehicle batteries for long life and low cost,’’ in Proc. Accelerated Stress Test. Rel. (ASTR), IEE Workshop, 2010, pp. 6–8.
by taeric | 2025-08-18 23:12:57+00:00
Often times you don't know it is possible to get some data without consulting the table? Worse, you probably need to consult the views that have been made by any supporting DB team before you go off and build your own rollups. Unless you like not taking advantage of any aggregate jobs that are running nightly for reporting.

And to be clear, I'm all for complaining about the order of a select statement, to a very large degree. It is done in such a way that you have to jump back and forth as you are constructing the full query. That can feel a bit painful.

However, I don't know that it is just the SELECT before FROM that causes this jumping back and forth and fully expect that you would jump around a fair bit even with the FROM first. More, if I am ever reworking a query that the system is running, I treat the SELECT as the contract to the application, not the FROM.

There is a bit of "you should know the database before you can expect to send off a good query", but that really cuts to any side of this debate? How do you know the tables you want so well, but you don't know the columns you are going to ask for?
by etempleton | 2025-08-18 23:13:53+00:00
I agree with your point, but to answer your first question, “why Intel and not AMD?” It is simply because Intel is the only US company, and one of only three chip manufacturers worldwide to even try to make cutting edge chips and that has an outside shot of doing so in the next decade or so.

Domestic chip production is a national security interest. Frankly the US should be funding one or more companies to expand their fab capabilities.
by Naru41 | 2025-08-18 23:14:05+00:00
I've often thought that if C just had a syntax like Go definding method, C would be much easier to write.

uint16_t (MyStruct* s) some_func() { .. }

uint16_t MyStruct_some_func(MyStruct* s) { .. }

(I guess I should just use C++... but C++ is overwhelmed in many ways)
by Aerroon | 2025-08-18 23:14:08+00:00
Cheating AI turns every game into a puzzle game. The game turns into figuring out what the weaknesses of the AI are and taking advantage of them at every step. That is the only way you can compete against the massive advantages cheating gives.

Typically there are some easy micro and macro tricks that make the AI do something very stupid. That's why kiting is so ubiquitous in games - the AI just keeps following you while you whittle it down. Doesn't really work against a real player if they're microing the units.
by tyre | 2025-08-18 23:14:49+00:00
Related:

“I find all of this so weird because of how it _elevates_ finance. [Various cases] imply that we are not entitled to be protected from pollution as _citizens_, or as _humans_. [Another] implies that we are not entitled to be told the truth _as citizens_. (Which: is true!) Rather, in each case, we are only entitled to be protected from lies _as shareholders_. The great harm of pollution, or of political dishonesty, is that it might lower the share prices of the companies we own.”

— Matt Levine

Here he is talking about shareholder lawsuits (securities fraud) being the primary mechanism of holding social responsibility.
by tines | 2025-08-18 23:14:51+00:00
I think the shamelessness from Paris Hilton of a different kind than the shamelessness of the 2016 candidate. The former is of the "give them something to hate/gawk at/despise" whereas the latter is a byproduct (first), and results in (second), the breakdown of institutions. When our institutions can't be trusted, the advantage that we thought we were supposed to gain from playing by their rules (stability, fairness, equality) don't seem like they outweigh the disadvantages (waiting and thinking, instead of acting immediately). So we turn to greed and tribalism, and we like to see that legitimized by our role models.
by tbird24 | 2025-08-18 23:15:10+00:00
I'm personally not a huge fan of the over-employment trend, although I do see some arguments for it. A lot of the companies that are looking to hire on fractional jobs are quite explicit that they don't want folks that have full-time jobs (aka are over-employed) because of the negative connotations and consequences.

I'm familiar with Higher Fraction. I believe that the core difference is just that they're an agency that takes a percent markup on your hourly rate, so typically it's 20%.

I think the best software engineers don't need to do this, though, and they can find clients directly through their network or even through places like Fractional Jobs where we connect you directly with clients, and it's your relationship to own.
by aidenn0 | 2025-08-18 23:15:17+00:00
I don't know how it is in Europe, but in the US, a long warranty does not necessarily indicate a belief on the manufacturer that the product will last that long.

In many cases warranties are non-transferable (or only partially transferable), so a long warranty could just mean "We think you will sell this before it fails" rather than "We think this will last a long time."
by maximus_01 | 2025-08-18 23:15:52+00:00
If you invert it, though, money is really compensation for time (directly or indirectly). Most of the things you pay money for are compensating someone for time spent (whether that time was spent in the past, present or future). Why is it so hard to go in the other direction? It doesn't mean that you think money is more important than time or anything. It's just that people trade one for the other. Even if you remove the money element altogether, you have a finite amount of time and should value it as such.

I also never said anything about equality or that an engineer or a scientists time is necessarily worth the same as other occupations. I was pointing to a very large disparity (paying a very small amount for content that one clearly values, if they value their time). You can put whatever numbers you want in my original comment and my point would stand.
by dimitry12 | 2025-08-18 23:15:59+00:00
Saw this today and instantly liked the UX. This is not the first attempt to cross spreadsheets and LLMs, but I like the conceptual simplicity here and how clearly it packages "multi-chat + one extra dimension" pattern.

I imagine it works by:

- treating non-enrich columns as inputs

- running a prompt contained in the "description" of the enrich-column against web-enabled LLM

- populate the answer

- repeat for every enrich-column (each column corresponds to a different prompts against the same "subject")

- repeat for each row/subject

I run flows like this in Python almost every day and they were able to capture it perfectly in their UI I think.

I see they realized that "cold-email marketing" is a killer use-case and built-in templated send-email feature as well.
by lapcat | 2025-08-18 23:16:26+00:00
> I don’t speak for them or HN.

But you do speak for yourself, and indeed the mods don't speak for you, which I think leaves your own opinions unexplained and confusing:

> It seems likely that what you're asking for would result in more rehashing and less original content

> I think it would be gamed by bad actors

> willing to hear more about why you think it would help rather than allow charlatans and sophists to invisibly rewrite history and the present to bake in their own ideology and beliefs.
by bradleybuda | 2025-08-18 23:16:39+00:00
This kind of comment comes up a lot On The Internet and it tells me that the commenter has never worked at a company that has lost a massive lawsuit. As someone who has worked at one of those companies, I can tell you that losing a suit like this will absolutely lead to huge operational changes to avoid it happening again.

Whether or not those changes actually change the "character" of the company is a different question (IMHO Newsmax is morally defunct and cannot be saved) but no company anywhere would just shrug something like this off as "the cost of doing business".
by chubot | 2025-08-18 23:16:40+00:00
Also my reading now is that "bidirectional" actually is in contrast to Hindley-Milner, which is unidirectional in the synthesis / inference direction

There is the THIRD choice of Go / Zig / Java, which are unidirectional but CHECKING-oriented - the opposite of Hindley-Milner

---

That is, I don't think it makes sense to define Go as "bidirectional" because it does a little inference around the LHS and RHS.

This seems to be another case where two different camps use the same word in different ways

(which is not surprising if you observe that a similar confusion happens with the word "type" itself - https://kar.kent.ac.uk/69703/ )
by ipython | 2025-08-18 23:16:50+00:00
It used to be worse. I operate a vpn for my extended family, some of whom are deployed overseas at any time.

They would google for things and suddenly my ads would show nightclubs near them (thousands of miles from me) and google’s default language would even change to the country they currently reside in. Just because the outgoing ip is shared across both users.

It’s actually gotten “better” but one could argue maybe they’re able to perform more precise targeting instead of throwing away signal.
by VirusNewbie | 2025-08-18 23:18:22+00:00
I think there's an interesting market here. I know a couple moms who were exceptional FAANG level engineers who were willing to take huge pay cuts to go part time. They wanted to keep working but have enough time for their family.

I'm also aware of someone who made a lot of money in tech and doesn't really need to work but wants to stay in the game. They have told me they'd take a lot less money than they were making for a low salary and some equity if there weren't crazy high expectations for hours worked.

I don't think you could build a team of only part timers, but it really could be a solid way to round out a less experienced team without breaking the bank.
by Waterluvian | 2025-08-18 23:18:38+00:00
No “hey idiot” but for what it’s worth: are you making things too complicated? It almost feels like you’re a bit distracted by all the dimensions of data you want to track. Could this all be one page with a bulleted list, each one might have sub bullets if you care to record things like who shared it and other notes? You can just Ctrl+F for “wife” when you need that sub query.
by OkayPhysicist | 2025-08-18 23:18:52+00:00
Whether it's the first or last 20% of the battery is a software problem: People adjust their driving habits to avoid running out of charge, in the same way that people adjust their driving habits to not run out of gas. A car losing power when it claims to still have 20% left is a big problem, because it's failing to present you with the information with which to base your plan. If the readout on my car simply said that it had 240 miles of range on a full charge instead of 300, there's a good chance I wouldn't even notice.

On the exceptionally rare instance that I'm driving more than 200 miles in a day, I appreciate the half an hour to stretch my legs and grab a snack while my car's on a fast charger.
by wavemode | 2025-08-18 23:19:03+00:00
> What could have been if instead of spending so much energy and resources on developing “AI features” we focused on making our existing technology better?

This is a bit like the question "what if we spent our time developing technology to help people rather than developing weapons for war?"

The answer is that, the only reason you were able to get so many people working on the same thing at once, was because of the pressing need at hand (that "need" could be real or merely perceived). Without that, everyone would have their own various ideas about what projects are the best use of their time, and would be progressing in much smaller steps in a bunch of different directions.

To put it another way - instead of building the Great Pyramids, those thousands of workers (likely slaves) could have all individually spent that time building homes for their families. But, those homes wouldn't still be around and remembered millenia later.
by androng | 2025-08-18 23:19:07+00:00
the recent stackoverflow survey said that only 25% of developers are actually happy at work https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/work#job-satisfaction-j... . Gallup said its only 33% of employees are engaged in the economy in general. Not everyone gets to go to conferences and network for Godot game engine like the author, most are doing super repetitive jobs. I definitely want an AI to automate as many as possible ASAP
by kace91 | 2025-08-18 23:19:14+00:00
Damn does this bring back memories.

I learned to code specifically because as a kid I wanted to be a hacker; I was reading explanations of a buffer overflow in physical magazines before I learned how to code.

It’s been more than a decade since I even touched these kind of resources, but in a way those people are still the reason I can put food on the table now.

I really should revisit the community at some point, if only to see what the current environment is like. Things must have changed a lot since the time a teenager could bypass any security in their surroundings.
by ochiba | 2025-08-18 23:19:23+00:00
This is great to see and I like the simplicity of the approach. You can also look at PowerSync (which I work on). It's in a similar space as ElectricSQL. It syncs to SQLite on the client-side and provides built-in reactivity. On the web, it uses wa-sqlite with either OPFS or IndexedDB. It also takes care of things like multi-tab on web, and queueing and uploading client-side mutations to the backend.
by raybb | 2025-08-18 23:19:44+00:00
On a side note, the docs don't seem to mention if this is possible but does anyone know how to use a template or set a default frontmatter (like created date) when using the "new" button in a Base?

The solution I used before bases is eh... pretty hacky.

```meta-bind-js-view {memory^inputText} as title --- const toShow = context.bound.title || "TKTK"; const str = `\`\`\`meta-bind-button label: New Project Idea - ${toShow} icon: "" hidden: false class: "" tooltip: "" id: "" style: primary actions: - type: templaterCreateNote templateFile: Templates/Project.md folderPath: Project Ideas fileName: ${toShow} openNote: true \`\`\``; return engine.markdown.create(str) ```
by sugarpimpdorsey | 2025-08-18 23:19:49+00:00
> its believed that more democratic voters are less likely to have an id

This notion that Democrats keep pushing - that a sizable portion of their voting base is too dumb to get an ID - when massive developing countries like India that are still struggling with basic things like sanitation have long ago solved this problem - is nothing short of embarrassing.

There are people in rural India that live in straw huts that have EPIC cards.

The solution, if this problem exists as they say, is to get everyone proper ID. Not "let's have just anyone vote and we'll trust their word". Universal PKI-backed national ID would be a program everyone should be behind but it would never see the light of day in the US, because maintaining a "disenfranchised" voting bloc is more valuable as a bargaining chip than the positive social contributions of such a program.