MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by busymom0 | 2025-08-04 17:20:26+00:00
> why does perplexity even need to crawl websites?

I was recently working on a project where I needed to find out the published date for a lot of article links and this came helpful. Not sure if it's changed recently but asking ChatGPT, Gemini etc didn't work and it said that it doesn't have access to the current websites. However, asking perplexity, it fetched the website in real time and gave me the info I needed.

I do agree with the rest of your comment that this is not a random robot crawling. It was doing what a real user (me) asked it to fetch.
by pbasista | 2025-08-04 17:20:30+00:00
This seems nice. But if I am looking correctly, it does not support the devices from the mainstream brands like Hikvision.

I am unaware of how good those typical $20 cameras are. Maybe they are decent. But for instance some of the Hikvision ones with 8MP sensors support 4K@25 fps.

I think that it would be great if there would be an open source firmware for higher-end cameras like those.
by FrustratedMonky | 2025-08-04 17:20:39+00:00
From AI

"While the cotton gin made the process of cleaning cotton significantly faster, it ultimately led to an increase in the demand for enslaved labor, not a decrease."

A lot of automation leads to more work for someone. Reduces some jobs, and piles on others. Maybe 12 union jobs are removed, but then keeping the robots running falls on 1-2 IT staff.
by ufmace | 2025-08-04 17:20:49+00:00
It seems like it's difficult to really separate them these days.

You can always come up with something horrific enough that it seems reasonable, even necessary, for platforms to block it, like actual terrorism or child porn.

But then, there's always an activist group out there who really wants to ban something that most people feel is only mildly distasteful but not worth a platform-level ban and will abuse processes to do it.

And there's enough people for each of those cases who have incentive to obscure exactly which category things are actually in. More than enough for it to be hard for any platform to sort it out for sure.

So do we eventually end up with either an actual Government takeover, or everything banned that's more edgy than Mr. Rogers Neighborhood?
by vouaobrasil | 2025-08-04 17:20:57+00:00
> One, there is no way LLMs in their current state are capable of replacing human translators for a case like this. And two, they do make the job of translation a lot less tedious. I wouldn't call it pleasant exactly, but it was much easier than my previous translation experiences

On the other hand, one day they will replace human beings. And secondly, if something like transalation (or in general, any mental work) becomes too easy, then we also run the risk of incresing the amount of mediocre works. Fact is, if something is hard, we'll only spend time on it if it's really worthwhile.

Same thing happens with phone cameras. Yes, it makes some things more convenient, but it also has resulted in a mountain of mediocrity, which isn't free to store (requires energy and hence pollutes the environment).
by seydor | 2025-08-04 17:21:11+00:00
it's because those SEO bots keep crawling over and over, which perplexity does not seem to do (considering that the URLS are user-requested). Those are different cases and robots.txt is only about the former. Cloudflare in this case is not doing "ddos protection" because i presume Perplexity does not constantly refetch or crawl or ddos the website (If perplexity does those things then they are guilty)

https://www.robotstxt.org/faq/what.html

I wonder if cloudflare users explicitly have to allow google or if it's pre-allowed for them when setting up cloudflare.

Despite what Cloudflare wants us to think here, the web was always meant to be an open information network , and spam protection should not fundamentally change that characteristic.
by gtblitz98 | 2025-08-04 17:21:38+00:00
Location: Coimbra, Portugal

Remote: prefer in presence, but yes

Willing to relocate: unlikely

Technologies: Python, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Redis, RabbitMQ, ROS 2, Docker, Kubernetes, Gitlab CI, GCP...

Résumé/CV: https://drive.proton.me/urls/QX8SWEF3DW#efsWRjopaLx2

Email: gdtavares@proton.me

I am a software engineer with 3+ years of experience working at a startup dealing with DevOps, on-premises/hybrid cloud systems, backend development, operations research, and generally a bit of everything throughout the software development lifecycle and process improvement.
by thebruce87m | 2025-08-04 17:21:40+00:00
> they result in nothing changing if they are ignored.

That’s not true

> Do I still need to pay attention while using Autopilot?

> … Before enabling Autopilot, you must agree to “keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times” and to always “maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle.” Once engaged, Autopilot will also deliver an escalating series of visual and audio warnings, reminding you to place your hands on the wheel if insufficient torque is applied. If you repeatedly ignore these warnings, you will be locked out from using Autopilot during that trip.

> If you repeatedly ignore the inattentive driver warnings, Autosteer will be disengaged for that trip. If you receive several ‘Forced Autopilot Disengagements’ (three times for vehicles without a cabin camera and five times for vehicles with a cabin camera), Autosteer and all features that use Autosteer will be temporarily removed for approximately one week.

https://www.tesla.com/en_gb/support/autopilot
by gspencley | 2025-08-04 17:22:07+00:00
Yeah I'm not an AI naysayer but was pretty skeptical that AI could actually do anything for my workflow.

Tedious, repetitive stuff that you'd typically write a throwaway script for is one good use case for AI for me. This doesn't come up very often for me, however. But this morning I needed to update a bunch of import statements in TypeScript files to use relative paths instead of referencing a library name and Cursor did that for me quickly and easily without me needing to write a script.

I've also found that if you're unsure how to solve a problem within an existing codebase, or you're about to go down a rabbit hole of studying documentation to figure out how to wire something up, an LLM can get you up and running with code examples a bit quicker.

But if I already know, high level, how I'm going to solve something then the whole "needing to review the AI code" part of the workflow more than eats up any time savings. And the parallelism thing is just a ton of context shifting to me. Each time I need to go back to an agent to review what it did, it takes me away from the deep focus on a domain problem that I was focused on, and there's a good 20 - 30 minutes of productivity lost by switching back and forth between just two tasks.
by jancsika | 2025-08-04 17:22:10+00:00
Couldn't agree more.

I've mentored for a lot of PHP GSoC projects. I always force the students to use PHP binaries from the late 90s or early 2000s (the sweet spot IMHO). Those versions are typically simpler in design/implementation, built to last, and-- for the relatively minor bugs you find-- there are lots and lots of workarounds you can find all over the web.

I do understand the conveniences that make people choose the latest version. But these GSoC students are typically working on projects where things like personal health data must be kept secure on public facing servers. For those cases, being able to understand the engine-- and even change it out manually, if needed-- is paramount to security.

In short, those earlier versions were designed by engineers to last. And if you know how to patch the runtime you can essentially drive them forever.

And... scene. :)
by forgotoldacc | 2025-08-04 17:22:16+00:00
Most of us on HN are definitely much better off than the average person, so we have the freedom to not desperately pursue any possible chance that comes our way. A lot of people here also have very in demand skills and have companies begging them to work for them, not the other way around.

For the people just starting out with no experience, and those wondering whether they should get their car fixed, buy new shoes to replace their current ones that have a hole in the bottom, or eat something better than rice and beans for another week, they don't have the luxury to boycott jobs. They're focused on surviving, and that's a huge chunk of America.
by mh- | 2025-08-04 17:22:31+00:00
> They serve the full article to Google, which allows Google to show you excerpts that you have to pay for.

I'm old enough to remember when that was grounds for getting your site removed from Google results - "cloaking" was against the rules. You couldn't return one result for Googlebot, and another for humans.

No idea when they stopped doing that, but they obviously have let go of that principle.
Show HN: Host local-only MCP tools in the cloud with Streamable HTTP
by frafdez | 2025-08-04 17:22:51+00:00
Some of the best MCP tools today only run locally via STDIO. That works fine for desktop apps, but it’s a real limitation when you want to automate them or plug them into agent workflows.

We ran into this and built a way to host STDIO-based MCP tools in the cloud with zero code changes. It uses Streamable HTTP and supports token-based authentication (either bearer or inline in the URL). We also kept it simple by using the same config file format as Claude Desktop so you can plug in tools without rewriting anything. It support npx, uvx, pipx, and python.

Originally built it for a client who needed remote automation, but figured others might be facing the same problem.

Site here if you’re curious: https://mcp-hosting.chatterkb.com

Curious if others here have run into this problem or built something similar.
by andy99 | 2025-08-04 17:22:54+00:00
Can't agree more, cloudflare is destroying the internet. We've entered the equivalent of when having McAffe antivirus was worse than having an actual virus because it slowed down your computer to much. These user hostile solutions have taken us back to dialup era page loading speeds for many sites, it's absurd that anyone thinks this is a service worth paying for.
by dmitrygr | 2025-08-04 17:23:11+00:00
My policy has always been that any company seeking to employ me must put in as much effort / time into the interview as I do. If they are not willing to do that, I consider that an indication of how they intend to treat me in the future and wisely walk away.That is why I would never do one of these, and that is why, when offered a take-home assignment, I send back a quote (which companies have accepted and paid, curiously).
by throwanem | 2025-08-04 17:23:26+00:00
What "belief in a conspiracy of programmers?"

I've made no contention, but if I had, it would be that whoever signed off on this design had better not have a PE license that they would like to keep, and we as an industry would be wise not to keep counting on our grandfather-clause "fun harmless dorks" cultural exemption now that we manufacture machines which obviously kill people. If that by you is conspiracy theory, you're welcome.
by exasperaited | 2025-08-04 17:23:59+00:00
It is a philosophical remark and it is true on that level for sure.

You cannot delegate the act of thinking because the process of delegation is itself a decision you have made in your own mind. The thoughts of your delegates are implicitly yours.

Just like if you include a library in your code, you are implicitly hiring the developers of that library onto your project. Your decision to use the library is hiring the people who wrote it, to implicitly write the code it replaces. (This is something I wish more people understood)
by liveandlet | 2025-08-04 17:24:10+00:00
EliseAI | DevOps Engineer, Security Engineer | NYC Onsite | https://www.eliseai.com

EliseAI develops cutting-edge conversational AI technology for industries fundamental to our lives: housing and healthcare. Everything is built on the foundation of health and home. Broken systems or ineffective processes in these domains have a disproportionate impact on our quality of life and society’s overall wellbeing. Conversely, any solution or technology that solves problems in these areas will have an impact that ripples far beyond them.

Feel free to reach out to me winston[at]eliseai[dot]com if you have any questions about the role or company.

DevOps Engineer - https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/EliseAI/fe19cade-c6ec-4552-8b49-3f4...

Security Engineer - https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/EliseAI/af77f19a-8ce5-451b-bae5-f78...
by vouaobrasil | 2025-08-04 17:24:11+00:00
> I don't get these articles. First the author claims that AI made us more productive but now the time we saved is spent on more work (!)

Well, that is a general phenomenon of technology. Technology does indeed often save time at first (in the short-term) but then compensates in a bad way and gives us more work in the long term. Pretty much every technology past a certain point of sophistication does this:

- Smartphones immediately can help us organize stuff, but then they also make it easier for people to call you when you don't want, you get more spam, etc.

- Cars make it easier to get from A to B but then in the long run now we have to spend countless years of work to clean up the climate/environemtn

- Computers make typing and storing information more efficient but now we have to spend countless hours on securing them

The bottom line is that efficiency increases from a technological creation point of view but life simplicity decreases, in general.
by socalgal2 | 2025-08-04 17:24:22+00:00
It is a problem of competition.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s...

Go to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan and see that there are 20-30 payment systems at every convenience store, electronics store, grocery store, etc... Then go to the US where there's effectively 2. The government claims this is because Visa and Mastercard have prevented competition.
by moritzwarhier | 2025-08-04 17:24:24+00:00
One of the few articles about AI on the front page that doesn't make me want to throw my phone against a wall.

Haven't even read it completely, but in contrast to the countless submissions regurgitating badly thought-out meta arguments about AI-supported software engineering, it actually seems to elaborate on some interesting points.

I also think that the internet as a primary communication and mass medium + generative AI evokes 1984, very strongly.
by ejstronge | 2025-08-04 17:24:27+00:00
There's no reason to re-invent the wheel - ipcamtalk has a comprehensive set of explanatory posts. Don't buy Reolink, avoid Amcrest - Loryta (rebranded Dahua) and Hikvision are the strongest, but there are other strong options, especially on the refurbished commercial camera front.
by SilverElfin | 2025-08-04 17:24:33+00:00
This is for East Africa but I want it in America. It is so frustrating to have to deal with months of waiting for an appointment that is little more than gate keeping. Most doctors spend little time on each patient and their knowledge and intuition regularly lags what I can easily find myself online, because they obviously can’t spend hours researching things or analyzing test results. An AI could do it better for many cases. We need a huge rethink of regulations to save people time and money in healthcare.
by porridgeraisin | 2025-08-04 17:24:36+00:00
> let's deploy drones that are all around

It already happened.

Tldr: Drones armed with pepper spray and such flying around schools and colleges, for the purposes of active shooter prevention, assault prevention, etc,.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/school-sho...

Personally, can't wait for when it inevitably bazookas a student playfully pushing another student down onto the department lawn.
by bakugo | 2025-08-04 17:25:22+00:00
> alternative that works will all of your devices, operating systems, ad blockers and extensions

When 99.9% of users are using the same few types of locked down devices, operating systems, and browsers that all support remote attestation, the 0.1% doesn't matter. This is already the case on mobile devices, it's only a matter of time until computers become just as locked down.
by mapontosevenths | 2025-08-04 17:25:48+00:00
You ignore the issue of motivation. Most web content exists because someone wants to make money on it. If the content creator can't do that, they will stop producing content.

These AI web crawlers (Google, Perplexity, etc) are self-cannibalizing robots. They eat the goose that laid the golden egg for breakfast, and lose money doing it most of the time.

If something isn't done to incentivize content creators again eventually there will be only walled-gardens and obsolete content left for the cannibals.
by nis0s | 2025-08-04 17:26:04+00:00
> But when it comes to national cultures we pretend that they're all comparable and all equally good. They are not.

I think it’s less about culture as people commonly think, i.e., dancing, music, food, clothes, stories, religion etc.

The cultural aspects which help or hinder societies are related to core beliefs (which religion may have some hand in forming, but not necessarily), philosophies and values passed across generations. Religion is the confounding factor of cultural impact, but notice there are countries with similar religions and histories, and dissimilar outcomes.

For this reason, I don’t blame the people who live in any one place because they were randomly born there without any choice. I blame the politicians and elites in their society who are responsible for shaping those parts of the culture which get distilled down to practical and actionable aspects on a day-to-day basis for other leaders, or people who are doing core work which impacts their economy.

Really, the development of such ideas and beliefs have all really been about how to deal with and navigate uncertainty. It also really doesn’t matter how conscientious your people are (they mostly are, almost everywhere) if the leaders are inept or incompetent or corrupt. But yes, there’s a baseline level of “corruption” in almost every country, what matters is where that baseline level is relative to other places.
by vouaobrasil | 2025-08-04 17:26:06+00:00
AI was never supposed to automate the boring parts. It's what it was advertised to do. Sort of like how those "as seen on TV" weight loss pills are "supposed" to help you lose weight.

The purpose of AI is supposed to *make a few people richer*! Not take away the boredom from tasks. That's only a side effect of it used to sell it.
by jpadkins | 2025-08-04 17:26:12+00:00
> 1. If I as a human request a website, then I should be shown the content. Everyone agrees.

I disagree. The website should have the right to say that the user can be shown the content under specific conditions (usage terms, presented how they designed, shown with ads, etc). If the software can't comply with those terms, then the human shouldn't be shown the content. Both parties did not agree in good faith.
by pkdpic | 2025-08-04 17:26:22+00:00
Yeah in a perfect world I absolutely agree. But the reality I'm observing is that everything continues to always be behind schedule (not a new phenomena) and if anything expectations from project leads / management are just getting less realistic leaving Jr devs in even more of a position of "no time to be curious or learn deeply just get it done" and teamleads reviewing PRs in a maybe even worse position of "no time to get into a deep review / mentorship session just figure out if it breaks anything or not". And ultimately clients are still just living in fantasy land in terms of expectations both in terms of build out time for basic features / patches and also how much AI razzle-dazzle they expect for new project proposals.

Nothing can move fast enough to keep up with these hype-fueled TED talk expectations all the way up the chain.

I don't know if there's any solution and I'm sure it's not like this everywhere but I'm also sure I'm not alone. At this point I'm just trying to keep my feet wet on "AI" related projects until the hype dust settles so I can reassess what this industry even is anymore. Maybe it's not too late to get a single subject credential and go teach math or finger painting or something.
by PaulHoule | 2025-08-04 17:26:43+00:00
There is no greater enemy of the truth than the use of the phrase “the truth”. This is a basic problem in logic and philosophy, see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_...

Where adding an operator that can determine the logical truth of a statement breaks the system. At a bellyfeel level consider “9/11 truther”. There is no truth, only seduction

https://monoskop.org/images/9/96/Baudrillard_Jean_Seduction....

There is no “little boy” about it but I don’t think your question is really a productive question to ask. In that there are no journalists, nobody pounding the pavement to get facts, interview people, etc, HN is not “the press”. Particularly there is no editor-in-chief. A counter to that is that you will find people writing on HN (like Mailer) about their experiences vibe coding or developing photographs or what went down at the third last startup they worked at. That is mostly ‘true’ in the Norman Mailer sense or the lucid bits of that Hunter S. Thompson bit and might be all the more ‘true’ if it goes off the rails once in a while the way Hunter did even if it departs from conventionally defined factually. Hunter and Mailer both emphasize the gap between the personal account which is more ‘real’ in a certain sense than ‘objective’ journalism. That Bagdikian book has one of the most damning critiques of the media I’ve ever seen —- the editor of a small town newspaper he just 6 seconds to look at an AP newswire study and decide if it is ‘fit to print’ which is an act of violence against the very fabric of reality.

Baudrillard’s next book

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

is an attempt to shit on the word ‘real’ the way that wolves shit on a trap in that the words ‘true’ and ‘real’ (not to mention ‘trustworthy’) are frequently used in attempts to deceive.

From that perspective we have been in a post-apocalyptic environment for quite some time, at least 1970 if not 1945 or 1870. However problematic you think the media is, the reality is so much worse and it is not a function of who owns it or works it or bias on a left/right access it is a structural property of the system itself.
by exasperaited | 2025-08-04 17:26:54+00:00
> The alternative? Allow a state lottery (e.g. Mega Millions), bet rid of the scummy mobile apps. Stop advertising. And stop pushing the scratch off games, or remove them all together. Overall it would reduce some revenue but be a net positive to society.

I fully agree with this. It completely fits my own perception of the problem. But I asked because a lot of people who think the government has no place in gambling are seeking deregulation, not what is necessary: recriminalisation.
Founder's responsibility to protect the value of your team's equity
by mgav | 2025-08-04 17:26:55+00:00
As a founder, it is YOUR responsibility to protect the value of your team's equity (many employees don't understand or perhaps aren't privy to the all-important details of proposed VC funding terms).

I'm surprised there aren't more lawsuits by startup employees against directors & officers who allow most of a company's exit value to be siphoned-off by onerous VC terms, like liquidity preferences…
by js2 | 2025-08-04 17:27:08+00:00
This motivates the question: if you're doing all this work to verify the LLM, is the LLM really saving you anytime?

After just a few weeks in this brave new world my answer is: it depends, and I'm not really sure.

I think over time as both the LLMs get better and I get better at working with them, I'll start trusting them more.

One thing that would help with that would be for them to become a lot less random and less sensitive to their prompts.