MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Show HN: Chroma Cloud – serverless search database for AI
by jeffchuber | 2025-08-18 19:20:01+00:00
Hey HN - I’m Jeff, co-founder of Chroma.

In December of 2022, I was scrolling Twitter in the wee-hours of the morning holding my then-newborn daughter. ChatGPT had launched, and we were all figuring out what this technology was and how to make it useful. Developers were using retrieval to bring their data to the models - and so I DM’d every person who had tweeted about “embeddings” in the entire month of December. (it was only 120 people!) I saw then how AI was going to need to search to all the world’s information to build useful and reliable applications.

Anton Troynikov and I started Chroma with the beliefs that:

1. AI-based systems were way too difficult to productionize

2. Latent space was incredibly important to improving AI-based systems (no one understood this at the time)

On Valentines Day 2023, we launched first version of Chroma and it immediately took off. Chroma made retrieval just work. Chroma is now a large open-source project with 21k+ stars and 5M monthly downloads, used at companies like Apple, Amazon, Salesforce, and Microsoft.

Today we’re excited to launch Chroma Cloud - our fully-managed offering backed by an Apache 2.0 serverless database called Chroma Distributed. Chroma Distributed is written in Rust and uses object-storage for extreme scalability and reliability. Chroma Cloud is fast and cheap. Leading AI companies such as Factory, Weights & Biases, Propel, and Foam already use Chroma Cloud in production to power their agents. It brings the “it just works” developer experience developers have come to know Chroma for - to the Cloud.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

— Jeff
by brettgriffin | 2025-08-18 19:20:21+00:00
You are correct. As I pointed out in another reply, I misinterpreted this part:

> Generic tools like ChatGPT excel for individuals because of their flexibility, but they stall in enterprise use since they don’t learn from or adapt to workflows, Challapally explained.

I didn't read the actual report (and probably wont) so I was figured "AI Pilots" _could_ (and honestly, should!) include the deployment of models to assist in any and all work (not necessarily even just coding - I just used it as an example).
by neogodless | 2025-08-18 19:20:50+00:00
I'm a bit confused as you're saying this article refutes your hypothesis, right?

I'll also offer up an example. The Polestar 2 (prior to 2024) has an advertised 78 kWh battery, but also clearly only 75 kWh available for use. That's about 96% right from the factory. So presumably it's doing what you're saying, but it's also not a secret. It's also a way to prevent regular 100% charges from happening, which have proven to accelerate degradation.
by slowdog | 2025-08-18 19:21:18+00:00
It’s less that they’re flailing and more that it’s become some sort of lord of the flies culture with senior leaders directly competing with each other to try to take their bite of the pie.

The way AWS is structured with strongly owned independent businesses just doesn’t work, as GenAI needs a cohesive strategy which needs

1. An overall strategy

2. A culture that fosters collaboration not competition

Or at least an org charts to make them not compete with each other. (Example: Q developer vs Kiro)

I bet if you looked at the org charts you would see these teams don’t connect as they should.
by lc5G | 2025-08-18 19:21:43+00:00
This is the best critique of VP.net's approach in this thread. The purpose of the enclave approach is that you can be sure they're not logging your traffic. This is an advantage over competitors. But, as you say, this does not actually work. When you connect to the VPN, you don't know whether your traffic really gets mixed with other people's traffic. If it doesn't get mixed, then no matter what the trusted enclave code does, they still know all the input and output traffic belongs to you.
by curt15 | 2025-08-18 19:21:44+00:00
>there's far less emphasis on creating native distribution packages for third-party software in 2025. Flatpaks, Snaps, and AppImage packages seem more popular with desktop-application developers these days. A lot of server-side software is now expected to be deployed as a container—or a group of containers run in Kubernetes—rather than installed as a package.

Are CLI tools or low-level, privileged software (e.g. anything that requires root) also distributed using flatpak or snap these days?
by ZunarJ5 | 2025-08-18 19:22:43+00:00
https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-...

From above:

'The Dutch firm Ecory was commissioned to research the impact of piracy for several months, eventually submitting a 304-page report to the EU in May 2015. The report concluded that: “In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements. That does not necessarily mean that piracy has no effect but only that the statistical analysis does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect.”

The report found that illegal downloads and streams can actually boost legal sales of games, according to the report. The only negative link the report found was with major blockbuster films: “The results show a displacement rate of 40 percent which means that for every ten recent top films watched illegally, four fewer films are consumed legally.”'
by upboundspiral | 2025-08-18 19:23:11+00:00
I agree U-Block origin is sometimes hit or miss. What has restored some faith for me was recently discovering that when I use the element picker and select something I want blocked it gives me a list at the bottom right of things it recognized, and if I click through them I can often find exactly what I want to block though often its not the default element anymore. It's not perfect but it has massively improved my satisfaction with Ublock and general enjoyment of being online.
by ltbarcly3 | 2025-08-18 19:23:22+00:00
You are making a vague argument.

Do you think it's inherently so unsafe to use your ID in an online context that it is never a net benefit? Yes/No

If you think it is unsafe, what alternative do you propose? If you don't have one, or your idea requires some kind of massive simultaneous buy in by all stakeholders and jurisdictions, give up, your opinion is irrelevant.
by MisterTea | 2025-08-18 19:23:41+00:00
> This year I snapped a pic and sent to chat gpt.

I used to be able to go to the local gardening center and ask the owner who could right away give you the right answer because that was his expertise that came from years of genuine experience. Then Home Depot put him put of business. Same with the local plumbing shop I could walk into with a leaky valve stem from a sink, have a guy glance at it and reply "that's an American Standard" spin around, open a drawer and hand me the part along with new washers.

Now I have to talk to a computer that may or may not be correct. I would rather talk to a real person.
by philip1209 | 2025-08-18 19:23:47+00:00
A lot depends on the legal and tax structure of the business.

If you’re a small business - you can potentially do cash basis accounting with a disregarded entity LLC. Some SaaS services exists for this.

If you’re a c corp with employees and investor money, you might have more complex needs like accrual basis accounting and nexuses in multiple states. In this case, you probably need dedicated professional advice.
by hedora | 2025-08-18 19:23:50+00:00
We get away with level 1 chargers, and live far from the city. Residential lots could easily get away with one level one charger per spot. (The wattage is < 25% that of one level 2 charger, so you can put in 4x as many with the same backend connection to the grid.)

For city commuters, this would probably be more than good enough.
by ricksunny | 2025-08-18 19:23:51+00:00
Couple of precedents worth noting here:

• (earliest I'm aware of) integrated circuit companies in the semiconductor industry typically have different versions of an IC using the same silicon but with different resistor fuses burned to lock out premium functionality.

• bikeshares are basically a hardware lockout model

• I've been in the off-grid pay-as-you-go industry (For markets like in India and sub-Saharan Africa) which is functionally dependent on the concept of locking out hardware until someone has paid for it. It would be easy to see premium subscription features slotting into this model. Without the lockout, the industry would be a tiny fraction of its current size, and would not be reaching the most struggling individuals who cannot provide for the up-front cost needed to get a product in hand in the first place.

I think what VW's doing sucks, _relative to my pre-existing norms_ and what _they and the rest of the auto industry_ ordinarily used to to offer. But I can see an industry being enabled by the same behavior too. These opportunities are obviously rife with the potential for abuse & dystopian consequences. It would be really nice if a set of norms was drawn up that many could ratify so that companies & brands could be held accountable to a certain code of behavior. 'this is allowed', 'that is not allowed' type of thing. I don't want the future to be a Cory Doctorow novel.
by indemnity | 2025-08-18 19:24:08+00:00
I used to be an Audi and BMW driver, but this stingy nickel and diming mindset, common to German manufacturers, and the silly maintenance tax (I always drove RS or M models), made me swear off German cars forever. They deserve the reckoning coming for them with this cynical bullshit. Pity, as they really do make cars that are enjoyable to drive.
by doublerabbit | 2025-08-18 19:24:26+00:00
PHP typically required a web-server, system administration which is old fashioned. No one wants to do that which is fine as it keeps me employed.

When Ruby made western presence it was clunky. No one knew what it was and it got stuck with that personality. It had an ecosystem too but never hooked in to the western world.

Java is tainted by Oracle and seen as "business".

And it's also weird how Postgres has made an uprising appearance. It was sitting duck back in the 00's. I knew it existed because as an script kiddie I could install a php forum and select it as a database backend but I never did.

Want to make a LCD display? You can simply by slapping a python library in to your code.

Ecosystems pull coders in. Thinking about it, it's probably why Perl was popular before with CPAN.

The old net was special but skills had to be learnt. Remember the days when you had one server for one service?

The new net is terrible but everything is handed to you on a golden plate.
by brianstorms | 2025-08-18 19:24:39+00:00
Fuck that site. Offers people links to free PDF downloads of my book that I worked on for 32 years and finally got published by Pantheon Books in 2017. I didn't work all that fucking time for criminals like these to just break copyright law and make the book available for free. Fuck Anna's Archive, and I hope they go down in legal flames ASAP.
by asimops | 2025-08-18 19:24:50+00:00
The time to fight against this was when they pushed the first kind of this extortion services.

But do not accept it as a given now. The next best time to fight agains this is always now! Do not buys cars that are sold that way. If you have to buy a 'new' car, buy a used one that you can repair. Try to see this pattern in other products and avoid those too.

Talk about it with others while mentioning simple analogies like basfo did here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44944155

And please, do not think that 'the market' could solve this. Once 'the market' sees adoption, it will follow suit. Only regulation can help with these issues.

Nothing is lost until we give up and accept that.
by CamperBob2 | 2025-08-18 19:24:51+00:00
Yes, if it helps me get my own job done more effectively, efficiently, and economically. That's how our society works. You and I benefit from this, too, not just Microsoft.

If you don't like it, there's a process for changing how it works, but don't expect an easy path to success. Various people will object, and will have to be won over to your way of thinking.
by stetrain | 2025-08-18 19:25:10+00:00
Also the early Nissan Leafs, pioneers in the mass-market EV space, had batteries with only air cooling and which experienced significant degradation.

More modern EVs with full liquid thermal management and newer cell revisions and chemistries seem to be holding up much better over time.

Some chemistries like LFP have even greater cycle and calendar life in return for a bit less energy density. Ford and GM are both betting big on these for their future entry-level EVs and I think they will end up being a common choice where maximum range isn't the customer's primary concern.
by em-bee | 2025-08-18 19:25:24+00:00
i found two articles that write about this:

https://www.nd-aktuell.de/artikel/1191189.index-der-repressi...

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/berlin-demonstrationen-g...

the first is a left wing publication, but the second is quite conservative.

i have to admit that what they describe is much worse than i imagined. :-(

you are right it certainly looks a lot like suppression of legitimate protests and support of palestine being deliberately misinterpreted as antisemitism.
by 7402 | 2025-08-18 19:25:24+00:00
>not all ham radios that can transmit on GMRS bands are legal to do so.

Actually, no ham radios that can transmit on GMRS bands are legal (in the US).

See 47 CFR 95.1761:

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D...
by HiPhish | 2025-08-18 19:25:59+00:00
I think this is a great move from Volkswagen. I'm sure this has happened to all of us at some point: you buy something, and then a few days later you think "if only I had paid a little bit extra and gotten the big version", but by that time you are already stuck with the small version.

Well, no more. Now Volkswagen is willing to sell you the big machine for the price of the small machine. And they are willing to gamble on taking a financial loss if you do not change your mind after all and don't make up for the difference. What a great company! Either that, or they are selling you the big version whether you want it or not, and then trying to double-dip. But they would never do that, that's just a crazy conspiracy theory. R-right?
by danielmarkbruce | 2025-08-18 19:26:21+00:00
https://chatgpt.com/share/68a37b87-6c30-8002-8a9a-76915e2e48...

The basic problem with the way you are thinking about it with respect to the national railway is that you don't seem to include cost to the government (ie, the people) to run it. Much infrastructure might appear to be "well run" by the government until you see the massive hole in the their budget. Sometimes the service has to get worse. When the government decides some piece of infrastructure must "pay for itself", they often sell it or hand over management to a private entity as a way to shift blame.

There are many private companies/PE firms etc who are competitively bidding to own these assets. It's not some license to print money, they are low return low risk assets.
by epolanski | 2025-08-18 19:26:36+00:00
> But not many cars get to this driving distance

That's just because they don't receive appropriate maintenance. In my family we had plenty of Italian and german cars, we maintained them, most hit 300k+ kilometers. Our 9000$ Lancia Y still worked fine after 350k+ and we only got rid of it because it cannot enter Rome due to emission restrictions.
by brookst | 2025-08-18 19:26:42+00:00
My point was more that there is a subset of technical people who delight in the “they’re not perfect, because / therefore they are just glorified spellcheck” fallacy. Search this thread for “spell” or “parrot” to see examples.

So I don’t think it’s the same people, because the tone is not “they’re amazing but have farther to go”; there is a substantial group who at least claims to believe there’s no qualitative difference between Opus 4.1 and the spellcheck in Word ‘95.

Not trying to be argumentative here; I appreciate the conversation and you’ve helped me sharpen my point, which I appreciate.
by rimunroe | 2025-08-18 19:27:03+00:00
I will forever mourn the general demise of server browsers. Too many games require you to use matchmaking systems, which means it's very hard to build up a small community in-game anymore. You either have to rely on forming small parties with people you've stumbled upon one by one, or you have to seek out people from some much larger area like Reddit or Discord. It takes a lot of the serendipity out of the experience. Without a small community it becomes much harder to ensure you're not playing with people who make the game less fun by whatever metric you care about.

I used to be an admin on a group of about 18 or so connected Counter-Strike 1.6 servers called T3Houston*. We ran modified versions of various Warcraft 3 mods which added persistent XP/leveling, as well as integration with an external item store and player database the owner maintained. Most of those servers were filled to the brim during peak US gaming times, and our forum was quite active.

There aren't many games these days where you could do something like that. I discovered the community because one day I was just looking for a server with open slots for me to join. I was fairly skeptical of whatever a Warcraft mod would be like, but ended up enjoying it so I added it to my favorites. Eventually I got to know the regulars and joined the forum. Notably, the place felt far less toxic than the average server I'd join back then. I can completely believe this is just me looking at the past through rose tinted glasses, but it feels like the general toxicity has gotten worse at the same time as we've lost a lot of tools to manage it.

* If anyone else here remembers the name T3Houston: hi! I'm Stealth Penguin
by carlosjobim | 2025-08-18 19:27:41+00:00
Most information is not easily available, it is purposefully hidden because knowledge is power and money. And that's through all fields and not only Coca-Cola recipes.

The argument is that authors will stop making information publicly available because piracy takes away the value. So instead information will be hidden in vaults and do good only for a few people. Like how maps used to be top state secrets.
by ndriscoll | 2025-08-18 19:29:08+00:00
Books seem somewhat unique to me in that the physical product is better or at least different from the digital one, so it kind of makes sense to buy it even if you already have a digital copy. This is unlike e.g. streaming services where the paid service is strictly worse than the pirated one (e.g. no offline, doesn't work at all with some monitors/setups, only low bitrates allowed).
by saghm | 2025-08-18 19:29:18+00:00
> I understand that there is a risk if we allow local HTML files to access anything, but there should be some way - for example, a file or directory might have some suffix that allows access to it.

> I do not want to use a web-server because it feels like overengineering and I don't want to open a terminal, navigate to a directory and start a server every time, it takes too much time. I just want to type the URL and have my app running

I'd love for there to be an "offline only" mode for browsers where you can either access the local filesystem or remote pages, but not both. I don't think this would completely solve the use case you describe, since there would still presumably be circumstances where it would be helpful to reference something external, but it feels like it would be pretty useful to be able to use a browser as a limited server for static files, and it would be relative simple and intuitive compared to needing to have something in the files themselves indicate the intended semantics.
by cj | 2025-08-18 19:29:41+00:00
Are you sure?

I’ve used Otter to record convos without it joining the meeting.

Notion’s AI meeting recording also works without any participants being alerted. Same with Limitless.ai (check out the limitless pendant for the most extreme example of no consent recording)

Most of these AI meeting recording services make it easy to silently/secretly record. No consent seems to be the default UX.
by godelski | 2025-08-18 19:30:06+00:00
There's tons of backlash here as if people think better performance requires writing in assembly.

But to anyone complaining, I want to know, when was the last you pulled out a profiler? When was the last time you saw anyone use a profiler?

People asking for performance aren't pissed you didn't write Microsoft Word in assembly we're pissed it takes 10 seconds to open a fucking text editor.

I literally timed it on my M2 Air. 8s to open and another 1s to get a blank document. Meanwhile it took (neo)vim 0.1s and it's so fast I can't click my stopwatch fast enough to properly time it. And I'm not going to bother checking because the race isn't even close.

I'm (we're) not pissed that the code isn't optional, I'm pissed because it's slower than dialup. So take that Knuth quote you love about optimization and do what he actually suggested. Grab a fucking profiler, it is more important than your Big O
by OtherShrezzing | 2025-08-18 19:30:25+00:00
I’ve been thinking about how traditional game AI can be improved by generative models. One of the biggest problems with games like Civ is that the AI strategy is predictable - especially if you’ve played a few dozen hours.

LLMs with some decent harnesses could build up unpredictable - but internally consistent - strategies per each new game you play.

This is close to a proof of concept for those improvements.
by runjake | 2025-08-18 19:30:30+00:00
After a few weeks of learning curve, Arch and Hyprland.

To install Arch, just use archinstall.

To get a pretty decent Hyprland configuration going with excellent documentation, try Omarchy[1], but there are several other ready configurations. From there, the user experience is infinitely customizable.

Yes, I'm a "highly technical" user familiar with Linux.

No, I'm not a person who likes to fiddle. I just want to get work done efficiently. So, you might be surprised at my pick, but I'm not spending much time fiddling around.

1. https://manuals.omamix.org/2/the-omarchy-manual
by sokoloff | 2025-08-18 19:31:08+00:00
I track gas added to all of our cars (because my dad and his dad did). I’ve driven several of them to over 130k miles and one to 242k miles. I’ve never seen even a 5% degradation in mileage from wear. (I did see the ~3% drop in mileage when ethanol was added to the standard gasoline mix. I wonder if someone is confusing that for wear.)

If I had a 10% loss in fuel economy, I’d be looking for something wrong and fixing it.
by roscas | 2025-08-18 19:31:09+00:00
VW and all the group cars problem is that their electric cars are bad. Remember those Audi that at 10k told customers to change the engine oil?

ID3 and others are curious cars. People have so many problems and software issues that it is funny how they still sell some cars. Those cars are regular cars that they stripped the engine and put an electric motor. Then sell it. After sell loads of cars, they started thinking about software and how an electric car might be diferent.

Who remembers their CEO for many times to say that they were about to pass Tesla in sales? When they almost had no cars or sales. Poor man, without medication, it is very hard to say something with meaning or have a clue about reality.

But the summary of this is simple: extortion.

This is the same company that created illegal cars and sold them. Then they got caught. Then they were to become the best electric cars. Then we got to see the crap of ID3 up to ID7! Remember it got rain and broke?

Let's hope they close that thing. Not the sausages, those are good and they sell them more than cars.

Still, Audi could get their engines from Honda. Fixed!
by soared | 2025-08-18 19:31:34+00:00
I wonder if this would be good for vibe coding / natural language for enemy AI. IE, place an enemy down and tell it: “every 3 seconds fire an arrow at the player. If the player is within 7 tiles of you, stop firing arrows, path to the player, and attack it with a sword. When your health reaches 10% run away from the player”