MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by topspin | 2025-08-19 22:02:03+00:00
From the blog: "Not surprising once you understand that slewing to a target significantly increases the number of pulses per second sent to the motors, and everything became just too much to handle for our little ESP32."

A hobby application of mine involves driving multiple steppers at high-ish frequencies, following sigmoid curves precisely and no tolerance for glitches, because the mass and the cost of the device(s) is too great to risk any failure in pulse output, and there is no feedback, so I must not suffer "missed" steps, glitches, etc. The big hammer that solves this is obviating the MCU core (ARM or otherwise,) in motion control and using timer peripherals with DMA.

Ultimately, I ended up turning to STM32G4 MCUs because of the ACT (advanced control timer) peripheral. These timers can generate arbitrary waveforms using DMA in a relatively simple manner: the ARM core and its code/RTOS/whatever can suffer whatever overload, priority inversion, sleep mode, etc. happens to emerge, and the timers are unaffected.

Today I would consider using RP2350 and the PIO peripheral, which is also capable of achieving this, I believe.

ESP32 has its MCPWM peripheral, but I determined that with MCPWM you can't do the sort of arbitrary acceleration/deceleration profiles I needed in a 100% "core-free" manner without either a.) cascading timers or b.) using interrupts. The former is, comparatively speaking, complex[1], and the later gets you back into the MCU core, and possible glitches[2]. With the ST ACT peripheral, the problem is self contained to one timer per motor: simple and straightforward. At least one of their MCUs has three of those timers (G474, in larger packages, for example.)

The other way to go is specialized motor driver ICs. Analog Devices, by way of their Trimanic line of devices and low cost breakout boards, has great products there, widely used with 3D printers, CNC and similar. The driver software is much more complex than my simple ACT peripheral solution, however.

[1] I know it's possible and others have done it. The ST peripheral is far easier to get working and get right, if you can deal with CMSIS and the ST reference manual.

[2] I know about interrupt priorities. I also know about code evolution, bugs and other ways that dealing in interrupt priorities can get fragile.
by kcplate | 2025-08-19 22:02:26+00:00
Seems to me that it’s not all that “clever” to reinforce the decision to provide an awful candidate from one of the two “winnable” political parties hoping that people will still hold their nose and vote for the lesser of two evils…whichever subjective one that is to you.

Lots of people were asking “where did all our 2020 votes go in 2024?” It’s not so “invisible” when your folks wake up to your stupid shenanigans en masse and walk away.
by 6510 | 2025-08-19 22:02:50+00:00
If Joe presents his idea he always thinks it's fantastic. It is all that etc. However, if Joe is presented with an idea he always thinks it's dubious. It is only this and that etc. The reality is that even execution doesn't tell us which is which. Some people build big successful businesses out of terrible ideas. Some manage to screw up the best idea. Or at least, it would look that way.

While exploring your ideas you obviously have no room for counterproductive feedback. When you've properly investigated and tweaked the params to the point you are reasonably comfortable something might work then you would want a tool that looks to debunk the idea.

Here is the business plan I made up for your product.

1 - You have people post their ideas.

2 - If they evaluate positively (everything currently does which is bad)...

2.1 - ...they can sign up for a fee. This is to assure their ideas remain confidential. Free isn't trust worthy. I do not trust you with my ideas nor should anyone else. 3 tiers that buy a different level of trust. If they buy the enterprise version you send them a signed NDA on paper.

2.2.0 - ...they can give permission to post the idea on your website for the world to see.

2.2.1 - They leave some contact info,

2.2.2 - You solicit donations on there behalf.

2.2.3 - Someone "steals" the idea and builds a successful business.

2.2.4 - After earning their first $100 million they make a 1000 dollar donation.

2.2.5 - You keep some for yourself and attempt to reach the person who wrote the prompt so that they can get $100 too!

2.3 - If someone likes an idea or is terrified by how disruptive it could be they can pay you to have it removed from public view.

2.3.f - If you want to be truly sinister about it put the removed ideas behind a membership paywall. (could make it available there a year later)

3 - have AI generate business plans too.

4 - Feed the earnings into the investor bot.

5 - World domination and/or go into hiding.
by aspenmayer | 2025-08-19 22:03:26+00:00
Compare and contrast the following and you might find that this human tendency isn't new and isn't likely to change, but it can be gamed and guided.

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

I was aware of that one, but this one, while being entirely obvious, is quite thought-provoking:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snob_effect
by heymijo | 2025-08-19 22:04:44+00:00
Credits:

1. thefacebook

2. transition from desktop to mobile

3. building the machine that facebook became

4. buying out or building feature parity with competitors that took FB from its IPO market share of $104 billion to today's market cap of $1.89 trillion.

Has he innovated successfully since the o.g. thefacebook? Not really. Metaverse fell flat on its face. Hardware efforts over two decades have gained no meaningful traction. AI is a mess.
by shkkmo | 2025-08-19 22:04:55+00:00
> Honestly, claiming DeepMind is still some scrappy London-based startup is quite unfortunate :/

Since I didn't do that, I'm not sure how that is relevant or productive.

> work is, in practical and legal senses, U.S.-based...

This seems factually false. The work happening there has to comply with UK laws, not US laws and the practical locus of researchers located there provides a pool of talent that makes it a better place to do an AI startup than places that lack it.

The point is that London is enough of a research hub in AI for it to be worth maintaining a significant research presence there and to even make researchers interested in relocating there.

DeepMind is obviously foriegn owned and controlled now, which does limit the UK's ability to exert control of and profit from it. That only makes weakening the institutions they do control, like ATI, more significant.
by techcode | 2025-08-19 22:04:55+00:00
Can you share more specific place(s) in Poland and Croatia for your "infrastructure and quality of life" being 2x different? And what infra and what are you looking at for QOL?

And the weather - well personally I haven't been in Croatia around New Years.

But last few weeks (it's same every year) it was 37-40°C - too hot. While in May you still need to turn on heating (or light a fire).

And from the rest of family that grew up in the Croatian coast (Dalmatia) - winters sound pretty crappy due to winds. Also because it's mostly still above 0°C snow is rare.

My wife said that as kid, they had to drive her to other part of then Yugoslavia for her to finally see real snow.
by gbuk2013 | 2025-08-19 22:06:07+00:00
The museum has been closed for a while due to… a fire. :( Fortunately not too much damage was done and they say it will reopen at some undefined point in the future.

The Subway has recently been refurbished and looks nice. :) https://www.crystalpalaceparktrust.org/pages/crystal-palace-...

The dinos are getting a bit of love too at the moment it seems (was there last weekend and there is some construction going on the island and the lake around it.

It’s a very nice park to visit. :)
by rkomorn | 2025-08-19 22:06:31+00:00
Not sure what you mean by "reversed". You have 60 days to tell your bank the transaction wasn't authorized, iirc, and you should get reimbursed. It might just be a hassle and it likely wouldn't be quick.

I've only had to deal with credit card fraud in the US and it was easy enough.

I did have a restaurant accidentally charge me $983 instead of $98.30 on a debit card for a meal during a holiday and, even though they immediately voided it, that still ended up basically blocking almost $1000 for several days. I can't imagine reversing an ACH transaction would be faster.

Overall I have no huge complaints about banking in the US. I just find it better in Europe so far, particularly sending money with IBANs.
by saurik | 2025-08-19 22:06:37+00:00
You make it sound like those two thoughts are incompatible in juxtaposition, but they are in fact perfectly consistent, even if you were correct that Microsoft isn't building anything, as the premise is that users matter more than elbow grease. The reason why you'd want to ask Microsoft is the same reason why you might not bother consulting Firefox: because Microsoft has actual users they represent, and Firefox does not.
by MichaelZuo | 2025-08-19 22:06:50+00:00
Clearance rates for violent crimes are below 60% in Canada… and even literal stabbing victims often go without any sort of closure, in pretty much every major city across Canada.

And it’s been like that for some number of years without any sort of fundamental reform, or enormous police/prosecutor budget increases, in sight.

From that perspective it’s amazing any car thefts gets solved at all…
by yunohn | 2025-08-19 22:08:04+00:00
1. Not true, see malicious smart contracts.

2. Yes and thanks to modern trad-fi law, it’s incredibly easy to get refunds and returns on basically all retail websites.

3. Not true, trivially disproved by having gone through the process multiple times with various providers myself with minimal effort and documentation. I suggest you DYOR once too.
by tombert | 2025-08-19 22:08:49+00:00
I run NixOS so I have my own opinions on the best way to package software. I'm just saying that I think Flatpak is, if nothing else, good for people who want to transition away from Microsoft.

My parents are both pretty smart people but I genuinely doubt that I would be successful in converting over to Linux if they have to type `sudo apt search my_package` and then `sudo apt install my_package` all the time. For people like them, who have been on windows for the last thirty years, I think that Flatpak is great.
by ethbr1 | 2025-08-19 22:10:36+00:00
It's strawmaning the argument to imply that only a robot can choose what to dive into details on.

Democrats should be diving into the details on progressive economic platforms every chance they get, as wholly, messily, and authentically as they can.

But yes, they should refuse to jump on progressive social landmines their opponents lay out.

What's your alternative and better suggestion?
by aleph_minus_one | 2025-08-19 22:10:50+00:00
The English subtitles are in my opinion annoying:

A lot of the joke comes from the fact that the narrator uses "overly technical" terms that are common for work (safety) instructions, but are otherwise barely used in everyday speech - mixed with much more colloquial wording (also, of course, when the workers are talking).

This mixture of two very different language registers (words mainly used in technically precise work safety instructions vs. colloquial talk) is not represented in the English subtitles and thus removes a lot of fun of the original German short film.
by _chris_ | 2025-08-19 22:11:24+00:00
A BPU needs to predict 3 things:

- 1) Is there a branch here? - 2) If so, is it taken? - 3) If so, where to?

If a conditional branch is never taken, then it's effectively a NOP, and you never store it anywhere, so you treat (1) as "no there isn't a branch here." Doesn't get cheaper than that.

Of course, (1) and (3) are very important, so you pick your hashes to reduce aliasing to some low, but acceptable level. Otherwise you just have to eat mispredicts if you alias too much.

Note: (1) and (3) aren't really functions of history, they're functions of their static location in the binary (I'm simplifying a tad but whatever). You can more freely alias on (2), which is very history-dependent, because (1) will guard it.
by __mharrison__ | 2025-08-19 22:12:20+00:00
Having been an Emacs user for 25+ years, I have a bunch of muscle memory.

So I created Emacs shortcuts for Davinci Resolve. (I create a lot of videos, and every time I've attempted to outsource editing, it has always been more work to review and give feedback than to just do it myself. I have a routine using the AI transcription features of Resolve that lets me edit video very fast. Editing a one-hour video might take 2-3 hours).
by o11c | 2025-08-19 22:12:48+00:00
You have to ensure that virtual instructions map to distinct hardware instructions.

Computed-goto-after-each-instruction is well known, and copying fragments of machine code is obvious.

Less known is "make an entire copy of your interpreter for each state" - though I'm only aware of this as a depessimization for stack machines.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/223428.207165

But the main problem, which none of these solve, is that most VM languages are designed to be impossible (or very difficult) to optimize, due to aggressive use of dynamic typing. Nothing will save you from dynamic types.
by dlcarrier | 2025-08-19 22:13:42+00:00
Does it?

I've had some instability using PyTorch on my desktop computer, that only appeared if I was using the computer. I just a few minutes ago discovered what the problem was, because while running a calculation I opened FreeTube, a YouTube interface that runs in an Electron instance, and my computer immediately restarted. Apparently 8 cores, 96 MB of cache, 32 GB of system RAM, and 16 GB of VRAM doesn't leave enough unused capacity for one more web browser instance.

I've helped multiple people figure out that their games were getting latency spikes because of the resources used by chat applications running on Electron or similar, which no amount of RAM or processing power seems to fix.

Besides the opertunity cost of the resources that extremely inneficient applications use making the computer much less useful for other tasks, power consumption itself can matter a lot. Sure, using more power on a desktop computer may only cost a fraction of a cent per day, but on laptops, tablets, and phones that don't have user replacable batteries, which is pretty much every one in production, every percent power using increase not only wares the battery the same percentage faster, which proportionally reduces the useful life of the device, but it reduces how long the device is usable between charges, requring topping off and reducing usability and reliability.

Also, running ICQ on a 90's computer with a mechanical hard drive was far more responsive than running Slack or Discord on the fastest computer you can buy today today. I can guaruntee you that switching from an Electron/HTML/CSS/JavaScript/WhateverJavaScriptFramework stack to a C/GTK or similar stack will not only reduce resource consumption by an order of magnitude or two, increase security, and make the codebase simpler and easier to mantain, it will also be much, much more responsive.
by soneil | 2025-08-19 22:14:37+00:00
It'd be some fluke of an accident. You'd need to be targeting not only debian:testing/unstable, but specifically debian:testing-20240311. And then - making sure not to apt upgrade at any point so you don't accidentally get any updates from the last 18 months - you'd need to also install openssh-server to avail of the backdoor, plus a service manager because running sshd in the foreground killswitches said backdoor. And then don't forget to expose the ssh port otherwise our effort is wasted.

The most realistic way to hit this would be to have built an image 18 months ago, on top of :testing or :unstable, and then not update or rebuild it at any time in those 18 months - in which case removing anything from the repo wouldn't help you. Or be purposely trying to recreate an affected environment for testing/research, in which case it's on you.

You're not wrong that we should keep our shields up - but "update sometime in the last 18 months" perhaps isn't such a revelation.

One thing does come to mind though - I do wonder if there's a way to strongarm apt's dependencies mechanism into having openssh-server conflict with affected libxz versions, so that if you did apt update && apt install openssh-server in an affected image, it'd bring a fixed libxz along for the ride. (and the images don't carry apt manifests, so apt update is required and you would have today's package list.) You could still pin an affected version, so there'd still be enough rope to allow you to recreate a research environment.
by Eji1700 | 2025-08-19 22:14:41+00:00
I sorta agree, but i feel like i just want the "one more step" of dynamic content for this.

The hubs described are nice, but they don't always reflect larger changes. Updating a hub becomes a dependency that seems silly as I feel like that should be one of the easier things to keep up to date with a basic code overlay. It's one of the first things I wrote when messing with Obsidian, and part of why I really like dendron (easy refactoring, but it's got other issues).
by Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe | 2025-08-19 22:14:49+00:00
It is important to not that nuts and dark chocolate usually fit the ultra processed (or sometimes just processed) food definition. This poses real problems in studies because they are roughly a net benefit health wise so authors have the choice between excluding them from the study (which misleadingly worsens claims about processed food being bad) or keeping them in (misleadingly softening how bad they are).
by Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe | 2025-08-19 22:15:08+00:00
As I said elsewhere:

It is important to not that nuts and dark chocolate usually fit the ultra processed (or sometimes just processed) food definition. This poses real problems in studies because they are roughly a net benefit health wise so authors have the choice between excluding them from the study (which misleadingly worsens claims about processed food being bad) or keeping them in (misleadingly softening how bad they are).
by Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe | 2025-08-19 22:15:22+00:00
It is important to not that nuts and dark chocolate usually fit the ultra processed (or sometimes just processed) food definition. This poses real problems in studies because they are roughly a net benefit health wise so authors have the choice between excluding them from the study (which misleadingly worsens claims about processed food being bad) or keeping them in (misleadingly softening how bad they are).
by dtkav | 2025-08-19 22:15:44+00:00
I've the dev behind Relay [0] (real-time collaboration for teams using Obsidian), and we work with a lot of teams who have switched over to using Obsidian for work. We just hit 10,000 users yesterday.

You don't need a lot of the plugins to be productive in Obsidian, but I think a superpower people are overlooking is that you can build your own plugins for company specific features/workflows quite cheaply.

Combine that with having everything local, and you can use tools like claude code to actually make use of the knowledge/context that you're creating.

I find it crazy that people are pushing data into locked-in systems like Notion only to be limited by their weak-sauce AI tools.

In contrast, we are all in on file-over-app -- keeping the files locally on your computer so you can actually use them. Many of our customers run their Relay Server on-prem for total document privacy.

[0] https://relay.md
by ethbr1 | 2025-08-19 22:16:09+00:00
Depends which way control goes, which depends on the economy in November 2026 + redistricting outcomes.

And I'd say the excesses are equal part tech bro neoreactionaries + nativist Heritage / Project 2025 folks, each of which contributed their own toxic ingredients.

It's rapidly becoming apparent that Trump doesn't actually care about much ideologically and generally blows whichever way the last person in the room asked him to.
by jvm___ | 2025-08-19 22:17:41+00:00
I saw a video of some alpine explorer who recorded a video of himself to be uploaded later. He was on some stupid long 500 mile trek through the mountains when the police texted him. They were paving the parking lot where he'd left his car and requesting that it be moved, so he was hiking towards better signal so that he could start the engine and someone local could move it a few feet.
by iLemming | 2025-08-19 22:18:47+00:00
I'm glad you asked:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud3Gmxg5UZg - Browsing Reddit and HackerNews In Emacs (7 minutes).

If you don't want to watch it:

https://github.com/thanhvg/emacs-hnreader - for browsing HN.

https://github.com/thanhvg/emacs-reddigg - for browsing Reddit.

https://github.com/agzam/consult-hn - for searching through HN.

https://github.com/agzam/browser-hist.el - for browser history.
by skywhopper | 2025-08-19 22:18:48+00:00
You really need to listen to the folks who have expertise in this area. It’s not this simple. Nowhere close. Take just Google users or Entra users, and there are variations between almost every single one, and they all require handholding and multiple back and forth manual steps to configure. And if anything goes wrong in the future they are impossible to troubleshoot.
by belter | 2025-08-19 22:19:23+00:00
- The ballot box does not govern corporate deployments and the workplace is where employees can influence company policy when internal channels fail.

- “You’re singling out Israel” is a whataboutism. Many tech workers have protested deals with ICE in the U.S., censored search in China, and weapons programs.

- The International Court of Justice has ordered provisional measures over a plausible risks of genocide and told Israel to halt operations placing duties on business partners

"BBC witnesses Israeli settlers' attack on Palestinian farm in West Bank" - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewy88jle0eo
by b_llc | 2025-08-19 22:20:32+00:00
You're right about boundary caching opportunities. The computational cost I'm referring to comes from the construction of the per-request multipart header, and file metadata operations, rather than just boundary generation.

The "inherently expensive" claim was overstated - it's expensive relative to static file serving, and unavoidable, but you're correct that there are optimization opportunities in the current implementation. I've identified three opportunities to improve the design: boundary generation, content type assignment, and header construction.

One clarification: the dynamic bundling via query parameters limits traditional caching strategies. Since each request can specify different file combinations, the multipart response structure must be generated per-request rather than cached.

Axon also represents a core framework. How you implement caching depends on your specific use case - this becomes business logic rather than request processing logic. Its minimal tooling is intended to be a feature, though, as you have pointed out, it can also be limiting.
by chowells | 2025-08-19 22:20:55+00:00
I'm slightly horrified by the memory leak that's casually introduced without even a remark as to the potential to cause a problem. I can't tell if I'm more horrified by the cavalier attitude or the fact that JavaScript makes having a global registry the only easy way to use an object of an arbitrary type as a key to Map.

But at the very least, if you're going to memoize immutable values, please do it in a way that allows garbage collection. JavaScript has WeakRef and FinalizationRegistry. (Why it doesn't provide the obvious WeakCache built on those is a mystery, though.)

The issues won't be visible on a toy example like making mazes a few hundred elements across, but if you use these techniques on real problems, you absolutely need to cooperate with the garbage collector.