MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by joakleaf | 2025-08-04 11:57:35+00:00
I know OCR is easier to set up, but you lose a lot going that way.

We process several million pages from Newspapers and Magazines from all over the world with medium to very high complexity layouts.

We built the PDF parser on top of open source PDF libraries, and this gives many advantages: • We can accurately get headlines other text placed on top on images. OCR is generally hopeless with text placed on top of images or on complex backgrounds • Distinguish letters accurately (i.e. number 1, I, l, "o", "zero") • OCR will pick up ghost letters from images, where OCR program believes there is text, even if there isn't. We don't. • We have much higher accuracy than OCR because we don't depend on the OCR programs' ability to recognize the letters. • We can utilize font information and accurate color information, which helps us distinguish elements from each other. • We have accurate bounding box locations of each letter, word, line, and block (pts).

To do it, we completely abandon the PDF text-structure and only use the individual location of each letter. Then we combine letter positions to words, words to lines, and lines to text-blocks using a number of algorithms.

We use the structure blocks that we generated with machine learning afterwards, so this is just the first step in analyzing the page.

It may seem like a large undertaking, but it literally only took a few months to built this initially, and we have very rarely touched the code over the last 10 years. So it was a very good investment for us.

Obviously, you can achieve a lot of the same with OCR -- But you lose information, accuracy, and computational efficiency. And you depend on the OCR program you use. Best OCR programs are commercial and somewhat pricy at scale.
by asimpletune | 2025-08-04 11:58:19+00:00
I really like that idea. I need to add it to my own site to test it out and let it bake.

Do you think think this would work: a little icon that opens a pure html disclosure element with instructions and a design with text laid out sort of in the shape of an email.

“(Text only instructions) Send an email like this:

To: <site>@r3pl.com

Subject: <page_or_comment_url>

Body: <write your comment here, be careful to not accidentally leave your email signature>”
by weberer | 2025-08-04 11:58:34+00:00
It was Mastercard's rule, but any one of the companies in the payment network could have brought it up to Valve. The whole system is set up so one transaction has to go through up to 6 different companies, and they all have to abide by each other's rules. The US Internet Preservation Society explained it recently:

>Each of these companies maintains its own terms of service and each of them can block a transaction by themselves. Additionally, intermediary companies that handle card transactions are mutually and individually bound to the terms of every Card Network, so even if you never do business with Discover or American Express, you must still obey their rules if you want to accept Visa or Mastercard. For online businesses, there are no alternatives: you will do exactly what they want, or you will not do business at all.

>If you are banned from processing payments, you will not be informed why or by which point of failure. "Risk management" is considered a trade secret in the industry. You have no right to know, you cannot sue to discover what has happened, and you also have no right to appeal.

https://usips.org/blog/2025/07/fair-access-to-banking/
by anenefan | 2025-08-04 11:58:44+00:00
I feel a profound sadness seeing this anti science movement the last couple of .. few years gaining traction in places like the US.

If it were a large ticket item that was largely redundant (such as something only done for glory, posturing or bragging rights,) it would be totally understandable -- but not spending a comparatively small sum for a substantial outcome defies common sense.
by BugsJustFindMe | 2025-08-04 11:58:46+00:00
> When you’re dropped into a new codebase, or even trying to clean up your own, questions like these matter: Which files change the most? Who made most of the changes last month? Are there dormant areas of the code? What’s the trend of contributions over time? Where is most of the churn?

Do those questions matter to you? They don't matter to me at all, so I'm curious to hear about why they matter to you. What do they matter to you for?

Knowing which code changes frequently or infrequently doesn't actually tell you anything about what code should change, because recency and frequency are not valid proxies for importance.
by dotancohen | 2025-08-04 11:59:02+00:00
> There are many cases images are exported as PDFs.

One client of a client would print out her documents, then "scan" them with an Android app (actually just a photograph wrapped in a PDF). She was taught that this application is the way to create PDF files, and would staunchly not be retrained. She came up with this print-then-photograph after being told not to photograph the computer monitor - that's the furthest retraining she was able to absorb.

Be there no mistake, this woman was extremely successful at her field. Successful enough to be a client of my client. But she was taught that PDF equals that specific app, and wasn't going to change her workflow to accommodate others.
by homebrewer | 2025-08-04 11:59:46+00:00
I despise these microlibraries as much as anyone, but your solution will also print escape codes when they're not needed (such as when piping output to e.g. grep). If it's something that makes sense only in interactive mode, then fine, but I've seen enough broken programs that clearly weren't designed to be run as a part of a UNIX shell, even when it makes a lot of sense.

It's easy to solve though, simply assign empty strings to escape code variables when the output is not an interactive shell.
by librasteve | 2025-08-04 11:59:59+00:00
well it started out with perl6 as a breaking change major upgrade to perl5

the perl community fractured into those that wanted to avoid a breaking change (since they feared the kind of pain that Python 2 => 3 would later encounter) and those that wanted to evolve the language with things like a Type system and Object Oriented coding as standard

the fracture became a chasm when it became obvious that perl6 was taking years and that there was no migration path from perl5 to perl6 - users began to explore options and often Python was top of the list

this was exacerbated by the use of perl6 as the name ... later (much later) the name was changed to raku ... but by then the perl language was a shadow of its once dominant self and CPAN (the perl module library) lost a lot of folks doing maintenance and improvements so that began to bitrot

fear lead to anger, anger lead to hate

[btw raku is now very nice with all these features and still the great feel of classic perl and has a small but active and friendly community]
by makeitdouble | 2025-08-04 12:00:30+00:00
> Mastercard's Rule 5.12.7 relates to "illegal or brand-damaging transactions," and states:

> A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks.

I didn't expect they had such clear rules expliciting they can ban any kind of transactions they don't like or would make them look bad, regardless of the legality of it.
by alexvitkov | 2025-08-04 12:01:24+00:00
Volatility isn't an issue for the merchant - prices can be adjusted in real-time based on the cryptocurrency's value at the time of purchase, and if they don't want to be exposed, they can sell it immediately on purchase.

Whether or not Valve would want to encourage people to pay with crypto and expose their customer base to its volatility is another matter.
by graeber_28927 | 2025-08-04 12:01:49+00:00
Yes, my thoughts exactly. I hate implementing N forms with user state session and navigation, when one big form one the client can hold the state for me, and visual trickery can achieve the same.

Whenever I go debug unnecessary state machines, or have to refactor them (to compress the number if steps), I scratch my head half the time, trying to follow the string of thought that my predecessor felt so smart about.
by pointlessone | 2025-08-04 12:01:52+00:00
PDF doesn’t have to be bad. Tagged PDF can represent document structure with a decent variety of elements, including alternative text for objects. Proper text encoding can give a good representation of all the ligatures and such. All of this is a part of the spec since 2001. The fact that modern software produces PDFs that are barely any better than a series of vector images is totally on the producers of that software.
by grafmax | 2025-08-04 12:02:17+00:00
Raising taxes generally raises money. In some cases it can lead to capital flight but that’s hardly some universal economic rule.

But besides raising capital, taxation reduces wealth inequality, which is itself beneficial as it makes society more democratic. Reducing wealth inequality reduces the concentration of power, which is better for everyone (except for the 1%).

Still, when redistributing wealth, it’s prudent to address the risk of capital flight. It’s not an insurmountable challenge. Policy can address it through: 1) financial controls 2) coordinated international efforts to raise taxes on the wealthy, and 3) harsher measures like nationalization and capital levies.
by ryukoposting | 2025-08-04 12:02:49+00:00
My desk setup has a single 27-inch monitor with my work laptop on a stand next to it [1]. That's really all the desk space I can allocate to screens.

I don't want a laptop larger than about 13.5" because it wouldn't fit nicely in my backpack anymore. So, the only way for me to add screen real estate is to expand vertically.

That said, the bendy screen tech is far away from having a place in my life. I value durability very highly in my technology.

[1]: these pictures should help you visualize it: https://postimg.cc/gallery/6pz9Gz1
by Eddy_Viscosity2 | 2025-08-04 12:03:40+00:00
> young men have a crisis of self-selecting bad role models, putting less (or no) effort into their appearance and education, holding gross sociopolitical beliefs, and not developing the emotional and household maturity an adult woman expects.

You're confusing the symptoms for the cause. The question people are asking is what about our society is driving these behaviors. What is making someone like Andrew Tate appealing to a young men? These are young people, why are you blaming them for not knowing better instead asking why they aren't being taught better?
by Hamuko | 2025-08-04 12:04:51+00:00
I called MasterCard twice and both times they a) guessed that I was calling about content on Steam without ever mentioning Steam b) said that they only restricted "illegal adult content" and have "standards based on rule of law". Said absolutely nothing about protecting the brand. Also couldn't say if said "standards" were actual laws or MasterCard's own (legal) standards.
by meinersbur | 2025-08-04 12:04:53+00:00
They absolutely do have that infrastructure. They implemented every country's content rating system, such as PEGI, ESRB, ... . Games are regionally banned, such as in Germany [1]. Games can also have regionally censored games, typically for violence/gore in Germany [2]. With the strange effect that if you change your account's region, it re-downloads some of the games.

The legal situation with VPNs and traveling between regions is the same as with any internet service.

[1] https://steamcommunity.com/groups/foruncut/discussions/17/41... [2] https://steamcommunity.com/groups/foruncut/discussions/17/39...
by nyeah | 2025-08-04 12:05:08+00:00
You don't seem to be reading my comment.

Of course lower interest rates tend to push prices up, everything else being equal. The claim was that prices will rise so fast that buyers will be worse off with lower interest rates. That's not necessarily true. It might be true. Sometimes it's true.

I'm honestly a little tired of answering objections from infallible people who haven't quite read the thread or don't quite know what they're talking about.
by tornikeo | 2025-08-04 12:05:09+00:00
>People deserve to live with dignity, earning a living wage.

Look, I get where that is coming from. But no one deserves anything, even clean air. Instead, you pay for things with other things (e.g. clean air in exhchange for slightly more expensive cars).

A (shitty) job is better than no job. Minimum wage should be lowered. You gotta help people with something else. For instance by allowing to build higher density housing.
by somenameforme | 2025-08-04 12:05:21+00:00
Most economic figures are easy to externally verify, including these. Inflation is based on CPI which, in turn, is based on the price of a fixed basket of goods. You can literally go buy this basket of goods and verify its change in cost (inflation) over time. And real wages are similarly easy to ballpark to a high degree of confidence by simply looking at the aggregate wages offered in job postings.

As a side note this is also the point of things like IMF, World Bank, etc also publishing their own numbers. They don't simply ask each government what their numbers are, but independently work to determine the numbers themselves using as reliable of source as they can find.

I'd also add that when the mega sanctions bomb initially hit, the official numbers from Russia were actually more grim than those being published by the IMF/World Bank. That was exactly the time when the motivation to lie would have been, by far, at its greatest for Russia since consumer confidence (and confidence in the currency itself) play an ostensibly significant role in such scenarios. Yet they continued to publish honest, and even pessimistic, numbers.
by reginald78 | 2025-08-04 12:06:31+00:00
Can't comment on Google specifically but hidden scrollbars mean I often don't realize a dialog has scroll bars until I reach out into the dark edges to find what I hope is there. Microsoft will even harness this as a dark pattern to hide options they don't want you to choose.

Perhaps your dad simply expected to scrollbars to be visible like they initially were.
by crispyambulance | 2025-08-04 12:06:56+00:00
> The answer seems obvious to me: [1, 2, 3]

Yeah, that would be nice, but it is SO RARE, I've not even heard of that being possible, let alone how to get at the metadata with godforsaken readers like Acrobat. I mean, I've used pdf's since literally the beginning. Never knew that was a feature.

I think this is all the consequence of the failure of XML and it's promise of its related formatting and transformation tooling. The 90's vision was beautiful: semantic documents with separate presentation and transformation tools/languages, all machine readable, versioned, importable, extensible. But no. Here we are in the year 2025. And what do we got? pdf, html, markdown, json, yaml, and csv.

There are solid reasons why XML failed, but the reasons were human and organizational, and NOT because of the well-thought-out tech.
by dreambiggg | 2025-08-04 12:06:58+00:00
Hi HN! I built IDoThis, a CV builder that focuses on simplicity and real-time editing.

Tech stack: - Laravel 12 + Livewire 3.x for reactive components - Alpine.js for lightweight interactivity - Browsershot/Puppeteer for accurate PDF generation - Stripe for subscriptions via Laravel Cashier - Tailwind CSS for styling

Key features: - Real-time preview as you type (Livewire + Alpine.js) - 4 professional templates (ATS-friendly) - Public CV sharing with SEO-friendly URLs - Free tier: 3 CVs, paid tier: $9/mo for unlimited + PDF export

What makes it different: - The entire real-time experience uses Livewire + Alpine.js (no React/Vue) - Split-view interface updates instantly - PDF export matches preview exactly (Browsershot renders actual HTML/CSS) - Minimal JavaScript footprint - Alpine.js handles interactions elegantly

Would love feedback on: - The pricing model (is $9/mo fair?) - UI/UX improvements - Feature requests for job seekers

P.S: I'm a js developer with minimal to none php/laravel experience.But i must say that Laravel and the Laravel ecosystem is a breath of fresh air!!!
by chrisandchris | 2025-08-04 12:07:31+00:00
> HTMX is indeed simple and lean, but unfortunately that doesn't mean solving common frontend problems with HTMX is simple either.

Then it is not simple (as in simple I understand it) it's just the same we already have, reinvented.

If it would be simple and lean, it would solve the most common problems by itself (like I don't need to care about the HTTP part in .Net - it's a one liner and the framework solves it for me).
by agent_turtle | 2025-08-04 12:07:32+00:00
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken

"I can get the drug prices down… 1000% 600% 500% 1500%. Numbers that are not even thought to be achievable." - Donald J. Trump, POTUS
by saubeidl | 2025-08-04 12:07:38+00:00
I believe this is a no true scotsman fallacy, the very same that people make when claiming Stalin wasn't a communist.

I would posit that truly free markets only exist on paper, in the real world the people that acquire enough capital will always use said capital to distort markets in their favor. Why wouldn't you?

It is the inevitable outcome of the system.
by forgotoldacc | 2025-08-04 12:07:42+00:00
Most countries I've been to use Visa as their most common card. Living in a major Asian country and every bank and credit card company offers Visa as their main card as well.

China is kind of an outlier with Union Pay, and while a large number of countries offer their own alternatives, I'd say most are Visa-first. Apparently about 37% of cards around the world are Visa, so that's a huge chunk. JCB is the biggest non-Chinese non-American provider by revenue, and even they're a minor player in their home country.
by wongarsu | 2025-08-04 12:08:05+00:00
Bitcoin (and most other crypto) unintentionally strikes an interesting balance here. Through the ability to trace blockchain transactions and impose KYC laws on exchanges you can in principle figure out who most money belongs to. That puts you in a position where if A wants to send B money you can't prevent that, but you can go after either A or B. That gives you freedom of payment, but after the fact you can still go after people laundering money or financing terrorism
by nudgeOrnurture | 2025-08-04 12:09:28+00:00
scrutinizing peoples' faces, gestures and expressions, tone and emphasis. I read a book once on how to be a better listener and in the same week, coincidentally caught a peculiar pattern of a liar that didn't fit the usual patterns people write about, which I got from Paul Ekman was the name, I think.

Combining the two tasks increased my attention in any gatherings, boring or fun, loud or quite, relevant or nonsensical, 100 fold. It also helped me learn to ignore conversations in the background, or filter them out and zoom in on them, to a moderate degree, for now, but I don't think I'll train that anytime soon.

I don't think about what I see but map what I hear onto how it shows on the face. It took a while but once I spotted idiosyncrasies that match what I knew about a person, or the other way around, it became fun looping through all that stuff over and over and over again.
by lordnacho | 2025-08-04 12:09:46+00:00
I'm not sure it's generational, it may be more about finding a good niche. Or perhaps something like this:

- For previous generations, for most jobs (but not all), you had an informal contract: work will be boring, but dependable. You can work through having a young family without fear of getting dumped out. You don't get surveilled, you can deliver on your own terms.

- Since Neutron Jack and others of his era, this has become less and less true. Large corporations in particular no longer really hold up their end of the contract, and now workers see that and are happy to jump ship, for which the response is to prefer already-trained young workers along with keeping a close eye. So it gets very competitive to get a first job, and you aren't going to get the slack you need to live your life.

- If you want autonomy, you can start your own business. Either a little one like a restaurant where you are a very small boat in a very large ocean, or a startup, where you are going to need the help of venture capital, who are going to be wanting their money back. Pick your poison.
by pbh101 | 2025-08-04 12:10:04+00:00
Their healthcare/IT provider like Epic would do it. And in fact some have already done it, from what I can see.

Furthermore, preparing/capturing docs is just one type of task specialization and isn’t that crazy: stenographers in courtrooms or historically secretaries taking dictation come to mind. Should we throw away an otherwise perfectly good doctor just for typing skills?
by spiffytech | 2025-08-04 12:10:17+00:00
Unrelated: datastar doesn't use a two-way connection for interaction <-> updates. It uses two unconnected one-way channels: a long-lived long-lived SSE for updates, and new HTTP requests for interaction.

I didn't see guidance in the docs for routing one tab's interaction events to the backend process managing that tab's SSE. What's the recommend practice? A global, cross-server event bus? Sticky sessions with no multiprocessing, and an in-process event bus?

If a user opened the same page in two tabs, how should a datastar backend know which tab's SSE to tie an interaction event to?
by throw0101d | 2025-08-04 12:10:47+00:00
> True, since they own all the beachfront property

Climate change does not mean just rising sea levels, but more extreme weather as well, which can include more flooding: warmer air holds more moisture, so when it eventually gets released it can be in downpours. See recent flooding in Texas.

Poor people tend to live in the highest risk areas because the safer areas are desired most and so the people with money bid up prices there.

When you hear headlines like "Trailer Park Destroyed by Tornado", and people ask "Who would live in 'Tornado Alley'?", the answer is "Poor people.".
by ogi_ogi | 2025-08-04 12:11:20+00:00
Startups die in two ways: slowly from irrelevance, or suddenly when a key customer walks out.

M2P Fintech — one of India’s most celebrated API infra startups ($100M+ raised, $900M valuation) — just lost its biggest banking partner, Unity SFB. And not during a quiet year, but right in the middle of a high-stakes pivot from payments/lending APIs to becoming a full-stack digital banking provider.

This is the nightmare scenario: • You’re burning cash to build the “next act” of the company. • Your largest client is footing a big part of that runway. • Then they leave.

The questions now: • Can you sell the “full-stack” vision when the flagship logo just vanished? • Do other banks in India see this as smoke before the fire? • Is this the point where “pivot” quietly becomes “postmortem”?