MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by afavour | 2025-08-19 15:49:09+00:00
It's much more general purpose than that. RSS is just XML after all. XSLT basically lets you transform XML into some other kind of markup, usually HTML.

I think the principle behind it is wonderful. https://www.example.com/latest-posts is just an XML file with the pure data. It references an XSLT file which transforms that XML into a web page. But I've tried using it in the past and it was such a pain to work with. Representing things like for loops in markup is a fundamentally inefficient thing to do, JavaScript based templating is always going to win out from the developer experience viewpoint, especially when you're more than likely going to need to use JS for other stuff anyway.

It's one of those purist things I yearn for but can never justify. Shipping XML with data and a separate template feels so much more efficient than pre-prepared HTML that's endlessly repetitive. But... gzip also exists and makes the bandwidth savings a non-issue.
by kccqzy | 2025-08-19 15:49:29+00:00
My XSLT story:

I wrote my personal website in XML with XSLT transforming into something viewable in the browser circa 2008. I was definitely inspired by CSS Zen Garden where the same HTML gave drastically different presentation with different CSS, but I thought that was too restrictive with too much overly tricky CSS. I thought the code would be more maintainable by writing XSLT transforms for different themes of my personal website. That personal webpage was my version of the static site generator craze: I spent 80% of the time on the XSLT and 20% on the content of the website. Fond memories, even though I found XSLT to be incredibly difficult to write.
by like_any_other | 2025-08-19 15:49:36+00:00
Strange ideas? Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't until the start of the 20th century most countries either explicitly or implicitly ethno-nationalist (and most countries still are today)? The USA itself had an effectively whites-only immigration policy until the Hart-Celler act of 1965 reversed that. Taking the opposite direction, most Slavic countries seceded along ethno-linguistic lines, e.g. the fall of the Soviet union, "Balkanization", the split of Czechoslovakia...

In fact, the NYTimes themselves didn't find it strange, but wrote approvingly of such arrangements (or rather, disapprovingly of trying to change them).. at least when applied to other nations:

Human rights activists said that the moves to change Kashmir’s status were only the first steps in a broader plan to erode Kashmir’s core rights and seed the area with non-Kashmiris, altering the demographics and eventually destroying its character. Previous laws barred outsiders from owning property. - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/world/asia/india-pakistan...

WaPo shared their position: Kashmir’s new status could bring demographic change, drawing comparisons to the West Bank - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/08/08/kashmirs-new...
by Mabusto | 2025-08-19 15:50:05+00:00
There seems to be an army of people on Twitter making $100k MRR from AI Tinder photo enhancer apps and they have a course to sell you.

This is the same brand of person that was excited to get rich off NFTs and has now just moved on to slapps (AI slop apps).

Vibe coding is fun and great for personal projects or bootstrapping, but the specificity of the prompts needed to effect the change you want grows exponentially with the code base size to the point where you do just need to code it yourself and use the AI as a helper.
by ndriscoll | 2025-08-19 15:50:17+00:00
It's by far the easiest way to do templated pages. I use it for my personal stuff (e.g. photo albums I share with my mom), but I can't imagine Google cares about the non-commercial web.

I think I've read some governments still use it, which would make sense since they usually don't have a super high budget for tons of developers, so they have to stick to the easy way to do things.
by troupo | 2025-08-19 15:50:41+00:00
> I also don't really understand the complaint from the Chrome people that are proposing it: "it's too complex, high-profile bugs, here's a polyfill you can use".

Especially considering the amount of complex standards they have qualms about from WebUSB to 20+ web components standards

> On the other hand, I don't normally view RSS feeds manually.

Chrome metrics famously underrepresent corporate installation. There could be quite a few corporate applications using XSLT as it was all the rage 15-20 years ago.
by taeric | 2025-08-19 15:51:12+00:00
This presumes that you never pick the wrong table, as well? :D

My argument would be largely that you are doing a search of all of the tables for the columns that you want. With having to know the way to join the necessary tables along the way.

And I want to be clear, I don't think this is necessarily "the way." I more think that it is almost certainly an iterative process that can be started at either place, and will require bouncing between the two quite often.

For instance, yes, you can autocomplete column names from tables that you have put in the from. What if you can't find the column you are anticipating there? Go back and rescan the table names hoping you can guess which table should have the column you want? Then go back to autocomplete for columns to see if expected value appears? Or go to a bit more of a global search for columns?

Either way should be fine.
by krapp | 2025-08-19 15:51:30+00:00
>These little islands of people with strange ideas are always interesting to me, but it never seems that we ever really find out what motivates them. Not just motivates the founders, but those who join them.

There are entire schools of academia, philosophy and political theory around what motivates white supremacy and white identity in the United States, even up to the current white supremacist/alt-right zeitgeist within the Trumpist movement. We know what these people believe, if for no other reason than they've infested every corner of every platform on the web and won't shut up. I've even seen people on Hacker News argue the beliefs reflected in the article. I think dang (or is it tomhow, now) probably has "don't incite race war" set up as a macro.
by ghilston | 2025-08-19 15:51:44+00:00
Warcraft 3 remains my favorite game to this day, simply due to the sheer volume of custom maps you could play.

I can't explain how excited I was for the Reforged version of the game and how disappointed I was when it flopped.

My favorite part of games is learning the mechanics and coming up with strategies. Which paired well with an endless supply of new game modes to try.

I have been unable to find any modern game that is both active and has a series of custom maps. If anyone knows of any, please let me know.
by tptacek | 2025-08-19 15:51:45+00:00
Who are you trying to kid? You listed sunflower seed oil alongside canola --- you're presumably just as opposed to mustard seed oil.

It would be funny if the one seed oil you're OK with is mustard seed oil, the oil closest in composition to canola, the one oil anyone has a legit gripe about (it doesn't taste very good).
by 8NNTt8z3QvLT8tp | 2025-08-19 15:51:56+00:00
Thing is the new APIs added to the web are generally quite well specified with quite good tests. These older legacy APIs sometimes don't even have a standard and almost definitely don't have interoperability (XSLT is an example of one that definitely does not work consistently between WebKit/Blink and Firefox).

For a new browser engine adding some of the new APIs is pretty trivial compared to debugging all the nonsense that comes from these kinds of underspecified legacy APIs. Removing XSLT from the spec and existing browsers means new ones don't feel the need to implement it. They don't need to decide which implementation to go with (use libxslt like chromium and webkit and you might match their behaviour but you also get all the same security vulns).

Frankly a modern engine could probably get by without handling XML entirely (aka no XHTML document support) and get by just fine but that's a separate discussion.
by codedokode | 2025-08-19 15:51:59+00:00
This is actually not a bad idea. Why should the browser contain a specific template engine, like XSLT, and not Jinja for example? Also it can be reimplemented using JS or WASM.

The browsers today are too bloated and it is difficult to create a new browser engine. I wish there were simpler standards for "minimal browser", for example, supporting only basic HTML tags, basic layout rules, WASM and Java bytecode.

Many things, like WebAudio or Canvas, could be immplemented using WASM modules, which as a side effect, would prevent their use for fingerprinting.
by cpldcpu | 2025-08-19 15:53:08+00:00
The third reference from the article provides some pointers (see also references there).

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1803.10400

But its not trivial at all, its a complex fluid dynamics problem. I stumbled upon all the "coupled candle oscillators" literature when I was looking for a shortcut to a semi-physical candle model. But there is no easy way out...
by NickC25 | 2025-08-19 15:53:08+00:00
Alternatively, there's enough folks here who could probably commit to a time/day every month to play some of these games online.

Obviously, not the same as doing it in a cafe or a LAN party, but I'd personally love to play some Brood War with fellow HN folks. Private server or not, i don't really care - I just want to play with people I can connect with in the lobby or in a discord server or whatever.

I never got into SC2 but Brood War IMO is the best RTS ever made hands down.
by diggan | 2025-08-19 15:53:23+00:00
> Sure, but why Instagram specifically?

Because Instagram is specifically the place that those people already are. It really isn't hard to understand why others join it. They weren't even first, just the place where people ended up being, until they won't be there anymore and instead it'll be another place.

Also matters what niche/community you're a part of, some of them already left Instagram for other places (like furries seems to have gone to Mastodon/Bluesky as far as I can tell [but not a furry, so please don't sue me if I'm wrong]) while others are still there, like most musicians/artists still seem to prefer Instagram, even non-mainstream ones.
by deepdarkforest | 2025-08-19 15:53:30+00:00
Here is the secret:

Step 1: Vibecode 5 trash generic apps (eg AI interior designers, gpt wrappers)

Step 2: Launch with paying 15k in google/meta ads

Step 3: Receive back ~5k in revenue

Step 4: Spam on twitter+linkedin clickbaity "heres how i reached 60K ARR in 3 milliseconds" posts to attract ex-crypto bros and hustlers

Step 5: Use your newfound following for sponsored content, courses and hopefully actual organic growth for your aforementioned trash apps
by rubicon33 | 2025-08-19 15:53:58+00:00
Wow. I’ve never actually heard this take before but I think you’re spot on. Vibe coding has serious limits as the scale of the project grows. As the complexity grows, human language becomes a crude tool compared to just coding and you will find your efficiency falls off a cliff trying to get the LLM to understand and effectively change or implement what you could have done by hand.
by wqaatwt | 2025-08-19 15:54:03+00:00
> The question is can the value of gold be used as a proxy for inflation

So it can’t unless you stretch the period out so such an extent that there basically just 1-2 data points left?

Or are you claiming that prices and money supply between ~1980 and 2000 increasing by more than 2x?

Because otherwise it’s an extremely lagging indicator. More like what’s left after the fire than early smoke.
by rconti | 2025-08-19 15:54:07+00:00
In another thread here, the author of "TimeCap" mentions their iOS app. I just downloaded it and am currently trying it. It blocks a lot of the junk. I've only used it for 4 or 5 minutes now, but it does a lot of what I'm looking for, so it's worth a look. There is a fee ($30/yr or $3/week) so I'm currently trying the $3/week to see if it's what I want.
by JLCarveth | 2025-08-19 15:54:07+00:00
Sorry that this blog post fell short... I never expected anyone would post it here anyways. I will keep this feedback in mind going forward. I tend to blog for myself.

Edit: also, unsure why the OP used a `us.` subdomain instead of `blog.` where my blog is actually hosted. I am surprised `us.` even works.
by lucb1e | 2025-08-19 15:54:09+00:00
Right, that sounds like a blind spot of mine as well. We test nearly only commercial products (or open source projects large enough to get commercial backing), and in private time, of course I'd come across big websites sooner than across small ones. Still, I'm surprised I never even heard of it (also considering we literally had a class on XML and the features, like these DTDs that I never found a use for in the decade since). Sounds like I should look into XSLT, since I also build a lot of small tools and simple old tech is generally right up my alley!
by cj_cummings | 2025-08-19 15:54:23+00:00
I've been working on Stof, a new approach to data that combines the simplicity of JSON/YAML with the power of a sandboxed programming language.

The problem: We're constantly juggling different data formats (JSON, YAML, TOML, CSV), writing glue code to transform between them, and dealing with the limitations of static data when we need dynamic behavior.

What makes Stof different: - Code is data, data is code – Your data documents can contain functions, logic, and transformations - Multi-format support – Import/export JSON, YAML, TOML, binary formats seamlessly - Built-in type system – Unit types (`6ft + 1in`), expressions, and proper data validation - Sandboxed execution – Safe for running untrusted code, perfect for embedded environments - ECS architecture – Think beyond just "fields" – embed PDFs, 3D models, voice data as components

Here's a quick example: const users: [ { name: "Joe Schmo", height: 6ft + 1in, // Unit calculations built-in age: +32 } ]

fn findUser(query: str) -> obj { for (const user in self.users) { if (user.name.lower().contains(query)) return user; } null }

#[main] fn main() { const joe = self.findUser("joe"); let output = stringify("toml", joe); pln(output); }

Use cases I'm excited about: - Configuration files that can validate and transform themselves - Data pipelines without separate processing code - API responses that contain their own transformation logic - Embedded systems running user-provided data safely

The project is open source and looking for contributors. We're building something that will change how we think about the data/code boundary.

Try it out: https://docs.stof.dev/ GitHub: https://github.com/dev-formata-io/stof

What do you think? Has anyone else felt frustrated by the limitations of static data formats?
by ori_b | 2025-08-19 15:54:33+00:00
If you overspecify, you close the door to better implementations. This is why, for example, C++ standard hash tables and regexes are an order of magnitude slower than third party ones.

The standard didn't say "you must implement std::unordered_map as a hash table with chained buckets and extra memory allocations", but ithe standard specified several guarantees that make it very difficult to implement hash tables with open addressing.

Every constraint that you specify potentially locks out a better implementation.

For recursive rwlocks, there's a lot of ways to implement them. Do you want to lock out high performance implementations that do less error checking, for example?
by jzackpete | 2025-08-19 15:54:34+00:00
Yeah it's probably a combination, which might explain why my experience isn't the norm. Ever since I had it done, any poke, foreign objects like sand, etc. is much more painful than before, so the pain from dryness gets amplified. I've used eye drops and gels, but the most effective thing is just avoiding things that mess with electrolyte levels, like alcohol, medications, and certain foods.
by alexc05 | 2025-08-19 15:55:08+00:00
I can't republish anything that happens in a production/proprietary environment.

One of the things that I think is pretty great about being able to share these particular prompts is that you can run this on one of your own repos to see how it turns out.

ACTUALLY!! Hold on. A couple weekends ago I spent some time doing some underlying research with huggingface/transformers and I have it on a branch.

https://github.com/AlexChesser/transformers/tree/personal/vi...

You can look at the results of an architectural research prompt.

Unfortunately I don't have a "good mode" side by side with a "bad mode" at the moment. I can work on that in the future.

The underlying research linked has the experimental design version of this with each piece evaluated in isolation.
by viega | 2025-08-19 15:55:27+00:00
Well, you still have to enter the kernel to actually queue an OS-level thread w/ a futex. The kernel supporting being able to move stuff to userland sure doesn't guarantee better performance-- the main opportunity from that perspective is minimizing how often you cross the boundary.

You're 100% right that there are plenty of other considerations, often positive for lifting things out, like minimization of ring 0 attack surface.
by maratc | 2025-08-19 15:55:33+00:00
Probably labeling a removal of a format (which is somewhat niche anyway) as "killing the open web" was a bit hyperbolic and not entirely warranted in this case.

Imagine that tomorrow, Google announces plans to stop supporting HTML and move everyone to its own version of "CompuServe", delivered only via Google Fiber and accessible only with Google Chrome. What headline would you suggest for that occasion? "Google is killing the open web" has already been used today on an article about upcoming deprecation of XSLT format.
by seriusam | 2025-08-19 15:55:52+00:00
How did you get the numbers on your landing page? It looks like an AI generated product with AI generated "safety". Just like the "2000 clinical AI tools" that hit the US market, this looks like one of the "2000 governance tools" that hit the market. How are you vetting every AI Scribe tool so your product itself isn't biased ? Have you done any work with the companies you have listed in your landing page? It looks like a governance tool that the "trying-to-be" scribe companies would use to not get legit audits.
by m3047 | 2025-08-19 15:56:16+00:00
I use Ooma VOIP service and you can forward calls to a different number (I use that occasionally). I don't use it but they also have an iOS / Android app which lets you make calls from your Ooma VOIP number. The FAQ says you can't call 911 with it, so that's smoke anyway.

https://support.ooma.com/home/ooma-app-faq/#can-i-make-emerg...
by yladiz | 2025-08-19 15:56:27+00:00
> This implies a right to access commercial websites for free, which cannot be reasonable, or only a choice between no access and payment, which also cannot be reasonable.

What do you mean the latter isn’t reasonable? It is perfectly reasonable to make your website only accessible to paying users.

> More broadly, this is a strange take in the EU: The same people that are happy to have to carry ID cards, to have "free speech" controlled, to have this, to have that, are up in arms at the thought of targeted ads.

Ignoring the obvious geopolitical spin to this: The EU considers privacy a right, i.e. something you can’t sell away in a contract, so I don’t see the issue with people being upset about their right to privacy being affected.
by jnmandal | 2025-08-19 15:56:38+00:00
Looks really cool, exciting to see. I have two questions around this:

1. Given that you are concerned with providing access a class of folks that are traditionally ignored by technologists, do you plan to make these models usable for offline purposes? For example an illiterate person I know from Uttarkhand: his home village is not connected to road. Interestingly he does speak Hindi, but his native language I believe is something more obscure. To get home, he walks five hours from the terminus of a road. Connectivity is obviously both limited and intermittent. A usable device might want the voice interface embedded on it. Any plans for this?

2. I have minimal understanding of this but as someone who has learned Hindi/Urdu as a foreign language but in the US, I am often in mixed conversation w/ both Indians and Pakistanis. There never seems to be any issues with communication. I have heard that certain terms (like for example "khub suraat", "shukria", "kitaab") are more Urdu than Hindi. I also studied Arabic, Farsi, and Swahili so I am familiar with these as loanwords Arabic and/or Persian, but in practice I hear Hindi speakers using these terms often. Is the primary value add here political? Is it an accent thing? Thanks in advance for any explanation. This is still very much a mystery to me.
by mkw5053 | 2025-08-19 15:56:43+00:00
My stack lately has been Next.js with Prettier and very strict lint, type, and complexity gates, plus opinionated tests that aim for real signal over mere coverage theatre.

I want to find the time to fine-tune GPT-4o using before/after examples of code that fails the gates and then passes them. The hope being it generates gate-compliant code on the first try much more often, which is cheaper and more reliable than relying on a base model with brute-force retries. I think this might also align with research showing that grounding models in execution feedback yields order-of-magnitude gains in sample efficiency and improved code quality, not just speed [0][1].

References

[0] https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.04349

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.02089
by andy99 | 2025-08-19 15:56:57+00:00
There was the whole thing about the app for relationship pdiscussions, "Tea" I think, being apparently vibe coded and lacking proper security, leading to a data breach.

More generally, I think vibe coding has replaced lots of mockups and demos for startups. There is really zero excuse to show slides or figma now in am early product demo. There are definitely startups succeeding on this basis, as in getting funding and signing up customers.

If success means being profitable and running stable software, I don't see vibe coding as currently able to carry a company all the way through, but it's definitely part of the journey now.
by like_any_other | 2025-08-19 15:57:14+00:00
> But either way, they've got to grapple with it because it's the ultimate source of these limits. If nothing else stops you, thermodynamics will stop you because entropy is always going to increase.

Admittedly I don't keep up with everything tech billionaires want, but are their ambitions really being hampered by entropy? That won't become a problem until long after our sun burns out, and the universe starts running out of stars - are they planning that far ahead?
by kerkeslager | 2025-08-19 15:57:19+00:00
> I was explaining why it is the way that it is.

No one was confused what you were doing.

I'm saying the historical reason for why it is the way it is, doesn't matter. I would hope we design our languages to be maximally clear and useful, not to be maximally full of historical cruft.

There's no accounting for taste, so you're welcome to like whatever you like, but I don't think you liking a backward syntax is particularly persuasive. It sounds more like you're just used to it than that you see any actual benefits to it.
by quinnjh | 2025-08-19 15:57:26+00:00
Was looking for the DynaDraw shoutout. As a calligrapher, it’s the way to go for something more expressive than fixed lag.

Haeberli used a simple simulation of Hookes law, Where F=-kx F is the force applied to the spring. k is spring constant or stiffness. x is extension distance.

DynaDraw also added damping IIRC

Thx for the links
by kbelder | 2025-08-19 15:57:36+00:00
>If you're an American, on your first day in high school, by your second class you have more than even odds of having met a pupil who had already been assaulted, most likely by someone close to the victim such as a relative.

You're saying that the rate of sexual assault is.. a few percent?

Too high! I agree. But it's bad form to give convoluted examples in order to give the impression that the actual number is worse than it is.