MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by matteotom | 2025-08-25 12:50:52+00:00
Kickback: usually refers to a company (or sales rep) giving a large "gift" to the individual at a company responsible for making a purchase decision (influencing that person to make a decision not in their company's best interest).

The Sopranos was a HBO show about a mob family. Historically, waste management in some cities has been controlled by the mob.
by midnitewarrior | 2025-08-25 12:51:20+00:00
For those unaware, Trump has been on a personal vendetta against any and all windmills since some were built (despite his legal challenge) in Scotland within view of his golf course.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/24/trump-clean-...

Don't expect any of this to make sense.
by BlackFly | 2025-08-25 12:51:30+00:00
Yes, and altruism doesn't exist, everyone is political, and a whole slew of other nonsense banalizations that pretend that distinctions cannot be made.

> Greed: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed

This definition is quite easy to distinguish ordinary desire from greed. Otherwise you need to render selfish and excessive banal and meaningless as well.
by viewer_midoria | 2025-08-25 12:51:37+00:00
For a very long time, I kept consuming content around vibe coding, AI tools that can help you create full SaaS products in less than 30 seconds, launch your company in less than 2 hours, make you a million dollars in less than a week.

Well, I called bullsh*t! Yet, I still couldn't let go of the FOMO. What if it's actually true? What if I can be a millionaire and the AI products are as good as they say they are? I was stuck in the what-if loop like a Marvel character with endless possibilities and questions in my head.

I did what any self-respecting adult would do: I procrastinated.

Things changed about 2 months ago when I joined a tech company in a product marketing role. Now there was more push to learn about these tools. Do they really work? Can they really make me productive enough to replace the CEO in less than a week? Oh! The imagination ran wild - a marketer with a degree in economics who has not written a single line of code other than `PRINT "Hello World"` in BASIC in the second grade makes CEO, grows the company to a billion dollars in less than 2 months.

Well? That definitely didn't happen, but I completely got the hype around these tools while playing with them for the last 2 months.

This story is about how much hype Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT and their wrappers truly deserve from the perspective of a non-coder who learned everything by figuring stuff out on the go and now runs a team of 12 agents and countless personalized apps while leading marketing at a tech company.
by TehCorwiz | 2025-08-25 12:51:47+00:00
Broadly and imprecisely speaking, kickbacks are illicit payments by a vendor or contractor to a specific member of the customer company for maintaining the relationship regardless of value or worth. It’s a type of bribery.

The Sopranos was a TV show about the Mafia. The Mafia is a criminal syndicate whose operations consist primarily of providing illegal drugs, prostitution, and charging companies in their territory for “protection” often from other groups, but also often from themselves. The show had the mafia use a waste management company’s services as a superficially legal reason to be paying these protection payments.

At least that’s my interpretation.
by adornKey | 2025-08-25 12:52:16+00:00
The best axis for Lightness in my opinion is still the Gray-Scale (as used back in the day for black/white/grayscale TVs).

The newer CIE colorspaces (CIECAM02 CIECAM16) seem to address the effect, that color-perception goes wild if you change background and illumination. Oklab seems to only make some fixed choice about how to include the chromatic part to lightness. I'm not so sure, how this definition of lightness is any better than grayscale (from 1931).
by Nursie | 2025-08-25 12:52:36+00:00
> I genuinely do not understand where how the idea of building a total surveillance police state, where all speech is monitored

It’s not like this is new or unique to the UK, the US has been busted indiscriminately spying on all of its citizens multiple times - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

Nobody really cared and nothing changed.
by closewith | 2025-08-25 12:53:31+00:00
> Visa and Mastercard aren't even involved in most disputes. Almost all disputes are settled between issuing and acquiring bank, and the networks only step in after some back and forth if the two really can't figure out liability.

Yes, the issuing and acquiring banks perform an arbitration process, and it's generally a very fair process.

We disputed every chargeback and post PSD2 SCA, we won almost all and had a 90%+ net recovery rate. Similar US businesses were lucky to hit 10% and were terrified of chargeback limits.

> I've seen some European issuing banks completely misinterpret the dispute rules and as a result deny cardholder claims that other issuers won without any discussion.

Are you sure? More likely, the vendor didn't dispute the successful chargebacks.
by stuartjohnson12 | 2025-08-25 12:53:40+00:00
"Only at this point did Brady realize that it was the CEO himself who was fiddling with the numbers. The entire dual reporting system that the CEO had personally initiated was in part an elaborate spy network to guard against discovery of the slush fund manipulation, and perhaps other finagling, rather than a system to ensure financial honesty."

- Moral Mazes (1988), Robert Jackall
by Peritract | 2025-08-25 12:53:53+00:00
If you truly felt it wasn't shameful to write with AI, you wouldn't write an article trying to justify it that ignores a bunch of reasons people find it shameful.

No one is stopping you using AI, but there's an adolescent tone here of 'and you have to approve of me' that I don't care for. You have the right to act the way you wish; you don't have the right to be praised for it.

As it happens, I do think writing with AI (outside of translation as a method of last resort) is shameful. It's an embarrassing abdication of a basic task, a signal both that you can't complete basic tasks unaided, and that you don't understand that communication isn't solely performative.

If it's your right to use AI to write those super-difficult emails, then it's my right to judge you for it.
by lambda | 2025-08-25 12:54:00+00:00
A kickback is a bribe; specifically, a bribe to someone on one side of a larger financial transaction, for facilitating it. As in, vendors A, B, and C are competing for a ten million dollar contract with Walmart to provide some service, so vendor A pays someone at Walmart in a decision making role ten thousand dollars to ensure that they are selected. A small portion of the money that vendor A receives is "kicked back" to the person who facilitated that transaction.

Obviously, this is quite corrupt; that person is supposed to be paid by Walmart to best represent their interests, not select the vendor based on who will best financially compensate them personally.

The Sopranos part is a reference to a TV show about the Mafia, in which (presumably, I haven't seen it), bribery schemes like this are common.
by unwind | 2025-08-25 12:55:01+00:00
If you're not familiar with the drilling rigs [1] used for this kind of tunneling, they're pretty cool (in my opinion) even compared to TBMs. They really wield those drills, it looks awesome. :)

[1]: https://www.epiroc.com/en-uk/products/drill-rigs/face-drill-...
by cjonas | 2025-08-25 12:55:41+00:00
If you only give the AI the ability to do what the end user can already do, the risk is extremely low. It's essential no different then building a static web app where the client is connected to API for all operations. It basically just becomes a new way to interface into a application.

However... That's not how a lot of people are building. Giving an agentic system sensitive information (like passwords, credit cards) and then opening it up to the entire internet as a source for input as asking for your info to be stolen. It'd be like asking your grandma with dementia to manage all your email and online banking.
by adolph | 2025-08-25 12:56:15+00:00
It'll be interesting to see if this is true or if it just validates people's priors.

Disclaimer: The identity of the news submitter has been verified by us. However, we have not received any confirmation or verification from Walmart regarding the information provided.

See also:

* Unverified Walmart H-1B Scandal Rumors Claim VP Got Kickbacks, 1,200 Terminated, Spark Fears Among Indians: https://inews.zoombangla.com/unverified-walmart-h-1b-scandal...

* Walmart H-1B scandal rumors spark anxiety among Indian workers, company responds: https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/us-news/walmart-...

* Walmart visa scandal fears unfounded, company says firings not linked to H-1Bs: https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/walmart-h-...
by rbanffy | 2025-08-25 12:56:19+00:00
> The author was able to rollback his changes, but in some industries an unplanned enterprise-wide data unavailability event means the end of your career at that firm

If a (major) software update cause you an outage, you shouldn’t blame the software, but insufficient testing and validation. Large companies (I worked for many) are slow to adopt new technologies precisely because they are extremely cautious and want to make sure everything was properly tested before they roll it out. That’s also why they still use Oracle and SQL Server (and HP-UX, and IBMi) - these products are working and have been working for generations of employees. The grass needs to be significantly greener for them to consider the move to the other side of their fence.
by yorwba | 2025-08-25 12:56:36+00:00
The flaw isn't just in the design, it's in the requirements. People want an AI that reads text they didn't read and does the things the text says need to be done, because they don't want to do those things themselves. And they don't want to have to manually approve every little action the AI takes, because that would be too slow. So we get the equivalent of clicking "OK" on every dialog that pops up without reading it, which is also something that people often do to save a bit of time.
by busterarm | 2025-08-25 12:56:36+00:00
> It's why you don't have to fear getting put on a show trial if you piss off the wrong people or they just want your stuff

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Scott_(criminal)

> It's why the rich (and not so rich) are safe storing their wealth there, knowing the bank won't collapse tomorrow, or they won't confiscate their wealth on a whim.

https://troymedia.com/lifestyle/your-money/debanking-is-otta... https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/a...

> It's why you know the water's safe to drink and the food's safe to eat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint,_Michigan

> It's why you can produce steel good enough so that your buildings don't collapse, and others will buy your cars know they won't fall apart, due to being relying on a shady subcontractor.

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

> It's why people are willing to pay taxes, knowing they get functioning public services.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/22/tax-evasion-by-wealthiest-am...

I mean, I get that it could be worse, but...
by Moto7451 | 2025-08-25 12:57:03+00:00
Most employee handbooks will spell out what’s ok for most of the examples you gave. A lot of that will be ethics oriented but if you follow the rules you’re also behaving in a way the company isn’t going to find to be fraudulent and you’ll avoid those legal issues.

Pure cash is a problem, but for employees in Sales there’s basically a schedule for when you give and when you expect exchanges of tickets/events/small gifts and rules for what can be accepted and it scales with the position. When I worked in the same office as sales the gifts that came in made Christmas a bonanza. Those really expensive luxury fruit baskets I personally won’t buy for myself were very common. Junior’s Cheesecake from prior to their mail order and grocery store business taking off was a huge deal. Sometimes we got socks and ties. A LOT of socks. They addressed it to the whole office so the 30 or so engineers got to partake with the 500 or so sales and support members.

At one company the CEO took a client to the Super Bowl (they wanted to go also, win win). Totally fine. I’ve been the technical lead on some deals and have gotten some of the perks like very expensive dinners, some token gifts (on the scale of a very nice box of chocolates), branded merch, etc. At one place I worked a gift card or cash equivalent was ok if it was reimbursing something (like your parking or flight) but otherwise had to be less than $100.

For most places I’ve worked the rules are essentially that if it’s “fun”, legal, and substantially less than your pay/commission it’s probably allowed; if it’s clearly a bribe it is not.
by kace91 | 2025-08-25 12:57:23+00:00
When I worked for a B2B startup years ago (VR sector, hype of the moment back then), it was common to have our bid/proposal rejected in favor of a larger company that would then hire us to make the full project for a fraction of the price.

I wouldn’t be surprised to know there were agreements between this bigger company and the person in charge of selecting a contractor, it seems to be an extremely common practice.
by Tadpole9181 | 2025-08-25 12:57:58+00:00
For those who don't believe me:

- Trump, pre-election already stating his desire to use the US military against his political opposition: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoShitSherlock/s/tNPkCijSdD

- Trump, two days ago, saying he wants to expand the deployment to Chicago, and then New York: https://youtu.be/ynjoX66iHTY
by vintermann | 2025-08-25 12:58:05+00:00
This is sacred male choral music from my region:

https://youtu.be/RpDQduUh9ao?si=JgZUaOmU9Cpbt7kI

This is pretty much a living folk choral tradition. Maybe a bit influenced by classical church choral singing, but definitively its own thing in both vocal style and arrangement style.
by asoneth | 2025-08-25 12:58:07+00:00
I think it depends on how you define "easier". Once someone learns how to use the requisite terminal commands and does so frequently enough that they do not forget them, I agree that it is significantly faster and more consistent.

> Surely the former would be a better experience for most home PC users?

Our experiences with home PC users must be qualitatively different.

I have trouble getting the PC users I help to remember the name of their web browser or to understand the difference between a webpage and an application. And of the few people I know who might be able to learn how to use the terminal, none have the slightest interest in devoting time to doing so -- they would prefer to use their computer time doing actual work or playing computer games than wasting it learning how to do computer admin tasks more efficiently.

The prospect of teaching anyone but a fraction of a fraction of a percent of PC users to successfully run terminal commands seems so removed from the realm of possibility I have trouble imagining it. Maybe I could see it catching on with an LLM as an intermediary to actually structure the commands?
by onlyrealcuzzo | 2025-08-25 12:58:58+00:00
I have more questions than answers.

Does the article describe how the heat gets from the mound to the houses or buildings it plans to heat, or factor in the cost of that?

Naively, I'd assume that would like 90% of the cost.

I know that physics is under no obligation to be intuitive, but it's also surprising to me that it's so easy to heat and keep dirt this temperature (600C / 1100F) throughout Winter, and I didn't see how that piece worked either, though I'm willing to assume that part is figured out and factored in.
by blinding-streak | 2025-08-25 12:59:16+00:00
When you upload a video to YT, it's heavily compressed. Your pristine creation is converted 10 ways to Sunday, which then can be played back in a variety of formats, speeds, and platforms. Long before you even uploaded that video, for free, to give the world the chance to see your creative genius, you agreed to this process, by agreeing to Youtube's T&C's.

People may be upset, and I get that. But it's not like the videos were in their original format anyway. If you want to maintain perfect video fidelity, you wouldn't choose YouTube. You chose YouTube because it's the path of least resistance. You wanted massive reach and a dead simple monetization route.
by vjvjvjvjghv | 2025-08-25 12:59:31+00:00
When I did contracting at Siemens in Germany, the son of the CTO ran a staffing firm. He took around 30-50% of what Siemens paid. We did a rough calculation and concluded that the guy must make millions for not doing much. It’s hard to understand why countries are contracting with staffing firms that take a high cut but they do.
by flkiwi | 2025-08-25 12:59:56+00:00
I don't want to be dismissive of some of the concerns of switching to Linux, but I feel like a lot of the "it's too hard!" in 2025 is "it's needlessly difficult to get a consistent Python container in NixOS Unstable" like that's something Aunt Jennifer is going to need. Even the Adobe suite is not a factor for most people.

I ended up in this discussion with someone on Reddit who was convinced to their core that asking an older person to use Linux was "cruel" because they shouldn't have to spend their remaining years learning to type esoteric commands and older people simply aren't interested in or capable of learning new things. Aside from the bizarrely confident ageism, give someone a thinkpad running fedora with KDE (put away your knives for a moment) and they'll be fine. And if they have issues with Linux they're going to have issues with Windows too. (As to the distro, as long as it's not one of the DIY distros, it's also probably fine, and I'd bet most people--even those brittle, sad old people (/s)--would figure out Gnome in a day.)
by cyphar | 2025-08-25 13:00:04+00:00
This is actually true for all programs (on Linux at least) because closing a file does not mean it will be synced and so close(2) may not return an error even if the later sync will error out.

The more general issue (not checking close(2) errors) is mostly true for most programming languages. I can count on one hand how many C programs I've seen that attempt to check the return value from close(2) consistently, let alone programs in languages like Go where handling it is far more effort than ignoring it.

Also, close(2) doesn't consistently return errors. Because filesystem errors are often a property of the whole filesystem and data written during sync has been disassociated from the filesystem, the error usually can't be linked to a particular file descriptor. Most filesystems instead just return EIO if the filesystem had an error at all. This is arguably less useful than not returning an error at all because the error might be triggered by a completely unrelated process and (as above) you might not receive errors that you do care about.

Filesystems also have different approaches to which close(2) calls will get filesystem errors. Some only return the error to the first close(2) call, which means another thread or process could clear the error bit. Other filesystems keep the error bit set until a remount, which means that any program checking close(2) will get lots of spurious errors. From memory there was a data corruption bug in PostgreSQL a few years ago because they were relying on close(2) error semantics that didn't work for all filesystems.
by zeendo | 2025-08-25 13:00:08+00:00
As a full time Haskell developer, I have a similar aversion to Haskell-based distro packages which aren't statically linked.

There ARE statically linked Haskell packages in the AUR so it's at least feasible. I haven't even dug into the conversations around why packagers are insisting on dynamic linking of distro packages - I just avoid them for the same reasons you mention.

I can't really speak confidently to why it is exactly - I can only guess. Clearly dynamic linking makes sense in a lot of cases for internal application distribution - which is where Haskell is often used - so maybe people are incorrectly projecting that onto distro packages?
by ncann | 2025-08-25 13:00:18+00:00
I am looking into using Git for my photos/videos backup external HDDs and the reasoning is simple. It's not about keeping track of changes within the files themselves since like you said, they (almost) never change. Rather, it's about keeping track of changes in _folders_. That is, I want to keep track of when I last copied images from my phones, cameras, etc. to my HDDs, which folders did I touch, if I reorganized existing files into a different folder structure then what are the changes, etc. Also it acts as a rollback mechanism if I ever fat finger and delete something accidentally. I wonder if there's a better tool for this though
by jqpabc123 | 2025-08-25 13:00:35+00:00
The smartphone market is controlled by hardware manufacturers.

They have every incentive to obsolete your phone as soon as possible and sell you a new one --- even if the old one is still perfectly functional.

One way they do this is by limiting software updates, patches and bug fixes.

This is a money losing endeavor from their perspective. Allowing an independent OS to step in and provide updates and support does the same.
by closewith | 2025-08-25 13:00:52+00:00
Well, all countries are complex collections of people and ideas, so like people, there are no pure good guys.

But we have all been subjected to particularly US propaganda portraying the West as the global good guys, and specproc challenged that worldview in the comment to which you replied. Ironically, you criticised him for being naive as he was challenging the concept of the West as the good guys, something you now call naive yourself.

So it seems you aren't internally consistent.
by Retric | 2025-08-25 13:01:48+00:00
> Pipes run through the pile, and fluid flowing through them removes heat to supply the customer.

Dirt keeps a constant temperature year round quite close to the surface that’s a ~60 degree difference between summer and winter in many areas. So 600c would just be a tradeoff between depth, heat loss, and thermal efficiency. However, what they aren’t saying is electricity > heat > electricity is quite lossy and even just using the heat directly is far less efficient than a winter heat pump.
by ralferoo | 2025-08-25 13:01:53+00:00
Likewise, when I was at school, many of my older teachers would say things like "an hotel" although I've not heard anyone say anything but "a hotel" for decades now. I think I've heard "an hospital" relatively recently though.

Weirdly, in certain expressions I say "before mine eyes" even though that fell out of common usage centuries ago, and hasn't really appeared in literature for around a century. So while I wouldn't have encountered it in speech, I've come across enough literary references that it somehow still passed into my diction. I only ever use it for "eyes" though, never anything else starting with a vowel. I also wouldn't use it for something mundane like "My eyes are sore", but I'm not too clear on when or why I use the obsolete form at other times - it just happens!
by hammock | 2025-08-25 13:02:07+00:00
It may already be obvious to the average HN reader, but this seems to be about offshore staff.

“Contingent workforce infrastructure” is a term of art I haven’t heard yet, but in Google terms this is about red badges, likely offshore ones from staffing agencies.

And frankly, as someone who requests these kind of teams, it makes me question every interaction I’ve had in the past with the people who build these that has “pushed back” on me asking that we keep the recruiting network open globally and not just from some executive’s preferred country/area. For example I have in mind one exec who told me “I promised (unnnamed person) we would build a team in (redacted city)” and it was a lot of work to sidestep that