MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by jkaplowitz | 2025-08-25 18:05:58+00:00
I’m not expressing sympathy for financial or white-collar criminals. They deserve lots of scorn and punishment, including more criminal convictions, fines, restitution, court orders, and court oversight than they typically get. My position is not what you seem to think it is, which would indeed be an extreme position.

I just don’t equate punishment with prison. I realize that the best kind of punishment isn’t always having the taxpayers pay for years of that person’s food and lodging, depriving their innocent relatives and colleagues of the emotional/family presence and professional labor/earnings of someone who may have been very noncriminally important to them in many ways outside of prison, introducing them to the many gangs and violent criminals that populate US prisons while simultaneously subjecting them to a traumatic change in life circumstances, turning them into low-paid involuntary workers for wealthy capitalists to profit from as is done in many privately run prisons pursuant to the exception in the Thirteenth Amendment, and so on.

Nothing I said is true only for the financial or white-collar criminal. In particular, poor brown or Black drug users are way over-imprisoned and that shouldn’t happen either. I’d actually rather harsher punishments for the financial white-collar criminal than for the poor minority drug addicted, but in most cases neither should involve prison.

Prison is clearly necessary in some cases and arguably necessary in others, but it shouldn’t be our first thought of how to punish a criminal - whether white-collar or blue-collar - especially not the way typical US prisons work.
by monero-xmr | 2025-08-25 18:06:04+00:00
I don’t see why we should allow 0% imports but be shut out of exports. Yes yes according to some chart this is actually a good thing but I find it unfair.

For centuries the theory was mercantilism which is the highest imbalance of trade in your favor is good.

The last century was Keynesian “deficits don’t matter” where taken to its conclusion, the worst possible imbalance is good, because that means they have to reinvest their dollars which supports the US, blah blah.

I’m open to the experiment where targeting a balanced trade with all countries as the goal. Using tariffs where imbalances exist, especially when countries arbitrarily lock your goods out of their markets, is a tool for fixing this.

One reason the US is so fucked up for the lower and middle classes is our global reserve currency and how it provides increasing pressure on the dollar and slowly deindustrializes our society. This has been pushing us towards ever more radical politics
by wat10000 | 2025-08-25 18:06:23+00:00
What "rather extreme partisan talking points" are those? Referring to the well-attested, widely-reported abuses of immigrants by this administration is not extremely partisan, it's just facts.

I know Republicans. I talk to Republicans. They know about this stuff and they're fine with it. They know they're not supposed to be, so they deflect. They'll say what's happening to immigrants is no different from being arrested for a crime you didn't commit, then released. They'll insist that the victim was a terrible criminal regardless of the facts. What they don't do is express any reservations whatsoever about it.

I suppose you might make an argument that this deflection indicates an overall approval of immigration since they need to find excuses to support the administration's anti-immigration actions. I would argue that if you claim to believe one thing, but you always find an excuse to defend actions against it, then you don't actually believe it.

Polls are not magic opinion-finding systems. They report what people say. This demonstrably frequently diverges from what people actually do, think, and feel.
by cogman10 | 2025-08-25 18:06:26+00:00
I don't think that's a mistake. Besides the promise of memory management the "write once run everywhere" promise was a huge selling point of the JVM. So much so that Bill gates famously was terrified of it.

"I am literally losing sleep over this issue since together with a move to more server based applications it seems like it could make it easy for people to do competitive operating systems." [1]

[1] https://www.joyk.com/dig/detail/1672957813119759#gsc.tab=0
by nickjj | 2025-08-25 18:06:27+00:00
> Sort of like those blackboards / whiteboards that you can roll around.

Yes exactly. Since I was a kid, I always envisioned a future world where all of my walls were a monitor and I could just move across them as needed to focus on things. A scrolling manager isn't quite that but it's in the right direction.

I don't like switching between full screen windows because mentally it's so much easier (IMO) to keep things in context when I see all the important things at once. I want to see my code, the terminal output, search results and the docs in 1 view but when I don't care about the search results and docs I want to quickly throw them off to the side, but still have them available if needed on demand.

Situational splitting with scrolling allows for the above without the cognitive load of hitting a million hotkeys to move things to workspaces and balance your splits.

I've always felt like with traditional tiled window managers you're trading 1 problem for another. Instead of meddling with every floated window's size and position you're meddling with split sizes and workspace management.

> What's your favorite?

It's too soon to say as I've only recently discovered them. I do think Niri and Hyprland with https://github.com/cpiber/hyprscroller or https://github.com/hyprwm/hyprland-plugins are places to start. Niri has scrolling as a first class feature. The first Hyprland link is a fork of a deprecated plugin and the 2nd link is an official new plugin but it's super bare bones and a big WIP.
by sumtechguy | 2025-08-25 18:06:30+00:00
This will take a few times but... That is when you interact with them, maliciously. Basically cost them time and money. Have them on there for an hour or more. Set phone down come back every 2-3 mins and make sure they are still there. Make sure you have them repeat everything, your connection is not so good. Drag it for at least 20-60 mins. Then at the last second back out on the sale and mention you wanted on their do not call list at the end. As well as a copy of their DNC policy priority mailed. "you know what I am going to ask you put me on your do not call list and I want a copy of your do not call policy just like the last 3 times".

You break that support persons numbers and they may add you. At worst they will call again and you cost them more money.
by marcosdumay | 2025-08-25 18:06:35+00:00
Yet another approach is exposing internal state.

That way you turn a very complex system into a set of much simpler artificial systems that you can control the interaction.

On your example, that would mean having different kinds of configuration options that go for each of those scenarios, but still all on the same software.

One can argue that systemd tries this (for example, there are many kinds of services). But in many cases, it does the complete opposite of this and reducing scope.

Still, I don't think init systems are a wicked problem (and so, it doesn't need advanced solutions to managing complexity). The wickedness is caused by the systemd's decision to do everything.
by Analemma_ | 2025-08-25 18:06:40+00:00
It's a textbook example of the classic political problem (and I don't just mean in democracies, every system is vulnerable to this) where subsidies and handouts are extremely sticky and almost impossible to get rid of, even when the underlying condition has changed and the original motivation for the subsidies no longer applies. Social Security made sense in a world where you had a 10:1 worker-to-dependent ratio and people rarely lived for very long after retirement.

But right now it's exactly the opposite: the dependency ratio is cratering, people can live on SS for decades, and the Boomers are hugely rich while their grandchildren can't afford a house. We desperately need to completely invert Social Security and instead have massive wealth transfers from the old to the young. But that's politically quite impossible, so this perverse situation remains.
by jrumbut | 2025-08-25 18:07:23+00:00
Every time software has gotten cheaper to create the end result has been we create a lot more software.

There are still so many businesses running on pen and paper or excel spreadsheets or off the shelf software that doesn't do what they need.

Hard to say what the future holds but I'm beginning to see the happy path get closer than it looked a year or two ago.

Of course, on an individual basis it will be possible to end up in a spot where your hard earned skills are no longer in demand in your physical location, but that was always a possibility.
by danaris | 2025-08-25 18:07:43+00:00
...No, I'm proposing something that is, in fact, the default (or at least it was until relatively recently, with the "agentic" LLMs): an LLM whose method of interacting with the world is entirely through the chat prompts. Input is either chat prompts, the system prompt, or its training, which is done offline.

It is absolutely not the normal thing to give an LLM tools to control your smart home, your Amazon account, or your nuclear missile systems. (Not because LLMs are ready to turn into self-aware AIs that can take over our world. Because LLMs are dumb, and cannot possibly be made to understand what's actually a good, sane way to use these things.)

...Also, I don't in any way buy the argument in favor of breaking people's things and putting them in actual danger to show them they need to protect themselves better. That's how you become the villain of any number of sci-fi or fantasy stories. If Anthropic genuinely believes that giving LLMs these capabilities is dangerous, the responsible thing to do is not do that with their own, while loudly and firmly advising everyone else against it too.
by KennyBlanken | 2025-08-25 18:07:48+00:00
The biggest issue with Logitech mice is that they're purposefully designed to fail.

Logitech uses shitty microswitches that either stop working or start 'bouncing' - a single click becomes two or more clicks.

This has been an issue with logitech mice for 10+ years and it's so prevalent it can't possibly be by accident. Their mice are disposable as a revenue model.

Mice should not fail, and in fact, I've never had a non-logitech mouse fail.

A friend heard me say this and said "Well I love my logitech mouse" and I said "and how many have you bought?" They admitted they'd had to replace it several times because...drumroll please...various buttons on it stopped working or started double/triple clicking.

I have gaming buddies who have had their very expensive logitech gaming mice fail, repeatedly, barely months into owning them. My ten year old Razor is still going strong, save for reduced battery life. The battery still lasts for many hours while gaming, which is plenty for my purposes, so I haven't bothered yet.

The real joke would be Xbox Elite controllers. Several hundred dollars and infamous for failing sometimes within months. Never, ever buy one without a replacement plan.
by bonoboTP | 2025-08-25 18:08:04+00:00
Yes. The notation can be used to describe how fast any function grows. That function may be a worst-case runtime wrt. input length, the average-case runtimve wrt. input length, or anything else, really.

But the most common usage is indeed worst-case analysis, especially in intro courses.

This is also wrong in the article:

> You may sometimes see the Greek letter "theta", Θ, instead of the letter O in big O notation. This is used when the best and worst case have the same order of growth. We can't use it for bubble sort because the best case is O(n) and the worst case is O(n^2).

It conflates two different, orthogonal concepts: upper vs lower bounds on the one hand, and best vs worst case analysis on the other.

The phrase "the best case is O(n)" already contradicts "big O notation always describes the worst-case scenario". They clearly use it for best case right there in the article.
by abdusco | 2025-08-25 18:08:23+00:00
Only after it's too late for Gaza, will the West give Israel a slap on the wrist. After some half-assed sanctions they will be best buddies again and the sanctions will be lifted silently. Then they'll turn a blind eye when Israel continues with annexing the West Bank. They will paint themselves as the victim for having to take that land. And the West will nod and stand by them.

Israel knows that they can get away with it because they always do. For them, it's worth taking some "reputational damage" in the short run, because it's worth it in the long run.
by maerF0x0 | 2025-08-25 18:08:32+00:00
I dont think social security will ever be cancelled. The question is what will it actually buy when your turn comes. By this I mean I do not expect it to keep pace with inflation as they print copious amounts of money to keep it solvent.

They can pay everyone $2000 a month, if a loaf of bread is $2000 if you catch my drift.
by nfriedly | 2025-08-25 18:08:39+00:00
I just went and took mine apart, it's a Logitech Performance MX, and it uses a NiMi battery: 1.2v, 180mA, 1900mAh.

The battery door pops on and off with a fingernail.

They really do look like dead-ringers for AA batteries. I bet you could run the mouse off of a regular AA as long as you didn't try to plug it in!
Why is Delphi so popular according to the Tiobe index?
by adinhitlore | 2025-08-25 18:08:58+00:00
From place 183 to top 10 in 5 years? Essentially beating PHP and Rust (kind of expected for rust as it's a new language).

https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

I attribute it entirely to the growth of African countries (growing economy, growing population) who have adopted it in academic institutions due to its "indie" nature.

I personally do NOT like it, the syntax is too foreign if you come from c, c++, c#, java, php background, it's like transitioning to python from c, except (try except too...) python is very easy but Delphi is different animal. The only program I've made on it was random mp3 player when i was a kid ages ago when you'd click on part of photography and the song starts/stops etc, in fact this was harder than opencv "ai" project i did around the same time for darpa in c++ - imagine that.

finally one reason that makes me a little "pro-delphi" is its creator: Anders Hejlsberg. Since I'm a big fan of C# and he kind of invented both of them, maybe there's more to the language I'm missing? Is their IDE as amazing as visual studio? I'm almost downloading it now...
by neom | 2025-08-25 18:09:06+00:00
This is just another version of the same thing we see on the front page a couple times a week at this point because it's a OECD-wide trend...

“Wealth is aging.” in some manner over and over and over again... OECD, academics, ECB etc showing the thing, older cohorts control a seriously disproportionate share of national wealth. Doesn't matter if it's USA, Canada, NZ/AUS, EU etc.. Homeownership is flat for the young, rising for the elderly. Rising mortgage leverage for the young, falling for the elderly. Debt-to-income ratios are very high for younger cohorts, again on the front page it shows up weekly in some flavour of the U.S. and U.K. with student loans + mortgages- in Canada it’s primarily mortgages + consumer debt. Everywhere globally, younger folks are face considerably higher prices (inflated?) relative to income, an environment of tighter lending, and again... much higher student debt in us and uk (I suppose education less so in parts Europe and Canada, yet consumer debt there is rampant).

And young people are not having kids at all.

What's to be done? I really ask: What's to be done about it?

Good reading: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/modigliani-lectur...
by lostmsu | 2025-08-25 18:09:15+00:00
I'm thinking of a beefy mini-PC + USB-C 8+ hard drive enclosure.

I feel like I rarely upgraded anything except GPU and storage. And GPU's are not needed for a server.

Enclosure means easy storage upgrade and I can always reattach the enclosure to another machine quickly. Might even install OS on the enclosure, then the whole setup will survive compute upgrades until the predominant architecture changes.
by orliesaurus | 2025-08-25 18:09:19+00:00
> After first publishing this article a helpful commenter let me know Logitech released the MX Ergo S in late 2024, with quieter switches, USB-C, and a $20 price increase. Let's just pretend I wrote this article a year ago! Still, at least this project let me avoid some e-waste.

How many times does this happen to people?

I mean, in my life i probably spent hundreds of hours writing code and hacking things together - forcing them to work - for tasks that turned out to be...already solved, I just couldn't find it...it was under the sun all along.

Yeah you know, like when that Lenovo Thinkpad's trackpad needed some specific kernel hack on Linux for it to work...

for the more obscure things however, I am glad and I respect those youtube uploaders that literally will post everything they discover just for the sake of sharing knowledge!
by rglullis | 2025-08-25 18:09:20+00:00
> You brought up corruption, and I pointed out blockchains don’t actually prevent that.

No. Let's not talk past each other. My point is not about "preventing corruption". My point is that the citizens can not rely on the current web as an system that works in their favor. My point is that corporations and governments both are using the current web to take away our freedoms, and that we will need systems that do not require trust and/or functional institutions to enforce the rules.

> They are being used almost exclusively for grifts, scams, and hoarding.

"If by whiskey" arguments are really annoying. I am talking about the people doing research in trustless systems. Zero-knowledge proofs. Anonymous transactions. Fraud-proof advertisement impressions.

Scammers, grifters have always existed. Money laundering always existed. And they still happen far more often in the "current" web. There will always be bad actors in any large scale system. My argument is not about "preventing corruption", but to have a system where good actors can act independently even if corruption is prevalent.

> That is not a problem blockchains solve.

Go ahead and try to build a system that keeps access to online resources available to everyone while ensuring that it is cheap for good actors and expensive for bad ones. If you don't want to have any type of blockchain, you will either have to create a whitelist-first network or you will have to rely on an all-powerful entity with policing powers.
by giardini | 2025-08-25 18:09:28+00:00
Sadly yes, b/c even the simplest things can go wrong quickly. E.g. people sometimes change light bulbs w/o turning off the power. Have you ever experienced a dead (or good, for that matter) bulb coming apart as you twist it out of the socket? Would you trust a naive person to properly handle that situation?

With power off(easy case)?

With power on(difficult)?
by bdcravens | 2025-08-25 18:09:30+00:00
It's worth noting that some of it may be inspired by some of the spats he's had with Apple over the years that aren't really related to their desktop operating system. A couple that come to mind is the fact that his wife wasn't approved for an Apple credit card, and the difficulty he had in getting the Hey app approved in the App Store. (Of course, it could be that once Apple lost its "shine" for him he became more critical of other products in a way that tribe-members won't)
by warkdarrior | 2025-08-25 18:09:57+00:00
And how do you prevent the bad actors from flooding the decentralized systems with propaganda? Nowadays there are millions of bad actors each sending one propaganda message, all slightly different. When any other criteria is not reliable (like source of information, or lack of bias), volume of message distribution (how often that and related messages pop up in the feed) becomes the last indicator people use.
by HankStallone | 2025-08-25 18:10:05+00:00
All my working life, I've assumed I would never collect on SS because it was obviously going to fail, so my "contributions" might as well have been tossed into a fire. It's kind of amazing that they've kicked that can long enough that it's starting to look like I might get a little back after all.

But I still figure the Boomers will bankrupt it just in time for the checks to stop around my 62th birthday, or maybe that's when they'll start bumping the age up to stay ahead.
by jasonlotito | 2025-08-25 18:10:30+00:00
That's not what people are saying.

People are saying they weren't paying into the municipality. That implies people paying into the municipality are paying for more than just water. The people buying the water were just buying water.

Now, maybe that's now how you think of it, but I'm sure you can see how others see it.

Even YOU understand the difference because you had to misrepresent what people were saying.

> They paid the municipality for the water, but they didn't pay into the municipality.

That's the difference. "into" doesn't mean they are merely paying the municipality, but rather, they are paying to support the municipality.

The people buying water? They are merely buying water that's up for sale. That's it. There is no implication beyond that. Intent matters.

And it's clear that the outsiders had no intention of supporting the municipality even if you want to suggest that was the case.
by wild_egg | 2025-08-25 18:10:41+00:00
The workflow for long running lisp images is really unclear to me. It's so trivial for the code in the image to get out of sync with what's on disk.

Are there good tools that I'm overlooking for exploring the current image state? Smalltalk has that built-in but in CL I'm regularly loading my system into a fresh SBCL at least every couple days just because, at some point, some state is not what I expect it to be and I have no idea how to reconcile it.
by sangsattawat | 2025-08-25 18:10:54+00:00
Currently what I do is that I am training myself a lot on critical thinking.

Reading a lot of fiction books which are considered classics, philosophy. And of course, meditation.

When I want to get informed about something controversial or very loaded in politics, I check the most extreme sources in both sides that I can possibly find, and because I know that often the 'truth' I am looking for is somewhere in the middle, I make my own conclusions. This includes newspapers, AI, Google, Reddit, X.
by Perz1val | 2025-08-25 18:11:09+00:00
The bolt USB-C receiver is only for bolt devices. Logitech has THREE incompatible wireless technologies. The unifying receiver and G series receivers are apparently the same one with different firmware. It has a few wireless channels and unifying uses 1 per device and G uses all for one device (faster pooling for gaming). Then there's Bolt that is something else and just a few devices connect to it. Idk if they plan to move everything to Bolt, but as of now all three live parallel to each other.
by SirMaster | 2025-08-25 18:11:10+00:00
I love my Logitech G603.

Was like $50 new, so nothing too expensive, has LIGHTSPEED wireless which has super low latency, but also has bluetooth in case you forget the dongle or can't use it for some reason. Or it's also really convenient to switch the mouse between 2 computers simply by pressing the button on the bottom, and it instantly switches.

Uses the HERO sensor which is really power efficient and has a slot for 2 AA batteries of which you only need to actually install 1. Lasts several months off a single AA battery, and also so I just use those rechargeable AA batteries with built in USB port under the cap, so I can just charge it from the computer if I need a little more juice.