MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by RainyDayTmrw | 2025-08-20 04:09:02+00:00
Looking at the years involved, this was before widespread adoption of digital photography. The explanation hints at the use of film, but doesn't go into detail. The colors are reminiscent of film. It's pretty fascinating to me. Only the task of managing this many rolls, negatives, prints, scans, etc. sounds like a lot to me.
by ifeoluwak | 2025-08-20 04:11:45+00:00
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by pk97 | 2025-08-20 04:12:21+00:00
As someone who has been to Sikkim and spoken with people there, I can say they are proud and happy to be Indians. In fact, they receive several concessions from the Indian state for being part of the Union - for example, they are exempt from income tax. While a referendum may not always be the best measure of sentiment, the absence of insurgency in Sikkim (unlike in some other regions in India) suggests that people are broadly content with being part of India.
by noisy_boy | 2025-08-20 04:12:38+00:00
I wonder how many of these intern-type tasks LLMs have taken away. The type of tasks I did as a newbie might have seemed not so relevant to the main responsibilities but they helped me get institutional knowledge and generally get a feel of "how things work" and who/how to talk to make progress. Now the intern will probably do it using LLMs instead to talking to other people. Maybe the results will be better but that interaction is gone.
by phorkyas82 | 2025-08-20 04:12:50+00:00
Uff, dunno where to start even: I think as a transcendent number π cannot have a finite expansion like 10 in any base, then it would be rational. But that is not so important. I think in your argumentation you are mixing to things.

The finiteness of everything, our world and the universe: That was also something that struck me, and made me disbelief in God which is said to be infinite and perfect. It's an undeniable observation - see also how Aristotle was to deny the existence of actual infinity and only allow potential infinity, which was only lately challenged by Cantor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_and_potential_infinity) You seem to use this as an argument, that our mental world is.. infinitely more than our physical. So you advocate some kind of dualism and claim that LLM never will have access to our mental world?

Idk, this "mental world", amazing as it is, is clearly powered by our physical body.
by iLemming | 2025-08-20 04:13:03+00:00
Everything can be reduced to text. Sure, I'm of course pushing it here with my "all digital information reduces to bits, and thus could be text", but the meaningful processing requires understanding the inherent structure and relationships within that data.

It's like arguing that "all books are just sequences of letters". That's technically true, but meaningless without understanding grammar, semantics, and context.

What I'm saying is akin to: "First step to understanding all the books starts with understanding letters..."

Anyway, emojis are of course text - even though they are stored as encodings. For example, LLMs process them exactly like any other text characters - they're tokenized, embedded, and handled through the same mechanisms as words. I should've use a different analogy to make my point clear, but you know what I meant.
by shlomo_z | 2025-08-20 04:16:16+00:00
> putting secrets into environment variables in the first place - that is apparently acceptable to them and sets off a red flag for me

Isn't that standard? The other options I've seen are .env files (amazing dev experience but not as secure), and AWS Secrets Manager and similar competition like Infisical. Even in the latter, you need keys to authenticate with the secrets manager and I believe it's recommended to store those as env vars.

Edit: Formatting
by OnlineGladiator | 2025-08-20 04:17:59+00:00
As I've said many times before, I am aware of everything you have said. I just don't care. You seem to be really upset that someone on the internet disagrees with you. And from my perspective, you are the one that has no self-awareness and is completely missing the point. You don't even understand the conversation we're having and yet you're constantly condescending.

I'm sure if you keep repeating yourself though I'll change my mind.
by strawhatguy | 2025-08-20 04:19:03+00:00
Cool, glad it works for you, as I said, it is promising.

Others might be turned off before they get started. In any case, it's a distraction, and has no business in any open source project. Inviting politics in (if that is what the Nix team is doing) puts an upper bound on the distro's reach.

I got curious about it, and yeah, doesn't appear a great community, at least a year ago: https://shealevy.com/blog/2024/05/08/broken-promises-the-nix...
by goku12 | 2025-08-20 04:19:26+00:00
Please take this as a point of discussion rather than as an argument. That title is something that I and many others would have come up with on our own without needing any provocation. In fact, the exact same thing has been said numerous times independently all over the net. There are so many instances that justify the assertion that you could make a very long list with the relevant HN stories alone. But that isn't the point of this reply.

The way I see it, any general or sweeping accusation against an entity may be construed as clickbait or too provocative for HN, even if the content backs it up sufficiently. But at what point are you going to draw the line where you consider the accusations to be credible enough to warrant such a scathing crticism? It's not as if these entities are renowned for their ethical conduct or even basic decency regarding the commons. Heated public lash back is often the only avenue they leave us. Case in point, I hope you remember the stand that the HN crowd took against WEI. Make no mistake, such discussions here don't go unnoticed. The talking points here often influence the public discourse, including by mass media. That's why there is such a fierce fight to control the narrative here.

I respect your right to your opinion. But this is essentially a political subject. And there is no getting around the fact that you cannot divorce politics from technology, or from any relevant subject for that matter. If that's considered as flame war, then I guess flame wars are an unavoidable and normal part technical discourse. It isn't personal (and no personal attacks should be involved), but the stakes are high enough for the contestants (often of high monetary nature). Attempts to curb such heated discourse will result in two serious consequences. The first is that you will give one or often both sides (ironically), the impression that HN is a place to amplify certain narratives without a balanced take. Secondly, you'll unintentionally and indirectly influence the outcome outside of HN. From my perspective, that leaves you in an unenviable predicament of such serious decisions.

So I implore you to consider these matters as well while taking such decisions. Especially to ensure that your personal biases don't influence what you consider as click and flame baits. From my personal experience, I know that you're putting in the utmost care, diligence and sincerity in those matters. But it's possible that the pressure to avoid controversies, fights and bad blood might have shifted your Overton window too far into the cautious territory over time. Probably a good yard stick is to see if the flamewar is important enough and whether it avoids personal harm (physical and emotional). I hope you'll consider this opinion when you make similar determination in the future. Regards!
by rz2k | 2025-08-20 04:21:12+00:00
I often read the top comment to Hacker News articles believing they are unlikely to be a heuristic response. That means reading each sentence, digesting it, and thinking through everything carefully.

I'm confused by this one, because I am missing original thought. It sounds more like a collection of response patterns related to how various targets are supposed to be assessed in value.
by rifty | 2025-08-20 04:21:37+00:00
> I don't understand why anyone thinks that seeing and editing format codes all over the place is good UX in 2025

Lightweight markups in most basic usage are essentially punctuation extensions to natural language. It enables the UX in that what feels and looks like punctuation doubles as the effective key command you'd want to know for changing formatting modes anyways. This is why you'll find people like writers who like it.
by eviks | 2025-08-20 04:22:56+00:00
The invisible part sucks as well. Since you do fullscreen often, you might need a convenient way to switch it on and off. F11 isn't convenient Similarly, can you see your tabs momentarily without shifting the page layout as happens if you exit fullscreen? Can you change the tab switching keybinds in-browser? Can you press C to copy the current page url in fullscreen mode? Can you have more fitting vertical tabs without the tab close button? Etc., etc., etc. Some of the issues are hacked around with various extensions, but then some have inpenetrable barriers coded in the awfulness that is the browser UI itself...
by CGamesPlay | 2025-08-20 04:24:37+00:00
> Writing style. In agent docs, using all caps might be an effective way to emphasize a particular instruction. In internal eng docs, this might come off rude or distracting.

To pile on to this, an agent needs to see "ABSOLUTELY NEVER do suchandsuch" to not do suchandsuch, but still has a pretty fair chance of doing it by accident. A talented human seeing "ABSOLUTELY NEVER do suchandsuch" will interpret this to mean there are consequences to doing suchandsuch, like being fired or causing production downtime. So the same message will be received differently by the different types of readers.
by lyr-7d1h | 2025-08-20 04:25:46+00:00
This is basically what I did! A modified version of a random walk to generate "invaders" with a gradient color. You definitely get some interesting shapes.

https://tinyurl.com/creagen-invader (best on desktop)

Sorry for using an url minifier the original url is too long. I'm using a custom web editor I built for generating this. Still working on shorter urls for it.

This and including muffinmans solution was part of a coding challenge for Creative Coding Amsterdam, for anyone interested and in the area definitely check it out https://cca.codes
by Namidairo | 2025-08-20 04:26:47+00:00
They've pulled out of my market (Australia) 6 years ago, so that's not really an option, even if I imported one.

If I imported one, the majority of the handsets released before this year wouldn't be able to register on a network, given that the networks have gone and blocked the IMEI TAC associated with most of Sony's handsets.[1]

This is due to Sony not having the correct carrier settings in order to roam onto them for emergency calls, and a ham-fisted direction to have working emergency calls post-3G shutdown.

[1] https://isthisphoneblocked.net.au/device-brands/sony
by somenameforme | 2025-08-20 04:27:00+00:00
It's not reasoning that makes humans exceptional. Reasoning without execution is completely irrelevant. Humans are exceptional because of what we do. For instance we've managed to use our skill sets to do things like put a man on the Moon.

And in fact this sort of achievement will be critically necessary for the survival of any species. Earth has had numerous mass extinction events, and we're well overdue for another one. And on a long enough time frame, even the Sun itself will eventually engulf the Earth. The only way to 'win' this game is technology and expansion outward into the cosmos.

And it may well be that that elephant beaten into a parlor trick of painting from the article (seriously, don't look up how elephants are 'trained'), is brought along so that its species may too eventually continue to persist into the future, thanks to humanity.
by goatlover | 2025-08-20 04:27:09+00:00
The robotic ships we send out aren't. I never understand that need to deny that in certain ways (but not other ways), humans are exceptionally different from all other life on this planet. Which results in sophisticated, world-altering, space-exploring technologies. For better or worse. And it's what we look for most in the stars. To detect not just alien life, but technological civilizations.
by elros | 2025-08-20 04:28:04+00:00
PSA for people with "bad cursive handwriting" but who would like to improve it: Write with FOUNTAIN PENS. Ideally on thicker paper, with something soft below (like more paper for example).

Different writing systems evolved alongside different utensils. Cursive evolved to be written with a quill or a fountain pen. Ballpoint pens are an amazing invention and they have their place, but they optimize for price and practicality, not necessarily for an æsthetically pleasing legible outcome. People say they have "bad handwriting" but their setup is a Bic pen on a thin sheet of paper on top of a hard surface: well, everyone's handwriting is bad in this setup.

In France, back when I went to school, not sure now, though I hope it hasn't changed, as a child, you'd only be allowed to use fountain pens. Kids learning to write have constantly stained hands while they learn to use it properly, almost as a rite of passage. I'm very thankful to have learned it like that.
by naveensundar | 2025-08-20 04:28:05+00:00
> Eagles see a lot better than we do. Sea sponges live much longer. Dolphins are really good at echolocation; people are generally really bad at it. And yet we keep proclaiming how special we are. As Webb puts it, “Hamlet got one thing right: we’re a piece of work.

Oh yeah? But which one of those species is writing a book challenging their own exceptionalism.
by xeonmc | 2025-08-20 04:29:04+00:00
For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons. - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
by goatlover | 2025-08-20 04:29:33+00:00
What function does the word "just" serve in these kinds of statements? Humans are "just" collections of atoms. So is all other ordinary matter, but what does that mean? Humans are "just" colony of cells. So is all other multi-cellular life, but what is the significance? Everything is "just" excited fields waving or strings vibrating, but again, what does that tell us above some fundamental level?
by keiferski | 2025-08-20 04:31:08+00:00
I understand the popularity of these kinds of theses, and I definitely support better treatment of animals.

But in general I think this is also reflective of a negative trend in Western culture, which is something like a collapse of the “divine potential” of man. I don’t mean it in the literal religious sense (although that’s where it came from), but in the sense that many people increasingly see themselves as just evolved apes, not as creative beings with limitless potential. There are many reasons for this cultural trend (evolution, secularism and the collapse of religion as a foundation for our idea of self), and so on.

The key, to me, is in understanding that this “evolved ape” narrative is a fundamentally a narrative. What’s needed is a new story that factors in these scientifically true facts of evolution etc. but isn’t so flat and unimaginative in placing them into an arch-narrative.

It probably needs to start with a shift from essence to process as foundational. In other words, the deflationary account of humanity sees itself as “just an evolved ape” because we categorize things as if they were unchanging, static entities. A shift to a process-oriented idea means that value can grow in complexity and develop over time, and so therefore there isn’t anything deflationary about being descended from microscopic organisms.

It reminds me of philosopher Feuerbach’s ideas on God, which are essentially that humanity has externalized its own qualities and greatness into an abstract being, and become estranged from our own potential.
by KetoManx64 | 2025-08-20 04:31:46+00:00
Well of course I do. If a project openly states that they will ban me for my political beliefs, even if I talk about them on my personal website or X account, why in the world would I invest my time and energy in learning how to use it and also investing time into improving the project and submitting bug reports? I'm not a masochist and do not support people that openly hate me and my values.
by m463 | 2025-08-20 04:32:36+00:00
I kind of wonder if the tipping point of "exponential decay" might be where a battery starts being charged and discharged more often to reach daily range and maybe outside the 20-80% window you need for a healthy battery.

In other words, if a battery is new and has 200 miles range, but is driven 100 miles a day, it will stay between 20-80% charge each day when charging.

but at 80% capacity, 160 miles range, it must be either charged above 80% or discharged below 20% each day which is unhealthy for the battery. (either 80%->17% or 83%->20%)

as soon as it starts getting out of healthy range I can see how it can degrade faster.

But cars that stay in that range will have a much longer lifespan.
by JFuzz | 2025-08-20 04:33:00+00:00
I was part of a group of high schoolers that found each other on IRC and ICQ. We built out what became Day of Defeat-another HL mod. We followed CS-were early adopters of their betas and realized we could also mod. We were fortunate that we had parents that let us build on a very wild internet . I know a few from the group made it with Valve-I kept in touch with a couple- and my parents stayed involved but I dropped it before Valve moved a few out to an apartment. If there was a way to find those channels/chats again… awesome time to come of age while being completely naive to how the world operates. To have that level of dumbness and overly eager confidence again
by yieldcrv | 2025-08-20 04:33:30+00:00
Yep

In fact its more like every unincorporated idea and general partnership and incorporated business all thrusted into visibility and publicly traded status all at once, right along side private equity backed corporations and ones that have actual institutional underwriters and IPO’d, issued and trading 24/7/365 with no circuit breakers or halts of any kind!

If the respected traditional market didnt have its layers of filtering via syndicates and the exchanges, it would look just as scammy

you can filter for stronger crypto projects, more consumers and investors simply need to, and crypto skeptics need to become more discerning to levy a more equivalent standard
by hereme888 | 2025-08-20 04:34:11+00:00
Humans developed methods to empirically study the best ways for consoling bereaved mothers, and develop statistically-guided time-frames for normal vs. pathologic grieving periods. Then we use functional MRI imaging to study if monkeys undergo similar brain-signaling patterns (previously academically theorized to be similar, based on other research studies), decoded by advanced software, powered by advanced chips, powered by nuclear power plants. The report is curated by artificial intelligence, and handed by a robot to the human. That's human exceptionalism.
by anshargal | 2025-08-20 04:34:20+00:00
It's fun to see new waves of Linux UI polish attempts (like DHH's Ubuntu/Arch scripts, or this project). The Linux desktop could use some care -- and it's the kind of work a single (talented) person can actually do.

The harder problem is the underlying drivers and app ecosystem. Will some third-party package actually run, or will it require qt-2 and then crash on launch? Why is the laptop's webcam upside down, or why is wi-fi dropping every 11 minutes?

One-man distros rarely fix this (unless the person actually has same trouble). It takes a company, that would be willing to invest the sheer human-hours. We had Red Hat, Ubuntu -- companies that did a lot, but eventually capped their investment in the desktop. We need a new one. Until then, we'll keep getting the same experience under a new label.
by somenameforme | 2025-08-20 04:37:14+00:00
This isn't how things work. Any group that maintains a positive fertility rate will multiply indefinitely. So when certain groups stop having children, all they do is remove themselves from the gene pool while maximizing the 'genetic share' of those having many children whose children will also disproportionately often do similarly.

This is why many assumptions about the future are simply incorrect. For instance people think humanity will become more secular because it has through most of our lifetimes so surely that trend must continue on into the future? But secularity is inversely correlated with fertility. So all that we're going to see happen is secular folks disproportionately remove themselves from the gene pool while religious folks take an ever larger share - now think about what the children of this new gene pool will, on average, be like.

It's also why the concept of us reaching a 'max population' is rather silly. We will reach a point where the population begins to decline due to certain groups removing themselves from the gene pool, but as the other groups continue to reproduce and produce children who, in turn, reproduce, that population will stabilize and then eventually go up, up, and away again. In other words it's just a local max.
by DoctorOetker | 2025-08-20 04:38:34+00:00
I don't believe these constitutes evidence of alien technology, but I do believe we should explain such observations (regardless of what it turns out to be: doctored data, natural phenomena,...)

It bothers me that for increasing distances the explanations requier ever bigger or stronger reflectors, but objects much closer to the telescope are not considered. A spec of dust temporarily illuminated (lightning? artificial light? etc.) or myriad of other explanations are not explored.

We should first try to figure out possible explanations by reasoning, but in a worst case scenario, if relating the sensitivity of the old telescope and modern observation proves too tenuous, there is always the last resort of reconstructing the telescope as it used to function, and have a modern telescope observe the same field of view. Then we could relate the statistics from old pictures to currently observed statistics. The whole process should be reproduced, the same film development process,...

This also reminds me of the story of the film manufacturer (was it Kodak?) detecting the start of man-made nuclear radiation levels. At first they thought something was wrong in their manufacturing process.

To improve the likelihood tests for the orbit parameters don't just include the Earth shadow, but also the Moon shadow.