MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by kstenerud | 2025-09-13 01:21:25+00:00
Unfortunately, VLQ/LEB128 is slow to process due to all the rolling decision points (one decision point per byte, with no ability to branch predict reliably). It's why I used a right-to-left unary code in my stuff: https://github.com/kstenerud/bonjson/blob/main/bonjson.md#le...

| Header | Total Bytes | Payload Bits | | ---------- | ----------- | ------------ | | `.......1` | 1 | 7 | | `......10` | 2 | 14 | | `.....100` | 3 | 21 | | `....1000` | 4 | 28 | | `...10000` | 5 | 35 | | `..100000` | 6 | 42 | | `.1000000` | 7 | 49 | | `10000000` | 8 | 56 | | `00000000` | 9 | 64 |

The full value is stored little endian, so you simply read the first byte (low byte) in the stream to get the full length, and it has the exact same compactness of VLQ/LEB128 (7 bits per byte).

Even better: modern chips have instructions that decode this field in one shot (callable via builtin):

https://github.com/kstenerud/ksbonjson/blob/main/library/src...

static inline size_t decodeLengthFieldTotalByteCount(uint8_t header) { return (size_t)__builtin_ctz(header) + 1; }

After running this builtin, you simply re-read the memory location for the specified number of bytes, then cast to a little-endian integer, then shift right by the same number of bits to get the final payload - with a special case for `00000000`, although numbers that big are rare. In fact, if you limit yourself to max 56 bit numbers, the algorithm becomes entirely branchless (even if your chip doesn't have the builtin).

https://github.com/kstenerud/ksbonjson/blob/main/library/src...

It's one of the things I did to make BONJSON 35x faster to decode/encode compared to JSON.

https://github.com/kstenerud/bonjson

If you wanted to maintain ASCII compatibility, you could use a 0-based unary code going left-to-right, but you lose a number of the speed benefits of a little endian friendly encoding (as well as the self-synchronization of UTF-8 - which admittedly isn't so important in the modern world of everything being out-of-band enveloped and error-corrected). But it would still be a LOT faster than VLQ/LEB128.
by bottlepalm | 2025-09-13 01:21:28+00:00
It's crazy. We have some job openings. 500 applications each. 95% of them are people who did their undergraduate in India and graduate degree in America. My interviews this week have been 9/10 people with thick accents, terrible answers, not sure what the hell is going on.

Is it HR, is it the leadership directing HR? No idea, but it feels like the company is shooting itself in the foot. Especially a growing company where these jobs are high responsibility and require a lot of initiative. I just don't see it happening with these candidates. Getting a simple point across takes long enough.
by Reason077 | 2025-09-13 01:23:06+00:00
> "It’s really not, nuclear inherently requires extreme costs to operate."

Not just to operate, but to clean up and decommission at their end of life. In the UK, for example, early reactors were built cheaply without much consideration/provision for eventual decommissioning. This has left an enormous burden on future taxpayers, estimated to exceed £260 billion, much of it related to the handling and cleanup of vast quantities of nuclear waste [1].

Thankfully new reactors are being financed with eventual decommissioning costs "priced in", but this is another reason why they've become so expensive.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/23/uk-nucle...
by yongjik | 2025-09-13 01:24:19+00:00
I'll be first to admit that Koreans aren't great at how we treat our immigrant workers, so if you think that's some kind of gotcha, it really isn't.

Yes, the Korean government (regrettably) mistreats workers frequently, but there are domestic organizations inside Korea (such as National Human Rights Commission, which is a part of the government) which frequently point out these issues, and steps are taken to improve situations, though obviously it's not as fast as it should be.

I'm not going to talk about morality because I don't think there's a lot to argue about: hopefully we can all agree that immigrant workers have human rights whether they're here legally or not. I'm talking about practicality.

What kind of idiot invites a multinational corporation to build a factory in its own hometown, and then arrest workers when they show up to build it? Don't tell me that the law should be fair: there's nothing this US government does that shows any semblance of fairness, so we can count that explanation out. The simple truth is, the US government had a ton of other ways to resolve the visa issue. Hell, they could simply have said "You guys have the wrong visa, get out, you have three days." But they did the most over-the-top, comic-villain stuff to "resolve" this problem, there's nothing "law should be equal" about it, and we're left with one burning question:

So does the US want this factory built or not?
by pandaman | 2025-09-13 01:24:55+00:00
It's fine to have various aspiration for H-1B but the issue in the topical article is, ultimately, with businesses defrauding the United States and getting away with it. Meta got barred from filing PERM for several months and ended up paying $4.75M, which is probably less than it spends for catering per month. Nobody got disbarred, nobody went on trial, so it's just a tiny cost of doing business.
by whatever1 | 2025-09-13 01:25:20+00:00
How does the green card solve my problem as an employer? Should I also force them to get married with Americans so that they have better chances of working for me?

I just want to sponsor a visa for a worker of rare qualifications. If they choose to become permanent residents of the US it’s their choice, and frankly none of my business.

The system we have is insane.
by crazygringo | 2025-09-13 01:25:47+00:00
Nothing is automatic.

If we ever needed that many characters, yes the most obvious solution would be a fifth byte. The standard would need to be explicitly extended though.

But that would probably require having encountered literate extraterrestrial species to collect enough new alphabets to fill up all the available code points first. So seems like it would be a pretty cool problem to have.
by tomhow | 2025-09-13 01:26:46+00:00
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Eschew flamebait.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
by toomanyrichies | 2025-09-13 01:26:54+00:00
> He never suppressed or oppressed anyone..."

Really?

"Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge." [1]

"...he didn’t want anyone to suffer."

Really?

"We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately." [1]

"He had no version of correct..."

Really?

"The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white." [1]

1. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk...
by EvanAnderson | 2025-09-13 01:27:04+00:00
I programmed a lot of real mode x86 assembly under DOS in the late 80s. I didn't have a ton of money, was a kid, and wasn't located close to any tech business (rural western Ohio). The bits and pieces I saw about Windows development on BBSs and in magazines were arcane and strange. I wondered how it all worked but, frustratingly, couldn't get my hands on the documentation or development tools.

Reading articles like this are fun glimpses into a world I dreamt about in my youth. It's a ton of fun, even if I'm probably never going to write any code related to it.

There was a lot of cleverness in the DOS-based Windows family, especially in dealing with constrained resources. I'm not sad it died out (because it lacked the overarching "real operating system" design), but I'm pleased to see it getting brought out into the open.
by paulryanrogers | 2025-09-13 01:27:27+00:00
Those comments are in poor taste. Biden himself apologized after the attempt on Trump's life.

That said, these pale in comparison to Trump's many, many endorsements of or acceptance of violence. Even mocking an attack on Pelosi's husband. I've never heard Trump apologize for his words, actions, or inactions. He could not even be bothered to call the governor of a state whose elected representatives were attacked, saying even to speak would be a "waste of time". Only when one of his sycophants is harmed does he suddenly see a serious problem.

In fact Trump pardoned those who violently attacked national police as the attackers sought to disrupt the transfer of power. (Some of whom went on to rape and murder others.) The very people he urged to "fight like hell", and he endorsed by waiting to see whether they would succeed before changing his tune.

Meanwhile Democrats prosecute their own for violence and corruption.

Trump acts like a mob boss. Doing and saying whatever he wants, and punishing those who oppose him with whatever means he thinks he can get away with. Even boasting that his supporters would stand by him if he shot someone on a famous public street.
by zahlman | 2025-09-13 01:27:55+00:00
The reason you're getting the interactions you are is because you set up a false dichotomy. Kirk's moral calculus involves accepting that possibly some more people will die, beyond what would happen otherwise, in order to guarantee what he considers an essential right to everyone. This is perfectly compatible with "caring about lives".

It's interesting that you mention driver's licenses. Would you say that intellectual consistency would require a "pro-lifer" to be in favour of nobody being allowed to own a car? After all, sometimes fatal driving accidents occur.
by tomhow | 2025-09-13 01:28:31+00:00
Please don't comment in this cross-examination style on HN. The guidelines ask us not to do this. Please observe the guidelines if you want to participate here, especially these ones:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Eschew flamebait.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
by TuxSH | 2025-09-13 01:29:27+00:00
> But today you can just use std::sync::LazyLock which lets you say OK, the first time somebody wants this thing we'll make it, and subsequently it just exists forever.

This corresponds to a C++ feature that has been added in C++11 (and other languages have this too AFAIK); good for libraries but but this has a runtime performance cost.

Since C++20 you can use constinit, or std::construct_at to avoid static initialization woes entirely

> Intrusive lists are one of those things where technically you might need them, but so often they're just because a C or C++ programmer knew how to write one.

True about C, and also true of most userspace applications.

However, the whole point of intrusive list (and other intrusive structures) is to flip the ownership relationship - the object owns the node, instead of the node owning the object. In other words, the intrusive list is a non-owning view over its elements. More importantly, they allow the same object to be present in multiple lists at once (as long as you add enough node hooks).

For example, you can have a pool-allocated Thread object that is simultaneously part of a queue of inactive threads of priority N, and also part of a wait queue for something else.

> A retained mode GUI looks like a hierarchy to me, how do you say it isn't?

Right, I conflated it with the other examples, my bad; there it's because of shared mutable state, children elements needing to update their parents, and lack of inheritance in Rust
by timr | 2025-09-13 01:29:42+00:00
I think I agree on the high points. The gleeful reaction from a large portion of the left is disgusting, and though I have very little politically in common with Kirk, this feels like a moment where "the left" finally, definitively resorted to violence to silence free speech. I don't want to draw comparisons to prior political assassinations, but...that is what this was. A man was killed for expressing opinions. Abhorrent.

But I've also never quite bought in to the idea that Charlie Kirk was a titan of free speech - it always struck me as a calculated, if sincere, way of capturing the illiberal nature of "liberal" campus politics. Of course, once the trap has been so obviously set for you, it's your own damn fault if you fall into the hole. You don't get to be violent because someone made you look foolish.

This editorial (like most things out of FIRE) was so intellectually on point that I found the conclusions challenging, even though I agree with them on essentially all first principles.
by naasking | 2025-09-13 01:30:21+00:00
> It’s really not, nuclear inherently requires extreme costs to operate. Compare costs vs coal which isn’t cost competitive these days. Nuclear inherently need a lot more effort refining fuel as you can’t just dig a shovel full of ore and burn it.

This is based on reactors with poor efficiencies that leave a lot of unburned Uranium in their waste. Fast reactors and thorium reactors burn 90% of fissile material, so mining costs are significantly lower for the same power output.

> Insurance isn’t cheap when mistakes can cost hundreds of billions.

Total death count from nuclear is lower than the death count of wind and solar. Falling off roofs happens a lot more frequently than nuclear accidents. This is a nothingburger, particularly given new reactor designs are meltdown proof.
by krispyfi | 2025-09-13 01:31:47+00:00
Calling the markings on the casings, "antifa" is premature, in my opinion. The arrows are a Helldivers II reference. "Bella Ciao" appears in Far Cry 6 and is featured on a Groyper Spotify playlist. (The suspect cosplayed as a Groyper meme, and Groypers hate Charlie Kirk, so it adds up.) UwU is a reference to furries.

My guess is he's a terminally-online gamer/channer/Groyper and he was trying to troll news organizations into broadcasting his spicy memes. But this is just my guess, and until we get more evidence, my guess is worth about as much as your "antifa" theory, i.e., zilch.
by JumpCrisscross | 2025-09-13 01:31:53+00:00
> toss 170 billion to one of your various police forces so you’ve got the manpower to tamp down any tantrums from the people

I am missing your argument.

Moreno’s bill pumps money out of the poor into the pockets of the wealthy. I am wealthy. I would benefit from his bill. My point is the exercise is a red herring. (I am not sure what yours is.)
by mdaniel | 2025-09-13 01:32:42+00:00
What a journey:

AGPL https://github.com/pgschema/pgschema/blob/97f4bf5c00fd10add5...

MIT https://github.com/pgschema/pgschema/blob/53313057201931b2e8...

Whatever the fuck this is, that ain't community that's "I made up a licence how hard can it be": https://github.com/pgschema/pgschema/blob/6f5ce89cc1ac12f4a6...
by erxam | 2025-09-13 01:33:04+00:00
I guess so, given that we'll never know what he actually did. The punishment was sort of excessive, I agree.

I'm mostly trying to make light on the fact that trying to validate outlandish propaganda by using an event which actually happened as some kind of 'gotcha' falls flat when the event you're talking about is something that happens routinely in the USA and, more generally, in the Global North.

If I went to the USA and took down a MAGA poster, my ass would be in Alligator Alcatraz 2.0 within the day and nobody would ever find me again. At least until I land in South Sudan or some shit.
Show HN: Eintercon – A social app where every connection has a 48-hour countdown
by abilafredkb | 2025-09-13 01:33:19+00:00
I built something I wish existed when I was trying to make international friends: Eintercon .

The idea: when you connect with someone new, a 48-hour timer starts. You’ve got that window to chat, exchange stories, or decide if you want to keep the connection alive. If you both agree, the friendship continues. If not, it expires and you move on.

Why this approach?

Traditional apps feel endless, and conversations die quickly.

“Permanent” chats often turn into ghost towns.

But with a deadline, conversations suddenly feel alive and intentional.

It’s not about swiping endlessly, it’s about sparking fast, authentic connections across borders.

We’re live here:

Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eintercon....

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/ee/app/eintercon/id6749785496

Would love feedback on:

Does the 48-hour concept feel exciting or limiting?

How would you use something like this — casual friends, cultural exchange, learning languages?

What feels missing or off-putting from the early version?

Thanks!
by surgical_fire | 2025-09-13 01:33:24+00:00
That does make a lot of sense, yes. It's partially the reason why I never wanted to move to the US - I value the labor protection I enjoy in Europe, the ability to switch jobs when I so desire, and a clear path to citizenship.

H1B always sounded to me like a shitty deal for the immigrant, and it also does seem to be detrimental to native workers.
by whatever1 | 2025-09-13 01:33:43+00:00
Americans don’t go to graduate school.

With a bachelors in an engineering field as an American you can be making close to 6 figures the day after you graduate.

With a huge student debt and the clock ticking, do you get a job or do you join a PhD program to get a stipend of 25k/year for at least 5 years?

Grad school becomes attractive to Americans only during recessions.
Show HN: Flo Is a Rust/Vulkan 3D Renderer for the Bevy Game Engine
by wkwan | 2025-09-13 01:33:50+00:00
I’m using the excellent Bevy game engine for my colony sim/action game, but I do lots of real-time procedural generation/animation so the wgpu renderer is too slow.

So I wrote my own Rust/Vulkan renderer and integrated it with Bevy. It’s ugly, buggy, and hard to use but multiple times faster.

Full source code, with 9 benchmarks comparing performance with the default wgpu renderer: https://github.com/wkwan/flo

Video where I go over the examples and run them on the Steam Deck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1m30oOksmI
by lovich | 2025-09-13 01:34:31+00:00
This is off the cuff game theory, so please feel encouraged to poke holes in it.

Would my point B not limit that fraudulent behavior as now the brought in migrant would be free to compete for a better position with higher pay and/or better benefits to the detriment of the company that paid an entry fee?

I would also expect this to result in massively less immigration for the same reasons companies are loathe to train entry level employees nowadays as they can jump ship as soon as they become valuable
by coderatlarge | 2025-09-13 01:35:02+00:00
i’m not a fan of apple, but they do build and own their IP and i respect their right to license it on terms they decide. Is it not expropriating them to suddenly say “mighty fine business you made there mister, your competitors who happen to be our citizens would like a piece of that so how about you just hand over some chunks of it so nothing bad should happen to the rest of it?”
by thephyber | 2025-09-13 01:35:08+00:00
What do you mean “fair”? What happens in the years/decades between when this hypothetical system is enacted and when the US can train up sufficient workers to substitute the labor force we currently have with H1-B?

Your proposal will mean 99% of all of the H1-B allocation will go to hedge fund quants and 1% maybe go to an AI researcher, but all of the materials science (eg. Cutting edge battery tech), semiconductor fabrication, neuroscience, pharmaceutical research etc will have to go without the skilled workers they currently get from visas. This is a recipe for the Boeingization of the US economy.
by MegaButts | 2025-09-13 01:35:19+00:00
The story I heard before the PR spin that came from Paul Graham later (where he tweeted that he never fired him and asked him to choose between YC and OpenAI) was that he was asked to resign. I don't have an official source, I heard this from multiple YC alumni. I don't know exactly what happened but based on what I've heard and actually having interacted with Sam Altman, it seems most likely to me he was asked to resign (which isn't technically being fired) because he does weird stuff. He claimed to be a chairman of YC which wasn't true, he barred other YC partners from running personal funds while he did it himself, and then all the further similar behaviors we've seen play out at OpenAI. Maybe you're right, but it seems to me he was "fired" and later there was some PR to smooth it over.

https://archive.is/Vl3VR

https://archive.is/2mzD7
Show HN: Simplifying Time Zones for Everyone
by yelston | 2025-09-13 01:35:38+00:00
Tizo makes managing time zones effortless for everyone, helping you stay connected with friends and teammates across the globe without the confusion.

It is entirely free for anyone to use. Tizo works locally in your browser, but if you prefer, you can sign up to save your preferences.

Feel free to check it out and share your feedback. Thanks!
by ChuckMcM | 2025-09-13 01:35:59+00:00
I know it feels like a semantic quibble. Consider that you can boot and run Linux on the processor that powers a Seagate hard drive. You can even run a c compiler and develop new code on it. But when you pull one from its protective wrapping after you bought it from a distributor, it isn't a "computer", it's a storage device (dedicated function, aka an appliance for storing data), that you can plug into a general purpose computer, or into a smart television, or into a DVR, Etc.

Similarly, for a long time, the CPU in my washing machine (a Z80) was the same processor that my first computer with disk drives had (a Cromemco System 3, aka a "business computer" which ran CP/M) but it was intentionally hobbled to just run the display, run some timed processes, and read various sensors.

Building "purpose built systems" that happen to have a computer processor inside of them because it is cheaper or more efficient to implement their functions in code, are what pretty much everyone considers "appliances." Sometimes obviously so, as in washing machines, and sometimes not so obviously when you can buy "apps", or "personality modules", or "game cartridges" for them to make them do something useful given the constraints of the fixed I/O they have.

But if you have a computer system that is intentionally hobbled to a fixed set of things, then for me, it's an appliance and certainly not a general purpose computer.
by SJC_Hacker | 2025-09-13 01:36:56+00:00
The bar is so high nowadays that simply being able to talk intelligentyly about the problem, ask clarifying questions, getting an inefficient solution and coding it up well does not pass muster.

Even getting an efficient algorithm basically right, is no guarantee.

In some cases there might be alternative solutions which have some tradeoffs, and you might have to come up with those, as well

Miss a counterexample? Even if you get it after a single hint?. Fuck you, you're out. I can find someone who doesn't need the hint
by DaSHacka | 2025-09-13 01:37:34+00:00
Exactly, those without empathy for their fellow countrymen being unfairly discriminated against based on the color of their skin and gender identity really need to learn a hard lesson about judging others based on the character of the person and not their immutable characteristics.

It's a really good litmus test for finding those with empathy and good intellect, AKA the best kind of co-workers.