MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by lelanthran | 2025-09-28 17:51:00+00:00
> C as it’s written by middling teams is a soup of macros, three-star variables, and questionable data structure implementations, where everybody fiddles with everybody else’s data. I’ll take good C over bad Python, but good C is rare.

Ironically, the worst production C written in 2025 is almost guaranteed to be better than the average production Python, Javascript, etc.

The only people really choosing C in 2025 are those with a ton of experience under their belt, who are comfortable with the language and its footguns due to decades of experience.

IOW, those people with little experience are not choosing C, and those that do choose it have already, over decades, internalised patterns to mitigate many of the problems.

At the end of the day, in 2025, I'd still rather maintain a system written in a statically typed language than a system written in a dynamically typed language.
by Mistletoe | 2025-09-28 17:51:03+00:00
My only question is was this slide orchestrated or is it the natural tendency of humanity to slip back to ignorance when all their needs are met, like the Eloi in The Time Machine? Someone made lots of money from this slide, I just don't know if it was random chance or a scheme that worked.

This quote has always stuck with me and I think about it often, perhaps one of the main quotes that have steered my life.

“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening - Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.”

― Alan Moore
by reactordev | 2025-09-28 17:51:14+00:00
First is to stop the bleeding. Any work that puts food on the table is “honest” work. In the meantime, keep coding, think of something your local or regional society needs and build it.

One lesson I had to learn the hard way, no one is coming to save you. Build your own future. Make your own path. Finding something that people would pay for is easy. Finding something that a lot of people will pay for is hard. Just find a way to earn a living and then find a way to make a living with what you love doing. You don’t need to work for a FANNG to be successful.
by bob1029 | 2025-09-28 17:51:23+00:00
A capacitor wouldn't help in this case. They're most useful when you need to overcome transient situations like a locked rotor, not when you have a heavy drum that needs to be spun up from zero. During this phase the machine can consume well over 2kW of power for a few seconds. The circuit is rated for continuous 15A, but it has no problem supplying 20 or 25 for a brief period of time.
by glenstein | 2025-09-28 17:51:44+00:00
I don't think I want to argue againsr these ads on the basis that there's some alternative form of advertising that's more effective.

The problem is with data mining and tracking and nudging behavior. I want the things driving my behavior to be originating from my own intentions or from my preferred sources of inspiration (e.g. friends, family, media I'm most interested in consuming.)

You'll never be able to fully control the range of things that influence you, but you can still be intentional to a meaningful degree. For me that means supporting free and open source culture, and using subscription-based model rather than an ad-supported model for content. I'm not perfectly consistent but I am somewhat, and I think I'm operating from a coherent vision of what I believe my interests are, which is no small thing.
by afandian | 2025-09-28 17:52:15+00:00
I would guess there was no stainless or galvanisation available in the era they were built.

I wouldn’t trust permanently installed ladders that were completely exposed to the elements! Unlike the bigger iron structures, ladders have quite a high surface area/ volume ratio.

I wouldn’t climb up Fred’s ladders in a million years, but at least there was a quality feedback loop!
by troupo | 2025-09-28 17:52:23+00:00
> Some barriers are not artificial.

The ones the EU is pointing at, and the ones that Apple is whining about, are completely artificial.

> Take for example Live Translation on AirPods. It’s very hard to get the same level of performance over a public API.

It's trivial to get the same performance. All you have to do is actually let others build the same functionality.

Apple both withholds the APIs and prohibits others from building the same functionality.

> I am completely against artificial walled gardens and artificial barriers but I believe

"... that Apple is completely entitled to any and all walled garden"
by scuff3d | 2025-09-28 17:52:34+00:00
I think a couple of things have to be untangled here.

The problem we are talking about in both Python and TS comes from the fact that they are (or compile down to) dynamic languages. These aren't issues in statically typed languages... because the code just won't compile it it's wrong and you don't have to worry about getting data from an untyped library.

I don't know a lot about Zod, but I believe the problem you are referring to is more about JavaScript then TS. JavaScript does a LOT of funky stuff at runtime, Python thank God actually enforces some sane type rules at runtime.

My point was not about how these two function at runtime. My point was that if you want to tac static typing onto a dynamic language, Typescripts approach is the better one, but even if can't fix the underlying issues with JS.

You could take a similar approach in Python. We could make a language called Tython, that is statically typed and then compiles down to Python. You eliminate an entire class of bugs at compile time, get a far more reliable experience then the current weirdness with gradual typing and linters, and you still get Pythons runtime type information to deal with things like interopt with existing Python code.
by m3galinux | 2025-09-28 17:52:45+00:00
Can you have an "anti-"emotional connection to a brand? The iPhone for me is missing a critical feature, which is ability to run the software I choose even if it didn't come from the App Store. Which means that brand is dead to me until that situation changes.

Not particularly happy with Google for other reasons either. There are some days I want to go back to the days of Windows Mobile ROM kitchens and PalmOS. At least it wasn't such a monoculture back then.
by CharlesW | 2025-09-28 17:52:53+00:00
> This needs a big citation.

Here's one from 2022 (so AirPods Pro 2 and iOS 15 or 16), but: https://stephencoyle.net/airpods-pro-2

"As you can see, the second-generation AirPods Pro perform about 40ms better than their predecessors, with an average latency of 126ms vs the original’s 167ms.

"Perhaps a more interesting point to note is that the second-generation AirPods Pro perform only 43ms worse than the built-in speakers (at 83ms). That suggests that up to two-thirds of the time between touching the screen and hearing a noise occurs before Bluetooth data leaves the device. I think there’s still too much latency for audio feedback to feel snappy and responsive over AirPods Pro 2, but maybe at this point there are easier gains to be made by working to reduce the device-side latency."
by tailspin2019 | 2025-09-28 17:53:41+00:00
There’s some good advice from others but I mainly just wanted to wish you luck! Keep positive (easy to say, I know).

Do you have a personal website or blog? Do you have thoughts, ideas, problems you’ve solved, or mini hobby projects to talk about? It may not directly lead to an instant job but I think showing the world more about you and what you enjoy doing (and are good at) beyond the normal CV format might be a good start? It’s at least a productive thing to spend your time on while you’re trying to work out your next move.
by notahacker | 2025-09-28 17:54:00+00:00
Even if we just let the pesky poors die, the US healthcare system would still be more expensive on a per use basis than the rest of the world.

Now sure, the absolute amount spent would probably be lower if we just assumed that people that couldn't produce paperwork to prove they could fund their ER visit didn't deserve to live. If you prefer zero taxes and zero life expectancy for anyone unfortunate enough to need lifesaving treatment they can't afford, that's a perfectly valid preference. It's just intellectually dishonest to frame an argument that it's inefficient to let poor people live as an argument everyone would get more care if it wasn't for the pesky government paying for it.
by tptacek | 2025-09-28 17:54:10+00:00
None of the concerns I've raised are about alignment. I'm not concerned for Bluesky's investors. I'm concerned about the long-term viability of the platform given its adoption curve and its financing.

If it helps, nothing I'm saying has anything to do with whether ATProto will succeed. ATProto could succeed (and fulfill one possible overarching goal of the PBC) and Bluesky would still not be a long-term viable forum for scientific communication (because it will stop existing in its current form).
by jasonjayr | 2025-09-28 17:54:27+00:00
FWIW; Tinc has been my workhorse between my various cloud providers, some on prem remote access for a few offices I consult with, and my home + workstations.

I keep telling myself I should switch it to a wireguard mesh, but the configuration of tinc + the "right defaults" make it pretty neat. It's fun to watch as you roll out a configuration to one node in the mesh, and ping times drop suddenly once it can make a direct connection with the optimal route.

I keep my provisioning script + the public keys in git; so deploying it to a new machine is a git pull, generate key, push public key, and pull on the other nodes. I have about 17+ hosts on it; not using it for very high bandwidth, but I couldn't do what I do without it.
by sfilmeyer | 2025-09-28 17:54:52+00:00
I enjoyed reading the article, but I'm pretty thrown by the benchmarks and conclusion. All of the times are reported to a single digit of precision, but then the summary is claiming that one function shows an improvement while the other two are described as negligible. When all the numbers presented are "~5ms" or "~6ms", it doesn't leave me confident that small changes to the benchmarking might have substantially changed that conclusion.
by ChrisMarshallNY | 2025-09-28 17:54:59+00:00
It's like folks complaining that people don't know how to code in Assembly or Machine Language.

New-fangled compiled languages...

Or who use modern, strictly-typed languages.

New-fangled type-safe languages...

As someone that has been coding since it was wiring up NAND gates on a circuit board, I'm all for the new ways, but there will definitely be a lot of mistakes, jargon, and blind alleys; just like every other big advancement.
by sleepyguy | 2025-09-28 17:55:00+00:00
NATO can't decide if they should try and shoot down Russian missiles and drones over their territory because they are afraid to escalate and don't want to anger Russia. Did you know they only agreed to shoot down Russian war planes flying over NATO territory after Trump okayed it? Unbelievable that they would let an adversary fly their bombers over their territory in the first place. Did you know that NATO has member countries that are aligned with Russia? I encourage you not to take my word for it but investigate it for yourself, there are plenty of trustworthy Western Analysts that support what I have said.

Trump said that Russia is a paper tiger/bear, but Russia exposed that the West/EU is just as incompetent and NATO is basically useless without the support of the USA which is questionable. But I'm sure 100% NATO will get a chance to prove its worth, it will be interesting to see if it can meet the coming challenges.
by troupo | 2025-09-28 17:55:04+00:00
That's why they have been complaining about the EU and DMA for several years now. They are trying to build public support for their case.

This time they are having a bit of a hard time as a lot of people are clearly sick of their shenaningans. However, we are in a bubble of our own, and it's hard to say what the general public will think of it.
by geocar | 2025-09-28 17:55:20+00:00
> I have a lot of electronics that accept 100-240v doesn’t mean I think they’re close together, just that they have compensating mechanisms to handle such voltages.

I bet you also have a lot of electronics that don't though, and those that do probably say so.

My kitchen mixers, dishwasher, washing machine, driers, rice cooker, refrigerators, sauna, and pool pump aren't that tolerant by a long shot. I've got a few computers with a switch on the back to choose between 220v and 110v.

Plugging something that takes 110v into my house breaks the thing, so I've learned to check.

But I don't have anything that's 208v that can't go into the house. So I think whatever the situation is with volts, within 15% is "basically the same", so coming within 15% of the rated limit, is probably just like exceeding the limit by 15%.

And so this is why I would not expect something at 146V to be under the safety limit of 150V.

> Also try to tell someone they need an extra 30% in margin and often they'll think they’re being upsold.

Where do you get 30%?
by nimithryn | 2025-09-28 17:55:42+00:00
I think that the problem is, at the end of the day, the engineer must specify exactly what they want the program to do.

You can do this in Python, or you can do this in English. But at the end of the day the engineer must input the same information to get the same behavior. Maybe LLMs make this a bit more efficient but even in English it is extremely hard to give exact specification without ambiguity (maybe even harder than Python in some cases).
by BeetleB | 2025-09-28 17:55:46+00:00
> I have no idea why you'd be surprised the skeptical community adores this book,

The details are in the blog post. Basically, every skeptic community I've looked at has espoused the very behavior that Carl Sagan criticizes in the book. Very dismissive and arrogant folks. There's a reason he explicitly calls out the skeptic community.

I did put this disclaimer though - I don't want this discussion to degrade into a no true Scotsman fallacy:

> Or at least, visible and vocal skeptics I run across on the Internet. An argument could be made that these are the minority and not really representative of the majority of people who ascribe to skepticism.
by reaperducer | 2025-09-28 17:55:54+00:00
And here's the rub, they have no idea whatsoever on the quality of the person being hired, only that they've not NOTICED any poor results.

I trust people I know more than I trust machines that can be manipulated by people I don't know.

If someone gives you a bad recommendation, you make a mental note not to take recommendations from that person in the future.

It's how things have been done for the last 5,000 years.
by skydhash | 2025-09-28 17:56:37+00:00
I like to think of the essential/accidental complexity split. The true way to solve essential complexity in a business settings is to talk with stakeholders.

Tools, libraries and platforms are accidental complexities. If you have already learned how to use them, you can avoid the pitfalls and go straight to the solution, which is why the common advice is to use boring technologies, as the solutions are widely documented and there are a lot of case studies.

If it's something new, then you can learn as you go by starting small and refactor as you're gaining more confidence. Copy-pasta or code generation is usually bad in that case. You don't know enough to judge the long-term costs.

Code is tech debt. When people talk about software engineering, it's to make sure that this debt doesn't outweigh the benefits of using the software.
by coppsilgold | 2025-09-28 17:57:43+00:00
Sometimes you don't need a P2P VPN, but rather a P2P stream manager (eg. BitTorrent).

A somewhat nice solution for that is Iroh (QUIC P2P w/ hole punching): https://www.iroh.computer

They also provide a solution to discoverability: https://www.iroh.computer/docs/concepts/discovery

Which boils down to storing ECC signed arbitrary data on the mainline DHT.

Two showcase Iroh utilities that are actually useful in practice:

https://github.com/n0-computer/dumbpipe

https://github.com/n0-computer/sendme
by MontyCarloHall | 2025-09-28 17:57:44+00:00
This great video [0] demonstrates how CPU performance has only increased 1.5-2x over the past 15(!) years when executing extremely branchy code. Really shows you just how deep modern CPU pipelines have become.

The video also showcases a much more impressive branchless speedup: computing CRC checksums. Doing this naïvely with an if-statement for each bit is ~10x slower than doing it branchless with a single bitwise operation for each bit. The author of the article should consider showcasing this too, since it's a lot more impressive than the measly 1.2x speedup highlighted in the article. I assume the minimal/nonexistent speedups in the article are due to modern CPU branch prediction being quite good. But branch predictors inherently fail miserably at CRC because the conditional is on whether the input bit is 1 or 0, which is essentially random.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7PVZixO35c
by davidcelis | 2025-09-28 17:58:46+00:00
Some additional context is that Justin Searls is close friends with people who are or have been on Rails Core and/or at Shopify. I've long been a fan of Justin's work, and I've spent time with him at conferences so I can attest to him being a nice person in my experience… But, given the alleged parties at play here, it's hard to take this piece as unbiased when it lacks that disclosure
by MobiusHorizons | 2025-09-28 17:59:05+00:00
Heh, usb-c the connector is used for many protocols only a few of which are actually USB (pci-e /thunderbolt, DisplayPort, i2c, etc). The analog dongle is one of these. There is no usb involved, just using the pins of the connector for analog audio. Dongles with a DAC are actually a usb sound card, and are usable even on desktop computers or using usb-c to usb A converters.
by reaperducer | 2025-09-28 18:00:02+00:00
Caveats:

We are working towards Safari on macOS support. Safari on iOS seems to lack certain extension capabilities required by Privacy Badger to function properly.

Chrome on Android does not support extensions. To use Privacy Badger on Android, install Firefox for Android.

Privacy Badger does not work with Microsoft Edge Legacy. Please switch to the new Microsoft Edge browser.
by recursivecaveat | 2025-09-28 18:00:15+00:00
My understanding is that the stacks were built with a tower of scaffolding on the inside. So it may have been too inconvenient for them to add a ladder on the outside, while the heat on the inside meant it wouldn't have lasted?

There's anothing video of him setting up the ladder on a stack: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Keq-Lig-z74 while definitely sketchy it doesn't seem nearly as bad as the process to make the platforms, which he has to repeat over and over while knocking it down. So in that respect I'm not sure it would've saved him much time overall.
by rmnclmnt | 2025-09-28 18:00:32+00:00
Great article, triggers some memories.

When you get to think about branchless programming, especially for SIMD optimizations in the real world, you always learn a lot and it’s as if you get a +1 level on your algorithmic skills. The hardest part then is make sure the tricks are clearly laidout so that someone else can take it from here next time
by mothballed | 2025-09-28 18:00:51+00:00
Wait which is it. We have a "private" system where we save "the pesky" poor and regulate licensing, insurance, provide medicare/medicaid, have a quasi-public system for ER where private payers fund those who won't pay, or we don't? You just switched entirely to some soap box about why we actually do have a bastardized private-public system and then damned me for pointing out the very false basis that you presumed because it was "intellectually dishonest" for me to point out your argument was intellectually dishonest.

Your premise was we have some kind of private system; my thesis is the uncovered poor would be better off with that than whatever it is we have now where they can maybe go to the ER "free" but otherwise pay a gazillion dollars in regulatory and other imposed costs if they actually try to get some prophylaxis.

If you want to say universal healthcare could be better than whatever we have now -- sure I won't disagree with that. Right now we have about the worst imaginable public-private bastardized system replete with deep regulatory capture.

>If you prefer zero taxes and zero life expectancy for anyone unfortunate enough to need lifesaving treatment they can't afford, that's a perfectly valid preference

... this is not my thesis at all, as you're relying on "can't afford" being at the level it is now where the poor are being billed for all manner of things they wouldn't be in an actually private free market and you're also relying an an absurd premise there will be no charity or any other options for them. For instance, in the Philippines I could just walk into a private pharmacy and buy penicillin essentially no questions asked to treat strep throat on the private market for ~half a day's local wages. (Yes Philippines have public healthcare and hospitals but you're not gonna get that meaningfully in some rural barangay). In USA it takes me 1-2 days wages to treat strep throat because I must go to a doctor to write me magic piece of paper that say I will not go in a cage for having a prescription drug, pay all his regulatory overhead, pay regulatory overhead for a lab, then go to a highly regulated pharmacist and then buy my antibiotics from probably the highest-barrier industry in the US through an anointed company and supply chain blessed by the government. I am much better off having cheap, but non-free antibiotics to treat strep than having to wait until it becomes Scarlet Fever and going to the ER for "free" or being taxed into oblivion to get "free" antibiotics that are then administered in the most bloated and uncompetitive way by government to the point I give up other necessities to pay the tax.
by eichin | 2025-09-28 18:00:52+00:00
So... what's the flaw in the data gathering that leads analytics people to believe this? I got a ludicrous amount of real estate advertising over the first year after I bought my house which was when my "whew, glad I never have to do that again" feelings were strongest. Is it just that they extrapolate from consumables?

(About the only time I'm in the market for "another one of those" is if the first one was so low quality that I returned instead of putting up with it - or if I sampled a few things to see which one was good and then need enough more to finish the project.)

Not claiming that the ads don't have some influence, but they pretty much can't result in another sale...
by schoen | 2025-09-28 18:00:56+00:00
They may have expected that the photo techs wouldn't make extra copies, though -- that they'd do what was necessary for the job but no more.

(That expectation is even compatible with exhibitionism! "The photo tech will see my nudes. That's kind of cool! Of course, he wouldn't make extra copies because that would be unprofessional, maybe illegal.")
by AfterHIA | 2025-09-28 18:01:19+00:00
This reminds me of that ripe beautiful period after the iPhone was released when the all the apps were these weird idiosyncratic almost, "game like" offerings that weren't tied to platforms that either just brought amusement to a user or solved a simple problem. They were often free or cost .99 cents to 1.99$ and there were no subscriptions.

At any rate you earned your upvotes today tanis. Keep at her!