MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by blooalien | 2025-09-28 23:11:34+00:00
> "This is how we elevate celebrities like Trump to the status of a God-king who can do no wrong."

I've long wondered about that even as I've watched the shift intensify over the decades, but in the context you describe, the MAGA death-cult starts to sorta come into focus a bit more. As they've abandoned "God" (as evidenced by so many of their actions going directly contrary to the teachings of Jesus in their own bible) they need a replacement god-figure to worship (one more in-line with the baser desires that they're choosing to embody).

I still find it genuinely insane that their worship of one man leads them to fully embrace the downfall of civilized and thoughtful interaction so completely that it becomes a literal existential risk for humanity.

> "Better to understand that it is there and how it works."

This is the way to overcome / work around so many of our basic human "design flaws". Understanding and being aware of those things allows you to take actions to adjust in beneficial ways. This is one of the "special things" that truly separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom; Our ability to outright defy our "baser instincts" (at least some of us, anyhow).
by cortic | 2025-09-28 23:13:18+00:00
>In the UK political expression of free speech is protected by the ECHR, which overrides both those acts

This is categorically untrue. Not only is the ECHR worded specifically to allow individual countries to curtail free speech ("any law, deemed by the local democratically elected government as ; necessary in a democratic society, and for a legitimate aim"), but parliament always had sovereignty to pass into law exemptions to the ECHR, which we have done on multiple occasions.
by jftuga | 2025-09-28 23:14:31+00:00
I just learned how to do an inline "Note" in markdown (noticed this in his README.md) which I had either never seen before or just never noticed. I made a gist so I wouldn't forget how to do this.

https://gist.github.com/jftuga/2e4cf463dc0cdd9640c5f3da06b69...
by protocolture | 2025-09-28 23:15:06+00:00
>I don’t believe I have personally witnessed any other advanced economy that so ardently marches towards authoritarianism.

The UK is largely in conversation with Australia and Canada on this stuff. Australia test benched a lot of the laws the UK later adopted, even cribbing the terminology directly.

Not surprisingly we have our own Digital ID in formation, and we have an Internet ID system in the pipeline mirroring the one in the UK.

I think the take away should be that you cant really engineer a system where theres a single country with "Freedom", as Freedom is considered relative to other countries. A declining tide drops all boats.
by madeofpalk | 2025-09-28 23:15:44+00:00
I'm somewhat indifferent to the concept of a Digital ID. The problem is that the UK government's reason for introducing it doesn't make sense - to 'solve' illegal workers, when the UK already has a (digital) system for proving right to work https://www.gov.uk/prove-right-to-work/get-a-share-code-onli...
by fancyfredbot | 2025-09-28 23:15:57+00:00
I'm impressed but only a little surprised an AI reasoning model could help with Aaronson's proof.

The reason I'm only a little surprised is that it's the kind of question I would expect to be in the literature somewhere, either as stated or stated similarly, and I suspect this is why GPT5 can do it.

I am impressed because I know how hard it can be to find an existing proof, having spent a very long time on a problem before finding the solution in a 1950 textbook by Feller. I would not expect this to be at all easy to find.

I can see this ability advancing science in many areas. The number of published papers on medical science is insane. I look forward to medical researchers questions being answered by GPT5 too, although in that case it'd need to provide a citation since proof can be harder to come by.

Also, it's a difficult proof step and if I'd come up with it, I'd be /very/ pleased with myself. Although I suspect GPT5 probably didn't come up with this based on my limited experience using it to try and solve unrelated problems.
by za3faran | 2025-09-28 23:16:50+00:00
> It seems to me like you are pro colonization when the rules are Islamic and when the suppressed are Jewish

Under Islamic law, there is no suppression of minorities, especially People of the Book. They are free to practice and even rule by their own books and laws. Jewish historian shelomo dov goitein admits that Jews lived under the Islamic ruling better than they lived anywhere else in the world.
by ash_091 | 2025-09-28 23:17:10+00:00
The "thinking & coding" vs "thinking & fixing" graph is interesting. I've found this to be the case recently as I've been trying out Codex. I expected to spend a lot of time fixing the AI's code. Weirdly that has led to me spending a long time fixing issues which turn out to be nothing to do with the code.

Most recently I was struggling to get an authentication setup working. I spent at least an hour combing through the code looking for the mistake. The issue turned out to be that the VM I was working on had a broken ipv6 configuration.
by bradly | 2025-09-28 23:17:38+00:00
I think what bumps me is the reserving judgment bit. Why? And until when? Is there an exception that some revelation from Ruby Central or Shopify is going to be released that will clarify all of this? We have actions that have happened and we can form opinions based on those right now.

Given Shopify's strong internal culture of "Strong Opinions, Weakly Held" I feel comfortable holding them accountable to that same standard.
by bitwize | 2025-09-28 23:18:27+00:00
A study found that most American millionaires lived in modest homes and drove used American cars. They made their wealth by being concerned about relatively small amounts of money because it adds up. When we think "millionaire" we think of the dream that is sold to us by Hollywood—mansions, fancy cars, endless parties. But entertainers are paid in the millions and then encouraged to live like billionaires, so that they're desperate enough to continue being slaves to the entertainment-industrial complex to keep the gravy train going.

But $35/hr was a pittance for a programmer even in 2010. Tai Lopez is a gigantic tool for cheaping out on that.
by idkfasayer | 2025-09-28 23:18:34+00:00
You don't get the resistance?

Imagine a Russia-friendly party getting elected. Doesn't have to be overtly pro-russian. Can be someone very nationalist like Marine Le Pen in France. Or socialist like Sarah Wagenknecht in Germany. Just someone with financially dependent on Russia, or simply owing them favour. Now imagine them accidentally leaving some loophole in the system, such that Russians get read or maybe even write access to data.
How to Make the Most of Your Mid-Twenties?
by teminal | 2025-09-28 23:19:26+00:00
Hi HN,

I'm in my mid-twenties and trying to figure out how to use this period wisely.

- What should I focus on—career, learning, personal growth, or something else?

- What habits or decisions should I prioritize?

- What common mistakes should I avoid in this stage of life?

I'd love to hear your experiences and advice.
by defrost | 2025-09-28 23:19:37+00:00
The Magna Carta was a second, more forceful, iteration of the Charter of Liberties introduced a century earlier in 1100 by Henry I of England.

Clauses of both are still part of the basis of English Common Law (the Common Law cited in the US Constitution) and the Magna Carta is still being cited in recent times by politicians and lawyers in support of (UK) constitutional positions, and still, albeit rarely, cited in UK courts

in 2012 the Occupy London protestors attempted to use Magna Carta in resisting their eviction from St. Paul's Churchyard by the City of London. In his judgment the Master of the Rolls gave this short shrift, noting somewhat drily that although clause 29 was considered by many the foundation of the rule of law in England, he did not consider it directly relevant to the case, and that the two other surviving clauses ironically concerned the rights of the Church and the City of London and could not help the defendants.

It's firmly a part of the continuously evolving history of UK law:

Magna Carta carries little legal weight in modern Britain, as most of its clauses have been repealed and relevant rights ensured by other statutes, but the historian James Holt remarks that the survival of the 1215 charter in national life is a "reflexion of the continuous development of English law and administration"

suggesting that what the UK lacks is the stagnation of US law which hasn't yet evolved past the errors of scale that have crept in since its foundation; the US electoral could also do with a revamp to better serve the people.

* two quotes above sourced from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta
by overhead4075 | 2025-09-28 23:22:03+00:00
I code on my phone using termux, tmux, nvim, and Unexpected Keyboard (no physical keyboard) on an Android phone. Vim style modal editing is actually really well suited to this kind of development.

It lets me work on my hobbies while I commute, travel, or am otherwise idle and is a nice alternative to scrolling social media or consuming content.

With git, I can just sync my changes and work from a PC when I can/want to.
by AnthonyMouse | 2025-09-28 23:22:32+00:00
> Directly contacting the person driving you, 12 hours in advance, is a much better way to guarantee a ride.

...if they haven't had any car trouble, and haven't quit providing car service, and are intending to work then, and haven't scheduled another ride for the same time, and are willing to schedule something when they don't know where their unscheduled fares are going to leave them just before.

The apps that match workers with customers are actually doing something useful. The main problem is that people keep trying to get them to be considered employers, which increases their costs, and then those costs get passed on so that more of what you pay goes to overhead and less of what you pay actually goes to the worker.
by NalNezumi | 2025-09-28 23:22:35+00:00
I listened to Dan Wang on this podcast [1] and found his talking points around industrial policies interesting. His take around how China managed to do capitalism better than US when it comes to EV & Solar panels (if he's not wrong):

massively fund the industry as a political / social objective, set (artificial) demand and create a local market by restricting import / competition for a while, then cut funding gradually when there's a sprawling eco system of startups, letting them brutally cannibalize each other leading to consolidation (such as BYD) to create global leaders.

Is not uniquely Chinese but are just tactics out of Japan, Korea and even Germany (historically).

I can kinda understand the point that this process works better when there are some technical people in power, such as engineers. They can probably reason timing and industry a little better: Solar was pioneered by US but industrialized by Germany but then out competed by China.

Yesterday at a conference I came to know the history of bipedal/quadrupedal robot development by a MIT professor, claiming most of the Chinese robots are just descendant of that technological choices made by MIT research.

Humanoid robotics seems to just be in that process of "massively fund the industry" in industrial policies (I saw so many humanoid robot companies at the conference, Chinese, that I haven't even heard of). To me I guess the "why now?" is the question, and I guess some technical person must've been in the process of making that decision.

We can't really emulate the political system of China, but that mindset of having technical/expertise close to power is probably something we shouldn't forget. Especially in a era where political positions seems to be handed out based on loyalty than merit

[1] https://youtu.be/ZNK3vNg13XA?feature=shared
by AdieuToLogic | 2025-09-28 23:23:11+00:00
> In the current times you’re either an agent manager or you’re in for a surprise.

This opinion seems to be popular, if only in this forum and not in general.

What I do not understand is this;

In order to use LLM's to generate code, the engineer has to understand the problem sufficient enough to formulate prompt(s) to use in order to get usable output (code). Assuming the engineer has this level of understanding along with knowledge of the target programming language and libraries used, how is using LLM code generation anything more than a typing saver?
by re | 2025-09-28 23:23:33+00:00
Some additional context about the author:

> Jonathan Clements founded HumbleDollar at year-end 2016. Earlier in his career, he spent almost 20 years at The Wall Street Journal, where he was the newspaper's personal finance columnist, and six years at Citigroup, where he was director of financial education for the bank's U.S. wealth management arm. He was also the author of a fistful of personal finance books, including My Money Journey and How to Think About Money.

* https://humbledollar.com/about/jonathan-clements/

* A Money Guru Bet Big on a Very Long Life. Then He Got Cancer. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/13/your-money/jonathan-cleme...

* https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/1npe...

* Tributes to Jonathan Clements https://humbledollar.com/2025/09/tributes-to-jonathan-clemen...

* Best of Jonathan’s HumbleDollar Posts https://humbledollar.com/2025/09/best-of-jonathans-humbledol...

* Choosing Happiness https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32804468 (3 years ago, 101 comments)
by bee_rider | 2025-09-28 23:23:55+00:00
In the US, delivery was pretty spotty in the pre-app days (pizza places tended to have it almost always, other restaurants were case-by-case). The idea of more community organized joint delivery services is really interesting, it just didn’t exist anywhere I lived in the pre-app-days (maybe it was a thing in major cities, that wouldn’t surprise me).

I wonder why the apps out-competed it. Delivery apps are often not even supported officially by the restaurants, right? It’s just sort of like—if somebody comes in for the pickup and gives the right name, they don’t typically care and will just give the delivery guy your order. So it isn’t like some vendor lock-in thing, seems just like network effect from the users or something…
by nextaccountic | 2025-09-28 23:25:30+00:00
Google ads is a local optima for companies but not for consumers. The trouble is, for Google, the customers are the companies buying ads, not the people browsing the web. It's a classic example of not paying for your externalities

That Google isn't blocking a better model doesn't mean they aren't at fault. Ads are like pollution for our minds, we need a better web
by ivan_gammel | 2025-09-28 23:25:50+00:00
> This does not even parse.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_responsibility

Israel executes collective punishment of all Palestinians for actions of Hamas. Putin executes collective punishment of all Ukrainians for actions of certain politicians. The commenter above suggested that the same principle should be applied to all Russian citizens.

> So what? Why are you so focused on the money angle, rather than on the injustice and the indiscriminate murder of citizens in a country that meant russia - or should I say you - no harm?

Why I should be focused on that? To release the steam? Oh, yes, that’s bad, poor people. What’s next? Their fates are determined not by the preparation of Europe to war, but by the willingness of politicians to discuss realistic peace terms. The sooner the war will end, the less people will die. This war was lost by Ukraine and NATO when counteroffensive failed (not least because NATO failed to provide sufficient help), so the only important thing to discuss is how to minimize the losses, because we are obviously not engaging directly. But nobody in Europe is prepared to start this conversation. The money is the only topic where real conversation happens.

> Where is your voice in this? As a person safe in Berlin…

What kind of voice are you expecting and why do you think I’m not using it?
by kapone | 2025-09-28 23:26:06+00:00
After quite a few years of being an employee (and the whole CV driven crap), I’m now in entrepreneur mode, stealth for now (that’s relatively easy, because I’m bootstrapping and funding this with my own money, no investors), and I made an executive decision to (forcibly) think many times, before adopting any “cloudy” thing.

Hardware…is cheap, and bare metal performance outweighs anything cloudy by multiples of magnitudes. If I have to invest money into something, I’d rather invest that in bare metal tooling, than paying for a managed service, that’s just a wrapper around tooling. E.g RDS, EC2, Fargate… or their equivalents across other CSPs.

I can run a Postgres cluster on bare metal, that will obliterate anything cloudy, and cost less than a 3rd if not less. Is it easy? No. But that’s where the investment comes in. A few good Infra resources can do magic, and yes, I hope to be large enough that these labor costs will be way less than a cloud bill.
by tobyjsullivan | 2025-09-28 23:26:20+00:00
There is a standard algorithm - CLDR collation. There are several options available but, generally speaking, it’s a standard.

The specific option for numeric sorting is “kn”.

As far as I can tell, every operating system and many other interfaces tend to use this standard algorithm.

https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr35/tr35-collation.html#CLD...
by reaperducer | 2025-09-28 23:26:42+00:00
I'm somewhat indifferent to the concept of a Digital ID. The problem is that the UK government's reason for introducing it doesn't make sense - to 'solve' illegal workers, when the UK already has a (digital) system for proving right to work

I saw some British politicians discussing this on Sky last week, and I really don't see the point of the British digital ID.

They say having yet another new ID number will make things "easier." But didn't really say how. Brits already have ID numbers for lots of things. It wasn't spelled out how having yet another number will make things better.

My tech mind tells me that it's just going to save some DB admins from having to JOIN some columns. But a number is a number. Why yet another number?

And the whole thing about having a number will somehow stop people from working illegally seems like a red herring. I believe Brits already have to have a national insurance number in order to work. That hasn't stopped people from working illegally. They talking heads didn't explain what's so magical about this new number that will suddenly do things that the old number or numbers didn't.

/Not a Brit. Just bewildered by what appears to be a solution in search of a problem.
by tikkabhuna | 2025-09-28 23:26:48+00:00
I’m pretty sure UK security services can link bank accounts to you already. Hell, credit score companies like Experian already do it.

This is beneficial for public services and companies that need to identify you. Having a single ID for a person is a huge improvement. As an example, when we got married, my wife was simultaneously both her maiden name and my surname. There is absolutely no link between passport, birth certificate, driving license, etc.

You have to go around to all these different organisations and have them update the details. They all have different requirements for updating the name.

Having a single consistent mechanism for referring to a person in systems seems hugely beneficial for both the organisation and the person.
by FridayoLeary | 2025-09-28 23:27:36+00:00
Kier Starmer seems to have no idea how he's coming across. Everything he does just makes him look more authoritarian. He's doing this right after passing that "online safety" bill. It's remarkable that the only time he got his act together was in sending anti government rioters to prison in record time. Which only goes to show what he can do when he wants. The palestine action thing is another one. They embarrassed him so now they are being arrested in their hundreds. It's really not a great look for him at all. But he seems blithley unaware of this. I imagine he's confused because his entire social group of enlightened progressive elites tell him he's amazing and he doesn't understand what the plebian class are complaining about.
by fancyfredbot | 2025-09-28 23:27:54+00:00
If Aaronson had stock or options in OpenAI I don't think he'd feel much need to make misleading statements to try and juice the stock price. For one thing it's not a listed stock and his readers can't buy it however much he hyped it. For another OpenAI's private market valuation is actually doing okay already. This blog probably doesn't have any ability to move the perceived value of OpenAI.

Finally he's a very principled academic, not some kind of fly by night stock analyst. If you'd been reading his blog a while you'd know the chances of him saying something like this would be vanishingly small, unless it was true.
by danpalmer | 2025-09-28 23:28:27+00:00
I'm glad you're more productive, although I would question this result both in terms of objectivity (story points are typically very subjective), and in terms of capturing all externalities of the LLM workflow. It's easy to have "build the thing", "fix the thing", "remove tech debt in the thing", "replace the thing" be 4 separate projects, each with story points, where "build the better thing" would have been one, and churn is something that is evidenced with LLM development.
by zahlman | 2025-09-28 23:29:28+00:00
> I'm hexa (from the mentioned page)

That,

> and this so-called context is irrelevant in this matter.

is exactly why you are not in a position to tell us this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest). Notwithstanding srid's point about sourcing, of course. Which is to say:

> Instead, the moderation team is complaining about undue interference

The entire point is that you (the NixOS moderators collectively — past and present, given your selection process) do not get to decide unilaterally for everyone else what interference is due. We can all judge for ourselves whether the Steering Committee had good reason to intervene on the basis of political bias, by looking at the apparent politics behind your actions.
by _caw | 2025-09-28 23:29:40+00:00
If you're somewhat terrified of Lyme's disease, as I am, one thing you can do to protect yourself and relatives is wear Permethrin treated clothing, especially pants and socks[0].

After hiking, take a very close look at all of your body parts and remove any ticks. You can bag them and send them off to a lab for testing as well.

I've known multiple Lyme's sufferers. You do not want this.

[0]: https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/prevention/index.html
by jkrejcha | 2025-09-28 23:30:12+00:00
Generally using the Protocol[1] feature

from typing import Protocol class SupportsQuack(Protocol): def quack(self) -> None: ...

This of course works with dunder methods and such. Also you can annotate with @runtime_checkable (also from typing) to make `isinstance`, etc work with it

[1]: https://typing.python.org/en/latest/spec/protocol.html
by otabdeveloper4 | 2025-09-28 23:30:47+00:00
> technology forces people to be lazy/careless/thoughtless

AI isn't a technology. (No more than asking your classmate to do your homework for you is a "technology".)

Please don't conflate between AI and programming tools. AI isn't a tool, it is an oracle. There's a huge fundamental gap here that cannot be bridged.
by nearting | 2025-09-28 23:31:56+00:00
It's inconsequential until it isn't. All of the other threats you mention are still threats, but if a government has a database of every resident's fingerprints and decided to use this to arrest every person who could be traced to a protest venue, a reasonable person would very quickly change their mind.

The way I see it, a government not having my fingerprints creates one more barrier to possible tyrannical actions like this and is thus a good thing.