MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by athrowaway3z | 2025-09-19 22:52:41+00:00
I don't use nostr, but this is one of those really upsetting things where technical people are utterly blinded by their dogma.

How did you register as BinaryIgor? You and ycombinator exchanged a pubkey. ycombinator registered theirs with a DNS register, while you threw yours away.

ycombinator has 100% ownership over your identity. There is no way to prove to me you are you without ycombinator.

Having ycombinator be your naming service is useful, and so any distributed system would be wise to re-implement an analog.

But what a supernet signing scheme offers is in addition to "forgot my password" it also has a "ycombinator disappeared / betrayed our trust" feature where your ID and messages exists outside ycombinator - as long as you remember your password.

What we're currently doing: throwing away our keys and let ycombinator resign our messages with theirs; is bad for the power balance between user and the admin.
by throw0101a | 2025-09-19 22:53:19+00:00
> It's the party of rules for thee, not for me.

Hypocrisy is a virtue:

> It’s best to understand that fascists see hypocrisy as a virtue. It’s how they signal that the things they are doing to people were never meant to be equally applied.

> It’s not an inconsistency. It’s very consistent to the only true fascist value, which is domination.

> It’s very important to understand, fascists don’t just see hypocrisy as a necessary evil or an unintended side-effect.

> It’s the purpose. The ability to enjoy yourself the thing you’re able to deny others, because you dominate, is the whole point.

> For fascists, hypocrisy is a great virtue — the greatest.

* https://mastodon.social/@JuliusGoat/109551955251655267

* Via: https://kottke.org/25/03/for-fascists-hypocrisy-is-a-virtue
by papyrus9244 | 2025-09-19 22:53:21+00:00
> because clearly keeping us alive after the age of 40 really wasn't _that_ necessary for human survival.

That's a very common misconception. Being alive after 40 is quite necessary if you are a member of a gregarious species that (bar exceptions) always lives in community. And it's not only about the survival of your own genes, it's about the survival of the genes of the whole community.
by whatevertrevor | 2025-09-19 22:53:28+00:00
I agree very much!

A lot of smart people get woo-ed by bad pitches or wrapped up in cults too. It's all about how the message is coded for the target audience. An astute MLM seller uses very different language to sell to a small farmer vs a young silicon valley graduate[1]. There's also the aspect of how vulnerable the audience is at that point in their lives, cults are especially good (bad?) at finding people in tumultuous periods in their lives, looking for any sort of hope and/or support system to pull them through it. Then the cult provides the community and short-term structure they crave at the time, to their long-term detriment.

Personally, how relatively smart and even generally skeptical people fall for cults and conspiracy theories is one of the most fascinating sociological phenomena out there.

[1] leaning somewhat on general stereotypes for the sake of argument, not insinuating all these people are the same, or implying anything about the relative intelligence of a farmer vs a silicon valley graduate.
by SeanAnderson | 2025-09-19 22:53:31+00:00
My last role was staff engineer/team lead. The company I was with was acquired and I was asked to take director of engineering post-acquisition. I was pretty stressed out about how the acquisition was being mismanaged and declined the role, but stayed at the company for another year when 95% of my coworkers left. I generated a lot of goodwill with the PE firm and C-suite during this time.

After I left, the PE firm finished the ~failed merger, flipped the company to another buyer, and the PE firm placed the CTO at another company. I've remained friends with the CTO and we have a monthly/bi-monthly check-in. He was very supportive of my side-projects and would've helped fund anything that I said had legs, but is equally eager to work with me again if given the opportunity. The company he's working at is going through a reorg and a position he thinks I'd be a good fit for (admittedly a growth opportunity) should open up.

If that falls through and I'm not able to get a warm intro somewhere then you're absolutely right. I'd focus on applying for IC positions, but clearly communicate that I'm interested in taking on leadership ASAP.
by yndoendo | 2025-09-19 22:53:59+00:00
Let say you are given 1 million dollars. You decided to buy a new home. Do you pay in cash or get a mortgage?

When I ask people this question most will respond with pay in cash so you don't lose money paying a mortgage. The real answer it exploit loop holes in the laws with your gain financial position.

1) Open a trust with the money. 2) Use that trust for banking and make it your mortgage lender. 3) Gain tax deductions for having a mortgage and put tax dollars in your own pocket just by shifting money around in a legal creative accounting method.

The wealthy use loop holes that can be exploited only with money to maximize the hoarding.

How does one accumulate wealth with hoarding it?
by kelnos | 2025-09-19 22:54:17+00:00
> the same argument was made about tariffs

By all accounts those arguments were pretty correct, no? The tariff rollout was delayed multiple times, changed multiple times. What we have now doesn't very much look like what Trump announced back in March/April.

And the tariffs may disappear soon, depending on SCOTUS. Not that I depend on SCOTUS doing the right thing anymore, but I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised on this one.
by BlueTemplar | 2025-09-19 22:54:23+00:00
Not only it's 2025, so anyone still using YouTube(/Google/Alphabet) to make money is complicit with totalitarian extremists,

but this ContentID nonsense has been going on since at least 2009,

and we have had easy alternatives like PeerTube for several years now,

where they would have to actually go after him directly,

(and depending on jurisdiction, DMCA (screw that totalitarian extremist nonsense BTW) is more or less enforced),

rather than having YouTube do their censorship for them.
by fschuett | 2025-09-19 22:54:49+00:00
Technically 2.5 years here (I had a shitty job in the meantime for 4 months, but it wasn't a tech job). I have a decent GitHub portfolio though and I've made sure to never waste my time. So, I'm unemployed on paper, yet always "employed" building open-source software in reality. I have tried to finish building my cartography startup and my mini-browser engine. Once I have that, I can hopefully support myself with non-software money because the job market in Germany is a complete disaster, I still get interviews (about two per month), but they usually lead nowhere. Sometimes I get into the next round, just to be rejected for someone with more experience.

Sadly (?), I don't have any higher education and I'm too "self-employed" for corporate jobs (corporate jobs really, really don't like having someone build their own startup on the side). And on top I'm 26, not 36, so there's no way I'll have the experience required for someone truly "Senior". I get by on German social security, I get exactly 560€ / month and that's it (plus health insurance, 220€). If you wonder how someone can live on that low amount of money, it's because I accidentally inherited a paid-off house and don't need to pay rent (state covers any taxes, would be even more ludicrous if they didn't). So I have very, very few expenses, no liabilities and a few close friends.

I never wanted to be a drain on society (heavily socially punished in Germany), so I try to stay active and use my time for open-source projects. But since my net loss on society is relatively low anyway, I see it as morally justified to develop my "cartographic AI solution" while being a bum on paper. Let's just call it "government-subsidized startup seed funding". At least the thought of "finish your startup or you'll one day die of starvation" does do wonders for my motivation.

If people want to judge me for being on social security, I don't care anymore. I have my goals and I'm not running out of work, technically, despite being "unemployed". I care about building my skills and my startup and having "something for myself" so that I don't get financially torpedoed every few years (2008 crisis, 2015 crisis, Corona 2020, AI bubble 2025, ...). Once the job market gets better or I finish building my startup, I'll be better off. Until then I just have to deal with judging looks. How on earth someone is however supposed to build a stable family life from software engineering if the job market shits itself every few years is beyond me. I guess I lack the firm handshake and smile.

I did buy "Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata", once I'm done with my programming projects, I'll focus on that. Some of my friends can speak fluent Latin, I gotta catch up. And learning math properly, working out, etc. But yeah, I'm lucky that I don't have many expenses. Stay active, don't waste time.
by johnh-hn | 2025-09-19 22:54:52+00:00
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. It's funny you mention this, because I've wondered about something similar. But I'm not sold on computers being controlled primarily through voice while CEOs demand a return to the office. It would make an office too noisy which makes me think remote work would be a necessary precondition for it.

You're correct about becoming an independent developer though. This whole experience made me realise that needs to be my goal if the tech industry can toss me aside at a moment's notice. I need a job to do that safely though. It's too risky on its own.
by marxism | 2025-09-19 22:55:11+00:00
Counterpoint: don't blame the founder for leading with driving use cases. It's audience selection bias, not the founder being reckless. He's showing what gets traction, not necessarily what he thinks people should actually do

I'm contributing to a similar open source coding tool [1] and I see the same skewed reaction: voice control of "whatever" while driving gets 5-10x the clicks of any other demo.

There's a logical reason so many people think of voice control while driving. It's not because they're reckless.

It reflects the hierarchy of needs. People with long commutes (often younger, lower-paid engineers living further out) spend 2+ hours driving daily.

This is their biggest time sink, so of course they think about making it productive. When you're living far out for cheap housing and hear "coding while driving", its easy to think: finally, a way to get ahead without choosing between career growth and seeing my family.

Again, I think its just an off-the-cuff reaction, not actually what people will do. Just like people try your app and tell you its amazing but then never pay. Doing stuff while driving just sounds nice until you know... you think about it for 3 seconds and yeah, its bad idea.

[1] https://github.com/slopus/happy
by BryantD | 2025-09-19 22:56:56+00:00
One small note -- what got you an interview before 2020 will often not get you an interview now. The market (as you obviously know) is much tougher. The last two managerial roles I've opened have gotten literally thousands of applications within the first week and it's harder to stand out. If you've done a few rounds already, there's probably not much incremental value, though.

Absolutely ask for referrals. You gotta painfully get on LinkedIn for maximum effectiveness -- if you're looking at a company and an ex-coworker you got along with knows someone there, ask for the introduction. It feels awkward and weird but it increases your chances somewhat.
by lazyasciiart | 2025-09-19 22:57:02+00:00
Interesting. I’m helping my son with some remedial work and this sounds like what is called the “frustration level” - 85-90% accuracy, more than one mistake in every ten words. The “instructional level” - reading to improve the skill of reading - is a bit lower at 90-95%, less than one mistake in every ten words. Computers certainly don’t experience frustration, and I don’t know if animals would in the studies mentioned - but in kids, it’s associated with giving up on a skill and taking a dislike to the whole thing. So there would have to be some investigation into whether working at this zone of optimal learning actually produced optimal outcomes in people.
by aunty_helen | 2025-09-19 22:57:04+00:00
Nah that’s not a thing. Get involved spend an afternoon setting it up and then it will suggest a bunch of people you’ve probably worked with in the past. They’ll be happy to connect and then it’s a good point to catch up and drop the “I’m in the market”.

If anybody used to enjoy working with you and they know of something it, should be easy enough from then on.
by Findecanor | 2025-09-19 22:57:11+00:00
I've been for much longer. Was unemployed when I developed cancer, and I had dead-beat doctors, so it went undiagnosed for too long and became chronic. During that time I developed a second unrelated cancer (which I have genetic disposition for) when my immune system was occupied with the first, and also COVID. Waiting, surgeries and treatments took two years.

After recovering, the Swedish employment office pushed me into a program for "job training" saying that it would help me ease into working again after my illness. I was already recovering and feeling well, working out and doing occasional charity work. I wanted to change career and get job market training to become a machinist (a non-declining job market where I wouldn't have to be exposed to AI), but was barred from that because of the program.

The company I was assigned to intern at (as an A/V programmer) claimed they wanted to hire me afterwards. It wasn't really what I wanted but I accepted it as a "consolation price" because it was at least (supposed to be...) a job. They conspired behind my back to extend the internship period into a full year. First on my last day did they offer to hire me ... except now only if they could get a government handout for doing so — and that handout would be granted only if I had a disability. I told the employment office No when they asked, but they still required me to continue working until the decision was cleared, which took another month and a half. I am not disabled ... so I didn't get hired.

No training, no job, a year of work for only unemployment checks, and overstressed with new physical outcomes: I've got a cold, the shingles and lichen ruber planus (stress-related rash) during the summer.
by PaulKeeble | 2025-09-19 22:57:52+00:00
Likewise. Wasting user space CPU cycles is actually a moderately tricky thing to do when we have optimising compilers. Its not something that comes up a lot but it is occasionally something you do need to do in order to test other things and it is different to making a lot of system calls.

I think volatile is usually fairly well contained I can't immediately think of an obvious case where it could adjust the performance of the calling context indirectly but its pushing the problem onto that cache coherence part of the CPU so its not quite the same as an algorithm that consumes all the memory bandwidth or execution ports. Lots of little interesting trade offs in the weeds of this and other potential solutions depending on if any of this matters.
by it_is_beautiful | 2025-09-19 22:58:03+00:00
Throwaway, to do away with the polite fiction that I usually present.

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown / Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

At 11 I started writing software, with entrepreneurial aspirations helped by my parents. Over my teen years I must have designed a dozen sites I never published. I did alright in school, but I was never on time. At 18, out of high school, I got my first job. I moved to the city, went to college, and flunked out. I couldn't get up for class on time, I couldn't understand the "basic high school review" math course.

So, at 19 I moved back home, worked a year, and moved back to the city to work as a developer. I applied here and there, there was never much interest. I got comfortable, and although ashamed to sickness, I managed to spend the pandemic years not working at all. I suppose my ego and immaturity "prevented" me from working a regular job.

At 23 I moved back to my home town, to work my 3rd job ever, as a cleaner alongside a bunch of teens. After a year of that, I moved to a new big city, swallowed my pride and immediately got another cleaning job. I hoped to move on from that, maybe to software, maybe some new calling.

A new life circumstance hit me like a truck, and I had a very dark year. Stayed at that minimum wage job. 24, 25, moved back home.

The last year I've been trying to improve, taking online courses, going to the gym, building a piece of software that has real value, as in, can actually make money. But, well, I have a hard time believing anything has much of value. I'm 26 now. Spent most of my year "improving", a small portion working.

I maintain the polite fiction because I don't like people asking me why I do the things I do, I don't really know. I guess I do what's easy. A younger me would've chalked it up to "trauma", "anxiety", "depression", or some DSM-able disorder. An older me doesn't believe that at all. But I barely work, don't drive, and I really isolate myself. This was all quite bad before, but after the "circumstance", the last point is especially true.

I know how to get out of the "not working" cycle, I have to get a job first-and-foremost. But I don't know how to get out of the isolation cycle, it's been getting worse and worse. I try and read up on it, but all the advice is about "making friends". That's not really my issue. I feel like an alien, and most everyone drives me insane. Well, at least I can appreciate Kafka.

(After all that, I've never made a dime on software)
by gdevillers | 2025-09-19 22:58:27+00:00
The pinephone hardware feels like a prototype due to the old A20 cpu (heat problems, poor battery life).

The lesser-known SHIFT6mq has an actual mobile chip and apparently works correctly as a phone under postmarketOS (only GPS, NFC and Camera missing): https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/SHIFT_SHIFT6mq_(shift-axo.... There are pointers on the wiki to hack on the camera if you want to help the cause.

The Fairphone 5 is another good candidate for hacking: calls and camera are not working: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Fairphone_5_(fairphone-fp...
by kelnos | 2025-09-19 22:58:28+00:00
> I think the H1B program [...] has zero legitimacy

That's demonstrably false, even just by my own experience with people, so not sure I can take what you're saying seriously.

Yes, there's corruption and abuse, but I've also worked with some fantastic, excellent, smart, ambitious, hard-working people on H-1B visas. They would not have been in the US without it.

I've also worked with some mediocre fools who were on H-1B visas. That's the problem we should be focusing on, and there's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
by andrewmutz | 2025-09-19 22:58:39+00:00
Rails would have become irrelevant long ago if it wasnt for DHH. Especially in recent years he has been doing an enormous amount of stuff to keep Rails relevant and still the top choice for rapidly building businesses with a small team.

I don't agree with him on political matters but that is irrelevant. He's not my senator, he runs an open source project (and does it really well).
by martin-t | 2025-09-19 22:59:22+00:00
I didn't say it's an abusive employer but an abusive company.

It always fought against open source. Embrace, extend, extinguish. It always stifled innovation. Internet Explorer 6. And now, it bought GitHub and then plagiarized all public and private projects hosted on it. GPL cannot exist in a world where you can build a statistical model of the code and mechanically reproduce its functionality while somehow losing the GPL licensing in the process.

Also, calling it "defeatist" has no base in what I wrote. I didn't even write anything about corporations. Abuse has a much simpler description - using a power differential to benefit yourself at other people's expense.
by moojacob | 2025-09-19 22:59:42+00:00
The author can't fork Rails because "the amount of work that goes into maintaining this ecosystem is enormous and expensive."

Rails IS FREE TO USE. If you want to improve test driven development, do the work yourself. Or start a company and dedicate 40% of your extremely well paid engineers time open source code others can use for free.

37signals and Shopify make the decisions because THEY DO THE WORK. I am happy to sit back and free load off of their contributions even if I disagree with DHH and Tobi's political opinions.
by throw0101a | 2025-09-19 22:59:56+00:00
> If the FCC improperly attempts to withhold a license from the affiliate, the affiliate can sue and let federal judges, who are not an extension of trump, decide on the matter.

Which will take years to settle and you're paying fees upon fees. Or you can kiss ass and get it rubber stamped.

That's why corruption can be so corrosive: it's the "easy" way through the problem.
by themafia | 2025-09-19 23:00:28+00:00
I think invoking a programmers personal blog or points of view to make a point about project governance is wholly inappropriate.

There is absolutely nothing in the way of technical analysis or suggestions and the post even ends admitting that the author doesn't believe there's a tractable way forward.

What was the point of this? You don't personally like DHH? I believe everyone is entitled to their opinion but I don't think this article rises anywhere near a level that could be debated. I can only say "I'm sorry you feel that way."
by sixothree | 2025-09-19 23:00:34+00:00
When things like this happen, I think about how during WW1 people talked about the possibility of "bombing a country back to the stone age". Destroy enough libraries, have enough people abandon their areas of specialty employment into different fields, and given enough time, you can erase a society's institutional knowledge and capability.

If we lose enough key resources like the Internet Archive we could definitely shifting the pendulum in that direction.
by AtlasBarfed | 2025-09-19 23:00:41+00:00
If h1bs are statistically a lot more centered in higher income urban areas, while overall populations of a given profession are more evenly distributed across the country...

Then that $120,000 salary median can still represent a 50% undercut of similar Urban salaries for a profession.

I'm going to contend that that is the case. But I don't have time to chase down the statistics
by cmxch | 2025-09-19 23:00:51+00:00
True equivalence, not false.

They had implicit support from the prior administration and their friendlies. They wouldn’t be touched and the prior administration used Unicorn Riot doxxing data to make adverse decisions against the doxxed individuals.

So I continue to maintain that similar actions taken wrt Charlie Kirk are only proper for what Unicorn Riot did to enable harassment.

Perhaps it might be a better idea to not allow doxxed data to be used for adverse decisions against people.
by tremon | 2025-09-19 23:01:10+00:00
"while sharing the underlying hardware resources"? At the risk of sounding too positive, my guess is that hell will freeze over before that will work reliably. Alternating access between the running kernels is probably the "easy" part (DMA and command queues solve a lot of this for free), but I'm thinking more of all the hardware that relies on state-keeping and serialization in the driver. There's no way that e.g. the average usb or bluetooth vendor has "multiple interleaved command sequences" in their test setup.

I think Linux will have to move to a microkernel architecture before this can work. Once you have separate "processes" for hardware drivers, running two userlands side-by-side should be a piece of cookie (at least compared to the earlier task of converting the rest of the kernel).

Will be interesting to see where this goes. I like the idea, but if I were to go in that direction, I would choose something like a Genode kernel to supervise multiple Linux kernels.