MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by IgorPartola | 2025-09-25 12:33:10+00:00
Not my industry at all.

I am curious if something like this is an opportunity for a whole new type of controls and feedback. Since the operator doesn’t have to be in the excavator physically they could take on any position: standing, sitting, lying down, etc. Instead of sending haptic feedback to the joystick it could be sent to a vibrating wrist band. You could hook up the equivalent of a Nintendo Power Glove to have the scoop operated by the operator simulating scooping action. Turning the excavator can be controlled by the operator turning their head and moving it around can be done by the operator walking on an infinite treadmill. Motor strain can be done via color of light or temperature rather than sound. You could have a VR helmet that can also show you a birds eye view from a companion drone, overlay blueprints, show power and water lines, measure depth, etc. I don’t know if it is possible but maybe you could even measure soil composition somehow to show large rocks, soft soil that is dangerous to drive over, inclination angles where the excavator is about to drive, etc.

I imagine skilled operators prefer familiar controls but perhaps there are interesting improvements unlocked by exploring alternatives. It might also fundamentally change how accessible it is for non-professionals to use these machines. I rented an excavator from Home Depot a few years ago to dig a foundation and the learning curve was not shallow. I wonder if a more “natural” interface would help keep people safer.
by osigurdson | 2025-09-25 12:35:05+00:00
Unless you have a broader context, reviewing 300 line PRs in 5 minutes is going to be surface level at best. Plus that time comes with an expensive context switch so the actual cost is likely more like 20 - 30 minutes. At this point, I think a reasonable question is why not just use AI for shallow reviews like this? This would free up bandwidth in situations where you really want code reviewed by someone else.
by boneitis | 2025-09-25 12:35:14+00:00
If it's just the keyboard appearance itself piquing your interest, you might check out the Keychron K3 (the brand has apparently grown a lot since I was last shopping around for keyboards, so it looks like they have a "K", "K Pro", and "K QMK" as well as several other "[Insert Letter Here]" lines of models now... back then all they had were K keyboards).

To clarify, this is to say I'm looking on their website right now and seeing at least five variants of "K3" alone.

It's hard to tell when all the promotional photos are showing either a partial shot or an aggressive angle, but it looks so much like my K3 that I actually thought they were going to say they collaborated with Keychron on the design.
by ziml77 | 2025-09-25 12:35:15+00:00
As a reviewer, I don't care how you got to the end result. I want to see the final code. If you settled on something in your code that was unintuitive, because you tried simpler ideas that didn't work, then note that in a comment. Comments provide the info inline and don't require someone reviewing the code now or working on the code 15 years later to read your "commit story" to understand it.
by Bjartr | 2025-09-25 12:35:45+00:00
> only as capable as it is at promoting American interests in the world because it has many of the biggest winner-take-all corporations in its jurisdiction.

At a glance it seems this would only remain true so long as American interests and the interests of the corporation align. Which they do, up to a point.

The question then becomes where is the "triple point" between "A globally competitive USA", "Corporate oligarchy", and "Power to the people"? If such a balance can when exist
by panick21_ | 2025-09-25 12:36:10+00:00
The link between anarchists and 'burn everything down' comes from the fact that in reality, many anarchists have very much taken the 'shoot first' and then hopefully build something better later path.

Those anarchists who didn't do that, were just never politically or socially relevant. So they can write nice pamphlets all they like about what 'real anarchism' actually is.

> we need a bad guy who wants to destroy society

Anarchist and Communists very much wanted a fundamentally different society, one so different that its essentially impossible to get there without destroying the existing one first.
by immibis | 2025-09-25 12:36:40+00:00
Everything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. On the other hand, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

The basic governing principles of the economy were completely rewritten in 1971, were completely rewritten again in 2008, were completely rewritten again in 2020 - probably other times too - and there are only so many more things they can try. The USA is basically running as a pseudo-command economy at the top level now - how long do those typically last? - with big businesses being supported by the central bank.

The economy should have collapsed in 1971, 2008 and 2020 (and probably other times) as well, but they kept finding new interventions that would have seemed completely ludicrous 20 years earlier. I mean, the Federal Reserve just buying financial assets? With newly printed money? (it still has a massive reserve of them, this program did not end, that money is still in circulation and it's propping a lot of economic numbers up)

All predictions about when the musical chairs will end are probably wrong. The prediction that it'll end in the next N years is just as likely to be wrong, as the prediction that it won't. Some would argue it already has ended, decades ago, and we are currently living in the financial collapse - how many years of income does it take to get a house now? The collapse of Rome' took several centuries. At no point did the people think they were living in a collapsing empire. Each person just thought that how it was in their time was how it always was.
by jermaustin1 | 2025-09-25 12:36:44+00:00
I 100% agree that a parent should be required to sit next to a child under a certain age, but I don't agree that is the responsibility of the airline. They should enforce that the parent/guardian traveling with the child should have to pick seats (so yes, pay for seat selection if it costs money), and if there aren't seats available, too bad.

Again, I (who paid for a selected seat assignment) should not even be asked by anyone (staff or passengers) to get up because they didn't pay for a seat with their baby.
by array_key_first | 2025-09-25 12:38:57+00:00
> As a user, I'm still baffled that the interface to view and manage the apps I have installed on the system - which is 90 out of 100 times why I'm opening the play store - is tucked away in some obscure corner of the app.

Analytics driven development.

They realized that doing it this way leads to greater ad clicks and time spent on the app.
by davedx | 2025-09-25 12:40:43+00:00
It's a very common refrain but I don't really agree with it:

"How do you create a PR that can be reviewed in 5-10 minutes? By reducing the scope. A full feature should often be multiple PRs. A good rule of thumb is 300 lines of code changes - once you get above 500 lines, you're entering unreviewable territory."

The problem with doing this is if you're building something a lot bigger and more complex than 500 lines of code, splitting that up across multiple PR's will result in:

- A big queue of PR's for reviewers to review

- The of the feature is split across multiple change sets, increasing cognitive load (coherence is lost)

- You end up doing work on branches of branches, and end up either having to become a rebase ninja or having tons of conflicts as each PR gets merged underneath you

The right answer for the size of a PR is NOT in lines of code. Exercise judgement as to what is logically easier to review. Sometimes bigger is actually better, it depends. Learn from experience, communicate with each other, try to be kind when reviewing and don't block things up unnecessarily.
by joz1-k | 2025-09-25 12:42:30+00:00
> A source would be any kind of proof...

I cannot give you proof for the line of political thinking. :)

> ...having a monopoly in one country is a strategic advantage over other countries.

Having a large, unified domestic market is a strategic advantage because it enables companies to grow to a size that makes them formidable global competitors [0]. The United States and China are examples of this phenomenon. The point isn't whether it's advantageous to allow such companies to become monopolies. Once these companies reach a certain size, politicians are reluctant to break them up because they don't want other global companies to take their place.

[0]: https://companiesmarketcap.com/
Show HN: Pip install vatify – EU VAT validation in Python
by passenger09 | 2025-09-25 12:42:32+00:00
I’ve been building Vatify, an API for EU VAT validation, VAT rates and calculation. Today I shipped an official Python SDK → available on PyPI:

from vatify import Vatify

client = Vatify(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")

res = client.validate_vat("DE123456789")

print(res.valid, res.country_code, res.name)

Why?

Many SaaS founders and e-commerce devs struggle with EU VAT compliance.

Most existing libraries are outdated or incomplete.

This SDK gives you validation, rates, and calculation in a clean Python interface.

Links:

PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/vatify/ GitHub: https://github.com/vatifytax/vatify-python

I’d love feedback from anyone who’s had to deal with EU VAT in their projects
by infecto | 2025-09-25 12:42:44+00:00
There also has been a drastic change in YouTube search in the past year. It used to be that search would be logical, you search for a specific string and you can go through pages of videos that matchup to that. Now it at least feels like they have completely mixed that original search with a some sort of ranked preference of what they think I want to see. It’s a shame and an actual huge downgrade.
by panick21_ | 2025-09-25 12:43:19+00:00
Adam Smith points out that it doesn't matter if things are done for the greater good or not. Them existing will improve lives for everybody either way.

The problem with government funded large project is that they often monopolize. In the Soviet Union to much investment was flowing into the wrong stuff. And small scale innovation didn't get the resources to grow.

While mistakes on a high level lead to total stagnation. For example NASA building the Shuttle crowed out almost everything else, and because the Shuttle was the wrong way to go the US has spent 50 years doubling down on that.

If a large company makes a really, really big bet on something, they can pay a very large cost if they are wrong. And this has been historically the case, large projects that don't get anywhere are canceled. Governments can double down almost forever.

So I think we do need everything, innovation from maverick individuals, innovation from smaller companies, large innovation form big companies, innovation from government project, innovation from private/government funded universities.

There is no perfect 'this is the way to get innovation' that we have yet discovered.
by rsynnott | 2025-09-25 12:45:22+00:00
Paracetamol/acetaminophen is a bit of an oddity in that it is very safe when used as directed, but the dangerous dose is uncomfortably close to the effective dose. However, it remains a very safe painkiller, _provided that it is used correctly_.

The typical dose is not 500mg for small children. For instance see https://www2.hse.ie/medicines/paracetamol-for-children/how-a...

> If your baby is age 2 to 3 months, give them 2.5ml of [a specified] syrup. A 2.5ml dose contains 60mg of paracetamol.
by pclmulqdq | 2025-09-25 12:45:44+00:00
As startup valuations have gone up quickly and the YC offer largely remains the same, YC has naturally moved downmarket. They have gone from being an exclusive, premium product aimed at people who have a serious chance of building a unicorn to a finishing school for venture-backed entrepreneurs. In my opinion, this is a great thing for YC because it's a more natural fit for their main value proposition, but it also means that the best time to do modern YC is essentially straight out of school.
by Balgair | 2025-09-25 12:46:11+00:00
The hot new interview question for 2025-2035 will not be:

- How many golf ball fit in a school bus?

Or the like that dominated Google hiring for nearly a decade. No the hot new interview question will be:

- Do you have an account with any of the major sports bettors in good standing?

The Goofus answer to this is : Yes, I can bet whatever I like with them (they are an idiot that doesn't understand how money works. Hire appropriately)

The Gallant answer is: No, I don't do sports betting. (This shows they at least know to lie about it)

The Galaxy answer is: No, they banned me (only sharps get banned, meaning they are either very lucky or very good with probabilities and numbers)

There exists now the potential for a small service company that can help interviewees and the spouses of gambling addicts: We'll make you look like a sharp to the sports betting companies. You sign up for the service and a big-time sharp takes over your accounts (or directs you personally) and tells you what to bet and where. They then give you the money to bet, making you effectively a mule for them. It's win-win. Real sharps get a mule, you get to look like a sharp and you have the proof. This also works for the family of addicts (probably the larger market), as their affected loved-one gets banned/downgraded and all the money stops flowing out of their accounts.
by agavava | 2025-09-25 12:46:37+00:00
To maintain weight, it’s not enough to just do a diet for a couple of weeks. It’s important to change your lifestyle, build new habits, make new eating part of your life. And I think it’s cool that modern weight loss platforms like https://unimeal.com/ are focused on showing that it’s not enough to just quit sugar for a while. Try making a meal plan that you don’t need to quit. Or even don’t want to.
by raxxorraxor | 2025-09-25 12:46:41+00:00
It is bad itself that liberals turned their back on freedom of speech. Many people in other countries are quite jealous of the US constitution. It isn't perfect either, but what was proposed politically in recent years was infinitely worse, be it culturally or legislatively.

Even worse than turning their backs on essential civil liberties was that it was allegedly done in the name of minorities. This should have raised alarms in the few that didn't stop using their mental facilities that something is heading in the wrong direction.

"Freedom of speech hurts minorities" was the essence of their statements. Of course any political opposition will benefit from that. Like stealing candy from a child. Although I expect better from kids than from some groups with an allegedly liberal flag.

10 years ago people would have laughed at conservatives championing freedom of speech.
by aniforprez | 2025-09-25 12:46:51+00:00
My experience with DuckDuckGo has been very mixed. I have to frequently resort to Google, especially for error messages where DDG returns zero results yet Google has indexed and finds a GitHub issue with that exact same text in it. The image searches are also really bad. I am sticking with using DDG but I have a shortcut ready in case I need Google and overall I'd really like something else considering it's a thin wrapper around Bing. I'll try out Kagi and see if it's worth paying
by cogman10 | 2025-09-25 12:46:55+00:00
Java object serialization can be super dangerous as it just works on any class that implements serializable.

That means if the shape of your object is something like

class Foo implements Serializable { SerializableFunction bar; void doBar() { bar.apply(); } }

You've created a class which an attacker can plug in any object which implements `SerializableFunction` into `bar`. That includes externally created functions!

Here's an article detailing exactly how that works: https://www.baeldung.com/java-serialize-lambda
Show HN: JSON Dive – A better online JSON viewer
by wcauchois | 2025-09-25 12:46:56+00:00
We've all been there: you have some JSON data you need to make sense of, so you Google "json formatter" and end up at a site ridden with ads. I used to look at at lot of JSON (mostly log data) for $oldjob, so I set out to build something better.

I know there are a lot of tools in this space, but I've put a lot of love into JSON Dive: things like Vim keyboard shortcuts to navigate, dark mode, timestamp/image previews, and multi-file-format-support (XML-in-JSON was a format I dealt with in the context of LLMs/tool calls). I've also made an effort to ensure it can handle large files, since no one wants their tool to break down in that scenario. The entire thing is local-first and never sends your data anywhere.

I'm hoping to support the development of JSON Dive and stay ad-free in two ways:

1. Premium features (in development; mostly around collaboration). Note that everything that's free right now will remain free; these would be additive.

2. Licensing. JSON Dive is built as a React component that you can embed in your application. My vision is that instead of copy/pasting into JSON Dive, whatever tool I was using would already have JSON Dive in it :)

I'd love feedback. More importantly, I'd love it if JSON Dive became a tool that improved your life as a developer!
by fipar | 2025-09-25 12:47:19+00:00
What I remember from school (late 90s) is that Babbage was inspired by Jacquard’s punched cards to use then in his Engine, and either this, or Jacquard directly, inspired the same in Hollerith. I don’t recall it as there being a direct line in terms of “modified loom is general purpose computer) but it was certainly an important influence.

In hindsight it seems easy for some of us to make the connection, but, at the time, it must have been quite the breakthrough.
by xmcqdpt2 | 2025-09-25 12:49:26+00:00
This is a huge pet peeve of mine. At work I'm an expert on part of the code base that sees a fair number of contributions.I get many private IMs from colleagues asking me to "Approve please" or something like that with a dump of 100s of lines, of which maybe 10 lines are relevant to me (touch files or behaviour that I'm an expert on, hence why they need my approval.)

Minimally, I would like context for the change, why it required a change to this part of the codebase, and the thought process behind the change. Sometimes but not often enough I send the review back and ask them for this info.

IMO many software developers are just not fast enough at writing or language so providing an explanation for their changes is a lot of work for them. Or they are checked out and they just followed the AI or IDE until things worked, so they don't have explanations to provide. People not taking the time is what makes reviews performative.
by osigurdson | 2025-09-25 12:50:20+00:00
The PR type approach comes from the Linux kernel where there is essentially a hierarchy of gatekeepers with increasing trust and responsibility. It is a very individualistic type approach (i.e. if you merged it into your branch, it's on you and speed is a non-goal for the most part). This is often different from many software projects as it is like a collective where often, no one really has individual responsibility for anything (it is more like collective responsibility), speed is everything and there are certainly no gate keepers - maybe the review actually doesn't matter that much in this context.
by rsynnott | 2025-09-25 12:50:33+00:00
If you're talking about the motorised control wheel things that old washing machines used to have, they went away largely because they are failure prone, and their failure modes can be bad (for instance in some machines if they fail while the machine is filling, well, it will just go on filling forever). The microcontrollers in modern machines can fail, to, but generally are easier to make fail safe.
by mtlynch | 2025-09-25 12:50:39+00:00
I love code reviews and blog posts about them, but I vehemently disagree with all of this advice.

>His example PR[0] adds just 152 lines of code, removes 2 lines, but uses 13 thoughtful commits.

>While some developers might understand those 152 lines from the final diff alone, I couldn't confidently approve it without the commit story.

This is ridiculous!

You absolutely can and should review a PR without demanding its "commit story."

Go read the PR under discussion here.[0] There's nothing about it that's hard to understand or that demands you go read the 13 intermediate steps the developer took to get there.

The unit of change in a code review is the PR itself, not the intermediate commits. Intermediate commits are for the author's benefit, not the reviewer's. If the author rewrote the code in FORTRAN to help them understand the problem, then converted it back to the codebase's language, that's 100% okay and is not something the reviewer needs to care about.

The PR should squash the individual PRs at merge time. The linked PR[0] is a perfect example, as the relevant change in the permanent commit history should be "Measure average scheduler utilization" and not "Collect samples" or "Mock sampling."

When you need to communicate extra context outside of the code, that should go in the PR description.[1] Your reviewer shouldn't have to go scour dozens of separate commit messages to understand your change.

>How do you create a PR that can be reviewed in 5-10 minutes? By reducing the scope. A full feature should often be multiple PRs. A good rule of thumb is 300 lines of code changes - once you get above 500 lines, you're entering unreviewable territory.

5-10 minute reviews are so low that it's basically thoughtless rubber-stamping.

If someone spent 5-10 hours making a change, the reviewer should definitely think about it for more than 5 minutes. If all the reviewer is doing is spot checking for obvious bugs, it's a waste of a code review. The reviewer should be looking for opportunities to make the code simpler, clearer, or more maintainable. 5-10 minutes is barely enough time to even understand the change. It's not enough time to think deeply about ways to improve it.

[0] https://github.com/sasa1977/hamlet/pull/3

[1] https://refactoringenglish.com/chapters/commit-messages/
by nebalee | 2025-09-25 12:51:00+00:00
The 20 dollar minicomputer has not become the 200 dollar rgb keyboard. You can still get a ~20 dollar Raspberry Pi minicomputer that runs Linux and has low power consumption: The Pi Zero 2. They expanded their range of products on the top, both performance and price wise, but boards on the other end of the range are still on offer.
by aniforprez | 2025-09-25 12:51:06+00:00
Happened to my father who got routed through ads on his phone while booking flight tickets to some seedy website. He regretted it but thankfully got refunds initiated successfully because of issues with the flights themselves and a lot of back-and-forth. He resolved to only do critical monetary operations on his laptop where I've installed any and every possible adblocker.

The web is so hostile to the inform and the old. It takes one moment of weakness and there's someone ready and waiting with a scam.
by piltdownman | 2025-09-25 12:51:36+00:00
'Proper' gamblers use exchanges like Betfair rather than Sportsbooks, where the host takes a rake off the spread with individuals laying against you. The only major issue with this is not being able to do things like place betting accumulators.

FOI in EU means you can get the notes attached to your account - the insights can be staggering, down to friend and family connections with Jockeys or Racing Stables, Sports Personalities or High Net Worth individuals.
by makeitdouble | 2025-09-25 12:52:12+00:00
I don't think it was ever a "solved and done" problem, but at least Google kept putting tremendous efforts to lead the arms race and bring a decent solution for most people. It wasn't perfect for everyone of course.

I think they could still keep up if it was a priority to them. It's complicated, but they have a lot of the best minds of our generation after all.