MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by TeMPOraL | 2025-09-26 11:57:21+00:00
> Computing: Performing the instructions they are given.

> Thinking: Can be introspective, self correcting. May include novel ideas.

LLMs can perform arbitrary instructions given in natural language, which includes instructions to be introspective and self correcting and generate novel ideas. Is it computing or is it thinking? We can judge the degree to which they can do these things, but it's unclear there's a fundamental difference in kind.

(Also obviously thinking is computation - the only alternative would be believing thinking is divine magic that science can't even talk about.)

I'm less interested in topic of whether LLMs are thinking or parrotting, and more in the observation that offloading cognition on external systems, be their digital, analog, or social, is just something humans naturally do all the time.
by evertedsphere | 2025-09-26 11:58:05+00:00
> Web users will be charged £2.99 a month and mobile phone users £3.99 a month to scroll through Facebook and Instagram without targeted ads.

I wonder how much information this provides about the relative value of mobile users vs web users. It's complicated by the fact that part of the pricing strategy here is likely not maximizing revenue as much as it is…making it just too expensive for many people to want to pay, thus shaping public opinion in the right direction.

> If the accounts are linked, users only need to pay one monthly fee.

Is this because they manage to get some value from that edge existing in the graph even if they can't turn that into ad revenue?
by lelanthran | 2025-09-26 11:58:08+00:00
> I included the instruction to use regular expressions to do the conversion to ANSI.

The viber coders (who I referred to in my comment) aren't giving implementation tips.

What did it give you before you put an implementation tip into your prompt?

=======

FWIW, if you're at all interested, here's my implementation:

def markdown_ansi_code_subst(mdstr: str, src_pattern: str, replacement_start: str, replacement_end: str) -> str: while src_pattern in mdstr: mdstr = mdstr.replace(src_pattern, replacement_start, 1) mdstr = mdstr.replace(src_pattern, replacement_end, 1) return mdstr

The caller supplies the pattern (`*` for italic, `**` for bold, etc) and a start/end replacement. As you can imagine, I store all of that in a static lookup table.

I feel this is more readable than regexes.*
by iamnothere | 2025-09-26 11:58:10+00:00
The problem is would-be aristocrats who prefer neofeudalism fighting it out with other would-be aristocrats who prefer to rule through directed mobocracy and information control. The former pretends they are fighting for decency, morals, and individual freedoms, while the latter pretends they are fighting for the common good, democracy, and “freedom from” various bad things. God help us if either group succeeds.
Show HN: A free WordPress plugin for adding a WhatsApp chat button
by rooteto | 2025-09-26 11:58:21+00:00
Hi HN, I put together a small WordPress plugin that adds a WhatsApp chat button to any site. It’s free and really simple — just install it and visitors can reach you on WhatsApp with one click.

The reason I built it is because I’ve seen a lot of small business owners who want something like this, but most plugins are either too heavy or complicated. I wanted a lightweight version that just works.

Happy to hear any thoughts or feedback. If you think of features that would make it more useful, let me know!
by thw_9a83c | 2025-09-26 12:00:05+00:00
> humans each model will produce fairly similar results on each prompt, but it helps having 8 billion different models running

Yes, that was my point. We don't have 8 billion AI models. Furthermore, existing models are also trained on heavily overlapping data. The collective creativity and inventiveness of humans far exceeds what AI can currently do for us.
by gprok | 2025-09-26 12:01:28+00:00
That's a great link, Alt-Tab is a fantastic utility! I've tried all the popular tools in this space, including Raycast's switcher, and they are all excellent at what they do.

My goal with Macscope was to address a slightly different problem. Most switchers answer the question "what app/window do I want to open?". I found my workflow often involved a second step: "...and now I need to use another tool to position it."

Macscope tries to be a combination of a switcher and an arranger, answering the question "open and where?" in a single action.

A feature I'm really happy with that illustrates this is the new "Placement Mode". You can use a dedicated hotkey (e.g., Ctrl+Opt+L) that tells Macscope "I'm about to switch to a window, and I want it to snap to the right half of the screen." When you select the window, it both switches and arranges in one fluid motion.

Here’s a quick video showing how it works in practice: https://screen.studio/share/pg4H5i4c

It's a different approach, but hopefully a useful one for certain workflows. Thanks for sharing the link for others' reference!
by ants_everywhere | 2025-09-26 12:01:59+00:00
> Ifnyour goal is to try new things and learn about computers on the way, why the hell not write your own filesystem as well?

Yeah, to clarify, that was how I took it. I'm not concerned about Redox OS failing to get adoption. And I love that they're exploring new things and following their interests.

I was thinking more as someone with ADHD and widespread interests. It feels a bit like saying "I'm learning the oboe. But first I want to learn how to make an oboe." Both are cool goals, but if you do the second you may never get to the first in a meaningful way.

That may be okay, I was just intending to express surprise at a detour that could last a significant fraction of the development teams' lives. Especially since as the default file system, delays or breakages in the filesystem can delay or break the OS project as a whole.
by Bender | 2025-09-26 12:02:57+00:00
Well in that case I will use my silly chained encoding and their fuzzy scans of files on the mainstream platforms will have to figure out what to do with it.

For what it's worth I myself do not use these platforms. I just want to get people thinking about mitigating options. I use my own self hosted forums, chat servers, sftp servers, chan servers, voice chat servers and so on. Even then it can be useful to obfuscate text and files in the event someone is using a fondle-slab. I try to discourage fondle slabs.
by p_l | 2025-09-26 12:03:22+00:00
Intel's lack of interest in delivering 64bit for "peons" running x86 also was part - I remember when first discussion in popular computer magazines showed of amd64, that intel's proposed timeline was discussed, and it very much indicated a wish to push for "buy our super expensive stuff" and trying to squeeze money.

Meanwhile the decision to keep Itanium on expensive but lower-volume market meant that there simply wasn't much market growth, especially once non-technical part of killing other RISCs failed. Ultimately Itanium was left as recommended way in some markets to run Oracle databases (due to partnership between Oracle and HP) and not much else, while shops that used other RISC platforms either migrated to AMD64, or moved to other RISC platforms (even forcing HP to resurrect Alpha for last one gen)
by pjc50 | 2025-09-26 12:04:01+00:00
> There will be no requirement for individuals to carry their ID or be asked to produce it - but digital ID will be mandatory as a means of proving your Right to Work.

So it's mandatory for everyone except old people and the unemployed. It will almost certainly also be mandatory for renting, which has the same check. Then it will gradually seep into everything else: benefits and pensions, to cover the categories not initially covered. Then police spot checks and ICE sweeps.
by ThrowMeAway1618 | 2025-09-26 12:04:03+00:00
Oh noes! I've been Poe's Law'd again!

Mercy, mercy me!

Or are you just spouting ridiculous tropes? Charity? Work-Trade? Loans? Paid by whom in that scenario?

I'd expect you're more in line with Kilmeade than McCain. Why don't you just admit it? It's all out in the open now, no need to hide any more. You'll be broadly lauded for your economic smarts!

Please.
by gprok | 2025-09-26 12:04:04+00:00
That's a really great question, and you're right, not everyone will need the Scopes or arrangement features, especially if they already have a window manager like aerospace that they love.

Right now, there isn't a single toggle to disable them, but they are designed to be completely opt-in. The arrangement features only activate if you explicitly multi-select windows and choose a layout, so they shouldn't interfere with your setup if you're just using Macscope for searching and switching.

That said, I completely agree that a dedicated 'switcher-only' mode is a fantastic idea. I'll add an option to disable the advanced management features in an upcoming version. Thanks for the great suggestion!

In the meantime, the free trial should be safe to use alongside aerospace if you stick to the search/switch functionality.
by jibal | 2025-09-26 12:04:11+00:00
The 3 repetition draw rule has no bearing on the number of possible chess positions. And for the number of possible moves in a game the 50 moves with no capture or pawn move rule is a much more stringent limit.

BTW, the 3 repetition rule only comes into play is one of the players invokes it ... games can legally have more than 3 repetitions, but not more than 5 repetitions.
by jrs235 | 2025-09-26 12:04:12+00:00
>I think that most cases of seemingly unwarranted depression and apathy in people today in fact stem from their subconscious acknowledgement of this trainwreck in progress, and failure of consciousness to accept that and/or do anything about it

I think many sense this, want to get off the train, and away from the tracks but can't figure out how to do it. To pull off it seems overwhelming.
by pjc50 | 2025-09-26 12:04:46+00:00
It all depends on exactly when they're mandatory and what tracking is associated with them.

My own personal thinking has evolved on the subject since I campaigned against ID cards under Blair ("no2id"). It is a question of trust and purpose. Things like the Estonian digital identity scheme do not seem to be bad in practice. The problem comes from identity checkpoints, which serve as an opportunity for inconvenience, surveillance, and negligence by the authorities.

Remember the "computer is never wrong" Fujitsu scandal? The Windrush fiasco (itself a story of identity and records)?

And anything born of an immigration crackdown is coming out of the gate with a declared intention to be paranoid and authoritarian.
by gprok | 2025-09-26 12:05:28+00:00
That's a super annoying macOS bug; I've definitely felt that pain.

While Macscope can't fix the underlying issue in macOS, this is a perfect use case for its "Scopes" feature. It's designed to solve exactly this kind of layout restoration problem.

Here’s how you can solve it with Macscope:

When you have all your windows arranged perfectly on your external monitor, open Macscope.

Multi-select all of those windows and save them as a new "Scope". You could name it something like "Work Setup".

The next time you reconnect your monitor and macOS scatters your windows, just open Macscope and activate your "Work Setup" Scope. It will move and arrange all of those windows back to their saved positions on your external monitor in one go.

So, it essentially gives you a one-click way to restore your entire workspace after that bug hits. Hope that helps!
by Implicated | 2025-09-26 12:05:59+00:00
I mean - this is the entire problem right here.

Don't ask LLMs that are trained on a whole bunch of different versions of things with different flags and options and parameters where a bunch of people who have no idea what they're doing have asked and answered stackoverflow questions that are likely out of date or wrong in the first place how to do things with that thing without providing the docs for the version you're working with. _Especially_ if it's the newest version, regardless if it's cutoff date was after that version was released - you have no way to know if it was _included_. (Especially about something related to a programming language with ~2% market share)

The contexts are so big now - feed it the docs. Just copy paste the whole damn thing into it when you prompt it.
by gprok | 2025-09-26 12:06:12+00:00
Yes, it absolutely can!

There's an option in

Settings > General > Window Filtering called "Show minimized windows" that you can enable. It's turned off by default, but if you flip that on, all your minimized apps and their windows will show up in the list.

The only heads-up is that live previews aren't available for minimized windows due to a system limitation, so they'll show the app icon instead.

Hope that helps!
by opless | 2025-09-26 12:06:27+00:00
Not really. British governments have always been increasingly authoritarian.

The stated reason is to stop illegals working.

Unfortunately we have an ID for working, called a national insurance number. We literally can't get legally paid without it.

So a National ID card ... Is irrelevant. You still need this number for benefits, etc.

I've got an NI number, a driving license and a passport. Not to mention a NHS number.

I don't need another form of identification to link together everything about me so my government can leak everywhere.
by octo888 | 2025-09-26 12:06:30+00:00
"Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said ID cards were not in the party's election manifesto and added: "That’s not our approach.""

– July 2024

"Asked about the possibility of introducing digital ID cards, Mr Reynolds [then Secretary of State for Business and Trade, now Chief Whip] told Times Radio: "We can rule that out, that's not something that's part of our plans.""

– July 2024

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c87rgj4e0rzo
by majorchord | 2025-09-26 12:06:33+00:00
The free community version of Rustdesk Server (a competitor to the Teamviewer remote access software) is AGPL licensed.

https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk-server

The paid, proprietary Pro version builds on top of the community edition by adding extra features such as user authentication and a web backend for administration.

There exists a repo for the pro server: https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk-server-pro

But it only contains install scripts and no actual source code of the application.

The github releases page of this repo however, contains the compiled code of the proprietary pro version and is available for anyone to download for free.

Analyzing the disassembly of the pro and open source binaries shows that the pro version is definitely based on the open source version.

The company previously associated with Rustdesk, Purslane Limited of the UK, is no longer in operation since 2023.

The project has no CLA and so the dozens of previous contributors still hold the copyright to their code and have not given permission for it to be used in a proprietary version.

There have been multiple requests for the source code of this pro version, but either there was no response or the issue was closed without comment.
by close04 | 2025-09-26 12:07:07+00:00
> Would you put a Nazi and a Jewish person in a room every day

Today's Nazis have more diversified targets for discrimination. Concentrated antisemitism was a side effect of the personal issues of the most famous Nazi exponent in history, but they're more about racial supremacy. Today they might be Islamophobic more then antisemitic.

To answer to your question, their thoughts and views don't matter in the office, their behavior does. You can deeply dislike a colleague for various other reasons too but the effect is the same. I don't want to be fired because I unilaterally hate, or even love, my colleague. As long as I don't act on it, that is.

I know people working together in the same office where one's grandfather was in the Nazi military guarding one camp, the other's was a civilian killed in that camp. Whatever their deep feelings, they mind their job as expected.
by jovial_cavalier | 2025-09-26 12:08:52+00:00
I can understand not realizing that ChatGPT would give a bunch of similar sounding article titles to everyone, and I can understand being a little embarrassed that you didn't realize that. But why would you feel a "personal stake" in the output of an LLM? If you feel personal stake in something, you definitely should not be using an LLM for it.
by lxgr | 2025-09-26 12:09:24+00:00
Sure, only cycling sounds bad, as does only jogging. And thousands of people hike the AT or the Way of St. James every year, despite the existence of bicycles and even cars. You've got to mix it up!

I believe the same holds true for cognitive tasks. If you enjoy going through weird build file errors, or it feels like it helps you understand the build system better, by all means, go ahead!

I just don't like the idea of somehow branding it as a moral failing to outsource these things to an LLM.
by jeffisabelle | 2025-09-26 12:09:28+00:00
> web search sucks because it has to be profitable, and the profitability comes from making it suck. That's not true today for AI tools, but it will be in a few years.

Many people pay to use _AI tools_, that already brings in revenue. I had chatgpt plus since very early days, which was 20$/month, I don't have it at the moment because my company provides pro plan to me (and every other engineer) which is probably around 200$/month/user.

Of course, serving a single inference on LLM's probably costs a lot more than a serving a single search on google, but they've already got a solid business model and they won't need intrusive adds _in a few years_ (if at all)
by nobody9999 | 2025-09-26 12:09:30+00:00
>People like to criticize DOGE for going after smaller amounts (like hundreds of millions instead of tens of billions) but those are still hundreds of millions that could be put elsewhere, or even returned to the taxpayer or put towards federal debt. The biggest concern with DOGE is that much of the spending is just going to come right back during the next election cycle

Right. And those hundreds of millions went to tax cuts/benefits for the wealthiest (top 10%) among us, and less benefit to the bottom 10%, as well as trillions (3.8, in fact[0]) more in debt to actually pay for those cuts.

Yeah. We need more of that, right?

[0] https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-05/61422-Reconciliatio...
by myrmidon | 2025-09-26 12:09:36+00:00
What I mean is that the dynamics of healthcare are not conducive for a competitive market.

Compare grocery shopping:

You have frequent/repeated interactions; if you always get ripped of by one shop, you can go to another. Before you go grocery shopping, you will have a decent mental model for: prices levels at each shop, quality of produce and accessibility/distance. You also have the full choice in where to go, basically every time.

Hospital interactions (especially ER) is the polar opposite:

You will have few interactions with it over your lifetime (hopefully), costs are basically impossible to know beforehand (and difficult to compare, too), quality of treatment is extremely difficult to judge as patient (because every case is somewhat unique, and outcomes can easily come down to luck/individual doctor). Especially in the ER case, you often don't even have a real choice of hospital and even in cases where you could (and had all the info) there might be throughput limitations on "desirable" hospitals that prevent you from switching (=> having to wait for 5 months).

Another factor I think is that hospitals gain less from being "good": As a "good" grocer, you get to steal market share from your competition at low cost and risk to yourself; for the hospital, scaling up is more difficult and risky, thus "good" competitors are also less threatening comparatively (thus less of a motivation to improve things).
by renegat0x0 | 2025-09-26 12:10:00+00:00
I was wondering whether old web means people, or the old web is entirety of old web. Certainly companies will not provide features of old. No RSS for you, since they want to control what you see with the "algorithm".

What about people? Well some of them, as most of you pointed, want to monetize your attention, so it is not necessarily that they create something from passion, but to use you.

Besides that most of content is Audio-Video now, so it has two outcomes. One is that most of people chasing attention will create Audio-Video. This allows us to find niche and simple blogs, which is difficult, because Google will not index them, or not rank them.

What we are left are curated list of blogs. There are some.
by anonbuddy | 2025-09-26 12:10:32+00:00
All great, but what happens when personal assistant makes you think you are acting in your best interest, but actually they are just manipulating you to do 'something' OpenAi (some company) wants you to do?

Without proper ways of migrating 'your data' between AI's (platforms), you are in mercy of that assistant without any other alternatives.

Thats why GDPR and CPRA laws are becoming even more important in age of AI assistance.
by KaiserPro | 2025-09-26 12:12:10+00:00
This isn't the USA, ICE doesn't exist here.

We have the border force, and they aren't allowed to cover their faces, yet.

But to your point, its required to have some sort of ID for renting, job or voting _already_ the difference here is there is a digital version of it.

The other thing is that driving licenses are also ID, that carry a £10k fine for not keeping your address up to date.
by jibal | 2025-09-26 12:13:29+00:00
The 50 move rule is a rule of chess so it must be considered.

The 3 repetition rule is an opportunity for one of the players to declare a draw, but games can continue beyond that. The mandatory draw rule is 5 repetitions. In any case, the 50 move rule is far more limiting as to the number of moves in a game, since repetitions are necessarily neither pawn moves nor captures (the whole point of the 50 move rule being limited to those is that they are irreversible).
by arcbyte | 2025-09-26 12:13:44+00:00
> there is no great solution to limit the visibility to certain audiences

There's an important sense in which you are very wrong here because nothing on the internet is actually hidden. Everyone can see everything regardless of the visibility you think you've put on something.

But there's another sense here where audiences do tend to self select into groups and do tend to see and (crucially) engage with things in niches. The early web was very much this first kind of social network where we all could go and read random stuff but we all found niches that we fell in love with. This gained more structure (and convenience) with web forums and then perhaps MySpace and Facebook and other social media added even more structure (pictures only with Instagram, short messages with Twitter, video on YouTube, etc). The structure has also morphed so that these platforms all start to look a bit like each other too.

All this to say, for the "old web" to return, it would need to be as "structured" as the one we have now but give us back the freedom to build whatever really cool thing we wanted. I think the only way to do this is with progressive enhancement of some kind.
by constantcrying | 2025-09-26 12:14:01+00:00
What is a point of Linear Algebra Tutorial which does not even attempt to properly define what a vector is?

>A vector has:

>A symbol (we might call it v, w, or even →AB in geometry).

>Components (the individual numbers, like 2 and 3 in [2, 3]).

>An arrow picture (a geometric way to see the vector as a directed line segment).

None of these are properties of all vectors. They are properties of how vectors are represented in numpy.