MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by starchild3001 | 2025-09-29 02:34:22+00:00
I’m a big advocate of branchless programming — keeping configurations to a minimum and maintaining as much linear flow as possible, with little to no cfg-driven branching.

Why? I once took over a massive statistics codebase with hundreds of configuration variables. That meant, in theory, upwards of 2^100 possible execution paths — a combinatorial explosion that turned testing into a nightmare. After I linearized the system, removing the exponential branching and reducing it to a straightforward flow, things became dramatically simpler. What had once taken years to stabilize, messy codebase, became easy to reason about and, in practice, guaranteed bug-free.

Some people dismissed the result as “monolithic,” which is a meaningless label if you think about it. Yes, the code did one thing and only one thing —- but it did that thing perfectly, every single time. It wasn’t pretending to be a bloated, half-tested “jack of all trades” statistics library with hidden modes and brittle edge cases.

I’m proud of writing branchless (or “monolithic” code if you prefer). To me, it’s a hallmark of programming maturity -- choosing correctness and clarity over endless configurability, complexity and hidden modes.
by Spooky23 | 2025-09-29 02:34:25+00:00
Like in all things, risk can come from all over the place.

Microsoft recently decided to cut off a foreign military from Azure under pressure from Microsoft employees, because that military's use of the platform was in violation of the terms of service. In these times, what happens when an action like that leads to Satya being declared an enemy of the people?

Systematic corruption means that Intel or Oracle may pop up 40% in a day. That same dynamic and punish others.

Reality is, the vast majority of people do not have the ability to have a year of expenses earmarked in liquid investments. The 50th percentile US household has <$10,000 in liquid assets, the median total net worth is $174,000 and 55% of US adults have 3 months of savings at hand.
by raheelrjunaid | 2025-09-29 02:35:08+00:00
Very cool, thank you for sharing and for the feedback! I purposely left it to the reader to figure out the "how" since my goal was to answer the "what" and the "why." Most people figure out the how through experience. "All it takes is a little push."

For your examples, I maintain relationships by checking in every month or so by text or LinkedIn. The only relationships withered are those I've intentionally broken, not forgotten about.

Legacy code is stuff that nobody wants. Whether because its slow, the programming language is dead, the patterns are outdated, etc. I get familiar with legacy code the same way I get familiar with regular code: reading a lot of it and filling any gaps I see.
by thread_id | 2025-09-29 02:38:42+00:00
> Life is a beautiful gift, and it’s worth remembering that every day. Do what you love, do a lot of it, be kind to others, hug your cherished people, laugh, enjoy, smile…breathe. > I love you all, and hope you’re enjoying every moment of this incredible journey through the Universe on this floating space rock.

Thank you... this is what it's all about - it's really as simple as that.
by jesterson | 2025-09-29 02:39:02+00:00
> I really do not trust the UK government. They have proven over and over and over, that at every opportunity presented they will increase their own authority. I don’t believe I have personally witnessed any other advanced economy that so ardently marches towards authoritarianism.

You can safely replace the UK with any other government and it will stand. Likely the UK one just desperately trying to push dividing issues in order to distract from what really matters to the UK citizens.

Or they are just inherently stupid and just do what they are told. Its unfortunate what the UK governance degenerated into.
by WheelsAtLarge | 2025-09-29 02:39:40+00:00
1st get any job you can get at this time. Then look around for companies where you can have a career. This will likely weed out most small companies. Once you decide on the job you what to get then define a plan that outlines how to get the job you want. Part of that plan might mean getting any job you qualify for even if it's not what you want right now. Once you get your foot in the door then you can work towards getting promoted or transferred to the department where you want to work. Also, join any organization where you might get contacts that will help your career. A vast majority of jobs are found by who you know not what you know.

This might mean that you will have to move to a different city but you do what you need to do to survive.
by simonw | 2025-09-29 02:40:27+00:00
I appreciated the realistic method he described for working with GPT-5:

> Given a week or two to try out ideas and search the literature, I’m pretty sure that Freek and I could’ve solved this problem ourselves. Instead, though, I simply asked GPT5-Thinking. After five minutes, it gave me something confident, plausible-looking, and (I could tell) wrong. But rather than laughing at the silly AI like a skeptic might do, I told GPT5 how I knew it was wrong. It thought some more, apologized, and tried again, and gave me something better. So it went for a few iterations, much like interacting with a grad student or colleague.
Show HN: Eintercon – AI friendship experiments across 200 countries
by abilafredkb | 2025-09-29 02:41:18+00:00
What if AI could solve loneliness by creating authentic friendships across cultural boundaries?

Eintercon connects strangers from 200+ countries for 48-hour "friendship experiments." The twist: participants commit to genuine vulnerability within this time window.

We're seeing remarkable transformation stories – people forming lasting bonds despite language barriers and distance. Some connections evolve into business partnerships or lifelong friendships.

The 48-hour constraint creates urgency that cuts through small talk. Users report deeper conversations than they've had with people they've known for years.

Key questions: • Can algorithmic matching create more meaningful connections than organic discovery? • Does time scarcity enhance relationship depth? • What happens when we remove physical proximity from friendship formation?

Early data suggests we might be witnessing a new social paradigm – meaningful relationships that transcend geographic and cultural constraints.

Curious about your thoughts on the future of digital friendship and whether AI can genuinely address human connection needs.
by dehrmann | 2025-09-29 02:41:46+00:00
Shameless plug, but a while back, I implemented a "branchless" (I think it actually branches, but not in the usual sense) binary search in C. It was just a POC to see if 1) I could be clever enough with bitwise operators to do it and 2) someday write a SIMD binary search.

https://github.com/ehrmann/branchless-binary-search
by Nevermark | 2025-09-29 02:41:48+00:00
> Historical "technological progress" can't be used as argument for any particular technology.

Historical for billions of years of natural information system evolution. Metabolic, RNA, DNA, protein networks, epigenetic, intracellular, intercellular, active membrane, nerve precursors, peptides, hormonal, neural, ganglion, nerve nets, brains.

Thousands of years of human information systems. Hundreds of years of technological information systems. Decades of digital information systems. Now in in just the last few years, progress year to year is unlike any seen before.

Significant innovations being reported virtually every day.

Yes track records carry weight. Especially with no good reason for any reason for a break, while every tangible reason to believe nothing is slowing down, right up to today.

"Past is not a predictor of future behavior" is about asset gains relative to asset prices in markets where predictable gains have had their profitability removed by the predictive pricing of others. A highly specific feedback situation making predicting asset gains less predictable even when companies do maintain strong predictable trends in fundamentals.

It is a narrow specific second order effect.

It is the worst possible argument for anything outside of those special conditions.

Every single thing you have ever learned was predicated on the past having strong predictive qualities.

You should understand what an argument means, before throwing it into contexts where its preconditions don't exist.

> Right now, if we are talking about AI, we're talking about specific technologies, which may just as well fail and remain inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, like most technologies, most things really, did in the past. Even more so since we don't understand much anything in either human or artificial cognition. Again and again, we've been wrong about predicting the limits and challenges in computation.

> Your argument [...] is indistinguishable from cynical AI opinions going back decades. It could be made any time. Zero new insight. Zero predictive capacity.

If I need to be clearer, nobody could know when you wrote that by reading it. It isn't an argument it's a free floating opinion. And you have not made it more relevant today, than it would have been all the decades up till now, through all the technological transitions up until now. Your opinion was equally "applicable", and no less wrong.

This is what "Zero new insight. Zero predictive capacity" refers to.

> Substantive negative arguments about AI progress have been made. See "Perceptrons" by Marvin Minksy and Seymour Papert, for an example of what a solid negative argument looks like. It delivered insights. It made some sense at the time.

Here you go:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptrons_(book)
by PaulHoule | 2025-09-29 02:42:00+00:00
It is the so-called "autists" who do that. It's become a vanity diagnosis for the rich and powerful.

Look at the case of Kanye West

https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/sick-people-are-sick

There was this study that found that "autists" have 5 different diseases

https://www.princeton.edu/news/2025/07/09/major-autism-study...

If it wasn't something people were flocking to like neurotypicals that is now a valuable part of their identity they'd just be honest and say that a lot of these people would have to give up their diagnosis. Funny enough, before autism became a fad there were 5 different conditions for it in the DSM...

https://spectrumofhope.com/blog/5-different-types-of-autism/

Now we need an "awareness of everybody who isn't autistic" movement.
by hyperpallium2 | 2025-09-29 02:42:15+00:00
IANAG but the idea is that women get two copies of the X chromosome (XX), and men only one (XY). This explains why women have squared the colour blindness rates of men - women have to get two bad copies, men only one.

Many intelligence related genes are on the X chromosome, so it makes sense you get more variation in men. However, not all genes interact in this way.
Show HN: Eintercon – Global AI friendship experiment
by abilafredkb | 2025-09-29 02:43:01+00:00
Over the past few months, I've been fascinated watching Eintercon evolve from a simple idea into something genuinely remarkable: an AI-powered experiment in authentic human connection that spans 200 countries.

The concept is beautifully simple yet profound: you get paired with a complete stranger anywhere in the world for exactly 48 hours. No profiles, no algorithms based on your data – just two humans curious enough to reach out across digital space and cultural boundaries.

What's struck me most are the stories emerging from these connections. People finding mentors in unexpected places, discovering shared passions across continents, and forming friendships that outlast the initial 48-hour window. There's something refreshing about connections that start without the usual social media baggage.

The AI acts as a thoughtful facilitator rather than a replacement for human judgment – helping break the ice while preserving the authenticity of the interaction. It's an interesting approach to solving the paradox of our hyper-connected yet often lonely digital age.

I'm curious what the HN community thinks: Is this the direction we should be heading with social technology? Can we build platforms that prioritize meaningful connection over engagement metrics? And what safeguards matter most when connecting strangers globally?

Would love to hear your thoughts on the future of authentic digital friendship and whether experiments like this represent a meaningful shift in how we think about online community building.
by ajross | 2025-09-29 02:44:40+00:00
> I learned today Chuck Grassley plans to run again and would be 95 years old in congress. This is insane.

The age of the senior senator from Iowa is like 537th on the list of major problems this country is facing.

I mean, let's be real. Would a bunch of spry 30-somethings in the senate have prevented the Assault on Tylenol or the coming invasion of Portland? Seems beyond dubious.
by keeda | 2025-09-29 02:44:41+00:00
I'm a bit cynical at this point, but I'm starting to think these AI mandates are simply another aspect of the war of the capital class on the labor class, just like RTO. I don't think the execs truly believe that AI will replace their employees, but it sure is a useful negotiation lever. As in, not just an excuse to do layoffs but also a mechanism to pressure remaining employees: "Before you ask for perks or raises or promotions, why are you not doing more with less since you have AI? You know that soon we could replace you with AI for much cheaper?"

At the same time, I'll also admit that AI resistance is real; we see it in the comments here for various reasons -- job displacement fears, valid complaints about AI reliability, ethical opposition, etc. So there could be a valid need for strong incentives to adopt it.

Unfortunately, AI is also deceptively hard to use effectively (a common refrain of mine.) Ideally AI mandates would come with some structured training tailored for each role, but the fact that this is not happening makes me wonder about either the execs' competency or their motives.
by tdb7893 | 2025-09-29 02:44:50+00:00
Look, none of these criticisms are novel or unknown in the industry and it's well known that measuring the exact impact of ads is impractical but we're not talking exact numbers here, just whether personalized ads are generally effective or not. This criticism effects how effective it is but not the fact that it's generally effective, unless you think all ads are doing is shifting sales forward in time (which doesn't really make sense to me).

I think this is more of an effect for things like search or ads on an e-commerce platform (somewhat ironically the contextual ads people here are advocating for are much more susceptible to this) but less so for a lot of the more random ads, especially for niche products.

Edit: For me they are obviously effective. I think the more interesting question is exactly what the return on ad spend generally is but that would take very specific data that I don't have access to.
by nextos | 2025-09-29 02:45:33+00:00
He co-wrote the reference textbook on the topic and made interesting methodological contributions, but Gelman acknowledges other people as creators of the theoretical underpinnings of multilevel/hierarchical modeling, including Stein or Donoho [1]. The field is quite old, one can find hierarchical models in articles that were published many decades ago.

Also, IMHO, his best work has been done describing how to do statistics. He has written somewhere I cannot find now that he sees himself as a user of mathematics, not as a creator of new theories. His book Regression and Other Stories is elementary but exceptionally well written. He describes how great Bayesian statisticians think and work, and this is invaluable.

He is updating Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models to the same standard, and I guess BDA will eventually come next. As part of the refresh, I imagine everything will be ported to Stan. Interestingly, Bob Carpenter and others working on Stan are now pursuing ideas on variational inference to scale things further.

[1] https://sites.stat.columbia.edu/gelman/research/unpublished/...
by maximinus_thrax | 2025-09-29 02:47:13+00:00
> After the EU pressured a reset of the Romanian elections

Citation needed. Romanian elections have been cancelled due to a proven hybrid warfare waged by Russia. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/16/romanian-prosecutor.... The guy is a nutjob who lied about his campaign financing while his people were planning an armed insurrection. He wasn't the only 'cancelled' candidate, the whole election process was proven as corrupt and was repeated.

Do you have any sources about the EU pressuring the Romanian court system to cancel the elections?
by worthless-trash | 2025-09-29 02:50:09+00:00
AMD have recently changed the firmware loading signature verification method to apply cpu microcode that uses the on-motherboard tooling.

Using the method you talk about would mean that this kind of update wouldnt be possible, 99% of users would never toggle with a switch to update firmware.

This would be a huge burden in the server world too, to unrack flip switch, update, revert switch re-install.

I assume you mean specifically motherboard firmware updates, because firmware updates are actually pretty common, for most server grade motherboards vendors ship updates about every other month[1].

1. https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/lin...
by jwpapi | 2025-09-29 02:51:44+00:00
Honestly whilst I started vibe coding I don’t want ai to touch my codebase anymore.

AI has been insanely helpful for a couple of reasons, but not for writing code.

I discuss my plans with AI and check if I missed out on edge cases I develop to the most common conventions, I ask AI for better naming, ideas for abstractions, to explain me frameworks, find me packages.

But the lease couple of days I’m having sanity problems because there is one AI tool after the other coming up with a new plan on how to use AI efficiently but once you’ve solved a problem is it really much work to type it out?

It shouldn’t be too much code if correctly using orchestration.

It’s almost like all the beautiful conventions and patterns are forgotten.

Good Code is most of the time less code. Yes imho most important is readability or digestibility or even diagnosability like all of these things get completely forgotten when we start talking about AI and I see AI far off in writing such code. Good frameworks and packages will be faster.

AI is a good sparring partner and encyclopaedia especially living in terminal but I just don’t see it should writing a lot of code (except maybe landing pages with css animations) that don’t live in a complex application
by thephyber | 2025-09-29 02:52:12+00:00
There are several methods you can end up with extra/redundant NPM libraries.

At my last company, we had a cleanup project which ended up with a similar number of libraries removed over the epoch which cleaned up+upgraded NPM dependencies.

(1) the number might be multiplied if one library is removed from each package of a monorepo. Eg. If there are 10 packages in the monrepo, then you only need to remove on average 12 NPM libraries.

(2) sometimes updating the upstream libraries to newer versions reduces the size of the upstream dependency tree. Similarly, it was more common for NPM libraries to declare a dependency, whereas more mature libraries might move those to devDependencies or peer dependencies.

(3) removing unnecessary / unused code can unblock you so you can remove a library which is no longer referenced in your repo.

(4) sometimes programmers over engineer early. Sometimes your product requirements change. Reviewing your codebase after each of these conditions allows you to decide if you still need all of the code/dependencies.

(5) as the NodeJS runtime changes, sometimes you can migrate from a 3rd party library to use the built-in tool (we did this with BluebirdJS / Promises).
by resonious | 2025-09-29 02:54:15+00:00
I actually didn't really interpret this as anti-AI. In the end it was pretty positive about AI and I pretty much agree with the conclusion.

Though I will also dogpile on the "thankless tasks" remark and say that the stuff that I have AI blast through is very thankless. I do not enjoy changing 20 different files to account for a change in struct definition.
by pkaye | 2025-09-29 02:54:25+00:00
I've a kidney transplant patient and also have been on dialysis previously.

The pain can come from fluid removal and electrolyte imbalances during the dialysis. The fluid removal is important because if you kidney fails, at some point you stop urinating. The in-clinic dialysis process is also compressing the 24 hour a day function of your kidney into a 3-4 hour process typically every other day. So if you remove fluid and shift electrolyte during a short period of time it can cause cramping and pain.

The situation can be improved by doing treatment over more days or for a longer period. That is where home dialysis comes in. Some people run it at a gentler pace at night. Some may run it for 5 hours 5 days while watching TV or doing something else. They get some flexibility around their schedule.

You can see one of the new home hemodialysis systems here. They are streamlined and less complicated to use than in the past. But for some older people and those with mobility issues they might not be operate it on their own.

https://freseniusmedicalcare.com/en-us/products/treating-wit...

I'll note however that I used a different type of dialysis called peritoneal dialysis which uses osmosis action of passing fluids through your peritoneal membrane in your abdomen. No needles involved but it doesn't work for every patient and over time it can stop working. But you end up holding a lot of dialysis fluid at night which can be uncomfortable. But it has less of the complications of fluid removal and electrolyte imbalance issues.

There is actually a project for a implantable artificial kidney but it has slow progress due to funding. This devices operates 24x7 do it could operate at a much gentle pace. Maybe its too ambitious but the lead scientist thinks about $50M would be enough to get it through trials.

https://pharm.ucsf.edu/kidney/newsletter/2023/winter
by prewett | 2025-09-29 02:55:26+00:00
For that matter, look at Europe. France has gone through 5 republics and an empire since 1789 and they got a new constitution around 1958. (West) Germany has had three governments in the past 120 years, most recently in 1945. Spain has only been democratic since 1975. All of Eastern Europe has an entirely new state since 1989. Most of the smaller western countries got conquered by Germany in WWII. Even the UK in its current state is only since 1922, although that's a little unfair since I believe that was evolutionary; the last discontinuity was in 1660 if my history is correct.

Which surprises me; the US is doing really well.