MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by magicalhippo | 2025-09-28 01:17:06+00:00
Just reading non-trivial code often does not give you any insight into why the code does what it does, or why it doesn't do something else, or even sometimes what it really does.

If reverse engineering is reserved for cases without source code, which I assume also means no decompilation which often is an option, then what do we call figuring out what some piece of code does and why it does what it does? And why is it sufficiently different from reverse engineering to warrant a separate term?
by philiplu | 2025-09-28 01:17:11+00:00
I had heart surgery 2 months ago to repair my mitral valve. In the lead-up to that, I had to make a decision what to do if it turned out replacement was needed instead of repair. Choices were metallic valves requiring me to be on warfarin the rest of my life or pig-derived valves. I chose the latter, mostly to avoid warfarin for life, but also because my surgeon was a PhD for work on creating biological-derived valves that didn’t trigger the immune system. Just mind-blowing what can be done. But I’m glad repair and not replacement worked out - and I now have GoreTex fibers attached to my valve.
by LexiMax | 2025-09-28 01:17:35+00:00
> Therefore your choice of server may very well prevent you from seeing content you'd like to see.

How is this any different than users of different IRC networks being unable to communicate with each other?

If I'm on OFTC, I certainly don't complain about not being able to talk to people on Libera.chat. I just....join the server and start talking.
by lithocarpus | 2025-09-28 01:17:46+00:00
That may be. FWIW I did spend most of my time from about age 12 to 27 on the computer.

What made an imprint on me was being told by both my eye doctors that it's impossible to improve vision naturally, and then seeing it happen for me.

Another similar incident, my dentist found four early stage cavities and said eventually they would probably need to be filled, he said with enough brushing I could keep them from getting worse but there was no way to reverse it. I could see the little pits in my teeth in his mirror. That was 8 years ago, I improved my diet significantly since then and have not had any cavities since - i.e. the four small cavities that were forming are visibly not there anymore and my dentist tells me my teeth are healthy.

When I'm told it's "impossible" for my body to naturally heal or improve something, I am skeptical now.
by formerly_proven | 2025-09-28 01:17:54+00:00
> Is it better implemented than the various TCP algorithms we use underneath regular SSH? Perhaps. That remains to be seen.

SSH multiplexes multiple channels on the same TCP connection which results in head of line blocking issues.

> Should you find yourself limited by the default buffering of SSH (10+Gbit intercontinental links), that's called "long fat links" in network lingo, and is not what TCP was built for.

Not really, no. OpenSSH has a 2 MB window size (in the 2000s, 64K), even with just ~gigabit speeds it only takes around 10-20 ms of latency to start being limited by the BDP.
by hopelite | 2025-09-28 01:18:34+00:00
This is not a new theory at all and it’s also nonsense. Case in point; during the last glacial period when the temperature of Africa was similar to Europe today there was no magical climate based success in Africa.

Another case in point, Rome and Greece were very successful and in hot climates while the people north them were not nearly as successful. Another case in point; Indian civilizations and the Bijang civilization among others, all in hot jungle climates. The Mayans, the Aztecs, etc.

It’s all just more constant rationalization and coping, i.e., trying to find some excuse and lie that can be maintained to justify the cult of everyone is the same. Its just moved on from magic dirt rationalization due to the cultural perspective of the early 20th century, to note adapted magic climate rationalization nonsense.

Bonus case in point; the Hispanics that conquered the middle and southern Americas didn’t have any problem being not poor in hot and tropical climates, especially when you exclude the non-Hispanic people of those regions.
by pdonis | 2025-09-28 01:20:15+00:00
> The Reddit post falls under the case of "don't know" the type.

No, it doesn't. The desired type is known; it's "Addable" (i.e., "doesn't throw an exception when the built-in add operator is used"). The problem is expressing that in Python's type notation in a way that catches all edge cases.

> If you want to allow users to pass in any objects, try to add and fail at runtime

Which is not what the post author wants to do. They want to find a way to use Python's type notation to catch those errors with the type checker, so they don't happen at runtime.

> the entire post is built upon the premise that accepting all types is good API design

It is based on no such thing. I don't know where you're getting that from.
by forrestthewoods | 2025-09-28 01:20:37+00:00
My core hypothesis - which is maybe wrong - is that a good Bazel-like doesn't have to be that complex.

I use Buck2 in my day job. For almost all projects its an order of magnitude simpler than CMake. It's got a ton of cruft to support a decades worth of targets that were made badly made. But the overall shape is actually pretty darn good. I think Starlark (and NixLang) are huge mistakes. Thou shalt not mix data and logic. Thou shalt not ever ever ever force users to use a language that doesn't have a great debugger.

Build systems aren't actually that complicated. It's usually super duper trivial for me to write down the EXACT command I want to execute. It's "just" a matter of inducing a wobbly rube goldberg machine that can't be debugged to invoke the god damn command I know I want. Grumble grumble.
by jihadjihad | 2025-09-28 01:22:00+00:00
> To capture the video, McClellan had to anticipate movements and program a custom motion-control system to keep the reproductive structures perfectly in frame. He also employed advanced focus-stacking techniques to maintain crystal clarity across focal planes, a challenge that led him to develop his own hardware and software for microscopic video.

Damn that’s cool. I’d love to see more about that.
by adolph | 2025-09-28 01:22:17+00:00
> You could just ask why those 2 regions are so rich right now and the answer i think has much to do with military dominance starting a few hundred years back.

That doesn't seem as explanatory as much as it just pushes the explanation further away in time. How did Europe arrive at "military dominance starting a few hundred years back?" At which point we just start quoting Charles Mann and Jared Diamond and the more droll will make subtle remarks about how the North Americans' syphilis really did a number on the European monarchies.
by perching_aix | 2025-09-28 01:22:30+00:00
It's like the ok emoji being an "alt right hidden signal" all over again.

Came across a so-far hopefully untainted, different memetic phrase yesterday: "millenial grey".

The girl in her video [0] successfully identified that it is largely rooted in a 2023 media campaign. She then proceeded to feature two supposedly "completely average" friends of hers as definitely unbiased anchors, and held a community poll, also supposedly unbiased. Predictably, everyone knew what "millenial grey" was, and quickly agreed it was the worst thing ever.

She even made a fun little browser-based pixel art minigame where people could customize a room with a number of colorful options, and an extra bland rendition of "millenial grey". I especially appreciated the false implication that your choices in dressing up a pixel art room definitely translates to your taste in real-life house décor; just like watching gangbangs on pornhub means you'd be interested in taking part in one, of course.

Considering this was the very first time I've ever heard this phrase uttered, to see it being used as if it was something you learned after saying mum and dad as an infant, it was approximately the most living-in-a-bubble type thing I've ever laid my eyes upon. She somehow managed to socialize so perfectly tuned around this, she had absolutely zero chance of actually recognizing it for what she clocked otherwise immediately: a manufactured outrage over basically nothing.

But then I do also keep my own - so far, rather short - list of political dogwhistles, so maybe I'm just being uncharitable with my parallels.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NyeK_Vi0Kc
by sfifs | 2025-09-28 01:24:00+00:00
The problem with operating this way is it's very easy for the same gun to be used against you when political winds inevitably change. In Bangalore famously, one administration's politicians had bought up all farmland and then announced the new airport location in that area. When they lost the election, the next administration moved the airport after the project had already started to a different inferior location dozens of kilometers away where it stands today mainly to impose losses on their political opponents. This is also why connectivity to the airport is poor to this day.
by blooalien | 2025-09-28 01:24:01+00:00
> "People will accept change if it's better."

Oh that is so not true for a shocking number of folks, sadly. There's a whole "political" angle these days revolving around "if the other side likes it, then it's automatically the worst thing to happen in the history of ever; we must oppose it at all costs, even if it harms us or destroys us to do so". The introduction of "AI" and "bots" has only served to multiply and magnify that behavior among those prone to it.
by shikhar | 2025-09-28 01:24:02+00:00
Yes, currently it has its own /fetch endpoint that then makes S3 GET(s) internally. One potential gotcha depending on how you are using it, an exact byte "Range" header is always required so that the request can be mapped to page-aligned byte range requests on the S3 object. But with that constraint, it is feasible to add an S3 shim.

It is also possible to stop requiring the header, but I think it would complicate the design around coalescing reads – the layer above foyer would have to track concurrent requests to the same object.
by walterbell | 2025-09-28 01:25:12+00:00
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spasm_of_accommodation

> a condition in which the ciliary muscle of the eye remains in a constant state of contraction. Normal accommodation allows the eye to "accommodate" for near-vision. However, in a state of perpetual contraction, the ciliary muscle cannot relax when viewing distant objects. This causes vision to blur when attempting to view objects from a distance. This may cause pseudomyopia or latent hyperopia.

Relatedly, "dark mode" causes pupil dilation and loss of focus. Best to match screen and ambient lighting.
by whynotminot | 2025-09-28 01:26:30+00:00
I actually really don’t see the point. Yea, in this consumer smart phone, there are limits on what you can do with this chip because the operating system is tuned for phone stuff, not workstation stuff.

But there’s good news — this architecture will end up in MacBooks, Mac minis, Mac Studios etc.

It’s like complaining that they put a good engine in a civic when you can also buy that good engine in other configurations that will let you do more with it.

So why insist on doing it on a phone?
by plaidfuji | 2025-09-28 01:26:42+00:00
> Plan for a future where you can buy GPUs for ten cents on the dollar, where there's a buyer's market for hiring skilled applied statisticians, and where there's a ton of extremely promising open source models that have barely been optimized and have vast potential for improvement

This doesn’t square entirely with the earlier claim that AI companies have (and will continue to have) “dogshit unit economics”.

If you have a bunch of cheap “applied statistician” labor (kind of a reductive take, btw), cheap GPUs, and powerful open source models, it is a near certainty that companies would achieve favorable unit economics by optimizing existing models to run much more efficiently on existing GPUs.

I happily pay $20/month for Google One to use Gemini 2.5 Pro. I don’t really need it to be a whole lot better. It’s a great product. If they can deliver inference of that level with positive margin (and keep it ad free), it’s a viable business.

Investors will likely lose billions, if not trillions, but I don’t think the industry is inherently unprofitable - I just don’t think anybody has been incentivized to optimize for cost yet. Why would you, when investors continue to throw money at you to scale?
by bdangubic | 2025-09-28 01:27:17+00:00
I genuinely think that biggest issue LLM tools is that most people expect magic because first attempts at some simple things feel magical. however, they take insane amount of time to get expertise in. what is confusing is that I think SWEs spent immense amounts of time in general learning the tools of the trade but this seems to escape a lot of people when it comes to LLMs. on my team, every developer is using LLMs all day, every day. on average based on sprint retros each developer spends no less than an hour each day experimenting/learning/reading… how to make them work. the realization we made early is that when it comes to LLMs there are two large groups:

- group that see them as invaluable tools capable of being an immense productivity multiplier

- group that tried things here and there and gave up

we collectively decided that we want to be in the first group and were willing to put time to be in that group.
by schiffern | 2025-09-28 01:27:29+00:00
I love this video, and similar by NightHawkInLight,[0] but (as they would agree) it's not a commercial product just yet.

For a while I've thought the first thing to coat with a fancy "Free AC" paint should be... the AC! For most sky-cooling rigs the main cost is pipes or panels on the roof to move heat from inside to outside, but AC is already moving heat. AC units operate at a higher temperature, so it should emit more IR radiation as T^4 (meaning a small increase makes a big difference). Most AC has a pretty good sky view, but maybe not as ideal as the roof.

It seems ironic to use "No AC" paint on your AC, but the physics and economics doesn't lie. Per square inch it's probably the most effective place!

[0] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1a2HkcVbmAWExiWT__qQ...
by edoceo | 2025-09-28 01:28:01+00:00
I'm firmly in the SO camp.

One thing I see is that folk who are making software for Linux target Distribution rather than Linux generic. It's because of the SO "problem".

It's a benefit of the tight coupling of Windows or Mac (which I don't use).

Full agree that security updates in the Docker world is like the problem from static builds.

Disclosure: I ship some stuff on Linux; for the problems we do static & docker. The demand side also seems to favour docker. I also prefer the docker method; for the compatibility reasons.
by eslaught | 2025-09-28 01:28:20+00:00
If you're going to do this, why not generate Pandoc ASTs directly? You can do so from a number of languages and they support (by definition) a superset of any given markup's features, with blocks to call out directly for things you can only do in Latex.

I assume the original question is asking about programmatic document generation, in which case working with a real AST is probably also a productivity and reliability win as well.
by layman51 | 2025-09-28 01:29:28+00:00
How do we square this with what happened when imperialist people went into areas with much hotter weather to establish colonies? Were the colonists less efficient back then when air conditioning didn't exist yet? Or could it be that these area weren't as hot in earlier centuries as they are today? Also, what are the implications for countries with imperialist pasts that are getting hotter due to climate change?
by rokobobo | 2025-09-28 01:30:16+00:00
One thing is fiduciary duty to the shareholders, another is “pleasing the shareholders” as you describe it. Pleasing the shareholders is necessary only when displeasing them means they will sell the stock when there is no buyer. If there is a buyer, the current shareholders are less relevant — as long as management cannot be accused of not fulfilling their fiduciary duty to them.
by weakfish | 2025-09-28 01:31:27+00:00
What? Discussing thought provoking news in the political world? No, flagging this thread, which is thought provoking is just insulating those who can afford to ignore it.

If HN is about intellectual curiosity, the heated disagreement in this comment section should be proof of how stimulating this topic is. But we’d rather stick our heads in the sand rather than confront what inconveniences us.
by rcxdude | 2025-09-28 01:34:14+00:00
With public companies more or less the only thing that shareholders can complain about in terms of the company being taken private is if the price is unfair (in which case they can sue). Otherwise the only thing that the entity buying needs is the consent of the board and a majority shareholder vote, whether by buying a controlling share themselves on the open market or by negotiating with them. Usually the private buyer offers a price higher than the current public market cap to incentivize the shareholders to vote for a sale.

(And yes, this means that in practice there is a compelled sale of some fraction of the stock at whatever price the majority agrees to)
by jonahx | 2025-09-28 01:34:15+00:00
"In vitro growth of chick sensory neurons, shown in gold using a dye marking their internal structure (18 hour time lapse)"

40X (Objective Lens Magnification)

How is this possible? Wouldn't neurons be at much tinier scale than 40x?

From https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/2025-small-world-i...
by LexiMax | 2025-09-28 01:35:04+00:00
> Opening an account on Mastodon was a pain even for me, a long-time Internet user and a nerd.

I was in the same boat as you, and my experience was completely different. Mastodon's federation model reminded me of IRC, except nowhere near as balkanized.

So how did I wrangle the supposed complexity? I started out on one of the main instances and just started people-watching. Over time, I took note of which server contained users whose content I enjoyed over time, then I just joined the server.

Joining the server got me a slower federated feed that was both more pertinent to my interests that also functioned as a de-facto community space. I also found the moderation to be more to my own preferences. But the bigger server wasn't _bad_, I just preferred the smaller server because it was more personable.

I don't use Mastodon much anymore, but that's more because a good chunk of my social circle left for BlueSky than any gripes I had with the platform. I don't know where they will go if BlueSky goes belly up, but I can tell you that it won't be back to Twitter.
by spacebanana7 | 2025-09-28 01:35:29+00:00
Attacking - or even appearing to attack - national brands is totally counterproductive. They’re all but guaranteed government bailouts. And it’s very hard to argue against.

Saying that JLR should’ve had better cybersecurity misses the point of being attacked by a hostile state. If a cruise missile were used it’d be silly to say JLR should’ve had underground factories or other protective measures.
by nickm12 | 2025-09-28 01:35:43+00:00
I agree that the available features can steer the online community culture and behaviors, but it's not determinative. I don't see why online communities should give up useful features just because other communities use them in a way you don't like.

I've been using mailing lists for about 30 years now. In the days before social networks, there was tons of forwarded crap and email chains, such that debunking them was a cottage industry. This behavior eventually moved to Facebook and Twitter which is perhaps why email lists seem more civilized these days, but I don't believe its the features that are driving it.
by g42gregory | 2025-09-28 01:36:00+00:00
Are we still getting AGI in 2026, per OpenAI?

Based on AGI 2026, they convinced US Government to block high-end GPU sales to China. They said, we only needed 1-2 more years to hold them off. Then AGI and OpenAI/US rules the world. Is this still the plan? /s

If AGI does not materialize in 2026, I think there might be trouble, as China develops alternative GPUs and NVIDIA loses that market.
by duped | 2025-09-28 01:37:48+00:00
The people funding this seem to believe that firstly text inference and gradient descent can synthesize a program that can operate on information tasks as good or better than humans, secondly that the only way of generating the configuration data for those programs to work is by powering vast farms of processors doing matrix arithmetic but requiring the worlds most complex supply chain tethered to a handful of geopolitically volatile places, thirdly that those farms have power demands comparable to our biggest metropolises, and finally if they succeed, they'll have unlocked economic power amplification that hasn't been seen since James Watt figured out how to move water out of coal mines a bit quicker.

Oh and the really fucky part is half of them just want to get a bit richer, but the other half seem to be in a cult that thinks AI's gross disruption of human economies and our environment is actually the most logically ethical thing to do.
by anonymousiam | 2025-09-28 01:38:47+00:00
The Internet runs at the will of the government(s). Every government (national, regional, local) has regulations that must be obeyed. Depending upon where you live, some of those regulations may be kept secret from those most affected. An entity like Cloudflare is a juicy target that can be used cooperatively, or abused uncooperatively by those enforcing the regulations.

So Cloudflare has solved one problem (DDoS), while creating several new ones, which most people feel is a fair trade, but it's not a prefect world and there is no perfect solution.
by nis0s | 2025-09-28 01:41:55+00:00
The seat of civilization is in Mesopotamia, so no this hypothesis doesn’t exactly hold up. The cultural exchange and wars between the ancient eastern and western civilizations aided their evolution before colonization took place. People used to travel far east as well during these time periods, which spread cultural influence in a three-way direction.

Those societies which were further spread apart from this central region of cultural exchange, like many in Latin America, Africa, colder regions in North America and so on were less culturally developed by the time they met others or colonialists, that’s why you have funny things like the University of Oxford being older than the Incan empire.

There are many warm countries which aren’t poor, and the warm countries which are poor, are composed of people whose ancestors (meaning those who were there pre-colonialism and those who were there when borders were formed post-colonization) were spread out far from a region of central cultural exchange in the Middle East, Europe, North Africa and East Asia.
by goatsi | 2025-09-28 01:43:14+00:00
It's pretty disappointing that the author (writing in 2025) says "perhaps to maintain its status as the world’s largest botnet operator," and links to a Spamhaus report from Q1 of 2020.[0]

If you check the most recent version of the report from Spamhaus (Jan to June 2025)[1], Cloudflare is nowhere to be seen, and Digital Ocean, who they recommend as a Cloudflare alternative is listed as third largest botnet host in the world.

Looking back through the historical reports this isn't a new phenomenon, in Q4 of 2022 Digital Ocean was ranked #2 and Cloudflare was down at #17.

[0]https://www.spamhaus.org/resource-hub/botnet-c-c/botnet-thre...

[1]https://www.spamhaus.org/resource-hub/botnet-c-c/botnet-thre...