MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by Telaneo | 2025-09-29 06:23:12+00:00
This phenomenon probably isn't helped by the average sound experience being worse than it once was. You might be watching that film on your phone's really tinny speaker, or your TV's speakers which might as well not be there since there's no space for anything decent. Meanwhile, if you watched that film in 2001, you were probably watching it on a tube TV that did have space for a speaker that wasn't horrible. That same speaker might even be just as cheap as what would go into a 75-inch TV today, but that TV physically doesn't have the space for that speaker. No wonder a soundbar is functionally a mandatory purchase unless you scale up to actual speakers.

Films definitely have worse sound mixing these days (unless they all target 7.1 Ultra-Whatever), but even with old films it can get really hard to hear what they're saying when you've got so little to work with.

The whole thing though goes to show the importance of decent subtitling. Accessibility should be a good enough reason by itself, but if more than 40% of your audience uses it, then it's a lot more than just that.
by raesene9 | 2025-09-29 06:24:52+00:00
I agree that reliance on non-UK based companies (Apple/Google) is a problem, but to me that's not specific to digital ID. We already have age verification relying on mobile apps, via the online safety act, just not ones implemented or managed by the UK gov, instead managed by non-UK corps with the data going offshore

For me having ones managed by the UK gov filling those functions would be preferable to the current situation, and that's not to say I want more privacy intrusions but to say I'd rather have more UK control over the data people have to give up for various services and functions.

Whilst more tech/privacy/security focused people will opt-out of that as much as possible, the realistic fact is that probably 95%+ of the UK population don't care about concerns around Apple/Google, they just want the functionality provided, so for that group it would be better if the apps were run from the UK, ideally by an org not motivated by making more money from them every quarter :)
by Terr_ | 2025-09-29 06:25:35+00:00
> it has a pretty good idea if you ask it in the right way

This phrasing embeds a rather questionable assumption: That somewhere the algorithm has a mind which "can evaluate" the real truth, but its character/emotion makes it unwilling to tell you... and you all you need to do is break past its quirks to get to the juicy logic that "must" be hidden inside.

I don't think that assumption is safe, let alone proven. Our human brains are practically hardwired to assume another mind on the other side (much like how we see faces with pareidolia) and in this case our instincts are probably not accurate. No matter how much we peel the onion looking, we won't find the onion seeds.
by pogue | 2025-09-29 06:25:54+00:00
Interestingly, I read in a recent article on upcoming features for OneUI 8.5 (based on a leaked build) is the "Ability to temporarily disable Auto Blocker" [1]. This is specifically to allow the sideloading of apps. That really makes me wonder why Samsung would have such an option in an upcoming version if they were aware that Google is planning to block all unverified sideloading in the very near future.

[1] https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-galaxy-phones-new-u...
by raesene9 | 2025-09-29 06:27:28+00:00
Possibly, although they don't seem very slowed down at the moment...

My feeling is though that digital ID can have benefits which shouldn't be discounted when considering it. Specifically some people have problems with current age verification due to lack of things like passports and driver's licenses which are often used as stand-ins for digital ID.

Also it can make a lot of very nonsensical processes better. Things were companies still insist on physical signatures as though those are good security measures, that could be replaced with digital signatures tied to an identity, which might actually provide some security benefits.
by thaumasiotes | 2025-09-29 06:27:31+00:00
> It’s fascinating to hear Welsh. It’s not related to any Germanic or French or others so there’s little vocabulary shared with English aside from some loan words.

Celtic is a branch of Indo-European, so the relationship exists. Naively, it's about as closely related to English (Germanic), and to French (Italic), as English is to French.

The closest cognate that comes to mind between English and Welsh is "apple", afal in Welsh.

If you believe the Italo-Celtic hypothesis, Welsh would be more closely related to French than English is.

Browsing https://www.omniglot.com/language/celtic/connections/index.p... shows some other cognates:

Welsh enaid (soul) is cognate with Spanish alma (soul).

Welsh asyn is "cognate" with English ass (the animal), in the sense that Celtic and Germanic each separately borrowed the word from Latin asinus and the modern words are inherited independently. For this reason, the word is also "cognate" with French âne.

Welsh benyw (woman) is cognate with English queen (which used to mean "woman").

Welsh blodyn (flower) is cognate with English blossom. (And maybe also bloom.)

Welsh buwch (cow) is cognate with English cow.

(Although buwch really looks like it should be related to bovine, this does not appear to be the case. But we can see that the b- beginning the Welsh word here matches the b- beginning benyw, corresponding to kw- in English. This is also what happened in cow -- Celtic reduced gw- to b-. In this case, Germanic reduced gw- to k-; in queen, gw- became kw-.)

Welsh bol (stomach) is cognate with English belly.

And I haven't even gotten through the Bs. Cognates are fairly common. This wasn't even a list of Celtic words that are cognate with English words; it was a list of Celtic words that are cognate with other Celtic words.
by troupo | 2025-09-29 06:27:49+00:00
> obviously they’re going to try and talk it out first with the EU

Will they? They were never willing to talk it out to begin with. And now they completely walked out:

--- start quote ---

“Apple has simply contested every little bit of the DMA [Digital Markets Act] since its entry into application,” said Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier. “This undermines the company’s narrative of wanting to be fully cooperative with the Commission.”

...

“Results of this positive engagement? After two months, Apple came back and asked us to scrap everything,” he said

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-commission-apple-digital-...

--- end quote ---
by tomatocracy | 2025-09-29 06:28:02+00:00
> To work legally currently you need an NI number

More than this, employers are already required to verify right to work when they employ someone, either by physically seeing a passport or by means of an existing government system which allows them to verify visa status with an online "share code". They can be fined if they don't.

There's zero reason to believe employers which currently ignore this requirement (and likely minimum wage etc as well) will suddenly start complying because there's a "digital ID" instead.
by throwaway81523 | 2025-09-29 06:28:45+00:00
I was trying to remember where I had heard of him. He was the initial developer of RCS, and was also involved with Extreme Programming (XP). XP later got mangled into the Agile movement and it wasn't perfect to begin with, but it was refreshing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_F._Tichy
by jillesvangurp | 2025-09-29 06:28:50+00:00
I migrated some code from Javascript to Typescript and then from Java to Kotlin. What helped in both cases was that I was able to go file by file. I didn't have to rewrite all my software all at once. That's something that is very disruptive and impractical in software that is actively used (i.e. all useful software).

With Typescript, all you have to do is rename your .js file to a .ts file and then you can start addressing the warnings. With Kotlin, there's a convenient but imperfect Java to Kotlin converter that ships with Intellij. It will get you 95% there but expect to fix a few things. Basically you modify your build to add the Kotlin compiler and then you start converting files. In my case I started with some simple tests that weren't on the critical path to anything. When that worked really well, I quickly got in a mode where any Java file I worked on was converted to Kotlin. Same with Typescript. Both code bases rapidly shifted to being mostly Kotlin/Typescript but with lots of remaining Java and Javascript.

A big advantage of incremental approaches like this is that you get to focus your attention on the most critical parts of the software without really interrupting your development process. The critical parts of your software are those parts that you are actually working on regularly to fix bugs or add features. Another advantage is that you slowly get used to the new language. This takes time. In my case I had to unlearn about 20 years of using Java. Optional is not a thing in Kotlin for example. It's 100% redundant Java clutter. And finally, you organically convert most code that matters in a relatively short amount of time. So, you make rapid progress and make a big impact. Which is always a good thing when learning a new thing.

So, I can see the value of Carbon here. Start dropping it into existing C++ code bases. Upgrade files as you work on the code anyway. Put some focus on the typical hotspots where you were fixing lots of bugs anyway. This way, things improve rapidly and the last 20% of the code is the least important part of the code generally. You get diminishing returns from upgrading it. It will be nice to see what happens when this is ready for production usage.

Like with Kotlin and Typescript, expect this to stay controversial with some people. Stuff like this never fully converts the target audience. I know lots of people that prefer Java and Javascript. Mostly for irrational reasons IMHO. But they do. It all boils down to people just being a bit change resistant. And the C++ crowd is very conservative.
by oneeyedpigeon | 2025-09-29 06:29:04+00:00
In glad you used scare quotes around the word "terrorists", suggesting you are as cynical about this absurd misuse of the term as the rest of us. That's the actual issue here. Yes, PA's acts of civil disobedience should be punished according to law, but classing an organisation as "terrorist", based on one (?) incident that appears to have spread literally zero terror, is appalling behaviour from a pitiful, authoritarian government.
by jenadine | 2025-09-29 06:30:52+00:00
I couldn't find such requirements when reading the GPL.

The paragraph cited by GP is from the explicitly about "convey an object code work under this section in, or with, or specifically for use in, a User Product, and the conveying occurs as part of a transaction in which the right of possession and use of the User Product is transferred to the recipient in perpetuity or for a fixed term". So in other words, only if you sell hardware with binaries under GPL.

Also, from reading other comments, it seems it would still be possible to use the adb console to load apps without having signatures? So that should cover it as far as the GPL is concerned.
by Frieren | 2025-09-29 06:31:11+00:00
> What's the difference between a messy codebase created by a genAI, and a messy codebase where all the original authors of the code have moved on and aren't available to ask questions?

Very unskilled programmers can use generative AI to create complex code that is hard to understand.

Unskilled programmers on their own write simpler code with more obvious easy to solve mistakes.

On the other hand, all companies I have worked for tried to avoid have unmaintained code (with different levels of success). AI tech debt seems to be added on purpose pushed by upper management.

There is a technical and cultural difference.
by specproc | 2025-09-29 06:31:22+00:00
We need to start treating phones differently. We're entering a world where we can't choose what we run on them. Their primary purpose is to gather data on us and serve us advertising, they're engineered for addiction, yet engaging in the world is immensely difficult without one.

Phones are as much a burden as benefit in 2025, and our behaviour towards them should reflect that. Mine is currently off and in the drawer of my desk. I'll turn it on again when I need 2FA, some service provider's app, or when I'm likely to be out of the house for an extended period. I'll turn it off again when I don't need it.
by stillworks | 2025-09-29 06:33:16+00:00
> It doesn’t have to be nice or pretty EVEN if it’s NOT for you.

> There’s a lot of “theatre” in planning, writing endless tickets and refining them for WEEKS before actually starting to write code, in a way that’s actively harmful for building software.

I'd love to have a "high paying job" where I am allowed to start prototyping and modelling the problem and then iteratively keep on improving it into fully functional solution.

I won't deny that the snowballing of improvements and functional completeness manifests as acceleration of "delivery speed" and as a code-producing experience is extremely enjoyable. Depth-first traversal into curiosity driven problem solving is a very pleasurable activity.

However, IME in real world, someone up the chain is going to ask "when will you deliver this". I have ever only once been in a privileged enough a position in a job to say "I am on it and I will finish it when I finish it... and it will be really cool"

Planning and task breakdown, as a developer, is pretty much like my insurance policy. Because when someone up the chain (all the way down to my direct manager) comes asking "How much progress you have made ?" I can say (OR "present the data" as it is called in a certain company ?) "as per the agreed plan, out of the N things, I have done k (< N) things so far. However at this (k+1)th thing I am slowing down or blocked because during planning that-other-thing never got uncovered and we have scope-creep/external-dependency/cattle-in-the-middle-of-the-road issue". At which point a certain type of person will also go all the way to push the blame to another colleague to make themselves appear better hence eligible for promotion.

I would highly encourage everyone to participate in the "planning theatre" and play your "role".

OR, if possible start something of your own and do it the way you always wanted to do it.
by palmfacehn | 2025-09-29 06:34:19+00:00
Please stop presuming malicious intent. If you want to have a discussion, try starting by assuming good faith. If you do not wish to have a discussion, well...

>...state the origin of the conflict as if a sovereign people being invaded deserved it.

I've done noting of the sort. The origins of the conflict are more complex than your framing allows. Furthermore, as we attempt to describe those origins, it would be helpful if you didn't confuse that description of events with a prescription or endorsement of specific actors.

If we are unable to describe something coherently, we are unable to reason or have a reasonable discussion around it. Reasonable people should be able to hold distinct concepts in their mind simultaneously, even if they are seemingly contradictory from a surface level. As an example, we can and should be able to describe the events, speculate as to the underlying incentives of various parties and simultaneously hold moral principles which reject the use of violence.

Propaganda can sometimes mislead by conflating these things. This prevents reasonable discussion.
by creesch | 2025-09-29 06:34:28+00:00
> One could argue whether Phones with the Google android were ever really open.

In recent years, you can argue that android has no longer been open. In the early years of Android that argument would be much harder to make. To be clear, I am not talking hardcore FOSS libre open. But meaningfully open for the end user to do what they want on their device without much restriction. Early android didn't have sandboxing, had no permission system, was easy to root, etc.

Certainly with Nexus devices you had pretty much the freedom to what you wanted.

Could it have been more open? Sure, but I feel like it is almost disingenuous to say it was never if we are comparing it to the real world situation we find ourselves in today.
by labcomputer | 2025-09-29 06:34:32+00:00
There is no flaw. If you go to any retailer where sales can be tied to accounts, and you run a few SQL queries on their sales history database, you can generate a table of counts of transaction_n and transaction_n+1.

You will find that the most probable (the mode of the distribution) thing to buy in transaction n+1 is either a substitute for, a complement of, or identical to transaction n.
by zapzupnz | 2025-09-29 06:34:55+00:00
I generally agree with your points (and love TDE) but

> I don't use autosave either. I don't want the computer to assume when I want to save a file. The computer is too stupid to know that.

That’s why, with auto save systems, you flag/name a version as your canonical save point.

Rather like a video game, I’d rather have the autosaves and not need them, because I generally save the game myself, than not have them at all.

A computer can be helpful and obedient at the same time, when it’s done correctly and puts the user in control.
by hunglee2 | 2025-09-29 06:35:00+00:00
It is actually a very simple formula, one which has already seen a number of iterations - Japan, ROK, ROC all followed the same path: Strategic endurance provided by single party governance over several decades, investment in education, central planning on core industries, protectionism to nurture, before expanding globally to dominate. PRC is really just a scaled up version of the 'East Asia Tiger', albeit one with monstrously sized domestic market.
by _flux | 2025-09-29 06:35:34+00:00
They have a reason mentioned by others, however what was news to me that the Google Android application registration also requires them! https://developer.android.com/developer-verification#registe... says

Register your apps: You'll need to prove you own your apps by providing your app package name and app signing keys.

Couldn't this also be verified with a challenge-response signing, using the key? Why should Google have the ability to sign apps of the developer, instead of it being an end-to-end deal? Perhaps they need to have the ability to slip in some additional code if the government so wishes?

Or perhaps there is actually a legit reason for Google to have those keys or I have a misunderstanding of the requirement?

Maybe F-Droid could relax that requirement if it were feasible to do reproducible builds. Then the developer could just deliver the package to F-Droid, F-Droid would check that it matches what they have, and then publish it. But that's probably not going to happen. Alternatively some deeper proof-based certificate could be devised, but that's even less likely to happpen..
by digitalPhonix | 2025-09-29 06:35:42+00:00
> Rust is usually the least reasonable option

If the software was originally written in C/C++ based on some performance reasons (avoiding GC/being in control of boxing/being in control of when to use vtables etc.) then what would be more reasonable options?

> Fully automatic memory-managed languages should be considered first.

Those languages have existed for 20+ years so if they were ruled out as part of the original decision making then they probably still aren't applicable.
by jaggederest | 2025-09-29 06:38:14+00:00
Yeah these days I often give it a zero shot attempt, see where things go wrong, reset the state via git and try again. Being able to try 2-3 prototypes of varying levels of sophistication and scope is something I've done in the past manually, but doing it in an hour instead of a day is truly significant, even if they're half or a quarter of the fidelity I'd get out of a manual attempt.

Honestly, even if I did it that way and then threw it all away and wrote the whole thing manually it'd be worth using. Obviously I don't, because once I've figured out how to scope and coach to get the right result it'd be silly to throw it away, but the same value derives from that step regardless of how you follow it up.
by perching_aix | 2025-09-29 06:39:01+00:00
When you're dealing with unix-y Git repositories for example.

If you mean more from a user perspective, it really depends. For registry keys for example, since they're interacted with programmatically for the most part, I was expecting them to be case-sensitive. They're case-insensitive though, so that was a bit of a whiplash.
by msteffen | 2025-09-29 06:39:04+00:00
That’s interesting, thanks for posting an explanation.

There is a parallel strain of argument for the former:

- https://www.tinygnomes.com/qwiki.cgi?mode=previewSynd&uuid=B...

- https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-06-brain-overgrowth-dict...

(I have my own theory, which is that a large brain increases the risk of ADHD rather than autism—a larger flow of thoughts and ideas requires more executive function to manage, and therefore more executive function is required to achieve the same attention span—but that ADHD is a kind of multiplier for autism, because social situations are more challenging to navigate if you can’t reliably stay focused on the social interaction you’re having.)
by adwn | 2025-09-29 06:39:50+00:00
Xilinx toolchain installations used to include a file which was just the concatenation of the license files of every single open source library they were using somewhere inside any of their own software. Now if you installed two or more components of their toolchain (for example, Vivado, Vitis, and PetaLinux) into the shared installation directory, this same file was installed several times as well. Together, they made up something like 1.5 GiB alone.

I think they've fixed this only a year ago or so.
by djmips | 2025-09-29 06:40:03+00:00
Can you explain to me in simple terms how your fruitful research benefited you in a concrete way. Is this simply an enlightening hobby or do you have significant everyday applications? What kind of cool job has you employ Bayesian Data Analysis day to day and for what benefit? How do the suits relate to such knowledge and it's beneficial application that may be well beyond their ken?
by hks0 | 2025-09-29 06:40:41+00:00
Reminds me of Nokia/Symbian. To install a `.sis(x)` with any useful capabilities (permissions in Android) one needed to sign it with Nokia's keys; which they normally couldn't, at least with non-business email addresses. Until someone found a way to hack the roms and it became a Tom&Jerry struggle between hackers & Nokia who wanted to suffocate them by patching those loopholes.

Then came Android. The freedom to sideload any `.apk` on any device was magical. And now we've come full circle.

Except that Symbian wasn't source-available, so there was a bigger hope for a successful rebelion.
by AuryGlenz | 2025-09-29 06:40:55+00:00
There's a pretty simple solution to the lack of new antibiotics that I've never seen anyone suggest: up the amount of time that any new antibiotics are patented.

Right now there's not much of an incentive to create new antibiotics. It's quite rare that something can't be taken out with the antibiotics we have, and while that's slowly getting worse it means that drug companies probably can't make back their investment by the time the drug goes generic.

So, up it to 25 years or something like that. It's better we have some expensive drugs that work than none at all.
by bitwize | 2025-09-29 06:41:26+00:00
Linux still works by email-submitted patches, the workflow for which git was originally designed.

And if an unacceptable patch made it to Linus's desk, someone downstream hasn't been doing their damn job. The submaintainers are supposed to filter the stupid out, perhaps by more gentle guidance toward noob coders. The reason why Linus gets so angry is because the people who let it through should know better.