MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by integralid | 2025-09-02 16:24:02+00:00
But we, at least in western society, want much more than just food. Even assuming that zero food waste is realistic.

Land is pretty cheap, except when you want to live in a city, especially big. Which is what most people want.

Sunlight is free, solar panel manufacturing and maintenance is not.

Pirates watch things for free, but the people that pay fund the production.

Most expensive things are expensive because they require labor, which is expensive. And people tend to actually want expensive things, even if they don't strictly require them - either as a status symbol, or just to make their life easier (a dishwasher or a vacuum cleaner is not required to live, but most people can't imagine living without one).

Simply put, I think you either greatly oversimplify the problem and handwave the problem by just blaming "billionaires" for everything, or I don't understand your point properly.
by nathan_douglas | 2025-09-02 16:24:13+00:00
Trivial, honestly. And I'm not a particularly disciplined or functional person. The overwhelming majority of hobbyists use acrylic, which has no meaningful smell and can be thinned with a drop of water. I haven't had any issues with staining or the paint going where it's unwanted, and you typically only use a few drops at a time.

Sometimes I use a dry palette and sometimes a wet palette. The dry palettes are plastic and cheap on Amazon. You rinse them off in the sink. If the paint dries, use a greenie or a brush - no problem. The wet palette just needs to be wiped off with a wet napkin before you close it up, and to have the wax paper replaced when it starts to rub through. If you get the sponge dirty, it's a sponge - just fill it up with water, squish it, maybe use a little Mean Green/Simple Green/etc to clean it up.

The airbrush is a little more involved, but I dramatically overestimated how much of a pain in the ass it would be. Most of the time the cleanup for that is 3-5 minutes and not unpleasant. Occasionally it'll need to be broken down a little further, but it's still not a big deal. The mechanism isn't nearly as complex as it may initially seem.

Brushes aren't a big deal to keep clean. You'd destroy a bunch, but you'll learn over time what not to do. Just don't start with the (comparatively expensive and arguably barbaric) sable brushes, start with garbage quality brushes and treat them as disposable. Rinse them, use a little brush soap, and don't brutalize or drown them and they'll last longer and longer and maintain a better quality, then you can upgrade.

Nothing else really comes to mind in terms of labor.
by PaulHoule | 2025-09-02 16:24:16+00:00
"Lunarized D9" was meant to be evocative. Running a diesel engine on pure oxygen (maybe lunar) and hydrocarbons from Earth with exhaust gas recirculation to keep it from burning up might be possible. But it might be more practical to build something functionally equivalent that uses batteries or fuel cells that is more circular in operation. Studies seem to show though that it is tough for ISRU to compete with shipping in resources from the most competitive market in the solar system. The dust could be a problem, it's like really sharp because it doesn't get weathered which probably makes it bad to get in your lungs.
by roughly | 2025-09-02 16:24:23+00:00
I am not an Elon or X fan, and I don’t think this is Good, but Twitter’s policy pre-X to comply with national content laws was to geo-block content when a government demanded it be blocked. I don’t recall if the algorithmic shadow-ban was in that toolkit pre-X as well, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Again, I don’t think this is a good outcome, but it’s not substantially at odds with what Twitter pre-Elon would’ve done (I also seem to recall Twitter was very sensitive to employees visiting or living in Turkey - the relationship with the Turkish government had been fraught for years).

Now, if the critique here is that Mr. Free Speech is rolling over and showing his belly to the first autocrat who shows up at his door, yeah, I get that, but it’s a little bit more of a “dog bites man” than a “man bites dog” story at this point.
by trunksuzieross | 2025-09-02 16:24:28+00:00
Trunk | https://trunk.io | DevRel Engineer - Remote US or Canada| Staff Full Stack Engineer | Sr Full Stack Engineer - San Francisco

Trunk is an a16z funded dev tools startup, redefining software development at scale. We aim to solve problems that developers hate by bringing the tools usually built in-house at the best engineering orgs to every development team. Some of our products:

* Merge Queue: a merge queue, to ensure that PRs are tested in order before they're merged. *Flaky Tests: Detect and eliminate Flaky Tests. * AI DevOps Assistant: Automate Reccurring DevOps tasks in chat.

In 2022, we raised a $25M Series A led by Initialized Capital (Garry Tan) and a16z (Peter Levine)

Our tech stack:

* Frontend: Typescript, React, Redux, Next.js * Backend: Typescript, Node, AWS, CDK, k8s, gRPC * Observability: Prometheus, Grafana, Kiali, Jaeger * CLI: C++20, Bazel * VSCode Extension: Typescript * CI/CD: GitHub Actions * General: GitHub, Slack, Linear, Slite

Unlimited PTO (and we all actually take PTO), competitive salary and equity packages! Please apply here: https://trunk.io/jobs
by cosmicgadget | 2025-09-02 16:24:31+00:00
From the title I thought this was about taking trips down memory lane or seeing historical posts by others. But it seems to be more about seeing design (rather than content) from one's own site in years past. I hope I'm not the only one who would prefer not to see my embarrassing old designs and rather see my archive content rendered in the current (least cringe) template.
by jameskilton | 2025-09-02 16:24:36+00:00
Article has been hugged so commenting more along the comments here.

Pharmacy school teaches Calculus. Why would that be? Do you need to run derivatives and integrals to fill prescriptions?

No. Teaching maths, particularly calculus, teaches people how to 1) not make mistakes and 2) catch your own mistakes quickly. Vitally important skills for someone filling out live-saving medicine.
by FirmwareBurner | 2025-09-02 16:24:47+00:00
It is when you get a letter from the government telling you to do that on whatever pretext which doesn't matter at that point because you either comply with the government requests, or have to leave the country otherwise they risk banning, fines or imprisonment/asset seizing.

Social media companies aren't gonna take a foreign government to court to arbitrate requests in order to protect a citizen since the law is always on the side of the government as they're the ones making it and enforcing it.

The EU and EU members also tell X to ban certain political topics they dislike under various pretexts, and X always complies without question. Like I was sending a friend from Germany a clip on X of Ukrainian recruiters kidnapping a guy off the street and throwing him in a van but surprise, my friend couldn't watch it as the video was banned in Germany but not in my EU country. What German law was it breaking? I don't know, it didn't say, but it doesn't really matter since any government makes up the speech rules as they go and uses selective enforcement on the basis of "for my friends anything, for my enemies the law" so every government practices its own version of domestic censorship in order to maintain its power.
by PAPPPmAc | 2025-09-02 16:25:04+00:00
I have a copy from the kickstarter, it's the best and most expensive ($175) thing I've ever gone in on crowdfunding for.

Absolutely beautiful books. Great photography, they even worked up their own typefaces and do fun typographic things all over the place. Well written and deeply _deeply_ researched.

I have very few complaints, maybe the section on chorders is a little thinner than I'd like, but that's a pet interest of mine and I've chased down a bunch of material so my perspective is weird.

From the kickstarter updates, the original run were an ordeal to make, but I really do hope there is enough interest for a second printing at some point.
by rangerelf | 2025-09-02 16:25:06+00:00
It doesn't matter if you can't solve a randomly-appearing-in-your-newsreel integral; it matters that you have the background knowledge of what an integral is, that there are rules to solving it, and you can read up on the rules and understand them.

For the [current] layperson, each of those things I mentioned I might as well be speaking in Martian.
Ask HN: Crypto Startup Ideas
by hansolo77 | 2025-09-02 16:25:12+00:00
Crypto has long been discussed as a technology that could shift power away from centralized institutions and give individuals more control over their money, especially in light of events like 2008. Recently, however, the space seems increasingly dominated by speculative projects with little long-term utility, which raises the question of whether the original vision has been lost.

I’d like to hear from the community: what areas of crypto and blockchain as whole, today do you think still hold meaningful potential for building real companies? or should I just focus on AI like everyone else doing?
by OutOfHere | 2025-09-02 16:25:39+00:00
Payments are a flow-based and rule-based deterministic part of an order. There is no AI decision making involved for them.

The role that AI can honestly play here is in collecting payment information, e.g. a credit card number, checking account number, or providing information for a cryptocurrency transfer, but that's not the same as executing the payment itself.

The AI's job is to dispatch the order with the payment information, and that is all.
by Alex3917 | 2025-09-02 16:25:43+00:00
> Next.js is easily the worst technology I've ever used.

To be fair, this is partly on the kind of people who use it. E.g. if you're trying to build something that's intended to last for 10+ years but you don't think it's worth it to spend the 20 hours watching the Udemy course on Angular, then your technology is going to be a complete dumpster fire no matter which stack you choose.
by jstrieb | 2025-09-02 16:26:05+00:00
I implied that on purpose. I'm generally hesitant to anthropomorphize LLMs, but in this case, I disagree with you that they don't have intention. They were developed to output likely tokens, and tuned such that their big tech developers approve the output. That is their intention. Their one and only intention.

That being said, I completely agree on the agency point. They don't make decisions, and certainly don't "think" like people.

Still, I believe the benefits of the analogy outweigh the potential loss of nuance here.
by rob | 2025-09-02 16:26:09+00:00
I think too many newer "developers" are relying on AI tools trained on popular frameworks like Next.js to create things, and Vercel's loving this because they're the "go-to" in the end when you need to deploy something based on this stack.

There's no real alternative for these developers because they weren't brought up to understand server/networking fundamentals, how to operate a VPS, etc. Vercel manages to make this even more confusing for them by blurring the line between server and client, "edge" functions, etc, while all behind variable pricing.
by SR2Z | 2025-09-02 16:26:14+00:00
India is a poor country, and the risk-reward calculus for individuals living there on the bottom rungs of the socioeconomic ladder is very different from even a poor American, who still has access to running water, AC, and a very high minimum wage.

It's even more unethical to prevent the global poor from building industry that might meaningfully improve their quality of life.
by kremi | 2025-09-02 16:26:14+00:00
Yes, the term "middleware" is unfortunate, this is abundantly clear.

> you wouldn't get a new tool simply because you might need it

No but you get a framework precisely because it's "batteries included": many apps will need those tools. You don’t have to use all of them, but having them available reduces friction when you do.

> If Next.js wants to allow you to run code on the edge before your app is called, that's fine, but it should be opt-in

It already is. Nothing runs at the edge unless you add a middleware.ts. You can build a full app without any middleware. I'm surprised the author of the article fails to acknowledge this, given how much time was spent on finding alternative solutions and writing the article.
by paulpauper | 2025-09-02 16:26:20+00:00
People said the same about Open AI in 2023, only valued at $30 billion at the time, and then seemingly overnight Chat GPT become a major commercial product rivaling Google. Or Tesla valuations in 2019. It went from a niche brand to Teslas everywhere after Covid. These VCs are not as irrational as commonly assumed. They know if a product gains critical mass , it can become everything.
by ealexhudson | 2025-09-02 16:26:27+00:00
The trustee's reports on FTX's internal processes were damning. Even they had held their Anthropic on the way up, who's to say their internal FTT ledger and black holes in the Alameda books would not have eclipsed that?

The issue wasn't that crypto markets in general were down at that point; the issue was they were doing frauds.
What are companies trying to achieve with LLMs beyond "just chatbots"?
by dvcoolarun | 2025-09-02 16:26:29+00:00
Every big tech company (and a lot of startups) has built a chatbot—ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc and people are using them, but they all feel like the same interface.

I’m trying to understand what these companies are really aiming for here. Is this just subscription revenue, or is there a bigger play I’m missing?

Would love to hear how HN sees it.
by dahart | 2025-09-02 16:26:31+00:00
Oh that reminded me, in terms of cheating, you can use curl of a noise field to get completely fake incompressible flow. I used this in a Siggraph course once, and in some shots for a CG movie, but Bridson made it useful and way better by showing how to make it flow around objects. https://www.cs.ubc.ca/~rbridson/docs/bridson-siggraph2007-cu...

The main issue with it is that computing curl of a noise field is a ton more compute than Navier stokes. :P
by zukee | 2025-09-02 16:26:38+00:00
Clerq | Senior/Staff Engineer | onsite (NYC) | https://clerq.io

Clerq is a NYC based fintech startup building a next generation platform payments platform that delivers a seamless checkout experience for high-ticket transactions. By leveraging modern bank rails, the platform offers the conversion and UX benefits of cards with risk and money movement infrastructure purpose-built for large purchases. Clerq replaces outdated manual payment methods like cash, checks and wires and expensive card surcharges with a smooth, integrated solution that helps merchants convert more customers without sacrificing margins.

We have started with the $1T+ U.S. auto vertical, where our platform is growing rapidly and already powering payments for several of the most recognized brands in the industry including multiple Fortune 500 companies. With proven traction, the company has expanded into high-growth adjacencies including high-ticket e-commerce, private travel and powersports.

We are a lean team and looking for senior or staff level engineers to help us accelerate our growth and build a future that doesn't rely on credit card networks.

Stack: Python/Django, React, Nodejs, AWS Comp: $180-210k + Equity

Email me at nick@clerq.io if you are interested in hearing more!
by vunderba | 2025-09-02 16:26:39+00:00
I grew up in that era.

And part of that magic was the UNIQUENESS of the "cartridge", be it a Genesis cart, an NES cart, or even a PC big box. Having them displayed in your bedroom on a shelf was part of that experience. Personally I think you lose a lot of this magic with a tiny and somewhat generic looking SD card.

Also let's not pretend that there wasn't a metric F###-ton of garbage day games [1] back in the day. The only difference is the barrier to entry to game development and production is significantly lower - so there's just orders of magnitude more.

There are still plenty of VERY high quality games released today - you're either not looking for them or deliberately choosing to ignore them. (Spelunky, Shovel Knight, BG3, Tomb Raider 2013, Doom Eternal, Cuphead, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, etc.)

- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LJN
by AnotherGoodName | 2025-09-02 16:26:58+00:00
A good rule of thumb as a founder and someone that's worked in big tech;

Big tech rules out any red flags. This means any engineers that get a passing grade across all interviews are in. Anyone that fails one of the multiple interviews is out, despite possible strengths.

Small tech should hire on the green flags. This means you can tradeoff weaknesses if they can do a job that needs to be done.
by pessimizer | 2025-09-02 16:27:05+00:00
I did, and it makes this comment unintelligible unless there are no other Android phones with unlocked bootloaders. You've moved the goalposts, then got snotty about it.

edit: exactly who on this planet is motivated by "comment count" other than spammers?

edit2: the only way I can make your comments comprehensible is if I assume that you thought somebody was angry that they couldn't install Graphene on a phone with a locked bootloader. Before you assume the person you're talking to is insane, you should consider the alternatives.
by somenameforme | 2025-09-02 16:27:14+00:00
It's not anti-intellectualism so much as people forgetting the reason we learn in the first place. It's one of the biggest downsides of going from a world where education was largely optional to one where people are largely shoved onto a treadmill from birth to college.

So many people never stop think about why we do the things that we are simply expected to do, instead of doing other things.
by ryandv | 2025-09-02 16:27:20+00:00
They work well enough to a first approximation, but it's far from the certainty one has using other JetBrains products (e.g. C# ReSharper) on a statically typed codebase.

RubyMine will give you "Untyped (potential) usage." That's not good enough if I need to make a breaking API change and be sure that I've fixed all the callsites, such that I don't find out that I've missed a spot when the change breaks in production.

For all this talk about LLMs and AI improving developer productivity - what is one click and a few seconds in ReSharper to "Change Signature" or "Pull Members Up," which is a 100% guaranteed safe refactoring that will not introduce regressions, ends up being anywhere from "a few hours" of playing whack-a-mole with usage sites, to "completely intractable" in 15+ year old 1MLOC+ codebases making heavy use of metaprogramming.

If the Ruby milieu has turned against metaprogramming, I say good riddance; but my understanding is that it is still quite deep in technologies like Rails and RSpec in particular, where it's the fundamental secret sauce that enables convention-over-configuration and fluent, natural-language like DSLs.
by tonetegeatinst | 2025-09-02 16:27:34+00:00
I mean I think the bigger issue is that, at least for me, unless I am regularly using a skill I learn I forget most if not all of it.

I trig, and calc 1 yet I hardly remember how to solve most problems because its not something I use regularly.

Same with subnetting or remembering certain programming languages.

I literally don't use these things 99% of the time and so I forget them. Sure I understand some of the basics and I could probably pick it back up way faster than someone who knows nothing but I am human.
by foxglacier | 2025-09-02 16:27:51+00:00
What other moral standard is there besides laws? Is it that the laws of non-tyrannical countries should override those of tyrannical ones? How do you decide tyrannicalness? Or should internet companies decide what should be allowed in other countries despite those countries and their populations disagreeing? Great firewalls are the solution when nobody can agree with each other across borders but that's a pity.
by dragonwriter | 2025-09-02 16:28:35+00:00
Thinking of an LLM as any kind of encyclopedia is probably the wrong model. LLMs are information presentation/processing tools that incidentally, as a consequence of the method by which they are built to do that, may occasionally produce factual information that is not directly prompted.

If you want an LLM to be part of a tool that is intended to provide access to (presumably with some added value) encyclopedic information, it is best not to consider the LLM as providing any part of the encyclopedic information function of the system, but instead as providing part of the user interface of the system. The encyclopedic information should be provided by appropriate tooling that, at request by an appropriately prompted LLM or at direction of an orchestration layer with access to user requests (and both kinds of tooling might be used in the same system) provides relevant factual data which is inserted into the LLM’s context.

The correct modifier to insert into the sentence “An LLM is an encyclopedia” is “not”, not “lossy”.
by tinyhouse | 2025-09-02 16:28:38+00:00
This is the fastest-growing company by revenue, jumping from $1B to $3B in just five months. Hitting $10B is only a matter of time, which would put its valuation at a reasonable ~18x sales multiple. It doesn't even matter where we are in the AI hype cycle - AI adoption will keep increasing, it's not even a question at this point.

From a technical perspective, they manage to attract top talent - Google / OpenAI lose a lot of good people to Anthropic. This is important since there are few people who can transform a business (e.g., the guy who built Claude Code). Being attractive for top talent means you're more likely stumble upon them.
by jacobolus | 2025-09-02 16:29:06+00:00
The point of learning mathematics is not to "not make mistakes". More strongly: the misconception that mathematics or mathematics education is about getting "right answers" as quickly and accurately as possible is a disaster for learning.

A calculus class should ideally be making someone think much harder than that. Calculus is about understanding the relationships involved with continuous quantities and modeling the way things move and change. It is a basic prerequisite for understanding biochemistry and statistics, essential background for understanding pharmaceuticals.
by godelski | 2025-09-02 16:29:09+00:00
> We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do

Or from Bell Labs: "How do you manage a bunch of geniuses? You don't"

> Companies who generically look for "the best engineers"

If you need "the best" then your system is (most likely) too complicated and you're going to have a hard time keeping "the best" as their work becomes frustrating.

> The best engineers will tell you why your architecture is wrong, why your code sucks, why your timeline is unrealistic, and why your product decisions make no technical sense. If you're not ready for that level of pushback, you don't actually want the best engineers.

I want to stress how important this is. An engineer should be grumpy. The job is to find problems AND fix them. They don't just complain but argue why it should be done another way. They complain about what seems like petty things because they understand that if a big problem can be broken down into small problems than the accumulation of small problems creates big problems.

People often conflate phrases like "but what about", "how do we handle", "okay, but" or so on as "no". But these are not "no" phrases by engineers. These are "I'm thinking out loud" phrases.

If you surround yourself with yesmen you've surrounded yourself with people who don't care about the company, they just care about their own survival within it. Unless you're perfect, you need people that are unafraid to challenge management when they think management is wrong. You need people to be able to make mistakes because hindsight is a million times clearer than foresight.