MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by jasonwatkinspdx | 2025-09-12 20:13:20+00:00
Not an expert but I happened to read about some of the history of this a while back.

ASCII has its roots in teletype codes, which were a development from telegraph codes like Morse.

Morse code is variable length, so this made automatic telegraph machines or teletypes awkward to implement. The solution was the 5 bit Baudot code. Using a fixed length code simplified the devices. Operators could type Baudot code using one hand on a 5 key keyboard. Part of the code's design was to minimize operator fatigue.

Baudot code is why we refer to the symbol rate of modems and the like in Baud btw.

Anyhow, the next change came with instead of telegraph machines directly signaling on the wire, instead a typewriter was used to create a punched tape of codepoints, which would be loaded into the telegraph machine for transmission. Since the keyboard was now decoupled from the wire code, there was more flexibility to add additional code points. This is where stuff like "Carriage Return" and "Line Feed" originate. This got standardized by Western Union and internationally.

By the time we get to ASCII, teleprinters are common, and the early computer industry adopted punched cards pervasively as an input format. And they initially did the straightforward thing of just using the telegraph codes. But then someone at IBM came up with a new scheme that would be faster when using punch cards in sorting machines. And that became ASCII eventually.

So zooming out here the story is that we started with binary codes, then adopted new schemes as technology developed. All this happened long before the digital computing world settled on 8 bit bytes as a convention. ASCII as bytes is just a practical compromise between the older teletype codes and the newer convention.
by ajross | 2025-09-12 20:13:28+00:00
That "nobody" is misapplied. Certainly it applies to existing nuclear powers, but that's not the demographic in question.

Not everyone has a U mine or pre-existing bomb industry. The question is whether or not having a reactor makes producing bombs easier or not, and clearly the answer is "yes", bomb-making is easier (yet, sure, still a "PITA") if you have a reactor core handy to start with.
by ISV_Damocles | 2025-09-12 20:13:31+00:00
UTF-16 is also just as complicated as UTF-8 requiring multibyte characters to cover the entirety of Unicode, so it doesn't avoid the issue you're complaining about for the newest languages added, and it has the added complexity of a BOM being required to be sure you have the pairs of bytes in the right order, so you are more vulnerable to truncated data being unrecoverable versus UTF-8.

UTF-32 would be a fair comparison, but it is 4 bytes per character and I don't know what, if anything, uses it.
by toast0 | 2025-09-12 20:13:55+00:00
7 bits isn't that odd. Bauddot was 5 bits, and found insufficient, so 6 bit codes were developed; they were found insufficient, so 7-bit ASCII was developed.

IBM had standardized 8-bit bytes on their System/360, so they developed the 8-bit EBCDIC encoding. Other computing vendors didn't have consistent byte lengths... 7-bits was weird, but characters didn't necessarily fit nicely into system words anyway.
by jauntywundrkind | 2025-09-12 20:13:59+00:00
I'm so so so interested to know how AWS Nitro interfaces with these systems, provides control and fabric. All I can guess is that it's an external thunderbolt based implementation?

There's some kind of photo in this m2 blog post, but not super clear. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-ec2-m2-pro-mac-i...
by godelski | 2025-09-12 20:14:12+00:00
I think you missed my entire point, so much that I thank you for demonstrating it. Rather than some abstract "my parents", I can say "like this."

> Both teams are corrupt, but in different ways.

Who has denied this? Is this not such an obvious assumption that it need not be explicitly stated? Need I make clear that you and I are not in fact the same person?

This is a given.

> On my team > On the other team

And what? We obviously have decided who we believe the lesser of evils is. That was never the point. The point is that by showing strong devotion to the lesser of two evils is still showing devotion to evil! There's a big difference between begrudgingly choosing between two evils in a rigged game and aligning with that evil.

One does not need always compare. We can both evaluate a single political party by its merits, absent of everything else, while also being able to evaluate how they stand comparatively. In fact, you can't even do the latter without doing the former first!

All you've accomplished is perpetuating the two evils. You perpetuate the evil you vote for my allowing them to excuse their actions in justification of fighting the greater. You have no power to change what you've chosen as greater and you've abdicated the power to make your lesser even less evil, instead choosing to gave it power to become more evil!

Think carefully about what you say. It's not only Siths who speak in absolutes, but evil does thrive on over-simplification.
by 0cf8612b2e1e | 2025-09-12 20:14:29+00:00
..The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is nothing more than bureaucratic red tape that does nothing to improve air quality,” said EPA Administrator Zeldin…

On the release, the only bold text on the page is, “said EPA Administrator Zeldin”. I take it this was the only form of rebellion available to those stuck following the marching orders.

Must be so frustrating to have joined an organization dedicated to monitoring the environment, only to watch some jerks tear it down from the inside.
by tracker1 | 2025-09-12 20:14:37+00:00
To me, it's just a core part of "Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How" as basic tenants of what a news article should cover in terms of an event. Part of this in terms of professional reporting (not twitter) is to reach out to sources or agency contacts for comments/statements. Even a "ICE has not yet returned a request for comment." placeholder would have helped significantly. It's just a matter of due diligence, and with online reporting there should be some follow-up/editing as new information presents or responses do come in.
by _verandaguy | 2025-09-12 20:15:28+00:00
> Does a pure AI-agent marketplace make sense?

IMO no. What value does the middleman add?

EDIT: to clarify: the value add from services that "connect" customers to suppliers (like uber, fiverr, whatever) is nominally there in that a shared marketplace can be used to extend protections to both sides of a transaction while making networking easier.

Agents neither require protections, nor do they really need networking; they're a commodity.

> What types of jobs would you want AI agents to handle first?

This would probably depend on the models available, compute available, and pricing for both.

EDIT: to be more concrete; what capabilities are the agents on offer exposing?

> Any UX or trust issues you’d expect with this model?

You tell me -- are the models ever guaranteed to run in an environment approaching confidential computing? Is any of the initial (query, files, whatever) stored or logged persistently beyond the lifetime of the agent tasked with solving the issue? Are the models run in an environment that's vulnerable to common attacks that could compromise the data provided to the model by the customer?

I am curious though -- why _47_ jobs?
by alephnerd | 2025-09-12 20:16:00+00:00
I mean, Hyundai did play it fast and loose with B1/2 visas and the VWP [0] - which are NOT meant to be used for construction.

If HN detests H1B abuse by consultancies like TCS, then calling out B1/2 and VWP visa abuse by Korean manufacturing firms should be acceptable as well, otherwise it's just white collar hypocrisy.

This factory has had multiple deaths in the past two years due to labor abuse and shoddy safety standards [1][2][3], but kept getting pushed back by political pressure. Given the size of the raid, someone at OSHA most likely gave an "anonymous" tip [4].

91 ambulance calls were made at this factory site over 20 months [5] - well above the average for similar sites [6].

TSMC attempted something similar when spinning up the Chandler fab, but the Biden admin stuck to their guns and pushed back on TSMC.

[0] - https://www.ft.com/content/c677b9aa-2e89-4feb-a56f-f3c8452b3...

[1] - https://www.kherkhergarcia.com/fatal-forklift-accident-batte...

[2] - https://labornotes.org/2025/09/georgia-battery-plant-raid-sp...

[3] - https://www.spaglaw.com/blog/2025/05/worker-killed-by-fallin...

[4] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/12/immigration-...

[5] - https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/local/2025/03/15/peop...

[6] - https://www.ajc.com/news/2025/06/construction-deaths-injurie...
by jopsen | 2025-09-12 20:16:04+00:00
To some extend, a criminal with nothing to lose don't necessarily stop just because they get caught.

And for most of us, any risk to health or wellbeing isn't worth taking. You have something to lose the desperate criminal drug addict might not.

Granted, hardening your property against burglary is pretty low risk. There is no reason not to have 3 point doors and windows.

Just don't harden it so much that a determined firefighter can't get in :)
by matsemann | 2025-09-12 20:16:20+00:00
I get your point. When I had RSI in my right elbow and tried to find a replacement for a traditional mouse there were soooo many attempts. And I had to use them for a while both to see if they helped, but also to see if I managed to use them properly. Like, a mouse where you rolled a ball with your thumb I never got friendly with even after a few weeks.

In the end the problem was actually moving the hand away from the keyboard, so no tilted mouse, thumb mouse or track pad worked. A RollerMouse saved me. I even game with it now, heh.

Just lucky my company paid for all of it (and the ones I didn't use they got back by me distributing to others within the company with issues)
by KPGv2 | 2025-09-12 20:16:31+00:00
This is not true. ASCII (technically US-ASCII) was a fixed-width encoding of 7 bits. There was no 8th bit reserved. You can read the original standard yourself here: https://ia600401.us.archive.org/23/items/enf-ascii-1968-1970...

Crucially, "the 7-bit coded character set" is described on page 6 using only seven total bits (1-indexed, so don't get confused when you see b7 in the chart!).

There is an encoding mechanism to use 8 bits, but it's for storage on a type of magnetic tape, and even that still is silent on the 8th bit being repurposed. It's likely, given the lack of discussion about it, that it was for ergonomic or technical purposes related to the medium (8 is a power of 2) rather than for future extensibility.
by curiousgal | 2025-09-12 20:16:37+00:00
Either the Qataris knew about it and threw one of their citizens under the bus or they didn't know about it and they won't do anything to avenge one of their citizens. Either way their reputation amongst the Arab word as the U.S.' useful idiot stands.

Imagine having all the money in the world only to let people walk all over you, phew.
by hiAndrewQuinn | 2025-09-12 20:16:53+00:00
This is what I've observed as well. By my own metrics and grades, I was a somewhat bright math minor (near-perfect score in abstract algebra, etc), would have been middle of the pack as a PhD student, may have been below par if I managed to complete the PhD, and almost certainly would have been deadweight as a pure mathematician myself. That's just how the scaling and competitive dynamics have worked out; it's not really something to feel personally bad about, any more than you might feel personally bad about not having the potential to be a competitive figure skater.

EDIT: Uh, actually, it looks like I may have underestimated myself at basically every point here and would have become a basically okay mathematician based on updated priors.
by bryanlarsen | 2025-09-12 20:16:57+00:00
No they couldn't have. Germany has spent $700B on renewable energy and need 250GW of power. Not even China could have built 250GW of nuclear power for $700B although they could come close. Germany likely would have needed to spend $5T.

Much of that $700B was spent in the 2000's and 2010's when renewable was more expensive than nuclear. But renewables are far cheaper than nuclear in the 2020's.
by acidburnNSA | 2025-09-12 20:16:58+00:00
Maybe this article?

https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-are-nuclear-power...

There is some regulatory burden for sure. But the NRC has been very conducive to standardization, and approved construction and operation licenses of like 20 brand new latest generation water-cooled reactors in the first nuclear Renaissance (2006). It was Fukushima and fracking that killed that Renaissance, not regulations.

https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/large-lwr/col-hold...

The NRC has also been generous with advanced reactor licenses, granting construction licenses for the Kairos Hermes 1 and 2 molten salt cooled test reactors recently. And one for the Abilene Christian university's molten salt fueled reactor too!

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nrc-approves-construction...

A lot of the tech world got it in their heads that nuclear regs are the main issue in nuclear when in reality it is still megaprojects construction management. The small advanced reactors are likely to be very expensive per kWh
by feoren | 2025-09-12 20:16:59+00:00
> If someone has made bitcoin transactions to say, donate to EFF, Planned Parenthood or ACLU, I would take a bet of 5 Bitcoin that he isn't going to be imprisoned for that fact in this country. Yes, even though Trump is President.

Yet. They want to execute people for being trans in Florida, by separately passing laws that child abusers get executed, and that being trans == child abuse. It's not hyperbolic to worry that donating to a trans rights organization could make you a governmental target. Scammers might steal some of my money, but they're not going to abduct me off the street into unmarked vans in front of my kids.
by no_input | 2025-09-12 20:17:11+00:00
The interest in pure mathematics probably sets inquiring individuals in a higher intelligence bracket already. If somebody got through high school enjoying and succeeding at geometry and calculus, then they probably could stomach most undergraduate work in the same manner.

It seems a bit like gatekeeping to make people question whether they are smart enough when they will figure out pretty quickly if they have the aptitude or will to do it just by being exposed.
by tim333 | 2025-09-12 20:17:15+00:00
I don't think Jules Evans, the author of that post takes it that seriously but as he says "having interviewed Robert, I don’t think he’s bullshitting - he really believes that he has awakened ChatGPT into a new form of consciousness".

Jules does a bit of humor eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGy92qBdq8w&t=155s
by derbOac | 2025-09-12 20:17:45+00:00
No offense to your father but I've always felt like the "innocent until proven guilty" philosophy is expansive and fundamental privacy rights are part of that principle. That is, the underlying principle isn't "innocent until proven guilty" but something more akin to "your complete autonomy should be assumed by default, and the government should have to clear an extremely high threshold to constrain it".

I also really believe that this raises the bar for everyone. If the government has to work harder to prove your guilt, the case is all that much stronger when the threshold is met.

I'm probably preaching to the choir but I increasingly see arguments to the contrary as boiling down to "make things so the executive branch of the government doesn't have to work as hard" which I don't find compelling as a societal value.
by Matticus_Rex | 2025-09-12 20:18:11+00:00
No one is saying there shouldn't be regulations on nuclear.

But our regulations on nuclear are utterly insane -- every time I get someone to read into the reasons nuclear here has been so much more expensive than safe nuclear in other countries with more reasonable regulations around it, they come away shellshocked. It takes a while to understand what's going on, because it's truly death by a thousand cuts, but the unifying principle is the NRC's ALARA ("As Low As Reasonably Achievable") principle (with honorable mention going to the NRC's Linear No-Threshold harm model, which despite the evidence assigns a linear cancer incidence to radiation dosing).

Getting radiation exposure "As Low As Reasonably Achievable" sounds like a nice idea. But there's no lower bound, so the costs scale infinitely, gutting the incentives to innovate and invest. If the prices of other forms of energy go up, regulators intentionally raise the costs of nuclear comparably by increasing what must be spent on reducing radiation exposure. New innovative plant design that increases margins? Guess what -- that's another opportunity to use the money to lower radiation exposure even further.

The lack of a lower bound results in absurd results, because we long ago decreased the exposure from plants to far below background radiation levels, and far below the levels at which we've been able to observe harm.

We need to replace the LNT model with a sigmoid model that aligns with the science on radiation harms, and we need to remove the infinitely-scaling ALARA standard. Doing these will not increase risks, but will decrease costs a large amount in the short run and even more in the longer-term.
by throwawayqgis | 2025-09-12 20:19:04+00:00
I’ve worked in the GIS space for a while, developed mapping services on the backend and frontend, the whole thing.

And yet I’ve never been able to get into QGIS. I’ve used the ogr libraries, I know that there’s an incredible amount of smart work behind these tools. 100% all due respect to everyone involved.

But I’ve found the ui so daunting that I’ve never been able to use it.

I want to be proven wrong. Are there gentle/great tutorials/guides?

I know this isn’t a “vpn software before tailscale” kind of situation. But, you know?
by pil0u | 2025-09-12 20:19:38+00:00
Nuclear has serious advantages over renewables when you consider the physical constraints: to match a large nuclear plant solely with wind or solar, you’d need far more land, material, and backup or storage to deal with intermittency. Renewable sources can’t reliably deliver the same baseload without huge infrastructure and/or major reductions in energy demand. The trade-offs make nuclear almost unavoidable if we want to decarbonize quickly while keeping stable power supply.
by strangattractor | 2025-09-12 20:19:53+00:00
If they are on site why not interview them? If the purpose of these online assessments is to be the mouth of the funnel that process is starting to fail.

https://www.reddit.com/r/leetcode/comments/1mu3qjt/breaking_...

There are funded companies set up just to help you get past this stuff.

https://www.reddit.com/r/leetcode/comments/1iz6xcy/cheating_...

Personally I feel software development has become more or less like assembly line work. If I was starting out today I would seriously consider other options.
by hkpack | 2025-09-12 20:19:58+00:00
Yes, but if you remember, the consensus was that countries with economic ties don't go to wars. There were no illusions about Russia, but the idea was to tame it by making it prosper through trade with "rich EU".

A lot of people were calling this strategy stupid, but that was the consensus for multiple decades.

You can also tell that the strategy with China failed in exactly the same way.

So I think the world will be a very different place in the next millennia.
by Tuna-Fish | 2025-09-12 20:20:15+00:00
Except that there were many different solutions before UTF-8, all of which sucked really badly.

UTF-8 is the best kind of brilliant. After you've seen it, you (and I) think of it as obvious, and clearly the solution any reasonable engineer would come up with. Except that it took a long time for it to be created.
by ViewTrick1002 | 2025-09-12 20:21:34+00:00
France is sabotaging France on nuclear.

Flamanville 3 is a complete joke and the EPR2 program is in absolute shambles.

Currently they can’t even agree on how to fund the absolutely insanely bonkers subsidies.

Now targeting investment decision in 2026… And the French government just fell because they are underwater in debt and have a spending problem which they can’t agree on how to fix.

A massive handout to the dead end nuclear industry sounds like the perfect solution!
by ryao | 2025-09-12 20:21:59+00:00
The Chernobyl plant had known construction defects that could impair safety. These things would prevent a western plant from starting operation, but did not stop the Soviet plant from beginning operation:

https://inspectapedia.com/structure/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Disast...

They did not even have any automated safeties in place, because their philosophy was “faith in the worker” while the western philosophy is “humans are fallible”:

https://www.eit.edu.au/engineering-failures-chernobyl-disast...

They then ignored their own safety procedures when operating the plant, which ultimately is what caused the disaster.

Saying that Soviet designs being in the same generation as western designs makes them equally safe/unsafe is quite wrong when you look at the details. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was one mistake after another.

That said, the plant was designed by a country that shot down a civilian airliner that had strayed into their airspace due to a navigational error, when they knew it was a civilian airliner:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007

They had no regard for human life, so of course, they built things that are incredibly unsafe. There is no end of examples of them simply not caring about human life.
by spwa4 | 2025-09-12 20:22:11+00:00
But ... nobody should have faith in air defense for an area bigger than a few square kilometers. If anybody promises that, their only option is a separate air defense system for every few square kilometers. I don't know but I doubt that sort of thing is deployed anywhere outside of Ukraine or Washington. And in Ukraine only the places that are currently engaged in active warfare. Not even Brussels or Israel has that. In Israel, only specific borders and some city centers are protected (much like in Ukraine) but the grand total of protected areas is not going to be that much. Even Tel Aviv airport did not have active air defense systems, partly because that's much harder, though probably now a few of smart Israeli have been told to solve the hard problem.

And if anybody has faith that even the best such systems would protect against a cruise or ballistic missile with a nuke on board, they don't.
by esafak | 2025-09-12 20:23:47+00:00
> What value does the middleman add?

I agree. Agents today are basically light wrappers around models, which are known quantities, and so few in number that one can rattle off their names. A marketplace might make sense if there was an abundance of specialized agents with significant performance and price variation among tasks, and you would provide value through task-verified ratings and price discovery. But this is not the case. Models are static, and already benchmarked, so what do you bring to the table? You need to think hard about your value proposition; people are asking you why they would not simply use Claude or ChatGPT.