MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by skinner_ | 2025-10-24 21:02:56+00:00
That's very cool, but it's not an apples to apples comparison. The reasoning model learned how to do long multiplication. (Either from the internet, or from generated examples of long multiplication that were used to sharpen its reasoning skills. In principle, it might have invented it on its own during RL, but no, I don't think so.)

In this paper, the task is to learn how to multiply, strictly from AxB=C examples, with 4-digit numbers. Their vanilla transformer can't learn it, but the one with (their variant of) chain-of-thought can. These are transformers that have never encountered written text, and are too small to understand any of it anyway.
by optionalsquid | 2025-10-24 21:03:14+00:00
What do you mean by a "more visually complex presentation"? Typst has some built in support for drawing shapes [1], but if you need more complex figures then cetz is also an option [2].

But if you mean animations (including animated transitions), then I do not believe that it is possible in Typst, since the output it outputs PDFs. I also do not believe that it is possible to embed multimedia in a document.

[1] https://typst.app/docs/reference/visualize/

[2] https://typst.app/universe/package/cetz/
by munchler | 2025-10-24 21:03:36+00:00
> The Smith chart from electrical engineering is the image of a Cartesian grid under the function f(z) = (z − 1)/(z + 1). More specifically, it’s the image of a grid in the right half-plane.

Well, I'm already confused. The domain is complex numbers where the real part is >= 0? I think it would be helpful to make that clear from the get-go. When I see "Cartesian grid", I think R^2, not C.
by mcv | 2025-10-24 21:04:10+00:00
That really depends on how you look at it. By that argument, to Ukrainians, the Nazis were the liberators. The Soviets had starved millions of Ukrainians in the Holodomor, and many, including the infamous Stepan Bandera, erroneously saw the Nazis as liberators. Thing is, liberation requires actually being free afterwards. Neither the Nazis nor the Soviets were liberators. They just replaced another oppressor.

And sure, the Nazis were even worse, but we should really stop pretending that the Soviet occupation was great.
by Aerolfos | 2025-10-24 21:04:18+00:00
In some sense, GOGs entire existence is testing the hypothesis that it's impossible to run a consumer friendly digital store due to abuse.

If you took the common sense publisher view then no DRM = everything you make is instantly pirated and the whole store fails instantly. But GOG is a viable storefront, so that's demonstrably wrong.

The evidence is no better for Steam's refund policy than it was for DRM being necessary.
by Razengan | 2025-10-24 21:04:34+00:00
> If intelligent life evolved on a planet of a brown dwarf — a “failed” star — that was ejected from its original galaxy deep into intergalactic space, then that species would be spectacularly isolated.

Even better, (or worse): A species that evolved on a rogue planet! Without any star!! (heated by it's core or nuclear elements or space magic or whatever)

> It would be a long time before any such species would figure out what galaxies are, what stars are, and their own relationship to those things.

Humans are bad enough with our "We're unique and special!" complex, imagine theirs!! lol
by ithkuil | 2025-10-24 21:05:03+00:00
"steering" is a word that can lead to confusion because it leverages the intuition that we have with our ground vehicles.

A change in direction in space requires accelerating the vehicle in some direction, the effect of which is just simple vector addition of the velocity vector of the vehicle.

So if you are going with a huge velocity in one direction and you want to change direction significantly in another direction you have to change velocity (accelerate) a lot in order for the combined vectors to produce a significantly different final velocity vector
by dzaima | 2025-10-24 21:05:59+00:00
Also a user ID, which seems to be 36 base64 characters (can't have one user count for multiple votes).

Round up to 500 raw bytes per row (perhaps including time/ip and other random garbage, plus indexes), 3x replication/redundancy or something, for 6 million users each having voted on 500 videos, and you're at 6TB; still some ways off from 15TB, but not insurmountably far.

(votes/user is rather tricky to get; but, as a bit of random garbage statistics math: YT gets ~5B views/day and has ~3B users; 6M downloads of the extension means ~0.2% of users use it, so 10M extension-user views/day = 15B over 4 years, or 2.5K/user; assuming 20% vote rate (rather high but lets say extension users care more for voting and/or watch YT more than an average person), that's 500 votes/user)
by lbotos | 2025-10-24 21:06:00+00:00
What brand and was it sized for winter load?

Im in NY, 6 heads across 3 floors with 2 heads per outdoor unit. 2500sf covered.

Mitsubishi h2i (i think im on my phone). Get plenty warm in the winter as my sole heat source. I could have gotten smaller outdoor units and had resistive backup but I didn’t want that.
by tim333 | 2025-10-24 21:06:00+00:00
I think it may be a future roadblock quite soon. If you look at all the data centers planned and speed of it, it's going to be a job getting the energy. xAI hacked it by putting about 20 gas turbines around their data center which is giving locals health problems from the pollution. I imagine that sort of thing will be cracked down on.
by tastyfreeze | 2025-10-24 21:06:05+00:00
It doesn't for me. That is an acceptance that we are a single federal government and the states are nothing more than administrative units of that federal government. For states to remain as sovereign entities that have collectively created the federal government the entity of the state must have representation at the federal level.

As for returning back to the original state appointment of senators, that is required for the senate to appropriately represent the state government at the federal level.

The original house apportionment had representatives that had about 35000 people. The size of the house was locked at 435 in 1913. Before then the number of representatives grew slower than population but still grew. After the last 2020 census there are 761,000 people per representative. The unevenness of how many constituents a representative from Wyoming has vs a representative from California has is a point of contention in higher population states. The complaint is that the representatives from smaller states have more proportional power. I think that is a bit ridiculous but that is what some Californian's told me. Increasing the size of the house to have a more proportional representation would alleviate that point of contention between states.

Gerrymandering is a side effect of not increasing the size of the house.
by danielmarkbruce | 2025-10-24 21:06:27+00:00
This is backwards. Algorithms that can be parallelized are inherently superior, independent of the hardware. GPUs were built to take advantage of the superiority and handle all kinds of parallel algorithms well - graphics, scientific simulation, signal processing, some financial calculations, and on and on.

There’s a reason so much engineering effort has gone into speculative execution, pipelining, multicore design etc - parallelism is universally good. Even when “computers” were human calculators, work was divided into independent chunks that could be done simultaneously. The efficiency comes from the math itself, not from the hardware it happens to run on.

RNNs are not parallelizable by nature. Each step depends on the output of the previous one. Transformers removed that sequential bottleneck.
by sigmoid10 | 2025-10-24 21:06:37+00:00
If you put a lot of energy into a small place, you end up producing particles. We know this and in fact we can do it in particle accelerators. We understand how this happens with a very high degree of precision. The big bang was, essentially, just a huge amount of energy in a tiny place. So according to everything we know about particle physics, lots and lots of matter-antimatter pairs should have been produced. We also know there are some tiny violations of matter-antimatter symmetry that might have caused only one kind to remain after things spread out and cooled down. We know this because we have observed the weak nuclear force violate that symmetry in experiments. But these violations are so tiny that it seems a truly ridiculous amount of matter was necessary in the first place. The only assumption here is that what we currently know about particle physics and quantum field theory still holds true somewhat close to the big bang. I understand that this might seem unsatisfactory on many levels (and it still is to many physicists), but assuming that only one kind of matter was created in the big bang would require a completely new mechanism beyond any currently known physics.
by bluGill | 2025-10-24 21:06:45+00:00
When I replaced my furnace a couple years back I asked for a heat pump - a previous house had it and it worked great. Turns out my contractor didn't ask the right questions and so mine only works to 25F - it still outputs heat below that, but not enough to keep my house warm and so I use the backup furnace a lot more than I want to.

A previous house the heat pump was sized to work to 14F. They make them that will work down to -25F, but since it gets to -30f where I live (about once every 10 years, but that is enough) we need a backup system so is probably isn't worth getting a system sized to as cold as possible.

Ground source heat pumps are a common option in rural areas - they cost a lot to install ($50k - and this is the cheapest version that needs a lot of land thus rural areas). They are likely to pay off if you live in the same house for 50 years, but the initial upfront costs are high (you do get a house worth $10k more than other heat option). Worth looking into if you are young and have reason to think you will live in the same house for 50 years.
by dkural | 2025-10-24 21:06:48+00:00
It's good to remind yourself of Bill Thurston's points: https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1994-30-02/S0273-0979-1994...

I love the analogy in David Bessis's wonderful book Mathematica (nothing to do with Wolfram). We all know how to tie our shoes. Now, write in words and symbols to teach someone how you tie your shoes. This is what a proof is.

Often even people with STEM degrees confuse what mathematicians do with the visible product of it - symbols and words on a page. While the formalism of mathematics has immense value for precision, and provides a "serialization language" (to borrow a CS analogy), it would be akin to confusing a Toaster with the Toaster manual, or shoelaces with the instructions.
by ACCount37 | 2025-10-24 21:07:11+00:00
If all your problems with attention are actually just problems with softmax, then that's an easy fix. Delete softmax lmao.

No but seriously, just fix the fucking softmax. Add a dedicated "parking spot" like GPT-OSS does and eat the gradient flow tax on that, or replace softmax with any of the almost-softmax-but-not-really candidates. Plenty of options there.

The reason why we're "benchmaxxing" is that benchmarks are the metrics we have, and the only way by which we can sift through this gajillion of "revolutionary new architecture ideas" and get at the ones that show any promise at all. Of which there are very few, and fewer still that are worth their gains when you account for: there not being an unlimited amount of compute. Especially not when it comes to frontier training runs.

Memorization vs generalization is a well known idiot trap, and we are all stupid dumb fucks in the face of applied ML. Still, some benchmarks are harder to game than others (guess how we found that out), and there's power in that.
by verdverm | 2025-10-24 21:07:11+00:00
With the recent changes to the Pentagon press corp and policy, people are waiting on something more definitive than the Pentagon saying they "confirm" it

At a minimum, the people need to know who's behind / where the money comes from.

It seems illegal as measured by the Antideficiency Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antideficiency_Act
by mmmBacon | 2025-10-24 21:07:13+00:00
Not surprising at all to me after several summer trips to interior Alaska. The mosquitoes are so thick that you inhale them sometimes; which is so disgusting. I slathered myself in Deet (the only thing that works) and was mostly ok. Even then they find every square mm that you missed. I sat down for 30 minutes on a bench leaning forward talking to some people. My shirt pulled up about 1/2” (12mm). Later I counted 137 bites (some had merged due to swelling) across that strip of exposed flesh!
by adzm | 2025-10-24 21:07:41+00:00
Make sure to read the post linked right at the beginning as well: http://0x80.pl/notesen/2023-04-30-lookup-in-strings.html as well as the magic bitboards linked, too https://www.chessprogramming.org/Magic_Bitboards

Though honestly this post really needed some numbers and benchmarks.
by 05 | 2025-10-24 21:08:09+00:00
Double check your vacuum model. I transformed my vacuum into a neat (well, not really) pile of parts in about an hour only to find mine isn't supported. Apparently S7 MaxV Ultra is a completely different PCB and SoC than the supported S7 variants (S7/S7 Pro Ultra). At least I cleaned it while disassembling, so it wasn't a total loss :)

I briefly considered connecting an ESPHome module to the 'start' button so that I could at least start cleaning from Home Assistant, but since it still won't give me errors if there are any, that seems like a half assed thing to do..
by quickthrowman | 2025-10-24 21:08:11+00:00
It’s very hard to say whether heat pumps are cheaper than NG for heating. I pay about $0.25 per 100k BTUs which is about 3kWh. 3kWh costs about 50 cents. As long as the COP is above 2, it’s cheaper to run the heat pump.

Once you factor in an electrician and pipefitter for installing a heat pump, plus the cost of the heat pump, refrigerant, and furnace coil, I’d imagine you lose money in the long run.

If you then additionally include the strain on the grid from all these new data centers without enough generation capacity, I’ll stick with natural gas for heating air and water.
by Aerolfos | 2025-10-24 21:08:20+00:00
Key activation is actually a good point.

I believe there were some pushes to get rid of opened box = no refund policies as being against standard 14-day returns in Norway, because the law explicitly says the consumer may (paraphrase) "reasonably test the use of a product" which allows you to open the box on other goods. But keys being consumable puts them in another category of goods (like food, which obviously can't be returned after "use"), so that doesn't apply.
by EvanAnderson | 2025-10-24 21:08:20+00:00
The house we bought last year "came with" cicada killer wasps[0]. They are impressive insects. The ones show in the Wikipedia article are a little smaller than the ones we have! I'd never heard of these things before getting this house.

They are somewhat destructive in their nesting. We ended up having to kill a few when they were excavating the bedding sand between the flagstones surrounding the house. They could dig out a pile of sand standing 4 - 5 inches tall in about 30 minutes (leaving a hole about an inch in diameter right in the middle of the pile).

They don't sting and are scared of humans. When they're unladen they fly very quickly and are quite agile. When they're laden with a cicada they bumble through the air in a most amusing way. They are also persistent-as-heck when it comes to their nesting behavior.

I wish I could do something like this wasp blower to gently suggest these guys nest in the yard instead of between the flagstones.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphecius_speciosus
by thinkcontext | 2025-10-24 21:08:20+00:00
You see this opinion a lot in the US, probably a result of Fox and its ilk. As the article mentions, somehow Nordic countries and Canada manage to use them. There's been good uptake in places like Maine which is good news.

Its true retrofits are a tough sell and natural gas is really cheap here. It would help if the US took insulation more seriously. But for someone with oil or electric resistance its definitely a big win.
by prlambert | 2025-10-24 21:08:21+00:00
Yes this is actually the worst – when open minded people get a heat pump for "the right reasons" and then have buyer's remorse. Completely backfires the transition. Do you have a ducted or ductless heat pump? Sounds like ducted, and if so that might be part of it too. The air cools down in the ductwork and if that's not accounted for - i.e. you reuse ductwork that was meant for a furnace – you run into issues like this. And you also need a cold climate heat pump.

(disclosure/transparency I'm the founder of Quilt, a ductless heat pump manufacturer)
by inglor_cz | 2025-10-24 21:08:38+00:00
I am an only child too. "Tend to be" is quite a soft claim, though, with plenty of room for exceptions.

The Little Emperors phenomenon is still a thing. If a kid has two parents and four grandparents who have no other descendands, it is USUALLY on the receiving end of a lot more attention and resources than if there are six of them.
by vidarh | 2025-10-24 21:08:42+00:00
I don't "maintain a sleepy state". When I wake up, I wake up, and the dream is gone long before I'd be able to get a pen. All of it. It's pretty much like flicking a switch. I'll often make notes first thing after waking up, and they're never unintelligible, but they'll also never be related to dreams, because the dreams are gone by the time I've picked up a pen, even if it's right next to my bed.

I often set multiple alarms really early. It's never made any difference to my dreams just "switching off".

To me this feels incredibly presumptuous in assuming peoples brains work the same, which is something I'm generally extremely sceptical to given how different I've learned we actually are.
by conartist6 | 2025-10-24 21:08:47+00:00
The goal was never to answer the question. So what if it's worse. It's not worse for the researchers. It's not worse for the CEOs and the people who work for the AI companies. They're bathing in the limelight so their actual goal, as they would state it to themselves, is: "To get my bit of the limelight"
by joshvm | 2025-10-24 21:09:27+00:00
Below freezing is a concern that everyone has in Northern Europe, particularly Scandinavia which has very high per-capita adoption. The units might be harder to find in the US, but they definitely exist.

If you can afford it, and have the land access, you could install a ground-source pump which should benefit from more stable temperatures. As with all heating/cooling, these systems work best if your house is well insulated. That's a much bigger problem in the UK, and I imagine the US too, especially in places where solar gain requires a huge amount of A/C usage.

[1] https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00351-3
by lossolo | 2025-10-24 21:10:10+00:00
It doesn't work like mapping CPU caches/registers into an LLM context. Transformers have no mutable registers, they attend over past tokens and can't update prior state. RAG isn't RAM. Even with huge context, you still can't step CPU style instructions without an external, read/write memory/tooling.

And temperature 0 makes outputs deterministic, not magically correct.
by em-bee | 2025-10-24 21:10:32+00:00
montessori methodology and training (at least as certified by AMI) is a strong selector for teacher quality. trainees have to spend 90 hours in class just observing children and writing reports about their observations as part of their training. they learn to understand what the kids need and how to teach them. i am not aware that traditional teacher education does any of that.

likewise peer quality should not be even a factor because of the way how montessori education works. children are not given the opportunity to disrupt others.

the methodology is all-encompassing. it affects the children from the moment they enter the school, until they leave to go home. most of the potential other factors in the school are eliminated by the methodology itself.

it's hard to envision. you have to observe a class in action to understand why.
by busyant | 2025-10-24 21:10:39+00:00
> but I found that LLMs do a pretty good job of generating Typst code.

Interestingly, I've had the opposite experience. ChatGPT and Claude repeatedly gave me errors, apologized profusely, and then said, "ah, I had the wrong keyword. It's actually <blahblah>"--and that would simply give me another error and a subsequent apology.

At least Gemini had the good taste of telling me that it didn't know how to do what I wanted with typst.

It's certainly possible that I was trying to do something a little too unusual (who knows), but I chalked it up to the LLMs not having a large enough corpus of training text.

On the bright side, the typst documentation is quite good and it was just a matter of adjusting example code that got me on track.
by bityard | 2025-10-24 21:10:41+00:00
Somehow most of my circle of friends are public school teachers. Sure, there are teachers who forgot their "why" and only still do it for the (not very impressive) paycheck and eventual pension. But most teachers really, REALLY care about seeing kids succeed. The problems they talk about frequently are:

1. Lack of support from parents. Many parents treat school as free daycare and are not invested at all in their kids. They don't care of their kid gets good grades, they don't care if they get bad grades. They don't come to parent-teacher conferences. When their kid gets in trouble, they either insist that their kid didn't do anything wrong. Or literally tell the school, "hey, after that morning bell rings, he's your problem, don't hassle me about it."

2. Lack of funding. Need I say more.

3. Lack of authority. If a kid is being constantly disruptive, the teachers are told they just have to deal with it. They can't eject a kid from the classroom for ANY reason except when physical harm is imminent. My son's class had several students who were pretty much allowed to be on their chromebooks all day every day because the alternative was constant verbal abuse toward the their classmates and teacher. My son thought this was deeply unfair. He wasn't wrong.

4. Many school systems have a kind of twisted version of "no child left behind." All the kids who have special educational, emotional, or behavioral needs get plopped into regular classrooms with regular teachers. This is bad for basically everyone. The kids with special needs aren't getting the specialized teaching they require. If they are disruptive (and they often are when they aren't getting what they need), the whole class falls behind in learning because the teacher has to spend 1/2 their time dealing with 1/30th of the class.
by rahimnathwani | 2025-10-24 21:10:54+00:00
Let's compute exactly. 87,654,321 * 98,765,432. So answer: 8,657,216,880,631,672.

Seems like it got one digit wrong. Python tells me the answer is:

8,657,216,880,231,672

I asked gpt-oss-20B the question three times. It took different routes each time. The first time it made some mistakes early on and then spent ages getting more confused. The other two attempts were successful.
by darth_avocado | 2025-10-24 21:10:54+00:00
I’m in California, I have two heat pumps installed. I can sum up the problems as follows:

1. They are EXPENSIVE. The equipment itself isn’t that expensive tbh but installation is pretty expensive. The government subsidies have made sure that the contractors jack up their own prices by as much.

2. I end up paying more in utilities because electricity is very expensive and heat pumps aren’t nearly as good at heating in the winters as old fashioned gas furnaces when it comes to the cost.

I made the massive investment because I could and I eventually want my house to run completely on rooftop solar as a way to reduce my carbon footprint. But the cost is nowhere near mass market adoption price range.