MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by redwood | 2025-10-06 15:48:22+00:00
The point is if the most powerful institutions outside the direct government executive branch do not collectively fight back then essentially the executive branch gets more and more power... this is a slippery slope where we see the erosion of institutions it's a Playbook that has played out in countless countries and it's sad to see it happening here. The most powerful brands have enormous power and if they were to put up a fight they can get allies from the very people you point out ultimately are responsible for this dangerous turn of events
by owenversteeg | 2025-10-06 15:48:28+00:00
I've done this before (not indefinitely, but for many trips around the world.)

I agree with the author on a lot: 1) it's not a good way to live long term, 2) traveling with as little as possible completely transforms the traveling experience, 3) zero-bag travel is great, 4) a good quality small bag with well designed compartments is critical, 5) M-series Macs are the only way to go, 6) two thumb drives is very convenient if you're not worried about searches, 7) darn tough socks, 8) first aid with bandaids/antiseptic/mylar blanket, I also include benadryl, ibuprofen and other common OTC meds.

I disagree on: 1) I prefer a 2M USB-C cord over 1M, 2) I have mostly cotton or merino clothes and try not to use any synthetic fabrics, especially no synthetic underwear, 3) I prefer jeans, especially in colder climates and 4) carrying "stuff" on you long term (like a jacket with things in the pockets) can get sort of annoying after a while.

And finally, extra stuff I carry that the author doesn't: separate camera, snacks (mostly nuts), Garmin inReach, handkerchiefs, wired earbuds, flashlight, knife, an eye mask, sometimes a Travelrest pillow, and two sizes of paper notebooks and pens.
by rockostrich | 2025-10-06 15:48:41+00:00
As always, moderation is important for any normal person. I think that applies to minimalism as well. Use it to cut unnecessary stuff out of your life, but unless you're some outlier then it's probably not good to try and live the most minimalist life that you can without causing some terrible mental health effects along the way.

> I’m shedding hobbies and interests that I have because I believe that they’ve become distractions that I bury myself in.

Maybe you just haven't found the right hobby? Hobbies should feel rewarding, not like a distraction.
by dabockster | 2025-10-06 15:48:54+00:00
That’s a fair point. But I’ve learned from my own life experience to factor in things like Hanlon’s Razor and the Dunning-Kruger Effect when it comes to technology anymore. Especially post-Covid tech.

In this case, while it’s totally possible for this sort of data to still exist somewhere, I think the chances of it surfacing again in any accessible format are rare - purely because of the overall stupidity of the system. Keeping data that “alive” for decades is a skill in itself that seems to only happen in a heavily subsidized “perfect” economic times (at least to the outside observer). Once the going gets tough, there isn’t really any business value to saving the data and it likely gets deleted.
by piva00 | 2025-10-06 15:48:56+00:00
It's not convenient, it's quite sad to be honest. I'm not American nor live in the USA so seeing it from the outside makes me quite sad that Americans believe to be under a democratic system where choosing their representatives matter.

Not even the liberal democracy that one of the parties want is properly a liberal democracy, it is to the limits where it infringes into business needs, and moneyed interests. They can't fight the system that enables them to exist.

There are the token attempts to make it look less than that, to appear more altruistic: ACA, better paths for immigrants to be legally integrated into society, etc. but overall the majority of Democrats are also entirely bound to the powers that fuel their campaigns, money is the only real power in the end.

The issue with the other party increasingly becoming more authoritarian and extreme over time is a side-effect from grievances caused exactly by the issue of the people not having actual any power to course-correct policies, there aren't many policy choices, it's business and money or business and money and fascism. Normal people were led to believe they can just become one of the moneyed elites if they just work hard enough, and government stays out of their way, so they vote against their interests as what they are: common people.

I wish the USA would learn that a two-party system eventually will breakdown, that it will eventually cause the fracture to be too great, and that some members of the politician class would use this wedge as a weapon to achieve power, just like what happened with the GOP. You simply cannot have only 2 parties to determine the political will of 300+ million people, it's impossible that either of them represent the variety of wants and needs of the whole population but you are stuck with that.

Continuing democracy as it was before also doesn't seem to be a good solution, it was exactly the system that brought into power the current tyrants. Too many norms, protocols, and procedures relying on tradition and decorum rather than codified, it was bound to be abused at some point, and it's quite incredible it has lasted this long.
by ndiddy | 2025-10-06 15:49:37+00:00
Microsoft's whole plan with Game Pass was that by buying up half the industry they'd get enough subscribers to justify the massive expense of buying and funding all those studios, but subscriber growth went flat far sooner than they expected. It's bad enough that Microsoft hasn't updated the official subscriber figures since 2024, but from a former Game Pass manager's figures on LinkedIn it's only grown from 34 million subscribers in 2024 to 35 million this year. I imagine this new free plan is a ploy to increase the number of subscribers they can report so Game Pass looks like less of a disaster. To compare, there's at least 10 million fewer Game Pass subscribers now than there were Xbox Live subscribers in 2015 (48 million). This is a fair comparison to make because Xbox Live got rolled into Game Pass a couple years ago (called Game Pass Core) as part of a previous attempt to juice the Game Pass subscriber numbers.

For one example of how Game Pass affects game sales, Microsoft internally estimated they lost $300 million in sales of Call of Duty Black Ops 6, the first Call of Duty game they published after buying Activision, due to Game Pass (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-03/xbox-s-ga...). They would have needed 15 million new subscribers for 1 month, or 1.25 million subscribers for 1 year, to make up the difference in lost sales. I don't think it's any wonder that we're seeing Microsoft hike the price on Game Pass and lay off thousands of game developers. I just wish they'd thought through all this beforehand so we could have avoided messing up all these people's livelihoods for what is a fundamentally bad idea (selling $60-70 games on a $15-$20 subscription).
by ronsor | 2025-10-06 15:49:39+00:00
To anyone who thinks about our current situation for than a few minutes, AI is

* Clearly useful to people who are already competent developers and security researchers

* Utterly useless to people who have no clue what they're doing

But the latter group's incompetency does not make AI useless in the same way that a fighter jet is not useless because a toddler cannot pilot it.
by Pfeil | 2025-10-06 15:49:44+00:00
Still not Habecks legacy. This was decided under Merkel.

Besides, CO2eq are often wrongly measured with nuclear energy, ignoring building emissions and effect on the water temperature in rivers (every summer more and more plants need to shut down because of this), etc. Even if this would be done right, there are again and again longer periods where Germany exports energy to France because their reactors are often in maintenance. In the end I would say it is always a bad idea to rely on only one technology to a large degree. Only a well done mix makes you resiliant.
by John7878781 | 2025-10-06 15:50:08+00:00
People are going to inevitably hate on this because... well it's ads.

But in my opinion, having an ad-supported tier is actually a good thing. It makes gaming more accessible to people who can't afford/don't want to purchase expensive gaming PCs.

Plus, it adds competition with nvidia's geforce streaming service (which is already ad-supported).
by hylaride | 2025-10-06 15:50:52+00:00
Also Israel - and their tech echo system is tier 1.

As somebody that has also done work in Korea (with on of their banks), my observation was that almost all decision making was top-down, and people were forced to do a ton of monotonous work based on the whims of upper management, and people below could not talk back. I literally stood and watched a director walk in after racking a bunch of equipment and commented that the disk arrays should be higher up. When I asked why (they were at the bottom for weight and centre of gravity reasons), he looked shocked that I even asked and tersely said that the blinking lights of the disks at eye level show the value of the purchase better.

I can't imagine writing software in that kind of environment. It'd be almost impossible to do clean work, and even if you did it'd get interfered with. On top of that nobody could go home before the boss.

I did enjoy the fact that the younger Koreans we were working with asked me and my colleague how old we were, because my colleague was 10 years older than me and they were flabbergasted that I was not deferring to him in every conversation, even though we were both equals professionally.

This was circa 2010, so maybe things are better, but oh my god I'm glad it was business trips and I was happy to be flying home each time (though my mouth still waters at the marinaded beef at the bbq restaurants I went to...).
by gjsman-1000 | 2025-10-06 15:50:57+00:00
In recent discussions about technology, I've come to feel that there's a persistent and flawed belief in "technical utopianism" - not the beautiful future of 2050 kind - but the idea that we can use technology to solve political problems.

For example, we might think that tools like ICEBlock can solve the issue of ICE, or that duress PINs on GrapheneOS can protect whistleblowers, or that VPNs in China can defeat censorship. While these technologies can certainly help mitigate specific challenges, they don't address the underlying political issues. They also often backfire - ICEBlock could theoretically be subpoenaed, duress PIN use can come with mandatory prison sentences, VPNs in China can be detected and blocked at a network level, then traced back to your SIM card.

Historically, technological solutions alone have not resolved political problems. At best, they act as temporary workarounds. To believe otherwise risks oversimplifying complex social and political dynamics, which contributes to the us-versus-them, good-versus-evil narrative that almost never holds in reality. The banning of technological solutions does not necessarily push us towards a more authoritarian future, but forces us to confront reality without a band-aid.

This also causes any restraint on such technological solutions to become rather confused. For example, the article calls out Apple for blocking and removing VPNs in China as "evil." Tell me, what's the alternative? Apple defies the Chinese government, allows VPNs, gets iPhones blocked from all carrier networks in seconds, has their Chinese employees arrested, and almost everyone is forced to use spyware-infested Huawei devices? Amazing moral stand there. Same with ICEBlock - if Apple didn't ban it, who is to say their server company, or the author himself, wouldn't receive a visit?
by legacynl | 2025-10-06 15:52:23+00:00
> but what about the things that you would have never even tried without it

The problem with that is that there's a lot of cases where a total newbie engaging with some subject could lead to problems. They have a false confidence in their abilities, while not knowing what they don't know.

What if you want to try chemistry and ask the AI about what you need to know. Since you don't know anything about chemistry you don't know if the answers are complete or correct. Because you don't know about chemistry you also don't know about the dangers you need to ask about, what prevention to take, etc.

The same could be said about many different subjects: rock-climbing, home-improvement, electrical work, car maintenance, etc.

You might argue then that it would still be perfect for low-risk subjects, but how would a total newbie be able to validly determine risks of anything they don't know anything about?
by ashton314 | 2025-10-06 15:52:45+00:00
Kent Dybvig also wrote Chez Scheme [1] which on most benchmarks is far-and-away the fastest [2] Scheme implementation.

Racket recently got rewritten to be based off of Chez [3] and I have it from the maintainer of Racket himself that it’s paid off well: better performance and a smaller, more maintainable codebase.

1: https://github.com/cisco/ChezScheme (also, pronounced “Shay Scheme”)

2: https://ecraven.github.io/r7rs-benchmarks/

3: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s3Q3M2wZ7rI&pp=0gcJCRsBo7VqN5t...
by qwertox | 2025-10-06 15:52:46+00:00
What his enemies (CDU/AfD) don't mention is that even they wouldn't have been able to undo the stop.

But being in the opposition must be a fun thing since you can say the most beautiful sounding things and never have to actually deliver anything.

AfD even goes a step beyond raw stupidity because they want to destroy all the wind turbines. So not just stop the ones already delivering energy, but destroy them. They just don't realize that we need every bit of energy we can get. They have some donating friends which are against wind turbines, because of the looks.

It was close to funny how Elon Musk held back his disagreement with the AfD regarding their wish to destroy the wind turbines.

I'd go so far as to say that the only reason why Germany has the political and societal problems it has now are only due to the constrain in energy.
by wincy | 2025-10-06 15:53:19+00:00
I know, but that’s not funny and doesn’t let me make a joke about Dude Wipes in the same breath as Clair Obscur (a fantastic game). I remember being broke and having a person I barely knew buy me Diablo 3.

I definitely would have used this experience 15 years ago. I’m not actually opposed to it, but it is funny to imagine a depraved utopia where truly nothing is sacred, furthermore these jokes serve as a way to inoculate ourselves against reaching that technologically possible but hopefully ethically dubious destination.
by CharlesW | 2025-10-06 15:53:59+00:00
> The point is if the most powerful institutions outside the direct government executive branch do not collectively fight back then essentially the executive branch gets more and more power...

Apple is not going to save us. https://sixcolors.com/post/2025/10/apples-iceblock-capitulat...

…even if the company does “the right thing,” it won’t be a decision taken from a moral standpoint. It will be practical. Mercenary. Because that is what is demanded by this technological/capitalist terror we’ve devised for ourselves. That’s the rules of the game. Them’s the breaks. When Apple made the decision to stand firm in the San Bernardino case, it did so not because it was the right thing to do, but because its business reputation relies on its claims of privacy and security.
by codyb | 2025-10-06 15:54:05+00:00
Absolutely!

I plan to slow purchases to the bare minimum as well. Sadly, there's not a ton of competition in the electronics space.

And yea, refurbs bolster the market since it increases resale value.

That being said, I'm doing something, and all these small actions add up when they're done by many. If we all piss in the wind a little, it can add up to a waterfall.
by LeifCarrotson | 2025-10-06 15:54:13+00:00
I met a family who had just moved to Wisconson from Italy last week. The four of them (Mom, Dad, ~14yo son, and ~12yo daughter) packed everything they were going to bring with them into a backpack and two checked bags each. Incredible! What would you pick?

I have a garage and a shed (OK, fine, it's a 24x36 barn) and a basement and a home office that barely contain the enormous quantity of my stuff at home. And yet I honestly think the highlight of this summer was waking up to the sunrise on one of the remotest parts of the Appalachian trail through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, with no possessions that wouldn't fit in a 22L ultralight backpack - including several of the same items as this guy's kit.

On the one hand, most of the stuff is replaceable, "fungible" if you like, rather than sentimental. On the other, I keep it because I like to have certain capabilities, like cooking and auto repair and home building - I can't fit a tablesaw or pressure washer or food processor in a backpack; I've got a rack of 24 giant totes in the garage with painting supplies and plumbing supplies and bike parts and specialty auto repair tool cases and on and on that each occupy more volume than the one backpack this guy lives out of. I also recognize that this is a colossally inefficient way to allocate things among a group of people: I'm not going to pay a painter $1500 to do a crappy job to repaint my bathroom when I can do it myself with far greater quality for $100 in paint and a couple hundred bucks worth of tools in a giant tote, and neither are most of my neighbors, but this means that a sizeable fraction of people in the neighborhood live around our own personal totes of painting supplies.

If I was going to pay someone else to build and repair and maintain and clean the house/apartment/condo/hotel that I live in (when I'm not in a tent, that's only about 5% of my time), and to take care of the cars and bikes that I ride in and on, and to cook the variety of food that I eat, and on and on, I would have a lot less stuff. If I bought tools to do these tasks that I would use once and then sell/give/throw them away...that would be unaffordable for me. One of the lessons that my Dad passed down to me is to never buy a thing unless you have the resources in time, price of consumables, tools, and space to clean it, maintain it, fix it, and store it - those are real costs beyond the sticker price of a new toy.

Where does the money come from that allows one to sleep in hotels, ride in rental cars, travel in airports, and eat in restaurants for years on end?
by weavejester | 2025-10-06 15:54:14+00:00
> There was no framework for diplomacy or democracy within the kingdom. Your argument looks more like you've jumped to violence and lawlessness, even given alternatives.

Why do you assume that disobeying unjust laws automatically implies violence?

The only example I've given that involves violence is the American War of Independence, and only then because it's particularly pertinent to the idea that Americans have a duty to disobey unjust laws. All my other examples have been non-violent civil disobedience.

When someone tells me that they believe they have a duty to disobey unjust laws, my first thought isn't that they intend to be violent; it's that they intend to engage in non-violent civil disobedience. You can believe that you have a duty to disobey unjust laws and also believe that violence is a last resort.

> Is the US occupied by a foreign military, or are you just ignoring the political options at your disposal because you'd prefer to focus on how fast we can jump to arms and shoot each other?

The US was founded by foreign invaders. This is why I ask how recent a conquest needs to be.

By the time Gandhi was protesting in the 1930s, India had been under British rule for over 170 years. If Gandhi is morally justified to defy laws set by the invading British, then Native Americans are surely morally justified to defy laws set by the invading US government.

And again, you jump to the idea that defying unjust laws automatically means shooting people.

> It's sometimes more effective in the absence of alternatives. And non-violent civil obedience is most often effective and in most cases far more persuasive with the majority. Prioritize your efforts. No need to get violent when we can be disobedient.

Then we effectively agree. How long do you think we should give a government to fix an unjust law before engaging in civil disobedience and disobeying that law? Presumably it depends on the severity of the injustice, but I'm interested to get a feel for your intuition on this.

> It was already unconstitutional. She didn't break the law. The judicial branch doesn't make new laws, it interprets existing ones. Her disobedience was lawful, and only required because she lacked a platform to reach the courts.

So is someone justified in breaking the law if they believe that law will be overturned by a higher one? What if they're wrong?

Also, how would we test laws for constitutionality if no-one ever breaks those laws? Surely there needs to be something that brings the case in the first place.

> Even if it were unlawful behavior, it is not a duty. I have no imperative to go looking for laws to break, and anyone who tells me I have to is sick.

So if someone tells you that you have a duty to behave morally, that person is sick? Doesn't that include the vast majority of Americans, who at least in theory follow religions that advocate people act morally above all else?

You seem to acknowledge that civil disobedience, even violence, can be justified as a last resort. Yet you also seem to hold legal obligations higher than moral ones, and are dismissive of people who'd choose morality over legality.
by CaptArmchair | 2025-10-06 15:54:39+00:00
I'll put it like this.

Close by where I live is a monument for civilians who were taken from their houses and shot by the German occupiers during the last months of WWII. Simply because they were suspected of having distributed pamphlets. There wasn't even evidence to that claim, and retribution was a thing.

I passed that monument countless of times during my youth, giving me pause to contemplate.

It's a tangible reminder of what ultimately happens when people stay silent about something as final and poignant as one group denying the existence of another group for whatever reasons.

I have no problem with expressing differences over world views. I take issue when that world view entails denying the other side's existence because of differences, and a fervent intent to act on that notion.

It's a matter of boundaries, and speaking up.
by mrweasel | 2025-10-06 15:55:12+00:00
This is starting to become really weird. How much can ads actually fund? The quality of the ads and the products they sell are both going straight down. If we filter out ads for various subscriptions to other apps and game, as well as down right scams, we left with Temu ads and the occasional ads for the local supermarket.

There has to be a limit to how much honest companies can fund via ads and I think we're way past that limit.
by martin_a | 2025-10-06 15:55:34+00:00
Panels etc. have become really cheap now: https://www.globus-baumarkt.de/p/schwaiger-balkonkraftwerk-8...

That's 0,38 Euro/W of panel power, including inverter and cable. And there might be a solid price uptick on that because of the shop that's selling it. Wholesale from specialized shops is probably much cheaper...
by patrakov | 2025-10-06 15:56:34+00:00
Feature requests:

1. Ability to add a debit card and receive a "just use a debit card" advice.

2. Ability to enter single-transaction limits on cards. The absurdly low and non-negotiable online transaction limit on my debit card (30,000 PHP = 515 USD) is the only reason why I had to apply for a credit card.

3. Ability to enter bank conditions like "if you don't spend 50,000 PHP monthly from this card, we'll apply a 500 PHP service charge".