MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by jph00 | 2025-10-09 09:23:30+00:00
(2) is not quite right. I created ULMFiT specifically because I thought a language model pretrained on a large general corpus then fine-tuned was the right way to go for creating generally capable NLP models. It wasn't an accident.

The fact that, sometime later, GPT-2 could do zero-shot generation was indeed something a lot of folks got excited about, but that was actually not the correct path. The 3-step ULMFiT approach (causal LM training on general corpus then specialised corpus, then classification task fine tuning) was what ChatGPT 3.5 Instruct used, which formed the basis of the first ChatGPT product.

So although it took quite a while to take off, the idea of the LLM was quite intentional and has largely developed as I planned (even although at the time almost no-one else felt the same way; luckily Alec Radford did, however! He told me in 2018 that reading the ULMFiT paper was a big "omg" moment for him and he set to work on GPT right away.)

PS: On (1), if I may take a moment to highlight my team's recent work, we updated BERT last year to create ModernBERT, which showed that yes, this approach still has legs. Our models have had >1.5m downloads and there's >2k fine-tunes and variants of it now on Huggingface: https://huggingface.co/models?search=modernbert
by hermitcrab | 2025-10-09 09:23:51+00:00
Thanks for the links. Weight may cancel out of the equations, but (being a bit pedantic) I suspect 'glide angle in independent of weight' only holds up to a point. Taking things to extremes, if the glider is heavy enough that you are going to have to go supersonic then I suspect a lot of the assumptions become invalid.

NB/ spherical cows are unable to glide in a vacuum.
by ChrisMarshallNY | 2025-10-09 09:23:59+00:00
Yeah. I find it disappointing.

It's not LinkedIn "broetry." It's fairly classic advice, like I've been reading for 40 years.

Moore is a decent chap. We don't really have much to do with each other, because we fly in different orbits, but I've enjoyed his contributions, and find his approach fairly mature and sane, compared to a lot.

I feel as if a lot of people work hard to make this a darker place, and appreciate it, when folks try to encourage a more positive zeitgeist.
Show HN: SHAI – a (yet another) open-source, terminal-native AI coding assistant
by Marlinski | 2025-10-09 09:24:22+00:00
Since I mostly work within the terminal, I wanted an AI coding assistant that integrates seamlessly with it. Something I could call from SSH, integrate into scripts or just invoke quickly without leaving the shell. Most existing tools (at the time) were either closed, required various dependencies, or tied to a specific vendor. I wanted a free, open-source alternative that:

- installs with a single binary (useful on bare servers)

- talks to any LLM endpoint and especially self-hosted open weight model

- could run headless, composable, and Unix-like

SHAI stands for SHell AI! Along the way I couldn’t find a `lite-llm` equivalent for Rust, so I built the crate `shai-llm`. I tried to make it as modular as possible so new tools can be added, UIs swapped, or an API layered on top. It was also my first major project in rust, I hope you'll like it :)

Key features:

- Open-source and LLM-agnostic: connect to any OpenAI-compatible endpoint

- Works out of the box using OVHcloud AI Endpoints (unauthenticated, strongly rate-limited)

- Function calling and MCP support (with OAuth)

- Custom Agent Configuration (model, system prompt, tool set)

SHAI is still evolving, but it's part of Hacktoberfest so contributions and feedback are most welcome.
by jacquesm | 2025-10-09 09:24:51+00:00
You've got Musk's self interest massively misjudged. He cares about power first and money second because power can get you more money when you need it, but in a functioning democracy money still comes with a cap on the power that you can buy.

The $200 million was money well spent, it resulted into Musk staying out of jail and pulling up the ladder behind him now that's he the incumbent. The success or failure of Tesla in the marketplace at some point could have killed Musk's empire but I think we are now past that point: Tesla will survive and more friction for contenders serves him well.

Finally, there is a timing issue here as well: when Musk spent that money he was set to become a favored player at the court of Trump if Trump won, which happened. But that didn't really play out long term in the way he expected. So in a sense you are confusing the position that Musk took prior to Trump's election with the consequences almost a year later, which Musk could not have known with certainty at the time, even if it is a mixed blessing for Tesla, and probably a bigger loss to the challengers rather than to the incumbent.
by whstl | 2025-10-09 09:25:08+00:00
+1.

I'm a huge fan of custom linter rules.

Instead of going through PRs and nit-picking stuff, I just create new custom linter rules that catch those team-specific or project-specific things.

This has the positive effect of making things way more welcoming for junior devs and newcomers. Nothing replaces getting the first PR with almost no PR comments thanks to a linter.

I hate that a lot of people read the assertion that "PR reviews are a form of creating an internal coding culture" and become human linters, only nit picking PRs for the power trip. This is not only annoying but also makes people ignore the more important parts of the review.

I even made it a rule in every team I managed: if something is bothering you constantly in PRs and it can be replaced by a custom linter rule, let it go and write a linter rule for that later. I only met two people in my career who opposed this, and that was 100% because it made their nit-picking redundant.
by user34283 | 2025-10-09 09:25:10+00:00
Not really. There's few places on Reddit where you will be banned for expressing liberal opinions.

/r/conservative, a place for conservatives to discuss "from a distinctly conservative point of view", is one of them. It's kind of also in the name.

Do they ban conservatives for criticizing Trump? I don't know, perhaps. I'm going to assume many such comments on there will in fact be made by liberals.

Meanwhile, I was immediately permabanned from my country subreddit when I expressed a pro-Israel opinion in the comment section of a relevant post. In the Modmail I sent, the "moderator" basically insulted me.
by Lazycathy | 2025-10-09 09:25:49+00:00
I built a client-side tool that detects and removes 30+ types of invisible Unicode characters (zero-width spaces, joiners, em dashes) that AI systems like ChatGPT may use for watermarking text.

• 100% client-side - your text never leaves your browser • Detects zero-width spaces (U+200B), joiners (U+200D), and other invisible markers • Real-time detection with character visualization • No registration, no tracking, completely free • Multi-language support (EN/DE/ES)

Built with vanilla JavaScript, no frameworks. All processing happens locally for privacy.
by alansammarone | 2025-10-09 09:26:10+00:00
after reading so many people argue about this over the last few years (and having had my own experience - I've been writing software professionally for close to 15 years), I've come to believe people are talking past each other because different people enjoy or excel at different aspects of coding.

at the very least, there's people who enjoy the experience of hand-crafting software - typing, being "in the zone", thinking slowly through the details.

then there are others, like me, who enjoy thinking abstractly about the pieces and how they fit together. might as well be doing algebraic topology. nothing bores me more than having to type precise but arbitrary syntax for 5 hrs (assuming you've decided to use the brain capacity to memorize it), and having to fight compiler/small logic errors throughout. I like the thinking, not the doing.

yes, we havent needed AI to build this for decades. we did however need to waste a hell of a lot of time doing essentially physical, mechanical work with your fingers.
by jononor | 2025-10-09 09:26:14+00:00
Which companies would, if they alone become radically more effective, actually be able to radically change impact on their industry? The vast majority of companies are in value chains, where practical value creation depends also on the suppliers and customers of the company. Often there are multiple suppliers and customers, and sometimes there are multiple levels of relationships on each side... That places constrains/inefficiencies on how quickly and how much one can achieve.
by crote | 2025-10-09 09:27:02+00:00
The applications for batteries were painfully obvious long before li-ion batteries were a thing.

Rechargable batteries have been around since the 1850s. The idea of "battery, but smaller" isn't exactly a hard sell when you already have devices with huge NiMH / NiCd battery bricks attached to them. Just look at the laptops and mobile phones from the 90s!

On the other hand, VR is almost entirely a solution looking for a problem. VR headsets have been around since the 80s. Sure they sucked, but the fact that there still isn't a killer app forty years later should be a good indication that the concept itself perhaps isn't too attractive.

VR development is driven solely by Facebook's desire to sell VR, not by customer demand for better VR headsets. If the current headsets aren't good enough, a 50% lighter / faster one isn't going to make a difference.
by Sophira | 2025-10-09 09:27:40+00:00
Does Ars Technica regularly publish things like this? It's the first time I've seen a non-tech-related article from them.

(I'm not complaining, mind you - I did find it very interesting to read. It just doesn't strike me as typical AT content, or at least not the kind that people typically share for it. Thank you to OP for doing so!)
by azangru | 2025-10-09 09:28:02+00:00
Vercel employs maybe half [correction, maybe a quarter] of the React core team. For example, at the keynote at React Conf 2025, it was mentioned that Andrew Clark, who, if I am not mistaken, is employed by Vercel, worked on resolving the rendering issue of React that was blocking the release of React 19 after it was discovered in the release candidate.

Vercel and Next.js have been the main testing ground during the development of React server components as well.

How much has Vercel contributed to the development of react over the past years?
by Aldipower | 2025-10-09 09:29:04+00:00
"They also looked at his medical history, which was relatively short. He was born in Central America, but he had lived in the US for 16 years."

Interesting constellation of sentences. So, the most important thing in a medical history seems to be where you've been born. Is Central America or the US better/worse for your health I wonder? That is not going to be clear here.
by shafyy | 2025-10-09 09:30:11+00:00
This is always the same age-old discussion: Can you separate the art from the arists? And unsurprisingly, different people have different views on it. Even if you disagree, you should be able to understand why people don't want to use a product if their usage of that product makes the owner and CEO more powerful (and they think them being more powerful is a bad thing for humanity).

Edit to add a simple example:

Musk's wealth is mostly tied up in Tesla -> You think Musk uses his wealth to wield political power, political power that makes the world a worse place -> You still think Teslas are good cars -> Even though you think that, you don't want to spend your money on buying a Tesla, because this will make Musk more wealthly -> Start at the beginning
by simonh | 2025-10-09 09:30:51+00:00
Humans do still manually trade. The existence of HFTs doesn't prevent or interfere with that, in fact it makes it easier by ensuring that prices are more likely to be converged to a consensus market price at any given millisecond.

Thinks of it like this. When I put in a trade at human speeds based on business fundamentals, I'm not looking that the millisecond by millisecond prices, I just put in a price I am willing to accept and if the market reaches that price I get execution. HFT makes that easier and more efficient across markets by ensuring prices are converged rapidly.

How do you think it makes it harder or worse? If I put in an order to buy at $x on a particular market because I think the stock is worth more than that for business reasons, what is it about the existence of HFT that is a problem for me?
by mythz | 2025-10-09 09:31:07+00:00
I don't understand the entitlement here?

Somehow because Meta has released a popular OSS library and dedicated over 10 years of engineering resources to it (that has generated immense value for the wider ecosystem), that they should've shelled out more than the $3M they're contributing in order to give its ownership away to a non-profit.

Maybe it's just me but I think they've contributed more than enough. I'm grateful for what they've already contributed and anything else they choose to contribute in future.
by jbstack | 2025-10-09 09:31:57+00:00
I have the same policy. It's not worth risking your life just to save a bit of money or try some gadget that is only made by a no-name brand. Often you keep these devices very close to your body or head (e.g. earphones) where they can do a lot of damage if they suddenly explode.

I learned this lesson over 10 years ago when I was visiting a night market in China with someone. He was so delighted with how cheap the portable chargers were that he bought a bunch to give to his friends/family back home. When we returned to the hotel one of them started emitting smoke. From that day I've only ever bought reputable brands, and even then I worry about it.
by skrebbel | 2025-10-09 09:32:04+00:00
> your descriptions of right-wing parties are too caricatural for you to not be biased

Fair, obviously I'm a leftie. But I don't believe that PVV voters are going to be equally angry when FvD wins the elections than when D66 does. I can make caricatures and still understand that about right-wing voters.

Plus we have the exact same on the left, you can choose between the closeted maoists, the educated-elites-pretending-to-care-about-workers party, the educated-elites-not-even-pretending-to-care-about-workers party, the God-loves-workers-but-hates-gays party and the party against the humans (but for the animals).

Seriously the only party I can't come up with an obvious caricature of is CDA but then again they don't really stand for anything so it fits.
by afaik69 | 2025-10-09 09:33:02+00:00
sorry op is a fish. or more a whale. look at this hand from him (op is "reillychase")

calls a 3bet from small blind with A7o - very bad openjams with bottom pair on a flush flop into 2 players...wtf is this?!

but op uses AI....lol

PokerStars Hand #257890817589: Hold'em No Limit ($0.01/$0.02 USD) - 2025/10/08 22:04:41 ET Table 'Acrux' 6-max Seat #4 is the button Seat 1: MillyPoo42 ($2.61 in chips) Seat 2: Pershgn ($10.14 in chips) Seat 3: Sikcat95 ($3 in chips) Seat 4: gcee3 ($5.79 in chips) Seat 5: prljaminone ($0.82 in chips) Seat 6: reillychase ($2 in chips) prljaminone: posts small blind $0.01 reillychase is disconnected reillychase is connected reillychase: posts big blind $0.02 ** HOLE CARDS ** Dealt to reillychase [As 7c] MillyPoo42 is disconnected MillyPoo42 is connected MillyPoo42: raises $0.04 to $0.06 Pershgn: raises $0.04 to $0.10 Sikcat95: folds gcee3: folds prljaminone: folds reillychase: calls $0.08 MillyPoo42: calls $0.04 ** FLOP ** [8d 7d Qd] reillychase: bets $1.90 and is all-in MillyPoo42: calls $1.90 Pershgn: calls $1.90 ** TURN ** [8d 7d Qd] [8h] MillyPoo42: checks Pershgn: checks ** RIVER ** [8d 7d Qd 8h] [6d] MillyPoo42: bets $0.61 and is all-in Pershgn: calls $0.61 ** SHOW DOWN ** MillyPoo42: shows [5h Ad] (a flush, Ace high) Pershgn: shows [Kh Kc] (two pair, Kings and Eights) MillyPoo42 collected $1.15 from side pot reillychase: shows [As 7c] (two pair, Eights and Sevens) MillyPoo42 collected $5.68 from main pot ** SUMMARY ** Total pot $7.23 Main pot $5.68. Side pot $1.15. | Rake $0.40 Board [8d 7d Qd 8h 6d] Seat 1: MillyPoo42 showed [5h Ad] and won ($6.83) with a flush, Ace high Seat 2: Pershgn showed [Kh Kc] and lost with two pair, Kings and Eights Seat 3: Sikcat95 folded before Flop (didn't bet) Seat 4: gcee3 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet) Seat 5: prljaminone (small blind) folded before Flop Seat 6: reillychase (big blind) showed [As 7c] and lost with two pair, Eights and Sevens
by donatj | 2025-10-09 09:33:44+00:00
> Stabilizers and thickeners, as defined in Section 170.3(o)(28) of Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

...

> “Stabilizers and thickeners: Substances used to produce viscous solutions or dispersions, to impart body, improve consistency, or stabilize emulsions, including suspending and bodying agents, setting agents, jellying agents, and bulking agents, etc.”

So ... flour? Actually healthier things with scarier names like xanthan gum?
by hellotheretoday | 2025-10-09 09:34:08+00:00
Diet is part of the problem but a big part of the issue is the inherent sedentary lifestyle associated with American infrastructure and suburban development. If you design tons of housing in a way that encourages people to utilize cars as much as possible, invest as little as possible into infrastructure like public sidewalks and bike lanes, etc then don’t be shocked when your populace becomes fat and lazy, especially when you combine this with a carbohydrate/sugar rich diet. The EU has a worsening diet. Japan eats more carbs than America. What’s the difference? They naturally walk much more as part of their daily routine because their governments invest in communities rather than stealing tax money to launder to military contractors.

Whenever I travel outside the USA I am always astounded at how little effort I need to put into getting my daily steps vs when I am at home. At home it is a concentrated effort
by iyn | 2025-10-09 09:35:00+00:00
I see the author is here — I wonder if you also handle PDFs? Quick look at the site indicates that yes, but could you tell more about it? Do you also have a custom parser/serializer? Do you allow for PDF editing?

The reason for asking, is that I've had a shower thought of building custom PDF/doc reader for myself, that would allow me to easily take notes and integrate with Anki. Been doing that in Obsidian with the pdf plugin, but it's too slow. At the same time, I've heard that PDF spec is not easy to work with, so I'm curious about your experience on that front.
by JdeBP | 2025-10-09 09:35:00+00:00
The entirely opposite perspective is quite interesting:

The "natural numbers" are the biggest mis-nomer in mathematics. They are the most un-Natural ones. The numbers that occur in Nature are almost always complex, and are neither integers nor rationals (nor even algebraics).

When you approach reality through the lens of mathematics that concentrates the most upon these countable sets, you very often end up with infinite series in order to express physical reality, from Feynman sums to Taylor expansions.
by jonathanlydall | 2025-10-09 09:35:09+00:00
These days I look somewhat disdainfully upon heavy drinkers, not only do they often disturb others when drinking (being noisy, obtrusive, drunk driving, etc.), but even ignoring long term health effects, I'm in my 40s now and it's definitely a factor too, but for at least a day after even very moderate drinking I know my mental faculties are reduced, so I can only imagine how much theirs are.

I very rarely have alcohol these days, it's just not worth the feeling of fatigue and brain fogginess the next day that's pretty much guaranteed for me afterwards, even from just 2 beers.

I suspect it's not unique to South Africa, but there is a somewhat pervasive culture here of excessive drinking. Back when I lived in a complex, I would often see people pitch up in the common area at midday with a cooler box full of beer, and basically sit there for the next 6 hours just drinking, what a waste of a day in my view. And most people don't even raise an eyebrow when someone casually mentions in the workplace this is how they spent their weekend. That the police here are both incompetent and readily bribe-able also makes the effects of excessive drinking particularly pronounced, like traffic lights being regularly knocked over.
by LaurensBER | 2025-10-09 09:36:37+00:00
I understand, and while I don't fully agree I do agree that having some insight into biases could be relevant since moderation choices are always subjective.

I would prefer not to link my Reddit account to my HN account furthermore it's common for comments to be deleted at a ban so I'm unable to give you the exact comments but happy to provide insight into any (perceived) biased! I have voted D66 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrats_66) during the last elections, I'll let you do your own assessment of their standpoints.

I understand your frustration about the (perceived) narrative of censorship. But I think we can agree that censorship of _viewpoints_ (no matter who it's coming from) is a bad thing.

Unfortunately that seems to be rather rampant on Reddit and is the main point in my original post. As others have pointed out /r/conservative also seems to suffer from bad moderation so this seems more like an issue with Reddit than something coming from a particular political flank.

Hope this answers your concerns!
by dsign | 2025-10-09 09:36:45+00:00
If CSAM through social/communication platforms were the actual problem society wanted to address, it could simply make illegal for kids to use those platforms but put the onus of enforcement on parents and schools, and impose fines on any parents/school who allow their kids to participate on anything online--chat, games, social media, forums, and even SMS and phone calls. Of course, that's super-draconian, but way less so than installing mass surveillance.
by dijit | 2025-10-09 09:37:00+00:00
I think the argument here is guilt by association.

It's a bit like banning entry into the US because you've visited Russia.

It doesn't really matter how Russia runs their own country, you might have even gone there to argue against totalitarian dictatorships.

But a US border guard looking at your passport and rejecting your entry based on that alone feels like overreach.

How subs choose to moderate their content is roughly speaking sort of fine, as long as there's no organised harassment, sharing of illegal materials (child porn, revenge porn, war materials etc) and threats of violence or death.