MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by ip26 | 2025-10-04 22:15:59+00:00
Have you ever lived in a townhome or condo? I feel the need to note that those HOA are responsible for the maintenance, repair, and upkeep of everything outside the drywall. Owner overfills dumpster? HOA is fined by sanitation. Owner dumps water on sidewalk, water freezes, neighbor slips and falls? HOA may be liable. You might celebrate, because “down with the HOA!” but when the roof needs to be replaced, it’s paid for by the HOA bank account. If that’s empty, either the roof is left to leak or you are paying a special assessment.

I’m a bit biased, I’ll admit, as I once served on such an HOA that was near the brink of insolvency and wrestling with owners who would dodge their share of funding basic maintenance for years at a time.

Most of the ire, perhaps, is really directed at single-family HOAs, however.
by pclmulqdq | 2025-10-04 22:16:41+00:00
My personal suspicion as to how this stuff matters for the timbre of a piano is that there are maybe two mechanisms aside from the obvious one (velocity of the hammer):

1. Subtle movements of the damper, which is linearly linked to the key. You can hear this interference with the string if you get the string loudly and don't completely release the key/pedal.

2. Some second-order effects that alter the post-escapement flight of the hammer. There is still some friction in there, and most piano actions have a lot of wood parts that can flex a little.

I sort of doubt #2 there, honestly.

Another thing you learn as a pianist is that literally nothing matters for the sound except what happens at the point of contact between the hammer (and the damper) and the string. If you want to unravel piano timbre, you should worry about that.
by rhetocj23 | 2025-10-04 22:17:34+00:00
This is a whole bunch of noise, the reality is the only thing matters is adoption. The UK has tried pushing some form of digital ID for years, and its led to nothing. The old traditional means of verifying oneself has continued to be the way, and will be the way, until the ID is coupled with tremendous economic benefits for which folks are happy to adopt it.
by tptacek | 2025-10-04 22:17:42+00:00
It's illegal in Illinois. And when the scandal happened, we weren't impacted, because we'd already disabled out-of-state sharing many months prior.

Which was an annoying lift, because Chicago is part of a tri-state area (Wisconsin and Indiana); there are de-facto suburbs of Chicago in other states, and we had to say "no sharing without a phone call authorizing it".
by flubbins_groove | 2025-10-04 22:18:04+00:00
> The biggest issue is with expired domains they park it to a web page that advertises other people. Would like to avoid that.

Even if you find a registrar that claims not to do that. Nothing is stopping another company (such as a competitor) from grabbing the domain once it expires and pointing it at whatever they want.

FWIW: I've been a Gandi user for ~15 years so they're really the only ones I can recommend. I'd avoid GoDaddy.
by hn_throwaway_99 | 2025-10-04 22:19:13+00:00
I previously lived in a condo building. I was unfortunately unlucky to have a really shitty neighbor (and I liked and got along well with everyone else on my floor). This neighbor, who was in her 40s, was apparently a trust-funder that came from a wealthy family and she didn't work, and thus would have parties at 4 AM on Monday morning (among others). She ruined my quality of life.

Originally the condo association gave her some minimal fines, but she was wealthy enough that it was just part of the cost of the party - I'm sure she had bottles of booze that cost more that $100 at her parties. It was only when the condo association changed the rules to implement an escalation series (i.e first violation was $X, second was $2X, third was $4X, etc.) that her behavior started to change.

I get that a lot of people hate HOAs and I understand the reasons, but $100 is essentially nothing to a lot of people in California, which means HOAs will essentially have no enforcement mechanisms. This is especially a problem in multifamily buildings like condos where people are literally living on top of one another.

IMO seems like just another well-intended CA regulation that will cause a lot of negative, poorly thought-out consequences. At the very least I think it would make a lot more sense to have the fine limit be based on the value of the house or something similar, and not a single rate for all of CA.
by jiggawatts | 2025-10-04 22:19:19+00:00
Because most LLMs are just a REST call, it’s a trivial matter to wire them up in a loop over all source files. The fiddly part is finding a good library for enumerating files while adhering to .gitignore and/or “project” file include/exclude rules!

Even very simple prompts can yield very useful outputs.

“Report each bug you spot in this code with a markdown formatted report.” worked better than I expected.

It costs just a couple of dollars to scan through an entire codebase with something like Gemini Flash.
by palata | 2025-10-04 22:20:17+00:00
> Engineers generally never acknowledge the value of knowing _what_ to build, only whether something is built.

Nobody knows what to build, that's why VCs give money to many startups, almost all of them bankrupting.

The sole value of the founders is to be able to convince VCs for as long as they can. VCs generally have no clue about the technology, so it's about getting good at selling bullshit. Granted, I am not great at selling bullshit, so it doesn't make me a great founder.

Now if we get back to knowing what to build, if you give me a thousand me, we can try a whole bunch of different ideas hoping that one works. This is what VCs do, and it works for them even though they have no clue either.

No, a founder is never worth thousands of employees, period.

And I'd like to note the asymmetry here: I am arguing that I am not thousands of times less valuable than them. I am not remotely saying that I am better.
by BoorishBears | 2025-10-04 22:20:35+00:00
Closest thing to a heuristic is trying the task with non fine-tuned models and building an intuition for how far off each model is, what directions it's off in, and how easily you can improve that direction via fine-tuning.

For example, for classification, if is hallucinating semantically similar, but not technically valid classes, you can probably fine-tune your way out of the gap with a smaller model.

But if your task requires world knowledge, you likely need a larger model. It's not cheap, efficient, or generally useful to fine-tune for additional world knowledge directly.
by alexpotato | 2025-10-04 22:21:55+00:00
The wildest thing about this chart is that it shows that from the 1920s to the 1940s you could conceivably watch a baseball game:

- that took less than 2 hours

- was in the afternoon

One baseball writer theorized that part of the decline in interest in baseball amongst kids is b/c they moved to night games so kids couldn't watch anymore (bed time etc etc).

e.g. many older people speak fondly of getting home from school and listening / watching a baseball game of their home team.
by dilyevsky | 2025-10-04 22:22:00+00:00
I'm on the board of smallish HOA (townhouses and condos), a few points:

1. 90% of enforcement is a result of someone's complaint. HOAs can be sued by belligerent owners for not enforcing rules and it will cost everyone in the association a shitload of money.

2. Of those complaints probably at least 80% are totally legitimate grievances because the owner is doing something that's negatively affecting all of their neighbors like say park their RVs in the driveway and then 5 more cars in the shared parking spaces around the neighborhood so nobody else can park when having guests.

3. Every time we decided not to fine someone to force compliance we ended up regretting it - that just resulted in more complaints, sometimes escalations and serious damages, threats of lawsuits, and in the end we had to fine anyway.

4. These days when someone complains i just tell them there's nothing we can do because we really can't and just bug their state legislators, who seems to be living on a different fucking planet.

tl;dr - most people complaining about HOAs just have no fucking clue what they are talking about and they never served on the board. Well guess that also applies to every other issue discussed on the internet.
by true_religion | 2025-10-04 22:22:54+00:00
You don't have to do things "at scale". Github could require a substantial financial transaction to cover all the costs associated with ID verification and account re-instatement, as well as keep backups before that point so if it's proven after the fact that it was fraud, they could restore to the original state.

Like my data center (not US based) has a process where if you lose all of the documentation proving that a server is yours, you can go on site physically with ID, and the police and/or national identity service will verify on the spot that your finger prints match what is on file for the ID. It costs something like $300 and you risk being arrested if you're a criminal.
by toast0 | 2025-10-04 22:23:05+00:00
You can pretty easily setup a subpanel with a feed-in outlet and an interlock so you only have the feed-in or the grid breaker closed, but not both. Something like this [1], but you need to shop to match your panel.

That's thrifty; changing a panel/building a subpanel probably needs a permit, but shouldn't need utility approval. A transfer switch is an option too, but not so thrifty, and if you an automatic transfer switch, they usually work the other way (use grid if available, fail to local generation), but you could probably make it work.

[1] https://www.geninterlock.com/product/generator-interlock-kit...
by tptacek | 2025-10-04 22:23:06+00:00
I think my response to this would be to say that other ALPR operators are just as susceptible to extrajudicial pressure as Flock, and it would be foolish indeed to salve yourself by saying your ALPRs are OK because they're operated by Motorola instead of Flock.

I really don't think the "rhetorical" thing is going to work with me. I have the impression I might be the one person on this thread who has actually done any policy with with ALPRs.
by liliumregale | 2025-10-04 22:23:17+00:00
I'm sorry, this article reads like AI slop.

It has all the hallmarks: grandiose writing ("everything changed"), the classic "It wasn't X, it was Y" (about five times in the first minute of reading the article), undue emphasis on symbolism...

All those indicators are coupled with an unpleasant level of obsession with how statistical models are "a new kind of mind"—even after claiming to "strip away the hype cycle".
by benjiro | 2025-10-04 22:23:19+00:00
Its a interesting setup that indeed can bypass the red tape.... but your going to have a few other issues:

* Fire insurance or well, potential no-payout if your installation creates a fire.

* What about grounding? Does it also feed back over the invertor to your breaker panel

* How about power fusing... I doubt that he has individual fusing to his different rooms. So yea, electricity compliance is a mess. See fire insurance.

* Hanging cables with plugs hanging on them.. yep, very code compliant...

* A yes, 2500w rated distribution box with then multiple heavy loads on them.

This is one of those, interesting but big risk of burning down your own home, and neighbors in the process. It needs a ton of improvements for safety, what drives up the costs. Imagine everybody doing this, ...
by runarberg | 2025-10-04 22:24:42+00:00
I am not an astrophysicist but I have a hunch any speculations of galactic colonization fails to entertain just how big space actually is. I feel like there is ample reason to suspect the probability of galactic (or even interstellar) colonization is exactly 0, and no civilization in the history of the entire universe will ever colonize an entire galaxy (and probably not even more than a handful of solar systems outside their home world; if any).
by kstrauser | 2025-10-04 22:25:01+00:00
That's all a matter of opinion. Some people like lawn flamingos. I don't, but why should I have the power to tell my neighbor they can't put a flamingo in the yard they own? At the moment, I have a sign supporting a sports team my wife and I like. My neighbor can have a lawn flamingo I don't like, and I can have a team sign they don't like.

Any other way seems like absolute madness to me.
by Aurornis | 2025-10-04 22:25:23+00:00
> There is a non tangible level of status that comes with being CEO of a profitable startup.

All of your comments in this thread assume success. Great if you can get it, but it's not guaranteed.

> People dont know but it helps in both dating life and social situations.

Much less than you think. Some people are impressed by it, but spend some time in a startup-heavy area everyone will see right through the "I'm a startup CEO" schtick for someone who has a $500K ARR B2B SaaS, or even just someone trying to fork off and do their own thing.

While it is impressive to start and run a successful small-scale SaaS, it's far from guaranteed. Thinking it's a route to dating success is just weird.
by elgaard | 2025-10-04 22:25:34+00:00
I have been self-hosting for about 25 years. I remember the protection.outlook.com issue. Once there was an issue with a bank that tried to do encryption, but used an expired certificate. But once I told them what the problem was, and that it was a problem for paying customers, they actually fixed it.

Being able to check the server log can be very useful. E.g. to tell someone that their mail was delivered to a served using their domain name, with that IP-address at that time.
by burnt-resistor | 2025-10-04 22:25:35+00:00
Wegovy, not Ozempic. Ozempic is often on major prescription formularies while Wegovy isn't... same compound, but being overweight is considered "a choice" when it might not necessarily be in every case because moralizing judgements blaming certain patients but not others seems necessary to refuse to give everyone healthcare equally as a human right.

And it's still ~6000% more than much of the rest of the world.

Compounding brick and mortar, real pharmacies adding vitamin b12 are selling it for $250/month (4 weeks actually) simply because the prices are of the auto injector Novo Nordisk version is insane.
by jiggawatts | 2025-10-04 22:26:43+00:00
I never said Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I don’t even live in the United States.

Your guilt is showing.

> How about the countless people censored on Twitter and YouTube, and the obvious political prosecutions of an ex president based on bullshit?

Is it bullshit?

How are you so certain?

Must all actions by politician be somehow “tainted” by partisan tactics without objective foundation?

Here, let me pick a random example of blatant wrongdoing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$Trump

Explain how it would be “bullshit” to impeach Trump over that.

Would that be “political prosecution” or long overdue justice?
by rdoherty | 2025-10-04 22:26:54+00:00
I'm a HOA president and while HOAs can be very extreme, the flip side is if homeowners are breaking rules designed to protect property or common areas (pool, lawns, playground, etc) a $100 is not enough to stop people. Thankfully our HOA focuses on our common areas and is responsible for all exteriors and lawns (it's all townhomes), so the lines are a bit clearer.

We've had all sorts of wild issues such as building scaffolding on top of balconies (not attached), ripping up common area plants, parking issues (we all have garages, street parking is guest only), drying food on the pool deck (really), dumping garbage bags outside in the common area and more. If we can only levy a $100 fine there's little incentive for some people to stop doing things that impact the community.

I do cringe when I hear about these crazy HOAs of what are usually a collection of single family homes. I think a better approach would be some kind of limitations of the what HOAs can have rules about vs the penalties. Interiors of homes should be generally off limits (aside from townhomes that are all technically 1 building, so you should not be doing anything structural without approval). For single family homes with private property surrounding them I'd rather there be limits that are purely for safety, legal reasons or impacting common areas.
by kazinator | 2025-10-04 22:27:09+00:00
To clarify: I don't care about the emergent behaviors to the extent that I would somehow make license plates private, which is a completely impractical idea.

The identifying info attached to license plates can be kept safeguarded. Even so, license plates can be used to fingerprint a vehicle. Eyewitnesses can attach identities to license plates; e.g. you can easily know the license plates of acquantances such as neigbors and recognize them in a different context.

Some kind of technological solution of nonce license plates. They would have to use display technology, making them fragile, poorly visible, prone to various malfunctions.
by dijit | 2025-10-04 22:27:48+00:00
I have a feature (called greylisting) whereby my server intentionally rejects the first mail it receives from a domain.

I have never had anyone claim that their mail has not been delivered to me, and I get a lot of mail.

Retry is built in to the spec, and if you’re really worried you can put a second “receive” SMTP server on the internet with a lower priority, and have it backhaul with LMTP.

———

Email was designed in a time where hosts were not perpetually connected to each other.
by kstrauser | 2025-10-04 22:28:22+00:00
A community fund to pay for basic shared necessities is one thing. I know people who chip in to support a shared local swimming pool. I think that sort of thing for HOAs is beautiful. It's basically a hyper-local government where you're voting to pay extra taxes to have nice quality of life things.

And then their are HOAs who have strong opinions about which species of grass your lawn can have. That's that craziest, power-trippingest thing I can imagine. I'm glad the state is telling them to get out of the law enforcement business.
by firesteelrain | 2025-10-04 22:30:11+00:00
I am on a HOA Board and our fines are so low that it would take a long time before we can foreclose on the property. Most correct the issue but then re offend. The way the rules are written we can’t make it more stringent like some homeowners would like unless there is a majority vote. We can’t even get people to attend monthly meetings or utilize the website.
by 3oil3 | 2025-10-04 22:30:14+00:00
We humans are not from Earth, what more signs need those who can't see? Humans,from all the species, the unique without a natural habitat. Humans, can not live on this planet unless we all get together and start adapting the environment. Otherwise, we can only survive and it's not fun. We have to wear clothing, cut downn trees. We get ill and stuff. Monkey us from? We closer to the pigs and not just the hips.
by sytse | 2025-10-04 22:30:41+00:00
So the core idea is to use an LLM to draft reasoning as a structured, JSON domain-specific language (DSL), then deterministically translate that into first-order logic and verify it with a theorem prover (Z3).

Interesting that the final answer is provably entailed (or you get a counterexample), instead of being merely persuasive chain-of-thought.
by leptons | 2025-10-04 22:30:46+00:00
You can hate it all you want, but it's the first amendment that makes it legal to record in public. I'm honestly glad we have the right to record in public, else the government would be able to hide some nefarious shit that the public has been able to record and dissemenate. If we couldn't record in public, then that would be extremely dystopian. Maybe using AI on recorded data is the real problem you're having, and I agree there should be laws against that - it is a separate issue than recording in public, but it's unlikely to ever be regulated with the current administration.
by shakna | 2025-10-04 22:31:11+00:00
> Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.

> https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/coun...

My birth, as someone who is bi, is now declared to be tantamount to terrorism in the USA. My belief that race shouldn't matter, is now extremism.

The red line, is systems like this, enable those who would happily hunt me down and gut me like a fish. There are preachers in the government, who frequently say that I am not a person. The government is attempting to move to an extrajudicial procedure where it concerns people the government oppose.

We shouldn't gladly be making it easier for a better Dehomag to be put together - that is the red line.
by lxgr | 2025-10-04 22:31:12+00:00
> Those systems all perform online auths at the gate, they don’t rely on offline transactions at all.

No, there's not enough time for online authorizations at transit turnstiles. They do the online auth as fast as possible, and if it does not go through they put the card on a denylist [1].

But since it would be possible to just make up random valid card numbers on the spot, they do enforce successful offline authentication – using asymmetric cryptography.

> Asymmetric encryption is used to prove the identity of the card itself, I.e. prove it’s a real card owned by a real issuer. But it’s not used to sign the transaction itself.

In CDA, it is used to sign the entire transaction.

> Only the symmetrically encrypted transaction cryptogram is sent over the card network to the issuer. All of the asymmetric parts are only used locally by the terminal for validation, then thrown away.

That's true, but doesn't change the fact that offline authentication is an integral part of EMV. Also, the "then thrown away" part could relatively straightforwardly be changed by the networks if ever necessary. The CDA output provides actual non-repudiation.

> This may seem very strange from a technical perspective, but only because people think that the technical elements of card networks is what prevents fraud.

I'd say it's just a historically grown legacy system, and it would have been too disruptive to retrofit asymmetric cryptograms into it (with its vastly larger cryptograms and every byte of transmission data coming at a premium).

If EMV were redesigned from scratch, it would 100% just use the CDA-style cryptogram for transaction approval as well.

> In reality fraud, at least between network participants, is entirely prevented using legal contracts, escrow accounts, and the simple fact that the benefit of abusing the technical measures to commit fraud is simply not worth the consequences.

On this part I'd agree. The most important factor here is that the type of fraud that could exploit this "symmetric/asymmetric gap" requires a malicious terminal or merchant.

That's not really a common threat scenario in EMV, since fraudulent merchants could already do many other things (such as e.g. tapping commuters' wallets using a concealed POS terminal for low-value payments), and becoming a fully trusted merchant has relatively high entry barriers as a result.

I do suspect that this could change, with EMV becoming more and more accessible for very small merchants using cheap mobile terminals or even regular contactless-capable smartphones. But as I've mentioned, it's not too hard to address these issues using policy.

[1] https://content.tfl.gov.uk/aac-20141217-part-1-item12-contac...
by tdb7893 | 2025-10-04 22:31:34+00:00
It wouldn't surprise me if it's still a net positive, even with the downsides. Also the article says there are carveouts for health and safety, I wonder if excessive noise at night counts as a health issue (there's more than enough research on how important sleep is where it wouldn't be absurd to have it as part of the health carveout).