MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by thaumasiotes | 2025-10-07 10:04:40+00:00
A lot of people worry that exposing their baby to another language will somehow impair its ability to learn theirs. This isn't true, but people worry anyway.

---

The result described in this press release isn't new. We already knew that neonates are able to distinguish languages they've been exposed to from languages that they haven't been. What this study adds is "we documented an existing known result, but with some pictures of brain activity".

Brain activity is always good for an extra publication. Compare the classic paper Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic Salmon: http://prefrontal.org/files/posters/Bennett-Salmon-2009.pdf .
by daemin | 2025-10-07 10:05:42+00:00
The biggest issue I have with Windows insisting that I use a Microsoft Account to log in is that I have a long and complex password set up for the account which is stored in a password manager. I don't want to dumb down that password, I don't want to use biometrics, I don't want to use a passcode or pin to log in as that is arguably less secure. I just want a local account which I can set up a convenient password for.

I'm fine with using online services, I just don't want my online services account being the thing that controls access to my local computers. Especially when it can be locked or deleted by Microsoft for whatever reason.
by bluebarbet | 2025-10-07 10:06:15+00:00
Useful to know. My more general position, which apparently is not much shared here, is that removing one's site from the internet has historically meant that the site stops being accessible, stops being indexed, and stops being findable with a simple search. If, going forward, we're going to revise that norm, IMO it would be polite at least to respect it retroactively.
by cess11 | 2025-10-07 10:07:30+00:00
I agree, but that's possibly because my experience with Linux in the age of 95 and 98 was Dragon Linux, which was adapted to sitting next to a Windows installation on a FAT partition and had some limitations and instabilities.

Once I got my first consumer high end PC that was really my own and payed for with my own money, with one of the early hyperthreading CPU:s, it didn't take long until I made the move from Windows to Slackware and never looked back. I've used later Windows versions quite a lot, but spent more time in Putty sessions against Linux and BSD boxes than anything else on them.
by ale42 | 2025-10-07 10:07:54+00:00
Several reasons: RDP (found nothing that works as well as the integrated one of Windows), software (Altium, Adobe Illustrator). Regarding Illustrator, I might switch to Inkscape the day it fully supports CMYK color, spot colors, overprinting, and such things... for now I just feel it's not ready yet every time I try it.

And server-side: specific software I need to run for my team, like Autodesk Vault. For the rest, 95% of our servers run Linux.
by pj_mukh | 2025-10-07 10:09:06+00:00
That code (penal code 632) has a carve out for when there is a “reasonable expectation” of the location being in public so outside of private spaces it doesn’t apply.

The internet is littered with a*holes with cameras testing that carve out and members of the public who don’t know who get into fights. Best to not be interesting in public unless you’re okay with being filmed I guess.
by flohofwoe | 2025-10-07 10:09:21+00:00
The 'bad' parts in WebGPU (anything related to BindGroups) are actually coming from Vulkan 1.0, while the 'good parts' are taken mostly from Metal.

WGSL vs SPIRV is really just a side issue that people want to focus on but doesn't really matter much in the bigger picture.
by Sinaghodsi93 | 2025-10-07 10:09:33+00:00
Social proof helps new customers feel confident about choosing your product by showing them positive feedback from people who have already tried it. When I looked for review platforms for my own products, I noticed that most were made for large companies and came with high prices. Many basic features also cost extra. That’s why I started building ReviewPlot. It’s designed from scratch to fit the needs of indie hackers and small teams. We’re also offering early adopters a 60% discount for their first month. You can easily display your favorite reviews in your product using our customizable widget.
by bko | 2025-10-07 10:11:56+00:00
While that's true, there is some market clearing price in which the activity just ceases to exist.

For instance, take something with a small marginal benefit like a dedicated person at a supermarket to bag groceries. It's a nice to have but the value to the employer is probably less than a $15 minimum wage. So you could say there is a shortage of grocery baggers since there is no one willing to do it at a market clearing price.

Doesn't mean we should do anything about it. There will always be some extra activity that would take place at a lower price, but it's worth while to notice that.
by Modified3019 | 2025-10-07 10:12:45+00:00
Best advice I can give, is every time you have to stop and solve some problem, make a .txt/.md file with your solution/links, and name the file with a bunch of keywords that let you use fsearch to look it up when you eventually need to solve that problem again. Future you will thank you.

Here’s some projects you may find useful

For playing around with dev projects, “Distrobox” is an easy way to manage mostly isolated environments, to keep your main system clean: https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox

I use Nobara as my Desktop OS, which is a fedora/KDE based distribution by GloriousEggroll that’s a desktop first and foremost (unlike a console UI oriented distro like Bazzite). It includes a bunch of nice things and cutting edge (https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom) stuff out of the box so there’s less for me to set up with. Steam, and the few games I play on it just work like normal.

For games from places Like GOG, Lutris works far more often than not. If I recall correctly, it’s literally just a matter of running the .exe

Most of my other programs are installed as flatpacks, which I would recommend.

Note that Nobara is not currently an immutable distro (like Bazzite). Like windows, you’ll likely want to reinstall it in a few years (or after some failed project) to start “fresh”.

For my NAS boxes, I use Proxmox, which I guess is mostly Debian with a Ubuntu kernel and select packages kept more up to date and a built in web UI. Proxmox is nice because its kernel (even the opt in newer kernels that can be offered on the forums) is kept in sync with ZFS which I use for my archives. I disable High Availability, among other things. Useful links:

https://free-pmx.org/guides/

https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE/

Biggest gotcha with proxmox is if it seems to have lost internet access (like the webUI suddenly not working), your network device got changed/renamed due to a kernel update. You’ll need physical/KVM access to update the entry in /etc/network/interfaces with the new active network device name. Also if you install on a ZFS root, proxmox uses system-boot and silently ignores classic grub settings.
by Theodores | 2025-10-07 10:12:45+00:00
Ever since the Reagan/Thatcher revolution there haven't been too many pay rises for the working class. Everything that could be outsourced and offshored was outsourced and offshored. In Europe they have been continually expanding the EU so this process has been more 'moving East' than moving offshore.

Meanwhile, the rentier class has expanded on the back of cheap money and a whole new class of service jobs has arrived to suit the rentier class, for example car detailing, yoga instruction, property management, food delivery and dog walking.

The rentier class don't add value, they are parasites, plain and simple. They have got richer, for sure, but the price of this has been everyone else priced out of their own homes and communities. This rampant house price inflation is ridiculous, hence stagnant pay just doesn't go as far, even if manufactured goods are cheaper than they were before the Reagan/Thatcher revolution.

Hence my problem with the 'scientific' paper. It has nothing to do with immigrants, more to do with not believing people are better off.

Speaking personally, I only got into software development because my customer service job was outsourced to India. Yes I did get a boost to my salary, and yes I did have to reskill to achieve that when I could have happily bumbled along being nice to people on the phone all day doing customer service. However, that only got me back to the start, with a wage that, accounting for inflation, was less than what I was getting as a student during my 'year in industry'. Furthermore, I was still just sat at a desk with a screen, just typing different keystrokes.

I have always been welcoming to whomever arrives from wherever, however, I always feel bad for those that have had to move due to war, which our Western governments are invariably complicit in.
by rsynnott | 2025-10-07 10:13:02+00:00
> Multiple people familiar with the plans said OpenAI and Ive were working on a device roughly the size of a smartphone that users would communicate with through a camera, microphone and speaker. One person suggested it might have multiple cameras.

Finally, someone has, er, invented the smartphone? Except without the most useful bit?

Why do people keep trying to make special-purpose LLM gadgets? What on earth is wrong with just having an app on a phone?
by johnisgood | 2025-10-07 10:13:11+00:00
You're partly right that SPARK is conservative, but the claim that it "can't handle access or controlled types" is misleading.

SPARK does support Ada access types (pointers) under a formal permission/ownership model added to GNATprove in recent years. This system - drawn from Rust's borrow-checker ideas - enforces a Concurrent Read, Exclusive Write (CREW) discipline. It enables verification of typical pointer-based structures (singly-linked lists, trees, other acyclic data) via ownership transfers and borrows that the prover can reason about automatically[1]. So long as you follow the ownership rules (no uncontrolled aliasing, no cycles), GNATprove can verify pointer-based code, ensuring the absence of memory leaks and dangling references.

As for controlled types, SPARK excludes them in the verifiable subset because `Initialize`, `Adjust`, and `Finalize` introduce implicit operations that complicate sound reasoning for the automated prover[2]. However, that doesn’t prevent you from using controlled types - you just need to isolate them. The standard pattern is to define them in a `private` part under `pragma SPARK_Mode(Off)` and expose only SPARK-safe wrappers[3]. The controlled operations still run at runtime, but they are hidden from the proof engine. This way, you retain deterministic finalization and prove correctness for the SPARK-visible interface.

In short: SPARK doesn't "exclude high-level features just to prove memory safety" - it modularizes them. It restricts what the prover sees so proofs remain sound and automatic, but you can still use these features through encapsulation. Rust enforces memory safety through its type system at compile time; SPARK aims to prove memory safety plus richer functional properties (absence of runtime errors, contractual correctness) via formal verification. Their goals differ, and SPARK's restrictions are a deliberate trade-off that enable stronger, machine-checked guarantees for high-assurance software.

If you want me to elaborate on the specifics, let me know. Additionally, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45494263.

Additionally, I am willing to provide more information about what SPARK typically can prove automatically and why some gaps exist.

[1] Jaloyan, Moy, Paskevich - Borrowing Safe Pointers from Rust in SPARK (permission-based alias analysis)

[2] SPARK 2014 User’s Guide, Language Restrictions (implicit operations, excluded features)

[3] AdaCore SPARK tutorials/blogs - exposing controlled types behind SPARK-safe interfaces
by burnt-resistor | 2025-10-07 10:13:30+00:00
It's kind of always been that way to varying degrees. In the 70's/80's, changing the Porsche 911 spark plugs required dropping the engine.

Also, in addition to planned obsolescence and repair hostility is Design for Manufacturing (DfM) that doesn't care about maintainability, safety, comfort, or durability, only lowest cost to shove things together on an assembly line. This is why there are some cars that require removing the wheel well to change the oil filter and other that have things completely out-of-order or require absurd tools to service. My grandfather was a 30 year Chrysler dealer mechanic who had a dozen or so custom tools for very specific purposes.

Source: Dad had an A/C & electrical mechanic shop next to a Porsche specialist shop.
by lxgr | 2025-10-07 10:14:23+00:00
So you're telling people to live with bad/no Internet connection now (due to local regulations) because of hypothetical future problems with their viable alternative in the future?

Easy advice to give from the outside, especially (presumably) from a place with great fiber options.

> Also, 4 weeks ago they spent 17 BILLION USD on buying ~30 MHz of spectrum in the 2 Ghz range. 30 MHz translated to a total bandwidth capacity of about 300 MBit/s.

That's L-band spectrum for direct-to-device services, which comes at a heavy premium due to its advantageous physical properties and inherent scarcity (the entire L-band has fewer Hz of spectrum than what Starlink alone is already using in the Ka band). Ka-band spectrum is much, much cheaper. You're comparing the cost of real estate for factory/campus on a green field hours away from everyone with that of a high street storefront.
by rsynnott | 2025-10-07 10:14:26+00:00
> and then I just use it to set timers and forget about it otherwise.

Much as the Apple Watch, in practice, was really a good fitness tracker, and kinda pointless for everything else, the natural place for voice assistant gadgets is setting timers. I'm fairly sure that's all that 99% of Alexa users use their talking cylinder for, say.

Also, isn't this just that Humane.ai gadget? And there was another one, IIRC. They were all the rage as CES 2024 IIRC.
by setopt | 2025-10-07 10:14:29+00:00
I don’t doubt that a conventional laptop or desktop will be far less common in a decade.

But both iPads and Android tablets have keyboard cases. Even many phones can these days be plugged into USB-C docking stations that enable the use of a big screen and keyboard when needed. I agree that most non-programmers will probably end up using phones or tablets with an external keyboard, and even for programming it is kinda usable.

Those schools will probably just switch to Android netbooks or Android tablets with keyboard cases.

Still, I think that’s very different from AI technologies killing the PC form factor. The hardware and software might change, but I personally think the «screen and keyboard» form factor will remain the default for «work» for the next decade.
by cpfohl | 2025-10-07 10:16:18+00:00
Saying/hearing is not the same. Parent struggles to hear the differences and says they can pronounce them.

Polish has a retroflex and palatalized “sh” pair of sounds (Sz vs ś) that I can pronounce perfectly but not clearly distinguish as a listener.

I learned Polish when I was 5, moved back to the states when I was 11, barely used it for 7 years, and relearned it when I was 18. I don’t know if (at 5) I ever distinguished between the two. But I certainly struggle now.
by 2rsf | 2025-10-07 10:16:24+00:00
I used Win 95 and NT and computers today are blazingly faster, but obviously requires much more resources to achieve that.

Win 95 was not only slow, but also prone to hangings of all kinds and it was hard to keep it up for more than a few days without a crash or a needed reset.

Consuming a huge amount of unnecessary resources is a modern problem, but it doesn't make software quality any less, well depending on how you define quality.

The bug in the 1980's Therac-25 software killed people, bugs in the Patriot system causing it not to intercept Iraqi Scuds killed people in 1991 and the Mars Pathfinder required an interstellar software update in 1997 to fix a bug.
by trashb | 2025-10-07 10:16:42+00:00
The 50-70 CPL is, in general, just well suited to reading. This has been researched, and by quickly searching I can find the following (beautifully layed out) paper: https://journals.uc.edu/index.php/vl/article/view/5765

To my surprise the paper actually concludes that fast readers prefer shorter line length.

Edit: Usually books and newspapers are also more or less in compliance with this convention and those where around since before computers where a thing.
by yard2010 | 2025-10-07 10:16:47+00:00
This is my experience as well. One of my clients tasked me with stuff their average engineers can't do due to many reasons, not only competency. They just had to have this one project working in time.

Personally consultants are just another tool in the mid-hi management toolbox. Just as a workforce on a payroll, this can be used in a good clever way and this can spiral into a shit show real quick.
by BryantD | 2025-10-07 10:17:31+00:00
Yeah, this is both true and tricky. My belief is that the original sin was politicizing the question soon after the beginning of the pandemic; both the Chinese and US governments are at fault here (destroying all the raccoon dogs seems like a very stupid action to me, for example).

I further believe that a lot of people overreacted to the rush to judgement. It is correct to say "we don't know yet" and in March/April 2020 it was wrong to say "this has to be a lab leak." But it's also wrong to overcorrect and say "it couldn't be a lab leak." That's both a political reaction and a human reaction.
by commandersaki | 2025-10-07 10:18:29+00:00
Hm, never encountered the Carmichael function before, but I have had a cursory understanding of Carmichael number.

Given a standard 2048-bit RSA modulus, the totient is still ~2048 bits. I'm not sure and haven't done or seen analysis given the reduction in size (and search space) when replaced with a Carmichael function.

I know, I'll attempt to summon cperciva.
by Dylan16807 | 2025-10-07 10:18:36+00:00
It's good faith, I wasn't sure how literal you were being so I threw it in.

But importantly my kids might be more capable than me or less capable than me to effect change. Who knows!

> If you don’t have kids, their contributions won’t exist.

My choices alter a million things about the future. If we look at everything I was a critical step in causing then we're going to massively overvalue my contributions.

Also, shouldn't all my contributions be chocked up to my ancestors if that's how we're doing it? Leaving me with no points of my own?
by lordnacho | 2025-10-07 10:21:13+00:00
So who has tried smart glasses? I've got a weird use case. Maybe not so weird for HN, but probably not the target audience.

I have all my stuff in a terminal window, with tabs for each server I'm connected to. I have tmux on each of them, with neovim, lazygit, and a bash shell. How would I use this with smart glasses? The idea is mainly to give me a bit of a change of scenery during the day. I'm not quite fathoming how I would input anything while walking around with smart glasses.
by aborsy | 2025-10-07 10:21:15+00:00
I experimented with customizing a flat page by writing HTML and CSS manually, with some help from LLMs. Using this approach, it’s possible to create something resembling the website you linked.

The result is decent, though the organization of the long page could be improved. In my view, a good personal website would include space for a photo, name, and affiliation, along with a simple menu for sections like biography, publication, projects, with a professional style (font and colors), but no more complex. The publication page could have a style for presenting papers in a clean well-formatted list. That may require a theme that comes with a layout and a degree of customization and novelty.

A lot of themes I looked into are not quite professional.
by keyringlight | 2025-10-07 10:21:16+00:00
I think the biggest 'threat' to windows for general users has been mobile, besides that it seems like it's mostly running on momentum from the ecosystem of decades ago. The challenge is that most migrations for established users of any system take effort, and right now the effort of running activation/account requirement bypasses is low effort compared to changing to and learning a new OS.

The way of framing it which works for me is that there doesn't seem to be much reason to move to windows, if you were starting computing with a blank slate and could pick anything, why would someone want to pick windows? Most people need a mobile anyway which serves a lot of consumer needs. Gaming is a big one if you're not happy with mobile/console, but there's the wine/proton on linux route although there's a subset that won't work or has compatibility issues (from minor paper-cuts to major). And then there's those that need specific windows-only software with no alternative elsewhere.
by reassess_blind | 2025-10-07 10:23:03+00:00
'One baggers', at least those who post online about it, are very consumerist in general despite the practice being about minimalism.

You'll find people posting about upgrading their bag from the $300 Aer Travel Pack, to the $400 Goruck GR2 because of style preference. I've seen someone talking about repurchasing items they already own in a particular color to match their packs color scheme.

I think the motivation for many has nothing to do with being anti-consumerist and more about just freedom to travel without paying-for/carrying-around checked-in luggage and all the other benefits of travelling light, which is fine.
by noduerme | 2025-10-07 10:23:11+00:00
No. System fonts have completely different reasons for existing than fonts you would want to use to communicate with the public. System fonts were initially created for legibility at certain screen resolutions, for dot-matrix printers, etc.

But it's worse than that. What I'm trying to explain is that every typeface, even the most innocuous one gives subtle, subconscious cues to the readers. Every font. The associations can range from some childhood Disney movie to a font you saw at a hospital while you were having a really serious medical problem. But after 30 years of everyone on earth looking at system fonts, readers now get the cue when they see a system font that they are looking at a shitty MS Word document their boss just pinned to the felt board. Or else they assume the author did not bother or did not have the skill to make it look good.

I'm a writer. I've written 6 novels. I love words and ideas, unencumbered by visuals. I've written at least 500k LoC on in my life, maybe double that, I don't know. That's all pure thought and logic. So I get the agitation: All I want to get across to you, my reader, my employer, is the information, my distilled ideas. That's all that's important. Read it or don't, I don't care, it's good and the logic works.

I'm also trained as a designer. My first several jobs were in ad agencies, since I was 14 years old as an intern. How will people subconsciously interpret the ancillary visual aspects of this is something I learned early on: what will they construe? Because bad design can prejudice someone against a great piece of writing, and vice-versa.

No visual thing you can make has zero cultural reference; everything you make that other people will see drags some bundle of pre-understood tropes into it. You can't make one without referencing some aspect of culture that affected you. The job of a designer - what makes a designer different from someone who just has aesthetic chops and can tell if a web page looks good - what constitutes the black arts of design - is to know every single cultural trope you are dragging in front of the customer's target audience and to understand how it will psychologically affect their state while they read the content, so you know how to trigger certain emotional resonances in them while they absorb the information the client is trying to get across.

That's what "giving a shit" means in terms of communicating visually.