MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by purpleshirtdev | 2025-10-25 14:23:14+00:00
This absolutely has been my more recent frustration as well, specifically this:

> uniformly-formatted LLM-generated descriptions which don't do what a PR description should do, with a half-arsed LLM attempt at summary of the code changes and links to the files in the PR description. It would have been nice if you had told me what your PR is for and what your intent as the author is, and maybe to call out things which were relevant to the implementation I might have "why?" questions about.

If I want to see what the code changes do, I will read the code. I want your PR description to tell me things like:

- What the tradeoffs, if any, to this implementation are

- If there were potential other approaches you decided not to follow for XYZ reason so that I don't make a comment asking about it

- If there is more work to be done, and if so what it is

- Any impacts this change might have on other systems

- etc.

Sure, if you want to add a handful of sentences summarizing the change at a high level just to get me in context, that's fine, but again if I want to see what changed, I will go look at what changed.
by Izkata | 2025-10-25 14:23:20+00:00
> The main thing to know about Backbone is it’s not intended to be a fully fledged framework like React.

Neither is React. The built-in state management was meant for concerns relevant to only that component, not your entire app's state - people just realized it worked well enough.

Back when React was new, one of the ways to use it in more complex apps was with Backbone as the data store: https://www.npmjs.com/package/react.backbone

People weren't just using this as a migration path, before Rudux became the clear winner of that early React era people would reach for this combination (though possibly not with that specific library, I don't remember the details about using them together).
by trelane | 2025-10-25 14:23:25+00:00
Yes, exactly, though you can start from earlier stages too. The process even from stage 1 is well documented. It is all there but you can customize it completely from the ground up. Or, if starting from stage 1, the foundations are there and you have to build it up yourself.

For a newbie (looks to be the intended audience of the article), this gives them a working foundation to start from. They can get progressively more involved with whatever part of Linux they desire, as their experience grows.
by golly_ned | 2025-10-25 14:23:45+00:00
> Push through your ways every single time.

This kind of sadly has been the most effective. Previously when I did this he'd re-litigate this over slack and in meetings again and again, trying to prove this was a bad decision. He's stopped doing that after my manager told him to knock it off.

I say "sadly" since this is basically pulling rank, which I don't want to have to do. But I don't think he'll leave -- he seems really entrenched in, having worked on the team for a lot longer, and seeming to enjoy it anyway.

It's also hard to ignore in team meetings without things being tense and awkward. I can easily come across as "the bad guy". And the last lead was a lot more willing to lay down the law like that -- the team completely fell apart and everyone tried to get each other fired, and it just took a single quarter for that lead to leave.

It's all risky and high-stakes, since I do really value my position and enjoy it (except for this) -- I can easily turn into the bad guy.
by blfr | 2025-10-25 14:25:08+00:00
We didn't figure it out then though. I used office suits 15 years ago. They didn't work like Workspace or even m365 today. You needed to sync files by yourself, sharing and access control were rudimentary at best.

Most importantly, there was no way to support my currently bog standard workflow of making docs and notes on a computer, sharing it with colleagues in a chat with a simple link, where 2-3 people can edit it at the same time, and then checking out their changes or referring back to the notes on a phone.

Not to mention stuff like presenting a deck directly into an online meeting where participants can browse ahead or look through the slides back.

All of that is easily worth $10/seat/mo in productivity and would be very difficult to configure not as a service.
by Redster | 2025-10-25 14:25:27+00:00
Now Claude code can easily create/enter a sandbox with a slash command (as of version 2.0.24).

This is very cool! Before, you had to either use the Claude Code in the web app for a sandbox, or set up your own (yes, you could do this with Claude Code, of course). But I think this will result in more people using Claude Code in a Sandbox, which should improve safety all around.

They really need to give some kind of visual indicator that the CC is in the sandbox (although I suppose one could make this with the /statusline agent).
by steveBK123 | 2025-10-25 14:26:37+00:00
Northeast US here.

My 30 year old central air which covers 1 floor of my home went out recently so I got a bunch of replacement quotes, most vendors I asked for both a traditional central air & a heat pump central air quote.

The quotes were generally 50% more expensive for the heat pump option.

Vendor A: $12.5k AC, $17.7K Heat Pump + extra electrical work for the heat strips.

Vendor B: $8K AC, $11K Heat Pump + they don't think the existing ductwork is sufficient for comfortable heating and would recommend redoing some of it.

And I wouldn't qualify for any tax credits because it doesn't cover full home (there are upper floors without ducts that already are on mini splits & baseboard heat).

Also worth noting the range of HVAC quotes for the same spec cooling in the same home are insane. Every quote I got seemed to widen the range.
by cnnlives69 | 2025-10-25 14:26:50+00:00
I worked for a startup company that built and hosted our own custom systems, which were fairly specific to our company and production needs. Our production manager no longer wanted to pay for internal development, so he asked for a demo of a SaaS product from a Chinese company that sounded similar to ours. It turned out that they already had our source code, likely from a Chinese contractor that worked with our team a few years prior, because the product they were selling was almost exactly the same.

While we could not prove anything, it would seem that intellectual property theft just happens.

Today, we use tools daily that probably function because of intellectual property theft.

While this is traumatic to me, if I really try to be objective, aside from the additional theft of art, I don’t see how this is much different than what RMS and FSF stood for. Data finds a way to free itself.
Show HN: MailAI – Automate Any Workflow in Plain English with Gmail and Stripe
by Asquareee | 2025-10-25 14:27:04+00:00
Hey HN,

We built MailAI - AI agents that automate workflows in plain English by connecting Gmail and Stripe.

The Problem: Founders waste 10+ hours weekly on repetitive tasks: - Responding to invoice inquiries - Tracking payments - Sending payment reminders - Following up on late payments - Managing customer communication

Most "automation" tools require complex setup, coding, or learning new interfaces. We wanted something different.

The Solution: Connect Gmail and Stripe. Describe what you want in plain English. AI automates it 24/7.

Real Examples:

"When a customer emails asking about their invoice, auto-respond with the payment link from Stripe. Track all responses in a spreadsheet."

"Monitor Stripe for new payments. Send a thank you email via Gmail. Update my CRM automatically."

"Track unpaid invoices. Send reminder emails 3 days before due. If overdue, send a follow-up. Escalate after 7 days."

"When a customer replies to an invoice email, check their payment status in Stripe and auto-respond with next steps."

"Monitor subscriptions. If any cancel, send a retention email with a special offer."

But It's Not Just Payments:

"Auto-respond to customer support questions using my FAQ docs." "Extract data from emails and update my spreadsheet." "Coordinate meeting times automatically." "Track competitor mentions and send me alerts."

Literally anything you can describe in plain English.

Technical Details:

- OAuth 2.0 authentication (secure, no API keys stored) - CASA-verified enterprise security - Runs in isolated sandboxes - 24/7 execution - Plain English natural language processing - Multi-step workflow support

Why This Matters:

Unlike other tools that just suggest actions or require complex setup, MailAI actually automates everything. No coding. No complex configuration. Just describe what you want.

We're a 2-founder team that spent 6 months building this because we were drowning in repetitive tasks ourselves.

Try It: 7-day free trial: https://mailai.live

We'd Love Feedback On:

1. What other integrations would be most useful? (Google Sheets, Slack, Zapier?) 2. What payment automation pain points are we missing? 3. What workflows would you automate if you could just describe them? 4. Security concerns - anything we should address?

Built by three engineers who were tired of wasting time on repetitive work.
by fluidcruft | 2025-10-25 14:27:38+00:00
Just as a heads up from a rando on the internet this sort of research is trying to understand mechanisms of things that happened 20-30 years ago and people who were exposed back then (sometimes many times with significant accumulation).

Gadolinium is toxic so contrasts trap it with protective molecules that hold the gadolinium until it leaves the body (most leave via the kidneys, but some also leave via liver/gallbladder). Some fraction of gadolinium escapes depending on the structure of the protective molecules. After the problems with the older contrasts were found kidney function became important (impaired kidney function allows more time for gadolinium to escape) and later new contrasts were designed that are much more stable. The gadolinium contrasts we use today are much more stable than the ones we used previously and there haven't been any cases of the sorts of things this article is about in over ten years. But there are a lot of people alive who received the old agents many times and in higher doses than we use today.

I don't want to diminish the concerns (and frankly I think this is important to understand what happens to gadolinium in the body), but the exposure and accumulation are significantly lower today than they have been in the past because reducing exposure has become a major focus of design safety for gadolinium contrast and the worst offenders have been voluntarily withdrawn from the market.

Anyway if my kid needed contrast for accurate diagnosis, I'd do it. I work at a pediatric hospital and generally the way it works is if contrast might be needed its ordered and consented so that it's an option. During the scan radiologists check the images and decide whether contrast is needed to answer the clinical question (although in general that's more a question of time management if the question has already been answered, there's no reason to keep imaging).
by jcynix | 2025-10-25 14:28:48+00:00
What hassle? With a bit of organization there's no real hassle. My addresses are all in /etc/aliases on the mail server and have a time stamped comment in front of them naming the company / website.

I can easily take this "db" with me on my smartphone. Or could make it available with a simple interface. As we use Joplin already to share data between family members, that's the place the list of addresses lives for lookups from family members.

The benefit isn't primarily for deletion, which is a nice side effect, but to easily recognize phishing to the "wrong" email addresses. Certain deletions are done automatically for addresses where I put a timestamp in, e.g. me.dhl24c@example.com will be from the third quarter of 2024 and can be removed at the end of 2024.
by bgwalter | 2025-10-25 14:30:29+00:00
They have an ex-NSA chief on the board, and doing surveillance voluntarily may result in government help like getting contracts in South-Korea and Argentine that may bring in far more money than the implementation costs. Perhaps they outsource the implementation to Palantir or the NSA. It is basically a simple middleware that is inserted somewhere once the traffic is decrypted.

So I don't think implementation costs are an obstacle.
by bitbasher | 2025-10-25 14:30:46+00:00
I once had a dream job. I was employee #2 and today the company is worth multiple billions of dollars. I built much of the company's core technology myself.

It didn't take long for a few employees to turn that dream into a nightmare. It's not worth it, regardless of what you would be giving up.

It's not your job to "fix" them. I also wouldn't approach the employee myself as that may backfire. I'd voice my thoughts to their manager and offer to have a sit down between the three of you to see if it can be worked out. If nothing changes, I'd make a change myself.
by anonymars | 2025-10-25 14:31:15+00:00
I don't agree with this take. Some people are going to be more susceptible than others, just as with alcohol or other drugs. An individual choosing to stop doesn't mean much for society in aggregate.

I don't go down the political rage bait video pipeline, nevertheless next to any unrelated YouTube video I see all sorts of click/rage-bait littered in the sidebar just asking to start me down a rabbit hole.

As an example I opened a math channel/video in a private mode tab. Under it (mobile), alongside the expected math-adjacent recommendations I see things about socialist housing plans, 2025 gold rush debasement trades, the 7-stage empire collapse pattern ("the US is at stage 5"), and so on. So about 10% are unrelated political rage-bait.

Moreover, everyone is seeing different things for different reasons, even geographically. For example I recently discovered this: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-d.... If you look at exhibit 8A, section 3.5 (https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1366201/dl) you'll see various targeting, e.g. particularly swing states/counties.
by sodaclean | 2025-10-25 14:31:16+00:00
Unfortunately, no- while atoms fusing has a fixed mass to energy conversion... getting them close enough that they'll fuse takes a lot of energy. The three hurdles to effective fusion are: 1) getting more energy from fusion than was spent making it happen 2) extracting the extra energy 3) (this never gets covered) avoid neutron flux turning the whole thing into radioactive scrap before it can pay for itself and storage.

National ignition facility (NIF) recently got exited about more energy out than they put in. They don't have a plan for #2 or #3- but as a research facility focusing on #1 thats OK.

Numerous tokamak designs try to handle #1 and #2, but handle #3 by putting rails into the reactor for robots to replace and repair things.

I'm very pessimistic about #3- nothing is immune to neutron damage from fusion, it's just engineering it to fail in a way thats useful. And, once the public accepts the problem, produces less nuclear waste than fission.
by hexbin010 | 2025-10-25 14:31:20+00:00
Yes, ideally. Then again, I've caught plenty of bugs checking it out and running it locally.

The CI pipeline may not wholly be in your team's control. I've worked at places where a 'devops' team had too much control, liked to tinker all the time and often broke stuff. Nothing we could do - devops were gods and didn't take input from anyone.

Should I not do check it out locally and instead spend months and political capital arguing for more in the CI (which the PM would argue slows down velocity - and will win)?

Pragmatism and workarounds are often employed in non-bigtech enterprise companies...

edit: I also meant 'poke around' as in do a bit of informal QA. Again, your test and QA team might not be perfect...
by golly_ned | 2025-10-25 14:31:30+00:00
| Have you (or higher ups) pointed out his immaturity and behavior are likely the exact reasons he wasn’t selected to lead the team, and if he continues on this path he is ensuring he will never advance at the company? That could do one of two things… get him to shift his attitude or find a new job where he can advance.

This is currently my top option I'm considering. I'd like to deliver (or have my manager deliver) the feedback based on the leveling guidelines that include team leadership skills, and make it very unclear that this is the biggest blocker for his promotion, and unless he changes, he will not be promoted on the team.

I'm eager to move that forward to end up solving this problem and moving it out of the current state, which is intolerable to me, but it's not review time. Next time I meet with my manager I want to float this idea to him.

I personally can't get rid of him, and I know of at least one good engineer on the team who would be upset if he left, since he has a lot of historical knowledge about the stack no one else has -- no one on the team enjoyed working with him except for one junior engineer, so no one else has learned certain parts of the stack.

About whether he's toxic: things really switch back and forth. More recently, he's mostly stopped working with everyone but a junior engineer who he does have a good relationship with. He is responsible and a strong owner for the thing he owns. He does a lot of generous, unglamorous work for the team, like clearing up tech debt -- though he doesn't commit to things on the roadmap that'll help move the stack forward, I think out of a fear of failure, since I think a lot of his behavior is partially explained by insecurity -- but that's another conversation.

I think from his perspective, he would say that I'm not good enough to be the lead of this team, and he would be better at it than I am. In a couple dimensions (his historical knowledge/background, and his experience with the stack) he'd have a point, but still wrong overall, I think.

But either way, whether he respects me or not, I am owed to be treated as if he respects me. That's part of being a professional and a good teammate, and he should owe that equally to anyone on the team -- he doesn't do a good job at hiding his disdain for other people on the team, or many people outside the team either; when we were a bit closer, near to when I joined the team, he badmouthed almost everyone he currently works with, or has worked with.
by squigz | 2025-10-25 14:32:50+00:00
> What do you think about the recent "People with blindness" obsession, as evidenced in the title?

Is there really an "obsession"? Also, while I don't deny there's some discussion here, I think you really have to squint to read the title in such a way.

In any case, I ... really don't care. As another commenter says, there are other, bigger, more important hills to die on than getting worked up about people trying to be more inclusive with their language.

Does it take anything away from me or minimize my disability when I'm referred to as a "blind person" vs a "person with blindness"? Not at all. So why does it matter?

And to be honest, I've never once met a blind person (or autistic person) who actually cares about this type of wording. I think this is one of those battles being fought by the extremes on either side, and it's frustrating and exhausting for everyone else, because it's a distraction from the real issues. And you can see this right in this comment!

> I am not blind nor deaf etc., but I am frankly fed up with it.

You're "frankly fed up" with something that barely affects you at all. Why?
by sadid | 2025-10-25 14:33:30+00:00
That’s true in a narrow functional sense, but it misses the role of a world model. Intelligence isn’t just about approximating input-output mappings, it’s about building structured, causal models that let an agent generalize, simulate, and plan. Universal approximation only says you could represent those mappings, not that you can efficiently construct them. Current LLMs seem intelligent because they encode vast amounts of knowledge already expanded by biological intelligence. The real question is whether an LLM, on its own, can achieve the same kind of efficient causal and world-model building rather than just learning existing mappings. It can interpolate new intermediate representations within its learned manifold, but it still relies on the knowledge base produced by biological intelligence. It’s more of an interpolator than an extrapolator: as an analogy.
by arnejenssen | 2025-10-25 14:33:35+00:00
This talk is about the soft side of software — the intuitive, often overlooked skills that help us build products people truly love. It’s about developing your taste, learning to recognize quality, and understanding why those things matter when writing code.

It’s also about un-learning certain habits we pick up as engineers — the urge to optimize, validate, and measure — to make space for empathy, vision, and a bit of magic.

I’ll share some of my experiences trying to build great products, and offer practical ways to train your eye for quality: how to spot the difference between good and great, and how to create things that don’t just work correctly, but feel right.
by wizzwizz4 | 2025-10-25 14:34:02+00:00
Neither have I – but Wikipedia also cites the OED (paywalled, so I can't confirm this). If the OED really says that deaf-mute is used as a slur, then I believe it. Again, if you have positive evidence that deaf-mute is not used as a slur, then please correct the Wikipedia article.
by int3trap | 2025-10-25 14:34:13+00:00
> Here's where SierraDB diverges from traditional distributed databases: reads don't require quorum.

Would we say this is divergent? Cassandra, DynamoDB, and many others allow you to specify the consistency of reads at the request level.

> Here's where SierraDB diverges from traditional distributed databases: reads don't require quorum. Instead, each event stores a confirmation count in its metadata. When a write achieves quorum, a background process broadcasts this confirmation to all replicas, updating their local confirmation counts. This means any single node can serve consistent reads without network round-trips - a massive performance win.

I have no context outside of this blog post, but this seems actually divergent from the typical definition of consistency given its not linearizable. What systems benefit most from this low latency stale-but-ordered consistency guarantee?
by evantbyrne | 2025-10-25 14:34:56+00:00
Is it arrogance or is it experience combined with a different perspective? One developer may love React because of the component ecosystem and talent pool, and another developer may dislike it because they're writing custom HTML/CSS anyways and React requires them to write way more JS than their preferred approach. Would I ever choose backbone? No. But many developers may be surprised by how little vanilla JS that it takes to build modern web apps. More than ever the tradeoffs of different frontend stacks need to be evaluated on a project-by-project basis.
by maccard | 2025-10-25 14:34:57+00:00
This is a bit reductive and I’m surprised to see this sort of take on here.

Technically that’s true of any step change - a junior developer is expected (loosely) to fix the bugs and do the tasks, to the spec. They should ask for help early and often, and should have enough slack in their estimates from their leads that they have time to mess up to learn. If they continue to do that they will stay junior forever.

They need to learn when to ask, how to estimate and how to avoid certain pitfalls. When they stop asking the basic questions and learn to research, they’ll be promoted to mid level (which they’re already doing). To be an effective mid level though you need to start making mistakes, but in a different way. You can’t be stuck on not being able to install a tool for 3 days, for example.