MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by AnthonyMouse | 2025-10-30 19:28:18+00:00
> All of the PG&E-caused wildfires were due to inadequately maintained equipment operating well beyond its service life.

That sounds like something lawyers say when they want to sue somebody.

Who determines the "service life" of a conductive piece of metal with no moving parts?

> Now to address the counterfactual, "the fires would have happened anyway": no. The leading cause of wildfires in California in general, and impacting people and infrastructure in particular, is electrical equipment. This is empirical; after PG&E began cutting power during high-fire danger days, the number and severity of wildfires dropped dramatically

Nobody disputes that power lines can be an ignition source. The issue is that there are also other ignition sources and dead trees will eventually burn. Causing the fires to be less frequent actually makes the problem worse, because then when it does happen there is even more fuel, which makes the next fire bigger and harder to contain. It's the same failure mode as putting out natural wildfires and leaving all that fuel to accumulate for next time.

Removing some of the ignition sources means you're going to have fewer small fires this year, but at the cost of having bigger ones later. That's not a win.
by hagbard_c | 2025-10-30 19:28:42+00:00
There is a crude version of such a button but it might no be what you want: the No Microsoft button. It behaves just like its siblings, the No Google, No Apple and all the other No ${undesirable_company} buttons. As long as you allow any of those companies access to your data they will be used for whatever purposes they consider beneficial to their competitiveness and/or bottom lines. Should this be found it it generally was a 'mistake' which will be 'rectified' and the dance continues. The only way to win this game is to refuse playing it, How a bout a nice game of chess?
by wat10000 | 2025-10-30 19:28:54+00:00
How much of this is just getting a skewed view because you don't typically hear about the acquisitions that don't happen?

Beyond that, overcoming bias is really hard. An acquirer is probably going to talk a good game about how the acquisition is going to benefit the product and the customers from more resources, better integration, etc. Hearing that, we know it's probably BS, or sincere but incorrect. But when an eight or nine figure pile of money is on the line, you have a very strong subconscious motivation to believe it.
by derefr | 2025-10-30 19:29:22+00:00
That being said, my line of argument here would be a bit more compelling if Canva were still charging for the app.

The fact that the apps are now free, suggests that they expect the subscriptions to pay not just for the backend-cluster OpEx, but also for all the developers’ salaries and so forth.

---

Honestly, I think Canva here are copying Adobe's playbook, but with a more honest approach than Adobe ever had; one reflecting a much more aware/cynical take on how the software market works in 2025.

Adobe essentially charges a continuing fee just to continue to run the software they coded and shipped to you, on your own computer — regardless of whether you even care about any further software updates. (Sure, the subscription pays for other things, like Adobe Bridge cloud storage and so forth, but if you don't pay the subscription, you don't even get to just run the apps.)

But this also means that people quite often crack Adobe's apps — because there's something there of value to run on your own computer, if you just strip off the DRM.

Canva here are taking a much more pragmatic approach:

• Anything that is given to the user to run is free, because ultimately, if you charged for it, people would just crack it. They aren't bothering with DRM or even trying to treat the app itself as a revenue stream. The juice just isn't worth the squeeze. Especially if you're not in a market position where you think you can win the big enterprise customers over from Adobe.

• Anything that is run on your backend is charged for. Because users can't force your cloud services to do anything without a subscription. There's no "cracking" a cloud service.

• But also, crucially — if a feature is a "fake cloud" feature, where it could be "pulled down from the cloud" back into the client by writing a compatible implementation of the server backend that does some simple thing, and patching the software to speak to that server (either over the Internet, or to a local-on-the-machine background service that ships with the patch) — then users will do that. So you can only really charge for features that can't be "pulled down" in this way. Like, for example, features relying on some kind of secret-sauce ML model that you never expose to the client.

(And that last bit actually makes me less wary of their approach here: it suggests that they likely won't be charging for anything other than inherently "cloudy" features: these large-ML-model-driven features, cloud storage/collaboration features, etc. Which might mean that non-"cloudy" features get ignored... but likely not. For the same reason that Apple doesn't ignore macOS/iOS features in favor of iCloud features: new users won't be interested switching to the platform [and then potentially subscribing] if the base platform itself isn't competitive / doesn't serve their needs.)
by PaulHoule | 2025-10-30 19:29:51+00:00
It seems to me that async io struggles whenever people try it.

For instance it is where Rust goes to die because it subverts the stack-based paradigm behind ownership. I used to find it was fun to write little applications like web servers in aio Python, particularly if message queues and websockets were involved, but for ordinary work you're better off using gunicorn. The trouble is that conventional async i/o solutions are all single threaded and in an age where it's common to have a 16 core machine on your desktop it makes no sense. It would be like starting a chess game dumping out all your pieces except for your King.

Unfashionable languages like Java and .NET that have quality multithreaded runtimes are the way to go because they provide a single paradigm to manage both concurrency and parallelism.
by luisml77 | 2025-10-30 19:30:07+00:00
I am prepared and want to discuss seriously every one of my view points. The initial comment was just the abstract. I am extremely confident in my world view about Deep Learning and cognitive ability. And the reason for that is because I generally try to avoid doing what you just did, that is, reading what other people think regarding this subject. I instead choose to ground my views in real world experiments and information I have gathered and experienced. This primarily consists of an enormous amount of experimentation with Deep Learning models, both inference and training. My views come mostly from that. I don't recite Andrej Karpathy or Ilya Sutskever. I don't even care about their opinions for the most part. I experiment with the models to such an extreme degree that I understand very well how they behave and their limitations. And I believe if you are going to create a breakthrough, this is the only way to do so.

> an LLM or any other computational neural net is no different from a program like that

I don't think so. A program doesn't exhibit highly complex abstract thought in a very high-dimensional space.

> It’s executing deterministic instructions, like a machine, because it is a machine

Its true that LLMs are deterministic. But do you really think that the magic behind the brain is only due to temperature and randomness? Do you really think that non-deterministic behavior is the magic ingredient that makes up what we are referring to as consciousness? I could inject noise into an LLM at every parameter dynamically during inference. The output would come out just fine. After all, LLMs are high dimensional and can handle a little noise. Would it really be more conscious after that? You can find experiments where people remove entire layers of the LLM and it still works fine. A little noise would be even less harmful than that.

You see, when I'm arguing, I'm not citing what some other person said. I at most will cite experiments from other people and their results. When I am contradicting your arguments, I present you a reality you can go and try in the real world and verify. You can go verify yourself LLMs exhibit complex high-dimensional thought. You can verify yourself that if you inject noise dynamically through inference on every parameter, you still get coherent output from the LLM.

So, if you are willing to continue this discussion, I ask of you that you present some sort of "probing" of the real world and the respective "reaction" of the same real world as arguments. That is what finding the truth means.

And lastly. I am presenting a Theory. This means I believe that my points form a foundation that makes my theory stronger than yours. It means I have better evidence that backs it up. It doesn't mean I have proved what consciousness is. Instead, it primarily means I can make more accurate predictions using my theory on real world scenarios involving artificial and biological neural networks. And my personal experience shows me that is true.
by cosmicgadget | 2025-10-30 19:30:12+00:00
And a huger scandal that the party of small government didn't lead the charge.

I think when Trump left office in 2021 everyone (McConnell especially) breathed a collective sigh of relief and said, "well I am glad that will never happen again". Then they proceeded to trust that all future presidents would uphold 250 years of norms.
by darth_avocado | 2025-10-30 19:30:13+00:00
The funny thing about Chipotle is that in Denver, you have Illegal Pete’s which is kind of like Chipotle if they never went national. Somehow, with the economies of scale, Chipotle is still more expensive, has smaller portions, fewer toppings and menu options and overall an objective worse experience when it comes to food and the dining experience. I am always amazed and confused how that’s possible at all.
by nogha | 2025-10-30 19:30:19+00:00
I also have it I’m in my late forties and only found out last year. It blew my mind people saw, heard and smelled things in there mind.

I barely ever dream.

Guided meditation has never worked for me.

I have a crazy good sense of direction. My girlfriend doesn’t understand how that works if I can’t see it in my mind.

I do have vivid recall of what things look like but I don’t see them at all.

It all made so much more sense when I figured this out.
by rvnx | 2025-10-30 19:30:31+00:00
Your safest bet is to protect as wide as possible the people and pets around you, today it is an object, tomorrow a pet, and eventually a child.

Pushing companies to investigate and take responsibility, and report these accidents is going to overall to improve reliability of the system.

The reality is that if you do not put strong punishments, these companies wont have the incentive to fix it, or they will push these priorities way lower on the to-do list.
Show HN: Ellipticc Drive – open-source cloud drive with E2E and PQ encryption
by iliasabs | 2025-10-30 19:30:48+00:00
Hey HN, I’m Ilias, 19, from Paris.

I built Ellipticc Drive, an open-source cloud drive with true end-to-end encryption and post-quantum security, designed to be Dropbox-like in UX but with zero access to your data, even by the host.

What’s unique:

Free 10GB for every user, forever.

Open-source frontend (audit or self-host if you want)

Tech stack:

Frontend: Next.js

Crypto: WebCrypto (hashing) + Noble (core primitives)

Encryption: XChaCha20-Poly1305 (file chunks)

Key wrapping: Kyber (ML-KEM768)

Signing: Ed25519 + Dilithium2 (ML-DSA65)

Key derivation: Argon2id → Master Key → encrypts all keypairs & CEKs

Try it live: https://ellipticc.com

Frontend source: https://github.com/ellipticc/drive-frontend

Would love feedback from devs and security folks — particularly on encryption flow, architecture, or UX.

I’ll be around to answer every technical question in the comments!
by vee-kay | 2025-10-30 19:30:51+00:00
AI LLMs are not profitable because they are not the product, we are the product (our data - our information, our privacy, our identity, our needs, our desires, our family photos/videos, etc.).

So no, the AI "feature" cannot be turned off, because it needs to be active and continuously spying on us and leeching our data to "train" them to spy better and more intrusively.

All so we get targeted ads everywhere that are more tightly coupled to our lives, and so our lives can be dictated, controlled and exploited by the powers that be.
by crowbahr | 2025-10-30 19:31:35+00:00
You're conflating 2 different concepts. Attestation comes in many shapes and the AOSP version of attestation is based on x.509 cert chains and manufacturer roots. The only part of that owned by Google is the revocation list.

Play Store Attestation makes it all a lot simpler to use as a developer as it handles all the fiddly bits of cert attestation and also does PlayStore based app integrity checks.

Not using attestation isn't an option: we've seen in-the-wild attacks on our service using rooted devices and modified APKs.

We've implemented the lowest LOE attestation, but the more I'm learning about the AOSP standard the more I'm interested in pivoting, at least for Graphene support.
by ahmeneeroe-v2 | 2025-10-30 19:31:36+00:00
Are you trying to say that Pharma R&D is ~ $10-20B to yield 1 approved therapy? 10 * $1-2B "at bats" = 1 run?

Honestly it doesn't sound that bad considering these pharma revenues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_biomedical_com...
by more_corn | 2025-10-30 19:31:36+00:00
I’ve got a hollow log from an apple tree in front of my parked car. I know the contractor put a bucket upside down on it, I could walk out my front door with my eyes closed and kick it (I know exactly where it is) But is the bucket at an angle to the left or right? I don’t have a picture I can reference. I know that I don’t know because I’d have to have noticed and remembered.

Does your photograph allow you to faithfully recall details you didn’t notice at the time or is it a simulation of an image?
by erichocean | 2025-10-30 19:31:41+00:00
Project Loom makes Java in particular really nice, virtual threads can "block" without blocking the underlying OS thread. No callbacks at all, and you can even use Structured Concurrency to implement all sorts of Go- and Erlang-like patterns.

(I use it from Clojure, where it pairs great with the "thread" version of core.async (i.e. Go-style) channels.)
by conradev | 2025-10-30 19:31:45+00:00
It's the same for me, in terms of it being dark and fuzzy unless concentrated on.

but I really do notice this sort of ability when it comes to memory. When I am looking for something, I can often visualize a scene of where I saw it last. This is not always helpful for actually finding the object, but it can be! When trying to recall a meeting, I can recall materials I saw (bits of text on slides, images, etc).

I'm fairly good at remembering faces, and if they're next to a name when I see them, I can even associate the name! The flip side, of course, is that if I don't see the name, I won't remember it.
by precommunicator | 2025-10-30 19:31:48+00:00
I've had to answer a urgent phone call on a bus once (on headphones) and I felt bad about that.

I don't understand how can you even think this is ever acceptable.

However, same as the 54% mentioned in the article I won't ask them, but for a different reason: noise canceling headphones means unless someone is playing a concert, it won't bother me.
by pfgallagher | 2025-10-30 19:31:49+00:00
I have aphantasia. Like many others, I am able to see images when I dream and very rarely in a hypnagogic state.

My partner is on the opposite side of the spectrum; she can conjure mental images with ease. Our differences in that respect have led to a lot of interesting conversations.

I think aphantasia is quite misunderstood by people able to visualize. I can remember how things look, have no issues identifying faces, have a strong spatial understanding of places I've been, etc. It's hard to describe precisely; we just remember things differently.
by Sohcahtoa82 | 2025-10-30 19:32:12+00:00
> I once worked a job with no breaks at all. 10 hour days, no lunch. Yes, that's legal here.

For the life of me, I will never understand why workers vote against even the most minimal break requirements.

Is it simply that the majority of voters already work a job that gives them breaks and so don't see the need to make it a legal requirement? That seems very much like a "pull the ladder up behind you" mentality.
by tekacs | 2025-10-30 19:32:18+00:00
Something that might help - in this specific instance - is trying to contrast with others.

That is: if you show this photo to people that you know and you compare and contrast _how detailedly_ you can imagine the apples, that can help.

For example: are you imagining a _specific_ apple? What high-level color is it? How about more specifically? How does the color change across the surface? If so, does it have any distinguishing features? Leaves on the stem or no? What does the bottom look like? Can you turn it around and describe that?

Folks who are high up on the spectrum (like 1) can often answer these questions specifically, whereas as you go down the spectrum these tasks seem progressively more impossible.
by Lerc | 2025-10-30 19:32:36+00:00
I have aphantasia in the sense that I have no sense of there being an image, but several years ago, I posted a comment hypothesising that the interpretation of the experience as an image might be the distinguishing factor.

The response to that suggestion was unexpectedly strong, People really didn't like the notion of doubt of their experience. Some said I was accusing them of lying.

It was quite odd, I thought it was an uncontroversial notion that what we feel we are experiencing can differ from reality.

I think, perhaps, it was received as me saying "This is the truth, you're the one who is wrong."
by nonethewiser | 2025-10-30 19:32:42+00:00
A large portion of the lines of code I'm considering when I review a PR are not part of the diff. This has to be a common experience - think of how often you want to comment on a line of code or file that just isn't in the PR. It happens almost every PR for me. They materialize as lose comments, or comments on a line like "Not this line per-se but what about XYZ?" Or "you replaced this 3 places but I actually found 2 more it should be applied to."

I mean these tools are fine. But let's be on the same page that they can only address a sub-class of problems.
by strix_varius | 2025-10-30 19:33:08+00:00
Progressive disclosure can be intensely annoying to actual power users.

Definitionally, it means you're hiding (non-disclosing) features behind at least 1 secondary screen. Usually, it means hiding features behind several layers of disclosures.

Making a very simple product more powerful via progressive disclosure can be a good way to give more power to non-power users.

Making a powerful product "simpler" via progressive disclosure can annoy the hell out of power users who already use the product.
by ragequittah | 2025-10-30 19:33:17+00:00
I don't judge people for it necessarily but I sometimes wonder if they have the wrong idea about what games are. There definitely are problem games that are essentially gambling addictions manifest so the stigma is sometimes warranted. If you sit around playing the same dungeon in a Diablo game 8 hours a day trying to get an item that raises your power 0.5% you're probably off the deep end. But playing something like Clair Obscur or Elden Ring gives me a very unique experience that eventually ends. And the game ending / not wasting your time too much tends to be criteria I use when choosing games as well.

If you look back on that time of low self-esteem and a crappy life I bet there was a myriad of other things causing it and games were just your drug of choice for 'dealing' with it. At least that's my experience. And IMO if your life avoidance drug is games instead of almost anything else (alcohol, marijuana, etc.) you're probably doing better than most in such a situation.

"It's all just pixels on a screen" isn't really an argument for me because my work life, much of my social life, and almost every other form of entertainment that isn't video games (including what I'm doing right now) is all just pixels on a screen as well. And playing games with friends that are across the country or a few hours away is absolutely the best way to be social with them possible. Hell even when I go on vacation I make damn sure I capture pixels on a screen to look at later.
by noir_lord | 2025-10-30 19:33:18+00:00
Not for me, never remembered them at any point, I asked my mum once if she remembered me dreaming when I was a kid and she couldn't remember it either, no dreams/no nightmares.

I have an active imagination and I read a lot of fiction and I don't think I have aphantasia, I just go to sleep, wake up and never remember a thing in between.
by zaphoyd | 2025-10-30 19:33:40+00:00
I've had mixed results with this method, especially for folks in category 5 because they grew up in a world where people casually talked about [actual] visualization and they've associated [not actually visualization] with the word (thinking it is a metaphor for something else). As someone who cannot visualize at all when faced with this question I feel like my answer wants to be.. "null" / "the premise of this question doesn't make sense" and not "5"

A variant that I've found helpful for teasing out this case: 1. Ask the test subject to visualize an Apple 2. Ask them for a few very specific details about the apple they are currently visualizing (what color is it? does it have a leaf or a bite out of it?, etc)

In many cases aphantastics will not object to the activity in step 1, but they won't be doing the same thing as the folks who are actually visualizing. They'll just do what they do when people talk about "visualizing".

When you get to step 2 someone who is actually visualizing can immediately answer the questions and don't think they are strange, they are just reporting what they are visualizing in front of them.

An aphantastic in step 2 is often confused. They aren't actually visualizing any specific apple so there isn't a reference to answer the questions. You'll get a response like.. well what kind of Apple is it? How should I know if it has a bite out of it? You first have to either provide more context or reword the question to something like: What is a color an Apple could be? or What color is your favorite Apple?
by MerrimanInd | 2025-10-30 19:33:48+00:00
> Would you prefer they just kept charging you for the product?

Yes, exactly. Knowing that my interests, my consumer spending choices, are the direct feedback path to their profitability is one of the only ways to provide some concrete assurances that they'll be building for the customer's needs and not for data collection, AI shovelware, or some other play.
by catlikesshrimp | 2025-10-30 19:33:56+00:00
Msn refetence, pfft

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/us-ban-china-...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tp-link-router-china-us-ban/#si...

>>The router-manufacturer TP-Link, established in China, has roughly 65% of the U.S. market for routers for homes and small businesses

Ban TP-link and tens or hundreds of chinese disposable brands will sell OEM TPlink routers, with even worse security.

Solution: all hardware IOT companies are responsible for any vulnerability discovered. ISPs are fined according to the number of vulnerable devices they connect. Watch responsible brands trying to cannibalize each other (discovering vulnerabilities) and ISPs actually caring about enforcing.

By "responsible" I mean recalls and replacements. Financial and penal responsibility.

IOTs will cost their actual price, without being financed by adversarial agents and bad manufacturing practices.