MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by int_19h | 2025-10-08 12:07:51+00:00
"Now, when one demands liberty of speech and of the press, one is not demanding absolute liberty. There always must be, or at any rate there always will be, some degree of censorship, so long as organised societies endure. But freedom, as Rosa Luxembourg [sic] said, is ‘freedom for the other fellow’. The same principle is contained in the famous words of Voltaire: ‘I detest what you say; I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ If the intellectual liberty which without a doubt has been one of the distinguishing marks of western civilisation means anything at all, it means that everyone shall have the right to say and to print what he believes to be the truth, provided only that it does not harm the rest of the community in some quite unmistakable way. Both capitalist democracy and the western versions of Socialism have till recently taken that principle for granted. Our Government, as I have already pointed out, still makes some show of respecting it. The ordinary people in the street – partly, perhaps, because they are not sufficiently interested in ideas to be intolerant about them – still vaguely hold that ‘I suppose everyone’s got a right to their own opinion.’ It is only, or at any rate it is chiefly, the literary and scientific intelligentsia, the very people who ought to be the guardians of liberty, who are beginning to despise it, in theory as well as in practice.

One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that ‘bourgeois liberty’ is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who ‘objectively’ endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought."

(https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...)
by indigoabstract | 2025-10-08 12:07:56+00:00
Interesting topic. And legibility is also an interesting word choice for this. I've always thought of the thing he describes as a dichotomy between the formal/official way of doing things (like you would communicate and work with strangers) and the informal way of doing things (like you would with a friend or with yourself). While smaller companies seem to benefit from using the informal process, once it gets past a certain threshold, that no longer seems to work as well, so things get more and more regulated to cope with the scale.

The thing I've noticed is that formal rules and processes, while necessary, over the long term tend to lead to rigidity/petrification and to losing the creative spark and the ability to adapt to changes. People get so used to them that the process becomes more important than the end goal. It seems really hard to keep things fresh, alive and prevent them from falling into routine, it's like fighting entropy.

I guess money is in a way like the blood of a company but I doubt that most people are truly inspired or motivated by it, hence making money is necessary, but not a good reason in itself for a company to exist.
by CharlieDigital | 2025-10-08 12:08:13+00:00
Check out C#. CliWrap does exactly this: https://github.com/Tyrrrz/CliWrap/blob/master/CliWrap/Comman...

// Examples var cmd = Cli.Wrap("foo") | (stdOut, stdErr); var target = PipeTarget.Merge( PipeTarget.ToFile("file1.txt"), PipeTarget.ToFile("file2.txt"), PipeTarget.ToFile("file3.txt") ); var cmd = Cli.Wrap("foo") | target;
by whizzter | 2025-10-08 12:08:35+00:00
C++ has std::format these days that does a far more sane thing, people are too quick to throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to bad things.

Some OO is fine, just don't make your architecture or language entirely dependent on it. Same with operator overloading.

When it comes to math heavy workloads, you really want a language that supports operator overloading (or have a language full of heavy vector primitives), doing it all without just becomes painful for other reasons.

Yes, the early C++ _STDLIB_ was shit early on due to boneheaded architectural and syntactic decisions (and memory safety issues is another whole chapter), but that doesn't take away that the language is a damn powerful and useful one.
by rcxdude | 2025-10-08 12:08:36+00:00
The thing is, you can't set up a cartel unilaterally. For this to work, they would need to get not only the other NAS appliance manufacturers on board (who clearly didn't and happily took the business that they were losing), but basically the whole PC and server hardware market.

(I think some comments elsewhere in the chain got it right: they were calculating that they had enough brand lock-in and non-technical buyers who would not have much choice, as opposed to a largely technical userbase who could set up any number of options but were choosing them because they were both reasonable value and low maintenance)
by mrob | 2025-10-08 12:08:55+00:00
The specs claim "ECC" [0], but give no further details. ejolson on the Raspberry Pi forums [1] thinks it is on-die ECC, not traditional ECC, which would mean transfers between the RAM and the memory controller are not protected and there are no means of monitoring errors or triggering a kernel panic if there's an uncorrectable error. Some discussion on Reddit [2] also suggests it's on-die ECC. If this is true, it's better than nothing but still not a replacement for a NAS with traditional ECC RAM.

[0] https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/compute-module-5/?varia...

[1] https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?p=2296449#p2296...

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/1irryax/raspb...
by saaaaaam | 2025-10-08 12:10:04+00:00
Agree! Though to be clear I’m not saying it’s necessarily amazing software - just that a lot of Synology users seem to like it!

I was surprised when I was on a Synology subreddit (I think, or maybe the Synology forums) looking for details about upgrading RAM how many people seem really passionate about the various synology apps.
by redhale | 2025-10-08 12:10:14+00:00
Thanks for sharing!

The problem with every single tool in the category that I've come across (e.g. Conductor, Sculptor) is that they assume a single repository. Very rarely in my career working on enterprise software have I been in a situation where all my work was constrained to a single repo. Usually a story or feature spans several repos (whether split between frontend/backend, or a repo-per-service). As an engineer in these situations I never work in isolation considering only one repo -- I work across all of them at once and then prep all the PRs together. I'm not saying this multi-repo approach is good, just that it is the state of the world right now in many cases.

So imo tools like this need to work at a level above a single repo. The agent needs to start by cloning all repos needed for the task, and go from there.
by rickdeckard | 2025-10-08 12:10:22+00:00
That's also my experience.

That's why I can imagine someone just calculated support-costs per unit sold to get an actual profit-number, was unhappy with the result, asked CS for justification for their effort and one thing they came back with was a metric of support-cost related to HDD issues.

Maybe the high Synology HDD price is even calculated to include THOSE support-costs. So they are not better than other HDDs, but the price already includes possible support to get them set up in a Synology NAS.

Could be one of those "management ideas", because in B2C they cannot charge for support required to just provide the advertised core function of the product...
by davedx | 2025-10-08 12:10:25+00:00
> MSM today has no choice but to parrot or echo the opinions of those in power if they want to stay in business otherwise they get shut down for $REASON

What a load of crap! There is still tons of "mainstream media" outlets that don't do this. One of the biggest in the UK would be The Guardian, there are hundreds like it.

The decision to toe the line, like the WaPo, are purely because of money (Jeff's and his readership's), not because anyone is "shutting them down" for X or Y.
by eviks | 2025-10-08 12:10:26+00:00
No trailing commas is actually INconsistent, consistency is when every element ends with a comma

You've also got it backwards on quotes, it complicates writing by forcing you to write more. And with "Especially when automation exists" wondering is a non-issue, you'd get the syntax hint/error right there while typing and see if you need quotes before anything breaks
by washadjeffmad | 2025-10-08 12:10:38+00:00
This is mostly commentary on the state of Matthew's knowledge of AI tooling. You can use preprocessors, train your own text encoders, build pipelines to automate tasks that you might not want to dwell on so you can focus on art.

AI is just another tool. Not everyone who uses a computer is an artist, but you'd be hard pressed to find an artist that doesn't use a computer who doesn't make it a point not to.

When I think of the golden age of motion graphics (pfft), I'm not thinking about fleets of pale interns toiling in Adobe After Effects to produce choppy renders at the wrong resolutions because they're still clinging to their college MacBooks.

I'm thinking about the analog system that After Effects was created as a digital, computerized abstraction of— Scanimate. And I think about the confluence of tech that enabled that and the people who seized upon a problem and solved it. It's entirely possible to do what these tools do completely manually and traditionally, but where are the high moral purists expressing disappointment in the spiritual weaklings who rely on computers to create art? When did doing become diminutive?

I love that AI can break the individualization of struggle that some artists believe in, because what's really important is growth and evaluation. Matthew was successful, and now he's insulated and grumpy. He leaned into a strength that became his brand, and I think with how little he's left his comfort zone, this Ayn Rand phase was inevitable. He's not going to give it up and start over to prove he's a "real artist", but he'll tell people doing art in other ways (most of whom will not become successful or profitable but who still have done) that they're not legitimate for exploring differently.

Art is still hard. You can't cram for art school. You have to be able to prove yourself, continuously, to your clients, your audience, your family, and yourself. Art is a pursuit in virtuosity of the fundamentals, even if other people don't like what or how you do it. And if Matthew stands by his message, then the people struggling under the disapproval of people like him who may not help you or want to see you succeed, and don't give up are doing exactly what forges an artist's spirit.
by mr_mitm | 2025-10-08 12:12:12+00:00
Your question applies to me. I can only speak for myself, but I wanted to be able to call myself a proper researcher at least once, and I got the PhD because I was curious about the subject. At the same time it disillusioned me about the field, more than I expected, so the decision to leave academia was an easy one. I also realized I simply wasn't cut out for that kind of work in a highly competitive field. The pay barely played a role in my decision.
by k310 | 2025-10-08 12:13:14+00:00
Almost every working person I have met in my over 30 years in the bay area has been genuine and unpretentious.

I met my wife there and had wonderful experiences raising a great daughter. Life took on incredible new meaning when I became a parent.

Though not defined by my hobbies, they were rich experiences that opened doors and through which I met a wide variety of people, for example, piano, photography, and fishing.

I had previously enlisted in the Coast Guard, given my draft status. I asked my college advisor about such a prospect, way off my path. He said that it could be a way to meet a wide range of people, and it was. From machinists to photographers to officers who had been to grad school. There are ways to relate to people on a fundamental level and to respect their uniqueness.

It helps that I had been exposed to Buddhism, which found greater expression and meaning later in life.

One guy transferred to my workplace (Lockheed) from Florida, a down to earth guy, who seemed from another world. He mentioned that he missed the fishing there. I suggested opportunities in the area and state, and we built that bridge.

I later was on staff at Berkeley, and met a variety of crazy interesting people: staff, grads, some of whom you see in scientific posts here on HN, and Nobel laureates.

I was never about pretension, superficial appearances, or personas. Seek authenticity in people, and you'll find it.

Be genuine, purposeful, and have meaning in life, and you'll find other great people. Anywhere! I did.
by hansmayer | 2025-10-08 12:13:20+00:00
It's not about being honest. It's about Joe Bullshit from the Bullshit-Department having it easier in his/her/theirs Bullshit Job. Because you see, Joe decided two decades ago to be an "office worker", to avoid the horrors of working honestly with your hands or mind in a real job, like electrician, plumber or surgeon. So his day consists of preparing powerpoints, putting together various Excel sheets, attending whatever bullshit meetings etc. Chances are you've met a lot of Joe Bullshits in your career, you may have even reported to some of them. Now imagine the exhilaration Joe feels when he touches these magic tools. Joe does not really care about his job or about his company. But suddenly Joe can reduce his pain and suffering in a boring-to-death-job while keeping those sweet paychecks. Of course Joe doesn't believe his bosses only need him until the magic machine is properly trained so he can be replaced and reduced to an Eloi, living off the UBI. Joe Bullshit is selfish. In the 1930s he blindly followed a maniacal dictator because the dictator gave him a sense of security (if you were in the majority population) and a job. There is unfortunately a lot of Joe Bullshits in this world. Not all of them work with Excel. Some of them became self-made "developers" in the last 10 years. I don't mean the honest folks who were interested in technology but never had the means to go to a university. I mean all those ghouls who switched careers after they learnt there was money to be made in IT and money was their main motivation. They don't really care about the meaning of it all, the beautiful abstractions your mind wanders through as you create entire universes in code. So they are happy to offload it too, well because it's just another bullshit job, for the Joe Bullshit. And since Joe Bullshit is in the majority, you my friend, with your noble thoughts, are unfortunately preaching to the wind.
by somenameforme | 2025-10-08 12:13:23+00:00
The current systems in many places are breaking, but communism isn't a solution. Because the main reason the systems are breaking is not because of the systems themselves, but of the people in charge of them. Communism faces the exact same issue, except in that case the people in charge have orders of magnitude greater power and the people orders of magnitude less.

In a contemporary democracy we could, at least in theory, completely vote out literally every single pro-corporate, pro-war talking head in the next election. Now of course this won't ever happen, but at least in theory its an option. By contrast in communism, if one ends up unhappy with the system you have very little ability to change it.

Furthermore, in a capitalist system one can even start a communist sub-society. In fact there are many communes throughout the country, at least in the US. But in a communist system, you can't simply start a capitalist sub-society. The centralized nature of the system entails limits on freedoms, to ensure that every person is contributing to society as a whole. And this, in practice, trends towards dystopic authoritarianism in terms of how non-compliant individuals are treated.

The reason that people always claim that various efforts at communism weren't "real" communism is because the concept and theory of communism doesn't, and probably cannot, survive first contact with the interests and whims of humanity. By contrast I'd look at the overwhelming majority of the history of the US as an argument for capitalism. It's only relatively recent times, particularly after 1971 [1], that things have gone so terribly wrong.

[1] - https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
by Kzozjj | 2025-10-08 12:13:26+00:00
We already invented languages for succinctly describing what the computer should do. They’re call programming languages.

“The code is the documentation” is not a joke. Logic that’s useful in the real world is complex and messy. You need additional documentation (why did the code end up like it is, etc) but code is the most expressive way we’ve got for describing how a computer should work.
by graemep | 2025-10-08 12:13:41+00:00
> Ironically there are no current exit strategies for our public sector mobile apps which rely solely on Google play or the Apple store.

Its not just consumers. A lot of the private sector also relies on mobile apps. Even more of it relies on American desktop OSes. There are lots of other online services - email, storage. Lots of non-IT services such as payments (SWIFT, Visa, Mastercard).

How much good will you moving from Azure to Hertzner do if lots of other businesses are down, lots of payments are not working, and a lot of government stiff is not working. Maybe you can keep a few things going because they have energy (and it is important to keep supplies going if everything else fails), but that is about it.
by nzach | 2025-10-08 12:13:48+00:00
I don't want to be too negative, but all your demos seems extremely silly.

Sure, the package is really interesting and definitely got me interested. But not one of the demos seems like a good use of the hardware. If you want to position yourselves mainly as an educational tool I don't think that is a problem. But if you want to target the 'maker' community I think you should put some thought into that.

For example, you could change the 'security guard' demo into a 'housekeeper' demo. You make it roam your house during the day and keep an up-to-date list of things you need to buy. I think this should work reasonably well for laundry and cleaning products. And after you have some historical data you could even do some forecasts about when you need to buy things again.

Another example would be to have it integrated with weather data and when it starts to rain it goes around the house to check if all windows are properly closed. On this same note it could keep track of the window state during the day and send you a reminder to open/close some windows if the temperature/humidity is above/below some threshold.

I think that by having some more 'useful' examples you should be able to get more attention from the 'maker' community. My guess is that a lot of folks that are heavily into home automation would love to have a device like that help with random things around the house.

Best of luck with your product, and I hope you succeed because this idea looks really exciting.
by isoprophlex | 2025-10-08 12:13:53+00:00
> a massive headache to those trying to pass a European bill aimed at stopping child sexual abuse material from spreading online.

No, what the actual fuck: it's a bill rolling out a CSAM scanner of unproven efficacy, but with severe side effects for privacy! See, one sentence, and immediately a reader sees that this is a nuanced, contested issue.

What kind of reporting is this, extremely one-sided. Politico, many such cases. Sad.
by mapontosevenths | 2025-10-08 12:13:54+00:00
My story is similar. I've been using them for a decade, and was shopping for an upgrade when they made the proprietary drive announcmement.

It was the impetus I needed to realize that it only takes an hour to build my own, better, NAS out of junk I mostly already owned and save a ton of money. I won't be going back.
by smugglerFlynn | 2025-10-08 12:14:05+00:00
This is an interesting thought model to consider, but whole article is very biased and opinionated. It reads like a "small companies do it better" manifesto without giving any real insights into operations of large companies.

For example, all of the goals quoted below are parametrized and tracked by most of large & mature companies, oftentimes daily, through NPS, cost/profit analysis, and many other "legit but inefficient" tools:

> Note that “shipping high quality software” or “making customers happy” or even “making money” is not on this list. Those are all things tech companies want to do, but they’re not legibility.

There is a premise that closing a blind eye on these makes companies "less efficient", but evidently there are large companies that do track achievement of such goals, and there are small companies that don't.

There is also insider information appealing as evidence ("Any practicing engineer knows how ridiculous this is.”), mocking ("Are they stupid? No.”) and survivorship bias (treating most small companies as "more efficient” by default) among multiple other rhetorical tricks and anecdotes. It captures the frustration engineers feel in large orgs, but then inflates that into a universal theory of how all companies operate.
by cess11 | 2025-10-08 12:14:17+00:00
"Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM"

Why wouldn't they? It's a NATO aligned, pro-Israel rag under Axel Springer, of course they're helping to sell surveillance technology that can be abused by militaries and state agencies, one of the main israeli exports and generally appreciated industry by NATO.
by lossolo | 2025-10-08 12:14:28+00:00
And people forget what was actually licensed and what value does it have without ASML. ASML bought SVG lithography two decades ago to expand in dry/immersion optical litho and US market access. EUV matured later. SVG had momentum in DUV and still couldn't sustain at 193nm while EUV is an order of magnitude more complex. Cymer was ASML's light source supplier that ASML later acquired in 2013. Pre acquisition there were supply/technology agreements, but after 2013 the Cymer IP became ASML owned so not a continuing US license.

Today's restrictions are mainly export control licenses, not ongoing IP licenses.

ASML builds the whole scanner and owns the integration IP that makes the parts actually produce yield at scale. The light source matters but without ASML's stages, metrology, optics integration, contamination control, control software etc etc you've got a science project instead of a tool a fab can run. ASML won because the integration problem beat almost everyone else.

It's similar to TSMC, anyone can buy an ASML machine, but there is only one TSMC, because it's not just about the machine and not just about the light source.
by fasbiner | 2025-10-08 12:14:31+00:00
This is one of those weird cold war american things that has not aged very well. Why would a philosopher be a good source for this instead of an anthropologist, an economist, a statistician, or a student of comparative revolutions? Is that really how it should go down?

You put your philosopher making unprovable assertions against theirs and just say "well it's true I don't know very much about the redshirts and redeemers or the guatemalan civil war as such, but I do have the eternal wisdom of the philosophers."

You can in fact, read the work of a variety of scholars on the comparative study of revolutionary movements in a variety of languages and ideological bents. And what we can see is that anyone that says "it always" while being unable to even identify the majority of countries on a globe is speaking in bad faith, or else genuinely has never given their own thoughts the most cursory and basic inspection.

Everyone has the right to their own metaphysics, but it's not clear what you expect speaking ex cathedra to accomplish.