MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by tptacek | 2025-10-02 16:43:50+00:00
Whoah, that smuggles in an enormous assumption: that a dollar directed to a medical professional is automatically well spent. In reality, medical professionals in the US make drastically more money than they do in Europe and deliver way more procedures (they're often working on "RVU" scales that incentivize delivery of more procedures).

This is something that makes health care economics really difficult to discuss: everybody trusts their doctor and factors them out of the equation; the problem is every penny that doesn't go to their doctors and specialists. But that's not a valid analysis and your doctor and their support system is (after elder care) at the heart of US health spending.
by landl0rd | 2025-10-02 16:43:51+00:00
I ran Linux for many years. But I needed to run some software that only supported windows and mac, and wine didn't cut it, so I had to reinstall windows.

I can't tolerate windows. I put up with 10 for a while then went back to 7. 7 was good. Then some stuff wasn't supported so I moved to 11. Couldn't do it. I'd get random garbage like a notification for some "grand prize giveaway". I legit thought I'd gotten adware installed somehow. Nope, official Microsoft notification! Want to configure the system at all? Keep defender from trashing your CPU for fifteen minutes after you compile something? Stop auto-restarts that close everything? Use actual sleep not the weird "connected sleep" nonsense? Tough, you don't get to. If you do it anyway it will revert after your next update (mandatory btw!) or sometimes just at random.

I can't remember a version since 7 that doesn't make me feel like I'm in a bazaar being accosted by freaking rug merchants.

I used to hate macs. I switched to a macbook. I am much happier now despite the occasional annoyances.
by everdrive | 2025-10-02 16:43:55+00:00
I would imagine that the author is young, very intelligent, and just really starting to pick up real-world career experience. What the author points out is true, but I cannot imagine most HN readers are thinking "I'm expecting my workplace to be totally fair and merit-based, just like school was."

This statement is pretty interesting and revealing; school is very much not like that for a lot of people, and I suspect this means that the author was in a strict STEM curriculum where there can really be said to be correct vs. incorrect answers. (vs. something like English, social sciences, etc.) As noted, this likely also means that the author is just recently out of school, and is just figuring out how the real world works and how few people are capable of stepping back and judging objectively. (alternately, maybe the author has known this for years and is just writing for a younger audience)
by digitaltrees | 2025-10-02 16:43:59+00:00
Awesome. I think this is exactly the right approach for so many use cases. HTML is perfect for so many things.

I’ve used grape in the past and it is really really useful so I am excited to see this in action. It’s interesting to see the transition from the drag and drop era to the semantic vibes era. So does this essentially let me bridge the gap? Vibe code but fix the code when the LLM predictable craps the bed?
by ndriscoll | 2025-10-02 16:44:08+00:00
Sluggish UI, broken sleep, telemetry, advertisements in the start menu and lock screen, forced reboots and general "computer doesn't obey you" design philosophy.

Also just lack of attention to detail. e.g. if you start to search in the start menu and then delete what you typed, you don't get the base menu back; you get "suggestions". So e.g. if you search for "power" or "shutdown" to power off, don't see it as a result, and delete your search, the power button won't be there anymore. You have to close the start menu and open it again to find it. Completely ridiculous design (KDE by contrast has the button and finds the action as a search result with both of those search terms).
by qafy | 2025-10-02 16:44:13+00:00
I want to believe this, and I think I still do believe this... What makes me waver in my position was an interview I gave to an engineer who had previously worked on pedestrian safety simulations at Waymo and had quit over ethical concerns. He wouldn't go into details obviously, but it did make me think... This was in ~2019 or 2020 though when they were still early in their development compared to now.
by codyb | 2025-10-02 16:44:37+00:00
Donate to the lawyers in the courts (You can look at briefings to find plaintiffs and defendants but the ACLU's a good bet). These folk are absolutely securing wins against this administration and pushing back, but it's extremely expensive and this is an all out onslaught.

That's something you can do right now, and encourage others to do with very little impact on your day to day.

Then, go to protests. Protests are best when they're non-violent and massive. These send the message to the people in power because in the end they are nothing but other people. Courage is contagious, get out, bring friends.

Then call your reps, you may not think they are listening, but they are. Call them at the local, state, and federal level and tell them what you think. Encourage your friends to do the same.

Boycott companies that kowtow to this administration. I've been boycotting Amazon for ages so that wasn't tough but social media and corporate media and a lot of these tech companies and a lot of other companies are run my megalomaniac out of touch narcissists who will bend the knee before risking their profits. Simply take the hit and stop using their products. Encourage friends to do the same.

It's not too late. Don't let them make you think it is. We are not 1937 Germany yet. Push back now. Small actions done in concert have real world effects.

Then... take the news off your phone and go outside and get some sun and make sure to take care of yourself.
by cbeach | 2025-10-02 16:44:45+00:00
Could you name a “far right” policy of the Reform Party?

From where I’m looking, they are to the left of the centre-right Conservatives. For example, Reform propose lifting the 2-child benefit cap, whereas the Tories would keep it.

Reform’s proposed changes to “indefinite leave to remain” policy would put the UK in-line with many of our neighbours in the EU. There’s nothing “far right” about a country having borders, and having a national (rather than international) welfare offering.
by olex | 2025-10-02 16:45:01+00:00
Zipline drones fly quite high, and instead of descending and landing to deliver their payload, they hover at altitude and lower a "delivery pod" down on a wire. The pod also has maneuvering capabilities, but all of its thrusters are fully enclosed, and it's designed to not cause any damage even it if collides with something during descent or ascent. Overall, a very clever design that should be safer, create no noise on ground level, and be able to deliver into much smaller and more confined landing zones.
by waterthrowaway | 2025-10-02 16:45:06+00:00
I would be curious if you have any source for this. I spent about 30 minutes looking through google scholar looking for studies from the 1980s which included snow projections under climate change to no avail.

I even got an account to a british newspaper database website [1] to try to find popular discussion of this claim. I was unable to find anything in maybe 10 minutes of looking.

[1] https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search/results/198...

EDIT: I will also drop this citation for the general question of whether change is happening slower than previously predicted https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/201...
by DrScientist | 2025-10-02 16:45:15+00:00
> Chinese hardware running American software

Who designed the chip in your phone? Is it more likely to be Intel (US) or is it more likely to be ARM (UK)?

Where does Linux ( which pretty much runs the entire internet from routers to servers ) originate from?

> Industry running on American energy

Eh? While EU imports of US gas are on the rise due to the Ukraine war ( and the blowing up of Russian pipelines which, BTW, the US is implicated in ) - it's a fraction of total energy.

> protection totally reliant on American defense

So the US bases on British islands in the Indian Ocean, or in Japan ( put there after the end of the war with ... Japan ) are purely for the benefit of others and not in anyway part of US global interests?
by procaryote | 2025-10-02 16:45:28+00:00
I think the norm often becomes the norm because of frequency. If most people like some social stuff (and the rest pretend to, to blend in), it's the norm

I don't know it has to be that way at all. There's probably lots of room for compromise. The "people team" would need to both know about the need and care enough to try to take it into account
by programd | 2025-10-02 16:45:42+00:00
I'll second that recommendation. One of the more interesting videos is AI creating utopian and dystopian worlds in Minecraft

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCnQvdypW_I

Invokes shades of Iain M. Banks' "Surface Detail" Culture novel, where virtual Hells are a major plot point.
by vkou | 2025-10-02 16:45:56+00:00
> or the loopholes that let us companies skip debt-laden grads for foreign labor.

Note that as we speak, AI is replacing junior roles and c-suites are bragging about doing layoffs because of it. There are zero restrictions to it's use in the workplace, and it will only get better at taking your work, year over year, while paying zero taxes.

You're being distracted by anxiety over immigrants, whose entry is limited, and who, well, do pay taxes.
by anonymousiam | 2025-10-02 16:46:24+00:00
I've been toying with the ESP32 architecture for a few years. (I began with ESP32-DevKitC in 2022.) I recently got four ESP32-S3 modules with the intent of trying out the ESP32 Bus Pirate (https://github.com/geo-tp/ESP32-Bus-Pirate).

I hadn't heard about any Linux ports until I saw your comment here. Thanks!

The "playground" Linux port looks interesting, but it hasn't seen any updates for nearly a year. Still, I'm going to try it on a ESP32-S3 N16R8 and see how it goes.

It's funny, because I first ran Linux (SLS & Yggdrasil) on a PC with a 33MHz clock, 32MB RAM, and a 70MB hard drive. The N16R8 clock speed, RAM, and flash are all within an order of magnitude of what was on that old PC.

https://github.com/ESP32DE/Boot-Linux-ESP32S3-Playground
by upofadown | 2025-10-02 16:46:34+00:00
Their existing post quantum encryption didn't do post compromise security (PCS) against quantum attackers. This new one does.

I am excited to finally know what they mean by PCS after reading this article. It means that the session keys from their key agreement scheme (n ratchet) are generated new so an attacker doesn't get them again after a fairly specific sort of compromise. So from that I get that the off the record (OTR) protocol also has PCS. Which is a bit disappointing, I thought that they had come up with some new concept.

This key agreement doesn't happen that often. So a user isn't going to notice any slowness even if it was significantly slower.
by rockercoaster | 2025-10-02 16:47:14+00:00
I want to disagree with 2, but OTOH it's also so easy to do that I've just accidentally done it my whole life.

20 year programming career and I've never engaged with math beyond approximately Algebra II, in the real world. Hell, I go years at a time not needing anything trickier than Algebra I.

Nearly all of the math I actually use I learned in the 6th grade or earlier, overwhelmingly elementary school arithmetic—mostly the "bad" kind I got from memorization-based practice that mathematicians seem to hate even though it's a contender for the best bang-for-buck of almost my entire educational career, plus a lot of fractions-related stuff (so, so very many people are terrible at this, can't even do basic things, IME it's where an awful lot of people permanently fall off the math-train, way back in like 3rd grade), basic arithmetic, and pre-algebra-tier simple variable substitution.

Every now and then I get a bug up my ass to try to expand my math abilities, but 1) I'm so goddamn rusty at this point because I never use any of it that I have to start back at brushing up on high school stuff, which is discouraging, and 2) I'm not even really sure what I'm going to do with it (long experience suggests: nothing) so the motivation fades fast.
by alistairSH | 2025-10-02 16:47:24+00:00
What would you suggest the minority party do? Democrats control 0 / 3 of the branches of federal government. And a minority of state governments.

All they can do is talk. And filibuster in the Senate. And they did filibuster the budget.... And the Trump administration has updated web pages with statements that explictly blame the Democrats for the current shutdown. And mandated OOO messages from furloughed agencies contain language blaming the Democrats.

Do you want Democrats in Congress to resort to violence? I don't think ends the way you want...
by gruez | 2025-10-02 16:47:25+00:00
>If America prohibited such gouging, would the rest of the world accept price increases on their drugs? If the current administration is so interested in inflicting harm on the rest of the world, maybe they should be convinced to lower drug prices.

I doubt governments elsewhere are itching to increase their healthcare spending even more. Realistically speaking the actual result will be cost cutting from pharma companies, mostly in the form of lower R&D spending for new drugs.
by intalentive | 2025-10-02 16:47:25+00:00
Rolled my own in Python.

For graph/tree document representations, it’s common in RAG to use summaries and aggregation. For example, the search yields a match on a chunk, but you want to include context from adjacent chunks — either laterally, in the same document section, or vertically, going up a level to include the title and summary of the parent node. How you integrate and aggregate the surrounding context is up to you. Different RAG systems handle it differently, each with its own trade offs. The point is that the system is static and hardcoded.

The agentic approach is: instead of trying to synthesize and rank/re-rank your search results into a single deliverable, why not leave that to the LLM, which can dynamically traverse your data. For a document tree, I would try exposing the tree structure to the LLM. Return the result with pointers to relevant neighbor nodes, each with a short description. Then the LLM can decide, based on what it finds, to run a new search or explore local nodes.
by ltbarcly3 | 2025-10-02 16:47:46+00:00
Walking for 30 minutes/day when you previously walked 0 minutes/day will have a dramatically larger mortality reduction than taking a statin.

For the record adding a statin reduced my (genetically very high) cholesterol by over 50%, and I will almost certainly take it for the rest of my life. Diet and exercise changes led me to lose over 80lbs, required 0 doctor visits, cost $0, and has completely changed my life and my likely health trajectory.

So yes take statins, but no statins aren't 'easy' unless you are very well integrated into a health care system and actively having checkups where your cholesterol levels are being checked and reviewed, which is only true of a very low % of people in the US, even those with gold plated healthcare coverage.
by ChrisMarshallNY | 2025-10-02 16:48:23+00:00
That was my management philosophy.

If things go good, the team gets the credit.

If things go bad, it's my fault.

Management 101. It's shocking how few managers know this simple motivational technique. The team appreciates it, because they know you have their back, and your managers appreciate it, because it's easy to fix the blame, and they [may] respect you, for doing it.
by DiogenesKynikos | 2025-10-02 16:48:51+00:00
The Allied occupying powers tried as hard as they could to get food into Germany. Israel is intentionally blocking food from getting onto Gaza. There's a massive difference.

> War sucks.

That's an awfully glib way of justifying deliberately starving a civilian population. Saying "war sucks" doesn't make it okay to commit war crimes.
by themanmaran | 2025-10-02 16:48:52+00:00
The Coupa portal is an amazing example because I've had to personally spend ~10+ hours clicking that new invoice button and retyping the exact same info.

If you want to set up monthly billing in Coupa, you just manually create 12 invoices and schedule them out. Each time you have to retype all the account information from scratch, and there are a few landmine buttons on the page that will clear all the forms and make you start from scratch. I can't imagine the thousands of human hours lost every year to just filling out fields in Coupa.
by stronglikedan | 2025-10-02 16:48:55+00:00
You can't drag a file onto a taskbar icon to have it open up in the selected program, or copied to the selected folder. That's the huge blunder that prevents me from even looking in Win11's direction. I'm sure there's many more things wrong with it, but I don't care if it doesn't even do something as basic and longstanding as that.
by top256 | 2025-10-02 16:49:25+00:00
I agree that physical and economic constraints matter, but the point I’m making is that cost curves themselves are contingent on human choices. ICs didn’t suddenly become cheap on their own; they became cheap because governments and corporations poured billions into scaling them. That’s not denying the underlying advantage, but showing how rhetoric of inevitability erases the political and economic decisions that actually drive those curves.
by colpabar | 2025-10-02 16:49:29+00:00
Where did the idea that being smart meant being moral come from? Why would anyone assume that people in tech are "good"? A lot of (I would say most) people go into tech to make money. All the people you expect to say something won't because doing so could jeopardize the amount of money they make. The same goes with celebrities, academics, politicians, etc. If you are someone who makes a lot of money, and you speak negatively about america's greatest ally, you will probably make less money as a direct result.
by mpalmer | 2025-10-02 16:50:27+00:00
If some institution predating and then coexisting with the Constitution is enough to grant it a constitutional pedigree, there's a whole lot of other nonsense that would qualify.

More to the point, this doesn't address anything of substance from the discussion above. No one is arguing there shouldn't be a central bank, or that there's no textual/legal support for one.
by cogman10 | 2025-10-02 16:50:46+00:00
> It is time to realise that ‘autism’ has become a ragbag of different conditions.

Look, I get it and somewhat agree. However, the reason for the diagnosis (and any diagnosis) is treatment.

Maybe there are two different conditions that require speech, occupational, and behavior therapy to different degrees, however, in terms of convincing insurance companies in the US to cover those having a single diagnosis makes everything easier.

It's not as if a separate diagnosis would change how a speech therapist interacts with a child.

I applaud efforts to figure out what is going on and to categorize. But I also think that practically the ragbag diagnosis makes treatment a lot easier to access for patients.
by osullivj | 2025-10-02 16:50:58+00:00
Yes, completely agree. LLMs instantiate Searle's Chinese Room argument; symbols alone have no meaning. And yes, I buy the Kripkenstein argument. The meaning is the use, and intersubjectivity is key. My fear is that the humans who should know the use are having their grasp on that use degraded by production and consumption of AI slop text. Understanding requires application, and AI slop is letting the lazy off that hook.
by jtbaker | 2025-10-02 16:51:13+00:00
> My younger truck driver cousin is doing much better than me financially. He didn't go to university, didn't rack up university debt, didn't have to work nights and weekends for 15 years.

As someone that works in software for the transportation sector, I find it hard to believe this generalizes for the population of each profession. The last few years have been really rough for the transportation business, with rates near rock bottom. Combine this with having to be on the road all the time, the lifestyle of being on the road for a lot of drivers, and you couldn't pay me to do it. I'm quite happy working from the quiet home office.
Show HN: AI that reviews legal contracts in 12 minutes instead of 2 hours
by sumanthchary | 2025-10-02 16:51:13+00:00
I built LegalDeep AI after spending $800 on legal review for a simple partnership agreement. The lawyer found 3 risky clauses in 2 hours that my AI now identifies in 12 minutes.

What it does:

Scans contracts and legal documents for risks

Identifies problematic clauses with 95% accuracy

Provides plain-English explanations of legal risks

Suggests safer alternative language

Works completely offline (no sensitive data uploaded)

Technical details:

Built with React/Node.js + Python AI backend

Trained on 10K+ legal contracts and case law

Uses fine-tuned language models + legal knowledge graphs

SOC 2 compliant infrastructure

Processes PDFs, Word docs, and plain text

Why this matters: Legal review costs $200-500/hour. Small businesses either skip it (risky) or pay thousands (painful). This makes legal protection accessible to everyone.

Current traction:

127 legal professionals in beta testing

$2.1K MRR after 6 weeks

Average time savings: 91% vs manual review

Works with contracts, NDAs, employment agreements, leases

Try it: https://legaldeepai.netlify.app (free during beta, no signup required)

The most surprising finding: 70% of users aren't lawyers - they're entrepreneurs and small business owners who couldn't afford proper legal review before.

Looking for feedback on:

What legal documents cause you the most headaches?

What would make you trust an AI with legal analysis?

How do you currently handle contract review?

Happy to answer questions about the tech stack, training data, or legal accuracy validation.
by 9rx | 2025-10-02 16:51:36+00:00
A "true" technocracy has never been, but China has exhibited the only "almost" example during the late 20th century. That was the period when they transformed from a sustenance-farming backwater to a powerhouse on the world stage.

Of course, it is always easy for a backwater to play catchup after someone else has already figured out how to advance. It is difficult to attribute that success to technocracy, and it is likely that any system could have allowed the same forward momentum, but the correlated track record is quite good regardless.

The USA flirted with the idea of technocracy around the time of the Great Depression. That is, perhaps, where the "bad record" idea has come from, but that's a pretty big leap.
by drdaeman | 2025-10-02 16:52:15+00:00
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a pop culture reference. Very unlikely it’s unintentional, given that Thinking About Roman Empire was a fairly notable meme of ‘23/‘24 (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-often-do-you-think-about-...).

Could be not a primary cause for the naming - only authors can tell - but I doubt they missed the reference entirely. It’s just way too obvious.
by lancekey | 2025-10-02 16:52:18+00:00
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