MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by tedivm | 2025-10-02 13:14:38+00:00
It really depends on what you mean by RAG. If you take the acronym at face value yeah.

However, RAG has been used as a stand in for a specific design pattern where you retrieve data at the start of a conversation or request and then inject that into the request. This simple pattern has benefits compared to just using sending a prompt by itself.

The point the author is trying to make is that this pattern kind of sucks compared to Agentic Search, where instead of shoving a bunch of extra context in at the start you give the model the ability to pull context in as needed. By switching from a "push" to a "pull" pattern, we allow the model to augment and clarify the queries it's making as it goes through a task which in turn gives the model better data to work with (and thus better results).
by PaulHoule | 2025-10-02 13:14:47+00:00
It's a huge mistake to continually use the frame about the work of teachers around pay -- rather it is a terrible job.

I know a high school music teacher who's been assaulted by students multiple times. The teacher who inspired me to learn physics took me to the school after hours to see what his classroom looked like after hours and it was so stuffed with chairs that I asked "Has the fire marshal been here?" Every teacher I've known in the public schools has had times when they came home crying because of the moral injury of knowing that they can't help many of their students.

That music teacher has five years to go to retirement with a full pension but with the stress he's under I don't know if he'll make it. Private schools can pay teachers less because it's a better job to teach in private schools not least that private schools can evict the bottom 20% of students (in terms of behavior) who consume 80% of the teacher's time.
by ACCount37 | 2025-10-02 13:14:50+00:00
LLMs can have surprisingly strong "theory of mind", even at base model level. They have to learn that to get good at predicting all the various people that show up in conversation logs.

You'd be surprised at just how much data you can pry out of an LLM that was merely exposed to a single long conversation with a given user.

Chatbot LLMs aren't trained to expose all of those latent insights, but they can still do some of it occasionally. This can look like mind reading, at times. In practice, the LLM is just good at dredging the text for all the subtext and the unsaid implications. Some users are fairly predictable and easy to impress.
by mcsolutions | 2025-10-02 13:14:51+00:00
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by unsungNovelty | 2025-10-02 13:15:12+00:00
The ad blockers are for behavioural ads. The api end-points which tracks you through tabs, listens to what you are saying through your phone's microphone.

Not contextual ads which you will setup for just your website / app. They are just <img> tags or equivalent. The entire reason why people use ad-blockers are because it is bad UX, anti-privacy and just sheer garbage amount of data gathering. Use a website with and without ad-blockers. You will see the difference. With middlemen comes problems for users.
by kalap_ur | 2025-10-02 13:15:16+00:00
I just heard a thesis that there is no bubble unless there is debt in it. Currently mostly internal funds were used for increasing capex. More recently started we seeing circularity (NVDA -> OpenAI -> MSFT -> NVDA), thus this is less relevant so far yet. Especially as around ~70% of data center is viewed to be GPU, so NVDA putting down $100B, that essentially funds "only" $140B of data center capex.

META is spending 45% of their _sales_ of capex. So I wonder when are they going to up their game with a little debt sprinkled on.
by data-ottawa | 2025-10-02 13:15:45+00:00
This is very surface level criticism.

Qwen image and nano banana can both do that with images, there’s zero reason to think we can’t train video models for masking.

This feels a lot like critiquing stable diffusion over hands and text, which the new SOTA models all handle well.

One of the easiest iterations on these models is to add more training cases to the benchmarks. That’s a timeline of months, not comparable to forecasting progress over 20 years like fusion.
by jauntywundrkind | 2025-10-02 13:15:52+00:00
Just gonna throw in that the now standard Linux audio daemon PipeWire has aes67 support:

> PipeWire builds pipewire-aes67 binary which has RTP receiving and transmitting modules configured for communicating in professional AES67 networks. It has been tested to work with Dante and RAVENNA networks - https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/wikis/AES...

A very sizable portion of the page is about setting up PTP. But it doesn't mention setting up PTP on intermediary switches, which is new to me!
by hannasanarion | 2025-10-02 13:15:56+00:00
How are they niche? The default mode of search for most dedicated RAG apps nowadays is hybrid search that blends classical BM-25 search with some HNSW embedding search. That's already breaking the definition.

A search is a search. The architecture doesn't care if it's doing an vector search or a text search or a keyword search or a regex search, it's all the same. Deploying a RAG app means trying different search methods, or using multiple methods simultaneously or sequentially, to get the best performance for your corpus and use case.
by 4MOAisgoodenuf | 2025-10-02 13:16:08+00:00
There are absolutely actors who wish to privatize education.

And, depending on the district, those federal resources provide a significant chunk of the funding for schools.

In my local district in Kansas, it’s about 13% of public school funding, in the district next door it’s about 44%. Without that funding many public schools in the area would close with no alternative.

By cutting off those resources, there is no “choice” or “control” being given to local communities unless you mean a certain family in Wichita…
by password4321 | 2025-10-02 13:16:13+00:00
A vibrant MIT-licensed project that currently is maintained by Georg Lauterbach and has a most recent commit from 2 weeks ago, 17.2k stars, 82 open issues (2,158 closed), 11 pull requests, and 329 contributors.

https://docker-mailserver.github.io/docker-mailserver/latest...

> docker-mailserver, or DMS for short, is a production-ready fullstack but simple mail server (SMTP, IMAP, LDAP, Anti-spam, Anti-virus, etc.). It employs only configuration files, no SQL database. The image is focused around the slogan "Keep it simple and versioned".

The project was linked in the concurrent discussion about Gmail removing support for acting as a POP client:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45439670#45448658

https://gioorgi.com/2020/mail-server-on-docker
by Aurornis | 2025-10-02 13:16:41+00:00
In my experience, the issues that take 80% of your time are the unexpected edge cases, not the easy fixes.

Swapping drives is basically the easiest fix. The issues that cause the most problems are the hard to diagnose ones like the faulty RAM that flips a bit every once in a while or the hard drive controller that triggers an driver bug with weird behavior that doesn’t show up in the logs with anything meaningful.
by HarHarVeryFunny | 2025-10-02 13:18:28+00:00
Yeah, and Tesla cross-country FSD just crashed after 60 miles, and Tesla RoboTaxi had multiple accidents within first few days.

Other companies like Wayno seem to do better, but in general I wouldn't hold up self-driving cars as an example of how great AI is, and in any case calling it all "AI" is obscuring the fact that LLMs and FSD are completely different technologies.

In fact, until last year Tesla FSD wasn't even AI - the driving component was C++ and only the vision system was a neural net (with that being object recognition - convolutional neural net, not a Transformer).
by zobla_dev | 2025-10-02 13:19:00+00:00
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by marcosdumay | 2025-10-02 13:20:01+00:00
> Just take your elbow and angle it to 90 degrees, then rapidly close it so your upper and lower arm are (almost) in parallel.

That's trivial with the modern flat motors and position feedback. In fact, motors can do it faster and with more precision than we.

The only reason it was ever hard was because motors didn't have a lot of torque/volume.

The reason our muscles come in pairs is because they can only really apply force in one direction. Motors don't have this limitation, and don't need to be paired.

Anyway, motors still don't have enough torque density for making fine manipulators, and the lack of sensorial data will still stop you from interacting well with the outside world.
by n4r9 | 2025-10-02 13:20:22+00:00
Thanks for the info. I remember having dinner in Cambridge with a friend couple in what must have been the early 2010s; the woman was involved in local Labour politics but both were very opinionated about single-sex spaces, and there had been some scandal around someone taking the piss by identifying as a woman only on council meeting days and campaigning for women's officer. It felt very mumsnet.
by ecb_penguin | 2025-10-02 13:20:33+00:00
> Please for the love of god make it a legal requirement that messaging must be made available as a separate app

Please for the love of god do not make legal requirements about how to build an app and what features can be included.

> We need to be able to message our friends without seeing a feed without having to convert all of our friends to a new platform.

lol, you have no legal right to how a chat dialog must be presented.

Why don't you try innovating instead of suing?
by lotsofpulp | 2025-10-02 13:20:44+00:00
The decline in standards, and hence expectations of the quality of education from many public schools (those sequestered in wealthy enclaves notwithstanding). As I understand, for myriad reasons, there is no failing kids anymore. There isn’t even much punishment, as far as I can tell, such as detention, suspension, and expulsion. Everyone passes, and grades have little correlation with performance.

https://archive.is/2025.05.30-210113/https://www.economist.c...

>An analysis by The Economist suggests that schools are lowering academic standards in order to enable more pupils to graduate. And the trend is hurting low-performing pupils the most.

See the last paragraph of PaulHoule’s comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45449204

Also, the federal politicians screwed public schools by mandating various very expensive services, but providing no funding. For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEA_2004

Every kid is legally mandated to have access to a potentially expensive Individual Education Plan, but no extra money is given to the schools to provide this, so where do the funds come from?
by geerlingguy | 2025-10-02 13:21:14+00:00
We actually have notes taped on two of our doors, with instructions of how to get the locks to line up depending on the season. Another door requires a hard shove during the summer, and a slight pull back during the winter. Someday we'll replace that door with a metal door and get it framed nicely. But we've been saying that for 12 years!
by kvmet | 2025-10-02 13:21:23+00:00
I did some of the controls software for an automated IOL manufacturing line roughly 8 or 9 years ago. It's very cool technology, I was proud to work on it.

One problem at the time (at least from my understanding) was actually that some people needed a second round of surgery since people are living longer and cataracts are getting corrected earlier. Last I heard, the rate of complications for a repeat surgery is significantly higher, but I assume it is improving all the time.

A fun fact: UV protection can be put directly into the lens to protect your retinas even without sunglasses (I assume this depends on the polymer type though). Also the lenses are usually tinted a slightly yellow color since our natural lenses shift color as we age. Patients tend to find it jarring if the lens is perfectly clear.
by pron | 2025-10-02 13:22:07+00:00
> If you mean the Rashidun, Umayyad, or Abbasid Caliphates, then those were not simply "Arabian" empires - they were Islamic. Non-Arab peoples were deeply involved at every stage. The unifying goal wasn't to spread Arab nationalism but the spread of Islam.

Well, nationalism is a very modern concept, and things gets murky once we go further back. The very same could be said about applying the moniker "European" to the Roman Empire or even to the crusades. They were no more European than the Arab conquests were Arab.

> But the term "colonization" (especially with the European background involved) is very loaded, if not misleading.

That's true, but that would also apply to Israel and Zionism. There is no kind of European colonialism - of the settler or non-settler variety - that would cleanly apply. Even the Jews living in Europe who were the ancestors of a minority of Israeli Jews, created the Zionist movement because Jews were not considered European or Western by their environment.

The point is that in history, there are often important similarities and important differences, and we need to be careful when it comes to the extent of comparisons.

> both are rooted in ethno-supremacist, ethnic-cleansing ideologies, and both commit mass killings against civilian populations

Yes, and the same, of course, applies to Arab nationalism, which, at least in part, expressly allied itself with Nazi Germany.

There are many prisms of historical analysis. You can look at similarities or at differences; you can look in a specific era or across era. But if you apply different prisms to different groups and then compare them, it starts looking as less of an attempt of historical understanding and more as an attempt to use history carelessly to judge the politics of the present.
by abxyz | 2025-10-02 13:22:25+00:00
You are (wilfully?) misrepresenting these cases. The defence in each of these cases chose to employ very expensive legal teams, the cost in these cases is a reflection of choices made by the defendant, not the cost of defending against a claim of libel. As an individual defendant in a libel case, there would be no obligation to incur such costs.

Noel Clarke's legal team were working on a no-win no-fee basis (before they saw the writing on the wall and dropped him as a client, leading him to represent himself). The Guardian had no obligation to spend over £6 million on their defence, it was a choice they made. Indeed, one could argue that The Guardian chose to spend so much to send a message to those that consider baseless libel legal action in future, that The Guardian is willing to spend any amount of money to defend itself.

If you are an individual who posts the truth online, and you are sued for libel, you can spend very little on mounting a defence (you may even choose to represent yourself for free). Whether the litigant spends thousands, millions or billions on their action against you is immaterial as it is their cost, not yours.

As for Jack Monroe vs. Hopkins, Jack Monroe is a fraud. Justice did not prevail, although Hopkins losing her house was a nice treat.
by Gerardo1 | 2025-10-02 13:22:33+00:00
Don't even need to get too fancy with it. Open AI has publicly committed to ~$500B in spending over the next several years (nevermind even they don't expect to actually bring that much revenue in)

$500B/$100,000 is 5 million, or 167k 30-year careers.

The math is ludicrous, and the people saying it's fine are incomnprehensible to me.

Another comment on a similar post just said, no hyperbole, irony, or joke intended: "Just you switching away from Google is already justifying 1T infrastructure spend."
by Simulacra | 2025-10-02 13:22:39+00:00
I agree, and given the current education metrics of America, I don't think a federalized education department has done much good. There's too much language and cultural differences in America to have one-size-fits-all from the federal government.

Perhaps I'm wearing rose tinted glasses, but I think schools should be governed on a state or local level. That way you can better match the needs of the students, all of the students, in that area.
by ecb_penguin | 2025-10-02 13:22:43+00:00
> Well, I suppose that's one take on it.

It's the correct take. Facebook had 800M users on the day Messenger was released.

> I would argue that people are in the app because Facebook gave out Facebook Messenger

Why would you argue a nonsense point? Literally all you have to do is Google "when was messenger released" and "number of facebook users in August 2011"

Unless you think those 800M users were just waiting for a shitty messenger?
by happymellon | 2025-10-02 13:23:01+00:00
I've found even "normal" sized phones, like my S22, can encounter UI bugs where crappy interfaces appear to expect iPhone Max sized screens and so end up hiding bits of the interface behind button bars or fixed hight screens that hide the "next/submit" buttons behinds keyboards. I can only imagine how much worse these banking apps are on a smaller screen.
by fragmede | 2025-10-02 13:23:04+00:00
The problem isn't a delta between what got done and how much it felt like got done. The problem is it's not known how it would have taken you to do what got done unless you do it twice. Once by hand and once with an LLM, and then compare. Unfortunately, regardless of what you find, HN will be rushing to say N=1, so there's little incentive to report on any individual results.
by 6510 | 2025-10-02 13:23:06+00:00
I long ago joke that closed source software and hardware should probably be illegal. The joke seems to age well. You can still have your walled garden and imprison your customers as long as you offer enough value. Owning their data is a contradiction in terms. If you make the design and the code available any spying would have to be written into law, formally announced and strictly defined. If you want to be stubborn about it you can design it in a way that doesn't allow it. If enough others are using the protocol you can hardly be blamed for creating it.
by archerx | 2025-10-02 13:23:54+00:00
>3 days of really bad headaches

I never got this, my mom would complain about this when she was out of coffee when I was younger but I have never gotten caffeine withdrawals and I have had periods of time when I consumed a lot! My last two jobs offered free coffee so I drank a lot and when I stopped working I stopped drinking coffee cold turkey because I don't have a coffee maker at home nor want to go out just to get to a coffee and no headaches.

I also drink a lot of energy drinks when I'm working on personal projects, more than the recommended amount per day and I feel like those have less negative effects than coffee, coffee gives me cold sweats for some reason. The energy drinks give me insomnia but I think it has more to do with the other ingredients than the actual caffeine.

I have quit various forms of caffeinated drinks cold turkey many times and never got a headache, but it is a little harder to get the day started the first few days after stopping because I just feel a little sluggish.
by the_snooze | 2025-10-02 13:24:08+00:00
They're cheaper right now because they're operating at a loss. At some point, the bill will come due.

Netflix used to be $8/month for as many streams and password-shares as you wanted for a catalog that met your media consumption needs. It was a great deal back then. But then the bill came due.

Online LLM companies are positioning themselves to do the same bait-and-switch techbro BS we've seen over the last 15+ years.
by dckimGUY | 2025-10-02 13:24:11+00:00
Thank you everyone for your participation in this discussion:

Here is a link to the WIKI: https://github.com/dckimGUY/HW-HTML-Drafting-Project/wiki/Ho...

So far we have come to one very important conclusion: This program desperately needs an 'add' menu. By this I mean a grid of specialized parts that are sort of 'ready-made' and that way the user won't need to understand which CSS properties will give them which thing...

We'll just make up the parts and put them there in some sort of 'part-adding-menu'. Most programs have something like that.

This way, when the user is first entering into the program, there can be a button to simply enter in a new 'editable HTML' part.

To give a little bit more insight into the program: I can tell you that there is a 'single-atomic-component', meaning that every rectangular part that you are seeing is actually made with the same parts inside, regardless of whether they are being used.

This was unavoidable as a choice for the base of this program.

If anyone can, please follow up with some part descriptions for the add menu. One with editable text placed obviously inside of the rectangle has already been suggested. Are there any other 'standard' parts that you know about?

Thanks,

-dckimGUY (dckim.com)
by tpmoney | 2025-10-02 13:24:21+00:00
An analogy I’ve heard that I like is that the difference is akin to the difference between the “act” you put on for work, and the “act” you would put on for a high stakes job interview. Both are “just” normal proper business behavior but one is much more exhausting and if you had to do that later every day, all day, that would be a huge drain on you.
by btown | 2025-10-02 13:24:23+00:00
If you're operating e-sports teams and want to build/market a new video livestreaming platform for fans, outside of the walled gardens of YouTube and Twitch and in a cost-efficient manner... bringing on an outspoken and talented entrepreneur who built that exact operation makes all the sense in the world!

And from https://9z.gg/equipos I see that one of their teams focuses on a racing simulator... so it seems the subject of this article is one of the few people in history to successfully reach the endgame of that legendary PSA that admonished viewers "You Wouldn't Download A Car." :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmZm8vNHBSU
by _heimdall | 2025-10-02 13:24:34+00:00
This is an odd anecdote to ask "show your work."

I don't catalog shows and episodes where any particular topic comes up, and I follow over 100 podcasts so I don't have a specific list you can fact check me on.

Personally I could care less if that means you choose not to believe that I hear the Taiwan risk come up often enough.