MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by frank_nitti | 2025-10-27 22:34:55+00:00
These are great and succinct, yours and your teammate’s.

I still find myself debating this internally, but one objective metric is how smoothly my longer PTOs go:

The only times I haven’t received a single emergency call were when I left teammates a a large and extremely specific set of shell scripts and/or executables that do exactly one thing. No configs, no args/opts (or ridiculously minimal), each named something like run-config-a-for-client-x-with-dataset-3.ps1 that took care of everything for one task I knew they’d need. Just double click this file when you get the new dataset, or clone/rename it and tweak line #8 if you need to run it for a new client, that kind of thing.

Looking inside the scripts/programs looks like the opposite of all of the DRY or any similar principles I’ve been taught (save for KISS and others similarly simplistic)

But the result speaks for itself. The further I go down that excessively basic path, the more people can get work done without me online, and I get to enjoy PTO. Anytime i make a slick flexible utility with pretty code and docs, I get the “any chance you could hop on?” text. Put the slick stuff in the core libraries and keep the executables dumb
by veqq | 2025-10-27 22:34:59+00:00
> The more specific, the more brittle. The more general, the more stable. Concerns evolve/decay at different speeds, so do not couple across shearing layers. Notice how grammar/phonology (structure) changes slowly while vocabulary (functions, services) changes faster.

...

> Coupling across layers invites trouble (e.g. encoding business logic with “intuitive” names reflecting transient understanding). When requirements shift (features, regulations), library maintainers introduce breaking changes or new processor architectures appear, our stable foundations, complected with faster-moving parts, still crack!

https://alexalejandre.com/programming/coupling-language-and-...
by StanislavPetrov | 2025-10-27 22:35:09+00:00
>The guys who had access to this were very lucky.

Accessed my first Atari 8-bit BBS as a kid in 1985 with my Atari 800 and 300 baud modem, lucky to upgrade to an Atari 130 XE soon after (also 8-bit). It was a whole different world.

Aside from the glacially slow connection speed, virtually every BBS back then was single line. This meant constant busy signals and endless redialing (pulse dialing, not touch tone!) in an attempt to get through and connect. Daily login time to each BBS was limited so that others could get on. Most BBSs used an upload to download ratio for files/warez in order to block leechers. Phone calls were very expensive back then too! Even calling numbers within your area code (which was subdivided into sections with different rates) carried a per minute charge. The more selective boards required referrals and/or references to have your account accepted.

It was the Wild West back then and truly a great time.
by LegionMammal978 | 2025-10-27 22:35:15+00:00
The peak run lengths of evens/odds 'should' go to infinity, but these runs become a smaller and smaller component of the overall average, so that it is expected to approach the long-term 50% regardless.

In other words, an unbiased random walk should almost surely return to the origin, but a biased random walk will fail to return to the origin with nonzero probability. This can be considered a biased random walk [0], since the halting condition linearly moves further and further away from the expected value of the 50/50 walk.

[0] https://wiki.bbchallenge.org/wiki/Antihydra#Trajectory
by ASalazarMX | 2025-10-27 22:35:22+00:00
I think PC is proposing using the natural time zone, and adjusting hours if you need sunlight to operate. Summer time is awful because different latitudes have different hours of sunlight, yet all are forced to the least common denominator.

Cities closer to the poles might want to adjust more than one hour, or none at all since they see little sunlight for months anyway. Cities near the equator might not need to adjust at all. Businesses that need to be synchronized could still coordinate their operating hours. It's the most natural approach is DST had never existed.
by henriquemaia | 2025-10-27 22:35:27+00:00
I'm like you and with you.

I've lived in several countries in 3 continents now, and the more I get to know different peoples, the more I feel we're all the same—albeit stuck in these almost kaleidoscopic ways of outwardly displaying the very same humanity.

Perhaps OP got fixated on the collective differences instead of seeing through them. Perhaps.
by zozbot234 | 2025-10-27 22:35:30+00:00
AArch64 came from AArch32. That's why it keeps things like condition codes, which are a big mistake for large out-of-order implementations. RISC-V sensibly avoid this by having condition-and-branch instructions instead. Otherwise, RISC-V is conservative because it tries to avoid possibly encumbered techniques. But other than that it's remarkably simple and elegant.
by KalMann | 2025-10-27 22:35:53+00:00
I think Scott's reasoning is correct in the end. If you suppose you had a computable function f(N) such that f(N) is always greater than BB(N). Then you could exploit the function f to solve the halting problem. Given a program of length N, run the program for f(N) steps. If it halts within that time, you know it's a halting program. If it doesn't halt within that time you know it will never halt.
by evil-olive | 2025-10-27 22:36:38+00:00
you've got it backwards - the server clock should be in UTC, and if an individual piece of software needs to know the location, that should be provided to it separately.

for example, I've got a server in my garage that runs Home Assistant. the overall server timezone is set to UTC, but I've configured Home Assistant with my "real" timezone so that I can define automation rules based on my local time.

Home Assistant also knows my GPS coordinates so that it can fetch weather, fire automation rules based on sunrise/sunset, etc. that wouldn't be possible with only the timezone.
by zamadatix | 2025-10-27 22:36:59+00:00
The thing I don't like with these kinds of articles is rather than list potential pros/cons they make a wholly one sided story everyone is supposed to agree with the whole way and say "oh wow, yeah" at the end. Reality is it breaks right at the start - you don't really know when a good time to call someone is by the sun. You know because of when they wake up, when they go to bed, what hours they work, what you're calling them about, when they like to eat meals, etc. All of that varies by many hours within a timezone based on culture or individual, so it derails that build up pitch. It's a given the author isn't particularly swayed by that, but that they don't even talk about the detail and just move on spoils the rest of the (well put together) list IMO.

One way or the other I don't think we'll make a big shift in timekeeping until/if we ever have a sizable population off Earth. Of course, that introduces its own time problems we don't have to deal with as much all being so close together :).
by georgefrowny | 2025-10-27 22:37:31+00:00
Sounds about right for Abloy. They own Yale and their app-based alarm is subcontracted dogshit (by https://mobilepeople.dk) that didn't get updated for years on end, logs you out constantly, has less functionally than a 90s keypad model and even the hub thing sometimes just falls over and needs a power cycle, etc etc etc. Presumably they are entirely unable to handle any of it in house and are at the mercy of the contractor to fix anything.
by andy99 | 2025-10-27 22:37:33+00:00
I actually think the opposite, even if this study doesn’t appear to support it.

Socialism is a major factor why people have fewer kids. If the state is going to take care of you, it replaces family in this regard, and there is less incentive to build up a family as opposed to go it alone, backstopped by the state.

Wealth is not positively correlated with fertility, it seems to be an excuse well off people use for why they won’t have kids.
by Jtsummers | 2025-10-27 22:37:48+00:00
> it’s generally more robust for the command to return that information to the caller, who then can make use of it. But now the command is also a query.

You don't need the command to return anything (though it can be more efficient or convenient). It can set state indicating, "Hey, I was called but by the time I tried to do the thing the world and had changed and I couldn't. Try using a lock next time."

if (query(?)) { command(x) result := status(x) // ShouldHaveUsedALockError }

The caller can still obtain a result following the command, though it does mean the caller now has to explicitly retrieve a status rather than getting it in the return value.
by Broken_Hippo | 2025-10-27 22:37:51+00:00
Apple trees are weird. You can take a seed from an apple tree in your yard and grow apples that taste disgusting. One of the apples from that disgusting tree might make apples that taste absolutely heavenly. You can't just grow an apple tree from seed and expect anything other than an apple only fit for making alcohol. Johnny Appleseed was keeping folks drunk, not healthy.

Hybrids sometimes produce no seeds or seeds that won't grow the same thing. Sometimes this is desirable - seedless watermelons, for example. Or having a plant that grows better in your region at the cost of having to buy seeds (which you were likely to do in modern times regardless).

I get your point, but this isn't really a problem that's special to GMOs in particular. It is a problem now, and it isn't always that horrible of one. We can support farmers better now and prevent some of it now.
by troyvit | 2025-10-27 22:38:16+00:00
It's a good point that this is a US-based organization, but I don't think the parent is looking for a different focus from this post. Rather, they're asking that given Python's international influence why aren't organizations from more countries (or the countries themselves) contributing? My gut feeling is that it's because the PSF isn't looking outside the US for those sponsors. Here's their sponsor list btw:

https://www.python.org/psf/sponsors/
by collingreen | 2025-10-27 22:38:41+00:00
What does this even mean? Are you trying to imply that funding for research that lead to the various tech powering the modern internet was done only by organizations that never before or since considered trying to source candidates from a variety of places because they believe different viewpoints have value?

Or are you trying to hang this entire thing on a definition of DEI that somehow always and exclusively means illegal race or gender based discrimination (I assume against white men)?

These conversations are so absurd sometimes. I'm baffled by how spitting mad people can decide they are to fight these straw men. Then I'm annoyed by (and suspicious of) the overwhelming silence from most of these sources when it comes to other obvious examples of racial discrimination or things like the government trying to remove history books that mention slavery.

These things don't look like good faith to me.
by quickthrowman | 2025-10-27 22:38:47+00:00
Assa Abloy’s Cliq (electromechanical) keys aren’t able to be picked as far as I know (I could definitely be wrong!), the local international airport uses them to secure doors. The keys aren’t cheap, we have to put up a several hundred dollar deposit when checking them out from airport security for projects. These sorts of locks are useful in places with 24-hour operations or in public spaces that lead to private spaces, an unpickable lock falls to a drill pretty quickly if that’s an option.

Virtually any lock can be destroyed with tools and most doors/walls can be busted through with enough effort and equipment. I think the airport police would notice that, though ;)
by dmix | 2025-10-27 22:38:50+00:00
Agreed, there's so many headlines on X and Reddit that are obviously highly spun and could take 5 seconds of reading into it to see through the BS. But they kill as long as people agree with the phrasing and people go right to the comments to cheer it on instead of reading the article.

It's tough on the internet being a skeptic or generally thoughtful about the world. It's not even worth debunking stuff anymore. Much healthier to not engage entirely.
by cameldrv | 2025-10-27 22:39:27+00:00
Yes shift the opening and closing times of everything. Get everyone to coordinate, so that your kids' school time doesn't shift relative to when you need to be at work, not to mention everything else where two different organizations have to do something that regularly happens at a particular time. Give up eliding this whole problem so that some programmers have an easier time scheduling backups or database compaction.

In fact, as some have suggested, we should also give up time zones and just use UTC for everything. That way when you have to schedule a Zoom call a few thousand miles away, there is no confusion as to the time. Some idiot might retort that since people like to sleep when it's dark, that instead of looking up the time zone difference, you'd have to look up what time the sun rises where they live.

I say screw them. Half of the world should just learn to live with sleeping during the "day" and go to work at "night." We've got electric lights now. It's a small price to pay so that programmers don't have to do time zone conversions.
by cowpig | 2025-10-27 22:39:53+00:00
The study linked at the beginning of this article, and the two listed under "More information" at the bottom all take me to a page with the error

"DOI Not Found"

Given that the main (only significant) fact cited in the article goes against everything else I've read, I would like to see the actual study and how it came to the conclusion that the number of close friends has doubled.

Here are some sources that appear to contradict this article:

https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-a...

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/250617/dq250...

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11288408/#pone.0305...
by LegionMammal978 | 2025-10-27 22:40:02+00:00
You can solve it with a linear recurrence relation [0]: the halting probability from position n is ((sqrt(5)-1)/2)^(n+1), where n is twice the number of odds minus the number of evens. (In fact, this +2/-1 random walk is precisely how the machine implements its termination condition.) The expected value of n is 1/3 the number of iterations. At the end of the longest simulation that has been computed, n is greater than 2^37, so the halting probability is less than 10^(-10^10).

[0] https://wiki.bbchallenge.org/wiki/Antihydra#Trajectory
by TLDRisk | 2025-10-27 22:42:12+00:00
> And what happens if your domain gets popular, are they going to just jack up your rent from $25/yr to $500/yr or more?

As long as your domain is in the standard fee class, aka non-premium, they can't target it for a price increase if it's a gTLD. They have to raise the price of all standard domains at the same time.

Everyone will tell you they can't reclassify a domain from standard to premium, but that's not technically correct. They can change the classification to whatever they want, but they have to charge you standard renewal fees if the domain had a standard classification when you registered it, as long as you haven't let it expire.

I created a website that has some info about domain reclassification.

https://tldrisk.com/beyond-basics/reclassification/
by Jtsummers | 2025-10-27 22:42:16+00:00
That's still not really answering my question for you, which was less clear than intended. To restate it:

> The one place this advice falls down is security - having functions that do things without verifying preconditions are exploitable

My understanding of your comment was that "this advice" is CQS. So you're saying that CQS commands do not verify preconditions and that this is a weakness in CQS, in particular.

Where did you get the idea that CQS commands don't verify preconditions? I've never seen anything in any discussion of it, including my (admittedly 20 years ago) study of Eiffel.
by reenorap | 2025-10-27 22:42:24+00:00
No.

The way to code going forward with AI is Test Driven Development. The code itself no longer matters. You give the AI a set of requirements, ie. tests that need to pass, and then let it code whatever way it needs to in order to fulfill those requirements. That's it. The new reality us programmers need to face is that code itself has an exact value of $0. That's because AI can generate it, and with every new iteration of the AI, the internal code will get better. What matters now are the prompts.

I always thought TDD was garbage, but now with AI it's the only thing that makes sense. The code itself doesn't matter at all, the only thing that matters is the tests that will prove to the AI that their code is good enough. It can be dogshit code but if it passes all the tests, then it's "good enough". Then, just wait a few months and then rerun the code generation with a new version of the AI and the code will be better. The humans don't need to know what the code actually is. If they find a bug, write a new test and force the AI to rewrite the code to include the new test.

I think TDD has really found its future now that AI coding is here to stay. Human code doesn't matter anymore and in fact I would wager that modifying AI generated code is as bad and a burden. We will need to make sure the test cases are accurate and describe what the AI needs to generate, but that's it.
by DavidPiper | 2025-10-27 22:42:37+00:00
The fact that we have more close friends on average is a novel and surprising observation to me. Very worthy of investigation.

But, how is moving from a circle of 2 close friends to a circle of 4 close friends a significant enough jump to "fuel polarization" on a societal level? There's also a 10-year gap between USA (and other countries' data points too) that covers the span of the whole alleged "aligned trend". It feels a little bit like the authors just went "Look! Two data trends moving in the same direction! Causal?!"

More seriously, I would love to see a much deeper dive on:

- Technological and associated psychological trends that might be causing greater polarisation (plenty of existing data here)

- How an increase in close friends can co-exist with an apparent loneliness epidemic (plenty of existing data here too)
by toomuchtodo | 2025-10-27 22:42:43+00:00
Only the selfish or cowardly will have children as a means to support them in old age, I argue, and since children grow to be adults with free will, they don’t have to take care of their parents. Certainly, I agree some will take their chances for self serving reasons, which is unfortunate.

We expect humans, who exist without their consent, to earn a living during their lifetime; no reason they can’t save for elder care vs spend hundreds of thousands of dollars raising kids under no obligation to care for them decades in the future.

Rightsizing the global population pyramid scheme through fertility choice empowerment is going to be painful unfortunately. It was a form of debt issued, and will slowly be “paid back” as structural demographics compress over the next 100-200 years.

(in the US, the cost to raise a child from 0-18 in 2023 dollars is ~$330k, not including childcare or college)
by snozolli | 2025-10-27 22:43:13+00:00
Your discord friends can't come over and help you clean up after a flood, or watch your dogs while you're away on a sudden emergency, or cook you a meal when you're grieving a loss

I'll make the counter argument that -- although I value those things and try to provide them to friends in need -- all of those can be addressed by hiring someone.

On the other hand, I've recently received fantastic emotional support from a friend who moved away a few years ago. We've seen each other in person only a handful of times since then, but of all my friends, she happened to be the one with the experience and attitude to help me.

Incidentally, I'll add that I'm the type of person to provide those types of support to others, but the vast majority of my friends are not. That doesn't make them bad friends, it just means that I have a service disposition while they don't. I think there's a vast range of qualities that people seek and experience from friends and you're going to have a hard time objectively rating them on any sort of scale.
by tromp | 2025-10-27 22:43:18+00:00
The BB function does grow mind bendingly fast. The machine running for 2↑↑2↑↑2↑↑9 steps is one of the 4^12*23836540 = 399910780272640 differently behaving 6-state machines [1].

A similarly fast growing function is the functional busy beaver [3]. Among all 77519927606 closed lambda terms of size <= 49 bits, there is one whose normal form size exceeds the vastly larger Graham's Number [3].

Several beaver fans believe that BB(7) might exceed Graham's Number as well, which struck me as unlikely enough to offer a $1k bet against it, the outcome of which will be known in under a decade.

[1] https://oeis.org/A107668

[2] https://oeis.org/A333479

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham%27s_number
by chipsrafferty | 2025-10-27 22:43:29+00:00
Are you implying that the author of this article doesn't know what they are talking about? Because they basically declared it in the article we just read.

Can you point me to where the author of this article gives any proof to the claim of 10x increased productivity other than the screenshot of their git commits, which shows more squares in recent weeks? I know git commits could be net deleting code rather than adding code, but that's still using LOC, or number of commits as a proxy to it, as a metric.
by kstrauser | 2025-10-27 22:44:26+00:00
Oh! That's pretty reasonable. It's just that I've seen so many slick looking tools that go for waaaaaaayyyyy more than I'd ever personally consider paying for them, like "use AI to sort your CD collection for only $29.95 per month! For only a cup of coffee a day, you could have perfect sorting!"

Do you support Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)? If I'm the first to ask, I'm 100% certain I won't be the last. That a standard question we get from our own customers.
by Wowfunhappy | 2025-10-27 22:46:12+00:00
What if it's your personal machine? I'm thinking about jobs I've set up... thing is, I actually do want those to align to DST in most cases. For example, ZFS scrub should start after I leave for work so that it has the greatest chance of being done by the time I get home. (It's too loud to run overnight.)
by dragonwriter | 2025-10-27 22:46:22+00:00
> It's also the same program officers stewarding grant administration after administration, anyway.

Historically, yes; as well as firing leadership and moving decisions usually made further down the chain up to the new leadership, this administration has also fired a lot of the existing grant reviewers in most of the big health an science grant-issuing agencies (and probably smaller ones, too, but those would have made fewer headlines) as part of the political purges of, well, a lot of the federal civil service earlier this year.
by Grikbdl | 2025-10-27 22:47:11+00:00
I can no longer engage in (controversial) debates on other social medias, as responses often indicate a lack of understanding with the other person - they glance over the arguments, make a prejudice-based opinion, and then they respond to their straw man, often loaded with bad emotions. It's quite frustrating and as you say, sadly only solution is to disengage, but in so doing the polarisation only increases as dissenting opinions are removing themselves.
by lotsofpulp | 2025-10-27 22:47:17+00:00
> We have to assume any mistakes are unintentional.

I assume they are intentional. The whole point is to make society less integrity based and more pay to play based. If you’re sufficiently influential, then it’s a mistake that is forgiven. If you aren’t, then you suffer the consequences.

It’s how it works in low trust societies. You haggle for everything, from produce to traffic tickets to building permits to criminal charges. Everything.