MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by swalsh | 2025-10-28 18:47:06+00:00
I can tell you supplementation works 100%.

I took a blood test several weeks ago, my Vitamin D level was 14 ng/ml. I was so fatigued there were times I had to lay on my office floor because I didn't even have the energy to sit in my chair. I started taking 50k IU's weekly and then 10k IU's daily, and the results were dramatic. I went from having 0 energy to nearly normal. I also had soreness in my legs which went away.
by fnordpiglet | 2025-10-28 18:47:12+00:00
I’m not sure I get what part of what I said this relates to, but the visa system in the US is extraordinary draconian compared to other countries for high skill work visas. It’s extremely limited in quantity and if you lose your job you need to find a new one within weeks or need to leave the country. Converting to a permanent visa is difficult and has long time commitments and even then you are not secure in your status. As of recently even minor vehicular infractions can lead to violent deportation and family separation, losing all your belongings and if you own a home forced to sell and remove your kids from school. I know a lot of folks on H1-B and other visas and they live in constant fear especially in competitive cultures like Amazon where people are let go almost capriciously - jeopardizing their life with their families and constantly leaving them insecure in everything in life.

To your point the system is friendly to the employer, but it’s very much not to the employee.
by Theodores | 2025-10-28 18:47:13+00:00
Vitamin D supplementation in the UK - now there is a fascinating topic.

With the industrial revolution there was a problem of kids in cities getting rickets. This was due to a lack of vitamin C and that was due to a lack of daylight due to the smog.

The solution was to take the kids out of the city so they could spend time in the countryside.

However, along with the industrial revolution came steam trains, and, with steam trains, it became a lot easier to get fresh food from the farm to the city table.

Milk became an early commodity for this railway trade, in the days before refrigeration. Bottling had to be invented too, along with pasteurisation to get the modern milk product. They fortified it with vitamin D and, in time, made it mandatory in schools for kids to have dinky bottles of milk for their morning break. All kids hated the stuff but it was 'good for them' and good for keeping farmers gainfully employed.

Then the clean air acts came along, with the first street to ban fires in fireplaces being opposite the smoke free coal factory, the factory being anything but smoke free. Deindustrialisation happened too, so there were no cities with smokestack industries at their heart.

With clean air there was no longer any need to fortify the milk with vitamin D, so that stopped. From now on, kids would get their vitamin D doing things such as playing in the school playground.

But then we became seriously car dependent and the age of the free-range child was over. With 'stranger danger' and screens (initially just TV) taking over, we entered a new era of people not getting enough daylight again.

Along the way vitamin D has been downgraded, much like Pluto, from being a 'vitamin' to being a hormone. A lot of people want to point this out and explain the science to you. From hearing how some talk about vitamin D, it sounds like the recommended supplements are all over the place.

Clearly there are millions, if not billions that seem to be living just fine with not much sunlight in their lives and on no vitamin D supplements. Where's the rickets? Good question, but then, in Antarctica, where there are months of darkness to endure, they are on something like 20,000 units a day, and they probably know what they are doing.

Maybe following their example for this winter could be my next 'nutrition experiment'. Sometimes, when there is so much conflicting information, it is best to do an n=1 experiment with one's own body.
by Twisol | 2025-10-28 18:47:20+00:00
I like this example :) Another good example might be Git's distinction between "porcelain" and "plumbing"; the porcelain is implemented in terms of the plumbing, and gives a nicer* interface in terms of what people generally want to do with Git, but the plumbing is what actually does all the general, low-level stuff.

* opinions vary
by falkensmaize | 2025-10-28 18:47:26+00:00
This is not an ad, just personal experience, but I went through two pairs of AirPod Pro 2s in the last couple of years and both developed problems outside of warranty. I bought a pair of Earfuns from Amazon and they’re honestly pretty great. 95% of the sound quality and functionality of AirPod pros for about 25% of the price.
by zzzeek | 2025-10-28 18:48:06+00:00
not sure why you're getting downmodded. People will say M4A ("medicare for all") polls at super high levels, and they're right, it does. But poll those same people telling them "would you favor that your employer-based healthcare would be rescinded and you would instead get healthcare from a new government controlled plan, where there would be no other options", which is the assumption M4A's viability is based on, and that poll turns right upside down.
by DrNosferatu | 2025-10-28 18:48:28+00:00
I propose an European AI-only "NASA" style agency that would have a frontier LLM-"Apollo Program" goal. It would subcontract the several blocks it needs across EU member states.

Would you prefer European AI sovereignty with 15% overhead costs from geographic distribution, or 100% dependence on Nvidia/OpenAI with zero European industrial base?
by danaris | 2025-10-28 18:48:39+00:00
And yet, we're clearly way into the period of diminishing returns.

I'm sure there's still some improvements that can be made to the current LLMs, but most of those improvements are not in making the models actually better at getting the things they generate right.

If we want more significant improvements in what generative AI can do, we're going to need new breakthroughs in theory or technique, and that's not going to come by simply iterating on the transformers paper or throwing more compute at it. Breakthroughs, almost by definition, aren't predictable, either in when or whether they will come.
by zurfer | 2025-10-28 18:48:47+00:00
Cofounder of one of those analytics agents here (https://getdot.ai).

The promise of the technology is not that it can deal with any arbitrarily complex Enterprise setup, but rather that you expose it with enough guidance on a controlled and sufficiently good data model.

Depending on your use case this can be super valuable as it enables a lot more people to use data and get relevant recommendations.

But yeah it's work to make nice roads and put up signs everywhere.
by infp_arborist | 2025-10-28 18:49:02+00:00
With AGI supposedly around the corner and (more realistically) current LLMs performing at least incrementally better -- why are we even thinking that Microsoft's or Google's solutions will provide enough value vs competitors in 3, 5 or 10 years? Cheaper or free alternatives might soon reach feature parity, and even previously complicated deployment is now aided by AI.
by whimsicalism | 2025-10-28 18:49:17+00:00
i don't really disagree with you, but i do think it is funny given that the single largest policy targeting medical price transparency came from a republican admin.

i'm potentially on board with signing up everyone for medicare, but only if we actually can get voters to vote for the taxes necessary to fund that. i doubt we will be able to given we can't get voters to vote for the taxes necessary to fund existing medicare consumption.
by Der_Einzige | 2025-10-28 18:49:44+00:00
Rest assured, your friends driving was the same quality as the average drunk grandma on the road if they were exclusively using Tesla's "FSD" with no intervention for hours. It drives so piss poorly that I have to frequently intervene even on the latest beta software. If I lived in a shoot happy state like Texas I'm sure that a road rager would have put a bullet hole somewhere in my Tesla by now if I kept driving like that.

There's a difference between "I survived" and "I drive anywhere close to the quality of the average American" - a low bar and one that still is not met by Tesla FSD.
by gruez | 2025-10-28 18:50:08+00:00
>Exactly. How is it that an org suddenly discovered thousands of employees are under performers?

The more correct statement is they suddenly cared about under performers. It's not any different than say, you noticing your grocery bills going up and as a result you cancel all the subscriptions you don't need. It's not like all those SaaS services' value propositions suddenly plummeted because the price of eggs went up, but now you suddenly have an eye for cutting costs.
by nickelcitymario | 2025-10-28 18:50:21+00:00
Seeing a lot of comments disputing singular data points, but the author goes out of his way to provide as wide a variety of data points as he could find, and to try to disprove his own theory.

A couple anecdotal things I've noticed in my own life that align with his conclusions:

(1) I work in advertising. I've long bemoaned that my industry has turned to producing high-production low-creativity work for decades now. In the 60s, 70s, and 80s, people relied on creativity to get a message across. But today, it's all polish and no substance. I assumed it was because technology made it easier than ever to to do so, but maybe it's part of a wider trend.

(2) I used to love the variety of car designs. Every car was unique. Some were crazy. But today, take the logo off, and I'd be challenged to tell the difference between any two pickup trucks or any two sedans or any two vans. Every manufacturer has converged on the exact same design. (We see this in every industry, I just happened to be a fan of cars back in the day. But if you look at housing, clothing, computers, phones, tablets, etc etc, I can't think of any category that has real variety in design.)

(3) The author mentions book covers. Up until today, I was mistaking all those designs as meaning those books were part of the same series or something. I hadn't dug in to realize they were actually unrelated.

(4) My own kids have played it incredibly safe. I'm proud of them for being more responsible than I ever was. But I'm also worried they don't know how to take risks. I'm strongly of the belief that anything worth doing involves a healthy dose of risk. Could it really be that as a society, we've just abandoned risk?

I'm not saying the article is necessarily 100% correct. But I think it does pose what may be one of the most important questions of our era. Yeah yeah, I know that sounds bombastic: we have increasing global conflicts, a climate crisis, the apparent rise of neo-fascism, etc. But I don't know how we're going to solve those problems if we're all driving into the middle. How can 8 billion people be more homogenous than the 7, 6, 5, 4 billion that came before?

> Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves! You're all individuals!

> Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!

> Brian: You're all different!

> Crowd: Yes, we are all different!

> Man in crowd: I'm not...

> Crowd: Shhh!
by atmosx | 2025-10-28 18:50:24+00:00
This is something that an LLM can answer thoroughly. The problem is that we don't know the scope of the project.

For example what does it mean to _secure the server properly_. What's the "threat model"? Are there compliance requirements? Since this looks like a sort of hobby-project (single-server production deployment?), I believe that you should be okay with ssh keys-only config and ports 80 (redirect to SSL) and port 443 with LE certificates.

Managing security updates on a single server will require downtime. If you have active users you can handle that we scheduled downtime 5hours every X weeks (e.g. First Saturday of the month from 01-02 AM the server will be unavailable).

You're going to need a dedicated system to setup observability. The cheapest option is probably node_exporter with prometheus and grafana. Loki for logs with s3 backend (can be pretty cheap if you use backblaze).

For backups use whatever the provider gives you to backup the VM. Most providers have a ready-made solution for that.

Automatic deploys can be configured ofc, but usually the deployment pipeline mirrors the application requirements... Are you going to a DVCS (github actions)? Are you doing to handle deployments using a tool like kamal? In either case would try to use "SO_REUSEADDR" for zero-downtime upgrades in a single-server.

Secrets management and server setup can be managed by ansible + sops.

> anything else that is needed?

A DB? A CDN? An object store? A queue? :-)
by antisthenes | 2025-10-28 18:50:27+00:00
Anything related to healthcare (except some genuine minority of doctors and staff) is almost openly hostile to Americans.

I used to think American healthcare was in part expensive because Americans have poor health (e.g. high obesity).

Now I am beginning to think that Americans have poor health by design for the healthcare industry to be able to maximize their profits. Making some Americans healthy just seems to be a side product.
by tonymet | 2025-10-28 18:50:34+00:00
There are two “provider networks” in our region: BCBS & The United Healthcare network. BCBS is supposed to be better. Were we to switch, let’s say they did cover the 1/10 out of network cases, we risk losing the 9/10 that we currently have . The “whack a mole” is a good example. In this case it’s whack a mole and one could be $50-$100k worth of coverage gone. And more importantly, when you find a good doctor, you need to hold onto them. The difference between a good doctor and a bad one is life or death for this condition.
by jsbisviewtiful | 2025-10-28 18:50:57+00:00
Anecdotal, but recently gave up on AirPods and moved over to Beats Fit Pro to get similar feature parity with my iPhone. Thus far, the Beats fit way better than either my AirPod 2 or AirPod Pro 1's ever did. ANC and the lack of an extra mic are ever so slightly worse, but the battery life and fit are so much better. My $250 AirPod Pros had to be exchanged for a battery defect within 3 months and were regularly falling out during runs... I don't think I will be buying AirPods again, but anyone struggling with them should scope the Beats line.
by dragonwriter | 2025-10-28 18:51:19+00:00
> Using software is not one of the exclusive rights of Copyright holders.

Copying is, and copying into memory is inherently necessary to use. (Of course, in some cases, copying may be fair use.)

> If I have a legitimate copy of the software I can use it,

If you can find a method to use it without exercising one of the exclusive rights in copyright, like copying, sure, or if that exercise falls into one of the exceptions to copyright protection like fair use, also sure, otherwise, no.

> Just like I don't need a license to read a book.

You can read a book without copying it.
by ransom1538 | 2025-10-28 18:51:23+00:00
Medicare has a total enrollment of approximately 69 million people, while Medicaid has around 83 million people. That is 152 million people. We already have socialized medicine we just run it poorly and don't apply it to people that can pay.

Moving our system to 340 million people + letting our corporations out of paying would put the US into an economic death spiral. US corporations would love this plan. But at 340 million... I don't see doctor visits but once every 2 years -- many would just die waiting for appointments.
by SoftTalker | 2025-10-28 18:51:30+00:00
Yeah that is my experience. Users don't understand public key cryptography. You ask them for their public key and they send you the private one. They use the same key everywhere. They don't understand the difference between a host key and a login key. Ask them to do anything with their authorized_keys file and your next ticket will be "I'm locked out of my system."

They do understand passwords, and most can manage an SMS code as a second factor. That's about the limit of what you can count on.
by Nek_12 | 2025-10-28 18:51:31+00:00
Fair point on the tiny cohort. You're right - 9 users isn't enough to validate an archetype.

Marketing strategy: None, really. 99% organic from Play/App Store discovery. Spent $1,300 on ads over 3 years, negligible results. No content marketing (tried, spent ~20k$ on an instagram account, gained 50 followers), no SEO, no outreach (apart from irregular reddit shills). Just ship features and hope App Store algorithms pick it up.

Had one viral spike in Poland (June 2025, ~1,600 users) but don't know the source - maybe a YouTuber review, maybe App Store featuring. GA4 misattributed it to paid ads which didn't exist.

Competitors: - Free: Habitica (gamified), Todoist, Google Tasks - Freemium: Productive, Habitify, Strides (3-5 free habits, pay for more) - Paid upfront: Streaks ($5 one-time) - Coaching: Fabulous ($70/year), Noom ($60/month) - Niche: Focus Bear (ADHD), Routinery ($4/mo, routines focused)

The irony: I think I accidentally built something that works for a specific archetype (regular schedules + decision fatigue), but I've been marketing it as a general habit tracker to everyone. Which explains the 4.2% D1 retention - 95% are wrong-fit users.

But I can't niche down based on 9 users who won't even respond to my emails.
by almosthere | 2025-10-28 18:51:47+00:00
Lies maybe? Please follow this- I'm just trying to open people's eyes here.

On the front page of NPR.org right now:

Democratic AGs and governors sue USDA for suspending SNAP benefits

Now, Search for this in Google RIGHT NOW in an Incognito window so to avoid your bubble.

republican lawmakers form snap bill

You see articles referencing this:

10 GOP senators co-sponsor Hawley's SNAP funding bill

And it's from the Hill, Newsweek.

Now search again with this:

republican lawmakers form snap bill npr

And you'll note that the same NPR article comes up again.

Now click on the top NPR article and ask yourself, well at LEAST this article is going to mention Hawley's bill? Search for Hawley.

No dice? Do you think the author of this article is simply UNAWARE of Hawley's bill? Sorry.

I'm sorry but a lie by omission is still a lie. They're trying on purpose to make this entire shutdown look one-sided. Democrats are the ones refusing to fund the CR. And now people are going to go hungry.
by kiitos | 2025-10-28 18:51:50+00:00
the double-spend problem is unrelated to account-association (KYC, etc.) problems, solving the former doesn't solve the latter

the core problem with keypair-based systems is that people will lose their private keys, and that has to be accommodated, which requires trust delegation, which blah blah blah we've already worked thru these issues 1000 years ago and the result is representative government
by cyberax | 2025-10-28 18:51:59+00:00
I've been using Mikrotik in various capacities since 2008, I even made IoT devices using RB450 boards before the word "IoT" was coined. I also love supporting a small company that is successfully competing with the giants.

Their long-distance wireless and outdoor wireless are great, but their regular WiFI access points and software are at most adequate. They are not keeping up with the state of the art.
by boston_clone | 2025-10-28 18:52:03+00:00
does it similarly make you sad if your operating system tells you to update for new security patches or indicators?

the sheer volume of browser exploits - including in-the-wild exploited zero-click zero days - is frankly insane. intentionally leaving yourself unprotected is a bad choice that should be shoved back in your face, often.

> i see it everywhere.

i see it nowhere. update your software! and don't use chrome.
by Wheaties466 | 2025-10-28 18:52:24+00:00
I get that they are now involved and contribute to 5g. But its pretty shameful how huawei had acquired the ability to do so.

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

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-01/did-china...

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/13/us-charges-huawei-w...
by ThrowawayR2 | 2025-10-28 18:52:34+00:00
Unless the 40% number in your previous post was from October 2025, that's plainly moving the goalposts. And registered voters are the only people who matter since anyone else can't cast a ballot.

Beyond that, the August 2025 (since October's aren't available yet) poll numbers don't seem that much better. That the Democratic Party approval is neck and neck with the Republicans despite the Republicans' blatant corruption and incompetence speaks volumes about how unpopular the Democratic Party is. They need to reform drastically before the midterms next year.
by umvi | 2025-10-28 18:52:44+00:00
> I have heard the US is a democracy

It's not a simple democracy, no (i.e. "enact a national-level vote for every issue and majority vote wins"). It's a constitutional republic where basically you have 50 mini countries each with different weight in the house of representatives and in the electoral college and a bazillion checks and balances that make repealing existing laws and enacting new ones very difficult. I think the majority of Americans do not like the current healthcare status quo, but getting changes that everyone is on board with through the political machinery is very difficult and Americans are polarized and tend to distrust change plans proposed by the opposite party (since parties tend to propose legislation that favors their own first).
by seanmcdirmid | 2025-10-28 18:52:51+00:00
Focusing on reducing carbs and maximizing protein doesn't really seem faddish anymore. You don't have to go full Keto, but the carbs do spike your glucose and prevent your body from canabalizing fat for weight loss. At least reducing your carb portions is really effective. It took my clinical dietician 4 meetings to get that into my head at least.
by georgeecollins | 2025-10-28 18:52:53+00:00
I think the reason is that people know it is a problem but ideologically they really disagree about what to do about it. The impasse creates an opportunity for profit driven actors to fight reforms. Also, democracies do dumb things sometimes. See Brexit.

But also, sometimes people from other countries-- I am thinking parts of Europe-- underestimate how well paid people in the US often are. They compare the averages, like the US only makes 20% more per household, why do they put up with this or that. But that comparison is for the whole country, so imagine if you were comparing all of Europe or China.

I had a friend in Spain at a similar company as mine say, how can you put up with no safety net, etc. But I look at his company and every one at my company at any level gets paid 2-5x as much. So like these are less serious issues if you are paid an extra $1-200k/ year. It doesn't explain the inaction, but I believe it is why a lot of politically influential people don't care.