MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Show HN: Don't Build Things No One Wants We Test Ideas for Founders
by RS_Singh | 2025-10-23 15:44:21+00:00
Many founders waste months building something only to discover no one wants it. We help you validate ideas first so you can find out in weeks, what others find out in months: "is there any actual demand for my idea?".

Is your idea worth building? Let’s prove it.

The Validation Sprint Process:

① Landing Page

We design and launch a polished one-page site that clearly communicates your idea, building trust fast through strong visuals, benefits, and calls-to-action. Give your idea the best chance possible.

② Wait List

Interested users can sign up, giving you a tangible signal of demand. Beyond numbers, it’s a pool of potential early adopters or beta testers to engage with directly.

③ Deep User Insights

A waitlist shows interest, but not commitment. We gather deeper insights through short surveys and optional interviews, also helping you tailor your build for your potential user base. This way, if you decide to build, you build with confidence and clarity.

④ Targeted Promotion

We help you share your idea in the right places — from niche communities to launch platforms like Product Hunt. The goal: meaningful feedback from potential users, not vanity traffic.

Flexible Involvement

Choose the level of involvement that fits you — whether you want a quick setup handled by us, or a full sprint where we work together closely. We’ll tailor pricing around your level of involvement.

Interested? Get in touch today!
by victornomad | 2025-10-23 15:44:48+00:00
The point of the white noise in TRT is not masking the tinnitus so it is not played loud.

The white noise must be played below the level of the tinnitus, so one can hear both sounds simultaneously. Doing so, in theory, the brain learns to reclassify the tinnitus as an unimportant signal (noise).
by photochemsyn | 2025-10-23 15:45:09+00:00
Imagine a town with two landlords who own all rental properties. Yes consumers prefer cheaper rentals, but all the landlords have to do is write an app that they can use to set prices as high as they can while not having too many units empty. If the homeless population in the town increases, that's an externality - especially if the landlords themselves don't live in the town.
by mandeepj | 2025-10-23 15:45:16+00:00
Thanks! I found this one while searching for what I was looking for - https://www.knightdrivetv.com/products/c6-corvette-10-8-full...

It’s almost same price as Halo11, but seems to be far better product and fit! During first look of it, it felt expensive, but after looking at Halo11, it seems affordable :-)
by SanjayMehta | 2025-10-23 15:46:05+00:00
As another someone from the outside looking in, the difference is in the reporting in the old media.

Biden had the support of the media and his lawfare and misdeeds were glossed over.

One example was the Hunter Biden laptop. Nord Stream pipeline sabotage was another.

Trump's shenanigans are just getting more attention. But to be fair, his shenanigans are dialled up to 11 while Biden was at a more modest 8.
by calvinmorrison | 2025-10-23 15:46:06+00:00
well exactly, Verizon, Amazon, etc all LOVE more regulation. they have armies of lawyers who not only help in constructing the laws, they help pass, lobby and implement them. then the same law firms help amazon, verizon, etc execute it.

It's regulatory capture

now a small competitor wants to do something like get into the wifi game and they're look at huge fixed fees to get started.
by rectang | 2025-10-23 15:46:41+00:00
> Teams don't have normal text channels like Slack or Discord, they're forums

If you can get notifications sorted out and allow notification on creation of a topic but not on messages within a topic, I really like this choice.

The plague of Slack is constant pings in a channel that you need to need to monitor and thus can't mute, thanks to participants who refuse to start a thread and insist on having extended conversations in the root of the channel. Forcing thread/topic creation solves that problem.
by rayiner | 2025-10-23 15:46:52+00:00
The founders came from England, which has the world's longest unbroken political tradition (apart from 11 years during the English Civil War). England has top-level cabinet positions that were established 800 years ago. So I doubt the founders would be surprised that their constitution was still in use 236 years later.

Regardless, what the founders believed is relevant because they're the ones that wrote the currently operative legal document that governs the country. We can replace that document whenever we want! But until we do that, the document, and what its authors intended it to mean, are binding on us.
by ModernMech | 2025-10-23 15:47:09+00:00
> If there was a pressure valve where another party can simply take over

That's exactly what happened though -- the MAGA party took over. Conservatives "cut bait" with traditional Republicans, condemned them (see how they talk about Liz and Dick Cheney or even GWB, Mitt Romney, and John McCain, their own presidential nominees), and started a new party within the rotting corpse of the old GOP. There's still some "Republican" branding around but if you pay attention they're not waving "Republican" flags or wearing "Republican" hats anymore.
by softwaredoug | 2025-10-23 15:47:14+00:00
TBH The Right in the US has such a structural advantage, that Congress's silence becomes de-facto acceptance. Congress choosing to not do oversight becomes a de-facto repeal of the law.

The only other option is to find someone with standing being harmed and sue. And that will take time to wind through the courts, with not great chances at SCOTUS.
by beardyw | 2025-10-23 15:47:31+00:00
I tried the self referential "the bible is the word of god" and got the positive: 2 Timothy "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"

Ironically when the bible was compiled 300 years later a lot of scripture was considered to be heretical and was omitted. Further irony is that Timothy 2 in particular only just made the cut!
by OhMeadhbh | 2025-10-23 15:47:59+00:00
Ack. I wrote an ASN.1 compiler in Java in the 90s. Mostly just to make sure I understood how it and BER/DER were used in X.509. I think the BER interpretation bits are still being used somewhere

I'm sorry you had to waste a year of your life.

There are few things I dislike more in the computing world than ASN.1/BER. It seems to encourage over-specification and is suboptimal for loosely coupled systems.

But it looks like you had a decent time...
by hulitu | 2025-10-23 15:48:01+00:00
> > Trump Says It Is “Really Illegal” for Journalists to Give His Administration Negative Coverage

This is not far away from "defamation" in western world. I'm not siding with Trump here, but every western politician seem to think that he/she/it can do whatever he/she/it wants and every criticism must be regarded as defamation.
by thhoooowww0101 | 2025-10-23 15:48:34+00:00
The problem with these blocks is that they always end up blocking normal users, making the browsing experience worse... the opposite of what the intention was.

I use a forum. The operator decided to block almost every IP range associated with a data center. The problem is that more people are using VPNs due to the spread of geo restrictions, local laws like age verification, etc. And so now I need to disable my VPN - assuming I'm using one - just to access the site.
by tech_ken | 2025-10-23 15:48:50+00:00
It's a bad idea to send darkweb packages to a PO box, as the USPS will require a lower threshold of evidence to search the package. As it is they can't inspect your mail without a warrant, which is exceedingly rare for them to procure for a random package. Having it shipped to your home, although maybe somewhat nerve-wracking, is the simplest and most secure option in the United States (for now).
by nerdsniper | 2025-10-23 15:48:59+00:00
> They still defend him to this day

Older democratic voters generally do seem to defend him but a growing number of younger democratic voters seem to identify his actions as tantamount to statutory rape, and support his impeachment in principle. The establishment Democratic politicians also generally seem to defend him or at least refuse to condemn his actions, but most of the politicians also lean older.

Most people I talk with about it seem divided along the lines of morality in terms of the interaction and level of consent, rather than along debate over the security risks. Security risk seems like a valid point of concern to me.

That risk could be mitigated by a president being open about their promiscuity with both family and the public during their campaign - e.g. when both Russia and USA attempted to sextort and blackmail Sukarno (the president of the Philippines) he was delighted that his encounters were filmed and requested extra copies of the kompromat.
by nh23423fefe | 2025-10-23 15:49:23+00:00
Every time I try to understand algebraic geometry I get stuck at just beyond varieties and ideals. I can't even work my way up to chain complexes and homologies to even get a hold on the content. Honestly functors and natural transformations, I dont grok either, so its greek to me.

Like whenever i'm working through definitions or content it all makes sense. But not being a working mathematician it all just blurs away into abstract nonsense that I can't organize internally.
by hirako2000 | 2025-10-23 15:49:26+00:00
Bonds for the most part.

So who owns the obligations? Many individuals and foreign states.

So who's that, it doesn't give any sense of proportion.

It's complicated as one can never be sure how a bond get wrapped into another product sold in foreign, and often obscurely complex structures. But we do have some estimated data points.

Contrary to another comment pointing at China, this country accounts only for tiny fraction of the overall amount credited.

For example, the UK, Japan, individually own more U.S bonds than China.

Anyhow they each represent around 1 trillion, so where is the rest coming from?

The majority of creditors in value are U.S entities and U.S individuals.

Some may recall a bank in California that went bankrupt a year or two ago. Unveiling a financial gig certain institutions enjoy doing: accumulate bonds as it always pays.

A few references: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/20-countries-holding-most-us...

https://www.crfb.org/papers/qa-gross-debt-versus-debt-held-p...

Edit: another comment nicely broke down list of which U.S entities own what.
by maxglute | 2025-10-23 15:50:04+00:00
TBF Trump1 had consistently positive manufacturing PMI until covid. A lot of that didn't workout. Biden sustained that for 1st half of his term, but manufacturing PMI negative since 2023 and hasn't recovered. Some of that was reshoring effort from covid... question how that played out. Rest of it was dumping chips money. More accurate to say US tried to make stuff under Trump1 and Biden in response to PRC making all the stuff. But it's questionable US will end up making anything except chips because that's strategic priority, which they can't do as profitablly as TW, but it's sector with high capex that skews manufacturing PMI to appear US plans to make more stuff than they acutally are. Though TBH, as you say Trump2 isn't even trying to build according to PMI because he's fixated on engineering a 3rd term.
by hamburglar | 2025-10-23 15:50:05+00:00
As a former PKI enthusiast (tongue firmly in cheek with that description) I can say if you can limit your exposure to simply issuing certs so you control the data and thus avoid all edge cases, quirks, non-canonical encodings, etc, dealing with ASN.1 is “not too terrible.” But it is bad. The thing that used to regularly amaze me was the insane depths of complexity the designers went to … back in the 70’s! It is astounding to me that they managed to make a system that encapsulated so much complexity and is still in everyday use today.

You are truly a masochist and I salute you.
by almoehi | 2025-10-23 15:50:11+00:00
I’ve had written up a proposal for a research grant to basically work exactly on this idea.

It got reviewed by 2 ML scientists and one neuroscientist.

Got totally slammed (and thus rejected) by the ML scientists due to „lack of practical application“ and highly endorsed by the neuroscientist.

There’s so much unused potential in interdisciplinary research but nobody wants to fund it because it doesn’t „fit“ into one of the boxes.
by walkabout | 2025-10-23 15:50:18+00:00
Can you point to any parts of the constitution that, if ignored, would represent the US state based on that same constitution no longer functioning correctly, or not as a continuation of the same state as before? If so, why those parts but not, apparently, broad swaths of the rest of it?

If not… I think you’re operating under a uselessly-broad notion of what constitutes US democracy “working”.

[edit] what this really gets at is legitimacy, which is the ultimate arbiter of who’s in charge and how effectively they may wield power. I find the idea that a state founded on a constitutional document as its fundamental claim to legitimacy ignoring major parts of that document isn’t at least overtly flirting with either a loss of legitimacy or a transition to a different state with a different basis for legitimacy (either of which seem to me to clearly count as a failure of that original state)… puzzling.
by ErroneousBosh | 2025-10-23 15:50:20+00:00
Want a bit for your early 80s Mercedes? Your local dealer probably has it, or knows where to get it.

Want a bit for your early 50s Mercedes? Your local dealer knows a guy in Stuttgart who will send it over.

Want a bit for your early 30s Mercedes? Your local dealer knows a guy in Stuttgart who knows a guy who will *just go and make you one*, albeit it will be priced accordingly.
by mxek | 2025-10-23 15:50:20+00:00
We see NotebookLM as the closest thing!

Surf is built entirely on editable WYSIWYG documents, NotebookLM's main AI is built on chat. Surf is built to be a bit more open, NotebookLM was a bit locked down for our taste.

An example I'd highlight is taking notes against a PDF.

NotebookLM will convert the PDF to simple text, and the chat responses are read only. NotebookLM also has a lot of strict walls between chat, artifacts & sources. You have to "save" responses as (read only) notes, and move notes to sources.

With Surf you can generate notes that deep link to specific pages in the PDF, and Surf will open those pages in the original PDF. You can remove the fluff you don't want in your notes. The intention is to be a little more open -- all notes are sources from the get go, you don't have to save or migrate anything.
by LatteLazy | 2025-10-23 15:51:29+00:00
I never understand why people don’t pay more attention to “n” in these cases: number of other players.

If there are 2 suppliers in a market, they will collude without algos or private meetings: I can be pretty sure you will not cut your price if I don’t cut mine. The issue there is that there are only 2 suppliers, so trust is very easy.

If there are 100 other suppliers, I know ONE of them will cut their price. So I best cut mine first.

What I am trying to say here is that, algos or not, n is the major driver here imho.

That’s kind of interesting since the US has been very relaxed about falling values of n as long as prices seem ok.
by specialist | 2025-10-23 15:52:25+00:00
The OC and the submission's title both bury the lede:

Some company named Linear conducts paid work trials with candidates.

https://linear.app/now/why-and-how-we-do-work-trials-at-line...

--

FWIW, I've always done as Muratori advises.

But I accept any kind of prior writing, in lieu of code. (I've interviewed for DBA, QA/Test, tech writing, etc. I believe, but cannot prove, that anyone who can write an essay can also code.)

Also, when possible, I let teams choose their own members, from the qualified candidates in the funnel. Per advice of Luke Hohmann and others. IIRC Facebook does this too.

But The Correct Answer™ is some kind of (paid) probationary period, with no fault divorce. Long enough to validate skills, get past the "honeymoon" period, and verify team fit.

Alas, that requires change in labor laws, universal health care, (very) cheap day care, and other misc reasonable social safety net infra.
by nimos | 2025-10-23 15:53:06+00:00
Your original post says 70% loss, i.e. 30% efficiency. In the context of an e-bike, to me, 70% efficiency is fine. It's a large bike and the majority of the power for the majority of users is likely going to be coming from the battery anyways.

Also presumably we should be comparing the efficiency to other ebikes not traditional bikes. I'm not sure how effective traditional ebikes are at integrating motor + human power together but I'd imagine there are some additional losses.
by ErroneousBosh | 2025-10-23 15:53:15+00:00
See also Hitachi ;-)

Customer: "So, I need some huge IGBTs for an electric train motor, I need a 44-tonne excavator to lift the train, I need a new stereo to listen to while I fix it, and I need an, uhm, 'personal massager' to relax afterwards"

Sales guy: "Here's our catalogue, page 40, page 32, page 108, and page 7. Let me know what colours you want."
by Gormo | 2025-10-23 15:53:18+00:00
> First & foremost I really need to emphasise that, despite the misleading article title, this was not a false positive. Google flagged this domain for legitimate reasons.

Where are you getting that from? I don't see any evidence that there actually was any malicious activity going on on the Immich domain.

> But in terms of the API service Google are providing here this is absolutely not a false positive.

Google is applying heuristics derived from statistical correlations to classify sites. When a statistical indicator is present, but its target variable is not present, that is the very definition of a false positive.

Just because their verbiage uses uncertainty qualifiers like "may" or "might" doesn't change the fact that they are materially interfering with a third party's activities based on presumptive inferences that have not been validated -- and in fact seem to be invalid -- in this particular case.

> If you leave your apartment unlocked when you go out & a thief steals your housemate's laptop, is your housemate required to exclusively focus on the thief or should they be permitted to request you to be more diligent about locking doors?

One has nothing to do with the other. The fact that you didn't lock your door does not legitimize the thief's behavior. Google's behavior is still improper here, even if website operators have the option of investing additional time, effort, or money to reduce the likelihood of being misclassified by Google.
by rayiner | 2025-10-23 15:53:30+00:00
> Congress's silence becomes de-facto acceptance. Congress choosing to not do oversight becomes a de-factor repeal of the law.

Yes, but why is that surprising? If a majority of any legislature doesn't care to see a law enforced, they could vote to repeal the law anyway. It's only because of the artifice of the filibuster in the U.S. system that there's a meaningful difference between those two things.
by safety1st | 2025-10-23 15:53:45+00:00
I don't think the nuance you believe exists actually exists.

The scam centers at KK Park and Shwe Kokko employ forced laborers numbering in the thousands - they literally kidnap people from neighboring countries, imprison them, confiscate their passports, and force them to conduct scam operations for 17 hours a day, torturing them if they fail to comply.

The KNU is undoubtedly in on this, allowing it to happen within their area of control and almost certainly profiting financially from it.

The stuff going on there is evil of the highest degree. It's evil on a level that many Hacker News users probably did not even realize exists in the world.

Starlink doesn't even offer service in Myanmar! The operators of the scam centers acquired the terminals through their criminal connections.

Yes the Tatmadaw is also evil. It doesn't really matter though. This is a pretty black and white scenario. What's going on is dark beyond belief and any action which curtails it is positive.
Show HN: BGBuster ultra-low-cost Background Removal API built for devs
by tcogz | 2025-10-23 15:53:51+00:00
Hi HN I built BGBuster (https://bgbuster.com), a background removal API made for developers who were tired of paying €1+ per image.

Why I built it Existing services are expensive and complicated. I wanted something simple, transparent, and affordable.

What this does - Upload a file or pass a URL → get a transparent PNG or WebP - Pay once for credits (credits never expire) - Simple API: single POST, returns URL or raw image - Dashboard shows usage, success rate, and recent API calls
by pjc50 | 2025-10-23 15:53:59+00:00
People think serializers are easy, when suddenly this makes a whole raft of choices your problem. You can write your own, and now you have two problems; or you can build on top of capnproto or grpc or, if you really want to get retro, ASN.1 and inherit the problems of your serializer framework.

JSON by comparison has simple, obvious limitations that more people are familiar with dealing with.

There's also the tendency to tie your protocol to implementation. The Microsoft Exchange "protocol" didn't get reverse engineered for so long because it's basically the COM structure of Outlook fed through (if I remember rightly) DCOM-RPC.
by InTheArena | 2025-10-23 15:54:08+00:00
Sorry, the entire political establishment learned that debt didn't really matter back during Bush and then Obama.

How different would the world have been if either of the two "grand bargins" that Boehner started, and then Obama torpedo'd last minute (in the first example) or the second one (which biden as VP torpedo'd) happened? No rise of the tea party, working bipartisan arrangement on spending?

Shit matters.
by georgemcbay | 2025-10-23 15:54:08+00:00
Cutting out many of the already shaky social safety nets, still accumulating massive debt. This should end well.

I understand the self-interested desire for the ultra wealthy to have lower taxes on an individual level, but yet I still don't understand how they are perpetually blind to the fact that whatever the release valve for the historic and still growing massive wealth inequality we have takes, it won't be great for them either in the long term.

Sure its nice for them to make asset grabs during economic downturns, but eventually there's always a tipping point where things go upside down chaotic and I don't feel like we are that far away from it now.
by indoordin0saur | 2025-10-23 15:55:09+00:00
This works if landlords don't have significantly more units than are demanded by the population AND it is both very expensive for new units to be built and new competitors to enter the market. If enough supply comes on the market and the best move for the landlord with the additional supply would be to lower prices. Tenants then all move into the better value units and the expensive landlord is left with either empty buildings or is forced to lower his price.
by HALtheWise | 2025-10-23 15:55:41+00:00
Doing some quick math, if your bike is using 3kw to climb a reasonably steep (15% grade) hill at 8mph, we can calculate the weight it must be carrying, which ends up being about 1,200lbs

To answer your question, the limit on motor power exists as a proxy for limiting the weight, speed, and acceleration of ebikes within safe limits, since having an ebike charging uphill at 20mph with 500lbs of payload would present actual safety risks. Trying to regulate payload/speed/slope combinations directly has practical problems (police officers don't really want to stop delivery drivers to weight their cargo), while regulating motor power is much simpler.