MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by miguel_martin | 2025-10-31 17:51:36+00:00
> language like his personal compiler development playground

re personal compiler development playground: I don't see this for Nim 2. Nimony/Nim3 is more of a "playground", but rightfully so: he is creating a new major version of the language and aiming to improve the architecture of the compiler.

> He is also very difficult to work with and isn't very welcoming to newcomers

I don't have full context on the drama behind the fork, but I don't see Araq not being very "welcoming". Araq replies on the forums very consistently, replying to new-comer questions, which one might consider as "simple questions". Araq will state his personal & honest opinions, which may come off as abrasive or "un-welcoming" in your opinion. I don't agree with everything he says but that's OK.

From what I can tell the fork seems to be due to differences in direction of the language and w.r.t working together: differences in communication styles. But again, I don't know.

Personally, I see no reason to use the fork (Nimskull) over Nim, nor would I ever see any individual or company picking up Nimskull unless they were very deeply familiar with Nim (this is a small population of people). From a skim of the Nimskull repo, there is no website (there is a copy of the Nim manual), no forums (just some chatrooms), no clear documentation on the future direction, no documentation on differences for someone not familiar with Nim, etc. - why would anyone pick up Nimskull unless they knew Nim well? Please take this as constructive criticism. e.g. if any feature of the language/compiler/tooling is "better" or planned to be better: highlight it, summarize the long GitHub issue/projects discussions in a blog, etc.
by embedding-shape | 2025-10-31 17:51:43+00:00
I've always taken that term literally, basically "top of the top". If you're not getting the best responses from that LLM, then it's not "top of the top" anymore, regardless of size.

Then something could be "SOTA in it's class" I suppose, but personally that's less interesting and also not what the parent commentator claimed, which was basically "anyone with money can get SOTA models up and running".

Edit: Wikipedia seems to agree with me too:

> The state of the art (SOTA or SotA, sometimes cutting edge, leading edge, or bleeding edge) refers to the highest level of general development, as of a device, technique, or scientific field achieved at a particular time

I haven't heard of anyone using SOTA to not mean "at the front of the pack", but maybe people outside of ML use the word differently.
by timenotwasted | 2025-10-31 17:51:51+00:00
I have an old 2080TI that I use to run Ollama and Qdrant. It has been ok, I haven't found it so good that it has replaced using Claude or Codex but there are times where having RAG available locally is a nice setup for more specific queries. I also just enjoy tinkering with random models which this makes super easy.

My daily drivers though are still either Codex or GPT5, Claude Code used to be but it just doesn't deliver the same results as it has previously.
by Razengan | 2025-10-31 17:52:04+00:00
Yes please! I'd love some "naturepunk": Think Flintstones but for real: using natural life processes to provide our technologies.

Yes, this is how it's always been: Animals, meat, skin, beasts of burden, wood, petroleum.

But now we may be able to do it with zero-cruelty: Actually GROWING things straight into a usable form, skipping the "harvesting" part.

(Though I hope we're not opening a whole new realm of misery.. imagine being born as a chair and feeling ass all your existence)
by owlbite | 2025-10-31 17:52:37+00:00
Very true, but a lot of stuff builds on a few core optimized libraries like BLAS/LAPACK, and picking up a build of those targeted at a modern microarchitecture can give you 10x or more compared to a non-targeted build.

That said, most of those packages will just read the hardware capability from the OS and dispatch an appropriate codepath anyway. You maybe save some code footprint by restricting the number of codepaths it needs to compile.
by tylertreat | 2025-10-31 17:52:38+00:00
I get the skepticism as I shared similar thoughts on what recipe quality would be like. I'm also quite sensitive to AI slop. My wife, who really is an outstanding cook, was even more skeptical, and she has a _very_ high bar for recipes. To be clear, we don't use it to generate recipes for every meal. She has a collection of go-to favorites and then peppers in 1-2 AI recipes throughout the week, often to explore new things. She also uses it to create "Quick Bite" recipes for when we need something fast with whatever we have on hand, outside of an actual meal plan.

Honestly, I wasn't sure if the AI recipes were going to meet her standards when it comes to food, but so far she's been quite happy overall with the recipe quality. She often will request replacements or customizations, so the first pass suggestions are not always what she's looking for.

I realize it's definitely not for everyone though.
by fsckboy | 2025-10-31 17:52:53+00:00
>how did we go from “update your software; don’t use chrome” to “you are pushing software monoculture and weakening internet security”?

given the audience here, i think it's more likely that OP/GP is running an up to date browser that is of an alternate architecture that has not "mainstreamed" all of google and hollywood's ad and drm friendly CSS HTML
by upboundspiral | 2025-10-31 17:53:00+00:00
One thing I've been contemplating lately is that from a business perspective, when your competitors expand their revenue avenues (generally through ads) you have three options: copy them to catch up, do nothing and perish, and lobby the government for increased consumer protections.

I've started to wonder why we see so few companies do this. It's always "evil company lobbying to harm the its customers and the nation." Companies are made up of people, and for myself, if I was at a company I would be pushing to lobby on behalf of consumers to be able to keep a moral center and sleep at night. I am strongly for making money, but there are certain things I am not willing to do for it.

Targeted advertising is one of these things that I believe deserves to fully die. I have nothing against general analytics, nor gathering data about trends etc, but stalking every single person on the internet 24/7 is something people are put in jail for if they do it in person.
by bavent | 2025-10-31 17:53:21+00:00
Hard disagree here. GitHub does encourage this sort of thing, but even there for my PRs to be easily reviewable, I like to keep my commits organized and with good messages explaining things. That way the reviewer can walk the commits, and see why each thing was thing was done.

I also like it for myself, when I’m going over my own PRs before asking for a review - I will often amend commits to ensure the work is broken down correctly, each thing that should go together, does.

In a way, stacked PRs are just a higher-level abstraction of this too - same idea, keep work that goes together in the same place.
by realityfactchex | 2025-10-31 17:53:29+00:00
> compelling

>> motivation

It's the only way to be sure it's not being trained on.

Most people never come up with any truly novel ideas to code. That's fine. There's no point in those people not submitting their projects to LLM providers.

This lack of creativity is so prevalent, that many people believe that it is not possible to come up with new ideas (variants: it's all been tried before; or: it would inevitably be tried by someone else anyway; or: people will copy anyway).

Some people do come up with new stuff, though. And (sometimes) they don't want to be trained on. That is the main edge IMO, for running local models.

In a word: competition.

Note, this is distinct from fearing copying by humans (or agents) with LLMs at their disposal. This is about not seeding patterns more directly into the code being trained on.

Most people would say, forget that, just move fast and gain dominance. And they might not be wrong. Time may tell. But the reason can still stand as a compelling motivation, at least theoretically.

Tangential: IANAL, but I imagine there's some kind of parallel concept around code/concept "property ownership". If you literally send your code to a 3P LLM, I'm guessing they have rights to it and some otherwise handwavy (quasi important) IP ownership might become suspect. We are possibly in a post-IP world (for some decades now depending on who's talking), but not everybody agrees on that currently, AFAICT.
by standardly | 2025-10-31 17:53:45+00:00
What is the difference between

1.) Sampling a real snare sound 2.) Suno generating a couple random snare hits for you to choose from

? There are ways to use it that aren't far-removed from how real producers work.

It's different to say "Generate me top-40 Sounding pop song"... But Suno has more uses than that.
by freedomben | 2025-10-31 17:53:46+00:00
Multiple factors (neither a good excuse, just reality):

* Lack of interest for other team members, which translated to doing what they thought was a sufficiently minimal amount of knowledge transfer

* An (unwise) attitude that "it's already set up and configured, and terraformed, so we can just acquire that knowledge if and when it's needed"

* Kafka guy left a lot faster than anybody really expected, not leaving much time and practically no documentation

* The rest of the team was already overwhelmed with other responsiblities and didn't have much bandwidth available

* Nobody wanted to be the person/people that ended up "owning" it, so there was a reverse incentive
by WorldMaker | 2025-10-31 17:53:56+00:00
One of the reasons functional languages like to make mutable code look very different from immutable code is to try to make it clear which is which when reading the code, to help avoid mistakes.

> Is it so offensive that the syntax `obj.a = 2` ends up rebinding `obj` itself?

That does imply that the `obj` binding itself is mutable, so if you are trying for entirely immutable data structures (by default), you do probably want to avoid that.

This is why the syntax sugar, in languages that have been exploring syntax sugar for it, starts to look like:

let newObj = { obj with a = 2 }

You still want to be able to name the new immutable binding.
by gxs | 2025-10-31 17:54:10+00:00
I wonder if this explains at all why I've never had the need to diagram anything before I build it - whether it be software or something concrete like a cabinet - I just don't

I work very much like my dad, as I build I just refer to the image in my head

On the other hand, some people keep meticulous notes and diagrams about what they are going to do

This isn't a knock - I have some very sharp co-workers that do better work in some areas even than myself who need to compulsively diagram/take notes

Each has its pros and cons. For me the pros are I can get to building super quickly. It means on a microlevel I can explain things to people who will help with the build in great detail and make sure they "build the right thing"

On the other hand, the con is communicating at a macro level. I don't have anything diagrammed out typically, or notes even, so sometimes it feels to people like they are working with a black box and I have to make a conscious effort to document and diagram

Interesting stuff

For the people here debating whether they have it or not: my take away from many years of therapy is that when it comes to mental stuff like this, it's pretty much just whatever you say it is and how much it impacts your life

If you think you have OCD but it's not interfering with your day to day life, you're probably fine, even if you feel like it's overboard

On the other hand, even mild OCD can be devastating to a different person if they feel like it's making their life hell

So while not quite the same thing, if you think you have aphantasia and you think it's to the point where it's affecting your life in one way or another, than you probably do

If you think you have it but you don't really notice/care and feel like you get by just fine, then you might or might not

Moral of the story is that I hope it's just a thought exercise for you and nothing you're sweating about
by danaris | 2025-10-31 17:55:17+00:00
> Why would ANY global business still rely on U.S. Tech?

First and foremost, because it takes time to switch.

Secondly, because there are a lot of things that just don't have realistic alternatives.

For a large agency, especially one that has statutory or regulatory requirements on how they decide on and deploy hardware and software, even if they can legally choose to switch to open-source options, if they made that decision the day after the election last year, it might have been too late to get major proposals in for the 2025 fiscal year, so they'd have to wait until 2026 to do more than start planning. (This is, fairly obviously, a near-worst-case scenario; other agencies will have much more freedom to change as they please.)

Even if they're less encumbered, the more users you have within an organization, the longer it takes to execute a migration like this, and it can be really really hard to operate for any length of time with a partial migration completed, especially for the support team. I could easily believe that some such migrations are already in the planning stage, but will take months to actually happen.

And finally, because This Is How We've Always Done It is a very, very powerful force. For some organizations, unfortunately, it will take some kind of catastrophic event to realize that they really shouldn't be relying on a foreign and possibly hostile power for all their major enterprise IT vendors.
by nofriend | 2025-10-31 17:55:48+00:00
> If you cannot picture what they are describing, you cannot get aroused.

This is your thesis. In the first place, the existence of erotic literature doesn't prove this is true, like you claimed. I would furthermore claim that it calls this assumption into question. If the goal was imagery, the more straightforward approach would be to draw an image. If that wasn't possible, you would instead describe the image you wanted to draw in words in great detail. But this isn't at all what most erotica consists of.
by Forgeties79 | 2025-10-31 17:56:10+00:00
Mac->Linux swapper here (back in April). I left after they screwed me on a hardware situation.

Honestly I’ve really enjoyed the swap. But man I really miss having iMessages across my devices as well as the shared clipboard. By far the two things I missed the most. Everything else I’ve kind of moved on from and can’t even think of off the top of my head anymore
by EnzoMartins | 2025-10-31 17:56:18+00:00
The text "Semanticide" powerfully highlights how language manipulation erodes democracy and understanding – a reality deeply felt in Brazil. We see this in the trivialization of serious terms like "genocide" and the overuse of inflammatory labels like "fascism" or "enemy of democracy," hindering real discussion.

Fake news and disinformation on social media further exemplify this, distorting reality and undermining trust. The prioritization of moral rhetoric over fact-checking is a significant problem, especially when defending important causes.

"Semanticide" warns of a fragmented public sphere where shared meaning is lost. This makes addressing crucial issues like historical injustice and democratic values increasingly difficult. It's a stark reminder of the importance of linguistic rigor and defending language integrity, a challenge particularly relevant in Brazil's current political climate.
by honestduane | 2025-10-31 17:56:51+00:00
There's been a lot of debate around Amazon's hiring practices, particularly given the conflicting data and statements from the company. A core issue seems to be that Amazon has alienated a significant portion of its domestic engineering talent pool. Many experienced engineers have left, and others seem unwilling to return, even when offered higher-level roles. I personally was an L7 engineer and turned down a boomerang offer.

In response, Amazon appears to be increasingly turning to H-1B workers - especially from countries where the company’s reputation hasn't soured as much.

Example: https://h1bgrader.com/h1b-sponsors/amazon-dot-com-services-l...

While these engineers may be less experienced, they're often more willing to accept lower compensation, due in part to discrepancies in wage data reported by the Department of Labor. For example, the BLS wage data, which sets a $115k cap for certain wage codes, has led to a misalignment in what’s considered a "fair wage" enabling companies like Amazon to pay these workers below actual market rates.

This reliance on overseas talent seems to be more than just a cost-saving measure; it also reflects Amazon's ongoing struggle with high turnover among its U.S. engineering staff. The company’s well-documented high attrition rates, as highlighted in reports like this one from Forbes - https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2022/10/24/amazon-r... - shed light on the challenges Amazon faces in retaining domestic engineers.

The LinkedIn data also supports this trend.

Candidly, it seems that Amazon has burned too many bridges with U.S.-based engineers, forcing the company to increasingly rely on a less experienced labor pool from abroad in order to maintain its operations, despite being an American based, publicly traded company.
by vkou | 2025-10-31 17:57:16+00:00
It's not a flaw in representative democracy, it's a flaw in America as a whole. Most recently the public looked at the options before them, and chose to send in a slate of absolute lunatics in.

When you can't even figure out that having blatantly and openly vindictive and corrupt people in government is a bad idea, the fact that they aren't annually revisiting some legislature that's an issue for the 5% of the population that is the tech crowd isn't the problem. Like, it's a problem, but but it's not the problem.
by 827a | 2025-10-31 17:57:42+00:00
> This element does not announce itself as an interactive element to screen reader users.

Is this actually true nowadays? Given that advice like this is often parrotted by people who don't actually use screen-reading software, I sometimes wonder if this is a situation where we've just been saying this and repeating this advice; meanwhile, screen readers have obviously become sophisticated enough to recognize that a div with an onclick handler on it is probably, you know, clickable and interactive.
by drysine | 2025-10-31 17:57:57+00:00
Zelensky is doing damage control for his crony's company.

"Ukraine's anti-corruption agency has been investigating the country's star deep-strike drone company — Fire Point — over concerns it misled the government on pricing and deliveries, five sources with knowledge of the investigation told the Kyiv Independent.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau, or NABU, is also looking into the co-owner of President Volodymyr Zelensky's former film studio as the alleged ultimate beneficiary of the company, sources said.

Until recently, the weapons maker was virtually unknown outside of Ukraine's defense circles, despite appearing to be one of the largest — if not the largest — recipient of Defense Ministry drone budget funds, according to documents obtained by the Kyiv Independent."[0]

[0] https://kyivindependent.com/exclusive-maker-of-ukraines-priz...
by NoMoreNicksLeft | 2025-10-31 18:00:14+00:00
>Build something that integrates all streaming providers and many people will already stop pirating. But even then, people are still expected to pay rent to n different streaming companies. It just doesn’t work. They’re being too greedy.

They're not being "too greedy". No single streaming company makes you pay multiple subscriptions. Just the one. But you like the shows, and lots of companies want to make shows, so you end up liking shows from multiple companies. You're the one that wants multiple subscriptions, you just dislike the cost/inconvenience. Economically speaking, there's no solution here that can satisfy you... the cost to negotiate with all of them and consolidate on a single platform would be extraordinarily expensive, because that's what convenience often is: exorbitantly expensive. There's no game theory strategy here where you get everything you want, where all the production companies get everything they want, and it all happens at modest prices.

Personally, I can't even pretend to imagine what goes through the heads of people who want to having "streaming subscriptions". Even you, you want those too, you just want a single everything-in-it subscription that's cheap. It's the same thing that people complain about with video games with the "why do I have to have internet for a single-player game" gripes. In 1985, if I wanted shows, I did have to subscribe to cable... the infrastructure for shows was absurdly expensive, no individual could have it. Now? The big 12-bay NAS filled with hard drives, and I have copies of movies and television (and music and software and games and books) that my great-nth-grandchildren will be able to enjoy for free (16K ultra-giga-mega-gold-bluray re-re-remasters notwithstanding).
by graemep | 2025-10-31 18:00:32+00:00
They do though, and they are happy to.

A very small number of government agencies in a few countries have moved away from reliance on the US, but very few businesses have. We still have governments and businesses encouraging the use of US tech by, for example, encouraging use of mobile apps. AWS, Azure and Google dominate cloud services in most of the world. Microsoft dominates the desktop. Businesses and individuals are increasingly reliant on cloud apps that are mostly American.

Here in the UK my daughter's school (a large sixth for college) relies in MS cloud versions of Office and on Teams, you need (at least in my area) to use an mobile app, or a web app hosted on AWS to make an appointment with a GP (and if you are prescribed medication the pharmacy are informed via an API running in AWS). Most SMEs that do run anything of their own use AWS. One of the biggest banks (Lloyds) had issues during the recent AWS outage, and I know they are not the only one to use AWS.

A lot of European governments are pushing ID and age verification mobile apps.

In general a lot of governments are regulating in ways that favour the incumbents.
by Pet_Ant | 2025-10-31 18:01:12+00:00
> If you're negotiating deals worth billions of dollars, or even just millions, I'd strongly suggest not doing so with a hangover.

...have you met salespeople? Buying lap dances is a legitimate business expense for them. You'd be surprised how much personal rapport matters and facts don't.

In all fairness, I only know about 8 and 9 figure deals, maybe at 10 and 11 salespeople grow ethics...
by embedding-shape | 2025-10-31 18:01:27+00:00
> that the biggest fans of and users of generative AI for writing (and in your case music) are people who want to write a book but never got around to doing it, not people who want to read and pay for books

That makes sense right? At the advent of computer DAWs, the biggest fans and users wasn't people listening to music, but people who want to make music. Production tools are indeed meant for people producing things, not the consumers, as it should be :)
by _aavaa_ | 2025-10-31 18:01:28+00:00
Windows mobile by the time it looked like the iPhone was late to the party. But windows had been releasing a mobile os for a long time before that. Microsoft was first, they just didn’t make as good of a product as Apple despite their money.

OpenAI is also first, but it is absolutely not a given that they are the Apple in this situation. Microsoft too had money to bury the competition, they even staged a fake funeral when they shipped windows phone 7.

> Barring something very unexpected

Like the release of an iPhone?
by freedomben | 2025-10-31 18:01:39+00:00
Fully agree with you here. Blunt squashing is a bandaid to the problem of lazy commits. Commits should IMHO be specific and atomic. Like fixing one bug or implementing one feature. Obviously there are cases where this ideal isn't practical, but the answer is still not squash everything, it's to think for 10 more seconds about the commit and do your best.