MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by bitexploder | 2025-10-28 13:04:15+00:00
It truly is not easy IMO. I am just picking a nit here but "if you have the fortitude" is doing a lot of work. I ran a company for a while and you not only have to have the fortitude, but principles and an ability to weather the consequences of a choice like that. If you are in a tough position and you have employees who are counting on you and the business it is anything but easy. Even if you have fortitude. These decisions can be existential. Of course there are and should be red lines based on your ethics and morals, but none of that is easy. To me it is very hard.
by potato3732842 | 2025-10-28 13:04:17+00:00
Even the people buried deep in the most podunk regulatory department you've never even heard of are smart enough to re-order the priority list on a change of administration. They don't need to be told and there is no paper trail. They just know what's good for their boss's boss's boss's boss^n is good for them and that kicking a potential hornet's nest is bad for them.

And even if you personally want to hassle someone with friends in the right places, what are the odds every other leaf of every other part of the organization(s) does? There will always be someone who has no morals and wants to climb the ladder who's happy to read between the lines and drop the ball.

It's just how it is. On some level, I'm not even sure this is a bad thing. If the executive can't change prioritization implicitly then the organization is either stupid or unaccountable.
by sega_sai | 2025-10-28 13:04:54+00:00
If I had to guess (I don't know) the absolute majority of people considering suicide never go to a therapist. Thus while I absolutely agree that therapist is better than AI, but the question is whether 95% of people not doing therapy + 5% people doing therapy is better or not than 50% not doing therapy, 45% using AI, 5% doing therapy. I don't know the answer to this question.
by filearts | 2025-10-28 13:05:38+00:00
In a previous professional life, I did financial modelling for a big 4 accounting firm. We had tooling that allowed us to visualize contiguous ranges of identical formulas (if you convert formulas to R1C1 addressing, similar formulas have the same representation). This allowed for overrides to stick out like a sore thumb.

I suspect similar tools could be made for Claude and other LLMs except that it wouldn't be plagued by the mind-numbing tedium of doing this sort of audit.
by basisword | 2025-10-28 13:05:42+00:00
This is an excellent point. I have 10 friends that I went through 15 years of school + University with. So obviously very close friends. We remain in touch via group chat a decade on but only actually see each other once or twice a year. I would still consider them among my closest friends - but the convenience of modern technology has definitely preserved those friendships to a large extent. I imagine if we had to actually phone each other we would feel much less close.
by pjc50 | 2025-10-28 13:05:43+00:00
> As an employee you don't have financial risk tied to the company, you get a regular paycheck. But if you are an investor you take a risk that the money you invest can one day just vanish with zero return.

I would like people who cannot distinguish between an income stream and a capital value to learn what an "annuity" is.

Employees have very significant financial risk tied to the company because it's their main source of income. In America, there may even be significant health risks because health insurance is tied to the employer for baffling tax reasons.

Not to mention that in many startups, the employees are literally investors: they hold stock and options!

> So you get investors spreading their risk across many ventures

The employee version of this is called "overemployment", but it's quite risky.
by NoMoreNicksLeft | 2025-10-28 13:06:01+00:00
Mass layoffs tend to make stock prices go higher, not lower... so nothing to worry about there. If the news stories were even more brutal, accusing Amazon of axing tens of thousands and then laughing when those people begged and pleaded that they wouldn't be able to afford baby formula, I think I suspect that this would be even better at closing time than some less offensive journalism.
by kristov | 2025-10-28 13:06:03+00:00
If your a billionaire and you invest in index funds, the risk of becoming homeless is really low, sure. The system works in such a way that the more money you have the easier it is to make more money. So if your stuck at the bottom, your really stuck.

And I believe there is a huge shift of wealth going on, to a very small number of insanely rich people. And that is a very big problem.
by matheusmoreira | 2025-10-28 13:06:05+00:00
That approach is going to get people killed.

If you're not ready, able and willing to whip out a pistol and instantly put two bullets right between the eyes of each one of those criminals, you're probably better off pulling out your phone and covertly dialing 911... After you have gotten as far away from those people as possible.

> the solution is citizens becoming at least as brutal themselves

Becoming a brutal, violent person capable of ending another human being's life is a long process. It's not a switch that people just flip. Especially civilized people from developed countries where it is likely they will go their entire lives without experiencing violence.

Even if they do manage it, they'll have to pay the price. There are professional soldiers out there who are traumatized by the lives they have taken. Normal citizens will have it that much worse... And that's if they don't screw it up and end up going to prison for excessive use of force which can easily turn self-defense into cold-blooded murder.

> In any shithole society

I'm brazilian. I live in exactly that kind of shithole society. You should see the hilariously violent liveleak videos this country produces. Way too many of them are the result of people trying to fight their way out of a robbery, or intervening in a crime in progress. I remember this particularly cartoonish video where a child is running away from something, pistol in hand, and some guy randomly decides to trip him up. He gets up, shoots the guy dead and resumes his escape as though absolutely nothing had just happened.

This is a country where the population is prone to brutally lynching criminals, by the way. Ironically, the drug traffickers are the most effective at it. They routinely dispense brutal violence against the lesser criminals who hurt their drug trade by scaring off potential customers. It's gotten to the point they have formed parallel governments, complete with laws, tribunals and taxes.

I get it. The sheer audacity of criminals is offensive and the impunity is truly soul crushing. This sense of impunity permeates the life of every brazilian. It feels like there's no justice. I'm just saying that if you aim to fight this impunity, you need a far more sophisticated approach than telling random bystanders to be "fit" and "stubborn". That sort of thing will accomplish nothing but the eventual deaths of well meaning people.
by wongarsu | 2025-10-28 13:06:08+00:00
I would assume their leadership simply never enter EU soil. Just like the CIA agents Italy has arrest warrants out for kidnapping Abu Omar, or how Kim Dotcom lived quite happily for a time by not going to the US or any country that would extradite him. It's pretty difficult to prosecute people on foreign soil without the kind of international cooperation that exists for prosecuting drug traffickers
by hn_throwaway_99 | 2025-10-28 13:06:29+00:00
Whenever there are layoffs of a major company, like half the comments here always bemoan the particular wording the article or company uses to describe the layoffs. It's a pointless exercise IMO (though I agree with you, ironically "firing" is less accurate than "let go").

Layoffs suck. Companies should be judged by their actions (e.g. severance, who is being laid off, etc.) and just ignore the words.
by sgt101 | 2025-10-28 13:06:33+00:00
They had the infrastructure and muscle to put a dent into Google Search and Microsoft Enterprise software... but instead they've ceeded to OpenAI and Anthropic.

They had a bridgehead device of the type that OpenAI are struggling to create with Jonny Ive in Alexa... but nothing seems to be happening with Alexa now.
by yubblegum | 2025-10-28 13:06:55+00:00
It's a serious hacker film, actually. Redford is the ultimate hacker in that film: social engineering, picking locks, scrambling MaBell's circuits, and taking out the bad guys in the CIA.

[699BB20FD159089A03DD8935575805B1168A8E63 7.4G 1080 blu]
by HelloMcFly | 2025-10-28 13:07:05+00:00
The most pernicious part of the con is that by systematically dismantling pensions and forcing everyone into 401(k)s, they've ensured that we all have to root for the plutocrats. We're forced to watch our retirement funds, which means we're incentivized to hope Amazon's stock does go up after firing 14k (or 30k according to other sources) people.

It's a system of forced complicity. We have to root for the billionaires, or we risk our own survival in old age.
by the_af | 2025-10-28 13:07:16+00:00
> Is it possible to create a programming language that has every possible feature all at once?

Some random thoughts about this:

If languages are a tool of communication between programmers (there's that adage "primarily for humans to read, and only secondarily for computers to run") would this be a good idea?

Wouldn't each set of flags effectively define a different language? With a combinatorial explosion of flags.

An act of design is not only about what to include, but what to leave out. Some features do not interact well with others, which is why tradeoffs exist. You'd have to enforce restrictions on which flags can be used together.

You'd be designing a family of programming languages rather than a single language. Finding code in this language would tell you little, until you understood the specific flags.
by basisword | 2025-10-28 13:07:24+00:00
>> Reflecting on my own experience - frequency of contact (if I see them once a year, can't really count them as close friends)

I think this one is interesting. If you saw them daily for 20 years and then transitioned to once a year are they automatically not close friends? Even if they satisfied the other criteria (like you could turn to them when you are facing a serious problem, you have deep conversations on that annual meeting because you are comfortable with them, etc)?
by jcgrillo | 2025-10-28 13:07:31+00:00
> Some go so far as to say “AI not welcome here” find another project.

This feels extremely counterproductive and fundamentally unenforceable to me.

But it's trivially enforceable. Accept PRs from unverified contributors, look at them for inspiration if you like, but don't ever merge one. It's probably not a satisfying answer, but if you want or need to ensure your project hasn't been infected by AI generated code you need to only accept contributions from people you know and trust.
by scaredreally | 2025-10-28 13:08:30+00:00
I received a notification this week that YouTube is unable to verify my age and so will filter certain types of content. This account is 10 years old (or more) and I watch a very specific set of content types that haven't deviated and clearly point to an adult. I assume they are rolling out the final piece of the effort to remove anonymity from the internet as nothing else has changed.
by reaperducer | 2025-10-28 13:08:38+00:00
Never mind the fact that families were affected and employees were constantly stressed near the end of every quarter.

It's this sort of thing that has me re-thinking the fairness of employees giving employers the customary (in the United States) two week notice before leaving.

Employees don't get two weeks notice before being fired without cause.

It's supposed to be because replacing an employee is so difficult for the company. Well, it's a hell of a lot more difficult for an employee to lose a job than it is for a company to lose a worker.

If I'm employer "at will" then my employer should also be retained "at will." If they want to negotiate another arrangement, that's fine.
by lapcat | 2025-10-28 13:08:41+00:00
> That said it is a living demo that can help make an idea feel more real. It is also enormously fun. Think of it as a delightful movie set.

[pedantry] It bothers me that the photo for "think of prototype PRs as movie sets" is clearly not a movie set but rather the set of the TV show Seinfeld. Anyone who watched the show would immediately recognize Jerry's apartment.
by dangus | 2025-10-28 13:09:00+00:00
That doesn’t surprise me at all. Islamic radicals aren’t that different in belief system from a lot of Christian nationalists.

We have all seen family portraits where people pose with American flags, bibles, and guns.

American Christians talk about how the woman/wife is subservient to the husband, how women should stay at home and forego a career and perform traditional roles at home. Many denounce and try to restrict contraceptive access. Many insist that women should/should not dress a certain way.

American Christian talk about how being gay is a sin and how America is a Christian country, not a secular democracy, how we need to have the Ten Commandments in school and in government buildings.

American Christians even grow beards, wear tactical/military-style gear, and drive pickup trucks just like Islamic radicals! (Okay that last one is a a half-joke but it’s kind of funny how the similarities bleed into the aesthetic).

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…
by itsoktocry | 2025-10-28 13:09:02+00:00
>Companies would start to min/max this process and would use it as a way to meet targets (perhaps unrealistic ones) at the expense of take-home pay for employees, even in situations where they don't actually need to make cuts.

And the reverse? We literally just went through a phase where tech companies over hired like crazy, at ridiculous salaries. We had people remote working 3 or more jobs at a time. And yet, people still act like companies have all the power?

This stuff ebbs and flows. The reality is the value of your labour fluctuates, despite the inconvenience of that to you.
by jvanderbot | 2025-10-28 13:09:34+00:00
Have you noticed how bad their devices dept was gutted? I can easily imagine a proper AI system backing alexa, rolled out to all existing customers, which would potentially boost the viability of that whole product line.

right now I have no idea what Alexa is for anymore. It pings me when a package arrives but so does my phone. I can't order from it, because it makes me open the app. I can manage a shopping list I guess? I ask it the temp outside from time to time b/c I don't want to go look at the thermometer outside my window?

A proper device would discuss with me product options and Q&A, or something. Even piping Grok/GPT5 through to answer questions would be light years ahead of the current crap answers I get when I ask questions. And why doesn't it do a good job of identifying songs that are playing? That's trivial software, and it could recommend some songs like this (which is something I use GPT for).

I don't know I'm just a trad software engineer, but it sure seems like it's low risk / high improvement to at least have a modern LLM feature in that product.
by JCM9 | 2025-10-28 13:09:44+00:00
AWS is probably in last place among computing clouds on AI and the AI managed services from AWS are pretty second-rate.

Amazon had Alexa (Echos) everywhere and that was teed up to knock it out of the park putting a real AI assistant in every home. Then the devices team totally blew it and did almost nothing to take advantage of that huge lead. Folks are now basically just throwing these things in the trash and the devices unit is a huge pit of cash on fire.

The list goes on…
by ericmay | 2025-10-28 13:10:30+00:00
> What does the R stand for?

Restricted, but your point isn’t a good one. You don’t hire someone then hand them, idk $50,000 in stock or options so they can leave the next day. CEOs even get paid in stock grants based on performance or other such restrictions options, etc., (obviously there’s a lot of variation here) with lots of strings attached (maybe not enough but that’s beside the point).

> In a society which claims that everyone is equal

No, you are making this up. Society doesn’t claim that everyone is equal. We claim you should be treated equally under the eyes of the law, which by the way our poor performance here is a criticism that I think is very valid.
by deaux | 2025-10-28 13:10:38+00:00
It's "losing" compared to the US? Haha. I guess from a true VC startup bro perspective. It's not "the EU is way behind the US and China", it's "the EU and US are way behind China". Because the latter is the only one who has been taking long-term decision on decision over the last decades, whereas for the other two, 95% is for the short-term, the next quarter, the next election a year from now. The US is even worse in this regard, hence why it's deteriorating even more rapidly.
by tripzilch | 2025-10-28 13:10:39+00:00
Only if you have a very low bar for what constitutes "in your voice".

Just ask it to write "in the style of" a few famous writers with a recognizable style. It just can't do it. It'll do an awfully cringe attempt at it.

And that's just how bad LLMs are at it. There's a more general problem. If you've ever read a posthumous continuation of a literary series by a different but skilled author, you know what I mean.

For example, "And another thing..." by Eoin Colfer is written to be the final sequel to the Hitchhiker's Guide, after Douglas Adams died. And to their absolute credit, the author Eoin Colfer, in my opinion, pretty much nails Douglas Adams's tone to the extent it is humanly possible to do so. But no matter how close he got, there's a paradox here. Colfer can only replicate Adams's style. But only Adams could add a new element, and it would still be his style. While if Colfer had done exactly the same, he'd have been considered "off".

Anyway, if a human writer can't pull it off, I doubt an LLM can do it.
by xpe | 2025-10-28 13:10:42+00:00
Here's a summary of XDG_STATE_HOME from [1]:

The $XDG_STATE_HOME contains state data that should persist between (application) restarts, but that is not important or portable enough to the user that it should be stored in $XDG_DATA_HOME. It may contain: - actions history (logs, history, recently used files, …) - current state of the application that can be reused on a restart (view, layout, open files, undo history, …)

For example, I've seen history files end up in the wrong XDG directory such as XDG_CONFIG_HOME.

[1]: https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/#...
by lotsofpulp | 2025-10-28 13:10:47+00:00
In the US, if your employment is terminated for cause, i.e. due to your underperformance at work, then you are not eligible to receive unemployment benefits from the government.

There could be other conditions too depending on whatever employment agreement exists, but the point is to determine if an employee’s lack of performance caused their employment to be terminated or something external to the employee caused their employment to be terminated.
by jmull | 2025-10-28 13:10:49+00:00
> Over the past three months... [we] have been building something really cool

The claim is a fast-moving, high performing team has become a 10x fast moving, high-performing team. That's equivalent to 2-1/2 years of development across a team.

Shall we expect the tangible results soon?

I'm perfectly willing to accept that AI coding will make us all a lot more productive, but I need to see the results.
by abc123abc123 | 2025-10-28 13:10:52+00:00
But note that this is deeply unethical and amounts to denying people the right to self-defense, and by extension, denying people the right to freedom.

The only thing that happens when guns are denied is the rise of corrupt and totalitarian politicians, and that the common man is either oppressed by them or by criminal gangs. Enter guns, and the common man can defend himself against both, which is a blessing.

Thankfully it is now possible to print your own guns and build one easily, so this will become less of an issue in the future, when everyone, if they want, can carry concealed guns.
by josefritzishere | 2025-10-28 13:10:52+00:00
The unemployment rate in the US is climbing. If you look at a 5-year curve, it looks like nothing. But if you look at a 3-year window it's devastating. Seeing the highs of 2003 and 2009 it seems likely that it will continue to climb. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE
by piltdownman | 2025-10-28 13:11:10+00:00
Well yes, that should be self-evident. A company must follow laws of any locality under which it engages with or utilises resources from as a component of its business.

They're previously tried this domestically in every way possible under the purview of things like the MPA and the DMCA. The United States International Trade Commission went so far as to consider electronic transmissions to the U.S. as "articles" so that it could prevent the importation of digital files of counterfeit goods.

In the meantime, AI companies are forgetting when the shoe was on the other foot regarding Russian MP3 websites accessible from the US - with the US trade negotiators warning Russia that allowing AllOfMP3 to continue to operate would jeopardize Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization, and the US copyright lobby subsequently filing a $1.7 trillion lawsuit against them.

"AllofMP3 understands that several U.S. record label companies filed a lawsuit against Media Services in New York. This suit is unjustified as AllofMP3 does not operate in New York. Certainly the labels are free to file any suit they wish, despite knowing full well that AllofMP3 operates legally in Russia. In the meantime, AllofMP3 plans to continue to operate legally and comply with all Russian laws."."

On May 20, 2008, the RIAA dropped all copyright infringement charges against AllOfMP3.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllOfMP3
by TheOtherHobbes | 2025-10-28 13:11:38+00:00
Grammatically correct, but missing the narrative subtext.

"Job losses" is a passive construction because it hides the fact that the agent - Amazon - made a deliberate and conscious decision to destroy these jobs.

People do occasionally lose things deliberately, but more usually it happens to someone through carelessness or accident, often with associated regret.

This is an example of framing, where a narrative spin is put on events.

"Amazon destroyed 14,000 jobs" would be far more accurate. But we never see that construction from corporate-controlled media outlets.

Companies create jobs. They never destroy them. "Losses" always happen because of regrettable circumstances or outside forces.

The company's hand is always forced. It's never a choice made out of greed (the truth) but because of a plausible excuse.
by andsoitis | 2025-10-28 13:11:40+00:00
> purposefully passive to remove culpability from the entity (Amazon) that is making the active choice to terminate these people's jobs.

Opening line in the article: "Amazon has confirmed it plans to cut thousands of jobs, saying it needs to be "organised more leanly" to seize the opportunity provided by artificial intelligence (AI)."

And the statement from Amazon uses the phrase "we are reducing..."
by conartist6 | 2025-10-28 13:12:02+00:00
If the status quo is discrimination, at some point the argument is "I deserve to continue to benefit from generations of discrimination."

We're talking about generations of people who faced this same treatment you have that "wasn't ok". They, as you, experienced what we call injustice.

The question is, does their injustice deserve justice? Or only yours?