MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by celsoazevedo | 2025-11-06 01:02:26+00:00
> A profile folder has everything. You can copy it, back it up, plug it into a completely new Firefox installation later.

These new profiles seem to be slightly different from the old ones?

[edit: ignore most of the stuff below, see replies]

The new UI doesn't show your other regular profiles and when you create a new profile via the new UI, it also doesn't create a separate profile folder (it's part of your active profile). They're like sub profiles... probably to allow everything to be synced via a Firefox account?

We can still move the profile folder. The difference is that what's created with the new UI is part of that folder (the old about:profiles page is still there and old style profiles are still supported).
by Tostino | 2025-11-06 01:03:33+00:00
I don't know, Gemini 2.5 has been the only model that's been able to not consistently make fundamental mistakes with my project as I've been working with it over the last year. Claud 3.7, 4.0, and 4.5 are not nearly as good. I gave up on chatgpt a couple years ago so I have no idea how they perform. They were bad when I quit using it.
by stubish | 2025-11-06 01:03:33+00:00
Piracy does not hurt sales because it has a lot of friction. There have been zero studies on piracy in a low friction environment, because there was no need. Such as in countries where pirated Video CDs where endemic and not policed, it was completely obvious and distributors didn't even bother putting product onto the market. Or back in the days where mp3 music sharing apps became mainstream and got integrated with music players. Or when Popcorn Time looked likely to replace every streaming service in existence. If something like the Internet Archive Library became low friction (click the button and you are reading on your e-reader), and declared legal (avoiding social stigma), do you honestly believe this would not become the default and normalized way of 'buying' books?
by caturopath | 2025-11-06 01:04:14+00:00
> Physicians use all their senses. They poke, they prod, they manipulate, they look, listen, and smell.

Sometimes. Sometimes they practice by text or phone.

> They’re also good at extracting information in a way that (at least currently) sycophantic LLMs don’t replicate.

If I had to guess, I think I'd guess that mainstream LLM chatbots are better at getting honest and applicable medical histories than most doctors. People are less likely to lie/hide/prevaricate and get more time with the person.
by zdragnar | 2025-11-06 01:05:46+00:00
> With phones there's such social pressure to allow their use, including from forces external to the school, that there was never possibly a hope of the equilibrium immediately settling at phones being banned.

Phones, and electronic devices in general, were always banned. What changed was schools started allowing them.

I was in high school right when some kids first started getting (dumb) cell phones. MP3 players were still new, CD players were not uncommon, and ALL of them were banned from being outside of your locker or backpack. If a teacher saw one, it was gone until the end of the day. Period.

Teachers didn't need to bear the brunt of angry parents, it wasn't their call to make. That belonged to the school administrator, who merely needed to say "tough shit". Somehow, the adult children still won anyway.
by dgacmu | 2025-11-06 01:06:01+00:00
The post you're replying to didn't explain it well, but: LFP batteries don't use cobalt (or nickel).

LFP production is starting to pass NMC (lithium + nickel manganese cobalt oxide). Slightly lower density but a lot of advantages in lack of easily catching on fire, longer lifetime -- and lack of cobalt. LFP (LiFePo4) is the battery chemistry of choice today for solar installations, where the longer lifetime and increased safety are a big win and the slightly lower density doesn't matter, unlike mobile applications.
by chermi | 2025-11-06 01:06:14+00:00
Uhhh. Ok. You lost me. Now you're just proselytizing. Have you truly not considered that people don't believe in Christianity because they don't think there's sufficient evidence for the miracles or prophecy fulfillment? That they find the bible full of contradictions and easily falsified claims? I have to doubt you ever weren't a believer the way you're speaking, or else it's really messed with your head that much. Either way, you're not convincing me, in case you wanted a sign.
by tssva | 2025-11-06 01:06:28+00:00
I live in an affulent area of one of the wealthiest counties in the country. The homeless rate and crime rate are significantly lower than the national average for the county as a whole and the numbers for my area of the county are significantly lower than the county as a whole. I went into a local grocery store on Monday and they had installed these gates at some point over the last week.
by Groxx | 2025-11-06 01:07:10+00:00
depends very much on where you are, unfortunately. in USA, this is definitely not the case, they're almost all incredibly dumb. especially the cheapest-possible models that most renters are forced to use (and renters account for about a third of all households).

as a concrete example, the video has a section in it where he shows that his doesn't so any sensing - hot or cold water have exactly the same timing on the heater's use (and resulting water temperature graphs).

so like. I agree with you that it should be true, it's simple and cheap to implement and it obviously works better. unfortunately it's not a sane reality for tens (hundreds?) of millions of people.
by floxy | 2025-11-06 01:07:19+00:00
What is a good rejection temperature to use for medium earth orbit? Assuming you would orient your radiator normal to the incoming light from the sun, and normal to the earth-shine/earth-radiation. And in the shade from your PV panels. Is 50 Kelvin a reasonable temperature? Then you could radiate 1 GW of thermal energy at 350 K using a 2.5e6 m^2 surface (assuming 0.9 for emissivity). That is a square about 1.55 km on a side. Maybe reversible computing is step one in this plan.
by al_be_back | 2025-11-06 01:07:47+00:00
Removing html and css would also make the browser more secure - but I would argue also very counter productive for users.

Most of read-only content and lite editing can be achieved with raw data + xslt.

The web has become a sledgehammer for clacking a nut.

For example, with xslt you could easily render a read only content without complex and expensive office apps. That is enough for Academia, Gov, and small businesses.
by wjb3 | 2025-11-06 01:07:48+00:00
Actually, recent research suggests daily mouthwash use, especially alcohol-based and antimicrobial formulas, carries underappreciated risks (e.g., Microbiome disruption kills beneficial oral bacteria that help regulate blood pressure while promoting harmful strains linked to gum disease and certain cancers [oral, esophageal, colorectal]; Long-term alcohol-based mouthwash use is associated a with 40-60% increased risk of oral/pharyngeal cancers, with risk scaling by frequency and duration; Chlorhexidine reduces nitrate-reducing bacteria, potentially raising blood pressure and increasing prediabetes/diabetes risk even in healthy users; Some formulas actually increase acidic bacteria that lower salivary pH, promoting tooth demineralization and staining).

In other words, mouthwash offers short-term hygiene benefits but should probably not be used daily unless medically indicated. The oral microbiome matters more than we thought, and indiscriminately nuking it has downstream effects.
by badc0ffee | 2025-11-06 01:08:06+00:00
I always hear this from Americans. My experience in Canada is that the bullying and shaming was limited to junior high (grade 7-9 in my province). Maybe my high school was just too large for any of that nonsense? Or maybe the culture is different - I couldn't have told you who was on the football team, and there was no prom.

All my friends were nerds, but at the same time I didn't feel like there was some brutal social order hanging over me like I did in jr high.
by panxyh | 2025-11-06 01:08:13+00:00
> to me

If it's absolute, then why add that? Mine "to me" gave me a different impression, but it being a "to me", I questioned, not accused.

You perhaps recognize t0mas88 after all these years on HN. I don't. I'm relatively a new and infrequent user.

So I hope that I would be criticised just as passionately if that'd be a random user whose comments indeed turned out to be AI. Because no matter what is the fact, the question is rude, nay, very offensive.

Using AI isn't a tabu. It is fully debatable wether generating, reviewing and pasting helpful information on an informal forum is wrong, I just implied my own frustration with what I often experience.

Of course I could've phrased it much better, and I suspect you guys wouldn't bat an eye.

> Have you never seen people on HN write detailed, articulate answers?

> It's frustrating and discourages genuine contributors.

These are good points.
by oppegard | 2025-11-06 01:08:18+00:00
I bought a 3D printer from my Denver Microcenter a few weeks ago. It's not available on Amazon, and only ships from China (it's a BambuLab H2D). It gives peace of mind that if something goes wrong I can just return it locally rather than deal with shipping a 50 pound printer back to China. Same goes for a MinisForum NAS I bought a few months ago. Plus, whenever I need a one-off USB cable, thumb drive, or printer filament, it's a 15 minute drive.

Also: they're always packed on the weekends. There is definitely demand for a brick and mortar store that focuses on tech/geek hobbies.
by thethirdone | 2025-11-06 01:08:29+00:00
Its not clear to me this is an actual problem. I just actually googled "how to fix a Git conflict" and not a single one has multiple paragraphs describing what things are.

The first result [0] pretty much immediately drops into what commands to run. If that result is part of the problem, I fully disagree it is a problem.

[0]: https://docs.github.com/en/pull-requests/collaborating-with-...
by pseudalopex | 2025-11-06 01:09:38+00:00
You raised GTK stewardship. I replied about GTK stewardship. Why raise GTK stewardship and complain replies are not about Mutter exclusively? Why raise GTK stewardship and dismiss it saying so be it?

The 2 paragraphs you quoted did not represent the 10 you did not.

An Xfce developer saying they can't recommend GTK for new projects outside the GNOME umbrella had information your comment did not. It was not basically exactly what you said.
by cianuro_ | 2025-11-06 01:10:59+00:00
It is OK to separate yourself from a group when you deeply disagree with their actions, no matter how insignificant it might seem to a different group of people.

However, I am glad this happened. New Linux Ambassadors will step up and this issue will be buried into the alternative social media communities such as Mastodon, never to be heard of again.

I disagree that Framework will lose a meaningful amount of business over this.
by 9rx | 2025-11-06 01:11:33+00:00
The only offering that possibly might have been compelling enough to charge for was Messenger if it existed in a vacuum, but there were already numerous services offering much the same for free (e.g. MSN, ICQ, AIM), and when others realized that is what the people actually wanted, many more immediately threw their hat in the ring (e.g. iMessage). There would have been no practical hope of it making it as a paid service.
by B1FF_PSUVM | 2025-11-06 01:11:34+00:00
"I was always showing up and befriending the people I wrote about. I never wrote hatchet jobs, whether for a newspaper or magazine. I never would hang around people I disrespected. It’s too hard to write well. It would be impossible to write about somebody well if you didn’t like them at all.

[...]

I like knowing people. I like asking questions. I ask questions in a way that would never suggest gossip. They suggest a sincere interest because I have a sincere interest. A lot of journalists are very purposeful. They have a story, they want you, then they don’t want you anymore. They got their story. But I always go back. [...]"
by atcon | 2025-11-06 01:11:43+00:00
Agree with foveated rendering. In a relatively static environment like a virtual desktop, the periphery shouldn't need to command as much resource.

Tinfoil pt 2: AVP might be working on a related but applicable product. Most people old enough with presbyopia issues would happily forget bifocals. <https://appleworld.today/2025/07/apple-glasses-could-look-li...>
by NoPicklez | 2025-11-06 01:12:09+00:00
The upside is that if you need a particular thing, you can go buy it immediately, not only that you can actually see the product and potential try to a degree before buying it.

For me, its seeing cases in person and being able to see how they compare for size rather than trying to estimate online.

As someone in Australia where we have pretty poor computer electronics stores for PC parts, this place is like heaven on earth.

To you its an introverts nightmare, but clearly for many geeks its not who are lining up.
by sema4hacker | 2025-11-06 01:12:34+00:00
Yes, it would be nice if everything was easy, fair, and equitable. But:

Almost anyone can become an Uber driver without much effort. Not true for plumbers and HVAC people.

There are so many drivers available they're waiting for your call. Any decent plumbing/HVAC company has a backlog.

All Uber drivers are centralized under one pricing system. Plumbers/HVACs control their own pricing logic. I've never gotten contractor estimates that weren't across a huge range from low to high.

You can never trust a referral unless it's from someone you know that received the service themselves.

Uber vs. plumbing/HVAC is apples and oranges.
by cxr | 2025-11-06 01:12:49+00:00
We do not appear to have a shared understanding of the problem to be solved.

This is because you have redefined the problem—partly as a way of allowing you to avoid addressing it, and partly to allow you to speak of lockfiles as a solution to that problem. See <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45824392>.

Lockfiles do not solve the problem. They are the problem.

This is what I wrote:

> Overlay version control systems like NPM, Cargo, etc. and their harebrained schemes involving "lockfiles" to paper over their deficiencies have evidently totally destroyed […] folks' ability to conceive of just using an SCM like Git

That's the problem that I'm talking about—lockfiles. Or, more specifically: the insistence on practicing a form of version control (i.e. this style of dependency management that the current crop of package managers tell people is the Right Way to do things) that leads to the use of lockfiles—for the sole purpose of papering over the issues that were only introduced by this kind of package manager—and for people to be totally unaware of the water they're swimming in under this arrangement.

Everyone is familiar with the concept of "a solution in need of a problem". That's exactly what lockfiles are.
by reliablereason | 2025-11-06 01:12:56+00:00
It might be that general happiness is influenced largely by genetic factors, and not as much by contextual ones.

One could assume that higher intelligence gives you more power to shape your context — but that doesn’t help much if context itself doesn’t play a major role in determining general happiness.

The depressed person was probably born with a bias toward depression, and the happy person with a bias toward happiness. The interesting question then becomes: what mediates the path from genes to happiness? It’s unlikely to only be as simple as “gene → happy.” There are probably several layers of causality in between — psychological, neurochemical, societal, and environmental mechanisms that shape how those genetic tendencies play out.
by PaulKeeble | 2025-11-06 01:12:57+00:00
You could follow the NIH news feed that contains some of what gets funded but its actually quite difficult given the various institutions all over the world that all fund studies including charities and the universities themselves. On an individual topic with time you could learn who most of the major players are and follow their news but its unique to every topic.

The potentially easier way at least to get a lay of the land is to follow pubmed (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) for the topic you are interested in, if you then look into those papers you will find funding statements as well as the place the research was conducted and use both to build up a picture of the origins of research in a field.

Afraid I don't know of an easier way not a generic one anyway. Sometimes you just have to follow the right person on twitter who announces trials or studies or be at the right conference. Start with pubmed and the output papers and that will get you started. Then also have a search on the NIH and that might lead you to some links to groups and institutions they fund.
by samdoesnothing | 2025-11-06 01:14:00+00:00
That's what this type of SPA architecture leads to unfortunately. Routers should immediately display the navigated to route with place holder content / skeletons, but instead all the frameworks basically wait for all the data to load before transitioning. You can technically stream the data in but even a single awaited promise will block the navigation until it succeeds. And it's not an issue that shows up in dev because typically the data loading is instant.
by pfannkuchen | 2025-11-06 01:15:12+00:00
Isn’t there a danger though of running into differences between oneself and others and concluding that the cause is oneself being “weird” and not the inherent difficulty of bridging the intelligence gap and correspondingly different ways of thinking? Like I could see a very bright kid ending up with low self esteem due to being different if they aren’t told that the differences may be due to their intelligence. Like someone with average intelligence may have difficulty understanding and modeling someone with two or more standard deviations above average intelligence, and all social groups are definitionally numerically weighted towards the mean and away from the edges so absent some filtering the very bright kids will be unusual.
by dcreater | 2025-11-06 01:15:20+00:00
Following up the previous post, made a v2 collating popular best practices/guides found on HN, reddit etc. Improving the process to address some of the shortcomings last time (primarily separating out general software engineering best practices - still critical and foundational, but separating them out allows more clarity on agentic coding specific best practices)

https://rosmur.github.io/claudecode-best-practices

TOC: 1. Executive Summary

2. Sources

3. General Software Engineering Best Practices

3.1. Test-Driven Development (TDD)

3.2. Continuous Quality Gates

3.3. Code Review - Including AI’s Own Work

3.4. Incremental Commits with Clear Messages

3.5. Monorepo Architecture

4. Core Recommendations by Category

4.1. Context Management (Most Critical)

4.2. Planning \& Architecture

4.3. Tool Usage \& Automation

4.4. Workflow Optimization

4.5. Production Code Quality

4.6. Advanced Patterns

4.7. Testing Authenticated Routes

4.8. Architecture \& Design

5. Contradictions \& Trade-offs

5.1. Skills vs Context Bloat

5.2. Custom Subagents vs Clone Pattern

5.3. Auto-Formatting Hooks

5.4. Planning Mode vs Manual Plans

5.5. Documentation Volume

6. Appendices
by nandomrumber | 2025-11-06 01:16:44+00:00
Isn’t that a self defeating loop.

Great profit to be had from solar because of expensive gas.

Let’s put aside that this isn’t good for the end user, as it openly admits the whole point of solar is great profit, rather than savings for the end user.

Soon there’s no need for the expensive gas.

Where’s your profit margin not?
by Loughla | 2025-11-06 01:17:26+00:00
>The advent of a new transmission route in the US these days is pretty much a miracle event.

Having had three major transmission lines for energy (two electric one gas) come through the area I live in the last 8 years, this is just false.

In the US it's not hard to get it done as long as you have mountains of cash and a state willing to imminent domain people.
by chriswarbo | 2025-11-06 01:17:36+00:00
Here's a property check I wrote yesterday, which found a couple of bugs in a large, decade-old codebase.

I'd just changed a data structure with three components, and made sure the test suite was still passing. I happened to notice a function in the same file, for parsing strings into that data structure, which had a docstring saying that it ignores whitespace at the start/end of the string, and in-between the components. It had tests for the happy-path, like "foo123x" -> ("foo", 123, 'x'), as well as checking that optional components could be left out, and it even checked some failure cases. Yet none of the tests used any whitespace.

I thought it would be good to test that, given that somebody had gone to the effort of documenting it. Yet I didn't want to write a bunch of combination like " foo123x", "foo 123x", "foo123 x", " foo 123x", "foo 123 x", and so on. Instead, I wrote a property which adds some amount of whitespace (possibly none) to each of those places, and assert that it gets the same result as with no whitespace (regardless of whether it's a successful parse or not). I wasn't using Python, but it was something like this:

def whitespace_is_ignored(b1: bool, b2: bool, b3: bool, s1: int, s2: int, s3: int, s4: int): v1 = "foo" if b1 else "" v2 = "123" if b2 else "" v3 = "x" if b3 else "" spaces = lambda n: " " * n spaced = "".join([spaces(s1), v1, spaces(s2), v2, spaces(s3), v3, spaces(s4)]) assert parser(v1 + v2 + v3) == parser(spaced)

The property-checker immediately found that "foo123x " (with two spaces at the end) will fail to parse. When I fixed that, it found that spaces after the first component will end up in the result, like "foo 123x" -> ("foo ", 123, 'x').

Of course, we could make this property more general (e.g. by taking the components as inputs, instead of hard-coding those particular values); but this was really quick to write, and managed to find multiple issues!

If I had written a bunch of explicit examples instead, then it's pretty likely I would have found the "foo 123x" issue; but I don't think I would have bothered writing combinations with multiple consecutive spaces, and hence would not have found the "foo123x " issue.