MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by neilv | 2025-11-08 19:26:47+00:00
> I was expecting [...] like doing an interview every six months

Incidentally, I hear advice like that (especially a variation, of "practice" interviews) on HN, but I really wish people wouldn't do that.

Actually, please don't do this resource burning with startups or other SMBs, unless it's clear they want to burn resources.

But feel free to burn the resources of FAANGs, who mostly created the idea that interviews should be a series of performance rituals that you have to practice and refresh on.

(Though the related phenomenon, of techbro frequent job-hopping, wasn't the fault of FAANGs. It seemed to start during the dotcom boom, pre-Google, especially in the Bay Area, AFAICT, where a lot of people were chasing the most promising rapid IPO. At the time, the rumors/grumbling I was hearing from the Bay Area made me want to do a startup in Cambridge/Boston instead, just to avoid that culture. After the dotcom IPO gold rush ended, it seemed that job-hopping for big pay boosts and promotions became a thing, and that job-hopping culture never went away. But I don't think we'll find much team loyalty anywhere anymore, not from companies nor from colleagues, so that's no longer a reason I'd avoid the Bay Area specifically.)
by embedding-shape | 2025-11-08 19:27:00+00:00
Hot water is more effective at removing/reducing fat, I think everyone agrees with that. But then the question becomes "Does something get cleaner if you have two hot washes instead of one cold and then one hot?". Personally for me, it feels obvious that if someone doesn't deny "hot water will clean more than a cold water", then they also shouldn't deny "Two hot washes makes something cleaner than one cold and one hot", mainly because that's more hot water, and we already agreed hot water cleans better. The more clean hot water you can apply, the cleaner that thing becomes, I guess would be my conclusion.
by Der_Einzige | 2025-11-08 19:27:42+00:00
If Linux was so good shit would run faster not slower.

Objectively if you want to run desktop performance intensive software, Linux is not the primary place unless it’s AI/HPC or crypto related. Linux is a bad choice for gaming and people like you who try to pretend like it’s not are wrong and they should feel bad for spreading lies on the internet.
by daveguy | 2025-11-08 19:28:23+00:00
Because AI are good at devolving to the highest score, regardless of test intent. For most problems "ask_hooman", or especially the plural, would be much more effective. So, the degenerate case would dominate and tell you precisely zero about the intelligence of the AI. If a specific "tool" is more adept than the "AI" then "choose tool" will always be the correct answer. But I agree, a tight time constraint would help.
by eszed | 2025-11-08 19:28:45+00:00
My grandparents did something like this when they retired, and bought a property with a long-derelict 19th church on it. They kept the stone walls intact, and built a modern structure over and through it, which turned out to be stunning.

Early in the project a neighbor drove up and introduced himself as the great-(great?)-grandson of the founder of the church, and the last minister who had served in it. He was grateful for their care for the history of the space, and when my grandparents inaugurated the house they invited the few remaining members of the congregation to the party, and asked the former minister to offer a blessing. Their appreciation for the building gave them an entrée into a (famously insular) community, which became a source of happiness and support for the rest of their lives.
by lateforwork | 2025-11-08 19:28:50+00:00
> Statins are well-tolerated drugs with little to no noticeable side effects.

Sorry, that's nonsense. It is a dangerous drug with plenty of side effects. If it had no side effects it would be sold over the counter. The brain needs cholesterol to function. If you artificially remove cholesterol this is what happens: https://www.health.harvard.edu/cholesterol/new-findings-on-s...
by noir_lord | 2025-11-08 19:29:33+00:00
It annoys me that I have to disable this alongside the telemetry I already had to disable (and their Home page crap).

Telemetry should always be opt in not opt out - I don't care how you justify it but especially I don't care when you've marketed yourself with "Firefox is built with privacy and protection as the default."[1]

[1] https://www.firefox.com/en-US/user-privacy/

When it comes to on by default - If what you are doing amounts to "I Am Altering the Deal, Pray I Don't Alter It Any Further." then you might have to ask yourself whether you should be doing it.
by HarHarVeryFunny | 2025-11-08 19:30:14+00:00
C++ supports both pass-by-value and pass-by-reference parameters. Pass-by-value means making a copy (a deep copy if it's a deep type), but you could always choose to optimize by passing large parameters by reference instead, and this is common practice.

The real value of std::move is cases where you to HAVE to (effectively) make a deep copy, but still want to avoid the inefficiency. std::move supports this because moving means "stealing" the value from one variable and giving it to another. A common use case is move constructors for objects where you need to initialize the object's member variables, and can just move values passed by the caller rather than copying them.

Another important use case for std::move is returning values from functions, where the compiler will automatically use move rather than copy if available, allowing you to define functions returning large/complex return types without having to worry about the efficiency.
by simonw | 2025-11-08 19:30:58+00:00
I don't really like MCPs, at least when I'm working with coding agents like Claude Code or Codex CLI. I'd rather let the agents write code that can do anything the underlying library is capable of, rather than restricting them to just the functionality that the MCP exposes.

It's more token efficient too since I don't need to load the full MCP description into my context.
by swat535 | 2025-11-08 19:31:36+00:00
Everyone knows the recipe for healthy living, it's the same as for similar issues such as personal finance (spend less than you earn, save, etc.).

They seem simple on the surface but hard part is execution for most people, due to life circumstances and other factors. Unhealthy choices persist because society isn't built around healthy lifestyles.

So while the comment seems helpful on the surface, it misses the forest for the trees.

I think that there needs to be a bigger discussion here, regarding why have we engineered a society that inflicts suffering and illness on so many?
by metadope | 2025-11-08 19:31:37+00:00
This was a good read and I thank Fraterkes for posting it.

I commiserate with the author, and his sense of self-chastisement: He might as well title the piece Pearls Before Swine and brush the dust from his shoulder.

This is a dilemma for the (socially) faithful, those who (naively) expect good behavior, those who generously give the benefit of the doubt. Even as a small voice whispers warnings, a theory of mind arises that imagines the other to be of like mind and is bound to be disappointed when a decidedly different species reveals itself.

Critics say we don't really need a National Ass calling-themselves-Scholars.
by embedding-shape | 2025-11-08 19:31:46+00:00
> Building your own evaluations makes sense if you're serving an LLM up to customers and want to know how it performs, but if you are the user... use it and see how it goes. It's all subjective anyway.

I'd really caution against this approach, mainly because humans suck at removing emotions and other "human" factors when judging how well something works, but also because comparing across models gets a lot easier when you can see 77/100 vs 91/100 as a percentage score, over your own tasks that you actually use the LLMs for. Just don't share this benchmark publicly once you're using it for measurements.
by al_borland | 2025-11-08 19:32:32+00:00
What I got was a literal trophy, not a t-shirt or something else. A t-shirt or other momento for an event is fine, but a trophy implies a win.

There was a vendor at the tournament selling throwing stars and stuff. I got one of those. That was my momento from the event (which I still have a know exactly where it is decades later). It was something I wanted that I wouldn’t have got had I not pushed myself to show up. Running across that is a fond memory, while running across that participation trophy brings up pretty terrible memories.

I’m not against rewarding pushing yourself for showing up, but as a kid, the trophy was the wrong reward for me, it felt insulting. An event t-shirt would have felt much better.
by MrAlex94 | 2025-11-08 19:32:35+00:00
I understand why Mozilla have started implementing these features, it seems to have more mass market appeal than not - look at how popular “AI” powered browsers have become.

But boy does it not add extra effort removing these features every time there’s a new roll-out and it’s not done the best way IMO. I feel as if these features would go down better if Mozilla actually notified the user that they’re available and then offered whether to enable them or not (could have them enabled by default for new users). That way you’re still giving a choice, but in a more respectful manner.

If anyone is interested I’ve gutted all the more obscene stuff out of Waterfox and have instead left the useful ones such a ML translation, which is opt-in.

Related: I feel like onboarding is a lost art, more software should bring back software wizards and UI tours. Feels like you somehow have to intuitively know how something works (unlikely) or do a web search on how to use everything instead of having it shown to you nicely.
by layer8 | 2025-11-08 19:33:36+00:00
> After the festival was suspended, Zhu issued a statement that the decision was not out of fear, but rather to “stop harassment of … directors, guests, former staff, and volunteers associated with the festival, including my friends and family.”

I don’t quite get the distinction being made here. Surely the Chinese authorities have succeeded in scaring the people involved in the festival into calling it off.
by embedding-shape | 2025-11-08 19:34:02+00:00
> Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence. Edsger W. Dijkstra

Maybe we need something similar for benchmarks, and updated for today's LLMs, like:

> LLM benchmarks can be used to show what tasks they can do, but never to show what tasks they cannot.
by superkuh | 2025-11-08 19:34:09+00:00
The built in LLM translation is great. I'm leaving that enabled. It's useful and it's a perfect application for local LLM to be better than the equivalent corporate services.

I disable a ton in default FF and even run the unbranded versions so that it's not trialware (FF branded builds all expire when their baked in add-ons CA TLS certs expire). But the LLM translation? That's finally a good feature.

It isn't clear what browser.ml.chat and browser.ml.pageAssist are associated with in terms of features. Does anyone know? I tried disabling all shown in the write-up and local LLM translation still seems to work so I assume it's something else.
by Atreiden | 2025-11-08 19:34:43+00:00
> especially a board that is supposed to be providing independent oversight over the company

This is an important point. OpenAI is a nonprofit who's stated mission is to ensure that AI benefits all of humanity. Overseeing the business entity that exists under it's umbrella, and ensuring that the actions it takes are in accordance with that mission, is THE critical component of the boards job. This structure is very weird for a non-profit, and the stakes here are existential.

If you cannot trust the CEO of the company to not deceive and manipulate you, you absolutely cannot have confidence that the companies actions will conform to their mission.

Altman is a sociopath and they should have never caved to his political machinations
by ClimaxGravely | 2025-11-08 19:35:05+00:00
I though about mentioning that but I didn't want to muddy the waters. There other option in opengl like you said but I can count on one had the times I've used them in a professional context and I think possibly zero for anything that I've shipped. Also I have never looked into what it does under the hood in those cases. You might be right.
by bayarearefugee | 2025-11-08 19:35:48+00:00
Well written blog post, but its a bit too adjacent to LinkedIn slop-posting in actual message, for me.

I can't help but think the real take away is that you should trust your gut and quit a lot sooner and the poster basically wasted a year being jerked around.

If you are telling your employer you are unhappy for a whole year and they don't fix the conditions leading to your unhappiness, they are telling you they don't value you enough to make those changes (for the sake of simplicity, I'll just assume the employee's specific points of dissatisfaction were reasonable fixes and not ridiculous asks).

You don't owe them a year of soft landing when you quit, in the vast majority of cases they wouldn't have given you anywhere near that if they let you go.
by moritzwarhier | 2025-11-08 19:36:35+00:00
Only if you work in a hospital. And who would be crazy enough to build hospital IT on Windo.. oh, wait.

I haven't tried Win11 on personal hardware so far, but since Win8, boot times are not much of an issue in my experience.

Making the whole OS the vehicle for a rent-seeking vendor lock-in scheme built to make you pay more and more to keep up the same set of functionality is more of a problem I think.
by johanstokking | 2025-11-08 19:37:08+00:00
I think the main point is in the closing of the article; that valuations of companies are driven up by OpenAI spent commitments, and that those companies combined now would represent 40% of S&P 500.

You’re right, this is not accounting debt.

I don’t think OpenAI’s spending commitments alone are the problem, but OpenAI imploding will have a cascading effect and a realization check for everyone in the industry. What are the real prices for profitability and are businesses and consumers willing to pay for that, will we need ads, do we need an integrated product offerings to amortize the cost instead of standalone chat, etc. Also, S&P 500 going down by 10-20% will have a real impact on the real economy. If it happens.

I don’t think this should have been flagged.
by JoshTriplett | 2025-11-08 19:37:18+00:00
Fascinating. By default, though, this seems like it would just result in low contrast and difficulty reading, unless turned to opaque mode.

The thing I'd love to see, which to the best of my knowledge isn't possible with normal HDMI/DP/etc, is an opaque monitor that allows rendering an alpha channel as actual transparency. That would allow things like setting your desktop background to transparent, so that when you have one non-fullscreen window, the rest of the screen is transparent.

Are there any display technologies or protocols for sending RGBA to a monitor, and letting the monitor handle the alpha?
by jibal | 2025-11-08 19:37:52+00:00
The article says

> I was a compiler engineer at a startup in New York City. In that role, I worked on extending a preexisting open-source programming language.

> I am now a compiler engineer at a large, post-IPO tech company in the San Francisco Bay Area. I work on making programming languages run faster.

The 4 month startup is the former.
by dzikimarian | 2025-11-08 19:38:07+00:00
I want this. I'm Firefox user for years btw.

Most prominent thing is chat in sidebar. It's iframe + a few shortcuts. Optional, harmless, using zero resources. Actually quite convenient.

Another is perplexity being one of the search providers. This is literally config not code. I wonder how many people actually removed or even looked at the list of the default search providers before that.

I think only real one is ml naming for tabs. Just meh.

Honestly people who deny any usefulness of AI are getting dangerously close to flat-earthers by now.
by 0manrho | 2025-11-08 19:39:07+00:00
> but I would really appreciate feedback

very well

> Some parts of this article were refined with help from LLMs to improve clarity and technical accuracy

Perhaps you should stick to writing about things you can write with clarity and and accuracy yourself instead of relying on an LLM to do it for you. Alternatively, properly cite and highlight what portions you used AI on/for from the outset as failure to do so reads at best as lazy slop and more often as intentional duplicity
by WarOnPrivacy | 2025-11-08 19:39:18+00:00
> Will this work on a version which is part of LTSC or IoT

I've used the command with a Win11 LTSC/IoT 24H2 ISO. I upgraded Win10 LTSC/IoT 21H2 to Win11 24H2 LTSC/IoT. I've done this on two old notebooks, a Dell Core2Duo and a Thinkpad T430.
by derkster | 2025-11-08 19:39:27+00:00
I see what you're saying, I didn't make the assumption it was the US authorities, simply that an authoritative entity was involved. In this case, that entity applied enough pressure to directors to make the organizers feel the need to cancel the event. I consider the headline to be clickbait, but obviously we drew very different conclusions from it.

I hear you though, clickbait gonna clickbait.
by hinkley | 2025-11-08 19:40:16+00:00
One of the big gaps in Raft is that it’s hard to manage leader election on a heterogenous network. Everyone has or knows a story about the tiny branch office we keep for the CTO’s nephew or that engineer who decided to move to Colorado and quit if he couldn’t work from there, getting elected leader and the whole system limping to a halt.

In the case of Raft it would benefit I think from having an instant runoff election process. Where three nodes are nominated and everyone votes on which one has the best visibility.

At the very least I can see a way to use latency to determine who to vote for, to manage a fast election instead of timeouts and retries.
by novok | 2025-11-08 19:40:22+00:00
AI writing often leads to word inflation, so getting the original more concise one is helpful IMO. Hiding it is the annoying part, marking that you use AI to help you and having a 'source code' version I think would go over much better. If a person is deceptive and dishonest about something so obvious, how can you trust other things they say?

It also leads to slop spam content. Writing it yourself is a form of anti-spam. I think tools like grammarly help strike a balance between 'AI slop machine' and 'help with my writing'.

And because they are so low effort, it feels like putting links to a google search essentially. Higher noise, lower signal.
by Ylpertnodi | 2025-11-08 19:40:46+00:00
Left cam, right cam, runway end, and runway start cams as a minimum or, a single insta360 cam halfway along. 'Crew' not required. 'Audience' would be the ntsb. Cost? Cents on the price of having a plane/ being a passenger.

It doesn't seem to be such a terrible idea, though i do stand to be corrected.
by drob518 | 2025-11-08 19:41:10+00:00
This proves to me that companies will pursue revenue optimization to the most absurd lengths, limited only by what the technology can support. And even a bit beyond. I knew this was a difficult problem, but this demonstrates just how difficult it is. That said, I wonder if airlines and other industries aren’t tripping themselves up with complexity. Would a simplified pricing model, going back to basics, allow them to make more?
by Lerc | 2025-11-08 19:42:09+00:00
This should not be considered an LLM issue. It's a user experience issue.

Mozilla has made changes that happened by default before. Often I have had to find the setting to put it back to how I wanted. I remember when it moved the URL bar to the bottom.

I don't think it is always an easy call to make. Tabs were a significant user experience improvement, but hiding it behind an opt-in would have limited it to people who knew about it.

I use Firefox as main on desktop and mobile. I have noticed messages on upgrade pointing to LLM features. I haven't engaged with them an from thereon haven't noticed any change because of them.

Saying there are reports of excessive memory or CPU use isn't terribly useful without references to those reports. One such report posted on HN was shown to have been unrelated to the LLM.

Are there any reports actually showing degradation because of LLMs rather than post hoc ergo propter hoc?
by dawnerd | 2025-11-08 19:42:25+00:00
I think it’s absolutely fair to criticize something for potentially being generated via an llm or heavily utilized by such especially when it comes to medial claims.

Reading it I couldn’t help but feel the author relied on ai research tools and is now passing that along to everyone reading as if it’s proven fact. When they link out to an ai search engine that’s not helpful when trying to cite sources.
by in_cahoots | 2025-11-08 19:43:17+00:00
I don't know the exact details, but I thought the Framingham survey was just a cross-section of the population. So getting upset about a 50th percentile score makes no sense at a population level.

A quick Google says that the Mesa study was actually of people without cardiovascular disease at the beginning of the study. So again, these conclusions don't make any sense to me.
by impossiblefork | 2025-11-08 19:43:36+00:00
As long as it's local I think it's okay.

I also think that we in the long run will probably let machines do most tedious browsing for us-- digesting ad-ridden websites, digesting interfaces. The LLM navigates the actual web, presented to maximize revenue and maximize user engagement, time spent on the website etc., but we only see actual content, carefully arranged to be as comprehensible as possible, and if we want to communicate with somebody through a website controlled by others we formulate the message and the LLM submits it.
by MarkMarine | 2025-11-08 19:44:27+00:00
Your two paragraphs give example to the exact problem. “It doesn’t matter what the name is, interfaces aren’t precious”, and “you don’t need to see the implementation to know what it does, just read the method name and type signature” right?

Not sure how you hold those two things in your head at the same time, but they are anathema to each other. Different implementations of the same function name and type signature can have drastically different effects in go because side effects are everywhere in go, so you must read the implementation to understand what it does.

If this was Haskell and I could read the type signature and trust that I know what the system did with that (ignoring Rich Hickey’s point about the type signature not describing what “reverse” does) then fine, but in every function call there are unconstrained numbers of side effects, go functions which persist after the function goes out of scope and can modify any pointed to memory at any arbitrary time later… go is the Wild West in this regard. The interface method name + weak go type system function definition is not enough to tell a developer what the implementation of that interface actually does. Finally: Java’s “implements” plus excellent IDE support for Java DI allows a developer to jump to the implementation in one keyboard press, this does not exist in go. You’ll probably never know what method is actually called unless it’s runtime with the actual config on the server.

I’m not going to explain the whole reasoned argument about why it’s important for a programmer to understand program execution flow in their head clearly, Dijkstra did a much better job than I ever could with GOTO considered harmful, but check out a modern descendant of this article specifically talking about go functions, and try to internalize the point about being able to understand program execution flow:

https://vorpus.org/blog/notes-on-structured-concurrency-or-g...