MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by vacuity | 2025-11-03 04:24:53+00:00
Implementations can always get better, but I think the only categorical (if even that) improvement that will arise depends on careful program design/implementation; that is, reducing the scope and number of capabilities and providing semantic information on capability usage. Fil-C and CHERI do an admirable job of maximizing backwards compatibility and even allowing incremental improvements, but I think it's time that programmers bought into capabilities too.
by Unearned5161 | 2025-11-03 04:26:26+00:00
The conflation of Ehrlich with the LtG team is an extremely dead horse that people should stop beating. The Population Bomb (Ehrlich's 1968 book) was an entirely separate production, with separate teams, separate conclusions, and separate levels of academic rigor.

Furthermore, Ehrlich's PR stunt with Julian Simon of a bet during the peak of a commodity cycle was neither epistemologically sound nor a proof of absolutely anything other than markets do what markets do.

I challenge people who reach for the Ehrlich card whenever these growth conversations come up to reflect on what they're acting on and to recognize that the road of thought on LtG is dark and overwhelming. In fact, it ends at a destination that implies deep unflattering things about our fundamental capabilities as humans and role on this earth. It is natural, and human, to meet this with reactive fear. Keep this in mind as you read what follows.

I mention revisiting Limits to Growth because if you read the introduction[1] you would notice that they state their conclusions as follows:

1. If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.

2. It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and economic stability that is sustain able far into the future. The state of global equilibrium could be designed so that the basic material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realize his individual human potential.

3. If the world's people decide to strive for this second outcome rather than the first, the sooner they begin working to attain it, the greater will be their chances of success.

Furthermore, if you look at their 30-year update [2] published in 2002, you can get a few more notable quotes:

"We still see our research as an effort to identify different possible futures. We are not trying to predict the future. We are sketching alternative scenarios for humanity as we move toward 2100." (p. xvii)

and most telling:

"Our most important statements about the likelihood of collapse do not come from blind faith in the curves generated by World3. They result simply from understanding the dynamic patterns of behavior that are produced by three obvious, persistent, and common features of the global system: erodable limits, incessant pursuit of growth, and delays in society’s responses to approaching limits." (p. xviii)

The story Limits To Growth is trying to communicate is still pending and will be until ~2072. Nothing has failed and their nuanced commentary on the complexity of the issue has only aged well.

[1]: https://www.clubofrome.org/publication/the-limits-to-growth/

[2]: https://www.peakoilindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Limi...
by sanex | 2025-11-03 04:26:32+00:00
IIRC this really took off with the antennagate fiasco on the iphone 4. I was working for Verizon at the time and this was also the first one we were able to sell. I forget who it was that did it but I believe it was Apple in response to people "holding their phone wrong" so they bumped everything up a bar so you couldn't tell. There was a lot of competition at the time but also all the androids had better margins so they wanted us to sell those instead.
by kragen | 2025-11-03 04:26:46+00:00
The overflow bug wasn't fixed until the 21st century; the comment you remember reading dates from before it was discovered.

To be fair, in most computing environments, either indices don't overflow (Smalltalk, most Lisps) or arrays can never be big enough for the addition of two valid array indices to overflow, unless they are arrays of characters, which it would be sort of stupid to binary search. It only became a significant problem with LP64 and 64-bit Java.
by jitl | 2025-11-03 04:27:15+00:00
for one, duckdb includes all of sqlite (and many other dependencies). it knows how to do things like efficiently query over parquet files in s3. it's expansive - a swiss army knife for working with data wherever it's at.

sqlite is a "self contained system" depending on no external software except c standard library for target os:

> A minimal build of SQLite requires just these routines from the standard C library:

> memcmp(), memcpy(), memmove(), memset(), strcmp(), strlen(), strncmp()

> Most builds also use the system memory allocation routines:

> malloc(), realloc(), free()

> Default builds of SQLite contain appropriate VFS objects for talking to the underlying operating system, and those VFS objects will contain operating system calls such as open(), read(), write(), fsync(), and so forth

Quoting from the appropriately named https://sqlite.org/selfcontained.html

as a very rough and unfair estimate between the two project's source, sqlite is about 8% the size of duckdb:

$ pwd /Users/jitl/src/duckdb/src $ sloc . ---------- Result ------------ Physical : 418092 Source : 317274 Comment : 50113 Single-line comment : 46187 Block comment : 3926 Mixed : 4415 Empty block comment : 588 Empty : 55708 To Do : 136 Number of files read : 2611 ---------------------------- $ cd ~/Downloads/sqlite-amalgamation-3500400/ $ sloc . ---------- Result ------------ Physical : 34742 Source : 25801 Comment : 8110 Single-line comment : 1 Block comment : 8109 Mixed : 1257 Empty block comment : 1 Empty : 2089 To Do : 5 Number of files read : 2 ----------------------------
by ssl-3 | 2025-11-03 04:27:36+00:00
I don't do a ton of multi-monitor stuff with Windows these days, but I certainly have done a good bit of it. It worked OK on my desktop at home with three screens, and when I sometimes plug an extra monitor into my laptop at work it seems to put things back how they were last time.

But I don't recall a time when Bluetooth was "good" on Windows -- like, at all. I've spent somewhere in the realm of 20 years now dinking around with it. As far as I can tell, it has always been a miserable experience.
by ggm | 2025-11-03 04:27:50+00:00
Of course linear growth is nonsensical. But if you are plotting into the future its a damn sight less nonsensical than exponential unless you have very strong foundations, and for the 1-2-3 year projection it's pretty much ok. Anyone who thinks they know trends 5+ years out is a loony.

And as I said, thats ignoring market cycles, the debt overhang in the economy, all kinds of problems.
by dvsfish | 2025-11-03 04:28:15+00:00
I can’t think of many major resources left to extract. Attention seems to be the last novel one. So what’s the pivot from here? If people are increasingly digitally pacified, what genuinely new needs or industries emerge next? As a consumer, what would I still spend money on if my material needs are largely met, and my emotional needs can be managed, or at least soothed, through digital experiences? (For the record I don't see it as black and white as this- especially the ability for indefinite digital pacification - it's more food for thought) I don't believe the system as we know it is equipped to handle wealth inequality in an exhaustively exploited resource landscape. Especially not one where labour as a resource is being threatened to disproportionately lose value against assets.

Things do tend to balance out over time, but it feels like we’re heading for a real crisis before that equilibrium returns. Unless we pivot away from “productivity” and “efficiency” as our ultimate economic north stars, life for the working class could become increasingly unstable. In many ways, it already has, especially in advanced economies where housing prices have long outpaced wage growth. Not to mention the youths of the world are entering adulthood with far fewer opportunities than previous generations (even college educated). To me it looks like a potential storm of unrest brewing, that could be genuinely historically paradigm shifting.

I don't really have an overall point, but would love to encourage people that say there are naturally going to be new jobs as a result of all this to provide some speculation as to what they are and how we get to that. I don't doubt the notion that some new jobs will emerge, but to think we can find new opportunities for the displacement of even 20% of well established industries seems too optimistic to me. I think we seriously need to start to grapple with a new way of life. UBI being an obvious first step, as this is somewhat achievable as a incremental change, but that could be too little and potentially not meaningful enough. A system that values more than that which can be priced. Maybe money as a whole evolves completely with a well designed digital currency. Sustainability (not in regards to material resources) and wellbeing over exploitation, but none of this is easy to even begin to implement without a collapse of what is already there. Who knows what the future holds.
Ask HN: How do you design an efficient transacitonal/durable task system?
by stevefan1999 | 2025-11-03 04:28:15+00:00
As someone who wants to design a cloud resource scheduling system similar to EC2, I always wonder how they works in depth. I know I'm going to need a task queue, but which? Kafka? NATS (JetStream)? RabbitMQ? Or if they really just design your own persistent durable task queue with some black magic which is not open sourced.

I still don't know to this day. Plus I have a focus on running that as some kind of Kubernetes operator as well.
by rao-v | 2025-11-03 04:28:18+00:00
I wonder if in the long term, with compute being cheap and parameter volumes being the constraint, if it will make sense to train models to be robust to different activation functions that look like ReLU (I.e. swish, gelu etc.)

You might even be able to do a ugly version of this (akin to dropout) where you swap activation functions (with adjusted scaling factors so they mostly yield similar output shapes to ReLU for most input) randomly during training. The point is we mostly know what an ReLU like activation function is supposed to do, so why should we care about the edge cases of the analytical limits of any specific one.

The advantage would be that you’d probably get useful gradients out of one of them(for training), and could swap to the computationally cheapest one during inferencing.
by elfly | 2025-11-03 04:28:37+00:00
This is not really necessary tho; it only requires that the mathematical model has a certain arithmetic complexity. The usual demo is Robinson Arithmetic, which is addition, multiplication on the natural numbers, and a successor operation.

Godel then latches onto that to create an alphabet of the symbols which then are mapped to numbers; thus formulas are even bigger numbers, and derivations are even bigger bigger numbers. So for any statements there should be a derivation that prove the statement is true or a derivation that proves the statement is false. Of course most statements will be false, but even then there will be a derivation showing so.

Then Godel does some clever manipulation to show that there will be some statements for which there can be no such derivation in either way. But that does not need the physics theory to express things about itself. It only requires to be mathematically complex enough (it'd be weird if a theory of everything was simpler than Robinson Arithmetic) and that it has rules of derivation of its statements (ie, that mechanical math can be applied to deduce the truth of the matter from the first principles of the theory).

Of course, the actual undecidable godel number and the associated physical proposition would be immensely complex. But that is only cause nobody has tried to improve on Godel's methodology of assigning numbers to propositions. He used what was simpler, prime factorization, cause it was easy to reason about, but results in astronomical numbers. But there is no reason a better, less explosive way of encoding propositions could be found that made an undecidible Godel number to be translated into something comprehensible.

But this is largely unnecessary; Godel proof forces the mathematical system to speak about itself and then abuses this reflection to create a contradiction. It means the system is not complete, that there are statements in the system that cannot be proven from its first principles and derivation rules; the fact that the one Godel showed to exist is self referential does not mean all the undecidable propositions _are_ self referential. There well could be other, non self referential undecidable propositions, that could very well have a comprehensible physical interpretation.

And, regardless of the universe being a simulation or not, the physical theory will ultimately need to deal with this incompleteness.
by anonymousiam | 2025-11-03 04:28:40+00:00
I think part of the reason most ISPs don't support RFC2317 or reverse delegation is that it makes it easy for a bad actor who's in charge of the DNS server being delegated to, to spoof any domain they want. The consequences of this sort of spoofing have now been limited by other systems and protocols anyway, so it's not as big of a deal.

ISPs prefer to have direct control of the reverse lookups within their IP blocks so they can ensure the integrity of the information.
by cvoss | 2025-11-03 04:29:09+00:00
> The biggest problem at many parties is an endless escalation of volume. If you know how to fix this, let me know.

Ideally, a guest breaks a cheap glass. The sound is heard across the house. The helpers immediately spring into action, leaving their conversations behind, looking for towels and a dustpan. The people nearby go mute with sympathetic embarrassment. Much ado is made of finding every shard. Meanwhile you are laboring over a replacement drink for the guest, which you graciously present in protest to their apologies. The party resumes at 70% volume.

Also happened with a lamp on one occasion.
by beej71 | 2025-11-03 04:29:17+00:00
When I went to a US university in the 90s there was even more extracurricular work needed than now, from my anecdata. I didn't even have any kind of group capstone project. It was understood that the framework college provided was the bare minimum and you needed to push yourself to stand out. And I did, and landed internships, and had no trouble getting hired. Lots of students do the minimum and/or use LLMs to do the work and they have trouble getting jobs for sure. The ones who push and use the school as a springboard get hired even in this downturn.
by srjek | 2025-11-03 04:29:37+00:00
> I wish Linux would offer a solution to that. No idea what it would look like though.

It probably would have to be an isolated environment to run in. Something like the Secure VM efforts adopted for desktops, perhaps with a small trusted hypervisor instead of CPU vendor extensions. Anything else I can think of starts to restrain what software you can run on your machine, or becomes highly invasive in ways similar to Anti-Cheats on Windows, both of which would be rejected by the general Linux community. (Through, it's not like anyone was asking Microsoft either before implementing anti-cheat and trampling on system integrity, at least until Microsoft started requiring signed drivers)

However, given that a generic blackbox implementation enables DRM and binary encryption there will probably still be opposition. It gets particularly nasty if it's given access to something like a full TPM to unlock application data in the same way a TPM can unlock an encrypted drive for your OS. That would make it the penultimate closed source application, which is really anti-ethical to a number of communities. (open source, modding, game/app preservation...)
by metalforever | 2025-11-03 04:29:55+00:00
There are a few nice to haves that would really help me out with making an open bsd transition. I thought of writing them myself because I am getting very fed up with Linux for the above reasons.

- IDE support is an issue still

- Filesystem challenging when using a laptop that runs out of battery

- MATE lacking volume and WiFi controls

- This one is just me being picky but a GUI to help me gain a better understanding of the security settings or alternatively more up to date books.

- I am not exactly sure on how to correctly use virtualization and I need it to support docker workloads at work
by TheDong | 2025-11-03 04:30:19+00:00
You can't hide from the pickaxe

$ git log --oneline -SKEY_INFLATE_SIGNAL_STRENGTH_BOOL | tail

gets us the commit [0] from 2020 where config_inflateSignalStrength was renamed to KEY_INFLATE_SIGNAL_STRENGTH_BOOL

$ git log --oneline -Sconfig_inflateSignalStrength | tail

gets us this commit [1] from 2017 where it was originally added:

43c14d198479 Add config to artificially inflate number of bars

[0]: https://android.googlesource.com/platform//frameworks/base/+...

[1]: https://android.googlesource.com/platform//frameworks/base/+...
by samplatt | 2025-11-03 04:31:37+00:00
My non-corporate desktop has 3 screens, screen#2 is shared with a corporate laptop (via a KVM, but the issues happen without it as well).

If I switch that monitor to the other machine, Windows re-arranges ALL windows to appear on the new "primary" portrait-oriented screen#1, some maximised to fill the screen, some not. They stay there after the other screen is reconnected.

Possibly because the screen being switched is the "primary" screen? At least it's consistent behaviour between both Win10 AND Win11, which is nice.
by possibleworlds | 2025-11-03 04:31:53+00:00
> If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door, unless your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas through your living room window.

I threw a party (illegal, on the beach, with great music) so successful the police just provided security at the parking lot entrance 1km away because they didn’t want > 400 wasted people roaming the affluent neighbourhood if shut down. Oh there were also nudists at the beach when we were ferrying in our gear at sunset who stayed for the whole thing and ended up on the dancefloor in their birthday suits at 2am.
by jkaptur | 2025-11-03 04:33:16+00:00
"Couples often flake together. This changes the probability distribution of attendees considerably"

It's interesting to consider the full correlation matrix! Groups of friends may tend to flake together too, people who live in the same neighborhood might rely on the same subways or highways...

I think this is precisely the same problem as pricing a CDO, so a Gaussian Copula or graphical model is really what you need. To plan a great party.
by mmooss | 2025-11-03 04:38:03+00:00
> According to a CBS News poll, 92% of Panamanian adults supported the invasion

In the cited Wikipedia article, most of the descriptions of Panamanian reactions are negative. It also says CBS polled 158 people ... and that 20,000 people were displaced, etc. I don't put much stock in Wikipedia; my point is that citing only that poll seems like cherry-picking.

People don't like armed soldiers threatening them, especially from other countries, especially killing their own people.

> without killing too many people

Killing a few people is fine, then - how many? Might makes right.
by semitones | 2025-11-03 04:38:07+00:00
There are certain kinds of styles of gatherings that do much better when there are 40-50 people present, rather than 10-20. If you are going for a low pressure hang and want 10-20, it's easy enough to just tell friends and tell them to tell others, you'll hit those numbers easy. If you are trying to do something a bit more memorable and you want to guarantee a higher turnout, you have to invest more effort into ensuring attendance. If you can get 50+ people to "just show up" without putting effort in, that means _someone_ (one of your friends) is putting the effort in, you're in college, or you're just super hot and famous
by dralley | 2025-11-03 04:39:41+00:00
Sure, it's upsetting. IBM was upset about BIOS being cloned, Bell got upset about Unix being cloned, Oracle got upset about the JDK being cloned, etc. Many of them were upset enough to engage in decade-long lawsuits. But we'd ultimately be in a much worse place if "avoiding making original creators upset" was the primary factor in development, over things like compatibility, bugs, performance, security etc.

I happen to like living in a world where Pipewire can just be a drop in replacement for PulseAudio that can implement the same APIs and do everything that PulseAudio does but better. Or where I can play my games on Linux because Valve re-implemented DirectX and all the Windows platform libraries. Or where there are half a dozen "vim" clones to pick from if I want to. If there are broad, tangible benefits to rewriting a piece of software, then it ought to be rewritten, hurt feelings nonwithstanding.

I don't really understand the argument that the original author gets deprived of anything by a piece of free software being rewritten, certainly not credit. Obviously stealing the name would be a dick move and maybe open you up to legal action but that's not really what happens 99.99% of the time.
by pizlonator | 2025-11-03 04:41:11+00:00
Even if you have a large freed object, it’ll really get GC’d unless it’s referenced from a root that the GC can’t edit. I allow for such things to simplify the runtime, but they’re rare.

As a GC dev I just found the emacs GC to be so nicely engineered:

- The code is a pleasure to read. I understood it very quickly.

- lots of features! Very sophisticated weak maps, weak references, and finalizers. Not to mention support for heap images (the portable dumper).

- the right amount of tuning but nothing egregious.

It’s super fun to read high quality engineering in an area that I am passionate about!
by WarOnPrivacy | 2025-11-03 04:42:10+00:00
OpenAI, Oracle and Related Digital will build the massive computing facility for their Stargate joint venture officials with DTE Energy, the utility serving the Saline area, announced on a quarterly earnings call that the company had inked a deal to provide 1.4 gigawatts of power

The article doesn't provide any details about what DTE will need to do to meet this new demand.

Gov Whitmer hailed the deal as “the largest economic project in Michigan history,” saying it will create more than 450 onsite jobs, plus additional spinoff jobs in Washtenaw County.

The Governor gives no indication how many of the 450(!) jobs are permanent, post-construction positions and how many might be filled by existing residents.

ed: I am not clear how this “largest economic project in Michigan history” clearly benefits a considerable number of MI residents in a meaningful way. Perhaps someone can chime in here.
by nlh | 2025-11-03 04:42:51+00:00
Oh man this definitely makes me wax nostalgic for that golden era ... it was 2013-2016 for me. I would throw an annual holiday party w/ my roommate in SF every year and I recall being able to just go down the list of my FB friends and click "invite, invite, invite" and everyone I cared about would show up and we all had a wonderful time. Sigh.
by randerson | 2025-11-03 04:43:02+00:00
The people in power (whether a government/king, or company) will have the incentive to shrink the population. In the past, the economy grew with the number of people, but now only the costs would grow. There is basically a non-zero chance that our future contains laws limiting who is allowed to have kids or how many. And that's not even the worst action they could take.