MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: What licensing software are you choosing for your projects?
by jdironman | 2025-11-30 00:13:36+00:00
Just looking for productive discussion as to what should drive design decisions / choices. I have some projects I would eventually like to make available for sale..and I really would like to host my own licensing software so that I keep everything in house except the payment portion. (I deal with PCI compliance enough with my day job)

So, lets say you want to sell your programming project / application or whatever. What licensing stack are you going with? For example, lets say you want to limit installs of your application to X number of machines. Do you use something like keygen.sh community edition? ChargePanda? I'm just curious what experience people have in this regard and what licensing model they went with.

I'm asking it here because I think its tech related since your code has to support the licensing stack. (I use a mix of C#, Electron / react, etc) so discussion on developer experience plus application stack is also welcome. That includes discussion around how you lock down your application to only working when licensed / or if you support trial license etc.

Thanks!
by benoau | 2025-11-30 00:14:57+00:00
A view is just a query that pretends to be a table, so it will come down to the complexity of that query. Each time you're querying the view it will be running the combination of the user's query against the view's query so the performance comes down to whether your DB is optimized around basically "SELECT field1, field2, field3 FROM (SELECT * FROM data_stuff WHERE customer_id=x)". Whether you execute that query as a view or as ad-hoc SQL doesn't make a difference itself.

"Your side" of this can be optimized easily enough, but the user-submitted queries are likely to be inefficient or miss indexes, which is why one database per customer can be better since they each have their own resources.

You can create the views and accounts as needed and destroy them when sessions end rather than keeping them permanently too, so when the user signs in you create the view and account, after the session or some period of inactivity you remove them.
by rahimnathwani | 2025-11-30 00:15:10+00:00
This is incorrect. It's 1 in ~50. Still bad!

8.5% of incoming freshmen place in Math 2. 25% of a class of Math 2 students could (EDIT: couldn't) answer 7+2=_+6

8.5% x 25% is about 2%, so 1 in 50.
by insin | 2025-11-30 00:15:17+00:00
My daughter had an essay to write for her one of her uni modules this semester, and they're giving students access to whatever tool they're using to detect LLM-generated essays.

The thought of thousands of people having to do what she had to do is depressing. I was sitting in the room with her while she wrote it, submitted it for checking, "AI" detected! She found the only way to avoid this was to go over it again and again simplifying and dumbing it down to use very basic sentence structures which ended up reading like something from a primary schooler. The whole thing is ass-backwards.
by Rochus | 2025-11-30 00:15:20+00:00
> Classical musicians are not trained to talk to God. We are trained not to make mistakes.

That's a good slogan ;-)

Consequently, the author seems to be very concerned with where, for example, Alfred Cortot made mistakes when playing Chopin's Preludes live.

I am glad that, as a musician and pianist myself, I am not under the same enormous pressure as classical musicians, but can simply enjoy both my playing and my recordings and not care about mistakes.
by phil21 | 2025-11-30 00:16:16+00:00
Pretending scheduled downtime and rare emergency shutdown of dispatchable power sources are the same as intermittent sources of power is getting to the point of a disingenuous argument. They are not remotely comparable, and they are typically not correlated outages. You simply overbuild these sources by a tiny percentage to account for such things - no one cares if 5% of your nuclear goes offline randomly. It’s not the same thing as 100% of your solar going away at exactly the same time.

Cherry picking Las Vegas - a desert - for solar is also somewhat silly. The midwestern US would be much more like a global average. I could also choose Alaska if you want silly arguments.

Seasonal also doesn’t mean seasons - it means seasonal in the mathematical statistical sense where every 5-10 years in a spot you get a week or two of both sun not shining and little wind output. No amount of overbuilding capacity will ever solve for that - you need energy storage or available dispatchable sources in the form of chemical, hydrocarbon, hydro, or nuclear.

The last 3% is almost all that matters when you are talking grid reliability for the masses and industry. Factories cannot operate without reliable sources of power, and asking every major consumer of power to have backup generation on-site is a massive amount of capital overhead. And completely untenable for perhaps 60% or more of residential consumers.

I’d love to be wrong, but watching everywhere that is getting close to solar and wind saturation is pretty telling. Basically every watt of solar at this point needs to be backed by a dispatchable power source or it’s going to end horribly. It’s great that we were able to replace burning fossil fuels when conditions are favorable - but we need to be real and recognize the costs involved here.

Investing in the natural gas power industry was the easiest layup I ever had investing since this was so predictable in the 2020-2021 green power delusion era. It was obvious to anyone that if solar projects went ahead as projected that natural gas was coming along with it.

I love solar and wind generation and want to see it spammed everywhere possible. I just hate the grifters that currently are endemic to it.
by _dain_ | 2025-11-30 00:17:56+00:00
>People rarely read code in its entirety, like a novel. There is almost always a specific question they want to answer. It might be "how will it behave in this use case?", "how will this change affect its behaviour?" or "what change should I make it to achieve this new behaviour?". Alternatively, it might be something more high level, but still specific, like "how does this fit together?" (i.e. there's a desire to understand the overall organisational principles of the code, rather than a specific detail).

+1. For me the most frustrating one is "where is the core logic for this one user-visible feature actually implemented?"

You look in all the obvious places and it's just nowhere to be found. Or it's shredded into tiny pieces and scattered across multiple files and seventeen layers of inheritance ...
by tapoxi | 2025-11-30 00:19:15+00:00
It's snapshotted from Arch, once a year they bump the kernel and include "updated Arch Linux base" as a release note.

SteamOS 3.7 is still on Kernel 6.11 and KDE Plasma 6.2, for example. Bazzite is 6.17 and Plasma 6.5.

This matters if you're using more recent hardware or want the latest driver optimizations. My 9070 XT is supported by Bazzite, SteamOS won't even boot.
by crossbody | 2025-11-30 00:19:53+00:00
Most of you here assume the "Human Capital" model (i.e. you pay to acquire skills), but that entirely misses the actual point of a college degree! 2001 Nobel Prize went for demonstrating that college is basically a quarter million dollar IQ and Marshmallow Test. It's a filtering mechanism that allows employers to tell who is smart and conscientious enough to be productive at work.

Offering education to more and more people via reduced cost mass online courses, lowering entry requirements or similar approaches will only erode the signalling value of a degree further.
by csallen | 2025-11-30 00:20:20+00:00
Everybody always takes this argument to the extreme, as if it has to be a 0 or a 1, black or white, either people deserve the wealth that they created or they don't.

There is no such dichotomy.

On one hand, markets and incentives work. When people can earn and gain more, by providing more value to their fellow man, people do work more + smarter + better + provide more value to their fellow man. This is not speculative or just a theory, this is an actual fact that has been observed for hundreds of years across dozens of societies. This has nothing to do with some moral imperative about what people "deserve". It's just pure incentive -- it's better for society as a whole if you incentivize people to work and provide services, to create new technology, to complete engineering projects, etc etc. We absolutely should give people more money if they create more value.

On the flip side, of course these people aren't 100.000% responsible for their own success, and completely entitled to all the profits, or deserving of holding all the power in society. If you build a fortune in a capitalist, market-driven economy, that's almost certainly only possible because you are making good use of the economic and political "rails" that have been laid before you and that made this possible. For example, your country almost certainly has a police force and a military that can protect the safety of you and your business. It almost certainly has a judicial branch that have created legal frameworks to limit your liability and allow you to take entrepreneurial or scientific risks. Etc. Pretty much everybody agrees with this. Which is why every western country has a progressive taxation system that taxes the rich at higher rates than the poor or middle class. In the United States, for example, the top 1% of earners paid 40% of the nation's income tax.
by andai | 2025-11-30 00:20:42+00:00
The other day I saw an answer on StackOverflow which was very detailed, well researched, and grounded in decades of experience.

It was also heavily downvoted, because it did not directly answer the user's question. (The user had already selected a winning answer, so this was in some sense unnecessary.)

It struck me that a single scalar for quality was inappropriate here. It was the best post I'd read in a long time, but by the site's rules indeed "deserved" the downvotes.

I had to wonder if a multidimensional system (tags like "answers question" and "general context" etc.) would work better. You know... the stuff every social media site figured out twenty years ago? ;)

---

Tangential but the more I think about it, the more I think we had the web basically right twenty years ago...

You subscribed to what you wanted to see.. and then sometimes you'd find really cool new things through mentions or the comments section.

I was thinking about signal to noise ratio and taste recently and realized I'd reinvented RSS from first principles...
by undeveloper | 2025-11-30 00:21:47+00:00
Hey, I just wanted to say I do like the product you guys made, really love it. ideally I want to be able to have multiple agent sessions running, and it feels to me odd to have different sessions run into each other. ideally, i could have an agent running per stack of branches. additionally, sometimes i'd also like to edit some code while having claude run in the background.
by varenc | 2025-11-30 00:22:01+00:00
Generally agreed! though fun point of info: you can use the .avif format to get something that behaves just like a gif (auto-playing, no sound, no controls) but supports modern features (HDR/transparency channel) and is compressed as well as a modern video is, since its just AV1. And it's supported in most all modern browsers these days: https://caniuse.com/?search=avif
by chillycharlie | 2025-11-30 00:22:47+00:00
Trump could cancel H1B but most likely he won't. If for no other reason than as a favour to his billionaire friends. They are more important than the popular idea of America first, American jobs etc. here Trump literally says we need H1B because we need talent, and USA doesn't have the talent. Not a good look for a supposedly America first president.. https://youtu.be/U2XUNKcKtx0?si=GOFyMGxqUIbyGD6T
by jagged-chisel | 2025-11-30 00:23:14+00:00
I see - some attribute of themselves has set them apart from the ones who had similar circumstances but squandered the opportunity. I guess it depends on how fine you track those circumstances. Did they all have that super-supportive friend named Trey that always knew then correct supportive thing to say? Personally, I can point to many times in my life where a teacher, grandparent, pastor made overt attempts to derail me. Maybe I wasn't completely derailed, but it slowed my progress and may have taken me along a less successful track for awhile. Looking back, I'm surprised I've done what I have. But I do wonder what kind of success I might have had if those naysayers had actually provided support.
by Hizonner | 2025-11-30 00:24:10+00:00
Hmm. So, as I read the article, they've dropped the mandatory universal scanning (which has the effect of no longer requiring on-device scanning)... but added age verification.

Voluntary scanning (voluntary for the provider, not for the serfs^H^H^H^H^Husers) is already happening under some kind of temporary directive. So that's kind of codifying the status quo.

If they had just dropped the mandatory scanning, it might even be good to see it passed, in that it could eventually, slowly, drive all the users either to providers that don't scan... or better yet to P2P. There are probably some players who accepted the lack of mandatory scanning because they're betting they can find "noncoercive" ways to coerce all the major providers... but P2P is a lot harder to pressure that way. Even "mostly P2P" is harder to pressure, just because the infrastructure required is smaller. And it's not clear that all of the people doing the horsetrading understand that P2P is even possible.

They've been coming back with this Chat Control bullshit every year, in an obvious "keep demanding it until you get a yes" strategy. But once they've passed something, it'll be harder politically for them to change it to ban effectively encrypted P2P messaging. They could end up screwing themselves.

BUT the age verification ruins the whole thing, since it torpedoes privacy in general, and it probably, depending on how it's phrased and who it binds, effectively bans P2P messaging.

I wonder how many people involved intentionally took that into account, versus how many just saw AV as something vaguely authoritarian that could be put in to placate the forces of Control(TM).
by crossbody | 2025-11-30 00:24:15+00:00
Did Europe find a cheat code that gets free $$$ for education?

Nothing is free - once you graduate you are hit with 50% tax that gets back all you "free" tuition costs many, many times over.

Not saying education should not be subsidized via taxes (I think it's good overall), but it's not free at all - the price is just hidden and spread out over many years (similar to student loans but less visible).
by drob518 | 2025-11-30 00:25:11+00:00
I think we’re starting to find that the “if you get sunlight you will develop skin cancer” mantra is way overblown, if not outright wrong. Being out in the sun is good for humans. In fact, we need it. But modern life largely conspires to prevent it for most of the developed world. Even when we do, we slather ourselves with sunscreen that might be doing more harm than good. Better to wear long sleeves and a hat that you can take off and at least get reflected sunlight while wearing. Oddly, it turns out that our bodies have been tuned to survive outside. Whodathunkit?
by skywhopper | 2025-11-30 00:25:23+00:00
Starship is on a fast track to failure. It is not a cheaper way to get to orbit and will never get there at the current pace. And even if it were, it would not make getting to orbit so cheap that it would somehow make it economically viable to put a datacenter there.

You still have to build the GPUs, etc for the datacenter whether it’s on Earth or in orbit. But to put it in space you also need massive new cooling solution, radiation shielding, orbital boosting, data transmission bandwidth, and you have to launch all of that.

And then, there are zero benefits to putting a datacenter in space over building it on Earth. So why would you want to add all that extra expense?
by haunter | 2025-11-30 00:25:41+00:00
As much as I love Bazzite at end of the day it's still a custom distro and every single day there is a chance they just close the project down and move on. Happened to so many distros in the past, this is not out of question. I’m not saying “big corporate” distros are better but personally I'd rather stick to something more mainline.

Hopefully Valve will release a general version of SteamOS with Steam Machine coming (and even they are questionable with their track record)
by danparsonson | 2025-11-30 00:26:54+00:00
It's just a restatement of 'nature vs nurture' isn't it? And as you say, both of those things are necessary. Broadly, greatness without circumstances likely leads to obscurity; circumstances without greatness likely leads to indolence. The latter being what often seems to happen in families with generational wealth - some family member makes the fortune, and some later generation, lacking the earlier drive, squanders it.
by buu700 | 2025-11-30 00:27:51+00:00
Whether the ideal works and the extent to which it's commonly held are two different issues. My view is that both major parties in the US are somewhat illiberal, but average out to a moderately liberal status quo.

Despite many flaws, e.g. the Wars on Drugs and Prostitutes, the US is arguably still the world's greatest stronghold of liberalism (for the moment).

The War on Drugs is actually a perfect microcosm of how illiberal policy doesn't work. Instead of learning our lesson from the War on Alcohol, we doubled down and funneled untold billions of dollars into Mexican drug cartels via US markets — funding the very problem we wanted to solve. By contrast, our more liberal tobacco policy has been a huge success.
by pabs3 | 2025-11-30 00:28:19+00:00
Software Freedom Conservancy have been doing GPL compliance actions for a long time, especially if you consider their staff's previous lawsuit that resulted in OpenWRT existing. Also the more recent Vizio lawsuit is kinda interesting, it aims to enable any recipient of GPLed binaries to sue for GPL compliance.

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/ https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html
by aaplok | 2025-11-30 00:29:08+00:00
You got a bunch of responses already, here is an intuitive reason.

In similar triangles all distances are scaled by a factor k, by definition. Then, intuitively the areas are scaled by a factor of k^2, since you obtain an area by multiplying two distances.

So the ratio of the area over the hypothenuse is scaled by a factor of k^2/k=k.

It is not hard to confirm the intuition that the areas are scaled by a factor of k^2, since it is precisely the product of the lengths of the two sides adjacent to the right angle.
by csallen | 2025-11-30 00:29:14+00:00
Partly this is a huge problem. But partly it's intentional.

It's a huge problem for the obvious reasons. Nobody wants a country where only the rich people have a say, or have influence, or wield political power, or own all the land. Because this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where the rich then bend the rules to favor themselves. For example, I personally think it's ridiculous that we need a lower capital gains income tax rate to "spur investment." Investment was just fine back when capital gains rates were the same as normal income tax rates, and I see this as a way for the rich to just benefit themselves.

That said, a system where the wealthy benefit is partly intentional. The whole idea of incentivizing people to earn wealth is that the wealth should be useful. It only works if it's useful. If extra wealth doesn't allow one to buy more land, or exert more power, or gain more attention, or live more comfortably, then it's pointless and does not serve its purposes as an incentive. This is literally the entire point of it. The issue is not that it happened, it's the degree to which it happens.

My fear with #1 is that the degree of difference will be too much. This is absolutely something to keep in check. It's a tough problem to solve. But on the flip side, we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Any political or financial system that we have is going to have some inefficiencies and some disadvantages.

My fear with #2 is that people have lost the plot, and believe so firmly in "equality of outcomes" that they can't stomach any amount of inequality. Some inequality is okay! We're never going to have a completely equal world, and that's okay. I had a happy, safe, abundant middle-class upbringing, and it didn't bother me one bit that Bill Gates is a billionaire.
by 8fingerlouie | 2025-11-30 00:29:22+00:00
It's still a law in Denmark, despite being rendered illegal in the EU, and likewise in national courts.

It was last used to convict a murderer of the murder of Emilie Meng (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Emilie_Meng). At the time, he had kidnapped a 13 year old girl (IIRC), that he had sexually assaulted for 24+ hours, and various dashcam recordings were used to piece together what had happened. He was also convicted of attempted kidnapping of a 15 year old girl from a school.

They found the 13 year old in his home, so not much doubt about that, but the other two cases were partially proven with phone metadata logging, proving he had been in the area at the time.

In the light of that, it's hard to disagree 100% that it's a "bad idea". It's a question of balance I guess, and the mass surveillance proposed in ChatControl is way out of balance. Not only does it scan in the background, it also scans for things that are unknown to you, and alerts authorities without alerting you. That's the perfect tool for facist regimes to get rid of political dissents.
by DonHopkins | 2025-11-30 00:30:29+00:00
There's a nice Blender extension called "FaceIt" that I used a few years ago for rigging and producing ARKit-compatible facial animations and characters. It worked quite well (for what it was designed), and I recommend it!

https://superhivemarket.com/products/faceit

>Faceit is a Blender Add-on that assists you in creating complex facial expressions for arbitrary 3D characters.

>An intuitive, semi-automatic and non-destructive workflow guides you through the creation of facial shape keys that are perfectly adapted to your 3D model's topology and morphology, whether it’s a photorealistic human model or a cartoonish character. You maintain full artistic control while saving a ton of time and energy.

https://faceit-doc.readthedocs.io/en/latest/FAQ/

This is a great explanation of how FaceIt works, facial animation, shape keys, face rigs, ARKit, etc:

This addon automates Facial Animation (FACEIT Tut 1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ32KRYq6RA&list=PLdcL5aF8Zc...
by lunar-whitey | 2025-11-30 00:30:31+00:00
Equity remains a valid criticism of LCFF in California specifically.

For one unremarkable observation in this area, see the following think tank report:

> States often commission cost studies to establish the level of funding required to help students meet state standards. LPI analyzed five of the more recent of these studies [...] All of these studies recommended additional weighted funding to support English learners and students considered "at-risk," which was most often defined by a measure of family income and also included other factors [...] The recommended weights for English learners in these studies ranged from 15% to 40% of the base grant level in each state. The recommended weights for at-risk students ranged from 30% to 81%. Compared to the recommended funding in these states, the LCFF’s supplemental grant weight of 20% is at the lower end of the recommended range of weights for English learners and below the range of weights for at-risk students.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED670929.pdf
by vel0city | 2025-11-30 00:30:32+00:00
> The cheapest new EV on the US market is a Nissan Leaf

I said the cheapest car not the cheapest EV. And of that I meant new car. That would be the Nissan Versa, which has an MSRP of $18,385. After TTL, depending on your market you're probably looking at something around $20k out the door.