MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by vkou | 2025-11-07 18:28:37+00:00
> Unless something is preventing that.

It's not! I've given you four examples of large foreign banks that you - you can walk into your nearest US branch of and open an account with, today.

For some strange reason, you'll find the service, interest rates, and everything else about them to be essentially the same damn thing as you'll get from the big four. Retail banking is a commodity at this point.
by Telaneo | 2025-11-07 18:28:37+00:00
> The article said that someone from the company logged in to his device and edited a file on it to disable it.

I can't find that in the article. Could you quote it?

The closest I got to finding this is:

> The manufacturer added a makeshift security protocol by omitting a crucial file, which caused it to disconnect soon after booting, but Harishankar easily bypassed it.

> deep in the logs of his non-functioning smart vacuum, he found a command with a timestamp that matched exactly the time the gadget stopped working. This was clearly a kill command

> So, why did the A11 work at the service center but refuse to run in his home? The technicians would reset the firmware on the smart vacuum, thus removing the kill code, and then connect it to an open network, making it run normally. But once it connected again to the network that had its telemetry servers blocked, it was bricked remotely because it couldn’t communicate with the manufacturer’s servers.

Which to me reads 'automatic script on the server tells device to delete file and reboot, causing it to brick', using the same kind of mechanism that an automatic firmware update would use, not 'human at company logs into device and tells it to brick'.
by krapp | 2025-11-07 18:28:50+00:00
>Why do these young white men read "we the people" and not see it literally applying to all humans?

Because we live in a society in which white supremacy still holds real political and cultural power due to the the structures of systemic racism and colonialism on which it was founded, and because we've accepted the asinine "pendulum" premise that implies both sides (in this case, pro and anti racist) of any political axis are equally valid.

No one is claiming that men or white men are the problem per se except maybe some rage baiters online. Patriarchy and white supremacy are problems, however. Rape culture and toxic masculinity are problems. There are many aspects of our modern capitalist society in which the success of someone comes at the cost of another's failure, because it was designed to be so. And often, although not always, the current of oppression to power leads from female to male, and non-white to white. That's just a fact.

Speaking of MLK Jr, read what he had to say about well meaning white liberals. He thought they were worse than the Klan. The last thing he would have advocated was a "color-blind" way of seeing the world.
by didibus | 2025-11-07 18:30:16+00:00
> No hidden control flow.

I've really been thinking about this one.

I'm currently designing and implementing an async library and I've been wondering what's better, structured concurrency or explicit scopes.

Explicit scopes allow you to see and think exactly how you want to relate every async task or not. But you have to pass it around, it's more verbose, and you can get mixed up in your scopes.

Structured concurrency handles it automatically, the structure of the code is implicitly the scope of your tasks. Less verbose, can't forget about it, or get it mixed up, but it's magical, you might not even realize it's happening, and understanding mentally what the scope ends up being requires you to understand really well how the structured concurrency implicitly infers your scopes.

I can't decide which is best.
by stevenjgarner | 2025-11-07 18:30:51+00:00
I have much empathy for your false hopes, given my own memory loss over the years (I am 69). That being said, I do not consider it clickbait to say "Scientists find ways to boost memory in aging brains". Anyone familiar with work in the field understands that if it is genuinely about "human" brains or even "hominid" brains, then that would be specified. To talk generically about "memory in aging brains" is not IMO misleading.

I feel much of your criticism rests with HN - the length of titles is quite restrictive and the initial post (which in this case specified "restoring memory in older rats") usually gets buried with more popular dominating comments. Don't get me wrong, I think the weighting of comments in HN is one of its best features. Other comment systems providing for the "pinning" of the initial comment by the OP - not sure if this is possible on HN?
by renewiltord | 2025-11-07 18:30:59+00:00
Yeah, you gotta watch out for this stuff. The other day I was using Gmail when it just gave me a million dollars. I gave it to charity under an assumed name.

Can’t screenshot without revealing the name but I think it’s actually super cool of Google to do this. Just distributed charity. With no benefit to themselves.

They did say that they did it based on my Google Photos showing that I was really good looking (can’t share because of privacy) so there’s some privacy stuff there but overall I think it’s good.
by delusional | 2025-11-07 18:31:13+00:00
I think that ends up being a more difficult problem than just open source. There will have to be some cryptography at play to make sure the age verification information is actually attested by your government.

It would be possible for them to provide an open-source app, but design the cryptography in such a way that you couldn't deploy it anyway. That would make it rather pointless.

I too hope they design that into the system, which the danish authorities unfortunately don't have a good track record of doing.
by giardini | 2025-11-07 18:31:43+00:00
ZeroGravitas says>" it's been trending down most places for decades."<

The problem is that reported crime is a political number: those in power want the number to go down on their watch and they have control of the reporting mechanism. Pressure exists at every level, from patrolmen filling out incident reports to statisticians collating the numbers for the mayor, to move the numbers downward.

There is every reason to be skeptical of reported criminal statistical trends in USA cities today.
by rossdavidh | 2025-11-07 18:32:17+00:00
In real-world software development, managing complexity is often (usually) the core of the challenge. A simplified example, is leaving out the very thing that is the obstacle to most good software development. In fact, it is sometimes the case that doing something that helps with managing complexity, will impair performance as measured in some other way. For example, it may slow execution speed by some amount, but allow the software to be broken into smaller pieces each of which is more compehensible. Managing this tradeoff is the key to much software development. If you test with "toy experiment design", you may be throwing out the very thing that is most important to study.
by marcosdumay | 2025-11-07 18:32:26+00:00
> Rather, it is that systems are tested thoroughly enough, and designed with enough failsafes and redundancy

Yeah... That's one of the main reasons why engineers from most other disciplines have a lot of difficulty creating large reliable software.

Testing systems and adding failsafes are not nearly enough for system reliability, and not the best way to add it to software. It's almost enough for mechanical engineering... Almost, because it's not enough to make human interactions safe.
by Telaneo | 2025-11-07 18:33:09+00:00
Surely there's a reasonable expectation that Netflix would work at decent speeds, especially given that Netflix's infrastructure, nor the network load as a whole are to blame, but rather the specific ISP bureaucracy? Getting 1/1000 the listed speed does not strike me as something even a 75 year old computer neophyte of a judge would take kindly too, unless it were for very good reasons.
by porridgeraisin | 2025-11-07 18:33:12+00:00
They have made it empty only.

>> out = torch.empty([m, n], dtype=x.dtype, device=x.device)

The accumulator has been initialized to zero, since well, they have to add stuff into it.

>> acc = hl.zeros([tile_m, tile_n], dtype=torch.float32)

> idiomatic

No as far as I have seen they generally try to not initialize if its not necessary.

> overhead

There is the memory bandwidth point as you might expect. But additionally when using high level interfaces like pytorch, when you write torch.zeros(512, 512) in pytorch, it launches a whole kernel (tens of micros) just for that line. So that's cpu -> gpu -> back to cpu, and then it does the next line, where it goes to gpu again and uses that memory. So in these cases you make sure to avoid it if its in a hot path. Ideally you want the 2nd kernel to do the initialization itself. When you write cuda c++ yourself this is how you typically do it. Helion being a compiler might be doing this optimization, but runtime based torch can't clearly.
by agentultra | 2025-11-07 18:33:13+00:00
Why isn't it more popular?

I think Richard Feldman [0] proposed some of the most reasonable theories as to why functional programming isn't the norm. Your language needs to be the platform-exclusive language for a widely used platform, have a killer application for a highly desired application domain, or be backed by a monster war-chest of marketing money to sway opinions.

Since Feldman's talk, Python has grown much faster in popularity in the sense of wide use in the market place... but mostly because it's the scripting language of choice for PyTorch and AI-adjacent libraries/tooling/frameworks which is... a killer application.

I like OCaml. I started evaluating functional programming in it by taking the INRIA course online. I spent the last four and half years working in Haskell. I've built some side projects in Zig. I was a CL stan for many years. I asked this question a lot. We often say, "use the best tool for the job." Often that means, "use the tool that's available."

I think languages like OCaml, Rust, Haskell etc can be "popular," but in the sense that people like to talk about them and want to learn them and be able to use them (at least, as trends come and go). It's different from "popular" as in, "widely adopted."

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyJZzq0v7Z4
by quantified | 2025-11-07 18:33:17+00:00
Asking Gemini (ironically), I come up with Poe's Law.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law]

> Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture which states that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent (such as an emoticon or a disclaimer), it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views. This "law" describes exactly the scenario you've outlined: a joke or satirical statement, especially online where tone and body language are absent, is perpetuated long enough that it reaches an audience not "in on the joke" and is subsequently believed to be a genuine viewpoint.
by rexpop | 2025-11-07 18:33:54+00:00
> ... the left believes, or even phrases their policies to imply, that...

There's no meaningful "Left" policy in the US. We only have two Neoliberal parties. There's no "Leftist" Heritage Foundation, say. There's no PAC promoting socialized healthcare, for example.

This, frankly, strengthens your argument—the Democrats and mainstream liberalism don't espouse any feminist antipatriarchal ideology.
by nobody9999 | 2025-11-07 18:33:59+00:00
>Surely they could (will?) be charged with something though, right? I mean if I walk down the street now and launch a sandwich at a random stranger, it's some form of assault. "Attempt to cause bodily injury" is a bit much, but it's something.

Littering?

Another, similar case[0] was also brought, in Massachusetts some time ago. And there were, at least temporarily, some negative impacts on the defendant[1].

[0] https://youtu.be/zPx2t7xoF1k?t=390

[1] https://youtu.be/zPx2t7xoF1k?t=657
by hylaride | 2025-11-07 18:34:00+00:00
I was shocked just how slow and poor the mobile networks were in Germany. When I last visited (circa 2014) I literally switched my prepaid sim from T-Mobile to Vodaphone because the experience was so bad - only to have the same bad experience. I had barely usable LTE and connections dropped to EDGE on the train between Hamburg and Berlin. Google Maps barely loaded in the cities let alone the fact I was playing Ingress at the time and it was pretty much unusable

This was surprising to my Canadian sensibilities. Our mobile networks are expensive, but I generally get solid 4G and now 5G coverage between Toronto and Montreal and had full 4G (at the time) coverage on a road trip between Saskatoon and Calgary.
by dingnuts | 2025-11-07 18:34:11+00:00
The Azure and AWS outages affected hospitals.

You know there had to have been increased literal pain and suffering from patients while hospitals scrambled to fall back on old methods of coordination and communication.

This shit is serious and I'm tired of people arguing that our craft should not be taken seriously.

A lot of us work on infrastructure just as vital as bridges and tunnels, and with real world consequences when these things fail.

Take some responsibility.
by thih9 | 2025-11-07 18:34:13+00:00
Funny to complain about content marketing that happens outside of HN, when content marketing is so popular here.

E.g. in this recent 800+ point submission[1] a company presents their product as the ultimate alternative to PaaS, their use case seems shallow and presents their product in positive light only.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45661253
by KalMann | 2025-11-07 18:34:16+00:00
Well I think you have to ask what the goal of the researchers are. In the case of fluid mechanics they may research new algorithms that make into the software mechanical engineers use, even if they don't understand the algorithms themselves for example. So mechanical engineers still benefit from the research.

So I guess what I'm wondering is if software engineers benefit from the research that software research produce? (even if they don't understand it themselves)
by jimbokun | 2025-11-07 18:34:29+00:00
> In 2025, Elixir is a beautiful system for a niche that infrastructure has already abstracted away.

Do you mean Kubernetes?

My mental model of Erlang and Elixir is programming languages where the qualities of k8s are pushed into the language itself. On the one hand this restricts you to those two languages (or other ports to BEAM), on the other hand it allows you to get the kinds of fall over, scaling, and robustness of k8s at a much more responsive and granular level.
by michaelt | 2025-11-07 18:34:43+00:00
> they’re still earning ten percent more than women in the same age bracket.

Both things can be true.

To use an exaggerated example, if you pay the top 20% of people six figures and leave the bottom 80% to starve, the average earnings would look great, but you’ll soon have an angry mob on your hands.

Now imagine if your average man used to be able to do skilled factory work and support a family, but those jobs have gone and growth sectors like care don’t pay enough to support a family.

Then imagine an electoral system where a 4% margin separates the winner and the loser. Doesn’t take 80% of the population being disaffected to flip the results.
by okanat | 2025-11-07 18:34:48+00:00
Yes and no. There are other providers in Germany. However, with the EU's neoliberal privatization policy the governments privatized many existing infrastructure. Vodafone bought the previous government company that owned all of the the cable TV infrastructure of Germany. So they are a monopoly of a particular type of internet connection. Depending on the place the alternatives could be too slow since Germany also has an aging population that do not {care about, demand} higher internet speeds and didn't upgrade its copper infrastructure due to corruption.
by Karrot_Kream | 2025-11-07 18:35:15+00:00
> I was on Slashdot 1998–2004 and found plenty of substantial tech discussion.

I think this was, roughly, peak Slashdot (tho I'll admit I was probably too young to be a good judge of it at this point.) From 2004 the meme discussions started overriding a lot of the regular discussion, and by 2007 ish the site was constantly getting derailed into EEE threads the way HN is constantly getting derailed into enshittification threads.

> Where I live has a traditional cafe culture, so there is a third place for men to go to daily and interact, but the topics that can be talked about there are very limited indeed, so obviously nerds “glom onto” internet communities.

My point of contention is that, this form of FOSS geekdom culture has many, many venues. Do you want to hop onto IRC? HN? Reddit? Discord? It may not be mainstream but it occupies the internet in a deep, fundamental way. On the other hand actual hard-nosed technical or business content is a lot, lot rarer. The loss of a site that discusses tech to become Yet Another FOSS Geek Social Site is to me a much sadder thing; there's a lot fewer of the former and a lot more of the latter. But, as you say, I've noticed a lot of the users are really desperate for a social venue to talk about tech nerd culture and so that's what crowds out all the other discussion.
by adriand | 2025-11-07 18:35:17+00:00
I would really love it if there was a "smart setting" (or a dumb setting) to prevent people from sending me their drip marketing spam. The spam filtering in my personal Gmail is adequate, if not perfect (I really don't understand how the constant life insurance spam is getting through). But my main client uses Google Workspace or GSuite or whatever it is called these days, and my inbox for that email features a constant barrage of drip campaign garbage.

Are Google's incentives misaligned in some way here? It's not like the heuristics are particularly difficult for this kind of email. Some of it even has unsubscribe links (I didn't subscribe), or, "If you don't want to hear from me again, just let me know", etc.
by hitarpetar | 2025-11-07 18:35:43+00:00
typical technological determinism. comparing AI to the motorcoach assumes something we cannot know yet, namely that the impact of AI on the next century will be comparable to the invention of the automobile. there's also a long list of negative externalities caused by automobiles. who cares? anyone hurt by climate change, or who lives in a grid organized around cars rather than people. anyone who has ever been killed in a car accident.
by anotheryou | 2025-11-07 18:35:53+00:00
What about a friend trying to support someone in dark times?

I'd call the cops on them* at some point to stop them from harming themselves and I'd never say what ChatGPT said here, but I'd still talk to them trying to help, even without being a therapist. I can recommend a therapist, but it's hard to reach people in that state. You got to make use of the trust they gave you.

* non US country
by 7thaccount | 2025-11-07 18:35:56+00:00
They've spoken about this before and might not have picked OCaml if they had to make the decision again today. I think at the time it made the most sense.They can also make it work in any language as they claim to only recruit the best and brightest in the world (this may be the truth). My opinion is they could have chosen many languages and had similar results while balancing different trade-offs.

Regarding attracting talent, they've said they don't care about existing knowledge of OCaml as the language part is something they train staff on anyway. Their interviews are brutal from what I recall. I could be an OCaml expert and have no chance of making it through an interview without equal talent in high performance fintech and relevant mathematics.
by stego-tech | 2025-11-07 18:36:05+00:00
Not really, as US ISPs have been repeatedly trying to game the system into becoming landlords for decades. The difference is, ironically, their own self-imposed monopolies: Comcast may be a T1 ISP, but they’re largely a monopoly in the markets they serve. Same goes for Verizon, Spectrum, Cox, TDS, etc. The end result is a sort of “forced cooperation” with each other, though occasionally one will try to extort the others for cash (I seem to recall L3 and Cogent both engaging in this bullshit around the time streaming video got big).

Companies are extractive by nature, and they will always try to find new ways of squeezing blood from a stone absent regulations saying otherwise (and suitable punishments ensuring anyone caught violating them is crippled in the marketplace, if not outright destroyed). This has been going on for decades and will continue absent regulatory intervention. Just look at how the US Electrical grid bills to see how this could end up (higher prices, bullshit fees, redundant billing).
by schonfinkel | 2025-11-07 18:36:08+00:00
The answer is (most likely) Microsoft, I kid you not. I've worked with F# professionally for many years is its incredible how they are literally sitting atop a gold mine that is the output of Microsoft research and do basically nothing with it. Even though it's sold as an ecosystem, .NET revolves around C# and its related tooling.

"Type Providers" are an example of such negligence btw, it's something from the early 2010's that never got popular even though some of its ideas (Typed SQL that can generate compile-time errors) are getting traction now in other ecosystems (like Rust's SQLx).

My team used SQL Providers in a actual production system, combined with Fable (to leverage F# on the front end) and people always commented how our demos had literally 0 bugs, maybe it was too productive for our own good.
by tester756 | 2025-11-07 18:36:26+00:00
It reads as if written by teenager...

>For me, I would stand there and keep reciting difficult words. And although I was slightly dyslexic, I still won every freaking spelling bee. With this simple trick, I dominated it so much to the point that my teachers, who loathed me for being a slacker, once tried to rig it in favor of their obedient A-students (I still won).

>I used to be a pro gamer, and when my friends and I picked up a new video game, everyone would follow the game's instructions and do the obvious thing. On the other hand, I would explore the edges of the game. I'd explore every weird build, every different weapon, and frankly look like a noob for a long time. That's good. They'll underestimate you. But you're compounding. And eventually, you'll go vertical, creating a massive distance between you and the next participant before they know what hit them.

You just put way more effort, that's it. That's the real advice - put effort into things and make consistent progress. Be curious.

>Think of Apple and how taking privacy and security seriously—despite competing against Microsoft, which didn't care about either at the time—created a lasting consumer trust advantage.

Yea, because Apple is saint :D
by tptacek | 2025-11-07 18:36:31+00:00
That everybody seems to love building these things while people like you harbor deep skepticism about them is a reason to get your hands dirty with an agent, because the cost of doing that is 30-45 minutes of your time, and doing so will arm you with an understanding you can use to make better arguments against them.

For the problem domains I care about at the moment, I'm quite bullish about agents. I think they're going to be huge wins for vulnerability analysis and for operations/SRE work (not actually turning dials, but in making telemetry more interpretable). There are lots of domains where I'm less confident in them. But you could reasonably call me an optimist.

But the point of the article is that its arguments work both ways.
by jesse__ | 2025-11-07 18:36:52+00:00
> There can be defects in the graphics driver

Yes, video drivers are, generally, buggy and unreliable. The hardware they're hooked up to is fucking amazing.

Also, I can 99.9999% guarantee that this guys' problem is not a driver bug, so trying to nerd-snipe me with "but driverzzz broroooooo" is pedantic and annoying. The guy is drawing like 100 quads; it should run at a bazillion frames a second on literally a toaster.