MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by locknitpicker | 2025-11-23 11:04:36+00:00
> I have mixed feelings about Typescript, I hate reading code with heavy TS annotations because JS formatters are designed to keep line widths short, so you end up with a confusing mess of line breaks. Pure JS is also just more readable.

That's not a TypeScript issue, it's a code quality issue and a skill issue. Anyone can put together an unintelligible mess in any language.
by jijijijij | 2025-11-23 11:05:28+00:00
Hm. I think, you are confusing general privacy with confidentiality. Observing who I am talking to definitely falls into the privacy domain.

Eg. you are talking to an HIV medical specialist. This inherently has privacy implications, if observable. Likewise, you wouldn't say DNS has no privacy implications.

Anonymity rather means, you don't/can't know who exactly you are talking to.
by hackable_sand | 2025-11-23 11:05:54+00:00
It is not apparent that we are ambivalent because of compensation.

I would argue an inverse corollary. I would argue that the most qualified people for the job are applying.

What I am noticing in my own work is fatigue from processing volume.

It's not personal. You are a statistic until you walk up to the front counter and make it personal. Only then we can actually solve your issue because we have a person to relate to.

I am curious about this notion that fast food workers don't care. I see it a lot. We absolutely care.
by wkat4242 | 2025-11-23 11:06:25+00:00
I don't mean for content creation to only be AI! I mean it could be a tool especially for people who don't understand 3D design so well.

Minecraft makes it easy by using big blocks but you can't have detail like that and it's very Lego like. VRChat requires very detailed Unity knowledge. You really need to be a developer for that.

Horizons has its own builder in world but it's kinda boring because it's limited. I think this is where AI can come in, to realise people's vision where they lack the skills to develop it themselves. As a helper tool, not the only means of generation.
by bionsystem | 2025-11-23 11:06:49+00:00
I agree. We are going as far as being asked to release our public app on self-hosted kube cluster in 9 months, with no kube experience and nobody with a CKA in a 2.5 person ops team. "Just do it it's easy" is the name of the game now, if you fail you're bad, if you offer stability and respect delivery dates you are out-fashioned, and the discussion comes back every week and every warning and concern is ignored.

I remember a long time ago one of our client was a bank, they had 2 datacenters with a LACP router, SPARC machines, Solaris, VxFS, Sybase, Java app. They survived 20 years with app, OS and hardware upgrades and 0 second of downtime. And I get lectured by a 3 years old developer that I should know better.
by MomsAVoxell | 2025-11-23 11:06:54+00:00
It also depends on how long you stretch the word cunt. Shorter cunt usually infers insult, longer cunts belie respect, and if it goes for more than a second, you’re probably watching Aussie rules footie or the cricket and something bad/good happened, depending on whether the pitch goes up or down in the last milliseconds.
by jameslk | 2025-11-23 11:07:05+00:00
> In particular, her blowing up was highly influenced by the stylistic direction, composition, production and sound engineering of people associated with the PC Music record label.

No, if anything Charli XCX was the one that put PC Music on the map. She has been a fairly big name since 2012

> she was around artistic innovators like Sophie, yes, but THEY are the ones that pioneered the sound.

Sophie didn’t pioneer the sound of PC Music any more than e.g. AG Cook, QT, Hannah Diamond, Danny L Harle, 100 gecs, or any of the other many artists involved, including Charli XCX

You’re talking as if PC Music is some huge label with a lot of help, when it’s mostly just AG Cook. He and Charli XCX collaborated on tracks for a couple of Charli’s albums
by ninalanyon | 2025-11-23 11:07:19+00:00
Debian maintainers do a lot of things because of their preferences that have caused many people to criticize them.

Do you also criticize Shostakovich because he doesn't write in the style of Beethoven?

One could argue that a stylistic choice that slows down the reader is good because it forces the reader to pay closer attention. That is the extra processing has not only a cost but, plausibly, also a benefit.
by frumplestlatz | 2025-11-23 11:07:23+00:00
The person most biologically suited to care for an infant is the person who birthed the infant in the first place, and there is a path dependence inherent in ongoing childcare.

Once you have spent six months or a year raising an infant, it is personally psychologically difficult (and developmentally questionable) to cut that tie.

I get that it’s ideologically convenient to pretend that men and women are interchangeable economic cogs, but the sexes are fundamentally different in very pertinent ways.

We all lose under this model, but ultimately the people who lose the most when economic and social policy rejects our inconvenient biological differences are the children themselves.

Family should be able to support themselves on a single earner’s salary. That’s what we should prioritize. They can decide themselves who should stay home, if anyone; gender doesn’t need to factor into our policy if we simply make it our goal for families to not require dual incomes.
by fsh | 2025-11-23 11:07:31+00:00
It's easy to overlook the sample memory spec. These old Teks have decent bandwidth and 1 GS/s, but only a few thousand points of memory. This makes it impossible to zoom into a captured trace and leads to severe aliasing (trap for young players). In comparison, modern designs store millions to billions of points and can operate at high sample rates even on a slow timebase.
by fwn | 2025-11-23 11:08:14+00:00
I don't know about their methodology, but as a German, I get the feeling that the project is rather vague.

For example, I would have liked to see more specifics on what they define as censorship in terms of scope.

Mainstream discourse in Germany is very conservative when it comes to defining censorship. They would hardly name de-ranking, deplatforming, intimidation, exclusion from the financial system, or even full control of information by private organizations as censorship. Government-enacted media bans, such as the Commission banning Russian state media, are rarely viewed as censorship by Germans. ( https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-rt-sputnik-illegal-eu... )

I'm not trying to make a value statement in one direction or the other, but if your communication product addresses a market or seeks to tie into public discourse, it should be in touch with its concepts.
by wkat4242 | 2025-11-23 11:08:38+00:00
It's the human guidance that makes it special. Low effort single sentence prompt creation like meta does here is super boring of course.

But it can be a tool for people with great imagination but not the technical skills to make it real.

Every time we talk about AI people think it will be used only as an easy mode A-Z creator. That's possible but creates boring output. I view it more as a tool to assist in the difficult and tedious parts of content creation. So the designer can focus on the experience and not tweaking the little things.
by quitit | 2025-11-23 11:08:47+00:00
From reading both posts, there's a few things that come to my mind:

- It seems this is how the author is processing her father's passing, and it's not really up to us to make moral calls on the content of the posts. They are thoughts with gaps of missing context against a real life of highs and lows which is not readily condensed into a blog post.

- I'm peering into the life of a private person, that feels like a violation. Even though they have passed, the people around them are very much alive.

- We can't makes guesses at what a person truly values, neither positively nor negatively. What can be seen as promiscuity can also be seen as seeking validation, human motives and emotions exist in the grey area.

- This is a person who was deprived of the sort of genuine sexual and emotional attention that we take for granted from puberty age. They lived as a type of outsider in school, work, and their daily norms. The integrity of their actions shouldn't be evaluated against our own values which were likely built from a different life experience.

- It's ok not knowing or judging. One has to practice a type of "radical acceptance" when reviewing these sorts of life matters.
by zimpenfish | 2025-11-23 11:09:09+00:00
> LAPD helicopters rarely if ever leave California.

The person I responded to said "so why do americans have more high speed chases?" Last I checked, "americans" covered more than just California.

> IMO we shouldn't base our law enforcement on what Texas was doing 50 years ago

Indeed not! California's Three Strikes law isn't all that great though[0].

"Project clients have been given life sentences for offenses including stealing one dollar in loose change from a parked car, possessing less than a gram of narcotics, and attempting to break into a soup kitchen."

I'd say two of those were even sillier than the Texas example.

But to its credit, California did vote to reform it in 2021 and people have been released since.

[0] https://law.stanford.edu/three-strikes-project/three-strikes...
by mindwok | 2025-11-23 11:09:10+00:00
It'll be interesting to see how this goes, but my first impression is that it's actually not where we want to go. One of the cool things about MCP (or even just tool calling) is that the LLM on top of a tool provides a highly flexible and dynamic interface to traditionally static tools.

I love being able to type "make an iptables rule that opens 443" instead of having to dig out the man page and remember how to do that. IMO the next natural extension of this is giving the LLM more capability to generate user interfaces so I can interact with stuff exactly bespoke to my task.

This on the other hand seems the other way round, it's like bolting a static interface onto the LLM, which could defeat the purpose of the LLM interface layer in the first place right?
by xmodem | 2025-11-23 11:09:19+00:00
> A robust stdlib or framework is in line with what I'm suggesting, not a counterexample.

Maybe I didn't argue this well, but my point is that it's a spectrum. What about libraries in the java ecosystem like Google's Guava and Apache Commons? These are not stdlbibs, but they almost might as well be. Every non-trivial java codebase I've worked in has pulled in Guava and at least some of the Apache commons libraries. Unless you have some other mitigating factor or requirement, I think it'd be silly not to pull these in as dependencies to a project the first time you encounter something they solve. They're still large codebaes you're not using 99% of though.

I don't feel like my position on this is black-and-white. It is not always correct to solve a problem by adding a new dependency - and in the situation you describe - adding a sprawling UI framework would be a mistake. Maybe the situation is different in front-end land, but I don't see how AI really shifts that balance. My colleagues were not doing the bad or wrong thing by copying that incorrect code - tasked with displaying a human-readable file size I would probably either write out the boundaries by hand or copy-paste the first reasonable looking result from stack overflow without much thought too.

> At no point have I advised copying code from libraries instead of importing them.

I didn't say copying, though. I said replicating. If you ask AI to implement something that appears in its training data, there is a high probability it will produce something that looks very similar and even a non-zero possibility it will replicate it exactly. Setting aside value judgements, this is functionally the same as a copy, even if what was done to produce it was not copying.
by lucideer | 2025-11-23 11:09:59+00:00
> I love doing stuff that has long term stability written all over it

I also love doing stuff that has long term stability written all over it. In my 20 year career of trying to do that through various roles, I've learnt that it comes with a number of prerequisites:

1. Minimising & controlling your dependencies. Ensuring code you own is stable long term is an entirely different task to ensuring upstream code continues to be available & functional. Pinning only goes sofar when it comes to CVEs.

2. Start from scratch. The effort to bring an inherited codebase that was explicitly not written with longevity in mind into line with your own standards may seem like a fun challenge, but it becomes less fun at a certain scale.

3. Scale. If you're doing anything in (1) & (2) to any extent, keep it small.

Absolutely none of the above is remotely applicable to a project like Ubuntu.
by bigmealbigmeal | 2025-11-23 11:10:01+00:00
The operative word was "rough". They give a few hints; they're not painstakingly mapping out the melodies and chords for every instrument and determining what those instruments are, and how they sound.

If you're writing for a guitar and voice, then you've basically got a song, but pop music is built on sometimes hundreds of different instruments and effects.
by digitalPhonix | 2025-11-23 11:10:52+00:00
I think air traffic is probably the most resilient group - I’m surprised no one answered!

IFR was designed long before GPS and for the most part, GPS has been shoehorned into the “old” system. VORs around the country are still “primary” for navigations; airways are still primarily defined around VOR radials; and approach plates to large airports have plenty of non-GPS precision approaches. (Some smaller GA-only airfields that recently got IFR approaches might be WAAS/GPS only).

Losing GPS might increase workload for some sectors (en route sectors who won’t be able to clear aircraft direct to waypoints) but not likely TRACON who are vectoring aircraft on pre-defined approach plates.

If you pick a random commercial flight on your favourite flight tracker and check it’s route, 99% of the waypoints on it are defined as VOR intersections, not GPS coordinates. (The remaining 1% are likely en-route waypoints and not in the departure/approach area).

Also, the instrument proficiency requirements for pilots require multiple approach types to be logged every 6 months so they are definitely capable of non-GPS approaches.
by anonnon | 2025-11-23 11:10:56+00:00
> but also it's trivial to disable the AI stuff

That's the problem: the number of things you have to disable to stop Firefox--a browser that sold itself on protecting user's privacy--from spying on you, or facilitating the spying of third parties, keeps growing with successive versions, to the point that you now need a running checklist of what to about:config (thanks to the "simplified" Privacy & Security window) and extensions to add.

I still use it only because Chrome is worse, and even with Chromium, certain extensions either aren't available or are a bitch to use.

And what's increasingly annoying is that many web sites (for example, banking and utilities) don't even bother properly testing for Firefox support, given how obscure a browser it has become. Your traffic is also much more likely to be flagged as "suspicious" as a FF user, so expect to spend much more time playing "spot the traffic light/bicycle/bus/stairs" games.
by yieldcrv | 2025-11-23 11:11:42+00:00
I’m in a group chat and one member is a Cambodian slave that periodically tries to start romance scams

and we’re like “you’re free now, go home” (because of the economic sanctions and raid)

we recently had a vote on whether she should be booted from the chat, we voted no for the comedic value

so anyway sorry you’re going through that, its wild out there
by inglor_cz | 2025-11-23 11:12:09+00:00
I like Emily Dickinson, actually.

Poetry works in a different way, though. The lines are short and your eyes won't struggle much with continuity. e.e.cummings eschewed capitalizations as well and his poetry is still easily readable (to me at least).

A larger block of text is harder to parse without capitalizations. This is actually why they developed in the first place. Original Roman writing was very "blocky" and thus much harder to read, see for example this:

https://share.google/EyVZfHb9NgIbtXlAl

It is a short text, but parsing it into individual words is quite a challenge.
by vedmed | 2025-11-23 11:12:36+00:00
I'm not a data analyst. Almost everything pertaining to data analysis of the log is perplexity labs.

I'm also not a journalist and the article I wrote didn't sound professional and was too long. So I had AI change it to have a professional tone and structure and then edited it.

I'm also not an artist and I had AI generate a picture of a bear reading a newspaper. Then I used krita to remove the background and make it transparent.

I also asked the AI to generate 10 headlines, it gave me this one:

How a monopoly ISP weaponizes support incompetence against technical customers

Calls out systemic issue, appeals to HN's anti-monopoly sentiment

Then I changed it to:

How a monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

Yes I leveraged expertise from three fields outside of my skillset to simplify a task, bounce back ideas, and conclude with a superior end result. It was demonstrably effective and it would have been stupid to spend 4x the effort to receive zero traction.
by newscracker | 2025-11-23 11:14:12+00:00
I read through this. I don't think Proton Mail is a good replacement for Signal (it's worse because Proton does log and share IP addresses of users with a court order).

One thing I dislike about Signal on its privacy posture is that the moment you register, anyone who already has Signal and has your phone number in their contacts list will get a message saying you're on Signal. This is a good way for others with bad intentions to know about your presence on the platform. The options to hide your phone number are available only after registering on Signal (after this broadcast has already happened) and when the user figures out that this is possible somewhere deep in the settings.

On registration Signal could ask whether to inform all random people who happen to have your number. But since unused/discarded phone numbers are recycled by carriers to other customers within a matter of weeks or months or years (depending on where you are), your presence on Signal may be sent to someone you've never ever known or has known you. Signal ought to remove this broadcast on registration. Telegram (and I guess WhatsApp) also suffer from the same issue.
by keepamovin | 2025-11-23 11:14:14+00:00
I guess you mean the "super hot for centuries" minor actinides (Np-237, Am-241/243, Cm-242/244/245 etc..)? These are less than 1% global waste, but next gen reactors can still eat them. The majority of waste (95%+) is U-235, then Pu, which nextgen also eats.
by zimpenfish | 2025-11-23 11:15:11+00:00
> over one hundred years

Look, I know I'm old and it feels like it but 1980 is absolutely not one hundred years ago.

> I would love to see more comprehensive stats to answer this question

Have some more recent California examples (between 1994 when they created the law and 2012 when it was loosened): "[...] given life sentences for offenses including stealing one dollar in loose change from a parked car, possessing less than a gram of narcotics, and attempting to break into a soup kitchen."[0]

[0] https://law.stanford.edu/three-strikes-project/three-strikes...
Ask HN: Looking for a donated PC or laptop for freelance work
by PikoBeam | 2025-11-23 11:15:21+00:00
Hi HN,

I hope you're doing well. I'm reaching out to ask if anyone has a PC or laptop they're no longer using and would be willing to donate. I'm trying to get started with freelance work, but unfortunately, I can't afford to buy a computer at the moment, which is making it really hard to take on projects.

If you have an old device you no longer need and are willing to donate it, I d be incredibly grateful. I'm happy to cover shipping costs if needed. Thank you for taking the time to read and consider this. Any help would mean a lot.
by flaburgan | 2025-11-23 11:15:39+00:00
I'm sorry but I don't think this guy did his homework correctly. You don't need a phone number anymore to use Signal. You still need one to register, but not to communicate with anyone. You can simply share your username for that. So you can just buy a prepaid card with cash, register, and then throw it away, and it will never be linked to your real identity. Signal is not perfect, but it's still the best we have.
by inglor_cz | 2025-11-23 11:15:54+00:00
"Do you also criticize Shostakovich because he doesn't write in the style of Beethoven?"

This is a bit more akin to Shostakovich insisting on using some notes that aren't playable on standard-tuned instruments.

"it forces the reader to pay closer attention"

It definitely forced me to pay closer attention, but not to the actual content of the text, but to the underlying grammatical structure. If the author wanted to bifurcate the reader's attention like this, they succeeded.
by noodletheworld | 2025-11-23 11:16:29+00:00
An, the dream, a cross platform App Store you can install apps into any client application that supports MCP, but is open, free and agentic.

It’s basically a “web App Store” and we side step the existing app stores (and their content guidelines, security restrictions and billing requirements) because it’s all done via a mega app (the MCP client).

How could it go wrong?

If only someone had done this before, we wouldnt be stuck in Apples, etc’s walled gardens…

Seriously though; honest question: this is literally circumventing platform requirements to use the platform app stores. How do you imagine this is going to be allowed?

Is ChatGPT really big enough they can pull the “we’re gonna do it, watcha gonna do?” to Apple?

Who’s going to curate this app store so non technical users (the explicitly stated audience) can discover these MCP apps?

It feels like MCP itself; half baked. Overly ambitious. “We’ll figure the details out later”
by Beretta_Vexee | 2025-11-23 11:16:45+00:00
The article confuses confidentiality with anonymity/pseudonymity.

Signal has always aimed to ensure confidentiality in the simplest way possible. People forget that there are anonymous systems or systems that do not require a telephone number but they are incredibly painful to set up. You either have to go through physical checks with QR code exchanges to validate participants or have some kind of web of trust (no one has fond memories of PGP key signing parties).

The same goes for decentralization. On paper, everyone wants decentralization. But when it comes to interconnecting hundreds of servers with different rules, moderation and legislation, and protocol versions, it becomes hell and no one wants to have to manage it (e.g. Mastodon).

There are objective reasons why these systems are not popular.

The other problem is that the very use of this type of software becomes a marker. I am convinced that the majority of Olvid users work for the French government, for example.

Iranian activists who are checked at the border or elsewhere with any uncommon communication application have already lost, regardless of the security of the application.

Crypto-punks are a niche group that can accept this type of usage constraint. My grandmother cannot, but she can use Signal and she will be one user among millions.
by shmichael | 2025-11-23 11:18:53+00:00
It is, as far as I know, an unsolved problem how to implement full metadata transparency on a mobile device.

For example, Aztec, a privacy focused blockchain, requires recipients to download the entire block to determine if any private message is addressed to them (and BTW use techniques resembling Signal's double ratcheting in creating these identifiers) [1]

This is infeasible on mobile devices. At best, it allows the user to select a proxy server they trust to identify messages intended for them and forward a notification.

1 - https://www.taurushq.com/blog/enhancing-token-transaction-pr... (search for "synchronizer")