MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by api | 2025-11-01 19:11:13+00:00
> The life possible in San Francisco is possible in large part because of the entropy it externalizes to "somewhere else"

This may be true to some extent, but what I dislike about this idea is that to many it implies that human flourishing is impossible without suffering exported elsewhere. The world in this view is a finite pie that can only be sliced up differently. Nothing is ever created. Wealth can only be redistributed.

This ignores the fact that the past 200 years have seen insane wealth creation that has enabled more people than have ever lived to live better than most people have ever lived. Look at how many have risen out of poverty globally in just the last 25 years.

Someone will inevitably bring up climate change, etc., and argue that it’s all bound to come crashing down. Maybe it will, but asserting that it must as some law of nature is a fatalistic ideology.

It’s a fatalistic ideology that some people seem to like and be emotionally attached to for reasons that aren’t clear to me. I tend to think it’s a big cop out. If everything is doomed, doomed, doomed, then there is no point in even trying. Eat, drink, and be merry while the ship sinks.
by kleinishere | 2025-11-01 19:11:26+00:00
Came here to find this. MANY upvotes.

I used Doom for a couple months.

Then started considering a vanilla eMacs. I started taking notes on packages I found highly recommended and interesting.

Then I found this. And the author has done all that work and then made it into a “let me walk through a config” including a lot of the most recommended packages and sensible configs.

Gives you the lesson of building a config, knowing what’s in your config, and then being fluent in changing it.

He also has more notes on his blog about the packages + more : https://www.jamescherti.com/essential-emacs-packages/

And I now feel comfortable making changes myself.
by aappleby | 2025-11-01 19:11:27+00:00
I did something similar to this with C++ templates - it's Parsing Expression Grammar based, so not full regex, but enough for a lot of tasks:

using sign = Atoms<'+', '-'>; using digit = Range<'0', '9'>; using onenine = Range<'1', '9'>; using digits = Some<digit>; using integer = Seq<Opt<Atom<'-'>>, Oneof<Seq<onenine, digits>, digit>>; using fraction = Seq<Atom<'.'>, digits>; using exponent = Seq<Atoms<'e', 'E'>, Opt<sign>, digits>; using number = Seq<integer, Opt<fraction>, Opt<exponent>>;

and I've confirmed that it does all get inlined and optimized on -O3.

JSON parser example here - https://github.com/aappleby/matcheroni/blob/main/examples/js...
by godelski | 2025-11-01 19:11:45+00:00
> rewarding people for the volume ... rather than the quality.

I suspect this is a major part of the appeal of LLMs themselves. They produce lines very fast so it appears as if work is being done fast. But that's very hard to know because number of lines is actually a zero signal in code quality or even a commit. Which it's a bit insane already that we use number of lines and commits as measures in the first place. They're trivial to hack. You even just reward that annoying dude who keeps changing the file so the diff is the entire file and not the 3 lines they edited...

I've been thinking we're living in "Goodhart's Hell". Where metric hacking has become the intent. That we've decided metrics are all that matter and are perfectly aligned with our goals.

But hey, who am I to critique. I'm just a math nerd. I don't run a multi trillion dollar business that lays off tons of workers because the current ones are so productive due to AI that they created one of the largest outages in history of their platform (and you don't even know which of the two I'm referencing!). Maybe when I run a multi trillion dollar business I'll have the right to an opinion about data.
by PessimalDecimal | 2025-11-01 19:12:41+00:00
The question is about Emacs configuration, but the keybindings might also be unfamiliar if you're coming from Vim. When I was learning I printed https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/refcards/pdf/refcard.pdf and taped the two pages to my desk right in front of the keyboard for probably a 3-4 weeks. It was useful and also felt great when I didn't need it any longer.
by bigbadfeline | 2025-11-01 19:14:02+00:00
> and where exactly did those white men in 1600s VA come from? right, you're an immigrant,

Not according to immigration law, which is all that matters for the current discussion. The parent of you comment made a point which you failed to notice.

BTW holier-than-thou attitudes and picking fights with friends are largely responsible for where we are. Spotting them is also a good hint for bot detection.
by edm0nd | 2025-11-01 19:14:15+00:00
you'll basically never make it back iirc

by the time you may even get close to paying it off, its time for a new one.

really only worth if you just want to have solar and got a spare 5-6 figures to drop on it and wont miss that money.

hopefully this changes in the near future and it will be way more affordable.
by SilverElfin | 2025-11-01 19:14:18+00:00
> Trying to trace things like this is a fools errand though. Trace things back further than that, the microscope was invented in Europe

Regardless of what other prior inventions it depended on, EUV technology itself was invented in the US, and we know that factually - it’s not a fool’s errand. ASML literally approached the US government for a chance to license the technology. This was in the late 90s. That’s not to take away the work ASML has done since then to make it commercially viable through their machines (or TSMC in implementing and integrating ASML machines).
by testdelacc1 | 2025-11-01 19:14:18+00:00
The Europeans left more than 50 years ago. In your weird world view, only Europeans have any agency. Their actions before the 1960s is why the Arab RSF is murdering black people in 2025, amirite? The Arabs have no agency of their own, they’re just instruments of the will of long dead European people.

There is always a choice! The choice the RSF made today is entirely on them. Don’t try to deflect that.
by lukan | 2025-11-01 19:14:47+00:00
When you try to get the same sensor input to highly sensitive CCD chips, meaning capturing the photons of real world objects, you very much do try to model reality. Otherwise you could not get "photorealistic pictures".

So yes, the tech gets better and better and low resolution stuff can be quite convincing already, so in a few years even quite high resolution(by today standards) might be easy to fake. But even in 20 years, I really, really doubt that the best AI stuff will be close to what the best sensors can deliver.
by zkmon | 2025-11-01 19:15:17+00:00
Books are same as TV shows - more about sounding weird to catch the fish (audience). I don't read any of those self-help books or seemingly philosophical notes.

The Western world has invented too much of self-awareness and social reflection. People smile too much, smile at strangers, worry about social acceptance, worry about self, go crazy about all thing cosmetic in life and at work.

You don't need to think too much about anything or have too much of self-awareness. Just be real, with neutral expression, relaxed, not emotional etc.

The worst thing is having happiness as a goal. It should be a side-effect, not a goal. Infact, you shouldn't have any goals. Any incremental achievement is nice to have, and down-side is business as usual. Just deal with it.

You get angry or emotional because reality is too different from your expectations. That's the fault of your expectations, not of reality.
by wcfrobert | 2025-11-01 19:15:29+00:00
Reminds me of that one scene in Equalizer. It's cheesy and I will never admit to liking the movie in real life. But it's one of those scenes that's really stuck with me over the years.

Robert: "I think you can be anything you want to be."

Teri: "Maybe in your World, Robert. Doesn't really happen that way in mine."

Robert: "Change your world."
by AnthonyMouse | 2025-11-01 19:15:47+00:00
> So I hand you a piece of paper saying I'm so and so and you just take it on face value? Why do we even have photos on licenses and passports?

We have photos on licenses and passports so that if you're an ethnic Russian in your 20s and you present an ID with a photo of a black man in his 70s, we can be confident that this is not you.

If you're an ethnic Russian in your 20s and there is another ethnic Russian in their 20s on some kind of list, that is very much not conclusive proof that you're them, because there could be any number of people who look similar enough to each other to cause a false positive for both a person looking at an ID and a computer vision system.
by _DeadFred_ | 2025-11-01 19:16:13+00:00
Yes. This give them 'good faith' coverage in the courts. It has always been this way. If you include enough broken bureaucratic processes, checklists, paperwork, outside expert 'best practices' (outside experts just being cops from other agencies/jurisdictions or who are members of cop 'associations') then it moves from malice to 'good faith. they did the best they could within the system they operated'. Yes you have a right to a speedy trial, and it's just 'unfortunately' our system kept your in jail for a weeks to months, during which you lost your job, maybe your car, maybe your housing. It's all just 'unfortunately' and due to 'the system' we have to accept you being locked up for weeks/months meets the 'speedy trial' requirement. That timeframe was a 'good faith' attempt, sadly we sadled ourselves with all these things that meant we couldn't meet it.
by next_xibalba | 2025-11-01 19:16:28+00:00
Amazing! Let's hope we get these in the U.S.

One thing that seemed ambiguous in the article: are these actually installed? The APG website [1] says "Two Austrian Power Giants — one in the shape of a stork and the other of a stag — were pre-tested statically and electrotechnically to verify their technical feasibility." So are the images just renderings?
by throwaway494932 | 2025-11-01 19:16:43+00:00
They are not. For example, according to Italian Constitution [1], chat control is unconstitutional:

Art. 15 Freedom and confidentiality of correspondence and of every other form of communication is inviolable. Limitations may only be imposed by judicial decision stating the reasons and in accordance with the guarantees provided by the law.

note the "EVERY" other form of communication. (Maybe somebody will be able to twist in a way that makes chat control constitutional, or somebody else will argue that since it is an EU law the constitution doesn't matter, but the spirit is clear)

[1] https://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/istituzione/costi...
by monkmartinez | 2025-11-01 19:16:49+00:00
Why so political?

I don't understand why so many people focus on Trump and Left and Right and all the theater of politics in general. Subtract the politics from TFA and it is really, really good.

The author and I agree on some "pop-stoicism" critiques and disagree on others. Well reasoned and articulate arguments to support or dismiss "teachings" from the neo-pop-stoic culture.

The we get to passages like this; "It is, I suppose, strictly speaking accurate that if the approximately 8.6 million people who die each year due to a lack of access to quality healthcare were to wish their fate, their desires would not be frustrated, but tautological truth does not make for philosophical profundity."

Yes it does. How does this person know the 8.6 million people that died did not live meaningful lives while they were able bodied and healthy? How does the author know what is "right" for them? Whether I agree/disagree with the aspects of the authors POV; any sober and/or objective reading of this just reeks of ego and "holier than thou" attitude.

I suspect this type of attitude is a large reason why people that devote large amounts of time to thinking about politics end up categorizing "justice" into politically ideological boxes.

Edit to add;

I am reading the comments and not many are talking about this point either which I think is profound.

I hit ctrl-f inside TFA and did not find a word used in Stoic literature that I have read; Virtue.

You would think a critique on Stoicism would at least cover the basics, no?

Here is a reminder for everyone that cares;

Stoic virtue is the highest good and the only true path to a flourishing life, encompassing four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance (or self-control), and justice.
by phil21 | 2025-11-01 19:17:53+00:00
Do any of these links actually show the exact method that datacenters are "socializing the costs" for energy production? They tend to pay industrial rates like any other industrial consumer would, and pay for their local interconnect to the grid. Why they should be on the hook for long distance transmission/etc. is unclear to me given that every user on the grid takes part of that and has enjoyed under-replacement electrical rates for decades. I have seen the typical local tax abatement deals which I totally agree need to be outright banned - but that's really the only thing that's jumped out at me. Otherwise it's largely opinion pieces parroting the same few background sources.

I'm not sure it's really a correct mental model to put 50+ years of lack of investment maintaining and expanding transmission and grid capacity onto the industry that laid that fact bare. From where I stand and the underlying studies/reports I've personally read the root cause always seems to be we're running out of power on a grid built by the Greatest Generation and more or less zero work has been put into expanding anything since. There were plenty of people sounding alarm bells a decade ago before the latest datacenter boom.

Then you get into NIMBY stuff, pie in the sky wishful thinking re: dispatchable vs. intermittent power generation, etc.

In the end if we want wealth, we need industry. Industry needs cheap and abundant power to be competitive - AI datacenter or Aluminum smelter. Energy consumption correlates very strongly with wealth, and we've spent decades in the margins messing around with efficiency gains vs. actually investing in anything substantial. When your power company is willing to give you a credit for a more efficient appliance so they don't have to upgrade the grid to your neighborhood you know things have jumped the shark and we are in malinvestment territory.

I certainly agree with the argument that the datacenters might not end up panning out as profitable investments for society, but I'm at least hopeful that when the dust settles we'll actually have augmented our electric grid and finally started to take that looming problem seriously. We might be left with something useful that lasts another 3 generations when all said and done.

We were going to get here either way with population growth and older power generation facilities not being replaced faster than they are reaching end of life. Datacenters simply brought it forward maybe a decade or so. Eventually you run out of the previous generation's energy investments.
by westurner | 2025-11-01 19:18:05+00:00
Few (if any?) residential energy markets in the United States have intraday pricing. The EU requires intraday electricity pricing for membership FWIU.

Also it's not uncommon for the price of electricity to go below zero in markets with heavy subsidization to accelerate progress toward clean energy.

From "German power prices turn negative amid expansion in renewables" (2025) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42603130 :

> Given the intraday prices, are there sufficient incentives to stimulate creation of energy storage businesses to sell the excess electricity back a couple hours or days later?
by notmyjob | 2025-11-01 19:19:37+00:00
I don’t know. Pm2.5 by definition doesn’t include gasses and as I understand it the issue is that the particulate matter, whatever it happens to be, gets in the bloodstream. Is there any particulate matter of that size that is not neurotoxic once it enters the bloodstream? I don’t know the answer but it seems like a legitimate question.
by throwaway2037 | 2025-11-01 19:19:53+00:00
The follow-up is solid gold:

> I find this particular wording rather unpleasant and very unusual to what I'm used to from Debian in the past. I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed that such a confrontational approach has been chosen.

Ref: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/10/msg00286.html
by joe_the_user | 2025-11-01 19:20:39+00:00
It seems like you're mixing "I don't understand X" with what's effectively an argument that X is false. Perhaps people feel that there's some bad faith in that approach.

Also, the article is very clear - the wealth transfer is moving the money/capital controlled by a non-profit to stockholders of a for-profit company. The non-profit lost that property, the share holders gained that property. It seems like taking an implicit assumption something like "the same people are running the for-profit on the same basis they ran the non-profit so where's the theft" - feel free to make that argument but mix the claim with "I don't understand" doesn't seem like a fair approach.
by finnborge | 2025-11-01 19:20:50+00:00
This is amazing. It very creatively emphasizes how our definition of "boilerplate code" will shift over time. Another layer of abstraction would be running N of these, sandboxed, responding to each request, and then serving whichever instance is internally evaluated to have done the best. Then you're kind of performing meta reinforcement learning with each whole system as a head.

The hard part (coming from this direction) is enshrining the translation of specific user intentions into deterministic outputs, as others here have already mentioned. The hard part when coming from the other direction (traditional web apps) is responding fluidly/flexibly, or resolving the variance in each user's ability to express their intent.

Stability/consistency could be introduced through traditional mechanisms: Encoded instructions systematically evaluated, or, via the LLMs language interface, intent-focusing mechanisms: through increasing the prompt length / hydrating the user request with additional context/intent: "use this UI, don't drop the db."

From where I'm sitting, LLMs provide a now modality for evaluating intent. How we act on that intent can be totally fluid, totally rigid, or, perhaps obviously, somewhere in-between.

Very provocative to see this near-maximum example of non-deterministic fluid intent interpretation>execution. Thanks, I hate how much I love it!
by forgetfulness | 2025-11-01 19:21:27+00:00
Does it give you tools to change what you can change, though?

I’ll be reading “Meditations” soon enough, but emphasis on the means to accept things you are helpless about, and not the opposite, can lead to learned helplessness.

If young people take up on these ideas, they just can’t know better at their stage in life, one where they can be, for the most part, helpless.
by toomuchtodo | 2025-11-01 19:22:06+00:00
> In the end if we want wealth, we need industry. Industry needs cheap and abundant power to be competitive - AI datacenter or Aluminum smelter.

Why do we want wealth when it is only going to the wealthiest? AI data centers benefit Big Tech, its employees, and its shareholders. So, who is "we"? I believe I can make the argument that the majority of Americans do not want this, only a privileged minority (ie those getting wealthy from this current hype cycle).

Poll: American voters don't want data centers built in their communities - https://www.thecentersquare.com/issues/energy/article_d5b564... - July 2nd, 2025

> Energy consumption correlates very strongly with wealth, and we've spent decades in the margins messing around with efficiency gains vs. actually investing in anything substantial. When your power company is willing to give you a credit for a more efficient appliance so they don't have to upgrade the grid to your neighborhood you know things have jumped the shark and we are in malinvestment territory.

No longer true.

https://ourworldindata.org/energy-gdp-decoupling

If AI data centers want power, they should be charged a painful premium for it, paid out of the pockets of Big Tech building it. They have the resources, clearly, from the very obvious capital flows. Meta has issued its largest bond offering ever, $30B, for its Hyperion project in Richland Parish, Louisiana. Because when the bubble pops, we're all going to be left holding the bag ("socializing the losses"). We should not all have to suffer higher electrical prices for the benefit of Big Tech and their shareholders. They can pay up for the necessary power infrastructure if they want the gains they're chasing.
by thechao | 2025-11-01 19:22:34+00:00
Which is why cheap batteries will be the camel that broke the straw's back. It's really hard to find numbers, but I like 20–30$/kwh by 2030. At those prices I can get a 4 day backup for an oversized (50kw) solar panel install for my house for 20k$. Why even hook up to the grid, at all?
by epistasis | 2025-11-01 19:22:55+00:00
That poster seemed to be saying that frying pan PM2.5 was not a health risk:

> Heck, my PM2.5 meter skyrockets whenever I cook anything in a frying pan, because many of the aerosolized oil droplets are PM2.5.

I'm not sure how they determined that PM2.5 is not a neurotoxin, or the full extent of their claims, but frying pans inside are a common cause of minor health problems.
by dathinab | 2025-11-01 19:23:16+00:00
mainly people have issues with clear, precise and concise language about intend of action instead of idk. a request of discussion

now this is separate from being open for discussion if someone has some good arguments (which aren't "you break something which isn't supported and only nich used") and some claim he isn't open for arguments

and tbh. if someone exposes users to actual relevant security risk(1) because the change adds a bit of in depth security(2) and then implicitly denounces them for "wanting crap" this raises a lot of red flags IMHO.

(1): Copy pasting passwords is a very bad idea, the problem is phsishing attacks with "look alike" domains. You password manager won't fill them out, your copy past is prone to falling for it. In addition there are other smaller issues related to clip board safety and similar (hence why KC clears the clipboard after a short time).

(2): Removing unneeded functionality which could have vulnerabilities. Except we speak about code from the same source which if not enabled/setup does pretty much nothing (It might still pull in some dependencies, tho.)

but yes very unnecessary drama
by dboreham | 2025-11-01 19:23:18+00:00
In the area with which I'm familiar it's a zoning/planning requirement to dedicate some proportion of lot area to yard. I forget the details -- it's been a while since I dug into this. I think that's also why mother in law units became popular in some jurisdictions: a workaround for yard area requirements since it piggy backs on the existing home yard arrangement.
by ytreister | 2025-11-01 19:23:45+00:00
I am not sure how configurable the button in Linear is. Also, gibr allows a user to not need to even leave their terminal to list their issues and create/push the branch. I also hope to have more features like creating a PR/MR and linking to a git repo.

Also many people do not have the luxury of using Linear, many companies force developers to use Jira...
by aftbit | 2025-11-01 19:24:45+00:00
If we could trust the people who held the kill switch implicitly, then I think it would be amazing. We cannot, so I think it would be disastrous.

I definitely think MAD led to a strategic stability that was better than the alternative. This is why things like missile shields (pure defense) are seen as dangerously aggressive, and why the submarine leg of the triad is so important. If you could be confident that your opponents couldn't actually hit you, you would feel much more comfortable issuing a first strike. The fact that they might have a nuke boat somewhere off your coast means you can never be confident that a counter-force first strike will be effective, so you never do it and the world lives another day.