MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by svat | 2025-11-21 16:16:49+00:00
This is a classic of course, but there is a lesser known extension to this problem (to be read only after this problem has been solved), which also has a beautiful "proof without words":

> an 8x8 board in which squares at opposite corners have been removed cannot be tiled with dominoes, [...]. But what if two squares of different colours are removed? Ralph E. Gomory showed that it is always possible, no matter where the two removed squares are

Proof/spoiler: https://mathoverflow.net/a/17328/111
by chemotaxis | 2025-11-21 16:17:44+00:00
> Companies were at least forced to separate what were essential cookies from non-essential ones.

The question here isn't if it cost companies money. It did. It's whether it was a good law. It wasn't, because compliance generated no benefit to anyone.

You seem to be saying that it was a good law because it could have been a good law if written differently.
by Froztnova | 2025-11-21 16:17:48+00:00
Tiled is really great. I'm using it in a project that I occasionally poke at as well, only with Love2D, and as a sidescroller sort of project. I was impressed by how easy it was to set it up to work with my game in spite of how generic it is.

The functionality to export directly to lua source files was a particular treat, though there are probably situations where you'd want to still just use json or one of the other formats supported by Tiled even when working in a lua project.
by raw_anon_1111 | 2025-11-21 16:17:48+00:00
This is very much an HN bubble sentiment. Most of the 2 million+ developers in the US aren’t anywhere near the west coast and are still making twice what they make in Europe working for boring old enterprises like Delta, Home Depot, Coca Cola etc. I am mentioning these three because I spent all of my career as enterprise dev working in Atlanta between 1996 anc 2020 and those are the well known enterprise companies.

Choose any other major metro city in the US outside of the west coast and you will see the same.
by zhouyisu | 2025-11-21 16:17:56+00:00
I tried to build some TENS device, but lost in "safety maze".

I reverse engineered some existing device, there are TONS of safety measures.

At least: current limiting resistor, transformer, voltage/current feedback, GND isolation, MCU protection.

After replicate all of these, I still not brave enough to try it myself, I just find it too dangerous.

PS: TENS device is fun. article seems like a bait.
by tracker1 | 2025-11-21 16:18:09+00:00
Honestly, I'm expressly not a big fan of outsourcing authentication/authorization.. . and even then, my personal list of trust is VERY limited. For the most part, I'll use Azure Entra (formerly Azure AD) and Windows AD only because of their entrenchment with other systems, and generally don't have much need to build more on top of what they already provide in the box.

That said, a lot of these things are very well documented... there are self-host systems and options both open-source, paid and combinations not to mention self-hosted options for both.

I've worked on auth systems used in banking and govt applications as well as integration with a number of platforms including Okta/Auth0. And while I can understand some of the appeal, it's just such a critical point of potential failure, I don't have that much trust in me.

I wish I could have open-sourced the auth platform I wrote a few years ago, as it is pretty simple in terms of both what it can do and how to setup/configure/integrate into applications. Most such systems are just excessively complex for very little reason with no reasonable easy path.
by bjord | 2025-11-21 16:18:19+00:00
I'm not editorializing here. here's one of many examples:

"Please, Donald Trump, kill the Jews, down to the last woman and child. Leave nothing left of the Jewish menace..."

re: ukraine, I'm not sure how that's remotely relevant here and frankly I think you're doing ukrainians a profound disservice by comparing the two

if you look at my background, you'll see I understand this better than most
by coldpie | 2025-11-21 16:18:21+00:00
Rotate it at capture time, before encoding. This would get rid of like 95% of these exif orientation tags. For images that need to be manually rotated after for whatever reason, sure I guess you have a point, though I'd argue the quality loss would be unnoticeable in practice unless you're like spinning the image in circles 100 times for some reason.
by dang | 2025-11-21 16:18:31+00:00
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

This topic is divisive and the thread has quite a few comments on the wrong side of the line, but yours stands out as particularly bad, and you've been doing it in other threads as well:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45813701

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45684284

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45684198

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
by kowfm | 2025-11-21 16:18:53+00:00
I'm not gonna lie, this Little course book thing is incredibly fantastic. Well written, well structured code. It really helped me to connect the spec to the binary format in my brain.

Also because it uses Ohm.js to write the Parser/Lexer from a BNF definition, almost 100% of the focus is on WebAssembly and how to compile it, instead of flexing and parsing.

Go buy it.
by ChrisArchitect | 2025-11-21 16:19:11+00:00
Crazy numbers. What's a bit confusing is when you visit their associated Wikipedia pages there's some other out-of-date day counts on those pages. Not sure what the source is. Actually for someone who doesn't follow who and what missions these people are associated with it's hard to ascertain where they are right now... I mean I clicked Raja Chari and eventually visited his instagram which had a picture of some NASA event on the ground so I was like, are you up or down? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
by wkat4242 | 2025-11-21 16:19:11+00:00
Obviously that's one of the many usecases an LLM really sucks at. So no, I don't want it there.

But the thing where someone dumps a long email thread on me, for it to summarise, yeah.. Or to do some basic web searches for me (these days it's a lot of work weeding through all the horrible clickbait).

But what we were talking about here was content creation. What I could imagine it could help content creators with is stuff like "remove the background from this photo", stuff like that. No more busywork like tracing photos.

And yes I do think LLMs are overused and dumped in many scenarios where they add no value or even detract. But there are usecases where they can add value too. Just not as many as the hype suggests.
by sigwinch | 2025-11-21 16:19:14+00:00
Good article, perfectly demonstrating how people use “math” ironically or unironically. I periodically need that pointed out, as a mathematician.

The thing about logic is that there’s “animal logic”. A human can observe an animal’s logic and, understanding their system, exploit it. Different logics all around; astrology, crypto, etc. I used the word human to relate what a rational observer can do with some smaller model of logic.

So I’m happy when I see articles about the culture of logic. In this case, ironical “Girl Math” and “Boy Math” are being observed, rationally, by the human capable of exploiting them. Those juvenile joys are punctured a little when you have to admit that someone more rational is exploiting your cute logic.
by Philpax | 2025-11-21 16:19:22+00:00
I described my experience using Claude Code Web to vibe-code a language interpreter here [0], with a link to the closed PRs [1].

As it turns out, you don't really need to "save the state"; with decent-enough code and documentation (both of which the LLM can write), it can figure out what needs to be done and go from there. This is obviously not perfect - and a human developer with a working memory could get to the problem faster - but its reorientation process is fast enough that you generally don't have to worry about it.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46005813 [1]: https://github.com/philpax/perchance-interpreter/pulls?q=is%...
by stanislavkim | 2025-11-21 16:19:33+00:00
How is this different from Nix / Guix / Bazel? OriGen doesn’t run or build anything. Nix/Guix/Bazel focus on reproducible execution and environments. OriGen is a deterministic planning layer: it compiles workflow intent into a backend-neutral IR, and existing systems (K8s, CI, container engines) run the output. Different layer.

So this is a DSL / templating engine? Maps describe workflow intent, not file templates. There’s no imperative logic and no rendering of config shapes. OriGen produces a structured IR (Route) that encodes steps, dependencies, toolchains, and resource bundles.

Is this an orchestrator or CI replacement? No. OriGen never executes workflows. It only emits artifacts for other systems to run. There is no controller, runner, agent, or scheduler.

Why release documentation first instead of code? Because the important invariants (IR, schemas, determinism rules, planning/execution split) need to be correct before code hardens assumptions. This release is to expose the model early and get architectural feedback.

How does it differ from Argo / Tekton / Airflow? Those assume a DAG already exists and then execute it. OriGen’s job is to create a deterministic DAG + toolchain bindings from declarative input. Think compiler front-end vs. runtime.

Is this like a Makefile? Some similarities (steps, dependencies), but the deeper model is different: deterministic planning, digest-pinned toolchains, immutable resource bundles, backend-neutral IR, separated execution boundary.

Why invent new terms (Map, Navigator, Backpack, Route, Compass)? Because existing terminology is fragmented across CI, orchestration, data pipelines, scientific workflows, publishing, etc. The vocabulary creates clear mental boundaries and a domain-agnostic abstraction.

How does “zero-trust becomes cheap” work? Not magic—structural. When toolchains are digest-pinned, resource bundles immutable, planning deterministic, and execution isolated, most of the verification burden disappears. The system avoids the conditions that normally make zero-trust expensive.

What is Automatic Digital Provenance (ADP)? Provenance derived mechanically from immutable toolchain definitions + deterministic planning + Git commit history. No scanners or instrumentation needed.

Is the project too ambitious? The core is intentionally small: a deterministic planner + IR compiler. All complexity is pushed to Guides (backend adapters), which are simple translators. There’s no runtime or distributed state.

What does the IR look like? A backend-neutral execution graph: steps, dependencies, toolchain refs, resource bundle refs, parameters, and modes. It explicitly encodes intent but not runtime strategy, so it’s portable.

Long-term goal? A standard way to define workflows that’s deterministic, reviewable, platform-independent, and provenance-safe. Existing systems would consume the IR rather than encode workflow semantics themselves.
by fullstop | 2025-11-21 16:19:39+00:00
I have an automated feeder which will open when their collar is near, but is time limited. Each cat has a different allotment so that they don't get chonky.

They walk up to it and wait a few seconds. If it doesn't open, they go off and do something else and try again later. They don't sit there and try to pull the machine apart.

This could be explained by hunger levels, though, and knowing that they are used to eating whenever they feel like that.
by exmadscientist | 2025-11-21 16:20:24+00:00
> (NB: I do not know if or claim that basalt fibers are more dangerous than alternatives.)

For what it's worth, the ex-composite-shop guys I used to work with said that basically everything you can make a composite out of is horribly nasty: carbon fiber, fiberglass, basalt fiber, probably anything period. After repeated exposure you develop contact dermatitis to that type of fiber and the shop moves you on to working with something else, until it happens again. Contact dermatitis is just the first visible sign, it gets worse from there. Eventually you're probably going to want to get out of the shop entirely.
by rjp0008 | 2025-11-21 16:21:00+00:00
You're moving the goalpost now.

Here's a 200k house: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1404-36th-St-N-Birmingham...

Here's how much they pay in property taxes ($1270): https://eringcapture.jccal.org/parceldetail/23%2000%2019%203...

30 year loan at 4% (not feasible today) means 115k in interest paid after putting 20% down. It would take way longer than 50 years to pay more in property taxes than interest.
by driggs | 2025-11-21 16:21:13+00:00
Funny that Hack #1 compares list versus set value lookup, but the timer doesn't include the time to copy the list into a set. Hack #2 warns against unnecessary copying, and the time for copying the list is almost the same as the performance gain in Hack #1.

In fact, creating a set takes longer than copying a list since it requires hash insertion, so it's actually much faster to do the opposite of what they suggest for #1 (in the case of a single lookup, for this test case).

Here's the results with `big_set = set(big_list)` inside the timing block for the set case:

List lookup: 0.013985s Set lookup: 0.052468s
by comp_raccoon | 2025-11-21 16:21:23+00:00
Olmo researcher here. The point of OlmoTrace is not no attribute the entire response to one document in the training data—that’s not how language models “acquire” knowledge, and finding a single or few documents as support for an answer is impossible.

The point of OlmoTrace is to show that fragments of model response are influenced by its training data. sometimes is how specific adjectives are used together in way that seem unnatural to us, but are combination of training data (ask for a movie review!)

A favorite example of mine is asking to tell a joke or ask for a random number, because strangely all LLMs return the same joke or number. Well with OlmoTrace, you can see which docs in the training data contain the super common response!

hope this helps
by benmmurphy | 2025-11-21 16:21:51+00:00
if the government wasn't incompetent in how they are handling certain immigration issues the anti-immigration parties would not have any momentum. for some bizarre reason the government is pursuing a course of action that is poisoning the well when it comes to immigration in the UK. i think immigration can bring a lot of benefits to the UK but by bringing in poor performing migrants into the UK it can end up turning the public against all immigration.
by sfink | 2025-11-21 16:22:06+00:00
This is a great point, and I'm sympathetic to the problems raised, but it's not a great post. It's pushing the view that the relevant question is how much regulation there should be. That's just mechanism. Better questions are: how good are the regulations? What is the incentive structure to improve them? What are the mechanisms to improve them, by whittling away the problematic parts, modifying things that missed their target, and adding ones that would have better outcomes?

Even here, I wouldn't want injecting CO2 into old oil wells to get a free pass. I think we'd agree that injecting CO2 into deep lakes would be a bad idea -- or rather, it would be a great idea, up until the lake turns over and suffocates thousands of people and most of the life in the area. Do I know that that can't happen if the injection is underground? I do not. What's actually needed here is research, and regulation is the blunt instrument that you have to use when the research is not yet available or suspiciously funded by those who will benefit and/or there's no mechanism for paying for it (who should be paying, anyway?) [Note that this is speculative; perhaps this research does exist and is of good quality. But this dynamic will still come up when anyone tries doing anything new and potentially dangerous.]

I agree that over-regulation is a major impediment. I just don't think the argument "over-regulation bad, let's throw away all of our seat belts" is productive.
by Propelloni | 2025-11-21 16:22:35+00:00
There are no silver bullets. Receptor agonists only work as long as you take them and seem to have a limit at about 15-20 % of your starting mass. Bar a lifestyle change, once you stop taking them, most regain their weight. Furthermore they have side effects like vomitting, nauseau and increase the risk of certain kinds of cancer and gallstones. If you are seriously overweight, agonists may give you the headstart you need, but they are not a long-term solution.

A lifestyle change alone may take longer (it took me about a year to lose 15 % of my weight) but is longer lasting and cheaper. That muscle build-up is more beneficial to weight reduction than cardio is not new but research is still warranted.
by observationist | 2025-11-21 16:23:01+00:00
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_method

If it's out of distribution, you're more likely to get a chaotic distribution around the answer to a question, whereas if it's just not known well, you'll get a normal distribution, with a flatter slope the less well modeled a concept is.

There are all sorts of techniques and methods you can use to get a probabilistically valid assessment of outputs from LLMs, they're just expensive and/or tedious.

Repeated sampling gives you the basis to make a Bayesian model of the output, and you can even work out rigorous numbers specific to the model and your prompt framework by sampling things you know the model has in distribution and comparing the curves against your test case, giving you a measure of relative certainty.
by PaulDavisThe1st | 2025-11-21 16:23:30+00:00
I liked your opening here a lot, but by the time you got here:

> Money is an honest, clean signal.

I was lost. Money is neither clean nor honest, because as a signal it is based on a highly non-uniform distribution that arises substantially from processes that are not proxies for "things we collectively want". Markets reflect what those with money want, and while that theoretically could be a good proxy for collective desire, it doesn't take a particular notable GINI coefficient for that to no longer be true.
by jmyeet | 2025-11-21 16:23:36+00:00
You have no choice. It’s the largest and most profitable sector of your market. If you don’t compete in it, SpaceX can subsidize Falcon Heavy launches with their Falcon 9 launches to put you out of business.

I’m honestly not sure what Starship is designed for either. Despite all the hype, it might bankrupt SpaceX. Or seems like the poster child for second system syndrome.
by drnick1 | 2025-11-21 16:24:10+00:00
Rust just doesn't work for a lot of applications. Things like GUI toolkits, Web browsers, game engines are a pain to write without true OOP. Yes, it's "overly complicated" at this point after about 40 years of development, buts it's still top 3 of the TIOBE index after all these years for a reason.
by rsynnott | 2025-11-21 16:24:32+00:00
> Tech enthusiast will judge ai based on what it gets right, we’re interested in what “can” do.

Selecting only the cases where something gets something right is nothing to do with what it can do. A random number generator can drive a car if you select only the cases where it does so correctly (and given infinite iterations there will be such cases) but that doesn’t mean it can drive a car in any real sense.

I assume “tech enthusiasts” here means “AI koolaid drinkers”.
Show HN: A Tufte-Inspired Image Quilt Tool
by ChrisbyMe | 2025-11-21 16:24:52+00:00
I've recently discovered Edward Tufte's work and I really enjoy his layouts and typography.

I came across the Image Quilt idea and want to integrate it into my blogposts as a header image, but the extension is broken + I don't want to manually layout each one, so I made a tool to help me generate them!

Going to work on modifying the layout with sliders when I have the time for things like jaggedness, but would love any feedback. :)
by bccdee | 2025-11-21 16:25:33+00:00
> So long as you're calling procedures that are determined by the "type" of the object, whether dynamic or statically dispatched, it's OOP.

That's just polymorphism. Are Haskell typeclass manipulations OOP too? If I fmap a function f across a functor, am I "passing" an fmap "message" with payload f to a dynamic functor object? That feels like a real stretch.

And message-passing isn't inherently polymorphic. If I call `Foo.bar(1, 2)`, I'm only dispatching by type if Foo is cast as a parent class or an interface object, which is typically not the case even in strongly OO code bases. That doesn't mean I'm not passing a message.

Any type of procedure-calling can be framed as "message passing," but that doesn't make all programming OOP.
by sershe | 2025-11-21 16:25:58+00:00
Well, what is your alternative definition of welfare state that implies it has been hollowed out versus the one before the 80ies despite massive increase in funding? You so far have provided zero data on either welfare state or living standards. Or tax burden on the rich, that has stayed stable or increased thru the main bogeyman, the 80ies top rate cuts.
by pogue | 2025-11-21 16:26:04+00:00
I don't know why. It's pretty much the same argument we're seeing now with JPEG XL. Ogg works perfectly fine & is a completely servicable audio codec, but browsers just took it out of their supported codecs and devices like iPods didn't support it for whatever reason, so "normies" (to use the parlance) weren't aware of it and just went with MP3 for anything and everything.

I'm sure there's some story behind why that happened...
by NoMoreNicksLeft | 2025-11-21 16:26:25+00:00
Most regulations are misregulation. Many regulations are malregulation.

The people who write regulations, through incompetence or malevolence it matters not which, prefer malregulation. Those that have blind faith in regulation, especially from their favored party, cheer them on and demand more. Humanity yearns to live in a world where the HOA busybody measures their grass with a ruler at 7am on a Sunday morning and noisily knocks on their door to inform them that if they do not get the extra 3/4" mowed within 48 hours a $175/day fine plus interest will apply.
by lxgr | 2025-11-21 16:26:32+00:00
> Waayy back in 2009 we had Bump [1], which allowed transfer between devices and later web apps as well

Over the Internet. There are dozens of such services, and none of them can compete with Airdrop.

The main point of Airdrop is that it doesn't need Internet connectivity and won't use any metered data (or, on recent iOS versions, at least if Wi-Fi Assist is turned off, I believe).

Just as important is the fact that there's no need to install any application – any Apple device comes with Airdrop preinstalled.
by Sohcahtoa82 | 2025-11-21 16:28:01+00:00
> The chain has never seen anything. The Markov chain is a table of probability distributions. You can create it by any means you see fit. There is no such thing as a "series" of tokens that has been seen by the chain.

When I talk about the chain "seeing" a sequence, I mean that the sequence existed in the material that was used to generate the probability table.

My instinct is to believe that you know this, but are being needlessly pedantic.

My point is that if you're using a context length of two, if you prompt a Markov Chain with "my cat", but the sequence "my cat was" never appeared in the training material, than a Markov Chain will never choose "was" as the next word. This property is not true for LLMs. If you prompt an LLM with "my cat", then "was" has a non-zero chance of being chosen as the next word, even if "my cat was" never appeared in the training material.