MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by rmunn | 2025-11-05 14:08:34+00:00
I was trying out an implementation of Relaxed Radix-Balanced Trees, a data structure for immutable lists that allows splitting and joining them in constant* time. In a normal RRB Tree implementation, each leaf in the tree has up to 32 items in it, and a tree node that's not a leaf has up to 32 pointers to leaves or to lower tree nodes. There's also a tail, a single array of up to 32 which, when full, will be promoted to a leaf and a new empty tail array created. (Or the full tail will be promoted the next time an item is appended and a new tail of length 1 will be created).

For my implementation, I was using nodes of size 4 rather than size 32, because that let me test much easier; then after testing, I would switch the branching constant to 32 and run final tests. With a branching factor of 4, that means that a tree of size 24 contained one root node with two children, a left child that was a full tree of 16 (a tree node pointing to four leaf nodes, all of them full of 4 items), and a right child that was a leaf node of size 4. That makes 20 items in the tree, plus a full tail array of 4 making 24 items. The failure came when the next item was appended.

Now, if you've never implemented an RRB tree you won't have noticed the mistake. But in the previous paragraph, when I said that the right child of the root was a leaf? That was the mistake; in an RRB tree all leaves are supposed to be at the same level, and the right child of the root should have been a one-child node, whose child was a leaf of size 4. My code that promoted the root up one level when it was full (when the tree was size 20, a full 16-item tree plus a tail of 4) was faulty, and had created a new root with the previous root as the left child and the previous tail as the right child, instead of creating a one-child node as the right child of the new root with the 4-item leaf as its child. The tree still functioned for all read-only purposes (traversal, lookups, etc) and even for appends, as long as the appends did no more than fill the tail. Once the tail was full (making a total of 24 items total stored in the structure) and I needed to append a 25th item, the tail-promotion code found an illegal tree state and did the wrong thing. I no longer remember which wrong thing it did, just that once that 25th item was appended, the resulting tree no longer passed all the property checks.

* Constant for all practical purposes. In fact it's O(log32 N), but since log32 N is no more than 7 when N is 2^32, the operation is bounded by a constant. So it's O(1) for all practical purposes: most lists of any reasonable size will translate into trees whose height is no more than 2 or 3, which means only 2 or 3 nodes will need to be split when splitting the entire list (and the RRB tree structure that models the list) into two parts. And likewise for joining two RRB structures together (a list append operation): there might be up to O(H) merged nodes where H is the height of the tree, which again no more than log32 N for a tree of branching factor 32.
by codeulike | 2025-11-05 14:08:50+00:00
But then you need someone to maintain/look after that automation, and they'll be more expensive than two Brendas

And now if one of the Brendas wants to change their process slightly, add some more info, they can't just do it anymore. They have to have a three way discussion with the other Brenda, the automation guy and maybe a few managers. It will take months. So then its likely better for Brenda to just go back to using her spreadsheet again, and then you've got an automated process that no longer meets peoples needs and will be a faff to update.
by harryf | 2025-11-05 14:09:29+00:00
We need to stop using AI as an umbrella term. It’s worth remembering that LLMs can’t play chess and that the best chess models like Leela Chess Zero use deep neutral networks.

Generative AI - which the world now believes is AI, is not the same as predictive / analytical AI.

It’s fairly easy to demonstrate this by getting ChatGPT to generate a new relatively complex spreadsheet then asking it to analyze and make changes to the same spreadsheet.

The problem we have now is uninformed people believing AI is the answer to everything… if not today then in the near future. Which makes it more of a religion than a technology.

Which may be the whole goal …

> Successful people create companies. More successful people create countries. The most successful people create religions.

— Sam Altman - https://blog.samaltman.com/successful-people
Show HN: Alpha Vantage MCP – Enable your LLM tools with real-time market data
by aldw | 2025-11-05 14:09:31+00:00
We just released an MCP server that lets Claude (or any MCP client) pull real-time and historical financial data: equities, options chains, crypto, FX, commodities, fundamentals, economic indicators, and 50+ technical signals. You can ask things like:

“Plot NVDA’s RSI vs AMD’s over the past year.”

“Show the yield curve shift since 2020.”

“What are Apple’s recent earnings surprise trends?

“Make a 3-statement model for ORCL.”

Claude runs the requests, does the math, and returns the data or generates charts/models all inside the chat.

Setup takes about a minute. You’ll need Claude Pro ($20/mo) and a free Alpha Vantage API key (real-time data requires paid).

Quickstart: https://mcp.alphavantage.co

We also just launched on Product Hunt today: https://www.producthunt.com/products/alpha-vantage?utm_sourc...

Would love feedback on use-cases, setup flow, or ideas for next integrations.
by Aurornis | 2025-11-05 14:09:35+00:00
> You can get 8K TVs for <$1000 now.

8K at jumbo TV size has relatively large pixels compared to an 8K desktop monitor. It’s easier to manufacture.

> And an Quest 3 headset has 2 displays at far higher PPI for $600

Those displays are physically tiny. Easier to deal with lower yields when it’s only taking a few square inches.

Ultra high resolution desktop monitors would exist in the middle: Very small pixel sizes but also relatively large unit area.

However, the demand side is also not there. There are already a number of 5K, 6K, and 8K monitors on the market. They’re just not selling well. Between difficult software support for scaling legacy apps, compatibility issues with different graphics cards and cables, and the fact that normal monitors are good enough, the really high resolution monitors don’t sell well. That doesn’t incentivize more.

If we get to a place where we could reliably plug a 6K monitor into any medium to high end laptop or desktop and it just works, there might be more. Until then, making a high res monitor is just asking for an extremely high return rate.
by zamadatix | 2025-11-05 14:09:37+00:00
The conflation was that 1920x1080 is a automatically poor clarity so that's why 4k is needed (at the same size). I.e. there is no resolution that is clear or unclear in and of itself, but that's how it is discussed.

One person talks about a laptop, another talks about their big coding desktop monitor, a third talks about a TV they use. None agree how much 1080p clarity makes sense for usage because the only thing quoted is resolution. This drives the assumption everyone is talking about the same sizes and viewing distances based on the resolution, which is almost never the case (before the conversation even gets to the age old debate of how much clarity is enough).

I'm sure if you ask the original commenter, they don't mean 1080p looks great for reading books at 34" just as much as GP wouldn't mean to compare screens of different sizes either.
by u_sama | 2025-11-05 14:09:46+00:00
I dont know what western Europe you live in, but ours is a decadent one where not a single country is meaningfully growing, not a single one has recovered from 2008 in any meaningful way, everything gets more expensive, industry is destroyed and boomer NIMBY keep voting for policies that advantage them because of their demographic dividend vis-a-vis the younger generations.

In France pensioners earn more on average than a 25 yo, there is a crony capitalism based on hyper-regulation where the incumbents keep their place by bribing polticians into adopting policies that benefit large corporations.

Rent and house prices boom, all the while average natality is going lower and lower, and there is an increasing brain drain towards America.
by arkitct | 2025-11-05 14:10:51+00:00
It is a shame that people want to believe that companies are or will be good. Or that they should even be given "human" expectations. Companies are not people and should not be afforded being treated as such. A companies function, especially if it is a publically-traded company is to continuously provide greater return for investors, so say the majority of prospectus. What we the people, regardless of country, need to start doing is holding the company heads to account, perhaps if the threat of execution (is China right here?) could "make" the company/people good? Something needs to be done before everything we have and "are" as a human will be, is a subscription to life.
by nostrebored | 2025-11-05 14:11:03+00:00
I get what you're saying, I also grew up below the poverty line for all of my childhood. My point was pretty unclear. I don't think that people want to "own a home" in that it's not home ownership that they're after but an asset.

The amount of people I grew up with who viewed having a house as a way to become wealthy was large. Which is silly. (Real housing prices : median income) cannot continue to climb in a society that has decreasing population without some sort of external intervention. Poor people spending the entirety of their money on a house will be the ones left holding the bag, which is part of why it irks me so much.
by nis0s | 2025-11-05 14:11:16+00:00
I think this could be a welcome step towards growing much needed affordable and accessible organic materials for transplantation. If the organism doesn’t grow a nervous system, then it’s the same as lab-grown meat, and not a conscious being. But my question is why they think these organisms need to resemble humans? If you have that much control over genetics and stem cells that the organism lacks a nervous system, you can alter its shape so that it doesn’t appear to be human. I am opposed to using a human form because it is by extension making it okay to impose such use on humans, and that is already something that happens via human trafficking and other illegal or unethical acts.
by conductr | 2025-11-05 14:12:06+00:00
That’s definitely the hype. But I don’t know if I agree. I’m essentially a Brenda in my corporate finance job and so far have struggled to find any useful scenarios to use AI for.

I thought once this can build me a Gantt chart because that’s an annoying task in excel. I had the data. When I asked it to help me, “I can’t do that but I can summarize your data”. Not helpful.

Any type of analysis is exactly what I don’t want to trust it with. But I could use help actually building things, which it wouldn’t do.

Also, Brenda’s are usually fast. Having them use a tool like AI that can’t be fully trusted just slows them down. So IMO, we haven’t proven the AI variable in your equation is actually a positive value.
by yawaramin | 2025-11-05 14:12:09+00:00
That's not what I think. Just take a look at the top-level comments where Datastar supporters are coming in and doing the 'htmx 4 is just doing what Datastar does now, why do we need htmx' routine. First of all that's not even true, and secondly it's kinda transparent–whenever htmx gets discussed the Datastar fans show up to naysay.
by GuB-42 | 2025-11-05 14:12:10+00:00
apt-get has a more stable interface and is more suitable for scripts and instructions intended to be followed to the letter.

apt is better for interactive use and by people who are not just blindly following instructions.

Here there are arguments for both. As commands intended to be copy-pasted in a terminal, using apt-get makes sense as it is the safest choice. But it is also intended for humans, it is not a script, so maybe apt would be better. To me, both ways make sense.
by darkstar999 | 2025-11-05 14:12:17+00:00
It's true.

https://home.army.mil/bavaria/about/shutdown-guidance#:~:tex...

edit: they have removed it in the minute since I posted this comment?

Archive.org still has it (see the section at the bottom "Running list of German support organizations for your kit bags"): https://web.archive.org/web/20251105103925/https://home.army...
by Aurornis | 2025-11-05 14:12:35+00:00
Once you get into the high pixel densities you stop running everything at native resolution. You have enough pixel density that scaling the output doesn’t produce significant visible artifacts.

With 8K small pixels you could pick a number of resolutions up to 4K or higher and you wouldn’t even notice that the final product was scaled on your monitor.

People with Macs with retina displays have been doing this for years. It’s really nice once you realize how flexible it is.
by soulofmischief | 2025-11-05 14:13:11+00:00
I asked OP a question, they calmly answered it, and the conversation was over.

Meanwhile, you and this other user have done nothing but the equivalent of throwing a tantrum in a public place, making insensitive insinuations that blew right back in your face, attempting to derail the conversation, and doubling down instead of treating this as a learning moment. I hate to break it to you, but this is wildly off-topic and the conversation never had anything to do with you.
by tamimio | 2025-11-05 14:13:41+00:00
And you think it will stop here? Nope, next AWS or whatever cloud where you host your clone will terminate your service, then you go and rent a bare-metal, same thing later, then you go and host it on your own hardware, the CDN will terminate it! Oh you managed to find a mediocre CDN? The ISP next! As long as there's no regulation protecting your rights, whoever has the biggest share in xyz will be in charge.
by ben_w | 2025-11-05 14:13:55+00:00
They have called it that since the word was coined in the original ancient Greek, and the skill itself seen as a divine gift: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogue, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charisma

It's part of why the ancient Greeks thought government came in cycles, with democracy being only a transitory state.
by timr | 2025-11-05 14:14:18+00:00
It's so depressing that the entire Mamdani debate has become mired in Israeli politics. You can completely ignore that issue, and still have plenty of questionable stuff to talk about. He has repeatedly talked about defunding the police. Literally, not figuratively, and not that long ago [1a-c].

He said he wanted to close down Rikers Island, right in the middle of the debates [2]. He said that prisons are unnecessary [3]. He said he wants to empty jails [4-6]. His comments on crime and policing, in general, are quite extreme. I could set literally every other topic to the side, and this would be a voting issue for me.

These are his words. I'm not taking them out of context or reinterpreting them. About the only response to this stuff a reasonable person can muster is "he doesn't believe that now". Yeah, OK. I guess we'll find out...

[1a] "NO to fake cuts - defund the police." https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1277414510131916801

[1b] more on his historical comments on defunding: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/31/politics/mamdani-defund-p...

[1c] "dismantle" the police (in this case, the Vice squad): https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1336087694636707841

[2] "Yes, we have to close Riker's island" https://www.facebook.com/reel/1380642053476909

[3] prisons unnecessary: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/out-of-touch-ma...

[4] "the goal must be to abolish [prisons]" (plus multiple other variations on that theme) https://x.com/peterjhasson/status/1937682021276410317

[5] "The entire carceral system is an unreformable public health hazard. Defund & dismantle." https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1328828240757215234

[6] "what purpose do [prisons] serve?" https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1945929553274196188
by tetris11 | 2025-11-05 14:14:28+00:00
The Wikipedia article has actual information instead of the storytelling that the BBC article is insisting on

> Udolph favours the hypothesis that the Hamelin youths wound up in what is now Poland.[40] Genealogist Dick Eastman cited Udolph's research on Hamelin surnames that have shown up in Polish phonebooks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin

Also, every town in Southern Germany looks like that. Hamelin is nothing special in that respect
by Proofread0592 | 2025-11-05 14:14:39+00:00
Engineering is all tradeoffs.

For this guy who spent thousands per month on AWS, using AWS makes no sense.

For a guy like me whose AWS bill was 38 cents last month, AWS makes a lot of sense. Currently I have a small KaiOS app with about 1000 unique visitors per month hosted on AWS. I used to self-host on an old laptop, but it costs less money to host on AWS (1 kwh cost me 19.89 cents and my laptop uses about 4.5kwh per month). Not to mention the convenience of not having to restart my server for software updates, or update my own certs every 3 months, or fuddling with nginx configurations.

And my AWS bill ever starts climbing, I will just self host once again.
by TechRemarker | 2025-11-05 14:15:12+00:00
On the other hand if long ago they backed down and lowered fees and allowed more control, aside from the potential security and privacy concerns that could negatively affect the brand, companies would have just then wanted more. As Epic has said they think they should have to pay nothing for all that Apple provides. So not saying all Apple’s choices and timing were right or best, but giving up previously wouldn’t have prevented all of this but rather just lowered the bar and making it easier for companies and countries to make it easier to lower it even further.
by the__alchemist | 2025-11-05 14:15:20+00:00
Note: There are two standardized formats for this called SMILES and SELFIES. SMILES is much better supported, but SELFIES is more robust. I'm integrating them into some bio and chem software I'm working on.

You can do things like look up, using PubChem's API, similar molecules etc to a SMILES string.

I believe most molecule editors can load and save SMILES.
by getnormality | 2025-11-05 14:15:32+00:00
The author seems to speak to that here:

> SPy does something different: on one hand, it removes the dynamic features which make Python "slow", but on the other hand it introduces new features which make it possible to implement and use the same pythonic patterns which we like.

The author seems unusually focused on explaining his new way, which may help it feel more like a new language with a coherent philosophy and unique benefits in its own right.
by magnumgupta | 2025-11-05 14:15:33+00:00
This is a really interesting direction — feels like the next evolution of customer research. Most teams rely on shallow surveys or persona docs that never update, but simulating an evolving “AI twin” of your ICP could change how GTM teams test ideas. Curious how you handle hallucinations or bias in responses — do you benchmark AI twin feedback against real user feedback over time?
by konart | 2025-11-05 14:15:39+00:00
Idk, most people I know used services like wordpress.com (so not self hosted), livejournal (and its local alternatives) etc.

This if we are talking about second half of 00s. Before this? Most people barely have internet access at home. And things like BBS (for example) were for techies only with very few exceptions.

Maybe it was quite different in the US for example.
by 4ggr0 | 2025-11-05 14:16:30+00:00
i'm actually going to do the reverse move, was gaming on a 4K display, but going to downgrade to 3440x1440 to get more performance. but of course the gaming displays i find apparently aren't ideal for working, because text looks worse. add to that that the internet seems to be split if wide-monitors are the best thing ever or actually horrible. why is it all so complicated, man.
by willvarfar | 2025-11-05 14:16:36+00:00
I'd always imagined the "pied piper" as being 'pied' as in patched or even checkerboard of black and white. A piebald pony is patches of black or white, for example.

Is it that 'pied' is or was less specific and can mean patches of any colour, or is it that the English name is a bit lost in translation?
by bsenftner | 2025-11-05 14:17:13+00:00
I was a guy that built server clusters during the early 00's, for my own and others' web and other projects. When AWS really took off, it was like a spend all your money mania, and devs and companies treated my skills like dirt. I got a job writing facial recognition edge servers, with high performance many claim are impossible numbers (25M face compares per second per core) and my employer found itself a leader in the industry. But customers could not wrap their heads around just a single box capable of our numbers (800M face compares per second, plus ingestion of 32 video streams) and to get sales the company ended up moving everything into AWS because customers did not trust anything else.
by Aurornis | 2025-11-05 14:17:15+00:00
> And the fourth is generating all the data. You need absurdly high definition textures, which requires lots of VRAM, lots of regular RAM, lots of disk I/O, lots of disk storage (your average AAA game is well beyond 100GB of data at-rest for a reason!), and then render power to actually render the scene. 8K has 16x (!) the pixels of regular FullHD (1080p).

You don’t need to scale everything up to match the monitor. There are already benefits to higher resolution with the same textures for any object that isn’t directly next to the player.

This isn’t a problem at all. We wouldn’t have to run games at 4K.
by ModernMech | 2025-11-05 14:17:32+00:00
Yeah, if you go into my comment history from just this week there's a guy who told me "We won the last election. We can and will, with sadness but determination power, turn the power of the state against you and make you leave us the hell alone."

That's the mindset of an authoritarian. No needle threading here though, just use "the power of the state to" get our way (no sadness detected).
by 9dev | 2025-11-05 14:17:36+00:00
To be clear, I don't think the paperclip scenario is a realistic one. The point was that it's fairly easy to conceive an AI system that's simultaneously extremely savant and therefore dangerous in a single domain, yet entirely incapable of grasping the consequences or wider implications of its actions.

None of us knows what an actual, artificial intelligence really looks like. I find it hard to draw conclusions from observing human super geniuses, when their minds may have next to nothing in common with the AI. Entirely different constraints might apply to them—or none at all.

Having said all that, I'm pretty sceptical of an AI takeover doomsday scenario, especially if we're talking about LLMs. They may turn out to be good text generators, but not the road to AGI. But it's very hard to make accurate predictions in either direction.
by cubefox | 2025-11-05 14:17:40+00:00
On last SIGGRAPH there was actually a company which makes dynamic 3D Gaussian splatting videos now rather than static scenes:

https://www.youtube.com/live/ucRukZM0d1s?t=1h1m50s

https://zju3dv.github.io/freetimegs/

https://www.4dv.ai/

The videos can be played back in real-time, though they require multiple cameras to capture.
by onionisafruit | 2025-11-05 14:18:47+00:00
People’s reaction to this varies based on the Brendas they’ve worked with. Some are given a specific task to do with their spreadsheets every week and have to just do as they are told even if they can see it’s not a good process. Others are secretly the brains of the company – the only one who really sees the whole picture. And a good number of Brendas are the company owner doing her best with the only tool she’s had the time to learn.