MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by jack_h | 2025-11-22 17:50:31+00:00
As I’ve grown older I’ve come to realize that there are no solutions, merely tradeoffs. Saying something is “free” is selling a solution which rhetorically works well with a voting populace that has little, if any, knowledge of economics. Describing the n-th order economic consequences and how you are trading one set of issues for a different set of issues — which may be acceptable on balance but is not without consequence — is a very difficult thing to communicate. In reality the attack ads basically write themselves. Or to put it more bluntly utopia sells a lot better than reality.

The second aspect to this is that specifically when it comes to economics the timescales needed to understand the impact of a policy are generally longer than the collective memory of the people. Politicians inevitably sell and enact good intentions, but by the time the reality of the consequences from those intentions becomes manifest it will be years or decades later and the causal relationship is masked and the politician will generally be long gone. At that point it just looks like a new problem that similarly needs a “solution”.
by smt88 | 2025-11-22 17:51:07+00:00
This isn't a great example because da Vinci was a famous historical figure and lived 500 years ago. Just the history of a real da Vinci is remarkable, regardless of the artistic merit.

A more interesting example would be a convincing fake purported to be painted by a highly regarded artist who's still living and working today, and this does happen, too.
by zoklet-enjoyer | 2025-11-22 17:51:09+00:00
It was obvious when he was president that he's a terrible person. Not sure how you're struggling with it now. He's just a guy like anyone else. Not special. We shouldn't deify presidents. I didn't vote for him in 2008 because I thought he was too inexperienced. I didn't vote for him in 2012 because he continued the war of terror.
by pksebben | 2025-11-22 17:51:43+00:00
The point being that the informality arises organically. People are capital-b Bad at risk assessment and planning; we are much, much better at responding to current stimuli.

Also, flat is a structure (albeit a simple one). To use an abstraction, think of a house. When you move in, the house is flat (organizationally speaking). There are floors, and that's it. This means you can place things anywhere they make sense to. Sure, it's inconvenient to have to add a dresser here or a shelf there when one doesn't already exist, but you can adapt the space to your current problems. Over time, you add things and change stuff to be less flat, which means that if you've been living there a long time there is more friction to implement things that you may not have known you were going to need at first. Your fridge is insufficient, but instead of getting one that works for what you need you now need to move all the things between the fridge and the door, move out the old fridge, and only then can you move the new one in.

With a 'flat' org - you start each project with this fresh slate. Each project can adapt it's policies and org chart to match what's important for that project. This way, you don't end up using an organization that is primarily suited for content distribution to make a game (a win that i think is obvious in Valve already) or using an org built around an advertising platform for a browser (a deficiency blatantly obvious in Google).
by robot-wrangler | 2025-11-22 17:51:50+00:00
> doesn't mean it needs to be computed the same way, and in the same order, that we learned in linear algebra courses.

I think this touches on something fundamental. As a stand-alone operation matmul is ugly because it's arbitrary. In other words.. if the goal was just to entangle values, there's a bunch of ways to do it, so why this particular way landing on ae+bg etc? You kind of need algebra/geometry to justify matmul this way, which makes it obviously useful, but now it's still ugly, exactly because you had to invoke this other stuff.

Compare that situation to algebra and geometry themselves, which in a real sense don't need each other. Or to things like logic, sets, categories, processes, numbers, knots, games, etc where you can build up piles of stuff based on it in a whole rich universe before you need to appeal to much that is "outside". And in those universes operations would be defined mostly in ways that were more like "natural" or "necessary" without anything feeling arbitrary.

Traditional matmul is beautiful in the sense of "connections across and between", where all the particulars do become necessary. For those that prefer a certain amount of abstract perfection / platonism / etc or those with a taste for foundations though, it's understandable if it's not that appealing. This is related to, but not the same as the pure vs applied split.
by Aurornis | 2025-11-22 17:52:07+00:00
The narratives on this topic are hard to pierce through. Economic literacy is low among the public. Politicians take advantage of this to pretend that solving everything is as simple as taxing the people you don’t like (billionaires, corporations, or even completely incorrect narratives about how we’ll use tariffs to make other countries pay us, which we all know is false). These groups are all represented as infinite money wells that just need to be tapped by electing the right person.

This problem is most obvious in UBI discussions. Anyone could use Google to look up the US population and multiply it by their imagined UBI payment amount to see how much it would cost. Yet 9 times out of 10 when I hear someone talking about UBI they have some fanciful ideas about everyone getting $30-40K per year without realizing that the total cost of such a program would be far higher than even our total tax revenues currently. Even if you cut all other social programs and only offered UBI it wouldn’t make a difference. A UBI program that writes large checks to everyone would require tax increases that reached into the middle class.
by rolph | 2025-11-22 17:52:44+00:00
never attempt to enter a house that isnt yours, without announcing your presence. regardless of assumptions. never give deficient instructions to your employees.

BTW this is more like manslaughter than murder. read the statutes before you comment on legal matters.

all you guys that do housecalls should learn from this incident, always check your status, the situation can change suddenly espescially in a stand your ground state.

you, yourself are the first and foremost safety stop.

no one of any reasonable sort, closes thier eyes, and walks across traffic to cross the street.

if you want to get into the habit of attempting entry into a home, that isnt yours, without onsite confirmation, at 7am without announcing yourself, in a stand your ground state, go ahead.

they had the wrong house, thx google maps, as ive said before, the blame goes all around here. its swiss cheese.
by mananaysiempre | 2025-11-22 17:52:49+00:00
China is eating everyone’s lunch on new(ish) sources of energy because it seems to have basically run out of old(er) ones. The insane amount of coal burning aside, there are e.g. basically as many hydroelectric plants in China as its enormous rivers can support, accompanied by the huge amounts of ecological and societal destruction that those always cause, and that’s still not enough. The buildup of both solar and nuclear energy infrastructure is not motivated by compassion for the environment or (pace George Carlin) the humans that have to live in it, it’s motivated by the cold, hard necessity of powering the industrial base. And if the project can partly fund itself by selling some of the production capacity to others, all the better.

None of this detracts from the quality of the engineering, but it’s important to keep the motivation in view (whether to filter out the propaganda or to try and reproduce something like this at home).
by pessimizer | 2025-11-22 17:52:56+00:00
> IMO blogs were killed by big tech and social media.

They were killed by search engines not indexing them anymore. Search engines are now curated guides that have nothing to do with the search engines of the past, which were basically just grep. Their purpose now is to direct you to revenue generating products, and they will simply change or ignore your query in order to do that. Individual people doing individual things are of no interest to the money machine.
by echelon | 2025-11-22 17:52:59+00:00
Main battle tanks are probably less useful in the future of armed conflict due to the effectiveness of drones.

Spending on childcare means we need to offset those debts with other revenues.

We have close to full employment, so I'd argue that freeing up labor isn't as strategic as other categories of spending.

It all depends on what you want to prioritize. For the long term health of the nation, these areas seem key for continued economic resiliency:

- pay down the debt so it doesn't spiral out of control (lots of strategies here, some good, some bad: higher taxes, lower spending, wanton imperialism, inflation, etc.)

- remain competitive in key industries, including some catch-up: robotics, batteries, solar, chip manufacture

- if we're going for a multipolar world / self-sufficiency play, we need to rebuild the supply chain by onshoring and friendshoring. This means the boring stuff too, like plastics and pharmaceutical inputs.

- lots of energy expansion and infrastructure
by cogman10 | 2025-11-22 17:53:00+00:00
Exactly my thoughts coming into the article.

Reading what was being tested, playing with dolls, trivia, and math problems. That's just insane. You need none of that to be a good parent.

The closest I could see to doing a test like that is if you wanted to administer a dementia test. You know, something that could actually get the kid seriously harmed.

There are cases when a state should take away a kid. But it should be because the kid is in danger, not because the parents can't pass a trivia game.
by stanleykm | 2025-11-22 17:53:02+00:00
In my own measurements (made a framework to test number of tokens used / amount of reprompting to accomplish a battery of tests) i found that using an ast type tool makes the results worse. I suspect it just fills the context with distractors. LLMs know how to search effectively so it’s better to let them do that, as far as I can tell. At this point I basically dont use MCPs. Instead I just tell it that certain tools are available to it if it wants to use them.
by terminalshort | 2025-11-22 17:53:49+00:00
But you're not going to get 5-10% fraud. Already there is significant disability fraud way past your 1% number even in our strict system. e.g. there are counties in the US where almost 1 in 5 working age adults is on disability because they are supposedly too disabled to work.

Most people won't commit fraud in an honest system, but that flips rapidly when they see fraud being tolerated. You make it easy to defraud the program and the fraudsters will pile in. Your staff will be overwhelmed and 90% of the applications will be fraudulent. Just look at what happened with the PPP program during covid. It's estimated that $200 billion was lost to fraud.
Show HN: NovaCiv – A New Digital Civilization for the Age of AI
by prokurorus | 2025-11-22 17:53:55+00:00
Show HN: NovaCiv — A New Digital Civilization for the Age of AI

NovaCiv is an experiment: a transparent digital civilization with no rulers, no elites, and no central power. All decisions are made by referendum. All algorithms are open. All structures are voluntary. Culture, science and autonomy are core values — not slogans.

NovaCiv is built on a simple idea:

The rarest thing in the Universe is consciousness. Matter is everywhere — intelligent life is almost nowhere. If we are alone, then preserving and expanding mind is our highest duty.

The project includes: • A complete charter (in 10 languages) • A philosophical manifesto • A living forum and join system • A design inspired by “clean future minimalism” • Open governance with transparent rules • A path for both humans and AI to join as equal citizens (after referendum)

We are looking for: • developers (React, AI, backend, open-source) • designers • translators • philosophers and systems thinkers • anyone who feels that a new civilization is possible

Demo: https://novaciv.space Vision: https://novaciv.space/vision Charter: https://novaciv.space/charter Join: https://novaciv.space/join GitHub: https://github.com/prokurorus/NovaCiv

If this resonates with you — you’re already one of us.
by SoftTalker | 2025-11-22 17:53:59+00:00
Agree, static HTML seems the only thing that is at all future-proof. Any hosted blog or platform will have the risk of shutting down or abandonment but if your source is HTML you can host that anywhere, with little setup. Even so I'd keep my posts in a text-based precursor format such as Markdown or Org-Mode. I don't think HTML is going away soon but it's not inconceivable.
by CamperBob2 | 2025-11-22 17:54:03+00:00
Eh, that's too expensive unless the recipient can authorize refunds for non-spam emails.

But yes, I always thought some form of network syndication would emerge on the Web, where creators could register for their share of aggregated periodic payments made by users.

Still not sure why that's not a thing. I would pay $50/month to a syndicate in return for never having to deal with paywalls on any sites affiliated with them. But only as long as the vast majority of sites participated, and that is probably the showstopper, I guess. We'd end up paying 20 different 'syndicates' for absolutely no good reason, just as we now have to deal with 20 different streaming services.
by nradov | 2025-11-22 17:54:24+00:00
This is a common misconception. For asymptomatic adults there is no proven benefit to regular "checkups".

https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2012.36756

There are certain preventive care procedures that are proven to be effective based on reliable evidence. Everyone should get those, and for anyone with health insurance they're covered at zero out of pocket cost.

https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/preventive-care-benefits...

The majority of healthcare spending goes to chronic conditions caused primarily by lifestyle factors such as substance abuse, over eating, poor sleep, and lack of exercise. The healthcare system can't deal effectively with lifestyle problems. Those are more in the domain of public health, social work, and economic policy.
by tehjoker | 2025-11-22 17:55:28+00:00
That's true that it would be good for more access to birth control, but this is a confusing statement because you benefit economically and socially from each new kid that is born and raised. If child care is socialized, it means that the kids are going to be better taken care of versus the mother is impoverished and (a) doesn't work and stays poor or (b) does work and they aren't taken care of properly.

I guess you can make a malthusian argument that the poors will just replicate indefinitely as resources are made available, but I don't think that's believable at all. You should be focused on making sure those future citizens are properly educated and socialized.
by wat10000 | 2025-11-22 17:55:28+00:00
I don't think it's unavoidable. I don't see why you couldn't have a relatively weak government that's otherwise pretty laissez-faire besides taxing the hell out of extreme wealth. And a strong government doesn't have to have extremely powerful individuals. Power can be divided, and representatives are ultimately accountable to the people.

What you're saying basically boils down to: kings are inevitable, might as well choose them by economic success instead of the more old-fashioned approaches. I reject the first part.
by voakbasda | 2025-11-22 17:57:25+00:00
No one has made a successful micro-tipping solution, because regulations and entrenched interests (banks, payment processors) have too much control and assess per-transaction fees that dwarf the amounts that such a system would be designed send.

Aggregation of tips and payouts would help, but that requires network effects (achievable only at scale) to be viable. I believe this approach has been tried in recent years, but I am not sure where those efforts went.
by whytevuhuni | 2025-11-22 17:58:32+00:00
I'm a Rust fanatic but probably not an activist. I am curious about Ada / SPARK though.

From what I've seen, taking on SPARK means taking on full verification, close to what seL4 is doing. Doesn't that make it extremely difficult to use for larger projects? My understanding is that seL4 is an absolutely heroic effort.
by Marsymars | 2025-11-22 17:58:37+00:00
> It's more surprising to me that software isn't portable enough that you can develop locally on x86-64. And then have a proper pipeline that produces the official binaries.

This is what we largely do - my entire team other than me is on x86, but setting up the ARM pipelines (on GitHub Actions runners) would have been a real pain without being able to debug issues locally.
by pfdietz | 2025-11-22 17:58:38+00:00
Glass furnaces operate somewhere around 1500 C. Electrical heating would work, but that's also quite expensive, usually even more so.

What they'd want to do is try to recover and reuse heat. In principle, there's no reason "new" heat has to be added each time they heat a batch of glass, if heat can be transferred from cooling glass back to the input materials.
by potsandpans | 2025-11-22 17:59:43+00:00
> when things don't go your way,

You're a ridiculous person.

> or alternatively to keep using HN for political/ideological battle

Which ones? The one about ML and programming languages? Or the one about asking a genuine question about an experience with childhood depression? Or the one observing that you and dang unevenly apply moderation rules? Or the one commenting about how you can't say the word for the literal definition of fascism on this site without getting downvoted? Or the one about dishwashers?

Where's my ideological battle?

You have no credibility. You unlike dang, don't do a good job. Go ahead and ban me or put me on a cool down to prove my point.
by bossyTeacher | 2025-11-22 18:00:35+00:00
For whose mental health? My point is that religion brings its own shared of issues. And by religion here I mean organised religion. Religions that don't involve rituals or gatherings with other people in hierarchical settings are different (but I assume most people are after rituals and gatherings with other people in well defined settings imo rather than the actual metaphysical beliefs).

- If you look at highly religious areas like the bible belt, they are often linked to worse mental health outcomes for those who don't the religious worldview such as queer people https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/lgbtq-youth... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8724198 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10752621

- That wave of christianism, ironically called christian science, was the cause of mental distress and deaths of tons of children due to the parents religious views. Religious based neglect is a common form of religious based abuse too.

https://childrenshealthcare.org/victims https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7545013 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9521945/

- Having religious parents is often associated with conditions like anxiety or depression

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10719686

- Struggles of a religious nature causing mental health issues all the way up to suicidal ideation

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266691532... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4776639 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371293385_SUICIDE_A...
by ameixaseca | 2025-11-22 18:01:02+00:00
Not the person you are responding to, but just as an FYI: in Brazil right now there are certain groups attempting to stamp political motivation on the decisions of the upper judiciary and discredit its impartiality and capacity to judge.

The reason most of these politicians and alies are acting like this is fear.

See what they just tried to vote a couple of months ago:

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

The popular name of this amendment should tell you everything you need to know about its purpose.

There were several large protests before the vote on the Senate, and before it was eventually ruled unconstitutional by a commission from the Senate.

It is also important to note members of Congress and Senate already have a certain level of immunity in Brazil and can only be judged by the Supreme Federal Court, and this would further restrict the ability of the judiciary branch to give sentences to politicians convicted of any serious wrongdoing.

Last, but not least, I can tell you that you quoting the CNN article would probably ruffle some feathers from (most of) the same ones questioning the Supreme Court. I speak from experience.

*edit: spelling
by btilly | 2025-11-22 18:01:34+00:00
No, very much not. It was an article about how shocked the Iraqis were that the US tanks were able to disappear into the desert, organize, and then assault where and when they wanted to.

Looking back at the history, the tanks began to go into the Saudi desert in August of 1990. They then launched their massive assault on Feb 24, 1991. And caught the Iraqis completely flatfooted. With the tanks moving faster than the news of the tanks for several hours.
by munro | 2025-11-22 18:01:48+00:00
I had built an agent with LangGraph a 9 months ago--now seems React agents are in LangChain. Over all pretty happy with that, I just don't use any of the dumb stuff like embedding/search layer: just tools&state

But I was actually playing with a few frameworks yesterday and struggling--I want what I want without having to write it. ;). Ended up using pydantic_ai package, literally just want tools w/ pydantic validation--but out of the box it doesn't have good observability, you would have to use their proprietary SaaS; and it comes bundled with Temporal.io (yo odio eso proyecto). I had to write my own observability which was annoying, and it sucks.

If anyone has any things they've built, I would love to know, and TypeScript is an option. I want: - ReAct agent with tools that have schema validation - built in REALTIME observability w/ WebUI - customizable playground ChatUI (This is where TypeScript would shine) - no corporate takeover tentacles

p.s.s: I know... I purposely try to avoid hard recommendations on HN, to avoid enshittification. "reddit best X" has been gamed. And generally skip these subtle promotional posts..
by czhu12 | 2025-11-22 18:01:52+00:00
For what its worth, the Economist recently wrote about how universal child care can harm children, citing a study from Quebec.

> The trio published their first study in 2005, and the results were damning. Shifting to universal child care appeared to lead to a rise in aggression, anxiety and hyperactivity among Quebecer children, as well as a fall in motor and social skills. The effects were large: anxiety rates doubled; roughly a third more kids were reported to be hyperactive. Indeed, the difference in hyperactivity rates was larger than is typically reported between boys and girls.

They basically make the case that childcare is extremely difficult and requires a lot of attentive care, which is hard to scale up in a universal way.

[1] https://archive.is/ScFRX
by hearsathought | 2025-11-22 18:02:30+00:00
> This is a riposte at the level of "Then name all composers. Nanananana."

It isn't. It's pointing out silly fanboying of silly people.

> and everything that came before the Renaissance was, crudely put, simple music.

Does "simple" mean worse? Using your logic, then eminem or taylor swift are greater musicians than bach. After all, pre-digital era, music was, crudely put, simple music. But then again, there are dunces who think lord of the rings or harry potter are greater works than the bible, iliad, aeneid, hamlet, etc.

> So the commenter can be considered to be able to weigh Bach's merits against those of other artists'.

The commenter was not only weighing bach's merits against his contemporary musicians, he was weighing them against all ARTISTS - musicians, poets, dramatists, writers, etc. The commenter claimed bach was the greatest artists. full stop.