MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by rramadass | 2025-11-13 05:46:45+00:00
This is a philosophical argument.

The way to look at this is first to pin down what we mean when we say Human Commonsense Reasoning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonsense_reasoning). Obviously this is quite nebulous and cannot be defined precisely but OG AI researchers have a done a lot to identify and formalize subsets of Human Reasoning so that it can be automated by languages/machines.

See the section Successes in automated commonsense reasoning in the above wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonsense_reasoning#Successe...

Prolog implements a language to logically interpret only within a formalized subset of human reasoning mentioned above. Now note that all our scientific advances have come from our ability to formalize and thus automate what was previously only heuristics. Thus if i were to move more of real-world heuristics (which is what a lot of human reasoning consists of) into some formal model then Prolog (or say LLMs) can be made to better reason about it.

See the paper Commonsense Reasoning in Prolog for some approaches - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/322917.322939

Note however the paper beautifully states at the end;

Prolog itself is all form and no content and contains no knowledge. All the tasks, such as choosing a vocabulary of symbols to represent concepts and formulating appropriate sentences to represent knowledge, are left to the users and are obviously domain-dependent. ... For each particular application, it will be necessary to provide some domain-dependent information to guide the program writing. This is true for any formal languages. Knowledge is power. Any formalism provides us with no help in identifying the right concepts and knowledge in the first place.

So Real-World Knowledge encoded into a formalism can be reasoned about by Prolog. LLMs claim to do the same on unstructured/non-formalized data which is untenable. A machine cannot do "magic" but can only interpret formalized/structured data according to some rules. Note that the set of rules can be dynamically increased by ML but ultimately they are just rules which interact with one another in unpredictable ways. Now you can see where Prolog might be useful with LLMs. You can impose structure on the view of the World seen by the LLM and also force it to confine itself only to the reasoning it can do within this world-view by asking it to do predominantly Prolog-like reasoning but you don't turn the LLM into just a Prolog interpreter. We don't know how it interacts with other heuristics/formal reasoning parts (eg. reinforcement learning) of LLMs but does seem to give better predictable and more correct output. This can then be iterated upon to get a final acceptable result.

PS: You might find the book Thinking and Deciding by Jonathan Baron useful for background knowledge - https://www.cambridge.org/highereducation/books/thinking-and...
by jimbo808 | 2025-11-13 05:47:41+00:00
I use it daily for boilerplate and CRUD stuff, and have been since it came out. I honestly haven't experienced any bugs at all with it other than Anthropic server outages, etc. As far as agentic coding tools go, nothing else is close.

That being said, it's still an LLM, and LLMs are more of a liability than an asset to me. I was an early adopter and still use them heavily, but I don't attempt to use them to do important work.
by ewoodrich | 2025-11-13 05:48:50+00:00
I didn’t say it was invalid, just that it was needless. When I bought the laptop Gatekeeper was a tolerable nuisance and I was fine with the tradeoff given the security benefits.

The removal of the hotkey (which also required changing a setting before it worked at all) didn’t actually make it harder for a regular user to access, just 5x as aggravating every time it's necessary.

If they made developers go through some long and tedious process to re-enable it I would grumble but understand, but the only solution to get back to the 2024 status quo being entirely disabling a critical security feature certainly doesn't benefit me in any way.
by simonmic | 2025-11-13 05:49:23+00:00
Some recent notes, somewhat mac-specific:

"I'm having trouble finding one true activity monitor on mac. I tried all of these on mac with certain criteria in mind (reliability, renicing, good UX):

- Activity Monitor: doesn't update charts when in background, doesn't show nice value, doesn't allow renice, doesn't hide idle processes

- Apple's top: non-standard, information overload, no nice/renice/idle/filter

- htop: doesn't show accurate process cpu usages (known bug awaiting release), no idle hiding. (Use latest release to avoid crashes.)

- btop: hangs (known bug awaiting release), no nice/renice/idle hiding

- bottom: basic

- gotop: I forget

- glances: pretty good, supports nice & renice. That or htop seem to be the only options for that. glances is CPU-heavy.

- zenith: also good, faster, and at least shows nice. (Crashes if you sort by it, known bug awaiting fix.)"

I went with zenith.
by kelnos | 2025-11-13 05:49:32+00:00
This was exactly what I was thinking (though less eruditely) when I was reading the blog post. In this particular case, waiting for the ambulance led to a worse outcome, but I would not be surprised that, statistically, a you're better off waiting for the ambulance than trying to get to the hospital via other means.

But unfortunately:

> if the operator had information about the ETA of the ambulance (we don't know this!) then the correct answer would have been to tell them to not wait. But if the operator had no information, then the correct decision is to say to wait.

I expect the operator just is not allowed to give advice like that, even if they did have information on ambulance ETA. There could be liability if someone is advised to drive to the hospital, and something bad happens. Even if that bad thing would have happened regardless. I think that's a bad reason to do the situation-dependent incorrect thing, but that's unfortunately how the world works sometimes.
by 951560368 | 2025-11-13 05:50:06+00:00
I recently rebuilt a meditation platform using neumorphic design principles, and it got me thinking about this design trend's current relevance. While many consider neumorphic design outdated since its 2020 peak, I found it creates a unique tactile feel that works surprisingly well for mindfulness applications. The soft, extruded shapes seem to naturally complement the calming nature of meditation content. My implementation approach: - Used CSS custom properties for theme consistency - Optimized shadow parameters for different element sizes - Focused on proper contrast ratios (especially for dark mode) - Added subtle breathing animations synchronized with content - Prioritized accessibility with proper focus states Key challenges I faced: - Dark theme contrast was particularly tricky - had to adjust shadow colors significantly - Mobile responsiveness required different shadow intensities - Animation timing needed to feel natural, not distracting - Performance optimization to avoid layout thrashing Results: The final design feels surprisingly fresh when applied to the right context. Users report it feels more "touchable" and calming compared to flat design. Questions for the community: 1. Do you think neumorphic design has legitimate use cases beyond just following trends? 2. What design patterns are you seeing emerge as potential successors? 3. How do you balance trendy aesthetics with timeless usability? 4. Any other contexts where neumorphic might work well? Curious to hear how other designers and developers view this design trend now that the initial hype has died down.
by dragonwriter | 2025-11-13 05:51:25+00:00
> the US has thousands of independent sales tax authorities

The US does not have thousands of independent sales tax authorities; administrative subdivisions of states are not independent, or even sovereign in the sense that states (which are also not independent) are, and can be dictated to by the state they are in, if the state decide there is a need, such as an urgent common problem that requires a coordinated solution.

> It really is a "herding cats" problem.

It's not, though. It's a "convincing cats to find shelter when it rains" problem, that you are trying to make harder by inventing the nonexistent need to also gather them in a herd. They aren't in a herd with the penny as the smallest coin, and they don't need to be in a herd if that changes to a nickel.

> Even at the level of all 50 States, resolving these kinds of coordination problems typically takes several decades.

There is no need for a coordinated solution between all 50 states, just as there is no coordinated policy on sales tax now between all 50 states. All that is necessary is that there is a solution in every place where the current tax policy would be problematic without the penny. There is no need for the policy to be the same in every jurisdiction with sales tax, just as the status quo policy is not the same in every jurisdiction with a sales tax.
by wpm | 2025-11-13 05:51:38+00:00
The only thing signaling Gatekeeper to do the deep checks and also to block execution is the presence of that file attribute. When GK was first introduced in Tiger that’s literally all it consisted of; a warning/reminder that “hey slack jawed user, you downloaded this executable from the internet, be sure you trust it!” and once they said OK, the attribute was cleared and you’re not gonna get bothered again.

The AMFI checks happen on every execution of any executable. Xprotect is also running execution based checks on first run and randomly later on to check for signatures of known malware. Gatekeeper is the umbrella term for all of this on the Mac, but its still kicked off, to the user at least, as that prompt “hey champ you downloaded this from the internet and the developer didn’t want to upload this binary to Apple for scans, move it to your trash”.

Long story short, if you remove the quarantine bit, you can run whatever the fuck you want so long as Xprotect doesn’t detect anything in its YARA rules files.
by siddboots | 2025-11-13 05:51:51+00:00
Concrete Mathematics is probably the best single book that you could read to prepare you for some the problems beyond the first 50. It’s extremely fun, and also mathematically serious. A large portion of PE problems are exactly in the cross sections of number theory, combinatorics, and computation that is covered in this book.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_Mathematics
by NiloCK | 2025-11-13 05:52:03+00:00
Absolute sympathy for the author.

My own story of heavy industrialized medical process goes the other way. My daughter could be dead, but she isn't. At birth, she presented with some abnormalities around her stomach. Not good. We lived in a somewhat remote location where the hospital's capacities were modest. Really not good.

Within 8 or 10 hours of birth, she and I were aboard the smallest plane I've ever been on, with a pilot, and neonatal specialist nurse and respiratory therapist (all had arrived on the plane). Daughter was in an incubator and I couldn't touch her.

Five or six hours later we were in one of the largest children's hospitals in Canada. Another hour or two and a probable diagnosis was sussed out, and a plan made for a surgical exploration / opportunistic fix.

I'm at an age where there are real professionals who register to me as children, and in the pre-op meeting, this is how the anesthesiologist struck me. He was even wearing a Star Wars t-shirt. I didn't mind either the age or the t-shirt, but it was jarring because it situated me somehow as a more responsible participant in the whole situation - a grown-up. Failing to tell him to use the force will proably be the esprit d'escalier that follows to my grave. (I mean, don't turn off the targeting computer, but use the force too.)

Anyway. Another six or seven hours - the worst of my life by far - and finally the good news emerges. Seven years ago now.

There were probably close to 100 people directly involved in providing care to her that day, and I couldn't imagine the number for indirect involvement.

To be honest, all of it was the first experience of gratitude in my life.

---

We are all burned daily by the rough edges of our approximating policies and norms - life's outrageous slings and arrows.

I'd spent a lifetime being too smart and too aloof to be impressed with anything. Suddenly the most important thing to have ever happened to me went sideways, and put me completely at the mercy of the great machine. It really came through for me. It's a good time to be alive.

---

aside: People will have lots of reasonable principled and pragmatic objections to $MEGACORP laundering image via $OUTREACH_EFFORT, but I'll also take the moment to say that Ronald McDonald House is the real deal. Lifesaver. Extraordinary reach to provide a sense of "new-normalcy"

utterly snide and unnecessary dig: The weakest meal (although not bad by any means) that I had at McDonald House came from Microsoft. Hard for a tech company to compete with groups named "3rd Street Grandma's Club" in terms of banger comfort food. Thanks for the pizza, MS.
by bensonn | 2025-11-13 05:53:49+00:00
I won't call clickbait on this as it is a personal site and the headline is accurate. I saw another article recently with the same issues.

He is dead from a heart attack. If dispatch, EMS, hospitals, etc. didn't exist doesn't mean he would be alive. They didn't kill him, they failed to save him.

The other article I saw was how the hospital "killed" a drowning victim. Water was never mentioned.

There are many failures in our systems. There will always be exceptions to rules. It is a heart-breaking story but at the same time it is impressive. Maybe the system failed on this call but the fact that their is a system with this many resources is amazing. Hit 3 digits on the phone and LEO, EMS, Fire are all alerted 24/7 us pretty impressive to me.
by snthpy | 2025-11-13 05:54:15+00:00
They're still a decade ahead of most people. It seems only now that people are becoming aware of privacy coins. I go to a lot of crypto meetups and every time I bring up that bitcoins aren't fungible (because they carry full provenance and you might not be able to cash out tainted coins) I just get blank stares. FATF Travel Rule is turning up the heat on this.

I haven't kept up with developments though. What are best privacy coins these days. ZCash seems to be the institutional favourite while Monero hasn't moved much.
by sodapopcan | 2025-11-13 05:54:38+00:00
> Of course, that assumes that you write your functions so that they can be converted into iteration!

I was indeed assuming this, however due to my lack of compiler knowledge, not explicitly writing your functions--at least in the classic way--doesn't necessarily mean you Erlang functions won't be optimized. See section 2.3 [0]

Though again, I don't know shit about compilers and while I can imagine what callER optimized calls could look like, I would need some examples!

[0] https://www.erlang.org/docs/19/efficiency_guide/myths
by Barrin92 | 2025-11-13 05:55:09+00:00
I can understand (although I'd still think it's a bad idea) going with a web app wrapper if you're starting out that way, but what makes this decision truly baffling is that they already had a UWP app.

Meta makes more money than god and there's over a billion WhatsApp users. It's not like this thing is Blender or a AAA game, it's a chat frontend. Maintaining it has to be a rounding error in the budget.
by blobbers | 2025-11-13 05:55:18+00:00
There's plenty of chances for misdiagnosis in outpatient endocrinology. If she misses or delays a thyroid cancer diagnosis, or doesn't follow up with a patient at risk, etc, and then lies to cover it up.

I answered your question clearly: research misconduct and her reasoning for it indicates a willingness to lie that should not be allowed in a high trust field such as medicine. She has been banned from receiving Canadian federal funding for life. Her medical license was reinstated but it was a split vote (3-2) and widely criticized, but she is banned from conducting research and has to be monitored by a therapist.

I get that you like to argue, but you should probably learn to admit when you're wrong.
by tcmart14 | 2025-11-13 05:55:42+00:00
Because it is. Linux doesn't really have a concrete idea of a "base system" like the BSDs do. Linux is more of a hodgepodge of components that are developed by different, and often a lot more isolated teams than we think, that all just gets integrated together. Which is truly an astonishing achievement of engineering, so I don't wanna seem like I am short selling it. Think of like the developer who work on gcc and the libc and the kernel, maybe some cross pollination, but not a lot. FreeBSD, the user land, kernel and even the libc team all happens under "1 roof."
by kelnos | 2025-11-13 05:56:02+00:00
It kind of depends. EMTs are able to do some things, paramedics are able to do more things, and the hospital itself can do even more things.

I live about 6 minutes from the closest ER. If an ambulance can get to me in, say, 3 minutes, it's still not clear if it's better for me to get myself to the ER on my own. Maybe I get an ambulance with EMTs who aren't trained/authorized to do what needs to be done for me. Maybe I really need to be at the hospital within 8 minutes or I'm going to die, and waiting for an ambulance just isn't going to cut it.

But I think, statistically, people should usually prefer to wait for the ambulance. It's just that specific circumstances can make that the wrong move, but most people won't know when that's the case.
by yardshop | 2025-11-13 05:57:45+00:00
A complementary resource for learning about tube amps is the YouTube channel Fazio Electric. Colleen Fazio does a nice job of repairing old amps and explaining various aspects of their construction, history, and significance. Plus she has a very calming voice and is probably one of the loveliest amp repair technicians out there.

https://www.youtube.com/@FazioElectric
by kjjoseph | 2025-11-13 05:58:22+00:00
Location: San Diego CA (USA)

Remote: Yes. I'm open to any combination of in-office or remote.

Willing to relocate: Yes. I'm a US citizen, but open to other locations if sponsorship is available.

Technologies: Mainly frontend: Javascript, Typescript, HTML, CSS, React, Vue, Sass; also have some backend experience: MySQL, Node.js, Go, PHP

Résumé/CV: https://kevinjoseph.net/resume

Email: kevin@kevinjoseph.net

Additional links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kjjoseph/ https://github.com/kj-joseph

Hi, I'm Kevin. I'm an experienced (15+ years), versatile mainly-front-end engineer. I'm seeking an opportunity to contribute to the success of a team while continuing to learn and expand my skills. I'm working in a non-technical role at the moment, but am attempting to get back into the engineering world.
by tribaal | 2025-11-13 05:58:45+00:00
Probably an unpopular opinion, but it’s been a couple of jobs that I write “just python” to generate k8s manifests, and it works really, really well.

There’s packages. You can write functions. You can write tests trivially (the output is basically a giant map that you just write out as yaml)…

I’m applying this to other areas too with great success, for example our snowflake IaC is “just python” that generates SQL. It’s great.
Show HN: Free, multilingual open textbooks (K-12 to Master's level)
by readvatsal | 2025-11-13 06:00:39+00:00
I’ve been building the Universal Open Textbook Initiative (https://uotinitiative.org) for the past year to solve a problem I kept running into: high-quality open educational resources exist, but they’re scattered across the internet and almost entirely in English.

What it is: A repository of 79 open textbooks in 5 languages (English, Arabic, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, and Polish), covering Kindergarten through Master’s level. Everything is Creative Commons licensed or similar, no account needed. More textbooks and translations in the works.

How it works: I curate the highest quality open textbooks from sources like MIT, TU Delft, OpenStax, and CK-12. For original translations, I use DeepL Pro with human review by native speakers. Each textbook page clearly indicates whether it’s human-translated or machine-translated.

Why I built this: When you’re a homeschooling parent in the Middle East, a teacher in rural Africa, or running an NGO in South America, finding quality textbooks in your language is difficult. This platform makes world-class educational content accessible to anyone, anywhere.

What’s next: I’m developing an AI-enhanced learning layer where students can select any textbook and get personalized diagnostic quizzes, lessons, and practice exercises generated in real time in their native language.

What I’m looking for: Feedback on the platform and approach; Volunteers to review machine translations (especially if you’re a native speaker of our supported languages); Ideas for reaching educational institutions and NGOs who could benefit from this

Happy to answer any questions.
by rerdavies | 2025-11-13 06:01:31+00:00
Vladimirescu, Andrei. The SPICE Book. John Wiley & Sons, 1994.

Gives overview equations for MOSFET device simulations which are probably sufficient for most purposes in Section 3.5, and COMPLETE mathematical descriptions of the SPICE MOSFET implementation in Appendix A.3. Not for the weak.
by cartoonworld | 2025-11-13 06:01:52+00:00
Sometimes it does, for example, just like gp mentions, a tube rectifier in a single ended amp can have a voltage “sag” that interacts with the rest of the system and causes an interactive “color” in the output, especially when amplifying larger voltage swings of bass notes and chords.

There are quite a few effects like this. In a modern design this would be eliminated, but sometimes “bad” is good :)
by samplatt | 2025-11-13 06:03:15+00:00
Sad fact is that nobody outside tiny niche-cases in engineering really gives a shit about XR. The current round of meta-branded glasses don't have features worth the price.

When it's light & small enough to be a pair of glasses and more than just the expensive but limited gimmick that the form is currently, then it'll be world-changing. It's close, but it's not there yet.
by svat | 2025-11-13 06:04:42+00:00
This is actually a good point, and something I've been wondering about too. What changed between the 90s and now, that Microsoft didn't get blamed for malware on Windows, but Google/Apple would be blamed now for malware on their devices? It seems that the environment today is different, in the sense that if (widespread) PCs only came into existence now, the PC makers would be considered responsible for harms therefrom (this is a subjective opinion of course).

Assuming this is true (ignore if you disagree), why is that? Is it that PCs never became as widespread as phones (used by lots of people who are likely targets for scammers and losing their life savings etc), or technology was still new and lawmakers didn't concern themselves with it, or PCs (despite the name) were still to a large extent "office" devices, or the sophistication of scammers was lower then, or…? Even today PCs are being affected by ransomware (for example) but Microsoft doesn't get held responsible, so why are phones different?