MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by iamjackg | 2025-11-28 18:12:42+00:00
Somewhat related: a while ago I was working on a project and wanted to use an RS485 to TTL conversion board which came with badly translated instructions. However, somebody had reverse engineered the design and uploaded an EasyEDA schematic. I shoved the raw JSON for the schematic (which looked quite cryptic to me) into Gemini 2.5 Pro and asked it if it could understand it, and it cheerfully responded with:

> Of course, Jack. I can understand the schematic from the provided JSON file. It describes an RS485 to TTL Converter Module. > Here is a detailed breakdown of the circuit's design and functionality

...followed by an absolutely reasonable description of the whole board. It was imprecise, but with some guidance (and by putting together my basic skills with Gemini's vast but unreliable knowledge) I was able to figure out a few things I needed to know about the board. Quite impressive.
by benatkin | 2025-11-28 18:14:20+00:00
I think it might be answering long-term questions about direct chat use of AIs. Of course as AI goes through its macroscopic changes the amount it gets used for each person will increase, however some will continue to avoid using AI directly, just like I don't fully use GPS navigation but I benefit from it whether I like it or not when others are transporting me or delivering things to me.
by kragen | 2025-11-28 18:14:24+00:00
Panels are normally warranted not to drop below 80% of rated output after 25 or 30 years, although some are defective and crack within a year or so. But they don't start dropping off more rapidly at that point; rather, their output declines more slowly after that point. Those panels will be fine 50 years from now if he doesn't throw them away.

Inverters are a different problem, and they do in fact die after a few years. But you don't need the inverter to use the energy.
by adamzwasserman | 2025-11-28 18:14:44+00:00
The deeper principle here: "stop lying about where truth lives."

I've been exploring how this generalizes beyond side effects. Every React state library creates a JavaScript copy of state that must sync with the DOM. This is the original sin. Two truths = lies.

The solution isn't better syncing, it's refusing to duplicate. The DOM is already a perfectly good state container. All you have to do is read it.

Releasing a paper (DATAOS) and React implementation (stateless, <1KB) soon. It's the architecture behind multicardz (hyper-performing kanban on steroids, rows AND columns, 1M+ cards, sub second searches, perfect lighthouse scores, zero state sync bugs). Because there's no state to sync.
by petcat | 2025-11-28 18:14:50+00:00
I never found anything better than the latest macOS machines. I ran ubuntu for years and then switched back to mac just because I don't have the time to tinker and fiddle with stuff in Linux that just randomly makes the computer run hot, or a monitor to not work, or fonts looking awful.

MacOS is just the sweet spot of great desktop + great unix-style devbox.
by goranmoomin | 2025-11-28 18:15:09+00:00
I haven't even realized that while I was reading the article, but it is amusing!

Though one explanation is that I think for the other stuff that the writer doesn't explain, one can just guess and be half right, and even if the reader guesses wrong, isn't critical to the bug ­— but sockets and capabilities are the concepts that are required to understand the post.

It still is amusing and I wouldn't have even realized that until you pointed that out.
by bakkoting | 2025-11-28 18:15:20+00:00
If you look at the list of compromised packages, very few of them could reasonably be included in a standard library. It's mostly project-specific stuff like `@asyncapi/specs` or `@zapier/zapier-sdk`. The most popular generic one I see is `get-them-args`, which is a CLI argument parser - which is something Node has in the form of `util.parseArgs` since v16.17.0.
by socalgal2 | 2025-11-28 18:15:31+00:00
I wish I had as many positive experience as it seems some other HNers have with LLMs. I'm not saying I've had zero positive experiences but the number of negative experiences is so high that it's just super scary.

Yesterday, Thanksgiving, there was a Google Doodle. Clicking the doodle lead to a Gemini prompt for how to plan to have Thanksgiving dinner ready on time. It had a schedule for lots of prep the day before and then a timeline for the day of. It had cooking the dinner rolls and then said something like "take them out and keep them warm" followed by cooking something else in the oven. I asked "How do I keep them warm when something else is cooking in the oven?". It proceeded to give me a revised timeline that contradicted its original timeline and also, made no sense in and of itself. I asked it about the contradiction and the error and it apologized and gave a completely new 3rd timeline that was different than the first 2 and also nonsense. This was Google's Gemini Promotion!

All it really needed to do to my first query was say something like "put a towel over the rolls" and leave it on top of the oven.... Maybe? But then, it had told me be spread butter over the rolls as soon as they came out of the oven so I'd have asked, "won't the towel suck up all the butter?"

This is one example many times LLMs fail me (ChatGPT, Gemini). For direct code gen, my subjective experience is it fails 5 of 6 times. For stackoverflow type questions it succeeds 5 of 6 times. For non-code questions it depends on the type of question. But, when it fails it fails so badly that I'm somewhat surprised it ever works.

And yea, the whole world is running head first into massive LLM usage like this one using it for short reviews of authors. Ugh!!!
by hedora | 2025-11-28 18:15:31+00:00
The article says it’s going on Intel 18a, which has better performance, but worse density/power consumption than TSMC’s comparable node:

https://www.techspot.com/news/106782-intel-18a-found-faster-...

Unless Apple is going to add active cooling or something to the Air, iPad and iPhone, I’d expect more thermal throttling on the intel chips (though the difference isn’t as stark as I assumed — it looks like Intel closed the gap a bit with 18a).
by queenkjuul | 2025-11-28 18:16:39+00:00
My 2016 Corolla seems to be the last year without a SIM (it does have a screen but whatever it just shows me what's playing on the stereo), but despite a Corolla being bulletproof and me rarely driving anymore, i do still wonder whether i can get away with this car forever or if I'll have to buy some spyware carriage someday
by hagbard_c | 2025-11-28 18:16:49+00:00
This is downvoted, probably because it is considered to be 'conservative' and therefore 'bad' in this rather myopic community. It is also wholly to the point and correct in the observation that the ever-present sexualisation of - if not everything then at least a whole lot of things - is tiring and numbing. 'Sex sells' is taught at the marketing courses so sex is has to be. First a tiny bit, then a bit more because the last ad has already lost its edge. Then, a bit more still. Bit by bit, piece by piece the magic of sex is sold off for a lousy few euros or dollars or pesos or whatnot because sex sells.

While people see more sexualised imagery then probably ever before younger people have less and less of sex with their peers. Sex sells, still. For how long, I wonder.
by renewiltord | 2025-11-28 18:16:58+00:00
Haha, I felt the same and never did anything about it. Then this Charlie Kirk fellow got shot and I’d coincidentally clicked on For You on Twitter (I know, first mistake, never do this) moments after and a vague tweet about “can’t believe this something something” had a bloody video of a man getting shot dead in the fucking neck. I remember wondering if I wanted to go through a week, maybe a month, of people tweeting about a guy getting shot and realized I really didn’t.

Stopped. Thanks to that gore poster, I suppose.

But I went back to look maybe a week ago and when I did it was incomprehensible. It was full of in-jokes and references that made no sense to me. Dunks and subtweets that were context free. Strangely a short period away made the whole thing look like an alien culture.
Show HN: Cooltechblogs POC: local-first blog post aggregator
by phillvdm | 2025-11-28 18:17:04+00:00
Hi HN, inspired by PostHog's "cool tech jobs", cooltechblogs aggregates blog posts from tech companies who go out of their way to post great articles.

<backstory>

I've been pleasantly surprised by the thoughtful human content coming from some tech companies (fly.io is a great example).

That led to the thinking: 1. The internet is better with thoughtful human content 2. Some tech companies encourage their humans to write thoughtful articles 3. Increasing awareness of these articles is good for readers and can incentivize companies to do more of this (since they like awareness)

That combined with the itch to build my first real web app that uses sync to provide a realtime yet local-like user experience led to this frankenstein POC that combines rss feeds, realtime post ranking and the kind of instant interactions not yet typical in web apps.

</backstory>

It's not true "local-first" since it syncs data via a server but there's no user data being collected, except anonymized clicks on posts.

Current functionality:

• Feed of posts from selected tech co blogs • Click-tracking (max of 1 click registered per user) • Ranking in various time periods • Blog filter • Local-only reading list • OS-mode UI (inspired by PostHog) • Keyboard shortcuts for easy navigation

I'd love to hear what anyone thinks!
by thwarted | 2025-11-28 18:17:30+00:00
That's almost more damning. The list was created by humans, who presumably read the books, but then couldn't be bothered to summarize the very books they read? Either the human is really lazy ("read" the book but can't be bothered to write a short summary) or really really lazy (didn't read the book but felt a summary was necessary). Either way, it makes this list less interesting, at the very least because it doesn't need to exist at all if someone can just ask an LLM "list and describe books that A16Z might think are valuable to read" and get the same quality output.
by techblueberry | 2025-11-28 18:17:48+00:00
Maybe no kings vanishing from the media is a feature, not a bug. I wouldn’t want a left wing movements that depended on media promotion, in fact I’d assume any left wing movement that was still in the media would be the failure. Media attention destroys left wing movements.

I also just generally think all movements work best locally. So yeah, throw a protest to build community, but I wouldn’t expect further efforts to be so visible.
by whartung | 2025-11-28 18:17:48+00:00
To be fair, I have a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee. It was the first year of their then new model rollout for the GC. It was (as I understand it) the last of the Mercedes JGCs.

I love this thing, it's a "cold dead hands" kind of car for me. Only has 120k-ish miles on it.

I won't say it's my last car ever, I just have a hard time visualizing swapping it out for anything.

It starts, all the buttons work, it's cosmetically 95%. The single biggest issue is that last year it was down for a couple of months simply because of parts availability. It's not unreliable, but it's swapped a few things (water pump, radiator, A/C has had work twice, guess it's a bit notorious in the community). Purchased in 2013, it's a 12 year old car.

But waiting months for suspension components (air suspension, which I adore) was a real drag. Even with a dealer supplied rental.

That would be the thing that sends me over the edge long term, I think.

It'll be a shame when it happens, I love the car.

The dealer wants to buy it every time I take it in for routine maintenance.
by bawolff | 2025-11-28 18:18:30+00:00
The thing is, lobbying isn't literally a bribe. Lobbying involves all sorts of expensive activities, like compiling reports, doing research, etc in addition to the more sketchy semi-bribe stuff.

All that adds up. How many FTE lobbyists is a few million dollars? It just doesn't seem like all that much if they are trying to do a hard core lobbying campaign.
by teknopaul | 2025-11-28 18:18:50+00:00
22 years in the same Corp, targeting Linux systems since day one, and only in the first two years, and this year, have I been permitted a Linux desktop.

+2 years slugging in a vm.

Developing with out bash is just unnecessary work.

My productivity has more than doubled. easily. I manually type passwords half as much and when I do that is to access Microsoft services.

2fa wastes a huge amount of time.

Because nothing that needs 2fa is scriptable.
by kace91 | 2025-11-28 18:18:51+00:00
Yeah, I think she's assuming that, since some of those people are IRL friends, that means they're not terminally online people.

I'm around finance folks and they're all trapped into the same crypto-and-AI influencer bubble, but they would never be able to tell because their physical connections are also finance people who are likely to be caught in the same corner of the algorithm. So their real life conversations reinforce the worldview that the internet presents.

This is likely the same case. The author might not be involved in certain online spaces, but she shares characteristics with her friends who make them all be targeted by the same bubble, so everyone she knows echoes that space to her.
by fschuett | 2025-11-28 18:19:22+00:00
> "You can't do free volunteer work for unrelated party A and then turn around to unrelated party B and demand that they pay you for that."

The parties are absolutely not "unrelated". You are missing that, at least in Germany, the state is effectively a majority shareholder in every single company. For an average German SW dev salary of €80k, the state gets: €16k in social contributions (calculated on top of the salary) + about 32k in corporate tax, income tax, social security (again, on the worker side), sales tax, etc = 48k in total. So, in total, the German state gets about 50-60% of all money earned. It's not like in the US where taxes are lower.

Now, I "live on the dole" (because nobody wants to hire me for some reason) and create infrastructure that German companies use. I receive about €800/month (subsistence + health insurance), which is €9,600 per year. That is the cost to the state to keep me alive while I maintain infrastructure used by German companies.

Looking at the ROI for the German State, if only one single developer at a German startup saves a few weeks of work using my code, or if a startup can launch faster because of my open source work, the state makes that money back instantly. That is, assuming only a single company uses my code, while in fact, many do so silently.

And on top of that economic unfairness, the current system classifies Open Source work as "unemployment/leisure," whereas economically, it is unpaid R&D that fuels the very companies funding the state. There are strong differences in how "tech infrastructure" gets built in Germany vs the US:

- In the US, corporate taxes are much lower. Monopolies (Google, Meta, etc.) amass massive capital reserves. They effectively privatize public R&D (Go, React, PyTorch). They can afford to hire devs to work on OSS full-time because the state leaves them the money to do so.

- In Germany, the state takes ~50% of the money out of the ecosystem (between high income tax, social security, and corporate tax). Small and medium businesses (the "Mittelstand") do not have the surplus capital to fund "public good" R&D like Google does.

Since the German state extracts the capital that would otherwise fund this innovation, I can argue that the state has indeed an obligation to reinvest it into the ecosystem. Currently, they don't and they just waste the money on complete nonsense, wars, etc. and then tell OSS maintainers to also "get a real job and do OSS in your spare time".
by npodbielski | 2025-11-28 18:19:42+00:00
Wow, this is terrible. People really live like this? If I would say to my female friend that I like when hair dresser is stroking my hair, she would probably just look at me: 'ha ha! you nerd!'. Asking somebody to apologize for your own thoughts... The situation like that it is beyond cringe... if somebody would be doing that in my country, psychological help would be recommended.
by Animats | 2025-11-28 18:19:51+00:00
Just when you think Stellantis couldn't do anything worse...

This is the company that ran Chrysler into the ground. The only remaining Chrysler product is one mini-van.

They raised the prices on Jeeps so much that they lost their market. They went the "mild hybrid" route, with such silly things as 21 miles of electric range.

The Stellantis dealers signed a joint letter demanding that the CEO be fired. That was done. It didn't seem to help.

(I own a pre-Stellantis Jeep Wrangler, and would like to buy a replacement, but Jeep now has nothing I want.)
by lysace | 2025-11-28 18:19:59+00:00
Mac Mini M4 or Macbook Air M4 is not expensive. Just bought the latter (extensive rebates at the moment) to replace my Intel-based 2019 MPB. Wow! It's pretty much the perfect laptop, at that price.

My primary complaint so far: The green color LED on the magsafe connector is not the same green as the LED on the caps lock key. This wouldn't have passed the Steve Jobs approval.
by ndsipa_pomu | 2025-11-28 18:20:27+00:00
> Playing devil's advocate: absent the obvious security issues, it's a brilliant default option from an user experience point of view, especially if the user is not well-versed in the subtleties of filesystem management. Put the CD into the tray, close the tray, and the software magically starts, no need to go through the file manager and double-click on an obscurely named file.

It's a stupid default, though. One way round the issue is to present the user with the option to either just open a disc or to run the installer and allow them to change the default if they prefer the less secure option.

> It made more sense back when most software was distributed as pressed CD-ROMs, and the publisher of the software (which you bought shrink-wrapped at a physical store) could be assumed to be trusted

This allowed Sony BMG to infect so many computers with their rootkit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...).

> That design makes sense for a single-user computer where the user is the owner of the computer, and all software on it is assumed to be trusted. Even today, many Linux distributions add the first (and often only) user to a sudoers group by default.

A sudoers group is different though as it highlights the difference between what files they are expected to change (i.e. that they own) and which ones require elevated permissions (e.g. installing system software). Earlier versions of Windows did not have that distinction which was a huge security issue.
by zozbot234 | 2025-11-28 18:20:58+00:00
The word "eroticism" in this article is quite misplaced. A fleeting sexual thought about a stranger who happens to be providing a service to you in that moment (hair brushing, apparently) has nothing to do with eroticism, precisely because it's not "sexualizing" in any real-world sense. Incidentally, eroticism properly understood (i.e. turning actual consensual love, intimacy and perhaps even sexuality itself into a genuine, positive and human-affirming artform) is also quite dead, but not for any reasons this article is talking about. It's just getting caught in a cross-fire between the most disrespectful and lewdest sort of commercial hardcore pr0n and a kind of renewed, reactive prudery from governments and policy-makers.
by parliament32 | 2025-11-28 18:21:14+00:00
Given the "(hi Julia!)" immediately after the strace shenanigans, I interpreted this as a third-party hint; the author most likely had not used strace before.

The author is both an example of and an example for how we can get caught in "bubbles" of tools/things we know and use and don't, and blog posts like this are great for discovery (I didn't know about git invoking a binary in the path like his "git re-edit", for example, until today).
by jasomill | 2025-11-28 18:21:24+00:00
Amusingly, download.info.apple.com still appears to serve all the files that used to be on the old FTP site, including a small and somewhat random subset of old system software versions for Mac and Apple II, Newton firmware updates, etc., but directory browsing isn't enabled, so you need direct links, which you can get from the Wayback machine[1].

But once you have the links, you can download the actual files directly from Apple, e.g., if you're ready to upgrade your Mac Plus to the latest and greatest version of System 6, download

https://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Sof...

https://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Sof...

https://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Sof...

https://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Sof...

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20141025043714/http://www.info.a...
by Zigurd | 2025-11-28 18:21:26+00:00
My current project uses a cross-platform SDK. My most comfortable development platform is macOS, and that's what I use 90% of the time on this project. Occasionally I work on embedded android systems. For that I use Linux. If I'm on a consulting job and the client has everyone using Windows, I go with the flow, but my impression is that Windows has become end-user hostile, and it's getting worse. Maybe that's just because my permissions and network access are never set right on the first try when a client needs a machine set up for an outside consultant. Subjectively, Windows is the itchy sweater of development platforms.
by zahlman | 2025-11-28 18:21:35+00:00
I tend to flag submissions about these kinds of political topics because it becomes clear in context that they're being submitted primarily to provide space for complaining about a political outgroup. This never leads anywhere productive. Best case, everyone agrees and they just stew about how awful the world supposedly is. Common case, people are forced to confront the fact that other people have different values, cultural assumptions etc. and can reasonably come to wildly different conclusions, even starting from the same evidence, because a lot of this is nowhere near as objective a matter as it appears. Worst case, the disagreeing people in the hated outgroup also feel that their position has been grossly misrepresented in the submission.
by rsync | 2025-11-28 18:22:14+00:00
I think "vanity" is the wrong term because their existing credit rating, which they attempt to preserve, impacts all other borrowing (and possibly other agreements and finance vehicles, etc.) that they undertake.

So it's probably valuable to retain that credit rating.

The real issue here is how simple it is to game the rating agency in this way and how the market allows Meta to "launder" this activity through the ratings agency.

This is, in fact, a fairly close analogue to the housing crisis and the ratings laundering that was done with the CDOs[1]. The difference is, instead of drilling down to thousands of mortgages - each with different characteristics - you really just drill down to Meta ... which might not be too risky ...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateralized_debt_obligation
by jjtheblunt | 2025-11-28 18:22:19+00:00
What is the more power hungry process?

M5 uses a 3nm process

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tsmcs-3nm-update-...

but Intel is proposing using their fab configured for the "earliest available sub-2nm advanced node manufactured in North America", according to the article (and from searching outside).