MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by necovek | 2025-11-30 06:27:29+00:00
The top-level comment tried to distinguish betweeen symbolic processing — verbal and non-verbal — as really being "thought", and other cognition/reasoning not.

I believe many of the things you bring up still involve symbolic reasoning (eg. how do you decide when is too much coffee if you do not think in representation of "I had N or too-many"? how do you consider code transformations unless you think in terms of the structure you have and you want to get to?).

It's no surprise that one is good with one language and sucks at the other, though: otherwise, we'd pick up new languages much faster. And not struggle as much with different types of languages as much (both spoken — think tonal vs not, or Hungarian vs anything else ;) — and programming — think procedural vs functional).

So spoken/written languages are one symbolic way to express our internal cognition, but even visual reasoning can be symbolic (think non-formal and formal flowcharts, graphs, diagrams... eg. things like UML or algorithm boxes use precisely defined symbols, but they don't have to be as precise to be happening).

It is a question if it is useful to make a distinction between all reasoning and that particular type of reasoning, and reuse a common, related word ("thinking", "thought"), or not?
by hirako2000 | 2025-11-30 06:29:03+00:00
More likely we will just use local LLMs period.

In just a matter of a couple of years, we went from a single, closed source LLM entirely outputting tokens slower than one can read, to dozens of open source models, some specialized, able to run on a mobile device, outputting tokens faster than one can read.

The gap between inference providers and running on edge will always exist but will become less and less relevant.

What OpenAi did is like offering accelerated GPUs for 3D gaming that nobody could set up at home, before they could.

Are we using buying better gaming experience by renting cloud GPUs? I recall some companies including Google were offering that. It took a few years for investors to figure people would rather just run games locally.

We aren't dealing with gamers here, but I think the analogy is valid.
by GarnetFloride | 2025-11-30 06:29:05+00:00
The trouble is how many times can you try. I tired building 6 businesses; all failed. I just don't have the resources to try again. I've lost too much. I am lucky to have been able to try at all. Like that parable floating around about the people and the carnival games, the rich own the game, the poor run the games and the middle class get a chance or two to play.
by rixed | 2025-11-30 06:29:07+00:00
You don't have to scan my private messages to know that i will oppose any war propaganda.

If private classified negotiations between state actors would be done away with, and past such "private" communications published, most wars would be impossible.

They did publish all secret diplomacy after the tsarist regime collapsed and that stopped WWI and probably prevented other wars (see for instance https://www.jstor.org/stable/2189254)

So we need the exact opposite of chat control.
by bloudermilk | 2025-11-30 06:33:16+00:00
This is precisely what the author is attempting to do.

> I know my goal: shift the default in open source from “it’s free for anyone to use” to “please don’t use this if you’re evil”. I don’t just want to do this for my little project; I want to slowly change the discourse. I’m not sure how to do that effectively, if it’s even possible.

> I remain unconvinced at the societal value of “freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose”, often called freedom 0. I don’t want to donate my work to the bad guys!

They never use the term “free software” to describe their goals. To the extent they use the term “open source” it’s in the lowercase informal form. How else should they describe their ideas if not using this terminology?
by ThatPlayer | 2025-11-30 06:33:54+00:00
Yes, because players want to spend time moderating other players instead of playing the game. Sounds fun!

Community servers literally invented anti-cheat. All current big name anti-cheats started as anti-cheats for community servers. And admins would choose to use them. Game developers would see that and integrate it. Quake 3 Arena even added Punkbuster in a patch.

Modern community servers like FiveM for GTAV, or Face-It and ESEA for CS2 have more anti-cheats, not less.
by nebezb | 2025-11-30 06:36:03+00:00
The lack of comparable regulation isn’t a good argument for (or against) regulation. All regulation was born at some point. It’s not all-or-nothing.

You example about trading equities (gifting? sharing?) is wrong. You owe tax on trading your stock for another stock. Even if you circumvent a broker and deal in literal certificates. This is a disposition in the eyes of every major tax authority. There are very few exceptions (rollovers or corporate reorganization are some examples). Difficulty in calculating the FMV of the disposition is entirely your problem.
by gpm | 2025-11-30 06:38:01+00:00
The ability to replace libraries without recompiling downstream dependents is not a necessary component of dynamic linking. However if rust wanted to gain this ability, it basically is just a matter of a stable ABI. The only other thing you would need is to get a hash of all the parts of the system that are equivalent to C header files and have the program check the hash in the dylib matched the version it was compiled against at load time.

I believe in fact the sdylib crate type in nightly rust does (or at least is intended to do, not sure it's fully implemented) exactly this.
by roenxi | 2025-11-30 06:38:25+00:00
> For many authors and maintainers, ‘free software’ and ‘open source’ as traditionally defined result in unsustainable outcomes.

I'm very grateful for all this free software, but if a maintainer doesn't think what they are doing is sustainable then they need to stop doing it. That isn't much of a revelation. And if people want to release software that can only be used by people on their ideological wavelength then they can do that, but:

- The projects are probably not going to find much popularity.

- In many ways it is a remarkably entitled position; after all my dishwashing machine doesn't test my moral purity before cleaning my dishes. Why should my software?

- Any ideology that centres on identifying "the bad guys" is too naive to hold a community together without becoming unbelievably corrupt and an insult to whatever ideals the original believers had.
by necovek | 2025-11-30 06:38:35+00:00
But taking a step back, this process of converting reasoning tied to experienced consequences into words that have relatively stable meaning and interpretation over generations is what is "academic".

Without that, one does not learn quickly what another human already thought and tried out in the past (2 hours or 2 years or 2 millenia ago, does not matter), the civilization never progresses to the point it has, and we reinvent all the same things repeatedly ("look ma, I strapped a rock to a stick and now I can bash lion's head in").

So really, if you struggle with this part of the process, you'd need to rely on somebody else who can understand your "invention" as well as you do, and can do a good job of putting it into words.

Really, this is what makes the academic process, well, academic.
by conductr | 2025-11-30 06:44:22+00:00
You went from "median" job/employer to "best" employee in high value/pay/education roles. These best employee's don't want to work in the "median college-degree-required job", they likely have done some significant post-grad studies and have also likely been saddled with more debt thus requiring their high paying career outcome just to avoid collapse of their personal finances.

I think the median 4 year college graduate going after the "median college-degree-required job", did not care much about their studies at all. They slogged through it hung over from the night before. College was a social experience and gave them a sports team to root for on Saturday. It let them extend their childhood and eschew responsibilities for a few more years.

We have this weird cultural thing in the US where we put super high expectations on education systems but we actually don't value education. We value the social clout and whatnot. Public schools are a prime example, parents are the problem. Make your kids do homework! Take away the video games/phone/tablet/wifi/whatever. It translates to college as, do just what is necessary to get a degree. Often the bare minimum, etc. Cheating runs rampant and so on. It manifests itself in so many ways. Just a core part of youth right now is much more interested in being an influencer, popular, a good athlete, no sorry good athletes are a dime a dozen - you need to be an elite athlete, etc. Being a bookworm or just studious simply isn't seen as cool, it has no social reward, quite the opposite in fact.

This might not apply to many students at ivy and top schools, but I'd argue it's certainly the median for the nation's college students the past few decades maybe longer. I think colleges allow it to happen. They don't grade as harshly as they used to, they have dumbed down the courses, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if the "median undergrad" education was more on par with the "median high school" education from a few decades ago.
by nebula8804 | 2025-11-30 06:45:23+00:00
This comment would make more sense if more than ~38% of the country had a college degree. Can you really make the argument that college is truly a middle class concept if not even half of the populations has a bachelor's degree? I guess if you include community college which has really helped to serve the downtrodden get on their dream paths then I guess it makes more sense?
by survirtual | 2025-11-30 06:48:29+00:00
No. Execs are not "just humans." They are enormously privileged, often not due to skill but due to proximity / birth, and there is no excuse for this kind of behavior.

You want to make buckets loads of money and tell other people what to do? Then you need some empathy for workers who aren't stakeholders making peanuts compared to you. That is the most basic of basic requirement to be in such a position of privilege.

It isn't "just human" to be a slave driver. It is criminally inhumane. I can only hope these people will face some kind of karmic justice for their gross inhumane negligence.
by root414 | 2025-11-30 06:49:48+00:00
I spent eight years at a computational advertising company with tens of millions of daily active users. This Python system embodies my years of experience. It employs machine learning/deep learning algorithms encompassing targeting, filtering, coarse ranking, fine-tuning, and re-ranking. It's a lean yet powerful solution capable of supporting websites/apps with up to one million daily active users. free to commerical use.
by card_zero | 2025-11-30 06:51:12+00:00
Many of the long dead ones did good things. In a manner of speaking there shouldn't have been kings in the past, but we can extend that statement to say that the past should have been modern times, which it couldn't be. Any moral judgment has to take into account what can reasonably be expected. Charlemagne, then, who (at least in his capacity as a cultural focal point) standardized Latin and founded schools and reformed the illegible script into miniscule, was reasonably good, for a king. The Persian, Roman, and Indian emperors, who started postal services, were doing it for espionage and warfare, but as it happens, they were also doing some good.
by constantcrying | 2025-11-30 06:51:27+00:00
The problem is that no one can really articulate what the point of higher education is.

If it were job training it would have to actually train students for jobs. But neither is that "academic" in any sense of the word nor actually practical in any way. University trains people to be research scientists in the hope this helps them do some later job.

If the goal were training students to be academics, then degree requirements for most jobs are absolutely nonsensical and universities admitting large percentages of the population would be extremely counterproductive.

If the goal were a continued education to create "well rounded" people, then why give that task to university professors and create a social environment where this is the least likely thing to happen?

If the goal is networking, then why do all that academic research stuff? Just play sports throughout the day.
by rzerowan | 2025-11-30 06:51:36+00:00
I think the last time they put commodity hardware in orbit was via the HPE[1] project and the results were quite mixed with failure rates for components that were quite high. In addition to running the system in a twin config to get any meaningful work done.

Best case scenario custom ASICs for specialised workloads either for edge computing of orbital workloads or military stuff.That would be with ability to replace/upgrade components rather than a sealed sat like environment.

Its similar to the hype for spacelink type sats for internet connectivity rather than a proper fiber buildout that would solve most of the issues at less cost.After the last couple of years seeing the deployment in UKR,Sahel its mostly a mil tool.

[1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/updated_hpe_spaceborn...
by Orbyss_Studio | 2025-11-30 06:51:48+00:00
Hi, everyone! I made this 2D shooter in JavaScript, using the built-in Canvas. FEATURES Easy to Play Simple mechanics, simple controls! Meaningful Rewards Collect coins to upgrade your map and weapons! Retro & Colourful Visuals Bright FX, clean UI, and an aesthetic inspired by classic arcade shooters. Enjoy :D!
by 20k | 2025-11-30 06:51:49+00:00
Tortoisegit isn't an ide though, and the quality of git integration varies wildly between different ides - many of them have pretty toy integration. Its much nicer to have proper quality support of uniform quality, rather than having to rely on whatever you happen to be using at the time

Ideally I'd like to avoid having to reimplement the whole thing from scratch using ad-hoc scripts
by necovek | 2025-11-30 06:54:05+00:00
While I agree we do a lot of our problem solving with symbolic languages (streams of images), even if we define "thought" as symbolic language processing, I believe many great experts in philosophy and law do internalize the relationships between concepts and operate on it on a more subconscious level to get there faster, going back to the symbolic language to validate their reasoning processes.

I wouldn't call those underlying processes "thinking", but it is a matter of definition.

This is also why those who just use LLMs to write those court submissions we've read about fail: there was no non-thinking reasoning happening, but just a stream of words coming out, and then you need to validate everything, which is hard, time-consuming and... boring.
by cherrycherry98 | 2025-11-30 06:54:20+00:00
Nothing the government provides is free. It's paid for with taxes that are forcefully collected and would have been spent or invested privately otherwise. I'm not someone who's against taxes but it's a myth and propaganda that the government can just magically provide free stuff. I'm ok with the government providing things but I want them to be honest about what the costs are.
by PaulDavisThe1st | 2025-11-30 06:56:52+00:00
and yet ... that's not what the case you referenced says at all. Justia's own summary, from your link:

> Even if there is no discriminatory intent, an employer may not use a job requirement that functionally excludes members of a certain race if it has no relation to measuring performance of job duties. Testing or measuring procedures cannot be determinative in employment decisions unless they have some connection to the job.

(emphasis mine)
by pfannkuchen | 2025-11-30 06:58:59+00:00
I think the whole problem is that global market access plus nearly limitless product replication (software, media) has resulted in extreme differences in money availability for different subsets of the population. So we have some people who can buy many properties, and some people who can’t buy a single property. This low level of product sales friction and reach hasn’t really happened before in human history, and I’m not sure classical free market economic theory accounts for it. Back in the day there were only so many boats/shoes/whatever one company could physically sell.

Continuing to grow the population under these conditions doesn’t help either.
by snapplebobapple | 2025-11-30 06:59:11+00:00
It's also the best distribution for jellyfin media player because it's trivially easy to get the jellyfin client to autostart in kde and it's not that hard to get it auto updating and rebooting nightly. This distro plus an intel n150 mini pc (aoostar n1 pro is decent) and a flir dongle and the flir remote is a big win.
by aw1621107 | 2025-11-30 06:59:14+00:00
> I'm wondering if the C++ -> Rust converters out there are part of the Solution

Are there C++-to-Rust converters? There are definitely C-to-Rust converters, but I haven't heard of anyone attempting to tackle C++.

> After converting C++ to Rust, then convert Rust to C++ and you now have clean code which can continue to use all the familiar tooling.

This only works if a hypothetical C++ to Rust converter converts arbitrary C++ to safe Rust. C++ to unsafe Rust already seems like a huge amount of work, if it's even possible in the first place; further converting to safe Rust while preserving the semantics of the original C++ program seems even more of a pie in the sky.
by halper | 2025-11-30 07:01:02+00:00
I am not so sure that the schools necessarily should make it their problem. Sure, compulsory primary schools should try pretty damn hard to drag pupils along. However, once one gets to the tertiary level of education, one should (1) have the academic credentials/prerequisites needed for the chosen program of study (otherwise the admission process has failed or the grades have been inflated/made up) and (2) desire to learn.

Of course, be a good human and reach out a helping hand to those that seem to struggle but, if you have students who truly do nothing, want nothing and try nothing then just move on? If they fail in their first semester then they are not there the second.
by moepstar | 2025-11-30 07:01:29+00:00
> Perhaps one day some jurisdiction will have the wherewithal to implement legislation to stop this madness.

Oh, and to reply to that point: the EU will have mandated labels on packages that will indicate how repairable something is.

https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-upda...

It seems to be in effect in France already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repairability
by sema4hacker | 2025-11-30 07:02:00+00:00
This 13-year-old article lists problems after a language has been implemented. Well before that happens, a big red flag would be the creator created the language more for the challenge of designing and implementing a language, rather than filling some real need for a new language. Also, even if a language doesn't have the flaws the article lists, a decent language is still doomed if it doesn't have the necessary critical mass of actual users.

To quote an AI lookup: Sources like The Historical Encyclopedia of Programming Languages list thousands, with some estimates reaching close to 9,000. The TIOBE Programming Community Index tracks over 100 actively used languages based on popularity.

That's a lot of competition.
by Towaway69 | 2025-11-30 07:02:26+00:00
Is there something like the societal license where you can select different levels of harm: a) can be used to kill people b) can only be used to harm people c) can only be used for animal testing d) no harm should come to any living creature, neither in thought nor action.

Something like the creative commons license just for evil.

I like to use non enforceable license such as “don’t do evil” license because it causes meltdowns in the legal departments of large tech companies trying to define what is evil and whether they are committing evil.

Even if its not enforceable, at least it can trigger some kind of a reflection in folks and their interactions with society that supports their existence.
by survirtual | 2025-11-30 07:03:57+00:00
Except it isn't a free market. It is a heavily regulated market that favors corporations. The regulatory bodies have been corporate captured. In addition, the corporate bodies collude on things like rent, and have a near infinite runway to leave units empty.

With the collusion of corporate entities setting prices, it raises the overall market prices of properties. As small-time landlords observe the markets, they naturally also raise their prices to increase prices.

Additionally, because of corporate capture and collusion in other markets, prices broadly increase for owning property. This forces everyone who keeps rent lower to raise rents.

The way to fix this is simple. Stop the corporate collusion by making laws that make it functionally impossible.

This can be done by the following:

- tax the hell out of corporate ownership of residential properties

- an increasingly expensive multi-home tax. First home is tax free. Second has yearly taxes and those taxes exponentially increase for each additional home.

- a vacant home tax. On top of any second home taxation, for homes besides your 1 home, there should be a vacant home tax. If a home does not have a resident in it, it should be taxed. That tax should be around what it would cost to rent the unit out.

There are some other additional factors such as penalizing foreign non-resident owners, but this covers the bulk.

Being a landlord should not be easily profitable. It should be a job that you work your ass off at.

Then and only then will the free market begin to function and optimize.
by falcor84 | 2025-11-30 07:05:09+00:00
I'm not an Anthropic employee and think that:

>AI will improve more rapidly than the education system can adapt.

Is entirely obvious, and:

> Within a few years it won't make sense for people to learn how to write actual code, and it won't be clear until then which skills are actually useful to learn.

is not obvious, but quite clear from how things are going. I expect actual writing of code "by hand" to be the same sort of activity as doing integrals by hand - something you may do either to advance the state of the art, or recreationally, but not something you would try to do "in anger" when faced with a looming project deadline.
by WalterBright | 2025-11-30 07:05:17+00:00
> I am criticizing the idea that all it takes is “grit” and if you work really hard you will succeed.

Ok, but I did not suggest that.

Working hard is not good enough. It's necessary to work at the right things - and it is hardly obvious which are the right things. Taking risks is also necessary. The bigger the risks, the bigger the potential gains.

But nothing is guaranteed.

Spending one's youth playing video games diminishes your chances of financial success to around zero.
by metamet | 2025-11-30 07:05:47+00:00
> I really wish the computer science degrees and even online courses spent like 30 mins on the history of computer science.

Completely agree here. This would fall under the umbrella of liberal arts, which a lot of CS-only folks seem to find little to no value in.

Most concepts in computer science--especially when it comes to programming--are fairly easy to learn if you're good at learning. Reading something and understanding it to the point that you can write a proper college level essay about it trains that muscle, which is a different skill than rote memorization.