MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by JuniperMesos | 2025-11-06 19:25:30+00:00
> Cerquiglini argues that the role of French in the birth of the English language was much deeper than is generally admitted. It is the French influence, he says, that saved English from being just another variant of Dutch. As such it was French that equipped English to become the language of international communication, a state of affairs which should be celebrated as la francophonie’s greatest achievement.

This sounds like either unfalsifiable bullshit being portrayed as scholarship, or deliberate trolling by a French guy who likes French and wants to mock English-speakers. I'd have more respect for the latter, since at least that's just making fun of a more powerful neighboring culture (a fun pastime for everyone) rather than trying to assert real facts about the world.
by umanwizard | 2025-11-06 19:25:46+00:00
It is not straightforward to define a metric like this. What counts as an "English word" ? There are books full of the scientific names of plant and animal species, which usually come from Latin; do these count as "English words" ? What's the cutoff?

IMO, a much better metric is frequency-weighted; that is, taking some corpus of real English and counting the words in it, rather than weighting "every English word" with the value 1.

If you do this frequency-weighted analysis, Old English is far ahead of French and Latin combined (especially in colloquial speech; they're closer in formal writing).
by anon291 | 2025-11-06 19:26:02+00:00
Yeah, that's correct. Democrats aren't made the same. Austin has built the most housing. YIMBY-ism is just free market conservatism economic policy dressed up in liberal language. Most people vote based off of vibes, not actual policy. If you restate the case for YIMBY-ism in conservative terms, you get conservatives to vote for you and liberals shy away. If you restate it in social justice terms, then you get liberals, and conservatives shy away. Policy is the same. The people are stupid.
by zamadatix | 2025-11-06 19:26:18+00:00
Again, it's not that all telehealth doctors are great at this, it's that LLMs are awful at caving in to saying something with warnings the reader will opt to ignore instead of being adamant things are just too uncertain to say anything of value when continually prompted.

This is largely because an LLM guessing an answer is rewarded more often than just not answering, which is not true in the healthcare profession.
by idle_zealot | 2025-11-06 19:26:31+00:00
> What protests are Democrats cracking down on? And don't try to go back to the 1960's to try to make a point.

They're quite consistent. Under Biden we cracked down on anti-genocide protests just like under Trump.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/may/01/columbia-unive...

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2024/05/02/police-shoot-rubber...

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestine-gaza-war-univers...

The Democrat stronghold and seat of power, New York, prohibits any organization boycotting Israel from receiving State contracts or funding. Cuomo was pushing for a redefinition of antisemitism to include opposition to Israel's actions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws#New_York

When it comes to military activity and foreign financial interests neither will put up with public dissent. The tide on this specific issue seems to be turning, but their genocide defense will no doubt fuel a rise in antisemitism that will hurt jewish people worldwide for decades to come.
by vel0city | 2025-11-06 19:27:02+00:00
People cooking it up domestically? Its not hard to make (if you don't mind killing some people) and its ingredients can be commonly found in the US.

Through small parcels from China mixed in with regular mail? People mail weed all the time and that's also illegal to go through the mail. A small parcel can carry many thousands of doses with high enough purity.

Most fentanyl in the US probably has little to no connection to Venezuela. Probably lots of other drugs, sure, but not fentanyl.

A lethal amount of fentanyl can be as small as 1-2mg. So enough fentanyl to kill 100k people would be like 50ish grams. Its not nearly some massive amount of material like you seem to think it is.
by vharuck | 2025-11-06 19:28:13+00:00
>Because drug cartels are a huge problem and local governments are often very bad at handling them.

True, but the legal precedent this sets is very important. The requirement for sound legal justification is the only leverage the Judicial branch has. Today's Supreme Court may be too deferential to the President, but that's not to say they don't have a line (listen to yesterday's hearing on tariffs). Also, the Supreme Court a decade from now will rely on today's justifications.

I do not want to give any President the power to unilaterally conduct military killings of people he considers a terrorist. For this specific President, remember that he's declared Antifa a terrorist organization. And that he has very casually accused a lot of citizens as being in Antifa before.
by karakanb | 2025-11-06 19:28:17+00:00
I have been recently looking into extracting a bunch of details from a set of legacy invoice PDFs and had a subpar experience. Gemini was the best among the ones that I tried, but even that missed quite a bit. I'll definitely give this a look.

It seems like such a crowded space and there are many tools doing document extraction, I wonder if there's anything particular pulling more attention into the space?
by tgtweak | 2025-11-06 19:28:25+00:00
The larger systems (solar + AC Inverter + home-scale battery):

PowerHub Core (2 kW AC inverter 230VAC, 2.5kWh lfp battery storage, 1800-2700W solar panels - ₦48,000 per week, 80 weekly payments, ₦240,000 down payment ₦4,080,000 ($2,836.94 USD) financed or ₦2,400,000 ($1668.79 USD) buy outright

PowerHub Plus (3.3kW AC inverter 230VAC, 5.0 kWh lfp battery storage, 1800-3600W solar panels - ₦64,000 per week, 80 weekly payments, ₦320,000 down payment ₦5,440,000 ($3782.58 USD) financed or ₦3,200,000 ($2225.05 USD) buy outright

= yields ~47,600kWh over 10 years, =$0.0350-0.0795/kWh (2.5kWh/1800W system bought outright vs 5kWh/1800W system on finance), very competitive, with storage included.

These are the "starting from" costs - so likely the with 1800w of panels on both systems.

Pretty crazy cost of financing, but still pretty reasonably priced for an installed, warrantied system. For reference, that's cheaper than most of these ecoflow-style "solar generators" with ~3.3kWh batteries, 3000W output and 4x400W solar panels cost here (typically $4500-5000 USD).
Show HN: On Device AI TTS Extension
by SambhavGupta | 2025-11-06 19:28:26+00:00
I made an on-device AI TTS extension using the WebGPU implementation of Kokoro TTS, the highest-rated open source TTS according to TTS arena. It runs model inference fully in your browser, so no server costs and it's secure.

It was pretty easy to get the TTS working since the hard part (inference in javascript/webAssembly/webGPU) was done for me. I added some quality of life features on top: click to jump to a different paragraph, alt j & k for down and up, speed control, and voices (though the default voice has the highest quality).

I made the extension mainly because I noticed how good AI TTS was getting, yet every easy way to run TTS in the browser always used the old robotic non-AI voices that are hard to listen to for more than a few minutes.

Extension is open source: https://github.com/SambhavG/tts-extension. Unfortunately it's not on Firefox as I had issues with getting WebGPU and kokoro.js on Firefox to cooperate.
by jasongilman | 2025-11-06 19:28:30+00:00
Natural Language Geocoding lets you convert natural language descriptions of spatial areas, like "In Virginia, within 1km of the Potomac River, North of Alexandria" into a polygon. It's open source on GitHub https://github.com/element84/natural-language-geocoding

Regular geocoding is just converting an address into a point of latitude and longitude. If you want to let users find things on the Earth they need to be able to describe the area in their text. For example, "Show me all the solar panels within 50 miles of Boston." Natural Language Geocoding uses an LLM enabled approach to extract out the spatial portions of those questions into a set of spatial operations. Then those spatial operations are run to compute things like place look ups: 1. Find a polygon for Boston" and 2. Add a buffer of 50 miles. This approach allows for a frugal use of tokens with the LLM. It's only converting the text into a set of spatial operations.

Natural Language Geocoding also produces polygons for areas which are much more useful than points when you need to find items within an area or for performing scientific calculations on the results, like "What's the average sea surface temperature in the Gulf of Mexico within 20 km of Florida in June"
by Agingcoder | 2025-11-06 19:28:46+00:00
Point taken, thanks a lot for playing along.

I’ll do all the things if ever needed, but I get that if a cloud act request happens , your cloud provider will be able to get your stuff.

I’m specialized enough in another field to know that I’m not a security person in spite of my interest in it ( I used to enjoy reverse engineering back in the days ) - I wouldn’t make that kind of decision without consulting a professional first.
by pksebben | 2025-11-06 19:28:58+00:00
There are some things that we can define as "definitely true as close as makes no difference" in the context of an LLM:

- dictionary definitions - stable apis for specific versions of software - mathematical proofs - anything else that is true by definition rather than evidence-based

(i realize that some of these are not actually as stable over time as they might seem, but they ought to do good enough with the pace that we train new models at).

If you even just had an MOE component whose only job was verifying validity against this dataset in chain-of-thought I bet you'd get some mileage out of it.
by lenkite | 2025-11-06 19:29:08+00:00
They are more complicated than you state. Crew need to navigate long distances in open ocean, handle rough weather, and perform docking/unloading. These subs have control systems, ballast tanks and pumps. You need both training and experience.

Mismanagement can cause swamping or sinking. The management loses their vessel and their cargo.

Basically, "just random poor farmers that took a pay day from a cartel" is simply not possible.
by kazinator | 2025-11-06 19:29:14+00:00
> This simplifies visual analysis: chords like [uncopyable image of color bars] and other structures become visible, scores become readable and interpretable.

The colors are hard-coded to pitches, and so change upon transpositions. For instance a V-I cadence in different keys is functionally the same, but will be colored differently.

It does help highlight common tones between nearby chords.

Other than that, it's not doing anything for me in terms of seeing function.
by Scoundreller | 2025-11-06 19:30:10+00:00
My thought was to share it with the lights, so you get an early indication if/when there is a fault than just your fridge going out.

> But also helps avoid the case where your coffee maker trips the breaker shared with your refrigerator and you don't notice until the food in the refrigerator is warm.

Didn’t notice the coffee was cold?

Overall, given the massive fears of a fridge failure, which can happen beyond just electrical failures, very very very few people have any kind of monitoring/alarming for this event. You’d think that would be the first requirement.
Ask HN: Has DuckDuckGo ever had it's own index?
by n1xis10t | 2025-11-06 19:30:25+00:00
They say they have their own crawler, but it must just be for instant answers because all of the “blue links” come from Bing. Did they ever have their own index which added to the results? What was DuckDuckGo like when it started?

Part of why I ask this is because Gabriel Weinberg (top dog at DDG) is quoted as saying, “[Y]ou can get to an 80/20 pretty quickly” in this court document: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18552824/1436/united-states-of-america-v-google-llc/

He is talking about the 80/20 problem, which is supposedly that it isn’t too hard to make a search engine that can answer 80% of queries, but it takes more effort to be able to answer the remaining 20%.

The problem is, if DuckDuckGo has never had it’s own index what would Gabriel know about the 80/20 problem? Seems like he would only know what he’s heard from other people.
by npinsker | 2025-11-06 19:30:32+00:00
The request by itself is fine; it's not about that, but about the nuance within the word choice and what it conveys.

It appears the OP is an incredibly valuable community member that has been deeply affronted and hurt by the recent changes. Any attitude other than "I'll move heaven and earth to make this right for you" will likely feel insufficient. Even failing that, I'd at least expect an attitude of "I really, REALLY don't want this to ever happen again". I see neither.

The staff member comes off as robotic because there's zero conciliatory tone or admission of wrongdoing at all in the message. "I'm sorry you feel this way [about the workflow]" puts the onus on OP, and doesn't convey a hint of remorse -- even "I'm sorry our workflow has intruded on yours" would of course be better. "Would you be interested" should be "Would you be willing"; "to talk about this further" could be "so we can better understand what went wrong".

These nuances matter a lot when people are offended. If they're this incompetent at communication over text, I don't know that I'd bother with a video call.
by zamadatix | 2025-11-06 19:30:33+00:00
It's not about whether abstractions exist, it's about whether the jargon for them requires remembering long lists of services from index cards so you equate "AWS Fargate" with "AWS Serverless Containers" and having the certification training teach you to say the whole stack that way so nobody but AWS certified people know what the hell you've proposed or built is.

I've built plenty of things with AWS and a lot of the technology is quite good, but it's not about that.
by HarHarVeryFunny | 2025-11-06 19:30:44+00:00
Software development is one of the areas where LLMs really are useful, whether that's vibe coding disposable software, or more structured use for serious development.

I've been a developer for 40+ years, and very good at it, but for some tasks it's not about experience or overcoming complexity - just a bunch of grunt work that needs to come together. The other day I vibe coded a prototype app, just for one-time demo use, in less than 15 min that probably would have taken a week to write by hand, assuming one was already familiar with the tech stack.

Developing is fun, and a brain is a terrible thing to waste, but today not using LLMs where appropriate for coding doesn't make any sense if you value your time whatsoever.
by mc32 | 2025-11-06 19:31:05+00:00
They’re just mad they lost the “lingua Franca” of the world title so this is the way for them to hang on to the coattails of relevance. The Normans didn’t even speak Parisian French but a Breton variant and also had with them some Norse words they kept. But they can pretend.

The only thing that made French and English afterwards the lingua francas of the world was the commerce/trade and innovation offered by their speakers.

We could all be using Spanish or Chinese as the lingua Franca if either of them had more influence in the world.
by burkaman | 2025-11-06 19:31:09+00:00
The military has told Congress they don't know either.

> [The department officials] said that they do not need to positively identify individuals on these vessels to do the strikes, they just need to prove a connection to a designated terrorist organization or affiliate

- https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/30/dod-military-strike...

The most generous possible interpretation is that they have no idea who is on the boat, but they have evidence that somebody associated with the boat has some connection to an organization that they have designated as "terrorists".

When Pete Hegseth leaked a military strike on Signal, the specific strike they were discussing was blowing up a residential apartment building because the target was visiting his girlfriend there. “The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed”. So in this case ~100% of the victims, besides one guy, were unidentified civilians. I think this is an instructive example to see how these people (don't) think about killing civilians.
by yjftsjthsd-h | 2025-11-06 19:31:20+00:00
Ah, right. TBH I mostly just don't do that, but I did throw together a script that takes a URL and just puts it on the clipboard and uses notify-send to tell you about it, so I can just paste into whichever window I want (and then tell the system that that script is my preferred "browser" to open http(s) URLs). This obviously adds a little friction, but it makes it trivial to open links in any browser/profile/window/tab-group I want.
by youoy | 2025-11-06 19:31:43+00:00
The reward functions in the problems that they proposed alphaevolve are easy. The reward funtions of at least 50% of maths are not. You can say that validating if a proof is correct is a straightforward reward, but the size of interesting theorems over the space of all theorems is very small. And also what does "interesting" could even mean?
by saurik | 2025-11-06 19:31:44+00:00
I just wish the default way people used archive.is was to generate their long form link instead of their short link, as, if the site ever goes down, all of the links people have posted where they don't change the setting and thereby paste the default inscrutable code link will be destroyed... building a service with a pernicious behavior like that is ALSO not okay in its own way.
by Amezarak | 2025-11-06 19:31:53+00:00
Credits are applied after you take the standard deduction. You subtract the standard deduction, figure out your taxable income, then subtract credits and taxes already paid.

> These aren’t wealthy people filing with CPAs. These are lower income folks who specifically benefited from the IRS direct file program.

Lower income people were not using IRS direct file. That’s would be the economically rational thing to do, but this is exactly the market the strip mall CPA target. They also offer advances. I have tried and tried and tried to get lower income people to use free or direct file. Virtually none are interested. They have “their guy” who is getting them a great refund.
by limagnolia | 2025-11-06 19:31:56+00:00
By building the initial rails cheaply, they could then bring in equipment and supplies over those rails to rebuild the railroad to a much better quality, and at a lower cost than if they had to bring that equipment and supplies in without the rails in the first instance.

That doesn't mean they always actually invested the money to rebuild properly... but it was sound engineering theory.

Of course, there were other financial shenanigans too- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9dit_Mobilier_scandal
by radialstub | 2025-11-06 19:32:01+00:00
The mathematically correct way to distribute the winnings is 50-50. In a situation where value is created only if 2 entities come together, the only fair way to distribute the winnings is 50-50. If Alice provided $1m dollars of startup capital, but can only achieve her goal having Bob on the team. Mathematically, Bob should be entitled to half the profits. In your game Bob is clearly being disadvantaged. Real life doesn't typically have the constraint "In addition, they have no ability to communicate or negotiate the offer; it's a one and done thing". Without this constraint, Bob can act rationally by threatening and following through with spitefulness in order to negotiate better terms. If Alice is not willing to negotiate until the fairness mark is reached, they are just as liable for the net loss in value.
by warp | 2025-11-06 19:32:08+00:00
I installed some IKEA bulbs and switches with the IKEA dirigera hub, and had a terrible time. For example a LED strip lost connection a few times, and wouldn't connect on its own without unplugging/plugging.

I replaced the hub with a Home Assistant Green with ZHA, and I haven't had any issues since.

So in my experience each of the devices seem fine over Zigbee, but the hub doesn't seem verify good.
by randycupertino | 2025-11-06 19:32:33+00:00
My favorite Mark Zuckerberg neighbor anecdote is the guy who is surrounded on 3 sides by all properties Zuckerberg snatched up however has refused multiple offers by Zuckerberg's "people:" https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/us/mark-zuckerberg-palo-a...
by disgruntledphd2 | 2025-11-06 19:32:42+00:00
> Weird thing to fixate about when the whole industry actually uses MAUs.

Are you kidding me? Like, both Google and Facebook tracked l7, l28 which is the number of days that a person/account logged in over the last 7 or 28 days. Fundamentally, that's the sign of a useful product, in that people keep coming back.

> 800M WAU is a "losing company"?

Not enough information to be sure. If their business model requires selling dollars for fifty cents, then maybe.

I don't doubt the utility of these products (sometimes), but I do doubt the business model behind OpenAI & Anthropic (the "pure" model providers).
by timini | 2025-11-06 19:32:58+00:00
HaluMem introduces the first benchmark for evaluating hallucinations in agent memory systems at the operation level. Through three evaluation tasks (memory extraction, updating, and question answering), it reveals that existing memory systems generate and accumulate hallucinations during early stages, which then propagate errors downstream. The benchmark uses two datasets spanning different context scales to systematically reveal these failure modes.
by analog31 | 2025-11-06 19:33:29+00:00
That's a good point. In fact, I'm not a full time musician, but performing is my only source of musical income. I've never bothered with trying to make money from recordings.

I do know some indie artists who make a bit of extra money at performances selling CDs to people who still buy them. I think it takes advantage of the immediacy of the moment, and the fact that a lot of people are actually not savvy about finding stuff online.
by rdm_blackhole | 2025-11-06 19:33:30+00:00
Yes unfortunately.

My parent's in law live on small farm 10 minutes out of a small town in NSW and on the best days, when the sky is clear, they get 1 bar of phone reception on their cell phone and they have to stay within a 10 sqm perimeter within their house in order to make phone calls otherwise calls drop out.

Video chat is basically out of the question unless you want to talk to pixelated blobs on a screen.

After waiting 10 years for the NBN to be rolled out to their property, they decided to bite the bullet and bought a Starlink terminal and now we can have normal conversations on the phone and they can use streaming services whereas that would have been impossible before.

But it is not just them that have issues. When I was living in Brisbane many moons ago, I remember how pitiful the internet speed was so much so that I ditched my home internet and started hot-spotting from my phone instead.

Things have improved in the cities since then I am sure, but for the people out there living in the country side, not much as changed.
by simonw | 2025-11-06 19:34:08+00:00
It still feels really early to me. There is so much for us to figure out about how to best use this stuff - if model progress froze today I think we could still spend the next year figuring out new ways to take advantage of what we have today.

Claude Skills just a few weeks ago was one of those ideas that's obvious in hindsight but hadn't been baked into an idea yet.