MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by embedding-shape | 2025-12-09 17:49:31+00:00
Huh, interesting. Is it that you're avoiding Mozilla from some sort of retribution, preventing you from effectively working on Waterfox in case you anger them? I'm not sure it should matter too much what Mozilla thinks about other browsers comparing themselves to Firefox, it's definitely fair usage as long as you don't try to trick people into believing Mozilla is also building Waterfox / Waterfox is somehow exactly the same as Firefox.

Just adding Firefox in your comparison table really should be fine, and kind of makes me want to ask someone at Mozilla why others would be afraid of doing so.
by marcusb | 2025-12-09 17:50:11+00:00
> The GenAI bubble is going to pop. Everyone knows that.

I think the first part of this is probably true, but I don’t think everyone knows it. A lot of people are acting like they don’t know it.

It feels like a bubble to me, but I don’t think anyone can say to a certainty that it is, or that it will pop.
by skeledrew | 2025-12-09 17:50:17+00:00
At the lower 12-hour end, if you're doing ~10 seconds per recording (remember this device is primarily for very short reminders and quick commands), that's ~4.3k recordings total. Also keep in mind that you'd only use it when it's inconvenient/undesirable to reach for your phone or any other device, so it's possible this may only be used say 5x in a day at most on average (likely far less). Which means ~2.5 years worth of usage at the lower end, and you'd only ever have to take it off if going for a swim.

Contrast to a phone that, though it has far more capability, you'd have to remember where it is before even reaching for it wherever, and usually has to be on a charger for anywhere from 30 minutes (with super charging) to a few hours daily. Or even being at a laptop/desktop, and at least having to open the relevant app, type/talk into it and then close again to return to primary task. The ring is an instant win for 24/7/365 convenient presence.
by tptacek | 2025-12-09 17:50:30+00:00
They already are against the rules here.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

(This is a broader restriction than the one you're looking for).

It's important to understand that not all of the rules of HN are on the Guidelines page. We're a common law system; think of the Guidelines as something akin to a constitution. Dan and Tom's moderation comments form the "judicial precedent" of the site; you'll find things in there like "no Internet psychiatric diagnosis" and "not owing $publicfigure anything but owing this community more" and "no nationalist flamewar" and "no hijacking other people's Show HN threads to promote your own thing". None of those are on the Guidelines page either, but they're definitely in the guidelines here.
by smallmancontrov | 2025-12-09 17:50:40+00:00
> didn't work out

In the "learn to love democracy and freedom" sense, sure, but in the economic sense? "Didn't work out" feels like a talking point stuck in 1991. Time has passed, China is the #2 economy in the world, #1 if you pick a metric that emphasizes material or looks to the future. How did they get there? By paying the private owners of our economy to sell our manufacturing base to them piece by piece -- which the private owners were both entitled and incentivized to do by the fundamental principles of capitalism. The ending hasn't been written, but it smells like the lead-up to a reversal in fortune.

As for our internal balance of power, we've been here before, and the timeline conveniently lines up to almost exactly 100 years ago. I'm hoping for another Roosevelt. It wasn't easy then, it won't be easy now, but I do think it's fundamentally possible.
by NebulaFrost923 | 2025-12-09 17:50:42+00:00
I built Flowsint in my spare time to provide a modern, durable OSINT platform for investigations: a visual graph to explore all information, automatic data standardization, flexible source management, and connections that reveal relationships hard to spot otherwise.

In cybersecurity, OSINT or CTI, analysts juggle countless tools to collect, cross-check, and understand information. Tools come and go, methods evolve… but one need remains: to centralize and clearly visualize data.

Flowsint is open-source, built on existing tools and scripts, and licensed for anyone to use and contribute. It organizes and links your data, helping analysts see the bigger picture even as tools and practices change.

Go check it out: https://www.flowsint.io

Packed with a bunch of planned features, stay tuned! I created Flowsint out of my passion for building tools and love for cybersecurity.

I'm curious to have your feedback!
by WillAdams | 2025-12-09 17:50:58+00:00
Yeah, one of the things which I always wished for when doing page composition was a way to visualize which paragraphs could be set a line or two longer or shorter while still being set reasonably nicely.

In decades of typesetting, I've had a chapter fall out almost perfectly with nicely pages and appropriately placed figures exactly once (fastest 40 minutes of my life) --- for the rest, it was:

- style the text and place the figures

- check the last page and see if it would be helped by paging tight or loose

- review all the pages and their figure placement to see which was the most problematic/egregious --- fix it

- starting at the beginning, adjust paragraph tightness as necessary, trying to get pages to balance and if need be, figures and references to be placed where the specs call for them --- if need be, adjust figure size/height/placement/style

- if one reaches the end and the selected strategy did not have the desired result, revert back to the initially styled and placed version and try the other strategy

- repeat until everything worked and everything panned out and all pages are balanced and all references/figure placements
by rozap | 2025-12-09 17:51:00+00:00
> Point I am trying to make in my rambly way is that each parent is hodge podge of various choices. And it does not work in aggregate.

On top of that, you have some of the biggest, most moneyed companies in the country spending billions of dollars to get kids and adults hooked. Even for parents with good intentions, it's not a fair fight.

Maybe I'm going off the deep end, but I sometimes think people that work at Facebook should be considered social pariahs. The amount of damage that company has done to our country and society is truly incalculable. It's really hard for me to forgive anyone who had any part in it.
by MontyCarloHall | 2025-12-09 17:51:08+00:00
That's what makes this so funny: the AI was earnestly attempting to predict the future, but it's so bad at truly out-of-distribution predictions that an AI-generated 2035 HN frontpage is hilariously stuck in the past. "The more things change, the more they stay the same" is a source of great amusement to us, but deliberately capitalizing on this was certainly not the "intent" of the AI.
by everdrive | 2025-12-09 17:51:41+00:00
Definitely agreed, I think the exact same would apply -- if there's an insightful conversation to be had about LLMs or their responses, then I think we'd all welcome it. If it's just someone saying "I asked the LLM and it said X" then we're better off without it.

Not sure how easy that would actually be to moderate, of course.
by TemptedMuse | 2025-12-09 17:51:49+00:00
Not to call you out but this is exactly what I meant when I said software engineers have egos that will not let them accept that they are not designing critical stuff.

Comparing your cloud based CRUD app to a missile is a perfect illustration. There is no dishonor in admitting that our stuff isn't going to kill anyone if there is a bug. Don't write bad code, but also sometimes just getting something out the door is much better than perfect quality (bird in the hand and all that).
by codyb | 2025-12-09 17:52:13+00:00
The Erlang space vs the Elixir space (can't speak for agent based code generation here) would seem to give credence to this theory.

When I would explore Elixir forums with much larger communities there'd be myriad base level questions with code blocks written as if Elixir and Ruby were interchangable cause the syntax looks similar and thus missing out on many of the benefits of OTP.

But when you'd go to the Erlang community to ask a question, half the time the author of the book or library was one of the like... 20 people online at any given moment, and they'd respond directly. The quality of the discussions was of course much deeper and substantial much more consistently.

I have not tried to generate Elixir vs Erlang code but maybe it'd be a neat experiment to see if the quality seems better with Erlang
by ssl-3 | 2025-12-09 17:52:16+00:00
Amusingly, the Kroger near me is almost that way already.

Log into website, fill the cart, pick a time window, and push the button to order it. Someone starts working on it nearly instantly. The order is picked and waiting in a few minutes.

It's fast as fuck. Except...

---

If someone at Kroger ever reads this, then:

That time window aspect is the part of the system falls down hard for me.

Before I order, I have to pick a window in the future when I want to pick it up/get it delivered.

"I'm ready when you are; ASAP" isn't an option. Nor is "I'm already in the parking lot, you bunch of dweebs -- just bring my stuff out. Please?"

So if it's 6:05 when I order and the next window starts at 8:00, and they're fast as fuck (as they are) and have it done in less than 15 minutes, then: I'm waiting around for more than an hour and a half for nothing.

Because until the apparently-completely-arbitrary window is reached: It won't let me check in to pick up. It won't schedule a driver. My groceries are just sitting there (ideally stored at the right temperature but I can't know this) at the store while some wallclock mechanism that was designed by an asshole runs out.

This makes the whole thing feel clunky, stupid, and insulting.

It results a system that I use only when I absolutely do not want to be inside of a grocery store, like when I'm sick as hell in January and every body part hurts. Any other time, it's way faster for me to go in the store and shop it myself.

It should be convenient. It is instead almost always a burden instead of a benefit.

If picking up a pizza from Domino's worked like this, then they'd have gone completely out of business decades ago.
by WesolyKubeczek | 2025-12-09 17:52:19+00:00
In any case, it should have some more thought to it, some summary, some highlight, what you find useful/insightful about it. Just dumping the response is lazy and disrespectful.

And if two people can get two opposite results by giving the same prompt which asks a very specific question to the same model, it looks like bunk anyway. LLMs don't care if they are correct.
by howinator | 2025-12-09 17:52:19+00:00
I played around with Detail recently and it was super helpful to point me directly to the code causing some bugs that I know I had, but wasn't sure about the root cause.

Waxing philosophical a bit, I think tools like these are going to be super helpful as our collective understanding of the codebases we own decreases over time due to the proliferation of AI generated code. I'm not making a value judgement here, just pointing out that as we understand codebases less, tools that help us track down the root causes of bugs will be more important.
by busfahrer | 2025-12-09 17:52:33+00:00
While I'm not a fan of Perl per se, I find it fascinating. One of the reasons for that is that its creator, Larry Wall, is a linguist by trade. This shows in a lot of ways, for example by the fact that, like natural languages, Perl has context: A variable can behave differently whether it is used in a scalar context or an array context. At the same time stuff like this is responsible for Perl's reputation as a write-only language, a cliche which has at least some merit to it.

I can highly recommend reading at least the first chapter of Programming Perl, it's highly insightful even if you don't plan to write or read any Perl.
by treyd | 2025-12-09 17:52:40+00:00
Claude Code is pretty good at Rust, but it works best if there's a pre-existing structure built by a human that it's operating within. Rust's error messages give rich context and are designed for humans, so it's able to figure out how to resolve its mistakes from them in ways that it simply would have to grind through in tests with trial and error in dynamic languages. And then when you do write unit tests to address logic bugs, it's able to leverage the rich context from the type system to write decent tests.

I wouldn't trust it to reliably write safe C though. It works in Rust because there's meaning embedded into the types that are checked by the compiler that gives it feedback when it makes mistakes. But you don't get that in C.
by Rebelgecko | 2025-12-09 17:52:44+00:00
This is not just about banning a source; it is about preserving the core principle of substantive, human-vetted content on HN. Allowing comments that are merely regurgitations of an LLM's generic output—often lacking context, specific experience, or genuine critical thought—treats the community as an outsourced validation layer for machine learning, rather than an ecosystem for expert discussion. It's like allowing a vending machine to contribute to a Michelin-starred chef's tasting menu: the ingredients might be technically edible, but they completely bypass the human skill, critical judgment, and passion that defines the experience. Such low-effort contributions fundamentally violate the "no shallow dismissals" guideline by prioritizing easily manufactured volume over unique human insight, inevitably degrading the platform's high signal-to-noise ratio and displacing valuable commentary from those who have actually put in the work.
by cellularmitosis | 2025-12-09 17:52:50+00:00
Did you actually try any searches? Or is this just an excuse to broadcast your feelings about AI?

The author of the Ogg format claims a bit more pessimistic range of bit depth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQ9IXSUzuM

Here are some measurements of type I, II and IV:

http://www.ant-audio.co.uk/Tape_Recording/Measurements/HD3_v...

http://www.ant-audio.co.uk/Tape_Recording/Measurements/HD3_v...

http://www.ant-audio.co.uk/Tape_Recording/Measurements/HD3_v...

Here are the specifications of a typical dbx unit: https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/dbx/222.shtml
by baq | 2025-12-09 17:52:56+00:00
> But not everyone is fortunate enough to know someone they can reach out to for grounding in reality.

this shouldn't stop you at all: write it all up, post on HN and go viral, someone will jump in to correct you and point you at sources while hopefully not calling you, or your mother, too many names.

https://xkcd.com/386/
Show HN: Agentry – AI Agents as React Components
by colinds | 2025-12-09 17:53:11+00:00
Hi HN,

Over Thanksgiving weekend I wanted to build an AI agent. As a design exercise, I wrote it as a set of React components. The component model made it easier to reason about the moving parts, composability was straightforward (e.g., reusing agents/tools), and hooks/state felt like a reasonable way to model behavior that changes over time.

As I kept experimenting, I realized I was more interested in the framework (and it was a good excuse to explore React’s internals) than in the agent I originally planned, so I built this project instead.

In this framework:

- Agents are React components.

- Agents have <Message>, <Tools>, … and even other agents as tools via <AgentTool>.

- You can mount/unmount tools based on React state, and tools can set state to change what tools are available on the next turn.

- There is a <Condition when="<natural language>" /> component that allows changing behavior based on the conversation history.

- Built-in support for code execution, web search, memory, and MCP servers through Anthropic’s API.

This is still a WIP project, but I’d love any feedback.

---

Repo: https://github.com/colinds/agentry

Selected examples:

- Hooks: https://github.com/colinds/agentry/blob/main/packages/exampl...

- Subagents: https://github.com/colinds/agentry/blob/main/packages/exampl...

- Conditions: https://github.com/colinds/agentry/blob/main/packages/exampl...
by lacoolj | 2025-12-09 17:54:04+00:00
Maybe I've been missing out, but can anyone give me a yay/nay on whether this is a worth-while 28-part-series to start from scratch and spend my time watching/reading?

Is it along the same lines as https://github.com/karpathy/llm.c/discussions/677 ?

He (karpathy) has a video series that also does something similar. I found it very informative and entertaining, even at the 1 hour + length it is (there are actually multiple videos, im not sure how long the others are).
by LogicFailsMe | 2025-12-09 17:54:46+00:00
American tech leaders are just as bad, leading the charge straight into the abyss. But if you close your mind to the rest of the world, I can see why you'd see a 0 1 choice here. That's all the corporate media and influencers write these days, all the way from Paul Krugman to Corey Doctorow. And let's not even get started on the Three Men and an ASIC house of AI circle jerkers.

I mean if you're the sort that thinks Greta Thunberg and Eliezer Yudkowsky are agents of the Antichrist, it's long overdue to touch grass. And I don't think he believes that, but I think he thought people were stupid enough to buy it so he ran with it. Can't blame him for trying!

But given the right's hatred of renewables and the left thinks nuclear power plants can explode like atomic bombs, I'd be pushing for gas and nuclear to power my data centers too.

TLDR: you're being fed a false narrative that this is a 0 1 choice, but I guess it will take the rest of the world to demonstrate that not the US.
by _flux | 2025-12-09 17:54:49+00:00
How much rechargeability really requires from hardware point of view?

I suppose the problem is that there are no standard for tiny magnetic chargers/cables. Every watch comes with their own, and they need be custom designed. For a device this large as much of the charging electronics should be outside the ring.

And another (small?) problem is that you'd need to electrically protect those external pins.
Show HN: I'm exhausted by social media chaos. This is my solution
by akku779 | 2025-12-09 17:55:02+00:00
I've been spending my time working on https://synthchat.netlify.app. It's a technical communication platform where people can share their thoughts and ideas and have technical discussions about engineering without the baggage or disruption that comes with social media. I wanted the UI to be simple, straightforward, and just stupid easy to use overall. I built this because I feel like most platforms mix technical content with noise, algorithms, and engagement farming, which makes real discussion harder than it should be. Sometimes you just want a clean space to think, ask questions, and exchange ideas with other engineers. My hope is that Synth Chat gives people a place where the conversation is the main feature-- no harsh moderation and snarky replies(cough cough Stack overflow). I'm wondering what features would take the app to the next level and improve discussion around thought provoking ideas. Let me know if you have any suggestions.
by oersted | 2025-12-09 17:55:07+00:00
Impressive work, but I'm confused on a number of fronts:

- You are serving closed models like Claude with your CTGT policy applied, yet, the way you described your method, it involves modifying internal model activations. Am I misunderstanding something here?

- Could you bake the activation interventions into the model itself rather than it being a runtime mechanism?

- Could you share the publications of the research associated with this? You stated it comes from UCSD.

- What exactly are you serving in the API? Did you select a whitelist of features to suppress you thought would be good? Which ones? Is it just the "hallucination" direction that you showcase in the benchmark? I see some vague personas, but no further control other than that. It's quite black-boxy the way you present it right now.

I don't mean this as a criticism, this looks great, I just want to understand what it is a bit better.
by pfbtgom | 2025-12-09 17:55:28+00:00
Many of the “no” comments here are very focused on the current state. The author seems to be looking at a longer time horizon of computing paradigms, for example invoking ENIAC. On that scale I tend to agree. Vibe coding has only been around a year or two and look how big of an impact it already has. Imagine what another 10 years of progress will look like.
by John23832 | 2025-12-09 17:55:35+00:00
I think this is so sad and a symptom of a world where nobody wants to accept responsibility anymore. Even the responsibility to say "no".

We see this "no no's" in VC investing, job hunting, and now your anecdote, medical trials.

People don't want to be responsible for children. The elderly. Owning a home. Maintaining society. Or to each other. Saddening really.

People are adverse to just trying often times. The responsibility of potentially failing is something they don't want...

When nobody is responsible for anything, society crumbles.
by 8organicbits | 2025-12-09 17:55:50+00:00
One of my recent blog posts got a comment like that, and I tried to reframe it as "this is poorly written", and took the opportunity to solicit constructive criticism and to reflect on my style. I think my latest post improved, and I'm glad I adjusted my style.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45652349
by Ekaros | 2025-12-09 17:56:11+00:00
I have been thinking. The reality is that in general employees are not paid for value/revenue/profit they generate. That sets the floor. But they are paid what market sets as rate for their demand. See people putting together high cost electronics. Clearly lot of value there with margins what they are, but not lot of pay.

Wouldn't AI largely be race to bottom? As such even if expensive employees get replaced, the cost of replacing them might not be that big. It might only barely cover the costs of interference for example. So might it be that profits will actually be lot lower than costs of employees that are being replaced?
by angiolillo | 2025-12-09 17:56:21+00:00
Completely agree on both counts. We do usability testing, including with keyboard-focused advanced users.

But usability testing with blind users presents some unique challenges. A past org I worked at ran some usability studies with blind users [1] and while I was only tangentially involved in that project it seemed that subject recruitment and observations were much more complex than typical usability studies. I haven't managed to run a usability study with blind participants at my current org though we have discussed ways we could recruit blind users for studies -- our software is complex enough that we'd need someone who is both blind and a prospective user of our software.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/ux/2018/08/28/visually-impaired-wo...
by never_inline | 2025-12-09 17:56:55+00:00
This is definitely based on a search or page fetch, because there are these which are all today's topics

- IBM to acquire OpenAI (Rumor) (bloomberg.com)

- Jepsen: NATS 4.2 (Still losing messages?) (jepsen.io)

- AI progress is stalling. Human equivalence was a mirage (garymarcus.com)
by alternatex | 2025-12-09 17:56:55+00:00
Economics don't work like that though. Google has the benefits of economies of scale and stable manufacturing partnerships, not to mention probably a lot more of the watch parts are designed in-house. I'd be surprised if Pebble could achieve anything close to the Pixel hardware for even twice the price.

It seems like Pebble is focusing on a niche market and this new product seems completely in line with that. There are plenty of other companies targeting the common folk who have no desire to optimize their life like this.