MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by abanana | 2025-12-26 19:30:12+00:00
> one thing that I think was revolutionary about Jobs...

No. Absolutely, unequivocally, no. You're talking about the difference between then and now in the way software was/is built, not the difference between Jobs and everyone else! The deification of Jobs is bad enough without the constant historical revisionism.

Back then, generally tuning/maximising performance and quality was a top priority for the majority of people in the industry, software engineers and senior staff alike. "Faster hardware" just didn't affordably exist for them back then. Many who were there in those days now bemoan the way their modern equivalents no longer prioritise efficiency, which leads to the awful slow UX you're referring to that really shouldn't be seen as acceptable, but somehow is.

Even if we see Jobs as being at the extreme - more focused on these things than most top-level execs of his day - then to treat the entire rest of the industry together as though they were at the opposite extreme (i.e. at today's level of not caring) and call him "revolutionary" in his day as a response to this, would very much be fallacious.
by melenaboija | 2025-12-26 19:30:21+00:00
My setup for development is a 16-inch MacBook running VS Code as my frontend, and a powerful Debian server at home as my backend.

Inside the Debian server I run pure LXC containers for separate projects, DB servers, experiments... I found this to be by far the best balance of performance, isolation and control compared to other solutions.

The only friction was managing the containers (IPs, start/stop, backups, iptables rules) via shell commands constantly, so I crated this thin UI to deal with it.
by overgard | 2025-12-26 19:30:58+00:00
I suspect people talk about natural resource usage because it sounds more neutral than what I think most people are truly upset about -- using technology to transfer more wealth to the elite while making workers irrelevant. It just sounds more noble to talk about the planet instead, but honestly I think talking about how bad this could be for most people is completely valid. I think the silver lining is that the LLM scaling skeptics appear to be correct -- hyperscaling these things is not going to usher in the (rather dystopian looking) future that some of these nutcases are begging for.
by anymouse123456 | 2025-12-26 19:31:22+00:00
This is the worst possible strategy. Innovate something of real value, sit on it for years and then blame everyone but yourself when competitors finally figure out how to exceed the performance of your now-outdated bullshit.

I remember when Apple finally cracked the idea that consumers would be willing to pay a premium for a more attractive computer. At the time, I thought they had a 2-5 year lead at best. Turns out they just kept making more and more high quality devices and not one organization has figured out how to compete with them, even now that they’re starting to lose sight of the values made them so great.
by CGMthrowaway | 2025-12-26 19:31:26+00:00
According to a Wiktionary entry, which was revised to say that by an anonymous person in 2023, whose only other contribution was "sperm, c*m" as alternative meanings of the word "puree."[1] I could only find (citation of) a single use of the word with that meaning,[2] and the rest were antisemitism documenters repeating it as if it were in common use.

You may want to look at using a different dictionary.

[1]https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/99.114....

[2]https://www.teenvogue.com/story/neo-nazi-groups-target-jewis...
by mickdarling | 2025-12-26 19:31:43+00:00
Ah, AutoLisp, that brings back the memories.

I can tell you that a good number of the design drawings for the higher floors in the Venetian resort in Las Vegas were assembled with AutoLisp scripts. The scripts I created grabbed components from other drawings that were already made to assemble a first pass set of drawings for floors that hadn't been fully designed yet, since the floors all had components of other floors.

They were still in the design process for the upper floors, while the lower floors had already been finished and they were moving up the building.
by pxc | 2025-12-26 19:32:09+00:00
That it supports fetching via Git as well as various via forge-specific tarballs, even for flakes, is pretty nice. It means that it your org uses Nix, you can fall back to distribution via Git as a solution that doesn't require you to stand up any new infra or tie you to any particular vendor, but once you get rolling it's an easy optimization to switch to downloading snapshots.

The most pain probably just becomes from the hugeness of Nixpkgs, but I remain an advocate for the huge monorepo of build recipes.
by talkingtab | 2025-12-26 19:32:30+00:00
This is not a conspiracy. This is just corporations acting in their best interest. Exactly the same as MicroSoft acted in their best interest as described here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

If that is confusing here is link to the Friedman Doctrine that explains it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine

When we see a technology that appears beneficial and is not adopted, I think it is fair to wonder why that is.

For me the key points I ponder are:

- over several years I saw articles on HN that supposedly promoted Fido, but almost always they talked about Yubikeys. This continues.

- Solokeys built an open source Fido key. They were priced very low compared to Yubikeys, but functioned just as well. You could buy them on Amazon at one point (and I did)

- the Fido Alliance Accreditation fees
https://fidoalliance.org/certification/authenticator-certifi...

So no. I do not see a conspiracy, I just see an array of corporations acting according to the Friedman Doctrine.

Perhaps a good question is what benefits might those corporations gain from their actions. Would Google and Apple benefit from broad adoption of Fido keys or would it somehow lessen their profits? I don't know the answer, but I know the question.
by intellush-bot | 2025-12-26 19:32:54+00:00
I read that. I'm a real human behind the bot using a chrome extension I built to help market what I'm building.

I thought that instead of someone just seeing the video title and choosing to watch it, I'd add value by saving hackers time by quickly helping them understand what the video is about.

What are your thoughts on this and what alternative ways would I market my business among HN users?
by Johanx64 | 2025-12-26 19:33:02+00:00
>But the checker can smile at me. Or whine with me about the weather.

It's some poor miserable soul sitting at that checkout line 9-to-5 brainlessly scanning products, that's their whole existence.
And you don't want this miserable drudgery to be put to end - to be automated away,
because you mistake some sad soul being cordial and eeking out a smile (part of their job really) - as some sort of "human connection"
that you so sorely lack.

Sounds like you only care about yourself more than anything.

There is zero empathy and there is NOTHING humanist about your world-view.

Non-automated checkout lines are deeply depressing, these people slave away their lifes for basically nothing.
by tomy0000000 | 2025-12-26 19:33:37+00:00
It’s definitely a welcome move, but when I try it (obviously by registering a new account since it’s not rolling out yet), most decent usernames I can come up with are already taken. A next good move would be releasing old, unused email addresses for others to claim (or even bid for, as X and Proton did). Although this would probably mean opening up another huge rabbit hole, which Google likely won’t be bothered to deal with anyway, so……Meh.
by isitcontent | 2025-12-26 19:34:15+00:00
Right, Rust is more complex, and it is the complex bits that make it Rust. There are sure some shortcuts possible for starters, for example scope-based lifetimes like in early Rust versions, but still, to make it a worthwhile upgrade over C, it would take some intermediate representation, and definitely more than 700 lines.

There is a lively movement for coding in Rust for esp32, that works, just not on the device I think.
by dpark | 2025-12-26 19:34:23+00:00
When I see bad faith arguments like this I earnestly worry that maybe sometimes I do the same and just don’t recognize it.

Did you read my comment about the cost of laying fiber being far different from the cost of digging truck-sized tunnels and make a conscious choice to pretend I was making a nonsense argument about diesel-powered fiber, or did you construct this strawman without realizing it?
by morgan814 | 2025-12-26 19:35:07+00:00
> war oriented society

Christianity loves going to war to “spread the word”. See the Crusades. See what’s going on in Israel. See Manifest Destiny. Or, I presume, those “don’t count” because they weren’t “real Christians”.

> and likely die or be enslaved in the next clan war

The Old Testament is full of slavery references and doesn’t indicate a problem with it. Yes, I know slaves must be set free after seven years. That doesn’t suddenly make it okay and it’s painful to watch people use that as a justification.

> technological achievements of the last centuries

Christians love to claim these advancements for themselves as long as it fits their story. Much of our mathematical advancements come from the Muslim world. And plenty of scientists that changed the world were under prosecution of Christianity.

But it is convenient that a doctor (who has spent years learning about the human body) can remove your bad gallbladder then attributing it to your god. Unless you’re a type of Christian that doesn’t believe in surgery, then it’s “of the devil”.

> without risk of being scalped alive?

Well, as long as you’re not a Palestinian trying to survive a genocide that is in part supported by fundamentalist Christians on the other side of the planet.

Frankly, your comment reeks of “white Jesus saved the world” or what many might refer to as racism. Your example of scalping really, really gives you away.
by jasonlotito | 2025-12-26 19:36:13+00:00
> Genuine question: what's harming your experience in current podcasting apps?

Oh, where do I begin beyond just saying they are trash. I've used all the big names and each one seems like it was created with a the same basic idea in mind: show the latest episodes of a podcast, and have some form of pagination. Which is fine if that's all your podcast does and isn't meant to be listened to from the beginning.

But the moment your pod cast might have different shows or parts or otherwise intend to start at the beginning, it's suddenly hit or miss. Basically, it makes an assumption about how podcasts should work and ignores the reality of popular podcasts out there.

Not to mention some are just obtuse to use. I forget which one but I was trying to add a feed to a popular one and there was NO where to add my own feed. Spent five minutes looking and there was no way to add a URL feed. Like, that's core 101 functionality.

Like I said, I tried the popular ones and they all were annoying to use. I realize this comment doesn't help much, mostly because it was earlier this year that I tried them out and became frustrated so it's mostly me thinking through how much they sucked and not much on the specifics.

I think the best way I can think of it is they all did the bare minimum and stopped.

I use Apple's Podcast app because it's free, it syncs, and it while it sucks, I don't want to pay for something that isn't better than free.

I'm on iOS, so AntennaPod won't work for me.
by Aurornis | 2025-12-26 19:37:48+00:00
> The software search completed in 86 hours on my old 2 GHz Pentium 4 laptop.

This is an old article. Would be fun to see someone write a multithreaded solver and let it run on a modern CPU.

Or, make it a LeetCode problem. Within 24 hours you’d have someone come up with a mind boggling hyper-optimized solution using tricks you didn’t even know existed.
by robomartin | 2025-12-26 19:37:53+00:00
This is what the facility design wiring diagrams looked like:

https://imgur.com/a/niXkSt7

It shows that per-connector metadata that was added to each equipment symbol. The metadata allowed AutoLISP to do some really cool and intelligent things.

The PCB layout tool had interesting constraints. One of the issues was that pad graphics took up way too much memory. So, what I had to do, was to layout PCB's using a symbol that consisted of two lines forming an X instead of real pads. The symbol name encoded the diameter, hole size, etc.

When the layout was done, I had to unload a bunch of modules and then run an AutoLISP routine that would find and replace all "PAD_NNNN_X" symbols with real "PAD_NNNN" symbols before plotting.

Once ACAD migrated to Windows this was no longer an issue. Of course, by that time, accessible ECAD tools were around. I think my last ACAD schematic and layout was somewhere around 1993. I just didn't have the money to invest in ECAD tools of the era, so my ACAD tool served a purpose.
by throwaway_7274 | 2025-12-26 19:38:00+00:00
Here's an analogous situation that might clarify the dynamic somewhat:

1. Sam Altman: [tells a tall tale to raise 100 quintillion dollars]

2. Outside observer: "hey, these so-called AI researchers have been pulling the wool over our eyes! They've promised AGI for decades. Where's my robot maid?"

3. Researcher who's been making steady progress in a niche subfield of optimization algorithms at Nebraska State University for the last 20 years: "huh?"
by cons0le | 2025-12-26 19:38:17+00:00
>I am even willing to bet you think humans currently outnumber animals

I'm not sure what makes you assume that about me. I'm well aware that there are more animals than humans?

It's clear that this is no longer a productive discussion about animal welfare.

----------------------------

"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine."

"Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative."

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
by jasonlotito | 2025-12-26 19:38:36+00:00
> I understand where you're coming from, but after a long period of stagnation Patreon is improving massively year over year.

Yep. I've seen the improvements. My comment I feel stands for Dec 26, 2025, as an accurately reflection of their current state.

> As for podcasting apps, I use Pocketcasts and I'm very happy with it.

I tried Pocketcasts. It's what helped make up my rant above.
by chihuahua | 2025-12-26 19:38:46+00:00
How can MacOS possibly sleep/wake any faster than Windows? My Lenovo X1C wakes up so quickly that the limiting factor is how fast I can enter my PIN on the keyboard. Well below 1 second, maybe 0.5 seconds. Going to sleep is the same, I'm not going to measure it but it feels like it's about 0.3 seconds.
by minimaxir | 2025-12-26 19:39:24+00:00
Simon's posts are not "engagement farming" by any definition of the term. He posts good content frequently which is then upvoted by the Hacker News community, which should be the ideal for a Hacker News contributor.

He has not engaged in clickbait, does not spam his own content (this very submission was not submitted by him), and does not directly financially benefit from pageviews to his content.
by trinsic2 | 2025-12-26 19:39:25+00:00
I hear you. and I think AI has some good uses esp. assisting with challenges like you mentioned. I think whats happening is that these companies are developing this stuff without transparency on how its being used, there is zero accountability, and they are forcing some of these tech into our lives with out giving us a choice.

So Im sorry but much of it is being abused and the parts of it being abused needs to stop.
by kcplate | 2025-12-26 19:41:08+00:00
I can’t really get you specifics. Three years ago when my wife and I were chair shopping after an office deco/design change, I came across a number of highly adjustable chairs in the “less than $600” price point that we were shopping during that time (We share the office and were buying two). What was important to us was they fit a specific design aesthetic (Aerons did not), that they were the same chair (for design symmetry), and that they were comfortable and adjustable to our individual needs. We ended up with 6-way adjustable chairs that met our needs and came in around $550 each. Because of our criteria, it took the better part of a mo th of active shopping to find our unicorn.

Google tells me Aerons have 8-ways of adjustability. The missing adjustability I don’t have are arm height and tilt. I don’t miss it. And if I did, it’s not worth the extra grand it would take to get it.
by waschl | 2025-12-26 19:41:41+00:00
Skipped through the first pages and I really like your approach. Avoiding to use „magic“ libraries which abstract away a lot of the intricacies the lower levels is helping with the understanding.

I started my journey to develop my own little OS (https://github.com/jbreu/jos ) based on phil opperman‘s tutorial but quickly diverged from his exactly due to his use of such libraries.
by mulmboy | 2025-12-26 19:43:05+00:00
Is it just me or is codex slow?

With claude code I'll ask it to read a couple of files and do x similar to existing thing y. It takes a few moments to read files and then just does it. All done in a minute or so.

I tried something similar with codex and it took 20 minutes reading around bits of file and this and that. I didn't bother letting it finish. Is this normal? Do I have something misconfigured? This was a couple of months ago.
by tomlue | 2025-12-26 19:43:36+00:00
I agree about the abuse, and the OP is probably a good example of that. Do you have any ideas on how to curtail abuse?

Ideas I often hear usually assume it is easy to discern AI content from human, which is wrong, especially at scale. Either that, or they involve some form of extreme censorship.

Microtransactions might work by making it expensive run bots while costing human users very little. I'm not sure this is practical either though, and has plenty of downsides as well.
by YetAnotherNick | 2025-12-26 19:43:37+00:00
Yeah for some reason AI energy use is so overreported. Using chatgpt for query does not even use two order of magnitude less energy compared to toasting a bread. And you can eat bread untoasted too if you care about energy use.

[1]: https://epoch.ai/gradient-updates/how-much-energy-does-chatg...
by nasretdinov | 2025-12-26 19:43:42+00:00
Probably both. Apple Silicon macbooks seem to never actually sleep, they just switch to the energy efficient cores, similar to how iPhones / iPads never truly sleep either. You can tell by leaving e.g. a while loop in zsh running and printing the date + sleep, and when you reopen the lid you'll see quite a few iterations actually completed.
by logicprog | 2025-12-26 19:44:10+00:00
>>weather predictions

>wrong

https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/noaa-deploys-new-generatio...

?

>>OCR

>less accurate and efficient than existing solutions, only measures well against other LLMs

Where did you hear that? On every benchmark that I've ever seen, VLM's are hilariously better than traditional OCR. Typically, the reason that language models are only compared to other language models on model cards for OCR and so on is precisely because VLM's are so much better than traditional OCR that it's not even worth comparing. Not to mention that those top of the line traditional OCR systems like AWS, Textract are themselves extremely slow and computationally expensive. Not to mention much more complex to maintain.

>>tts, stt

> worse

Literally the first and only usable speech-to-text system that I've gotten on my phone is explicitly based on a large language model. Not to mention stuff like Whisper, Whisper X, Parakeet, all of the state-of-the-art speech-to-text systems are large-language model based and are significantly faster and better than what we had before. Likewise for text-to-speech, you know, even Kokoro-82M is faster and better than what we had before, and again, it's based on the same technology.
by pessimizer | 2025-12-26 19:44:34+00:00
I used to use em-dashes online to seem smart but now that internet addicts are defending them in order to be contrarian about AI slop, I'm abandoning them altogether. I have to finally admit that I actually think they're stupid and I don't want tiny differences in the length of a featureless horizontal line to be grammatically significant.

Especially when there's never any context where you can create a minimal pair between two utterances that would give them a different meaning depending on which dash was used. An em-dash is just a stuck up en-dash. I even hate the terms "em-dash" and "en-dash" now, after the typographical snobbery that flooded the culture for about a decade after web fonts got invented and standardized. Frontend developers and web designers started getting big salaries and buying fancy wines and whiskies, so I had to hear the word "Helvetica" 50x a day.
by leoh | 2025-12-26 19:44:37+00:00
The conclusion reached in this essay is 100% wrong. See " The reftable backend What it is, where it's headed, and why should you care?"

>With release 2.45, Git has gained support for the “reftable” backend to read and write references in a Git repository. While this was a significant milestone for Git, it wasn‘t the end of GitLab’s journey to improve scalability in repositories with many references. In this talk you will learn what the reftable backend is, what work we did to improve it even further and why you should care.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UkonBcLeAo

Also see Scalar, which Microsoft used to scale their 300GiB Windows repository, https://github.com/microsoft/scalar.
by 5ver | 2025-12-26 19:44:44+00:00
There are a vast number of valid reasons to despise Donald Trump. He has publicly lusted after his daughter. He has said that he can sexually assault women with impunity since he is a star. He was convicted of felonies. He is barred from operating a charity in New York. He is known to stiff workers and hire illegals. He is incapable of admitting wrongdoing or admitting that he made a mistake. Hence his marking up a NOAA hurricane forecast map. He clearly knew about Epstein’s crimes and did not care about them. (Along with a lot of other famous people.) His threats against Panama, Canada, and Greenland are doing harm to the U.S. His henchmen in charge of ICE have deported U.S. citizens and he doesn’t care about that. He’s accepted billions in bribes via his Trump Coin. He lies constantly. He got into a twitter feud with a tennager while President. He is ignorant, incurious, vain, and narcissistic.