MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by machino | 2025-12-07 12:49:52+00:00
I’ve inherited some CWEB code from a colleague. My interpretation is that you write it like stream of consciousness, interleaving thinking and chucks of code. Not all code your write ends up in the final C file.

However, the final effect is spaghetti code (you can surrogate “goto” by injecting code in different locations.) And docs are hard to read.

But, it really forces you to explain what you do and how you got there, which is incredibly useful for reconstructing history. (Theirs is also a sort of diff file for it, I think with .ch extension, to amend files.)
Show HN: Minimal container-like sandbox built from scratch in C
by Sahil121 | 2025-12-07 12:53:53+00:00
Runbox recreates core container features without relying on existing runtimes or external libraries. It uses namespaces, cgroups v2, and seccomp to create an isolated process environment, with a simple shell for interaction. For future gonna work on adding an interface so external applications can be executed inside Runbox, similar to containers.

Github: https://github.com/Sahilb315/runbox

Happy to hear feedback or suggestions.
by phantomathkg | 2025-12-07 12:53:53+00:00
This whole piece is just weird.

> Each member of the staff has their own channel, in which they give updates on their work status, ask questions of other teammates, notify of their unavailability, share their uncertainties and thoughts on the program.

When a piece of work require input from two persons, should I ask in project channel or channel of person A or channel of person B?

> Each resident has their own channel, in which they talk to their coach, ask questions of the team, request improvements to their room or writing setup or just generally throw anything they want someone to look at.

If I want input from my coach and not discuss in public, why not DM but channel?
by rkachowski | 2025-12-07 12:53:59+00:00
> Network Rail said the railway line was fully reopened at around 02:00 GMT and it has urged people to "think about the serious impact it could have" before creating or sharing hoax images.

Perhaps Network Rail should have a system of asserting rail integrity that is independent of social media (?!!?)

for real, pick up the phone and ask someone (??)
by gaigalas | 2025-12-07 12:54:36+00:00
Before, you said:

> The actual "new luddites" have been screaming on here for years complaining about losing their careers over immature tech for the sake of reducing labor costs.

Implying that there is a critical organized mass that was aware of the possibility of layoffs.

You also said:

> Data centers are better guarded than some government institutions. New luddites can't exactly go in smashing the servers.

Implying that the only thing stopping this organized mass is the level of security in datacenters.

---

Now you changed your opinion, and you portray a scenario with unhappy disorganized people that missed an opportunity.

I don't understand. It seems that you're just freestyling words.

I stand by my original assessment. This idea of a massive iminent backlash is mostly a fantasy, and although the layoffs are real, they're most likely due to the economic problems the US is facing right now.

Write that down: AI is going to settle into a disappointing miracle (like the microwave), and people will be mostly indifferent to it.
by antonvs | 2025-12-07 12:55:24+00:00
The difference is not just convention. You mentioned some similarities between Rust panics and C++ exceptions, but there are some important differences. If you tried to write Rust code that used panics and catch_unwind as a general exception mechanism, you’d soon run into those differences, and find out why Rust code isn’t written that way.

The key difference is that in the general case, panics are designed to lead to program termination, not recovery. Examples like unit tests are a special case - the fact that handling panics work for that case doesn’t mean they would work well more broadly.

The point you mentioned, about being able to configure panics to abort, is another issue. If you did that in a program which used panics as an exception handling mechanism, the program would fail on its first exception. Of course you can say “just don’t do that”, but the point is it highlights the difference in the semantics of panics vs. exceptions.

Also, panics are not typed, the way exceptions are in C++ or Java. Using them as a general exception handling mechanism would either be very limiting, or require the design of a whole infrastructure for that.

The are other issues as well, including behavior related to threads, to FFI, and to where panics can even be caught.
by jasonvorhe | 2025-12-07 12:56:00+00:00
You misunderstand. I'm not against reporting about Russia. The oversimplification of reducing everything down to "Putin this, Putin that" is my issue. Imagine me saying everything the EU is doing is explicitly because of Ursel. It's stupid, ignorant and reminds me of Trump Derangement Syndrome which had a similar effect on reporting about US issues.

I live in Germany so I'm fucked either way. I'm also aware of NATO expansion until a point where Russia couldn't ignore it anymore. You think Russia will attack Europe, I think the West is keen on fighting a war against Russia. I don't subscribe to any of the narratives you presented, especially since I think it obvious that its the West that finds itself having to wage a war because their currencies, social order and demographics needing a reset. NATO being a defensive alliance is a joke.

Since we're unlikely to come closer to an understanding I'll refrain from going further.

Sometimes it's just easier to agree to disagree.

May we all live through this somehow.
by Thorrez | 2025-12-07 12:56:51+00:00
>Would you consider a “charity” [...] an org that has killed and maimed tens upon tens of thousands of children to be a good thing or even charity?

I do not consider Planned Parenthood a good thing. However, I will still admit they are technically registered as a charity with the US government.

Friends of the Israel Defense Forces is rated 98% and 4/4 on Charity Navigator.

https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/133156445
Show HN: I Built A Lightweight Earning and Spending Tracker
by mo_hackernews | 2025-12-07 12:56:54+00:00
I've been tracking my finances for years but always found existing tools either too heavy (with features I don't need) or too simplistic. So I built Finbley – a lightweight webapp that focuses on the essentials: seeing where money comes from and where it goes.

Try it here: https://www.finbley.com

What Finbley does:

– Tracks daily/weekly spending in a clean interface

– Automatically categorizes expenses

– Shows daily, weekly & monthly summaries (biggest spend, patterns, small leaks)

– Sends accountability nudges when closer to budgets

– Helps users understand how small expenses add up

Tech Stack:

– Backend: Flask (SQLAlchemy, JWT, background jobs)

– Frontend: Bootstrap (I prefer this over Tailwind for rapid iteration)

– Database: MySQL

– Infra: Deployed on PythonAnywhere

– Future: Shared accounts, bank statement uploads, LLMs for spending summaries

I'd appreciate feedback on:

– Does it feel truly "lightweight" to you?

– What's the first thing you'd want to add?

– Any friction in transaction categorization?

– Anything that feels unclear or unnecessary?

Built this to scratch my own itch – curious if it helps others too. I’d love feedback from the HN community, especially around UX, onboarding, and technical architecture.

Thanks!
by throw0101a | 2025-12-07 12:57:05+00:00
> Take care of the kids that they were able to produce, making survival of even half them much less likely.

H-G societies tend to be smaller groups where everyone in the village helps with childcare, so if a parent was out of action for a while the children could still be gathered.

This is covered in the book Hunt, Gather, Parent by Michaeleen Doucleff, specifically with the Hadzabe people (Tanzania).
by flohofwoe | 2025-12-07 12:57:11+00:00
Both Germanies had a conscription army and mandatory military service during the entire Cold War period, and that didn't lead to a 'militarized society'.

And even with the new voluntary service the armed forces will be much smaller than the army of just West-Germany alone during the cold war (which was about 0.5 million).

It's time to wake up to the fact that the Cold War actually never ended.
by cvcderringer | 2025-12-07 12:57:51+00:00
I had trouble getting past the Early Modern English tinge of the language used in this. It’s fun, but it distracts from the comprehension in attempt to just sound epic. It’s fine if you’re writing literature, but it comes off sounding uppity in a practical doc for devs. Writing is not just about conveying something in a mood you wish to set. Study how Richard Feynman and Warren Buffett communicated to their audiences; part of their success is that they speak to their people in the language all can easily understand.
by lxgr | 2025-12-07 12:58:49+00:00
Great video, but coincidentally two weeks too late for me:

I never knew about the boil auto-shut-off mechanism and the overheat/"boil-dry" protection circuit being two different things in some kettles. In those, pouring out the entire water before the auto-off had a chance to kick in can cause a situation where the kettle stays on (due to not enough steam being present to trip it), but the boil-dry protection circuit continuously engages and disengages until somebody notices or the thing self-destroys – ours did the latter.

Now we have one with a switch at the bottom, and I'm hoping that due to that construction, the boil-dry protection will also disengage the switch if needed. (It also helps that the switch automatically disengages when lifting the kettle off its base.)
by anon-3988 | 2025-12-07 12:58:59+00:00
The US could have easily, easily won the Vietnam war if they just dropped 1 or 2 nukes. The modern military is going to have drone that swarm the sky 24/7. They can develop virus that only they have the cure to. They can drop EMPs. They can grow their own food in their own lab while we all slowly die and wither outside.

These are powers that are actually, technically, plausibly be granted to a single or several individual in the future.

The future where human is obsolete is scary. Just reread that sentence again. Humans are obsolete.
by andriesm | 2025-12-07 13:00:10+00:00
I also want it. I dislike this idea "make it illegal I don't want other people to have the freedom to do something I dislike". Of you don't like unupgradable products, then don't buy them. I like upgradability - apple makes some things like the SSD non-uogradeable without much benefit. But many other parts gain different benefits when you don't try to make everything infinitely upgradable. I really want this non-enshittified macbook alternative!!!! Shut up and take my money.
by GhosT078 | 2025-12-07 13:00:59+00:00
Sane, easily readable syntax and expressive semantics. Easy to learn. Very scalable. Suitability, by design, for low level systems programming, including microcontrollers. Suitability, by design, for large, complex real-time applications. Easy to interface with C and other languages. Available as part of GCC. Stable and ongoing language evolution.
by ageitgey | 2025-12-07 13:02:20+00:00
Calibre has had a comically obtuse and amateur UI for over a decade. I don't think anyone working on it is spending time on a grand beautiful UI redesign (which would be really hard, both in effort and in politics). So I don't think it's fair to complain that anytime someone adds a feature you don't use that is taking time away from UI work.
by makeitdouble | 2025-12-07 13:03:00+00:00
Not OP, but basically share that opinion.

Traditional laptops have their place, but I think most people would be better served by other form factors.

For instance a good amount of people use their laptops basically like a desktop and dock it to an external screen 90% of the time. For that specific use case, a tablet form factor will have better thermals, and lend itself better to have a separate and better keyboard and pointing device. The other 10% will still be a decent experience with either the detachable keyboard or straight bringing along an external keyboard if the work sequences are exepected to be long enough.

People more on the go but needing a powerful setup when needed now have access to devices that can expand the screen real estate beyond the 15" traditional limitation. Lenovo has been pushing the enveloppe on that front, and the build quality isn't bad either.

Gaming laptops are better served by Steam Deck/ROG Ally type of form factors etc.

The market is decently diversified and the form factors I'm describing are as far as I know selling better numbers than people clinging to Thinkpads and macbooks would expect.
by eastbound | 2025-12-07 13:04:25+00:00
Yes, it’s just an IM client. Like all in history, what matters is whether it can post images and whether other tools are integrated with it. Another generation will invent a new one and suddenly all app will say “Insert your $nextGenChat key here”.

You can rebuild a chat client, but you can’t make up for popularity. Atlassian tried twice: Once with HipChat, once with Stride, and failed at both - like everything Atlassian does, I know, but you have to admit they are popular in corporates.

Also, it’s so vastly better than MS Teams. But Discord is so vastly better that a lot of companies use it, despite it being aimed at communities.
by dash2 | 2025-12-07 13:04:49+00:00
I dunno, I interacted with perl about 2000-2003 in a small way, it always seemed pretty friendly and welcoming, I loved perlmonks and remember it happily.

I'm a bit sceptical about this:

> (Pause a second and ask yourself about the sort of social culture that both allows this kind of behaviour at public events, and then chooses to embrace it as a key piece of cultural lore)

Is it really so terrible that someone throws a coffee cup or two at a wall to make a point? Sounds a bit pearl-clutching.
by zahlman | 2025-12-07 13:05:23+00:00
>the point where you need a true cross platform scripting language in the shell

... When does this happen, anyway? When I am in a "scripting" mindset, it's because I want to enhance my machine, not publish software. If I am thinking about "cross platform" then I am also thinking in terms of "programming" and "development".

(And, you know, awareness of "the shell" is probably a lot lower among Windows users than Linux and Mac.)
by casenmgreen | 2025-12-07 13:05:41+00:00
If you work full-time, you are in most countries penalized by progressive taxation; you pay say 20% on the first NN thousand, and then it moves to 40% or something more on the rest (or on everything, in some countries).

It seems much better to work three to six months per year, and remain in the lower tax bracket, and then have the rest of the year off.

I think this isn't widely recognized, because it if it were, I'd expect a lot more people to work as contractors, so they could work in this way.
by throwaway150 | 2025-12-07 13:07:03+00:00
> Principles of Slack Maximalism for Autists in Charge

I dislike the OP's post too. But throwing around terms like "autists" as a joke or snark is in very poor taste. Not every socially awkward or unreasonable person is an autist. Not all autists experience the same kind of social awkwardness. There are people and parents who genuinely live stressful lives due to dealing with autism. Let us not use it as a derogatory term.
by theandrewbailey | 2025-12-07 13:07:07+00:00
> I ask because most of the items you listed could be accomplished in other browsers with extensions.

Having functionality in extensions adds friction. You'll have to remember which ones you used and install them separately when you do a new install. Also remember that Android and iOS browsers (usually) don't have extensions, so having adblock built-in is advantageous.
by gabrycina | 2025-12-07 13:07:35+00:00
I work at one of those fancy AI startups as a software engineer. I was one of the earliest adopters of Cursor, the AI IDE. I've also interviewed for them - well actually they sent me the at-home exercise but i never started it. I was away for my summer vacations. I know, stupid choice.

Anyway, it's been a while since I started using Cursor and I now feel like it does a great job developing entire features for my team software, but also, occasionally, to ship changes to the main platform we maintain (which is quite big and complex).

While I'm able to review the code and understand 80% of what's happening, where it can be done better, I'm also conscious that I would not be able to come up with the patterns he proposes sometimes.

It feels like I'm trusting the machine. Then I log off for the day and feel like I've not accomplished much even if, objectively, I did.

Is this the era of the 10x engineer? Should we start embracing this new way of working to the point that we enlarge our daily to-dos by 5-10x and just review them? What are pro and cons of this approach? Because it starts to feel realistic.
by znpy | 2025-12-07 13:07:45+00:00
As another “devops-y” guy (I’m essentially a sysadmin, but i accept whatever job title is trending right now) i agree on everything. It’s nice to see (from a distance) all the bs developers have to endure on a daily basis knowing it doesn’t affect me much.

Also… a lot of that complexity is essentially self-inflicted.

I must say however: “devops” is completely different from what old-school system administration used to be.
by bell-cot | 2025-12-07 13:10:48+00:00
Yes, the weapon theory doesn't make sense. But it meets many people's emotional needs. So without a simple and emotionally satisfying alternative - or a serious cost to being wrong - it will be widely believed.

Between Chinese officials burying the evidence, and all the political and emotional drama, I doubt we'll ever really settle where the virus came from and how it was released. The pandemic went poorly enough for China that the CCP should be far more interested in preventing repeats than in developing or releasing bioweapons. Similar for other nations' ruling classes.

> Not only that, we all just moved on as if nothing happened, despite this event having killed so many ...

True, but the 1918 "Spanish" Flu pandemic played out similarly - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu Since ancient times, humans have lived in flood plains, near active volcanoes, on hurricane-prone shorelines, and otherwise at risk of large-scale mortality events.
by sallveburrpi | 2025-12-07 13:11:17+00:00
Then we need to solve the problem through regulation. But just as with drugs we (not as single persons but as society) have decided that profits for some wealthy individuals are more important.

But as an individual you can just choose not to participate in social media, I wasn’t trying to invent some magic general attitude that solves all problems.

Also not sure if there is a “single” solution even possible, there is a lot more nuance and complexity to it.
by spicyusername | 2025-12-07 13:11:51+00:00
I mean... yes... I guess in 1700 there were only things made by hand, but also those things were so incredibly expensive nobody had them. Most people had one "nice" pair of clothes that they inherited and expected to pass on, because cloth was so labor intensive. Children's toys we're basically non-existent. Books? Forget about it. Only for monks in the hills.

Today you have the option, everyone can have the cheap thing, and the wealthy can still have the honest thing.

Much better this way, in my opinion.

Every era has warts. Even if we lived in heaven, you'd still have substack posts complaining about it. It's just the way humans are. Ever restless, always looking beyond.

you would be crammed in there together, but it felt way more…. Human? Communal?

Would you believe plenty of people still live this way... mostly against their will. Heck, anyone can do it!
by safety1st | 2025-12-07 13:12:11+00:00
It's incredible. I don't know the guy and I'm not being paid to say this, but I really think Blog Quest is a stroke of genius.

The article totally buries the lead, so for anyone who misses it: this is a browser extension which simply keeps track of a list of the RSS feeds of websites you've browsed, so that later you can subscribe to them if you want to. It was forked from an extension which does the same for Mastodon.

It solves a very simple problem, which is that when I'm browsing a website I'm usually not thinking about subscribing to it, but later on when I'm reading my feeds, I wish I could add some more.

Blog Quest does what Mozilla was supposed to do with their hundreds of millions of dollars. From the moment that they declared their mission was to promote the open Web and negotiated an annual nine figure check out of Google. This is where the money should have gone: easy UX for people to subscribe to websites through an open standard, laying the groundwork for a free social graph on top of it one day. If they had done it at the right time they might have changed the course of history (again?).

Sadly they didn't. For 15 years they gradually buried RSS and then one day some random dude just throws a browser extension out there better than anything they ever did in the space. Extension of the year. Massive kudos to this guy.
by chrismeller | 2025-12-07 13:12:12+00:00
I’ve used MuckRock to request records on ALPR systems for years. I gave up several years ago because SC agencies had started rejecting them all under an exemption for law enforcement / public safety.

There’s no appeal process in SC, so they know they can just stonewall you and you’re highly unlikely to try to sue. The law is also just ambiguous enough that you risk losing even if you did sue, so it’s a lose-lose for the filer.
by gblargg | 2025-12-07 13:13:44+00:00
I realize you might have failed to comprehend the level of my argument. It wasn't even about LLMs in particular, rather having someone/something else do your work for you. I read it as the student criticizing the teacher for not writing his own emails, since the teacher criticizes the students for not writing their own classwork. Whether it's an LLM or them hiring someone else to do the writing, this is what my rebuttal applied to. I saw what I thought was flawed reasoning and wanted to correct it. I hope it's clear why a student using an LLM (or another person) to write classwork is far more than a quality issue, whereas someone not being tested/graded using an LLM to prepare written material is "merely" a quality issue (and the personal choice to atrophy their mental fitness).
by general1465 | 2025-12-07 13:14:46+00:00
> You need to be terribly naive to assume that what amounts to human trafficking is avoided by googling a topic.

Don't take the agency from them. Kenyans are not stupid, they are going to Russia voluntarily, expecting that they will work or study somewhere in Russia while ignoring a all the evidence that they will most likely be sent to a meat grinder on the frontlines.
by michaelbuckbee | 2025-12-07 13:15:15+00:00
Consider Google's search results page (setting aside the ads and dark patterns for a moment) as a form of generative UI.

You enter a term, and depending on what you entered, you get a very different UI.

"best sled for toddler" -> search modifiers (wood, under $20, toboggan, etc.), search options, pictures of sleds for sale from different retailers, related products, and reviews.

"what's a toboggan" -> AI overview, Wikipedia summary, People Also Ask section, and a block of short videos on toboggans.

"directions to mt. trashmore" -> customized map of my current location to Mt. Trashmore (my local sledding hill)

Google has spent an immense amount of time and effort identifying the underlying intent behind all kinds of different searches and shows very different "UI" for each in a way makes a very fluid kind of sense to users.