MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by __MatrixMan__ | 2025-12-04 11:55:56+00:00
I've been thinking about cancer. Maybe systems of replicators are prone to overdoing it by nature. The idea was that any universes compatible with life will also have spontaneous cancers because that's just what those universes do.

And then I learned the theory that many cancers are caused by undiscovered DNA-based viruses which tamper with the cell cycle to activate the replicative machinery that they need to make copies of their genome (HPV does this, and several others too). So then it was a switch: not an immutable feature of the universe, but caused by an agent.

But it's starting to look like viruses emerged independently more times than expected, so maybe it is more like "the universe just does that," and viruses are just cancers with a space program. Back to where I started.

I suppose some would see these loops as unproductive. "First principles" people. Descartes, etc. But I think that unresolvable why's like this are what understanding is made of.
by messe | 2025-12-04 11:57:27+00:00
The context:

> Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphising Larry Ellison. You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle. — Brian Cantrill (https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=33m1s)
by teleforce | 2025-12-04 11:57:38+00:00
For Kafka alternative written in C++ there's Redpanda [1],[2].

Redpanda claim of better performance but benchmarks showed no clear winner [3].

It will be interesting to test them together on the performance benchmarks.

I've got the feeling it's not due to programming language implementation of Scala/Java (Kafka), C++ (Redpanda) and Rust (Walrus).

It's the very architecture of Kafka itself due to the notorious head of line problem (check the top most comments [4].

[1] Redpanda – A Kafka-compatible streaming platform for mission-critical workloads (120 comments):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25075739

[2] Redpanda website:

https://www.redpanda.com/

[3] Kafka vs. Redpanda performance – do the claims add up? (141 comments):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35949771

[4] What If We Could Rebuild Kafka from Scratch? (220 comments):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43790420
by aesh2Xa1 | 2025-12-04 11:58:13+00:00
This law demands a surveillance architecture, not just porn regulation. Once the norm and mechanism to de-anonymize content use exists, it can be expanded to any content, including political dissent, and for both accessing AND contributing to content (like, for example, on HN). The line should be drawn here.

The vague potential harm of sex doesn't justify the concrete harm of abolishing digital privacy. Further, it's just sex. Equating imagery of legal, natural activity with physical danger is an error.

It is blatantly dangerous to justify stripping citizens of their anonymity. The lawmakers who proposed this are oppressors. They are the danger to our children.
by GreenWatermelon | 2025-12-04 11:59:18+00:00
> From guest author, Mike Perham (@mperham), creator and maintainer of Sidekiq.

> I’m happy to announce the Gem Fellowship, a grant partnership with gem.coop, the new open source cooperative in the Ruby community. Contributed Systems, my company behind Sidekiq Pro and Sidekiq Enterprise, is committing to provide $100,000 in grants for each of the next three years. These grants are meant to provide funding to the altruistic people who maintain and improve the open source tools freely available to the Ruby community.

I'm glad to see the folks behind Sidekiq sticking to their principals. They're supporting the same good folks that were responsible for maintaining RubyGems before.
by jacquesm | 2025-12-04 11:59:49+00:00
This is the correct viewpoint (in my opinion, of course). There are many ways that lead to a solution, some are better, some are worse, some are faster, some much slower. Different tools and different strokes for different folks and if it works for you then more power to you. That doesn't mean you get to discard everybody for whom it does not work in exactly the same way.

I think a big mistake junior managers make is that they think that their nominal subordinates should solve problems the way that they would solve them, without recognizing that there are multiple valid paths and that it doesn't so much matter which path is chosen as long as the problem is solved on time and within the allocated budget.
by mcintyre1994 | 2025-12-04 11:59:56+00:00
The more practical law is to ban using VPNs to bypass local censorship/filters/etc, which is the law the UAE has for example. Companies can keep using them for security, so can individuals who aren't using them to pretend to be somewhere else to bypass local laws.

This also has the benefit (to the government) of criminalising individuals, making prosecution much easier and allowing it to be more selective according to the government's whims. It reminds me of the way the US dealt with piracy, you could go after a bunch of college kids to make a point etc.
by themafia | 2025-12-04 12:00:19+00:00
People are naturally conform _themselves_ to social expectations. You don't need to enforce anything. If you alter their perception of those expectations you can manipulate them into taking actions under false pretenses. It's a abstract form of lying. It's astroturfing at a "hyperscale."

The problem is this only seems to work best when the technique is used sparingly and the messages are delivered through multiple media avenues simultaneously. I think there's very weak returns particularly when multiple actors use the techniques at the same time in opposition to each other and limited to social media. Once people perceive a social stale mate they either avoid the issue or use their personal experiences to make their decisions.
by maccard | 2025-12-04 12:00:30+00:00
> Unfortunately the "rug pull" issue has been severely crippled by OpenAI's about face turn on their non profit status,

The situations aren't comparable.

OpenAI was a non-profit foundation that held a controlling share in a for-profit organisation. It's model is based around controlling access to their data (which was never open), and controlling access to their models (which are also not open).

If Ghostty does sets up a for-profit org with the NFP as the majority holder then we can have the conversation, but even at that fork + move on (like OpenTofu, Valkey, CentOS, MariaDB, Jenkins) is an option.
by nbadg | 2025-12-04 12:00:44+00:00
> I didn't mean that you could 3-D print tiny laparoscopes or even visible-light metamaterials; I meant that you could 3-D print machines for making tiny laparoscopes and visible-light metamaterials.

Huh, thanks for the clarification, that's an angle I hadn't considered.

> I think you're overlooking the part of the iceberg that's currently below the waterline of economic feasibility.

Hm. I think to a degree you probably have a point; I certainly agree that people tend to overlook the explosion of new development that is made possible by drastic cost reductions, though with the aside that having price insensitive applications is often instrumental in developing the technology that enables those cost reductions in the first place, because it allows for profitability early on in the technology's maturation, as opposed for "well it won't be profitable until we hit X milestone in Y years".

That being said, it's not clear to me how many mass-market biological applications would be possible under reasonable regulatory regimes. Maybe I'm just showing my ignorance when it comes to small-scale biological applications, but can you name some examples? (Or is this more of a "you never know until somebody does it" kind of thing?)
by skrebbel | 2025-12-04 12:01:55+00:00
I don't understand what you mean by this. My wife's HP laptop has an ARM processor with Windows and it.. just works? Like everything works. The computer is super fast, quiet, great battery usage, ultrathin and even scary affordable for what you get. All software works. I've not found x64 programs to run noticeably worse, at least not the ones we use, and plenty programs have an ARM build.

As a Windows user you don't even need to know that it's an ARM computer. Just use it like you'd use any other Windows computer.

Don't just say stuff, man. This is not Twitter. Try to at least figure out whether you're vaguely directionally correct before writing snarky comments.
by orwin | 2025-12-04 12:03:04+00:00
Heavy tangent: I finally tested the age verification thing in France: it's fine. I heavily dislike the biometric verification, it feels it can be gamed easily and in my opinion is dangerous, but the e-Id/bank verification seems solid.

Weirdly, it might makes 'local' porn site like Dorcel who used to ask for credit cards for age verification (because of prior regulation not followed by mindgeek) more popular in the long run.
by sswaner | 2025-12-04 12:03:05+00:00
While I completely agree with the sentiment, there are 100 million reasons why it will never happen. Having dealt with Oracle for over 20 years, I have seen their predatory relationship with their customers. They will hold onto this trademark in the hope that they can somehow monetize it.

At some point they will approach companies, likely tech companies that produce a product or offering that can't be described without using the word "JavaScript". They will offer a "convenient" licensing agreement of $50,000 per year for the use of their trademark.

They used this playbook with Java, an easier path because they had something more substantial than a trademark, but the approach will be the same. https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/165kzxg/oraclejav...

As Oracle's debt problems mount, the company seems increasingly likely to weaponize this trademark against companies—despite otherwise showing little interest in the word. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/w...
by lionkor | 2025-12-04 12:03:11+00:00
I'm not who you asked, but essentially, when you write malware that infects someone's PC, that in itself doesn't really help you much. You usually want to get out passwords and other data that you might have stolen.

This is where an exfil (exfiltration) route is needed. You could just send the data to a server you own, but you have to make sure that there are fallbacks once that one gets taken down. You also need to ensure that your exfiltration won't be noticed by a firewall and blocked.

Hosting a server locally, easily, on the infected PC, that can expose data under a specific address is (to my understanding) the holy grail of exfiltration; you just connect to it and it gives you the data, instead of having to worry much about hosting your own infrastructure.
by vee-kay | 2025-12-04 12:03:24+00:00
Oh, this reminds me of the horror days when Oracle deliberately rolled out spyware (Ask Toolbar) in the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) installer, that corporate admins and developers/testers inadvertently installed on millions of PCs.

Oracle never apologised for this sudden hijack (of an executable that was trusted and used by millions of IT people) and malicious behavior (no prior information given by Oracle for this malpractice), if I recall right.

I am sure that disaster was a wake up call for many developers and corporations to move away from Java dependency.
by viking123 | 2025-12-04 12:03:29+00:00
I hate scammers like many of the Anthropic employees that post every other week "brooo we have this model that can break out of the system bro!"

"broo it's so dangerous let me tell you how dangerous it is! you don't want to get this out! we have something really dangerous internally!"

Those are the worst, Dario included there btw, almost a worse grifter than Altman.

The models themselves are fine except Claude that calls the police if you say the word boob.
by kasabali | 2025-12-04 12:04:09+00:00
> Right now it seems like these wafers will just be stockpiled in warehouses – like a kid who hides the toybox because they’re afraid nobody wants to play with them, and thus selfishly feels nobody but them should get the toys!

https://www.mooreslawisdead.com/post/sam-altman-s-dirty-dram...
by Okawari | 2025-12-04 12:04:10+00:00
I think the "surveilance capitalism" and centralization of companies like Meta, Google etc has made many of us very sensitive to any systems that will leave traces of us against our will, be it porn, flock cameras or anything else that is similar.

I think we would have a lot less of a pushback against such policing efforts if governments had done a better job at reigning in tracking on the internet from the start. "Porn websites should check your age" is not that radical, but in a world where it doesn't feel unrealistic that much of the information about you is correlated and processed in ways that are not in your personal best interest, then it becomes another loop in the proverbial noose that can be used to hang us all.
by samwillis | 2025-12-04 12:04:14+00:00
Hey everyone, I work on PGlite. Excited to see this on HN again.

If you have any questions I'll be sure to answer them.

We recently crossed a massive usage milestone with over 3M weekly downloads (we're nearly at 4M!) - see https://www.npmjs.com/package/@electric-sql/pglite

While we originally built this for embedding into web apps, we have seen enormous growth in devtools and developer environments - both Google Firebase and Prisma have embedded PGlite into their CLIs to emulate their server products.
by sergey_commit | 2025-12-04 12:04:23+00:00
I work in IT, and like any specialist in an IT company working remotely, I have to attend daily standups, various meetings, discussions, and conferences. I used to never use GCalendar at all, but now, due to work, I have to. And very often, you forget about a meeting in the calendar, even after a notification. Tracking meetings isn’t convenient at all. And I think I’m not the only one.

So, I came up with the idea to solve this problem and created a Chrome extension for GCalendar. Initially, I made it just for myself, but after publishing it on the Chrome Web Store, I started getting suggestions from users for improvements, and I enhanced it.

Now this have 4000+ WAU and 4.6 stars rate.
by madethemcry | 2025-12-04 12:04:29+00:00
I used ngrok when it was the to-go answer for serving localhost (temporarily, not permanent) to the public, but the last time I searched for alternatives I stumbled upon the following jewel.

> tailscale funnel 3000 Available on the internet: https://some-device-name.tail12345.ts.net/ |-- proxy http://127.0.0.1:3000 Press Ctrl+C to exit.

I've tailscale installed on my machine anyway for some connected devices. But even without this would convince me using it, because it's part of the free tier, dead simple and with tailscale it's coming from kind of a trusted entity.
by peppernub | 2025-12-04 12:05:29+00:00
We’re working on a digital health project and running into the usual bottlenecks with MDR IIa — documentation, quality management, infrastructure, safety workflows, etc. I’ve recently been researching different ways teams are approaching this. Some appear to be using pre-certified platforms instead of building everything internally (Actimi is one example I came across), and I’m trying to understand whether this actually saves time or just shifts the work around. I’d love to hear from people who have:

built MDR-compliant software in-house

used pre-built frameworks or platforms

automated parts of the compliance process

or taken a hybrid approach What worked and what didn’t? What would you do differently if you were starting again in 2025–2026? Not trying to promote anything — genuinely trying to understand the current state of the ecosystem.
by OisinMoran | 2025-12-04 12:05:30+00:00
For a great example of some (non-live) coded music, I would recommend The Haywire Frontier by Nathan Ho [0]. The whole album was sequenced and synthesized entirely in SuperCollider with no samples, external hardware, or third-party plugins. It's really interesting and a crazy achievement, definitely worth a listen.

For live coding, Switch Angel is definitely someone I would actually go to see live, check out this video of hers [1].

[0] https://nathanho.bandcamp.com/album/haywire-frontier [1] https://youtu.be/iu5rnQkfO6M
by ddlsmurf | 2025-12-04 12:05:43+00:00
What makes AI a unique new threat is that it do a new kind of both surgical and mass attack: you can now generate the ideal message per target, basically you can whisper to everyone, or each group, at any granularity, the most convincing message. It also removes a lot of language and culture barriers, for ex. Russian or Chinese propaganda is ridiculously bad when it crosses borders, at least when targeting the english speaking world, this is also a lot easier/cheaper.
by kryogen1c | 2025-12-04 12:06:30+00:00
> gambling/loot box [...] legit ethical concerns

I've never understood this argument. Dopaminergic and attention pathways/systems are under full assault from every angle, and parents give their 6 year olds phones, and people take a moral stance against... loot boxes?

Thats like taking a moral stance against flavors in alcohol. I kinda think youre missing the point.
by merpkz | 2025-12-04 12:06:43+00:00
If things go the way they are, I wonder how long until buying a used Playstation 4 (8GB DDR5 RAM) at around 100USD a piece to put Linux on it and use as a server in cluster will become viable thing to do? Bring back console clusters!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster
by squeefers | 2025-12-04 12:06:56+00:00
Search Molly Russell in the Uk.... that case sums up online child safety, parents letting emotion take the lead over intellect. That girl was suicidal, you cant blame a fuckin search engine if she was the one looking for suicide content. But whos going to tell those parents theyre wrong? Instead, now a laws been passed and every website now has to be a part time parent/teacher to all children in the uk.
by embedding-shape | 2025-12-04 12:07:04+00:00
> I think we are getting a rude awakening about what is legal versus what is actually right are not always the same thing.

I'm not sure who "we" are here (Americans perhaps?), but humanity as a whole have known this for a long time, and acted accordingly. This is why presidents in some countries have the right to pardon people, as just one very evident example. That the USA exists as a country today is another example, which at the time when they were trying to create it, was clearly illegal, but since winners write history, still a "good" action.

The the laws aren't 100% unambiguous and strict is also another example, so there is room for interpretation, as something can be "by the book legal" but because of the clear evil motivations and "ignoring the spirit of the law", still be illegal. Of course, highly dependent on the country and lots of counter-examples.
by somat | 2025-12-04 12:07:49+00:00
Postgres features are much nicer, honestly if you are using any sort of orm none of this matters. by design they isolate you from many of the more interesting features of the database. And in general this is probably a good thing. But if you enjoy hand writing artisanal sql postgres is far more pleasant to use than sqlite, not that sqlite is bad, it is very good, just... thin after using pg.
by intended | 2025-12-04 12:08:14+00:00
Knowing one is manipulated, requires having some trusted alternate source to verify against.

If all your trusted sources are saying the same thing, then you are safe.

If all your untrusted sources are telling you your trusted sources are lying, then it only means your trusted sources are of good character.

Most people are wildly unaware of the type of social conditioning they are under.
by buggeryorkshire | 2025-12-04 12:08:28+00:00
I was working at a place in the UK where I only had BPSS but everybody else in the office had top clearance as they worked on military stuff, this was when The Guardian were doing the Snowden stuff.

It was easily the best way of clearing the office for some peace - mention the front page of the newspaper and everybody would lock their laptops, pick up their papers and walk.

From what I can gather the fact you know something you shouldn't, even though it's in the national news, it causes problems when renewing your clearances, so...
by sahilagarwal | 2025-12-04 12:08:45+00:00
I would go against the grain and say that LLMs take power away from incredibly rich people to shape mass preferences and give to the masses.

Bot armies previously needed an army of humans to give responses on social media, which is incredibly tough to scale unless you have money and power. Now, that part is automated and scalable.

So instead of only billionaires, someone with a 100K dollars could launch a small scale "campaign".
by greatgib | 2025-12-04 12:09:10+00:00
Somehow another sign that our world is collapsing.

We have more and more wars, less free trade and international spirit, freedom and privacy is going down the sink, "everything is going down", and now ram is a good example of things that use to be abordable and with price going down, becoming expensive luxury good.

One could say that RAM price is just a special temporary event not related to our down trend but a decade ago major players would not have left a profitable consumer market without new actors coming to fill in.

But now we prefer restricting offer instead of increasing production...
by themafia | 2025-12-04 12:09:38+00:00
So if I had enough money I could get CBS news to deny the Holocaust? Of course not. These companies operate under government license and that would certainly be the end of it through public complaint. I think it suggests a much different dynamic than most of this discussion presumes.

In particular, our own CIA has shown that the "Big Lie" is actually surprisingly cheap. It's not about paying off news directors or buying companies, it's about directly implanting a handful of actors into media companies, and spiking or advancing stories according to your whims. The people with the capacity to do this can then be very selective with who does and does not get to tell the Big Lies. They're not particularly motivated by taking bribes.
by ulfw | 2025-12-04 12:10:00+00:00
“The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage. Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments,” said Sumit Sadana, EVP and Chief Business Officer at Micron

AI is destroying so much. God knows how bad things will get once the bubble bursts.
by therealcamino | 2025-12-04 12:10:14+00:00
They weren't exotic, they just weren't part of your writing style

The reason "--" autocorrects to an em dash in practically any word processing software (not talking about browsers) is that that's the accepted way to type it on a typewriter. And you don't need to go into any system settings to enable it. It came in around when things like Smart Quotes came in.
by zbentley | 2025-12-04 12:10:34+00:00
> setting up a "process" (thread) to do that batching is not hard

Processes and threads are different things with specific meanings.

How would this approach work in an application server that implements concurrency with forking/multiple child processes (Python, ruby, PHP, node cluster, and many many more)?

The biggest benefit of SQLite is that, as GP says, it can be used like a file. Many places I’ve worked have used it to coordinate between all sorts of processes—often different processes written in different languages!