MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by mergesort | 2025-12-26 15:28:13+00:00
Heya, I'm the author of the post! This was probably unintentional but I think you're making a really valuable observation that will be helpful to others.

The models Cursor provides to use in their product are intermediated versions of models that companies like OpenAI and Anthropic offer. They are technically using Codex, but not in the way that they would be if you were in a tool like Codex (CLI) or Claude Code.

If you ask Cursor to solve a tough problem, Cursor will break down the problem into a different problem before sending that request to OpenAI so they can use Codex. They do this because:
1. To save money. By restructuring the prompt they can use less tokens, saving them money for running Cursor since they are the ones paying for the tokens with your subscription cost.
2. [Based on things the Cursor team has said] They believe they can construct a better intermediate prompt that is more representative of the problem you want to solve.

This extra level of abstraction means that you are not getting the best results when you use a tool like Cursor. OpenAI and Anthropic are running their harnesses Codex CLI and Claude Code at a loss (because VC), but providing better results. This is not the best way to make money, but it's a great way to build mindshare and hopefully get customers for life. (People are fickle and cheap though so I doubt this is a customers for life strategy the way people buy the same brand of deodorant once they start buying Dove.)

Happy to answer any questions you may have, but mostly I would highly suggest trying out Codex CLI and Claude Code to get a better feel for what I'm saying — and to also to get more out of your AI tools. :)
by indigoabstract | 2025-12-26 15:28:13+00:00
It's kind of ironic since AI can only grow by feeding on data and open source with its good intentions of sharing knowledge is absolutely perfect for this.

But AI is also the ultimate meat grinder, there's no yours or theirs in the final dish, it's just meat.

And open source licenses are practically unenforceable for an AI system, unless you can maybe get it to cough up verbatim code from its training data.

At the same time, we all know they're not going anywhere, they're here to stay.

I'm personally not against them, they're very useful obviously, but I do have mixed or mostly negative feelings on how they got their training data.
by realsharkymark | 2025-12-26 15:28:15+00:00
I work with the author at Nuon. He initially used a Kinesis like some coworkers, but refined it to a minimalist setup with an open-source Korne keyboard, that sits on top of his Macbook keyboard.

When I first saw it, he initially had rubber bands holding it down. Now it's on a secure plate with even a company-coordinated color scheme for the keys.

Interesting how his gaming experience led to a custom layer setup.
by robmccoll | 2025-12-26 15:29:26+00:00
I don't think most software houses spend enough time even focusing on engineering time. CI pipelines that take tens of minutes to over an hour, compile times that exceed ten seconds when nothing has changed, startup times that are much more than a few seconds. Focus and fast iteration are super important to writing software and it seems like a lot of orgs just kinda shrug when these long waits creep into the development process.
by DetectDefect | 2025-12-26 15:29:29+00:00
Taste has nothing to do with it; 'tis is all based on economics and the actual way to stop meat consumption is to simply remove big-ag tax subsidies and other externalized costs of production which are not actually realized by the consumer. A burger would cost more than most can afford and the free market would take care of this problem without additional intervention. Unfortunately, we do not have a free market.
by mananaysiempre | 2025-12-26 15:30:17+00:00
> Git knows how to store [a hash-addressed tree], but git does not know how to transfer it efficiently.

Naïvely, I’d expect shallow clones to be this, so I was quite surprised by a mention of GitHub asking people not to use them. Perhaps Git tries too hard to make a good packfile?..

Meanwhile, what Nixpkgs does (and why “release tarballs” were mentioned as a potential culprit in the discussion linked from TFA) is request a gzipped tarball of a particular commit’s files from a GitHub-specific endpoint over HTTP rather than use the Git protocol. So that’s already more or less what you want, except even the tarball is 46 MB at this point :( Either way, I don’t think the current problems with Nixpkgs actually support TFA’s thesis.
by TimorousBestie | 2025-12-26 15:30:17+00:00
It’s been acknowledged that Abstract Expressionism was partly a CIA op ( https://daily.jstor.org/was-modern-art-really-a-cia-psy-op/ ) probably along with other attempts at cultivating anti-Soviet “soft power.”

As for postmodernism or deconstruction, the connections are less clear. Derrida for instance had connections with American universities that themselves had government connections and funding sources, but I don’t know of any evidence of a direct link.
by 946789987649 | 2025-12-26 15:30:36+00:00
For me personally, it's certainly been an iterative process. I like to think of focus as any other habit that I want to form, so from that:

- Schedule time for it

- Understand that I will have slip ups and that's okay

- Make it hard to do the bad things (in this case, I have domain blockers to stop me redditing, I move my phone to another room etc.)

- Make it enjoyable. For me it's finding a particular energetic DJ set and just bopping along while I do the focused work.

And so on.
by empath75 | 2025-12-26 15:30:42+00:00
If gold is inherently valueless, then isn’t shipping all of it away immediately to other countries in return for useful goods the most rational thing to do?

And if they could get gold at a fraction of the cost of other countries and exchange it for useful goods, isn’t that more rational than building the goods yourself?

The Spanish were not stupid and were not acting irrationally — except perhaps thinking on too short of a time frame. The gold trade was a total moral abomination, but it was a good trade economically for hundreds of years.

The main problem was that it was basically an arbitrage play and once the margin got erased from inflation, they had let the rest of their economy atrophy.

This is one of the reasons the Saudis invest so much money in tech companies and other industries.
by rijoja | 2025-12-26 15:31:22+00:00
Well they don't cut together clips to make it sound like people say something completely different like the BBC does, so they are way more dependable in that sense. But that's sort of like comparing them to Pravda so the bar isn't set very high.

They really don't claim to be anything else than conservative either, and them being conservative doesn't logically make it wrong either does it?

Twitter is really bad for the Labour party because it allows young people to hear dissenting views and criticism that you won't see in large parts of the media.

Labour politicians has done some shocking and outrageous things recently, and are doing terrible in recent polls, most likely because people can go on Twitter and Tiktok and get hear criticism of them.
by TeMPOraL | 2025-12-26 15:31:31+00:00
> A high-trust community like a village can prevent a tragedy of the commons scenario. Participants feel obligations to the community, and misusing the commons actually does have real downsides for the individual because there are social feedback mechanisms.

That works while the size of the community is ~100-200 people, when everyone knows everyone else personally. It breaks down rapidly after that. We compensate for that with hierarchies of governance, which give rise to written laws and bureaucracy.

New tribes break off old tribes, form alliances, which form larger alliances, and eventually you end up with countries and counties and vovoidships and cities and districts and villages, in hierarchies that gain a level per ~100x population increase.

This is sociopolitical history of the world in a nutshell.
by ptero | 2025-12-26 15:31:37+00:00
> “this other thing is also bad” is not an exoneration

No, but it puts some perspective on things. IMO Google, after abandoning its early "don't be evil" motto is directly responsible for a significant chunk of the current evil in the developed world, from screen addiction to kids' mental health and social polarization.

Working for Google and drawing an extravagant salary for many, many years was a choice that does affect the way we perceive other issues being discussed by the same source. To clarify: I am not claiming that Rob is evil; on the contrary. His books and open source work were an inspiration to many, myself included. But I am going to view his opinions on social good and evil through the prism of his personal employment choices. My 2c.
by jstummbillig | 2025-12-26 15:31:38+00:00
Are you okay? You ventured 100x and that's wrong. What would you know about the last time I checked was, and in what context exactly? Good job on doing what I suggest to you do, I guess.

The reason why it all rounds to 0 is that the google search will not give you an answer. It gives you a list of web pages, that you then need to visit, often times more than just one of them, generating more requests, and will ask more time of you, the human, whose cumulative energy expenditure is quite significant, will have to invest over other things and over having that done by the LLM.
by lo_zamoyski | 2025-12-26 15:31:40+00:00
There is an analogy in the sense that for the users a resource is, for certain practical intents and purposes, functionally common. Social media is like this as well.

But I would make the following clarifications:

1. A private entity is still the steward of the resource and therefore the resource figures into the aims, goals, and constraints of the private entity.

2. The common good is itself under the stewardship of the state, as its function is guardian of the common good.

3. The common good is the default (by natural law) and prior to the private good. The latter is instituted in positive law for the sake of the former by, e.g., reducing conflict over goods.
by least | 2025-12-26 15:31:46+00:00
> There's no reason why Framework cannot be that successful in 10 years time.

They don't have the resources nor is their scope large enough. Could that change in 10 years? Maybe, but probably not. I'm not even sure it's something they would want to replicate. Retail costs a lot of money and the benefits to it are quite limited. Similarly a service network that would be comparable to one of the larger PC manufacturers would also be very expensive.

> Furthermore, when Framework might become that successful, no need to buy a full new laptop, you can just buy the stuff that failed and move on. And if that does happen, then experience with Framework promises to be much better than experience with Macbook.

The experience you're describing is still involving a person opening up their laptop to replace whatever the failed part is, assuming they even know what the failed part is. I'm qualified to do those sort of diagnostics on a computer and depending on what it is, it'd still be more downtime than going to buy/getting a loaner laptop in most cases.

I'm not saying people can't learn that but I know that people won't.
by zikduruqe | 2025-12-26 15:32:43+00:00
> I love my M1 Pro MacBook and I wish I could have the same efficiency when running Linux but I can't.

No doubt. And don't forget Apple nailed the trackpad experience too. But I seldom need to use my laptop for 20 hours away from an A/C outlet. It's nice, but not necessary for me.

With that being said, I personally am going to start abandoning the Apple ecosystem with each device that NEEDS to be replaced. I'm tired of features being forced into each software cycle, and I don't want any AI on my devices.

I'm going to lean into Framework (or keep my old T480 alive) and GrapheneOS when needed.
by phkahler | 2025-12-26 15:33:00+00:00
>> The number of companies that have this much respect for the user is vanishingly small.

I think companies shifted to online apps because #1 it solved the copy protection problem. FOSS apps are not in any hurry to become centralized because they dont care about that issue.

Local apps and data are a huge benefit of FOSS and I think every app website should at least mention that.

"Local app. No ads. You own your data."
by fweimer | 2025-12-26 15:33:11+00:00
The AGPL does not prevent offering the software as a service. It's got a reputation as the GPL variant for an open-core business model, but it really isn't that.

Most companies trying to sell open-source software probably lose more business if the software ends up in the Debian/Ubuntu repository (and the packaging/system integration is not completely abysmal) than when some cloud provider starts offering it as a service.
by cesarb | 2025-12-26 15:33:13+00:00
One of these is not like the others...

> The problem was that go get needed to fetch each dependency’s source code just to read its go.mod file and resolve transitive dependencies.

This article is mixing two separate issues. One is using git as the master database storing the index of packages and their versions. The other is fetching the code of each package through git. They are orthogonal; you can have a package index using git but the packages being zip/tar/etc archives, you can have a package index not using git but each package is cloned from a git repository, you can have both the index and the packages being git repositories, you can have neither using git, you can even not have a package index at all (AFAIK that's the case for Go).
by palmotea | 2025-12-26 15:33:38+00:00
> I don’t know anyone who doesn’t immediately throw said enveloppe, postage, and letter in the trash

If you're being accurate, the people you know are terrible.

If someone sends me a personal letter [and I gather we're talking about a thank-you note here], I'm sure as hell going to open it. I'll probably even save it in a box for an extremely long time.
by myself248 | 2025-12-26 15:34:17+00:00
Yeah, although the low-res screens on older machines are pretty limiting with modern UIs too. Try setting 800x600 for an hour and see how you fare. I have romantic dreams about spinning a new mobo for the Toughbook, but it would have to include a screen transplant too. And at that point I probably fail a lot of the toughness that made it worthwhile in the first place.
by cyberrock | 2025-12-26 15:35:19+00:00
Unfortunately the FW13 is how I realized I don't like 13(.5)" and 3:2, because I'm just too used to 14-16" and 16:10/16:9. I wish they had more variety in chassis, not just in size and aspect ratio, but also touchscreen and 2-in-1 conversion. You'd think that that might be easier to support than designing and supporting more mainboards. But when I saw that FW12 is a 2-in-1 I knew they were never going to add touch to 13/16, so I just gave up and got a different (larger) 2-in-1.
by dale_glass | 2025-12-26 15:35:41+00:00
I've got my doubts, because current AI tech doesn't quite live in the real world.

In the real world something like inventing a meat substitute is thorny problem that must be solved in meatspace, not in math. Anything from not squicking out the customers, to being practical and cheap to produce, to tasting good, to being safe to eat long term.

I mean, maybe some day we'll have a comprehensive model of humans to the point that we can objectively describe the taste of a steak and then calculate whether a given mix and processing of various ingredients will taste close enough, but we're nowhere near that yet.
by dangus | 2025-12-26 15:35:53+00:00
A Dodge Neon SRT4 is faster than a lot of BMWs but it doesn’t make it a better car to live with.

This is Apple’s price anchor in action. The base price is essentially not the real price. Anyone who can use the capability of their chips to their fullest will need more RAM and storage. Even casual users will find 256GB tight sometimes. Goodbye, “Optimize storage.”

In practical use, there really isn’t anything my system can’t do that a MacBook Air can besides battery stamina. Since moving to Linux/x86 gaming has become way easier (goodbye CrossOver). Programming and containerization is way better on Linux, and I finally have the RAM for it.

I acknowledge Apple’s lead in their chips but that’s only one component of the experience, and it’s not so far ahead that it’s a major detriment to choose something else.
by zbycz | 2025-12-26 15:35:57+00:00
If you download a Data export, the timestamps are there for every conversation, and often for messages as well.

The html file is just a big JSON with some JS rendering, so I wrote this bash script which adds the timestamp before the conversation title:

sed -i 's|"<h4>" + conversation.title + "</h4>"|"<h4>" + new Date(conversation.create_time*1000).toISOString().slice(0, 10) + " @ " + conversation.title + "</h4>"|' chat.html
by parpfish | 2025-12-26 15:36:04+00:00
Maybe I’m cynical, but whenever I read about a high school kid making a science breakthrough I assume this is what happened (based partially on personal experience):

- the lab PI has a friend who’s kid needs to put together a college application

- PI asks their postdoctoral to tee up a project for the kid.

- kid does the last 2% of the project but gets all the credit while being unaware of how much background legwork was needed to get them there. Postdoc gets nothing.
by PunchyHamster | 2025-12-26 15:36:29+00:00
You're paying for brand and the fact they make key exfiltration very hard.

Getting the key out of rpi4 will be trivally easy if someone stoles it, not so much for hardware key.

I am surprised that competition didn't kept them in check, we're using them for more than a decade and the price just keeps slowly creeping in.
by eduction | 2025-12-26 15:36:38+00:00
T480 is indeed superb (except for being on the heavy side). I accidentally hurled my phone into the screen (both were on the bed and I shook the sheets trying to find the beeping phone). The replacement screen was like $75 and a 5 minute job. On MacBooks that’s typically closer to $600.

I’ll probably replace it eventually with a t14 which is pretty light these days.
by ahachete | 2025-12-26 15:36:40+00:00
Thank you for acknowledging this and updating the blog post correspondingly.

I'd love to test and compare PeerDB with Debezium (Embedded), and even SynchDB. But as said, the licensing is a blocker for us. And given the focus and bandwidth we currently have, we won't have the chance to deeply look at it unless there's a high chance we could integrate it into StackGres.

Anyway feel free to DM me if you'd like to talk more.
by solarengineer | 2025-12-26 15:37:16+00:00
Assume that your cash runs out. What will you then do?

Until you rebuild your cash base and have some cash flow, please hit the pause button on seeking your calling. One's calling can change over the years, and multiple times at that. Those who have found their calling are able to continue in it because they also make money to sustain living in a self-supported society (there are no benevolent sponsors like Kings and rich donors anymore who would support artists for the remainder of their lives)

Even with AI coming in, there is a lot of need for those who can make maintainable systems and systems that do not lose data. How good are you with your basics? Solving the SICP can help you pick up new programming languages. Solving the leetcode and clearing system design interviews can help you land a paying job. Being AI-savvy can help you get jobs at places that have budgets for AI tools (and therefore also have budgets for other things like salaries).
by mergesort | 2025-12-26 15:38:02+00:00
Heya, I'm the author of the post and I just wanted to say I do appreciate the configurability! As I mentioned in the post, I have been that kind of developer in the past.

> This is a perfect match for engineers who love configuring their environments. I can’t tell you how many full days of my life I’ve lost trying out new Xcode features or researching VS Code extensions that in practice make me 0.05% more productive.

And I tried to be pretty explicit about the idea that this is a very personal choice.

> Personally — and I do emphasize this is a personal decision — I‘d rather write a well-spec’d plan and go do something else for 15 minutes. Claude’s Plan Mode is exceptional, and that‘s why so many people fall in love with Claude once they try it.2

For every person who feels like me today, there's someone who feels like you out there. And for every person who feels like you, there's someone like me (today) who finds it not as valuable to their workflow. That's the reason my conclusion was all about getting folks to try out both to see what works for them — because people change and it's worth finding out who you really at this moment in time.

Anyhow, I do think that Codex is also very configurable — I was just trying to emphasize that it's really great out the box while Claude Code requires more tuning. But that tuning makes it more personal, which as you mention is a huge plus! As I've touched on in a few posts [^1] [^2] Skills are to me a big deal, because they allow people to achieve high levels of customization without having to be the kind of developer that devotes a lot of time to creating their perfect set up. (Now supported in both Claude Code and Codex.)

I don't want this to turn into a bit of a ramble so I'll just say that I agree with you — but also there's a lot of nuance here because we're all having very personal coding experiences with AI — so it may not entirely sound like I agree with you. :)

Would love to hear more about your specific customizations, to make sure that I'm not missing out on anything valuable. :D

[1]: https://build.ms/2025/10/17/your-first-claude-skill/
[2]: https://build.ms/2025/12/1/scribblenauts-for-software/
by lo_zamoyski | 2025-12-26 15:38:15+00:00
Even here, the state is the steward of the common good. It is a mistaken notion that the state only exists because people are bad. Even if people were perfectly conscientious and concerned about the common good, you still need a steward. It simply wouldn’t be a steward who would need to use aggressive means to protect the common good from malice or abuse.
by dboon | 2025-12-26 15:38:42+00:00
Please share. I’m interested in anything that’s roughly as simple as implementing a centralized registry, is easily inspected by users (preferably with no external tooling), and is very fast.

It’s really important that someone is able to search for the manifest one of their dependencies uses for when stuff doesn’t work out of the box. That should be as simple as possible.

I’m all ears, though! Would love to find something as simple and good as a git registry but decentralized
by gmuslera | 2025-12-26 15:39:06+00:00
I think it adds value. Having a conversation with/around a book/document with an AI is a good use case, and having that feature as a not forced option in a book management solution a good match.

It is not something that works regardless if we configure or activate it or not. It may broaden the AI use for people that find that useful? Yes. Would that end being dependency on a particular provider? Maybe on how we use it. At some point a lot of those decisions were taken in the past by most of the rest, like using search engines or a narrow/builtin set of browsers or desktop/mobile OSs. If using AIs is a concern then the ship has sailed long ago for many bigger things already.
by lkbm | 2025-12-26 15:39:21+00:00
I'm unsure if I'm missing context. Did he do something beyond posting an angry tweet?

It seems like he's upset about AI (same), and decided to post angry tweets about it (been there, done that), and I guess people are excited to see someone respected express an opinion they share (not same)?

Does "Goes Nuclear" means "used the F word"? This doesn't seem to add anything meaningful, thoughtful, or insightful.