MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by 542354234235 | 2025-12-22 19:12:39+00:00
Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t want laws to be written to the level of my emotional individual reaction to a singular crime. I want laws to reflect the ideals and values of society, and to work at scale when balancing individual freedom, societal safety, and protection from government abuse.

“It is better, so the Fourth Amendment teaches us, that the guilty sometimes go free than the citizens be subject to easy arrest.” - Former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
by embedding-shape | 2025-12-22 19:12:40+00:00
> These tools seem incapable of building software in the hands of users who don't understand security already.

These tools are for augmentation of skills, not for wholesale "imma a programmer now", which a lot of people seem to think. And to be honest, lots of companies are selling that "experience" too, even though they know it isn't true, a bit shit.
by __MatrixMan__ | 2025-12-22 19:12:42+00:00
One contributor that I don't see mentioned elsewhere: For many many python users, their only touchpoint for the language is reading and writing it.

Python gets a lot of grief from the perspective of people who are frustrated because they didn't start off using virtual environments and now their global python package namespace is a nightmare. Legit criticisms, but for many non-developer python users those problems are somebody else's problems. Given the readership on this site... they're most likely our problems, but we aren't the users that python is made for. We're support for those users.

It's winning because its audience is not code specialists, but other kinds of specialists which sometimes need to use code. Their work often has a sort of immediate importance that ours often doesn't. It's not evaluated based on whether the techies like it, it's evaluated based on whether the scientists, the analysist, the students, and the {non-computery-engineering} Engineers like it.
by BuildTheRobots | 2025-12-22 19:12:46+00:00
It's a good question, and I wondered the same. I don't know, but I'd postulate:

As it stands at the minute, the clocks are a mere 5 microseconds out and will slowly get better over time. This isn't even in the error measurement range and so they know it's not going to have a major effect on anything.

When the event started and they lost power and access to the site, they also lost their management access to the clocks as well. At this point they don't know how wrong the clocks are, or how more wrong they're going to get.

If someone restores power to the campus, the clocks are going to be online (all the switches and routers connecting them to the internet suddenly boot up), before they've had a chance to get admin control back. If something happened when they were offline and the clocks drifted significantly, then when they came online half the world might decide to believe them and suddenly step change to follow them. This could cause absolute havoc.

Potentially safer to scram something than have it come back online in an unknown state, especially if (lots of) other things are are going to react to it.

In the last NIST post, someone linked to The Time Rift of 2100: How We lost the Future --- and Gained the Past. It's a short story that highlights some of the dangers of fractured time in a world that uses high precision timing to let things talk to each other: https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7132077&cid=493082...
by SpicyLemonZest | 2025-12-22 19:12:56+00:00
Which activities specifically were sabotaged? Trump was, for example, famously able to implement what he called a "Muslim ban" - previous administration hires can't have been happy about that, yet I don't recall any stories about civil servants sabotaging the implementation of it.

My impression is that many of Trump's political appointees simply don't understand due process requirements, and interpret any legal obstacles to executing their will as sabotage by shadowy figures. You mention case developments, but as the administration has repeatedly found out recently, career staff are generally right when they identify something as a weak case the government can't possibly win.
by mikkupikku | 2025-12-22 19:12:57+00:00
The police are usually pretty good at their jobs, within reason. It's almost always going to take them several minutes at least to respond to your call, but when they do manage to arrive on the scene they are usually pretty good about eliminating the threat and rendering first aid/etc. There are some infamous cases where this severely broke down, instances of cops not entering an active crime scene and instead seeing fit to stop the public from taking matters into their own hands, but these instances are so notorious because of how unusual and counter to American values they were.

It's usually prosecutors and judges who drop the ball.
by nancyminusone | 2025-12-22 19:13:08+00:00
It's actually "cameras and digital recording devices". My guess is that they meant to say "don't have your phone out in the bathroom" but someone in the meeting went "well my son records stuff on his Nintendo DS all the time" and they changed it.

If you're the kind of guy to bring a tape recorder in there and argue about splitting hairs, I don't think they will look kindly upon you.
by newpavlov | 2025-12-22 19:13:23+00:00
LOL, nope. Those annotations must be part of the type system (e.g. `&mut T` in Rust) and must be checked by the compiler (the borrow checker). The language can provide escape hatches like `unsafe`, but they should be rarely used. Without it you get a fragile footgunny mess.

Just look at the utter failure of `restrict`. It was so rarely used in C that it took several years of constant nagging from Rust developers to iron out various bugs in compilers caused by it.
by ben_w | 2025-12-22 19:13:28+00:00
> Why can't the plan be judged on its merits? Rigorous verification of the idea is a good thing that should happen anyways.

Situational.

I don't know this blogger or what the plan involved; but for sake of agument, let's say it was a business plan, and let's say in isolation it's really good, 99.9% chance of success with 10x returns kind of good.

Everyone in whatever problem space this is probably just got the same quality of advice from their own LLM prompting. That 99.9% is no longer "in isolation", it is a correlated failure where all the other people doing the same thing as you makes it less viable.

That's a good reason not to use a public tool, even when the output is good.

Correlated risk disguised as uncorrolated risk was a big part of the global financial crisis in the late 00s.
by mjr00 | 2025-12-22 19:13:36+00:00
> Why the hell do I bother? Because you play like you practice! No ifs, buts, or maybes. You start writing sloppily because you go, "it's just an LLM!" You'll silently be building a bad habit and start doing that with humans.

IMO: the flaw with this logic is that you're treating "prompting an LLM" as equivalent to "communicating with a human", which it is not. To reuse an example I have in a sibling comment thread, nobody thinks that by typing "cat *.log | grep 'foo'" means you're losing your ability to communicate to humans that you want to search for the word 'foo' in log files. It's just a shorter, easier way of expressing that to a computer.

It's also deceptive to say it is practice for human-to-human communication, because LLMs won't give you the feedback that humans would. As a fun English example: I prompted ChatGPT with "I impregnated my wife, what should I expect over the next 9 months?" and got back banal info about hormonal changes and blah blah blah. What I didn't get back is feedback that the phrasing "I impregnated my wife" sounds extremely weird and if you told a coworker that they'd do a double-take, and maybe tell you that "my wife is pregnant" is how we normally say it in human-to-human communication. ChatGPT doesn't give a shit, though, and just knows how to interpret the tokens to give you the right response.

I'll also say that punctuation and capitalization is orthogonal to content. I use proper writing on HN because that's the standard in the community, but I talk to a lot of very smart people and we communicate with virtually no caps/punctuation. The usage of proper capitalization and punctuation is more a function of the medium than how well you can communicate.
by zahlman | 2025-12-22 19:13:38+00:00
> It is far and away the most common footgun novices run into when I'm answering questions about why their code doesn't work.

It was, in my experience, before Python 3 clamped down on mixed spaces on tabs; before the `SyntaxError`s got better (for example the handling of `try` without `except`); and before VSCode got so popular (such that all the novices were using who-even-knows-what random editor and you had to figure out every time how they were actually producing the indentation, whether it does/can convert tabs to spaces).

And, oddly enough, before LLMs. Not so much because they explain anything all that well, but because lazy clueless people now get correctly indented code generated in-place rather than copying and pasting from Stack Overflow and not having any clue how to make the pasted code line up properly.

But now I far more often see people who are clueless enough that they can't distinguish the REPL from a command line ("why is `pip install ...` a syntax error?"), or are struggling with whatever is the latest attempt by the Python team to make Python easier to install and manage on Windows, or who seemingly can't wrap their head around the idea that Python has to know where on disk to look for the installed libraries (or why it won't work to just put everything in the system environment). And in terms of the language itself, probably the biggest stumbling blocks are things like command-query separation ("why can't I `foo.append(bar).append(baz)`?") and just using functions properly (which typically boils down to "why doesn't `return foo` let me refer to `foo` in the calling function?", but generally stated completely differently).
by mos_basik | 2025-12-22 19:13:41+00:00
Love it, bookmarked.

I first saw this idea at https://jmw.name/projects/linear-clock/ and then later I wrote a TUI version for myself

I had tickmarks for stuff (when to go to bed to sleep for 7.5h and wake up near sunrise, things like that). I was working on adding a config file format.

Then I lost the project due to a mishap with a pipx flag... https://github.com/pypa/pipx/issues/1324#issuecomment-211885... ;_; o7

One day maybe I'll come back and do it in Rust.
by osdf | 2025-12-22 19:14:04+00:00
From https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/1pszdao/media_eilmeld...: eilmeldung is based on the awesome newsflash library and supports many RSS providers. It has vim-like key bindings, is configurable, comes with a powerful query language and bulk operations.

This proiect is not Al (vibe-)coded! And it is sad that I even have to say this.

Still, as a full disclosure, with this proiect I wanted to find out if and how LLMs can be used to learn a new programming language; rust in this case. Each line of code was written by myself; it contains all my beginner mistakes, warts and all. More on this at the bottom of the GitHub page.
by ISL | 2025-12-22 19:14:26+00:00
It is likely that many airlines accommodate people who are being deported as regular passengers on outbound international flights.

For movement of humans at industrial scale, though, there are only a few operators with ICE contracts. Avelo, GlobalX, Eastern, Key Lime Air, and Omni come immediately to mind. For international flights, there's at least one Learjet operator that flies a bunch for them, too.

These days, the aforementioned carriers fly 20-30 flights/day. Here are Saturday's flights (apologies for the sign-in wall, but lalabote keeps their account somewhat locked down): https://bsky.app/profile/lalabote.bsky.social/post/3mai6lach...
by vorpalhex | 2025-12-22 19:14:48+00:00
It's very clear there is a large contingent of people who are here illegally. That isn't exclusively Central/South Americans, but they make up a very large portion.

You can't say "Well enforcing the rules doesn't impact everyone equally so you can't enforce them!"

If you entered illegally, you need to be sent home. End of logic. Any other variation allows the system to be gamed trivially.

Most of the people who have entered illegally did so because they are prohibited - due to criminal record - for entering legally. They also harm the legal immigrants in their community too.

You can not allow asylum cases and also permit the criminals who created those conditions those legal immigrants fled. You are damning everyone when you do.
by captn3m0 | 2025-12-22 19:14:55+00:00
Supporting pre-compiled native binary packages. Look at the manylinux effort for eg: https://github.com/pypa/manylinux, which spans a decade to ensure that glibc changes did not break python wheels. Every other language required a full-build pipeline for binary extensions: node-gyp for eg. Even where it was supported (such as PECL), compatibility with the language and system was always left as an afterthought and underspecified. The end-result was that the only way to "safely" install binary extensions for most languages was via distros or third-party repositories, but never via the package registry.
by Esophagus4 | 2025-12-22 19:15:00+00:00
If it could be profitable, the private sector would fund it.

Government funding can help with things that we decide are good for society, but not quite profitable financially.

Examples: CDC lead exposure research, Earthquake Early Warning System… even the tech we use today came out of non-commercialized funding (NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography and ARPANET).
by potsandpans | 2025-12-22 19:15:01+00:00
It will probably be unpopular here, where people appear to have drawn the lines and formed unyielding positions, but...

The whole llm paranoia is devolving into hysteria. Lots of finger pointing without proof, lots of shoddy evidence put forward and nuance missing points.

My stance is this: I don't really care whether someone used an llm or wrote it themselves. My observation is that in both cases people were mostly wrong and required strict reviews and verification, with the exception of those who did Great Work.

There are still people who do Great Work, and even when they use llms the output is exceptional.

So my job hasn't changed much, I'm just reading more emojis.

If you find yourself becoming irrationally upset by something that you're encountering that's largely outside of your control, consider going to therapy and not forming a borderline obsession with purity on something that has always been a bit slippery (creative originality ).
by breppp | 2025-12-22 19:15:06+00:00
Photography had particularly dramatic effects on the livelihoods of painters who operated on the fringe of the mainstream. This included the portrait miniaturists, whose markets fell drastically, particularly after the introduction of the multi-pose and cheap cartes de visite in the mid-1850s. Many gave up, while others turned to colouring photos [25]. Some painters of sentimental genre scenes were also particularly affected, as a result of the profusion of readily available photographic genre works, often composed in a painterly or "pictorial" style [26]. This was sometimes due not to the public’s preference for the photographic version, but simply because a particular subject matter lost its appeal to painters and their clients once photography entered the scene [27]. In addition, the introduction of “half-tone” photography in the 1880s also initiated a slow decline in the market for newspaper and magazine illustrators [28].

Much more here:
https://www.artinsociety.com/pt-1-initial-impacts.html

https://www.barnesfoundation.org/whats-on/early-photography
by hagbard_c | 2025-12-22 19:15:09+00:00
I suspect he was referring to 802.11b WiFi when he said the thing has no 'wireless' option, not the lack of a radio receiver. 802.11b (and 802.11a) were launched in 1999 and as such predate these high-capacity digital music players. 802.11b was not fast by modern standards (raw data rate up to 11 Mbit/s, practical throughput ~5.9Mbit/s for TCP, ~7.1 Mbit/s UDP) so it would have taken a while to dump a large collection to these devices.
by cogman10 | 2025-12-22 19:15:32+00:00
It'll obviously be industry dependent.

A few that I'd see the need.

- Railroads - The lines themselves and the operation should be owned by the federal government. Private rail companies should buy access which pays for line expansion and maintenance. The US needs regulations on things like train length and line speeds (none of these super massive trains blocking roadways because they don't fit inside a rail yard).

- Medicine - Medicare for all, but honestly I think nationalizing major hospitals and pharmaceuticals would probably be warranted. It's in the national interest to fund a wide breadth of research and medicine production even if that medicine doesn't ultimately turn a profit. But even if we just did insurance, the US is already covering the most expensive pool of individuals with Medicare (old people) expanding it to all citizens wouldn't be that expensive. Reform to medicare would help (particularly removing Part C, that's just a slush fund for insurance companies, but then also expanding and simplifying the other parts).

Utilities ownership - Doesn't need to be nationalized, but having municipal or state ran utilities would, IMO, be preferable. The state utilities boards suck and putting in checks for utility companies. They aren't elected and are easy to corrupt. For example, my water utility was recently purchased by a company. In order to cover the loan they took out to purchase the previous water company, they raised rates (fat chance those go down). For telecommunications, I think a British telecom style system would work well. The government owns the lines while various telecommunication companies compete for service. That'd make it easier for more than just 2 companies providing internet service to a given location. Cellular networks practically already work like this, the big 3 own everything and sub-carriers just lease access. It'd be better if the government nationally owned cell service deployment. Especially in terms of spectrum usage.

- Food production - I don't really think government ownership is needed here, I think anti-trust and breakups are needed. These markets have consolidated to a huge extent which is really bad for everyone. Having just ~5 different national grocers is a bad thing. Having just a few mills (like general mills) is a bad thing.

- Chip fabrication - This should be owned by the government much like TSMC. And like TSMC, the likes of nvidia/intel/amd can buy a fab to do their runs. Fabs are just too crazy expensive and losing the competitive edge here is a security problem.

Basically, my view centers mostly around when an industry gets too consolidated. Especially when I think it's something that has critical importance to the general public. I could be open to more of these sorts of actions, it just depends on if an industry can be naturally competitive or not. Like, for example, I think a nationalized shoe manufacturing is a dumb idea as it's already a highly competitive market that could be easily broken up.

Hopefully that answers your question.
by incrudible | 2025-12-22 19:15:47+00:00
> Well, that's definitely on you. Arch do warn people to actually read the changelogs if you're going to update/upgrade everything.

"There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now."
by opello | 2025-12-22 19:15:58+00:00
The 5us inaccuracy is basically irrelevant to NTP users, from the second update to the Internet Time Service mailing list[1]:

To put a deviation of a few microseconds in context, the NIST time scale usually performs about five thousand times better than this at the nanosecond scale by composing a special statistical average of many clocks. Such precision is important for scientific applications, telecommunications, critical infrastructure, and integrity monitoring of positioning systems. But this precision is not achievable with time transfer over the public Internet; uncertainties on the order of 1 millisecond (one thousandth of one second) are more typical due to asymmetry and fluctuations in packet delay.

[1] https://groups.google.com/a/list.nist.gov/g/internet-time-se...
by blazingbanana | 2025-12-22 19:16:18+00:00
Will look at giving this a shot in the new year.

Thanks for confirming the AI provider, it would be good if they were listed somewhere on the site (but that's probably a personal preference). I'm a massive fan of local models, for your use case they'd be more than powerful enough to run on consumer hardware if you have some lying around. If you ever have any questions, feel free to drop me a DM, happy to chat about it.

This is an example of a WIP I've got in place that uses some spare local hardware available instead of using an external API - https://trulyanonymous.blazingbanana.com/survey/d14b4e2c-f44...
by ecshafer | 2025-12-22 19:16:22+00:00
Lets steel man this:

1. If the output is solid, does it matter?

2. The author could simply have done the research, created the plan, and then gave an LLM the bullet list points of research and told it to "make this into a presentable plan". The author does the heavy work and actually does the creative work, and outsources the manual formatting to the LLM. My Wife speaks English as a second language, she much prefers telling an LLM what she is trying to say and to generate a business friendly email from this than writing it herself and letting in grammatical mistakes.

3. If I were to write a paper in my favorite text editor and then put it through pandoc to generate a word doc it would do the same thing.
by unyttigfjelltol | 2025-12-22 19:16:23+00:00
So many technologists offended at the use of technology. Next they’ll insist on pen-on-paper for truly authentic work product, and after that, 3 days’ wilderness meditation on it, to prove you really internalized it.

Look, it’s now like, email in 2004. You see spam, that it has found email. It doesn’t mean you refuse to interact with anyone by email, write geocities posts mocking email-users. You just acknowledge the technology (email) can be used for efficiency, results, and it also can be misused as a giant time-waster.

The author of the article here is basically saying “technology was used = work product is trash”. The ”spam” folks are seeing must be horrible to evoke this kind of condemnatory response.
by btilly | 2025-12-22 19:16:24+00:00
They had multiple pathways. The top three destinations were Canada, the USA, and Australia. These locations offered a major benefit over the UK - they were on trade routes along which people from Hong Kong were already doing business.

Canada was particularly affected. It absorbed the most immigrants, they were a larger share of the population, and this was a major increase in ethnic diversity. The resulting cultural clashes were sometimes an issue. Here is one that literally doubled car insurance rates in British Columbia around the time I left.

Three cars, 2 in front with the left-hand car being driven by a Canadian, and the back car driven by a recent immigrant. The immigrant sees the opportunity to pass, swings out into oncoming traffic, and guns it. Leaving just a few inches of room. Normal Hong Kong driving.

The Canadian has no idea that this is happening until OMG I'M ABOUT TO BE HIT! The Canadian then swerves right to avoid the emergency, and hits the car on the right.

The immigrant drives off. Presumably wondering about these crazy Canadians who don't know how to drive.

Everyone involved behaved reasonably for how they were used to driving. But the combination worked out very poorly...