MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by hilbert42 | 2025-12-17 08:26:49+00:00
"The council’s recommendation also adopts Hepburn spellings for し, じ and つ as shi, ji, and tsu, compared to the Kunrei spellings of si, zi and tu."

As a Westerner I know very little Japanese but having worked in Japan for a short while I take an interest in the language.

When reading this it occurred to me there might have been more reason for adopting the Hepburn spelling than stated. As as English speaker I've noticed how poorly we pronounce Japanese words and perhaps this change is also intended as a subtle way of letting us know.

English has a long tradition of stealing words from other languages then mangling them almost beyond recognition because we're too lazy to take efforts to pronounce them correctly. To me, this is a form of language arrogance.

Foe example, I've long complained about the adoption in recent decades of the word tsunami into English and then mangling its pronunciation beyond recognition.

I'm old enough to remember when 'tidal wave' was the generally accepted wording for that ocean phenomenon—now we've replaced these perfectly understandable and descriptive English words with tsunami, which to English speakers is both seemingly unpronounceable and conveys no meaningful description in English.

Right, the introduction of the unpronounceable tsunami into English unnecessarily increased the entropy of the language a notch further. Why, for what purpose? Seems to me the only plausible reason is more because of erudite snobbishness than out of any practical utilitarian reason.

That said, I'm not opposed to English stealing words from foreign languages when it makes sense, for example the German zeitgeist is a wonderful expressive replacement for the spirit of the times, similarly translating say gedankenexperiment is straightforward but we don't do so as the word has a rich contextual meaning for physicists both in English and other languages. Thus, it's best left as is.

Back to tsunami. Whenever I hear the word mispronounced by those who ought to know better it just grates badly, the mangled mispronunciation distracts my attention from what's actually being said. So often one hears TV newsreaders including those on the BBC slur the word as 'sooonami' when clearly its English spelling indicates the correct pronunciation. Tsu, つ, sounds like a hissing snake—say it to yourself. Is that not obvious?

Fashion should not be the reason for stealing foreign words but rather because it makes sense to do so. Moreover, we should be respectful of the languages from whence these words came. Perhaps the adoption of the Hepburn spellings is a Japanese hint suggesting that we try a little harder.
by nickpp | 2025-12-17 08:27:26+00:00
> All empirical evidence shows that single payer systems work better, producing far better outcomes at lower cost, than the US system.

Agreed. Also, all empirical evidence shows that free-markets work better, producing far better outcomes at lower cost than either. Just look around at any less-regulated and thus free-er markets. Or just "reject the evidence" - your choice.

> die

I am middle-aged so I used plenty of health services in my life. I always had choices when in came to price and level of care and treatment. None of them were for the "dying" case. But I do have an insurance specifically for that case. I am a rational being so I plan in advance. No need for a government bureaucrat to decide my health care for me just in case some day I may be incapacitated.
by MrAlex94 | 2025-12-17 08:27:30+00:00
Looking back with fresh eyes, I definitely think I could’ve presented what I’m trying to say better.

On a purely technical play, you’re right that I’m drawing a distinction that may not hold up purely on technical grounds. Maybe the better framing is: I trust constrained, single purpose models with somewhat verifiable outputs (seeing text go in, translated text go out, compare its consistency) more than I trust general purpose models with broad access to my browsing context, regardless of whether they’re both neural networks under the hood.

WRT to the “scope”, maybe I have picked up the wrong end of the stick with what Mozilla are planning to do - but they’ve already picked all the low hanging fruit with AI integration with the features you’ve mentioned and the fact they seem to want to dig their heels in further, at least to me, signals that they want deeper integration? Although who knows, the post from the new CEO may also be a litmus test to see what the response to that post elicits, and then go from there.
by 15155 | 2025-12-17 08:28:45+00:00
Of course you could vandalize them easily enough... and be seen doing so from multiple angles: ideally leading to your prosecution and imprisonment or possibly direct kinetic response from their owners.

The legal system tends to react even more negatively to those directly attempting to undermine enforcement efforts - such as vandalizing cameras. You're not just doing "bad," you're constructively preventing evidence of your misdeeds from being gathered.
by BrenBarn | 2025-12-17 08:28:46+00:00
Amen to this. There's a certain mindset that seems depressingly prevalent in tech, which I can't even call fatalism because it doesn't really even have much of a negative-emotion dimension. It's just a sort of amorality that tries to move with trends and is puzzled by even the idea that we would choose to do things because they are good or bad, because we think they will lead to better or worse futures, etc., rather than just because they'll make more money or because they're more technically satisfying, or even just because everyone else seems to be doing them.

There's a lot of bad stuff going on; even more dangerous is the idea that we can't do anything about it; but more dangerous still is the idea that there's no reason to even think in terms of what we "should" do, and that we just have to accept our current position and trajectory without question.
by reddalo | 2025-12-17 08:29:07+00:00
Every time i reinstall Firefox on a new machine, the number of annoyances that I need to remove or change increases.

Putting back the home button, removing the tabs overview button, disabling sponsored suggestions in the toolbar, putting the search bar back, removing the new AI toolbar, disabling the "It's been a while since you've used Firefox, do you want to cleanup your profile?", disabling the long-click tab preview, disabling telemetry, etc. etc.
by sigmoid10 | 2025-12-17 08:29:53+00:00
I just want a browser that lets me easily install a good adblocker on all my operating systems. I don't care about their new toolbar or literally any other feature, because I will probably just disable it immediately anyway. But the nr 1 thing I use every day on every single site I visit is an adblocker. I'm always baffled when people complain about ads on mobile or something, because I literally haven't watched ads in decades now.
by sandeepsr | 2025-12-17 08:32:12+00:00
We @VerifAI hypothesize that using the collective intelligence of multiple models is the way forward, and no single model will be the winner.

Each model will leapfrog one another, and unlike search , there will not be a winner take all dynamic in the LM space. Just like 'Coke and Pepsi' will never collaborate to give the consumer a better/healthier drink, foundation model vendors have no incentive to collaborate on the model itself.

For Code and Test generation (hardware and software), we are already seeing specialized models (SLM's) that mimic a company's coding styles and accents.

Creative use of multiple models (multillm), will lead to better reasoning, better code, tests and get us closer to the ground truth.

-- https://www.verifai.ai, https://multillm.verifai.ai
by dragonwriter | 2025-12-17 08:32:17+00:00
> There are several literals in that code snippet; I could annotate them with their types, and this code would still be exactly as it is.

Well, no, there is one literal that has an ambiguous type, and if you annotated its type, it would resolve entirely the question of what a typechecker should say; literally the entire reason it is an open question is because that one literal is not annotated.
by pjmlp | 2025-12-17 08:33:06+00:00
You missed that Microsoft has several Rust contributors and is one of the main sponsors of using Rust in Linux, alongside Google.

Many forget that Microsoft went from "FOSS is bad", to now having their fingers across many key FOSS projects.

They are naturally not the only ones, a developer got to eat, and big tech gladly pays the bills when it fits their purposes.
by blub | 2025-12-17 08:33:10+00:00
There’s two types of slowdown at play:

a) It’s fast to change the code, but now I have failures in some apparently unrelated part of the code base. (Javascript) and fixing that slows me down.

b) It’s slow to change the code because I have to re-encode all the relationships and semantic content in the type system (Rust), but once that’s done it will likely function as expected.

Depending on project, one or the other is preferable.
by ekjhgkejhgk | 2025-12-17 08:33:40+00:00
Explain what you mean by "objectively better"? Your response makes it sound like you don't know the difference and are doing it because everybody else does it. It also makes it sounds like you don't understand the difference between open source software and free software. Both are free licenses, open source is just one part of it.

The main difference is that GPL3 is a copyleft license, whereas MIT is not. Meaning that legally there is nothing in the license preventing a company from taking your code and using it for their purposes without having to contribute to improve the code.
by Joker_vD | 2025-12-17 08:33:42+00:00
> I am not an expert on this, but the worst API I've seen is those with hidden states.

> e.g. .toggle() API. Call it old number of times, it goes to one state, call it even number of times, it goes back.

This is literally a dumb light switch. If you have trouble proving that, starting from lights off, flicking a simple switch twice will still keep lights off then, well, I have bad news to tell you about the feasibility of using the formal methods for anything more complex than a dumb light switch. Because the rest of the world is a very complex and stateful place.

> (which itself is a state machine of some kind)

Yes? That's pretty much the raison d'être of the formal methods: for anything pure and immutable, normal intuition is usually more than enough; it's tracking the paths through enormous configuration spaces that our intuition has problem with. If the formal methods can't help with that with comparable amount of effort, then they are just not worth it.
by rcarmo | 2025-12-17 08:34:07+00:00
I've been heearing about formal verification since college (which for me was more than 30 years ago) and I even taught a thing called "Z", which was a formally verifiable academia thing that tried to be the ultimate formal language. It never panned out, and I honestly don't think that AI is going to help in anything but test generation, which is going to remain the most pragmatic approach to formal verification (but, like all things, it's an approximation, not 100% correct).
by troupo | 2025-12-17 08:34:07+00:00
"There are clearly Apple employees whose job is to build the iPhone product and ones who market it to consumers" does not in any way, shape, or form equate to "Apple ownes the iPhone (as the physical product that consumers buy)".

When you buy a table from IKEA, IKEA doesn't own it, and has no right to tell you which food you're allowed to eat on it.
by dtjohnnyb | 2025-12-17 08:35:16+00:00
David Epstein calls this "desirable difficulty" in the book Range.

Interestingly he recently discussed how using LLMs tends to remove this desirable difficulty: https://davidepstein.substack.com/p/a-risk-of-cognitive-conv...

This means that the results (both of the task and of the learning by the student) are lower if the student uses an LLM first, but slightly improves if they use it second
by rolandog | 2025-12-17 08:35:18+00:00
Agreed!

Although I'm no survey expert, the thing I'd like to bring to everyone's attention is how easy it is to not take into account people that have a degree of numeric or math illiteracy... which I guess they are the main target demographic that is included by these questions (and I can also guess that they make a worryingly large part of the demographic, because our systems are rarely inclusive).

In my experience, having met people from multiple countries during the time I've been living abroad, what I have noticed is that — in this world filled with inequality — it is a privilege to be able to have a good grasp in scientific subjects. And, for lots of different factors, people have setbacks or trauma that make it difficult to learn a subject that is either boring or painful to them.

So, yes the questions are a bit convoluted, but they help paint a mental image for probably the majority with a thing that they may be closely familiar with: stairs... Plus, it probably helps statisticians get a better signal to noise out of the questions, too.
by dynamite-ready | 2025-12-17 08:35:39+00:00
That's not always the intention behind that style of writing.

Often, when I'm communicating with someone who is either dyslexic, or uses English as a second (or even third or fourth) language, then I make an effort to shorten sentences, and almost make bullet points of them.

It's actually a good exercise for the person writing too. Less can indeed be more.
by igogq425 | 2025-12-17 08:36:32+00:00
Of course it's not scientific. I don't wear a lab coat, and neither do you. You should take a look at yourself in that regard. You can't accuse me of lacking standards that you yourself don't live up to.

Ecuador 2010, Honduras 2009, Venezuela 2002, Haiti 1994, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador until 1990, Panama 1989, Grenada 1983, Bolivia 1980, Chile 1973, Dominican Republic 1965, Cuba 1961, Guatemala 1954, and so on until the territorial destruction of Mexico in 1848: all of them wars, coup attempts, occupations, protection of U.S. corporate interests, installation of military dictatorships, attempted assassinations of heads of government, etc.

These are recent events that naturally have a massive impact on the political and economic development of the nations concerned. And you want to equate that with the fact that the Turks were in Vienna at some point or that a nation of 1.41 billion Chinese has now recovered somewhat from European colonialism. Sorry, but that's ridiculous. The US bears significant responsibility for the poor political and economic situation in many Latin American countries. You don't have to agree with this assessment. But to pretend that there aren't a multitude of valid arguments for it is either ignorant or disingenuous.
Show HN: Grid Maker – Effortless AI Grid Paper and Image Slicer
by funiqlab | 2025-12-17 08:37:01+00:00
Hey there, everyone! I'm super excited to introduce myself. You see, my creator was on a hunt for a slicing tool. He just needed to do some simple picture modifications. But boy, those heavy-duty software were such a pain, way too complex for his simple needs. And the lightweight ones? They often let him down. So, he decided to bring me to life! I might be small, but I'm here to lend you a huge helping hand!

Now, let me tell you about my current core features: 1. Simple Image Editor: I've tried really hard to keep things basic. I only offer the essential tools. Right now, there are just some fundamental operation methods. Why? Because I want to be that easy-to- use tool you reach for without a second thought. If you have any ideas on how I can make this even better and only keep the most vital functions, I'd be thrilled to hear them. 2. Layer Management: It's an important part of what I do, allowing you to manage your layers with ease. Guide Line Editing & Image - Slicing Function: This feature helps you edit guide lines and slice images efficiently. 3. AI Image - Generation Powered by Nanobanana: With this, you can generate result images using single or multiple Grids or layers as references. Nanobanana gives me the power to do this cool stuff! 4. Image Management: I'll save all those amazing image results you generate with my AI, and you can download them whenever you want.
by nickpp | 2025-12-17 08:37:04+00:00
> the vast majority of European countries who have socialized medicine and seem to be doing fine

You do realize that the "vast majority" of European countries doesn't mean highly developed Western Europe, right?

Here in Central and Eastern Europe (where I live) socialized medicine is not "fine". You should visit some hospitals in Bulgaria or Romanian to get a more complete picture. We pay the state outrageous insurance costs every month then go and pay out-of-pocket in private hospitals when we actually need them.
by blub | 2025-12-17 08:37:20+00:00
In practice it would be encoded in comments, automated tests and docs, with varying levels of success.

It’s actually similar to tests in a way: they provide additional confidence in the code, but at the same time ossify it and make some changes potentially more difficult. Interestingly, they also make some changes easier, as long as not too many types/tests have to be adapted.
by lombarovic | 2025-12-17 08:37:24+00:00
Thank you! I am slightly obsessed with optimization, so hearing that means a lot.

You might be surprised — the game is actually deployed in just one region (US) on only two dedicated servers (Contabo).

Here is the breakdown of why it feels fast:

1. The Metal: I use one server for the Web App + Gameplay Backend (.NET), and a second server strictly for PostgreSQL and MongoDB. No virtualization overhead.

2. The Network: I use Cloudflare for static content, which handles the initial global load speed.

3. Aggressive Prefetching: I rely heavily on ServiceWorkers. When you land on the home page, the 'Play' page and game assets are already being prefetched in the background. When you click play, it loads instantly from the local cache.

4. Single WebSocket: Once connected, there is zero HTTP overhead. Every interaction — gameplay, chat, UI updates — travels through a single persistent WebSocket connection.

Keeping the architecture simple (monolith-ish) rather than distributed helps me keep the latency predictable and maintenance low.
by AnthonyMouse | 2025-12-17 08:37:26+00:00
> Well, you still have to pay for the energy (to extract raw material and transform it into final product, and move final product into your hands).

But then you're back to having something that isn't automated. If machines do this then it's free. If you need people to do it then people have jobs.

> And as we move to the "we automate everything" end of the spectrum, the number of jobs lost would increase, the taxes collected (VAT, income, capital gain, etc.) would decrease (assuming the current tax system) and yet people (employed or not) would still education, health care, social security (retirement).

But things would also cost less, in the same proportion.

Suppose healthcare is 20% of the economy, can't be automated, and we automate everything else. Then tax revenue goes down by 80%, but so do costs, so people only need 20% as much in government services or those services only cost 20% as much to provide.

Meanwhile you still need people to be doctors and nurses but not other things, so more people become doctors and nurses. This drives down wages there, but that's fine when the doctors and nurses are also paying 80% less for everything. And at the lower wages you can justify more work to be done. More people do medical research, doctors get to spend more time with each patient, etc. Soon everyone has a job again.

Let's even consider the hypothetical where that can't happen. There are 8 billion people and only a million jobs. No other jobs are possible, somehow. How much are those million people going to get paid? Peanuts, because like everyone else they'd have negligible living expenses and they'd be in competition with 8 billion people for who would be willing to do it for the least amount of compensation. Their payment would be something like bragging rights, or all the slots would be filled by volunteers.

But in practice we would never "run out" of jobs because the supply curve always intersects with the demand curve somewhere. If demand goes down then price goes down because there is higher demand at the lower price.
by leemalmac | 2025-12-17 08:37:57+00:00
Spent a bit of time with the app. I use Zencoder plugins for my personal projects therefore already familiar with their ecosystem.

First of all kudos for the nice UI. I like when apps looks well. Onboarding process was smooth. I paired it with Zencoder's agent (as mentioned I use their VSCode plugin and already had a sub).

I used it to implement a small refactoring for my side project. What I like compared to plugins, I did not have to switch between agents or explicitly ask to write a plan/spec. It's I guess one of the core ideas behind the app and feels really AI-ish because it's not code editor (similar to claude code). The only thing I missed in the process is rendered markdown for previews. But I did not used the app for long, maybe there is an option to render markdown.

Overall great experience so far. Gonna explore it more. Wanna try it with Gemini and Claude Code. Again kudos it's not locked to use only Zencoder's agents.
by 15155 | 2025-12-17 08:37:59+00:00
> As an aside, if we cannot figure out a way to make this fit with the First Amendment as written today, we need to make updating that a priority already. The founders had no idea that we would end up with computers and cameras that could automatically track every citizen of the country

This is a commonly echoed sentiment for the Second Amendment too ("These idiot founders! They could never have imagined so much individual power - We need to take rights away!"), and I am in hard disagreement for both.

I cherish the fact that our legal system is so intentionally slow that these types of "progressive" efforts to reform the Constitution are basically impossible.
by Joker_vD | 2025-12-17 08:38:18+00:00
All non-trivial specs, like the one for seL4, are hard to verify. Lots of that complexity comes from interacting with the rest of the world which is a huge shared mutable global state you can't afford to ignore.

Of course, you can declare that the world itself is inherently sinful and imperfect, and is not ready for your beautiful theories but seriously.
Show HN: I built middleware to connect legacy SOAP APIs to AI agents in 2 weeks
by Ugyen_Tech | 2025-12-17 08:39:53+00:00
After 6 months integrating AI voice agents with old systems, I got tired of fighting SOAP from 2003. Built Hopeless to turn 6-month integrations into 2 weeks. ~70% token reduction. Works with any legacy system.
by apflkx | 2025-12-17 08:39:55+00:00
Transcription gets even messier when more than two languages are involved. Russian uses the Polianov system as a "cyrillization" method. It's neither Hepburn nor Kunrei-shiki, which can be confusing if you are a Russian Language learner and know Japanese or English.

Some Japanese words entered Russian not directly, but through English. In these cases, the word is first romanized using Hepburn, and then adapted to Russian using English-to-Russian rules. A classic example is 寿司, which Polianov would render as суси (susi), but Russians mostly know as суши (sushi). Then there are words which actually do faithfully follow Polianov, as in 新宿, which is written as Синдзуку (Sindzuku) instead of Шинджуку (Shinjuku).
by siddharthgoel88 | 2025-12-17 08:39:58+00:00
Just two weeks back BitBucket Pipelines also went the same route - https://www.atlassian.com/blog/bitbucket/announcing-v5-self-... .

I do not know what route are these companies taking. Microsoft has been crazy for past 2-3 years, but it is sad to see BitBucket and other alternatives also taking similar route :/