MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by steve_adams_86 | 2025-12-29 08:17:45+00:00
It scratched an itch I've been having, though very unexpectedly. I left it feeling quite decided and energized insofar as the significance of ritual in my life goes. It changed the way I think and feel about community. Or the lack thereof in my culture.

It isn't a prescriptive book at all, and perhaps very bleak in a sense. He describes how we've lost much of the ritual and innate temporal rhythms which have historically given us a greater sense of time, place, purpose, closure, and so on. Similarly, he suggests we live in a world now which is arguably incompatible with these things, because it is designed to eliminate the conditions in which this rhythm can exist at all. We're trapped in a sense. The thing we crave is mutually exclusive with the environment we now live in.

Similar to the Burnout Society, he writes a lot about our hyper-individualistic culture which is obsessed with personal optimization and productivity. These are not ideals which are conducive to communal, cultural events and connections which transcend the individual. Yet one could argue that they're quite important to humans, and increasingly absent from our lives.

Another important concept is the fragmentation of time and how everything now blurs together.

There's much more to it. I'm only highlighting the parts which stood out clearly and are coming to mind now. Like burnout, it's short enough to read in a day, and well worth it. Han really speaks to me and his essays are absolute page-turners.

If you want something a bit more substantial and argumentative where conclusions are backed with clearly established points and data, it isn't the right kind of read. He also doesn't offer solutions. For me the pleasure is derived from a sense of understanding, appreciating an eloquent perspective on something I feel I'm experiencing, and Han's signature ability to crystalize the malaise of contemporary life. I know some people who would find the book irritatingly thin in too many places, or lacking any kind of rigour in explaining how he arrived at certain ideas or why he's making certain statements. If you can see past that, it's excellent.

I think the key is remembering that he isn't writing a scientific paper or treatise so much as a provocative essay to share his exploration and wonder about an amorphous, vague, yet visceral and pertinent matter.
by jmmv | 2025-12-29 08:18:53+00:00
This is something that always bothered me while I was working at Google too: we had an amazing compute and storage infrastructure that kept getting crazier and crazier over the years (in terms of performance, scalability and redundancy) but everything in operations felt slow because of the massive size of binaries. Running a command line binary? Slow. Building a binary for deployment? Slow. Deploying a binary? Slow.

The answer to an ever-increasing size of binaries was always "let's make the infrastructure scale up!" instead of "let's... not do this crazy thing maybe?". By the time I left, there were some new initiatives towards the latter and the feeling that "maybe we should have put limits much earlier" but retrofitting limits into the existing bloat was going to be exceedingly difficult.
by rmoriz | 2025-12-29 08:18:55+00:00
That‘s why we have so many late diagnosed. People who are on the spectrum but were able to mask or were just lucky until luck runs out. Then it becomes a problem and a diagnosis. I knew I am different as long as I can remember. It was obvious in Kindergarten and also in every type of school and later in work. I‘m an old millennial and nobody was trained back then in the 80/90s. Before it became a diagnosis and before awareness started to rise, people unalived them, died homeless or in prisons/wards.
by arachnid92 | 2025-12-29 08:19:16+00:00
Fair enough, but then I can think of an even better place to put the icon: the control center that is a single swipe away from any screen in the OS. This is all moot in newer iPhones tho, as the physical camera button in the lower right is the easiest and fastest way to get to the camera.

Anyhow, this is all just personal preference, of course. Anyone is free to put a camera icon anywhere they please. I just personally can’t stand clutter in my home or lock screens, so I tend to keep the number of apps there to a minimum and access everything else either via Spotlight or Control Center widgets.
by slu | 2025-12-29 08:21:41+00:00
This looks great, will have to check it out. I've always been interested in computer graphics, I even wrote a ray tracer when studying for my master. It was based on the, then, brand new book "An Introduction to Ray Tracing" by Andrew S. Glassner et al. The book is now free to download: https://www.realtimerendering.com/blog/an-introduction-to-ra...
by Vincent_Yan404 | 2025-12-29 08:21:55+00:00
I asked AI where should I publish my article, it said Medium at first. I submitted to illustration and 10 days later, the article is still pending review right now. So I ask AI again, what should I do? It says HN is the best but also toughest, it's hard to show in the front page. After I tried, I think I kinda made it.
by liampulles | 2025-12-29 08:22:02+00:00
ML demosaicing algorithms (e.g. convolutional neural networks) are the state of the art for reversing camera color filters, and this was true back when I did my post-grad studies on the subject almost 10 years ago, not to mention all the other stages of the post-processing stack. So one will have to wrestle with the fact that some form of "AI" has been part of digital images for a while now.

I mean to some degree, human perception is a hallucination of reality. It is well known by magicians that if you know the small region of space that a person is focusing on, then you can totally change other areas of the scene without the person noticing.
by wrxd | 2025-12-29 08:22:10+00:00
What do you want to run? Small services with an handful of users? Anything can serve them.
Media libraries? As long as you have a CPU with QuickSync you’re good for on the fly transcoding and the real limiting factor becomes storage.

A TinyMiniMicro https://www.servethehome.com/introducing-project-tinyminimic... used PC is more than adequate for most workloads (except for local AI and if you want to have a huge amount of storage).
Last time I checked the prices were in the ballpark of $100/$150 for a working machine.

New machines with a N series Intel CPU are in the similar ballpark.
by marcyb5st | 2025-12-29 08:22:25+00:00
That assumes that supply production means can scale up instantly. Fabs for high end chips don't and usually take years from foundations being laid to First chip out of the production line.

In the interim, yeah, they will force prices up.

Additionally those fabs cost billions. Given the lead time I mentioned a lot of companies won't start building them right away since the risk of demand going away is high and the ROI in those cases might become unreachable
by auggierose | 2025-12-29 08:23:13+00:00
> “Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy." - (supposedly) Isaac Newton

Never heard of this quote, but I could certainly use a large dose of tact as defined above! The quote seems to be due to an advertising executive though, Howard W. Newton, not Isaac Newton [1].

[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/07/18/tact/
by aucisson_masque | 2025-12-29 08:23:29+00:00
Technically you don't even need a flip phone to disconnect from the media and the news. Plenty of people have smartphone but choose not to care about what happens in the world, at least what we have no say in it.

Although if I was American, I think I'd be pretty interested (worried) in what my country is becoming under Trump presidency.

But then, until the elections there is not much one can do.
by rootsudo | 2025-12-29 08:23:49+00:00
I'm happy I got into the LED from the refurbished sale, the price point made it attractive. I was not much into gaming but I've been having a blast, the lowest price point also was ok for me since I am 100% comfortable with DIY on the SSD.

It is very much apparant I'm not Steam's ideal customer, but I'm happy I got it for about $249'ish? I hemmed and hawed alot thinking why am I buying a hand held pc for gaming but the switch 2 was sold out/to much work to reserve so I went for it and am really happy I did.
by littlecranky67 | 2025-12-29 08:23:51+00:00
We must stop calling them social media and call them what they have become: media. The percentage of actually social stuff is negligible. Now you can classify having a conversation with a random stranger that you never going to meet in your life over twitter as "being social". I'd say you are just passing time or entertaining yourself. Or worse, compensating lack of real world social interactions.
by threethirtytwo | 2025-12-29 08:24:01+00:00
You’re objecting on the wrong axis.

The claim was about reliability and lack of empirical evidence. Once framed that way, definitions matter. My argument is purely ceteris paribus: take a language, hold everything constant, and add strict static type checking. Once you do that, every other comparison disappears by definition. Same runtime, same semantics, same memory model, same expressiveness. The only remaining difference is the runtime error set.

Static typing rejects at compile time a strict subset of programs that would otherwise run and fail with runtime type errors. That is not an empirical claim; it follows directly from the definition of static typing. This is not hypothetical either. TypeScript vs JavaScript, or Python vs Python with a sound type checker, are real examples of exactly this transformation. The error profile is identical except the typed variant admits fewer runtime failures.

Pointing out that some dynamic programs have no runtime type errors does not contradict this. It only shows that individual programs can be equally reliable. The asymmetry is at the language level: it is impossible to deploy a program with runtime type errors in a sound statically typed language, while it is always possible in a dynamically typed one. That strictly reduces the space of possible runtime failures.

Redefining “reliability” does not change the result. Suppose reliability is expanded to include readability, maintainability, developer skill, team discipline, or development velocity. Those may matter in general, but they are not variables in this comparison. By construction, everything except typing is held constant. There is literally nothing else left to compare. All non-type-related factors are identical by assumption. What remains is exactly one difference: the presence or absence of runtime type errors. At that point, reliability reduces to failure count not as a philosophical choice, but because there is no other dimension remaining.

Between two otherwise identical systems, the one that can fail in fewer ways at runtime is more reliable. That conclusion is not empirical, sociological, or debatable. It follows directly from the setup.
by Swizec | 2025-12-29 08:24:03+00:00
Blind optimism is silly. But time and again we’ve shown that tit-for-tat is the best strategy in repeated games.

Start optimistic. Stop if it doesn’t work. In the long-term you don’t need to win every iteration, just enough for a positive expected value. And make sure you don’t get wiped out in any single iteration.

The weeks are short but the decades are long and the industry is smaller than you’d think :)
Ask HN: How Do I Find an Angel Investor to Support My Startup?
by Lordarminius | 2025-12-29 08:24:27+00:00
I'm building a tech startup from Nigeria. The idea is validated and there is demand. My startup solves a pain point I have personally experienced. I made an early decision to build distribution first.
I've gotten to the stage where in order to make anything other than snail-pace progress, I need external investment. Nothing crazy, 35k-50k.
I don't have that sort of money, and the wealthy people I know are not into startup investing.
I'm hoping HN can guide me to finding capital from first believers aka angel investors, to accelerate this project.
African (and Nigerian founders) : where do angel investors hang out?
by michaelt | 2025-12-29 08:26:01+00:00
It's pretty obvious how an insufficiently cynical person could end up badly off - they could send all that money to that deposed prince in Nigeria, or whatever.

But the right optimism in the right situation can really pay off. Imagine you're pitching your non-technical carmaker CEO on a proposal to make a new pickup truck, and the CEO asks if you can make the entire thing with 0.1mm accuracy.

If you say "Yes sir, in fact many parts will be even more accurate than that" your project gets funded.

If you say "No, thermal expansion alone makes that impossible, it's also unnecessary" you're gambling on him respecting your straight-talking and technical chops.
by barrell | 2025-12-29 08:26:27+00:00
There’s part of this that I agree to - I tend to disagree with most anti-capitalist (or anti-profit) sentiment. However, I disagree that builders “owe” anyone anything, and I strongly disagree with goal of as much profit “as possible”.

I miss the days when someone would make a service where the user would benefit as much as possible and the creator got compensated fairly. I feel like that system worked for hundreds of years. It’s only in the last couple decades that we’ve made this obligation for maximal profits - something that I personally hold responsible for all the mass enshittification going on these days.
by XorNot | 2025-12-29 08:26:36+00:00
I am 100% sure you have absolutely no idea what Palantir actually do, and I suggest you go actually read about it. There's plenty of resources out there which will explain in considerable detail what the product is, what the services are, how the services get provided, and the benefits (for example one of Palantir's premier operations is "forward deployed engineers" - which is super-handy for organizations which work in government because it means they come to you and do the installs and setup, but don't keep or even have access to any of the data - the relationship is between you and the specific employees - who in turn need to have Federal clearances - and not Palantir corporate).

This arrangement is extremely conventional, but most company's hate doing it and so don't unless they're operating with the expertise to manage those types of orgs (which is usually only profitable if you have a unique advantage or specialize in seeking a lot of contracts and then navigate the data handling rules to realize - hopefully - some synergies).

I don't like Thiel, but his detractors are also very obviously ignorant as to how any of the Federal government normally works.
by Defletter | 2025-12-29 08:27:32+00:00
> The problem is that it is really difficult to define what hate speech is

It can be, but free speech types like to pretend it's nigh impossible. The UK has had modern hate-speech laws (for want of a better term) since the Public Order Act 1986, which made it an offence to stir up or incite racial hatred. Amendments in 2006 and 2008 expanded that to religious and homophobic hatred respectively. This exists in stark contrast to the common strawman touted by freeze peach types of "are you just going to compile a list of 'bad words'?!" Hate speech is not magic: you're not casting the self-incriminatus spell by saying the bad word.

That said, I wont pretend like that aren't misuses of police powers in regard to speech, and expression more generally. We've seen a crackdown on protests over the past few years which is more than a little frightening. That said, it's become a pattern that anytime I encounter a discussion online about the UK trampling on freedom of speech or whatever, it always comes back to hate speech. It's almost never about protest or expression. I think that's interesting.
by roadbuster | 2025-12-29 08:27:36+00:00
The bill in favour of the Elizabeth Line was only put to parliament in 2005, receiving royal assent in 2008. Construction work began in 2009, faced some delays during COVID, but was completed in 2022 (total construction time: 13 years)

Construction on New York's Tunnel #3 began in 1970. It was 28 years before any part of it was operational. A second section came online 15 years later (2013). The final stage isn't expected to be completed until 2032, a full 62 years after construction began. I'm unaware of any comparable tunnel project which has progressed at this slow of a pace.
by wtallis | 2025-12-29 08:28:00+00:00
How about you make an actual argument here in this thread, instead of vaguely gesturing at an excessively long newsletter and claiming there's relevant substance in there somewhere? Or at least tell me if I've incorrectly interpreted the "Meshtastic Is Rediscovering Lessons (Already Learned) of Amateur Radio Data Networking" section as listing problems but no solutions aside from buying a radically different (more expensive and power-hungry) type of radio?

Try making some specific suggestions for what Meshtastic is doing wrong that could be done differently. That way, we can tell whether your beef is with the Meshtastic software and protocol, or with their choice of LoRa radio hardware, or if you're just trying to preach about your ideal mesh network design with unstated assumptions about the priorities and constraints of such a network.
by stncls | 2025-12-29 08:28:35+00:00
> The simplest solution however is to use -mcmodel=large which changes all the relative CALL instructions to absolute JMP.

Makes sense, but in the assembly output just after, there is not a single JMP instruction. Instead, CALL <immediate> is replaced with putting the address in a 64-bit register, then CALL <register>, which makes even more sense. But why mention the JMP thing then? Is it a mistake or am I missing something? (I know some calls are replaced by JMP, but that's done regardless of -mcmodel=large)
by zerosizedweasle | 2025-12-29 08:28:45+00:00
It seems like a solution in search of a problem to begin with. Sure maybe someday that make sense. But with everything being built here on Earth now at such a massive expense, sending it into space seems like you are going to exponentially increase of the costs of something that is already incinerating massive amounts of cash, and there doesn't seem to be a capacity need for it.
by wakawaka28 | 2025-12-29 08:29:12+00:00
>People have made these complaints for the site’s entire history and we’re routinely characterized as being biased in favour of “the other side” by people who mistake this as being a site where “side” matters.

I get what you may aspire to have happen on this site, but it does not live up to those ideals. Probably thousands of people, sock puppets, and bots brigade in favor of their own opinions, regardless of what the rules say. The only people who will really feel left out by this are the ones like myself who don't agree "enough" with the hive mind. I would care a lot less if basic features of the site were not gated by points, as well. Half of the time I feel like I wandered into Reddit.

I reckon that the people who don't make this complaint are the ones who just agree with the hive mind and don't suffer downvotes. I know for a fact I could simply state the exact opposite of what I do in many cases, in the same abrasive style, and get at least neutral treatment. You won't even let my honest constructive criticism here go without downvotes. You aren't the least bit curious what normal users like me go through. You want to prescribe a view of my experience according to your own imagination.
by magicalhippo | 2025-12-29 08:30:22+00:00
Finland has a nice system AFAIK. Tulli created an online declaration system[1], and forces carriers to integrate with it. When a person wants to declare their package, Tulli requests the relevant data from the relevant carrier.

Thus the declaration gets prefilled with mostly correct data, which the person can then verify, change or augment.

Haven't used it myself but sounds quite nice, and Posti's handling fee[2] is a reasonable EUR 3.10.

[1]: https://tulli.fi/en/declare-your-parcel

[2]: https://www.posti.fi/en/for-businesses/pay-the-handling-fee
by hollowturtle | 2025-12-29 08:30:40+00:00
Oh please they pushed back pwas for "security reasons" for years. Safari is the browser with most quirks compared to FF and Chrome, it's considered by many the new IE holding back innovation. Sure they implemented some stuff before other who cares of changes that don't disrupt their apple store model? I don't want mansonry layout if not for designers portfolio or blog? I develop serious appa and I want an api to invent my own layout and I want feature parity with native apps
by dannye | 2025-12-29 08:30:55+00:00
this.querySelector will return nothing when you define this Web Component before (light)DOM is parsed, because the connectedCallback fires on the opening tag.

Above code will only work when the Web Component is defined after DOM has parsed; using "defer" or "import" makes your JS file execute after DOM is parsed, you "fixed" the problem without understanding what happened.

I blogged about this long time ago:
https://dev.to/dannyengelman/web-component-developers-do-not...
by lawn | 2025-12-29 08:31:50+00:00
Yes we have better estimates. In Mariupul for example estimates are above 20k civilians dead and murdered.

UN cannot personally verify any of this though so it counts them as zero. It should be at least the double of their estimate.

> It's my understanding that this war is really not particularly bloody for civilians as it is moving so slow that Russians are taking month to conquer pretty small towns and cities and the civilians can usually evacuate or hide.

Russia's advance has slowed to a crawl yes but the amount of people murdered in the places where Russia does take control are still very high (see Mariupul as an example). Especially in the early days of war they took a lot of land.

> The bombing campaign has some civilian casualties, but I mostly see headlines mentioning <5 dead overall per occasional huge wave of drones and missiles.

5 per day is too low as that would only add up to around 5.5k civilians and per UN's own calculations that's too low.

They've been targeting civilians, including schools and hospitals, daily since the war started.
by mpweiher | 2025-12-29 08:33:26+00:00
Cool!

I am a little confused about it both being a virtual image running on QEMU and requiring a very specific Ubuntu version as the base OS.

Shouldn't anything that can run QEMU work?

I used to do software development back on 386 with the OS on a floppy disk and really loved it. In fact, I ported my Objective-C compiler and runtime to QNX back then. Would love to play around with it on my Mac.

Thanks!