MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by echelon | 2025-12-05 16:40:08+00:00
You want to build a world where roll back is 95% the right thing to do. So that it almost always works and you don't even have to think about it.

During an incident, the incident lead should be able to say to your team's on call: "can you roll back? If so, roll back" and the oncall engineer should know if it's okay. By default it should be if you're writing code mindfully.

Certain well-understood migrations are the only cases where roll back might not be acceptable.

Always keep your services in "roll back able", "graceful fail", "fail open" state.

This requires tremendous engineering consciousness across the entire org. Every team must be a diligent custodian of this. And even then, it will sometimes break down.

Never make code changes you can't roll back from without reason and without informing the team. Service calls, data write formats, etc.

I've been in the line of billion dollar transaction value services for most of my career. And unfortunately I've been in billion dollar outages.
by pixl97 | 2025-12-05 16:40:09+00:00
Did you go to high school in the country that made this law? In addition, how many farmers in that country get high school education?

From what I read getting grades 1-8 is common in Kenya, but the high school years of education drop off significantly with only around 40% of the population getting that education, and making an educated guess that would target city people more than those that would be farmers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Kenya
by BeetleB | 2025-12-05 16:40:16+00:00
> Social media doesn't work for this because if someone subscribes to a content creator on X / Twitter, they most likely won't see most of the creator's posts. Instead, the algorithm will show them cat memes and other on-platform engagement bait.

That's an X/Twitter/Facebook problem, not a social media problem. If you're on Mastodon, you'll see all of them.
by etruong42 | 2025-12-05 16:40:39+00:00
Power tries to centralize and consolidate. See the largely successful attempts to consolidate media outlets like local news stations as an example.

The abstract suggests that elites "shape" mass preference, but I think the degree to which this shaping occurs is overblown in many ways (and perhaps underestimated in other ways, such as through education).

AI, even if it is not powerfully "shaped" by the "elites", can push mass preference in predictable ways. If this is true, this phenomenon by itself allows the elites to tighten their grip on power. For example, Trump's rise to power upset (some of) the elites because they really didn't understand the silent, mass preference for Trump.

This could also slow social progress, since elites often cause stagnation rather than progress. AI could generate acceptable, "expert" opinions for the issues that they usually would rely on experts today. I see some signs of that today, where those with authority try to prefer the AI answer in opposition to dissenting, human expert opinions. Human experts seem to be winning, for now.
by dwroberts | 2025-12-05 16:41:16+00:00
> That tantamount to saying "for people alive January 1st 1950, the Second World War was not a significant cause of mortality"

That’s a nonsense comparison because the thing they are studying is the vaccine, not COVID itself. The vaccine was available at minimum, what, end of 2020? Exposure being defined as first dose May-October 2021 does not seem unreasonable at all (and probably not arbitrarily chosen right - it’s probably something to do with the availability of data)
by proberts | 2025-12-05 16:42:31+00:00
In the end, the new requirements - really, just the $100K payment for now - are manageable/avoidable and absent this requirement, the rules and their application haven't really changed. The bigger change, which hasn't happened yet, is the across-the-board increase in prevailing wages. And this will have a profound effect on H-1B employment since the increases will be significant.
by d3Xt3r | 2025-12-05 16:42:52+00:00
The market is small, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a significant overlap between those who want a keyboard and the target audience of the Jolla phone.

Don't forget that SailfishOS is ultimately Linux (and not like Android) - it even comes with the zypper package manager that lets you install apps and update the OS using the terminal. Part of the fun of using SailfishOS is doing familiar Linux systems managements and general operations the terminal, which any Linux nerd would love. And Linux nerds make up a huge userbase of this OS.

I mean, look at the link OP pasted, they're straight up calling it a "Linux phone", it's clear who their audience is. And don't tell me majority of Linux users would NOT prefer to have a keyboard.
by inglor_cz | 2025-12-05 16:43:09+00:00
Pushing covid-19 vaccinations onto kids was always controversial. Covid isn't smallpox, people under 30 only get a serious case very rarely, and the vaccine isn't sterilizing anyway.

If we want to use medications responsibly and rationally, we must be careful about the cost/benefit analysis to the intended recipient groups. It makes great sense to vaccinate old people against Covid and teenagers against HPV. The other way round, much less so.

Of course the vendors will push for blanket use, as they make more money, but that is also the problem.
by sevensor | 2025-12-05 16:43:19+00:00
But given the definition of Fibable, it could be anything that supports + and - operators. That could be broader than numbers. You could define it for sets for example. How do you add the number 1 to the set of strings containing (“dog”, “cat”, and “bear”)? So I suppose I do have a complaint about Fibable, which is that it’s underconstrained.

Granted, I don’t know nim. Maybe you can’t define + and - operators for non numbers?
by garyrob | 2025-12-05 16:43:59+00:00
It seems like the antivaxxers, and many people in general, seem to just think that whatever they hear from their friends and family and favorite TV talking heads, whether it has any research behind it or not, is automatically and magically true. So that even if the only real research that exists contradicts it, they just assume that the research must be the result of some kind of error or conspiracy.

I find that incredibly frustrating and dangerous, but as far as I can see, it's the way it is.
by hervature | 2025-12-05 16:44:19+00:00
While you are being downvoted, this is actually an astute observation. However, your point is working against you in this case. If the vaccine was actually deadly, the unvaccinated individuals who survived the pandemic would be having better health outcomes. This is not what they found. If they included the pandemic in this study, the deaths by COVID would be much worse in the unvaccinated group.
by miotintherain | 2025-12-05 16:44:31+00:00
Hi Peter, thanks for the AMA!

I work for an American company and I am based in Europe. I visit the US for work every now and then. I heard a lot of horror stories regarding border entries. If I am ever in a situation where the border police asks for access to my personal phone and pin code, what are my options? Can I refuse and what happens then?
by Retric | 2025-12-05 16:44:35+00:00
Veritasium videos are often extremely misleading. In this case the cooling universe lacked carbon for these organic compounds. Life cares about 0-100c because of water which depends on Oxygen would be missing etc.

Just as example in one video he refers to the field outside of the wire carrying the energy for electricity, however EM waves propagate at the speed of light and fall off at the square of distance. Electricity can travel thousands of miles without that kind of falloff but doesn’t propagate as fast because it’s electron density in the wires that causes what we think of as electricity. He then setups up an antenna and … well you get the idea.
by sjtgraham | 2025-12-05 16:44:38+00:00
How does the Supreme Court’s elimination of Chevron deference affect USCIS’s ability to narrowly interpret the EB-1A regulatory framework, particularly at Step 1 of the Kazarian analysis? I am specifically interested in two areas: (1) whether, under a strict textual reading of the judging the work of others criterion in 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3), participation in code review where the beneficiary evaluates and approves the technical work of others in the same field should qualify without USCIS applying extra regulatory limitations, and (2) whether USCIS can continue using its historically restrictive approach to comparable evidence under 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(4) now that courts are no longer required to defer to agency interpretations. I understand that even if these issues favor the petitioner at Step 1 they may not change the outcome of the final merits determination under Step 2, and I am trying to determine how a post Chevron, strictly textual approach might influence Step 1 outcomes for petitioners whose achievements do not align neatly with the ten listed criteria.
by flaminHotSpeedo | 2025-12-05 16:44:42+00:00
To clarify, I'm not trying to imply that I definitely wouldn't have made the same decision, or that cowboy decisions aren't ever the right call.

However, this preliminary report doesn't really justify the decision to use the same deployment system responsible for the 11/18 outage. Deployment safety should have been the focus of this report, not the technical details. My question that I want answered isn't "are there bugs in Cloudflare's systems" it's "has Cloudflare learned from it's recent mistakes to respond appropriately to events"
by cratermoon | 2025-12-05 16:44:58+00:00
The limits of allowed speech have always been subject to popular politics. Even the great John Milton in his essay Areopagitica, a defense of freedom of speech, did not see fit to extend this freedom to all subjects, writing "this doubtles is more wholsome, more prudent, and more Christian that many be tolerated, rather then all compell'd. I mean not tolerated Popery, and open superstition, which as it extirpats all religions and civill supremacies,"

https://milton.host.dartmouth.edu/reading_room/areopagitica/...
by jfarmer | 2025-12-05 16:45:38+00:00
Plants "want" nitrogen, but dump fertilizer onto soil and you get algal blooms, dead zones, plants growing leggy and weak.

A responsible farmer is a steward of the local ecology, and there's an "ecology of friction" here. The fertilizer company doesn't say "well, the plants absorbed it." But tech companies do.

There's something puritanical about pointing to "revealed preference" as absolution, I think. When clicking is consent then any downstream damage is a failure of self-control on the user's part. The ecological cost/responsibility is externalized to the organisms being disrupted.

Like Schopenhauer said: "Man kann tun, was er will, aber er kann nicht wollen, was er will." One can do what one wants, but one cannot will what one wants.

I wouldn't go as far as old Arthur, but I do think we should demand a level of "ecological stewardship". Our will is conditioned by our environment and tech companies overtly try to shape that environment.
Show HN: Jam build code with plain code
by gilesjb | 2025-12-05 16:45:54+00:00
I created Jam because I wanted to write build scripts in the same languages (Java and Kotlin) I'm developing in, have the same IDE tooling, and be able to do anything that regular code can do without having to write custom plugins.

Jam makes use of: * Java and Kotlin support for runnable scripts. * 'default' methods introduced in Java 8 which allow dynamic proxies to perform deep interception of method calls. Jam uses this to memoize method call results and track dependencies on source files.

Jam is currently self-building and includes the library of build functions it uses to compile its own Java code, download Maven packages, run units tests etc. And because Jam scripts are just code, they can include any build logic and call any libraries you want.
by atoav | 2025-12-05 16:46:24+00:00
And all communication problems involve one or more senders and one or more receiver. The issue is you only got to be in control of one side. And even flawless massaging won't save you from incapable or unwilling receivers.

As someone who has worked in IT support I have seen users habitually click away clearly formulated error dialogs that told them exactly what the cause of their problem was and how to address it. Only problem? They did not read it, as became clear when I asked them what it said.

I have had people who I repeatedly had to explain the the same thing, made sure they got it by having them do it twice and a week later they would come again with the same question like sheep, not even aware they asked that one before.

Some problems are communication problems. Others are actual people problems that could indeed be solved by getting better people. Anybody who says otherwise is invited to do first level support for a year.
by solotronics | 2025-12-05 16:46:41+00:00
The part people are missing here is that if the trading firms are all doing something, that in itself influences the market.

If they are all giving the LLMs money to invest and the AIs generally buy the same group of stocks, those stocks will go up. As more people attempt the strategy it infuses fresh capital and more importantly signaling to the trading firms there are inflows to these stocks. I think its probably a reflexive loop at this point.
by whstl | 2025-12-05 16:47:04+00:00
Oh, wow, strangely I went exactly through the same thing.

I once had an interviewer expected me to answer "message queue", despite all of his answers to my questions pointing to an MQ not solving the issue.

He was getting really frustrated with the "it depends" and the questions, until I answered "Message Queue" and he sighed in relief.

I passed the interview but rejected the job offer.
by doctorpangloss | 2025-12-05 16:47:20+00:00
the kind of person who watches a LOT of television and movies likes slop, it's not complicated.

still different than media people PAY for. for example substack sells empty opinions that agree with you. it is totally wrong to say that slop sells. it is merely the highest engagement for an audience that DOESN'T pay.

you could say, "engagement is the wrong metric," but if that were really true, tech jobs would contract like 50%. the alternative becomes, "would you like fries with that?"
by btilly | 2025-12-05 16:47:32+00:00
This is a general problem in many technical fields.

People in a technical field, learn to "chunk" complex phrases. Their natural communication style becomes complex. Which makes them hard to understand to those outside of the field. If they want to be understood, the solution isn't to try to educate the world. It is to educate themselves. To learn how to write simply and directly.

Depending on the readability test used, the section up to "Introduction" - which is supposed to be readable - is somewhere between advanced high school and university. See https://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_... or other free tools to test it. That's bad. The percentage of Americans who can read this text is below the percentage who could read, say, a plain language version written in Spanish. We should expect people to misunderstand. We should not expect this paper to convince.
Ask HN: How do solo devs find their first test users?
by emanuelaromano | 2025-12-05 16:47:50+00:00
I’m a relatively new dev building a web app on my own. I’ve never worked at a big tech company and don’t have much of an audience, but I’d like real users testing it before I launch so I don’t ship something confusing or low quality. Up to now I’ve mostly built tools where I was the only user, so I don’t have a good playbook for what to do when there’s more than one.

For context, the app lets a user record a short video of themselves speaking and then runs facial-expression, tone, and transcript analysis to generate a report on their communication style.

For people who’ve been in a similar spot: where did you find your first testers, and which channels (communities, platforms, outreach tactics, etc.) were actually worth the effort vs. a waste of time? I’m looking for concrete suggestions to get a small group of people who will give blunt, useful feedback.
by alistairSH | 2025-12-05 16:48:09+00:00
There was a brief happy period where you could ditch cable ($100/month or whatever), subscribe to ~2-3 streaming services (~2-3x $20/month), save a decent amount and still have a good selection of content. And bonus, you didn't have any ads.

Then the fragmentation got worse, as all the legacy media companies rolled out their own platforms, and it suddenly became ~5x$20/month to get the same content. And ads got added back into the mix, even after subscription fees.

These days, I actively switch platforms every few months. It's a bit annoying, but beats the old cable days.

My biggest complaint today is the fragmentation across some sports. Take pro cycling (TDf, etc) - it's split across 3-4 platforms in the US. So, I need to get FloSports, Peacock, and a few others. I wish I could either get individual events OR a bundle that included everything. Oh well, I'll pay for a few and pirate the Sky or continental feeds for the rest.
by PeterStuer | 2025-12-05 16:48:45+00:00
My last 4 cars were BMW. I love the way they drive, but ...

I think they are optimized for the EU leasing market. 4 years, 120.000km. If you buy one for long ownership and want more out of them (they can most certainly do 400=500k km reliably), you have to take care of them from day 1. You change the maitainance schedule (which by default is set to lowering fleet lease costs and who cares beyond that), learn about and do preventive maintainance (such as replacing the entire cooling around 120k km), stricktly use BMW oil (for the additives) unless you are realy knowledgeable about it, and invest in a decent fault scanner (to lnow what is going on and not just run up expensive maintainance bills at the BMW shop).

If you think that's all too much hassle, just lease them short term or buy something else.
by jack_tripper | 2025-12-05 16:49:01+00:00
>The problems GenX had to deal with was watching Boomers, who enjoyed all the benefits of post-WW2 expansion of infrastructure and social services, pull the rope ladder up behind them once they got well-paying jobs.

No, I agree. But pulling the ladder from under them is not the biggest issue per se since every generation after them did them same if they could get on the ladder, the big problem with boomers is their immense hypocrisy.

GenX and Millennials knew that the situation was every man for himself grab everything you can while the going is still good, but crucially IMHO they didn't try to gaslight the next generations that this system of gains is somehow fair or the result of hard work and self sacrifice.

But boomers indulged in the period of sexual liberation and drug use, while then preaching about conservative family values and war on drugs when they got older, they enjoyed crazy good housing market and unionized jobs while preaching you should pull yourself by your bootstraps for a job that treats you like a disposable cog and won't buy you a house, they vocally hate socialism while depending on a generous social security system they designed for themselves and costing the taxpayer a huge amount on socialized government healthcare programs paid by the younger generations, etc the examples could go on. You can't hate boomers enough for this. Granted, not all are this hypocritical, but enough for the dots to form a line on the graph.
by etruong42 | 2025-12-05 16:49:08+00:00
Those in power (such as those in the corporate managerial class) are trying to consolidate power by replacing humans with AI. There is the nice story of trying to improve overhead and increase efficiencies. There is also the ugly story of those in power trying to leverage AI for expert opinions even in the face of dissenting human experts.

For now, the human dissenters have a lot of leverage because AI still makes very clear and obvious errors sometimes, and it would be a political nightmare for a decision-maker to be accused of erring on the side of AI by recognized human experts who dissented. I wonder if there will come a time that AI opinion would be on par or even favored over the human expert because the human would be considered more fallible. This doesn't even have to be true - it only has to be sufficiently perceived to be sufficiently true.
by proberts | 2025-12-05 16:49:16+00:00
That's right, both before US Consulates when applying for visas, before CBP when applying for admission, and before USCIS when applying for a benefit (H-1B, O-1, green card, etc.), social media is being reviewed, not across-the-board but more and more. And there's really no option to keep social media as private if asked to turn to public by a Consular Officer or CBP Officer. The review is broad and not limited to social media that is critical of US policy but extends to a review of an individual's entire background to make sure there were no violations of US immigration law, including unauthorized employment.
by cryptonector | 2025-12-05 16:49:18+00:00
Correct, ASN.1 does not tell you how to implement all its semantics. You can totally have tooling that exposes a GeneralString's blob payload to the application and lets the app handle the codeset switching aspects of GeneralString.

I want to object that anyone who really has to handle multi-codeset GeneralString values would want a better library but...

...what would that be if not a converter to/from Unicode? But what if one really wants an array/list of {codeset, string} pairs? At that point open-coding support for those escapes is probably just as well since that one might have the only application in the world that wants that!!

:laugh:
by iLoveOncall | 2025-12-05 16:49:46+00:00
> I truly believe they're really going to make resilience their #1 priority now

I hope that was their #1 priority from the very start given the services they sell...

Anyway, people always tend to overthink about those black-swan events. Yes, 2 happened in a quick succession, but what is the average frequency overall? Insignificant.
by ceejayoz | 2025-12-05 16:50:04+00:00
> MRNA technologies are not "vaccines" per se.

Define vaccine for us.

> The results would likely have been much better had they gone with more traditional vaccine formulations.

Several non-mRNA vaccinations were produced (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novavax_COVID-19_vaccine remains available, if you want). They did not have better apparent efficacy.
by underlipton | 2025-12-05 16:50:38+00:00
There was a study that showed that cancer patients who receive a MRNA COVID vaccine live longer. This could also be for extrinsic reasons, but IIRC the study considered the reason to be a pronounced immune response that also attacked cancer cells.

So there's a chance that the vaccine provokes a general immune response that's protective against a number of mortality-causing issues.
by whynotmaybe | 2025-12-05 16:50:52+00:00
I can understand skepticism, notably from a woman I know that had many unwanted bleeding and it seems she was not alone : https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12407584

Although from this study the global vaccine output is positive, the personal one seems negative for a lot of people. Many still got COVID19 and the bleeding issue, but they can't compare to what would have happened without the vaccine.

Notably many for whom the basic understanding of "25% lower risk of all-cause mortality" doesn't mean anything.

- "What is it ? I had 1 chance to 1 million to die but with the vaccine it's 0.75 to 1 million ?"

- "No, out of 22 million vaccinated, 0.4% died but out of 6 million unvaccinated, 0.6% died !"
by implabinash | 2025-12-05 16:51:10+00:00
Hi everyone,

I am Abinash. I am starting my streaming journey, sharing projects I am working on and things I am exploring.

Today, I am streaming on the second part of "Weird FFmpeg Use Cases", in which I will use Typescript and FFmpeg to chunk down a 29-hour-long YouTube video for a personal use case.

Feel free to share your feedback.

Thank you.