MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by CraigJPerry | 2025-12-30 09:36:00+00:00
>> Coding AIs design software better than me

Absolutely flat out not true.

I'm extremely pro-faster-keyboard, i use the faster keyboards in almost every opportunity i can, i've been amazed by debugging skills (in fairness, i've also been very disappointed many times), i've been bowled over by my faster keyboard's ability to whip out HTML UI's in record time, i've been genuinely impressed by my faster keyboard's ability to flag flaws in PRs i'm reviewing.

All this to say, i see lots of value in faster keyboard's but add all the prompts, skills and hooks you like, explain in as much detail as you like about modularisation, and still "agents" cannot design software as well as a human.

Whatever the underlying mechanism of an LLM (to call it a next token predictor is dismissively underselling its capabilities) it does not have a mechanism to decompose a problem into independently solvable pieces. While that remains true, and i've seen zero precursor of a coming change here - the state of the art today is equiv to having the agent employ a todo list - while this remains true, LLMs cannot design better than humans.

There are many simple CRUD line of business apps where they design well enough (well more accurately stated, the problem is small/simple enough) that it doesn't matter about this lack of design skill in LLMs or agents. But don't confuse that for being able to design software in the more general use case.
by omnicognate | 2025-12-30 09:36:02+00:00
That doesn't preclude clearly documenting what the feature does somewhere in the manual or online. People who either don't care or don't have the mental capacity to understand it won't read it. People who care a lot, such as specialist reviewers or your competitors, will figure it out anyway. I don't see any downside to adding the documentation for the benefit of paying customers who want to make an informed choice about when to use the feature, even in this cynical world view.
by KurSix | 2025-12-30 09:36:32+00:00
Sounds like a dream, but there is a risk of a local maximum here. Strict linters and small files are great at helping the agent write syntactically correct code, but they don't guarantee architectural correctness. An agent can generate 100 perfect 500-line files that together form an unmaintainable dependency hell. A linter catches bad code, not bad system design. Leaving an agent unsupervised for 2 hours is bold because refactoring architectural mistakes is harder than fixing typos
by zsoltkacsandi | 2025-12-30 09:37:06+00:00
I have been using the most recent Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini models for coding for a bit more than a year, on a daily basis.

They are pretty good at writing code *after* I thoroughly described what to do, step by step. If you miss a small detail they get loose and the end result is a complete mess that takes hours to clean up. This still requires years of coding experience, planning ahead in head, you won't be able to spare that, or replace developers with LLMs. They are like autocomplete on steroids, that's pretty much it.
by godelski | 2025-12-30 09:37:20+00:00
Models keep getting better but the argument I'm critiquing stays the same.

So does the comment I critiqued in the sibling comment to yours. I don't know why it's so hard to believe we just haven't tried. I have a Claude subscription. I'm an ML researcher myself. Trust me, I do try.

But that last part also makes me keenly aware of their limitations and failures. Frankly I don't trust experts who aren't critiquing their field. Leave the selling points to the marketing team. The engineer and researcher's job is to be critical. To find problems. I mean how the hell do you solve problems if you're unable to identify them lol. Let the marketing team lead development direction instead? Sounds like a bad way to solve problems

> benchmark shows huge improvements

Benchmarks are often difficult to interpret. It is really problematic that they got incorporated into marketing. If you don't understand what a benchmark measures, and more importantly, what it doesn't measure, then I promise you that you're misunderstanding what those numbers mean.

For METR I think they say a lot right here (emphasis my own) that reinforces my point

> Current frontier AIs are vastly better than humans at text prediction and knowledge tasks. They outperform experts on most *exam-style problems* for a fraction of the cost. ... And yet the best AI agents are not currently able to carry out substantive projects by themselves or directly substitute for human labor. *They are unable to reliably handle even relatively low-skill*, computer-based work like remote executive assistance. It is clear that capabilities are increasing very rapidly in some sense, but it is unclear how this corresponds to real-world impact.

So make sure you're really careful to understand what is being measured. What improvement actually means. To understand the bounds.

It's great that they include longer tasks but also notice the biases and distribution in the human workers. This is important in properly evaluating.

Also remember what exactly I quoted. For a long time we've all known that being good at leetcode doesn't make one a good engineer. But it's an easy thing to test and the test correlates with other skills that are likely to be learned to be good at those tests (despite being able to metric hack). We're talking about massive compression machines. That pattern match. Pattern matching tends to get much more difficult as task time increases but this is not a necessary condition.

Treat every benchmark adversarialy. If you can't figure out how to metric hack it then you don't know what a benchmark is measuring (and just because you know what can hack it doesn't mean you understand it nor that that's what is being measured)
by ben_w | 2025-12-30 09:37:24+00:00
> That's my point. Not even remotely close,

You said:

Which is exactly what the EU did a few years back of course. Try to force the creation of a new Google. What did they come up with?

Except they were not the EU "Try[ing] to force the creation of" anything, nor were they "a new Google", meaning the only parts of that sentence you get to keep are the spaces.

Kelkoo did its thing before Google did shopping. Google is the mimic here.

Kelkoo *pre-dates* Google's shopping search system, by a few years (Google's one first launched as Froogle in Dec 2002).

> The EU commission claimed these companies were the European competition for Google (and then kept the money they got from Google that was supposed to let them build their companies)

1. When did the EU commission get money from Google, for any purpose or reason, including fines? Was it around fifteen years after Kelkoo was bought and sold by Yahoo!?

And therefore would have needed a time machine to be involved in the creation of Kelkoo?

2. The actual reality is that Kelkoo joined in a lawsuit against Google for monopoly abuse[a], claiming to have been damaged by Google manipulating search results to favour its own products.

Important: The US courts have also found Google guilty of antitrust violations[b].

If you try to insist that this case — which is the closest I can even find to your phrasing, you've not cited anything — can use any of the words "forcing", "creating", or the sentence "and then kept the money they got from Google that was supposed to let them build their companies", then you have to also apply this to the US courts.

It's incorrect to use those words and phrases to describe the US case against Google, it's incorrect to use those words and phrases to describe the EU case against Google.

[a] https://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/cases/dec_docs/39...

[b] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/05/google-loses-antitrust-case-...
by simonjgreen | 2025-12-30 09:37:34+00:00
I think this is less “Netflix vs old TV” and more episodic vs serialised, and the serialised form definitely isn’t new.

Buffy is a great example: plenty of monster of the week episodes, but also season long arcs and character progression that rewarded continuity. The X-Files deliberately ran two tracks in parallel: standalone cases plus the mythology episodes. Lost was essentially built around long arcs and cliffhangers, it just had to make that work on a weekly broadcast cadence.

What’s changed is the delivery mechanism, not the existence of serialisation. When your audience gets one episode a week, with mid-season breaks, schedule slips, and multi-year gaps between seasons, writers have to fight a constant battle to re-establish context and keep casual viewers from falling off. That’s why even heavily serialised shows from that era often kept an episodic spine. It’s a retention strategy as much as a creative choice.

Streaming and especially season drops flip that constraint. When episodes are on demand and many viewers watch them close together, the time between chapters shrinks from weeks to minutes. That makes it much easier to sustain dense long-form narrative, assume recent recall, and let the story behave more like a novel than a syndicated procedural.

So the pattern isn’t new. On demand distribution just finally makes the serialised approach work as reliably at scale as it always wanted to.
by verisimi | 2025-12-30 09:37:49+00:00
> Dog breeds are specifically bred(programmed) to exhibit certain character traits, for example.

And yet all dogs have their own unique characters, no? They are not the same individual, right?

> You brought up "know thyself" so I assumed we were pulling from a similar corpus and brought up "the illusion of separation" as a mutually familiar point that didn't need much elaboration, sorry about that.

I don't know what corpus you refer to. Please explain if you like. I'm not basing what I'm saying on a corpus - of course I've read books, but I am giving you my personal view on things.

> Also, it's not so much that I "think" I am distinct, more that I "believe" it, to put it in the terms you used earlier. I am conditioned to consider certain things "me" and others not.

I have heard this sort of (nondual) thinking before and completely dispute it. I personally cannot access anyone else's mind or body, I haven't no idea what you are thinking. I can only pretend to be doing this. There is a self, we live it continuously. There are times when we are fully present, where we are so in the immediate experience, that we can move out of linguistic/common concepts perhaps, but this is still within oneself.

For me, it is more that each person is a world in their own right, rather than "us" all being in the same universe. We simply do not have the level of interconnectivity you believe is there, when you say you are the tree or me. Furthermore, it really is very hard to see the point you are making when we have a disagreement - plainly there is a distinction.
by huevosabio | 2025-12-30 09:38:22+00:00
I really like the balance that Morrowind offered: it all felt like one big world and going from town to outside to dungeon was smooth and unannounced. You really felt like you were discovering a place, and you really got lost in a pre-gmaps sense.

A modern version I like is Bg3. It has a much more linear playthrough than Morrowind and Toen/Outside/Dungeon is more clearly marked, but it's still smooth. Also, you have a sense of uncertain danger in all three setups. And dungeons can be fightless if you play them well!

Also, it's interesting how both Morrowind and Bg3 are both able to integrate the environment and the NPCs neatly into the battle system. Both feel like you're fighting in a live world. But they do it very differently. I think in bg3 it is much more fun to fight, but Morrowind allows for more silliness and out of the box thinking.
by ILoveHorses | 2025-12-30 09:38:33+00:00
I wanted to challenge myself in 2025 and alternate between fiction and non-fiction, so here are my highlights

- Crime and Punishment
- Homo Deus
- Catch 22
- Flash Boys
- The Art of Strategy
- Moby Dick (could only get halfway through though :()
- The Great Gatsby
- How to be Alone (couldn't get past 2 chapters)
by tgv | 2025-12-30 09:39:06+00:00
First, the parent comment didn't say anything about a spectrum. It just posited "it's legible." But it isn't to me, nor to 99.999% of the people here, I assume. Even those who've dabbled once in BF will probably find it hard, as the comment admits to using tricks.

Second, while readability comes in various degrees (probably more of a high-dimensional value than a linear spectrum, but well), the only thing that's readable about brainfuck is the comment. The code itself is not understandable, unless you really start digging into it and manage to understand the state it is in at every step of the program. Even then I would argue it isn't readable: your vision provides very few clues to the meaning of each step.

The comment serves as a guidance where certain parts start (or end, I can't tell). It explains a few things about the code, but even from the comment I cannot understand what it does. Also, the comment might be entirely wrong. There's only a very hard way to tell.

Your binary lambda example is also unreadable, but at least it doesn't have as much state as the BF program (which, admittedly, is much larger). Breaking it down might require less effort.
by wkjagt | 2025-12-30 09:39:21+00:00
I don't get the convenience argument for wireless earbuds. I am the only person in our family without wireless earbuds, so I see wireless buds users up close daily, and it's a pretty common occurrence that someone can't find their buds, or the case isn't charged, or something won't connect. Seeing all these alternative inconveniences to a thin wire doesn't convince me to go wireless at all.
by sylware | 2025-12-30 09:39:33+00:00
If they can manage to deliver a client which is less technically amok than the steam client... But steam is a worldwide payment system, I can use wallet codes nearly everywhere without inputing my credit card info and that require a lot of international work to match.

The steam client requires linux "user" containers(jez...), the launcher is a 32bits binary hardcoded on x11 and GL, all that because they are unwilling to engage in the significant amount of work (because of their technical debt and poor technical choices) of generating 'correct' ELF64 binaries for broad elf/linux distro support.
by JosephjackJR | 2025-12-30 09:40:09+00:00
Drones are one of our primary usecases; however it is actually applicable to memory loss in lets say LLM not necessarily with power loss, but with corruption, hallucination and persistent memory problems, from overload of data or data retrieval.

What sort of Robotics are you based in? It also massively improves efficiency in hardware 20-40% est.
by jz10 | 2025-12-30 09:40:32+00:00
> Duffer’s advice highlights a conflict between technological advances and creators' goals. Features like the ones he mentioned are designed to appeal to casual viewers by making images appear sharper or more colorful, but they alter the original look of the content. By asking fans to turn these features off, he is stressing the importance of preserving the director's vision.

is it just me or does this article's last paragraph feel particularly AI generated..

whether the author did use AI or not isnt my main gripe -- it's just that certain wording (like this) won't be free from scrutiny in my head anymore :(
by v9v | 2025-12-30 09:40:36+00:00
The connections are too easy to the point where the main challenge for me was to remember/locate where I had stored the nodes of that category. I think the fun in a connection puzzle comes from trying to figure out what the link is that connects different nodes, and resolving any red herrings by deduction (which is what makes OnlyConnect's connection wall great and NYT's knockoff mediocre). In this one I can spot the intended category for each node without even looking at the others.
by nevon | 2025-12-30 09:40:54+00:00
I'm sure part of it is so that marketing can say that their TV has new putz-tech smooth vibes AI 2.0, but honestly I also see this same thing happen with products aimed at technical people who would benefit from actually knowing what a particular feature or setting really is. Even in my own work on tools aimed at developers, non-technical stakeholders push really hard to dumb down and hide what things really are, believing that makes the tools easier to use, when really it just makes it more confusing for the users.
by cyberpunk | 2025-12-30 09:41:49+00:00
Eh, not really. I've done both at considerable scale, and I don't hit these problems. Perhaps you need better developers? For sure, having your database enforce guardrails on what $thing should look like means your code can be lower quality, but you should pick the right tool for the job. For scenarios where I have one 'thing' that's not very relational, it works well. If your application dies because your $thing expects some field which isn't there, that's a you problem not a storage problem.
Show HN: FlowStateOS Companion – experiment, modeling human life forces with GPT
by Yusufshunan | 2025-12-30 09:41:51+00:00
Hi HN,

I built FlowStateOS Companion as an experiment in treating human life as a system with measurable forces.

Instead of focusing on decisions or optimization, it works with a small set of core life forces (energy, meaning, freedom, connection, etc.) and helps users:

observe imbalances

evaluate drift or overload

reflect on how daily behavior affects system health over time

The goal isn’t advice or prescriptions, but making internal state legible the way an operating system exposes resource usage.

It’s intentionally non-performative and slow. No motivation layer, no scoring, no productivity framing.

I’m curious whether this kind of systems-level self-diagnostics is useful, or whether it collapses under real life complexity.

Link: https://yusufshunan.com/gpt

Feedback welcome, especially from people interested in systems modeling, human factors, or reflective tooling.
by cal_dent | 2025-12-30 09:41:53+00:00
But that implicitly assumes all jobs are comparable financially. Sure there’ll always be jobs to do but x number of web devs or whatever is not the same as x numbers of nursing home care workers.

Also in terms of extra money and spending, the logic also breaks a bit because we know that by age cohorts, older cohorts have more money but tend to have less consumer spending than the 25 - 40 cohort.
by jstanley | 2025-12-30 09:43:15+00:00
> The term "kidnapped" is kinda over the top

If you got in a taxi to take you 35km away and he drove you 60km away to a random other town instead, would you consider "kidnapped" to be over the top?

Does it only count as "kidnap" if you are not eventually released? Or is it just that it's not kidnap when a corporation does it?
by jgdxno | 2025-12-30 09:44:00+00:00
If you used the car as an analogy instead, it would make more sense to me. There were car craftsmen in Europe that Toyota displaced almost completely. And software is more similar to cars in that it needs maintenance and if it breaks down, large consequences like death and destruction and/or financial loss follows.

If llms can churn out software like Toyota churns out cars, AND do maintenance on it, then the craftsmen (developers of today) are going to be displaced.
by chii | 2025-12-30 09:44:37+00:00
> more studios going bankrupt

studios that don't make good games correctly should bankrupt - ala, those so called AAA studios.

> gamers spending more for less

gamers buying overpriced games from bad publishers/studios that overspend and under-deliver are learning finally.

There has never been more indie games, and the selection has never been more diverse, and those available games has also been cheaper.

If you got time, this video outlines the evidence and the coming trends: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XigPD8BCkho
by bnastic | 2025-12-30 09:46:08+00:00
I used this site as a reference earlier this year quite often, as I attempted to establish some baseline for a Linux DAW. I use Mac for serious audio stuff, but 'what if' (since I use Linux for everything else anyway).

I came back pleasantly surprised with the current state of things. Minus the underlying linux sound system, which is still a mess of things that barely work together. (I have a lot of expensive/pro plugins and all the DAWs on the Mac, so this was mostly a filtering exercise - what I can use on Linux that can still mix/master a whole project).

- I'm not a FOSS purist in audio, so that wasn't a requirement. But I am 'linux purist' so no VST wrappers of windows DLLs etc.

- Watershed moment for me: Toneboosters and Kazrog coming to Linux. Along with u-he, these make for a very, very high quality offering. You can easily mix a commercial release just with these. Kazrog isn't even 'Linux beta' like the rest, proper full release on Linux. I was briefly involved in beta testing for Linux, Shane & co are incredible people.

- I have most/all DAWs for the Mac. Reaper and Bitwig on Linux are enough for me and feel like good citizens in Linux. (ProTools is never coming, neither is Logic. But addition of Studio One makes for a really good trio).

- Any USB class-compliant audio interface will work (modulo control applications which generally aren't available on Linux, so ymmv).

- iLok is missing, which removes a whole host of possible options (I have 500+ licences on my iLok dongle, none of that stuff is accessible). I can't say I miss iLok, but I do miss Softube (not that it's available on Linux, iLok or not).

I made a few 100+ tracks mixes on my thinkpad with Reaper and the above combo of plugins, it worked just fine.

But Linux is still Linux, and 30 years later still annoys me with typical 'linux problems', which generally boil down to 'lack of care'. UI is still laggy, compositors be damned. While Reaper is butter-smooth on a Mac, audio thread never interferes with UI (and vice versa), it can get quite choppy on Linux. If you allow your laptop to go to sleep with a DAW open, chances are good that upon resuming you'll have to restart it as it will lose sound. And a lot of smaller annoyances that are just lack of polish and/or persistent bugs, that I'm sadly used to on Linux (want to switch users on Linux Mint? The lock screen can get hella confused and require a lot of tinkering to get the desktop back). But overall, it's a million miles away from a hobbyist endeavour that Linux audio used to be until recently. I could get actual work done with Linux this time around.
by christinetyip | 2025-12-30 09:46:13+00:00
Yep, parsing logs + async RAG works fine if you’re staying inside a single tool.

The issue we ran into when building agent systems was portability. Once you want multiple agents or models to share the same evolving context, each tool reconstructing its own memory from transcripts stops scaling.

We’re less focused on “making agents smarter” and more on avoiding fragmentation when context needs to move across agents, tools, or people — for example, using context created in Claude from Codex, or sharing specific parts of that context with a friend or a team.

That’s also why benchmarks are tricky here. The gains tend to show up as less duplication and less state drift rather than a single accuracy metric. What would constitute convincing proof in this space for you?
by 578_Observer | 2025-12-30 09:47:08+00:00
A concrete proposal? Become an Auditor, not an Author.

As AI generates billions of lines of code, the world is about to be flooded with "technical debt" and "security holes." The scarcity shifts from writing code to verifying it.

Concrete Action:
Shift your skill set towards security auditing, compliance, and system architecture verification. Position yourself as the "Digital Notary" who stamps the AI's work with a human guarantee.

When a bank (like mine) lends money to a software project, we don't ask "Did an AI write this?" We ask "Which human is going to jail if this fails?"

Be the person whose name is on the insurance policy. That is a job an algorithm can never take.