MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by pron | 2025-12-17 20:36:55+00:00
Writing in a language that guarantees termination is not very interesting in itself, as every existing program could automatically be translated into a non-Turing-complete language where the program is proven to terminate, yet behaves exactly the same: the language is the same as the original, only loops/rectursion ends the program after, say, 2^64 iterations. This, in itself, does not make programs any easier to analyse. In fact, a language that only has boolean variables, no arrays, no recursion, and loops of depth 2 at most is already instractable to verify. It is true that programs in Turing-complete languages cannot generally be verified in efficiently, but most non-Turing-complete languages also have this property.

Usually, when we're interested in termination proofs, what we're really interested in is a proof that the algorithm makes constant progress that converges on a solution.
by layer8 | 2025-12-17 20:37:15+00:00
I don’t think the amount of data is essential here. The human genome is only around 750 MB, much less than current LLMs, and likely only a small fraction of it determines human intelligence. On the other hand, current LLMs contain immense amounts of factual knowledge that a human newborn carries zero information about.

Intelligence likely doesn’t require that much data, and it may be more a question of evolutionary chance. After all, human intelligence is largely (if not exclusively) the result of natural selection from random mutations, with a generation count that’s likely smaller than the number of training iterations of LLMs. We haven’t found a way yet to artificially develop a digital equivalent effectively, and the way we are training neural networks might actually be a dead end here.
by 1718627440 | 2025-12-17 20:37:18+00:00
> I'm not implying that it's not impressive

That part was about me :-).

> I'm implying that compilers still aren't magic wands,

Agreed.

> you should still optimize the algorithms (to a reasonable degree). Just let the compiler do the microptimizations (all this register allocation golf, instruction reordering, caching, the discussed division trick, etc.).

Agreed.
by macNchz | 2025-12-17 20:37:57+00:00
I think it's a significantly lower barrier than employing people to watch feeds non stop or review every instance of motion or person-detection. It would be pretty straightforward for the camera maker to test and evaluate a handful of presets that ship with the cameras, and the current state of vision models is already pretty excellent at identifying things in a nuanced and flexible way in images and video.
by cloflaw | 2025-12-17 20:38:08+00:00
The real insanity is that nearly everyone, on "both sides", now agrees the US invasion of Iraq was a terrible outcome and a terrible idea built on lies about "weapons of mass destruction".

Despite all of that this admin is using the exact same rhetoric while needing to redefine a drug, that largely is imported from places other than Venezuela, to make it a "weapon of mass destruction" in order to do it all over again.
by 2b3a51 | 2025-12-17 20:38:15+00:00
I started baking bread because I had a bag of plain flour (i.e. not bread flour, only 9% protein) sitting in the cupboard and approaching its sell-by date. So I made 'ships biscuits', and one thing led to another.

So a bag of what in the UK is called 'strong white flour' (i.e. protein around 12%, I think it is 'all purpose' in US) and a sachet of instant yeast and some salt. Followed the instructions on the bread bag and it worked sort of, a bit solid but edible and it toasted nice.

Then you just iterate. Lots of stuff out on the Web. I use supermarket flour and the dried active yeast and the ingredients are 10x cheaper than even a basic bought loaf. And mixing and baking is fun. Sourdough is OK but you then have a pet to look after...
by david_shaw | 2025-12-17 20:38:31+00:00
> Finneas (aka, Finneas O’Connell) has developed a new sonic logo for Apple TV, the streaming service previously known as Apple TV+.

I still find it perplexing that Apple TV[1] the service and Apple TV[2] the device -- technically now Apple TV 4K -- have the same name.

Even in Googling to link the right pages, I ran into issues finding the device. For a top-tier company with a $4+ trillion market cap, you'd think they'd find a better naming scheme.

1: https://tv.apple.com/ 2: https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-4k/

Side-note: I have an Apple TV (the device), and I think it's great. I've used Fire Sticks, Rokus, built-in TV software, and more, and the Apple TV is the first device I've used that really feels good to use. I'm a fan.
by zkmon | 2025-12-17 20:38:34+00:00
I take this "code-output" metrics with a pinch of salt. Ofcourse, a machine can generate 1000 times more lines of code similar to a power loom does. However, the comparison with power loom ends there.

How maintainable is this code output? I saw a SPA html file produced by a model, which appeared almost similar to assembly code. So if the code can only be maintained by model, then an appropriate metric should should be based on a long-term maintainability achieved, but not on instant generation of code.
by fsloth | 2025-12-17 20:38:43+00:00
"decide what the software is supposed to do in the first place."

After 20 years of software development I think that is because most of the software out there, is the method itself of finding out what it's supposed to do.

The incomplete specs are not lacking feature requirements due to lack of discipline. It's because nobody can even know without trying it out what the software should be.

I mean of course there is a subset of all software that can be specified before hand - but a lot of it is not.

Knuth could be that forward thinking with TeX for example only because he had 500 years of book printing tradition to fall back on to backport the specs to math.
by dpark | 2025-12-17 20:39:08+00:00
> It’s unlikely sensory data contributes to intelligence in human beings.

This is clearly untrue. All information a human ever receives is through sensory data. Unless your position is that the intelligence of a brain that was grown in a vat with no inputs would be equivalent to that of a normal person.

Now, does rotating a coffee mug and feeling its weight, seeing it from different angles, etc. improve intelligence? Actually, still yes, if your intelligence test happens to include questions like “is this a picture of a mug” or “which of these objects is closest in weight to a mug”.
by johnwheeler | 2025-12-17 20:39:47+00:00
It's kind of annoying when someone shows what they're working on, and the first comment is always, "Oh yeah, here's some alternatives." It feels like less like you're trying to be helpful and more like you're just kind of cheekily crapping on them. 2 cents. Maybe it would be more helpful if you were to ask how it could be different, what it improves upon. Ask if they've seen this. Something more than, "Oh yeah, here's something in addition to what this person is trying to show."
by hshdhdhj4444 | 2025-12-17 20:39:58+00:00
Have you ever been locked out of your Apple account?

Maybe because your kid was playing with your phone and kept entering the wrong passcode and now you’re locked out for several hours?

Or because Apple detests anyone else touching your phone and you’re traveling internationally and your screen cracked and you took it to a local repair shop which in the process of replacing the screen triggered something Apple didn’t like and you’re locked out for a decade.
by jonathan_h | 2025-12-17 20:40:01+00:00
"Monopolies get lazy, they just rent seek and don't innovate"

I think part of what enables a monopoly is absence of meaningful competition, regardless of how that's achieved -- significant moat, by law or regulation, etc.

I don't know to what extent Google has been rent-seeking and not innovating, but Google doesn't have the luxury to rent-seek any longer.
by kafkaesque | 2025-12-17 20:40:16+00:00
I can relate! Someone who is very dear to me suggested we go to a one-day pottery class and the idea had never entered my mind. I actually ended up loving it. We're both introverts, as well, and she enjoys doing things that don't require other people (she likes to surf, as well). There's something about doing something physical by yourself (that isn't exercising) that's creative that I really like, but before the class, I hadn't realized it.

I actually play instruments, as well, but this feels totally different and almost stimulates a different part of my brain. I was much more relaxed doing pottery and I saw instant results that I could track whether I was doing something right or wrong (even though the "right" and "wrong" was driven by my own personal idea of them).

Do you think you'll end up sharing any of your pieces to the public?
by cgfjtynzdrfht | 2025-12-17 20:40:30+00:00
Just hear me out.

What about a safer container ecosystem without Docker?

Podman solved rootless containers and everything else under the sun by now.

All docker is doing is playing catch-up.

But guess what? They are obsolete. It's just time until they go the way of HashiCorp's Vagrant.

Docker is only making money of enterprise whales by now, and eventually that profit will dry up, too.

If you are still relying on docker, it is time to migrate.

https://podman-desktop.io/docs/migrating-from-docker
by tj_591 | 2025-12-17 20:41:32+00:00
Hi, I work at Docker. Really appreciate the thoughtful discussion here. We’re excited to make Hardened Images free and open because we believe secure-by-default should be the starting point for every developer, not something you bolt on later.

A big part of this for us is transparency. That’s why every image ships with VEX statements, extensive attestations, and all the metadata you need to actually understand what you’re running. We want this to be a trustworthy foundation, not just a thinner base image.

We’re also extending this philosophy beyond base images into other content like MCP servers and related components, because the more of the stack that is verifiable and hardened by default, the better it is for the ecosystem.

A few people in the thread asked how this is sustainable. The short answer is that we do offer an enterprise tier for companies that need things like contractual continuous patching SLAs, regulated-industry variants (FIPS, etc.), and secure customizations with full provenance and attestations. Those things carry very real ongoing costs, so keeping them in Enterprise allows us to make the entire hardened catalog free for the community.

Glad to see the conversation happening here. We hope this helps teams ship software with a stronger security posture and a bit more confidence.
by hidai25 | 2025-12-17 20:41:42+00:00
Hi HN, I built EvalView after an agent that worked fine in dev started inventing numbers in prod. Tracing showed me what happened after the fact, but I wanted CI to fail the deploy the moment the agent drifted. EvalView is basically pytest for agents: you write a YAML test, run it N times (to catch flakiness), and fail the build if behavior regresses. Example:

```yaml name: "Refund policy doesn't hallucinate" runs: 10 pass_rate: 0.8 input: query: "What's our refund policy?" assert: - tool_called: "kb_search" - no_unsupported_claims: true - max_cost_usd: 0.05 ```

Instead of exact text matching, the checks focus on constraints: did it call the right tools, did it make claims not supported by tool results/context, and did it stay within cost/latency budgets. I also added optional local LLM-as-judge via Ollama so evals don’t burn API credits on every run. If you’re shipping agents to prod, what’s been your worst failure mode: tool misuse, budget blowups, or confident nonsense? Happy to answer questions. Hidai
by 10fold | 2025-12-17 20:42:22+00:00
Hi HN — I built Dropshopp after watching good creators get buried by algorithm-driven marketplaces and fee-heavy platforms. The idea is simple: instead of permanent listings, sellers “drop” real products for 24 hours so each item gets a fair moment of visibility without ads, boosts, or influencer mechanics.

Buyers don’t need accounts to purchase, and sellers are verified to avoid mass-produced or dropshipped goods. The goal isn’t infinite inventory or growth at all costs — it’s honest commerce that respects time, attention, and craftsmanship.

The app is live and usable: https://dropshopp.lovable.app

I’m curious whether time-limited drops feel like a healthier alternative to algorithmic feeds, or if this just shifts the problem elsewhere. Happy to answer questions or hear critiques.
by PaulHoule | 2025-12-17 20:42:33+00:00
I find it hard to take seriously for this reason: the proton is not an elementary particle but rather a composite particle whose mass is the sum of the masses of quarks in it and also the binding energy of the gluons and the electrostatic binding energy. The mainstream way to calculate it is a very complex computational Lattice QCD problem:

https://indico.phy.anl.gov/event/2/contributions/19/attachme...

The ratio of the electron mass to, I dunno, the top quark mass might be a fundamental quality that can be calculated in a few lines, but I've been seeing outsiders write simple formulas for mₚ/mₑ for most of my life and haven't been impressed.
by stevenjgarner | 2025-12-17 20:42:34+00:00
Windows 11 has transitioned from a standalone tool into a digital storefront that prioritizes recurring revenue through aggressive prompts for Microsoft 365 and OneDrive subscriptions. By mandating cloud-based Microsoft Accounts, the OS effectively anchors your identity to a marketing ID, allowing the company to track behavior and monetize your data. The interface now functions as an advertising platform, injecting "recommended" apps and sponsored content directly into the Start menu and search results. Ultimately, this shift means users are no longer just customers of a product, but recurring assets whose attention and telemetry are sold to sustain Microsoft’s ecosystem and maximize shareholder value.
by ggm | 2025-12-17 20:42:35+00:00
I think the sentiment of the headline statement is off. What you expect a CEO to say is "OBVIOUSLY the one thing which is completely off the table, because of it's lack of alignment with our mission and vision..."

Instead of which he inverts it "we'd get like $150m if we did this thing we won't do because well.. we haven't decided to." with the implicit "... yet"

And I agree with comments below: he discounts risk side loss of income because of people walking away.
by marcosdumay | 2025-12-17 20:42:42+00:00
Yes, the most helpful things AIs do is to guide people into popular environments they don't know very well.

Or in other words, the people that get the most value from AI are junior devs, since they still don't know very well plenty of popular environments. It's also useful for seniors that are starting something in a new environment, but those only get 1 or 2 novel contexts at a time, while everything is new for a junior.

Or, in again another set of words, AI enable juniors to add more value more quickly. That makes them more valuable, not less.
by adamhartenz | 2025-12-17 20:42:49+00:00
Wow, this seems like a lot of folks first encounter with a lyrical essay. I won't hold that against anyone. I have heard many things about the American school system. Writing like this is meant to be felt as much as evaluated. The argument matters, but the cadence and emotional momentum matter just as much. The author give you are chance to think about each point that is being said. Our dopamine addicted brains can't deal with this well anymore unfortunatly. Which is I guess why people feel uncomfortable, and don't know why.
by vasco | 2025-12-17 20:43:05+00:00
People really believe this. And also if you mention other disabilities that affect a similar ratio to the one they care about, ie 0.16% of people, they'll say it's too expensive and doesn't affect enough people. Like what if I want this content to be consumable by people who have such heavy learning disabilities that the whole content would need to be 20x as long and explained much more step by step?
by buellerbueller | 2025-12-17 20:44:11+00:00
Yes, it seems as though a politically-aligned congress is ceding lots of its authority to the executive, while the SCOTUS is restraining the rest of the judiciary from checking the executive.

The shame of this is, it is in defiance of the design of the Founders, and will take a LONG time to correct, if we don't descent into authoritarianism before it is corrected.
by cmoriam | 2025-12-17 20:44:30+00:00
I have extensively. Here's an example of Mistral Small Creative reading weather and snow data creating a ski report:

The mountain is wrapped in a fresh, high-density powder blanket after a wild overnight storm that dumped 14" at the summit, 5" mid-mountain, and 3" at the base—with an extra 1-3" of light snow today topping it off. The snow is upside-down (heavier on top), creating a challenging, almost "wet concrete" texture in spots, especially on SE and SW aspects, where the wind scoured and redeposited it unevenly. Thin coverage is the name of the game—expect to bottom out in rocky or icy patches across all aspects, particularly on flatter terrain and wind-exposed slopes.

Skiing today is a mixed bag of adventure and caution: the summit’s NW aspects offer the deepest powder (up to 15"), but the upside-down snowpack means you’ll need to adjust your line to avoid post-holing or sudden transitions to bare ground. Mid-mountain feels like a crusty, wind-packed playground—fast and fun on groomers but sketchy in the trees where the snow is thin and uneven. Down at the base, the 3" of fresh stuff is just enough to soften the edges of icy patches, but don’t expect deep turns—it’s more about playful bumps and quick carves before you hit the harder stuff underneath.

Wind effects are still visible: NW slopes are wind-loaded and dense, while SE faces feel scoured and thin. Freezing levels dropped below base, so lower elevations may have a slushy, refrozen crust by midday. Avalanche risk is moderate—watch for wind slabs on lee aspects and thin, unconsolidated snow over harder layers.

Bottom line? If you’re after deep, untracked turns, head early to the summit’s NW aspects—but expect a workout as you navigate the heavy, upside-down snow. For a more mellow (but still fun) day, stick to groomed runs mid-mountain, where the 5" of fresh stuff softens the ride. Helmets and poles are a must—this snow isn’t forgiving if you take a spill. Conditions will firm up fast as temps rise, so get out there early for the best experience.

------------

vs Gemini Flash 3 doing the same at 4x the cost for the same prompt:

Conditions are currently overcast with light snow falling across all elevations, adding to the 14" of new high-density powder recorded at the summit and 5" at mid-mountain over the last 24 hours. While the base areas are seeing a fresh 3" coating, freezing levels remain low, ensuring the ongoing precipitation stays frozen throughout the day.

Skiing today features a heavy, "upside-down" snowpack that requires strong legs to navigate, especially where SE winds have scoured slopes and loaded the NW aspects. Expect a physically demanding experience as you maneuver through this dense, wind-affected snow, and exercise caution as the coverage remains extremely thin; you will likely feel the firm ground or obstacles beneath your skis in localized spots across the mountain.
by simonw | 2025-12-17 20:44:32+00:00
I'm effectively no longer typing code by hand: I decide what change I want to make and then prompt Claude Code to describe that change. Sometimes I'll have it figure out the fix too.

An example from earlier today: https://github.com/simonw/llm-gemini/commit/fa6d147f5cff9ea9...

That commit added 33 lines and removed 13 - so I'm already at a 20-lines-a-day level just from that one commit (and I shipped a few more plus a release of llm-gemini: https://github.com/simonw/llm-gemini/commits/a2bdec13e03ca8a...)

It took about 3.5 minutes. I started from this issue someone had filed against my repo:

Then I opened Claude Code and said:

Run this command: uv run llm -m gemma-3-27b-it hi

That ran the command and returned the error message. I then said:

Yes, fix that - the gemma models do not support media resolution

Which was enough for it to figure out the fix and run the tests to confirm it hadn't broken anything.

I ran "git diff", thought about the change it had made for a moment, then committed and pushed it.

Here's the full Claude Code transcript: https://gistpreview.github.io/?62d090551ff26676dfbe54d8eebbc...

I verified the fix myself by running:

uv run llm -m gemma-3-27b-it hi

I pasted the result into an issue comment to prove to myself (and anyone else who cares) that I had manually verified the fix: https://github.com/simonw/llm-gemini/issues/116#issuecomment...

Here's a more detailed version of the transcript including timestamps, showing my first prompt at 10:01:13am and the final response at 10:04:55am. https://tools.simonwillison.net/claude-code-timeline?url=htt...

I built that claude-code-timeline application this morning too, and that thing is 2284 lines of code: https://github.com/simonw/tools/commits/main/claude-code-tim... - but that was much more of a vibe-coded thing, I hardly reviewed the code that was written at all and shipped it as soon as it appeared to work correctly. Since it's a standalone HTML file there's not too much that can go wrong if it has bugs in it.
by mdahardy | 2025-12-17 20:44:50+00:00
This is a fair criticism we should've addressed. There's actually a nice study on this: Vong et al. (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi1374) hooked up a camera to a baby's head so it would get all the input data a baby gets. A model trained on this data learned some things babies do (eg word-object mappings), but not everything. However, this model couldn't actively manipulate the world in the way that a baby does and I think this is a big reason why humans can learn so quickly and efficiently.

That said, LLMs are still trained on significantly more data pretty much no matter how you look at it. E.g. a blind child might hear 10-15 million words by age 6 vs. trillions for LLMs.
by lifestyleguru | 2025-12-17 20:45:00+00:00
None of the service providers listed as European delivers B2C products or services as many American ones. Maybe only Spotify.

Few of these companies provide respectable IT/tech careers, every time it's brutal race to the bottom with nearshoring and outsourcing. Especially French and German ones where you have to speak French or German and have local postgraduate degree to step out from the software sweatshop in the basement.

As an EU citizen I don't mind if Americans take them down a notch.
by pcaharrier | 2025-12-17 20:45:02+00:00
Well, yes, the office of president was created to be weak relative to the British monarchy. But the substance of executive power (i.e., what actions are authorized) isn't really the issue, but rather whether anyone other than the president has the constitutional authority to do those things.

Take, for instance, the executive power "to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States" (Art. 2, Sec. 2). There is a pardon attorney who advises the president, but it is solely the president who has the executive power to grant the pardon; in that sense the president exercises the pardon power exclusively (or phrased differently "to the absolute exclusion of others").
by ubermonkey | 2025-12-17 20:46:10+00:00
>Plenty of those bikes have a range of only ~100 miles as it is.

This is not true. If I'm wrong about this, I'd love to be shown a citation.

The Livewire problem is MOSTLY that (a) Harley made it too expensive and (b) Harley has to performativly hate anything that isn't big and loud with a vibration at idle that would churn butter. And they do this to the detriment of their brand.