MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by ACCount37 | 2025-12-05 09:47:00+00:00
Yeah, exposition overload is a rookie mistake a lot of writers make.

And video game writers in particular? Sometimes it feels like just having a Wattpad account could put you in top 50% of them. I've seen AAAs where saying the writing was "fanfic tier" would be an insult to fanfics. Like they either hire the cheapest people they can get, or give the job to someone like an executive's daughter with big ideas and no ability to execute on them.

A good writer knows the power of "show don't tell", and knows the value of keeping the audience hungry and wanting for more.
by gorgoiler | 2025-12-05 09:47:13+00:00
I’ve been playing a bunch of cool board games recently. Some of them are incredibly complicated and yet really well balanced*. Hiring these game designers to “rebalance” the mechanics of school disability allowances would be a really smart move. After all, a good board game designer’s job is to ensure a fair competition while people literally try to game the system.

Also it would be fun if you had to pick a star card every semester for one off mechanics like:

“red letter day: papers submitted in tuesdays must use red pen and will be graded in black ink”;

“balogna bingo: all sandwich labels through April will include a random number — match four numbers with another student and your next lunch is free!”; or

“vocabulary dairy: free froyo every week for the students in the 90th percentile for how many times they use the words important, therefore, or however in their papers, but you have to agree to buy a Manual of Style (and provide proof of purchase at the froyo counter)”.

*Ironically one is called RA https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12/ra
by input_sh | 2025-12-05 09:47:38+00:00
Mainstream != serious. In fact it's quite the opposite, as serious news organizations cannot match the output of mainstream news. Even one story per month is a success for many.

In serious news organizations, there's quite a few steps between a journalist writing a draft and that draft being published. Fact-checking is one of them, having a competent "boss" (called an editor) is another.

Most news orgs have both a "serious" department and a "publish as much as possible" department, with far different requirements. In general, if you're publishing something along the lines of "X said Y", you don't need a rigorous process. If you're doing an investigation in which you're accusing someone of doing something illegal, then you need a far more rigorous process, otherwise you'd be sued out of existence pretty quickly.

Of course, having a rigorous process doesn't mean you won't get sued at all, but there's a term for that: SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation). In those lawsuits, the goal is not to prove the story wrong, but to just waste news org's resources on defending their reporting in front of a judge instead of doing their job.
Show HN: I built an autopilot that generates and posts my X tweets every day
by HansP958 | 2025-12-05 09:47:54+00:00
I wanted to grow on X but posting every day felt repetitive, so I built a small tool that generates my daily tweets at 02:00 AM and automatically schedules them throughout the day.

It takes a few seconds to set up: you enter a topic and the autopilot handles the rest. This was originally a one-day experiment, but after sharing it on Reddit I realized people were actually interested in automating consistency rather than “growth hacks”.

What’s inside: – Daily tweet generation (AI) – Automatic scheduling – Dashboard to see upcoming/posted tweets – Topic-based autopilot – Minimal setup, no manual copy/paste

I’m fully aware that automated posting is controversial, so I’m interested in honest feedback from the HN crowd — especially around product usefulness, ethics, or ways to improve the quality of generated content.

Live demo: https://x101.tech

Source code isn’t public yet, but I’m open to releasing parts of it if people want to see how it works.

Would love to hear what you think.
by user34283 | 2025-12-05 09:48:49+00:00
When you say "we all" you really mean radical liberals who believe Musk is a fascist.

Do you also believe the hoax that Musk, officially "a dear friend of Israel", performed the salute on stage?

Talk about being hopelessly deluded.

No one needs to like the man or consider him trustworthy, but the kind of hate you and many other liberals display? Totally unreasonable.
by energy123 | 2025-12-05 09:49:30+00:00
I am not sure how to interpret the first paper's results.

If we use a random number generator then we will converge to 100% correct answers under pass@n in the limit.

A random number generator will eventually outperform or match all models (for large n) whenever top-p is less than 1 because the other models will most likely have some level of bias that makes correct CoTs mathematically impossible due to the tokens being too improbable and being filtered out by top-p, meaning that other models will asymptote to below 100% while the RNG will reach 100% in an almost surely sense.

Under this paper's logic doesn't that mean that the random number generator is a superior reasoner?
by ACCount37 | 2025-12-05 09:49:48+00:00
I've seen quite a few streamers that click through the text and don't care about the story.

It's even more common among playtesters. Ever noticed how some games seem to go out of their way to avoid any subtlety and repeat the major plot points at least 4 times? Or give way too many hints for the easiest of puzzles? One of the causes is that a game was playtested within an inch of its life.

Someone ended up optimizing for the kind of player who doesn't care much, because the playtesters didn't care much - they were only there for a paycheck.

But I've also seen a couple of streamers that can just scan entire pages into their mind in a second and click through text while retaining all the information.

I thought myself a quick reader, but even I was in a disbelief seeing someone read this quick on the first playthrough.
by friendzis | 2025-12-05 09:49:51+00:00
> It's also better if there's one ecosystem instead of one fragmented with different languages where you have to write bindings for everything you want to use.

This argument is slightly backwards. This is essentially the argument used for "javascript in the backend" and "let's package the whole browser as application runtime so we can use javascript". The core of the argument is that javascript is ipso facto the best language/runtime to write any code in, including refactoring existing codebases. Bringing javascript out of the browser also means you have to write bindings for javascript and recreate the existing ecosystems anyway.

Even if you approach this from "single codebase across runtimes" angle, the conclusion to bridge the gap between browsers and languages with existing codebase, expertise and ecosystems is much more reasonable than rewrite everything in javascript.
by liampulles | 2025-12-05 09:51:53+00:00
I'm a hobbiest video encoder (mostly I like to experiment in backing up my DVD collection), and I recently switched to using AV1 over HEVC.

I've found the ratio of a fixed quality vs CPU load to be better, and I've found it is reasonably good at retaining detail over smoothing things out when compared to HEVC. And the ability to add generated "pseudo grain" works pretty well to give the perception of detail. The performance of GPU encoders (while still not good enough fory maybe stringent standards) is better.
by d4rkn0d3z | 2025-12-05 09:53:00+00:00
It is interesting that we can measure absolutely every physical quantity in units of length and that our best gravitational theory is based on manifold curvature characterised by an infinitessimal line element. This suggests that ultimately the universe may be geometric in nature with, at least from our perspective, a fundamental length (area) scale at which very simple geometric rules operate ad infinitum to produce all of the emergent complexity we observe. On this view, we live in a fractal, we are patterns at scale that do not appear to arise obviously from the fundamental rules, but we do so arise.

The above entails that the speed of light is not quite constant, but rather energy dependent; c=f(E). The variation would be very small so detecting this is challenging. Myriad observational hurdles may prevent us from ever detecting such small variations but there are many reasons to posit such a model, most quantum gravity theories do so.
by kevalpadia | 2025-12-05 09:53:11+00:00
Why WordPress hosting remains the top choice for bloggers who want a smooth, secure, and scalable platform. let's breaks down how one-click installation, automatic updates, and an intuitive dashboard make WordPress incredibly easy to manage. With extensive theme and plugin options, bloggers can fully customize their site and strengthen their brand identity. The article also highlights the platform’s built-in SEO advantages, strong security features, and effortless scalability as traffic grows. Supported by a global community, affordable pricing plans, and seamless integrations with marketing and analytics tools, WordPress hosting offers everything a blogger needs to build, optimize, and grow a successful blog.
by cubefox | 2025-12-05 09:53:30+00:00
padding: 1em; padding: if(style(--size: "2xl"): 1em; else: 0.25em);

> Note: Remember to include the else condition. In if()-supporting browsers, if no else value were included and --size was not equal to "2xl", the padding would be set to initial.

This is counterintuitive. You would expect the above falls back to "1em" (from "padding: 1em;") when "else" is not specified. Instead, omitting "else" apparently means "else: initial".
by da_grift_shift | 2025-12-05 09:53:46+00:00
The excuse:

>A change made to how Cloudflare's Web Application Firewall parses requests caused Cloudflare's network to be unavailable for several minutes this morning.

>The change was deployed by our team to help mitigate the industry-wide vulnerability disclosed this week in React Server Components.

>We will share more information as we have it today.

https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/incidents/lfrm31y6sw9q
by leononame | 2025-12-05 09:54:39+00:00
I'm also wondering about that. But maybe this could be it?

> Surprisingly, the table is just as big as with the enum type above, even though an enum uses four bytes. The reason is that each table row is aligned at a memory address divisible by eight, so PostgreSQL will add six padding bytes after the smallint. If we had more columns and could arrange them carefully, we could see a difference.

This could be the explanation. If the row is padded to 8, bigint is 8, then smallint or enum also use 8. The entries in the string table will be 8 or 16 due to the string length. So one row in person_e and person_l is 16, one row in person_s could be about 20 on average, that is a bit closer to the reality than my intuition, although the storage savings are still less than what I would have expected.

edit:

I did also try out the test and dropped the primary key on the table to compare only enum and string size:

SELECT PG_SIZE_PRETTY(PG_RELATION_SIZE('person_e')), PG_SIZE_PRETTY(PG_RELATION_SIZE('person_s')) 277 MB,330 MB

Does not look like an amazing saving either.
by johncolanduoni | 2025-12-05 09:55:09+00:00
For wireless, the prices aren’t much different from products with comparable feature sets/performance. For some niche combinations, they’re the only option that doesn’t force you way upmarket (Meraki, etc.). Most of the money they make is from small business and tiny WISPs, not HN boosters overdoing it on their home WiFi in what must be a bid to get their partner to divorce them.

Their wired stuff is a total scam since Edgerouter fell off, though. The same functionality exists on a $50 netgear managed switch (or wired router, etc.), and the shitty unified configuration interface doesn’t justify the markup at all.
by 1718627440 | 2025-12-05 09:55:29+00:00
> the order of operations might affect the precision of ints/floats

That's only the problem of floats, with ints this issue doesn't exist.

Why do you write (x % 2 == 0 && x % 3 == 0) instead of (x % 2 == 0 & x % 3 == 0), when the latter is what you think you mean?

Are you sure, that dividing by 6 is actually faster, than dividing by 2 and 3? A division operation is quite costly compared to other arithmetic and 2 and 3 are likely to have some special optimization (2 is a bitshift), which isn't necessary the case for 6.
by Semaphor | 2025-12-05 09:55:41+00:00
OT: Does anyone know of a setting or extension for Firefox to stop those autoplaying videos? I have gifs disabled, prefers-reduced-motion on, and those videos in that article both autoplay, and start again after pausing them manually. I have no idea what the article is about (except what the title says) because I kept getting distracted by the annoying videos.
by krapp | 2025-12-05 09:55:46+00:00
Any form of communication other than grunting and howling from trees is "objectively an unnatural form of communication."

Attaching your real world identity to every interaction you have on the internet is no more objectively natural than doing otherwise, and more of a burden than we place on interactions in the real world. I don't exchange my drivers license and SSL with everyone I talk to.

We don't need to have the serious conversation, we've had it, and the false dichotomy you're presenting here is invalid. We don't have to choose one or the other. Anonymity has been well established in every free society as legally and morally defensible and a necessity for free speech and a free state for decades, to the point of including some degree of anonymity from one's own government.

Moderation beyond strictly legal content is acceptable. Anonymity is also acceptable. 4chan can be 4chan, and other places can not be 4chan. Free speech does not guarantee you a platform, much less all platforms. It doesn't require me to put a target on my back, either.
by mschuster91 | 2025-12-05 09:56:34+00:00
no one loves the need for CDNs other than maybe video streaming services.

the problem is, below a certain scale you can't operate anything on the internet these days without hiding behind a WAF/CDN combo... with the cut-off mark being "we can afford a 24/7 ops team". even if you run a small niche forum no one cares about, all it takes is one disgruntled donghead that you ban to ruin the fun - ddos attacks are cheap and easy to get these days.

and on top of that comes the shodan skiddie crowd. some 0day pops up, chances are high someone WILL try it out in less than 60 minutes. hell, look into any web server log, the amount of blind guessing attacks (e.g. /wp-admin/..., /system/login, /user/login) or path traversal attempts is insane.

CDN/WAFs are a natural and inevitable outcome of our governments and regulatory agencies not giving a shit about internet security and punishing bad actors.
by outime | 2025-12-05 09:57:24+00:00
I'm not commenting on US fact checkers but the concept made its way to my country of origin some time ago. As I suspected, it turned out to be completely biased, often ignoring or softening the controversial topics that affect their side. It's the same old journalism trick where they claim to be neutral and dedicated to the truth but in reality they all have their own agendas, which seems unavoidable (nowadays or since forever?). The main issue is people believing that their favorite fact checker is the most neutral and thus using their content as absolute truths.

Glad to see that the concept is now completely unpopular in my country and we're back to the usual terrible journalism where there's no controversy in stating that.
by f311a | 2025-12-05 09:58:48+00:00
> A change made to how Cloudflare's Web Application Firewall parses requests caused Cloudflare's network to be unavailable for several minutes this morning. This was not an attack; the change was deployed by our team to help mitigate the industry-wide vulnerability disclosed this week in React Server Components. We will share more information as we have it today.
by dominuskelvin | 2025-12-05 09:58:49+00:00
In 2020, Kuda faced an existential crisis: their third-party core banking platform was failing at 100k users. System downtime every Monday. Weekend complaints. Failed transfers. They had two options: watch their bank collapse, or build their own core banking system from scratch.

Eight engineers chose to build. They delivered NERVE in six months—during COVID lockdowns—while keeping the bank operational.

Some things I found interesting from the interviews:

• Foundation over features: First 2-3 months produced zero visible endpoints. Just contracts, schemas, infrastructure, and observability. The CTO kept asking "can I see any APIs?" The team held firm—and after the foundation, development accelerated exactly as promised.

• Built for 10X scale: At 150k users, they built for 10 million. The same system now serves 10M+ customers without hitting designed limits.

• The night before launch: Production environment mysteriously failed. Their solution? Promoted the staging environment to production and shipped. It's still running today.

• Customers noticed immediately: Backend work is usually invisible. Not this time—customers started tweeting about faster response times on launch day.

• 90% cost reduction: Compared to enterprise solutions from vendors like Temenos or Finacle. No licensing fees, no vendor lock-in, full control over features and data.

• Load testing saved them: Designed for 1,000 concurrent transactions/second. Initial tests were "disastrous"—they weren't reusing Redis connections. Fixed connection pooling, hit targets, went live.

The full article covers architectural decisions (microservices, custom micro-ORM, synchronous transaction core with async edges), concurrency handling via row versioning, team dynamics during COVID, and what it took to convince leadership to invest in "invisible work."

Free to read until Dec 10, 2025: https://africanengineer.com/i/kuda-nerve

Would love feedback from anyone who's worked on banking cores, payment systems, or similar infrastructure migrations.
by pjmlp | 2025-12-05 09:58:49+00:00
What to say from WG14, when even one of C authors could not make it happen?

Notice how none of them kept involved with WG14, just did their own thing with C in Plan 9, and with Inferno, C was only used for the kernel, with everything else done in Limbo, finalizing by minor contributions to Go's first design.

People that worship UNIX and C, should spend some time learning that the authors moved on, trying to improve the flaws they considered their original work suffered from.
by tuetuopay | 2025-12-05 09:58:53+00:00
Oh I never said you wrote it's better, your message is quite clear :)

Just that I would not really compare the two. The BX500 is the only Crucial SSD I've ever had troubles with and kinda eroded my trust in the brand. My >10 years old M4 is still working like a champ, so does my MX200.

DRAM-less SSDs are a plague that is very hard to avoid, as it's never mentioned in the spec sheets.
by f311a | 2025-12-05 09:59:16+00:00
> A change made to how Cloudflare's Web Application Firewall parses requests caused Cloudflare's network to be unavailable for several minutes this morning. This was not an attack; the change was deployed by our team to help mitigate the industry-wide vulnerability disclosed this week in React Server Components. We will share more information as we have it today.
by elsjaako | 2025-12-05 09:59:28+00:00
The first two is the same article, but they point out that certain structures can be very hard to write in rust, with linked lists being a famous example. The point stands, but I would say the tradeoff is worth it (the author also mentions at the end that they still think rust is great).

The third link is absolutely nuts. Why would you want to initialize a struct like that in Rust? It's like saying a functional programming language is hard because you can't do goto. The author sets themselves a challenge to do something that absolutely goes against how rust works, and then complains how hard it is.

If you want to do it to interface with non-rust code, writing a C-style string to some memory is easier.
by close04 | 2025-12-05 10:00:14+00:00
> Of course, this doesn't excuse extra red tape tacked into the procedure

That's exactly it. I understand the importance of safety but reading the list of complaints I just cannot believe that safety is the key driver for the design decisions.

> ISTA’s official iBMUCP replacement procedure is so risky that if you miss one single step — poorly explained within ISTA — the system triggers ANTITHEFT LOCK.

> Meaning: even in an authorised service centre, system can accidentally delete the configuration and end up needing not only a new iBMUCP, but also all new battery modules.

> BMW refuses to provide training access for ISTA usage

Everything about this screams greed driven over-engineering. Since when are error prone processes and lack of access to information better for safety?

We live in a world where everyone justifies taking user hostile actions with some variation of "safety". Software and hardware are locked down, backdoored, need manufacturer approval to operate even when original parts are used, etc.
by formerly_proven | 2025-12-05 10:00:21+00:00
On the other thread there were comments claiming it’s unknowable what IaaS some SaaS is using, but SaaS vendors need to disclose these things one way or another, e.g. DPAs. Here is for example renders list of subprocessors: https://render.com/security

It’s actually fairly easy to know which 3rd party services a SaaS depends on and map these risks. It’s normal due diligence for most companies to do so before contracting a SaaS.
by Neil44 | 2025-12-05 10:01:42+00:00
I have a BMW PHEV. There's a 3 cyl turbo engine with an auto box at the front and a 90hp electric motor and 7.6kwh battery at the back. Most of the new ones just have a more traditional layout with an electric motor built into the autobox. You get more elec range than a hybrid but less than a full EV. Now that it's cold I start my commute on engine to get the car warmed up with 'free' heat then switch to EV later. If I want to beat someone off the lights I use both together.
by altmanaltman | 2025-12-05 10:02:02+00:00
yeah there is no incentive to do a CDN in house, esp for businesses that are not tech-oriented. And the costs of the occasional outage has not really been higher than the cost of doing it in-house. And I'm sure other CDNs gets outages as well, just CF is so huge everyone gets to know about it and it makes the news