MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by 47282847 | 2025-12-22 11:35:04+00:00
> Emotions are not learned through narrative. They are innate regulatory systems shaped by natural selection.

Emotions are deeply shaped by culture. Infants need emotional mirroring, co-regulation, and guidance in how to deal with and “develop” emotions. In some cultures, emotions exist not isolated in individuals but only in relationships (never “I am angry”, but “there is anger between us”). In Asian cultures, you typically soak up that you cannot feel only joy from winning but at the same time feel grief because the other lost. Infants that do not receive adequate mirroring develop long term brain damage and other pathologies. The narrative is/becomes a crucial part of how we perceive ourselves and our emotions.
by ayewo | 2025-12-22 11:35:14+00:00
Thanks for those links. GitHub Copilot looks like a good deal at $10/mo for a range of models.

I originally thought they only supported the previous generation models i.e. Claude Opus 4.1 and Gemini 2.5 Pro based on the copy on their pricing page [1] but clicking through [2] shows that they support far more models.

[1] https://github.com/features/copilot#pricing

[2] https://github.com/features/copilot/plans#compare
by filleduchaos | 2025-12-22 11:35:34+00:00
No, one of the pilots put the plane into an aerodynamic stall because they had failed sensors giving them erroneous airspeed information and he kept overriding the other pilot who was doing the correct thing to recover from the stall he had put the aircraft in.

What exactly was a computer at the time supposed to figure out with unreliable data, especially after a stall had first developed?

Also in fairness I was a bit too opaque with my point, which is that 1) LVL requires the pilot to actually press it, which they are unlikely to do if like you yourself have mentioned they are clueless about what situation they're actually in, and 2) LVL is not appropriate stall recovery so I don't really see how it is relevant to a case of an aerodynamic stall.
by armchairhacker | 2025-12-22 11:36:50+00:00
But how would they be held accountable? Who gets to decide right vs wrong? How do you ensure the accountability mechanism isn’t used against you?

Today, people online are “held accountable” via harassment, threats, SWATting, and such directed towards their friends/family/employer, by internet lunatics who exist across the political spectrum. If you’re popular enough, it doesn’t matter if you’re a leftist, rightist, or literally Mr. Rogers; you’ll get haters who go out of their way to hurt you using whatever PII and vulnerability you expose. Or if you’re not popular, but unlucky and post something mildly controversial from either the mainstream left or right; or if you’re very unlucky. Or if you’re publicly a woman, you’ll face sexual harassment and potentially stalking.

And some of these haters and sex pests have nothing to lose, so holding them accountable doesn’t solve the issue.

I do think a solution involves holding people accountable, but carefully. Perhaps to start, people form overlapping social groups, so a system where a group can only punish people within that group (e.g. banning them from posting), but can’t outside (e.g. harassing them or people close to them, especially in-person, or threatening their job).
by troupo | 2025-12-22 11:37:57+00:00
Yup.

There's also obvious care and human creation there as well.

They have several "artists". Bertha Mae Lightning gets the better lyrics and artangements. Virgil Dillard gets simpler tunes and the occasional weird grammar/lyrics. And so on.

I even saved that radio as a playlist to show people: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/072Wp3cFsziKBQlnglF5XM?si=... It has both obvious AI ("artist" by the name of promptgenix) and not-so-obvious (Enlly Blue, Dumpster Grooves).

The weird/sad/funny/ironic part? Many of those songs are still better than whatever Taylor Swift and a lot of other artists produce.
I built two dozen single-file HTML tools that run offline and need no back end
by ajtracysk | 2025-12-22 11:38:12+00:00
I'm a teacher who started making my own productivity tools. I was tired of subscriptions and paywalls. Every tool is a single HTML file. Download it, open it, data stays local. No server, no login, no API calls.

Started as a personal project but I've now shipped habit trackers, journals, planners, invoice generators, and a bunch of teaching tools.

Curious what HN thinks about this approach to software.
by harrisoned | 2025-12-22 11:38:21+00:00
This is something that worries me. I know that the laws/constitution that guarantees the rights of somebody may vary from country to country (and may not even be enforced by the letter), but lets say: All commercial companies will have a ToS, data sharing agreements, etc. You, as a user, i assume is not obligated to agree to that ToS at the expense of not using the service. If a government body requires you to use their service to access basic services (and offers no 'offline' alternative) required by law, are they, by proxy, coercing you to accept a commercial ToS? I would very much like to hear a lawyer opinion on this.

I know some government may do this with intent, but i imagine many governments simply never thought about it, or no citizen ever didn't accepted a "popular smartphone OS provider's ToS" and challenged that government requirement. I know some make offline alternatives very inconvenient, but that still technically legal.
by blazingbanana | 2025-12-22 11:38:29+00:00
I really like this and I can also see it being useful for one-off "state of play" of the environment, just thinking if the key resources from different teams all completed one of these how useful it would be for the rest of the company as well.

I had a question around the AI you're using, are you sending this off to OpenAI or doing this all locally?
by Perseids | 2025-12-22 11:39:45+00:00
I wish non-conformity was more of a thing at points where it actually matters. Your product manager asks you to add invasive user tracking and surveillance? Push back and explain how this makes the world a worse place. Got a ticket to implement a "[yes][ask me later]" dialog [1]? Make a short survey that shows how user hate it. Nobody listens to you? Refuse to comply. The government requires you to take deeply unethical or unlawful actions? Sabotage the feature [2] (or quit/resign).

Performative non-conformance might be e.g. helpful to nurture a culture of critical thinking, but if it is just performative, then it is worthless.

(I write this with no intent to criticize you, burningChrome, or Jyn. You might very well do just that.)

(Also, I'm aware that the ability to push back is very unevenly distributed. I'm addressing those that can afford this agency. And also, non-conformance is spectrum: You can also push back a little without choosing the specific point to be the hill to die on. Every bit counts.)

[1] https://idiallo.com/blog/hostile-not-enshittification

[2] https://www.404media.co/heres-a-pdf-version-of-the-cia-guide...
by keiferski | 2025-12-22 11:39:54+00:00
The main thing missing from this IMO is an element of chance or randomness, the ability to incorporate “unknown unknowns” into your life. The most interesting people I’ve come across have had a variety of jobs, many of which they knew absolutely nothing about when starting out. There is a genuine value add when you’ve worked beyond the same white collar profession your entire working career.

In other words, the problem in designing your life is that you’re almost always going to pick things you already know. Maybe that gets you to the peak of your current profession over twenty years…but maybe some other job is actually a lot more fulfilling to you.

I’m not sure how to incorporate this into a young person’s real life experience, but I do think gap years, varied internships, volunteering, etc. are probably a good start.

I recently listened to a podcast with a guy that wrote a book advocating that young people spend 4 years getting a pilot’s license, working on a ranch, becoming an EMT, and various other useful skills/jobs. That seems like a great idea, although I didn’t like the hostility to traditional college he had in offering this plan.
by gbuk2013 | 2025-12-22 11:39:58+00:00
This is very true and is exactly why there is no magic right answer other than “it depends”.

There are different stages of company lifecycle, different industries, different regulatory environments etc.

The processes put in place always have a cost - if picked appropriately it is worth paying, otherwise it is a waste that can hurt or even kills a project. This balance is the “art” of the job that I personally am only starting to probe around at my level and so it is still quite interesting. :)
by rcxdude | 2025-12-22 11:39:59+00:00
Yes, that's pretty much the main goal with sanctions (and things like export controls): no-one expects them to be impossible to work around, but they should impose some (ideally very large) extra costs and limit the scale. For some things this is more or less built into the regulations with de-minimis rules that tacitly cap the cost multiplier at 10x or so.
by ichbinsoftware | 2025-12-22 11:40:02+00:00
Hi HN,
I'm the creator of this project. I've released my electronic album, Everything is Free, as an open-source repository under CC0 (Public Domain).

The thesis: Music should circulate like electricity, is public infrastructure, not protected content.

What's included:

- Full album browsable in the repo with immediate M4A access

- High-res WAV stems for remixing/sampling/destroying

- Interactive stem player at ev3.ichbinsoftware.com for each track

- CC0 license — copy, remix, commercialize, or repackage without permission or attribution

The process:

All synth and effects audio came from physical hardware (circuits/voltages), not software.

I wanted to capture the timing errors and human decisions of hardware jams, then release that raw data back to the web.

Happy to answer questions about the hardware workflow, the CC0 decision, or how to use these stems in your projects.

Links:

Repo: https://github.com/ichbinsoftware/everythingisfree

Stream/Download: https://software-entwicklungskit.bandcamp.com/album/everythi...

Interactive player: https://ev3.ichbinsoftware.com
by mrjay42 | 2025-12-22 11:40:07+00:00
So this is about PerlMonks, which I knew nothing about until today.

I searched it, the site is down
The Wikipedia article is deleted

This is pure loss of information somehow.

I and a lot of other people in the future will never know what "perlmonks" is/are, how important it was?, etc. etc.

The logic seems to be: if tomorrow Stack Exchange disappears, the Wikipedia article will be deleted? If yes, then that makes zero sense.
by psychoslave | 2025-12-22 11:40:12+00:00
That's regrettable yes, as any centrism. But people interested in epistemology certainly are aware of major contributions to sciences by Indian thinkers.

Biased coverage is unfortunately rather widespread in more general media. And rise of nationalisms don't help in the matter. Which is true for western and eastern countries by the way.

Regarding a case of several millennia of prior art, there is Pāṇini, who employed metalanguage long before the idea become of interest in western side.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81%E1%B9%87ini
by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 | 2025-12-22 11:40:22+00:00
My relatively mild amusement comes from war being against TOS, where war is effectively ultimate break of local level TOS. The only reason it is even discussed in this way is because, as war goes, it is contained. 'Real wars have no terms of service' is my subtle point.

edit: I accept I am a somewhat horrible person to even be able to articulate those thoughts.
by neuralkoi | 2025-12-22 11:41:23+00:00
A lot of us live our lives according to the expectations of others (our parents, society, etc) because this is all we know how to do at first and what the "system" reinforces through school, career, etc. and this difference between what we want to do and what we actually end up doing can end up causing lots of suffering to ourselves (and to others).

I've seen fear as the primary obstacle to trying something different when the current route is not working. It's really hard to step outside the comfort zone in those situations.
by pas | 2025-12-22 11:41:27+00:00
Of course there's no free lunch, but economic equilibrium includes future obligations too (at a discounted rate), it includes the value of current unfinished things, there's a lot of real economic value backed by demand, because otherwise there's nowhere for supply to go. (Imagine if suddenly no one wants to build houses, because let's say everyone gets a tent. Suddenly there is an oversupply of construction services, and construction materials, and architects, and inspectors, and labor in general. Which will immediately triggers a drop in wages.)

You have a hypothesis about price stability, and it's easy to see that while energy prices do impact everything so do interest rates (and in general monetary policy), therefore you need a model that's more complex than what you propose.

Prices inherently aggregate almost all concerns, so even logically it cannot be simply determined by one thing (like energy). Even if energy is cheap if we misallocate it then food, housing, or transportation gets more expensive.

You seem to be mixing up monetarism with sustainability and diminishing returns.
by BrentOzar | 2025-12-22 11:41:33+00:00
And why?

Sometimes it's just amazing to look at how much dedication someone put into a list like this, and wonder what they do with this information. It's inspiring (to me at least.)

In a park near my hotel, there's an elderly gentleman who uses a giant brush to paint calligraphy on concrete walkways every morning. He paints it with water - so it gradually evaporates over the course of the next hour or so. I admire his work in the same way I admire this web page.
by prof-dr-ir | 2025-12-22 11:42:19+00:00
> Factoring becoming a reasonable benchmark is strongly related to quantum computing becoming useful.

Either this relation is not that strong, or factoring should "imminently" become a reasonable benchmark, or useful quantum computing cannot be "imminent". So which one is it?

I think you are the author of the blogpost I linked to? Did I maybe interpret it too negatively, and was it not meant to suggest that the second option is still quite some time away?
by teiferer | 2025-12-22 11:42:24+00:00
> Literally every business is based on the idea of tacking on a margin onto someone else's work and profiting from it.

Hm? I am in landscaping. I mow people's lawns. Sure I didn't build the machinery myself, but the main value I provide is my time for the mowing. Nobody elses.

> Markets are based on imperfect information distribution at the end of the day.

Hm? I buy a lawnmower. I have information what the seller wants for it. I buy it. There are other brands. The one I buy is because I like it and its price. That's a market. Where is the imperfect information distribution here?
by xp84 | 2025-12-22 11:43:11+00:00
I’ve worked with marketer types for over a decade and had them use the initialism “CTA” hundreds of times, understood it, and yet still in this comment I had no idea that they were referencing that term. If this was a UI diagram I’d have had no problem. This seems to me like a case where using an initialism in a different context than it usually appears confuses readers. It would kind of be like saying “I plan to GTM for a few things after work today.” You may recognize that as Go-To-Market if I said “the GTM team” at work, but it is strange outside that context. Outside a marketing or UI context I don’t think people usually initialize “CTA.”
by gethly | 2025-12-22 11:43:38+00:00
oh, yeah. that looks good. i always hated using ", " delimiter for lists and the amount of typos it always takes to make clean(well, not with Go fmt).

Odin seems interesting but for me it has two deal-breakers: first one use the use of ^ for pointer de/reference. Not that it does not make sense, it's just that it is not an easy key to get to on my keyboard layout and i will not be changing that. The & and * are well known characters for this purpose and, at least for me, easily accessible on the keyboard. Second issue is the need to download many gigabytes of visual studio nonsense just so i am able to compile a program. Coming from Go, this is just a non-starter. Thirdly, and this is more about the type of work i do than the language, there are/were no db drivers, no http/s stack and other things i would need for my daily work. Other than that, Odin is interesting. Though I am not sure how I would fare without OOP after so many years with inheritance OOP and encapsulated OOP.
by usrusr | 2025-12-22 11:44:18+00:00
Is that "regulatory" the problem or is it the solution? We'll know more 20 years from now, looking back at fire incident statistics.

(yes, I'm leaving it open if regulation makes a difference or not - for all we know it could even make a negative difference, helping companies that are better at regulation than at safety. But if I had to bet, I know where my money would be)
by peacemaker | 2025-12-22 11:44:47+00:00
I went and did a masters degree in Ecology (well, Conservation Ecosystem Management specifically) during covid which I really enjoyed. A lot of it was completely out of my comfort zone after 20+ years in tech but a surprising amount did translate, such as the maths/stats and writing R code.

I felt it made me a better 'thinker' if that makes sense? Learned to be more critical (in a good way) and consider subjects I'd never come across before. I even went and created (and won!) a business pitch to a government org to handle some habitat surveys which was a great experience.
by netdevphoenix | 2025-12-22 11:45:02+00:00
Just saying paid digital advertisement feels incomplete without mentioning why digital advertisement exists: most of the public would refuse to pay for services they take for granted such as email services, social media, etc at a level enough that companies would not feel compelled to sell out to third party advertisers. The struggles of Medium exemplify this very well. Ads are like the processed meat of our internet diet.
by nunobrito | 2025-12-22 11:45:09+00:00
This is such a recurring topic that it might be better for me to one day write a blog post that collects the details and sources.

In absence of that blog post:

Start by the beginning, how Moxley left Twitter as director of cyber over there (a company nowhere focused on privacy at the time) to found the Whisper Foundation (if memory serves me the right name). His seed funding money came from Radio Free Asia, which is a well-known CIA front for financing their operations. That guy is a surf-fan, so he decided to invite crypto-experts to surf with him while brainstorming the next big privacy-minded messenger.

So, used his CIA money to pay for everyone's trip and surf in Hawaii which by coincidence also happens to be the exact location of the headquarters for an NSA department that is responsible for breaking privacy-minded algorithms (notably, Snowden was working and siphoning data from there for a while).

Anyways: those geeks somehow happily combined wave-surf with deep algo development in a short time and came up with what would later be known as "signal" (btw, "signal" is a well-known keyword on the intelligence community, again a coincidence). A small startup was founded and shortly after that a giant called "whatsapp" decided to apply the same encryption from an unknown startup onto the billion-sized people-audience of their app. Something for sure very common to happen and for sure without any backdoors as often developed in Hawaii for decades before any outsiders discover them.

Signal kept being advertised over the years as "private" to the tune of 14 million USD in funding per year provided by the US government (CIA) until it ran out some two years ago: https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/signal-faci...

Only TOR and a few new tools remain funded, signal was never really a "hit" because most of their (target) audience insists on using telegram. Whatsapp that uses the same algorithm as signal recently admitted (this year) that internal staff had access to the the supposedly encrypted message contents, so there goes any hopes for privacy from a company that makes their money from selling user data.
by K0nserv | 2025-12-22 11:45:22+00:00
> Yes, but the arguments why we need to replace C code with Rust was not that it is better by "helping the programmer check themselves" but that we need to switch to memory-safe languages because it "removes a whole class of error". (of course, nobody has ever said this, this must be my imagination)

Rust being memory safe is a way in which it helps the programmer check themselves. Absolute statements like "removes a whole class of error" are dangerous, there are always caveats. Rust seems to be doing a heck of a good job at this particular task, even if it sometimes falls short.

> Finally, there are also a lot of ways to improve memory safety in C which are not nowhere exhausted even in the kernel. As long as this is not even the case, I find the argument that there is "too little support for the programmer" quite hollow.

The kernel has been under the development for north of 30 years at this point. These ways to improve safety in C don't seem to be materialising.
by TrackerFF | 2025-12-22 11:45:51+00:00
A couple of weeks ago I was in Copenhagen, and had to take the metro back and forth a bunch of times throughout the day. I noticed some guy riding the "Cityringen" line, which goes in a loop, working on his laptop - coding in some CLI editor. Noticed the same guy a couple of times throughout the day, sitting in the same spot.

Figured he just used the metro as his workplace.
by lelanthran | 2025-12-22 11:46:39+00:00
> Even if intelligence scaling stays equal, you'll lose out on speed. A sota model pumping 200 tk/s is going to be impossible to ignore with a 4 year old laptop choking itself at 3 tk/s.

Unless you're YOLOing it, you can review only at a certain speed, and for a certain number of hours a day.

The only tokens/s you need is one that can keep you busy, and I expect that even a slow 5token/sec model utilised 60s in every minute, 60m of every hour and 24 hours of every day is way more than you can review in a single working day.

The goal we should be moving towards is longer-running tasks, not quicker responses, because if I can schedule 30 tasks to my local LLm before bed, then wake up in the morning and schedule a different 30, and only then start reviewing, then I will spend the whole day just reviewing while the LLM is generating code for tomorrow's review. And for this workflow a local model running 5 tokens/s is sufficient.

If you're working serially, i.e. ask the LLM to do something, then review what it gave you, then ask it to do the next thing, then sure, you need as many tokens per second as possible.

Personally, I want to move to long-running tasks and not have to babysit the thing all day, checking in at 5m intervals.
by ursAxZA | 2025-12-22 11:47:23+00:00
I prefer “rare” to “well-done” — in steak, and in life.

Algorithms tend to optimize us toward well-being as “well-done”: predictable, consistent, uniformly cooked.
Safe, measurable, repeatable.

But human experience is closer to “rare”:
uneven, risky, asymmetric, and still alive.
The parts that matter most are often the ones that don’t fit cleanly into metrics.

If everything becomes optimized, nothing remains interesting.
And more importantly, we risk replacing well-being with the monitoring of well-being.

When a life is constantly optimized, scored, nudged, and corrected,
it gradually stops being a life that is actually experienced.