MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by ModernMech | 2025-12-08 16:27:00+00:00
Yes and no. Most of the big new languages today are created to support the business of selling things because languages are expensive to make, they don't generate any profit themselves, so the only people who have enough money to fund their development are mega corporations, who act in self-interested ways.

But look at historical languages and why they were created:

Algol - to explore writing algorithms

Fortran - to help scientists write programs using typical math formulas

Matlab - to help write programs in linear algebra

Haskell - to explore lazy program evaluation

ML - to explore how to reason about proof automatically

C - to build an OS

Python - to interface with an OS

LISP - to formalize symbol processing

APL - to explore programs defined over arrays

LOGO - to help young kids to program computers

Prolog - to create a language around the idea of formal logic.

Smalltalk - to create an entire programming system, not just a language

(I've left out C++, Java, and JavaScript because I feel like those languages are mostly about serving business interests)

Pretty much the entire computing landscape over the past 50-70 years has been defined by people writing languages for reasons other than "this is for a business to use to make more money". So if we let business-driven interest dictate the future direction, we will have missed out on all the things that could have been. Would Haskell ever have been invented if businesses interests were the only concern for researchers?
by theptip | 2025-12-08 16:27:02+00:00
The point with clippy is just that the AGI’s goals might be completely alien to you. But for context it was first coined in the early ‘10s (if not earlier)when LLMs were not invented and RL looked like the way forward.

If you wire up RL to a goal like “maximize paperclip output” then you are likely to get inhuman desires, even if the agent also understands humans more thoroughly than we understand nematodes.
by FabHK | 2025-12-08 16:27:11+00:00
You might have formulated things a bit unclearly, but I fundamentally agree that money, like everything else, should be under democratic control of the people. Not controlled by some crypto bros that are happy to interfere with the protocol if it suits them (The DAO hack, two 20+ block rollbacks of Bitcoin), but not if massive crime happens on it.
by tpurves | 2025-12-08 16:28:11+00:00
Either way, you are right to point out that it important to only a try a pattern like this if your clients are highly trusted (or/and have additional compensating controls against DDOS threats). It would be beneficial if the OP made more explicit what their client/server relationships and also flagged the risk you mentioned for general audiences not to go implementing such a solution in the wrong places.
by WorldMaker | 2025-12-08 16:28:12+00:00
I've also wanted the reverse option. I tend to want to play the story first and foremost and get deep into that, but the gameplay keeps getting in my way. I still think a lot more gameplay content should be skippable, especially in games that work so hard to tell a deep story.

LucasArts' adventure games had a skip gameplay button. I remember using that the most in Full Throttle, but there were a few other places it came in handy.

Of recent games, I've felt this desire the most in Baldur's Gate 3. BG3 has won awards for its deep story. BG3 has a ton of writers that worked very hard on it. BG3 has some pretty complex to navigate dialog trees that I want to deeply and widely explore. Every time it drops me into combat I roll my eyes and often quit. I tolerate D&D's turn-based tactical combat socially with friends around a table or Discord/Zoom call, but I never want to Solo an entire Party by myself. It's just not fun for me.

It frustrates me that all of the stuff I find fun (the dialog trees and cut scenes) are skippable but the part I don't fun isn't (the turn-based combat). Sure, I can play other games with combat types and difficulty settings I find more fun, but it's weird that award winning stories in games are still inaccessibly gated to specific combat styles. LucasArts added skip buttons for everything and nobody cared, but now it is controversial to ask for combat skip buttons in games that have won awards for their stories. I find so many super fun stories with boring games attached.

(Sure mods/cheats help, and that's how I've gotten my furthest into BG3, but you don't need to mod in a "Skip Dialog" button. It seems silly to me that I have to manage a complex mod build or install an expensive cheat engine just to do something that is out-of-the-box for people that don't want stories. We all play different parts of games. "Combat" shouldn't be special in narrative-heavy games, I want to get deep into the story game and you want to get deep into the "combat" game. It's the same desire, just different, equally expensive, "sub-games" we are optimizing for.)
by godzillabrennus | 2025-12-08 16:28:23+00:00
What if the service costs more to deliver than the market is willing to pay (e.g., search engines and social media)? I think it's reasonable to have advertising-supported services, it just needs to be clear up front. I don't mind dropping Netflix, Hulu, or other streaming services for Blu-Ray ripping and Plex if it gets too expensive, even with ads.
by ratelimitsteve | 2025-12-08 16:28:25+00:00
lets do austerity for the wealthy first. we give them money hand over fist, in fact we've never met a problem we didn't try to solve by giving the rich more money. we currently fund R&D for three private space programs, from which we buy the technologies we paid the development costs for. Lets get down to 0 publicly-funded privately-owned space programs before we start picking which grandmothers we need to starve out
by anabab | 2025-12-08 16:28:59+00:00
So you are saying there would be a limited resource becoming exponentialy more expensive over time? I guess there might occur a demand for such a resource? And mayhaps in that case the holders might decide to exchange it for some other assets they desire?

(ofc thats not the 100% correct description of bitcoin which depreciated against most other assets ytd but the idea still stands)
by psunavy03 | 2025-12-08 16:29:29+00:00
Ironic considering how many LLMs are competing to be trained on Reddit . . . which is the biggest repository of confidently incorrect people on the entire Internet. And I'm not even talking politics.

I've lost count of how much stuff I've seen there related to things I can credibly professionally or personally speak to that is absolute, unadulterated misinformation and bullshit. And this is now LLM training data.
by alphazard | 2025-12-08 16:29:29+00:00
It's good to know everyone here is weary of crypto scams, but I don't see anyone accurately describing the significance of these technologies.

Bitcoin failed as a currency, and as that became realized, institutional investors pivoted to the "digital gold" scam, to keep people long, while they divest or hedge. The two reasons why it failed as a currency are transaction latency, and lack of fungibility. Transaction privacy is necessary for fungibility. Both of those are just technical problems; I predict that a distributed ledger currency with private transactions like Monero, but a faster consensus algorithm like Avalanche or Hedera will become popular in the next decade. It's likely to be an Ethereum L2.

That is just the currency aspect of distributed ledgers. It's just one use case that we don't yet have the technology to properly address. The exciting thing that distributed ledgers enable is cryptographic institutions. These technologies allow us to solve coordination problems more easily than ever before. Democracies, businesses, communities, projects can all be coordinated better and more honestly using distributed ledgers. It's not an overstatement to say that distributed ledgers are as big of an advancement for human coordination as democracy was.

If you've been soured on these technologies because most of the currencies built with them are scams, I would encourage you to learn about them as if they were just incredibly robust databases that even governments would struggle to take down. Surely you can think of something cool to build with that, which doesn't involve money.
by charlescearl | 2025-12-08 16:29:54+00:00
The evisceration of the pension system in the united states has created a class of those nearing retirement who will live in poverty. https://www.ncoa.org/article/addressing-the-nations-retireme...

The result of “fiscal restraint” amounts to acceptance of premature death for millions. Likely acceptable to a country that has accepted excess COVID deaths and support for genocides in West Asia, East & Central Africa, and South America. I only hope that boomers turn to anarchist resistance and disruption.
by ux266478 | 2025-12-08 16:30:03+00:00
I mean I had to manually patch the rpaths of macos binaries distributed as an app bundle, because dyld didn't have the relative location of the shared libs in the app bundle in its search path. Not a huge deal, since patching rpaths was also part of the other Unix pipelines, the reasoning was just different. Patching rpaths on other platforms was because we were distributing dependencies in the base directory of the application, which isn't the standard way to do things. On mac, it was because the dynamic linker wasn't aware of app bundle structure for some reason, which is a weird disconnect between an OS standard and a basic system component.
by bryanlarsen | 2025-12-08 16:30:08+00:00
ChromeOS is a far better "Grandma" distribution than Windows or MacOS. Linux is simultaneously both the most Grandma friendly and least Grandma friendly, including every point in between.

You need to compare apples to apples, aka pre-installed vendor supported operating systems. If you're comparing installing an unsupported OS on unsupported hardware, Linux is far superior. Try installing MacOS on a Windows computer or Windows on a Mac if you're truly masochistic.
by throw310822 | 2025-12-08 16:30:20+00:00
If you mean "once in a thousand times an LLM will do something absolutely stupid" then I agree, but the exact same applies to human beings. In general LLMs show excellent understanding of the context and actual intents, they're completely different from our stereotype of blind algorithmic intelligence.

Btw, were you using codex by any chance? There was a discussion a few days ago where people reported that it follows instruction in an extremely literal fashion, sometimes to absurd outcomes such as the one you describe.
by rileymichael | 2025-12-08 16:30:51+00:00
ibm also acquired datastax (managed pulsar) this year. building on top of these specialized managed service providers is becoming increasingly risky. at this point i'd rather use one of the kneecapped cloud provider offerings if possible (azure event hubs / aws msk / etc.) than risk being extorted in a few years as the result of some acquisition. at least you can work around the limitations..

anyone have an idea on how streamnative is doing? we're considering them for managed pulsar and unfortunately nobody else is in the game
by biophysboy | 2025-12-08 16:31:12+00:00
I think this is why I get much more utility out of LLMs with writing code. Code can fail if the syntax is wrong; small perturbations in the text (e.g. add a newline instead of a semicolon) can lead to significant increases in the cost function.

Of course, once an LLM is asked to create a bespoke software project for some complex system, this predictability goes away, the trajectory of the tokens succumbs to the intrinsic chaos of code over multi-block length scales, and the result feels more arbitrary and unsatisfying.

I also think this is why the biggest evangelists for LLMs are programmers, while creative writers and journalists are much more dismissive. With human language, the length scale over which tokens can be predicted is much shorter. Even the "laws" of grammar can be twisted or ignored entirely. A writer picks a metaphor because of their individual reading/life experience, not because its the most probable or popular metaphor. This is why LLM writing is so tedious, anodyne, sycophantic, and boring. It sounds like marketing copy because the attention model and RL-HF encourage it.
by antonyh | 2025-12-08 16:31:17+00:00
I can run 99% on Linux + AMD + X11, on Ubuntu 24. The only problematic one is Witcher 3 which insists on Wayland which breaks everything else. Even the UT5 titles work well enough, but then again our gaming is not your gaming and you might be more demanding that we are.

I'm trying to recall how NVidia behaved for games, but my daily driver is an old 1050 Ti that's been rock solid for years now, also X11.

Maybe the problem is Wayland not NVidia?
by mpawelski | 2025-12-08 16:31:19+00:00
This restriction of git worktrees is annoying but I just learned one simple rule to follow: Never check out the main development branch (main/master/develop/etc) in other worktrees (non "main worktree", using git-worktree nomenclature)). Use other name with "wt-" prefix for it. Like in:

git worktree add ..\repo -b wt-main --track origin/main

And to be honest, after being disciplined to always do that, I very rarely get error message saying that the branch I want to check out is already checked out in other worktree. Before that, I regularly had a situation when I checked out main branch on second worktree to see the current state of the repo (because my main worktree had a work in progress stuff) and after some time when I finished work on main branch, I tried to check out main branch on my main worktree and got the error. Because I totally forgot that I checked it out some time ago in the other worktree.
by AnonHP | 2025-12-08 16:31:23+00:00
> If most companies had to for some reason revert to Windows XP and MS Office from 1998, they would barely be impacted.

But what about the impact of increased productivity when not having to deal with the garbage that are New Teams and New Outlook? The employees would start doing more in lesser time and the companies could potentially make more profits too. Why would they want that if they could just be locked in with Microsoft month-on-month? /s
by quietbritishjim | 2025-12-08 16:31:43+00:00
You need more than a template if you're going to make a booklet by folding a piece of paper in 4 - half of the "pages" (quarter pages) need to be upside down.

In truth, I haven't tried this in Word either, although it appears to be possible in page setup. Maybe I just stopped using Publisher when I started getting duplex printers. Or even stopped needing silly layouts for school projects.
by fellowniusmonk | 2025-12-08 16:32:00+00:00
Humans are awesome man.

Our creator just made us wrong, to require us to eat biologically living things.

We can't escape our biology, we can't escape this fragile world easily and just live in space.

We're compassionate enough to be making our creations so they can just live off sunlight.

A good percentage of humanity doesn't eat meat, wants dolphins, dogs, octopuses, et al protected.

We're getting better all the time man, we're kinda in a messy and disorganized (because that's our nature) mad dash to get at least some of us off this rock and also protect this rock from asteroids, and also convince (some people who have a speculative metaphysic that makes them think is disaster impossible or a good thing) to take the destruction of the human race and our planet seriously and view it as bad.

We're more compassionate and intentional than what created us (either god or rna depending on your position), our creation will be better informed on day one when/if it wakes up, it stands to reason our creation will follow that goodness trend as we catalog and expand the meaning contained in/of the universe.
by qwerpy | 2025-12-08 16:32:22+00:00
I've seen ads of several varieties:

- Public websites are chock full of ads

- Downloading a file often means hopping through several redirects (each of which is an ad) and sometimes even having to "complete an offer" to get the final link

- Private websites have some affiliate deal with VPN providers. "We did the research, this one is the best, if you subscribe through this link you will get some perks on our website".

Of all the kinds of ads out there, that last one is the least objectionable to me. They don't force it on you, it doesn't clog up the important parts of the site, and they supposedly do some research to pick the best provider to affiliate with. I "never" click on ads but this one worked on me.
by phrasecode | 2025-12-08 16:32:43+00:00
Thanks for reading through and for these questions. I'll take them in their order:

---

Auth / RLS

Yes — LinkedQL works with Postgres Row-Level Security. Each LinkedQL connection is equivalent to a regular DB connection (e.g., new LinkedQLClient(connectionInfo) is like new pg.Client(connectionInfo)). There’s no new permission model to maintain — the DB remains the enforcement point.

Live queries always execute under the same authenticated role you provided, so RLS policies apply on every refresh or incremental update. LinkedQL never uses a “superuser” backend that could widen visibility.

--

Replication limits & scaling

Right now, each database connection supports one logical replication slot. LinkedQL dedupes overlapping live queries on top of it — so 1,000 clients watching the same underlying SELECT only cost the DB one change stream.

We plan to support a distributed architecture as well — multiple instances of the live query engine coordinating load for high-traffic deployments.

---

Why an npm package (and future extension)

Right now LinkedQL plugs directly into JavaScript apps, matching how many teams already query Postgres from frontend or backend code.

We definitely have a Postgres extension in the roadmap for your exact use case – tighter operational integration.

---

Schema migration story

This is also one I’m personally excited about. We previously had an automatic schema versioning layer in the earlier LinkedQL prototype:

https://github.com/linked-db/linked-ql/wiki/Automatic-Schema...

https://github.com/linked-db/linked-ql/wiki/Migrations

The goal in the current version is a cleaner rewrite of that whole feature. So, migration support is returning – with everything we learned in the previous baked in.

For example, while the previous implementation of the diff-based migration feature spoke JSON for schema declarations, we plan to let that be pure SQL – yet, diff-based.

---

Thanks again for the thoughtful look! We can zoom into any other area of your choice.
by latexr | 2025-12-08 16:32:55+00:00
> It feels like the bottleneck has completely shifted from "how do I implement this" to "what assets do I need".

Frankly, and I don’t wish to be mean or discouraging, but this is neither good nor interesting. The screens are generic, the gameplay isn’t fun or funny or well thought out, and it’s not very responsive either. It’s also not a Space Invaders clone, enemies don’t just infinitely fall down randomly and overlapping in that game.

That it took thirty minutes to make isn’t impressive, because that’s how long it looks like it would take to build by hand anyway. There’s no reason for this to be a React app with Tailwind.
by burnt-resistor | 2025-12-08 16:33:20+00:00
RF energy harvesting in urban areas results in about 0.5-5 mW/m^2. I would guess it would be about 1-2 orders of magnitude less in rural areas.

This is like shaving nickels to make money.

Certainly, there are better energy sources like the fusion reactor in the sky and building a fusion reactor (that's perpetually 30 years away).

TIL: Active nuclear reactors of all types around the world are mappable using antineutrino detectors. It would probably also expose the location of every stationary nuclear-powered ship and submarine too.
by spir | 2025-12-08 16:33:30+00:00
Crypto is a casino (often fraudulent) and a scam factory.

It's also the source of at least one great new global public institution (Ethereum) and is likely to run much of the global economy in the coming decades.

If you hate or are skeptical about crypto, it is crucial to at least understand the difference between three things:

1. Casino/scams/hacks

2. Crypto/on-chain technology

3. Ethereum as a decentralized chain and global public institution

I've been a full-time Ethereum person for many years. I hate the casino. I hate the scams and hacks. But I see something very special going on here. So let me try to describe it

The casino is just terrible and it'll likely get much worse. The steady stream of scam shit tokens sold to unsuspecting investors shows no sign of slowing down. And wait until r/wallstreetbets discovers perps (perpetual futures). Perps for equities are already live and scaling up.

The scams will get much, much worse. Crypto (on-chain) lets you send bearer assets over the internet, it's scam fuel. The bad guys will have access to a sophisticated internet financial system, too.

Hacks in mature protocols should get much better over time due to improved bug-finding techniques, including AI/tool-assisted auditing and formal verification.

The technology of crypto offers the world a number of benefits, including inherently globalized payments and instant settlement.

Centralized deployments of crypto technology are a big segment of the future. For example, Stripe is actively working on a centralized chain named Tempo that's optimized for payments. It is basically fintech 2.0 on the blockchain, but entirely centralized.

The last and most important part of crypto is the rise of decentralized chains. There are only two chains that are remotely decentralized, Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin has no programmable app layer, so its utility is limited beyond the whatever value the world assigns to BTC.

Ethereum is a decentralized programmable chain, a new kind global public institution. Ethereum can make a highly credible commitment that the rules of the programming environment will be followed in all cases. This makes Ethereum a uniquely excellent neutral hub for global commerce.

Ethereum's decentralization (what we sometimes call "credible neutrality") is driving massive grassroots adoption among corporations and institutions. This is the #1 thing in crypto to keep an eye on because if Ethereum gets large enough it will become a de facto global economic backbone.

I understand you hate crypto. I've lived since 2018 full-time in the industry, and it's been often soul-sucking and harrowing. Many days I hate it. But Ethereum as a platform is benevolent, virtuous, productive, and probably a key part of humanity's future.