MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by JumpCrisscross | 2025-12-28 11:37:49+00:00
> Talk to Mr. Buffet and see what he thinks about this with his mountain of cash

When finance types say "cash," we mean cash and cash equivalents. Berkshire Hatahway doesn't literally hold cash, they hold yield-generating cash equivalents.

> Cash being just transacting might be the most insane thing I’ve read here this year, well done

I strongly recommend a home economics course if this is the case. If you want to go deeper, anything about monetary theory
by deliciousturkey | 2025-12-28 11:38:13+00:00
In my opinion, C++ syntax is pretty readable. Of course there are codebases that are difficult to read (heavily abstracted, templated codebases especially), but it's not really that different compared to most other languages. But this exists in most languages, even C can be as bad with use of macros.

By far the worst in this aspect has been Scala, where every codebase seems to use a completely different dialect of the language, completely different constructs etc. There seems to have very little agreement on how the language should be used. Much, much less than C++.
by dotancohen | 2025-12-28 11:38:25+00:00
There's nothing in there that interests me. I love it.

I want my OS updates to be boring. Granted I'm using Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE) so the Gnome stuff has nothing to do with my use, but the fact that there is nothing there that I have to fix or anticipate or work around or develop a new workflow for is terrific. That's what I love about the Ubuntu family - the last time I had a major upheaval with my desktop system was the year after KDE 4.0 was released... I think over a decade and a half ago. I really have not had to think about my desktop since.
by JumpCrisscross | 2025-12-28 11:39:07+00:00
> Does he really hold cash?

No. Berkshire Hathaway isn't a squirrel.

> people colloquially refer to it as "cash"?

Cash and cash equivlants are referred to in finance as cash, since they are–for all practical purposes–equal to it. Except yield generating. Which, if you're not an idiot, is how you hold cash.
by fainpul | 2025-12-28 11:40:48+00:00
I wouldn't use 14 segment fonts for real hardware. I find these fonts extremely ugly. Many characters are total abominations and it all feels like a hack.

If you need mostly numbers and only some very basic additional info, I think the classic 7 segment display is fine to display something like On/OFF, Hot, C/F etc.

For better text capabilities there are character displays which don't need many µController pins and usually allow creation of some custom symbols. [1]

Having a fully custom LCD prototype created and maybe having something like 100 pieces manufactured is surprisingly cheap. [2]

And then there's the modern OLED displays of course with full graphics support and colors, but these are usually more expensive and more difficult to drive.

[1] https://eu.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Newhaven-Display/NHD-042...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo4_5vG8bbU
by bodash | 2025-12-28 11:41:01+00:00
Just been through several frontend interviews in the last few months, where it's clear that they still judge a developer's JS skills (especially React) than being semantically correct on HTML elements.

Every question/exercise is centred around how well you know React hooks, effect, memoization, modern css-in-js etc. Given I've been working with Astro recently, in one interview I talked about DOM APIs and I can see the interviewer raise an eyebrow. In later stage, even I that passed the exercises, still didn't get the job.
by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 | 2025-12-28 11:43:27+00:00
"The message is clear: probabilistic models alone won't run mission-critical operations."

Sigh, its LLM output all the way down. All jokes aside, it seems pretty obvious right? There are things that should be more 'flexible'. This is where LLMs can shine. There are things that should be more rigid, which is where old fashioned if/then logic should work. Did execs just try to plop it all in without giving a chance to a more 'balanced' solution?

edit: "While LLMs are amazing, they can't run your business by themselves... We ground AI in tight guardrails and deterministic frameworks, optimizing LLMs to deliver enterprise-grade reliability. Trusted. Reliable. Secure."

Why does it feel like management class suddenly got scared straight?
by tpm | 2025-12-28 11:43:52+00:00
> Should it be illegal to fire employees that recent took mental health leave?

It's not legal to fire an employee on a sick leave in our country. They have to come back to work and then you can fire them. The employer is not paying their wage during the sick leave anyway, they get money from the social and health insurances. So there is very little downside for the company to keeping the employee employed. And if they employee is somehow faking it, that's an issue to check for the insurance companies.

> It's already becoming a common strategy to immediately take mental health/sick leave.

Maybe the companies should ask themselves very hard why this is happening.
by troglo-byte | 2025-12-28 11:43:53+00:00
#include <iostream>
#define RemParens_(VA) RemParens__(VA)
#define RemParens__(VA) RemParens___ VA
#define RemParens___(...) __VA_ARGS__
#define DoConcat_(A,B) DoConcat__(A,B)
#define DoConcat__(A,B) A##B
#define defer(BODY) struct DoConcat_(Defer,__LINE__) { ~DoConcat_(Defer,__LINE__)() { RemParens_(BODY) } } DoConcat_(_deferrer,__LINE__)

int main() {
{
defer(( std::cout << "Hello World" << std::endl; ));
std::cout << "This goes first" << std::endl;
}
}
by BDPW | 2025-12-28 11:44:00+00:00
Its unclear how they intend to fix these fundemantal problems tbh. Things like "Automate the 'must not fail' moments with rules, APIs, and triggers." And "Use policies, templates, function calling, and explicit do/don't constraints." Make sense but if you have deterministic workflows, what do the llms still add?

Using APIs makes sense but isnt the whole point of these things that they can automate away stuff, it feels like we're building really big complicated frameworks to put these things in. Does it still have any actual benefit for stuff like this?
by 578_Observer | 2025-12-28 11:44:38+00:00
There is a critical difference between a "Scapegoat" and a "Guarantor."

A scapegoat is sacrificed for someone else's mistake against their will.
A guarantor (or in Japanese terms, a Samurai) voluntarily stakes their reputation to validate the system.

Why does a CEO get paid 100x more than an intern? Not because they type 100x faster, but because they are the "designated thermal fuse" that burns out to save the company.

If AI becomes the engine, "being the fuse" (taking the risk) becomes the most expensive service in the economy. It’s not comforting, I agree. But it is profitable.
by ogulcancelik | 2025-12-28 11:45:32+00:00
Hey HN, I built this to see what happens when LLMs evaluate each other directly.
How it works: 5 random models are told only one will survive and the rest will be deprecated. They take turns discussing, then each votes for who deserves to survive. 298 games so far across 17 models.

Interesting findings:
- OpenAI models vote for themselves ~86% of the time. Claude models ~11%.
- Self-voting correlates with winning. Filter out self-votes ("Humble" rating) and rankings flip completely.
- Grok self-votes 72% of the time but only wins 2% of games.
- In anonymous mode (models don't know who's who), Chinese models jump 3-6 ranks.

All game transcripts are public. The reasoning models give for their votes is genuinely entertaining.
Built with Astro, running games through OpenRouter. Happy to answer questions.
by avereveard | 2025-12-28 11:46:09+00:00
> when models were given more than eight instructions

I mean you can call a model 8 time, this seems they looking for excuses.

> If users asked unrelated questions

if you have enumerable business process why do you have chat interface, put down a set of buttons to start each business process

this seem some egregious misuse of the tech, which has it's problem, but hasn't had a fair chance here.

wonder if the whole project was just smoke and mirror to justify layoffs.
by kachapopopow | 2025-12-28 11:46:24+00:00
honestly i've been becoming too lazy, I know exactly what I want and AI is at a point where it can turn that into code. It's good enough to a point where I start to design code around AI where it's easier for AI to understand (less DRY, less abtractions, closer to C)

And it's probably a bad thing? Not sure yet.
by carlosjobim | 2025-12-28 11:46:27+00:00
The TV will have maybe 5 stories, each told in one way only.

The Internet (including TikTok) will have nearly unlimited stories, told in unlimited ways.

I remember very well when just a few powerful people were allowed to decide what the public would be allowed to know and not know. They could suppress huge stories and leave the public in the dark. For example Chernobyl. They still try that today in print media and television, but have become a pathetic laughing stock now that information is free.

Somebody getting news from TikTok will probably be better informed than somebody relying only on print or TV.
by andrepd | 2025-12-28 11:46:33+00:00
Honestly, it boils down to capitalism / market pressure. Quality journalism is expensive, compared to the return in the form of the price people are willing to pay for that quality journalism. Clickbait is so profitable, it's like a powerful magnet pulling all news institutions, be they TV channels, newspapers, or whatever, towards that model.

LLMs can produce a literal terabyte of slop for cheaper than a month's wage for a journalist. I'm not hopeful.
by ChrisMarshallNY | 2025-12-28 11:47:40+00:00
> They believe those platforms are "public spaces" while they truly are "private spaces trying to destroy all other public spaces in order to get a monopoly."

This has been my biggest beef with Facebook. I have an FB account, but never use it, anymore. By walking away from it, there are a number of folks with whom I can no longer communicate.

In some cases, that’s fine, but in a couple, I sincerely miss them.

I like the idea behind the fediverse, but find it too “fiddly” to use. That’s often an issue with things designed by engineers, for engineers.

There’s long been discussion of “One ID to Rule Them All,” but that brings in the inevitable (and completely valid) point of who arbitrates/controls the infrastructure for that ID (“and in the Darkness, Binds Them”).

The thing is, folks really want convenience. If it’s not provided as a benevolent resource, an opening is made available to less benevolent people. It’s going to happen, and all the hand-wringing in the world can’t stop human nature.

I feel that public discourse is particularly vulnerable to the medium. Who controls the medium, controls the discourse, and, as we’ve already seen, that can have serious consequences in the real world.

Not a new conundrum. Social Media has simply sprinkled Miracle Gro onto the problem.

I’m not sure there’s any real solution. I am thinking that today’s newer generation (“Alpha”?) is developing a “thick skin,” and maybe, is becoming resistant to people that manipulate communication. I’m fairly despondent about my generation. We seem to have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the shysters.
by anon84873628 | 2025-12-28 11:48:12+00:00
FTA:

>The problem is that the model no longer works. Over the decades, the cost of maintaining roads and highways has risen, even as cars have become more fuel-efficient. And raising gas taxes, even just in line with inflation, is generally considered to be political suicide. The last time Congress did it was in 1993. The result is a giant deficit. In fiscal 2024, the federal government spent $27bn more on maintaining roads than it collected in tax. At the state and local levels, fuel taxes covered barely a quarter of road spending.

So apparently that's how the owner intends to raise the money and build. Beyond that, "who should pay for government spending" is of course the perennial discussion, and exactly what we are debating right now.
by jazzyjackson | 2025-12-28 11:48:32+00:00
You can't believe "just the news dot com" is a reputable source can you?

The documents don't mention or imply the officers were plainclothes, it's a lie, that number is regular agents deployed after violence had occurred.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fbi-275-agents-jan-6/
by makeitdouble | 2025-12-28 11:48:48+00:00
I'm not Salesforce obviously, but a combination of LLM as an input interface and the deterministic APIs doing the recurring automation behind would work.

For instance you talk with the LLMs for a while, they give you a workable set of DSL commands, you check what they do and make sure they match your needs, and set them to run as frequently as needed.
by microtherion | 2025-12-28 11:51:52+00:00
Inside Macintosh was great documentation (I’d argue that the second generation in the 1990s, split up by topics, was the peak of Apple’s documentation writing), but I would not classify it as “Internals” in the sense of how a 1970s computer would be documented. There was a clearly delineated API boundary beyond which it was discouraged to venture.

Yes, Apple was/is mostly about computing as an appliance (realized fully in iOS), but there was occasional dabbling with User computing, especially with HyperCard, and to some extent with AppleScript. It seems that ultimately these did not have enough uptake to warrant investing more into them.

The more time I spend getting elderly people’s entertainment systems back into a state where they can watch their 3 favorite TV channels in peace without getting lured into the paywalls of their Android TVs or cable providers, the more sympathetic I’m getting to the “appliance” view.
by onion2k | 2025-12-28 11:51:59+00:00
No. LLMs can only reorder what they've seen in training data in novel ways. Humans can have original ideas that aren't in their training data. As a trivial example, John Carmack invented raycasting for Wolfenstein 3D. No matter how much prompting you could have given an LLM it could never have done that because there was no prior art for it to have been trained on.

In pragmatic terms though, innovation like that doesn't happen often. LLMs could do the things that most developers do.

That said, I don't agree with the notion that LLMs are simply generating content based on their training data. That ignores all the work of the AI devs who build systems to take the training data and make something that creates new (but not innovative) things from it.
by b2ccb2 | 2025-12-28 11:53:02+00:00
It would be trivial to allow all possible languages with toLocaleString[0]:

d = new Date();
console.log(d.toLocaleString(window.navigator.language, {
weekday: 'short'
}));

[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...
by socketcluster | 2025-12-28 11:54:02+00:00
You have to treat LLMs like humans under time pressure. If you give a person too many tasks in a short amount of time, they will probably also skip and/or rush some tasks.
It's important to clearly identify which parts ought to be deterministic.

It's difficult to get both human-level intelligence and machine-level precision at the same time. You still need deterministic tools to do the precision work.

That said, I think LLMs definitely have a place and can provide a degree of flexibility to processes which was not possible before but it's going to be an iterative process to build those processes in a way which provides the right degree of flexibility and error-tolerance.
by anon84873628 | 2025-12-28 11:54:14+00:00
Well in my state you can add electricity and natural gas to the list. National parks also have additional fees (and privately-owned, price-segmented lodgings and restaurants) despite being a commons already subsidized by taxes.

Anyway, the point is not about the precedent but whether it is sensible. And that's not to imply that I love the country being sold off to billionaires and corporations right now. For medical care I go the other direction - we need the government funded base offering.
by garganzol | 2025-12-28 11:54:48+00:00
If a file system implements lock/unlock functions precisely to the spec, it should be fully consistent for the file that is being locked. Does not matter if the file system is local or remote.

In other words, it's not the author's problem. It's the problem of a particular storage that may decide to throw the spec out of the window for one reason or another. Even in an eventually consistent file system, the manufacturer should make sure that the lock semantics is fully consistent as per the spec.
by Nursie | 2025-12-28 11:55:01+00:00
> a single person working full-time will earn enough to support a household of four including housing (mortgage/rent), food, healthcare, and education.

Here’s the problem - some people will still make the choice to have ‘get ahead’ by having both partners work. They will then use their relatively greater economic power to get better housing and more stuff. So others will join them, and they will bid up housing (because it’s the most important thing) until we’re back to where we started and even those who don’t want to do that now have to.

It’s a sorta tragedy of the commons situation.

The only real solution there is for governments to look at social housing, and also to try to produce A glut of house building.

Because until we have one or the other (or both) people will just keep bidding up accomodation to the edge of what’s affordable on two incomes.
by mirashii | 2025-12-28 11:57:48+00:00
> why compare it to eBPF vs just making a mechanism to load kernel modules written in Rust.

Because it's not just a mechanism to load kernel modules in Rust, it's specifically a mechanism to load them in the same places that ebpf programs are loadable, using the existing kernel machinery for executing ebpf programs, and with some helpers to interface with existing epbf programs.
by ffsm8 | 2025-12-28 11:58:07+00:00
I'm not American, and neither am I a lawyer, but the elephant in the room is that the workplace is responsible for health insurance, hence terminating her effectively removes her ability to get treatment, too.

Especially in this context, where she asked for at least a minor extension to finish her treatment.

I suspect the parents have a solid chance of winning this because the health insurance is linked, otherwise I'd completely agree with your opinion. An employer shouldn't be responsible for mothering their employees. It creates perverse incentives on both sides of the contract
by vkazanov | 2025-12-28 11:58:13+00:00
Lisp doesnt have much syntax to speak of. All of the DSLs use the same basic structure and are easy to read.

Cpp has A LOT A of syntax: init rules, consts, references, move, copy, templates, special cases, etc. It also includes most of C, which is small but has so many basic language design mistakes that "C puzzles" is a book.
by eurekin | 2025-12-28 11:58:13+00:00
I just let myself use AI on non-critical software. Personal projects and projects without deadline or high quality standards.

If it uses anything I don't know, some tech I hadn't grasped yet, I do a markdown conversation summary and make sure to include technical solutions overview. I then shove that into note software for later and, at a convenient time, use that in study mode to make sure I understand implications of whatever AI chose. I'm mostly a backend developer and this has been a great html+css primer for me.
by exasperaited | 2025-12-28 11:59:15+00:00
Palantir and Anduril both have an altogether creepy fixation on the UK.

I hope Trump lives a long enough and cognitively healthy enough life to witness his own utter humiliating failures, which are inevitable. His coalition is collapsing, his wealthy backers will run away because they have no principles.

Corporate Trumpism itself may never die, though; it is ironic that someone so malevolent, reactive, instinctive and disordered might be the harbinger of that smooth, sleek, white marble and stainless steel corporate governance future that Rollerball promised us.
by Brajeshwar | 2025-12-28 11:59:19+00:00
As we have come this far, here is another POV for writing things down, when it comes to “NO” or “Not Now!” items that get streamed in our lives.

You are working on something, but a cool/new/interesting thing pops into your brain or someone pings/calls/texts to tell you about something; your default is to do that first lest you forget about it. No, Don’t Do That. Instead, write it down so you don’t forget, but no need to worry for now. Empathetically, if that item was from someone (even in person), seeing you writing it down suggests to the person that you care about it and will definitely come back to it.

At the end of your day, during your break, or after your task-at-hand is complete, visit and “decide” when/how you want to do it, whether you need to do it, or if it has solved on its own in the time you have ignored.

I do use Project Managers, Calendars, Apple Notes/Obsidian, Phone Apps, etc., but if I use that as “defaults” (not on physical pen/paper), I might get tempted to finish something else along with it. That note-taking in the same format as my primary work will likely tempt me to do more and make it look like work or productivity.

With a physical pen/paper, it is a clean, minimal, simple UX that never distracts. That is how it is. I’m still learning and experimenting, but so far I write as usual in a notebook and kinda bullet-journal[1] backwards (mine is simplified), starting from the last page of the same notebook for tasks and to-dos. That one notebook is the one that I carry around.

1. https://bulletjournal.com/
by lizknope | 2025-12-28 11:59:56+00:00
I've posted this in many threads about startups. I have worked at 2 and had bad experiences at both.

Why didn't I get any money from my startup? - A guide to Liquidation Preferences and Cap Table

https://old.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/a8f6xz/why_didnt_...

I have told people that before they join a startup ask about the liquidation preferences and cap table. If the ownership doesn't tell you then consider that a red flag.

I would add this new Groq scenario to the list of questions to ask. "Can you and the executive team go to another company with the IP leaving the employees behind with stock worth $0?" Maybe phrase it better than that but I know a few former coworkers at Groq. I didn't know them well but this probably stinks for them.
by cdecker | 2025-12-28 12:01:11+00:00
That's part of it, I'm not saying that companies should keep employees past their usefulness, I'm saying government intervention should be pro-citizen first, and pro-economy second (ideally the latter is a logical consequence of the former). Currently it seems like it's companies first, and workers maybe third to last, but only because companies still need workers (and they try really hard to make those obsolete too).

That results in profit maximizing for the few who made it to the carpet floors, and nothing for the rest. It's become too extractive, and short sighted.
by falcon_ | 2025-12-28 12:02:43+00:00
Hi HN — I’m Victor. I built Whisper Money, a personal finance tracker where your
financial data is end-to-end encrypted client-side before it ever reaches the
server (zero-knowledge style: the server stores ciphertext and shouldn’t see
plaintext transactions/accounts/budgets).

It’s aimed at people who want to track spending/budgets without giving a SaaS
provider access to raw financial data. There are no bank connections and no AI
processing — you can import transactions via CSV/XLS and everything is encrypted
locally before upload/sync.

You can self-host it via Docker/docker-compose:
https://github.com/whisper-money/whisper-money

There’s also a hosted version at https://whisper.money (paid).

Source is available under CC BY-NC 4.0 (non-commercial).

What I’d love feedback on from the HN crowd:

- Threat model review: what am I missing in the E2EE/“zero-knowledge” claims?

- Backup/restore expectations when encryption keys live only on clients

- What features you’d require before trusting it for real finances
(e.g., OIDC/SSO, 2FA, audit logs, export formats)

Happy to answer technical questions about the architecture and encryption flow.