MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by SideburnsOfDoom | 2025-12-08 07:49:16+00:00
The "no early returns" rule came about because was a good rule in context, specifically C and FORTRAN code before roughly 1990. It was part of "structured programming", contemporary to "Go To Statement Considered Harmful", Dijkstra, 1968. And it became received wisdom - i.e. a rule that people follow without close examination.

For example of the rule, a function might allocate, do something and then de-allocate again at the end of the block. A second exit point makes it easy to miss that de-allocation, and so introduce memory leaks that only happen sometimes. The code is harder to reason about and the bugs harder to find.

source:

> A problem with early exit is that cleanup statements might not be executed. ... Cleanup must be done at each return site, which is brittle and can easily result in bugs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_programming#Early_r...

About 90% of us will now be thinking "but that issue doesn't apply to me at all in $ModernLang. We have GC, using (x) {} blocks, try-finally, or we have deterministic finalisation, etc."

And they're correct. In most modern languages it's fine. The "no early returns" rule does not apply to Java, TypeScript, C#, Rust, Python, etc. Because these languages specifically made early return habitable.

The meta-rule is that some rules persist past the point when they were useful. Understand what a rule is for and then you can say when it applies at all. Rules without reasons make this harder. Some rules have lasted: we typically don't use goto at all any more, just structured wrappers of it such as if-else and foreach
by maccard | 2025-12-08 07:52:23+00:00
For all intents and purposes “mispricing” doesn’t just happen widely. This is a policy problem with the stores. The difference between an accident and fraud is intent - it’s pretty clear there’s systemic intent here.

> do you honestly believe a senior exec at a company specially said to charge the customer more than what the price on the shelf says

Yes. I 100% believe that a policy from management of a retail chain owned by PE would say “charge the till price not the sticker price”, and also separately “our policy is to ensure all prices are consistent by doing a price audit of every stickered item once per 6 months”. All that does is allegedly ensure they’re not ripping people off two days a year.
by austin-cheney | 2025-12-08 07:52:55+00:00
I was a JavaScript developer for 15 years. I grew to hate it and will never go back. It has nothing to do with AI.

Most of the people employed to write JavaScript are really, and I can’t stress this enough, really shitty at it. That comes with a tremendous amount of messes to clean up and really immature expectations.

I love writing JavaScript applications. It’s the reason I stayed at it so long for employment. Now I work in unrelated technology and continue to write JavaScript applications just for personal use.
by NoMoreNicksLeft | 2025-12-08 07:53:08+00:00
I like my cliff. I earn enough that I and my family are ineligible for most welfare schemes. I do not want even 6 cents worth of SNAP. I spent my entire childhood on that, and it disgusts me. Thus, were this policy ever seriously proposed, I would do what I can to dissuade my legislators from voting it into law.

There are others like me, too, I am not unique.
by culi | 2025-12-08 07:54:05+00:00
> According to new projections published by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in December, by 2028 more than half of the electricity going to data centers will be used for AI. At that point, AI alone could consume as much electricity annually as 22% of all US households.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energ...

We're currently all subsidizing the AI industry. When we solve the energy problem then we can talk about potential benefits of LLMs
Show HN: GffutilsAI, an agent to analyze genomic files
by sbassi | 2025-12-08 07:54:28+00:00
I've been working on an agent to interact with genomics files (GFF) without coding. It uses the gffutils Python library and Biopython in the backend to ensure deterministic results for coordinate searches and gene lookups.

You can use any model through Ollama (local) or connect to major LLM providers (bring your own API key). It is currently in a PoC state, but fully functional. I would appreciate any feedback or suggestions!
by NoMoreNicksLeft | 2025-12-08 07:55:10+00:00
>I know it's probably not intentional but I believe welfare in the US absolutely is rife with negative outcomes and negative incentives for people receiving support, it doesn't uplift and enable success, it keeps people trapped in poverty and a mindset of helplessness.

That's the best way to ensure their vote in the next election for the welfare party.
Show HN: Bugmail – the easiest way to catch and fix production bugs
by bumpymark | 2025-12-08 07:55:13+00:00
Hey HN, I built Bugmail because I screwed up. I was working on a side project and had some bugs in production I didn't know about. when I found out, I'd already lost users(at least the few i had), and the funny part is , no one gave feedback if stuff was working or not. So I looked for something to track errors , i tried Sentry and it was way too complex for what I needed. I didn't want to configure alert rules or navigate dashboard hell. i just wanted an email when something breaks with the stack trace, breadcrumbs, and who it happened to. Couldn't find anything simple enough, so I built Bugmail. What it does:

Errors show up in a Gmail-style inbox You get the stack trace, user context, and what they were doing That's it. No config files, no complex dashboards

It's basically emails me when shit breaks but actually usable. Built it for my own projects, figured other indie devs might want the same thing.

Try it here : https://bugmail.site

would love your honest feedback , is this something you'd use ?
by pjmlp | 2025-12-08 07:55:28+00:00
Given that there are still 7 vendors selling Ada compilers I always found that argument a bit disingenuous.

https://www.adacore.com/

https://www.ghs.com/products/ada_optimizing_compilers.html

https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/apexada

https://www.ddci.com/solutions/products/ddci-developer-suite...

http://www.irvine.com/tech.html

http://www.ocsystems.com/w/index.php/OCS:PowerAda

http://www.rrsoftware.com/html/prodinf/janus95/j-ada95.htm

What is true, is that those vendors, and many others, like UNIX vendors that used to have Ada compilers like Sun, paying for Ada compilers was extra, while C and C++ were already there on the UNIX developers SKU (a tradition that Sun started, having various UNIX SKUs).

So schools and many folks found easier to just buy a C or C++ compiler, than an Ada one, with its price tags.

Something that has helped Ada is the great work done by Ada Core, even if a few love hating them. They are the major sponsor for ISO work, and spreading Ada knowledge on the open source community.
by jillesvangurp | 2025-12-08 07:55:48+00:00
Here's some back of the envelope math for batteries and ships:

- Weight is less of a limitation than you would think. Ship size is measured in tonnage. 40K-60K is a medium sized cargo carrying ship. So lets assume a ship like that.

- Battery weight calculations are going to be key. If you assume 170 wh/kg, 6 tonnes of battery equals about 1 mwh of battery.

- Energy usage of ships is speed dependent and it's a non linear relationship. You can save a lot of energy by going a bit slower. Going about 15 knots, a ship like this might use 15mw of power.

So the math becomes something like 6 x 15 = 90 tons of battery per hour. 5000km is about 2700 nautical miles (1 knot == 1 nautical mile/hour). So, you need about 180 hours of battery. Or about 16200 tons for a total of 15mwh x 180 = 2.7gwh of energy. That's a big battery.

The real limitation here comes from the cost of the batteries, which is dropping fast with sodium ion. The reason CATL is bringing this up is because they've been doing similar math with some informed $/kwh math. If they can get it down to around 20$/kwh, a mwh would cost 20K, and a gwh would cost 20M. So the battery would cost 54M$.

The key here is that this is still assuming 15knots. Energy usage might drop considerably if you drop it to 10 knots or even lower. You might only need 7200 tons of battery at those speeds.

The ship can handle the weight either way, though you are sacrificing useful load of course. The real constraints here are cost and speed. You pay a fat premium for a fast ship. Of course ships this size aren't cheap. A few tens of millions is normal. And they burn through many millions worth of fuel per year too. So, even though that amount of battery is expensive, the math might actually work out to these ships being cheap enough to operate that they'd earn back their battery.

You'd have to be pretty bullish about cost and performance of batteries. But CATL clearly feels that way. They have several battery chemistries at their disposal with higher densities (and cost). Over time, batteries might get cheaper and more dense. Ship designs might be optimized for batteries (e.g. structural hulls with battery). There's a lot of wiggle room here. But it's not an impossible proposition.
by tliltocatl | 2025-12-08 07:56:19+00:00
Not true. You are confusing "digital" with "microprocessor". You wouldn't be able to do any single-chip microprocessor, of course, but something like 74181 is very doable at this scale, and building a 1970s-era computer out of a few dozen of these is something enthusiasts still do. The main problem isn't logic, it's memory - memory needs density (thin film magnetics anyone?).

Then, of course, if by "useful" you mean "commercially viable", it is indeed not going to be competitive against either TSMC or your local 500nm foundry ever.
by littlestymaar | 2025-12-08 07:58:13+00:00
No it's not. Not all benefit is “income” and not all such income is universal. And it also has nothing to do with socialism (socialism is about forbidding the private property of the means of production! Please stop calling every kind of public intervention “socialism”, that's as ridiculous as calling all Republicans “fascists”).

For the non-income version see countries with free schools or free hospital, and for an example of an income benefit see the French Allocation familiales, which until 2015 were given to every family with 2 child or more no matter the parents income.

There were plenty of such systems, and some of them still exist (AFAIK the US social security is one of those, you don't lose access to the benefits even if you're rich)
by blackjack_ | 2025-12-08 07:58:24+00:00
I see a lot of hand wringing about this; but for 99.99% of people the banking layer and bureaucracy of modern monetary systems is a feature that protects them from fraudulent transactions, people stealing their credit card number, and businesses charging them and not delivering goods. These are generally good things.

Yes it is possible for the state to inflict violence on you, and if the state wants to, it probably will do so. Putting your money into internet tokens instead of state backed money will probably just get you tortured more until you give up the keys, or die. Crypto isn't some "one weird trick" to prevent the state from taking your property and possessions.
by roosells | 2025-12-08 07:58:44+00:00
To solve the problems of attending sermons but zoning out or forgetting whatever random notes I took once service ended, and trying to build a consistent prayer and devotion habit without feeling mundane, I built Serma!

A simple notes-like app for writing down everything you learn during Sunday's service. With just one button, it turns your sermon content into a daily devotion plan and reminds you to reflect on the Word and pray each day :)

Stoked to finally release to the world and hopefully more of you out there will find Serma as useful as I have in terms of making sermon time feel more fruitful outside of church!
by JumpCrisscross | 2025-12-08 07:59:14+00:00
> seriously doubt you're operating sincerely in this thread, given your ability to cite Revlon

I know about the topic and can correctly cite sources, herego I'm operating insincerely?

> start here [1]

You're citing a 1919 Michigan state court decision concerning the Ford Motor Company. Ford went public in 1956 [2]. The sole source you've cited is about a then-private company from over 100 years ago.

You said "there is a legal requirement for directors of public companies to act in the financial interests of all shareholders." That is wrong. It's doubly wrong in the context of public versus private companies, given it applies to all business corporations.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

[2] https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/01/16/63-years-later-wha...
by JuniperMesos | 2025-12-08 07:59:31+00:00
The internet is more resilient than that. I wouldn't want to live in a country where the banking system has collapsed, and one of the reasons is because I expect that this correlates with unreliability of the power grid; but you can run a lot of useful pieces of software on a computer powered by solar panels and batteries in the wilderness with a satellite uplink, including a bitcoin node.
by belevme | 2025-12-08 07:59:54+00:00
Hi all,

I just finished adding support for Windows in the latest version of Claude Owl (it also supports MacOS).

I've (mostly) vibe-coded this Electron App with the goal of making most of Claude Code. I found having to configure so many various settings from the terminal overwhelming and hard.

I've also recently added metrics showing you your daily usage, tokens generated, model usage and more.

The project is open source and completely free https://github.com/antonbelev/claude-owl

Full features list with screenshots you can find here https://antonbelev.github.io/claude-owl/screenshots.html.

The tool is still in Beta, so there will be warnings on Mac and Windows if you try installing the binaries since they are not signed, that's expected (see installation guide).

What you can do as a user is - fork the repo and run it locally with

`npm run dev:electron` in case you prefer not to download the binaries.

I'd love your feedback!
by anovikov | 2025-12-08 07:59:58+00:00
Wrong. People who use crypto as a casino - that is, "invest" into it or "trade" it - are a numerical majority but they aren't those who make actual money there. Actual money is made by those who use it for:

- Tool/facilitation of "brick and mortar" crime, as well as some cybercrime (moving drug money across borders, way to pay ransom in a way difficult to track, etc).

- Tool for scams.

- Hacks, including (but not limited to), on-chain hacks.

I know a lot of people who made 9-digit sums in crypto. None of them invested or traded coins (none were from the 'crime' category either). Most typical kind of people are those who did hard-core (hundreds of thousands of accounts) sybil attacks on ICOs and launchpads in their heyday in 2017-2021. So it was scripting/scraping/cloud deployments using residential proxies/buying passport scans on darknets.

Also those who ran Solana nodes from massive sybils too (up to 200 people - it's 1 node per person so one has to have many persons). While that probably qualifies as speculation/"trading" Solana, servers being little but a booster, so in part it was "casino".
by teleforce | 2025-12-08 08:01:30+00:00
I'm not sure why you keep replying to my post since I believe you understand my original point that most of these historical article were jumping straight from old Greek to Renaissance era.

> Don't use the term "Dark Ages". The article does not. Use "early European medieval period". Repeating it perpetuates the myth. If you must use it, say "European Dark Ages", and be aware that you are still perpetrating a false anti-religion narrative.

The knowledge lineage need to to be taken into account, it's not my job to do that it's the author of the article responsibility, I just pointing the European and western biased here. The biased even more profound in the medical history literature whether they mentioned "dark ages" or not.

>Newton's came first. Einstein improved on Newton

Newton came earlier then Einstein improved on Newton, fixed that for you.

Before Newton there were many other Arabic and muslim scholars working on the physics of planetary problems, or even Indian and Chinese scholars, but I think you get my point.

> "Romans however, had a very limited exposure to ocean tides" as if that were meaningful - or you would have explained why I was wrong, rather than ignoring the problem.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

For example now we have western and European based wireless modulation and standards including Wi-Fi by IEEE and 5G by 3GPP that cannot work reliably with tropical region with lush trees, foliage and heavy rain (in certain spectrum). For satellite communication on certain popular wireless spectrum that means you don't get the signal most of the time during the day. Where in most European countries rain is exotic with minimum rain year around but in tropical countries there's frequent rain, and during rainy season like now it rain practically everyday.

Currently I'm working on the improvement of the wireless modulation that can work much better in this environment due to the western researchers do not experiencing much of this challenging and harsh propagation environment of the tropical trees/rain/etc. Thus they can sympathized but not empathized on the situation. There's no urgent need for them to improve on the situation unlike us although now we're in the Wi-Fi 7 going to 8, and 5G going to 6G for cellular.

However back to the article, the European scholars later found ocean tides is something that need to be calculated, analyzed and predicted due to their colonization effort around the world during the Renaissance time, hence the need to explore and research them further.
by moirre | 2025-12-08 08:02:24+00:00
A quick google search reveals a lot of (4 years old) youtube videos about it. And although not very meaningful, it's archwiki page was updated a lot in the past 4 years, which means there are still people visiting that page and potentially using it. I've also seen some recent ratpoison rices on the internet.

For support, I'm sure the users in the past has generated enough forum threads for you.
by asdff | 2025-12-08 08:04:34+00:00
Apple used to put out new or interesting products. E.g. they just up and released Time Machine routers when no one was really doing that in the home router industry like at all, maybe a clunky usb ftp solution but this was first party apple white glove treatment of the issue. They had great software too in many different niches e.g. Aperture coming after Adobe's pro photo pie.

It was amazing how much diversity in really well thought out hardware as well as software was happening at apple years ago, when it was a far smaller company in terms of manpower and resources than it is today. I guess when the business model is selling ongoing subscriptions instead of compelling new products in order to get money, you stop getting the compelling new products coming out.
by kaluga | 2025-12-08 08:04:41+00:00
What I love about this post is that it highlights something we rarely talk about: most of the “indie web” isn’t missing — it’s just quiet.

Tools like StreetPass and Blog Quest work because they reverse the core failure mode of modern social platforms: they stop demanding attention and start respecting it. Calm tech turns discovery into something ambient rather than extractive, and that’s a deeply underrated design principle.

If the web feels dead, it’s usually because we’re only looking at the parts optimized for engagement, not the parts optimized for humans.
by tormeh | 2025-12-08 08:05:01+00:00
I think block chains are inherently fine. The issue with bitcoin is that it isn't inflationary. Yes, yes, the supply increases over time, but that's also true for gold, and I've yet to hear anyone call gold inflationary. If a declining unit value is not guaranteed over time then it cannot be used as a currency and just becomes a savings vehicle / speculative asset. This is why all central banks aim for inflation. Try telling the true believers this and they'll reply with something about "sound money", seemingly nostalgic for the gold standard or something. It's rather disheartening.
by pjmlp | 2025-12-08 08:05:47+00:00
You missed the part that GNOME was started due to differences with KDE licensing, and original FSF was against C++ due to religious reasons, and even if KDE/QT license had been GPL compatible, they would not adopted it.

If you look around outside Linux world, everyone was going into C++, PC world with OS/2, MS-DOS and Windows, Apple, Epoch (later Symbian), BeOS,.... UNIX was playing with CORBA, OpenInventor,....

Here the original version of the GNU Manifesto,

"Using a language other than C is like using a non-standard feature: it will cause trouble for users. Even if GCC supports the other language, users may find it inconvenient to have to install the compiler for that other language in order to build your program. So please write in C."

The GNU Coding Standard in 1994, http://web.mit.edu/gnu/doc/html/standards_7.html#SEC12

Moving a bit forward to 1998, when GNOME 1.0 was still being made ready,

"Using a language other than C is like using a non-standard feature: it will cause trouble for users. Even if GCC supports the other language, users may find it inconvenient to have to install the compiler for that other language in order to build your program. For example, if you write your program in C++, people will have to install the C++ compiler in order to compile your program. Thus, it is better if you write in C. "

https://www.ime.usp.br/~jose/standards.html#SEC9

Yes, the actual version is a bit more welcoming to programming language variety,

https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Source-Language...
by discordi | 2025-12-08 08:05:56+00:00
how about you pester notorious spammers who do the same but never ever face consequences?

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ChrisArchitect - the top schizo, one who decided to be the content policeman of this site.

people can't have discussions because mr ChrisArchitect says "dupe". not everyone sits here 24hrs/7days per week and can track all the occurrences of same news topics - not even submissions from same url. what this user does isn't normal and it should look for help in real life.

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=gnabgib - another one, less active but does the same.

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=b16m - newest addition to the crazy people club
by imcritic | 2025-12-08 08:06:25+00:00
I didn't claim or think it was written with a help of LLM, it was just written by someone who enjoys the feeling of being a writer, or even better, a Journalist!

This always contrasts with articles written by tech people and for tech people. They usually try to convey some information and maybe give some arguments for their position on some topic, but they are always concise and don't wallow in literary devices.