MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by AlexCoventry | 2025-12-20 02:14:25+00:00
This is probably a bit different. An LLM outputs a token at a time ("autoregressively") by sampling from a per-position token probability distribution, which depends on all the prior context so far. While the post doesn't describe OpenRouter's approach, most structured LLM output works by putting a mask over that distribution, so that any token which would break the intended structure has probability zero and cannot be sampled. So for instance, in the broken example from the post,

{"name": "Alice", "age": 30

the standard LLM output would have stopped there because the LLM output an end-of-sequence (EOS) token. But because that would lead to a syntax error in JSON, the EOS token would have probability zero, and it would be forced to either extend the number "30", or add more entries to the object, or end it with "}".

I haven't played much with structured output, but I imagine the biggest risk is that you may force the model to work with contexts outside its training data, leading it to produce garbage, though hopefully syntactically-correct garbage.

I don't understand, though, why the probability of incorrect JSON wouldn't go to 0, under this framework (unless you hit the max sequence length before the JSON ended.) The post implies that JSON errors still happen, so it's possible they're doing something else.
by hyperadvanced | 2025-12-20 02:14:44+00:00
I agree. The reason Cursor’s “first mover” advantage doesn’t matter is because there’s fundamentally no business there. I’ve used 3 IDE or text editors my whole life, I’ve never paid for one. If I wanted, I could use AI to write myself a new text editor. Like you said, there’s no moat for any of this shit, and I’m guessing that by 2027 the music will stop.
by jjj123 | 2025-12-20 02:15:13+00:00
The ownership class will 1) have to pay more in taxes and 2) will lose power over their employees who under the current system are pressured to keep their jobs or lose healthcare.

As for lesser outcomes, I’m not sure how it works practically, you’re probably correct. My understanding is the current system trades based on who can pay, and m4a works triage based on need. So given the same healthcare bandwidth, I assumed those who push to the front of the line based on pay would no longer be able to do so.
by gitlinuxgreat | 2025-12-20 02:15:28+00:00
When a company has monopolistic practices, its products ride their anticompetiveness to majority market share by force of their dominance. The result is the Netscapeification of anything that competes with any monopoly. A monopoly anticompetitiveness needs to be dealt with powerfully by Congress to increase competition. Though the lobbyists of these anticompetitive companies and the billions deployed from the lobbying companies effectively is a significant detriment to competitors, healthy competition, and always in many subtle, loss of innovation ways, the consumer. This is the tip of the iceberg for anyone in competition to the oligarchical status quo that is in effect, and detrimenting the consumer in multitude ways that you are not comprehending.
by gus_massa | 2025-12-20 02:16:16+00:00
From https://github.com/niklas-heer/speed-comparison/blob/master/...

// [I removed the error checking] def pi_accuracy(value_str): """Calculate accuracy of computed pi value. Returns the number of correct decimal places (higher is better). """ value = float(value_str) # math.pi is available in MicroPython accuracy = 1 - (value / math.pi) return -math.log10(abs(accuracy))
by atmanactive | 2025-12-20 02:16:50+00:00
I guess the easiest way to measure this would be to run some gamepad test program on the target device, and then to record a video from your phone close to the gamepad but still with the screen visible. Then flick a button hard with your finger so that the gamepad button makes a click sound. Then load the video into a video editing software, zoom-in, and measure the number of video frames between the click sound and the reaction on the screen.
by okanat | 2025-12-20 02:17:58+00:00
Germany has a strong preference with its local brands. It is still easier to find local repair shops that handle BSH and Miele machines than cheaper Asian brands.

You do pay premium for the quality. It is worth it though. My parents' Siemens Washer-Dryer combo is still strong after 15 years. A couple parts needed to be changed last year but after the replacement the machine works very well now.
by baubino | 2025-12-20 02:17:58+00:00
Serious question — If you’re not a good coder, then how do you know that it’s good code?

I’m not a professional programmer (self-taught and hacking away for 30+ years) but I run a few small projects that people seem to find useful. I’ve never used AI to code mainly because I have no way to evaluate the quality of the code. The time it would take me to determine that it’s all good is probably near the same amount of time it would take me to do it all myself in the first place.
by ashton314 | 2025-12-20 02:18:09+00:00
Woohoo! Context: UNIX v4 was believed lost to history until a tape labeled “UNIX v4” was found in a cardboard box in a closet at the University of Utah. It was not clear whether or not there was anything on the tape still. It looks like the Voeks at the Computer History Museum were successfully able to recover the data.

This is significant because UNIX V4 was the first version to be written using this newfangled language called C. So exciting!
by alexpotato | 2025-12-20 02:21:43+00:00
There was a homeless guy living in the gym at Rutgers prior to the late 1990s and it's why you had to show ID to get into any of the gyms/dorms.

Very similar story of:

- he was older

- dressed normally

- everyone assumed he was an assistant coach, grad student etc

They mentioned it multiple times in safety briefings and even at "how to be a club officer" meetings to ensure that everyone participating/involved was actually a student.
by nomel | 2025-12-20 02:25:50+00:00
I would claim the public can easily handle something like this, but the media wouldn't be able to resist.

I could easily see a hit piece making its rounds on left leaning media about the AI that re-animates the problematic ideas of the past. "Just look at what it said to my child, "<insert incredibly racist quote coerced out of the LLM here>"!" Rolling stones would probably have a front page piece on it, titled "AI resurrecting racism and misogyny". There would easily be enough there to attract death threats to the developers, if it made its rounds on twitter.

"Platforming ideas" would be the issue that people would have.
by Aunche | 2025-12-20 02:26:25+00:00
Foreign ops makes up a fraction of percent of X's revenue, if that. Any profit they gained from it cancels out with a similar degree of negative attention from the government, so overall they're incentivized to follow the direction of three letter agencies. A less inflammatory algorithm would maybe cost X a couple percent in revenue. If the government really wants to, they could pressure X to change their algorithm as they can easily cause much more pain to X than a couple percent of revenue.

A Chinese owned TikTok simply doesn't follow the same calculus. If the CEO of Bytedance (note different from the CEO of TikTok) gets a order flood the platform with anti-Taiwanese propaganda right before China invades Taiwan, the CEO would have to follow through even if it causes the value of TikTok to zero. The ban was not about how much harm TikTok has done already, it's about how much harm they can do in a worst case scenario.
by gitprolinux | 2025-12-20 02:28:00+00:00
When a company has monopolistic practices, its products ride their anticompetiveness to majority market share by force of their dominance. The result is the Netscapeification of anything that competes with any monopoly. A monopoly anticompetitiveness needs to be dealt with powerfully by Congress to increase competition. Though the lobbyists of these anticompetitive companies and the billions deployed from the lobbying companies effectively is a significant detriment to competitors, healthy competition, and always in many subtle, loss of innovation ways, the consumer. This is the tip of the iceberg for anyone in competition to the oligarchical status quo that is in effect, and detrimenting the consumer in multitude ways that you are not comprehending.
Building ScrapeForge in public. Day 1 update
by Vishwas-Batra | 2025-12-20 02:29:42+00:00
Today was focused on planning and clarity.

I shared the project intro, worked on problem-solving practice, and created a detailed project brief to define scope and reduce the risk of rework later.

The brief covers build, launch, and marketing plans.

I am also sharing the project brief template for anyone interested. https://1drv.ms/w/c/7d1d62d19aca61de/IQAiVNKlZ0I-QoeZA-AX9EYTAYCEMD_VbCkn6OkHEN9wI-Q?e=RGG7aQ

Feedback is welcome.
by markkitti | 2025-12-20 02:29:45+00:00
>> you can literally write python wrappers of Julia compiled libraries like you would c++ ones. > Yes, please. What do I google? Why can't julia compile down to a module easily?

Try JuliaC for compiling shared libraries if that is what you mean by a "module": https://github.com/JuliaLang/JuliaC.jl

That said Julia's original design focused on just-in-time compilation rather than ahead-of-time compilation, so the AOT process is still rough.

> I don't understand why there's so much friction between julia and python. You should be able to trivially throw a numpy array at julia and get a result back.

You can throw a numpy array at Julia and get a result back. See https://juliapy.github.io/PythonCall.jl/stable/juliacall/
by nwallin | 2025-12-20 02:34:42+00:00
At work, our daily build (actually 4x per day) is a handful of zip files totaling some 7GB. The script to get the build would copy the archives over the network, then decompress then into your install directory.

This works great on campus, but when everyone went remote during COVID it wasn't anymore. It went from three minutes to like twenty minutes.

However. Most files change only rarely. I don't need all the files, just the ones which are different. So I wrote a scanner thing which compares the zip file's filesize and checksum to the checksum of the local file. If they're the same, we skip it, otherwise, we decompress out of the zip file. This cut the time to get the daily build from 20 minutes to 4 minutes.

Obviously this isn't resilient to an attacker, crc32 is not secure, but as an internal tool it's awesome.
by PunchyHamster | 2025-12-20 02:35:03+00:00
Sure if you don't like your stuff to work well. 0 is default for a reason, and "my specific workload is buggy with 0" is not a problem with it, just the reason there are other options

Advertising for 2 with "but apps should handle it" is utter ignorance, and redis example shows that, the database is using the COW fork feature for basically the reason it exists, as do many, many servers and the warning is pretty much tailored for people thinking they are clever and not understanding memory subsystem
Show HN: ComicsAI – Turn stories into comics with consistent characters
by yunjack | 2025-12-20 02:35:19+00:00
ComicsAI is an innovative AI tool that empowers anyone to become a comic artist. By simply entering text prompts or story scripts, users can generate high-quality comic panels, manga pages, and storyboards in seconds. It removes the barrier of drawing skills, allowing creators to focus purely on storytelling and visualization with various art styles.
by brailsafe | 2025-12-20 02:38:25+00:00
Depends on your definition of marriage. Various places with common law automatically make you effectively married as far as family law and tax law are concerned, and insofar as people involve the courts.

After 1 year of cohabitation in Canada, couples are federally common law spouses for tax purposes. Provincially it depends, but after 2 years in some provinces you're technically and automatically spouses for family law purposes, which gives someone the same legal rights as an explicitly married couple in terms of asset division and parental obligations following a breakup (which is outdated and insane in many cases outside of having children, but whatever).
by PunchyHamster | 2025-12-20 02:40:16+00:00
Author is just ignorant to the technicals and laser focusing on some particular cases that he thinks are problem but are not.

The redis engineers KNOW fork-to-save will at most result in few tens of MBs of extra memory used in vast majority of cases and benefit of seamless saving. Like, there is a theoretical where it uses double the memory but it would require all the data in database be replaced during short interval snapshot is saved and that's just unrealistic
by johnsmith1840 | 2025-12-20 02:40:57+00:00
Same. I bought a roomba in covid and it's still kicking. No repairs at all just new brushes and filters when they get dirty.

Felt bad they went under as I would likely have purchased more of them forever. But maybe that's why they died? Kinda like appliances that last forever the company doesn't have financial incentives to make them last longer or are outcompeted by less reliable ones selling more often.
by DrewADesign | 2025-12-20 02:41:23+00:00
People shouting about PBS news being horribly biased are just flat-out wrong. Obviously their viewership leans centrist liberal, but no other news program in recent times approached their level of nonpartisanship when dealing with national politics. Regardless of their affiliation, they’d ask most interviewees a couple of pointed questions but always let them explain themselves uninterrupted, and let them have the last word unless it was blatantly false. In the Obama era they regularly had top Republican leadership on from that era and years past— Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, and Mitch McConnell were on there all the time. I’ve seen Steve Bannon respectfully (actually rather warmly) interviewed within the past year, as well as people from the heritage foundation, Manhattan institute, Cato institute, and other people from across the right-wing spectrum.

David Brooks isn’t representative of the Republican mainstream at the moment, but they’ve started getting more representative Republican counterpoints on their panels over the past few months, even after the republicans cut their funding.

They present a more reasonable, tempered, and charitable perspective on both political parties than any other major news outlet.

Culture war bullshit.
by miiiiiike | 2025-12-20 02:43:01+00:00
People have been dragging their feet on subgrid, masonry, etc for almost a decade. I followed it pretty closely for years but stopped when it started turning into a Christopher Guest mockumentary.

Masonry or grid-lanes, who cares? I’m just glad masonry (the feature, Baseline 20XX) and subgrid (Baseline 2023) are finally here.
by raw_anon_1111 | 2025-12-20 02:43:41+00:00
As a 51 year old, I hate when other old people think that “back in my day things were different”

> Evans has held his present position with IBM since 1965. Previously, he had been a vice president of the Fed- eral Systems Division with the man- agement responsibility for developing large computing systems; the culmina- tion of this work was the IBM/System 360. He joined IBM in 1951 as a junior engineer and has held a variety of engineering and management posi- tions within the corporation

Dated 1969

https://bitsavers.org/magazines/Computer_Design/Computer_Des...

Next meme that needs to die: “back in my day, developers did it for the love and not the money”
by AdieuToLogic | 2025-12-20 02:45:29+00:00
> Apple imports FreeBSD's userland periodically but not its kernel/drivers ...

OS-X/macOS runs an entirely different kernel called XNU[0][1], which is why userland tools can be imported whereas FreeBSD kernel and device driver code cannot.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU

1 - https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu
by tolerance | 2025-12-20 02:46:29+00:00
Are you sure? The entire post treats the event incredulously. I can’t pick out a single line that affords the issue with the level of consideration that the GP comment does.

The two reasons I believe you may be referring to from above are:

1) "learning how it fails" 2) "to generate some potentially viral content for investor relationship."

The whole of Ploum’s argument may be summarized in his own words as:

> But what appears to be journalism is, in fact, pure advertising. [...] What this video is really doing is normalising the fact that “even if it is completely stupid, AI will be everywhere, get used to it!” [...] So the whole thing is advertising a world where chatbots will be everywhere and where world-class workers will do long queue just to get a free soda. And the best advice about it is that you should probably prepare for that world.

I hate to be pedantic...but my growing disdain for modern blog posts compels me to do so in defense of literacy and clear arguments.

Whether the GP and the author offer the “exact same two reasons” is a matter of interpretation that becomes the duty of readers like us to figure out.

If we take Ploum’s words at their face...the most he does is presuppose (and I hope I’m using that word correctly) that the reader is already keen on the two reasons that `TrainedMonkey makes explicit and like the author, finds them to be stupid. While he does say that the video is not journalism and that it is advertising and that the video does show how the AI failed at the task it was assigned he does not give any credence as to why this is the case from a position other than his own.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the concept of a “charitable interpretation” too. But I don’t think that there is one present in this post that we’re responding to. `TrainedMonkey’s comment leads off by telling us that this is what (I think) he’s about to offer in the remarks that follow when he says “there are obvious and good reasons for running that experiment”.

So my gripe is that you’re making it sound like there’s a clear counterargument entertained in this post when there isn’t. Because you overstated your interpretation of the GP comment in what looks like an attempt to make Ploum’s argument appear more appealing than it ought to be. Even though both `TrainedMonkey and myself have expressed agreement with the point he’s trying to make in general, perhaps we’re less inclined toward pugnaciousness without a well thought out warrant.
by moab | 2025-12-20 02:46:41+00:00
Napkin math is how you avoid spending several weeks of your life going down ultimately futile rabbit holes. Yes, it's approximations, often very coarse ones, but done right they do work.

Your question about what degree of parallelization is unfortunately too vague to really answer. SSDs offer some internal parallelism. Need more parallelism / IOPS? You can stick a lot more SSDs on your machine. Need many machines worth of SSDs? Disaggregate them, but now you need to think about your network bandwidth, NICs, cross-machine latency, and fault-tolerance.

The best engineers I've seen are usually excellent at napkin math.
by taxicabjesus | 2025-12-20 02:47:19+00:00
One of the earliest findings of the investigations into oxygen that O2 is toxic in excess.

Space-cabin Atmospheres: Oxygen toxicity (1964) (google.com) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25883728

The Haldane Effect and the Bohr Effect are the central findings that explain the transportation and exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haldane_effect / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr_effect

People who hyperventilate exhale too much carbon dioxide, which disrupts the acid/alkaline balance of the blood and makes it harder for the body to use the oxygen available to it.

The Apollo capsules were originally spec'd to use a mixed gas atmosphere. When the capsule got too heavy they switched to using a pure-O2 atmosphere. After the Apollo 1 fire they switched to using an atmospheric mix (80/20 N2/O2) at launch, which gradually changed to pure oxygen as the flights progressed.

Treatment with pure oxygen is not helpful for sick people:

Mortality/morbidity: acutely ill adults liberal vs. conservative Oxygen Tx (2018) (thelancet.com) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22993262

I typed up some notes about oxygen toxicity: https://www.taxiwars.org/2021/06/folly-medical-hyperventilat...

Medicine decided that the antidote to oxygen toxicity didn't need to be used anymore in the mid-1950's.
by asveikau | 2025-12-20 02:48:20+00:00
I don't know much about the suspect, but I do know that people have been saying for years that they go into deep debt to get degrees, even in things that are supposed to be respected or in demand, and then it turns out there is actually no job market or success path for that degree. I assume the implication is it had something to do with this kind of frustration. (Though the suspect went to school two decades ago and did not receive a degree)

Since this site has a lot of people who have successful tech careers, many of us are isolated from these stresses.

But honestly, this guy's turn to violence makes me suspect he had some serious issues driving him, possibly in the mental health realm. Most people, even economically distressed people, won't turn to murder.
by Mathnerd314 | 2025-12-20 02:48:38+00:00
Well, so what the actual ruling was was that use of the books was okay, but only if they were legally obtained. And so the authors could proceed with a lawsuit for illegally downloading the books. But then presumably compensation for torrenting the books was included as part of the out of court settlement. So the lesson is something like AI is fine, but torrenting books is still not acceptable, m'kay wink wink.
by nis0s | 2025-12-20 02:48:57+00:00
Medicare is funded by making everyone pay for it. So, I think it follows that Medicare for All could be funded by making everyone pay for it. It’s likely that changing the calculus of the healthcare industry will result in job losses, but I guess it depends on how MFA is implemented. If taxes are increased on all earners to pay for universal healthcare, then the employer burden on providing payments towards health insurance will likely decrease. In this case, maybe there might be increase in hiring because it doesn’t seem healthcare is much impacted by AI. But this is all guesswork.

I also don’t think there’s a strict technical definition for “owner class”, it’s a catch-all political smear term used by Marxist-Leninists to enforce social stratification, and alienate community members from each other.

Who is an owner? The homeowner that could lose everything without a job? The business owner that could be bankrupt in 3-4 quarters? Or is there some arbitrary income threshold? A lot of people are hand to mouth without their jobs, including some earning 500K per year. Even millionaires end up having to work normal jobs if their lifestyle eats up their reserves. Or is it investors? Basically, everyone via their homes or retirement accounts; 65% of Americans are homeowners, and 75% have retirement savings, and 62% invest in stocks. Reasonably, I think unless your family unit has sustained inter-generational wealth (I mean wealth, not high-incomes), you wouldn’t meet the technical definition of this term, if it had a strictly defined one.
by zrm | 2025-12-20 02:51:00+00:00
Which is a major way turning off overcommit can cause problems. The expectation for disabling it is that if you request memory you're going to use it, which is frequently not true. So if you turn it off, your memory requirements go from, say, 64GB to 512GB.

Obviously you don't want to have to octuple your physical memory for pages that will never be used, especially these days, so the typical way around that is to allocate a lot of swap. Then the allocations that aren't actually used can be backed by swap instead of RAM.

Except then you've essentially reimplemented overcommit. Allocations report success because you have plenty of swap but if you try to really use that much the system grinds to a halt.