MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Is Gas Town (and other similar tools) legit by the Anthropic ToS?
by johnfn | 2026-01-29 05:15:05+00:00
Just curious so I don't get booted off the platform.

My understanding is that Gas Town + others wrap Claude MAX subscriptions. But the ToS says you may not "Except when you are accessing our Services via an Anthropic API Key or where we otherwise explicitly permit it, to access the Services through automated or non-human means, whether through a bot, script, or otherwise."

My read is that bans orchestrator tools. But I'm pretty sure Yegge et al haven't been banned from the platform. So what am I missing?
by gf000 | 2026-01-29 05:15:21+00:00
It's not "complex UI", it's what programs are generally used. It's gtk, qt, and a bunch of other cross-platform platforms all doing their own thing. They simply render (in a hardware-accelerated way) to a local buffer and that's the only commonality.

Could random draw calls be transported over the network? Sure, and for certain kinds of GUIs it is definitely more efficient than rendering and sending some compressed artifact.

Will XMotif suddenly change the world and apps will be written in it? Absolutely not. It's not even a thing on the minuscule Linux desktop, let alone elsewhere. We are running electron apps and whatnot.

And as I said, this "send draw commands" exists: SVGs are possibly the closest thing, but the web as a whole is literally this with a couple of more features.
by octoberfranklin | 2026-01-29 05:16:08+00:00
Bitmessage is/was awesome, but it fundamentally doesn't scale.

Every user has to attempt decryption of every message sent by any sender. Later they cobbled on some kind of hokey sharding mechanism to try to work around this, but it was theoretically unmotivated and an implementation minefield (very easy for implementation mistakes in the sharding mechanism to leak communication patterns to an observer).

Bitmessage would be great if we had something like Schnorr signatures (sum of (messages signed with different keys) = (sum of messages) signed with (sum of keys)) that could tell you if any of the sum of a bunch of messages was encrypted to your secret key. Then you could bisection-search the mempool.
by RyanMu | 2026-01-29 05:16:18+00:00
Mythology is one of the earliest structured storytelling systems: archetypal characters, symbolic conflicts, and causal narratives that explain how the world works. But most modern mythology resources are static — fixed texts, fixed characters, fixed interpretations.

When building story tools for families and educators, I ran into a recurring limitation: it’s hard to generate new myth-style stories that preserve structure while remaining customizable. Most AI story generators produce free-form fantasy prose that lacks mythic logic, while traditional collections offer depth without flexibility.

This project explores a middle ground.

I built a Mythology Story Generator that focuses on structured, customizable mythic narratives rather than generic text generation.

Design goals

Instead of asking users to “write a story,” the generator constrains inputs around elements common to mythology:
• setting (cosmic, natural, liminal spaces)
• character roles (creator, trickster, challenger, guardian)
• transformation or moral tension
• resolution that explains a rule of the world

These constraints are intentional. They reduce randomness and help the model produce stories with clearer internal logic — closer to myth than fantasy.

What it generates

The output is a complete short myth with:
• a defined beginning, conflict, and resolution
• consistent symbolic motifs
• language suitable for both children and adults, depending on prompt choices

Use cases I’ve seen so far include:
• parents generating bedtime myths tailored to a child’s interests
• educators creating original “origin stories” for classroom discussion
• writers and game designers prototyping lore without committing to a full world bible

Why not just use a general LLM?

General-purpose models are powerful, but without structure they often:
• over-index on verbosity
• drift thematically
• produce interchangeable fantasy tropes

This tool uses template-guided prompting and genre constraints to trade off some freedom for coherence and reuse.

Beyond single outputs

In addition to generating stories, users can:
• reuse and iterate on prompts
• browse stories generated by others
• adapt outputs into printables, reading material, or creative exercises

The goal isn’t to automate creativity, but to lower the cost of exploring structured storytelling ideas.

Feedback welcome

I’m particularly interested in feedback on:
• whether the constraints feel helpful or limiting
• how to improve narrative consistency
• additional use cases in education or game design

Link: https://www.genstory.app/story-template/mythology-story-gene...

Happy to answer questions or discuss design tradeoffs.
by adamlgerber | 2026-01-29 05:16:28+00:00
I just tried a few books that were not found or could not get the cover, even though they are both well known (over 50k reviews each on Goodreads).

The Physician https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4692.The_Physician

Soumission https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23929479-soumission

Is there something that might cause some popular books to not show?
by erichocean | 2026-01-29 05:17:56+00:00
I eliminated the ability to run multiple home servers and forced clients to submit to the server so that every update was a git-style fast forward, eliminating the ability to have merges. (This means that messages could "fail", requiring a rebase + retry, just like git. Anyway, it works.)

You need a custom Matrix client to do that, which I built on top of the Rust crate.

But I didn't release any of it because MLS is exactly that + better (faster) crypto due to how key ratchets work for group members. So I added MLS' crypto to an existing chat implementation I had which already had all of the Matrix-style chat sync implemented, and dropped my Matrix client and backend. Haven't looked back.
by Lectem | 2026-01-29 05:18:08+00:00
> which themselves do a short userspace spin-wait and then fall back to a kernel wait queue on contention.

Yes, but sadly not all implementations... The point remains that you should prefer OS primitives when you can, profile first, reduce contention, and then only, maybe, if you reeeally know what you're doing, on a system you mostly know and control, then perhaps you may start doing it yourself. And if you do, the fallback under contention must be the OS primitive
by seabrookmx | 2026-01-29 05:18:23+00:00
IMO this is an antipattern because having a python file for each environment means you have bespoke code for each environment that is difficult to test and easily diverges from each other.

If you use OP's way (I do something similar using pydantic-settings) the only thing that changes is your environment vars, which are much easier to reason about.
by keiferski | 2026-01-29 05:19:00+00:00
Yeah my biggest problem with London is how it seems to lack a real spontaneous street food culture, especially compared to New York, Paris, or Istanbul (which is particularly great at this.)

I spent a couple days walking 40+ km around the city and usually I just ended up eating at Istu or Greggs or one of those similar chains. The same thing in NYC or Paris gets you an infinitely better food experience.

It seems like a great city to be rich and have dinner reservations though.
by Nadav--Shanun | 2026-01-29 05:19:01+00:00
Nadav Shanun
https://x.com/Cookiesarefunnn

There’s a thought experiment I keep returning to: if you wanted to create a perfect copy of someone—not their body, but their mind—where would you look?

Not their resume. Not their social media. Not even their journal.

You’d watch their screen.
Show HN: I open sourced my failed SaaS (task/calendar/chat/files hub)
by cgdstnc | 2026-01-29 05:20:00+00:00
Hi HN,
About 1.5 years ago, I published Jinear, an app I originally built for friends, family, and for fun. I tried to turn it into a SaaS to acquire paying users, but I failed.

Instead of letting it sit, I made it open source and moved on to other things. Over time it gained some unexpected traction nothing big just very small heartbeats. Meantime I needed file sharing and messaging for my own use, so I went back to jinear and added those modules too.

I don't think this will ever be a financially profitable product, but I'd be happy if it helps other people. I currently host it on a Mac Mini at home, which costs me almost nothing (besides couple of cents for google cloud storage).

While there’s a hosted version for quick testing, it is fully self hostable. You can create/assign tasks, share files, view everything on a calendar, and chat with your team. It’s also built as a PWA for mobile use.

If anyone needs this kind of tool feel free to use & modify it. I’d love to hear your thoughts or feedback. Thanks.
by davidgay | 2026-01-29 05:20:54+00:00
> Even unemployment, which is your top line, seems... fine?

The unemployment one is interesting because if you look at that graph, the universal pre-2022 pattern is basically a spike of unemployment during recessions followed by a gradual drop.

The recent pattern is a gradual increase.

I'm not a big fan of "numerical only / shape of graphs" analyses, but this does seem strange. Of course, the 2020 Covid spike is also unusual, so...
by fc417fc802 | 2026-01-29 05:21:25+00:00
> I’ve still never seen or heard tell of RF ADS-B spoofing.

Probably because the required expertise, effort, risk, and reward ratios don't work out. You can cause a minor disturbance that isn't particularly visible and in exchange get investigated by the FBI. Seems about as wise as attempting to graffiti the front gate of a military base.
by jsight | 2026-01-29 05:21:29+00:00
They are almost exclusively focused on autonomous cars, humanoid robots, and energy (batteries now, maybe more solar manufacturing later).

As much as I dislike it, I can't disagree with the business case here. They already have >300k monthly subscribers at about $100/month. That business will grow rapidly from here as well as the robotaxi business itself.

Within 2 years, this business will look radically different just because of these two changes.
by CamperBob2 | 2026-01-29 05:22:37+00:00
Humanoid robots make sense in only one context I can think of, and I definitely wouldn't put it past Musk to enter that market. It will be a big one. He may just be waiting for material science to catch up with his product vision. Much like Steve Jobs waited by the river until capacitive multitouch came floating by, and then pounced on it.

Meantime, as others have pointed out, the Model S and X are not selling enough to justify keeping the factory running. I don't see them going into Optimus production immediately, since as you suggest it's a solution looking for a problem.
by dlubarov | 2026-01-29 05:22:49+00:00
If protestors were so concerned about Israel's conduct because of our tax dollars, then

- Why didn't any of them seem to care when Netanyahu proposed tapering off US aid? Shouldn't they have been celebrating a major stepping stone toward their purported objective?

- Why do we see the same obsession with Israel in European and many other countries, who do not provide any aid to Israel? What excuse do they have?
by mh2266 | 2026-01-29 05:24:11+00:00
I looked up the answer to some of the bird noise puzzles in the witness because I figured out (correctly) the concept, which was fairly obvious, but the actual noises in some of them were impossible to discern for me. that area was unique in that it required some actual skill beyond thinking about the puzzle

some of the harder ones I did screenshot and overlay in Inkscape and draw out the candidate shapes, which I guess isn't really cheating?
by parineum | 2026-01-29 05:24:13+00:00
Tesla is valued at more than the auto industry because they are doing more than the entire auto industry.

Honda is going to come out with a new Civic next year. It's going to look like the old Civic.

Tesla is trying to create self driving taxis to make the rest of the auto industry obsolete.

If you think that can happen, they should be worth more than the rest of the industry.
Show HN: gLinksWWW – A solo-made browser with 9 independent clipboards
by RioBurhan | 2026-01-29 05:24:47+00:00
Hi HN,
I’m a solo developer from Indonesia and I just launched gLinksWWW, a standalone browser built for heavy multitaskers.
The Problem: Switching between tabs to copy-paste multiple items is exhausting.
The Solution: I built a 9-segment clipboard system directly into the browser. You can store up to 9 different snippets and use them instantly.
I've also prepared .AppImage and .deb builds because I believe in first-class Linux support. (Windows .exe is also available).
Product hunt:
https://www.producthunt.com/products/glinkswww?launch=glinks...
Download(.AppImage,.deb,.exe) & full information about gLinksWWW:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_l4mEDoyERPMj_AXsvDC...

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the UI or any features you'd like to see next (planning on AI-assisted doc summaries!).
Thanks,
Rio
by Lectem | 2026-01-29 05:25:14+00:00
I've heard of issues on Arm devices with properly isolated cores (only one thread allowed, interrupts disabled) because the would interact with other threads using such a spinlock, threads which were not themselves isolated. The team replaced it all with a futex and it ended up working better in the end.
Sadly this happened while I was under another project so I don't have the details, but this can be problematic in audio too. To avoid the delay of waking up thread you can actually wake them a tiny bit early and then spin (not on a lock), since you know work is incoming.
by LeonidBugaev | 2026-01-29 05:25:53+00:00
Nice one! I had my own spin on this issue as well, but from the other angle https://github.com/probelabs/maid

Getting AI to generate valid mermaid diagrams on scale extremely hard. With maid i'm hitting 100% accuracy.

Maid is basically built from scratch mermaid parser, without any dependnecies, which knows how to auto-fix common AI slop diagramming issues.
by JumpCrisscross | 2026-01-29 05:25:59+00:00
> moved the goalposts from starting to build generational wealth to maybe part of a down payment on a house in a low-demand area in their mid-forties

On what planet are hundreds of thousands of dollars not generational wealth if played right? You’re talking about sums that are on par with the 401(k)s of retiring union workers.

It’s not riches. But it’s enough to pass along to your heirs. That’s generational wealth.
by jsight | 2026-01-29 05:26:15+00:00
It is sad, but big sedans do not sell well and the X really needed to be replaced with something completely different. There are now several other 3 row EV SUVs competing with it, and even low volume ones (eg, R1S) outsell it easily.

Don't be surprised if something else takes its place as they do need something larger than Y and less expensive than X was.
by llsf | 2026-01-29 05:26:16+00:00
I agree and I get it. But at the same time, it is only used for payment and discounts at grocery store. Payment with a card is even less secure here in US. So, I do not think that Amazon Go was particularly unsecured since it was just for credit card payment.

If someone manages to replicate my pulsing blood vessels from my hand and trick the scanner, that would be fine. I would dispute the purchase, and the store would not even pull the camera footage, and just refund.

Amazon Go was not used to hold access to bank accounts or crypto wallets. I think it was a good technology and balance between convenience and security, for the purpose (grocery loyalty and payment).

A twin or even sometimes a relative (son and mother) can open an iphone and its banking apps using the facial recognition. That is more concerning to me than Amazon Go palm scanning for groceries.
by jcgrillo | 2026-01-29 05:27:36+00:00
This, Stalking the Wiley Hacker[1], and others were the stories that got me into computers. I wish so much the experience of working in this industry hadn't so thoroughly annihilated the joy they once brought.

[1] https://archive.org/details/5626281-Clifford-Stoll-Communica...
by rented_mule | 2026-01-29 05:27:58+00:00
About the same time the 500-mile email problem happened (mid 1990s), I had a difficult to understand issue with my office PC. Every morning, I'd come in, slide my hard drive sled in, and turn the computer on. We had 128 Kbps ISDN internet at the office and I had the same at home, but that was too slow to do much work. So I'd take the drive home so I could work at night, especially in the winter when the office was too cold at night.

Suddenly one winter morning, the PC wouldn't boot. I had to run to a meeting. When I got back, I turned the PC off and on again and everything was fine. The next morning, the same thing happened. The third day, I didn't have a meeting. I turned it off and back on, still no boot. I'd gotten in late, so I just turned it off and took an early lunch. When I got back, it still wouldn't boot. But I had a meeting, so I ran to that, leaving the computer on. When I got back, it booted fine.

The next morning, same thing. I decided to look inside, not having any idea what might cause such symptoms. As I took the shell off, a tiny mouse came out, jump off my desk, and ran across my lap before jumping on the floor and scurrying out of sight. From inside the computer came the smell of mouse urine. Apparently he'd been crawling in through the open drive bay to keep warm every night, and urinating while he was in there. Once the computer had been on for a while, the heat and airflow would dry it out enough to eliminate whatever electrical short was keeping it from booting. I went to the store and bought an empty drive sled to put in the drive bay whenever I took my drive out, and the problem never came back. I felt lucky that the liquid didn't cause permanent damage.
by defrost | 2026-01-29 05:28:07+00:00
And yet Chinese EV's are flying out of their factories, well, a few are - most are self driving out to the shipping yards.

This despite the 2025 support by the Chinese state for the Chines EV industry now being almost nothing.

By contrast, defenders of China could point out that the data show that subsidies as a percentage of total sales have declined substantially, from over 40% in the early years to only 11.5% in 2023, which reflects a pattern in line with heavier support for infant industries, then a gradual reduction as they mature.

In addition, they could note that the average support per vehicle has fallen from $13,860 in 2018 to just under $4,600 in 2023, which is less than the $7,500 credit that goes to buyers of qualifying vehicles as part of the U.S.’s Inflation Reduction Act.

Old source: https://www.csis.org/blogs/trustee-china-hand/chinese-ev-dil...

but the arc of less subsidies is clear.
by Animats | 2026-01-29 05:28:59+00:00
A reasonable guess.

As far as I can tell, the number of humanoid robots doing anything productive is zero. It's all demos.

This is far harder than self-driving. As a guy from Waymo once said in a talk, "the output is only two numbers" (speed and steering angle).

Also, there are at least 18 humanoid robots good enough to have a Youtube video. Tesla is not the leader.

Remember the "cobot" boom of about five years ago? Easy to train and use industrial robots safe around humans? Anybody?

I'm not saying this is impossible, but that it's too early for volume production. This will probably take as long as it took to get to real robotaxis.
by rramadass | 2026-01-29 05:29:00+00:00
Interesting article; The author has brought together a lot of information from ancient Sanskrit sources but missed out a few.

The most well-known text (mentioned in the article) on "Elephant Science" is Matanga lila (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matanga_Lila) but there is also Gaja Sastra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gajashastra) and chapters from Manasollasa by Somesvara (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manasollasa) an encyclopedic work in the style of Arthashastra. There is doubtless more in other ancient texts in various Indian languages which i am as yet not aware of.

The best description of the use of a war elephant occurs in the Mahabharata in the battle between King Bhagadatta (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagadatta) seated on his favourite war elephant Supratika (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supratika) and the Pandava army; first with Bhima and then with Arjuna. When mounted on Supratika, Bhagadatta was said to be invincible and proves it on the 12th day of the kurukshetra war when he single-handedly defeats the Pandava army and almost killing Bhima, the Pandava warrior who is the most skilled in elephant warfare with knowledge of their vital points and how to attack them. Arjuna then comes in to save the day and slays both Supratika and Bhagadatta. The is is one of the best passages in the Mahabharata on pure valour in warfare and worth reading in entirety (from here) - https://sacred-texts.com/hin/m07/m07024.htm
by sschueller | 2026-01-29 05:31:17+00:00
I refuse the purchase any apple products (I was never a fan and don't like paying premium for a walled garden) but it's impossible to offer an app if you don't also make one for apple devices.

There is no way around it especially in an apple dense market like Switzerland.

They have a clear monopoly and together with Google a duopoly.

I can thankfully continue with my refusal to purchase from HP perfectly fine.
by alphatesterguy | 2026-01-29 05:32:06+00:00
I wanted speechtotext.com (or .ai, .io) for a side project but they're all taken or parked at $5K+. Ended up grabbing speechtotext.xyz for $12/year and redirecting it to my main domain.
Now I'm second-guessing myself. A few concerns:

1. Do users hesitate to click .xyz links? (spam association from the early days)
2. Does Google treat .xyz differently for ranking?
3. For a redirect-only domain, does TLD even matter?

I know Google's own parent company uses abc.xyz, but that's Google. Curious what the actual experience is for indie projects.
Anyone running a .xyz as their primary domain? How's it working out?
by Retric | 2026-01-29 05:32:23+00:00
Musk would love to be selling several billion dollars per year of model S/X sales, the issue is they aren’t that competitive with other cars in the luxury segment thus the falling sales numbers.

Tesla’s doesn’t really have a complex strategy at this point, they are getting squeezed out of the high end by legacy automakers where their lower cost batteries don’t matter as much. They are absolutely fucked on the low end as soon as Chinese cars enter the picture.

So self driving is really the only option to sell any long term upside to keep the stock from tanking. It’s not a very convincing argument, but you play the hand your dealt.
by Lectem | 2026-01-29 05:33:05+00:00
That's how they are supposed to work indeed! But spin locks aren't the only spin loops you may find, and allocator for example do spin. And for example under an allocation heavy code (that you should avoid too, but happens due to 3rd parties in real life), this can trigger contention, so you need contention to not be the worse type of contention.
by handoflixue | 2026-01-29 05:34:17+00:00
A Dark Factory is a lot more work than the model, and often perpendicular to the goal of general model improvement. A Dark Factory specializes in building one particular thing, whereas the AI labs care about generalization and what you can do absent such advanced scaffolding.

It is so named because we have literal Dark Factories in the real world, run by robotics instead of AI, producing cellphones without any need for humans.

None the less, said literal Dark Factory that actually exists, in the real world, is still owned by the corporation that built it. The robots did not take over, the government did not seize it.
by scarecrowbob | 2026-01-29 05:34:22+00:00
I appreciate that bit of prose.

Fortunately it feels very much the other direction, lately- more folks seeing the dangers, more willingness to take the long bet. Fewer folks at brunch.

That's a bet some of have been taking for a while, though it's oftent felt dumb, and we haven't needed a great shocking occasion to do it.