MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by Majromax | 2026-01-09 14:15:05+00:00
> If all the models are interchangeable at the API layer, wouldn't they be incentivized to add value at the next level up

Just the other day, a 2016 article was reposted here [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46514816] on the 'stack fallacy', where companies who are experts in their domain repeatedly try and fail to 'move up the value chain' by offering higher-level products or services. The fallacy is that these companies underestimate the essential compexities of the higher-level and approach the problem with arrogance.

That would seem to apply here. Why should a model-building company have any unique skill at building higher-level integration?

If their edge comes from having the best model, they should commoditize the complement and make it as easy as possible for everyone to use (and pay for) their model. The standard API allows them to do just this, offering 'free' benefits from community integrations and multi-domain tasks.

If their edge does not come from the model – if the models are interchangeable in performance and not just API – then the company will have deeper problems justifying its existing investments and securing more funding. A moat of high-level features might help plug a few leaks, but this entire field is too new to have the kind of legacy clients that keep old firms like IBM around.
by close04 | 2026-01-09 14:15:06+00:00
They don't develop this equilibrium "instinctively" (something exclusively inside them) but they do "naturally" (helped by the environment). Now the reindeer weren't really in their natural environment, they were put in very constrained, special conditions, with little flexibility, little time to adapt, and no ability to shape that environment. The environment forced them to adapt and lower the numbers, and eventually wiped them out with what was also probably a fluke. They were still 50% more individuals than when they arrived but no viable reproduction path ahead.

This was an extreme example. Put humans on this type of island and you'll probably end up with them dying out just the same, despite our tendence to radically change the environment to survive. After all that's why the reindeer were there, so humans can survive absent a constant lifeline from civilization.

Humans, and viruses to a degree, are much better at shaping their environment and adapting faster to what's thrown at them to compensate. The instinct is to change whatever possible of the surroundings to survive and thrive.
by codingdave | 2026-01-09 14:15:13+00:00
You'd need to dig into who is running their product decisions, and try to determine how they are making decisions. But to be honest, that line of questioning would probably make most interviewers defensive to the point that you'll be ending your chances of getting the job.

It might be better to dance around such questions. Don't directly challenge their product strategy. Instead, be a little sycophantic, encourage them to talk more, tell you more. Get excited by the features they tell you about, ask questions about how they landed on that feature set, etc. But then pay attention to what they don't say. Pay attention to if they say "we had an idea" vs. "our customers helped us refine" vs. "our founder has a vision". Listen for gaps in their stories, hesitations, anywhere that they get a little nervous. Pauses and rephrasings as they tell their story will also tell you their problem areas.

Basically, just keep them talking. Read between the lines. Teams at this stage tend to be really bad at hiding the warts in their organization, if you just give them enough space to let it all out.
by fc417fc802 | 2026-01-09 14:15:38+00:00
Are you sure you're participating in good faith? I'll go ahead and indulge you for the benefit of the audience though.

The generic term is predatory pricing and it's regulated to some extent in pretty much every country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing#Legal_aspect...

When carried out at the international level it's known as dumping. The WTO has provisions against it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)#Legal...
by PaulHoule | 2026-01-09 14:15:39+00:00
There is the famous Tyranny of Structureless essay

https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

which describes issues that people struggle with to this day. When it comes to activism I think the most effective organizations I've been in have been "structureless" like that with a few people who lead because they are dedicated and have time and energy.

Personally when it comes to structure and the issues Jo talks about the cure (structure) is worse than the disease and once we start talking about Robert's Rules and bylaws and fundraising you are already losing people and going off mission. All the discussions about the perception (and somewhat reality) of "Class X of people is not being represented here" tend to turn into knock-down drag out fights, "Class X" never stepping up, and the ultimate reality of nobody being represented except for Robert and bylaws and fundraising.

It's not to say structureful organizations aren't useful but I would say organizations are basically right-wing in that they embody social hierarchy and if you feel your structureless organization is fun and exciting and making some difference in your bit of the world the way to save it when structure encroaches is to tear it down and start another one.

"Sustainable" groups tend to become what they oppose, structureless groups can seem to come out of nowhere, strike a decisive blow, then melt into the crowd.
by jasonvorhe | 2026-01-09 14:16:08+00:00
> Yeah, because millions of people are just stupid remote-controlled robotic zombies who will, upon a command of the CIA, go into the streets against Basij thugs who are willing to shoot at them.

What a lazy and ignorant attempt of spinning this. That's on the same level as the "so many people would know, no one could keep it a secret" fact check drivel. You don't need people to be stupid, "remote-controlled" nor robotic zombies. You just need to keep on funding assets, recruit new people and the seeds will form a groundwork sooner or later.

I recommend picking up a book on this some time: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/cia-intervention

Some of these operations werde decades long.

> But I find the opinion that everyone in the world just obediently dances by someone's flute quite dehumanizing.

Basically no one means this when they speak of regime change operations and people participating in it.

I know a few activists who were involved in sending dialup numbers to fax machines during the Arab Spring during the Internet blackout in Egypt and most of them are pretty much aware that they were mostly pawns for Western governments.
by elzbardico | 2026-01-09 14:16:31+00:00
Sometimes it is not malicious language. There's a trend in modern journalism towards colloquial, imprecise language that in itself is a reaction to decreasing reading abilities and vocabulary in the general population, as we are now in the descending slope of the Flynn's effect curve.

Also, a journalist nowadays is evaluated as a professional basically by the amount of pageviews he can harvest. There's a strong incentive towards clickbait language.
by philipallstar | 2026-01-09 14:16:37+00:00
> Up to this point, iNat functioned as an unstructured anarchy. Scott and I were titular “co-directors” but we did not provide a lot of direction and most of the big moves and features were driven largely by individual initiative. We never found a great way to collaborate.

This is extremely unlikely to work. We have structures and hierarchies for a reason. They aren't perfect, but they aren't pointless. It feels like when CHAZ/CHOP appeared and there were multiple child killings, but because it was based on (purported) far left principles it was sort of...fine? At least in the media.
by 4gotunameagain | 2026-01-09 14:16:39+00:00
You really think so, or is this some tribal adherence to your tribe ?

I am not american, I have no skin in the game. But to me, the ICE agents were never really threatened. I would not be afraid for my life if I were in this situation.

What I do understand, is the panic a person could have felt if masked ICE agents with weapons came their way.

I do not understand why it has to be a partizan issue. What I see, is a federal agent murdering an innocent US citizen. How is this not a bad thing for both sides ?

I am honestly trying to understand.
by bluGill | 2026-01-09 14:16:51+00:00
Not that you are wrong, but you don't seem to understand my point. I spend less than 25% of my time writing code. I also do code review, various story/architecture planning, testing, bug triage, required training, and other management/people activities; these take up more than 75% of my time. Even if AI could do vibe code as well as me infinitely fast it still wouldn't be a 75% improvement.
by s_dev | 2026-01-09 14:17:10+00:00
Dieting forces you focus the actual problem which could be lack of cooking skills, poor shopping choices, lack of accurate information, lack of available healthy foods, poor lifestyle choices or much more.

Ozempic/Wegovy and the like while they have their place, are simply useful tools in the hands of doctors. They are not a magic bean that will cure over eating but they are being marketed and discussed as that.

There are almost no short cuts in this world of losing weight but there are extremely worthwhile trade off’s.
by jjtheblunt | 2026-01-09 14:17:23+00:00
I watch the genetic studies and it seems always presumed, in these articles, that dogs derive from wolves, not that dogs derive from siblings of wolves that derive from a common proto-canine ancestor.

The wikipedia entry considers the issue, presents data that are curious with respect ot the data in the Economist article, saying domestication is presumed from wolves roughly 14,000 years or so ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog#Taxonomy

The Economist article hints at the curiosity, in mentioning pre-Colombian dogs in the Americas were distinct some 23,000 years ago, but then returns to the standard presumptions.

An article in Nature also considers the ancestry presumptions

https://www.nature.com/articles/505589e
by xdavidhu | 2026-01-09 14:17:25+00:00
Ollee does that by replacing the original PCB. In this project the movement is kept original.

I recall the blog n-o-d-e did successfully put an NFC chip inside while also retaining the default PCB, so there is at least some free space in the case...

https://n-o-d-e.net/casio.html (0:56)
by oracleclyde | 2026-01-09 14:17:54+00:00
As an employee and engineer, it is still your job to produce and validate working code. AI makes its easier, faster, but that still doesn't absolve you of the responsibility. At the end of the day, humans are responsible for what ships. If your code breaks the product because AI went nutz and inserted a Guacamole recipe in a library, then that's on us for not catching it.

I work at a security focused company, top in the entire industry, and blaming AI is not allowed. We use AI, even integrated inside our product, but we aren't ignorant. AI can and will write bad and broken code.
by PaulHoule | 2026-01-09 14:18:14+00:00
It is an interesting thing about the best military organizations is that they have hierarchy but also push a lot of responsibility downward. E.g. we don't see anything noble about The Charge of the Light Brigade

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45319/the-charge-of-t...

An infantry platoon does have leaders, it does follow orders, it is the thin edge of a very long edge, but it has a lived reality of the members improvising under pressure.
by krautburglar | 2026-01-09 14:18:16+00:00
> it is a nasty group of medieval characters,

Still better than having western corporations loot the hell out of your country, like they did to Russia in the 90s, or what AICO did after it got Mossadegh out of the way.

> robotic zombies who will, upon a command of the CIA, go into the streets...

Money goes a long way, even in countries that aren't poor. For a country as heavily sanctioned as Iran, the CIA could buy out all of their politicians and all of their journalists several times over. We already saw this with "arab spring" in Egypt. Five-eyes and company con terminally online city kids into thinking the country is behind them, city kids protest and weaken the government, the peasants take notice and realize, "Hey, if these spoiled kids can topple the government, just imagine what we can do!", so instead of getting gay rights and feminism, they get the Muslim Brotherhood.
by palata | 2026-01-09 14:18:45+00:00
> europeans saying thing like

Where did I say I was European?

> implying EU companies are not anti-competitive and EU government is not extremely protectionist

Anti-competitive behaviours from TooBigTech are well documented, and they are regularly fined for that. I'm sure it happens from EU companies, but it has less impact given that the software industry is almost entirely dominated by US companies.

Now I can't remember the last time the EU threatened the US to prevent them from regulating EU companies?

Also are you aware that pretty much all governments in the EU rely on the US monopolies? I wouldn't call that "extremely protectionnist". As compared to e.g. the US banning Huawei or TikTok or DJI.
by giancarlostoro | 2026-01-09 14:18:59+00:00
Lowkey I wish Perplexity would do this for Comet, idk why but I use the heck out of their browser on my Mac. I dont always use the "browser agent" stuff (lol!), and I dont use it for EVERYTHING, but you spend so much time looking things up, and sometimes its nice to just be able to highlight text on a page and go "yo ELI5 this for me pls I feel dumb" and it just does it.
by folbec | 2026-01-09 14:19:49+00:00
I personally think that the more appropriate quote from 1984 is this one, because the cruelty is the whole point :

“The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.” He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: “How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?”

Winston thought. “By making him suffer,” he said.

“Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?[...]”"

1984.
by DangitBobby | 2026-01-09 14:19:56+00:00
Enough people were not enjoying the results of the country's global power that an increasingly irrelevant political party was able to convert generalized angst into effective anti-establishment (anything status quo, doesn't matter what) populist platform. The unreasonable people are enjoying that the correct people are being hurt and that we are belligerently projecting what global power we have left, while "reasonable" people are having every Trumpian move sanewashed through the media they choose to consume. Everyone else (more than half, I suppose) is anywhere from concerned to terrified.
by breppp | 2026-01-09 14:20:06+00:00
That story is based on rumors and denied by the minister himself.

However, French media reports the Iranian elites are trying to get french visas

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601089494

Other unconfirmed rumors currently circulating is that last night under the cover of the internet blackouts there has been a major massacre of protestors

https://x.com/IliaHashemicom/status/2009594128284205077
by fsflover | 2026-01-09 14:20:12+00:00
> I don't care about that as a consumer.

Until this happens: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43243075. Or, worse, this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114 or this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46322556. Megacorps don't care about your requests for support.

> People are very willing to pay for that, but there is no such FLOSS offering as far as I know

https://www.debian.org/consultants/

https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/user/hardware/certified-h...

and much more. Have you tried using search?
by alentred | 2026-01-09 14:20:58+00:00
Similarly, people get their weight back after liposuction, or after stopping the diet, as the article posits.

This boils down to the fact that the weight, and its quality (fat vs muscle) is a function of habits.

Given the number of studies that show the complexity of factors that influence the weight, from neuroscience and psychology to studies of metabolism, it is a wishful thinking to have an injection or a pill alone as a long-lasting solution.
by kannanvijayan | 2026-01-09 14:21:06+00:00
I'd have to take a contrary view on that. It'll take some time for the technologies to be developed, but ultimately managed JIT compilation has the potential to exceed native compiled speeds. It'll be a fun journey getting there though.

The initial order-of-magnitude jump in perf that JITs provided took us from the 5-2x overhead for managed runtimes down to some (1 + delta)x. That was driven by runtime type inference combined with a type-aware JIT compiler.

I expect that there's another significant, but smaller perf jump that we haven't really plumbed out - mostly to be gained from dynamic _value_ inference that's sensitive to _transient_ meta-stability in values flowing through the program.

Basically you can gather actual values flowing through code at runtime, look for patterns, and then inline / type-specialize those by deriving runtime types that are _tighter_ than the annotated types.

I think there's a reasonable amount of juice left in combining those techniques with partial specialization and JIT compilation, and that should get us over the hump from "slightly slower than native" to "slightly faster than native".

I get it's an outlier viewpoint though. Whenever I hear "managed jitcode will never be as fast as native", I interpret that as a friendly bet :)
by metadope | 2026-01-09 14:21:09+00:00
Agreed; in general, doxxing people is wrong. In general, politics are polarizing and reactive, and are to be avoided on a mostly-technical discussion site. In general, Gruber is an Apple review guy. These rules-of-thumb are useful and proper, generally. But you know what comes next, right?

The exceptions.

I think we're seeing some extraordinary events irl that the HN community and moderators are dealing with organically. Exceptions are being made; eventually the rules of thumbs will return to prominence.
by giancarlostoro | 2026-01-09 14:21:50+00:00
> More importantly, Anthropic should have open sourced their Claude Code CLI a year ago. (They can and should just open source it now.)

It's not like if it houses some top secret AI models inside of it, and it would make way more sense, and probably expand the capabilities of Claude Code itself. Do they lose out to having OpenAI or other competitors basically stealing their approach?
by gbuk2013 | 2026-01-09 14:22:14+00:00
> So my questions is simple: you talk about "thousands of years". Easterners had "thousands of years" and they can... Release tension in the body?

This is a common misconception among those used to modern “western” medicine: while “eastern” medicine does have a range of options to deal with existing medical conditions the emphasis is always on prevention (there’s a famous Chinese medical maxim along the lines of it being better to fight the enemy outside the city walls than inside) whereas Western medicine mostly pays lip service to the idea (for reasons that unfortunately mostly come down to money).

There is no denying that our modern medicine is superior in treating the immediate symptoms (which may well be life threatening) including surgery.

The relaxation exercises being discussed are really there just for the purpose of making sitting meditation effective, essential to stop the body getting in the way of the practice and that is all. In a way the body (and the associated work required to keep it in health) is seen as a necessary evil by those on the spiritual cultivation path.
by grugdev42 | 2026-01-09 14:22:48+00:00
It heavily depends on how the jabs are used.

If purely used as an appetite suppressant, then of course people will put the weight back on as soon as they regain their appetite.

People get lulled into a false sense of security that their diet is fine because they're losing weight! But it isn't.

However the jabs work well if you use the time to "retrain" your appetite, diet, and tastebuds. Then you keep the weight off because you no longer crave processed, high calorie, or junk foods.

I think the problem is in the marketing of these medications. They're not slimming jabs, they're appetite suppressors. If you never fix the appetite you will need to go back to suppressing it!
by hopelite | 2026-01-09 14:22:51+00:00
Considering circumstances all over the West, pretty soon everyone will be “terrorist sympathizers” or a sympathizer of whatever the next enemy boogeyman du jour is of the abusive ruling class. And it’s not your favorite political sport team that is good and never does that, while the other team always does it and is evil. It’s being done in the US and it is being done in the EU as well as in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; not even to mention Israel, but that can’t be considered the West.
by mapontosevenths | 2026-01-09 14:23:04+00:00
There's no secret IMO. It's actually really simple to get good results. You just expect the same things from the LLM you would from a Junior. Use an MD file to force it to:

1) Include good comments in whatever style you prefer, document everything it's doing as it goes and keep the docs up to date, and include configurable logging.

2) Make it write and actually execute unit tests for everything before it's allowed to commit anything, again through the md file.

3) Ensure it learns from it's mistakes: Anytime it screws up tell it to add a rule to it's own MD file reminding it not to ever repeat that mistake again. Over time the MD file gets large, but the error rate plummets.

4) This is where it drifts from being treated as a standard Junior. YOU must manually verify that the unit tests are testing for the right thing. I usually add a rule to the MD file telling it not to touch them after I'm happy with them, but even then you must also now check that the agent didn't change them the first time it hit a bug. Modern LLM's are now worse at this for some reason. Probably because they're getting smart enough to cheat.

If you these basic things you'll get good results almost every time.
by gus_massa | 2026-01-09 14:23:20+00:00
> it is widely believed that eukaryotes arose from a joining of archaea and bacteria, not archaea and virii

IIUC the join with the bacteria is the explanation of the mitochondria (and later chloroplast). But it does not explain the nuclei that is weird too. Is it possible something like this?

Archaeal + Virus = Pre-Eukaryote (extinct?)
Pre-Eukaryote + Bacteria = Eukaryote (including animals, fungi and plants)
Eukaryote + other Bacteria = Plants

(Or swap the first two steps.)
Ash HN: Excavating Decision Archaeology
by brihati | 2026-01-09 14:23:59+00:00
I was digging through a magic number in code that has lived in the code for quite some time & couldn't figure out why that specific value was chosen. Digged through docs, PRs, PRs' comments, talked/brainstormed with people but no result. After hours of searching, it was buried in commit message

Wait... WHAT??? From now on, should I start reading commit messages? Do you have such weird stories?