MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by FrankWilhoit | 2026-01-01 22:17:37+00:00
Stonebraker is the only "guru" who is willing to discard his old prejudices and reinvent himself. Of course, when he says "ACID or GTFO", and that "eventual consistency" is a nonsense, he is talking about things that can never be overtaken by time.

But for the rest, throughout this presentation, he is not talking about technology at all. He is talking about organizational toxicities. He is talking about trying to function above Coase's ceiling. He is talking about requirements rot. He is talking about the pervasive confusion about who the technology is for.

Is it for the customers? Good.

Is it for the DBAs? Much less good.

Is it for the auditors? Well, it has to be -- but will they allow any of the re-engineering proposals that Stonebraker recommends? How many years will it take them to train their own people? And in the meanwhile, they will not sign off on anything that involves technology they don't understand.

Is it for the vendors? Absolutely impermissible.

Is it for the C-suite? Track every minute spent on it and try to get the accountants to call it OpEx.
by zozbot234 | 2026-01-01 22:17:38+00:00
This is literally a "my two cents' worth" answer from Gemini Pro. It's a straightforward inference from the fact that "Anno Mundi" means "in the year of the world", thus especially in the "year since creation", and that the main text references Abraham's birth with conflicting dates. It's nifty that we now have automated means of extracting a sensible scholarly consensus of "what could this possibly mean" but there's absolutely no mystery here.
by benoau | 2026-01-01 22:17:46+00:00
It's probably got thousands of drones and whatever Venezuela needs to produce more.

> The ship, which started its journey in Iran, had been on its way to pick up oil in Venezuela

WSJ reporting elaborates on this journey, for context the US operations began in late August:

> Before heading toward Venezuela, empty of oil, the Bella 1 loaded crude in Iran in early September, Kpler said, and then turned off its transponder near the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the oil-rich Persian Gulf to the world. It went dark for two months, and when it came back online close to the same spot, it was no longer carrying oil, Kpler said, suggesting it had unloaded the cargo to other vessels.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/coast-guard-tracks-down...
by mort96 | 2026-01-01 22:18:08+00:00
It sounds like your primary issue is that you have a severe RAM deficiency for what you're trying to use your machine for. Any OOM killer, be it the kernel's per-process one or systemd-oomd's per-service one, only exists to try to recover from an out-of-memory scenario where the alternative is to kernel panic (in the case of the kernel's oom killer) or for the system to completely lock up (in the case of systemd-oomd).

Try doing less at once, or getting more memory.
by coldtea | 2026-01-01 22:18:39+00:00
"Mr. Fallacy."? Got any better juvenile name-calling?

The case is among the example numbers given in TFA:

"Dict lookup by key", "List membership check"

Does it have to spell out the difference is algorithmic in this case for the comparison to be useful?

Or, inversely, is the difference between e.g. memory and disk access times insignificant, because it's not algorithmic?
by dewitt | 2026-01-01 22:19:02+00:00
The art style under "A Sillier Solution" [1] reminds me very much of the cover of Dragon Magazine #100, August 1985 [2].

[1] https://lisyarus.github.io/blog/media/a-silly-diffuse-shadin...

[2] https://archive.org/details/DragonMagazine260_201801/DragonM...
by galaxyLogic | 2026-01-01 22:19:13+00:00
What I'm struggling with is, when you ask AI to do something, its answer is always undeterministically different, more or less.

If I start out with a "spec" that tells AI what I want, it can create working software for me. Seems great. But let's say some weeks, or months or even years later I realize I need to change my spec a bit. I would like to give the new spec to the AI and have it produce an improved version of "my" software. But there seems to be no way to then evaluate how (much, where, how) the solution has changed/improved because of the changed/improved spec. Becauze AI's outputs are undeterministic, the new solution might be totally different from the previous one. So AI would not seem to support "iterative development" in this sense does it?

My question then really is, why can't there be an LLM that would always give the exact same output for the exact same input? I could then still explore multiple answers by changing my input incrementally. It just seems to me that a small change in inputs/specs should only produce a small change in outputs. Does any current LLM support this way of working?
by duttish | 2026-01-01 22:19:44+00:00
I've been on Linux desktop for ages, but it's not quite stable enough that I can recommend it to anyone. Space Marine 2 was the first game in quite a while than didn't just work out of the box, but...

E.g three weeks ago nvidia pushed bad drivers which broke my desktop after a reboot and I had to swap display (ctrl-alt-f3 etc), I never got into gnome at all, and roll back to an earlier version. Automatic rollback of bad drivers would have saved this.

Are Radeon drivers less shit?
by bitanarch | 2026-01-01 22:19:48+00:00
Under the Planes section, look for planes that have non-zero "CRTC_ID". Those are the planes that actually get output to your monitor.

Here's what I'm getting on an RTX 4090 / InnoCN 27M2V and Cooler Master Tempest GP27U.

https://imgur.com/a/SCyyZWt
by ofalkaed | 2026-01-01 22:19:53+00:00
2026, YOTBSDD.

This is the story of 2025 computing for me, FreeBSD is where I will probably go when Patrick calls it quits and steps down or ends Slackware. Although Haiku is also possible, I really like it but I am not sure if I can change my workflow that much after all these years.
by riku_iki | 2026-01-01 22:20:03+00:00
that's obvious that some country with 1.5B working people will have edge in some niches, and will demonstrate tremendous growth from the bottom where they were 20 years ago.

But for global picture, if we are comparing Western World: US+Canada+EU vs China in technological domination, the picture is likely not super-clear and more complex analysis is required. Even if we consider manufacturing output, where China is supposedly global leader, we see it is 5.5T for Western world vs 4.6T for China (according to my brief google searching).
by mamonster | 2026-01-01 22:20:52+00:00
>First, it assumes the people of Belarus is willing to start a war with NATO

I think there is a more than 50% chance that Belarus is reintegrated in some form into Russia within this century. It's very clear that there is no plan for sovereignty post-Lukashenko and all of the opposition(like in Russia) has been exiled(so powerless). This is probably the 2nd biggest miss of EU foreign policy in the 21st century after Ukraine, they basically put Lukashenko in the same basket as Putin even though up until 2020 he did everything he could to maintain his sovereignty and got hit with horrible sanctions. But IMO it's too late now.

>Second, while Kaliningrad might be defensible (though I doubt that)

Russian military doctrine is kind of nebulous, but the one thing it is extremely clear on is that Kaliningrad will be defended using nuclear weapons. Exactly because it's basically not defensible using conventional means.
by robocat | 2026-01-01 22:21:01+00:00
> Now, I was raised in a family where good communication was never held in high regard and you can clearly see that in a way we hold conversations as a group: People often speak on top of each other and it’s completely normal to interrupt the other person just to share a random thought you just had.

Unfortunately mixes listening with judgement about interruption.

Good article about how turn-takers and interrupters have different group social norms.

https://www.atvbt.com/interrupters-and-non-interrupters/

I have an interruptor friend who then lectures me about turn-taking (plus they then drone on a topic they know I loath: after telling me it is her turn!).
by bryanrasmussen | 2026-01-01 22:21:13+00:00
so there should probably be some sort of jargon-user probability setting that would be evaluated by your phrase usage.

first off there must be some phrases that are more commonly used in development than otherwise that it gets correct, a large number of those indicates high chance of being software jargon user. Furthermore all these other phrases are not in themselves common non-software usage, thus if you are using a lot of phrases that might be, with lower probability but still relatively high probability, software jargon this could be set.

Now we also get to personal behavior tracking, you are on dev sites a lot chance of using software jargon instead of non-software jargon goes up.

Do you use computer for development, chances go up. Of course lots of reasons why they would not track this to keep people from being pissed but still, possible way to improve from tracking.

finally allowing people to create profile - which I don't know if they do because I don't use.

Of course this kind of software dev jargon workflow would also help other identifiable subgroups with specific jargon sets, like lawyers, or accountants, etc. etc.

All these things of o
by Spivak | 2026-01-01 22:21:32+00:00
I knew I should have also put the (in terms of memory safety) on the C++ paragraph but I held off because I thought it would be obvious both talking about the borrow checker and in contrast to Rust with the borrow checker.

Yes, when it comes to types C++ will reject theoretically sound programs that don't type correctly. And different type system "strengths" tune themselves to how many correct programs they're willing to reject in order to accept fewer incorrect ones.

I don't mean to make it a dichotomy at all, every "checker", linter, static analysis tool—they all seek to invalidate some correct programs which hopefully isn't too much of a burden to the programmer but in trade invalidate a much much larger set of incorrect programs. So full agreement that there's a lot of nuance as well as a lot of opinions when it goes too far or not far enough.
by JumpCrisscross | 2026-01-01 22:21:49+00:00
> pretty obvious what's happening here

Good start. Then turn off Russia’s cable that runs via Finland [1] and make vague threats about (a) seizing shadow-fleet vessels in the Baltics and (b) how vulnerable Russia’s cable to Kaliningrad [2] would be to careless anchors.

All the while: start setting up non-cable based back-up bandwidth for if Russia severs these cables in advance of invasion.

[1] https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/bcs-north-...

[2] https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/kingisepp-...
by nightpool | 2026-01-01 22:22:03+00:00
Really interesting post, but this part from the beginning stuck out to me:

Ruby Gems are tar files, and one of the files in the tar file is a YAML representation of the GemSpec. This YAML file declares all dependencies for the Gem, so RubyGems can know, without evaling anything, what dependencies it needs to install before it can install any particular Gem. Additionally, RubyGems.org provides an API for asking about dependency information, which is actually the normal way of getting dependency info (again, no eval required).

It would be interesting to compare and contrast the parsing speed for a large representative set of Python dependencies compared to a large representative set of Ruby dependencies. YAML is famously not the most efficient format to parse. We might have been better than `pip`, but I would be surprised if there isn't any room left on the table to parse dependency information in a more efficient format (JSON, protobufs, whatever).

That said, the points at the end about not needing to parse gemspecs to install "most" dependencies would make this pretty moot (if the information is already returned from the gemserver)
by MerrimanInd | 2026-01-01 22:22:19+00:00
I love this. I spent my holidays hearing non-technical family members complain about their ever deteriorating Windows experiences, issues that make me righteously angry at Microsoft.

IMO the next important unblocker for Linux adoption is the Adobe suite. In a post-mobile world one can use a tablet or phone for almost any media consumption. But production is still in the realm of the desktop UX and photo/video/creative work is the most common form of output. An Adobe CC Linux option would enable that set of "power users". And regardless of their actual percentage of desktop users, just about ever YouTuber or streamer talking about technology is by definition a content creator so opening Linux up to them would have a big effect on adoption.

And yes I've tried most of the Linux alternatives, like GIMP, Inkscape, DaVinci, RawTherapee, etc. They're mostly /fine/ but it's one of the weaker software categories in FOSS-alternatives IMO. It also adds an unnecessary learning curve. Gamers would laugh if they were told that Linux gaming was great, they just have to learn and play an entirely different set of games.
by StopDisinfo910 | 2026-01-01 22:23:25+00:00
> They over produce with suppressed wages, currency exchange rate, and government subsidies

I mean, so does Germany.

Technically, the USA only has the massive subsidies part since the IRA came to be but they also have tariffs so, not doing too bad distortion-wise.

At this point in time, pretty much everyone is already defending their industries. China is just playing its cards better than the others and with a head start when it comes to EV.
by pron | 2026-01-01 22:23:34+00:00
The number of domains where low-level languages are required, and that includes C, C++, Rust, and Zig, has gone down over time and continues to do so. All of these languages are rarely chosen when there are viable alternatives (and I say "rarely" taking into account total number of lines of code, not necessarily number of projects). Nevertheless, there are still some very important domains where such languages are needed, and Rust's adoption rate is low enough to suggest serious problems with it, too. When language X offers significant advantages over language Y, its adoption compared to Y is usually quite fast (which is why most languages get close to their peak adoption relatively quickly, i.e. within about a decade).

If we ignore external factors like experience and ecosystem size, Rust is a better language than C++, but not better enough to justify faster adoption, which is exactly what we're seeing. It's certainly gained some sort of foothold, but as it's already quite old, it's doubtful it will ever be as popular as C++ is now, let alone in its heydey. To get there, Rust's market share will need to grow by about a factor of 10 compared to what it is now, and while that's possible, if it does that it will have been the first language to ever do so at such an advanced age.
by y0eswddl | 2026-01-01 22:25:03+00:00
Honestly, as a non-sports loving male, it makes it much harder to build male friendships.

Not that its impossible, but the majority* of men get together to watch, play, or talk about sports the majority of the time... whereas I'm perfectly fine just hanging out where hanging out is the activity!

I eventually just stopped trying to invite most of my guy friends out for 1-1 meals, etc.

* hyperbole
by epistasis | 2026-01-01 22:25:08+00:00
My primary issue is that a system that did an OK job at dealing with low memory situations has been replaced with a completely inadequate system.

If your solution is "don't ever run out of memory" my solution is "I won't ever use your OS unless forced to."

Every other OS handles this better, and my work literally requires pushing the bounds of memory on the box, whether it's 64GB or 1TB of RAM. Killing an entire cgroup is never an acceptable solution, except for the long-running servers that systemd is meant to run.
by redrix | 2026-01-01 22:25:14+00:00
Wow the opening to this could have been written by me!

Solitude in your 30s (particularly as a DINK or SINK household) is dangerously addictive.

No need to leave the house… but it does lead one to feel disconnected more broadly over a prolonged period.

They’ll have to pry WFH out of my cold, dead hands; but I must say, the times I do travel to the office and spend a day chatting with people are incredibly energising (though also very unproductive!)
by neilv | 2026-01-01 22:25:20+00:00
> Shouldn't I be allowed to repurpose it for other uses than just a console when it becomes EOL?

Yes, once hardware becomes some kind of end-of-use, end-of-support, or end-of-life (exactly what, to-be-determined), the brand should be required to unlock any aspect that hasn't already been unlocked, so that people can reuse the hardware. (And maybe put the unlocks in escrow before then, in case the brand goes out of business.)

There are also situations in which hardware should be unlocked while within use and support. But probably not for a given gaming device, or not in a way that permits that hardware be used as the gaming device while unlocked.

Gaming consoles are a very rare thing that I want locked down, as long as I am sharing whatever pool of online gamers that device accesses. (Because online gaming has way too many people who haven't yet learned to play well with others, and cheating in multiplayer games is a thing that many do.)

And the fact that I have less control and ownership of a gaming device is one of the reasons why I use a dedicated device for gaming, and also isolate it on the guest VLAN.
by jonhohle | 2026-01-01 22:25:31+00:00
I hear this a lot, but have used Safari as my since it was launch in 2003.Performance has always been great. UI has always been minimalist, out of the way, and has never upsold me on anything. There are times where it lags and times where it leads standards. There may be a a site every now and then that doesn’t work, but iOS makes that less likely. The only thing I can ever think of is that it’s not <insert favorite browser> or doesn’t have <some favorite esoteric feature>.

That said, the only plugins I use are ad blockers, so maybe I’m missing something.
by bri3d | 2026-01-01 22:25:34+00:00
I mean, sure, but to what end does that madness lead? Who backs up the backups?

Usually this is to allow different departments / divisions / customers (in the case of an OEM model) to all sign code or encrypt binaries, although this is likewise a bit off as each enrolled key increases the amount of material which is available to leak in the leak model. Or to allow model line differentiation with crossover.
by xp84 | 2026-01-01 22:25:47+00:00
Chrome is the IE in that it’s all the web devs target or test and the browser that every enterprise just uses as the assumed target. Safari is the late-stage IE that doesn’t add any features or modern standards that its (supposed) competitors add. Although Apple seems to have different and more strategic reasons than MS did. Apple just hates the Web because they can’t effectively tollbooth it, whereas I think MS just didn’t care about investing in IE after 2001 or so.
by SideburnsOfDoom | 2026-01-01 22:25:48+00:00
The 5-10% number is completely invented. I doubt it's half as high as 5%, but until and unless someone does the maths, there's no point in speculating.

The math has been done many times for solar panels on the roof of cars, and it's not worthwhile. Ships are not the same though.

At any rate, it's inevitably far more sensible to put a larger solar panel + battery installation at a fixed place on land, and charge vehicles from that.
by crucialfelix | 2026-01-01 22:26:00+00:00
> Solar panel imports will reduce fuel imports. The savings from avoiding diesel can repay the cost of a solar panel within six months in Nigeria, and even less in other countries.
> The solar panels imported into Sierra Leone in the last 12 months, would generate electricity equivalent to 61% of the total reported 2023 electricity generation.

https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/the-first-evidence-...

A lot of people simply dont have electricity. They don't have grids. Night comes, it's dark. People are buying solar panels to get electricity directly. Now they can recharge lights during the day.

> China and India continue to build huge amounts of coal power.

One factor here is finance: companies make more money building coal plants. Banks loan the money so they can make money. Solar isn't as lucrative. It's the cheapest source of energy.
by concinds | 2026-01-01 22:26:24+00:00
I can't wait until regulators do their job and take away Apple's dictatorial control, in all areas, and all these doom-and-gloom predictions on all these tangential issues end up proving ludicrous.

What kind of control would Chrome have over the web? Adding APIs doesn't force the billions of websites to adopt them. So what if a website adds WebBluetooth? You don't want the web to have that anyway, and if you keep using Safari, you still won't have it. Happy you!

If scrappy Firefox on open platforms could save the web from 95% IE, then why are we all dependent on Apple, alone, to save us from ~60% Chrome? It's learned helplessness and Stockholm syndrome. I wonder how our species survived before the trillion-dollar company started taking such good care of us!
by saghm | 2026-01-01 22:26:32+00:00
I think it's also just how people start acting in situations where they can't control anything that would make a difference. In the presence of an issue you can't solve, if you can do something, even if it's small and won't really help, sometimes it feels good to at least do that. Being able to address the anxiety even a little a bit still might be worthwhile.
by jsheard | 2026-01-01 22:26:49+00:00
> After all, the most played competitive shooter is CS and Valve has does not use kernel-level AC.

Valve doesn't employ kernel AC but in practice others have taken that into their own hands - the prevalence of cheating on the official CS servers has driven the adoption of third-party matchmaking providers like FACEIT, which layer their own kernel AC on top of the game. The bulk of casual play happens on the former, but serious competitive play mostly happens on the latter.
by hecifato | 2026-01-01 22:26:52+00:00
I’ve been around the block with Linux distributions since 2020. I personally think that Bazzite is the way to go for most people coming from Windows, or people experienced with Linux that want something as close to “set and forget” as you can.

One thing that can be annoying is how quickly things have moved in the Linux gaming space over the past 5 years. I have been a part of conversations with coworkers who talk about how Linux gaming was in 2019 or 2020. I feel like anyone familiar with Linux will know the feeling of how quickly things can improve while documentation and public information cannot keep up.
by class3shock | 2026-01-01 22:27:08+00:00
Still no big CAD names that I'm aware of (annoyingly), Libre Calc works fine for me as an Excel alternative, I have used Matlab on it but not recently, not sure on the others.

Laptop sleep and suspend can still be finicky unfortunately.

I will say my experience using CAD or other CAE software on windows has gotten progressively worse over the years to the point that FEA is more stable on linux than on windows.

We do really need a Solidworks, Creo or NX on linux though. My hope has been that eventually something like Wine, Proton, or other efforts to bring windows games to linux will result in us getting the ability to run them. They are one of the last things holding me back from fully moving away from windows.