MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by kkfx | 2026-01-31 19:35:47+00:00
I don't consider myself a "believer" in anything, but as a sysadmin, if I see a deploy with ext4, I classify it as a newbie's choice or someone stuck in the 80s. It's not a matter of conviction; it's simply about managing your data:

- Transferable snapshots (zfs send) mean very low-cost backups and restores, and serious desktop users don't want to be down for half a day because a disk failed.

- A pool means effective low-cost RAID, and anyone in 2026 who isn't looking for at least a mirror for their desktop either doesn't care about their data or lacks the expertise to understand its purpose.

ZFS is the first real progress in storage since the 80s. It's the most natural choice for anyone who wants to manage their digital information. Unfortunately, many in the GNU/Linux world are stuck in another era and don't understand it. They are mostly developers whose data is on someone else's cloud, not on their own hardware. If they do personal backups, they do them halfway, without a proven restore strategy. They are average users, even if more skilled than average, who don't believe in disk failures or bit rot because they haven't experienced it personally, or if they have, they haven't stopped to think about the incident.

If you want to try out services and keep your desktop clean, you need a small, backup-able volume that can be sent to other machines eg. a home server, to be discarded once testing is done. If you want to efficiently manage storage because when something breaks, you don't want to spend a day manually reinstalling the OS and copying files by hand, you'll want ZFS with appropriate snapshots, whether managed with ZnapZend or something else doesn't really matter.

Unfortunately, those without operations experience don't care, don't understand. The possibility of their computer breaking isn't something they consider because in their experience it hasn't happened yet, or it's an exceptional event as exceptional that doesn't need automation. The idea of having an OS installed for 10 years, always clean, because every rebuild is a fresh-install and storage is managed complementarily, is alien to them. But the reality is that it's possible, and those who still understand operations really value it.

Those who don't understand it will hardly choose Guix or NixOS; they are people who play with Docker, sticking to "mainstream" distros like Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint, Arch. Those who choose declarative distros truly want to configure their infrastructure in text, IaC built-in into the OS, and truly have resilience, so their infrastructure must be able to resurrect from its configuration plus backups quickly and with minimal effort, because when something goes wrong, I have other things to think about than playing with the FLOSS toy of the moment.
by sandworm101 | 2026-01-31 19:35:49+00:00
From that footage we have absolutely no idea which pilot was flying, and certainly not what they were saying to each other.

We know they called "three green" to tower. It would be impossible to see three green with the gear up. Doing so would require a hundred one-in-a-billion things to happen all at once. So both pilots screwed up. In such a situation it is expected that the instructor/check pilot take over immediately.

Unannounced (ie surprise! Rather than a declared emergency) gear-up landings happen regularly and it always a pilot error.
by Analemma_ | 2026-01-31 19:35:54+00:00
You can do regular maintenance on concrete to keep it looking nice, but nobody wants to spend the money. Everyone understands that a wooden house exterior has to be repainted now and then, but thinks "concrete = no upkeep costs". Architects have complained bitterly about this for a while; I don't love brutalism but I can sort of see their point.
by mhitza | 2026-01-31 19:36:09+00:00
Mullvad seems to be one of those VPN providers. [1] Though I very much doubt they would sneakily make end-users devices exit nodes. Though, as a historical side note, let's not forget Skype used to make users computers act as a relay as well during its more decentralized days.

[1] Using the website mentioned by user Rasbora https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46837806
by csense | 2026-01-31 19:36:09+00:00
DNS is something you rarely change that has costly consequences if you mess it up: It can bring down an entire domain and keep it down until TTL passes.

If you set your TTL to an hour, it raises the costs of DNS issues a lot: A problem that you fix immediately turns into an hour-long downtime. A problem that you don't fix on the first attempt and have to iteratively try multiple fixes turns into an hour-per-iteration downtime.

Setting a low TTL is an extra packet and round-trip per connection; that's too cheap to meter [1].

When I first started administering servers I set TTL high to try to be a good netizen. Then after several instances of having to wait a long time for DNS to update, I started setting TTL low. Theoretically it causes more friction and resource usage but in practice it really hasn't been noticeable to me.

[1] For the vast majority of companies / applications. I wouldn't be surprised to learn someone somewhere has some "weird" application where high TTL is critical to their functionality or unit economics but I would be very surprised if such applications were relevant to more than 5% of websites.
by AstroNutt | 2026-01-31 19:36:21+00:00
I've thought that too... especially Bluetooth. I know it's possible with
Wi-Fi signal strength.

Is it a coincidence most smartphone manufacturers were suddenly all on board with removing the 3.5mm jack and forced Bluetooth?
A mesh network of sorts like Amazon is doing with Ring.
I even sometimes forget to save my battery and turn Bluetooth off when I'm not using my earbuds. It's probably a false sense of security having it disabled because I'm sure it's doing something in the background anyways. I can't say for sure though.
Kind of like years ago with Google getting caught with the whole location data thing.
I'm sure the average Joe doesn't care if Bluetooth is enabled 24/7.

I try and not be on the tin foil bandwagon, but every once and a while I come across things that make you go hmmm...
by zkmon | 2026-01-31 19:36:36+00:00
Teachers are also heavy users of AI. Entire academic business staff is using AI.

The goals of academic assessment need to change. What are they assessing and why? Knowledge retention skills? Knowledge correlations or knowledge expression skills? None of these going to be useful or required from humans. Just like the school kids are now allowed to use calculators in the exam halls.

The academic industry need to redefine their purpose. Identify the human abilities that are needed for the future that is filled with AI and devices. Teach that and assess that.
by gruez | 2026-01-31 19:36:45+00:00
>So a high latency connection

It's hard to take the rest of your comment seriously when you're starting your comment off with this. Independent reviews says latency is in the 20-30ms range. That's in the same range (if not better) than cellular internet, and even though coax/DSL might lower, you won't really notice unless you're a competitive esports streamer or running a HFT bot out of your basement.
by beloch | 2026-01-31 19:37:40+00:00
HN has upvotes, downvotes, and people chasing them for exposure, just like Reddit. The biggest difference is the lack of subs. Everything goes into the same category so you can't have highly specialized echo chambers. The moderators also seem to be a touch more professional.

HN is absolutely social media and it does have some of the dark patterns that plague other platforms. They're just more reigned in. A change in moderation policy or new moderators could destroy this site in a week.

I personally don't think kids need to be banned from participating here. However, the law is often a blunt instrument and it's probably better to get kids off of Facebook and HN if distinctions cannot be made.
by prakashn27 | 2026-01-31 19:37:42+00:00
Ex-WhatsApp engineer here. WhatsApp team makes so much effort to make this end to end encrypted messages possible. From the time I worked I know for sure it is not possible to read the encrypted messages.

From business standpoint they don’t have to read these messages, since WhatsApp business API provide the necessary funding for the org as a whole.
by BugsJustFindMe | 2026-01-31 19:38:01+00:00
> It manages to probably hurt some wrists not used to long handwriting sessions

I'm sorry but, lmao. You cannot be serious.

> attribute AI

Oh no!

> still probably just results in kids handwriting AI generated slop

Not if they're doing it in person. And at least they then need to look at it.
by echelon | 2026-01-31 19:38:20+00:00
110%.

No website of any kind should require IDV unless banking. It is a tool that will be used for censorship, removal of access to information, destruction of freedom of speech, erosion of privacy, and attacks on political opponents.

We need anonymity, ephemerality, and public square free speech.

Governments should instead regulate what these companies can do. How they advertise. Engagement algorithms. Stop internal efforts to target kids. Etc.

Disallow advertising to kids. Turn off ads on children's accounts if the user is predicted or self reports as a kid. Turn off the algorithm for kids.
by behole | 2026-01-31 19:38:44+00:00
I made this comment in another thread butttt: I installed and setup (then) clawd bot all willy nilly and paid the price. Woke up in the AM and Clawd had been replying to ANY and ALL of my iMessages. It even got in a circle conversation that it accused itself of mocking ... itself. In the AM, I thought I was losing my mind - DID I WRITE ALL THIS SHIT?? Proceed with caution.
by SketchySeaBeast | 2026-01-31 19:40:58+00:00
> invoking “illegal in some states” -- without naming conduct and statute -- is just noise.

Ok, sure[1]. I don't know why I am, but I'm surprised people are going to bat for this. Where is your line, exactly? Is it legality? Is it further along?

[1] https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2026/01/california...
by jopsen | 2026-01-31 19:40:58+00:00
The something in question is bombing. Didn't Israel and the US try that last year?

Maybe the objective wasn't regime, but I doubt more bombs will do that? Not after so many years of sanctions.

Sadly, I don't see any positive outcome, short of the regime gracefully collapsing on itself.

Hardening sanctions won't do Iranians any good, but it will make the country poorer and less able to inflict violence on other countries. Which is guess is the logic.

And following the export of drones to Russia, I doubt Europe, which has previously been in favor of fewer sanctions, will oppose more sanctions on Iran.

If only the US administration had friends, they could do something with sanctions. But I guess useless bombing it is, or maybe just nothing -- this is Trump after all.

Sadly, I doubt it matters either way.
The regime sponsors terrorism, not reason they wouldn't do it at home.
by jeroenhd | 2026-01-31 19:41:13+00:00
Using LTE Timing Advance feature, especially on 5G, accuracy can be much higher.

https://5g-tools.com/5g-nr-timing-advance-ta-distance-calcul... shows an example of the parameters necessary. I don't think you can get your smartphone to dump those stats for you, but the granularity of the individual distance measurement is in the tens of centimeters.

Of course this strongly depends on cell infrastructure being placed precisely, continuously updating correction factors, and a bunch of antennae being around the target to get measurements for, but in most cities that isn't much of a challenge if the operator is working together with whoever wants to spy on citizens.
by quesera | 2026-01-31 19:41:30+00:00
I'm not sure what we disagree about here.

Obfuscated code is sometimes harder to unravel in its orginal form than the decompiled form. Decompiled code is often a mess with no guideposts, but that's just a matter of time and patience to fix. It's genuinely difficult to write code that decompiles into deceptive appearances.

Original position is that it'd be difficult to hide side channel leakage of chat messages in the WhatsApp mobile app. I have not worked on the WhatsApp app, but if it's anything like the mobile apps I have analyzed, I think this is the correct position.

If the WhatsApp mobile apps are hairballs of obfuscation and misdirection, I would be a) very surprised, and b) highly suspicious. Since I don't do this work every day any more, I haven't thought much about it. But there are so many people who do this work every day, and WhatsApp is so popular, I'd be genuinely shocked if there were fewer than hundreds of people who have lightly scanned the apps for anything hairbally that would be worth further digging. Maybe I'm wrong and WhatsApp is special though. Happy to be informed if so.
by lm28469 | 2026-01-31 19:41:42+00:00
This is good for bitcoin /s

When silver is behaving like a shitcoin you know we're in for a fun ride. I think the fact that anyone with a phone can now download countless apps that allows them to """invest""" with leverage &co was a mistake. My bank app now advertises memecoins as a way to build "wealth"...
by wodenokoto | 2026-01-31 19:42:41+00:00
I would highly recommend the 2006 deaths note films.

I found the manga and anime to have too many side stories. Fans of them love these near miss stories, but I found them like a bunch of dead ends.

The double feature is well made and much more focused on the core story, imho

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Note_(2006_film)
by promiseofbeans | 2026-01-31 19:43:19+00:00
They made C memory safe? This is a big thing to gloss over in a single paragraph. Does anyone have extra details on this?

> On devices with iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 or later, Apple modified the C compiler toolchain used to build the iBoot bootloader to improve its security. The modified toolchain implements code designed to prevent memory- and type-safety issues that are typically encountered in C programs. For example, it helps prevent most vulnerabilities in the
following classes:

> • Buffer overflows, by ensuring that all pointers carry bounds information that’s verified
when accessing memory

> • Heap exploitation, by separating heap data from its metadata and accurately detecting error conditions such as double free errors

> • Type confusion, by ensuring that all pointers carry runtime type information that’s verified during pointer cast operations

> • Type confusion caused by use after free errors, by segregating all dynamic memory allocations by static type
by bobjordan | 2026-01-31 19:43:48+00:00
Here is my view after putting in my 10,000+ hours learning to code pre-llm days, while also building a pretty complex design + contract manufacturing company, with a lot of processes in place for that to happen. If you have a bunch of human junior devs and even a senior dev or two that join your org to help you build an app, and you don't have any dev/ops structure in place for them, then you will end up with "spaghetti" throughout all your code/systems, from those relatively bright humans. Its the same managing agents. It cannot be expected to build a complex system from simple "one shot me a <x> feature" from a bunch of different agents, each with a finite ~150k token context limit. It must be done in context of the system you have in place. If you have a poor/no system structure, you'll end up with garbage for code.
by kkfx | 2026-01-31 19:43:49+00:00
You have a statistical point of view that doesn't go into detail enough: yes, Debian, Ubuntu, Mint are mainstream distros and use ext by default. The vast majority of their users are also mainstream users and would never approach declarative distros, which are alien to them.

Those who choose going declarative instead are people with operations knowledge, who understand the value of a system ready to be built, modified, and rebuilt with minimal effort thanks to the IaC built into the OS, who understand the value of their data and therefore babysit them properly. The average user of Debian, Ubuntu, Mint today doesn't even have a backup, uses someone else's cloud. If they run experiments, they waste storage with Docker, or use manually managed VPSs; they don't own a complete infrastructure, let alone a modern one.

So thinking about them for Guix means never letting it take off, because those users will never be Guix users. ZFS is the opposite of complicated; it's what you need to live comfortably when you know how to use it, which unfortunately isn't mainstream, and declarative distros do the same.

NixOS succeeds despite the indigestible Nix language because it offers what's needed to be comfortable to those who know. Guix remains niche not because of GNU philosophy but because it doesn't do the same, not offering what those coming from operations are looking for and they are the most potential realist target users.
by somethingsome | 2026-01-31 19:43:57+00:00
In Europe at least, many insurances cover it if you have the right criterias.

From my visits, they mostly focus on children that have some very nasty cancers, the IBA hospitals are all designed with children in mind (to avoid stressing them), and from my memory, a unique hospital is often enough to treat a whole country for the kind of cancer they target.

Now, if it is on par with classical radiotherapy BUT it gives less subsequent problems, it might be worth the cost as subsequent problems can be as expensive or even more than the original treatment. It becomes an actuarial issue to know where is the treadoff.
by Telemakhos | 2026-01-31 19:44:36+00:00
> If there's no profit to be made in servicing said demographic and a law requesting at least end user 'agreement' that they are an adult, this should be sufficient.

Is it still advertising if an "influencer" takes money on the down low to sip a Pepsi not too obviously in the middle of a video?

Is it still advertising if an attractive and young person provides news that happens to be colored in a way that supports the narratives of a particular political faction?

Is it still advertising if you can't prove that a foreign power encouraged a popular yoga enthusiast or makeup artist to post some whispered ideas that weaken citizens' faith in your institutions? Does that foreign power ever care about profit?

Advertising and propaganda love to explore the grey spaces around definitions, so your bans will end up being a whack-a-mole game. Cutting off kids with an ID check is much easier. Implementing age verification the Apple way would even protect privacy by simply registering whether Apple can attest that the user is over or under the age limit, without handing the ID over to third parties.
by SkipperCat | 2026-01-31 19:45:05+00:00
Social media is not designed to keep you informed. Its designed to keep you engaged because that helps them sell ads. And the best way to keep you engaged is to keep you enraged. I've seen in the US how social media has been used push false narratives, hate and other falsehoods. Its toxic.

If you really want to stay informed, there are plenty of newspapers, NGOs and other organizations out there reporting the truth.
by adamzwasserman | 2026-01-31 19:45:32+00:00
I have written a research paper on another interesting prompting technique that I call axiomatic prompting. On objectively measurable tasks, when an AI scores below 70%, including clear axioms in the prompt systematically increases success.

In coding this would convert to: when trying to impose a pattern or architecture that is different enough from the "mid" programming approach that the AI is compelled to use, including axioms about the approach (in a IF this THEN than style, as opposed to few shot examples) will improve success.

The key is the 70% threshold: if the model already has enough training data, axioms hurt. If the model is underperforming because the training set did -not- have enough examples (for example hyperscript), axioms helps.
by paxys | 2026-01-31 19:45:54+00:00
Whether the price goes up or down from here, one notion has been sufficiently shattered over the last couple of years - that Bitcoin is a stable source of value that acts has a hedge against inflation and currency control by governments. While assets like gold and silver have surged in the same time period due to political and economic uncertainty, as one may expect, Bitcoin has gone in the opposite direction and has been driven more by hype cycles and a small number of whales rather than any fundamentals.
by GeoAtreides | 2026-01-31 19:46:51+00:00
oh hey, let's have a thought experiment in this world with no IP rules

suppose I write a webnovel that I publish for free on the net, and I solicit donations. Kinda like what's happening today anyway.

Now suppose I'm not good at marketing, but this other guy is. He takes my webnovel, changes some names, and publishes it online under his name. He is good at social media and marketing, and so makes a killing from donations. I don't see a dime. People accuse me of plagiarism. I have no legal recourse.

Is this fair?
by loeg | 2026-01-31 19:47:03+00:00
It's not really obvious to me whether he control over the plane such that he could have made a difference to whether the plane interacted with humans on the ground, or not.

> Both investigations concluded that most highly experienced pilots with similar levels of experience in an F-35 would have punched out of the plane.

I don't think the article supports your conclusion definitively. Ultimately, we don't really know how controllable the aircraft was or how well instruments were working. (I'm sure the military has a somewhat better sense of this, but we don't have their unredacted internal reports.) In general it is very challenging to fly aircraft without instruments in cloudy conditions, and the risk is particularly high low to the ground.
by cvhc | 2026-01-31 19:47:16+00:00
As a native Mandarin speaker, I always think the most difficult feature in English (and a few other European languages, like French) are the rich vowels. Like done vs down, beat vs bit, trailing dark l vs -ou/-u sound, and frequent vowel reduction in speech. Even worse, different English dialects randomly shift vowels (maybe like how Mandarin dialects use different tones). Neither my ear nor my mouth is tuned. From Wikipedia "English phonology":

> The number of vowels is subject to greater variation; in the system presented on this page there are 20–25 vowel phonemes in Received Pronunciation, 14–16 in General American and 19–21 in Australian English.

Native English speakers, if they are not teachers, tend to underestimate the challenge. I see YouTube videos that the western Chinese learner hypothesizes Spanish is most difficult for Chinese to learn because of the RR consonant -- I learned Spanish casually for a few years and I disagree. RR is difficult to pronounce, but I can clearly hear it and I won't confuse it with a different sound. In contrast to English, Spanish vowels are so easy.
by oceanplexian | 2026-01-31 19:47:26+00:00
Yes, I’m running it with a minimal set of plugins.

When I’m driving or out I can ask Siri to send a iMessage to Clawdbot something like “Can you find out if anything is playing at the local concert venue, and figure in how much 2 tickets would cost”, and a few minutes later it will give me a few options. It even surprised me and researched the different seats and recommended a cheaper one or free activities as an alternative that weekend.

Basically: This is the product that Apple and Google were unable to build despite having billions of dollars and thousands of engineers because it’s a threat to their business model.

It also runs on my own computer, and the latest frontier open source models are able to drive it (Kimi, etc). The future is going to be locally hosted and ad free and there’s nothing Big Tech can do about it. It’s glorious.