MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by saurabhjain1592 | 2026-01-13 21:30:02+00:00
Thanks, this is a great question.

We intentionally avoid framing guardrails as “X percent confidence” checks on prompts or model output. In practice, probabilistic confidence at the text level has been the weakest place to enforce safety, especially once workflows become multi step and stateful.

AxonFlow’s non human guardrails are primarily deterministic and context grounded rather than model judgment based. Concretely, they focus on:

- authorization checks on actions, tools, and write paths rather than output quality

- permission evaluation per step using actual tool arguments and proposed side effects

- invariant checks on state transitions, for example whether an action is allowed given what the system has observed so far

- policy decisions that can halt execution entirely rather than degrade or retry

We do use probabilistic components in narrow, explicit places such as PII detection or risk classification, but those always feed into a deterministic policy decision. The system never proceeds because a model “seems confident enough.”

Human approval gates are not there because non human guardrails are insufficient in principle. They exist because some actions are intentionally irreversible or high blast radius, and no amount of model confidence should bypass explicit authorization.

So the distinction we draw is less about validating LLM output and more about deciding whether the system is allowed to move forward at all, given the concrete context and constraints at that moment.
by pchew | 2026-01-13 21:30:07+00:00
Inrush is exactly what it says it is, it's inrush current. When you have a sudden surge on something, that's inrush. Lots of appliances in your home have a large inrush, much larger than the breaker they're on. Inrush happens faster than a breaker trips, which doesn't matter when you're on the grid and the inrush is lower than your mainbreaker, it matters when you have an inverter in the way with a passthrough limit and an inrush limit. Typical central HVAC units have LRA over 100 amps.

If we're talking about 'doesn't even matter with a 4kw array' well, hell, how the hell you gonna charge ~40kwh of battery with solar array that nominally produces 20kwh a day on its best day, assuming all conditions are perfect?

Backfeed is what the inverter can push out from the battery to the home. It's the size of the tube coming from the gallons of water reservoir. EG4 18k has a tiny tube, no matter how much battery you put on it. Like emptying a 50 gallon drum with a drinking straw(and with the 4kw array, filling it with a 12 oz cup).
by yfw | 2026-01-13 21:30:11+00:00
I used to be very motivated to do the right thing but the culture at my company doesnt reward it and actually actively seems to be promoting bad practices e.g. not documenting. Now I also dgaf.

You dont necessarily need managers but you do need someone to set expectations and keep the team accountable. Otherwise its a race to the bottom. There's no way for me as a single engineer to undo slop faster than its generated.
by Anamon | 2026-01-13 21:30:19+00:00
That's another one for concluding that there's nothing new under the sun. This is the exact dynamic that happened during the offshoring hype.

Now, it's expecting senior engineers to "orchestrate" 10 coding agents, then it was expecting them to orchestrate 10 cheap developers on the other side of the world. Then, the reckoning came when those offshore developers realised that if they produced code as good as that of a "1st world" engineer, they can ask a similar salary, too, and those offshoring clients who didn't want to pay up were left with those contractors who weren't good enough to do that. This time, it will be agent pricing approaching the true costs. Both times, the breaking point is when managers realise that writing code was never the bottleneck in the first place.
by throw310822 | 2026-01-13 21:30:22+00:00
> Is that not an extreme overreaction?

It is indeed, but I think it makes sense to see it in the context of the culture wars. You can be upset at 47% of respondents to a poll disagreeing or being unsure that it's ok to be from your ethnic group; but that compounds with being upset at the perceived folly of a cultural movement that denies this is wrong or even encourages this way of thinking. It's the usual polarization mechanism, where apparent extremism of one side is so upsetting that it fuels or justifies an equally extreme reaction on the other.

So again, I don't think it makes sense to judge these statements in a vacuum as if they were well thought and considered. They are momentary angry reactions to a perceived wrong.
by GuinansEyebrows | 2026-01-13 21:30:36+00:00
"if AI tells the truth, please give an example of AI telling the truth blatantly."

you can't. an LLM chatbot has no concept of truth, or reasonableness, or blatantness. you're willing to accept a distillation of tokens that may or may not form a truthful statement based on probability, with no intent or understanding behind it.
by webology | 2026-01-13 21:31:12+00:00
Nodding along with everything you wrote here, but one minor point for anyone who might read the bylaws and get confused. https://www.python.org/psf/bylaws/

> Section 5.15. Limits on Co-affiliation of Board Members. No more than one quarter (1/4) of the members of the Board of Directors may share a common affiliation as defined in Section 5.14.

The PSF allows three board members to share an affiliation, 13 seats * 0.25 ~= 3.25. T

BH, that's one too many, and I helped write/recommend the original language. When I was on the board, three felt like too many, even though everyone was wonderful, and it was Google, not Microsoft, that hit the limit.

The DSF (Django Software Foundation) recently adopted a two-person limit, which I recommend more boards consider.
by pyrale | 2026-01-13 21:31:14+00:00
> I know several top 1% engineers in the Valley who disengage from recruiting processes when 996 or something similar is mentioned.

A few years back, on this board, 996 was something people made fun of when it was reported that some Chinese companies did it [1].

And now, the strongest claim this blog can make is that some engineers in the US would disengage from recruiting? That the issue with working on saturdays is daily standup? What happened in these years for such a change to happen?!

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19507620
by ronsor | 2026-01-13 21:31:20+00:00
This basically reflects my observations.

> Games Workshop elects not to experience multi-year headache. Will use AI when profitable.

Indeed, companies will always start using something if it makes financial sense for them.

> One thing I've found when talking to non-technical board gamers about AI is that while they 100% against using AI to generate art or game design, when you ask them about using AI tools to build software or websites the response is almost always something like "Programmers are expensive, I can't afford that. If I can use AI to cut programmers out of the process I'm going to do it."

This is because they don't view programming as a "creative" form of labor. I think this is an incorrect view, but this knowledge is at least useful in weighting their opinions.

The most interesting observation is that regardless of how "anti-AI" most people seem to be, it isn't that deep of an opinion. Their stated preference is they don't want any AI anywhere, but their revealed preference is they'll continue to spend money as long as the product is good. Most products produced with AI, however, are still crap.
by dgxyz | 2026-01-13 21:31:28+00:00
Agree with all of this, apart from possibly OneDrive but that's for another post.

Not Apple-specific really that point for sure anyway. Personally I don't think we should ever ever trust any vendor to control our data or act as a proxy for access to it. If it's not on a physical disk in your hands, in a format which is documented and can be opened by more than one application, then you're one step away from being screwed. There are so many tangible risks we love to sweep under the rug from geopolitics, commercial stability, security, bugs to unexpected side effects. And I've seen some real horror stories on all of those fronts.

At the same time I managed to embed myself thoroughly in it and I'm 3 months in to undoing the mess. It's VERY hard to get back to files on disk. No moving away from that is probably the best option I suspect a lot of us never took.

Hardest stuff to get out of is iCloud/Apple and Adobe.
by cmrdporcupine | 2026-01-13 21:31:35+00:00
Yep people have all sorts of sources of motivations. One of the key ones is a sense of ownership. Many people join startups instead of BigCorp because they want voice and influence that they don't get in a larger company. I've seen so many founders, managers, leaders, etc kill that by not recognizing this fundamental fact.

Of course there's also the problem that you can find and hire people who are motivated people but there's absolutely no guarantee people are going to be motivated for your specific problem.
by caminante | 2026-01-13 21:31:43+00:00
My point remains (and that I learned) is efficacy in rodent studies is more than just "in vitro" or quackery.

>layperson to worry about, either.

We're not talking about laypeople without money nor access to pursue. Adams had money, access, and desperation.

Society would love to put this to bed, but pharma typically avoids funding RCTs for out-of-patent/cheap drugs so we may never get the answer.
by crazygringo | 2026-01-13 21:31:45+00:00
> do not adopt all the "Scrum rituals" like standups, retros, etc. wholesale, and if you do, keep them asynchronous. There is little added value to a voiced update

I couldn't disagree more. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but when standups are done synchronously, everyone actually pays attention, notices blocks and helps with them. Things get surfaced and quickly addressed that simply wouldn't otherwise, which is the purpose of standups. When it's async, people just put in what they're working on and mostly ignore everyone else. Standups need to be about 2-way communication, not 1-way.

And retrospectives are about improving how the team works. Every team has challenges of every kind. Retrospectives are for surfacing those and addressing them. They take up a couple hours a week, but the idea is that after several months the team is more productive and it pays for itself in time.

> Organic 1:1s (as opposed to recurring ones): keep them topic-heavy and ad-hoc, as opposed to relationship maintenance like in the corporate world.

Also disagree. 1-1's aren't about "relationship maintenance", again they're about surfacing issues that wouldn't arise organically -- all the little things that aren't worth scheduling a conversation over, but which need to be addressed for smooth functioning.

At the end of the day, managing a team is managing a team. In terms of managing people, it's not fundamentally that different if you're a 10-engineer startup or a team of 10 engineers at a megacorp. These things aren't "anti-patterns" or "rituals". When done correctly, they work. (Obviously, if done badly, they don't -- so if you're managing a team, do them correctly.)
by butlike | 2026-01-13 21:31:49+00:00
I hear you and feel you on this being a hard (hardest) pill to swallow, and I think I have a helpful phrase. It helped me quite a bit so I hope it helps you:

'For the love of the game.'

When you don't make any money and no one comes to your shows; when the booking emails go unanswered and the likes on soundcloud remain <10, just remember why you picked up the instrument in the first place. For the love of the game.
by _DeadFred_ | 2026-01-13 21:31:55+00:00
Judicial, i.e. the courts. What isn't judicial is law enforcement determining/imposing sentences on their own, at the scene of 'crime'.

One is a system of laws and justice.

The other, which you are arguing in defense of, is a police state with unchecked authority given to police/no system of balance.

What you are defending is an un-American policing system.
by jesterswilde | 2026-01-13 21:32:15+00:00
I feel like part of the difference is how art vs code is viewed. You could make the argument code is art, though most don't have that stance. Visual art and music tend to be made by a few people, there is ego involved, you care who the artist is. Code tends to be made by shops and consumers don't know who the coders are. Programmers are already faceless.

I think it's also about money. Places code and code samples are stored tend to be large companies that are in tech and on the AI hype wagon. Bandcamp is not one of those places.
by quacker | 2026-01-13 21:32:24+00:00
Using git history as documentation is hacky. A majority of feature branch commit messages aren't useful ("fix test case X", "fix typo", etc), especially when you are accepting external contributions. IF I wanted to use git history as a form of documentation (I don't. I want real documentation pages), I'd want the history curated into meaningful commits with descriptive commit messages, and squash merging is a great way to achieve that. Git bisect is not the only thing I do with git history after all.

And if I'm using GitHub/Gitlab, I have pull requests that I can look back on which basically retain everything I want from a feature branch and more (like peer review discussion, links to passing CI tests, etc). Using the Github squash merge approach, every commit in the main branch refers back to a pull request, which makes this super nice.
by dennis_jeeves2 | 2026-01-13 21:32:31+00:00
You have no idea how many people think that...

( and rightfully so. Most black people in America are told repeatedly that EVERY failure they have had, can be directly attributed to the everyday common white guy. Nothing the white guy does will be interpreted positively. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. So it's better to choose the latter)
by RIMR | 2026-01-13 21:33:05+00:00
AI-generated music is novel, but like images and videos, I think of it almost exclusively as a novelty. I haven't heard any AI-generated music that I like in a real way. Just stuff that sounds like something I like.

The real value AI has for music is discovery. I've been using Gemini and ChatGPT to build playlists based on music I already like, and discovering lots of fun new tracks. I can be really specific about what kind of music I like and don't like. I can show it a playlist I already made, and ask it to make one like it, but with completely different artists. It's insanely useful!

But these kinds of tools would just expand how many different artists Spotify has to pay from my streaming, and that doesn't do the same thing as shoving cheap mass-produced slop down our throats, so it isn't surprising what they offer us.
by pyrale | 2026-01-13 21:33:05+00:00
> But some people do wish to participate in an early stage startup

You don't need to push yourself into burnout as an employee in order to participate in an early stage startup.

> earning €80k

80k€ gross is not a lot for a decent SWE in western europe. The reason people complain in Amsterdam is not the hours, it's that your comp is shit.
by tombert | 2026-01-13 21:33:58+00:00
I feel similar.

Dilbert came out a bit before I was born, so from my perspective it always existed. Even before I had ever had any kind of office job, I was reading the Dilbert comics and watching the cartoon series, and had even read The Dilbert Principle.

It was upsetting that he ended up with such horrible viewpoints later in his life, and they aren’t really forgivable, but as you stated it’s sort of like a relative you grew up with dying.

I really hate my grandmother, because she has repeatedly said very racist stuff to my wife, so I haven’t talked to her in since 2018, and the only communication that I have had with her was a series of increasingly nasty emails we exchanged after she called my mother a “terrible parent” because my sister is gay, where I eventually told her that she “will die sad and alone with her only friend being Fox News”.

It is likely that I will never say anything to her ever again; she is in her 90s now, and not in the greatest health from my understanding. When she kicks the bucket in a few years, I think I am going to have similar conflicts.

Despite me hating her now, it’s not like all my memories with her were bad. There are plenty of happy memories too, and I am glad to have those, but it doesn’t automatically forgive the horrible shit she has said to my wife and mother and sister.

I have thought about reaching out, but I cannot apologize for anything I said because I am not sorry for anything I said, and I do not apologize for things unless I actually regret them.

Dunno, relationships and psychology are complex and I can’t pretend to say I understand a damn thing about how my brain works.
by DiabloD3 | 2026-01-13 21:34:13+00:00
Huh.

All of those share similar traits: the lines are excessively soft in many cases. They're rendered in linear space and then baked to the target gamma ramp, instead of being rendered in sigmoidal space (or some other psudeo-sharpening/pixel-aligning w/o sharpening methodology).

The font in Numbers is extremely misrendered, that's soft even for Core Text standards. Its as if it had absolutely no hinting applied, instead of the kind they use that approximates Freetype's "light" hinting.

The Terminal.app one is okay, but not amazing, as you can see slight misshapen stems, such as in the M for Makefile.

So, I'm not sure the monitor was at fault, but given the "clear and sharp" nature of OLEDs, it certainly magnified the effect.
by JohnFen | 2026-01-13 21:34:16+00:00
> Electronic music made it so you didn’t have to learn to play an instrument. Auto tune made it so you didn’t have to learn how to sing on key.

Neither of those things are really true, though. They made it possible to make poor music without learning those things, I suppose, but not make good music.

> Banning the new types of art

Nobody is seriously talking about banning AI generated music. What you're seeing is a platform deciding that AI generated music isn't something that platform is into. There are a lot of different platforms out there.
by Barrin92 | 2026-01-13 21:34:19+00:00
I'm an engineer and I don't exactly know a lot of engineers who think you can manifest alternative realities into existence with the power of quantum physics, on account of most of us having passed a physics class or two

He always seemed like the archetypal "Californian creative who fried his brain with psychedelics and new age woo-woo in the 70s" type
by autoexec | 2026-01-13 21:34:30+00:00
I'm not saying they are doing it now, but what's stopping them from generating their own tracks? What's to stop them from creating some bullshit company to generate AI slop and then licensing music from themselves at fractions of what they'd pay a real artist just to keep up the illusion so that real artists don't leave their platform?

If a corporation can do something that will make them more money than they'd make not doing it you should expect them to do the profitable thing. Corporations don't care about ethics or even the law. Maximizing shareholder value is their purpose. They exist only to take from the many and give to the few. It's not a conspiracy theory to assume that they'll be doing exactly what they are designed to do.
by bluebarbet | 2026-01-13 21:34:31+00:00
>All of these let you use a custom domain, which you should do. Buy yourname.com. It costs ten dollars a year and your writing will live at an address you control, regardless of what happens to any particular platform.

I used to tell this to anyone who would listen. I changed my mind.

For an individual, renting and managing one's own domain is a costly PITA that gets you less than nothing in return. I've done it for a quarter of a century. The UX of DNS hasn't improved (it's still impossible for normies). Registrars' prices haven't dropped. The security hazards of artisanal hosting are more real than ever. And even if you take the hosting package, your custom domain still carries a fatal weakness: stop paying and it goes away in short order.

And for what? Your blog will be indexed by search engines wherever it is. Moreover, it will be archived by the Internet Archive wherever it is, and - let's be honest - the IA is where your writing is going to survive if anywhere at all. Custom domains are not just vain, they're ephemeral. Certainly more so than, say, the domain of a blogging platform that's managed by a non-profit.

A domain represents an ongoing maintenance commitment and cost. By definition, such things are better managed by groups than by individuals. For the purpose of a personal blog, where no financial interests are at stake, there's only one possible reason to get a custom domain: vanity.
by wk_end | 2026-01-13 21:34:33+00:00
> while they 100% against using AI to generate art or game design, when you ask them about using AI tools to build software or websites the response is almost always something like "Programmers are expensive, I can't afford that. If I can use AI to cut programmers out of the process I'm going to do it."

Three things:

1. People simply don't respect programming as a creative, human endeavour. Replacing devs with AI is viewed in the same way as replacing assembly line workers with robots.

2. Somewhat informed people might know that for coding tasks, LLMs are broadly trained on code that was publicly shared to help people out on Reddit or SO or as part of open-source projects (the nuance of, say, the GPL will be lost). Whereas the art is was trained on is, broadly speaking, copywritten.

3. And, related to two: people feel great sympathy for artists, since artists generally struggle quite a bit to make a living. Whereas engineers have solid, high paying white collar jobs; thus, they're not considered entitled to any kind of sympathy or support.
by gerdemb | 2026-01-13 21:34:40+00:00
Yes — in Apple Photos the manually edited date/time is not written back into the image or video file. It’s stored separately in the Photos library database, which is why tools like Immich usually fall back to the original capture date in EXIF / QuickTime metadata.

Photos Backup Anywhere does handle this case: it reads the adjusted date from the Photos library and stores that modified timestamp in its own SQLite database, linked to the backed-up file, so the edited date isn’t lost even though the file itself isn’t rewritten.
by apitman | 2026-01-13 21:34:43+00:00
Here's a few I care about:

* Boots almost instantly into a usable system

* I can read and understand every line of code that is running

* I can understand all of the hardware it's running on

We've gotten so used to computers not working. Weird stuff breaks all the time and even experts can only guess why beyond turning it off and on again, which takes minutes for most devices.

I dream of a world where we trust computers to work and be fast. It's completely possible, but step one is reducing complexity by several orders of magnitude.