MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by brk | 2026-01-13 19:09:12+00:00
You are right. Also, it's not just data from the US, it's data from around the world. It also comes in real-time or near real-time, so you gain insight into where drones are actively flying. If you've managed to fingerprint interesting users in some way, you now have stats on where they are, what they are deeming interesting to look at, and so on. You're also getting much better imagery and views of things you are not going to get from a satellite.

This is not about recreating google maps data. The US banning DJI drones is really a necessity at this point. It's not a complete solution to the problems at hand, but there is no point in supporting China in this way.
by Archio | 2026-01-13 19:09:16+00:00
I don’t know if you are American, but I am. Sure, I don’t support Iran giving Hamas weapons. The issue is that Iran isn’t my government and they certainly don’t give a fuck about my opinion.

The human tragedy in Gaza is enabled directly by MY representatives and funded with MY tax money and given diplomatic cover for atrocities again and again by MY government. Nothing my country is doing enables what is happening in Iran right now.

The situation is less pronounced with Europeans, but not dissimilar. The EU has sanctions on Iran, unless I’m missing something? And frankly yes, if American support for Israel ceased I think Europeans would complain less because Israel would have to stop a lot of their behavior.
by Huntsecker | 2026-01-13 19:09:49+00:00
no, actually not, maybe a country that isnt very pro America given you're threatening to invade to take ownership of Greenland. But again in my post, the actual loss of life etc is very sad and shouldn't happen, but my point was more tech was one area where politics were left at the door and maybe I'm old but its sad I guess to see it here too.
by 112233 | 2026-01-13 19:10:04+00:00
Not really. If I plug up and frob-a-knob (real or emulated) eurorack at random to just see what happens, the resulting hour long noise will be described as experimental, boring, profound, piece of trash etc. (e.g. check reviews on Beaubourg by Vangelis) It is not going to be put on the same spot as AI slop.

While intent of course is important, the quantity and manner of taking others' work and calling it my own, I thing, plays even bigger role. If I go "hey check out this Bohemian Rhapsody song I just created using Google Search", I do not think much regard will be given to my intent.
by jaredklewis | 2026-01-13 19:10:25+00:00
Yes, the US is not the center of the universe and there’s lots of room for different perspectives, but there is nothing good that can be said about the regime in Iran.

China, for sure there a lot of good that can be said about the Chinese government. Of course China’s human rights abuses have to be recognized, but we should also recognize the good things like economic and technological development. And I’m sympathetic to Taiwanese independence, but China’s own position should also be give a fair shake. Pretty much all governments, including the US, are a mix of good and bad.

But name one redeeming point of the regime in Iran. Why have any sympathy for the regime at all?
by moritzwarhier | 2026-01-13 19:10:26+00:00
I'm not sure about the flag :D but I've had pretty good results with always making sure to flag every artist in AI suggestions with "don't play". You have to visit the artist profile pages to do it though, so it remains a cat and mouse game, but I think that as long as they don't prevent it by force, doing this tends to improve the AI suggestions (of non-AI music).

Similar to YouTube slop.

If that would stop working, I'd cancel Spotify again.

Speaking of YouTube slop, I think Spotify has had its own system of preferring cheap muzak from labels they support since before GenAI music even took off, I think. Example label: Firefly entertainment (IIRC)
by TSiege | 2026-01-13 19:10:33+00:00
You're conflating Charlie Kirk trying to foment anger and humiliate random non-public figures to one of the most public and powerful person in the tech industry.

Sam has made bombastic claims that were key to his success along with his shrewdness in the business and tech world. Reporting on this and looking at how his public and private profile have changed are an important part of an open and free society as it helps the general public understand the people and forces shaping their world.

Is this particular article important in the grand scheme of things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But I wouldn't throw the entire genre out
by mrbadguy | 2026-01-13 19:10:38+00:00
You’re right. My point was more about the idea that “higher frame rate = better movie because the number is objective” rather than “all art is subjective”. In other words, I don’t think we should try to value art on narrow physical axes. I’d like to think that the people you’ve mentioned would agree on that. The traditional notion of “objectively beautiful art” isn’t tied to technocratic things like that and, for what it’s worth, I agree with it.
by netghost | 2026-01-13 19:10:41+00:00
Did you know that macos has had a per application menu that does this for years?

In most apps, press "cmd-shift ?" And you will activate the help search. I know, I know. We don't need help, but the other thing it does is reveal menu items from the native menubar.

It's great for finding fiddly commands in complex native apps.
by foragerdev | 2026-01-13 19:10:45+00:00
I hate it Americans/Western advocating democracy, human rights for Iran (Which I believe is their right if the demand so). But let me remind you, Pakistan is facing this since 2022, when an elected PM was removed by an American regime change operation on behalf of US by Pakistan Army.

Since 2022, Pakistanis been protesting, largest political party was banned from elections, largest political party was dismantled by Pakistan Army, journalists were abducted, banned, and killed, the most famous leader was shoot, eventually locked up.

In February 2024 Pakistan Army stolen election, when Pakistan army shut down internet, and keep x.com banned for 1.5 years, thousands of common Pakistanis was abducted, tortured, their homes broken into, killed during protests. Literally no one spoke. EU champion of human rights and democracy did not release Pakistan election 2024 report for 1.5 year. US is silent because Pakistan army general's serve their motives, so they do not have any problem with internet shut down, human right violations, democracy.

Stop this hypocrisy. Democracy and human rights become a thing when their interests are not served, or some dictators serve them then EU/US do not care.

I am not complaining but I am telling what it is.
by palmotea | 2026-01-13 19:10:51+00:00
> The man brought us LLMs and ever more capable models. ... And for that I am forever thankful to Sam Altman and all the people who made this possible.

Why thank Altman and not thank Joe Biden? He was running the country when these models you praise were released, and they both had about as much real involvement in their actual construction.

The CEO didn't do the work, he shouldn't get all (or even most) of the credit.
by throwawaysafely | 2026-01-13 19:10:58+00:00
this is exactly what I was referring to. You are saying it is emotional without understanding the real circumstances of the situation.

There is no legitimate way for me to migrate out or to get a position that is remote other than the one I have. I do not have skills that can attract any other roles to myside. The only skills I have is very specialized to a narrow field.

I go to therapy and its hard. Even he agrees.
by maxbond | 2026-01-13 19:11:17+00:00
To add, he also said elsewhere that he didn't like his job and was phoning it in and focusing increasingly on his art. He thought he was passed over because of his sex for a promotion... When he was openly phoning it in and writing comics about how his work culture sucked. Why would you promote someone with their foot out the door and who was badly misaligned with the organization? One or the other maybe (someone who doesn't like the work culture might be a good pick to improve it) but both? Why would you even be upset about it when your art is blowing up and going full time on it is clearly the right move?

Similarly he felt his TV show was cancelled after two seasons because it wasn't PC, but his show wasn't getting good viewership and had a terrible time slot. That's a pretty typical trajectory for a TV show, it's like complaining your startup failed.

He wrote a lot about explicitly magical thinking. Sort of along the lines of The Secret; that he could achieve things where the odds were against him through sheer force of will and wishing. That's not necessarily a problem but it does set you up for denial when things don't always go your way. And the denial is dangerous.

The later chapters of his life were marked by tragedy. His stepson died of overdose. His marriage collapsed. He lost the ability to speak and had to fight like hell to get a proper diagnosis and treatment (he later recovered). He went through COVID like the rest of us. Unfortunately these events would seem to have hardened and radicalized him.

I think we can understand and empathize with that without condoning it. I hope he found his peace in the end.
by ej88 | 2026-01-13 19:11:17+00:00
I would rather learn how to use these tools effectively now and ship more and of higher quality now.

If these tools improve to the point where anyone can pick it up - that's great! I enjoyed my head start while it lasted.

If these tools continue to require experience and a skillset to use, that's great too - I'll continue to learn and pull ahead.
by orbital-decay | 2026-01-13 19:11:19+00:00
If you want the AI to do anything useful, you need to be able to trust it with the access to useful things. Sandboxing doesn't solve this.

Full isolation hasn't been taken seriously because it's expensive, both in resources and complexity. Same reason why microkernels lost to monolithic ones back in the day, and why very few people use Qubes as a daily driver. Even if you're ready to pay the cost, you still need to design everything from the ground up, or at least introduce low attack surface interfaces, which still leads to pretty major changes to existing ecosystems.
by Aurornis | 2026-01-13 19:11:27+00:00
I agree that improving emotional regulation is a first step to building up the energy to change a situation.

My issue with modern internet style pseudo-stoicism is that it's fixated on becoming indifferent (the title of this article, even) and breeds a sort of learned helplessness. The article's sub-heading is about prisoners and warriors, but using techniques optimized for being a prisoner or stuck in a war isn't quite right for someone navigating a toxic relationship or toxic job where you're not actually entirely helpless.
by robomartin | 2026-01-13 19:11:32+00:00
> The TI parts seem a bit expensive in small quantities, but the Microchip and SiliLabs parts are like $6-7 in single units from Digi-Key. Is it just that the dev kits are in the >$50 price range which puts people off compared to ESP32?

It helps to separate hobbyist use from professional product development.

The hobby market is driven by quick, cheap, and easy: low up-front cost, abundant tutorials, and inexpensive dev boards. In that context, ESP32 shines, and expensive dev kits can be a real psychological barrier.

For commercial, industrial, or professional products, however, small-quantity pricing is often irrelevant. Sample or single-unit prices rarely reflect real production costs. Without getting into specifics, it’s common for the ratio between sample pricing and volume pricing to be 10× or more.

A part that costs $20 in onesies can easily be a $2 part at scale. This doesn’t apply universally, but it does mean that judging a device’s suitability for mass production based on Digi-Key single-unit pricing is usually a mistake.

There are also system-level considerations beyond the MCU’s line item price. For example, the RP2040 could be very inexpensive (around $0.50 in modest volumes when we used it), but that ignores the required external flash, which adds cost, board space, and supply-chain complexity. More importantly for many products, it offers no meaningful code security (the external flash can simply be read out—which can be a non-starter in commercial designs).

Guaranteed long-term availability can be crucially important as well; with design support requirements in commercial/industrial settings often extending past ten year timelines.

Tooling and ecosystem maturity also matter. At the time, the RP2040 toolchain was notably hostile to Windows, and Raspberry Pi support reflected that attitude. In reality, most product development (EE, MCAD, manufacturing, test, PLM/ERP) is Windows-centric. Asking an organization to bolt a Linux-only toolchain onto an otherwise Windows-based workflow just to save a dollar on an MCU is rarely a winning argument.

So while cost absolutely matters, it’s often not the dominant factor in professional design. Security, tooling, vendor support, long-term availability, and integration into existing workflows frequently outweigh a few dollars of MCU price, particularly once production pricing enters the picture.
by layer8 | 2026-01-13 19:11:39+00:00
It’s also an AI problem, because in the end we want what is called “computer use” from AI, and functionality like Recall. That’s an important part of what the CCC talk was about. The proposed solution to that is more granular, UAC-like permissions. IMO that’s not universally practical, similar to current UAC. How we can make AIs our personal assistants across our digital life — the AI effectively becoming an operating system from the user’s point of view — with security and reliability, is a hard problem.
by llm_nerd | 2026-01-13 19:11:45+00:00
What do you think doesn't support it?

Affinity supports it. Photoshop supports it. Microsoft Photos supports it. Gimp supports it. Apple has had systemwide support for it since iOS 17+ / macOS 12+, including in Safari and basically any app that uses the system image functions.

Chromium isn't on the bleeding edge here. They actually were when it first came out, but then retreated and waited, and now they're back again.
by worik | 2026-01-13 19:12:02+00:00
> If anything, the US is still far away from as bad as China

That is a matter of opinion

I am unsure about social conditions within the countries ( freedom Vs. economic security -hard to compare)

But in international relations the USA has been a rouge state for many decades (e.g. tjr Gulf of Tonkin deception). The USA pretends to care about "values", but does not, it cares about it's own interests

China is plain speaking and cares, openly and transparently, about its interests

The USA has institutionalised hypocrisy. China sins her own sins in the open

The USA is much worse than China - to foreigners
by armchairhacker | 2026-01-13 19:12:13+00:00
> from an outsider America has become one mouthpiece, rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media

You don't clearly see America, there are at least two big mouthpieces. While I've never heard anyone praise the Iranian or Venezuelan government, I've heard many protest US intervention.

> how its written feels alot like propaganda (not saying the content is invalid)

I agree it sounds like propaganda. But in this case I think it's fair, the situation is almost black and white.

> the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours...not to diminish the other sad loss of life

Maybe they should've emphasized: the loss of life (and general restriction on daily living, offline) is the main problem, no internet for 118 hours is a symptom.

> even tech articles have become partisan

True. But again, this case (criticizing the Iranian regime) is so close to clear-cut black and white, it shouldn't even be partisan.
by flumpcakes | 2026-01-13 19:12:24+00:00
I don't think you're commenting in good faith at all.

> They get all bent out of shape when Americans tell British people that their government is replacing them with third worlders and they should start killing their politicians.

>but are powerless to stop Americans who are well within their legal rights to say things like this.

Weird thing to say when it would be illegal in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_government_officia...
by TheMagicHorsey | 2026-01-13 19:12:31+00:00
Have you been on the Internet as an adult ever? Have you been on X? What about Facebook? America is "one mouthpiece"? This is one of the most puzzling takes I've ever seen.

Americans literally post 10K articles a day about how bad the administration is and all the bad that will result from going to Venezuela ... and multiply that for literally every other thing the govt does. There isn't one thing that happens that doesn't have hundreds of posts online and in papers explaining why America is so evil for doing it.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Have you sampled the media landscape in Tehran or Beijing? I have sampled both ... FROM those locations. Its night and day.

Even the media landscape in your typical Western Alliance country (Singapore, Japan, South Korea, UK ... etc.) cannot come close to what you see in America.
by NoMoreNicksLeft | 2026-01-13 19:12:34+00:00
>Humanity and civilization are defined by going beyond any base instincts.

Civilization is nothing more than "lives in cities". That's it. That's what the science of anthropology has to say on the matter. It's not even that big of a deal, you'd much rather be involved with some hunter-gatherer living in a tent who had noble ideas and a sense of fairness than with most of the very "civilized" people who live in Oklahoma City. Why?

You don't share their values. Humanity, for all its potential, does not scale beyond Dunbar's number, and attempts to do so have resulted in horrors beyond comprehension on a regular, cyclical basis, for many thousands of years. You're quite certain that your values should win out and exterminate their values (and if they're not enlightened enough to just let their values be obliterated, they too can be exterminated with them... leftists are, right now, trying to work up the nerve to go on the attack, we've both seen the internet messages and not all of them are russian bots).

> If you feel bad or harmful ones, you should acknowledge it.

I do. I like to acknowledge it. I despise dishonesty, but most of all I despise self-deception. But sometimes I need to keep my mouth shut, because others would be quick to punish me for words. For spoken-aloud thoughts. And it causes distress.

>but you should absolutely internally recognize that these things are wrong.

Why? What makes those things wrong? Can you explain, objectively and empirically what makes it wrong? From the other set of values (see above), you're the one with wrong thoughts, wrong feelings, and wrong desires.

What you really mean, but don't have the words to say, is that you want me to be one with your group. To accept its set of group-beliefs, to espouse no dissent (or at least below some tiny, acceptable threshold), and to support your causes. But I've seen what sort of world you want to make, and I do not want to live in that world. I do not think your group survives, even should it win.

The world I want might well have room in it for other peoples. They could do as they want, peaceful (distant) coexistence. Your world doesn't have any room in it for me.

Your strategy of indoctrinating young children in public education was working. It was absolutely foolproof, I think, none could fight against it. But then someone managed to sneak in behind its armor, to drop the torpedo in that trench, and now your death star blew up. I'm not even sure anyone on the left has noticed how bad this is for your movement.
by hearsathought | 2026-01-13 19:12:50+00:00
> ...whelp, this thread is gonna get shut down.

No. It's about iran, so it'll get stuck on the frontpage for a while. If this was about israel, then you'd have point.

> but all it takes is one person to say some out-of-pocket shit like "the country currently massacring protestors is the real democracy" for it to descend below HN's standards for political discourse.

The US has massacred people, even protestors. Are you saying we are not a democracy?

> And FWIW, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is ostensibly a democracy, too.

There is a difference between one claiming to be a democracy and another that actually is. No?
by tucnak | 2026-01-13 19:12:52+00:00
> Also, Starlink terminals can be located via their RF emissions.

Starlink terminals use highly-directional antennas that point at the sky (see. beamforming) and therefore they don't leak much in terms of RF emissions. So unless you can afford to maintain a host of overhead drones on permanent rotation and wide-area coverage, it would be very hard to actually locate anybody. Not that it's impossible, but largely intractable at scale. We use Starlink a lot in Ukraine, and even though the russians have platforms with sophisticated signal processing capabilities (think Xilinx RFSoC) perfectly capable of locating emissions from most communication equipment, they are still unable to locate Starlink terminals. And this is along the frontline, mind you. To cover all of Iran would surely be prohibitive.
by EA-3167 | 2026-01-13 19:12:56+00:00
It's possible to notice a trend while still having the wit to realize you can't precisely time that trend well enough to profit from it. Another example might be, "Trump is increasingly old, feeble, and incapable of doing his job... but I'm not sure how that will translate into how long he's able to keep the job. It's possible that he could be a vegetable at some point and still POTUS."

Demanding that people gamble with their often limited finances to prove a point orthogonal to the one they're actually making feels disingenuous and dismissive to me.
by hectormalot | 2026-01-13 19:13:10+00:00
Context: I’m in the Netherlands. With taxes, power is around 25cent/kWh for me. For reference: Amsterdam is around a latitude of 52N, which is north enough that it only hits Alaska, not the US mainland.

I installed 2800Wp solar for about €2800 ($3000, payback in: 4-5 years), and a 5kWh battery for €1200 ($1300) all in. The battery has an expected payback time of just over 5 years, and I have some backup power if I need it.

I’m pretty sure about the battery payback, because I have a few years of per second consumption data in clickhouse and (very conservatively) simulated the battery. A few years ago any business case on storage was completely impossible, and now suddenly we’re here.

I could totally see this happen for the US as prices improve further, even if it’s not feasible today.
by ericmay | 2026-01-13 19:13:15+00:00
I hadn't really thought about it from that angle. But it's certainly reasonable.

Do you think if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel that there wouldn't be protests and a lot of social media posts similar to how other humanitarian disasters are treated today? I guess would it be on the same level?

I wonder if there's a correlation across western countries with respect to protests and a given country's participation in selling weapons to Israel. I recall there were/are a lot of protests going on in Ireland with respect to the conflict but I know Ireland doesn't sell weapons to Israel. But there have been of course other cases in Europe where the country does sell weapons and there are protests. Maybe there's a rhyme and reason here, I'm not sure.