MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by genuser | 2026-01-10 18:38:31+00:00
The vision of seamlessly interacting with our digital world through intuitive, natural gestures has taken a significant step forward. Meta has begun rolling out a groundbreaking early-access feature for its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses paired with the accompanying neural interface wristband: the ability to write messages by simply tracing letters with your finger on any surface, including your own leg. This “air writing” capability moves beyond voice commands and basic gestures, offering a discreet. Text-based input method that fulfills a long-promised aspect of wearable, augmented reality (AR) interaction. While currently limited in scope, the feature represents a tangible leap toward a future where our bodies and the environment become the interface.
by HiPhish | 2026-01-10 18:39:09+00:00
> 7 deaths in 20 years out of who knows how many hundreds of thousands if anything is a testament to how safe the procedure is.

That's still seven deaths too many for a surgery (without anesthetics!) which has no medical necessity. Tonsillectomy is also a very safe procedure, yet we don't just do them willy-nilly because any form of surgery carries its own risk, no matter how small.
Show HN: Shunting – train logic puzzles for young kids
by lostmsu | 2026-01-10 18:39:25+00:00
This is a clone of https://www.transum.org/Software/Shunting/ with improved UX and simplified mechanics suitable for younger kids.

In the original preschoolers were unable to prevent collisions which caused level restart.

The new one is also controllable from the keyboard.

https://github.com/lostmsu/Shunting/issues
by tfrancisl | 2026-01-10 18:39:49+00:00
Totally agree. Fish out of the box is super performant, lots of tools ship completions for it, and the UX is just great. Only recommendation for people new to fish is to read the keybinds thoroughly. I convinced an eng on my team to switch but he was using it like sh: not using tab complete, shift+arrows for partial complete, etc. Slowed him down a ton.
by j1elo | 2026-01-10 18:39:58+00:00
My first entry-level job just freshly coming out of the University was writing C++ with Qt for a computer vision app. And that was my actual first contact with C++ (had seen C and Java in Uni).

It was no biggie, just joining the low level of C with the class notions from Java. Pair that with the C++FAQ website, and it was easy.

Are entry-level devs generally not able to do that nowadays? I do not believe people are generally more stupid or less capable, so, is education so much worse or what's going on?
by aweiher | 2026-01-10 18:40:01+00:00
The guillotine remark resonates in today reality because people feel this scam. Tone-policing the symptom while ignoring the cause is naive.

The C15 thread shows exactly why: It beats modern trucks in pure utility. Today we are paying more for less value.

It is exactly the wealth extraction Ray Dalio describes in Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order (Stage 5 of the debt cycle), resulting in internal conflict.
by eddythompson80 | 2026-01-10 18:40:14+00:00
> Tailwind Labs relied on a weird monetization scheme. Revenue was proportional to the pain of using the framework.

Really? To me, Tailwind seemed like the pinnacle of how anyone here would say “open source software” should function. Provide a solid, truly open source, software and make money from consulting or helping others use it and selling custom built solutions around it. The main sin of Tailwind was assuming that type of business could scale to a “large business” structure as opposed to “a single dev”-type project. By a “single dev”-type I don’t mean literally one guy, but more a very lean and non-corporate or company-like structure.

Vercel (and redislabs, mongo, etc) are different because they are in the “we can run it for you” business. Which is another “open source” model I have dabbled in for a while in my career. Thinking that the honest and ethical position is to provide open source software, then offer to host it for people who don’t want to selfhost and charge for that.
by hackyhacky | 2026-01-10 18:40:27+00:00
> Ah yes, and the solution being presented is Linux, with Xlib, Motif, Qt, GTK

I'm not going to descend into a "my OS's API is worse than yours" pissing match with you, because it's pointless and tangential. The issue is not "is the Windows framework situation worse than Linux" but rather "is the Windows framework situation worse than it used to be" and the answer is emphatically yes, and due mostly to Ballmer's obsession with chasing shiny things, such as that brief period when he decided that all Windows must look like a phone.
by appplication | 2026-01-10 18:40:38+00:00
> If suddenly CSS became pleasant to use

Not being sarcastic, but this will never be. CSS is a perfectly functional interface, but the only way it becomes less annoying is when you abstract it behind something more user friendly like tailwind or AI (or you spend years building up knowledge and intuition for its quirks and foibles).

We have decades of data at this point that fairly conclusively shows that many people find CSS as an interface inherently confusing.
by tconfrey | 2026-01-10 18:40:52+00:00
I've been on this bandwagon for a long time! I proposed org as an interchange format for Productivity and PKM tools several years ago [0]. Org allows me to unify my bookmark manager with the rest of my PKM as well as to-do management in a way that I don't think is possible with markdown.

That said I think that AI is changing things as it becomes best practice to document and define everything in plain text for LLM consumption. Since the default text format is markdown (due to github and PKM tool support) more and more people are exposed to it as the one true markup language. So maybe the boat has sailed and org becomes another example of the better format that doesn't win out. OTOH LLMs slurp up org content just as easily as they do markdown, maybe more so given the richer syntax. So maybe there's still room for both?

Either way I think the losers are going to be Sharepoint, Confluence, Jira etc, maybe even wikis, ie all the non standard ways people have been documenting their work to date.

Like us org folks have been saying all along, just stick with plain text!

[0] https://braintool.org/2022/04/29/Tools4Thought-should-use-Or...
by Brybry | 2026-01-10 18:41:02+00:00
> We have a system that clearly creates value, but no longer distributes it in a sustainable way

The same thing happened (and is still happening) with news media and aggregation/embedding like Google News or Facebook.

I don't know if anyone has found a working solution yet. There have been some laws passed and licensing deals [1]. But they don't really seem to be working out [2].

[1] https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/canada_australia_platfor...

[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-02/media-bargaining-code...
by scott_w | 2026-01-10 18:41:44+00:00
It’s entirely dependent on the situation. Some areas, additional charges work best. In others, it’s possible/necessary to redesign road and street layouts to prioritise higher-density modes of transport and physically discourage low-density modes like cars. This might be priority lights for public transport, lowering speed limits and narrowing streets. In some contexts, it’s necessary to completely disallow cars with things like bus lanes, bike/pedestrian-only areas. Separated tram/metro lines, too.

Most of this infrastructure, in practice, also aids emergency vehicle use as they can usually fit down bike lanes and are obviously able to fit in bus lanes.
by WackyFighter | 2026-01-10 18:41:47+00:00
> What an unnecessarily hostile comment. "Utter drivel"? I was talking about how I personally feel. Am I just imagining enjoying the things that I enjoy?

No it isn't. Anytime you make an fairly straight forward statement on any website you get some unnecessary contrarian response.

There are a bunch of downsides to doing any sort of outdoor activity in an urban environment. That is just a fact. It is noisier, often there it nothing to look at, repetitive (in a bad way) etc. etc.

Therefore I would not recommend walking as a form of exercise in that environment as the vast majority of people wouldn't enjoy it.

Whimsical writings by 19th century French poets aren't relevant to those facts.

> Maybe you're doing other people a favour by staying away from them, sheesh.

What an unnecessary comment to make. I never said anything about what you are like.
by flufluflufluffy | 2026-01-10 18:42:15+00:00
One random little thing to add on to the list of shitty things about Windows 11: the new default image-viewing program (Photos), is incapable of rendering multi-page TIFF files. No error message or anything, just displays the first page and acts like everything’s fine. The OLD image viewing program (Windows Photo Viewer), displays them no problem though…
by jna_sh | 2026-01-10 18:42:24+00:00
I expected it to be an issue but I’ve had surprisingly few problems so far. If you’re working in docker-land or can use devcontainers, it just works. If you’re not but your stack is well supported by homebrew, also not a problem. Anything else you can handle via a distrobox container, where you can install from package managers to your heart’s content, and they have good integration with the base OS, but I’ve had to reach for distrobox a lot less than I expected.
by dehsge | 2026-01-10 18:42:26+00:00
There are other bounds here at play that are often not talked about.

Ai runs on computers. Consider the undecidability of Rices theorem. Where compiled code of non trivial statements may or may not be error free. Even an ai can’t guarantee its compiled code is error free. Not because it wouldn’t write sufficient code that solves a problem, but the code it writes is bounded by other externalities. Undecidability in general makes the dream of generative ai considerably more challenging than how it’s being ‘sold.
by 0xy | 2026-01-10 18:42:46+00:00
Incredible that yellow journalists will be out of work!

From the journalists that brought you agitprop on WMDs in Iraq (New York Times), a fabricated story on Russians hacking U.S. energy infrastructure to provoke war between superpowers (WaPo) or from NPR when they heavily implied a person who was violently attacked in his vehicle and then sped away to avoid the violence was a "right-wing extremist" involved in a "vehicle-ramming incident" (later deleted the evidence with no retraction or apology).

There is no such thing as an ethical mass media journalist, hence why they are historical low trust and are being lapped by citizen journalists, who receive orders of magnitude more views.
by karmakaze | 2026-01-10 18:43:07+00:00
Exactly. We should all speak/write Esperanto.

In the meantime, I'll advocate for evolving Markdown, specifically GFM.

I do use a custom keyboard layout, but that doesn't have to interoperate with anything/anyone.

Edit: I have a similar unpopular opinion: we should use functional languages and immutable datastructures. At least we some data of movement in that direction with the patterns being adopted by other languages and codebases.
by nandomrumber | 2026-01-10 18:43:31+00:00
>> When I was buying my last car I went in and asked

> In my case, I told

Exactly.

When you’re paying, you don’t ask, you tell.

This is what I want, and this is what I’ll pay.

Don’t get me started on fucking real estate agents either. Parasites. Real estate sells itself. Conveyancers / Solicitors do all the real work, and typically charge a set fee. Real estate agents typically charge a percentage and they literally don’t do anything.

The sales folk at a car dealership aren’t there to help you.

There is literally no situation bad enough that a car sales agent or real estate agent can’t make worse. Incapacitated pilot? Fucking useless. Need a dental cavity filled? Fucking useless. Got a problem with your Goggomobil? fucking useless.

Packing peanuts are more effective at their claimed benefits than car sales agents and real estate agents are at theirs.
by bko | 2026-01-10 18:43:53+00:00
I don't get it, if you're medically unfit for a job, why would you want the job?

For instance, if your job is to be on your feet all day and you can barely stand, then that job is not for you. I have never met employers that are so flush in opportunities of candidates that they just randomly choose to exclude certain people.

And if it's insurance, there's a group rate. The difference only variable is what the employee chooses out of your selected plans (why make a plan available if you don't want people to pick that one?) and family size. It's illegal to discriminate of family size and that does add up to 10k extra on the employer side. But there are downsides to hiring young single people, so things may balance out.
by HiPhish | 2026-01-10 18:43:54+00:00
I have seen babies with pierced ears and studs. Even when there is no religious pressure some people are just so sick in their head, they will have their babies put through mutilation just because they think it looks "cute". Those people deserve to have railroad spikes driven through their skin.

I would advocate for banning all non-necessary body modification on small children. And before anyone tells me "it's better to do it when they are small, then they won't remember it": no remembering the source of a trauma makes is even worse. That's like saying date rape drugs are no big deal because the victim can't remember it.
by bhattisatish | 2026-01-10 18:44:13+00:00
In case of small enterprises, what are the options for migrating to Ubuntu for all remote users?

How does one have an MDM solution? Most of the solutions out there are poor on Ubuntu or need lots of work to get things right.
Can anyone provide a reference architecture/solution that allows them to be SOC2 compliant? But also not have high friction for developers and more importantly not have bigger overheads on process or investment?
by bitwize | 2026-01-10 18:44:24+00:00
But here's the thing with Apple ARM processors. Each core in that M3 chip is faster than the corresponding core in an x86 chip. And it has unified memory, meaning that the CPU, GPU, and NPU all get access to the same RAM.

So you can get long battery life, cool thermals, and superior performance all in the same machine, at the same time. It will take the rest of the industry years to catch up to what Apple has wrought.
by adityaathalye | 2026-01-10 18:44:49+00:00
There is a written-down specification, but not a formal grammar (I assume you implied the latter): https://orgmode.org/worg/org-syntax.html

The standalone project, org-parser is pretty good! https://github.com/200ok-ch/org-parser (usable from Javascript, Java).

See also: "Formal Specification and Programmatic Parser for Org-mode" https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/s0zvlh/formal_specif...
by johnpaulkiser | 2026-01-10 18:44:54+00:00
There will be no royalties, simply make all the models that trained on the public internet also be required to be public.

This won't help tailwind in this case, but it'll change the answer to "Should I publish this thing free online?" from "No, because a few AI companies are going to exclusively benefit from it" to "Yes, I want to contribute to the corpus of human knowledge."
Show HN: Debrify – Open-source cross-platform debrid manager for Android
by varun002 | 2026-01-10 18:45:08+00:00
Hey HN! I built Debrify, an open-source Flutter app that lets you stream and download content from debrid services (Real-Debrid, Torbox, PikPak) without torrenting on your device.

Features:
- Built-in video player with streaming support
- Download manager with queue
- Works on Android phones, tablets, and Android TV
- Full D-pad navigation for TV
- No ads, no tracking, fully open source

Website: https://varunsalian.github.io/debrify/

Would love feedback from the community!
by dang | 2026-01-10 18:45:13+00:00
I think it's both external and internal, but the internal factors are more important because a compromised immune system is more vulnerable to outer pathogens.

I'm not sure it's about HN getting larger, though. It's a bit hard to tell, but at least some of the upswing in cynical and curmudgeonly comments is coming from established users.
by tptacek | 2026-01-10 18:45:34+00:00
We have enough control over the execution environment in a Sprite (unlike a Fly Machine, where the implied Linux contract we have with our users gets in the way) that we can trivially hide explicit proxies.

We can also attach Macaroons to Fly Machines and Sprites for configurable ambient privileges, something I've wanted us to expose as a feature for a very long time.
by datsci_est_2015 | 2026-01-10 18:45:50+00:00
How do you measure productivity? Profit per employee has never been higher, probably, as PE and other rent-seeking leeches (residency caps) have wrapped their fingers around the throat of the industry.

Positive outcomes per patient is probably also higher, due to research and technology advances. So many lives saved that would have been written off just a decade or two ago (e.g. spina bifida).

But I agree with you that there’s a hypothetical universe where seeking healthcare as an American doesn’t suck, I just don’t know if “productive” is the right word to describe it.
by torginus | 2026-01-10 18:46:44+00:00
EVs are not more reliable in general, at least not according to the stats. And a lot of them haven't been on the road for long enough to know how their running costs will look like when they are a decade or two old.

There's just been an article here on HN, that BMW installed a crash safety fuse that triggered on a minor fender-bender and killed the battery. It was WELDED in, and even after getting to it with a torch and installing a new one, the ICU needed to be hacked to accept the new part.

They're also full of proprietary parts, basically you have entire car functions integrated to the same PCB, which are essentially unrepairable.

I hope I'm wrong, but I guess there'll be a major disillusionment with EVs once these cars get to 10-15 years and people find out in mass, that it's no longer economical to fix them.

I'm not an EV hater, I'm more of a pessimist - when it comes to manufacturers, I'm kinda 'pricing in' the worst behavior.
by wrsh07 | 2026-01-10 18:46:52+00:00
In general, I'm surprised by the vitriol in these comments.

I think your claim proves too much:

If you pick a different religion (my siblings and their kids are religious - not Jewish), you could similarly say "even though they're happy being raised in their religion, they have no way to know whether they would prefer to have been raised agnostic/atheist" (or some other religion)

Of course that's true for many decisions parents make on behalf of their children.

I am curious if folks in this thread are similarly incensed by young children having their ears pierced? It's obviously different, but it still seems like a cultural decision.

To my knowledge (having only learned about it incidentally during the pregnancy/birthing process since it wasn't a relevant decision) it didn't seem like circumcision had strong medical recommendations for or against
by loup-vaillant | 2026-01-10 18:47:48+00:00
I've heard just today of England trying to hit messaging apps with mandatory image scans — ostensibly to avoid the transmission of unsolicited dick pics, which more than one teenage girl have been the target of, but in practice may have far reaching consequences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y893SFA0iOk

I am at the point where I'm watching out for messaging apps breaking actual end-to-end encryption (sending data based on local scans definitely applies there, even if the data is just sending a red flag once in a blue moon). And you can bet the second that happens, I'm out. One last message to all my contacts to tell them, and that's it.

And if things get real bad, like, actual private communications become illegal, I know ways to get around that: https://elligator.org/
by GuB-42 | 2026-01-10 18:47:53+00:00
Not easy I would say.

Safety improvement means larger crumple zones, reinforcement, etc... Which mean a bigger and heavier vehicle if you want to keep the same capacity. That in turn means a more powerful engine, brakes, wheels and tyres, etc... further increasing the size and weight of the vehicle. This is an exponential factor.

Fuel economy and environmental stuff (which are linked) come with tighter engine control for better combustion and cleaner exhaust. It means tighter tolerances so simple tools may be less appropriate, and electronics.

And there are comfort elements that are hard to pass nowadays: A/C, power steering, door lock and windows. Mandatory safety equipment like airbags and ABS. Even simple cars like what Dacia makes are still bigger, heavier and more complex than older cars like the C15, they don't really have a choice.
by shevy-java | 2026-01-10 18:48:17+00:00
I agree with you. Microsoft really has gotten bad in this regard. In the past, the operating system was kind of semi-useful. Now one has to wonder what the real agenda is. For me the quitting point was the recall-sniffing on everyone; I don't care if this can be disabled. To me it means that the USA wants to monitor me non-stop. That's a no go. (I was already using Linux before, so I don't depend on Microsoft anyway, but it now meant that I also need to stop using secondary computers with a Microsoft-tainted operating system. I can not trust the USA in any regard anymore with the TechBros in charge. They killed all goodwill and reputation.)
by toomuchtodo | 2026-01-10 18:48:45+00:00
Far-UVC and Eye Safety: Findings from a 36-Month Study - https://uvmedico.com/news/far-uvc-and-eye-safety - January 16th, 2025

> Far-UVC is a type of ultraviolet light emitted at a 222 nm wavelength that effectively deactivates microorganisms. Unlike traditional UVC light at 254 nm, Far-UVC doesn’t penetrate the outer dead layer of skin or the outer layer of the cornea, making it safe for use around people while maintaining powerful germicidal properties.

> The 222 nm wavelength is unique in its ability to decontaminate without causing harm when used within regulatory limits. Unlike longer UV wavelengths, it interacts only with the outermost layers of the skin and eyes, which naturally renew themselves. This makes it ideal for continuous decontamination in occupied spaces, as confirmed by the 36-month clinical study showing no adverse effects even after daily exposure.

References:

https://www.faruvc.org/

Sugihara K, Kaidzu S, Sasaki M, Ichioka S, Sano I, Hara K, Tanito M. Ocular safety of 222-nm far-ultraviolet-c full-room germicidal irradiation: A 36-month clinical observation. Photochem Photobiol. 2024 Dec 10. https://doi.org/10.1111/php.14052 Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39659140. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/php.14052

Sugihara K, Kaidzu S, Sasaki M, Tanito M. Interventional human ocular safety experiments for 222-nm far-ultraviolet-C lamp irradiation. Photochem Photobiol. 2024 Aug 19. https://doi.org/10.1111/php.14016 Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39161063. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/php.14016

Buonanno M, Hashmi R, Petersen CE, Tang Z, Welch D, Shuryak I, Brenner DJ. Wavelength-dependent DNA damage induced by single wavelengths of UV-C radiation (215 to 255 nm) in a human cornea model. Sci Rep. 2025 Jan 2;15(1):252. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-84196-4 PMID: 39747969; PMCID: PMC11696903. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-84196-4
by otterley | 2026-01-10 18:48:53+00:00
FWIW I bought a couple pairs of traction control cables for the Outback, just in case. I don’t know that I’ll ever need them, but better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them.

I’ve used them on 2WD vehicles in the past and they’re way easier to install than old-school chains, since they’re self-tensioning. Super Z cables, if anyone is interested.