MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by throwaway_df878 | 2026-01-05 23:24:08+00:00
If you assume the rosiest scenario: a linear rampdown of _all_ emissions (not just from electricity generation) to zero by 2040, we still blow post our carbon budget to stay below 1.5C warming: 42 Gt/yr * (15 years / 2) = 315 Gt (compared to our "remaining balance" of 170 GtCO2 before >50% of 1.5C warming). Needless to say even this optimistic scenario has no chance of happening.

So the answer is that for your children, wars of imperialism will be replaced by wars for water, arable land, fisheries, etc. along with varying levels of violence that will meet the mass migration of refugees. How bad it will be will depend.
by drusepth | 2026-01-05 23:24:48+00:00
"People using AI" had a meaningful change when they "joined the workforce" in 2025.

We may not have gotten fully-autonomous employees, but human employees using AI are doing way more than they could before, both in depth and scale.

Claude Code is basically a full-time "employee" on my (profitable) open source projects, but it's still a tool I use to do all the work. Claude Code is basically a full-time "employee" at my job, but it's still a tool I use to do all the work. My workload has shifted to high-level design decisions instead of writing the code, which is kind of exactly what would have happened if AI "joined the workforce" and I had a bunch of new hires under me.

I do recognize this article is largely targeted at non-dev workforces though, where it _largely_ holds up but most of my friends outside of the tech world have either gotten new jobs thanks to increased capability through AI or have severely integrated AI into whatever workflows they're doing at work (again, as a tool) and are excelling compared to employees who don't utilize AI.
by hermitcrab | 2026-01-05 23:26:12+00:00
Authors who are not extremely successful get their income from live performances and merchandise, not royaties? Any authors here care to comment?

>As for software development, the open source model clearly shows that money can be made

Ok, so I sell data wrangling software for Windows and Mac for $99 per license. Mostly to people who aren't programmers. Kindly tell me how that would work with an open source model.
by magicalhippo | 2026-01-05 23:26:36+00:00
> A return to the original recipe would win me back

Ah yes, those "new and improved" recipes which almost invariably are about improving production costs and not improving taste.

I've started shopping by ingredients label. If I see more than a few ingredients I'm gonna pay attention, if it's multiple lines of weird names I'm just putting it back.

However that presumes the companies are honest about what they put in there. I know from a close friend that's not always the case (and yes I avoid that brand).
by rayiner | 2026-01-05 23:27:04+00:00
According to Pew, Mormons are happier too: https://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2025/06/are-latter-day....

Utah is also ranked #1 in upward mobility in the country: https://www.archbridgeinstitute.org/social-mobility-in-the-5....

So healthier, happier, and with more economic opportunities. All from a group of religious minorities who live in a desert with no natural resources. Quite remarkable.
by theshackleford | 2026-01-05 23:27:15+00:00
I learned my lesson about the media after a spate of interviews I did about a decade ago. The difference between what I said, and what they cut and edited it into was completely wild. It completely changed the narrative.

It as a result completely changed how I see everything in the media. It's not that I distrust it as such, but...I try to ensure I can get as many angles as possible to converge into a more whole picture, as opposed to fewer sources.
by llmslave2 | 2026-01-05 23:27:22+00:00
Once again, more evidence mounts that AI is massively overhyped and limited in usefulness, and once again we will see people making grandiose claims (without evidence of course) and predictions that will inevitably fall flat in the future. We are, of course, perpetually just 3-6 months away from when everything changes.

I think Carmack is right, LLM's are not the route to AGI.
by ashishb | 2026-01-05 23:27:22+00:00
> Exploit the Linux kernel underneath it (not the only way, just the obvious one). Docker is a security boundary but it is not suitable for "I'm running arbitrary code".

Dockler is better for running arbitrary code compared to the direct `npm install <random-package>` that's common these days.

I moved to a Dockerized sandbox[1], and I feel much better now against such malicious packages.

1 - https://github.com/ashishb/amazing-sandbox
by John7878781 | 2026-01-05 23:27:27+00:00
It is well documented that Trump engages (directly or indirectly) in insider trading.

https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/oblb/blog-post/2025/04/most-far-r...
https://www.propublica.org/article/us-officials-stock-sales-...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/10/trump-donor...
by Animats | 2026-01-05 23:27:39+00:00
Agreed. But you can supposedly book a test ride on a Verge motorcycle with this battery.[1] Verge has three stores in California, two of which are in Silicon Valley.

Base price $35,000 with the good battery.

Solid state batteries have been working for a while now, but they're still far too expensive. Mercedes has one demo car. Ducati has one demo motorcycle.
Maybe they just decided to accept the high cost and sell a high-end product.

[1] https://www.vergemotorcycles.com/
by wolvoleo | 2026-01-05 23:28:40+00:00
Samsung had this reverse charging from the phone but they also dropped that function with the watch 7 :(

Having said that I did use it but it was terribly slow and both the phone and watch heated up too much. And the positioning was very finicky. A whole charge would last 3-4 hours where the official charger is 30-40 minutes.

Power banks with watch charging also exist and cheap aftermarket charging pucks. Not as fast as the included one but not bad.
by zeroonetwothree | 2026-01-05 23:29:03+00:00
It seems like we are using AI to automate the unimportant parts of jobs that we shouldn’t have been doing anyway. Things like endless status reports or emails.

But from what I’ve seen it just makes that work output even less meaningful—who wants to read AI generated 10 pages that could have been two bullet points?

And it doesn’t actually improve productivity because that was never the bottleneck of those jobs anyway. If anything, having some easy rote work is a nice way to break up the pace.
by didgetmaster | 2026-01-05 23:29:28+00:00
So the law requires a fridge be provided, but doesn't state what kind. So now renters can expect to move into an apartment with a tiny, old fridge that does not suit their needs. Then they have to find a different fridge that will hold more than a half gallon of milk, as well as find a place to store the provided, unusable fridge until they move out.
by TrackerFF | 2026-01-05 23:30:05+00:00
So here's the thing with Greenland. It's mainly indigenous people living there (inuits), a bit under 60k. 40% of their working population (whole working population: 25k) work in administrative jobs, which are more or less subsidized by Denmark. Denmark subsidizes Greenland to the tune of half a billion euro annually. The rest work in fisheries, hunting, whaling, animal husbandry, and things like that.

Very few work in mining, because there's little infrastructure in place to engage in mining. And while it would take a huge sum of money to start mining there, who knows if the people there are interested in working with mines, or if they would even allow it. If you've ever lived in a country with indigenous people, it is a regulatory nightmare to just mine on places they claim to own. I live in Norway, and a minority of our indigenous people (Sámi people) work with reindeer herding. It is a very subsidized sector, and the regulatory red-tape tied to reindeer areas have stopped many projects related to energy and minerals.

My point is that no mater how lucrative the new alternative is, plenty of people will straight up reject it on basis of tradition. Some things you simply can't put a price tag on.

If US rolls up and wants to buy Greenland, from Greenlanders, they also need to convince them to pretty much give up all their land, their way of living, and to take care of them per the Nordic model, for the rest of their lives. The average Greenlander earns something equivalent to $50k / year.

And how much would US be willing to pay? What if the citizens of Greenland have a vote, and say - OK, we'll do, but only if US can pay $50m / citizen ($3 Tn), or some arbitrarily large sum. Or if they say, nah, we're fine as it is. No money in the world will be enough?

Point is, the US is the party that wants Greenland. Greenland knows this. They could chose to say fuck off, we don't want you, or they could demand as much as they want.

If US then decides to take Greenland by force, it would set off things that will cost US much more than what Greenland will ever be worth.
by crazygringo | 2026-01-05 23:30:20+00:00
> Somehow the idea of going to work and not trying your best

You make a great point -- let me further explain so I'm not misunderstood.

If the person is putting in the same 40 hrs/wk (or whatever is standard) but just "doing their best", then there's no problem.

But in my experience, your manager is expecting you to do all of your assigned role (e.g. write code), but then also do a bunch of stuff on top -- e.g. leading and taking ownership of new initiatives that is extra work. Usually something like 10-20 hours' worth per week. And so now people are working evenings and weekends to get that promotion, spending less time with their family. And a lot of them still don't get the promotion. For years, or even ever. This is all free labor for the company. They get away paying for a team of 4 instead of a team of 5.

That's what I'm pushing back on. In practice, it's rarely doing your existing work but better -- it's doing a bunch of extra work that takes more time. Because nobody ever says "hey show that you can take on these new responsibilities, and so do less of your original responsibilities".

Contrast this to actually being promoted, where some of your previous responsibilities are now actually delegated to others, because your job is now focused more on higher-level design and/or management.
by furyofantares | 2026-01-05 23:31:45+00:00
Definitely, although maybe it's ok here. I'm not sure. The opening paragraph doesn't feel like it. The rest could be condensed to 1 or 2 paragraphs and it would better communicate the idea.

It's not too bad because it's not too long, but I think it's worse than if the human had just written a second part to the post about the length of the first part.

Then there's all these needless sections that have the LLM-form.

> What "Taking the Position" Actually Looks Like

> Why Sustained Performance Is What Counts

> The Responsibility-First Mindset

And each has this opening paragraph setup then a one sentence paragraph contradicting or reinforcing it, which is simultaneously punchy and pure fluff.

> I couldn't have been happier.

> And I mean sustained.

> But that's backward.

I can't really tell how much the author cares about any given bit of text beyond the starting paragraph because it's all expressed with too many words that don't say anything, but just evoke the marketing/linkedin-speak, giving everything too much weight.
by dent9 | 2026-01-05 23:31:45+00:00
I'm an og Pebble fan, I owned every one of the originals, but I'm PISSED because last year they ran a Kickstarter for the recently released Pebble Time 2 and Pebble 2 Duo; I spent $300+ to get both even though I'm not really that thrilled about them I just wanted to support the project. Now after those two have started shipping and I just got the 2 Duo they announce THIS which is way better! Wtf why didn't they tell us in the beginning that they were planning the Round 2? I would have just held off and only ordered that instead. Feels like I got scammed
by unethical_ban | 2026-01-05 23:31:58+00:00
Does anyone else have issues wrapping their head around the UI and configuration of VSCode? Or is this a symptom of my losing touch with how IDEs work vs. my old habit of solo coding in Vim and running scripts?

Everything is monocolored, everything feels like it's an add-on, and settings are in weird different places rendered as json or a web page feel.

Last time I used a "real" IDE was 2008, so I may be the problem here.
by array_key_first | 2026-01-05 23:32:04+00:00
I mean, obesity is a chronic illness, so is hypogonadism. If your balls don't work they don't work.

Chronic illnesses require chronic medication. The same is true even WITHOUT the medication. If you're obese and want to lose the weight, you need to manage your diet and exercise. Forever. Until the day you die. You can't ever stop that or you'll be obese again.

Some things just don't have one-time solutions, and that's okay.
by Animats | 2026-01-05 23:33:11+00:00
You can supposedly go see the bike at the Verge store at
Westfield Valley Fair,
2855 Stevens Creek Blvd.,
Santa Clara, CA 95050-6709. That's a large mall near Apple HQ. Open until 9 PM.
Someone in Silicon Valley should stop by on their way home today and take a picture.

You can't just pay $35,000 and ride it away, though. They're just taking pre-orders.

Still, at least you can go kick the tires and make sure it's not just a render on the web site. It's an overly clever design; the rear wheel is hubless.
by cmrdporcupine | 2026-01-05 23:33:14+00:00
I've been Emacsing for 30+ years at this point, but I'm frustrated at its performance in the 21st century.

By which I mean both startup time (yes, I know real Emacs people never leave the editor. I'm Not That Guy) but its single-threadedness leading to painful blocking pauses when using eglot + rust-analyzer, etc.
by majesticmerc | 2026-01-05 23:33:17+00:00
I'm a runner, so obviously biased, but I implore everyone (to the point of annoyance) to check out some of the cheaper Garmin smart watches. They use MIP displays so the battery life runs about 2 weeks, you get phone notifications, the ability to find your phone, sleep scoring, step counting, heart rate monitoring. Then there's the obvious GPS run recording which you don't have to use. There's more stuff as well but I don't really use that like NFC card payments, music controls, but overall it hits a nice balance of features versus battery life.

For the sake of fair comparison, my wife had an Apple watch, which looked better and had way more features, but the 1 day battery life became such a frustration it sat in a dresser drawer. My last Garmin lasted 5 years with daily use and sports, and only died because I took it into the sea on vacation after the waterproof seal failed on the screen. I replaced it the day I got back with the successor model and couldn't be happier.

I'm not shilling for Garmin (or at least not being paid to), I love the Pebbles and I'm very much looking forward to the launch as I want a more fashionable smartwatch. Apple, Samsung et al have kinda tainted the smartphone market with feature vomit, when in fact there's a lot of good stuff out there, it's just not as hip.
by aranelsurion | 2026-01-05 23:33:18+00:00
> I’m hoping 2026 will be the year we stop caring about what people believe AI might do, and instead start reacting to its real, present capabilities.

So well put.

LLMs are useful for a great many things. It's just that being the best new product of the recent years, maybe even defining a decade doesn't cut it. It has to be the century-defining, world-ending, FOMO-inducing massive thing to put Skynet to shame and justify investments in trillion dollars. It's either AI joining the workforce soon, or Nvidia and OpenAI aren't that valuable.

I guess it manages to maximize shareholder value, and make AI feel like a disappointment.
by mandevil | 2026-01-05 23:33:23+00:00
The US built a lot of bunkers like this back in the 1950's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Weather_Emergency_Operat...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_Rock_Mountain_Complex

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Greek_Island

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyenne_Mountain_Complex

With the rise of solid fuel ICBM and then MIRV leading to the truly massive number of warheads pointed at the US, the US switched to airplanes for the most important continuity of government issues, figuring that the skies 30,000 above the US will largely be secure (presuming the plane is appropriately EMP shielded) due to the many US geographic advantages, and so it is the best place to ride out the initial attack and then take stock, get to somewhere safe, and figure out what to do from there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Looking_Glass

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TACAMO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-6_Mercury

But the North Koreans can have no illusion that the skies above their country will be safe: there are several major enemy airbases a few minutes from their border, their entire airspace is routinely surveilled and powers hostile to them have made large investments in stealthy air superiority fighters, so the air is not a safe place for the DPRK continuity of government plans. The DPRK does have trains but I would not consider those safe in the event of a major war, since rails are difficult to keep secret.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taeyangho_armoured_train
by nathanlied | 2026-01-05 23:34:33+00:00
Your comment highlights some tensions in deterrence theory, but it also oversimplifies over a few things.

If you notice, most countries with nuclear weapons also have published and publicized nuclear use policies. These documents usually highlight lines and conditions under which they will consider the use of nuclear weapons. This is by design. Ambiguity in nuclear policy invites miscalculation. Of course, you don't want complete certainty, lest you risk your enemy push right up to your line and no further; you want your lines defined, but a little blurry, so that the enemy is afraid to approach, much less cross. This is called strategic ambiguity. This is why Russia has been criticized a lot by policy experts for their repeated nuclear saber-rattling. They're making the line too blurry, and so Ukraine and their allies risk crossing that line accidentally, triggering something nobody truly wants to trigger.

In the case of a nuclear-armed Ukraine, given Russia's tendency to like to take over neighboring countries, they could include "threats to territorial integrity" as a threshold for going nuclear. They could also be a little more 'reasonable' and include "existential threat to the state" - which the initial 2022 invasion very much would fit.

What this looks like in practice is that Russia, in their calculations, would factor in the risk of triggering a nuclear response if they tried to take Ukrainian territory. Now, they may believe, as you seem to, that Ukraine would not risk the annihilation of its people over Crimea/Donbas. At which point, Russia would invade, and then Ukraine would have to decide. If Ukraine does not escalate, then they will lose deterrence and credibility for any future conflicts, assuming they survive as a state. If Ukraine does escalate, announces to Russia they will launch a nuclear attack to establish deterrence (reducing ambiguity that this is a full nuclear exchange), and then launches a single low-yield nuke at Russian invading troops, they place the ball back in Russia's court: Ukraine is clearly willing to employ nukes in this war - do you believe they won't escalate further, or do you believe they will launch their full arsenal if you continue?

This is essentially a simplified version of deterrence theory. The idea is to give the other side all possible opportunities to de-escalate and prevent a full nuclear exchange. If you do not back up your policy with actual teeth - by using nukes when you said you would - you're signalling something very dangerous.

This is also why nuclear-armed states do not tend to rely solely on their nuclear deterrence. They want a solid layer of conventional capabilities before they have to resort to their proverbial nuclear button. A strong conventional force keeps conflicts below the nuclear threshold, where deterrence theory tends to get very dangerous, very fast.
by rconti | 2026-01-05 23:34:56+00:00
Importantly, the _reason_ that ChatGPT is good at this kind of homework, is that the homework is _intended_ to be toil. That's how we learn- through doing things, and through repetition.

The problem set or paper you turn in is not the product. The product is the learning that the human obtains from the _process_.

The homework is just there, being graded, to evaluate your progress at performing the required toil.
by chupchap | 2026-01-05 23:35:13+00:00
I have a different theory for the current enshitification we see. When OS updates became free Apple and Microsoft stopped caring about what customers want and what will sell. This allowed them to do whatever they wanted without repercussions. OS updates automatically and the new UI is forced on you along with the terrible UX taped on top. Every app and API was geared to the latest OS version alone for developer simplicity and this added to the pressure on the end customer. I don't know how this loop ends, but this sucks.
by array_key_first | 2026-01-05 23:35:26+00:00
To be fair, if this stuff did make your teeth fall out, that would still be worth it.

Everything is risk calculus. If you're just a bit overweight, then yeah probably not worth the risk. If you're morbidly obese then it's a no brainer.

I will say this: the bar for obesity is lower than most people think.
by mym1990 | 2026-01-05 23:36:21+00:00
The big time suck I see with robotic anything is that simulation for training will only take it so far...eventually it needs to be in the real world, making mistakes, and this comes with far more red tape and much higher risk, slowing down the process. I don't see hardware as the bottleneck, its software and hardware working together in an environment where the stakes are much higher than just in the lab.
by reactordev | 2026-01-05 23:36:50+00:00
Vector textures is how you fake it like you’re talking about. Just render the fft/liquid to a 3D texture where the RGBf is the normalized vector. Use this texture when you render the smoke billboard to add those vortices in 3D space by multiplying the uv by the vector in the vertex shader and shading like you do with the noise in the pixel shader.

Ooooo… we have smoke like it’s a 1930s billiards bar.

Here’s a few examples that use some fluid dynamics to make “smoke”

https://play.huwroberts.dev/advection/

https://www.shadertoy.com/view/DsKyWm

https://ghostinthecode.net/2016/08/17/fire.html

For fire, the import part is the flame, not the spark. It’s the same methods as above. Everything eventually lands on a 2D texture where you blur or blend it with the scene.

For smoke ribbons this works really well in screen space. For big plumes like mushroom clouds or physical clouds not so much. For those, volumetric SDF is the way to go with rayleigh marching and some gradient of grey.

Anyway, happy coding and enjoy playing with the rules of reality!
by bicepjai | 2026-01-05 23:37:19+00:00
> Corporate personhood is not the same thing as "corporations are people".
Call it "corporate personhood" if you want, the practical effect I am talking about is corporations being protected as speakers in elections.
> Lobbying wouldn't inherently be an issue with an education and caring voting population.
So yes, education helps, but “just have better voters” doesn’t remove the structural advantage of concentrated money and full-time influence operations (lobbying).