MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by JamesSwift | 2026-01-14 15:11:50+00:00
(Dont take this as an attack on you personally, just on the sentiment you are giving in your comment)

The attitude you present here has become my litmus test for who has actually given the agents a thorough shake rather than just a cursory glance. These agents are tools, not magic (even though they appear to be magic when they are really humming). They require operator skill to corral them. They need tweaking and iteration, often from people already skilled in the kinds of software they are trying to write. Its only then that you get the true potential, and its only then you realize just how much more productive you can be _because of them_, not _in spite of them_. The tools are imperfect, and there are a lot of rough edges that a skilled operator can sand down to become huge boons for themselves rather than getting cut and saying "the tools suck".

Its very much like google. Anyone can google anything. But at a certain point, you need to understand _how to google_ to get good results rather than just slapping any random phrase and hoping the top 3 results are magically going to answer you. And sometimes you need to combine the information from multiple results to get what you are going for.
by edot | 2026-01-14 15:13:41+00:00
"Natanson said her work had led to 1,169 new sources, “all current or former federal employees who decided to trust me with their stories”. She said she learned information “people inside government agencies weren’t supposed to tell me”, saying that the intensity of the work nearly “broke” her."

Wow. So they're going to plug her phone in to whatever cracking tech they have and pull down the names of everyone who has been helping her tell the story of the destruction of our government. The following question is "what will they do with the names of the people they pull?". I can only imagine. Horrible. Hopefully she had good OPSEC but she's a reporter, not a technologist. I bet enough mistakes were made (or enough vulnerabilities exist) that they'll be able to pull down the list.
by pessimizer | 2026-01-14 15:14:13+00:00
This is really my priority to achieve at a job, and one of the reasons I try to be good enough to be indispensable is to be allowed to roll in in the morning whenever I get there.

I have a very tough time in the morning convincing myself to go to work, and a very tough time at work tearing myself away from something in an intermediate state. Things at work are always in an intermediate state at 5:00, unless you stopped working well before then (or got very lucky), so I always end up working late whether I come in on time or come in late.

So I'm always trying to get to the point where management lets me get there when I get there, and trusts me to be productive. It's a mental thing. I get up early and do a lot in the morning; I'm a morning person. Maybe too much so. The time between getting off work and going to bed is garbage time for me; a long annoying commute and a meal. When I leave at 5:00 I just fall asleep by 9:00.
by mschuster91 | 2026-01-14 15:14:34+00:00
A case can be made to discuss if the deadlines imposed by that law are actually achievable with humans and an acceptable degree of errors (i.e. overredaction, improper/recoverable redaction, and underredaction).

That's also why many "large" criminal cases only have a very limited subset of the initial charges make it to trial (often to understandable public outrage). The larger the case, the more evidence material has to be sifted through to make an airtight case, so a lot of it is dropped before the trial to secure a conviction at all.

Basically Al Capone, rinse and repeat - they got him on taxes because that's far easier to prove than ordering or committing a murder to the required degree of certainty.

The interests of the victims, their families and the general public are different from the interests of the government... the victims/families/public want justice for the unique crime they were subject to, the government just wants to lock up the bad guy for as long (or as short, let's be clear) as possible.
by napkinartist | 2026-01-14 15:14:44+00:00
The post you are replying to literally is playing the finger pointing game. They level accusations right back at spark fun.

I have zero skin in this game, and personally think the right move is for Adafruit to simply say, "We wish Sparkfun the best of luck" and move on, but the post you are responding to is clearly looking for a public fight.
by librasteve | 2026-01-14 15:14:44+00:00
Here's the other Gleam concurrency example in Raku for good measure:

my @promises;

sub MAIN() {
# Run loads of green threads, no problem
for ^200_000 {
spawn-greeter($++);
}

await Promise.allof(@promises);
}

sub spawn-greeter($i) {
@promises.push: start {
say "Hello from $i";
}
}
by ericselin | 2026-01-14 15:14:49+00:00
FreeSwewing is an awesome project by Joost De Cock! You should totally check it out if you're into sewing. And if you're into digital sovereignty tou should totally check out statichost.eu (disclaimer: I'm the founder :)

TL;DR takeaway for HN techies: when executing resource-intensive workloads on Node.js, pay attention to its max heap size. It can be increased with the `--max-old-space-size` option, e.g. via the env var `NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=16384"`.
by tdeck | 2026-01-14 15:15:00+00:00
So your local diner used to have napkin dispensers on every table full of napkins.

Then some people started coming in and just taking all the napkins out when they left the restaurant. Now the diner is going broke paying for napkins so they stop stocking them. Seems like we can't have nice things :(.

But wait! Great solution! We created a micropayment system. Sign up on your phone and use this QR code to pay 1 cent to dispense each napkin. You can also watch a 30 second ad for a free napkin. Napkins are back at the diner, and now they're properly commodified, as indeed everything should be.

--

I don't know about you, but the above scenario doesn't sound like a happy ending to me.
by 1vuio0pswjnm7 | 2026-01-14 15:15:23+00:00
When I read the blog post, the impression I get is that the author is referring to the proposed "business" of licensing or selling "generative AI" (i.e., making money for the licensor or seller), not whether generative AI is saving money for any particular user

The author's second reference, an article from The Atlantic, describing the copyright liability issues with "generative AI", has been submitted to HN four times in the last week

AI Memorization Research (theatlantic.com)

2 points by tagyro 5 hours ago | flag | past | discuss

AI's Memorization Crisis (theatlantic.com)

2 points by twalichiewicz 1 day ago | flag | past | 1 comment

AI's Memorization Crisis (theatlantic.com)

3 points by palad1n 4 days ago | flag | past | 1 comment

AI's Memorization Crisis (theatlantic.com)

4 points by casparvitch 4 days ago | flag | past | discuss
by eyelidlessness | 2026-01-14 15:15:28+00:00
The point of a type system isn’t ever that you don’t have to check the things that make a value represent the type you intend to assign it. The point is to encode precisely the things that you need to be true for that assignment to succeed correctly. If everything is in fact modeled as an Option, then yes you have to check each thing for Some before accessing its value.

The type is a way to communicate (to the compiler, to other devs, to future you) that those are the expected invariants.

The check for invariants is trivial as you say. The value of types is in expressing what those invariants are in the first place.
by daveguy | 2026-01-14 15:15:35+00:00
It wasn't a hand wave. I gave an exact source, which OP admitted was better.

They certainly haven't "condensed the entire internet into a few TBs". People aren't backing up their personal data to a few MB because your assumption is false.

Maybe when people stop hand waving abilities that aren't there we will better understand their use as a tool and not magic.
by adangert | 2026-01-14 15:15:43+00:00
Dutch Mao (mentioned briefly in the wiki) is a variant where everyone comes up with a hidden rule before the game begins, and is one of my favorite games of all time.

Followed closely by Eleusis the master of inductive reasoning card games, a brilliant zendo like experience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusis_(card_game)
by pjc50 | 2026-01-14 15:15:54+00:00
Looked them up and it's a good example. See also contemporary condemnation of the US justice system. https://www.ft.com/content/2699c7c4-9ea0-11dc-b4e4-0000779fd...

The only link that made them liable for US extradition was "wire fraud" relating to a message transmitted in the US. Exactly the sort of extraterritorial law that the US are complaining about when it happens to them.
by palata | 2026-01-14 15:15:59+00:00
To some extent I do agree that is sounds like "my build was failing on a platform I had never tested, and I was pissed because I had to debug it".

But it is true that GitHub Actions don't make it easy to debug (e.g. you can't just SSH into the machine after the build fails). Not sure if it justifies hating with Passion, though.
by blixt | 2026-01-14 15:16:08+00:00
I've gotten to a point where my workflow YAML files are mostly `mise` tool calls (because it handles versioning of all tooling and has cache support) and webhooks, and still it is a pain. Also their concurrency and matrix strategies are just not working well, and sometimes you end up having to use a REST API endpoint to force cancel a job because their normal cancel functionality simply does not take.

There was a time I wanted our GH actions to be more capable, but now I just want them to do as little as possible. I've got a Cloudflare worker receiving the GitHub webhooks firehose, storing metadata about each push and each run so I don't have to pass variables between workflows (which somehow is a horrible experience), and any long-running task that should run in parallel (like evaluations) happens on a Hetzner machine instead.

I'm very open to hear of nice alternatives that integrate well with GitHub, but are more fun to configure.
by arximboldi | 2026-01-14 15:16:27+00:00
I like Github Actions and it is better than what I used before (Travis) and I think it solves an important problem. For OSS projects it's a super valuable free resource.

For me what worked wonders was adopting Nix. Make sure you have a reproducible dev environment and wrap your commands in `nix-shell --run`, or even better `nix develop --command`, or even better your most of your CI tasks derivations that run with `nix build` or `nix flake check`.

Not only does this make it super easy to work with Github Actions, also with your colleagues or other contributors.
by pepperball | 2026-01-14 15:16:41+00:00
> Its very much like google. Anyone can google anything. But at a certain point, you need to understand _how to google_ to get good results rather than just slapping any random phrase and hoping the top 3 results are magically going to answer you. And sometimes you need to combine the information from multiple results to get what you are going for.

Lmao, and just as with google, they’ll eventually optimize it for ad delivery and it will become shit.
by zweih | 2026-01-14 15:16:46+00:00
Mouth cancer. I can live a normal life EXCEPT I can't allow liquids to touch my lips. Without straws I have to go through agony just to be minimally hydrated. Paper straws get stuck to my necrotic flesh and tear it off.

There are a variety of conditions that straws are helpful for. A lot of people have health issues that make it difficult to swallow. A lot of people have mouth and lip conditions.

What I don't understand is all the moaning and groaning about the smallest piece of plastic that helps a LOT of disabled people have a semblance of normalcy, when here are much larger plastic fish to fry. We use plastic for basically everything but people have tunnel visioned on a minor piece that actually helps people. It's myopic.
by allreduce | 2026-01-14 15:17:08+00:00
I find it weird to jump to this from the scarce information we have.

"Someone did a CoC violation" is just a way for an org to say "someone was an asshole to such an extent it was driving other people away or getting us into legal trouble", with the manner of assholery defined in the CoC.
9/10 times it is nothing sinister.

Of course right now we just don't know what happened.
by JKCalhoun | 2026-01-14 15:17:10+00:00
Trying to parse as I am not in the know. Nate is Nate Seidle, CEO of SparkFun Electronics?

I know SparkFun recently took over Paul Stoffregen and Robin Coon's Teensy production (I reached out at the time and Paul said it was cool).

I'm guessing Adafruit got a special deal in purchasing Teensy's from SparkFun but because of an allegation made by you against Nate, they are responding by dropping your entire product line?

Anyway, good luck to everyone involved. It's a small community of companies that provide for makers.
by bob1029 | 2026-01-14 15:17:52+00:00
Issue #, commit hashes, etc. are still immutable in this scenario. When you rename or transfer a GitHub repository, all of these keys are preserved.

What I do is store 2 tuples:

Repository: (Id, Org, Repo)

Issue/PR: (Repository.Id, #)

Transferring or renaming a repository is an update to 1 row in this schema.
by stonecharioteer | 2026-01-14 15:17:52+00:00
I perform better on days I have walked. I'm walking 10k steps (4km by my Garmin) a day, I want to reach 10km a day. It also helps my anxiety, my therapist says it manages to burn off excess energy and helps regulate my emotions.

I also am one of the few people who can walk and read at the same time, either from an ereader, phone or a book (as long as the size is manageable). I read and comprehend better when I am walking. It's crazy, but I'm a klutz when I'm not reading. When I'm walking I pay far better attention to the road as well.
by lestoni | 2026-01-14 15:18:03+00:00
Location: Kenya

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Node.js, TypeScript, JavaScript, REST, gRPC, Webhooks, OAuth2/SSO, PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka, Kubernetes, AWS/GCP, Mongodb

Résumé/CV: https://github.com/lestoni/blog/blob/main/Tonny-Mutai-CV.pdf

Email: tonnimutai@gmail.com

Senior backend/technical lead with 10+ years building multi-tenant SaaS and API platforms across Africa and Europe, including microservices at scale and production operations.
by techblueberry | 2026-01-14 15:18:06+00:00
One thing with all this AI tools and AI summaries

- one of the things that I think makes different leaders unique / effective is the way they weight certain information. I read a thing and get something different out of it than my boss does.

It seems like groupthink is going to go through the roof if most of us are biasing towards the same externally defined signal.
by foenix | 2026-01-14 15:18:33+00:00
Mao took over my summer camp like wildfire in 2005. Fellow councilors and I would often consolidate the rules between camp sessions and we kept running clearing out playing cards from the Kenora grocery store to play on our island. Fond memories. It's definitely one of those games that suites camp life, with the culture of play and hidden rules.
by 9JollyOtter | 2026-01-14 15:18:51+00:00
> but the median is IMO still the best you can do here, because it ignores outliers completely (on both sides).

Using the Median as far as I am concerned is meaningless as the South/South-East skews everything. It is quite obvious as you drive across the country. You can see it with your own eyes.

I don't really care that much about the comparison with China.
by BirAdam | 2026-01-14 15:18:56+00:00
In general, I've never really experienced the issues mentioned, but I also use Gitea with Actions rather than GitHub. I also avoid using any complex logic within an Action.

For the script getting run, there's one other thing. I build my containers locally, test the scripts thoroughly, and those scripts and container are what are then used in the build and deploy via Action. As the entire environment is the same, I haven't encountered many issues at all.
by jt2190 | 2026-01-14 15:19:03+00:00
> Teams don't just work together magically and "organically".

This is the “employees are resources” mentality, and is common in mature companies. In a startup, however, you need to hire for individuals that will “make it rain”, and not wait around for some process or manager to tell them to communicate or do work. If your employees are not coming together as a team and figuring things out without your handholding you’ve hired the wrong people.
by golly_ned | 2026-01-14 15:19:31+00:00
Frankly I think the 'latest' generation of models from a lot of providers, which switch between 'fast' and 'thinking' modes, are really just the 'latest' because they encourage users to use cheaper inference by default. In chatgpt I still trust o3 the most. It gives me fewer flat-out wrong or nonsensical responses.

I'm suspecting that once these models hit 'good enough' for ~90% of users and use cases, the providers started optimizing for cost instead of quality, but still benchmark and advertise for quality.
by steveklabnik | 2026-01-14 15:19:48+00:00
Yes. It's a bit tricky to think about, because while it is literally called 'noalias', what it actually means is more subtle. I already linked to a version of the C spec below, https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n3220.pdf but if anyone is curious, this part is in "6.7.4.2 Formal definition of restrict" on page 122.

In some ways, this is kind of the core observation of Rust: "shared xor mutable". Aliasing is only an issue if the aliasing leads to mutability. You can frame it in terms of aliasing if you have to assume all aliases can mutate, but if they can't, then that changes things.
by jensgk | 2026-01-14 15:20:18+00:00
> Same experience as the child of migrants. America has boundless optimism and integrates people well

ICE??

> Same experience with safety nets too. America has tons of welfare. Not sure why people have issues with it honestly.

I am in my 50s, I have never seen a country as divided and toxic as the US, and that is for a reason.
by gen220 | 2026-01-14 15:20:24+00:00
If you wanted a better version of GitHub Actions/CI (the orchestrator, the job definition interface, or the programming of scripts to execute inside those jobs), it would presumably need to be more opinionated and have more constraints?

Who here has been thinking about this problem? Have you come up with any interesting ideas? What's the state of the art in this space?

GHA was designed in ~2018. What would it look like if you designed it today, with all we know now?
Show HN: Utter – system-wide dictation with prompt-based post-processing iOS/Mac
by helro | 2026-01-14 15:20:26+00:00
Hi HN,

I built utter, a macOS + iOS dictation app that focuses less on raw transcription and more on what happens after dictation.

Standard dictation is fast, but the output usually needs cleanup. Utter lets you define custom prompts that transform your spoken input before it’s inserted — e.g. removing filler, adding structure, formatting as bullet points, emails, or notes.

It works system-wide: press a hotkey, speak, and the processed text is inserted at the cursor in any app (Notes, editors, terminals, browsers, etc.).

A few details:

- Works out of the box with no setup using built-in cloud models

- Optional local models or BYOK for those who prefer that path

- Transcripts can be saved locally in formats like Markdown

- iOS companion app with iCloud sync

- No accounts, no login, no data retention

I built this primarily for my own workflows (notes, writing, coding prompts) and would love feedback on what’s missing or where it breaks down. One of my favorite uses is dictating prompts for agentic coding workflows, which are then post-processed using a custom prompt that includes a repository file map for semantic search and automatic @file tagging.

Link: https://utter.to

Happy to answer questions.
by Rochus | 2026-01-14 15:20:31+00:00
> you are writing a post that does that about a different technology

No, I report based on my experiments and realistic expectations. I don't promise: "just rewrite in Rust and everything is safe, and don't hesitate to spend millions for it". I offer a perspective instead based on proven track records of the technology and present a method how to make it better accessible.
Show HN: Cowork – A curated list of resources for Claude Cowork
by horatio_li | 2026-01-14 15:20:40+00:00
Hi HN,

Like many of you, I've been exploring the new Claude Cowork capabilities. While the official docs are great, I found that practical examples, working prompts, and configurations are scattered across GitHub issues, Twitter, and various blogs.

I built Awesome Cowork to aggregate these resources in one place.

Currently, it includes:

- Prompts for file management and web scraping.
- A list of troubleshooting tips for common errors.

It's still a work in progress. If you have any scripts or use cases you've tested, I'd love to add them to the list (or feel free to submit a PR to the GitHub repo).

Hope this saves you some setup time!
by bsoles | 2026-01-14 15:21:12+00:00
> Intellectual curiosity in the form of hobbies, nerdy interests that they can talk about with passion

Although I know that a lot of people would argue for "what's wrong with doing your day job well and going home to your family, friends, etc?", in my experience, it is also true that the best software engineers I've seen during my 25 year career are the ones that made their job also their passion and hobby. I think intellectual curiosity and being a 9-5 person are inversely correlated, again in my experience.
by techblueberry | 2026-01-14 15:21:19+00:00
I work in a company where operating with a sense of urgency is a value, and I by my very nature sort of naturally operate with a sense of urgency, and I can tell it drives the people around me crazy.

It’s funny to here an exec say something like this because then you have to tune to degrees.

But this whole thing is basically; Dell is rewriting the whole company OS? I want to read stories about the epic ways this breaks down, because even in a best case scenario where 2 years down the line this is an amazing success, the disruption will be crazy.
by webdoodle | 2026-01-14 15:21:29+00:00
Not really surprised at this point. After Bush allowed, and Obama pardoned the collateral murder pilots, whistleblowers and journalists in the U.S. have been continually threatened, hazed, jailed and killed at the pleasure of whomever the current president is. This isn't party politics, Bush through Trump, are guilty. This is fascism at its finest...
by zweih | 2026-01-14 15:21:30+00:00
For a variety of health conditions, single use plastic straws really are the only thing that work. I've tried reusable, metal, paper, composable, and pretty much none work for my condition. Pretty much the same applies to many other disabled people. This is such a bizarre thing to focus on when there are so many actual egregious uses of plastic. Why target something that allows so many disabled people to live normally? I hate having to bring my own straws places just to be able to be hydrated.
by CodingJeebus | 2026-01-14 15:21:35+00:00
No, this is absolutely not normal as the article clearly states. Reporters are very rarely raided in the US under circumstances like these.

The problem is that "classified materials" means whatever the government wants it to mean in this context. Is there a journalist you want to target for a particular reason? Just accuse them of handling classified information, which they don't ever have to produce to the public because it's "classified".