MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by Quarrelsome | 2026-01-23 18:44:02+00:00
Britain mostly bankrolled WW1 and was broke by 1916. If you consider the British position prior to the war and after the wars, its an extroadinary failure. Especially considering how all the monarchs of Europe were directly related and had ample opportunities to prevent the wars. They were conflicts of hubris, over-confidence based on mostly fighting the developing world and never having to appreciate the horrors of modern artilery against their own ranks. If you look at the opening battles of the first world war the quantities of casualties are absolutely staggering. They were not prepared and under-estimated what it would take to fight these wars.

All that wealth and power wasted on turning Europe into a wasteland and sacrificing generations of young men.
by JohnLeitch | 2026-01-23 18:44:07+00:00
The problem is hallucinations. It's incredibly frustrating to have an LLM describe an API or piece of functionality that fulfills all requirements perfectly, only to find it was a hallucination. They are impressive sometimes though. Recently I had an issue with a regression in some of our test capabilities after a pivot to Microsoft Orleans. After trying everything I could think of, I asked Sonnet 4.5, and it came up with a solution to a problem I could not even find described on the internet, let alone solved. That was quite impressive, but I almost gave up on it because it hallucinated wildly before and after the workable solution.

The same stuff happens when summarizing documentation. In that regard, I would say that, at best, modern LLMs are only good for finding an entrypoint into the docs.
by homebrewer | 2026-01-23 18:44:20+00:00
Given enough computers, anything will happen. Apparently enough bit flips happen in domains (or their DNS resolution) that registering domains one bit away from the most popular ones (e.g. something like gnogle.com for google.com) might be worth it for bad actors. There was a story a few years ago, but I can't find it right now; perhaps someone will link it.
by johnhamlin | 2026-01-23 18:44:27+00:00
Love games like this. I used Vim Snake to make the muscle memory for hjkl finally stick in my brain. (I wish you could disable the insert mode toggling -- it's cute but didn't help when I was trying to break the habit of moving my finger up to press W or Up Arrow and remember that everything is in a straight line.)

https://vimsnake.com
Will agentic AI grow to handle technology leadership responsibilities?
by gengstrand | 2026-01-23 18:44:48+00:00
I think it is now pretty clear what impact agentic AI has on coders. I am curious how technology leaders (e.g., software architects, staff engineers, senior developers, team leads) are changing how they work and what they are responsible for in organizations that have fully committed to agentic AI. Now that it is the AI that is writing the code...

Do we still need humans to manage tech debt?

Do we still need humans to review the AI output?

Do we still need humans to care about non-functional requirements such as scalability and fault tolerance?

Do we still need a human developer on call?

If you said “yes” to any of the above, then do you believe that it is only a matter of time until your answer would change to “no,” or do you believe that it would always be “yes, humans are needed.” Please elaborate on why.
by mrkeen | 2026-01-23 18:45:07+00:00
I work in a typical web app company which does accounting/banking etc.

A couple of days ago I was sitting in a meeting of 10-15 devs, discussing our AI agents. People were raising issues and brainstorming ways around the problems with AI. How to make the AI better.

Our devs were occupied doing AI things, not accounting/banking things.

If the time savings were as promised, we should have been 3 devs (with the remaining devs replaced by 7-10 AI agents) discussing accounting/banking.

If Gas Town succeeds, it will just be the next toy we play with instead of doing our jobs.
by time4tea | 2026-01-23 18:45:18+00:00
Its what commit messages are for!

The diff tells the 'what' - no point in writing 'added method bob()'

The message tells the why.

You can bet that over time, the jiras, the issues and the confluence, slack, o365, will all have been deleted, "upgraded" or whatever, and all you have is what's in the repo.

Using in-repo ADR, and in-repo 'what's missing, what's next' files are also useful, because they co-evolve with the code.
by bjt | 2026-01-23 18:45:28+00:00
It reminds me of when I worked at an ag tech startup for a few years. We visited farms up and down the central valley of California, and the general tone toward Silicon Valley is an intense dislike of overconfident 20-somethings with a prototype who think they're going to revolutionize agriculture in some way, but are far, far away from having enough context to see the constraints they're operating under and the tradeoffs being made.

Replacing the farm manager with an AI multiplies that problem by a hundred. A thousand? A million? A lot. AI may get some sensor data but it's not going to stick its hand in the dirt and say "this feels too dry". It won't hear the weird pinging noise that the tractor's been making and describe it to the mechanic. It may try to hire underlings but, how will it know which employees are working hard and which ones are stealing from it? (Compare Anthropic's experiments with having AI run a little retail store, and get tricked into selling tungsten cubes at a steep discount.)

I got excited when I opened the website and at first had the impression that they'd actually gotten AI to grow something. Instead it's built a website and sent some emails. Not worth our attention, yet.
by direwolf20 | 2026-01-23 18:45:28+00:00
The Gervais Principle framework calls this type of person a Clueless. They sit in middle management as a buffer between the Sociopaths who run the world, and the Losers who know the world sucks but would just like to get their paycheck and go home. I'm surprised to hear this actually play out — the Gervais Principle doesn't seem very empirical.
by Spoom | 2026-01-23 18:45:37+00:00
> AI doesn't need to drive a tractor. It needs to orchestrate the systems and people who do.

I've been rather expecting AI to start acting as a manager with people as its arms in the real world. It reminds me of the Manna short story[1], where it acts as a people manager with perfect intelligence at all times, interconnected not only with every system but also with other instances in other companies (e.g. for competitive wage data to minimize opex / pay).

1. https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
by phtrivier | 2026-01-23 18:46:13+00:00
You can't ask anyone to change society's rules by themselves. That being said, you are part of society. If you live differently than your neighbors, you might actually be the model that people will emulate, and not the gaz guzzler.

Sadly, that's pretty much the extent of your control, unfortunately (that, and maybe voting for people to change the laws, which would indirectly change the rules of society - although, usually, the relation goes the other way.)

In this case, if it's even in people best interest to change the "timing of dishwashing" to align on cheap hours - I trust people will do.

The trick is to not overpolitize it - my mum has always launched her dishwasher during "heures creuses", not caring a damn about why the electricity is cheaper at this time. If the cheapest hours end up being earlier, lots of people will just adapt to save a few bucks - it may be smarter to NOT mention solar power, or environment, or whatnot.
by bogwog | 2026-01-23 18:46:33+00:00
I will never understand this from software engineers/tech people in general. That demographic knows how technology works, and are equipped to see exactly where and how Microsoft is taking advantage of them, and how the relationship is all take and zero give from their end. These people are also in the strongest position to switch to Linux.

The only explanation that makes sense to me is that there's an element of irrationality to it. Apple has a well known cult, but Microsoft might have one that's more subtle? Or maybe it's a reverse thing where they hate Linux for some equally irrational reasons? That one is harder to understand because Linux is just a kernel, not a corporation with a specific identity or spokesperson (except maybe Torvalds, but afaik he's well-regarded by everyone)
by replyifuagree | 2026-01-23 18:47:00+00:00
>I personally can't accept shipping unreviewed code. It feels wrong. The product has to work, but the code must also be high-quality.

Sadly review isn't enough. I just today I found some code that I reviewed 2 months where the developer clearly used an agent to generate the code and I completely missed some really dumb garbage the agent put in. The agent took a simple function that returns an object with some data and turned it into a mess that required multiple mocks in the tests (also generated by the agent).

The dev is a junior and a clear example of what is to come, inexperienced people thinking coding is getting an agent to get something to pass CI.

The tech debt is accelerating exponentially!
by PaulHoule | 2026-01-23 18:47:25+00:00
I've been working with an agent to make a web-based biofeedback "application" which is really a toolbox of components you can slap together to support

- heart rate via Polar H10
- respiration rate via strap-on device
- GSR and EMG via arduino + web serial
- radar-based respiration (SOTA says you can get R-R intervals as good as the H10 if you're not moving)

and even do things like a 2 player experience. The code is beautiful, pure CSS the way it was supposed to be, visualizations with D3.js. I do "npm install" and can't get over the 0 vulnerability count. It's coding with React that's 100% fun with none of the complaints I usually have.
by christefano | 2026-01-23 18:47:29+00:00
Getting HTML email signatures to work in iOS Mail is a trial and error nightmare, and it requires a second device.

Create an HTML email signature in TextEdit or some other rich text editor on macOS, copy it and paste it on iOS using Continuity Clipboard into the signature text field in iOS’ Settings -> Apps -> Mail -> Signature text field, and pray that it works.

When it does work, it ignores text size. Want your email signature to be in a smaller font size? Too bad.

The only workaround I’ve found is to copy an email signature from another email account that miraculously did copy over successfully, copy it on iOS and paste that in to another’s email signature field, and manually rewrite the whole thing.

Of course, the HTML links aren’t editable, and the Signature text fields don’t enable the “Add Link” item to the hover tools menu when selecting text.

Worst of all, even when the email signature is finally perfect, the Signature text field doesn’t preview it properly. If text is pasted in at a smaller text size, the preview still shows it at the default size. The only way to accurately preview an email signature is to draft a new email and hope the email signature displays like it did originally in TextEdit.

In short, never create a new HTML email signature on iOS. Create in on a Mac (source), copy it over the network with Continuity Clipboard, hope it works, and treat the iOS email signature fields (destination) as a never- or rarely-editable workspace.
by dcrazy | 2026-01-23 18:47:45+00:00
I’m not sure if you misunderstand how macOS accounts work or how FileVault works.

There are two ways to log into macOS: a local user account or an LDAP (e.g. OpenDirectory, Active Directory) account. Either of these types of accounts may be associated with an iCloud account. macOS doesn’t work like Windows where your Microsoft account is your login credential for the local machine.

FileVault key escrow is something you can enable when enabling FileVault, usually during initial machine setup. You must be logged into iCloud (which happens in a previous step of the Setup Assistant) and have iCloud Keychain enabled. The key that wraps the FileVault volume encryption key will be stored in your iCloud Keychain, which is end-to-end encrypted with a key that Apple does not have access to.

If you are locked out of your FileVault-encrypted laptop (e.g. your local user account has been deleted or its password has been changed, and therefore you cannot provide the key to decrypt the volume encryption key), you can instead provide your iCloud credentials, which will use the wrapping key stored in escrow to decrypt the volume encryption key. This will get you access to the drive so you can copy data off or restore your local account credentials.
by jablongo | 2026-01-23 18:48:03+00:00
I think you could have credibly said this for a while during 2024 and earlier, but there is a lot of research that indicates LLMs are more than stochastic parrots, as some researchers claimed earlier on. Souped up versions of LLMs have performed at the gold medal level in the IMO, which should give you pause in dismissing them. "It can't actually understand how many there currently are, the season, how much land, etc, and do the math itself to determine whether it's actually needed or not" --- modern agents actually can do this.
by asdhtjkujh | 2026-01-23 18:48:39+00:00
Agreed, its existence is implausible, but I assume they're consulting on other projects for Korg Japan in addition to developing Phase8 and other prototypes. They're undoubtedly taking a loss (despite low European salaries) but their contributions across the board could also scale non-linearly.

I also imagine that it's the olive branch that brought Takahashi back to the company after he left. He brought Korg back from the dead and they were probably and rightfully desperate to find a way to retain their top performer.
by Quarrelsome | 2026-01-23 18:48:41+00:00
I don't mind the rationale for WW2 so much, I think the idea that Britain "didn't have to", doesn't scan. What the Third Reich was doing meant it would always be an existential threat that would ultimately result in conflict. So it was better for Britain to fight the Nazis than stay neutral.

I would however suggest that the two wars are basically the same war with just a big ceasefire in the middle, that's why I would treat them as the same mistake.
by bobbob1921 | 2026-01-23 18:48:45+00:00
This is correct, I also discovered while preparing several ThinkPads for a customer based on a Windows 11 image i made, that even if you have bitlocker disabled you may also need to check that hardware disk encryption is disabled as well (was enabled by default in my case). Although this is different from bitlocker in that the encryption key is stored in the TPM, it is something to be aware of as it may be unexpected.
by apf6 | 2026-01-23 18:49:25+00:00
> it's the running costs of these major AI services that are also astronomical

There's wildly different reports about whether the cost of just inference (not the training) is expensive or not...

Sam Altman has said “We’re profitable on inference. If we didn’t pay for training, we’d be a very profitable company.”

But a lot of folks are convinced that inference prices are currently being propped up by burning through investor capital?

I think if we look at open source model hosting then it's pretty convincing - Look at say https://openrouter.ai/z-ai/glm-4.7 . There's about 10 different random API providers that are competing on price and they'll serve GLM 4.7 tokens at around $1.50 - $2.50 per output Mtokens. (which by the way is a tenth of the cost of Opus 4.5)

I seriously doubt that all these random services that no one has ever heard of are also being propped up by investor capital. It seems more likely that $1.50 - $2.50 is the "near cost" price.

If that's the actual cost, and considering that the open source models like GLM are still pretty useful when used correctly, then it's pretty clear that AI is here to stay.
by kypro | 2026-01-23 18:49:32+00:00
I think this is a fair position and believe you're making it in good faith, but I can't help but disagree.

I think the reasonable default here would be to not upload to MS severs without explicit consent about what that means in practise. I suspect if you actually asked the average person if they're okay with MS having access to all of the data on their device (including browser history, emails, photos) they'd probably say no if they could.

Maybe I'm wrong though... I admit I have a bad theory of mind when it comes to this stuff because I struggle to understand why people don't value privacy more.
by w10-1 | 2026-01-23 18:50:33+00:00
The two phenomena in the article are incorruptibility and responsiveness after apparent death. Granting the evidence is weak, is it possible?

Death for medical purposes is really the boundary when function is not at all expected to return. It's not when metabolic processes stop. It can vary with treatment (handling?).

For incorruptibility, (as others have mentioned) diet could be a factor, especially for immunogenic foods. Lack of stress is another. Stress hormones have wide-ranging impacts and are key to sleep, wherein detoxification, esp. reduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by melatonin. A monk at peace for months or years before death could have a vastly altered hormonal and metabolic landscape.

Therapeutic hypothermia is cooling the body after near-death trauma from heart attacks and drowning. In the last ~15 years, it has been instrumental in increasing survival, even for people e.g., under water for many minutes. The problem is reperfusion injury: after a bout of anoxic cellular respiration, there's a large build-up of ROS; re-introducing full metabolism quickly results in these molecules reacting with others, impeding metabolic processes and destroying some cellular structure. So cooling and only slowly reheating the body allows the ROS to be scavenged instead, and people survive as a result.

If there's validity to incorruptibility in this context, my bet would be on some combination of coolness and processes that reduce ROS, coupled with a very low population of ROS from a stress-free history before death.

But a mechanism of incorruptibility doesn't address the other phenomenon of responsiveness, holding collapse off until some signal.

In my (limited) experience with people after stroke, long after any cognitive abilities are gone, the person maintains reactivity to the environment - touch, heat, light, sound, and (yes) voices. This reflects more autonomic processes. The cerebellum maintains body awareness and position with input from the midbrain, and spinal nerves for muscle groups can operate on their own to hold position and react. (Indeed, one of the signs of the absence of CNS suppression is painful, relentless muscle spasms.) So I can imagine nerves and muscles holding anoxic positions, and even some reduced nerve signaling from the cerebellum using ion reserves. The holding would have to be perfect, and the signal to release would be a one-time thing. This would not work repeatedly or for any signal to do something.

My overall takeaway is that we don't realize the extent to which we are a product of our bodies.
by tcb678 | 2026-01-23 18:50:40+00:00
Your contention only works in a functioning democracy.

Republicans currently control ~55% of all state legislative seats nationally and hold governing majorities in most states. In some of these states, they are incredibly partisan and just don't care - they will burn it all down to stay in power (MO, TX, etc.) Congress is required to certify the results of presidential elections, but state and congressional elections are a different matter. Those are certified at the state level, by state officials.

So what happens if Republican led states simply decide to declare, "We certify that the incumbent representative has been reelected," regardless of the actual vote count, or play other games e.g. discarding votes, eligibility, etc? It would be wildly illegal, of course. It would almost certainly trigger lawsuits, protests, and significant political repercussions within each state.

But here's the problem: in many of these jurisdictions, the federal district courts are controlled by Republican-appointed judges. The circuit courts are too. If the state officials certifying the results are Republican, the state courts and legislatures are friendly, and the federal courts that would hear any challenge are also sympathetic, how exactly would anyone stop them? Who enforces the ruling if the courts themselves are part of the alignment? The U.S. DOJ will not take up these cases on anyone's behalf. And in such a circumstance, you're unlikely to find a Congress willing to impeach the officials failing to do that.

More importantly, the National Guard and/or the Army gets activated under the Insurrection Act. So. That's the ballgame.
by mc32 | 2026-01-23 18:51:14+00:00
They have many questions to answer. How do they skirt the NPT? If they rely on the UK --which is not an EU country, or even if they rely on France, who makes the call, who has authority and what happens when some country tells France "launch" but France doesn't agree. Do those other countries have guys with the launch codes in assigned siloes?
by mikkupikku | 2026-01-23 18:51:18+00:00
I hope Linux is never suitable for windows users, who's tolerance for abuse is matched in magnitude only by their lack of taste. You have no idea just how over I am with the very premise of Linux evangelism. I will go as far as find reasons or even just flimsy pretexts to oppose and criticize any change to Linux calculated to win over Windows users, because being co-users with such people is plainly against my own interests. My lack of sympathy extends to full blow gatekeeping.

What is "Linux for normals" besides Android anyway? If that's the crap you actually want, use it. But no, that's not good enough, you want to bring the riff raff into real distros to stink up the place. I hope this never works.
by carlosjobim | 2026-01-23 18:51:43+00:00
> How can I evaluate their value if I don’t even look at them?

There are no subscription services which can beat Fastmail, iCloud, Kagi or YouTube in value for your dollar. So you can stop looking.

There are many subscription services which offer good or even great value, or mediocre. But since you demand that value has to be better or equal than the great value Fastmail gives you for you to be interested, then I'm telling you that you're not going to find it.
Ask HN: Do B2B deals stall more from "org blindness" than product fit?
by Tanjim | 2026-01-23 18:51:48+00:00
I’m researching a hypothesis and would love input from folks who’ve worked in B2B sales, RevOps, or founded companies selling to other businesses.

Hypothesis:
A lot of deals don’t slow down because the product is weak or the pitch is bad, but because early conversations happen without a clear understanding of who actually holds decision power inside the buyer’s org.

Teams end up spending weeks with people who are interested but not empowered. By the time the real decision-maker shows up, context is lost and momentum resets.

I’m curious:

1. Do SDRs/AEs in your experience consciously map buying groups early?
2. Is org awareness something teams are trained or incentivized to do?
3. Have you seen deals stall for this reason?
4. Is this mostly an SDR issue, an AE issue, or a leadership/process issue?
5. Are there tools or workflows that genuinely help here (not just CRM fields nobody updates)?

Just trying to understand whether this is a real, repeatable pattern across teams or an overthought theory.

Would appreciate any stories, counterpoints, or practices that have worked for you.
by talolard | 2026-01-23 18:51:58+00:00
I haven’t had major issues with sccs yet.
The linter enforces forward references so the cycle pain we do have is with dynamic/deffered imports, and it’s usually solved by splitting a module.

If you look at the pyrefly repo (metas new type checker), there are some deep thoughts about sccs, but I didn’t fully grok them.