MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by palata | 2026-01-10 17:19:40+00:00
> Honestly I can't comprehend Americans thinking their constitution is some holy grail

There exists a concept of "American exceptionalism" [1], which describes this popular belief that the US are superior. It also probably goes with the fact that it is a very big country sharing one culture, and it is easy to not spend too much time looking at what other countries are doing.

> presidential democracies where presidents are elected by popular vote are a disaster

I would like to add France to the examples supporting your case: in the first round, Macron got less than 20% of the votes, and a non-negligible part of those was already trying to be "efficient". As in, the people would have voted for someone else, but they voted for Macron because it seemed more likely that he could win against Le Pen, the far-right candidate.

This means that less than 20% of the people (those who voted of course) wanted Macron. On his first day, more than 80% didn't want him. Still he behaves like if the French people wanted him.

> by having the parliament elect the president

An example I like is Switzerland: they don't have a president at all. They elect their parliament, and the parliament elects the Federal Council made of 7 people from the main parties.

What this means is that the executive power is a consensus by construction, and most of the people is represented (because the Federal Council is made of the major parties, which represent the majority of the people and go from left to right).

Feeling represented is very important: when the people does not feel represented, they take out to the street and protest. I don't think it happens as much in the countries you described (Germany, Italy) or Switzerland.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism
by prirun | 2026-01-10 17:19:42+00:00
I doubt Microsoft gives a minute's thought to government monopoly concerns. One of their "punishments" after the monopoly lawsuit was to give schools free copies of Microsoft Office products. Teachers and administrators adopted them, forcing parents to also buy copies of Office. Now practically everyone's documents are locked up in Office formats, which Microsoft can change on a whim. Sure, there are products to read Office formats with varying levels of success, but Microsoft has the control and can make everyone jump through hoops whenever they feel like it.
by arcfour | 2026-01-10 17:19:51+00:00
Oh god, I had a Mac for work recently and had to spend 3 weeks becoming an expert in Mac External Displays And Thunderbolt just to get my HP Thunderbolt 4 dock (officially compatible with Macs!) to use a dual monitor setup with it. Finally I got it working, but every configuration I tried Just Worked(tm) on Linux. Jeez...
by odyssey7 | 2026-01-10 17:19:54+00:00
I appreciate the nuance you’re bringing to this topic.

The child vaccinations schedule is a step further than public advice due to its role in clinical practice and social expectation setting. Policymakers have a job that stands apart from that of both the medical experts and the general public, and the child vaccinations schedule is a policy document, not simply a medical one.
by uyzstvqs | 2026-01-10 17:20:48+00:00
Related:

UK threatened with sanctions if Starmer blocks Musk's X - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46559666

"If Starmer is successful in banning X in Britain, I will move forward in . . ." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46553342
by kryogen1c | 2026-01-10 17:20:48+00:00
The fact that, on expensive hardware, I can hit windows+r and start typing before the run box renders/loads is staggering, it beggars belief.

Im generally a microsoft shill, but theyre really on the down hill slope. windows 11 is truly a masterpiece of changes no one asked for or wants, Teams is the least reliable piece of business software I've ever seen. New outlook does not have feature parity with old outlook and has the same bargain bin apple ux stylings as w11.

Maybe ive finally crested the age gap and im officially a dinosaur, but God damn every microsoft product is worse than it used to be.
by alphadatavault | 2026-01-10 17:21:03+00:00
Exactly. The 'strength' of expression is often where synthetic biology hits a wall—if you over-express a heterologous gene without the right regulatory context, you just trigger a stress response or metabolic exhaustion. What’s fascinating about mechanisms like PreS is that they don't just 'turn up the volume'; they optimize the host's existing machinery (like the DnaN sliding clamp) to support the increased load. It’s less like adding a faster engine and more like upgrading the fuel lines before you hit the gas. Understanding these 'low-level' viral optimizations is probably the only way we’ll get past the current yield plateaus in industrial fermentation.
by k2enemy | 2026-01-10 17:21:09+00:00
MacOS seems to be going the way of Windows, with unnecessary and distracting notifications for things users don't care about. Then on top of that, the whole liquid glass redesign that hurts usability and information density.

Definitely moving in the direction of "what is good for a particular PM" and not "what is good for the user." I would have switched to linux years ago if it were not for the great hardware and I like having access to iMessages from the desktop.
by Signatura | 2026-01-10 17:21:20+00:00
That makes sense, and I think your skepticism is reasonable.

From the candidate side, it’s almost impossible to tell whether criteria are being refined thoughtfully or just drifting based on recent hires or strong opinions in the room.

What strikes me is that without explicit feedback loops, iteration can easily turn into reinforcement, people conclude “this worked” without ever seeing the counterfactual of who was filtered out.

From the outside, it often looks less like a calibrated process and more like accumulated intuition. I’m curious whether that matches what others here have seen from the inside.
by doodlesdev | 2026-01-10 17:21:27+00:00
They do, but that's really not necessary. In the linked video you can see Windows 8.1 is pretty well optimized compared to the other Windows versions.

A lot of this slowdown is just developers getting complacent and getting used to the new hardware capabilities. Windows has a lot of low hanging optimization fruit laying around. It's just Microsoft doesn't really care about that: it doesn't fit the business model at all.
by xerox13ster | 2026-01-10 17:21:38+00:00
I’m not sure what your point is?

You were ahead of the curve on displays and behind the curve on phones and I guess congrats on the 2e start, I had an early Mac.

What does this have to do with the price of CPU cycles in clamshell PCs?

You abstained until ARM because you could see the future and you knew that the specs you demanded we’re gonna be available eventually?
by alsetmusic | 2026-01-10 17:21:41+00:00
I've been using Netatmo stations in each room plus one outside for a decade. They monitor temp, CO2, and humidity. My CO2 levels were nightmarish during wildfires in my part of California across multiple years. Of course, the air tasted horrible and it was absolutely evident how bad it was just breathing two different years so it was not at all surprising to see that correlated on instruments that I check multiple times every day.

Edit: missed a letter
by JumpinJack_Cash | 2026-01-10 17:21:53+00:00
This comment underscores how mono-dimensional some people are.

To Rayiner more stuff, bigger stuff = happier and more fullfilling life. An incredible lack of depth.

That is also the reason why Americans when they go abroad are astonished and always come back saying "people are amazing" somewhere else, well no wonder considering the state of domestic affairs and domestic relationships between people.

Please offer my apologies to your mom , as it's true that our vehicles are dangerously underdimensioned , maybe next time something in the order of 10-15 short tons could be adequate to transport her to the nearest McMansion (or McDonald's rather).
by Loughla | 2026-01-10 17:22:23+00:00
Ads on the login screen, ads on my fucking start menu. No intuitive way to access all programs. . . Sorry. Apps from the start menu. Suggested apps instead of that. Hold screens to set a backup using one drive and to link my phone and set telemetry and whatever other bullshit once a week.

It's not great. Linux mint is what I install for older relatives now. It's close enough to windows feeling that they never even question it.
by QuiEgo | 2026-01-10 17:22:38+00:00
Just a shout out here for medication. ADHD meds are rated effective in the 70-90% range, which is just incredibly good compared to medication effectiveness for just about anything else.

I have ADHD, and hate the feeling of being a victim. "I have this, so I can't do that. It's just the way it is." No! Not for this. Not when there are so many treatment options.

I accept that things may be harder for me than a typical person, that I may have to put in more work than other people to get the same results, that this is something that's very real that I have to deal with and manage at all times. That there will be times when I will fail and my stupid monkey brain will win the moment. But I won't let it define me, I won't let it dictate who I am and what I can and cannot do.

EDIT: Also, I mean to agree with you here: there's a point where no amount of discipline will work, and the advice to "just try harder" sounds like an alien telling you to just grow wings and fly. If you find yourself at that point, medicine can and will help. It also helps you be able to get in a routine of actually doing exercise, which in turn helps even more, and it becomes a sweet positive feedback loop.
by rvnx | 2026-01-10 17:22:41+00:00
If Greeland declares independence, Danish army would arrest all the local resisting people for terrorism, unlawful orders, etc (or shoot at them if needed).

They don't have a choice, they can't split away from Denmark right now, they are like in jail.

If someone tells you that Greenland can declare independence tomorrow without consequences from Denmark this is not true. They would first need to do great PR "we want freedom" and spread in the news that Denmark is evil and forgot about them, etc.
by nine_k | 2026-01-10 17:23:09+00:00
I noticed that people often treat cars as they treat clothes. It's their largest and most expensive costumes.

This means that fashion and looks start to play a major role, utility be damned. This also means that relatively minor details, like the exact shape of headlights, become a major stylistic and thus market niche differentiator.

I don't think it's a new problem with cars. But it maybe relatively new in the utility / light truck space.
by conartist6 | 2026-01-10 17:23:17+00:00
I respect the hell of those philosophies because of how far Linux and git have made it, which they've done by winning people over with good, solid choices. I would hope I'd be a good enough engineer to make the same choices if I saw the same things Linus saw 20 years ago. But it's 20 years later and I'm looking at the next 20 years and I see a different landscape and it causes me to have a different outlook. I think code literacy is a hugely important right now as a battle is fought over whether people will own their technology.

If many people are literate in code, the likelihood is far greater that they will own the tech and it will be open source and built according to principles that make software accountable to them. If most people are illiterate in code, they will become subjects to proprietary technology forced to use products which they have no control over.

The problem is that code literacy hasn't moved beyond the era where developers are people who own a physical keyboard and a full-size computer monitor, use a filesystem regularly, and are able to install and run native applications on their laptop or desktop. But here you've got the next generation of programmers who need to become literate in code (so that they won't become subservient to it) and for many all they have are touchscreens: phones and tablets. Maybe they're on a shared device where they can't or don't want to install software. They might not know what a filesystem or x86 machine code is. That's why I'm on mission to make code literacy and the ability to contribute to open source a matter as simple as having a screen and a browser.
by AndrewKemendo | 2026-01-10 17:23:21+00:00
> Are so much people in programming implementing middleware / wrapping existing API all day that it gives them a feeling of liberation to be able to delegate those tasks ?

Yes

The overwhelming majority of production code are simply wrappers and APIs calling existing frameworks and libraries

The type of projects you’re talking about are so unbelievably rare that almost nobody starts them or makes progress on them because predominantly they are social organizations that happen to export code
by alphadatavault | 2026-01-10 17:23:24+00:00
That’s the core of the problem, isn't it? Test case minimization (like what we see with property-based testing tools or things like C-Reduce) is magic when it works, but it’s essentially an 'architecture tax.' To get that lack of nondeterminism, you usually need a very clean separation of effects. If your logic is tightly coupled to global state, network latency, or unpredictable database sequences, the 'minimizer' just spins its wheels. I’ve found that the real ROI of TDD isn’t just the test itself, but the fact that it forces you to build a deterministic interface so the test can even exist. You can't minimize what you can't control.
by gizmo686 | 2026-01-10 17:23:39+00:00
> What's really crazy (even by today's US standards) is how Trump and his clique speak as if he annexed Venezuela and he can do whatever he wants.

Setting aside what this does to the image of the US, this also just isn't grounded in reality. The US conducted a singular operation with a narrowly defined goal of extracting their president and his wife. They then declared that they were putting the Venuzuellan vice president in charge. I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but that looks a lot more like them getting behind a winner instead of dictating it.

Sure, the military operation was a tactical success; and will probably make Venuzuella more subservient in the near term. But I see no evidence we have done anything close to annexing them.
by Signatura | 2026-01-10 17:23:43+00:00
That’s an interesting comparison...
The licensing point highlights how much of the burden in software hiring sits on explanation rather than verification. Without shared baselines, candidates end up narrating their competence instead of pointing to an accepted signal.
The expectation gap you describe also explains why requirements feel flexible in practice but rigid on paper. When the real goal is “get someone productive soon,” standards tend to bend quietly rather than evolve explicitly.

Do you think the absence of clear baselines is something the industry could realistically converge on, or is software work too varied for that to work in the way it does for licensed engineering?
by Groxx | 2026-01-10 17:23:46+00:00
You have to read between the lines a bit, but the post supports it. It's talking about how readable it is, how you don't need tools, etc... and when it gets to tool support, it basically just has "you can use your mouse! you don't need to learn keyboard shortcuts!" to paraphrase, or if you prefer verbatim:

>The basic file open/save, finding help, exiting Emacs stuff is accessible with icons or the menu.

Or earlier:

>In contrast to that, the syntax of Emacs Org-mode as the one and only original form...

Because there is no other real option. Mobile org users overwhelmingly (AFAICT) use Emacs in Termux to edit their files.

This post was originally written in 2017 (tools maybe first in 2019? though it hardly matters). It's still true today.
by smj-edison | 2026-01-10 17:23:58+00:00
It's important to distinguish between the Framework 13 and the Framework 16. The Framework 16 is by far the most ambitious of the two, and so it has had a lot more issues. I use a Framework 13, and I've loved it. It's light, has a solid frame, and runs Linux great. The battery life isn't great, and the speakers aren't either, but I've been able to mitigate the latter with EasyEffects.
by beezle | 2026-01-10 17:24:01+00:00
I don't know if it is some much 'compensating' as it is a "look at my toy" showing off type of thing which isn't really directed at women. When I drive around metro areas it is pretty clear that the large majority of trucks are "house" trucks - they are never used for truck things. They are washed, waxed with nice shiny black tires.

Don't get me wrong - if you got the dough, by all means drive what you want. But most truck owners could get by with something else just as well.
by big_toast | 2026-01-10 17:24:03+00:00
Isn't that generally the case, convenience? 20% to 50% extra in price to handle edge cases and unknown unknowns seems pretty cheap. That's like, $100/month to $200/month for a lot of extra flexibility in the US.

As someone unsympathetic to big vehicles in urban areas, and probably most suburban areas, the challenge as always is figuring out how to re-internalize externalized costs.

Or I guess reduce externalized costs. (Additional safety features? Increased road wear tax? Vehicle size class limitations on certain roads or lots?)
by simion314 | 2026-01-10 17:24:04+00:00
Windows is worse , just latest example: a USB WiFi antenna for the PC, on Linux it just works, on Windows you need either to buy a CD drive to install the drivers - not sure if your grandma can buy a cd drive, install it and install drivers. On Linux it just works.

People like buy a computer and use whatever is on it, they can't manage to install windows, the drivers needed for the hardware, I had to setup emails, or other online accounts for this kind of people so give them a preinstalled Linux and they should manage,.
by browningstreet | 2026-01-10 17:24:17+00:00
I was watching the Lenovo CES keynote and couldn’t believe how hard they were selling Qira on Lenovo computers and Motorola phones. All the major players have platform specific Windows features that can’t possibly meet their success criteria in terms of ROI. Lenovo isn’t Apple or Google or Microsoft, and even the latter two have trouble selling fully integrated platform services on hardware.

All this time, money, dev energy, and marketing to keep trying to find a magical bean in their stalk and they still just won’t support open hardware and open source OSes with vigor.

Apple people tend to buy Apple products generation over generation, and none of the Windows hardware manufacturers are even close to having that rep. Even in this thread people are recommending Gen 1 Thinkpads, but Lenovo’s heart really isn’t in it across the board. Dell went simple with the revived XPS but the release versions don’t offer Linux in the BYO order flow.

And no, I don’t think Framework is good enough.
by rlpb | 2026-01-10 17:24:34+00:00
Additionally, landlords don't benefit from the higher prices (ie. market rate rent) either, since that also pushes house prices up. A landlord entering the market has a higher capital cost that absorbs the higher rental return, such that typically rental yield remains about the same (at slightly higher that the cost of capital that covers their increased risk compared to a more stable investment).

Those who benefit are those who own housing at the time of market rate increases. That's just regular investment return and the risk/reward can be directly compared to any other form of investment. Current owner occupiers and current landlords benefit at the time of every increase (even if their capital gains are not immediately realised). And then every household, whether they are owner occupiers or tenants, have to pay in the form of higher capital expense. Landlords simply pass the higher rent through to pay for their higher capital expenses.
by loeg | 2026-01-10 17:24:54+00:00
A lot of commenters saying you "need" a trailer (instead of an F150), but another option would be one bike in the bed and the second bike (if needed) on a hitch-mounted rack. A hitch rack takes less space to store when you're not using it than a full trailer. It would probably be more annoying to load and unload than just putting two bikes in the bed.

Anyway, if you want an F150, get it -- I don't really care.
by hackyhacky | 2026-01-10 17:25:26+00:00
Or: Steve Ballmer oversaw the decline of Mircosoft's flagship product, but left before he could be blamed for it.

A lot of Windows' current problems can be traced back to the Ballmer era, including the framework schizophrenia, as Microsoft shifted between Win32, UWP, WPF, and god knows what else. This has lead to the current chaotic and disjointed UI experience, and served to confuse and drive away developers. Repeatedly sacrificing reliable and consistent UX while chasing shiny and new technologies is no way to run an OS.
by Wowfunhappy | 2026-01-10 17:25:57+00:00
> I find it so odd that Apple put so much weight behind the VisionOS design, rolling it out to all platforms, considering so few people have Vision Pro.

I suspect they began working on Liquid Glass before the Vision Pro was publicly unveiled, so they didn't know what the public response would be.

What I honestly find more baffling is that they thought the Vision Pro would sell well. It just isn't a good product.

Perhaps they're still banking on a future where the Vision Pro becomes a pair of real glasses. In which case, Liquid Glass is the type of interface you'd want to have.
by adityaathalye | 2026-01-10 17:26:03+00:00
Yes, more interoperability at the cost of capability.

Also, yes, conversion is quirky. That is why Org works until it does, and then I trade off being stymied by markdown's more plain-ness, in favour of collaborating with others.

And with vanilla markup, the trouble is that many applications /do not/ use just vanilla markup. People /invariably/ want "one key tweak" (like, front-matter or table of contents or footnotes or some such thing), and everyone ends up doing their own thing.

Perhaps the trouble with markdown is it's /too/ plain. So yes, lots of people can do lots of lowest common denominator stuff, but it does not extend to individuals wanting "just one thing" which also adds up to a lot of people.

Edit: a real-life example... I typically run code from org-mode for interactive testing and debugging --- the kind of stuff we write small throwaway scripts for.

In this one project, I made it so that /I/ or anyone else using org-mode could do it from org, for local development, and anyone else could just use the script as-is... including the CI pipeline.

[1] https://gitlab.com/nilenso/cats/-/raw/master/README_TESTS.or... (notice that the gitignore procedure needed for this trick is self-executable from this org file itself, in addition to being self documenting)

[2] https://gitlab.com/nilenso/cats/-/blob/master/bin/curl-tests...
by modeless | 2026-01-10 17:26:33+00:00
> My goal here is to see how far I can get using Linux as my main OS without spending a ton of time futzing with it

> First challenge: My mouse buttons don’t work. [...] Not a major issue; I can get around fine with just the keyboard.

> Then I remember that my root partition is only 100GB. I reboot back into the Cachy live image and use the Parted utility to increase it to 1TB, then make a second btrfs partition in the remaining space.

I don't think the goal was achieved here. For most people it still takes some dedication and a lot of computer knowledge to switch successfully.

But I expect things to continue to improve now that Valve has solved the single major blocker for a large chunk of people, that being running their back catalog of games. It's an amazing gift to the community that we should all be very thankful for.