MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by ingohelpinger | 2026-01-28 09:30:01+00:00
Thanks for the clarification and to be clear, I don't doubt your personal intent or FOSS background. The concern isn't bad actors at the start, it's how projects evolve once they matter.

History is pretty consistent here:

WhatsApp: privacy-first, founders with principles, both left once monetization and policy pressure kicked in.

Google: 'Don’t be evil' didn’t disappear by accident — it became incompatible with scale, revenue, and government relationships.

Facebook/Meta: years of apologies and "we'll do better," yet incentives never changed.

Mobile OS attestation (iOS / Android): sold as security, later became enforcement and gatekeeping.

Ruby on Rails ecosystem: strong opinions, benevolent control, then repeated governance, security, and dependency chaos once it became critical infrastructure. Good intentions didn't prevent fragility, lock-in, or downstream breakage.

Common failure modes:

Enterprise customers demand guarantees - policy creeps in.

Governments demand compliance - exceptions appear.

Liability enters the picture - defaults shift to "safe for the company."

Revenue depends on trust decisions - neutrality erodes.

Core maintainers lose leverage - architecture hardens around control.

Even if keys are user-controlled today, the key question is architectural:
Can this system resist those pressures long-term, or does it merely promise to?

Most systems that can become centralized eventually do, not because engineers change, but because incentives do. That’s why skepticism here isn't personal — it's based on pattern recognition.

I genuinely hope this breaks the cycle. History just suggests it's much harder than it looks.
by 0xDEAFBEAD | 2026-01-28 09:30:23+00:00
>seeing any US state being described as "very left-wing" is interesting to me, think it just shows how different these views are between US and Euro. i'd describe California as Centrist. sure, socially open, no issue with sexuality or heritage. but also, free markets, corpo power, $$$, generally pro-system. the Orange is disliked heavily, but after all it's not the system which is the problem, it's the Orange!

California is considering a wealth tax which is already causing billionaires to flee the state.

>to end on a funny note, https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQAfP-2...

It's the Europeans who want us to ship more weapons to Ukraine.
by vintermann | 2026-01-28 09:30:51+00:00
It's hard to measure the information content of anything, because information is fundamentally about differences which matter, and we don't always know what matters. The text content can be preserved dutifully through centuries through copying, then in our time, we find out that what we really would have wanted was the handwriting style of the original, or the environmental DNA from pollen attached to the original vellum...

But even so, there's so much archive material which hasn't even been digitized. I run into it in genealogy all the time. It's in some box in a museum, if you're lucky they made microfiche images of it fifty years ago.
by concats | 2026-01-28 09:31:46+00:00
I didn't catch it immediately, but after you pointed it out I totally agree. That comment is for sure LLM written. If that involved a human in the loop or was fully automated I cannot say.

We currently live in the very thin sliver of time where the internet is already full of LLM writing, but where it's not quite invisible yet. It's just a matter of time before those Dead Internet Theory guys score another point and these comments are indistinguishable from novel human thought.
by PieTime | 2026-01-28 09:31:49+00:00
I think it’s not news that’s the problem. It’s the sources of news are often biased and spend very little time explaining events in context. I much prefer an hour long news program or multi-page article that details events and perspectives going years into the past. We have a surprising large amount of influence on events around the world. Everything from the companies you support to your politics can vastly change world events.

I really dislike the notion that events outside of your country are somehow not important.
by theGeatZhopa | 2026-01-28 09:32:09+00:00
I always think what's the advantage of going renewable in the actual world.

Having this much instability, this much anger, breaking alliances and a start of a new world order in just a few nights.. the danger and probability of economic or physical wars is rising higher every day. And it can always escalate to a proper WORLD WAR grade physical conflict.

In such cases, having fission in a reactor, that itself is encapsulated in tones of concrete, IS much easier to defend and to protect.

Having renewable wind or solar energy production would mean the aggressor can operate on a wide/big areal, which is difficult to defend and to protect, and only needs to throw cluster bombs. Once critical mass of wind/solar generation is destroyed, the conflict is won.

We should follow two paths and for upper reasons invest BIG MONEY into both, renewable and fission/coal (what is and could be available in a grown conflict and is a source of reliable energy production).

If one is destroyed, we have backup. In times of no conflicts we can use the renewables as peacemakers, strengthening the bonds between neighbor nations. This may also reduce conflict potentials: when both need it, either one will not destroy it.
by 2b3a51 | 2026-01-28 09:32:20+00:00
I'm not seeing any big problems with the portraits.

Having said that, should this company not be successful, Mr Zbyszek Jędrzejewski-Szmek has potentially a glowing career as an artists' model. Think Rembrandt sketches.

I look forward to something like ChromeOS that you can just install on any old refurbished laptop. But I think the money is in servers.
by cjs_ac | 2026-01-28 09:32:27+00:00
Traditionally, the news industry has been divided into tabloids, which were more sensationalist and aimed at a less sophisticated readership, and broadsheets, which were more analytical and aimed at a more sophisticated readership. From a business perspective, the articles and opinion pieces were just bait to draw in a particular class of reader; the real money came from advertising to those particular classes of reader.

The web has destroyed that business model, because the news industry now controls far less advertising space, so there is no longer enough advertising revenue to support quality journalism. The broadsheets are in real financial trouble, and most have turned to tabloid-style articles (albeit ones that promote more sophisticated worldviews) in order to pull in those social-media clicks.

I find myself increasingly interested in publications like The Economist and The Financial Times, simply because their readerships have financial interest in actually knowing what's going on in the world, and so they can charge a subscription price that supports quality journalism.
by Ralfp | 2026-01-28 09:32:34+00:00
Because not everything is done as EU law. Frequently its an executive order or a directive passed down from national minister or other govt official to their branch or other branches to make their base happy at expense of people currently blamed for govt’s failures.

Eg. no law in Poland regulates legal gender change process. But there is a series of directves for courts on how this should be addressed issued by whoever is in the govt at the moment. One govt issued a directive that those are low prority, other that spouse and children should have a power to veto, another that actually those are high priority and then govt-appointed judges in the supreme court decided to veto the veto and implement new procedure altogether. And none of this is in the law - just directives for judges from pliticans and higher judges.
by pixelpoet | 2026-01-28 09:32:34+00:00
GPUs aren't fast because they run standard CPU code with magic pixie dust, they're fast because they're specialised vector processors running specialised vector code.

Cuda can also do C++ new, delete and virtual functions and exception handling and all the rest. And if you use that stuff, you're basically making an aeroplane flap its wings, with all the performance implications that come with such an abomination.

inb4 these guys start running Python and Ruby on GPU for "speed"...
by lifthrasiir | 2026-01-28 09:32:35+00:00
These metrics necessarily have to underestimate programmer skills because those are not directly controllable. If there is any sort of rigor in these metrics (i.e. I don't know if COCOMO is one of them) they will probably assume, say, a mundane programmer whose performance is worse than 90/95/99% of all other programmers.
by wesammikhail | 2026-01-28 09:32:42+00:00
You can be directionally right but still lose a whole lot of money as an investor for decades on end even when you're right about the eventual outcome. Predicting future outcomes is orders of magnitude easier than predicting the exact moment/timing. After all, "markets can stay irrational for far longer than you can stay solvent".

This is why Burry, schiff, and a bunch of others keep predicting a collapse for decades on end. They're directionally right, they see a pattern but cant seem to time it right.

My prediction: I think this clusterfuck will keep going until

1. Unbearable irrationality: The US owes more money than there is money in the whole world. Measured using something like global M1 or M2 or something of that nature. Basically the system will need to reach a level of irrationality that even its biggest defenders can't cope with. OR,

2. Demographics: Most boomers die of old age after raiding whatever remains of the treasury.

Coincidentally, if my quick math is right, both of these scenarios are very likely to coincide within the next ~10 years or so. So make of that what you want...
by Saurao | 2026-01-28 09:33:12+00:00
I built Stare to help aspiring and current product managers prepare better for interviews without jumping between 10 different resources.
It includes:

1000+ real-world case studies (strategy, product design, growth, estimation) from companies like Google, Meta, Amazon, etc.
AI-powered review that gives structured feedback on your answers in seconds
Instant generation of strong responses to common PM questions
Curated PM job board, SQL practice, company deep-dives, resume/LinkedIn audits

Free tier available; premium is $10/mo for unlimited AI reviews and full access.
Been using similar scattered resources for years — wanted one place that actually helps you practice like the real interview.
Would love honest feedback from fellow PMs / engineers transitioning to product — what’s missing? What annoys you most about current prep tools?
by repelsteeltje | 2026-01-28 09:33:42+00:00
I guess it's simply the externalities issue. Finance people optimize finance, which among other things results in improved efficiency. But despite best intentions to map out all incentives that matter, it always fails to consider some aspects. Focusing on short-term profits, ignoring privacy, security or pollution because it's free, lobbying for favourable legislation that hampers competitors, etc.

These are things that don't show in a spreadsheet unless you're explicitly incentivized to look at them. But that's never the case because the number of KPIs is always finite while there are infinitely many aspects that could potentially be subverted.
by xp84 | 2026-01-28 09:33:50+00:00
Re: Minnesota - Everyone out there escalated the situation. Detaining people could be a very boring process, and I haven't seen any footage of any of the detained people starting any fights. Seems like it's mostly leftist white "heroes" running around.

I fully agree that it's terrible that those people have been shot to death by ICE officers, pretty much regardless of anything. But what I'm asking is what they're even doing out there? Why do it?

It seems more like these protests are not about the specific individuals being detained, but a cool group activity to engage in now, so what makes all illegal immigrants, who respect our country so little that their first interaction with it is to sneak in, automatically deserving of being shielded from the consequences of their own actions?

Re: ACLU - it's interesting that it seems like all those who are claiming harm are Mexicans who were given the choice to go back home to Mexico but refused. (If their claims are true, those officers should be punished and fired, but also can you think of any good reasons for detainees to lie about this if they're desperate to be allowed to stay?) Should the US admit all 130 million Mexicans as refugees, just on the grounds that Mexico is allegedly so bad? Or only the ones who break the law and come here?

I'll support accountability for ICE officers who do bad things all day, but it seems like the leftist goal posts are "Don't have immigration officers exist at all, and don't let local law enforcement even consider helping get people deported" and that's why people think Dems want open borders.
by Quarrelsome | 2026-01-28 09:33:59+00:00
There's no need for insane abstraction, we're talking about motivation for negative effects. Silicon valley hooks our children into unproductive activity where they are often fed misinformation because they want to advertise to them. Entertainment News only wins because it brings in more money for adverts. Nobody cares about a sign in a street or someone yelling in the street.

The answer to this (if it exists) is to withdraw the motivations for spreading misinformation or find another means of tempering their impact.

Idk what the solution is, I just find it odd we make our society obviously worse in order for someone to sell some diet pills or smth.
by nialv7 | 2026-01-28 09:34:08+00:00
It's insane to me how the manager culture is. Somehow going from an engineer to a manager is a "promotion"?

No, they are equals. Just different people doing different kinds of jobs. There should be two tracks and people should be able to choose. If engineers feel they have to become managers to grow their careers, all you are getting will just be unhappy engineers and bad managers.
by walthamstow | 2026-01-28 09:34:22+00:00
> I am considering subscribing to a magazine that covers important events in Germany, the EU, or the world every few months

I've posted the same message so many time I could get banned but if you live in the UK then Private Eye is what you want here. It's every fortnight, very funny and a bastion of genuine journalism (see the Paul Foot Award they give out each year)
by tuetuopay | 2026-01-28 09:35:26+00:00
> in one of our concentration camps

As a European, I find the use of "concentration camp" to be a very strong word. Trump and its administration are often touted as a Nazi and such. How much of this is hyperbole, and how much of this is real?

Nazis were systemic against a religion and disabilities. They made systemic ways of exterminating those deemed "unpure". The concentration camps had gas chambers to kill people. Is this really what is happening in the US?

Note: this is not snark to defend Trump, I'm French and I could not care less. I genuinely want to understand. I feel like the Nazi lexical field is much much weaker in the US, and people are more eager to use it over there than here in Europe.
by anigbrowl | 2026-01-28 09:35:30+00:00
Absolutely Do Not Want.

EDIT: Tell us what characters you want to see in the comments and we can make them for you to talk to (e.g. Max Headroom)

Sure, that kind of thing is great fun. But photorealistic avatars are gonna be abused to hell and back and everyone knows it. I would rather talk to a robot that looks like a robot, ie C-3PO. I would even chat with scary skeleton terminator. I do not want to talk with convincingly-human-appearing terminator. Constantly checking whether any given human appearing on a screen is real or not is a huge energy drain on my primate brain. I already find it tedious with textual data, doing it on realtime video imagery consumers considerably more energy.

Very impressive tech, well done on your engineering achievement and all, but this is a Bad Thing.
by simonw | 2026-01-28 09:35:45+00:00
I think datasette-transactions https://github.com/datasette/datasette-transactions is pretty novel. Here's the transcript where Claude Code built it: https://gisthost.github.io/?a41ce6304367e2ced59cd237c576b817...

That transcript viewer itself is a pretty fun novel piece of software, see https://github.com/simonw/claude-code-transcripts

Denobox https://github.com/simonw/denobox is another recent agent project which I consider novel: https://orphanhost.github.io/?simonw/denobox/transcripts/ses...
by CodeWeave | 2026-01-28 09:35:49+00:00
A principal engineer once asked me why CodeWeave exists.
I realised I never properly articulated it.

Last year, I watched a DevOps team spend four hours debugging a GitHub Actions workflow.

The root cause?
A YAML indentation error confidently hallucinated by an AI tool.

Their platform engineer said something that stuck with me:

“AI tools are fast, but they are never right. We always have to fix them.”

I am a DevOps engineer.
I’ve been that person at 2am, staring at Terraform drift because an AI suggested a command that looked correct, but quietly wiped part of the backend configuration.
The problem was not that AI was useless.
It was that someone still had to own the outcome.

Better engineers than me were already using AI.
So I took a different approach:
What if AI optimised for accountability instead of speed?

We built CodeWeave around that idea.

Not just generating infrastructure, but grounding decisions in official documentation, surfacing trade-offs, and exposing what’s missing.

Launching was the easy part.

I gave my email to every engineer who signed up.
When something broke, they messaged me.
One CTO pinged me at 11pm because a Kubernetes template was not generating network policies.
They didn’t want links to docs.
They wanted answers they could trust in production.

So I joined their calls.
Watched them use CodeWeave live.
Real environments. Real incidents. Real pressure.

That’s when the real pattern emerged.

Generic AI produced “working examples.”
But production infrastructure had gaps everywhere:

No RBAC
No monitoring
No disaster recovery
No cost visibility

Enterprise teams don’t want quick fixes.
They want infrastructure that survives audits, incidents, and growth.

So we rebuilt everything.

Security scoring.
Compliance checks.
Production-readiness validation.
Cost and blast-radius visibility.

Now when you generate Terraform, you see the financial impact.
When you build CI/CD pipelines, you see the security trade-offs.

We don’t have headlines or hype.
But yesterday, a platform team avoided a £40k cloud bill because CodeWeave flagged orphaned resources before they shipped.

That’s why CodeWeave exists.

Not to replace DevOps engineers but to help them make decisions they are prepared to stand behind.
Curious how others here think about trust and accountability when using AI in production systems.

You can check out CodeWeave here:
https://copilot.codeweave.co/
by embedding-shape | 2026-01-28 09:36:19+00:00
> But I do find the graphical interface very natural for doing creative design work. In fact, sometimes I wish I could literally step into my design in VR and grab and move vertices around in 3 dimensions

Agree, it's really hard to do work where you leverage "feels right" together with code, because even if the iteration loop is really tight ("change a bit of code > look at the results"), it's still loose compared to just clicking and dragging, feels like the mental load is a lot less.

Environment art really changed and became a lot easier with VR, I think maybe it's mostly a perspective thing, adjusting with controllers and dragging a moving is great, but the perspective it gives you really has no comparison and makes it all a lot simpler to get right. I can't wait for the tooling to mature more.
by fransje26 | 2026-01-28 09:36:25+00:00
Ubuntu and Fedora dropping X11:

https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/12/ubuntu_2510_to_drop_x...

https://itsfoss.com/news/fedora-43-wayland-only/

Kde Plasma 6.8 dropping X11:

https://itsfoss.com/news/kde-plasma-to-drop-x11-support/

Suse dropping X11:

https://documentation.suse.com/releasenotes/sles/html/releas...
by ArtTimeInvestor | 2026-01-28 09:37:42+00:00
I've never seen a company that ...

You have not seen Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft? Where are you looking? They all did tens of billions of share buybacks every year for many years now.

Example: Alphabet has started share buybacks in 2015 and increased those every year. $70B in 2025 alone. And they are firing on all cylinders product-wise.
by 8fingerlouie | 2026-01-28 09:37:58+00:00
Ukraine is taking out tanks and helicopters, as well as infrastructure daily, using 3D printed drones and AliExpress electronics.

Not suggesting anyone tries it, but modern warfare has evolved. Just like the tanks changed warfare in WW1, and tanks/planes changed warfare in WW2, drones are changing warfare once more.

a $10000 drone took out a multi million dollar Russian warship, and while not exactly 3D printed (at least not all of it), drones are cheap enough to manufacture to be expandable, especially if they can target and destroy things that are not that.

For comparison, a single cannon/mortar shell fired on the Ukrainian front costs €3500, and they fire up to 10000 of them per day. Making a few hundred $10000 drones is cheap compared to that, and while they likely don't hold the same "barrage level" destructive power, they are focused weapons and can destroy much more with less.
by kreetx | 2026-01-28 09:38:13+00:00
Thanks! What has your experience been thus far?

Apple makes great hardware (even more so now with their own CPUs) but I've steered clear of it simply because I run Linux. Last I checked the GPU wasn't fully supported and there were also concerns of of efficiency, that power draw is generally higher than macOS, thus the same hardware on Linux doesn't have the same benefit as with macOS.
by scorpioxy | 2026-01-28 09:39:04+00:00
Well, in general worrying about the future is not useful. Regardless of what you think, it is always uncertain. I specifically stay away from taking part in such speculative threads here on HN.

What's interesting to me though is that very similar promises were being made about AI in the 80s. Then came the "AI Winter" after the hype cycle and promises got very far from reality. Generative AI is the current cycle and who knows, maybe it can fulfill all the promises and hype. Or maybe not.

There's a lot of irrationality currently and until that settles down, it is difficult to see what is real and useful and what is smoke and mirrors.
by weeb | 2026-01-28 09:39:07+00:00
Interesting how different people's brains work. I personally cannot mentally parse a month-based calendar - the distribution of weeks and weekends is far too variable. I print one of these in A3 every year [0] - easy to see at a glance how many weekends are booked up, any gaps where you need to plan something to look forward to, how many weeks of work you can slot in before a particular commitment, etc. Interesting I've never found the same concept anywhere else.

[0] https://www.calendarpedia.co.uk/download/calendar-2025-portr...
by Aromasin | 2026-01-28 09:39:16+00:00
I know it's ironic to say this about Intel, a notoriously management heavy company, but they did do the dual tracks which I always appreciated. A principal engineer was functionally on par with a senior manager, and a fellow with a VP. This meant that good engineers weren't forced into roles they weren't interested in, and why many stayed there 20+ years.

The issue is, even with two tracks, there's every chance that more people end up taking the management path because it's seen as an easy way to climb the ranks. Your success can be built from your teams success, rather than your own individual contribution.