MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by kelthuzad | 2026-01-01 21:53:30+00:00
It's interesting how the "Apple can do no wrong" shareholders and "I will hate on PWAs no matter what" types, curiously converge and keep regurgitating the same talking points that have been addressed ad nauseam, even in this thread. Every technology has its "own problems" regardless of Apple, but it certainly doesn't help when Apple, being one of the biggest companies in the world, persistently engages in its sabotage.
by johnfn | 2026-01-01 21:53:48+00:00
I hear clamoring to go back to "the old web" frequently, I never really understood the perspective. The old web still exists. I use it every day. I'm a member of a number of tiny community websites with old web charm, and there are certainly millions more out there, for any random niche or interest. In fact, I almost consider Hacker News to be in that category (though it might be a tad too large these days; you can't really get to know everyone's name).

> But that’s not what we use the Internet for anymore. These days, instead of using it to make ourselves, most of us are using it to waste ourselves: we’re doom-scrolling brain-rot on the attention-farm, we’re getting slop from the feed.

No one is making you do any of these things. If you don't like it... stop? And go use the sites that you do like instead?

> Now, Learning On The Internet often means fighting ads and endless assaults on one’s attention — it means watching part-1-part-2-part-3 short-form video clips, taped together by action movie psychology hacks, narrated gracelessly by TTS AI voices. We’re down from a thousand and one websites to three, and each of those remaining monolith websites is just a soullessly-regurgitated, compression-down-scaled, AI-up-scaled version of the next.

Not really? There is an absurd amount of high quality content on the Internet to learn from - now more than ever. Yes, there is also poor quality AI slop garbage. But, again, if you don't like it... stop? And go watch the good stuff instead?
by yieldcrv | 2026-01-01 21:54:08+00:00
Everyone I know in LA that beat the social stagnation had started their own event

Many people also just put you on a text messaging list when you exchange numbers. They only tell you the number to their list, but they are capable of responding individually from it

When they go somewhere, they tell the list, if you come you come, if you don't, nobody's missing you. No obligation, reply STOP to end. Otherwise you can bond at the event and meet everyone else too
by pezezin | 2026-01-01 21:54:11+00:00
No, the reason why 13.5 MHz was chosen is because it was desirable to have the same sampling rate for both PAL and NTSC, and 13.5 happens to be an integer multiple of both line frequecuencies. You can read the full history in this article:

https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/techreview/trev_304-rec601_wood.pdf
by troupo | 2026-01-01 21:54:18+00:00
> Apple's conflict of interest is motivating them to reject entire feature sets for competing technology instead of helping to implement a safe standard

It literally is "everyone must immediately implement anything Chrome shits out". You don't even accept the fact that both Safari and Firefox team reject the entire premise on the same grounds.

Nope. "They must work on better standards for these features that Chrome ships".

> The choice and freedom should be the users' and not that of Apple's finance division.

Funny how in the paragraph you respond to I didn't mention Apple once.

> And the fact that you're so hyperfocused on specifics while failing to grasp the broader argument

There's no broader argument. You literally dismiss Firefox as irrelevant [1], assume that whatever Chrome ships is good, and assumes that Apple is both a bad actor driven entirely by money an must implement whatever Chrome comes up with (under the guise of "should work to implement a safe standard").

[1] Their position on these Chrome features is literally the same as Apple's https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/
by cedws | 2026-01-01 21:54:18+00:00
I've been sceptical of the 'Linux desktop' for a long time, but I recently started using Bazzite on my gaming PC and I'm super impressed. In just a few years since I last daily drove a Linux distro it's come such a long way. KDE Plasma is fast and beautiful.

So far all the games I want to play run really well, with no noticable performance difference. If anything, they feel faster, but it could be placebo because the DE is more responsive.
by irusensei | 2026-01-01 21:54:31+00:00
It's the same bullshit everywhere it seems. There goes the CGNAT with their router where the "advanced" options are basically defining DHCP settings - through a shitty phone app. There is also the stupid TV that no one asked for but it's part of the package.

And when they do give you v6 its a /64.

I wish there might be a category of prosumer friendly ISP of sorts. Those exist but they are hard to find.
by David | 2026-01-01 21:55:08+00:00
This bothered me at first but I think it's about ease of implementation.
If you've built a good harness with access to lots of tools, it's very easy to plug in a request like "if the linked PR is approved, please react to the slack message with :checkmark:". For a lot of things I can see how it'd actually be harder to generate a script that uses the APIs correctly than to rely on the LLM to figure it out, and maybe that lets you figure out if it's worth spending an hour automating properly.

Of course the specific example in the post seems like it could be one-shotted pretty easily, so it's a strange motivating example.
by class3shock | 2026-01-01 21:55:10+00:00
I've been using Kubuntu for years with good results. I prefer KDE to Gnome, which Kubuntu takes care of, and I normally add in the flatpak repositories so I don't need snap. That has generally worked well for me in the last 5 years.

For certain timeperiods I have needed to switch to Fedora, or the Fedora KDE spin, to get access to more recent software if I'm using newer hardware. That has generally also been pretty stable but the constant stream of updates and short OS life are not really what I'm looking for in a desktop experience.

There are three issues that linux still has, which are across the board:

- Lack of commercial mechanical engineering software support (CAD & CAE software)

- Inability to reliably suspend or sleep for laptops

- Worse battery life on laptops

If you are using a desktop and don't care about CAD or CAE software I think it's probably a better experience overall than windows. Laptops are still more for advanced users imho but if you go with something that has good linux support from the factory (Dell XPS 13, Framework, etc.) it will be mostly frictionless. It just sucks on that one day where you install an update, close the laptop lid, put it in your backpack, and find it absolutely cooking and near 0% when you take it out.

I also have never found something that gave me the battery life I wanted with linux. I used two XPS 13's and they were the closest but still were only like 75% of what I would like. My current Framework 16 is like 50% of what I would like. That is with always going for a 1080p display but using a VPN which doesn't help battery life.
by troupo | 2026-01-01 21:55:25+00:00
> If it’s bad for users (e.g. some new ad tracking)

Yes

> but if it’s not that, then refusing to ever adopt those standards (or to provide their own alternatives) is either foolish NIH syndrome on Apple’s part or it’s greed.

Note that Firefox's position is literally exactly the same as Apple's on these Chrome-only features: https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/
by threethirtytwo | 2026-01-01 21:55:42+00:00
What you’re describing is just competent engineering, and it’s already been applied to LLMs. People have been adversarial. That’s why we know so much about hallucinations, jailbreaks, distribution shift failures, and long-horizon breakdowns in the first place. If this were hobbyist awe, none of those benchmarks or red-teaming efforts would exist.

The key point you’re missing is the type of failure. Search systems fail by not retrieving. Parrots fail by repeating. LLMs fail by producing internally coherent but factually wrong world models. That failure mode only exists if the system is actually modeling and reasoning, imperfectly. You don’t get that behavior from lookup or regurgitation.

This shows up concretely in how errors scale. Ambiguity and multi-step inference increase hallucinations. Scaffolding, tools, and verification loops reduce them. Step-by-step reasoning helps. Grounding helps. None of that makes sense for a glorified Google search.

Hallucinations are a real weakness, but they’re not evidence of absence of capability. They’re evidence of an incomplete reasoning system operating without sufficient constraints. Engineers don’t dismiss CNC machines because they crash bits. They map the envelope and design around it. That’s what’s happening here.

Being skeptical of reliability in specific use cases is reasonable. Concluding from those failure modes that this is just Clever Hans is not adversarial engineering. It’s stopping one layer too early.
by _mig5 | 2026-01-01 21:55:46+00:00
Really nice work! Seems super clean and efficient.

I don't want to do a 'look at my tool, it's better' comment - but per your request for feedback, I just wanted to mention a (sort of) similar project I've been recently working on: https://git.mig5.net/mig5/bouquin, and it might give you some ideas for taking yours further:

Some similarities:

- 'one note per day' design

- days with notes have a visual 'marker' in the calendar

- full encryption at rest

But there are some big differences:

- It's a Qt GUI app (not web based, no syncing)

- It does a lot of other things (document storage, time logging, invoicing etc)

I mention it only because I implemented a few things based on feedback for my own app, that I could see would be useful in yours! Those suggestions are:

- Live markdown syntax (I couldn't use # or * or other Markdown symbols in your app, and that's a pretty popular option, for formatting)

- Version control of notes (in Bouquin, every change auto-saves and there is a sort of 'git diff' version interface that allows reverting to an earlier version)

- Tagging and search

- Perhaps support images

- Code blocks (this is kind of the same as the markdown idea, but syntax highlighting would be a huge win)

One other rather obscure bit of feedback I got for my app, was for people who use it as a 'TODO' planner: for items that were left 'unchecked' (incomplete) at the end of the day, I managed to make it move those items automatically to the next day, to help carry across unfinished work. I was sceptical at first, but it surprisingly useful once implemented!

Anyway, well done! Looking forward to seeing what comes next!
by m101 | 2026-01-01 21:56:30+00:00
On a tangent to the article- I quit my career just over two years ago now: same age as author, live in London too. The hardest thing about not working is the social life that work gives you. Whilst we may think that work is for money, it is also for 1) filling our time, and 2) spending time with people. Yes, some people are definitely a net-negative interaction, but most people are actually positive to one’s day, but in one of those “you need to not work for a year to know it” way.

Amongst other reflections I have:

1) a pay-check does give you a sense of validation. This took some getting through

2) it’s been challenging working out what I will actually end up doing with myself. There were periods where I put more pressure on myself to do so. I still don’t know what will do.

3) the process of doing things because they are fun takes some getting used to when one’s entire life was built around doing something useful to others

4) when one lives off of savings it’s almost easier to spend as it feels like you didn’t suffer for it. Getting depressed at work makes it easier to spend more money outside of work

5) the “number” people need to retire (or not work for extended periods) is probably less than people realise

6) not working in finance (amongst all the moral corruption everywhere) has generally made me happier in part because I can live in a way which is more in-keeping with my values over having constantly breach them for work reasons

7) owning my calendar is a big freedom. I don’t have to ask a boss if I can do something all the time. No need to explain yourself.

8) not constantly having to submit to a boss is huge. One can really grow this way, as constant repression to other people’s whims is soul crushing and shows just how close employment is to slavery (especially in finance with golden handcuffs)
by nodja | 2026-01-01 21:57:11+00:00
I think a lot of commenters here are missing the point.

Looking at performance numbers is important regardless if it's python, assembly or HDL. If you don't understand why your code is slow you can always look at how many cycles things take and learn to understand how code works at a deeper level, as you mature as a programmer things will become obvious, but going through the learning process and having references like these will help you to get there sooner, seeing the performance numbers and asking why some things take much longer—or sometimes why they take the exact same time—is the perfect opportunity to learn.

Early in my python career I had a python script that found duplicate files across my disks, the first iteration of the script was extremely slow, optimizing the script went through several iterations as I learned how to optimize at various levels. None of them required me to use C. I just used caching, learned to enumerate all files on disk fast, and used sets instead of lists. The end result was that doing subsequent runs made my script run in 10 seconds instead of 15 minutes. Maybe implementing in C would make it run in 1 second, but if I had just assumed my script was slow because of python then I would've spent hours doing it in C only to go from 15 minutes to 14 minutes and 51 seconds.

There's an argument to be made that it would be useful to see C numbers next to the python ones, but for the same reason people don't just tell you to just use an FPGA instead of using C, it's also rude to say python is the wrong tool when often it isn't.
by qualifck | 2026-01-01 21:57:20+00:00
Eh, quite the contrary. A lot of anti AI people genuinely wanted to use AI but run into the factual reality of the limitations of the software. It's not that it's going to take my job, it's that I was told it would redefine how I do work and is exponentially improving only to find out that it just kind of sucks and hasn't gotten much better this year.
by Imustaskforhelp | 2026-01-01 21:58:31+00:00
No you don't get me but all browsers in Iphone even firefox and chrome are webkit forks

and neither of them allow any sort of extensions on top

Orion is the only one I think which still supports firefox or chrome extensions as well. I am sure that it can support PWA or already does, not sure, someone should probably test it out.

Theoretically if you can modify the engine enough to run firefox/chrome extensions on it when firefox/chrome themselves on Iphone can't but somehow Orion can, I don't see a reason why nobody's else doing it but combined with some really really good pwa support as well?
Show HN: Elliptica – Make Art with Elliptic Boundary Value Problems
by afolkest | 2026-01-01 21:58:43+00:00
During my PhD in theoretical physics I spent quite a bit of time working on elliptic boundary value problems. I realized they are powerful generators of satisfying spatial patterns from relatively low dimensional input (boundary shapes and conditions). Combined with that I came across line integral convolution (LIC) which can produce incredibly beautiful visualizations of vector fields with lots of microstructure.

I’ve found that combining LIC and elliptic partial differential equations gives a very rich set of primitives for making 2d visual arts. So over the last several months I've had Opus 4.5 grind with me to make a full fledged drawing program. Currently I only support the Poisson equation and the biharmonic equation, although I’m planning to add various other physics models that give rise to interesting patterns (such as Ginzburg-Landau superconductor equations).

Elliptica is still in alpha, but it is under active development, and it should be possible to use.
by jrecyclebin | 2026-01-01 21:59:11+00:00
The weakest part is the last one - and it's a big one. Personalsit.es is just a flat single-page directory (of thumbnails, even, not content - so the emphasis is design.) To be part of the conversation, you'd list there and hope someone comes along. Compare with Reddit where you start commenting and you're close-to-an-equal with every other comment.

Webmentions do get you there - because it's a commenting system. But for finding the center of a community, it seems like you're still reliant on Bluesky or Mastodon or something. (Which doesn't "destroy all websites.") Love the sentiment ofc.
by iamnothere | 2026-01-01 21:59:14+00:00
Yes, and IMHO this kind of conversation is superior to the average IRL conversation. It is asynchronous (allowing you to return to it as you like), it places few demands on your time, and when it’s over then it’s over. You can enter just the interesting part of the conversation and then exit just as quickly. No need to drag it out or pad the ends with filler. No need to explain your departure.

IRL conversation is an art, and few people are even halfway decent at it. Maybe that’s the true source of my complaint.
by bigfatkitten | 2026-01-01 21:59:32+00:00
Dumping notwithstanding, BYD is still selling cars into the Australian market in enormous numbers. Four of the top ten EVs sold this year are BYD, as are the top two PHEVs.

If you account for the fact that Australian market Teslas are built in China, then China is producing 8 of the top 10 EVs.

https://www.drive.com.au/news/australias-best-selling-cars-b...
by keepamovin | 2026-01-01 22:00:21+00:00
This is a good idea — we should do it.

I also want to make sure we can build this in CI. My goal is to have this updated every day using the BigQuery update process, so it becomes a 1–2 day delayed static archive of the current state of Hacker News, which is honestly very cool.

I can probably run the build for free on GitHub Actions runners, as long as the runner has about 40 GB of disk space available. If needed, I can free up space on the runner before the build starts.

I’ll also write to GitHub support and ask if they can sponsor the cost of a larger runner, mainly because I need the extra disk space to run the build reliably.
by fennecbutt | 2026-01-01 22:00:42+00:00
Just like Trump's tariff bs, I'm starting to think that for Putin's M.O. that we should be fighting fire with fire.

Why not send a couple ships to drag anchors across Russia's cables? "Oh we are but innocent fishermen" is still valid going the other way.

Then when Russia inevitably seizes and imprisons the crew, the international community can do the same for every Russian controlled ship with the bare minimum of suspicion.

Would be a pretty sucky mission though, so many risks of capture. But the Russian government does it because they don't care about their people and also the rest of the world is too toothless to do anything about it (until this occurrence at least, go Finland - but then they know Russia's tactics very well).

Russia has been doing a "stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself" to the world for too long, abusing the "nice" way we desperately try to see things, pretending even when it's obvious. Like they'll do something egregious and then when the West calls them out, suddenly their political mouthpieces are all "we can't believe that the West is making this shocking and provocative accusation which is of course completely false, EU are bullies!" and then the world responds by taking a step back, pretty much every single time.
by otterley | 2026-01-01 22:01:01+00:00
It’s not alleged in the complaint that Apple cripples Safari in order to incentivize developers to build apps instead. Respectfully, did you read it?

Also, why would your company cut off its nose to spite its face? If using Bluetooth is a customer requirement (as opposed to merely a “nice to have”), why wouldn’t you go to the lengths to provide an app for them?
by cosmic_cheese | 2026-01-01 22:01:13+00:00
Yep. I've even been seeing Chrome TV ads lately (on Amazon Prime Video). They're marketing it pretty hard despite being dominant.

Also, it's wise to not underestimate the power of developers ceasing to test against non-Blink browsers and taking a page from their IE-era past selves with "Best Viewed in Chrome" and "Browser outdated! Download Chrome" badges. There are few user motivators stronger than things not working.
by crazygringo | 2026-01-01 22:01:17+00:00
> Apple purposely won't implement some APIs so they can force developers to create an app for their app store where they can collect money from any additional sales through the app.

So then why doesn't Firefox support the Web Bluetooth API either? How can you jump to the conclusion that the lack of Safari support is about apps?

The reality is that the Web Bluetooth API is a draft. Not ratified. Not on the formal standards track. And Firefox doesn't even intend to implement it, due to security and privacy concerns around it and the fact that is it not ratified.

But go on assuming it's all about being anticompetitive...

> It's all spelled out in the DOJ suit, why won't you just read it?

I just did a Ctrl+F for Bluetooth and everything relates to smartwatches, not web APIs. There are only two references to Safari, none of which say anything about standards. The phrase "web standard" appears nowhere. The document is 88 pages long, and it's not immediately obvious to me where any of what you're talking about is spelled out. I hope you'll understand I'm not going to spend my afternoon reading the whole thing.
by leptons | 2026-01-01 22:01:33+00:00
Specifically for me, my company has a product that could use Bluetooth, but Safari will never implement the Web Bluetooth API, where Chrome has for some time on Android. So the workaround is to use Wifi instead (my product supports both bluetooth and Wifi), which drains the phone battery faster.

No, we do not want to write our own iOS app where Apple can then extort us for a percentage of any sales through the app, and we have to pay for the priviledge to develop that app, as well as buy Apple hardware to do so.

So instead we use Wifi, where we can maintain one single codebase - the web application, which works on both Android and iOS, but has to use Wifi. If Apple allowed Chrome to use its own browser engine, we would simply tell users to install Chrome to interact with our device. Then we don't have to pay Apple for anything, nor should we have to.

Apple purposely won't implement some APIs so they can force developers to create an app for their app store where they can collect money from any additional sales through the app. It's all spelled out in the DOJ suit, why won't you just read it??

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline