MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by skwee357 | 2026-01-19 08:33:42+00:00
The thing with em-dashes is not the em-dash itself. I use em-dashes, because when I started to blog, I was curious about improving my English writing skills (English is not my native language, and although I have learned English in school, most of my English is coming from playing RPGs and watching movies in English).

According to what I know, the correct way to use em-dash is to not surround it by spaces, so words look connected like--this. And indeed, when I started to use em-dashes in my blog(s), that's how I did it. But I found it rather ugly, so I started to put spaces around it. And there were periods where I stopped using em-dash all together.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that unless you write as a profession, most people are inconsistent. Sometimes, I use em-dashes. Sometimes I don't. In some cases I capitalize my words where needed, and sometimes not, depending on how in a hurry I am, or whether I type from a phone (which does a lot of heaving lifting for me).

If you see someone who consistently uses the "proper" grammar in every single post on the internet, it might be a sign that they use AI.
by pratik227 | 2026-01-19 08:33:56+00:00
Just to be clear, I’ve been contributing to the open-source community since 2020, and I have no intention of misleading anyone. The use of the word ‘love’ isn’t about branding off another product-it’s simply a tool I personally needed, so I built it. If you’d like, you can also check my GitHub to see my work.
Show HN: G0 – Detect LLM hallucinations with a 3-criterion grounding metric
by benthicshadow | 2026-01-19 08:34:18+00:00
G0 uses three criteria to score how well a claim is grounded in sources:

- Tracking: Does the claim follow from the sources?
- Intervention: Would changing sources change the claim?
- Counterfactual: Is the claim uniquely dependent on these sources?

Score = geometric mean of all three.
0 = hallucination, 1 = grounded.

Free. Built with sentence-transformers.
by thangalin | 2026-01-19 08:34:19+00:00
For my hard sci-fi novel, I wanted people to give me feedback by annotating the PDF directly. Since I didn't know what local PDF editors they had available, I decided to vibe-code a web-based PDF annotation editor using PDF.js. (Yes, malicious users could have a field day by guessing the URLs.) It's pretty rough:

https://repo.autonoma.ca/?action=repo&repo=notanexus.git&vie...

Basically, you drop a PDF onto your own web server. The web server serves up PDFs via PDF.js on the client. When the user highlights text to annotate it, the date, time, and text of all annotations in the document are pushed back to the server. As the author, when I reload the same PDF URL, I can add, review, modify, navigate through, or summarize the annotations just like a reader. Here's a screenshot with a funny comment one of my beta readers made:

https://i.ibb.co/5gZMJ0qc/annotations.png

Beta readers wanted, see profile for contact!
by risyachka | 2026-01-19 08:36:36+00:00
>> Just so long as you have tests that show ...

this by definition filters out all non-devs, even many junior devs as you need to understand deeply if those tests are correct and cover all important edge cases etc.

+ when you deploy it - you need to know it was properly deployed and your db creds are not on frontend.

But mostly no one cares as there is no consequences to leaking personal data of your users or whatnot.
by attila-lendvai | 2026-01-19 08:36:38+00:00
re anarchocapitalism: it doesn't imply lack of organization, nor how the organazitional structure gets formed.

its essence is a perspective on the legitimate use of force, on what principles should govern the use of force. and your quotes don't discuss any of that in the context of the bazaar prior to your offhand dismissal of the concept.

i.e. we don't know how close the organization and enforcement of the bazaar was to ancap priciples.

if e.g. all the enforcement were that you were simply not allowed to enter the bazaar until you complied, then it's fully compatible.
by bariswheel | 2026-01-19 08:38:28+00:00
Indeed, it's immature to disclose an opinion without being forthcoming and add some objective rationale behind a bold conclusion as disliking an entire person. It may be something they said, or did, getting specific would help, ideally something that is relevant to the original thread. It's not entirely helpful and potentially a negative impact to just imply you don't like someone. Do what you want obviously, that's my 2 cents.
by inferiorhuman | 2026-01-19 08:38:35+00:00
Of course I wouldn't vibe code in a serious production project, but I'd
still use an AI agent, except I'd make sure I understand every line it
puts out.

So you value your ability to churn out insignificant dreck over the ability of others to use the internet? Because that's the choice you're making. All of the sites that churn your browser for a few seconds because they're trying to block AI DDoS bots, that's worth your convenience on meaningless projects? The increased blast radius of Cloudflare outages, that's a cost with foisting on to the rest of the internet for your convenience?

Thanks.
by Someone | 2026-01-19 08:39:06+00:00
Given its size, population density (it has about 35 km² per person), and remoteness I think posting a large permanent defense force on Greenland to guard against an US raid would be prohibitively expensive.

The best one could do probably would be navy patrols (also expensive, but patrolling there instead of closer to home doesn’t add that much), but even then, the US has a more powerful army and navy, Greenland is closer to the US than to the EU, and the US already has a military base on Greenland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pituffik_Space_Base)
by trinix912 | 2026-01-19 08:39:37+00:00
For the text chat, it's different in the way that it lets one make their own 'servers' without having to run the actual hardware server 24/7, free of charge, no need to battle with NATs and weird nonstandard ways of sending images, etc.

The big thing is the voice/videoconferencing channels which are actually optimized insanely well, Discord calls work fine even on crappy connections that Teams and Zoom struggle with.

Simply put it's Skype x MSN Messenger with a global user directory, but with gamers in mind.
by skwee357 | 2026-01-19 08:39:51+00:00
Fine, I accept your point. You don't have an obligation to disclose the tools you've used. But what struck me in that particular thread, is that the author kept claiming they did not use AI, nothing at all, while there were give away signs that the code was, _at least partly_, AI generated.

It honestly felt like being gaslighted. You see one thing, but they keep claiming you are wrong.
by armchairhacker | 2026-01-19 08:40:27+00:00
N=1. I'm not flagging the posts, but I think the topic is a waste of thinking, so I'm not surprised if others are.

Why discuss here? The (IMO and stated) purpose of HN is to gain knowledge and insight from reading posted articles and comments. Anyone who doesn't live under a rock already knows about the Greenland fiasco. In the time I've unfortunately wasted on it I haven't learned anything significant, if anything I feel dumber.

Trump is an idiot, and there's plenty of other evidence indicating so. I think it's extremely unlikely he'll invade Greenland: the US already has a military base and is allowed to build more (under an old treaty), and its natural resources are a net loss to extract, among other reasons.

But Trump constantly says outrageous things for attention and to annoy/scare his enemies. Why listen? Who will this post affect that everything else Trump has said and done hasn't? What comment will convince someone "now I realize Trump is unhinged" or "now I will do something about it"; and who would that someone be and what would they do? Otherwise, you're wasting your time and energy and I'm wasting mine, which is ironically what Trump wants.

To anyone actually reading this: consider ignoring the Greenland issue, until (if) the US actually invades. Ask yourself, does that seem reasonable, and if not why?
by elbci | 2026-01-19 08:41:23+00:00
> "Or take this depiction of a workshop, by a French painter, 1888. The room is clean and well-lit, the machines are human-scale. The master and the apprentice are intent on their work; one can imagine a paternal affection between them"

Yeah, sure, because Charles Dickens was a russian bot, there were no exploited children toiling naked and hungry - it was well-lit paternal affection, suuure.. I wonder why people don't trust our publish-or-perish papers anymore..
Tesla Patent Don't multiply, add. It saves time and energy
by daly | 2026-01-19 08:41:35+00:00
Tesla has filed a patent "High Precision Complex Number Based Rotary Positional Encoding Calculation On 8-Bit Compute Hardware"
(US20260017019)

There are several ideas in the patent but it appears that this work will be available in the latest AI5 chip.
A good introduction is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG9yOsPEGek

One of the key ideas is to use logarithms and addition rather than multiplication. Faster and less power needed.

NVIDIA is going to hurt from this.
by crote | 2026-01-19 08:41:43+00:00
What makes this 2FA? It's "something you know, plus mental labor", which makes it a password.

2FA is "something you have" (or ".. you are", for biometrics): it is supposed to prove that you currently physically posses the single copy of a token. The textbook example is a TOTP stored in a Yubikey.

Granted, this has been watered down a lot by the way-too-common practice of storing TOTP secrets in password managers, but that's how it is supposed to work.

Does your mTOTP prove you own the single copy? No, you could trivially tell someone else the secret key. Does it prove that you currently own it? No, you can pre-calculate a verification token for future use.

I still think it is a very neat idea on paper, but I'm not quite seeing the added value. The obvious next step is to do all the math in client-side code and just have the user enter the secret - doing this kind of mental math every time you log in is something only the most hardcore nerds get excited about.
by vanillameow | 2026-01-19 08:41:47+00:00
If you really want to deliver polished products, you still have to manually review the code. When I tried actually "vibecoding" something, I got exhausted so fast by trying to keep up with the metric tons of code output by the AI. I think most developers agree that reviewing other people's code is more exhausting mentally than writing your own. So I doubt those who see coding as too mentally straining will take the time to fully review AI written code.

More likely that step is just skipped and replaced with thoughts and prayers.
by nephihaha | 2026-01-19 08:42:20+00:00
I don't consider Kimmel a journalist anymore than I consider him funny — all his jokes were written for him. He helmed a failing TV show, for which he was being paid millions.

None of that stops him from trying to present himself as a journalist or a comedian.

I know what an op ed is. You don't need to tell me. It doesn't have to be in print anymore. (You obviously looked up that definition somewhere.)
Rising SoC 2 Compliance Signals Growing Security Expectations Across USA
by rnkseo | 2026-01-19 08:43:39+00:00
In cybersecurity circles, a discussion has surfaced regarding the legitimacy and quality of certain SOC 2 audit reports, with community members debating an alleged circulation of questionable SOC 2 attestations. While details remain unverified, the thread reflects a broader concern over audit rigor and the trustworthiness of automated compliance claims.

This debate occurs against a backdrop of growing SOC 2 demand in 2026, as organizations grapple with balancing audit thoroughness against commercial compliance deadlines. As SOC 2 compliance requirements continue to evolve, concerns about inconsistent audit depth could influence how enterprise risk teams interpret and rely on SOC 2 documentation in vendor evaluations, particularly when assessing third-party risk and vendor assurance

https://www.strongboxit.com/soc-2-compliance-consulting-services/
by anonu | 2026-01-19 08:44:00+00:00
I don't want to speculate on this crash but my mental model for these things is that there's always a handful of factors that all align and converge to create an accident. Some factors are deep-rooted - and point to decisions made years ago - sometimes related to company culture. Theres always an element of operator error: someone ignored something due to inattention or sleepiness.
by aebtebeten | 2026-01-19 08:44:22+00:00
No rationale for the military wholly refusing; that's a straw man.

This suggestion is that the insurrection act could be moving from the fire into the frying pan: I'm not saying the military would be good occupiers, only that they're probably better occupiers than ICE.

(and were they to be supporting ICE operations, from what I've seen in the news reported on this side of the Atlantic, they'd be more likely to ride herd on ICE than on the public*: keep the SOF LARPers on the up and up, as it were)

* after all, the Arctic Angels have been training for going up against the ВДВ, not for playing "respect my authoritah!" games with civilians.
by YetAnotherNick | 2026-01-19 08:44:31+00:00
> Mate come on. OpenAI is not dying, they're not running out of money. Yes, they're creating possibly the craziest circular economy and defying every economics law

You are starting with wrong assumption and contradicting yourself. Circular economy couldn't last forever once we start looking at the profit. They need money outside the funding to justify the funding.

You can't both say they are not earning at all and they are being greedy.
by user34283 | 2026-01-19 08:44:55+00:00
Complete non-issue in my experience.

With usage on a daily basis since GPT-4 I have not once encountered a scenario where I was concerned about the output being complex enough and a verbatim copy to warrant such concerns.

Generally it would seem statistically unlikely to reconstruct a copyrighted work, rather the output should be a probabilistic average. Snippets are typically too common and short to be protected by copyright. Copyright challenges are likely to fail on the "substantial similarity" test.

I understand plaintiffs would need to show that code is virtually identical, not just similar, and that these parts represent a "substantial" portion of the original work's creative value.
by skwee357 | 2026-01-19 08:45:05+00:00
I remember participating on *free* phpBB forums, or IRC channels. I was amazed that I could chat with people smarter than me, on a wide range of topics, all for the cost of having an internet subscription.

It's only recently, when I was considering to revive the old-school forum interaction, that I have realized that while I got the platforms for free, there were people behind them who paid for the hosting and the storage, and were responsible to moderate the content in order to not derail every discussion to low level accusation and name calling contest.

I can't imagine the amount of time, and tools, it takes to keep discussion forums free of trolls, more so nowadays, with LLMs.
by 1718627440 | 2026-01-19 08:45:46+00:00
> then we must formalize the spec in some other way.

For most projects, the spec is formalized in formal natural language (like any other spec in other professions) and that is mostly fine.

If you want your unit tests to be the spec, as I wrote in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46667964, there would be quite A LOT of them needed. I rather learn to write proofs, then try to exhaustively list all possible combinations of a (near) infinite number of input/output combinations. Unit-tests are simply the wrong tool, because they imply taking excerpts from the library of all possible books. I don't think that is what people mean with e.g. TDD.

What the cartoon is about is that any formal(-enough) way to describe program behaviour will just be yet another programming tool/language. If you have some novel way of program specification, someone will write a compiler and then we might use it, but it will still be programming and LLMs ain't that.
by japanuspus | 2026-01-19 08:45:52+00:00
> Identity -- This is a difficult problem.

My hope is that in 5 years, I will not have anything in my feeds that have not been signed in a way that I can assign a trust level.

Here in the Nordics, we are already seeing messaging apps such as [hudd] that require government issued ID to sign in. I want this to spread to everything from podcasts and old-school journalism to the soccer-club newsletter, so that I can always connect a piece of information back to a responsible source.

[hudd]: (https://about.hudd.dk/))
by skissane | 2026-01-19 08:46:51+00:00
You can have POSIX while having a radically different "not-POSIX" API. A good example of this is IBM's flagship mainframe operating system z/OS – it is a certified Unix, and recent releases have even added a big subset of the Linux namespaces API (to support Kubernetes), but that whole radically different mainframe world is all there too – and Unix processes have direct access to most of it.

The official Windows POSIX model – from the NT POSIX system, to Interix/SFU/SUA, through to WSL1/WSL2 – has always been that a process is either POSIX or Win32, never both at once. By contrast, the z/OS model is any mainframe process [0] can turn on POSIX mode ("POSIX(ON)"), gaining access to Unix APIs, but still able to call all the classic mainframe APIs.

This is also basically the Cygwin model. But the Cygwin team have to do all kinds of expensive and complex hacks to make it work, while Microsoft could provide the same functionality far more easily.

To give a real example – NT lacks an exec() system call, the ability to replace a process with another executable while keeping the same PID. So Cygwin fakes it by starting a child process, but then maintaining "Cygwin PIDs" separate from the NT/Win32 PIDs, and a child process started by exec() inherits the parent's Cygwin PID, so looks to POSIX code like the same process. Microsoft could just implement an exec() system call. Or if for some reason that's too hard, move this "two PIDs" thing into the OS kernel, where everyone would get it for free.

[0] not quite true, there are some special types of processes which operate in modes which are incompatible with the use of POSIX APIs; but your average/normal/run-of-the-mill process can.
by pratik227 | 2026-01-19 08:47:20+00:00
Good questions.

Image-only PDFs (scans):
These are the hardest case. If a PDF is basically high-res images (like iPhone scans), browser-based tools have limits compared to ImageMagick, which has much finer control over resampling and JPEG compression. Ghostscript-style pipelines help, but ImageMagick often wins if you’re willing to discard more detail. Improving this is on the roadmap, but it’s genuinely tough in-browser.

PDF forms:
Adobe doesn’t own forms, but editable PDF forms are extremely complex and poorly standardized. Many free tools avoid true form editing because it’s easy to break files. That’s why I haven’t enabled it yet—possible, just time-consuming and error-prone.
by somenameforme | 2026-01-19 08:47:32+00:00
Depending on your age the term Game Genie [1] probably brings back some fond memories. If it was before your time, it was a hardware device - a mod, you could attach to video game devices that would enable you to tweak the memory of the game in real time enabling you to do all sorts of things, mostly it was used for stuff like infinite lives or whatever but you could also do neat things like tweak the gravity in games.

The neat thing is that the device was completely unapproved by the device IP owners, most notably - Nintendo. It required the creators to reverse engineer the NES, crack their anti-pirate measures, and then finally enable a nice interface for users to 'hack' games at the end of it. And then for the icing on the cake they then bought copies of every single NES game, 'cracked' them, and published, and sold, books with codes for specific games precisely profiting off players of these games.

Nintendo tried to sue, and lost. They appealed, and lost. The Game Genie wasn't violating Nintendo's IP, they weren't even harming their sales in any way, shape, or fashion - they probably helped them, if anything. And so it was a pretty much open and shut case with all the legal wrangling lasting mere months. And the exact same is true here. As a fun aside this even set the precedent for legally selling games on consoles without the approval of the console IP owner.

The point is that a derivative work has to be a derivative work, not just something that works with your IP. And this just sounds like a mod that hacks in VR capability for dozens of games that don't otherwise support it. I imagine they'll comply simply because going to court against just one of those companies is going to be a lot easier than fighting it, but it's a shame. Mainstream success seems to have turned into a terrible curse for CDPR.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Genie
by trinix912 | 2026-01-19 08:47:51+00:00
I don't think it's doable with the current model of social media but:

1. prohibit all sorts of advertising, explicit and implicit, and actually ban users for it. The reason most people try to get big on SM is so they can land sponsorships outside of the app. But we'd still have the problem of telling whether something is sponsored or not.

2. no global feed, show users what their friends/followers are doing only. You can still have discovery through groups, directories, etc. But it would definitely be worse UX than what we currently have.
by nicois | 2026-01-19 08:48:05+00:00
One missing feature: deferred message propagation. As far as I understand, while messages will be rebroadcast until a TTL is exhausted, there is no mechanism to retain in-transit messages and retransmit them to future peers. While this adds overheads, it's table stakes for real-life usage.

You should be able to write a message and not rely on the recipient being available when you press send. You should also be able to run nodes to cache messages for longer, and opt in to holding messages for a greater time period. This would among other things allow couriers between disjoint groups of users.
by ncruces | 2026-01-19 08:48:19+00:00
The prototype phase meant data centers are now measured in MW instead of TFLOPS.

At a time where we were desperate to reduce emissions, data centers now consume around 20% of the energy consumed by the entire aviation sector, with consumption is rising at 15% YoY.

Never mind the water required to cool them, or the energy and resources required to build them, the capital allocation, and the opportunity cost of not allocating all of that to something else.

And this is, your words, the prototype phase.
by zenmac | 2026-01-19 08:48:21+00:00
One of these bluetooth messaging app was made by a developer who was on a cruise ship with family, and the Internet over satellite costs an arm and leg. So he wrote an app to communicate with his families over bluetooth.

Also why would one want to have the data go over some servers thousands miles away when the device is right next to you? Seems like bluetooth is the perfect way to communicate for devices that are close to each other.