MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by wasmperson | 2026-01-08 02:11:07+00:00
There's a sneaky jab at ProtonMail at the end, so I feel the need to defend them a bit:

> How are secret keys managed?

Stored on proton's server, encrypted with a passphrase known only to the account holder. I believe they allow you to upload keys as well.

> How are public keys managed? (Trust on first use, web of trust, etc.?)

ProtonMail supports WKD: Email clients can automatically query a proton account's public key using HTTPS. You can also send your public key to people using all the old ways.

> Where does the encryption take place, and where does that code come from?

Proton distributes a FOSS application which integrates with a standard email client. Yes, I imagine most people use the webmail client. Not offering a webmail client was not an option.

> What doesn’t get encrypted? (Subject lines, etc.)

Yes, I believe Proton only does the message body and attachments.

> How does this work for people not using the same service? Does everything silently downgrade to plaintext?

Yes. This behavior is important to increase adoption, and is a similar compromise to the one that allowed the HTTP => HTTPS transition. Once encrypted email is normalized we can tighten the screws.

> I know that sounds rude or dismissive, but the situation is completely terrible and there’s no real political will to fix it. And you *need* political will to fix it.

You point out that email encryption is a political problem. The folks at Proton are aware of that and are actively working to solve that problem. Part of the solution requires having a simple thing you can point people to that they can use to encrypt their emails with no fuss, even if that thing isn't perfect.
by tptacek | 2026-01-08 02:11:40+00:00
None of this is happening "at scale", but either way, you're talking about the price of deeds on houses, and affordable housing isn't about home ownership; in fact, the urge people have to drive this issue towards "starter homes" is a big part of the problem, because the highest-opportunity areas have strictly limited carrying capacity for single-family homes in the first place, and what we desperately need to do is upzone and diversify the housing stock.
by gtowey | 2026-01-08 02:11:42+00:00
I am uncertain if space aliens will abduct me as I sleep, but it would be insane to factor that into my daily decision making.

This is where it would help if the government would do the responsible thing and quantify the probability and talk about the risks of not taking medicine if you're pregnant and have a high fever. The fact that they aren't is a clear sign that this is absurd propaganda.
by fleshmonad | 2026-01-08 02:12:06+00:00
Uhhmm ackshually you're on HN here. Let me educate you for one moment: we love slop here. We're all too occupied with founding the next 100B USD startup to take the time to write a 1000 word blog post about a project we worked months on. I hope you take my downvote as a fair warning.
by rgmerk | 2026-01-08 02:12:59+00:00
Australia is so big that there's still plenty of land available where you could build new cities (and not just in the desert).

It's just that everyone[1], given a choice, would like to live near the beach in Sydney's eastern suburbs[2], and there is most definitely no more land available in those suburbs. So the only alternative is to build up, and the boomers sitting in their multi-million dollar houses that were originally bought for $3.95 don't like that prospect one bit.

[1] Not everyone, but you get the point.

[2] and Melbourne's inner east, and the desirable parts of Brisbane and Perth.
by andoando | 2026-01-08 02:13:36+00:00
I find it really confusing as well. The analogy implies we have something like Q[K] = V

For one, I have no idea how this relates to the mathematical operations of calculating attention score, applying softmax and than doing dot product with the V matrix.

Second just conceptually I don't understand how this relates to the "a word looks up to how relevant it is to another word". So if you have "The cat eats his soup", "his" queries how it's important it is to cat. So is V just numerical result of the significance, like 0.99?

I dont think Im very stupid but after seeing a dozens of these, I am starting to wonder if anyone actually understands this conceptually
by MontyCarloHall | 2026-01-08 02:13:42+00:00
The confusing thing about attention in this article (and the famous "Attention is all you need" paper it's derived from) is the heavy focus on self-attention. In self-attention, Q/K/V are all derived from the same input tokens, so it's confusing to distinguish their respective purposes.

I find attention much easier to understand in the original attention paper [0], which focuses on cross-attention for machine translation. In translation, the input sentence to be translated is tokenized into vectors {x_1...x_n}. The translated sentence is autoregressively generated into tokens {y_1...y_m}. To generate y_j, the model computes a similarity score of the previously generated token y_{j-1} against every x_i via the dot product s_{i,j} = x_i*K*y_{j-1}, transformed by the Key matrix. These are then softmaxed to create a weight vector a_j = softmax_i(s_{i,j}). The weighted average of X = [x_1|...|x_n] is taken with respect to a_j and transformed by the Value matrix, i.e. c_j = V*X*a_j. c_j is then passed to additional network layers to generate the output token y_j.

tl;dr: given the previous output token, compute its similarity to each input token (via K). Use those similarity scores to compute a weighted average across all input tokens, and use that weighted average to generate the next output token (via V).

Note that in this paper, the Query matrix is not explicitly used. It can be thought of as a token preprocessor: rather than computing s_{i,j} = x_i*K*y_{j-1}, each x_i is first linearly transformed by some matrix Q. Because this paper used an RNN (specifically, an LSTM) to encode the tokens, such transformations on the input tokens are implicit in each LSTM module.

[0] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1508.04025 (predates "Attention is all you need" by 3 years)
by heavyset_go | 2026-01-08 02:14:25+00:00
> Honestly, I would just assume every grocery store has security cameras doing facial recognition to cross-reference and catch repeat shoplifters.

This is their purpose, they're used to build cases over time, instead of single instances of petty theft, until shoplifters can be charged with felonies when the cumulative amount that they stole reaches felony levels.

I know of at least one chain that uses them to flag certain people to loss prevention or security when they enter the store, either because of shoplifting or because they were trespassed in the past.
by jjmarr | 2026-01-08 02:14:32+00:00
From watching Polymarket, every war ends up being in some weird grey area that screws up the market. It's really hard to write unambiguous rules when there's money on the line.

My favourite invasion market was the Syria one, where Israel took the peak of a mountain on the border of the Golan Heights and the rest of Syria, and there was a huge dispute over whether the peak itself counted as Syria proper.

https://polymarket.com/event/will-israel-invade-syria-in-202...
by danpalmer | 2026-01-08 02:14:36+00:00
+1 – it's all well and good for me to buy just some vegetables this week, because I have a pantry full of hundreds of dollars worth of basics, spices, a herb garden, bulk (more expensive) rice/pasta, etc. I also have a single 9-5 job so can spend an hour each day cooking.

But if I had an empty kitchen, lacked the funds to invest in bulk purchases, and had 30 minutes to cook and eat, I'd be eating very differently.
by subdavis | 2026-01-08 02:14:36+00:00
Edit: this was a reddit link, but the post was deleted. If you zoom in and slowly scrub the video in the google drive you'll see the same thing though.

Clearly shows that, at the moment the officer fires, he is not in front of the vehicle at all. He actually moves FURTHER toward the vehicle and leans over the hood in order to get a better shot. The angle Trump tweeted of course makes it seem like she rammed him, but this is the better angle to see the timing. She reverses and cuts it hard right, and he has to lean TOWARD her vehicle.
by FireBeyond | 2026-01-08 02:14:43+00:00
> And that's also why legal immigrant citizens moved to the right in recent years. They think it's messed up that they worked hard, paid a ton of money, followed all the rules, meanwhile random people from central America just hopped the fence and made up some story to claim asylum -- interesting that they crossed 4 countries before claiming asylum.

Yeah, you don't speak for me.

As a legal immigrant whose immigration to the US took several years and cost in the neighborhood of $30,000, I think it's messed up that it costs that amount of money to immigrate here, that pardoned J6 rioters are paid signing bonuses of $50,000 to be "law enforcement" and $5,000 per deportation to run around playing judge, jury, and in this case executioner, answerable to no-one, unbadged, masked and unidentifiable (because "fuck brown people/libs, amirite?"), because they run under a government entity that tells other government entities "fuck you, you can't tell me what to do".

> meanwhile random people from central America just hopped the fence and made up some story to claim asylum -- interesting that they crossed 4 countries before claiming asylum.

Perhaps you should look at whether or not some of those countries have signed treaties on asylum seekers.
by th0ma5 | 2026-01-08 02:14:54+00:00
The difference for me is that the Stasi seemingly had more competent people and more people that actually believed in what they were doing and thought it effective. With none of that, these are the actions of an organization that is failing and full of incompetence. It is even more alarming how effective they could be if anyone actually believed in them, including their own leadership or if the cause actually attracted worthwhile participants.
by roughly | 2026-01-08 02:15:07+00:00
I’ve had the good fortune of working with actually good banks with actually good customer service, and Chase always sticks out for how indifferent they are. If you don’t need anything beyond the app, sure, they’re probably fine - although I seem to remember them shoving ads in my transaction feed - but I’ve never had luck getting ahold of a human with any variety of autonomy or agency when I needed one.
by runako | 2026-01-08 02:15:44+00:00
Sincerely hope the Tailwind team can navigate this rough patch.

Frontend output from LLMs is (in my experience) subpar when compared to human-built components. However, I am not primarily a frontend dev. I would definitely pay for something that let me easily build frontends using vetted components, in ways they were designed to work together.

This seems like something that would sit solidly in the bailiwick of framework designers like Tailwind Labs. But it seems they primarily target frontend developers, so their focus is elsewhere.
by anderber | 2026-01-08 02:16:37+00:00
Keep in mind that first offense for being in the US illegally is a misdeameanor. I say this as we have a president with 34 felonies and got nothing for it. On top of that, we have ICE tactics like unreasonable searches and seizures, no due process rights, and racial profiling which are all against the law. We know this because US citizens were deported without any due process to make sure they were here illegally.
by yial | 2026-01-08 02:16:43+00:00
I largely thought this wouldn’t work, but having tried it at several grocery store chains while traveling with a 100% success rate so far I’m not complaining. (Nothing worse then being told you can’t sign up because customer service is closed, and you have to sign up to get the pricing, and there’s no generic store card they can scan as a curtesy ).

- this has worked for me in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Virginia, West Virginia, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
by insane_dreamer | 2026-01-08 02:17:08+00:00
Couldn't agree more that we should be eating minimally processed food -- our family spends money and time to do just that. I'm glad the gov is promoting it more heavily.

But this statement on the home page of that website is preposterous:

"For decades we've been misled by guidance that prioritized highly processed food,"

What guidance ever suggested eating highly processed food? Other than ads of course, but this implies medical guidance. Doctors, nutritionists etc. have been pushing minimally-processed fruits and veggies and avoiding highly-processed food for decades.

What a horrible attempt to portray this as somehow "new" guidance by a "newly enlightened" leader (aka RFK).
by fuzzfactor | 2026-01-08 02:17:17+00:00
I would say that the most respectable universities are traditionally institutions of higher learning.

It's always been possible for any of them to decline into lesser institutions of not-as-much-higher-learning as they started out with.

Wouldn't leadership integrity and actual scholarship make the big difference between those that are able to strive higher each generation compared to those who strive lower?

Who is it that wants to aggressively devalue Aggie degrees that have already been earned, especially in the eyes of the world, along with any to be granted in the future anyway?

It's not only "The Eyes of Texas" that are upon this.
by Jayanth_26 | 2026-01-08 02:17:27+00:00
Location: United States (Open to any US location)
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Email: [jayanthkethineni@gmail.com]

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At CRED (top Indian fintech unicorn), I was part of the team that built and scaled transaction processing systems, achieving sub-50ms latency. I have deep, hands-on experience with event-driven architectures (Kafka, Outbox Pattern), distributed systems design, and ensuring data consistency in financial ledgers. I have a proven track record of improving system performance by over 40% through strategic caching and resilient design patterns.

I have 3 years of unrestricted work authorization in the US (OPT + STEM OPT Extension) and do not require any visa sponsorship. I am looking for a challenging backend role where I can apply my expertise in payments and distributed systems to solve critical business problems. I can start immediately.

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by mint5 | 2026-01-08 02:18:04+00:00
Except neither Trump or Rubio are credible sources. Their actions and words are notoriously unreliable.

In fact, citing them as an authority leads to the transitive property applying to credibility in an argument.

All of us here know Trump is an unreliable person, why is he being cited to support definitive claims? And Yes His unreliably most certainly extends to his own aims, there is no question on that.
by godelski | 2026-01-08 02:18:35+00:00
Exactly. And I want you but clear, I'd have a very different opinion if either the companies and C-suite people were struggling or the average person had a significantly higher standard of living.

The dramatically widening gap with the 0.01% is just absurd. Capitalist economies need capital to flow through the system, not pool up. I mean look at Mackenzie Scott. She's trying to throw her money away as fast as possible but earns it faster than she can give it away lol. And that's only 35bn.

I just won't be guilt tripped by people who are at the top. Especially when they're calling the kettle black and just flat out lying (e.g. companies "struggling". Struggling to what? Outperform the previous year's growth? In the middle of a global pandemic? lol)
by ethbr1 | 2026-01-08 02:18:44+00:00
It's a good observation, and one I don't think is widely enough appreciated among modern post-COVID, pro-censorship liberals.

Trust primarily by virtue of authority is a bad quality to inculcate in a populace.

Yes, any alternative epistemological basis means you have to deal with Aunt Glenda or Uncle Roy who didn't graduate high school being convinced they're smarter than 'those scientists'.

But we're sliding dangerously close to outsourcing common sense, and the solution isn't encouraging more prostration to expert authority.

It's developing more widespread reasoning from first principles (coupled with curiosity and self-awareness of ones own intellectual limitations).
by johncolanduoni | 2026-01-08 02:19:29+00:00
An easy solution to having to put your PIN in too often for SSH is to use the `ControlPersist` option in your SSH client config. This lets you only create a new SSH connection every 30s (or whatever you put), even if you’re doing separate operations. With a low timeout, there’s no realistic security risk (what’s the chance an attacker will only have control of your machine for 30s?).

I do this for GitHub in particular, because of tools that connect to the remote multiple times. Works with anything that uses the actual ssh executable under the hood.
by vanc_cefepime | 2026-01-08 02:19:41+00:00
It’s a physician who gets paid a subscription by a small panel of patients.

Pros: more time spent with patients, access to a physician basically 24/7, sometimes included are other amenities (labs, imaging, sometimes access to rx at doctors office for simple generics, gym discounts, eye doctor discounts, etc)

Cons: it’s an extra cost to get access to that physician yearly ranging from a few hundred US dollars per year to sometimes thousands $1.5k-3k (or tens of thousands or more), those who aren’t financially lucky to be that well off don’t get such access.

—-

That said, some of us do this on the side to augment our salary a bit as medicine has become too much of a business based on quantity and not quality. Sad that I hear from patients that said a simple small town family doc like myself can spent 20-30mins with a patient when other providers barely spend 3 mins. My regular patients get usually 20-30mins with me on a visit unless it’s a quick one for refills and I don’t leave until they are done and have no questions. My concierge patients get 1 hour minimum and longer if they like. I offer free in-depth medical record review where I get sometimes boxes of old records to review someone’s med history if they are a new concierge patient. Had a lady recently deal with neuropathy and paresthesias for years. Normal blood counts. Long story short. She had moderate iron deficiency and vitamin b 6 deficiency from history of taking isoniazid in a different country for TB and biopsy proven celiac disease. Neuropathy basically gone with iron and b6 supplements and a celiac diet after I recommended a GI eval for endoscopy. It takes time to dig into charts like this and CMS doesn’t pay the bills to keep the clinic lights open to see patients like that all the time and this is why we are in such a bad place healthcare wise in the USA were we have chosen quality than quantity and the powers that be are number crunchers and not actual health care providers. It serves us right for let’s admins take over and we are all paying the price.

So much more I want to say but I don’t think many will read this. But if you read this and don’t like your doctor, please look around. There are still some of us out there that care about quality medicine and do try our best to spend time with the patient. If you got one of those “3 minute doctors” look for one or consider establishing care with a resident clinic at an academic center were you can be seen by resident doctors and their attending physicians. It’s not the most efficient but can almost guarantee those resident physicians will spend a good chunk of time with you to help you as much as they can.
by paranoidrobot | 2026-01-08 02:20:04+00:00
If we define face scanning as specifically doing facial-recognition over multiple cameras, stores and/or time, then it's quite clear and simple.

A store could easily have security cameras operating without issue. They don't need to do any more smarts on it.

It's where you draw the line on smarts that's the thing.

- Person-shaped-object crossed from public-area to private area (eg through a staff-only door) without a corresponding door swipe event.

- Person-shaped-object appears to take an object off a shelf and put it in their bag/pocket.

- Specifically tracking a person over multiple cameras in one visit as they navigate the store, without associating with an identity

- Using facial recognition to recognise the same person over multiple visits/stores, and being able to track their activity over all of those visits.

There could be arguments for some of these being permitted without it being a total invasion of privacy.
by esseph | 2026-01-08 02:20:09+00:00
Amazon has over 50% of the German e-commerce market, is also #1 in Italy and Spain.

Japan and India have also been getting investments, now that they've established a presence in such a massive scope of industries in the largest economy in the world.

Next year (2027) or maybe 2028 should see them have as a global internet provider ala StarLink.

In the UK, Germany, and Australia, Amazon has around 70% of the audiobook market.

Amazon.com is the world's largest global bookstore.

Twitch controls 70% of the game streaming market except for China.

Give it ~4 years and Amazon will be dominating UK and India delivery and private delivery services.
by carlosjobim | 2026-01-08 02:20:32+00:00
You've now reached the core of hacker news. Profiting from other people's need to have a place to live is actually great. Anybody against it is a racist and also a nazi. The real evil people are those who work and pay taxes and rent. The true heroes are the landlords. Now the dictator is trying to steal the profits from the landlord heroes. If you're a real hacker, you stand tall for the landlords and the corporate investors. Otherwise, we'll denounce you!
by D-Machine | 2026-01-08 02:20:32+00:00
> I've never really got it and I just switched to thinking of QKV as a way to construct a fairly general series of linear algebra transformations on the input of a sequence of token embedding vectors x that is quadratic in x and ensures that every token can relate to every other token in the NxN attention matrix.

That's because what you say here is the correct understanding. The lookup thing is nonsense.

The terms "Query" and "Value" are largely arbitrary and meaningless in practice, look at how to implement this in PyTorch and you'll see these are just weight matrices that implement a projection of sorts, and self-attention is always just self_attention(x, x, x) or self_attention(x, x, y) in some cases (e.g. cross-attention), where x and y are are outputs from previous layers.

Plus with different forms of attention, e.g. merged attention, and the research into why / how attention mechanisms might actually be working, the whole "they are motivated by key-value stores" thing starts to look really bogus. Really it is that the attention layer allows for modeling correlations/similarities and/or multiplicative interactions among a dimension-reduced representation. EDIT: Or, as you say, it can be regarded as kernel smoothing.
by fc417fc802 | 2026-01-08 02:20:45+00:00
Why is my data freely and instantly available within a centralized "health system" to begin with? Why can't we implement a digital equivalent of clunky paper records? Everything E2EE. Local storage requiring in person human intervention to access. When a new provider wants my records from an old one there should be a cryptographic dance involving all three parties. Signed request, signed patient authorization, and then reencryption for the receiving party using the request key.

What the health system should impose is a standard for interoperability. Not an internal network that presents a juicy target.