MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by 152334H | 2026-01-16 00:36:46+00:00
From my perspective, the issue is quite simple: progress optimizes everything other than the cost of human labor. Socialization, as defined today, inherently requires human labor, and thus falls under the Baumol effect.

The 'loneliness epidemic' is merely the result of weakening demand, owing to a slew of low-cost alternatives. Thus, we end up with two options,

1. automate the social experience

2. accept that the comparative cost of socialization will grow higher forever

For some reason, the vast majority of humans in the 21st century are interested in morally rejecting (1), thus ensuring (2) as an outcome.

.

Note: this is not to say I reject the notion that individuals can be helped. I think most comments in this thread are quite healthy, even as they narrowly focus on the individual case.

But it is rather impractical to adopt a positivist "how you can help" framing to address the epidemic at large. While certainly instrumentally useful, it is necessarily unlikely for the same traditional solutions to loneliness to spontaneously 'gain influence' against what has thus far been a gradual decline in their effectiveness and buying power.
by agosta | 2026-01-16 00:37:13+00:00
Guess I'm confused - is the ideal use case for Sprites for suspendable, iterative, sandboxed compute sessions (with disk)?.. Or is the idea that these things can also/should run production workloads in place of a traditional webserver setup? If the latter, can every sprite boot up with what's needed to instantly serve web traffic? Or would they need to build/install things internally every time a new sprite turned on? Do these horizontally scale a long lived, high trafficked application?
Show HN: Cron for Claude Code – quickly schedule repeating CC jobs
by nsmith22 | 2026-01-16 00:37:31+00:00
Honestly this thing is so simple that if you have a use case for scheduling CC, it is probably easier to just use it vs. read about it:

pip install claun-tui

I needed a way to quickly (like 60 seconds) get a Claude Code job set up to repeat at an interval. I figured I would save everyone else the tokens and open source it. I've spent many years shipping products that need bulletproof data pipelines, and I understand it would be cleaner and more reliable to use systemd, or a managed tool like AWS Glue. But this is fast, and helps keep the decision loop tight during early stage development.
by muwtyhg | 2026-01-16 00:37:34+00:00
> They did commit a crime

What was the reasoning Hitler used to deport Jews and other "undesirables" to Polish concentration camps? Was it legal?

If so, maybe we shouldn't try to equate "What is legal/possible" with "what is moral/good". It can be legal and possible, and still very inhumane and evil. The Nazis prove that, don't they?

> and sending them back

We didn't "send them back". We sent them to a third place. A very bad place. Why are you ignoring that when the person you are replying to was specifically mentioning it?

> It's rhetoric like yours that encourage people like the Tyler Robinsons or that sniper who attacked the ice facility.

There is absolutely zero evidence of this. Tyler could have a very specific grievance with Charlie Kirk's rhetoric without being motivated by other people calling Trump and MAGA Nazis or Facists.
by kay_o | 2026-01-16 00:37:47+00:00
- This is a valid medical treatment, as heavy or long-term alcohol use followed by withdrawal is possibly death.

- This is an unreliable spam blog and not a valid news source.

- It is cheaper to give them a shot of alcohol than for the taxpayer to support full medical services from not taking it.

I make zero judgement on whether this is good or bad nor any political side.
by floxy | 2026-01-16 00:37:51+00:00
> staring at me open-eyed

They were probably just envious you were rocking a Kershaw Iridium Dessert Warrior. Which also comes in at under $100. And the Iridium family are pretty nice knives.

https://www.bladehq.com/item--Kershaw-Iridium-Dessert-Warrio...
by shiroiuma | 2026-01-16 00:37:59+00:00
I skipped Dolly because I honestly don't know enough about country music to know if she's a "great artist" or merely "famous over a long time". Same for the other guy: I'm just not familiar. But I called out your choice of Keanu because it's really well-known that he is not a great actor, and he probably agrees. But it's great that he made a good career for himself anyway; as I said, he does well in certain roles that fit him well. I don't consider myself the top 1% in my profession either.

Of course, I guess this could easily veer off into a discussion about what qualifies as "great artist". Does a top-selling musician/singer who has limited range or uses autotune count, or does someone with amazing technical ability but little commercial success not count? Does a "wooden" actor qualify as a "greater artist" if they've grossed higher than Daniel Day Lewis?
by okanat | 2026-01-16 00:38:18+00:00
Speculating a cabal of authoritarians planning to change the world order is strictly in tinfoil hat territory.

It is much more boring than that. Democracy is an unstable way of ruling societies and generating value out of people. Keeping it healthy requires not only elections but lots of "undemocratic" powerful institutions with unelected well-educated people in it (courts, agencies, foundations, bureaucrats). Those institutions need to have actual power to coerce.

Managing economics such that there aren't any too big organizations that can significantly affect individuals' independent decision making is also required. That's the antitrust laws and unions for ya.

When educational, scientific and social organs are undermined, the public becomes more susceptible to strongman figures that provide easy solutions to the degradation. When economy is mismanaged undereducated people are easily swayed, more educated people are easily coerced.

It is statistical common human behavior to support autocrats, especially under stress. Autocrats themselves have a strong inherent understanding of power and great skills/intuition to detect the weakest. If you encoutered bullies in your life, you may have observed how their brain and the cult of personality works. It is fascinating that they can pick out the weak so easily.

Like the bullies, the autocrats understand each other since they understand themselves. Our crappy happenstance is not a result of a strategy but the systematic behavior of bullies and, bullied and oppressed people.

The Republicans pick on Venezuela and Europe and Canada since they know that those societies are weak and they are separated. They know from years of backstabbing experience that if they play the game right, they will get to enjoy one more praise, one more success, one more sadistic dopamine rush. They will get to enjoy eating one separated bison from the herd at a time. They know that attacking a strong bully like themselves will be hard and it will probably hurt. They won't get the same feeling of accomplishment.

Without attacking the system itself, it is really hard to win against it. There needs to be strong external factors for established autocratic regimes to collapse by letting them be. Attackers need to be smart and nible and more importantly systematic. Moreover the lines of defense are not uniform. There are many smaller bullies even in the weak. They have lots of economic incentives to keep their small serfdoms.
by JohnBooty | 2026-01-16 00:38:25+00:00
Yeah let's be really specific. Look at the poem in the article. The poem does not mention suicide.

(I'd cut and paste it here, but it's haunting and some may find it upsetting. I know I did. As many do, I've got some personal experiences there. Friends lost, etc.)

In this tragic context it clearly alludes to suicide.

But the poem only literally mentions goodbyes, and a long sleep. It seems highly possible and highly likely to me that Gordon asked ChatGPT for a poem with those specific (innocuous on their own) elements - sleep, goodbyes, the pylon, etc.

Gordon could have simply told ChatGPT that he was dying naturally of an incurable disease and wanted help writing a poetic goodbye. Imagine (god forbid) that you were in such a situation, looking for help planning your own goodbyes and final preparations, and all the available tools prevented you from getting help because you might be lying about your incurable cancer and might be suicidal instead. And that's without even getting into the fact that assisted voluntary euthanasia is legal in quite a few countries.

My bias here is pretty clear: I don't think legally crippling LLMs is generally the right tack. But on the other hand, I am also not defending ChatGPT because we don't know his entire interaction history with it.
by Scoundreller | 2026-01-16 00:38:29+00:00
Happy to see the dashcam discourse.

Mine runs about 100mb/minute (these things don’t compress much), so make sure you consider that when buying an SD card.

You may not want to hold toooo much but I suppose you could oversize+underprovision to get some more write cycles.

Virtually all have a “save” button to avoid overwriting segments.

You’ll need some car mods if you want the to continuously record (and cutout if battery voltage gets too low). Mine at least has a tiny capacitor (or battery?) to detect movement and kick on for 15 seconds while disconnected for a few cycles.
by Desafinado | 2026-01-16 00:39:45+00:00
I think you're oversimplifying and overgeneralizing. Plenty of people remained lonely back in the day, plenty of people socialize now. It's just that now they have the option to socialize through the internet.

Prior to the internet people were staying home and watching TV. The dynamic is much longer lived than you think. Check out the book 'Bowling Alone'.
by chmod775 | 2026-01-16 00:40:17+00:00
Don't let your political opinions get in the way of understanding what is happening around you.

> The increase in greenhouse gas emissions is attributable to a combination of a cool winter, the explosive growth of data centers and cryptocurrency mining and higher natural gas prices, according to the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm. Environmental policy rollbacks by President Donald Trump’s administration were not significant factors in the increase because they were only put in place this year, the study authors said.
by jacobgkau | 2026-01-16 00:40:28+00:00
You're "literally surrounded" by cafes built into the first floor of your apartment complex? Because that's what I was very clearly talking about. Not shops within walking distance.

(I didn't ask and don't care if you think your cheap meal's "very delicious," by the way. That's not the main indicator of quality. Many Americans would call a Big Mac "very delicious.")
by UncleMeat | 2026-01-16 00:40:52+00:00
First, Twitter has grok integrated directly. Rather than somebody separately creating one of these abuse images and then posting it, they simply comment on somebody's tweet and Twitter does the rest.

Second, Musk himself advocated for looser restrictions on this sort of abusive image generation. Rather than starting from a position of trying to minimize this abuse Musk started from a position of opposing efforts to minimize this abuse.

Third, Musk has joked about the pain and suffering experienced by the people getting harassed on Twitter with this content. I have vastly more patience for somebody who seems to actively care about addressing the problem than somebody who seems to enjoy it when women are abused en masse on his platform.
by A_D_E_P_T | 2026-01-16 00:40:58+00:00
They were incompetent at declaring their own incompetence.

See, what the hell does it have to do with "moral authority"? I think that the authors don't know what the words mean. Morality has absolutely nothing to do with it.

It would be more precise if they had written "it's worth acknowledging that there is no consensus as to what constitutes AGI."
by rootusrootus | 2026-01-16 00:41:20+00:00
> Or it is a good tool used wrong

This. ICE serves a necessary function. It is intentionally being wielded with malice. The target is not immigrants, they are just the face of the brawl, the real target is democratic voters.

> can people vote and make ICE stronger / weaker depending on their choice

This question is easy to answer. The citizens could easily vote in a new president in 2028 who defunded ICE altogether. We already know that cutting funds is way easier than granting them.
by tharkun__ | 2026-01-16 00:42:10+00:00
Funny indeed. Now that you mention it, I can "hear" the complaining voices in my mind, yes :) So very German of them too!

Funny you mention cost. This year our town actually did not contract out the snow clearing of the roadways to a contractor like they've done for decades past, because it became too expensive (or rather the percentage increase I believe was the trigger). So instead the city is now doing the snow clearing themselves! I would call this very good stewardship of our property tax payments, which is what pays for that. Just now instead of going to greedy contractors (let's face it, most of that money isn't going to the people actually doing the snow clearing) and instead it will go towards paying the salaries of actual city employees (not sure how many temporary) and I guess equipment cost.

Most people here also get a local contractor or in our case it's usually one of the farms around the area, that offer snow clearing of your driveway. Both the actual driveway, which around here can be quite large, and for clearing the large amounts of snow and ice left across your driveway by the city plows clearing the roads. Essentially tractors with snow blower attachments on the back PTO. Like this: https://www.deere.ca/assets/images/region-4/products/attachm...
by RickJWagner | 2026-01-16 00:42:15+00:00
Here are several English cops run down with cars.

https://www.gmp.police.uk/news/greater-manchester/news/news/...

https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/crime/simranjit-kajl...

https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2025-01-28/teen-charged-aft...

Your comments on these?
by johnisgood | 2026-01-16 00:42:15+00:00
> I have no issues with the social media laws as they don't impact my family

This is probably the most common reason for why our society is in the shitters wrt. laws. I find it problematic that people only care after they have been shown they are affected. Look at any anti-privacy laws. No one cares until they get thrown into jail for posting memes online.
by ignoramous | 2026-01-16 00:42:24+00:00
> as the CLOUD Act "gives the US government authority to obtain digital data

AWS maintains a similar stance, too [0]?

The CLOUD Act clarified that if a service provider is compelled to produce data under one of the limited exceptions, such as a search warrant for content data, the data to be produced can include data stored in the U.S. or outside the U.S.

> Microsoft admitted that it 'cannot guarantee' data sovereignty

Hm. As for AWS, they say that if the customer sets up proper security boundaries [0], they'll ensure will keep their end of the bargain [2][3]:

As part of the technical design, access to the AWS European Sovereign Cloud physical infrastructure and logical system is managed by Qualified AWS European Sovereign Cloud Staff and can only be granted to Qualified AWS European Sovereign Cloud Staff located in the EU. AWS European Sovereign Cloud-restricted data will not be accessible, including to AWS employees, from outside the EU.

All computing on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) in the AWS European Sovereign Cloud will run on the Nitro System, which eliminates any mechanisms for AWS employees to access customer data on EC2. An independent third party (the UK-based NCC Group) completed a design review confirming the security controls of the Nitro System (“As a matter of design, NCC Group found no gaps in the Nitro System that would compromise these security claims”), and AWS updated its service terms to assure customers “there are no technical means or APIs available to AWS personnel to read, copy, extract, modify, or otherwise access” customer content on the EC2 Nitro System.

Customers also have additional mechanisms to prevent access to their data using cryptography. AWS provides advanced encryption, key management services, and hardware security modules that customers can use to protect their content further. Customers have a range of options to encrypt data in transit and at rest, including options to bring their own keys and use external key stores. Encrypted content is rendered useless without the applicable decryption keys.

The AWS European Sovereign Cloud will also benefit from AWS transparency protections over data movement. We commit in the AWS Service Terms that access to the EC2 Nitro System APIs is "always logged, and always requires authentication and authorization." The AWS European Sovereign Cloud also offers immutable, validated logs that make it impossible to modify, delete, or forge AWS CloudTrail log files without detection.

[0] https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/cloud-act/

[1] https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/shared-responsibility-mode...

[2] https://d1.awsstatic.com/onedam/marketing-channels/website/a...

[3] https://aws.eu/esca/
by andy99 | 2026-01-16 00:43:19+00:00
What if the only moat is domains where it’s hard to judge (non superficial) quality?

Code generation, you don’t see what’s wrong right away, it’s only later in project lifecycle that you pay for it. Writing looks good to skim, is embarrassingly bad once you start reading it.

Some things (slides apparently) you notice right away how crappy they are.

I don’t think it’s just better training data, I think LLMs apply largely the same kind of zeal to different tasks. It’s the places where coherent nonsense ends up being acceptable.

I’m actually a big LLM proponent and see a bright future, but believe a critical assessment of how they work and what they do is important.
by paulmist | 2026-01-16 00:43:19+00:00
> Apple is one of the very few companies at their size that seems to have the political environment to make, and more importantly succeed, at decade investments.

Definitely! But I'd recon they would want to bootstrap that part of their supply chain as soon as possible? Say China does invade Taiwan, suddenly their main supplier is gone and the Intel capacity mostly goes to military and other high margin segments. If they instead own Intel they not only control the narrative but also capitalize on the increase in Intel's value.
by bichiliad | 2026-01-16 00:43:57+00:00
I hear you, and I think it's also fucked up (as someone who lives in the US) that our climate success is so easily reversed by the whims of whoever is in power today. If it makes you feel any less bad, new Zealand doing it acts as fantastic proof that a good chunk of New England could do it, or that the American South could do it. Plus, there isn't a lot of love for polluting policies; just tolerance from the government for polluters. Nobody here likes to see their kids have asthma, or to see their water contaminated. The size thing can make it feel hopeless, but what is the US if not a handful of New Zealand's?
by hn_throwaway_99 | 2026-01-16 00:43:59+00:00
I think I saw this quote somewhere else on HN about a post lamenting how difficult it can be to make new friends after age 30 or so:

Finding new friends as an adult can be exceedingly difficult, but becoming a friend to someone is surprisingly easy.

Lots of people (and if I'm being honest I'm one of them, so no judgement) just sort of expect friendships to come to them. But if you actually do the hard (and somewhat socially risky) work of inviting people to do things, offering to help unsolicited, organizing gatherings, etc. new friendships are much easier to come by.
by wunderwuzzi23 | 2026-01-16 00:44:08+00:00
Claude (generally, even non Cowork mode) is vulnerable to exfil via their APIs, and Anthropic's response was that you should click the stop button if exfiltration occurs.

This is a good example of the Normalization of Deviance in AI by the way.

See my Claude Pirate research from last October for details:

https://embracethered.com/blog/posts/2025/claude-abusing-net...
by crazygringo | 2026-01-16 00:44:52+00:00
It seems like the entire point is precisely to get around the CLOUD Act.

By setting it up with a European governance structure, Amazon can tell the US government "hey we told them give us the data, but they refused because that would send them to jail under EU law, and they're a legally separate entity so there's nothing we can do."

This is very intentionally not just a regular foreign subsidiary owned by the parent company.
by ryan_lane | 2026-01-16 00:45:06+00:00
I think this deserves more than a nitpick. WMF also doesn't dictate the actions of the volunteer community, and neither does the board. The content of Wikipedia is fully volunteer created and maintained, and admin actions are also handled by the volunteer community.

The foundation is there to provide technical, legal, and community support. In some cases this is funding for community events, in other cases, this includes funding towards making the editor community more diverse. In most cases, though, it's keeping a staff of folks that maintain and improve the software, and defend the project legally.

So, no Wikipedia isn't a corporation. It's more of a commune.
by swat535 | 2026-01-16 00:46:38+00:00
I agree, unless faith actually means something to you, forcing yourself to go to church won’t help. Sitting through Mass miserable, disbelieving, and avoiding everyone defeats the whole purpose.

Churches get brought up a lot because they regularly gather people (weekly or even daily) and offer events, volunteer opportunities, and so on.

The point is to find an activity you like, with a specific group of people and consistently attend.

P.S As a fellow Catholic, I’m really sorry you went through such an isolating experience. I hope things feel much better for you now
by tialaramex | 2026-01-16 00:46:55+00:00
> I suspect that the UK is already beyond the point by which additional wind is economically beneficial, but I’m not certain about that.

I don't buy it. Just before Xmas the grid managed to move about 23GW of wind and it was a record. 23GW is lots but there was peak demand at that time, about 14GW of gas was still running when they hit that record. How can it be of no benefit to expand beyond that ?

I don't expect to even start worrying about the factor that's got you scared until we have a whole day when the CCGTs aren't running.
by phoronixrly | 2026-01-16 00:47:17+00:00
Let's indeed limit the use case to the system language, let's say of a mobile phone.

You pull up a map. All the street names are in the local language, and no, transliterating the local names to the English alphabet does not make them understandable when spoken by TTS.

You pull up a browser, open up an article to read during your commute in your local language. You now have to reach for a translation model first before passing the data to the English-only TTS software.

You're driving, one of your friends Signals you. Your phone UI is in English, you get a notification (interrupting your Spotify) saying 'Signal message', followed by 5 minutes of gibberish.

But let's say you have a TTS model that supports your local language natively. Well due to the fact that '1.5B English speakers' apparently exist in the planet, many texts in other languages include English or Latin names and words. Now you have the opposite issue -- your TTS software needs to switch to English to pronounce these correctly...

And mind you, these are just very simple use cases for TTS. If you delve into use cases for people with limited sight that experience the entire Internet, and all mobile and desktop applications (often having poor localisation) via TTS you see how mono-lingual TTS is mostly useless and would be switched for a robotic old-school TTS in a flash...