MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by yanhangyhy | 2026-01-27 03:50:28+00:00
> I sometimes have the image that Americans think that if the all Chinese got to read Western produced pamphlet detailing the particulars of what happened in Tiananmen square, they would march en-masse on the CCP HQ, and by the next week they'd turn into a Western style democracy.

We know what happened at Tiananmen. most educated young people in China all know. We just cannot talk about it publicly. We even know that the man standing in front of the tank did not die, they didn't kill him(you can find the full footage on the internet, it's just most posts only show a clip). Of course I would not deny that others died; I just don’t know the specific details.

But we do not reject the Communist Party because of this. We simply like Mao more, and comparatively dislike some other leaders.
by fwip | 2026-01-27 03:50:35+00:00
Well-written Python apps are very easy to understand, especially if they use well-designed libraries.

The 'magic' in Python means that skilled developers can write libraries that work at the appropriate level of abstraction, so they are a joy to use.

Conversely, it also means that a junior dev, or an LLM pretending to be a junior dev, can write insane things that are nearly impossible to use correctly.
by razingeden | 2026-01-27 03:50:57+00:00
>Phoenix sits on like a gazillion years worth of water that they squirreled away

True, but most of the groundwater under phoenix was contaminated by three superfund projects . Article [0] is from 2019 and says it’s “delayed”. They hit some targets in 2024, supposedly working on it with review due sometime this year [1]

[0] https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environme...

[1] https://www.epa.gov/superfund-redevelopment/superfund-sites-...

Some of the suburbs haven’t been reached by the groundwater plumes, but phoenix itself was 2/3 in scope. So you don’t have a supply issue in maricopa city (which is a whole separate water district.. and an expensive one too: $100 bill even if you don’t use a drop), city of Scottsdale, etc
by captain_coffee | 2026-01-27 03:51:12+00:00
So let me get this straight - you vibe code, make what you consider as necessary changes to the LLM-generated code, create PRs that get to be reviewed by another AI tool (Copilot), potentially make changes based on Copilot's suggestions and at the end, when you are satisfied with that particular PR you merge it yourself without having any other human reviewing it and then continue to the next PR.

Did I get that right or did I miss anything?
by jmward01 | 2026-01-27 03:52:22+00:00
The first two thoughts that came into my head were: 'Yep, learn the machine and you can climb' and 'I always want to ride a bike and not drive a car'.

I think the author nails a lot about different career paths but left out one, the gambler which I think a lot of people have an aspect of. The gambler is the person that is throwing crazy at every problem and the thing is that sometimes it actually pays off, but like a lotto scratcher the overall payoff is pretty low for most (unless you are this guy [1]. Like I said, most).

I think this is different from their person that 'wants to deliver real value'. This is a person that loves the idea, and that it could be the next big thing. That or I just -really- liked the name 'the gambler' and filled in the rest of the details for the fun of it. Really, who doesn't want to be the gambler? Honestly.

[1] https://www.wired.com/2011/01/cracking-the-scratch-lottery-c...
by llbbdd | 2026-01-27 03:53:32+00:00
Target? They're down a miniscule amount from record breaking revenue in 2021, which looks a lot more like a correction in line with the rest of the market around tariffs and other uncertainty. I hadn't heard of this boycott at all, which is part of my point. Boycotts only inconvenience the people performatively taking part in them, Target is on a very different timeline and does not care.
by andai | 2026-01-27 03:54:05+00:00
Yeah, I flew thru Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands a few years ago, and I couldn't believe they let me through with water.

The security used something I would describe as out of an Iron Man film, they were zooming around a translucent 3D view of my backpack. (It was on an LCD display instead of hovering midair, but I was still impressed. But the fact they let me keep the water was even more amazing, hahah.)
by mapt | 2026-01-27 03:54:29+00:00
In writing life critical systems like the Space Shuttle's operating system, effectively 99.9% of all work is QA.

MS had the dominant operating system in the world, and keeping its userbase and its ~monopoly dividend would have been more profitable as a business than doing... everything it's done in the past twenty years. Selling software that all the people use all the time just has a lot less opportunity for growth than making new software, according to Investor Brain.
by socketcluster | 2026-01-27 03:54:50+00:00
Agreed. Libraries and frameworks definitely adhere to a 'low-code' philosophy.

Your last idea makes sense as well to some extent. I think for sure, once you abstract away from the technical implementation details and use platforms which allow you to focus only on business logic, it becomes easier to move between different platforms which support similar underlying functionality. That said, some functionality may be challenging for different providers to replicate correctly... But some of the core constructs like authentication mechanisms, access controls, etc... Might be mostly interchangeable; we may end up with a few competing architectural patterns and different platforms will fit under one of the architectural patterns; which will be optimized for slightly different use cases.
by llbbdd | 2026-01-27 03:55:18+00:00
But they aren't. Weren't the same people boycotting like Starbucks and McDonalds recently over the kerfuffle with Israel? Last I checked neither of those gigantic companies reacted to that at all except for firing people and shutting down stores that were already underperforming, if that was the goal of the boycott then they nailed it.
by felixfbecker | 2026-01-27 03:57:05+00:00
The author makes the argument that in the age of LLMs more type safe languages will be more successful than less type safe ones. But how does that support the claim that Go is more suitable than JavaScript? TypeScript is more type safe than Go: Go doesn’t validate nil pointers, it doesn’t enforce fields to be set when initializing structs, it has no support for union types. All those things can cause runtime errors that are caught are caught at compile time in TypeScript.
by onion2k | 2026-01-27 03:57:21+00:00
Driving the car is surprisingly easy.

If there's a single hack for your career it is simply telling your manager when things happen. Shipped something? Tell them. Broke something? Tell them. Blocked on something? Keep that quiet. No, wait, tell them! Made a breakthrough on something? Tell them. Hit a milestone? Tell them. Got some bad news? Tell them, as early as you can, so they have time to fix things. And so on, for everything. Clear, open communication about the state of things is critical. Embrace stand-ups. Email people first. Put updates in Slack. Write docs. It doesn't matter how you do it so long as you do it.

If you get a reputation for being someone who communicates when things happen you can practically choose your own career path. Every manager will want you on their team. You can boost your way up the org chart or languish in a role so you have time with your kids, and any competent manager will happily and readily support you to do that.
by tdb7893 | 2026-01-27 03:58:35+00:00
My experience with large police departments in the US is that they either don’t have the time or the inclination to deal with small property claims. Some people tried to steal cars (including mine) in my neighborhood in Chicago, we had them on video and they were still in the area and the police didn't do anything. Large police departments also generally won't really do much. Though my friend in Houston did have the police investigate car break ins at his apartment complex but that might be because multiple guns were stolen from cars (so at least there are certain things that will get their attention).
by skydhash | 2026-01-27 03:59:23+00:00
A bit different from you

When I code, I mostly go by two perspectives: The software as a process and the code as a communication medium.

With the software as a process, I'm mostly thinking about the semantics of each expressions. Either there's a final output (transient, but important) or there's a mutation to some state. So the code I'm writing is for making either one possible and the process is very pleasing, like building a lego. The symbols are the bricks and other items which I'm using to create things that does what I want.

With the code as communication, I mostly take the above and make it readable. Like organizing files, renaming variables and functions, modularising pieces of code. The intent is for other people (including future me) to be able to understand and modify what I created in the easiest way possible.

So the first is me communicating with the machine, the second is me communicating with the humans. The first is very easy, you only need to know the semantics of the building blocks of the machine. The second is where the craft comes in.

Emacs (also Vim) makes both easy. Code has a very rigid structure and both have tools that let you manipulate these structure either for adding new actions or refine the shape for understanding.

With AI, it feels like painting with a brick. Or transmitting critical information through a telephone game. Control and Intent are lost.
by kelsier1 | 2026-01-27 04:00:29+00:00
There has to be a snippet showcasing what to expect if we sign up.

"You will receive a concise, data-driven briefing covering the most critical global military developments and geopolitical shifts. Our goal is to provide situational awareness without the fluff, delivered straight to your inbox."

This is just an empty promise statement that is soliciting our email.
by Denatonium | 2026-01-27 04:00:53+00:00
The built-in terminal app seems to be similarly flaky on my Pixel 8. Also, the kernel it boots into is really stripped down, and it lacks a ton of essential features. I was not able to install VirtualHere client to pass through USB devices, and there's no built-in functionality. There's also no way to open it full-screen on the Pixel 8's DP-over-USB-C desktop mode. Hopefully it continues to improve, but it seems like Google is more into extracting value than they are improving their products at this point.
by wolrah | 2026-01-27 04:01:36+00:00
> A concern: with all this computing onboard, does this mean a malicious USB-C cable could record screen and keystroke?

Keystrokes: Easily. At least for USB 3 and 4, USB 1/2 data is a physically separate channel that just happens to almost always be packaged alongside the faster stuff, so the lower speed stuff like input devices is easy to intercept. I don't know if Thunderbolt does the same or not, normally USB-C alternate modes still keep the USB 2.0 signals available but Thunderbolt might be an exception.

Screen: Probably not modern video modes in a purely stealthy cable formfactor *YET*, at least not using COTS parts, but it wouldn't surprise me to find the secret squirrel types either already have it or are working on it.
by fc417fc802 | 2026-01-27 04:02:07+00:00
Doesn't the spam filtering complaint apply in equal measure to _any_ E2EE messaging solution? Signal can't implement content based filtering either.

Out of band confirmation is similarly universal unless you're okay with either TOFU or delegation. (Delegation being recursively subject to the same choice.) TLS on the web goes with delegation and a root certificate store obviously.

My point being that none of this is specific to either email or federation more generally.
by renewiltord | 2026-01-27 04:02:42+00:00
One way or the other, local culture is to do this. Yes, I agree it’s a negative sum choice. But they like it. It’s the same school of thought where a prison abolitionist didn’t report her gang rape: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/why-i-didnt-report...

It’s a coastal elite view.

As for whether they’re people and not wildlife as you put it, I suspect I’m more right than you are. Some of them have almost been acquitted because after killing people while robbing them it was offered as an explanation that they are too stupid to know that killing was bad.

https://sfist.com/2024/09/20/sf-jury-convicts-two-for-2017-m...

> Decuir and Mims were convicted last year of armed robbery, but a jury deadlocked on the first-degree murder charge, leading to this second trial… Attorneys also argued that she had a low IQ…
by nlawalker | 2026-01-27 04:03:10+00:00
Let me get this straight. If the article is correct, the new capabilities are related to better detection of large liquid containers, not determination of whether or not the liquid is dangerous.

So - you couldn’t take large amounts of liquids previously because some liquids in large amounts might be able to be weaponized. If you were caught with too much liquid (in sum total, or in containers that are too large) they’d throw it out and send you on your way.

But now that they have the ability to detect larger containers, they… do what? Declare that it’s safe and send you on your way with it still in your possession?
by lobochrome | 2026-01-27 04:03:53+00:00
This rule wasn't enforced anyway...

I travel a lot - and never take out any liquids. Have nail clippers and scissors in my carry-on.

Once I even had an opinel pocket knife in my laptop bag for a couple of months.

Travelled through Tokyo, Taipei, SFO, DEN, PHX, LAX, BOS, JFK, FRA, AMS, MUC, LHR - nobody noticed.

I seriously had forgotten it was there, so I don't do that now, but still...

Also, no large water bottles or similar. Unless on domestic flights in Japan, where this is totally fine.

IDK - security theater. But if it helps.
by linsomniac | 2026-01-27 04:04:38+00:00
Slightly unrelated, the recent LabCoatz video went into a bit about the CocaCola recipe and how it's protected: https://youtu.be/TDkH3EbWTYc?si=GuvCd-kKXP5_gcRs&t=26

He mentions that the ingredients are shipped unlabeled from different facilities who don't know what they're making.

He then goes on to reverse engineer the formula. Because science.
by LeoPanthera | 2026-01-27 04:05:22+00:00
> Unfortunately the anti-stalking features have made Airtag mostly useless for theft prevention.

While this is true, Airtags are not designed for theft prevention, and never have been. They're designed to locate lost items.

Apple should be applauded for making the only tracking tags with literally any kind of anti-stalking features at all.
by jmward01 | 2026-01-27 04:06:06+00:00
Famously Steve Jobs had a story about shaving time off of boot-up and equating it to saving lives on the concept of people sitting their waiting for the computer to boot up just lost that much of their lives. [1] I actually do believe there is value in thinking this way and it is one of my biggest arguments against TSA. Everything has a cost, including 'security' and 'safety'. If you look at the very real human toll, and economic toll, that airport security has caused any potential gain is out the window in just one day of costs from screening, and that doesn't even get into the privacy destruction this has caused. I think I would get way to angry to comment on that in an intelligent way.

But that is just one argument. My real anger at airport screening is that we have found it possible to fund and implement this level of screening, at massive monetary, human and privacy cost, but I can't go to my doctor and for a few pennies (sorry, those don't exist now, how about for a few nickles?) get a body scan that does all the 3d segmentation, recognition, etc etc etc. We could actually save lives if we put effort into this technology for people instead of for a sense of security. But we probably won't. Because fear gets money but solving real problems that actually impact people doesn't.

[1] https://danemcfarlane.com/how-steve-jobs-turned-boot-time-in...
by giancarlostoro | 2026-01-27 04:06:52+00:00
Not sure, but I gave it a shot weeks ago and finally started building something using Rust for a project I've wanted to build for years now, in maybe 12 hours worth of effort total I've probably done several months worth of engineering effort (when you consider I only touch this project in my spare time). Every time I pick up Rust I fight it for hours because I don't do any Rust in my dayjob, but the LLM helps me pick up that Rust nuance slack wherever I fall short and I can focus on key architectural details as I have been obsessing over years now.
by moomoo11 | 2026-01-27 04:06:57+00:00
I literally see their posts every (other) day, and its always glazing something that doesn't fully work (but is kind of cool at a glance) or is really just hyped beyond belief.

Comments usually point out the issues or more grounded reality.

BTW I'm bullish on AI, going through 100s of millions of tokens per month.
by jcparkyn | 2026-01-27 04:07:50+00:00
This is a little bit tricky because the parser has to distinguish between:

for x in arr (something ())
\ /-- function call

and

for x in arr (something ())
\ /-- loop body

This is consequence of combining "blocks" and "precedence" into the same construct ().

A more fitting example would be to support:

for x in arr do set z += x;
for x in arr do something x;

IIRC these both currently require an explicit block in my parser.
by anon291 | 2026-01-27 04:08:26+00:00
I mean the simple answer here is to just develop proper frameworks for Futamura projections. There's an exact one to one algorithmic correspondence between an interpreted program and the compiled version of that. GraalVM and PyPy are good options here.

Using an LLM is overkill especially when correctness can never be guaranteed by systems who must sample from a probability distribution.
by jonah | 2026-01-27 04:08:52+00:00
We transited through LHR yesterday. Still had to go through security - not sure why since we stayed on the air side.

Anyway, signage required us to empty our refillable water bottles. Odd. Thankfully we eventually found a refill station.

The scanners flagged a still sealed can of ginger ale left over from our incoming flight. It was "fine" but she still swabbed it. Shrug.
by bastawhiz | 2026-01-27 04:09:12+00:00
I'll never argue that updates like this are a bad thing, but arguably the best thing Apple could have done is offered a jailbreak for phones after so many years. If you're still using the same ten year old phone, the risks to you opting into the ability to flash a new OS maintained by someone who cares are pretty small. It's not as though those folks are more than a rounding error in sales numbers anyway. Someone buying a new phone every 20 years instead of 15 isn't going to cause anyone to lose their Christmas bonus.
by bofadeez | 2026-01-27 04:09:24+00:00
I think the author is way understating the uselessness of LLMs in any serious context outside of a demo to an investor. I've had nothing but low IQ nonsense from every SOTA model.

If we're being honest with ourselves, Opus 4.5 / GPT 5.2 etc are maybe 10-20% better than GPT 3.5 at most. It's a total and absolute catastrophic failure that will go down in history as one of humanity's biggest mistakes.
by renewiltord | 2026-01-27 04:09:32+00:00
We should perhaps take heart that even if these terrible things are being done, some good is being done too. Privacy is a fundamental human right, and just as important as the others. We should not encourage the view that privacy is a luxury item, only for those who aren’t being jailed. It is as much a human right as the right to freedom of expression.

Some places you have the former and not the latter. Other places you have the latter and not the former. But human rights are important! Every one of them!
by bobbylarrybobby | 2026-01-27 04:09:41+00:00
You are basically hitting on what has been referred to as high modernism, which promotes a level of confidence in science and technology that can only be maintained by eschewing all the inherent complexity of the world. The scientific method can really only study systems by modifying a handful of variables at a time and keeping the rest fixed, and isn't really capable of handling hundreds of interacting variables. Rather than acknowledge this limitation, high modernism embraces simplification even to the detriment of its products.

Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State
by Telemakhos | 2026-01-27 04:09:58+00:00
The WD in WD-40 stands for "water displacer." It makes water go somewhere else. Secondarily, it is a solvent, and it's great for dissolving glues, like the glue used to affix government-issued tax licenses to automobiles. It's not really a lubricant, but in a pinch it can temporarily function as one.

I like Swiss army knives, but they collect lint and gunk from my pockets. I use WD-40 to dissolve gunk, and to drive out water after an ultrasonic bath, but I lubricate with the light machine oil used for barber's clippers.
by fc417fc802 | 2026-01-27 04:10:18+00:00
Exactly my point. Account migration simply isn't supported. Not in any practical sense.

> there's a good chance it would refresh your actor and pick up the new key.

And how will this be displayed to users of remote instances? Last I checked it was a confusing mess on most implementations (ie every one I have experience with) and the mess would persist indefinitely without manual intervention in the db by a given remote admin.

In the event a domain has changed hands then even with remote intervention no truly satisfactory outcome is possible. This is due to, as you rightly point out, there being no higher level identities. The domain is a fundamental part of the account as modeled by AP which makes conflicts a serious problem.
by onion2k | 2026-01-27 04:10:29+00:00
A common cause is multi-page forms that silently push URL changes to your browser history stack, and also set headers that block pages being cached by the browser properly. On mobile that means an accidental swipe up takes you 'back' a page, which reloads the form losing all the data.

The web dev who built it needs to have made a few errors at the same time, but browsers, HTTP servers, and JS all work in tandem to make foot-guns like that very easy to pull off.
by measurablefunc | 2026-01-27 04:10:44+00:00
Something else to consider is that "reasoning" (marketing term having nothing to do w/ actual reasoning) will only work for problems that can be broken up into chunks of quadratic complexity such that each chunk can then be re-encoded into the context to carry out more quadratic operations. I don't know if there is a theorem in CS proving obstructions for breaking up problems into such chunks but I think it is intuitively obvious that there will be problems which can not be solved w/ such restrictions.