MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by parados | 2026-01-15 13:44:54+00:00
> they documented what they thought should happen instead of what actually happened.

The other way around. For example the Python C documentation is full of errors and omissions where engineers described what they thought should happen. There is a documentation project that describes what actually happens (look in the index for "Documentation Lacunae"): https://pythonextensionpatterns.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ind...
Continuous agents and what happens after Ralph Wiggum?
by waynenilsen | 2026-01-15 13:45:02+00:00
Is anyone else doing the full software lifecycle for toy projects completely hands off the wheel? I have had Claude running in a Ralph like loop for over 15 hours unsupervised.

The technique works like this

while true:
if tickets exist -> burn down the backlog by one ticket, exit
if not -> figure out what feature would make sense to add next,
create PRD and ERD, break down into tickets, exit

It did get stuck once due to tty issues related to running playwright in a non-tty environment but otherwise I have not had to manually step in.

I have it running in a droplet using systemd continuously.

Toy code the agent is creating is a multi-tenant todo kata. Here is the set of prompts:

https://github.com/waynenilsen/ralph-kata-2/tree/main/prompts

Anyone could make their own version of the same, these are just the set of prompts that work for me.

In 15 hours it created a full multi-tenant auth system from scratch and todos with assignees due dates, email reminders, tags and full text search. I created the first PRD by hand with something like "create a PRD for a multi-tenant todo system".

For anyone looking to do something similar, the e2e tests have played a critical role in closing the agent's loop with reality.

The age of programming with prompts is clearly arriving.
by beklein | 2026-01-15 13:45:08+00:00
Not the author/contributor, but the app is built using Tauri for easy multi-platform support, so the backend logic is implemented in Rust and the frontend UI is implemented in TypeScript. I think it’s a valid choice. GitHub does not include any model _code_ in the stats; the models will be downloaded separately the first time you use them. Hope this helps.

I know many people hate sites like this, but I actually like them for these use cases. You can get a quick, LLM-generated overview of the architecture, e.g. here: https://codewiki.google/github.com/cjpais/handy
by podgorniy | 2026-01-15 13:45:16+00:00
> it’s easy to tax other people - the rich, bankers, benefits scroungers, energy executives

Taxing the working class is the easiest: do vat tax, force income tax. Tere is no way taxing rich or executives is comparably easy.

--

Let's not bother with taxing the rich to see what could happen when smallest number of people accumulate wealth in X times faster than anyone else.

And don't tell me "it's natural order of things", dying from desease in 35 is natural, dying in childbirthing is natural, becoming a monopoly is natural, circumventing competition is natural. Does not mean we need to keep doing these things.
by ben_w | 2026-01-15 13:45:23+00:00
> no one talks about it

People regularly talk about how much new coal capacity China has been building.

Quite often this is followed by "capacity, sure; they're not using all that capacity, those plants exist and are mostly not running", or some variation thereof. I've never bothered fact-checking the responses, but this conversation happens is most of the Chinese renewables discussions I've seen in the last few years.
by codegefluester | 2026-01-15 13:46:05+00:00
Location: Rome, Italy

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: TypeScript, React, .Net, PHP, Laravel, Go, Relational databases, NoSQL, AWS, GitHub, Infrastructure-as-code (IaC), LLMs, Coding Agents, Vercel, v0, but really happy to use whatever tool is best to solve a problem

Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bjoernkaiser/
by CjHuber | 2026-01-15 13:46:55+00:00
Anyway, props to Mertz for admitting the mistake, we’ll see if they will fix it somehow

That‘s the thing. Everyone knew it was costly, nobody ever thought it was good strategically. If he now says it’s a „strategic mistake“ that‘s laughable, did he think it was strategically clever before? If so he was the only one.

The whole issue is that Germany overestimated its own resilience and economic power, which is deteriorating. Of course environmentalists knew that this is not good for the economy but the Green Party is mostly left aligned they were ok with incurring some damage to the economy for their cause, after all that’s their whole point.
But they thought well we are such a economic powerhouse anyway, we can do it.
So the real strategic mistake was arrogance. And saying that particular action was a „strategic mistake“ instead reflecting on the whole self-image of the country, shows that exactly this arrogance persists
by welder | 2026-01-15 13:47:28+00:00
https://ahamlett.com

> UPDATE: It is going to take a while to go through all the submissions and add them. If you'd like to help with the process, please send a PR directly to this project

Just run this Python script then paste the output into your pwd.lisp file. You're welcome :)

https://chatgpt.com/share/6968f169-c868-8006-8824-6ba0f2b433...
Show HN: Webhook Debugger – OS Alternative to RequestBin with Replay,SSRF Checks
by ar27111994 | 2026-01-15 13:47:53+00:00
Hi HN,

I built *Webhook Debugger* because existing tools were either ephemeral (RequestBin) or required persistent tunnels (ngrok) that I couldn't leave running on a staging server.

*Repo*: https://github.com/ar27111994/webhook-debugger-logger

*The Stack*:
Node.js, Express, Apify SDK (for storage/dataset abstraction), Docker.

*Key Technical Decisions*:

1. *Global SSE Heartbeat*: Instead of `setInterval` per connection (O(N) timers), we use a single global timer to flush heartbeats to all `res` objects.
2. *SSRF Protection*: Custom validator (`src/utils/ssrf.js`) that resolves DNS and checks against a blocklist (including AWS Metadata IP `169.254.169.254`) before forwarding/replaying requests.
3. *Resilience*: The Replay engine implements exponential backoff for `ECONNABORTED` errors, allowing it to handle "blips" when targeting local dev servers.
4. *Hot-Reloading*: A background poller reads the input JSON every 5s and dynamically updates middleware, rate limits, auth keys, and webhook counts without restarting the process.
5. *Platform Integration*: We encountered (and fixed in v2.8.7) a specific schema validation bug that only occurred in the platform UI, teaching us to lean on native storage exports rather than wrapping them in custom views.

It's open source (ISC). I'd love feedback on the *SSRF implementation* – ensuring users can replay to `localhost` (safe in dev) but not internal subnets (unsafe in prod) was a tricky balance.
by r_lee | 2026-01-15 13:47:58+00:00
There's many abusable url endpoints within Translate or at least there were recently, but when I tried to complain about it to Google, they just ignored it and said it's intended or whatever.

from what I can remember there's pure redirects and proxied translates pages, where the page will be under translate.google.com but show the malicious page and when you then click on stuff it can continue to the abusive page directly

but in general it takes Google eternities to do anything about abuse in their products from my experience
by TheCapeGreek | 2026-01-15 13:48:23+00:00
Most definitely.

Emigrating halfway across the world is not cheap in the first place.

Greece is also not cheap for where it stands on the economic level compared to the average income, especially back in 2018 when Dylan did it, and especially for property even outside of urban areas. Euboea is not super remote either, it's about an hour or two's drive from Athens depending where you go.

So sure, the farm might not make money, but I would wager he had a good amount saved up between him and his family to make the transition possible.
by NalNezumi | 2026-01-15 13:48:23+00:00
I think the article misses the biggest point of the social media or any "ban" for children: the environment (social) effect.

(modern) children are essentially locked in their environment without much say. You go to school, you go to extra curricula activities. But the school you attend or other activities are often not your choice or in your control. On top of that, you often don't know better when it comes to what environments are actually available to you (or the effect of it).

This makes the dynamics completely different vs an adult.

I (adult) don't want to use social media? Fine I do that. Too big consequences in my immediate environment (all my friends/work use it) fine I'll change friends and work. Everyone is smoking but I don't want to? Fine I'll hang out with people that don't like smoking either. Hell I can even move country / location.

When everyone is smoking or using social media, a kid can't do anything about it. If that behavior is tied to social inclusion or "norm" then you're actively penalized for your choice and you can do almost nothing about it.

That's why we ban certain things for children. We know it won't work 100%, but taking it away from the school yard or social spaces have a profoundly different effect on children vs adult.

We can always dicuss WHAT to ban or not, but like the article, comparing adult to kids without acknowledging this is a red herring
by staticman2 | 2026-01-15 13:48:23+00:00
I don't understand how this claim can even be tested:

> In 2029, AI will not be able to read a novel and reliably answer questions about plot, character, conflicts, motivations, etc. Key will be going beyond the literal text, as Davis and I explain in Rebooting AI.

Once you are "going beyond the literal text" the standard is usefulness of your insight about the novel, not whether your insight is "right" or "wrong".
by literalAardvark | 2026-01-15 13:48:32+00:00
You jest, but times around the Earth is the actual origin of the Meter. Kinda.

The history is quite interesting and well worth checking out.

I can't recommend a book on the subject, but I do heartily recommend "Longitude", which is about the challenges of inventing and the first maritime chronometers for the purpose of accurately measuring longitude.
by theptip | 2026-01-15 13:48:32+00:00
Counterpoint - I think it’s going to become much easier for hobbyists and motivated small companies to make bigger projects. I expect to see more OSS, more competition, and eventually better quality-per-price (probably even better absolute quality at the “$0 / sell your data” tier).

Sure, the megacorps may start rotting from the inside out, but we already see a retrenchment to smaller private communities, and if more of the benefits of the big platforms trickle down, why wouldn’t that continue?

Nicbou, do you see AI as increasing your personal output? If it lets enthusiastic individuals get more leverage on good causes then I still have hope.
by techblueberry | 2026-01-15 13:48:37+00:00
I think part of the problem is choice. 36% of teens wish they spent less time in social media. Only 32% say it has a positive effect.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/24/teens-and...

It’s addictive like smoking. Addictive algorithms take away agency. I don’t think there are a lot of kids wishing they read less comic books, or played less DND (there may be some percentage wishing less video games). But it’s not like a classic generational divide where parents don’t understand it and teens are fighting for this stuff, a lot are against it themselves!
by dxdm | 2026-01-15 13:49:00+00:00
Realistically, PMs incentives are often aligned elsewhere.

But even if a PM cares about UX, they are often not in a good position to spot problems with designs and flows they are closely involved in and intimately familiar with.

Having someone else with a special perspective can be very useful, even if their job provides other beneficial functions, too. Using this "resource" is the job of the PM.
by agentvivi | 2026-01-15 13:49:24+00:00
Hello HN,

I built a daily deduction game for history nerds called Witness Archives.

The Concept: It’s similar to Wordle or Redacted. You get 5 clues (diary entries, telegrams, confidential files) and have to deduce the specific historical event. You start with 5 "lives" and lose one for every wrong guess.

The Tech Stack:

Frontend: React Native + Expo (running on react-native-web).

Hosting: Netlify (static export).

Backend: None. I used a static JSON list for the daily cases and localStorage to track streaks/stats on the client side.

I built this because I wanted a quick daily puzzle that wasn't covered in ads or tracking scripts. It’s a PWA, so it should feel "native" on mobile if you add it to the home screen.

I’d love feedback on the React Native Web performance—specifically if the scrolling feels too webby or native to you.

Thanks for checking it out.
by psychoslave | 2026-01-15 13:50:03+00:00
>it's not like people have any options.

That’s one way to frame it. An other one is, sometime people are stuck in a situation where all options that come to their mind have repulsive consequences.

As always some consequences are deemed more immediate, and other will seem remoter. And often the incentives can be quite at odd between expectations in the short/long terms.

>this sucks and I'm gonna build a better one in a weekend

Hey, this is me looking at the world this morning. Bear with me, the bright new harmonious world should be there on Monday. ;)
by kirurik | 2026-01-15 13:50:30+00:00
You can run some models pretty decently using CPU inference only, things like Gemma 3 that are built for exactly that use case or some tiny speech to text models via llama.cpp that I have tested out (not so good). Although not the best for "heavy" tasks, if you just need a decent text generator that can produce more or less sensible, generic output you are good to go.
by wongarsu | 2026-01-15 13:50:35+00:00
Each person uses about 100W (2000kcal/24h=96W). Running all of humanity takes about 775GW.

Sure, using or not using your brain is a negligible energy difference, so if you aren't using it you really should, for energy efficiency's sake. But I don't think the claim that our brains are more energy efficient is obviously true on its own. The issue is more about induced demand from having all this external "thinking" capacity on your fingertips
by pfisherman | 2026-01-15 13:50:42+00:00
One thing I have not seen come up in these discussions is how these bans interact with the network effects. They might actually be one of the most effective tools we have to fight back against and punish platform businesses.

I assume that something like a partially effective ban could have a devastating impact on social media because it may push active users in the teen / adolescent demographic below the critical mass necessary for self sustaining growth and retention.

Has anyone done any studies on where that tipping point / critical mass is? How effective do these bans have to be to achieve their intended outcome?
by cfors | 2026-01-15 13:50:47+00:00
https://grugbrain.dev/

grug very elated find big brain developer Bob Nystrom redeem the big brain tribe and write excellent book on recursive descent: Crafting Interpreters

book available online free, but grug highly recommend all interested grugs purchase book on general principle, provide much big brain advice and grug love book very much except visitor pattern (trap!)

Grug says bad.

In all seriousness, the rough argument is that it's a "big brain" way of thinking. It sounds great on paper, but is often times not the easiest machinery to have to manage when there are simpler options (e.g. just add a method).
by Esophagus4 | 2026-01-15 13:50:48+00:00
Banning cigarette sales actually does reduce smoking.[1] The same way banning drunk driving reduces instances of drunk driving.

But it’s not either-or. We can do both: ban cigarette sales for kids and change our perception of it with informational campaigns.

[1]https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7233410/
by lonelyasacloud | 2026-01-15 13:50:53+00:00
The core point - that it's politically convenient to ban things for "other people", especially if they cannot vote you out - is well taken. And I share the scepticism about whether "do something" politics leads to good legislation. However, it is most definitely not hypocritical to have different rules for children and adults; the bodies and minds of children are not fully developed and there are many instances where research indicates they are both more prone to damage and unable to make effective judgement as to their own actions.

As to a social media ban making sense for children: should not the precautionary principle apply? To this end, who has the vested interests and deeper pockets to fund research backing the status quo? And yet where is the research indicating social media is good news for children?
by raverbashing | 2026-01-15 13:51:47+00:00
I'm not disagreeing with you so much but

> Most people don't normally think it's the boomers in particular

Interesting because most of the critiques, especially to electric cars come from boomers. Also to Solar and Wind, the kind of silly criticism like "Why are we filling our barely-arable lands with Solar?!"

Now we'll watch how the European car manufacturers get swallowed by Chinese electrical manufacturers.
by aebtebeten | 2026-01-15 13:51:57+00:00
The Hanks are almost Hegelian:

Hank Sr. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgHId2tg6dU
Hank Jr. - MAGA (at least he done sung "cold cold ground", bless his heart)
Hank iii - trying to sit between two chairs? (props the assjack on the fence?)

"Wordcel" sounds awfully like "stochastic parrot"? (says someone who's been trying and failing for months to get LLMs to rotate shapes. At least some of them have a good "sense of humour")

I still want to get some shape rotating done this week, so I'll put off descending into Hank Jr. et. al. for another few days. Thanks; "mighty white" of you!

Facilis descensus Averno:
Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est.
by raducu | 2026-01-15 13:52:29+00:00
> Eggs in one basket. Renewables are good, but it gets cloudy, night is a thing, it might not be windy

Also, we can't survive an asteroid crash/extinction event with solar.

Nuclear is transcedental.
If we had practically unlimited fusion power, we could build underground, grow plants in aquaponics and aeroponics and ride it out in underground cities and farms.
by final_aeon | 2026-01-15 13:52:33+00:00
If ICE were doing exactly what its mandate says on paper (enforcing immigration law and deporting people who are in the country illegally) would you still say the same thing?

It seems that critics oppose the law itself, but then frame the argument as “ICE is bad because it breaks the law,” rather than acknowledging that the real disagreement is over whether those laws should exist at all.
by jillesvangurp | 2026-01-15 13:52:48+00:00
I'm currently in the middle of restructuring our website. 95% of the work is being done by codex. That includes content writing, design work, implementation work, etc. But it's a lot of work for me because I am critical about things like wording/phrasing and not hallucinating things we don't actually do. That's actually a lot of work. But it's editorial work and not writing work or programming work. But it's doing a pretty great job. Having a static website with a site generator means I can do lots of changes quickly via agentic coding.

My advise to tech writers would be to get really good at directing and orchestrating AI tools to do the heavy lifting of producing documentation. If you are stuck using content management systems or word processors, consider adopting a more code centric workflow. The AI tools can work with those a lot better. And you can't afford to be doing things manually that an AI does faster and better. Your value is making sure the right documentation gets written and produced correctly; correcting things that need correcting/perfecting. It's not in doing everything manually; you need to cherry pick where your skills still add value.

Another bit of insight is that a lot of technical documentation now has AIs as the main consumer. A friend of mine who runs a small SAAS service has been complaining that nobody actually reads his documentation (which is pretty decent) and instead relies on LLMs to do that for them. The more documentation you have, the less people will read all of it. Or any of it.

But you still need documentation. It's easier than ever to produce it. The quality standards for that documentation are high and increasing. There are very few excuses for not having great documentation.
by scotchmi_st | 2026-01-15 13:52:52+00:00
The military base there is small, and the number of troops trained in Alaska is also comparatively small. It also has little dedicated cold-weather gear, and logistical pipelines (especially if Canada refuses to let them in their airspace/waters) with be very hard to set up.

The US may have some understanding of the cold, but the nordic countries have far more, and are far better prepared.
by pc86 | 2026-01-15 13:53:06+00:00
Well the first half of the sentence you're replying to is "a legal, valid and justified search." So if your question is "what recourse does an American have against a legal, valid and justified search" the answer is obviously and correctly "none."

You might be able to argue harassment or malicious prosecution if it's just one part of an ongoing campaign but even that is going to be hard to argue if everything is within the bounds of the law.
by nerdbert | 2026-01-15 13:53:15+00:00
I have been highly active in online technical communities since the usenet days in the 1980s and I have never once found myself in a situation where my opinions on sex or gender were solicited, interrogated, or judged.

This really sounds like people were letting their personal flags fly (in avatars or sigs or whatever) and you could not stand to see that because they were not like you. All you have to do is ignore it and look at the content.

This reminds me of someone I worked with, who asked me "why does [Colleague 2] have to shove his gay lifestyle in everyone's face?" after that Colleague 2 put a framed holiday photo with his husband on his desk.

The person who asked this had a photo with his wife on his desk. He was unable to understand (A) how that is "shoving" his sexual orientation in other people's faces to the exact same degree as Colleague 2's photo was; and (B) that the photo was for Colleague 2's own comfort and solace, and for positive engagement with anyone who wanted to engage in same, and that nobody else was required to dwell on it or give it a second glance.
by gambiting | 2026-01-15 13:53:18+00:00
Again, is that just a feeling, or do you have some data to actually show this. In my experience even old basic Acer laptops easily last more than 10 years, probably without the battery and married to the charger forever now, but they will work fine. But I don't go on the internet and tell everyone laptops last most than 10 years just because I know of a few Acers lasting that. Likewise, do you have any statistics on longevity of Raspberry Pis.
Ask HN: What SEO advice works for early-stage SaaS?
by victorymakes | 2026-01-15 13:53:25+00:00
I’m trying to cold-start SEO for an early-stage product (LaunchSaaS) and running into a wall.

So far I’ve tried:

using Ahrefs + Bing Webmaster Tools to inspect backlinks

submitting to some directory sites

improving on-page SEO copy

writing a few blog posts

But traffic is still basically zero.

For those who’ve successfully gone through this phase:
what actually worked for you early on?
What turned out to be noise or a waste of time?

Curious how others approached the cold-start phase.