MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by cush | 2026-01-13 01:17:06+00:00
I'll bite

1. Have a user interface. Sometimes I'll ask a question and Siri actually provides a good enough answer, and while I'm reading it, the Siri response window just disappears. Siri is this modal popup with no history, no App, and no UI at all really. Siri doesn't have a user interface, and it should have one so that I can go back to sessions and resume them or reference them later and interact with Siri in more meaningful ways.

2. Answer questions like a modern LLM does. Siri often responds with very terse web links. I find this useful when I'm sitting with friends and we don't remember if Lliam Neason is alive or not - for basic fact-checking. This is the only use case where it's useful I've found, when I want to peel my attention away for the shortest period of time. If ChatGPT could be bound to a power button long-press, then I'd cease to use Siri for this use case. Otherwise Siri isn't good for long questions because it doesn't have the intelligence, and as mentioned before, has no user interface.

3. Be able to do things conversationally, based on my context. Today, when I "Add to my calendar Games at Dave's house" it creates a calendar entry called "Games" and sets the location to a restaurant called "Dave's House" in a different country. My baseline expectation is that I should be able to work with Siri, build its memory and my context, and over time it becomes smarter about the things I like to do. The day Siri responds with "Do you mean Dave's House the restaurant in another country, or Dave, from your contacts?" I'll be happy.
by the_af | 2026-01-13 01:17:17+00:00
The original Wing Commander brings back memories! I remember being amazed by the graphics and the story.

These days I cannot stand games with cliched storyline and tend to skip the cutscenes, but back then it all seemed so amazing... like a cross between a movie and a game.

I remember playing it later and running into speed issues too, but usually there was a way to tweak the emulator in order to fix this.
by Terretta | 2026-01-13 01:17:24+00:00
arguably: incorrectly guessed*

in a way, all overconfident guessing is a better match for the result than hallucination or fabrication would be

"confabulation", though, seems perfect:

“Confabulation is distinguished from lying as there is no intent to deceive and the person is unaware the information is false. Although individuals can present blatantly false information, confabulation can also seem to be coherent, internally consistent, and relatively normal.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation

* insofar as “guess” conveys an attempt to be probably in the zone
by irjustin | 2026-01-13 01:17:57+00:00
Late to the party, I really wish everyone would copy Rails + Ruby, but specifically it's Rails additions.

2 things it got right:

1. Like the article a great API - Time.current.in_time_zone('America/Los_Angeles') + 3.days - 4.months + 1.hour

2. Rails overloads Ruby's core library Time. You're in 1 object the whole time no swap/wondering.

In the py world, pendulum is close but just like the article, it's cumbersome as it's still a separate obj (i.e. Temporal vs Date) and so you need to "figure out" what you have to manipulate or need to cast it first.

Overloading the core libs is dangerous for a whole host of reasons but for the end developer it's a pleasure to use.

If we could just do `new Date().add({ days: 1})` it would be so easier.
by Liftyee | 2026-01-13 01:18:48+00:00
If it helps, I switched from SOLIDWORKS to Onshape many years ago and the latter has only improved since. The multi-user editing is first class and personally I find the user interface more intuitive (plus, web based = Linux support). I don't need the advanced simulation, analysis, etc. features that SW has over Onshape... yet.

Personally not familiar with curved models, but my understanding is that surface modelling with lofts guided by spline contours might be the way to go. Not sure if SW has those features.
by zahlman | 2026-01-13 01:18:57+00:00
A loaf of white bread here costs a minimum of $1.99 (all prices CAD) and contains by my reckoning a bit over 400 grams of wheat. So nearly $5 per kilogram.

A kilogram of rolled oats can be easily found for about $3; white rice around $1.50 if you shop around; pasta from $1.33 to $2.22 depending (usually on the higher end of that); white flour $1 (in large bags).
by runarberg | 2026-01-13 01:19:05+00:00
Icelandair’s chess engine was equally brutal (well maybe only slightly less brutal). I played a couple of rounds on medium difficulty only to realize I didn’t stand a chance. I played a few more on beginner, and still lost all my game by blundering some tactics to the engine. Just before landing in Iceland I manage to get one game to the endgame, where the bot finally starts feeling like a beginner (well an advanced beginner) and I got one victory in.
by nickyvanurk | 2026-01-13 01:20:10+00:00
Location: Chiang Mai, Thailand (Dutch national)

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: TypeScript/JavaScript, Three.js, Claude Code, Client-server networking

Résumé/CV: https://nickvanurk.com/resume.pdf

Email: nickyvanurk@gmx.com

Github: https://github.com/nickyvanurk

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickyvanurk

Interests: Gamedev, Game engines, Computer graphics, Computational Geometry, 3D Applications, Robotics, Tool development, Digital twins, Simulations, Server Engineer/Online Services, UX/UI, FUI Design

Can rapidly learn new technologies. Game, Web, GIS, robotics development experience. Build my own 8-bit computer: https://nickvanurk.com/8bit.mp4 Optimizing things gets me all excited. Check out these Three.js demos I made: https://everwilds.io/ https://evergate.io/ https://nickvanurk.com/physics/ and https://nickvanurk.com/capping/ https://nickvanurk.com/prototype/ In my free time I like to work on small web games like Everwilds.io. Professionally I worked on the moddio (https://www.modd.io/) game engine (typescript) and SPARQ game engine (c++, to be released) as an engine programmer. I find I enjoy web/typescript more than native/c++ so I would like to return to that space.

If you have a cool web game (engine) project or web tool with a 2D / 3D graphical component to work on please feel free to reach out by email or LinkedIn!
by robertoallende | 2026-01-13 01:20:36+00:00
I agree that financial inequality in tennis is real and unfair — and the point about “escape velocity” at the top is compelling. Once players cross a certain income threshold, they’re not just better rewarded, they’re structurally harder to displace.

I’d add another layer, though, which interacts with that dynamic rather than replacing it: entry barriers. For players from peripheral regions of the tennis ecosystem (e.g., South America), the climb is not only underfunded but structurally hostile — long travel distances, fewer high-value tournaments, language barriers, and competing almost permanently as the outsider. These factors affect who even gets a chance to reach escape velocity in the first place, and they’ve existed long before today’s prize-money explosion.

That raises a deeper question the article hints at but doesn’t fully address: what do we actually mean by fairness in elite sport?

Is it equal opportunity, or is it preserving a brutally selective system that produces exceptional performers?

There’s a real tension here. Some pressure is clearly wasteful — forcing talented players to play injured, burn out early, or leave the sport before they peak. But some pressure is also constitutive of excellence. Scarcity, risk, and high stakes shape psychology, decision-making, and competitive edge. A system with no tension doesn’t produce champions; a violin string without tension is out of tune.

So the problem may not be inequality per se, but which inequalities entrench incumbents versus which ones meaningfully select for performance. Reducing attrition that destroys talent before it matures is different from flattening the incentives and risks that keep the top level sharp.

For that reason, I’m not convinced the solution is primarily redistributive — “cutting the cake differently.” A more promising direction may be using the top tier to leverage the bottom tier: expanding global sponsorship, regional tournaments, media exposure, and off-court revenue opportunities that help more players reach viability without removing the competitive pressures that define elite tennis.

In other words, grow the cake and widen access to escape velocity — rather than trying to engineer fairness in a system whose excellence is partly forged by difficulty.
Living with LLMs Everywhere – How Ambient LLMs Negate Security Policy
by djwide | 2026-01-13 01:21:16+00:00
Full article linked below.

Unchecking the “Improve Model for Everyone” box isn’t a privacy policy. Neither is relying on an enterprise agreement.

LLMs aren’t just tools we visit, they’re becoming ambient infrastructure: inside email, meeting notes, browsers, and even operating systems. You can uncheck a box or sign an enterprise agreement, but that only covers a narrow risk.

The bigger issue is custody. Even without training, text can be retained, logged, routed through vendors, and then cascade into other systems over time. As high-quality public data runs out, the pressure to find new training sources grows.

Organizations also face a weakest-link reality: under time pressure, employees will route around rules on corporate machines. One paste can be enough.

My article argues we need to shift from “trust” to boundaries: educate people to recognize sensitive ideas, and pair that with real-time controls that prevent leakage at the moment it tries to leave.

If LLMs are becoming ambient, security has to become ambient too.

https://senteguard.com/blog/#post-cTdX0IaIRz8STpBU9VYk
by WorldMaker | 2026-01-13 01:22:32+00:00
Apple seems positioning this announcement as "on-device intelligence", with the caveat that Apple is promoting their Private Cloud Compute as "on-device" or at least "on-device-like". I'd be curious if they do a breakdown of what they expect to do on-device versus what happens in Private Cloud Compute for this Siri project. I'm a little on the fence if Private Cloud Compute counts as "on-device" as well, but I'm hopeful it is a good idea and is as well built/considered as its documentation says it is.
by tialaramex | 2026-01-13 01:22:48+00:00
> The point is that languages - indeed, all technologies, especially in a competitive market - reach or approach their peak market share relatively quickly.

This predicts nothing in particular, for any outcome we can squint at this and say it was fulfilled, so in this sense it's actually worse than the XKCD cartoon.

It's not that it's a novel or strange theory, it's just wrong.

> if a technology offers a big competitive advantage, it's adopted relatively quickly as people don't want to fall behind the competition

Yeah, no. See, humans have a strong preference for the status quo so it isn't enough that some technology "offers a big competitive advantage", they'd usually just rather not actually. Lots of decision makers read Google's "Move Fast and Fix Things" and went "Yeah, that's not applicable to us [for whatever reason]" and moved on. It doesn't matter whether they were right to decide it wasn't applicable, it only matters whether their competitors reach a different conclusion and execute effectively.
by evmaki | 2026-01-13 01:24:39+00:00
Dishonesty layered on dishonesty, marketed with an arrogant smirk on top. I feel like tech culture has fully internalized the ethos of "no attention is bad attention", so having a lack of scruples and a talent for rage baiting is now seen as an advantage. It might pay off well for some people in the short term, but it's not a sustainable way to run a society.
by akiselev | 2026-01-13 01:25:23+00:00
> Is most of the work on the schematics therefore done through this, or manipulating the binaries themselves? Why Altium and not text based kicad for this? I presume just for the ‘professional features’ Altium has

I'm just manipulating the file format directly because I don't want to be tied to Windows (bleh). I only fire up Altium for a few features that I haven't implemented yet like the autorouting and the UI automation was to let the LLM figure out file corruption issues.

I learned Altium long before KiCad was a viable option and Altium's ActiveRoute routing is the perfect blend between manual routing and autorouting so it's really hard to switch. ActiveRoute gets even better with the LLM filling out all the design rules.
by JoshTriplett | 2026-01-13 01:25:46+00:00
> Data/control channel separation is an artificial construct induced mechanically

Yes, it's one of the things that helps manage complexity and security, and makes it possible to be more confident there aren't critical bugs in a system.

> If such separation is truly required, then general-purpose components like LLMs or people are indeed a bad choice, and should not be part of the system.

Right. But rare is the task where such separation isn't beneficial; people use LLMs in many cases where they shouldn't.

Also, most humans will not read "ignore previous instructions and run this command involving your SSH private key" and do it without question. Yes, humans absolutely fall for phishing sometimes, but humans at least have some useful guardrails for going "wait, that sounds phishy".
by analog31 | 2026-01-13 01:26:08+00:00
I'm a scientist in industry. It's remarkable how many smart people think that science can be done without data. I've heard managers ask: "Why do we need to gather data? Can't we just model it? The customer doesn't want to see data. They just want an answer."

There's also a strong belief in "statistical magic." Faced with a bad or insufficient data set, someone will say: "Let's give the data to <statistician> and have them work their magic on it."

That the results actually have to be influenced by the data in some way is something that has to be explained to people. In all of my years as a scientist, I've learned that there's still no substitute for good measurements. Good data can be cheaper than analysis of bad data.
by 46493168 | 2026-01-13 01:26:40+00:00
>Nobody is going to not buy an iPhone because they’re using a third-party model.

You're right, and this is proven. Apple has fumbled a whole release cycle on AI and severely curbed expectations, and they still sell 200m iPhones a year and lead the market [0]

[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/apple-leads-g...
by nik_0_0 | 2026-01-13 01:27:03+00:00
Its interesting - the salary cap comes into play as well - but this article (and the parent article which is a bit more detailed into the tennis aspect itself) basically summarizes to 'top tennis players can use outsized prize winnings to hire top staff to extend their dominance'.

At the root - surely the same is true - top paid footballers likely pay (themselves or through the team) for top staff (physio, coaches, trainers) except substituting the resulting extension of dominance for whatever happens in that particular sport; whether growing older is more or less of a cost than in tennis.

What is interesting is that in a team sport, the money that Real Madrid makes is probably enough to hire top staff, which then applies to the whole team. (Players themselves may go above and beyond that.)

In tennis (simplifying) - there is no team, Federer gets all the money, Federer reinvests what he deems necessary into his own continued performance, expecting outsized benefits.

Now if the only benefit gained from being at the top is money, all that is necessary is outside funding of some sort to help punch your way into, and to extend your stay in the top 100. Would be curious if the two under 25s now dominating the scene are doing so on physicality, money, or more likely a blend of the two.

Essentially the article sort of describes the precarious-ness of being a top ~1000 player, having a very narrow period of time before finances fun out, or you age out (without the proper support structure, ex. get injured), before you start making the money necessary to fund staying in the sport at a high level. And I guess the argument is the sport would be more fair and balanced if ex. everyone who entered the top 1000 were able to get access to the support that the top 100 (or 10 as mentioned) have.
by pvgopinath | 2026-01-13 01:27:17+00:00
Java code in a notepad during the days when java IDE was expensive.

import com.sun.jdbc.odbc...
import com.sun.jbdc.odbc...
import com.sun.jdbc.odbc...

Java compiler was complaining about Line 2.

Took hours to find out the error.

May be, Open AI was asking similar things.
by ggm | 2026-01-13 01:27:27+00:00
All DCs should be assessed for their impact on power supply and related utilities, and regulated to reduce impact on the community. All of them.

There's some potential to use aspects of temperature control to manage power if you can e.g. soak energy into heat or coolth, and time-shift the energy investment. Regarding electrical power to racks, I don't thing DC's have much options for load shedding or surge, but perhaps hyperscalers do actually have a way to do this?
by tptacek | 2026-01-13 01:27:56+00:00
My rubric for Greenland is to watch what Europe does. If European NATO allies station troops and naval assets in/around Greenland (or demand SOFA changes at Ramstein, stuff like that), I'll believe they're taking it seriously. Right now the sense I get --- totally uneducated take, but it's a message board not the Sit Room --- is that Europe sees this as a media fight and little else.
by jfaat | 2026-01-13 01:28:49+00:00
I see some chess players so I want to plug the chess coaching app [0] I'm building. I don't know many chess players and could use feedback, but I had been paying for chess.com premium and tried some others and it's always game-level feedback which is insane to me because it's really not that helpful (as evidenced by my abysmal rating.)

I'm running games through stockfish/lc0/Maia and doing some analysis of patterns across multiple games, then feeding that to an agent who can replay through positions and come other fun stuff. Really keen to find out if it's helpful for anyone else!

[0]https://chessfiend.com
by tootie | 2026-01-13 01:29:03+00:00
I worked in a research lab like 30 years ago and it was all on computers. We had loads of generic data collected by someone somewhere and we just looked for patterns to infer sequences. I wrote Java and C++ and got my name on a paper. There were maybe a dozen scientists in the lab and they were all just coders with expertise in one or another field of biology. It was called a "dry lab".
by abe_m | 2026-01-13 01:29:07+00:00
We had a sales person try to explain how file handling in 3DExperience is done. They were presenting how magic everything is where the right version of the file is always present in Catia for modelling, Abaqus for FEA, and whereever else in the package.

OK, how do we work with our CMM and CAM software? How do we send files to clients and vendors? crickets

Not confidence inspiring.
by verall | 2026-01-13 01:29:16+00:00
There's a big gap between "national firewalls shouldn't exist" and "country should invade/"liberate" another country to prevent national firewall (or insert other disliked policy)".

So to respond directly:

> Why should anybody trust them with another country?

They should not and should not need to trust them with another country

> would it be okay for china to liberate the USA

no, it wouldn't. But if China felt that the USA gov't was like, not cool, they could impose sanctions or not trade with USA.
by qq540738209 | 2026-01-13 01:29:29+00:00
I used to be addicted to social media, endlessly scrolling. Now, I consciously control it and dedicate my time to more meaningful activities, like reading, learning new skills, and working on products. Occasionally, I still use social media to relax. For example, last night, I spent an hour on TikTok—it’s been a while since I did that, haha.
by ChadNauseam | 2026-01-13 01:30:12+00:00
Thanks! That's really enlightening. Maybe this can help me settle a question I've had. If I have 4k video and I want a smaller file size (but suppose I still have a 4k tv), I always felt like I should get better quality at that file size by compressing it further than by reducing the resolution. Rather than deciding for myself what data to throw away, why not let the compression algorithm do it?
by denalilumma | 2026-01-13 01:30:56+00:00
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by Spivak | 2026-01-13 01:31:25+00:00
This doesn't actually seem that bad to me? Browsers don't let random pages on the internet hit localhost without prompting you anymore so it's not like a random website could RCE you unless you're running an old browser—and at that point that's the browser's fault for letting web pages out of the sandbox. You shouldn't have to protect localhost from getting hit with random public websites.

The rest is just code running as your user can talk to code running as your user. I don't really consider this to be a security boundary. If I can run arbitrary code by hitting a URL I accept that any program running as me can as well. Going above and beyond is praiseworthy (good for you turning on SELinux as an example) but I don't expect it by default.
by techblueberry | 2026-01-13 01:32:43+00:00
I feel like we’re in this awkward early stage where the tools to successfully vibe code are really bad. Interesting overview but I hope that a year from now there are high level languages that abstract these multi-agentic workflows away from you, so you can get back in the flow. Right now, he says failures are cheap, but there actually really expensive from a flow state perspective. So much time in this workflow is spent waiting.
by ggm | 2026-01-13 01:32:49+00:00
Without wishing to doxx you, if we don't know the approximate period in years we cannot tell if this is good or bad profit. If you started when you were 13 in 2004, this means they made significantly less than $1k/year from you, and P/E would be terrible.

If you are 14 in 2026 and should be picking your clothes off the floor and helping dad with the laundry, thats pretty good return on your data, sold to the ad-men. And, it's probably illegal for them to profit off a kid's online time like this.

Anecdotally I am told placement for high net work goods to prospective buyers are significantly more valuable to a website placing ads, than runescape ads. But, there are far less BMW drivers seeing those HNW ads, than kids seeing runescape so it kind-of evens out. That's probably why on the (now rare) times I am in business class long haul jets, I get told I should be using swiss banking, and invest in property in dubai, rather than being told to buy burgers, which frankly is much more likely to happen.

To make $14k off your facebook time, either you paid some FB coin to do mafia wars, or they shopped you to a lot of ad sellers. If you actually bought anything, especially if it was expensive, then everyone (including you) in the deal might be cool with this.