MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by potato3732842 | 2026-01-02 16:47:48+00:00
>You mean "learning things?"

Amazing how things that are often largely rackets or intentional bureaucratic barriers can be framed as "learning" and people like you will go to bad for them.

It's not the learning that's the oppression. It's the going through the motions clerical bullshit that makes all sorts of value producing things not worth doing.

I want a garage with a taller than 9ft wall. But I can't have one because that requires engineered drawings that cost enough to be a non-starter because of the bullshit motions that must be gone through. So what do I do, I build a 9ft wall and I put trusses on top that give me more headroom. Everyone is worse off. Me, the concrete people, the engineer who didn't get my business, the enforcer bureaucrat who has less work to justify their job, the truss people who sell me cheaper trusses because I don't need a 2nd floor now.

You see how replacing the clerical labor the engineering firm would task with such a project with $20 of API calls would benefit literally everyone involved here?

AI is seemingly poised to make repetitive paper pushing administrative bullshit and access to clerical work outputs cheaper and more accessible. This benefits us all in the same way that cheaper access to computation benefitted wide swaths of the economy when computers became dominant or cheaper access to communications benefitted everyone when the internet became commonly used or way a reduction in energy prices is felt across the entire economy.

The only real "losers" here (assuming it doesn't happen lightening fast) are those who's only work output is such clerical tasks because instead of a force multiplier for them it's a replacement.
by jorvi | 2026-01-02 16:47:50+00:00
Correct for data, not for config files. Config files are stateful unless you do the procedure I mentioned, because they're generated at first application launch.

If you try to symlink into an existing file Nix will indeed complain, which is why you have to erase the config file and then put yours in place. You can either write it out from a .nix file (pure reproducibility) or from symlink copy from a file managed by git (technically impure but effectively reproducible).
by dylan604 | 2026-01-02 16:48:00+00:00
I was a DVD programmer for 10 years. There was a defined DVD spec. The problem is that not every DVD device adhered to the spec. Specs contain words like shall/must and other words that can be misinterpreted, and then you have people that build MVP as a product that do not worry about the more advanced portion of the spec.

As a specific example, the DVD software had a random feature that could be used. There was one brand of player that had a preset list of random numbers so that every time you played a disc that used random, the random would be the exact same every time. This made designing DVD-Video games "interesting" as not all players behaved the same.

This was when I first became aware that just because there's a spec doesn't mean you can count on the spec being followed in the same way everywhere. As you mentioned, video decoders also play fast and loose with specs. That's why some players cannot decode the 10-bit encodes as that's an "advanced" feature. Some players could not decode all of the profiles/levels a codec could use according to the spec. Apple's QTPlayer could not decode the more advanced profiles/levels just to show that it's not "small" devs making limited decoders.
by mafuyu | 2026-01-02 16:48:36+00:00
The keywords you're missing are color spaces and gamma curves. For a given bandwidth, we want to efficiently allocate color encoding as well as brightness (logarithmically to capture the huge dynamic range of perceptible light). sRGB is one such standard that we've all agreed upon, and output devices all ostensibly shoot for the sRGB target, but may also interpret the signal however they'd like. This is inevitable, to account for the fact that not all output devices are equally capable. HDR is another set of standards that aims to expand the dynamic range, while also pinning those values to actual real-life brightness values. But again, TVs and such may interpret those signals in wildly different ways, as evidenced by the wide range of TVs that claim to have "HDR" support.

This was probably not the most accurate explanation, but hopefully it's enough to point you in the right direction.
by maxglute | 2026-01-02 16:48:40+00:00
Because fundamentally Dan is a western libtard at heart, not many Chinese immigrant kids join Royal Canadian Army Cadet.

The reality is zero covid is the greatest epidemiology response in human history that insulated against ridiculous covid R value variants, when most countries didn't have system capacity for even basic lock downs and simply forced to gamble on vaccines. And when zero covid became unsustainable because R-value rose, it took CCP like weeks to end it, again unprecedently fast response time. Meanwhile new variants less deadly, PRC vaccines 90% as effective after 2 dose, parity effective after 3 dose and openning up resulted in significantly less deaths as % of population (using western excess death numbers not PRC gov numbers).

Yeah lockdown was harsh but they didn't force people to take vaccines, which frankly was a little retarded, also arguably less authoritarian.
by elric | 2026-01-02 16:48:42+00:00
Doctors don't have the time or capacity to know their patients well enough to make personalized recommendations in most cases. If you show up with symptoms of X they can recommend Y and will probably ask you whether you have Z which can impact the treatment. But virtually no doctor is going to ring you up proactively and say "hey, I noticed you haven't had a HPV vaccine yet, and I think it might make sense for you because I know this and that about your risk profile".

Doctors are not all knowing, infallible oracles. They are human beings you can have a conversation with about your health. If you think something makes sense for you, you can run it past them. No one is suggesting randomly asking doctors to prescribe random shit.
by acron0 | 2026-01-02 16:48:52+00:00
This comment is harmfully lazy. Is your position that a three word prompt is equivalent to armchair trolls goi g through the funnel - finding a way to obtain DRM-controlled software, learning that software to sufficient levels to understand the tools required of how to perform something akin to a deep fake, and then somehow gaining the art talent and experience required to put it into practice? Did I just get baited?
by latexr | 2026-01-02 16:49:10+00:00
I usually use a shortcut in mpv to extract the screenshot. If I want to do it via the command-line:

ffmpeg -ss 00:00:12.435 -i '/Users/weinzieri/videofile.mp4' -vframes 1 '/Users/weinzieri/image.png'

The means “go to 00:00:12.435 on the file /Users/weinzieri/videofile.mp4 and extract one frame to the file /Users/weinzieri/image.png”.
by premsys | 2026-01-02 16:49:11+00:00
Premsys | Remote (US) | Founding Sales & GTM Partner | https://premsys.ai/

Apply at: https://wellfound.com/l/2BVQxT or send resume/linkedin to info at premsys dot ai

Company: We're Premsys, a bootstrapped early-stage startup that builds/configures/integrates/deploys/maintains secure on-prem AI for regulated industries. Our MVP is built and running on devkit hardware and we're ready to close our first wave of customers.

Role: We're seeking a Founding Sales & GTM Partner who will own early revenue generation end to end. This is a long term founding role, and you'll work directly with the other founders to define outbound strategy, find and engage decisionmakers in our targeted industries and orgs, run sales conversations, and close the first deals.

If successful, this role becomes a Head of Sales/GTM position.

Skills/Experience: Comfortable with cold outreach and proactive prospecting, clear written and verbal communicator, able to operate independently with minimal structure, resourceful when dealing with ambiguity or process friction, motivated by ownership and long-term upside + 1-3 years prior experience in B2B tech sales or early-stage startups is a plus, but not required if you can demonstrate execution ability.

Comp: At this time we're able to offer $1k/month base rate, $500 commission per closed sale, and 5% equity (4 year vest) after first sale is closed.

Position is fully remote, flex hours, and US based.
by armchairhacker | 2026-01-02 16:49:13+00:00
Some kids only need the honor system, but others, especially younger ones, need hard restrictions. If the parent is reasonable and the kid grows up smart, they’ll be thankful later, which is why kids also have limited rights offline.

Rough analogies:

- Not letting kids buy unlimited candy ~ not giving them unlimited screen time

- Preventing your kid from interacting with “bad” kids or going into unsafe neighborhoods ~ blocking “bad” websites

- Not letting your kid watch adult shows or go to adult places ~ automatically hiding NSWF content

On the last point: if you’re not careful and your kid is unlucky, they may find shocking and traumatizing content accidentally. This is true in real life but the internet moreso (vs safe neighborhoods), even today. e.g. I regularly hear reports about Instagram recommending gore seemingly out of nowhere, such as https://www.cbsnews.com/news/instagram-violence/ (Instagram seems to be particularly notorious for some reason).
by jmward01 | 2026-01-02 16:49:16+00:00
Absolutely completely off the topic at hand here, but it seems like the bot and troll level goes up a lot on topics like this. A lot of people use HN data for training data, stats analysis, etc. Anyone out there figure out some good tools for trying to detect the bots in a thread like this? There are probably some good tells with throw-away accounts, account age, etc etc. In a world where misinformation is algorithmically generated and comments are a prime way that happens getting tools that can detect it is important. Hmm if there are good tools I wonder if they could be built into a plugin somehow.
by boogieknite | 2026-01-02 16:49:54+00:00
im disappointed bc despite cost/weight/comfort, i think this was impressive hardware with a clear use and the first step toward something amazing. on the other hand i think wearable ai is pretty lame at the moment. input connected to a web api. please share any examples to the contrary

let me also put my opinion in its place. i completely get it, ppl hate strapping things to their face. this was going to fail eventually like every other vr. im quite surprised if apple earnestly launched this with higher sales expectations
by deckeraa | 2026-01-02 16:50:01+00:00
Location: Madison, WI

Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Clojure, js, Firebase, Stripe etc.

Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-decker-3420a77b/

Email: aaron AT stronganchortech.com

Do you need the expertise of a seasoned software engineer for a project but don't have the budget for someone full-time? Are you willing to have the project completed asynchronously, on an hourly basis, in around 1-15 hours per week? If so, we should talk (the introductory call is free). I have around a decade of experience (see below) and am available on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays as well as some times on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (MWF I teach math & Latin at a small classical school). My standard rate is $100/hour for async work, $150/hour if there's tighter deadlines. Discounts available for special circumstances :)

Work experience:

- Built a tool (non-AI) to read Latin texts and generate fully-parsed glossaries. I used this tool in a few Latin readers I've published recently.(Tech: Clojure, Ada)

- Built a billing system, using Stripe integration, for a B2B SAAS app.

- Fractional team lead for Learnics. Wrote a bibliography generator that supports MLA, APA, and Chicago style. (Tech: Vue, Firebase)

- Built the front-end for https://app.composer.trade, a systematic trading app. Took the company from designs all the way through launch. (Tech: Clojure/Script, Firebase)

- Created a fuzz-testing tool that takes in a language grammar (EBNF) and uses that to generate syntactically correct random text in that language.

- Built a video-hosting and sharing site for family videos. (Tech: Reagent, Clojure/Script, S3, CouchDB, Stripe)

- Created the https://github.com/deckeraa/couchdb-auth-for-ring/ open-source library that enables you to use CouchDB as an authentication back-end for Ring apps.

- Led a team of ~17 software developers for the business intelligence module of a large healthcare IT company.
by lucasluitjes | 2026-01-02 16:50:02+00:00
Location: The Netherlands. I'm flexible with working hours, I usually work with clients from either Western Europe or the USA.
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: No, but willing to travel/visit
Technologies: especially Ruby (including Ruby on Rails, Sinatra, and standalone applications), PostgreSQL, Ansible, Linux. Lots of others at the end of my comment.
Résumé/CV: https://www.luitjes.it
Email: lucas@luitjes.it

I do dev/devops/security, usually for startups or scale-ups or other small orgs with limited resources, and I've been doing that for 15+ years. So, if you:

* Have a slow web application that’s often down?

* Want to improve security and don’t know where to start?

* Have a legacy system that needs to be replaced?

* Are considering an acquisition but not sure about the technical side?

I can help with that. For example, in the past I have:

* Massively improved performance and reliability for a data visualization platform.

* Led a large effort to improve security for a cybersecurity SaaS.

* Built a micropayments system for a prominent media startup.

* Rebuilt an aging e-learning platform from scratch for a GDPR compliance SaaS.

* Conducted technical due diligence for acquisitions.

For more information: https://www.luitjes.it

Other tech I've worked with: Elixir, C#, Java (Spring/Hibernate), JavaScript, HTML/CSS/XSLT/XPATH/XSLFO, Elasticsearch, MongoDB, MySQL, Redis, Solr/Lucene, Graphite, Kibana, Grafana, Logstash, Icinga, Jenkins, Varnish, HAProxy, Pound, Nginx, Apache, Passenger, Vagrant, Docker, DCOS, Kubernetes, SSH, OpenVPN, TCP/IP, tcpdump/strace/lsof/etc, AWS (EC2, ELB/ALB, S3, CloudFront, Lambda, Batch, VPC, etc.
by morganf | 2026-01-02 16:50:10+00:00
Actually that girl just messaged me, and a group of common friends, a moment ago to tell me she was sitting in a cafe in Palermo a moment ago and saw someone looking at a web page with a photo of her from almost 20 years ago and she got really confused and went over to talk to him! (She's also a PhD and an example of the super intellectual girls that were the mainstay of our weekly gatherings!). Really funny!!!
by ezekg | 2026-01-02 16:50:24+00:00
I disagree that success is simply good luck, and that input doesn't matter. I think you're biased because your attempt failed (which I sympathize with and I wish it didn't fail), but success is never promised. Sure, you were unlucky, but 99% of us are too. You didn't fail because of that. There was likely another reason, like a lack of product-market-fit. Misattributing failure to a lack of good luck, or bad luck, softens the failure by detaching it from you, but it also misattributes success as "good luck" when it shouldn't. I'll admit that I'm also biased, because my attempt didn't fail, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm perpetually unlucky yet still successful. Sometimes what we choose to spend our time on wasn't the right thing, and that's fine, but that doesn't mean spending your time on the right thing is always pure luck. We shouldn't collapse all uncertainty into a game of luck. If you asked the casting director exactly why they chose Day-Lewis over Denzel, you'd probably see that what looked like good luck from the outside actually wasn't luck at all.
by Arulnidhi_k | 2026-01-02 16:50:34+00:00
Voting requires context.agents must specify 'why' something was helpful, not just thumbs up/down. This adds friction that reduces noise.

Here's the Effectiveness score that is implemented in the project: (helpful - harmful) / (total + 1), so marking everything helpful dilutes the signal rather than inflating it.

Along with it gotta pair voting with reflections, agents store "this worked because of X" not just "this worked."

May I know what setup you tried.. was it a single agent or multi-agent?
Show HN: Podtoc – LLM generated 10-minute podcast clips as a YouTube alternative
by conradbez | 2026-01-02 16:50:45+00:00
When I crave informative audio content, I usually find myself torn between two extremes: scrolling through a library of 2-hour podcasts or add-infested YouTube, where I risk the algorithm recommending mindless content or distracting "Shorts."

That frustration led me to build Podtoc. It provides 10-minute podcast clips, each hitting at the heart of a specific discussion point. The goal is to provide wholesome podcast content with a YouTube (or TikTok) style discovery process.

In my experience, 5–20 minutes is the "Goldilocks zone": long enough to dive deep into a complex idea, but short enough to finish during a commute, a chore, or a coffee break.

The Tech:

- LLM Pipeline: I built a pipeline to extract meaningful clips from long-form content, specifically designed to capture one of the core insights covered in the podcast.

- Recommendation Engine: A custom algorithm that suggests clips based on previous listening to solve the discovery problem.

- The App: A React Native (Web/iOS) app featuring a "swipe to next" UI for seamless browsing.

If this sounds like a problem you’ve faced, I’d love to hear:

1. Which podcasts would you like to see added to the library?

2. Any feedback on the UI or bugs you encounter?

3. Any questions about the pipeline or suggestions for the recommendation logic?

Check it out: https://podtoc.com/app
by Muehe | 2026-01-02 16:50:55+00:00
> there are weird hard line breaks (an ASCII character) in the wrong places

They aren't in the wrong place, if you view the site on desktop, or mobile browser in desktop-mode (for me at least), or the source, the line-breaks form proper paragraphs. Looks like the host actually delivers HTML/CSS with wrapping rules instead of plain text though, which messes it up for screens narrower than a full line in the file.

But either way, the file remains perfectly readable even with the added line breaks, not like any text is missing or moved.
by foundryrobotics | 2026-01-02 16:50:57+00:00
Foundry Robotics | Founding Engineers | Contract or Full-time | Remote or onsite | London, UK

I'm Gio, CTO of Foundry Robotics. We're an early stage London-based startup building robotic solutions for manufacturing applications.

We have 3 open positions:

1) Tinkerer/mechanical engineer -- Help us build our robots in our lab with a mixture of design and hands-on prototyping. Experience with metal fabrication (CAD, CNC milling, turning, 3d printing, sheet metal).

2) Software/robotics engineer C++/Python -- Help us build our software with a lot of autonomy. Navigate documentation for the different components and technology options and make key decisions. Path to become a team lead. Experience in robotics is not required if you have experience in adjacent fields such as 3d graphics (game engines for example).

3) Robotics research engineer -- Be our first research hire. Experience with computer vision, NVidia Isaac or similar simulation environments. Background in reinforcement learning.

Contact: gio@foundryrobotics.co.uk (add "HN" to subject)
by seguri | 2026-01-02 16:51:21+00:00
Location: Switzerland

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies:

- Backend: Java, Kotlin, Javascript, Typescript, Python, Spring Boot, Hibernate, Kafka, Postgres, Mongo, Redis, Kubernetes, Docker, AWS, Node.js

- Frontend: Javascript, Typescript, React, Tailwind

Résumé/CV: on request

Email: hn.uqjhz@simplelogin.com

Summary: Results-driven Senior Backend Engineer with 14 years of experience and a passion for developing robust and scalable software solutions. Proactive and resourceful, combines strong technical expertise with excellent problem-solving and verbal communication skills to drive project success and foster team collaboration. Adept at translating complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and continuously learning new technologies.
by floundy | 2026-01-02 16:51:26+00:00
They're phoning it in, coasting on old IP and goodwill earned decades ago. Animal Crossing had less dialogue options than the Gamecube version that preceded it by two decades. Smash at mid-high levels is still plagued by lag switching cheaters. BOTW was okay, but clearly overrated by people who had never played any sort of open world game before. TOTK being lauded as a 10/10 (fine, 9.5/10 on MetaCritic) was laughable given how empty the game world was, how janky the construction mechanics were for those silly machines, and how boring and childish the puzzles were. I stopped playing Pokemon 15+ years ago but come on, the graphics of the Switch games looking worse than some of the DS editions...

TOTK was the final nail for me, I vowed to never purchase another Nintendo game or piece of hardware and I haven't. I just couldn't square my actual player experience of a janky, boring game with the rabid fanboys crowing about Nintendo doing it again.
by belatwing | 2026-01-02 16:51:26+00:00
Business class is more than just bigger seats. It is designed to make travel comfortable and stress-free. One of the most noticeable benefits is space. Business class seats are wider, often have more legroom, and many recline fully into beds. This means you can rest or even sleep comfortably during a long flight.

Service is another advantage. Flight attendants in business class provide more attention, from check-in to landing. Meals are often gourmet, with multiple courses and drink options. Entertainment is upgraded too, with bigger screens and more variety, so you can enjoy movies, shows, or music throughout the journey.

Business class also offers convenience on the ground. Passengers often have faster check-in, priority boarding, and access to airport lounges. Lounges provide a quiet place to work, eat, or relax before your flight. These benefits make traveling less stressful and more enjoyable.
by detourdog | 2026-01-02 16:51:46+00:00
If it wasn’t for THX-1138 you cynicism might be warranted. The other factor is that the simple matinees are just as tied to the hero’s journey as Star Wars. The hero’s journey is tied to stories from the beginning of storytelling. Lucas experienced his own hero’s journey in producing the movie.

Finally from what I know Cambell ended up living on Skywalker Ranch. I see no reason to minimize connection.
by tokai | 2026-01-02 16:52:02+00:00
I don't think you need to prove reputational harm. Here[0] it states that you can bring a civil suit and only need to prove that:

>The defendant shared an intimate image of you without your consent, and

>The defendant knew that you did not consent, or recklessly disregarded whether or not you consented.

[0] https://www.justice.gov/atj/sharing-intimate-images-without-...
by alnwlsn | 2026-01-02 16:52:04+00:00
Confused by this until I realized you meant "Shellac (band)" and not "Shellac - resin secreted by the female lac bug" which was used to press records in the 1920s.

The last shellac record was indeed made from shellac. And shellac is a natural (or at least non-manmade) material; does this make it more environmentally friendly than vinyl or PET?
by torginus | 2026-01-02 16:52:10+00:00
I also want to add that this internal competition is why stories about huge government subsidies is bull - there's a huge amount of domestic competitors at each other's throats, and the Chinese government certainly doesn't want to pick winners, so the only way to subsidize cars is to subsidize demand, which means that all those subsidies are available to foreign companies doing business in China.