MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Show HN: I built an AI that calls you and practices spoken English with you
by rahma_tm | 2026-01-22 03:18:05+00:00
The Speaking Struggle: Every day you promise yourself you'll practice English, improve your pronunciation, finally become fluent. But life gets busy, you lack someone to practice with, and your confidence fades. You're not unmotivated - you're just tired of not having the right practice partner.

The EnglishCall Solution: What if practicing English felt like chatting with a supportive friend who never judges? Someone who adapts to your level, corrects gently, and celebrates your progress? Our AI doesn't just talk to you - it connects with you, guides you, and helps you speak with confidence.
by twright0 | 2026-01-22 03:18:11+00:00
An interesting anecdote, another good example of a reasonably modern example of paper ballots enabling election stealing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_13_scandal

Caro covers this pretty extensively in his LBJ biography series, but it's reasonably clear from the evidence that LBJ won his senate seat by some pretty crude paper voting record manipulation after the fact - changing a '7' to a '9' by writing over the number with a pen - almost certainly with LBJ's knowledge. Given that his senate seat eventually put him in the presidency, it's probably the most consequential voter fraud ever committed in American history (that we know about, I suppose).
by rvz | 2026-01-22 03:18:28+00:00
I call complete BS and all lies, and close to the inevitability of replacing workers.

OpenAI was founded on the same 'principles' on open and responsible AI 'benefiting humanity' (which that was a scam) until the funding came in and it is now the exact opposite.

Just say we are replacing workers with robots. If we fall for this again, we have learned nothing at all.
by triceratops | 2026-01-22 03:18:55+00:00
> when the majority of Democrats voted in favor of the Iraqi War Resolution

The majority of Democrats in the Senate voted in favor (29-21). In the House a much larger majority voted against (81-126) the resolution.

A total of 7 Republicans voted against the resolution. Between both chambers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit...
by kayodelycaon | 2026-01-22 03:19:03+00:00
I don’t think it would. Humans really like to blame other people for things they inflict on themselves. This is less painful than learning self-awareness.

The current Republican Party blatantly preys on this weakness and gives people an enemy to hate so they can keep fleecing them.

This is different than the Democrats, who can’t get their shit together and have a common goal.
by tamimio | 2026-01-22 03:19:28+00:00
Well it isn't primarily the technicality aspect but rather the same risks that apply to end users are also applied to the people working at the polling station and their equipment, bringing it up when you are talking about one side only is just a tactic to discredit it. That being said, modern phone OSes are also unlike before, app isolation among others prevent such attacks, I don't think I came across a new attack that just altered another app on the fly, otherwise, we would have hundreds of cases of people getting their bank accounts compromised. In fact, I think from a technical standpoint, the risks of having such malware on end users' devices are harder to implement compared to infecting say the Android OS running on the voting screen at the polling station, or anywhere else in the process. Because in the end users' ones you can restrict the app to run under certain criteria similar to banking ones, and independent security researchers can check it for potential vulnerabilities, meanwhile an internal app used in the polling station won't have these measures, and you can even assume the OS/packages are outdated and vulnerable, making it far less secure, something like how flock cameras Android OS is a security nightmare for example.
by fzeroracer | 2026-01-22 03:20:39+00:00
> Want counting in a day? That's xenophobia. Want to limit certain time window for counting?

Why do either of these matter? If you assume paper voting in-person is secure, then there is zero reason to also limit the time spent counting or the time window for counting. Anything past that point is clearly trying to fill some sort of agenda for the sake of disenfranchising people who cannot adhere to the times you're trying to set.
by aetherson | 2026-01-22 03:20:54+00:00
Yes, the owners were paid by the sale. The argument by other people was that the sale shouldn't happen, or vice versa that the sale should happen only to people who were committed to continuing to spend the company's money on supporting employees who are stipulated to not be adding much value (and, thus, are not willing to pay much for the company).

Guys, I totally get it. Nobody likes to be laid off. I was laid off a month ago. But the money that is being soaked up by employee who are, again, stipulated to be not doing anything productive goes somewhere else. This may be a tragedy for an individual person, but it's good for society overall.
by neilv | 2026-01-22 03:21:48+00:00
If you have to take the call, and your main concern is desktop client malware...

At a startup a few years ago, since I was the engineering dept., I had to be on a lot of enterprise sales/partnership calls, and much of the time we had to use the other company's favorite videoconferencing software.

Rather than installing those dumpster fire desktop apps on my Linux laptop that had the keys to our kingdom, I expensed an iPad that would be dedicated to random videoconf apps.

We still get violated numerous ways, but at least compartmentalized from the engineering laptop.

(I also used the iPad for passive monitoring of production at night, like a little digital photo frame in my living room, after putting away the work laptop.)
by compounding_it | 2026-01-22 03:22:04+00:00
It's sad to see apple go from customer experience first to investor satisfaction first. There is a lot of pressure on iOS26 and Tahoe being bloated and slow with planned obsolescence clearly taking centre stage.

People can hope that apple takes their operating systems as seriously as their ARM chips, but it doesn't seem likely. A cycle of 'performance and bug fixes year' will happen which gives them an excuse to bloat further operating systems that are in the pipeline. This is the worst part. We will fix now to show you we can do it and then bloat it in subsequent years so that you upgrade your devices.
by stephenhuey | 2026-01-22 03:22:31+00:00
In 2024, I launched for a client a Rails platform powered by Hotwire that has thousands of users. Thanks to Jumpstart Rails working out of the box with Jumpstart iOS and Android, the web app views were reused in native iOS and Android apps which drastically sped up initial launch and reduces ongoing maintenance. In other words, much less effort than if I had used Rails as an API with React or something similar.

And I've kept my eyes on Rails UI since it was in beta, and I was poking around with it a couple weeks ago and the cool thing is it could be used on a project like the one above without clashing with anything.
by tibbon | 2026-01-22 03:22:41+00:00
I was inspired by the work here, so I sat down with Claude to make something similar, for the purpose of being able to play Z-Machine (Infocom games, Inform 6/7 Z-code) and modern Inform 7 games with Glulx. So far I've tested it with Andrew Plotkin’s Hadean Lands.

Switchable backends, various output formats, etc.

In theory, I could also likely wire this up to get it playing MUDs, but I have some reservations about running that on anything except a private server.

My use case for this is to help test and evaluate Interactive Fiction in development, and you could even run it as a CI/CD process.

It's not perfect (so much Claude Coding of this), but it's an ok start for an hour on the couch: https://github.com/tibbon/gruebot
by johnnyanmac | 2026-01-22 03:23:05+00:00
> Builders and electricians and tradesmen either work as contractors and take that into account

okay. Salaries office workers don't work on contracts. If they do, they know an end is in sight and renewal is not guaranteed. If companies want contractors, they should just do that.

Meanwhie, I'm sure your parents' generation for many industries expected to find one job and make a career around that company, maybe doing 1 or 2 hops based on circumstances. It was highly unusual to lay off everyone at the drop of a hat. This is not normal, and I don't think we should normalize it.

To use your metaphor, this is more like you are working on the 3rd room of some house and suddenly you are kicked out. Contractors take this into account, but you as a salaried worker just need to bite the bullet. This is companies having their cake and eating it to.

>the old situation was never sustainable to begin with.

Tell that to the trillion dollar tech companies.
by Alupis | 2026-01-22 03:23:25+00:00
In 2020's national election, nearly 87% of California votes were by mail[1].

California offers day-of in-person voting, and has ballot-drop boxes (unmonitored) and drop-off (monitored) locations for at least several weeks (I believe it was a full month in the past election).

[1] https://abc7.com/post/election-2024-21-californias-registere...
by TheSpiceIsLife | 2026-01-22 03:23:28+00:00
What multiple times of wrong are there that apply to shooting babies in the head that lead you to believe you think it’s wrong for different a reason?

Quentin Tarantino writes and produces fiction.

No one really believes needlessly shooting people in the head is an inconvenience only because of the mess it makes in the back seat.

Maybe you have a strong conviction that the baby deserved it. Some people genuinely are that intolerable that a headshot could be deemed warranted despite the mess it tends to make.
by felixgallo | 2026-01-22 03:23:34+00:00
You can explain it differently by providing a concrete example. Just saying "the philosophy should be different" is not informative. Different in what specific way? Can you give an example of a guiding statement that you think is wrong in the original document, and an example of the guiding statement that you would provide instead? That might be illuminative and/or persuasive.
by mindslight | 2026-01-22 03:24:15+00:00
Maybe. As a libertarian I'm sympathetic to the concept. I would say that one of the huge founding assumptions which clearly no longer holds is that the federal government was meant to be a less-powerful mediator between states, with the individual states being more powerful. For example I'd imagine that the founders' solution to our current predicament would be individual states calling up their own sizeable militias to kick out the lawless gangs (regardless of whether they were nominally "authorized" by the federal government), only calling for federal government help if they desired it. Restoring order shouldn't hinge upon Congress agreeing to do so, right? Of course the obvious inapplicability of that solution to the events of the Civil War demonstrates how we got to the point we're at. It looks like slavery is still on track to being the great stain that ultimately dooms us.
by pear01 | 2026-01-22 03:25:11+00:00
Farmers like Ragland are overrepresented.

Why do these rural states (several of which have a total population less than that of major metro areas on the coasts) have two senators?

The senate is an antidemocratic institution. The compromise that every state gets two senators made sense when we were a weak, newborn and vulnerable nation, with a total population of less than 3 million people. Not anymore. The founders likely didn't want people like Ragland to have the vote anyway. They were not salt of the earth farmers they were largely plantation and merchant and legal elites. Ragland is the dumb mob rule they feared.

Maybe the 17th amendment was a mistake. At the very least, why stop there? The constitution is not sacred, as established and as written, the founders would have given Ragland less representation.

Perhaps in the spirit of actual democracy and modern reform, it is time to revisit the idea that every state gets two senators. Given what is really going on here is these states vote against their own interests and then rob blue states to cover up the shortfall. Why are blue states tolerating it?

It would be one thing if it was just about money, but it's not. These populations are being deputized in a culture war that tells them to hate you while they take your money. They need a reality check.
by cal_dent | 2026-01-22 03:25:37+00:00
I agree with the sentiment of this post but there is also a consideration here that the world has moved on from a non-elder care end of life for many. Jobs have become increasingly concentrated in certain cities, which has prompted more migration away from many people's place of birth (whether town, region or country). You also have many people having much smaller homes relative to the past because they've moved to high density cities for jobs. Their ability to just have their parents in the home isn't so straightforward anymore.
by fsckboy | 2026-01-22 03:25:39+00:00
>No, you cannot necessarily to choose whether to transact or not.

I didn't say you could, pay closer attention or you will not be able to understand arguments or learn anything.

What I said was, "as long as people engaged in a market make their own choices, then money is a direct measure of happiness on the margin."

however, your mistake does contain a germ of reinforcement to what I said: if you cannot choose to participate in a transaction, you will be less happy, i.e. allowing sellers to offer choices and buyers to make choices will increase happiness in every type of market.

before you make another mistake and go shooting off, I didnt say people will be happy, I said they will be happier, but happier is an unmitigated good.
by nick238 | 2026-01-22 03:25:44+00:00
Didn't know this. It kind reminds me of MIME multipart messages (used in email attachments, MMS, etc.) where the header includes a "boundary" tag which the parser will look for to terminate the part. It feels strange, like it could be some injection risk where if the file knew what the boundary was going to be, it could desync the bounds and turn one malicious, inactive file into one or more bad files.
by POCKET_SANDO | 2026-01-22 03:26:14+00:00
This is how researchers were able to remotely hack several Chrysler models. They used a Sprint hotspot to get an IP on the cell network and were able to connect to any other Sprint device. The cellular modems on these cars were on Sprint so they just had to be on the same network. I wonder if Verizon intentionally blocks this.

https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/blackhat-jeep-cherokee-hack-e...
Show HN: Laptop Stickers – cheap individual short run stickers
by decryption | 2026-01-22 03:26:16+00:00
My friends and I love putting stickers on our laptops, but most printing companies have a minimum order of a single design. I have a little hobby where I print and cut multiple single designs in one order at home and get great results. Perfect for folks who want to decorate and personalise their laptops!

You can get a dozen or so stickers for just AUD$20 (approx USD$14, €12, £10) and free worldwide shipping.
by johnnyanmac | 2026-01-22 03:26:30+00:00
Yeah, if Youtube was "finished" we wouldn't have had Youtube Red, Youtube shorts, Youtube music, etc.

And yes, I am making a good case for mature software with those lovely examples. But clearly they wanted more widgets and they kept engineers who can deliver those widgets. This wasn't some unsustainable thing for Youtube as the top comment argues. And that's how most software businesses work as of now. If you remain complacent, you're slowly dying to competition. Because the demand for more still exists.
by TacticalCoder | 2026-01-22 03:26:45+00:00
Not requiring a proof with a photo of the person and a proof that he's legally in the US should not be allowed in public elections.

How comes the democrats try to block every single voter ID act? Sounds to me there's something to hide.

There has also been some very shady counting happening in 2020: where during the last hours suddenly 100% of the votes coming in in some states where all for Biden.

Note that Trump, in his speech today in 2026 at Davos, said that the 2020 were rigged and that prosecution was coming (he then added something like: "oops that was a secret, well now it's not a secret anymore").

I'd add that, in my opinion, bringing in millions of illegals then trying to regularize them and allow them to vote is also a form of election rigging, even if it's legal.
by hunter-gatherer | 2026-01-22 03:27:04+00:00
Eh. The "inefficent calorie conversion" take is sort of lazy and misses the nuances. I just looked it uo, and it seems that only about 55% of yields are for feed, and there is definitely some more nuance there, since a lot of feed meal comes from stalks and parts if the plants humans would not consume. This notion of calorie inefficiency also misses the mark on what would be planted and harvested instead to contain the same bioavailable nutrient profile thay comes from meat. In otber words, using land for feed to convert grains to another type of food is probably more necessary than just "taste".

I don't care to research it further, but I own a small 5 acre farm and can attest that some crops grow in some areas and some don't. So even if you did map it all out on a piece of paper where you'd get all your beans and lentils and whatnots I doubt it would work in real life. Cattle can handle a couple hard freezes. My tomatoes can't.
by manquer | 2026-01-22 03:27:55+00:00
Market share is based on factual consumption numbers however subsidized or regulated by a government not free will.

Choice/Free will is an arbitrary line in the sand, one could argue how much choice we have about consuming google search when it is "85-90"% monopolistic business with well documented anti-competitive practices.

Chinese consumers perhaps have more choice than we do, Baidu is only about 60% market share. They do get to choose, it more that Google is not one of the options available to them, it is not like if not Baidu then it is a Phone Book.
by buppermint | 2026-01-22 03:27:57+00:00
Anthropic has already has lower guardrails for DoD usage: https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/680465/a...

It's interesting to me that a company that claims to be all about the public good:

- Sells LLMs for military usage + collaborates with Palantir

- Releases by far the least useful research of all the major US and Chinese labs, minus vanity interp projects from their interns

- Is the only major lab in the world that releases zero open weight models

- Actively lobbies to restrict Americans from access to open weight models

- Discloses zero information on safety training despite this supposedly being the whole reason for their existence
by vlovich123 | 2026-01-22 03:28:28+00:00
> Does that matter, though? This whole sequence was completed in 0.144 seconds, using lightweight inter-process communication with negligible use of resources, and only repeats hourly.

Once upon a time there were teams at Apple obsessing over stuff like this because in aggregate it’s a meaningful impact on battery, especially for a service that is functionally disabled. Wonder if it doesn’t matter or there’s low hanging fruit and just so much “dead code” that isn’t actively owned by anyone but also not causing enough problems to matter.
by techdmn | 2026-01-22 03:29:01+00:00
Completely agree. Trump is selling the wrong solutions, but many people hear a truth when he tells them they are getting screwed. Democrats insist that business as usual is great and simply extort voters: "It votes for a broken healthcare system, a broken electoral system and increasing income inequality or it gets the orange fascist again."

Biden / Harris also essentially offered voters the Trolley Problem. If you don't pull the lever Trump will fund genocide. If you do pull the lever, we will also fund genocide, but maybe less genocide.

If your campaign can be described as an instance of a classic ethical dilemma, maybe the problem isn't the voters? At the very least, if Democrats 2024 campaign rhetoric is to be believed, funding genocide was more important to them than maintaining U.S. democracy.
by mmooss | 2026-01-22 03:29:06+00:00
I think these claims are badly miscontrued at best, and match one party's outlook. The Republican Party has tried inhibiting voting in ways that benefit them, often by making it more difficult for minorities to vote.

Many of those tactics existed on a large scale in the South before the Voting Rights Act, and when the Supreme Court recently invalidated the Act, many have returned. For example, reducing voting locations in minority areas so people have to travel far and wait longer. Texas and possibly other states have criminalized errors in voter registration (iirc), making it dangerous to register voters. Georgia, and others, conducted a large-scale purge of voting rolls, requiring people to re-register. Requiring government-issued ID prevents many people from voting, often poor people and immigrants who lack what wealthier people are accustomed to. Florida's voters passed a ballot measure enabling ex-felons to vote; the Republicans added a law requiring full restitution to be paid (iirc) before they could vote, effectively canceling the ballot measure vote. And these days almost any Democratic victory is called fraud; remember the 2000 election, the lawsuits, riots, threats against ordinary citizens working on local election boards and on elections, etc.

Directly addressing the parent's claims: I've never heard of paper votes being called racism - could you share something with us? Calls to limit counting are often accompanied by calls to limit the voting period, invalidate votes received later (e.g., due to US mail delays), and calls to greatly restrict mail-in voting - all things that make it more difficult for people working two-three jobs.

The Democrats have their flaws; I've never seen them try to limit voting. That should be something everyone in the US - and in the world - agrees on: Do all we can to enable everyone to vote.
by johnnyanmac | 2026-01-22 03:29:31+00:00
>Any profit bending spoons earns they can run off and invest in another business if they like

And the ones who helped make Vimeo what it is? left out in the cold to fend for themselves.

This is why loyalty is dead. Maybe if this billion dollar aquisition benefitted the workers there'd be less hard feelings, but that's not how capitalism works.
by TheSpiceIsLife | 2026-01-22 03:30:16+00:00
You have a choice.

1. Demonstrate to me that anyone has ever found themselves in one of these hypothetical rape a baby or kill a million people, or it’s variants, scenarios.

And that anyone who has found themselves in such a situation, went on to live their life and every day wake up and proudly proclaim “raping a baby was the right thing to do” or that killing a million was the correct choice. If you did one or the other and didn’t, at least momentarily, suffer any doubt, you’re arguably not human. Or have enough of a brain injury that you need special care.

Or

2. I kill everyone who has ever, and will ever, think they’re clever for proposing absurdly sterile and clear cut toy moral quandaries.

Maybe only true psychopaths.

And how to deal with them, individually and societally, especially when their actions don’t rise to the level of criminality that gets the attention of anyone who has the power to act and wants to, at least isn’t a toy theory.