MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Show HN: lscode – TypeScript's LanguageService for AI Coding Agents
by kazushisan | 2026-01-05 16:29:55+00:00
I've been adopting to developing with AI coding agents, but I've been feeling the limitation of these agents because they mostly work with plain-text editing and don't have much access to all the tools humans use that are available in editors like "find references" or "rename symbol".

So I ended up building `lscode`, a command-line that exposes TypeScript language-tools for coding agents to use.

While I know there are some attempts that provide a language-agnostic wrapper around LSP, `lscode` is specifically for TypeScript, built with the internal `ts.LanguageService` to provide an AI-friendly interface such as symbol search. (meaning no line-number and character-offset management necessary for agents)

Let me know what you think!
by reedlaw | 2026-01-05 16:29:56+00:00
That sounds nearly perfect for FSRS [1], the default spaced repetition algorithm used by Anki, which aims at estimating the time it takes for memory stability to decline from 100% to 90%. At the estimated 90% stability point, FSRS would require a review, so naturally a mature deck of flashcards would hover between 90-100% stability.

1. https://expertium.github.io/Algorithm.html
by pingananth | 2026-01-05 16:30:01+00:00
Thank you! That specific use case—helping Senior/Staff engineers visualize the 'back and forth'—is exactly where I think the biggest gap is. It’s hard to learn negotiation from a static blog post.

On the Pre-order: I’m sorry about that! The payment gateway is currently stuck in 'Verification Pending' (bad timing with the HN hug).

I’ve set up a temporary waitlist here: https://forms.gle/UhRNLqbaHQfjiS8V8

If you drop your email there, I’ll ping you as soon as payments are live (and I'll send a discount code as an apology for the friction!)
by badsectoracula | 2026-01-05 16:30:04+00:00
99% of everything is bad, so that unsurprisingly includes AI videos.

But i've seen several good videos made using AI, including pretty much everything NeuralViz[0] on YouTube makes, but also some that have been posted in older comments here in HN. Igorrr's ADHD music video[1] was also made using AI and fit the music perfectly.

The common aspect with these "good" uses though is that they do not let the AI do 99% of the job (as mentioned in another comment) but they still involve editing, writing/scripting, acting (NeuralViz for example uses his webcam to act both the motion and voice in his videos and uses AI to change them) and to some extent leaning into the "weirdness" that AI videos have instead of ignoring it.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/@NeuralViz (i high recommend watching them in upload order because they all build into the same "universe" and often make references to older videos)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGIvO4eh190
by gn4d | 2026-01-05 16:30:05+00:00
Code golfing on SO was fun, too!

I just looked it up, and "Note: This tag is currently blacklisted and can no longer be used." lmfao, what a braindead site, so glad I left years ago, after many years of greatly reduced activity. Source (at the top):
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/code-golf?tab=New...

Look at fun stuff like this from 2010: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2440314/code-golf-%cf%80...
Show HN: A browser based Python linked list visualizer with real-time debugging
by rushedcomet | 2026-01-05 16:30:08+00:00
Hi HN, I built this while solving linked list problems and getting tired of mentally (or on paper) tracking pointer changes.

NeurAL-Viz runs real Python code in the browser using Pyodide and visualizes how linked list nodes and pointers (curr, prev, next, etc.) change at each execution step. It records snapshots during execution and lets you scrub backward and forward through the algorithm.

Source code: https://github.com/risheeee/NeurAL-Viz

Would love feedback on usability.
by stocksinsmocks | 2026-01-05 16:30:09+00:00
We almost do. Employers must provide insurance. If you’re unemployed you can probably get Medicaid. We have private entities handle the details instead of something that looks like the Post Office. There is nothing anyone in Congress can do which results in all 8 billion people on Earth having instant access to all conceivable treatment in any location the the US. Like socialized medicine, there is no meaningful price discovery mechanism in the US. Unlike socialized medicine, it’s a lot harder for political parties to conduct pogroms by rationing resources and euthanizing demographics that don’t vote the way they like.
by 8f2ab37a-ed6c | 2026-01-05 16:30:31+00:00
Thanks for sharing all that, appreciated. I had looked at that particular store last month and they were sold out of the lighter springs, but I'll check with them again to see if that's changing. And great point around switches being stuck with the lighter springs, definitely something I'll have to watch out for if I ever get that far.

I've also enjoyed Topre switches in the past, I remember those feeling pretty light as well, although I can't quite recall how my injured joints worked with them, that was in the healthy days.
Ask HN: What technology-related works should I add to my 2026 reading list?
by nadis | 2026-01-05 16:30:38+00:00
I searched HN and there are some great book rec posts from 2 - 7 years ago. For now, I'm more curious about the past 1 - 24 months though.

Are there new books (or enduringly great books) that I should add to my 2026 reading list? Could be biographies, programming books, sci-fi, even just white papers, etc.
by mgfist | 2026-01-05 16:30:44+00:00
I don't think corporate profits are the reason Apple has shitty UX because it's hard to argue how shitty UX correlates to higher profit, especially when it costs more to create a shitty UX than to keep the good one you already have.

I reckon it's more that some Apple VP has to justify their million dollar equity package by creating work for their org, because otherwise why should you still have a job?
by observationist | 2026-01-05 16:30:50+00:00
It's the other way around. Psyops are just memes. You should view everything communicated to you as a meme - a complex, semantically rich packet of information that implies the content and the intent arising from the agenda and context of the communicator.

Everything from a simple wave hello by random passersby to pseudonymous manipulative poasting by nation state actors in service to secret purpose is a meme. Understand the actors or you will never be able understand the memes.

AI is, for now, a tool. It's a powerful tool, a potent force multiplier, but there is no agency there. AI labs and governments and big tech companies have agendas and the ways in which they manipulate the output of AI tools is a meme modifier, so you should understand the ways in which different entities want to change the output of the tools you use, in order to correct for anything that deviates from your own intent and understanding.

Psyops are just a particular configuration of meme scale within a culture; if your model of the world is correct and has reliable predictive power, you can correct for things that attempt to warp reality. Understanding how and why different entities warp their communications, whether it's intentional or endemic, is crucial to a reliable model.
by kachapopopow | 2026-01-05 16:31:02+00:00
that's why you have large lists, fallbacks and rolling updates to said fallbacks. it isolates you as the c2 owner to the c2 malware. once you have that you can just query from any kind of server and publish it anywhere else, you can have it act as an indirect proxy, not the primary contact point - it's a globally available database for a low low cost of transaction fees.

but explorers are the easiest since there's so many of them and so many of them that do not give two shits about blacklisting addresses.
by ecshafer | 2026-01-05 16:31:04+00:00
Even more minor issues and not going to those more abhorrent extremes, some countries like Japan or China have much more social shame for public misbehavior. The United States used to have more social shame for public misbehavior. This is why people are quiet on subways, there's less petty crime, and higher grades. There's shame for doing poorly in school, not excuses for how ducks don't climb trees or whatever. There's shame for people that litter. I am all aboard this train personally.
by terminalshort | 2026-01-05 16:31:06+00:00
You have one of 3 choices here:

1. Low paid American workers glue iphones together in sweatshops

2. Low paid Chinese workers glue iphones together in sweatshops

3. Well paid American workers glue iphones together in sweatshops, and to make this possible we have a massive tariffs regime that makes consumer goods massively more expensive and massively increases the price of all manufactured goods.

Pick your poison. They call economics the "dismal science" for a reason.
by TMWNN | 2026-01-05 16:31:25+00:00
>Sun and many others were betting on 68k, too.

Sun launched its first SPARC-based system more than a year before the NeXT launch in October 1988.

Sun came out of Stanford and was aware of the Stanford and Berkeley RISC architectures (the latter of which led to SPARC). NeXT had academia heritage, too, via Mach from CMU, but I guess it wasn't enough to persuade Jobs to go for a more exotic architecture than the one he was familiar with from Apple, or the "enemy" in Intel.

One can see a world in which NeXT goes with 80386, eventually pivots much earlier to software-only, and becomes a real rival to Microsoft and IBM in the early 1990s to provide a multitasking successor to DOS. Or, for that matter, IBM goes with NeXTSTEP (or just buys NeXT) instead of the AIM Alliance.
by ivell | 2026-01-05 16:31:30+00:00
The difference is between gaining a skill vs loving what you do. Introverted person practice socializing is more of a skill development than actually loving every moment of it. True introverts are happy being alone (they are not lonely as in a negative sense).

I think it is easier for introvertes to gain extrovertion skill (clear benefits) than extroverts to gain introversion skills (benefits of being alone is not that obvious)
by ecb_penguin | 2026-01-05 16:31:43+00:00
Table based layouts were deprecated even 15 years ago. It goes against your point that things change frequently.

> do you consider yourself a person who 'knows CSS'?

Sure. They know an older version of CSS. They don't know the latest version. Shrug....

> You will get laughed out of a tech interview for it though.

I've never laughed at anyone in an interview. Can you share some more nuances here? What's the role and expectation? How good is their code? Did they just not learn some modern designs, but can learn it quickly? What have they been working on the past few years?
by cbeach | 2026-01-05 16:31:50+00:00
The simulator is an excellent reminder that engineering managers sign up for an eternity in the Kobayashi Maru scenario, and there's no way to Captain Kirk it, either.

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

I've had the fortune to be able to steer my career back down to IC with no loss of income every time I have been pushed up into an EM role.

Only one data point, but I'm 100% happier as IC than EM.
by prodBirdy | 2026-01-05 16:32:11+00:00
Just open-sourced openNook

A lightweight dynamic island client for desktop – think notchNook, but open source and built for extensibility.

Tech stack:
• Tauri (Rust backend)
• React frontend
• Motion for smooth animations

The plan? A full Plugin API so you can build custom widgets, new tabs, and completely redesign the interface for your workflow.

Currently macOS-focused, but cross-platform support is coming

Contributions welcome!
by benrutter | 2026-01-05 16:32:22+00:00
This looks nice! I had no idea you could actually control notifications as an app.

One thing I've always wanted is the ability to "group" notifications.

Apps like WhatsApp can be really bad for pinging lots of times within a minute for individual messages. I really don't need my phone to buzz more than once every five minutes, and wish I could set rules like "don't buzz for x minutes after a notification".
by simianwords | 2026-01-05 16:32:23+00:00
I have an idea for a movie. Its kind of an epic idea - more about the characters, story and the feeling. I want to get the idea across as close as possible to what is in my head.

AI has given me the opportunity to do it. I just have to keep prompting to get the exact feeling and I can share my idea.

I don't like these curmudgeonly takes.. I'm sure this "All AI Videos Are Harmful" take will age just like how "All videos are harmful" and "All cartoons are harmful" have aged.
by throwawayffffas | 2026-01-05 16:32:27+00:00
Having watched both. Yes the Incredibles are much much worse. Especially if we focus on the color palette. You could have not picked a worse example.

But for example Moana is not worse than Cinderella. Arguably it's better. But the algorithmic choices around perspectives, reflections, etc. Were not really automated. In both cases a lot of people where involved in each scene, and I am confident, they went over every frame, checking the result was what they wanted.
by veidr | 2026-01-05 16:32:31+00:00
I guess that makes sense. I'm a 280ppi convert, so I judge Mac users with pity — Linux and Windows work perfectly with my 31.5" 8K display (from fuckin' 2017 btw...) but Macs can only drive it at 6K, which adds a fuzz factor.

Unless you use it at 4K, but macOS isn't really usable that way (everything way too small).

But yeah, it's 60Hz. Which has sucked ever since I accidentally got a 120Hz display, so now 60 Hz looks like 30Hz used to...

Monitor Resolution PPI
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
31.5" 8K 7680 × 4320 280
27" 5K 5120 × 2880 218
31.5" 6K 5760 × 3240 210
23" 4K 3840 × 2160 192
27" 4K 3840 × 2160 163
34" 5K ultrawide 5120 × 2160 163
31.5" 4K 3840 × 2160 140
39.7" 5K ultrawide 5120 × 2160 140
44.5" 5K ultrawide (LG 45GX950A-B) 5120 × 2160 125

P.S.

I had a chance to try that LG 45GX950A-B at Yodobashi Camera in Akihbara the other day, and... that measly 125ppi might overperform at the distance you have to put it at. But then again my 50-year-old eyeballs are starting to be like "anyway you need your glasses bro" so... YMMV
by jofer | 2026-01-05 16:32:34+00:00
It may not be immediately obvious to folks outside of geoscience, but the main way something like this is useful is as a measure/metric to compare things. Looking at the number of faces of fractured pieces isn't normally something we do often in geology.

Sure, the pieces average 6 faces when materials are relatively homogenous and iostropic (i.e. no preferential direction to break in and no free surface nearby). However, as they note in the article, this isn't always the case. Things like mud flats and other cases with very anisotropic materials and/or free surfaces nearby don't fracture with the same average.

This is a good example of a potential metric that could be used to give some clues about overall material behavior even if all you have are the broken remains.

Fractal dimension is also pretty esoteric. However, it's somewhat widely used in geoscience, even though what we're measuring isn't _actually_ fractal. It's still a very useful comparative metric, though, because it lets us measure how complex an interface or surface is quantitatively and scale-independent.
by madeofpalk | 2026-01-05 16:32:48+00:00
Class names are "global mutable state". You can declare a class in one file, and other file can 'mutate' it.

There are solutions/workarounds to this. First following a convention like BEM, then enforcing that at build time (CSS Modules), and now (potentially, i haven't checked in with it) the language supports @scope.
by motbus3 | 2026-01-05 16:33:03+00:00
I agree that this is true 90% of times but if you included office politics in the equation sometimes it is not.

If it is in a deep political institution these are the initial set of questions I would start with:

Who is the Jr to the the VP, what are their relation ? How is your Jr to the manager ? How is the manager relation to the VP? How respectful to boundaries the VP is to the boundaries? How likely is for him to repeat or to get you shoved out the way next time ? How much do you care about being put astray in comparison to the quality of overall work ? How many times this has occurred before ? How likely is for the Jr to bypass you anyway ?

And as one can see, this is just too much to bother with. Sometimes it is easier to cry out that you need more money and or time.

I would do the same by the way. Make the distraction go away and try to put things back into the process route. If the process does not work and this is constant there is no reason to tell the person that pays you that they are always wrong.
by whalesalad | 2026-01-05 16:33:21+00:00
The only thing keeping me on VSCode these days is the remote SSH development. All of my development takes place on a beefy Linux workstation in my home office. When I am not at my desk (on couch, backyard, coffee shop, traveling) I still remote-in to that box for all of my development using Tailscale + VSCode SSH. Unfortunately the open flavors like vscodium do not support this. It's a "privileged" extension like Copilot.

VSCode has really become such a nightmare to use recently I am strongly looking for a way out. Recently I had some odd corruption take place where I had to blow away essenitally my entire VSCode install on my Mac. Going from zero to hero and bootstrapping back to good state should have been trivial with a single conf file that could be used to rehydrate state (like a lockfile for bundler or node) but - particularly with the remote ssh stuff - it becomes a mess. This extension is installed locally but not remotely, this is remote but not local, ... like dude figure it out and just make it all consistent.

I should expect this from Microsoft, though. I did this to myself.

Revisiting Zed... I am glad to see they have SSH support! Going to give it the old college try today. It's absolutely insane to me that they do not have a first-class Debian/Ubuntu apt repo, though. This has been an issue for quite some time.
by mxfh | 2026-01-05 16:33:28+00:00
I there not any user testing as we know it today, mostly top down application of priciples.

This was all experts driven in that time to my knowledge.

Empirical validiton did not really take off until the late 00s.

https://hci.stanford.edu/publications/bds/4p-guidelines.html

Don had the explicit expert knowledge first stance in 2006 and 2011, nothing inherently wrong with that, but it's defenitly no research driven.

"Always be researching. Always be acting."

https://jnd.org/act-first-do-the-research-later/

Tognazzini and Norman already criticized Appple about this a decade ago, while the have many good points, I cannot shake the feeling that they simply feel like the were used to just brand Apple as user friendly in the 90s and that Apple never actually adopted their principles and just used it as it fit the company's marketing.

https://www.fastcompany.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-desi...

there are a bunch of discussions on this

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10559387 [2015]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19887519 [2019]
by pingananth | 2026-01-05 16:33:31+00:00
I don't think this is unpopular at all—I think it’s actually the 'Senior/Pragmatic' view.

This highlights a key distinction: The simulator is designed to teach heuristics (e.g., 'Default to protecting the team'), not a rigid playbook. In a real startup, specific contexts (like 'BigCo Renewal') often override the default heuristic.

You nailed three critical nuances that the default path glossed over:

Bus Factor: If the Junior is the only one who can pull the data, that's an engineering failure on my part.

Business Alignment: In a startup, 'Revenue' > 'Sprint Integrity.' Being a 'stone' to revenue-critical requests is a fast way to lose influence.

The Middle Path: Your suggestion (Timebox/Reallocate) is the advanced move. It solves the VP's pain without wrecking the sprint.

Thanks for adding this perspective—it shows exactly where 'Best Practice' meets reality.
by onemoresoop | 2026-01-05 16:33:32+00:00
Not only are they removing creativity but they're eroding the medium with a flood of high quanity/low quality of misinformation or fakes. My youtube feed is innundated in AI generated talks, audiobooks, history etc. The audiobooks may be okay but I can't trust any AI generated content. At this point I wish I could just fiter it out. Just yesterday I saw a video by Yuval Noah Harari and almost towards the end I realize it's AI slop. It has nothing to do with the author except for his syntehtized voice. The content is not even vetted by a human, it's being created faster than users can consume it. For now I can spot these AI channels and attempt to avoid them but am not sure how long this is going to last.
by pelotron | 2026-01-05 16:33:50+00:00
I was involved in a conversation about cheating in video games the other day, and the topic shifted to AI use in music. Someone said, "using AI is like using an aimbot for music." I absolutely love that comparison since it highlights the shortcut past creativity/skill to get a computerized best result while also associating it with blatant cheating.

The "enables creativity" argument is ironic since the root of the word is "create" and AI users are literally removing the "create" step from their production process.
by ghaff | 2026-01-05 16:33:52+00:00
I have to believe that cordless broom vacs have put a dent in robovacs generally as well. When I looked at robovacs last, I came to the conclusion that my house wasn't great for them and that a broom vac I could just pull off the wall and run in a couple heavily trafficked locations for a few minutes was really just fine. The issue previously was that it was sort of a pain to pull out my plug in canister vac--so I mostly didn't. (I have a housekeeper every 3 to 4 weeks.)
by andreldm | 2026-01-05 16:33:56+00:00
This weekend I gave Zed another chance, this time it didn’t make me uninstall it after one hour or so. It’s much more polished, there are a few wrinkles but overall it’s finally pleasant to use. I’m actually surprised how my muscle memory from VSCode is of use, kudos to devs for making the transition easier instead of reinventing the wheel. I hope to eventually get rid of VSCode, this AI everywhere at all costs is turning the editor (that wanted to be an IDE) into something (most?) users don’t want or need.
by Imustaskforhelp | 2026-01-05 16:34:26+00:00
I agree with what you are saying about Europe being better in work life balances etc. in my person opinion as well and I admit it so I am just going to write a message about the things I have been seen written by Americans in the first place/gist of them for the sake of providing a (full picture?)

I wouldn't say Europe is unconcerned either. Europe has less issues than America because its collective debt feels very low compared to America

France recently went into all out stalemate of sorts and in countries like UK as well there are some really systemetic issues and not vice versa

Namely the most heard is the lack of innovation. People (here on HN) have compared Europe to a colloseum, saying its stuck in time and that there is a lack of innovation.

The startup culture is disfragmented etc.

There are some real concerns about Europe as well being impacted because a huge chunk of jobs were in the manufacturing business (think cars) and with things like BYD etc., Europeans themselves are worried about being able to compete with their price.

the point being that Europe has some concerns as well and they stem from their decision. The regulations make businesses genuinely hard to start.

(Note that I still believe that Europe is really good compared to America in a lot of genuine metrics in my opinion as well but then again, its not really a fair discussion if we don't discuss both sides of the coin)