MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by mustache_kimono | 2026-01-01 21:09:44+00:00
> I think that companies like Oracle, SAP, and Broadcom begin to resemble specialized private equity firms

This is an entirely fair/accurate. I suppose what I am getting at is that these are just 2 different business models, and, the world can sustain a multitude of business models. There need not be only one (har har).

It's also fair to believe there is a moral dimension to one's own model which doesn't extract maximum value from the customer. Because IMHO "let's kick them in the dicks again" isn't an especially likable model, even if it is successful, and it's fair to avoid doing business with such people.

Imagine trying to sell your partners on doing business with Broadcom. If your core principle is "Broadcom needs to be around in 10 years", maybe the persistence/"kick them in the dicks" model is appealing, but otherwise, its fair for their competitors/Oxide to point out how awful dealing with a corporate sociopath might be.
by _wire_ | 2026-01-01 21:10:08+00:00
"Does not equate"?

Why did anyone ever surmise that it did "equate"?

Regard the structure of this thought: Take two complex context-sensitive and dependent theses and put an equals sign between them, then conclude they are not equal.

This headline is so torpid there's no point in reading the article except to assuage curiosity as what is the question that is to be begged.
by notahacker | 2026-01-01 21:10:25+00:00
Buffet was richer than most nonagenarians put together in his fifties, and has been consistently generating 6x the US economy's growth over long periods. Insurance float is a neat source of capital if regulators will let you put it into equities and six decades of return usually beats four, but it's bizarre to pretend that BRK's outlying returns compared with other financial institutions come from longevity and access to capital. On the contrary, others have typically started off earlier with more, and generally donated rather less than Buffet over the last couple of decades...

The "index funds and live long" advice is sensible precisely because even the average savvy investor isn't likely to time value investments as well as Warren Buffet did.
by maxglute | 2026-01-01 21:10:39+00:00
>But American problems seem more fixable to me than Chinese problems

Dan still one of the sharper PRC writers, but like all analysts who moves from PRC to stateside, he used to be Canadian in China writing about China to US, now Canadian writing in US about China, Dan starts peddling Murican dynamism cope, maybe something in the water. i.e. see his his post breakneck Chinatalk interview: Humorless engineering governance can't beat very funny Trump/US governance is... certainly a take. Maybe he should do his audience a favor and elucidate why boring competent engineer government is less dynamic/resilient than lawyers other than elections can pivot fast to reduce lawyers (kek) and something something and see see pee can't pivot fast to make productive innovative libtards, since seeseepee STEM can't innovate. Because as we know fast 4 year election cycles work better than slow 5 year plans. CCP certain needs 50% more lawyers... to slow it down.
by WaxProlix | 2026-01-01 21:10:58+00:00
There are plenty. I run only Linux at home but CAD software for hobbies (Fusion 360), most games that want kernel level anti cheat, some embedded DRM-enabled media, all sort of just fail. Other things, like GPU tuning or messing with your displays/drivers are harder than they should be. My Bluetooth earbuds just don't work with my Linux machines.
by roenxi | 2026-01-01 21:11:36+00:00
> Some officials from Scandinavia, the Baltic states and the European Union have pointed the finger at Russia. They say the incidents appear to be part of what experts say is the Kremlin’s hybrid war on the West.

The only blame placed in the article is targeted at Russia. And I'd quite like to see some speculation on Russia's possible motive for this, it sounds pointless and risky for their shipping on the face of it.
by wat10000 | 2026-01-01 21:11:44+00:00
The source is the fact that very few phones have them.

There isn't some grand conspiracy to keep headphone jacks out of phones. Why would they do that? You think Samsung or Google wouldn't jump at the chance to sell more phones by putting in a headphone jack, if that would actually help them compete? No, the reason few phones have one is because few people care about it, at least enough to influence their purchasing decisions.

There are plenty of examples of market failures in the world where lack of competition or information prevents consumer preferences from being reflected in product offerings. But smartphone hardware is definitely not one of them.
by robocat | 2026-01-01 21:12:17+00:00
Your cynicism is too close to the truth.

Liquid Death, CocaCola branded water, and household water filtration are unbelievable luxuries. Manufactured status for the masses. And my examines are truly luxuries: they are unnecessary for drinking water in developed countries.

Pools and green lawns have higher status when water is more expensive/scarcer.

I don't hang out with extremely high-status people, or the extremely wealthy, but I'm sure both of those groups have some surprisingly luxury water.

Luxury is a human concept that is completely disconnected from the underlying product.

Provenance, Branding, Myth, Environmental, Science all matter for status.
by jws | 2026-01-01 21:12:31+00:00
It sounds like this corresponds to an atmospheric contraction. They are lowering to avoid extending the lifetime of possible debris, but that also probably means the regular lifetime is not shortened. They are just staying in the designed density to match their designed service lives. The field of view of the satellites will be reduced, but presumably they have enough units up there to maintain full coverage.

This is distinct from the FCC application they have made for another Starlink shell in VLEO (~330km) for another 15000 satellites to better serve cellular phones.
by queenkjuul | 2026-01-01 21:13:14+00:00
Sorry, citizens being detained in handcuffs for hours on suspicion of not being a citizen, simply for being Latino, despite carrying a federally-approved ID, is in fact drama.

You got your REAL ID because you were legally allowed to be here. They wouldn't have issued it otherwise. DHS approved your REAL ID so they have no reason to assume that if you a have a valid one you're not allowed to be here
by Maxatar | 2026-01-01 21:13:16+00:00
No one disputes that C++ accepts some invalid programs, I never claimed otherwise. I said that C++'s type system will reject some programs that are in principle correct, as opposed to what Spivak originally claimed about C++ accepting all correct programs as valid.

The fact that some people can only think in terms of all or nothing is really saying a lot about the quality of discourse on this topic. There is a huge middle ground here and difficult trade-offs that C++ and Rust make.
by CamperBob2 | 2026-01-01 21:13:21+00:00
You sound pretty certain. There's often good money to be made in taking the contrarian view, where you have insights that the so-called "smart money" lacks. What are some good investments to make in the extreme-bear case, in which we're all just Clever Hans-ing ourselves as you put it? Do you have skin in the game?
by advael | 2026-01-01 21:14:01+00:00
We live in a world with the internet and distributed version control, so essentially every piece of software in the world has a tradeoff where the people maintaining it might push an update that breaks something at any time, but also those updates often do good things too, like add functionality, make stuff more efficient, fix bugs, or probably most crucially, patch out security vulnerabilities.

My experience with FOSS has mostly been that mature projects with any reasonable-sized userbase tend to more reliably not break things in updates than is the case for proprietary software, whether it's an OS or just some SaaS product. YMMV. However, I think probably the most potent way to avoid problems like this actually ever mattering is a combination of doing my updates manually (or at least on an opt-in basis) and being willing to go back a version if something breaks. Usually this isn't necessary for more than a week or so for well-maintained software even in the worst case. I use arch with downgrade (Which lets you go back and choose an old version of any given package) and need to actually use downgrade maybe once a year on average, less in the last 5
Ask HN: In-person/hybrid vs. remote work: which is better for a startup?
by bbsc | 2026-01-01 21:14:45+00:00
I run a business. It's a small VPS and VPN host.

While it's just me at the moment, say if I grow and hire more people. For you startup owners, is there value in having an office with in-person/hybrid work? Or is all-remote the way to go (and in-person/hybrid simply a layoff technique)?

Reddit is very biased towards remote work, but is only a subset of the population.

Prior to starting my business I was mostly a remote worker, a lot during COVID. I did in fact hate the job. I was hybrid in 2022 but went back remote for various reasons, and moved back to NYC in 2024.
by raducu | 2026-01-01 21:14:53+00:00
Not just one reason, but I stopped because I more or less maintained my physique for 7-8 years afterwards (probably being in your 20s helps) and my life circumstances were in a goldilocks zone; my dad (a doctor) was adamant I'd destroy my heart with all the muscle mass I added.

The thing that motivated me to start was the fact I was not very successful with girls and gaining 30 pounds of muscles in early 2000's Romania was intoxicating, if anybody told me before that girls would send kisses in the subway, grab my arms in the bus and start conversations with me or ask for my number in clubs, colleagues ask me to dump my girlfriend I would have said it's impossible.

I'm ashamed to say, but all that validation was even better than the way lifting made me feel and the primary drive to weight lifting.

It's only now that I remember how good weight lifting in itself made me feel, I never did give it much thought back then.

But now it's very hard to find the time or motivation to start it again.

I'm not really scared of getting fat down the line, I'm in my early 40s now and I've never been fat.

You could be right, that it's only the change that makes you feel amazing, and I only ever went to the gym for some 6 months total, but I have my doubt that it would ever go away, I've been on many, many drugs, NOT ONE ever made me feel good for 6 months straight, they all downregulate very fast.

Now thinking about it, I get a renewed motivation to re-start weight lifting
by xp84 | 2026-01-01 21:15:19+00:00
You’re not wrong, it is burdensome but the sheer volume of money they secure primarily because of their license to rent-seek mercilessly (in the US especially because it’s the market they dominate most and with the weakest regulators) makes even a hilarious amount of complexity supportable. Besides, it’s mainly the users who suffer from the codebase falling apart, not Apple decision makers.
by netsharc | 2026-01-01 21:15:28+00:00
Thanks for citing the laws that legally clears the starvation of civilian children and elderly, amongst others! Since it's legal, that means it's also morally ethical? Right?

Ok, case closed, let them rot to death! Next problem?

How about next we argue why it was perfectly acceptable to crash 2 planes into 2 civilian buildings. Seems to be in the same ballpark!
by eptcyka | 2026-01-01 21:15:50+00:00
I don’t believe the leadership sees Russia as an existential threat in Brussels. Baltics and Poland see it differently.

A pre-emptive strike would be expensive and immediately retcon into making Putin be the good guy - he’s long said NATO is the aggressor. Best to make invading EU to be too expensive to be worth it.

I think the bigger risk currently that Europe faces is the low and mid level corruption where Russian agents extend their tendrils into government structures in EU.
by leptons | 2026-01-01 21:15:52+00:00
Safari is the worst browser by far, especially on iOS. Apple also does things their own way, ignoring standards, so that I have to have a real actual iPhone to debug their platform-specific problems, especially around touch interactions.

>Can you give an example?

Web Bluetooth API, and lots of others. My product could use bluetooth but we're forced to work around Apple's Safari limitations and use Wifi instead, which drains the battery faster. We do not want to write a specific app for iOS (which costs us money to build and maintain), which then allows Apple to extort us for a percentage of sales through the app. Bluetooth would be the better option, but Wifi works although is a bit more cumbersome to deal with. So sorry Apple fans, you have to use wifi with our product because Apple reasons.

I am going to open a bottle of champagne when the DOJ finally forces Apple to allow other browsers on iOS.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline
by kspacewalk2 | 2026-01-01 21:16:40+00:00
It's not about "hating the western way of life" or any such silliness. They can hate whatever they want within their internationally recognized borders.

War is best prevented by robust deterrents. When it comes to belligerent fascist regimes who want to see how far you can be pushed, not responding to provocations and aggression forcefully makes larger-scale war more likely in the future.
by PostOnce | 2026-01-01 21:16:51+00:00
Jobs is probably a good example here, and obviously there aren't many Jobses in the world. As far as I know, he started with nothing really.

Bill Gates however was born rich and had powerful, well-connected parents and grandparents.

Obviously Bill did better with those tools than most people would, but would it have been possible if he started as an average kid with an average amount of money? He wouldn't have gone to a prestigious school with nice computers (or any computers), or have been able to fail at traf-o-data and keep going, for example.

His mom was on the board of a charity which included the CEO of IBM, which is how IBM got involved with Microsoft. Microsoft wouldn't be Microsoft without that deal, or without Mary Gates, or the money that facilitates all these kinds of things.

The older I get, the more I believe that "you can start with nothing and make it" is essentially a lie told to the working class to keep them from cannibalizing the rich (via taxation).
by troupo | 2026-01-01 21:17:18+00:00
> You're right that Firefox also opposes some of these specific implementations in its current form, and that Google often rushes features. However, that doesn't diminish Apple's conflict of interest at all

Funny how you agree that Firefox opposes these non-standards, and how Google rushes things. And immediately turn around and basically say "no-no-no, Apple is to blame and Safari (and, by extension Firefox) must absolutely implement these non-standard features from Chrome".

The rest of demagoguery is irrelevant.

BTW literally the moment Firefox relented and implemented WebMIDI they had originally opposed, they immediately ran into tracking/fingerprinting attempts using WebMIDI that Chrome just couldn't care less about.
by deliciousturkey | 2026-01-01 21:18:13+00:00
The fact that this area where the incident happened, Gulf of Finland, is not fully part Finnish/Estonian territorial waters, is only because of a bilateral Finnish-Estonian agreement. This was done in the 1990's purely for benevolence towards Russia.

Russia clearly hasn't acted in such way that they should enjoy these kinds of acts of benevolence. Finland and Estonia should seriously consider retreating from this agreement.
by giardini | 2026-01-01 21:18:24+00:00
spectralista says >",,it is: 1. Genetics."<

I learned this young. Our smallish high school had several exceptional athletes who achieved all-state level in their freshman years. They were great but they had to work for it. In basketball we had the usual mix. But one day Dan showed up:

Dan was short but extremely muscular. He was "recruited" by our all-state level fullback who lived in the same neighborhood (circa 1960's). Dan worked at his dad's gas station and didn't want him playing basketball b/c that was one less worker. but Dan loved basketball and played every chance he got, even though his dad would beat the crap out of him regularly for being away from "work". Coach didn't have to be asked again once he saw Dan play - he was a fricking Bob Cousy on the court. Nobody could lay a hand on him - a truly phenomenal player. Coach talked to Dan's dad, worked out a deal and got permission to try a few games.

Our first game with Dan was incredible: like being a soldier alongside Achilles as he slaughtered Trojans! "Pass the ball to Dansy" and the magic happened!

Dan showed up for two games but his dad wouldn't go for more. The takeaway for me was that Dan was muscular, far more so than any person I'd ever met, with astonishing reflexes and also a hell of a basketball player. I asked him if he lifted weights and he said he never did.

My conclusions were that Dan was inherently muscular, strong and very coordinated and that people are different, sometimes very different. Other than that, maybe regular hellacious beatings make you an incredible athlete.
by storus | 2026-01-01 21:18:32+00:00
My guess is M5 Ultra will be like DGX Spark for token prefill and M3 Ultra for token generation, i.e. the best of both worlds, at FP4. Right now you can combine Spark with M3U, the former streaming the compute, lowering TTFT, the latter doing the token generation part; with M5U that should no longer be necessary. However given RAM prices situation I am wondering if M5U will ever get close to the price/performance of Spark + M3U we have right now.
by giobox | 2026-01-01 21:18:35+00:00
Apple appear to be using the same rules that they made up when "allowing" third party browser engines in the EU. It's worth pointing out that these restrictions are such, that to best of my knowledge, no one has shipped a browser with an alternate engine in the EU app stores yet despite being permitted to for over a year now.

The demand that the application with its alternate browser engine must be a completely new and separate binary from any app already using the built in browser makes it hard for existing big players like Chrome - they would have to manage two apps on the store during any transition to their own engine, which supposedly has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks for them already in the EU.
by roenxi | 2026-01-01 21:19:00+00:00
Probably to make sure it stays that way. Logistics by ship generally has a big advantage over logistics by land. There is a rough pattern over the last century or so of the big navel empires (UK, US, Japan) having a big military advantage. In the case of the UK and US their strategic policy has a big component that involves restricting their opponents access to resources water (eg, Germany around the world wars, China in the modern era or the way the US controls the sea-based routes out of Saudi Arabia and the land routes tend to be militarily unstable).
by jbstack | 2026-01-01 21:19:02+00:00
You can't really make blanket statements like this about "Linux" in general because it depends on what distro you use. For example, in NixOS to fix this type of problem all you have to do is rollback to a previous configuration that is known to work. I've not used it, but I believe Arch has something similar.

Even with imperatively configured distros like Ubuntu, it's generally much easier to recover from a "screen of death" than in Windows because the former is less of a black box than the latter. This means its easier to work out what the problem is and find a fix for it. With LLMs that's now easier than ever.

And, in the worst case that you have to resort to reinstalling your system, it's far less unpleasant to do that in a Linux distro than in Windows. The modern Windows installer is painful to get through, and then you face hours or days of manually reinstalling and reconfiguring software which you can do with a small handful of commands in Linux to get back to a state that is reasonably similar to what you had before.
by belter | 2026-01-01 21:19:08+00:00
> Isn't the logical action for EU to launch massive pre-emptive strikes on this big bad country that hates the western way of life ?

Depending on the days, the priority changes, between Russia or attacking the US first, maybe with the help from Canada :-))

You have to deal with one threat at a time, and it seems the fight against chlorinated chicken will take priority for now... :-)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/12/17/trump-demands...
by btrettel | 2026-01-01 21:19:26+00:00
If the website/Facebook event/email/etc. mentions an assigned topic, then it's not likely going to have much unstructured conversation. Other than that, I can't think of any reliable ahead of time signs to look for. One thing I think I've learned from reading tons of comments today at HN is that I should try more meetups just to see what they're like because you can't really know ahead of time.

Anyhow, the specific group I was referring to was LessWrong meetups in 3 different cities over a period of about a decade. As I said, I'm not quite aligned with their philosophy, but I did find a bunch of interesting people at those meetups.
by advael | 2026-01-01 21:19:31+00:00
I dunno, I spend less time fighting with any of my several linux systems than the macbook I'm required to use for work, even without trying to do anything new with it. I choose to view this charitably and assume most of the time investment people perceive when switching operating systems is familiarity penalties, essentially a switching cost. The longer this remains the case, the less charitably I'm willing to view this.
by cosmic_cheese | 2026-01-01 21:19:32+00:00
Yep. Chrome's mindshare and momentum is incredibly difficult to overcome, and outside of technology-oriented circles users generally don't develop associations between specific programs and poor battery life unless it gets the fans blaring like you're running Cyberpunk 2077 with setting cranked to max or something.

It's similar to how the overwhelming majority of people driving cars aren't going to make note of the difference in driving dynamics between CVT and automatic transmissions unless one severely underperforms compared to the other. It either runs or it doesn't and that's where the distinction ends for people who treat their car/computer/phone as an appliance.
by shtzvhdx | 2026-01-01 21:20:20+00:00
Did I miss NATO declaring war on Russia and N. Korea? Or are we OK with the Chinese silently torpedoing the next batch of military equipment to Taiwan (a rouge province under intl law)?

Your argument, taken to its limit, is might makes right. Which, fine; but we're just not that strong anymore. Certainly not the EUpeeans.
by Maskawanian | 2026-01-01 21:21:03+00:00
No, that's every bit of software out there. Dynamic linking really does cause that problem even though allegedly it has security benefits as the vendor is able to patch software vulnerabilities.

NixOS actually is a bit better in this respect since most things are statically linked. The only thing is that glibc is not because it specifically requires being dynamically linked.

This issue also applies to macOS with their Dylibs and also Windows with their DLLs. So saying that this is an issue with Linux is a bit disingenuous.

Until everybody standardizes on one singular executable format that doesn't ever change, this will forever be an issue.
by babl-yc | 2026-01-01 21:21:15+00:00
I switched my desktop from macOS (10+ years) to Ubuntu 25 last year and I'm not going back. The latest release includes a Gnome update which fixed some remaining annoyances with high res monitors.

I'd say it pretty much "just works" except less popular apps are a bit more work to install. On occasion you have to compile apps from source, but it's usually relatively straightforward and on the upside you get the latest version :)

For anyone who is a developer professionally I'd say the pros outweigh the cons at this point for your work machine.