MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by app | 2026-01-13 16:59:44+00:00
Growing up I read Dilbert in the paper every morning. At some point I got one of the compilation books and for some reason in an epilogue Adams included his alternate theory of gravity which was essentially that gravity as force didn't exist and things pressed down on each other because everything was expanding at the same rate. He said he had yet to find anyone who could refute this.

Even at 12 I could tell this guy was an idiot. Loved the comic though.
by dragonwriter | 2026-01-13 16:59:44+00:00
> How or why Scott Adams went completely of the rails is perhaps something we'll sadly never understand. Was this opinions he'd always had, but suppressed,

They weren't surpressed; he was very open about them from very early on in his career as a comic artist; they were central to his “origin story” and were woven directly into the comics. Its just, for a while, other aspects of his still-recent experience in corporate America gave him other relatable things to say that were mixed in with them, which made it easier to overlook them.
by DrBazza | 2026-01-13 16:59:55+00:00
Every single financial institution on Wall Street, the City of London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Dubai and so on, uses Python. Very few contribute.

I've worked at a few that use the 'mold' linker to dramatically reduce their build times. Again, very few contribute. In this particular case, I managed to get one former employer to make a donation.

But the list goes on.

Short arms, deep pockets, as the saying goes.
by HarHarVeryFunny | 2026-01-13 17:00:28+00:00
The "R exp" is subroutine call (having saved return address to B00), and I believe "J Bjk" is the subroutine return.

The Cray-1 didn't have a hardware stack, so subroutine call is basically just jump there and back, using a register for the return address rather than pushing/popping it to/from the stack.
by DamnInteresting | 2026-01-13 17:00:37+00:00
Scott Adams did me a considerable and unsolicited kindness almost 20 years ago, back in 2007. One day my site traffic logs showed an unexpected uptick in traffic, and recent referrals overwhelmingly pointed to his blog. Of course I recognized him from Dilbert fame, both the comic strip and The Dilbert Principle.

I sent him a thank you email for the link, and he replied graciously. This began a conversation where he referred me to his literary agent, and this ultimately led to a real-world, dead-tree-and-ink book publishing deal[1]. He even provided a nice blurb for the book cover.

I can't say that I agreed a lot with the person Scott Adams later became--I only knew him vaguely, from a distance. But he brought humor into many people's lives for a lot of years, and he was generous to me when he didn't have to be. Today I'll just think about the good moments.

[1] https://www.damninteresting.com/the-damn-interesting-book/
by gwking | 2026-01-13 17:00:56+00:00
This may be outdated because git’s defaults have improved a lot over the years. When I first used git on a team was in 2011. As I recall, there were various commands like git log -p that would show nothing for a merge commit. So without extra knowledge of the git flags you would not find what you were looking for if it was in a side path of the merge history. This caused a lot of confusion at times. We switched to a rebase approach because linear history is easier for people to use.

To answer your question directly, if somewhat glibly, I’m glad I rebased every time I go looking for something in the history because I don’t have to think about the history as a graph. It’s easier.

More to your point, there are times when blame on a line does not show the culprit. If you move code, or do anything else to that line, then you have to keep searching. Sometimes it’s easier to look at the entire patch history of a file. If there is a way to repeatedly/recursively blame on a line, that’s cool and I’d love to know about it.

I now manage two junior engineers and I insist that they squash and rebase their work. I’ve seen what happens if they don’t. The merges get tangled and crazy, they include stuff from other branches they didn’t mean to, etc. the squash/rebase flow has been a way to make them responsible for what they put into the history, in a way that is simple enough that they got up to speed and own it.
by saurabhjain1592 | 2026-01-13 17:00:58+00:00
Hi HN. When teams move AI agents from demos to production, the failures are rarely about model quality.

They look a lot like classic distributed systems problems.

- Long-running state across multiple steps.
- Partial failures mid workflow.
- Retries that accidentally repeat side effects.
- Permissions that differ per step, not per agent.
- No clean way to stop, inspect, or intervene once execution starts.

Most agent frameworks are optimized for authoring workflows like prompts, tools, and plans. They are much less optimized for operating them once agents touch real systems, data, or users.

That is why teams often end up adding ad hoc layers after the fact. Logging wrappers. Policy checks. Manual approvals. Retry guards. Kill switches.

We built AxonFlow because these problems do not live at the API boundary. They happen inside execution paths.

AxonFlow is a self hosted control plane that sits under your LLM or agent stack and governs execution step by step across LLM calls, tool calls, retries, and approvals, without replacing your existing orchestration framework.

It supports execution aware policy enforcement, not just ingress checks.

Human approval gates for high risk actions.

Deterministic audit logs and replay and debug.

Cost controls and routing primitives.

Gateway mode alongside existing LangChain, CrewAI, or custom stacks.

The community core is source available under BSL 1.1, runs locally, and is fully self hosted with no signup and no hosted dependency.

Repo: https://github.com/getaxonflow/axonflow

Docs: https://docs.getaxonflow.com

Optional 2 minute demo showing gateway mode, policy enforcement, and a multi step workflow running locally:
https://youtu.be/WwQXHKuZhxc

I would especially value pushback from folks who have dealt with retries, side effects, permission boundaries, or post incident auditability in real agent workflows.
by showerst | 2026-01-13 17:01:42+00:00
Absolutely.

And as someone who’s seen some condo boards, I can tell you that when presented with “we all need to pay a small amount of money now to avoid a big bill later” the response will generally be “no way!”

It’s a tragedy of the commons issue, mixed with people who don’t agree on the value of it in the first place.
by spankalee | 2026-01-13 17:01:45+00:00
Dilbert was an ok comic I suppose, but I'll never go out of my way to read one again, and won't mourn the passing of such an openly horrible human. I prefer to simply remember them for who they were:

This was someone who called all Black people a "hate group"; said that parents of troubled boys could only watch them kill other people, or kill their sons themselves; and opposed women presidential candidates because they would negatively affect men.
by Dylan16807 | 2026-01-13 17:01:59+00:00
> Except you're not being objective.

Of course "recognizing that there were aspects of him they didn’t like" is not going to be objective. And it's fine for it to not be objective.

> Accusing anyone of "falling off the far right cliffs of insanity" is a subjective and negative portrayal.

Yeah but it's right.

> I could say and get away with the former, but not the latter when critiquing a co-worker's idea.

You have to bite your tongue at work in a lot of ways that don't make sense outside work.
by hvb2 | 2026-01-13 17:02:03+00:00
I think you should look up actual construction times on reactors in developed countries. Be VERY happy if you can do it in less than 15 years.

> Even if the AI companies all die, our global electricity consumption will keep going up margins will be better than the retired plants, so it's a good investment regardless

If the company putting up the money goes bankrupt, what happens to the project? Maybe it's picked up by someone else?

I think AI companies should try to make it to 2030, my guess is at least a few of them won't make it. Don't commit to projects that won't even complete in the 2030s
by systemtest | 2026-01-13 17:02:10+00:00
Don't forget that batteries and solar panels go down to zero value. Money would have performed better in a high yielding savings account.

I personally like simplicity, I'd rather have money in an index fund and just pay a monthly bill over having a complicated solar+battery+car charger install at my house that I have to manage through various apps and dashboards.

If it is about impact on the world, invest in a clean energy index fund. Large solar farms and neighbourhood batteries operate at a much higher efficiency than domestic installations.
by qingcharles | 2026-01-13 17:02:10+00:00
When I moaned to the Adobe support person about a recent price hike they said "It's a real shame you haven't signed up for a free educational course online, like the ones from Google, that would qualify you for a student plan. Or have you? I'll wait here while you tell me if you are enrolled in one of those free Google courses. Take as long as you need."

So now I'm getting an education too.
by domh | 2026-01-13 17:02:16+00:00
> The batteries can fill up on the off-peak rate overnight at £0.07/kWh, and then export it during the peak rate for £0.15/kWh, meaning any excess solar production or battery capacity can be exported for a reasonable amount.

Honestly I didn't know this was allowed.

I recently got a heat pump and am on a time-of-use tariff (https://octopus.energy/smart/cosy-octopus/) and have been thinking about pulling the plug on battery storage for a similar purpose (charge during the cheap hours; run the house off battery during the day). I am currently using between 40-50kWh per day - anyone have similar usage to this and can recommend batteries for this?
by rdm_blackhole | 2026-01-13 17:02:47+00:00
Public funding is not the solution. Too many conflicts of interests. Who is going to bite the hand that feeds them?

Want to get a higher budget next year? You better run some stories on the great work that the current government is doing or else...

You may say that things won't go that way but since there is no way to check then we need to rely on trust and the trust in the mainstream media for good or bad reasons has plummeted in last decade.

And don't take this comment as an endorsement of paid news media, they have the same exact problems.
by BeetleB | 2026-01-13 17:03:07+00:00
> They cram more people on, giving you less space - but charge the same - and you get mad at other customers, rather than them for cramming you in.

Airline fares are very cheap. Just the other day they compared the cost of flying from London to Calcutta decades ago vs now - much cheaper now. You'll see the same when you compare domestic flights.

Yes, it's true that you had more leg room back then. Now you have the option to pay the same high fares and get similar leg room, or be cheap and get less leg room.

Classic example of "more choice leads to more dissatisfaction".
by roughly | 2026-01-13 17:03:11+00:00
Looks like Confer is hosting its own inference: https://confer.to/blog/2026/01/private-inference/

> LLMs are fundamentally stateless—input in, output out—which makes them ideal for this environment. For Confer, we run inference inside a confidential VM. Your prompts are encrypted from your device directly into the TEE using Noise Pipes, processed there, and responses are encrypted back. The host never sees plaintext.

I don’t know what model they’re using, but it looks like everything should be staying on their servers, not going back to, eg, OpenAI or Anthropic.
by royskee | 2026-01-13 17:03:15+00:00
"Are your legs so long you have to sit with your knees pressed against the back of the seat in front of you or something? If so I suppose that's understandable."

Yes and also for people with long legs, seated in a typical airline seat, their knees will be significantly higher than the top of the seat cushion. So, they get caught up in the sweep of a reclining seatback ahead.
by helpfulclippy | 2026-01-13 17:03:23+00:00
Scott Adams shaped my sense of humor and perspective on a lot of things. Even in later years, when I disagreed with him immensely on a lot of things, I found that there was a thread of insight in what he said regarding how people experience reality and the power of words and images. Ultimately I tuned out, but before I did I followed his line of inspiration (which he was very public about, often naming books and authors) for a lot of that and was not disappointed. I was grateful that the insight was again sincere, and learning them didn’t take me to the places I did not want to go — the places he himself seemed to sincerely enjoy.

It’s not hard for a lot of us to criticize who he became. He certainly had no shortage of criticism for others. I looked up to Scott a lot as a kid, and as an adult found him to be a man like any other, with limits and flaws… not merely in spite of his accomplishments, but often because of them. There’s a lesson there that I wish to carry too.
by smith7018 | 2026-01-13 17:03:30+00:00
If a students needs Logic Pro for 3 months for a class then they can get it (with the other apps) for $9 total ($6 if you count the free month). That makes more sense than a one time fee of $200. On the other hand, if you're planning to use the software for over a decade like yourself then $200 is very cheap.
by nzealand | 2026-01-13 17:03:32+00:00
Looks like they already closed this arbitrage opportunity?

When I try to ship a lemon to a friend I get "There was a problem with some of the items in your order (see below for more information): Sorry, Lemon can't be shipped to the address you selected. Please remove the item or select another address."

Pity, my friend needed a lemon, to know I was thinking of him.

Edit: I can ship a lemon for $3 shipping if I select my friends address prior to adding the lemon to the cart, but with no option for a gift note that I can see.
by WorldMaker | 2026-01-13 17:03:40+00:00
Sure "top-line" of the message (the subject line of the email) should be concisely "what" changed, but the rest of the message (the body of the email) should be the details of "why" and "how". More details on the "what changed" is often redundant because by that point you are seeing the diff itself, but the "why" and "how" is often the real important part to a commit message.
by cratermoon | 2026-01-13 17:03:44+00:00
This also happens with Mayan script.
When the group led by Linda Schele made major leaps in the 70s,
to the point where 90% of the glyphs have now been deciphered,
scholars mostly considered their meaning settled.
That obviously hasn't kept cranks from asserting all kinds of wild ideas,
but there are still scholars who dispute the accuracy and meaning of the interpretations.
by kmeisthax | 2026-01-13 17:03:55+00:00
Unless Apple gets off several high horses regarding code signing and, more importantly, app containerization; any Xcode for iPadOS is going to be useless. Like, imagine Xcode without custom build steps or third-party compilers.

The larger problem is that the iPad has a dual nature. At the launch of the product, Apple positioned it as a netbook killer - i.e. a simplified computer for specific tasks, one where the locked down nature of the device might actually be considered a feature. That's why they built everything on iPhone OS[0]. However, there's always been the implication that this is supposed to Someday™ replace the Mac. It keeps getting new features to make it more useful as a computer replacement, which just makes the deliberate restrictions placed on the device more and more glaring. And Apple seems to think they can just keep adding features until they can make you do every computing task wearing a strait-jacket in a padded room.

This particular duality came to a head with the Apple Vision Pro. Any app that would actually be useful on a VR headset is either:

- Incompatible with Apple's code-signing and containerization requirements (i.e. developer tools)

- Not economic to offer at the small scale of the visionOS app market (at least, not while Apple is demanding 30%)

- A game (Apple really doesn't wanna talk about the Vision Pro as a games machine)

On a related note, Swift Playgrounds stopped getting updates almost a year ago. I updated my HTML editor demo project for iPadOS 26 and now I can't even compile it because Apple has yet to ship the version 26 SDK. And there's really nothing any third party can do to fix Swift Playgrounds to make it actually usable again.

[0] Strictly speaking, Apple's first internal demos of capacitive touch were for a tablet project specifically to spite Windows XP tablets. Although by the time they were writing actual shipping code it was intended for iPhone and iPad came later.
by jstsch | 2026-01-13 17:04:03+00:00
> especially not to spec torque on terminal connections and botched crimps leading to hot spots

This was indeed my greatest concern. However the battery came with pre-crimped very solid DC wires, and nice push connectors for the battery itself. The battery also has an integrated DC breaker (great!).

The system runs 3KW max, so I just added an additional breaker (with RCD integrated) in the conduit box. In NL this is something a DIY-home owner easily can do themselves :) (just use the right solid/flex stranded cabling for the connectors, etc...)
by efnx | 2026-01-13 17:04:04+00:00
I don’t know if we should be so sure that he will be gone in three years. There is no incentive for him to relinquish control peacefully. We’ll have to give him a plea bargain, or a pardon of sorts, to incentivise him stepping down. Without one his back will be against a wall (or iron bars in this case), and he will gladly escalate to stay in power to avoid incarceration.
by ErgoLaansalu | 2026-01-13 17:04:06+00:00
Posting this as a process/governance case file (not a refund rant).
The core issues are auditability and evidentiary fairness: off-platform contact request by the supplier, reliance on untranslated submissions, “industry experts” referenced without any disclosed written opinion, and a closure rationale that hinges on an unclear “official government documentation” threshold.
I included a timeline + exhibits so others can verify specific claims.
by bartilg | 2026-01-13 17:04:35+00:00
There probably is sufficient demand to pay for it, the issue is that there is no mechanism for orchestrating such funding while remaining uncompromised. If you split out the cost of salary for 1 or 2 people, you'd likely end up with individual citizens paying pennies to have people sit in and provide this information. If you look up the average population of a small city, where such an operation would be the least efficient, its about 50,000 to 100,000 people. That would pan out to maybe a dollar per year to cover the salary - I don't think many people would be opposed to that if they actually trusted it and the money was allocated efficiently.

However, there is no way to actually get that payment consistently. It would have to become a government subsidized operation in order to actually extract that payment at a consistent distribution, at which point a huge conflict of interest is introduced, and faith is lost in the independence of such individuals. As soon as this becomes a government apparatus, costs grow heavily to account for administrative overhead, and there becomes heavy incentives to provide more favorable coverage to political figures who are responsible for budgets.
Ask HN: Looking for Windows contributors for meeting-detection engine
by Ayobamiu | 2026-01-13 17:04:40+00:00
I’m building an open-source meeting-detection engine (Node + Rust via napi-rs) that uses OS-level signals to detect when meetings start/end.

macOS support is solid, but I’m missing Windows coverage because I don’t have a Windows machine.

I’m looking for contributors to help implement/test:
• process detection (Zoom / Teams / Webex)
• active window/title enumeration
•basic network signals

Repo + docs: https://www.npmjs.com/package/meeting-detection
Happy to break this into small, well-scoped issues.
by taeric | 2026-01-13 17:04:49+00:00
I think that makes some sense, but I would think that is still part and parcel for natural selection? To require specific mechanisms just feels wrong.

Granted, my teaching for what drives evolution is colored by the idea of the peppered moth, which clearly had everything necessary for both colors. The population change on dominant color, though, was driven by environmental changes.

Even that title you give seems to preclude that increased plasticity can itself be an adaptation? Wouldn't we need to show that there was no change in plasticity during this time in order to show otherwise?
by recursive | 2026-01-13 17:04:54+00:00
The fact that people have a harder time understanding rebase is evidence that rebase is harder to reason about. Whether you update your understanding based on that evidence is up to you. If I have to pick between merge and rebase, I would generally pick merge. It seems to cause less conflicts with long-lived branches. Commits maintain their identity so each one has to be conflict-resolved at most once.

However, even better for me (and my team) is squash on PR resolve.
by jchung | 2026-01-13 17:04:56+00:00
@Felix - How are you thinking about observability? Anthropic is very clear that evals are critical for agentic processes (your engineering blog just covered this last week). For my whole company to roll out access to agents for all staff, I'd need some way for staff (or IT) to be able to know (a) how reliable the systems are (i.e., evals), (b) how safe the systems are (could be audit trails), and (c) how often the access being given to agents is the right amount of access.

This has been one of the biggest bottlenecks for our company: not the capability of the agents themselves -- the tools needed to roll them out responsibly.
by doikor | 2026-01-13 17:04:57+00:00
> No one is heating their place with air/air heat pumps besides americans who haven't figured out that heating spaces via air is shit tier in term of comfort and efficiency

At least here in Finland a lot of people do. Very popular choice when replacing old oil furnaces (and as a "replacement" for direct electric heating offcourse)

Geothermal heatpump is something people mostly think about when building new.

Air heatpumps with the inside unit start from around 1000€ and 300€ to 500€ for the install. The price is mainly based on the size of the house (and in big houses you will need multiple or one with multiple inside units)

A fireplace for the couple really cold weeks to cut down the electricity bills are popular but people had those even before the air heatpumps so nothing new really.
by 12_throw_away | 2026-01-13 17:05:11+00:00
So, I had no reason to use "unsafe" for a very long time, and had developed a bit of an aversion to it. Then I actually needed to use it, first to interface with some C code, and then to deal with a device's mmap'd memory as raw `&[u8]`s.

And my discovery (which basically anyone could have told me beforehand) was that ... "unsafe" rust is not really that different from regular rust. It lets you dereference pointers (which is not a particularly unusual operation in many other languages) and call some functions that need extra care. Usually the presence of "unsafe" really just means that you needed to interface with foreign functions or hardware or something.

This is all to say: implying that mere presence of an "unsafe" keyword is a sign that code is insecure is very, very silly.
by embedding-shape | 2026-01-13 17:05:16+00:00
I don't know much about the Linux Foundation if I'm being honest, even though I've been a 24/7 Linux user for decades, but they seemingly don't have the same image in the ecosystem, at least not close to how people see Mozilla today.

Why is that? Is there lessons to be learned from the Linux Foundation how to actually effectively and responsibly manage that sort of money, in those types of projects?