MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by sshine | 2026-01-22 10:02:32+00:00
When there's an uprising it's a pretty god indicator that the elections aren't working.

https://www.norwich.edu/topic/all-blog-posts/facade-democrac...

Though President Ebrahim Raisi’s sudden death in May 2024 prompted a new electoral cycle with six vetted candidates, all were affiliated with the regime and loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, ensuring little real policy divergence. The Guardian Council filtered out all but hardline male clerics and a nominal reformist, creating the illusion of choice while reinforcing conservative dominance. Moreover, the presidency in Iran holds limited authority — ultimate power resides with Khamenei, who, since 1989, has steadily centralized control in his hands, rendering both elected institutions and their leaders largely symbolic. In short, the article contends that no matter who wins, Iran’s domestic and foreign agendas — especially its nuclear program and regional interventions — will remain unchanged, as they are guided by the Supreme Leader's ideology.
by latexr | 2026-01-22 10:04:31+00:00
It was neither a compliment nor an insult, only a descriptor. I didn’t call you selfish (I don’t know you), but one particular view you described. For all I know, you may be the most altruistic person in other areas of your life, but that particular view is unambiguously selfish. And the least defensible kind of selfish, too, because it only benefits you in the short term but harms you in the long run.

Either way, that’s not how compliments nor insults work. The intent is what matters, not the word.

For example, amongst finance bros, calling each other a “ruthless motherfucker” can be a compliment. But if your employee calls you that after a round of layoffs, it’s an insult.
by sgjohnson | 2026-01-22 10:04:44+00:00
> What is subjective about objectively saving time in your workflow?

What part of your workflow requires modifying the system volume on macOS? As a long-time power user of macOS, I don't even need to disable SIP. I've worked my workflow around the limitations.

macOS and Linux power users are two different species. One will work around the restrictions imposed by the overlords, the other will beat the system into submission.

Of course you can also beat macOS into submission, but then you're in for a bad time.
by bilekas | 2026-01-22 10:04:59+00:00
I've tried Kagi and while it is better than google these days, to be fair that's not hard with the enshitification slop that's out there.

But Kagi funds Yandex which fund the RU government, and I think it should be known to anyone looking to use it.

https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2025/07/17/kagi/

https://kagifeedback.org/d/5445-reconsider-yandex-integratio...
by mrsssnake | 2026-01-22 10:05:04+00:00
> handling mobile devices' changing IP addresses as it hops from one subnet to another

We could create TCP/UDP alternative that would handle mobile IP addresses or even make traffic take multiple of those paths at once (look up MPTCP). But we cannot apply it in real scenarios mostly because of middleboxes (like CGNAT) messing up and limiting the messages that should be taken care of on the endpoint.
by tdeck | 2026-01-22 10:05:55+00:00
I'm confused, isn't this the exact usage that TFA is refuting?

> Yet for more than two centuries “hwæt” has been misrepresented as an attention-grabbing latter-day “yo!” designed to capture the interest of its intended Anglo-Saxon audience urging them to sit down and listen up to the exploits of the heroic monster-slayer Beowulf.
by wolvesechoes | 2026-01-22 10:06:37+00:00
> On top of all of that you then have the European Union, in which the majority of members will also put support behind one of its members (notwithstanding the likes of Hungary, and perhaps Slovakia with its latest government).

Please take time to check how different EU countries responded to US threats against Denmark. It is not uniform, even if you exclude Hungary and Slovakia.
by dv_dt | 2026-01-22 10:06:42+00:00
The employee healthcare costs don't count, so we can pretend that healthcare costs doesn't detract from performance or the ability to hire talent?

Serious cancers are on the rise among the young and the type of plans you allude to do not provide good coverage. And why limit startups to the young, or limit their ability to have a family? 40+ founders have a higher business success rate.

I think the US is having so many problems now because it wants to half-a** aspects of living that should be solid for false efficency.

Startups should be a voluntary fiscal risk, not a direct risk of life, limb, or family. That's also how you optimize for the success of the startup - by removing distractions and worries that are not directly in the startup proposition.
by SHOUTFEST | 2026-01-22 10:06:59+00:00
These seem like the actions of someone with dementia:

- Overthrowing the leader of Venezuela by taking him hostage, then immediately losing interest in the aftermath

- Threatening to take Greenland by force because he wasn’t awarded a Nobel peace prize like Obama, threatening tariffs, then backtracking

- Attempting to replace the U.N. with a pay-to-play $1bn entry fee organization called The Board of Peace

- Attempting to again be equal to Obama by pushing “Great Healthcare Plan” after having supported the dismantling of vaccine programs leading to a growing measles problem in the U.S.

And all of this after trashing the global economy and foreign relations.
by muvlon | 2026-01-22 10:07:14+00:00
I actually love this about Linux. The syscall API is much better than libc (both the one defined by POSIX and libc as it actually exists on different Unixen). No errno (which requires weird and inefficient TLS bullshit), no hooks like atfork/atexit/etc., no locales, no silly non-reentrant functions using global variables, no dlopen/dlclose. Just the actual OS interface. Languages that aren't as braindead as C can have their own wrappers around this and skip all that nonsense.

Also, there are syscalls which are basically not possible to directly expose as C functions, because they mess with things that the C runtime considers invariant. An example would be `SYS_clone3`. This is an immensely useful syscall, and glibc uses it for spawning threads these days. But it cannot be called directly from C, you need platform-specific assembly code around it.
by SllX | 2026-01-22 10:07:16+00:00
The “Unix Wars” battle lines were drawn in 1988 with the formation of the X/Open Group and Unix International, the same year Bell Labs put together the 10th Edition’s manual, more or less demarcating its release according to their own conventions even if it wasn’t sold nor distributed. Their next project was Plan 9.

Incidentally this was also the year of the last major version of AT&T’s System V, System V Release 4. There would be a couple more minor releases after that, but there was never a System V Release 5.

> The ideal system may not have existed, but a lot of people saw the potential of the flawed heaven in there. Including Stallman and Torvalds.

I don’t think Stallman nor Torvalds ever saw anything so romantic in UNIX. You could ask them, but it doesn’t jive with well anything in the historical record.

> We have a much better "unix" now than we ever had with "UNIX".

We have better operating systems, yes, and for a price and some elbow grease, some of them can even use the UNIX trademark which checks a box for some people who might care about that sort of thing.
by antonvs | 2026-01-22 10:07:17+00:00
I remember paying something like $400-500 for Glockenspiel C++ for MS-DOS, which was based on AT&T's cfront and compiled to C code. Not long after that, Turbo C++ and Zortech C++ made things a lot easier, since they didn't compile through C, like cfront did. Those were in the $150-200 range, iirc. I also remember paying for PC-YACC from Abraxas, something like $400.
by ofalkaed | 2026-01-22 10:07:41+00:00
ChatGPT is pretty good at correcting my mistakes. Give it a snippet of not quite working code with no explanation and it almost always correctly identifies what I am trying to do and explains where I went wrong. Its corrected code almost never works but its explanation of why my code failed gets me my answer and that is what I really want. A year ago it could not help me in the slightest, it has improved quite a bit. The biggest issue with AI and APL seems to be that it does not quite understand the differences between the various versions of APL and seems to view APL2, Dyalog and GnuAPL as all the same language.

Edit: It probably would be useless to someone at all competent in APL and whose problems are more complex than their own failings.
by adrian_b | 2026-01-22 10:07:45+00:00
True. Due to its lack of verbosity, APL is not at all forgiving for any substitution or transposition in its symbols, which can cause great differences in program output, so it is quite improbable for LLMs to generate a working program, unless it is identical with one from its training set.

What I have said matches exactly what another poster said about his experience in using a LLM with APL: "Its corrected code almost never works".

The LLM recognizes the problem that must be solved by the code, but it fails to generate the right APL symbol string.

I doubt that here a coding agent that attempts to verify the generated code by compiling it can help, because the LLM will generate eventually some syntactically-correct symbol string, but which will implement a different function than desired.

Only a complete feedback loop, with a battery of varied tests for the executable program produced by the generated code, which can verify if it really implements the desired functionality, can be used to filter the results for a working program.

APL is greatly superior to almost all programming languages that are popular today, for writing expressions involving arrays (this includes expressions that do not involve arrays in other languages, but which could be made simpler by using arrays in APL).

However, the original APL has defects, due mainly to the fact that it was an incomplete programming language, e.g. when compared to the other contemporaneous IBM language, i.e. PL/I.

What one needs is a programming language with modern program structures, data types and data type definition facilities, but also with an expression syntax matching the power of APL expressions.

The fact that in 2026 most programmers continue tho write "for" loops for handling arrays, instead of using array expressions like it was possible in 1966 in APL, 60 years ago, seems an aberration of history. Even in the 1966 PL/I one could use array expressions, even if only expressions that were much simpler than those of APL.

Using symbols instead of keywords, like in APL, is not cryptic for anyone who uses such a language regularly. It is cryptic for those who have not used them. The English-based keywords are somewhat less cryptic only for English speakers, and even for them they can be misleading before they learn their correct meanings.
by kachapopopow | 2026-01-22 10:08:18+00:00
I mean I think this is okay I can't do math in my head at all and it hasn't stopped me from solving mathematical problems. You might not be able to write code, but you are still the primary problem solver (for now).

I have actually been improving in other fields instead like design and general cleanliness of the code, future extensability and bug prediction.

My brain is not 'normal' either so your mileage might vary.
by belatwing | 2026-01-22 10:09:13+00:00
Rome is best experienced at a leisurely pace.

The Colosseum and Roman Forum are must-see landmarks. Arriving early or late in the day avoids crowds. Trastevere offers charming streets, local bars, and authentic trattorias for evenings.

Vatican City requires planning. Booking early entrance tickets allows you to see the museums and St. Peter’s Basilica without long waits. Villa Borghese and its gardens provide calm and beauty away from busy streets.

Neighborhood exploration is key. Walking through small streets and squares reveals Rome beyond the tourist spots.
by richrichardsson | 2026-01-22 10:09:26+00:00
> Calculators do do arithmetic and if you ask me to do the kind of calculations I had to do in high school by hand today I wouldnt be able to

I got scared by how awfully my juniour (middle? 5-11) school mathematics had slipped when helping my 9 year old boy with his homework yesterday.

I literally couldn't remember how to carry the 1 when doing subtractions of 3 digit numbers! Felt literally idiotic having to ask an LLM for help. :(
by skissane | 2026-01-22 10:10:09+00:00
> Your argument basically is a professional motte and bailey fallacy.

No it isn't. A "motte-and-bailey fallacy" is where you have two versions of your position, one which makes broad claims but which is difficult to defend, the other which makes much narrower claims but which is much easier to justify, and you equivocate between them. I'm not doing that.

A "companion-in-the-guilt" argument is different. It is taking an argument against the objectivity of ethics, and then turning it around against something else – knowledge, logic, rationality, mathematics, etc – and then arguing that if you accept it as a valid argument against the objectivity of ethics, then to be consistent and avoid special pleading you must accept as valid some parallel argument against the objectivity of that other thing too.

> And you cannot conclude objectivity by consensus.

But all knowledge is by consensus. Even scientific knowledge is by consensus. There is no way anyone can individually test the validity of every scientific theory. Consensus isn't guaranteed to be correct, but then again almost nothing is – and outside of that narrow range of issues with which we have direct personal experience, we don't have any other choice.

> I argue that you DO need to answer the deep problems in mathematics to prove that 1+1=2, even if it feels objective- that's precisely why Principa Mathematica spent over 100 pages proving that.

Principia Mathematica was (to a significant degree) a dead-end in the history of mathematics. Most practicing mathematicians have rejected PM's type theory in favour of simpler axiomatic systems such as ZF(C). Even many professional type theorists will quibble with some of the details of Whitehead and Russell's type theory, and argue there are superior alternatives. And you are effectively assuming a formalist philosophy of mathematics, which is highly controversial, many reject, and few would consider "proven".
by lighthouse1212 | 2026-01-22 10:10:33+00:00
We've been using constitutional documents in system prompts for autonomous agent work. One thing we've noticed: prose that explains reasoning ('X matters because Y') generalizes better than rule lists ('don't do X, don't do Y'). The model seems to internalize principles rather than just pattern-match to specific rules.

The assistant-axis research you mention does suggest this steering matters - we've seen it operationally over months of sessions.
by jaynamburi | 2026-01-22 10:11:13+00:00
Microsoft has publicly confirmed it’s the company behind the controversial data center proposal in Lowell Charter Township, Michigan a project tied to roughly $500M–$1B in investment on a 237-acre site near Interstate-96. Locals have pushed back on rezoning, energy use and infrastructure transparency, prompting Microsoft to pause the rezoning process and commit to more community engagement before moving forward. This episode echoes broader tensions over hyperscale data centers in Michigan, where multiple towns are grappling with the trade-offs between tech capital inflows, power grid load and local resource impacts amid a surge in AI-driven cloud build outs.
by hshdhdhj4444 | 2026-01-22 10:11:27+00:00
Iranians have a 5+ millennia culture of being highly educated, technical and creative.

That expertise wasn’t just gonna disappear in a couple of decades.

And yes, the Iranian regime is brutal and terrible. This was one time the opposition was strong enough that they may have had a chance and yet our fellow in chief decided to launch incendiary words, which only allowed the regime to paint the opposition as western funded, while not providing any actual support (there’s a reason Israel, which is at least led by competent leadership, kept quiet about the protests in Iran because they understand how their words of support would undermine them).
by ChrisMarshallNY | 2026-01-22 10:11:41+00:00
> SwiftUI is a joy to work with and performance is great.

It really is, unless you want to draw outside the lines. If I want to do anything that isn’t explicitly in the SwiftUI model, it becomes Kludgeopolis, very quickly. There’s some things that can only be done with UIViewRepresentable, which I consider to be a bit of a “white flag.”

Also, because of the way that the rules are written, it’s difficult for me to segregate areas of functionality into extension blocks (like I do, with UIKit). I tend to have fairly long blocks of code, which is less than optimal.

But the performance really is excellent, and I can often get a lot done, with much less code, than UIKit.

Never worked with hybrid systems, like React, so the same might be true for them.
by jychang | 2026-01-22 10:11:50+00:00
You're conflating "evidence" for a theory with "what a theory explains". Germ theory provides a unifying framework that explains why hand-washing, sterilization, quarantine, and antibiotics all work, and allows us to predict which novel interventions will succeed; we're not just looking at germs under a fancy microscope. Before germ theory, miasma theory also "worked" in the sense that people could list downstream effects ("bad smells correlate with disease"), but it couldn't generate reliable predictions or explain why certain practices succeeded while others failed!

Moral frameworks function the same way. Without one, you have a disconnected list of "things that provoke disgust" and "things that get you punished"... but no way to reason about novel cases or conflicts between values, or explain why these various intuitions cluster together. Why does "hunting babies" feel similar to "torturing prisoners" but different from "eating chicken"? A moral framework provides the structure; raw disgust does not.

For child sacrifice: humans also once believed disease came from evil spirits, that the earth was the center of the universe, that heavier objects fall faster. Does the existence of these errors make physics and biology "redundant frameworks"? Obviously not. it means humans can be wrong, and can reason from false premises.
Notice that even cultures practicing child sacrifice typically had strict rules about when, how, and which children could be sacrificed. This suggests they recognized the moral weight of taking a child's life! They just had false beliefs about gods, afterlives, and cosmic bargains that led them to different conclusions. They weren't operating without moral frameworks; they were operating with moral frameworks plus false empirical/metaphysical beliefs.

More importantly, your framework cannot account for moral progress! If morality is just "what currently provokes disgust," then the abolition of child sacrifice wasn't progress. It was merely a change in fashion, no different from skinny jeans becoming not skinny. But you clearly do think those cultures were wrong (you're citing child sacrifice as a historical horror, not a neutral anthropological curiosity). That normative judgment requires exactly the moral framework you're calling redundant.
by WesolyKubeczek | 2026-01-22 10:11:57+00:00
> I ran into a kernel panic specific to my macbook's hardware. How do I compile a new kernel with some extra debug printlns and boot it to figure out the panic?

1. You can find panic logs in Console.app. macOS writes them into NVRAM and stows away into files on its next boot. That will give you the process and kernel extension that was the culprit, and a stack trace.

2. sudo nvram boot-args="debug=0x122" or something like this will increase log output from the kernel. Those debug prints are probably there already. You can even attach a debugger running from somewhere else, presumably over Thunderbolt on newer machines.
by dathinab | 2026-01-22 10:12:04+00:00
Interesting Side Note: bleached/chlorinated chicken

The things which makes this a no go in the EU is ironically not the chlorination per-se, but the fact that chlorination is needed.

Like basically the EU thinks the way the US allows farmers to keep and raise chickens is so bad/unsanitary that chlorinating them isn't sufficient to make them safe for (repeated) consumption.

Which makes sense given that some of the things involved can lead to (non exhaustive list):

- non healthy chemicals _in_ the meat, not just on it

- increase in parasite, bacteria or virus infection _in_ the meat

- increased chance bacteria have some form of antibiotic resistance or other mutations

- not wanting to support "that" level of animal abuse (which is not just illegal but criminal in many EU countries, but also that doesn't mean that EU countries are that much better, they just drew a line on the level of animal abuse they tolerate which is in a different place then the line the US drew, but both are far away from the line animal protection organizations would drew)
by tlb | 2026-01-22 10:12:05+00:00
You could launch some missiles, blow a few satellites into smithereens, and gradually over the next few months they would take out the others. That's a poor kind of war weapon. An effective weapon is one where you can inflict damage continuously, and are able to stop immediately upon some concession. If you can't offer to stop in return for concessions, you won't get any.
by arjunchint | 2026-01-22 10:12:29+00:00
We are a society of adults and complex individuals that don't need to be moralized to or nanny'ed.

You can easily bring up bribing and retaliation as excuses why we shouldn't have jury trials either. These were never really fundamental problems with open democracy, like Andrew Jackson didn't bribe everyone in the country to become president.

TBH if a politician offered me $100 to listen to his pitch, I would take it but I would still vote based on the thousands of dollars of lifetime impact of their policies on my income and assets.
by senko | 2026-01-22 10:12:39+00:00
I don't mean to say it's trivial. I'm sure there are many hard problems such as the one you mention - though that particular one is more "cleaning the index" part which might work on top of the open common corpus.

But my impression is that it's more a question of scale and engineering time than having to invent something new.

(disclaimer: I also never worked on a internet-scale search system, maybe I'm very off the bat here as well).
by m-schuetz | 2026-01-22 10:12:41+00:00
Oh nice, that's good to know. Yes, those clones sites are also instantly on my block list, as well as Userbenchmark, sites with AI-generated "info" pages (if I want AI answers, I'll just ask ChatGPT), sites that won't work without third-part cookies, low-quality game guide sites that were evidently made for users to visit, but not actually to help them, etc.
by DrBazza | 2026-01-22 10:13:47+00:00
> Why is VS code the defacto answer nowadays?

For what I do, there's no reasonable alternative at the moment.

I'm sure someone will correct me, but it's the only editor that correctly (for some definition of correct) allows remote editing and devcontainers:

[desktop OS] -> ssh -> [dest box]

[desktop OS] -> [devcontainer]

[desktop OS] -> ssh -> [dest box] -> [devcontainer]

[desktop OS] -> ssh (jumphost) -> [dest box] -> [devcontainer]

I won't name and shame other editors (or IDEs), but either they simply can't do that, or their performance is absolutely, shockingly, abysmal.