MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by ivan7237d | 2026-01-01 17:14:16+00:00
Author here. Good questions.

About the two error channels: what I tried to do is to make it really easy to not use typed errors when you don't need them. In that case your promise is typed as `LazyPromise<Value, never>`.

Signals is a reactive primitive that has been initially introduced in SolidJS framework and have then made their way to other frameworks like Angular.
Ask HN: Which cloud service to use for overpass API?
by nasaeclipse | 2026-01-01 17:14:50+00:00
I'm working on a side project that uses the overpass API. You can see this here: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Overpass_API

I have a local, dockerized version running and am running a map of Japan with all its features. This takes up about 80 gigs of space.

So... what cloud service is best to use for testing purposes? I'm hoping it doesn't run too expensive, but not sure.

If anyone knows alternatives to overpass api, I'm all ears. I'm basically using it for creating routes and retreiving features along those routes to create a 2D representation for fun.
by cycomanic | 2026-01-01 17:16:00+00:00
That's interesting, but in my experience cycling groups are the most social individual sports groups (even more social than many team sports even). Even the performance focused groups tend to stop at the coffee shop for some banter after the ride, and some less performance oriented groups seem to be more focused on the coffee than even the ride itself.

Are you talking about road cycling or mountain biking? My experience is definitely with the former. I think it helps that in group rides you automatically end up riding next to someone new and chatting along. Easily breaks the ice.
by hu3 | 2026-01-01 17:16:01+00:00
Great writeup. Thanks for talking the time to organise and share.

It's tempting to use this in projects that use PHP.

Is it useable with a corpus of like 1.000 3kb markdown files? And 10.000 files?

Can I also index PHP files so that searches include function and class names? Perhaps comments?

How much ram and disk memory we would be talking about?

And the speed?

My first goal would to index a PHP project and its documentation so that an LLM agent could perform semantic search using my MCP tool.
by globular-toast | 2026-01-01 17:17:22+00:00
I own several and have ridden thousands upon thousands of miles.

When I got my first bike as a kid, a cheap "mountain bike" with 24" wheels that probably weighed more than my current road bike, I was at maximum happiness. I was not at only 40% happiness because it didn't have a carbon frame or a Di2 groupset from the future. I was at 100.

Later when I got my first road bike I was at 100% happiness again. But nothing can make me happier than I was with that first, heavy bicycle-shaped object. It might equal it but it's impossible to surpass.
by AnotherGoodName | 2026-01-01 17:17:32+00:00
If you had to pay US/EU prices for a Tesla vs BYD you'd go with BYD no question. But the majority of Teslas are made in China and when put a Chinese made Tesla alongside a Chinese made BYD it's a coin flip.

So as an Australian I'd roughly rate them the same with BYD high end matching Tesla's high end and BYD having a low end that Tesla doesn't compete with (the Atto which is ~USD $15000 for a small electric hatchback has no Tesla equivalent).
by toomuchtodo | 2026-01-01 17:17:40+00:00
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Top_Five_Regrets_of_the_Dy...

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson

“Art is the proper task of life” -- Nietzsche

"Art is to console those who are broken by life." -- Vincent van Gogh

Broadly speaking, creation is the meaning of life, not work, although some creation could be considered work. Survival is table stakes to achieve self actualization and a chance at finding meaning and contributing to the commons during a lifetime.
by firesteelrain | 2026-01-01 17:17:53+00:00
1. Debian is local first via client side cache

2. apt repositories are cryptographically signed, centrally controlled, and legally accountable.

3. apt search is understood to be approximate, distro-scoped, and slow-moving. Results change slowly and rarely break scripts. PyPI search rankings change frequently by necessity

4. Turning PyPI search into an apt-like experience would require distributing a signed, periodically refreshed global metadata corpus to every client. At PyPI’s scale, that is nontrivial in bandwidth, storage, and governance terms

5. apt search works because the repository is curated, finite, and opinionated
by jmulho | 2026-01-01 17:18:16+00:00
I find the goal of perpetual progress in resistance training strange. Yet it seems to be almost universal. If you are not lifting more today than you lifted yesterday, you are a failure. Gains, gains, gains. It is rather obvious that there are genetic limits on strength and size. Everyone is somewhere on their own spectrum of potential. Someone who doesn’t resistance train at all is likely near the bottom of their potential. Someone who works out 5 days a week, never misses leg day, eats enough protein (1g per kg in Europe, 1g per lb in the US) is likely near the top of their potential. Living in higher and higher ranges of your potential requires exponentially more ongoing effort, dedication/discipline/sacrifice, blood/sweat/tears/pain. Say my absolute maximum genetic potential in exercise X is to lift 100kg. Say I never do exercise X, so my current maximum is 40k. With some effort, like training 3 days a week for 4 months, I might get this to 60kg. Perhaps I could maintain that gain for decades by continuing to train 2 days a week. Or, I could keep pushing and maybe I could get it to 80kg in a few years. With an absolute all out effort, applying all the knowledge of the latest studies and perfect discipline, I could temporarily push it into the high 90s. Everybody can do what they want to do, but it seems to me that seeking the minimum effective dose of resistance training to look and feel good, and be strong enough to do what you like or need to do, is a reasonable approach. No need to push for more gains after that.
by websiteapi | 2026-01-01 17:18:32+00:00
tail scale drop is much more complicated than literally copying and pasting on iDevice. that's literally all you do, no setup, nothing and this is just one example for one type of action.

https://tailscale.com/kb/1106/taildrop

look at all of that, lol. iDevice is literally copy and paste any file or text. the end - you don't even have to set it up.
by toast0 | 2026-01-01 17:18:34+00:00
Yes, but console vendors generally prefer not to allow downgrades.

So if v1 is signed by key A, v2 is signed by key B and invalidates key A; a console that installs v2 wouldn't be able to install v1 after, but that's not a problem for Sony.

But, I'm not sure how many companies would be able to manage their keys properly to ensure that someone with access to key A doesn't have access to key B.

If these are assymetric key pairs and the device side key was extracted from the device... Switching keys wouldn't help, and it's not a huge deal by itself --- having the device side key doesn't allow you to make a firmware image the device would accept.
by aflukasz | 2026-01-01 17:19:14+00:00
But that moves the burden of maintenance from the provider of the service to its users (and/or partially to intermediary in form of "skills registry" of sorts, which apparently is a thing now).

So maybe a hybrid approach would make more sense? Something like /.well-known/skills/README.md exposed and owned by the providers?

That is assuming that the whole idea of "skills" makes sense in practice.
by skeeter2020 | 2026-01-01 17:19:17+00:00
This is a parallel argument to the whole "to big to fail" nonsense and not really in line with the famous comparison of a single person to a machine. Company strategies are typically created by small groups of people who - especially in this case - know exactly what the impact and longer-reach implications of their decisions will be. It is entirely reasonable to hold the people of any organization accountable for the policies they enact via that organization.
by scubbo | 2026-01-01 17:19:27+00:00
A fascinating and eye-opening read.

One of my intentions for this coming year is to critically examine and (if appropriate) alter or dispel some preconceptions I have. To that end, I'm curious about this part:

> You don’t have to convince the elites or the populace that growth is good or that entrepreneurs could be celebrated. Meanwhile in Europe, perhaps 15 percent of the electorate actively believes in degrowth. I feel it’s impossible to convince Europeans to act in their self interest.

Can someone elaborate on how growth is aligned with the general interest? To my mind, although growth could _theoretically_ lead to a "lifting all boats" improvement across the board, in practice it inevitably leads to greater concentration of wealth for the elite while the populace deals with negative externalities like pollution, congestion, and advertizing. Degrowth, on the other hand, would directly reduce those externalities; and, if imposed via progressive taxation, would have further societal benefits via funded programs.

I'd very much like to hear the counter-argument. It would be pleasant and convenient to believe that growth and industry are Good, Actually, so that I needn't feel guilty for contributing to them or for furthering my own position - but (sadly!) I can't just make myself believe something without justification.
by eighthave | 2026-01-01 17:19:35+00:00
There are two key concepts at play here: "least authority" and "infrastructure as code". The buildserver host is sensitive security-wise, but easy to set up an instance. We have multiple instances running, and spin up new ones from time to time. For production infrastructure, there should only be enough people with access to it as are needed to maintain it. No more. If a sysadmin goes rogue, we can always just spin up a new instance elsewhere with a new maintainer.
by potato3732842 | 2026-01-01 17:19:59+00:00
If everyone lost money nobody would do it. Are they losing money because it's fundamentally unworkable or because it's illegal which makes it hard to do in a "professional" manner and therefore incurs efficiency penalties?

Your average 22yo isn't doing something like this with his buddies. Between the equipment, expertise, consumables, etc, etc, it's clearly the kind of thing that's organized and financially backed by someone (i.e. like most small business). So while most may lose money, we don't know if it's a "send out three teams and one winner pays for two losers" type situation.

The way I see it these mammoth bits are far more likely to be preserved if used as home decor or whatever somewhere in China than if they wind up rotting away when (let's be real here, probably not an "if") the permafrost melts or in some mine's tailings pile when some other industry comes through. If this was all above the table there'd be more ancillary industry around it too. Sure the tusk might be cost prohibitive but why can't every highschool biology department have a "worthless" femur or jaw or backbone segment? Oh, because it's illegal so "less profitable stuff" (i.e. same reason the cartel doesn't move low density product) like that gets discarded, that's why.
by charlie0 | 2026-01-01 17:20:09+00:00
I'm with you all the way. It's always much easier to strike up conversations with foreigners on my travels (or the locals) abroad than it is with people from the US, even when abroad. I was on vacation taking a tour when another American family joined. It didn't take long until they started to talk about politics. We could have talked about so many other things, but that's the reality for the vast majority of Americans. Politics is the only sport left and all consuming for most here. The worst part is like you said, they are rooting simply for their own team and aren't looking for an actual intellectual discussion on anything.
by tedivm | 2026-01-01 17:20:19+00:00
I think a lot of people in the comments here are missing the point in a lot of ways.

The first is that even if people don't own a record player at the moment doesn't mean that they don't plan on getting one. I have multiple nieces/nephews who got record players (at their request!) this year for Christmas. Briefcase record players are becoming ridiculously more popular. The thing is there's no point in buying a record player if you don't already have some records, and artists are doing a lot more limited prints so sometimes you need to buy immediately to be sure you're going to get one.

My wife and I bought a new sound system in 2024, and we decided to include a record player. We have used it way more we had expected to. We still have streaming services (Tidal) but listening to a record has a ton of benefits. There's the fact that the entire album itself is an organized experience, not just random tracks, and the tactile nature of it is really appealing. The albums themselves are like pieces of artwork in a way that a CD or screensaver would never be.

It's also nice knowing that the artist I'm buying from is getting real money from the purchase, unlike the pennies they get from streaming.
by InitialLastName | 2026-01-01 17:20:22+00:00
Lots of explanations with power here:

- There's a hard edge to the distribution that isn't far from 24 (I'd expect relatively few sub-18-year-old YC founders, but more 31+-year-olds)

- Older founders (with more experience, larger networks and less life flexibility) aren't a good fit for incubators.
by hunter2_ | 2026-01-01 17:20:37+00:00
The loudness war (in the usual sense of the phrase) on CDs was to not seem weak against other releases. The loudness war (if I may use that phrase very liberally now) on analog media is to not seem weak against hiss and surface noise. The desire to compress and limit dynamic range does exist for both, but for these different reasons.

However, a huge difference is that on CDs you're up against a fixed maximum (0 dBFS) so all peaks are equal, which is fatiguing; on vinyl you're up against the adjacent groove, so your maximum amplitude any given moment depends on the amplitude of things in the recent past and near future! Ways to optimize for this are prevalent, amazingly, and the result is less fatiguing.
by runako | 2026-01-01 17:21:24+00:00
> dumping cheap supply wherever they can to secure market share, all enabled by heavy state subsidies

Assuming for a moment this is more true for China than for other countries. Why would the average Canadian prefer to pay more for their next car versus having a similar car subsidized by the Chinese taxpayer? Most Canadians do not work in the auto industry. Further, the protectionism practiced in the EU/US/Canada is not likely to be successful long-term, meaning those auto industries are doomed.

Best path forward is to let in competition, make the domestics stronger, and let consumers get cheaper cars in the meanwhile. Provide some additional temporary support if necessary. (This is more or less how the US absorbed Japanese and then Korean cars.)
by array_key_first | 2026-01-01 17:21:30+00:00
Pornhub is always age gated everywhere in the world. Because internet access typically involves you to prove you're an adult.

Just like the liquor store, verification happens at point of sale. Past that, all bets are off.

If I got buy a beer, verify my age, and then go home and give it to a kid, there's nothing anyone can reasonably be expected to do about that. Similarly, if I buy internet access, and then turn around and just give it to my kid, there's nothing anyone can reasonably be expected to do about that.

We don't expect the store clerk to follow you home and watch you drink the beer.
by palata | 2026-01-01 17:21:37+00:00
> I'd even argue that the miner hiding his block is in a worse position.

That's just an intuition. You keep saying "having a headstart doesn't help, because those are independent probabilities". Which is wrong: having a headstart does help. How much does it help, and is it worth it? That's the whole question. And it would require more work to answer it.
by OhMeadhbh | 2026-01-01 17:22:34+00:00
SKREEEEE... BLORT BLORT SKREEEE.... CACHUNK BLORT SKREEE...

At least you got to experience the carol of the modem tones.

A few years ago I used the 1200 baud connect sequence as a phone ring tone. Everyone chuckled, my child asked "what the he'll was that, I think I heard it in a movie."
by HarHarVeryFunny | 2026-01-01 17:22:39+00:00
I wonder how many people choosing to write books, are expecting it to be a profitable use of their time, and make more than pocket money?

The article mentions the publisher saying that their median book sells in the single digit thousands, so half of the books are selling less - perhaps hundreds rather than thousands. If you are making a 15% royalty on a $50 book selling a few hundred, or few thousand copies, for something that probably took a year or more to write, then this is obviously more about the satisfaction of doing it than being a worthwhile financial endeavor.

Are most people choosing to write books fully expecting that it may only make a few thousand dollars?
by drweevil | 2026-01-01 17:23:55+00:00
> ...when our Fourth Amendment rights are eroded, there is no evidence or piece of plastic that will suffice to overcome an officer's "reasonable suspicion" once the government decides you're a target.

This is the real issue here. The government is choosing to act in bad faith, and no legislated law can prevent this if the courts fail to enforce the law.
by lazarus01 | 2026-01-01 17:24:14+00:00
Many good observations here. I had time to read 50% through.

>> I think I’m particularly suspicious of community, because as a writer and pedantic arsehole on the internet, I value truth-seeking behaviour. I want people to think and say things that are true, not just things that they have to believe for the sake of keeping their community happy.

Unfortunately, this is what happens with every group of people.

Our individual realities are highly subjective. A group of people who are part of a community construct a shared reality that they can all accept. If you don’t contribute to the shared reality, you are treated as someone who is problematic.

As humans we are social creatures. In our evolution, we develop cognitive systems that help us thrive in social structures. One system is called the social protection system. This system gets activated when we sense tension in relationships and sends a signal of fear to the subject that they risk being separated from a social group. This fear motivates people to maintain connection. So some people are intrinsically motivated by fear to maintain their status, sometimes unconsciously.

Our self esteem comes from two things, relationships and mastery. Healthy self esteem comes from connection to people who accept you for who you are, where you feel visible and accepted with your good and bad traits.

If you have a few people in your life with this type of connection, you will have a healthy social foundation and rely less on belonging to a group.

Groups are valuable in that the human experience is complicated. The best source of information comes directly from other humans and their experiences overcoming complexity.

However, I do agree with the author where certain groups can be problematic, particularly engaging in things like tribalism.

Establishing good self esteem by keeping a few people close to you who see you and accept you as a flawed human is key. The other part is to immerse yourself in activities where you develop mastery and maintain a connection to the activities that are intrinsically motivating and satisfying without distraction from external signals.

I learned this by studying the science of self actualization, from the research done by Scott Barry Kaufman and his book Transcend. He’s a humanistic psychologist who was inspired by Abraham Maslow, one of the founders of humanistic psychology.
by wincy | 2026-01-01 17:24:32+00:00
Fun fact, the Nintendo Switch blows fuses [0] when they do a patch that’s for security/jailbreaking. If I recall there’s something like 12 or 16 fuses they can employ over the life of the product to ensure you can’t rollback updates that prevent piracy. Nvidia builds these fuses into the board.

So if you’ve blown 4 fuses you can’t do a patch that requires only 2 fuses to have blown, it’s a pretty wild solution.

Edit: it’s actually 22 fuses

[0] https://switchbrew.org/wiki/Fuses
by iamnothere | 2026-01-01 17:24:48+00:00
Human experience is broader than you can imagine. Through reading, I regularly encounter new ideas and concepts that I never could have derived from my interactions with others. Through meditation and contemplation I have experienced strange and fascinating modes of consciousness that are available to anyone willing to sit still for a while. Casual travel has led me to an endless number of beautiful empty places, places whose very lack of humans made me feel completely free. Making physical things as a hobby has made me deeply satisfied in a way I never have felt when dealing with people.

None of this has required much in the way of socializing, in fact excessive socializing would actively interfere with these activities.

I reject your implication that a highly social life is better than a rich, mostly solitary life. It’s different, but not better.
by JoeCastrom | 2026-01-01 17:24:50+00:00
I built MCP Chat Studio as a local, Postman-style UI for testing and debugging
Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers during development.

The goal was to quickly explore tools, inspect protocol flows, run scenarios,
and catch breaking changes without embedding the server into a full chat app.

In v2 I added things like:
- A workspace canvas for organizing test panels
- Visual workflows and scenario runners
- Tool/schema inspection and diffing
- Mock MCP servers for offline testing

It’s still very much a developer tool, and I’m actively iterating on it.

Repo + demo GIFs:
https://github.com/JoeCastrom/mcp-chat-studio

I’d love feedback from anyone building MCP servers or similar tooling.
by CamperBob2 | 2026-01-01 17:24:51+00:00
The problem I see, over and over, is that people pose poorly-formed questions to the free ChatGPT and Google models, laugh at the resulting half-baked answers that are often full of errors and hallucinations, and draw conclusions about the technology as a whole.

Either that, or they tried it "last year" or "a while back" and have no concept of how far things have gone in the meantime.

It's like they wandered into a machine shop, cut off a finger or two, and concluded that their grandpa's hammer and hacksaw were all anyone ever needed.
by Alive-in-2025 | 2026-01-01 17:25:24+00:00
I agree we are not supposed to be a "papers please" country but we are now with Justice kavanaugh's recent ruling, now called the kavanaugh stop. We lost that freedom until or unless the supreme court has a new interpretation to fix this.

On a recent episode of the slate legal podcast they said the SC was trying to figure out a way to reverse this without admitting mistake. My cynical take is kavanaugh thought this would only apply to immigrants, not "real Americans " like him.
by bopbopbop7 | 2026-01-01 17:25:38+00:00
2022/2023: "Next year software engineering is dead"

2024: "Now this time for real, software engineering is dead in 6 months, AI CEO said so"

2025: "I know a guy who knows a guy who built a startup with an LLM in 3 hours, software engineering is dead next year!"

What will be the cope for you this year?
by threethirtytwo | 2026-01-01 17:25:52+00:00
I don’t think the path was ever exponential but your claim here is almost as if the slow down hit an asymptote like wall.

Most of the improvements are intangible. Can we truly say how much more reliable the models are? We barely have quantitative measurements on this so it’s all vibes and feels. We don’t even have a baseline metric for what AGI is and we invalidated the Turing test also based on vibes and feels.

So my argument is that part of the slow down is in itself an hallucination because the improvement is not actually measurable or definable outside of vibes.