MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by robomartin | 2026-01-13 19:21:06+00:00
> Translation: they're expensive, and getting them working involves jumping through hoops more complex than simply getting boards off Amazon and launching VS Code. They aren't equivalent, and the sneering isn't helping.

Who's sneering?

Complexity is a relative assessment. Bringing up 8, 16 and 32 bit MCUs/SoC's has never in history been easier. Decades ago we used to have to bring up our boards from nothing, sometimes even having to write our own RTOS, boot code, firmware update code, etc. Today? A high school kid could do it with most chips. Go check out the STM32 Cube ecosystem for a glimpse.

I do understand that this is still likely daunting for hobbyists. I am not talking about arduino-level hobby users. That is not my world at all. However, understand that the commercial/industrial market is orders of magnitude larger than the hobby markets, and the rules and requirements are different.

> It is failing to understand this that opens the door to DJI and Bambu, who unsurprisingly prioritize user experience and predictability, which is a major factor in why in open competition they keep wiping the floor with everyone.

Are you responding to someone else's comment? This has nothing to do with what I was addressing. I am talking about chips, and, in particular, SoC (System on Chip) solutions for WiFi applications. These are components used by engineers to design products. You are talking about finished products. You might as well add blender and microwave oven manufacturers to that list.
by d3rockk | 2026-01-13 19:22:33+00:00
So there's really accurate ways to detect "pure AI".
The AI music detectors out there are mainly looking out for production things:

-a flatness to the EQ spectrum that you wouldn't get out a properly mixed and produced piece of audio

-no good stem separation, so no per-source eq (relates to above point)

-change BPM mid-song

-unnatural warbles at the end of every phrase

-vocals will have these weird croaky voice cracks, or sound scratchier and raspier

There definitely are tell-tale signs of "pure AI" in audio, but it becomes a lot more nuanced when any sort of secondary mixing/mastering/compression happens (which is the case 90% is the time in the real world- anything on YouTube/Spotify get's compressed).
by dennis_jeeves2 | 2026-01-13 19:22:43+00:00
>Far more Chinese think that their country is a democracy and the government serves the people than in the US.

>Whether this is objectively true is another question, but from their perspective, that's what it is.

Correct, as a general rule, slaves think more highly of their slave owners, compared to people about their politicians/leaders who were elected by them.

( what happens behind the scenes is this: the slaves/dissidents who are rebellious are killed off by the dictator - only the most ardent supporters survive)
by OptionOfT | 2026-01-13 19:22:56+00:00
> It's pretty clear that the security models designed into operating systems never considered networked systems. Given that most operating systems were designed and deployed before the internet, this should not be a surprise.

I think Active Directory comes pretty close. I remember the days where we had an ASP.NET application where we signed in with our Kerberos credentials, which flowed to the application, and the ASP.NET app connected to MSSQL using my delegated credentials.

When the app then uploaded my file to a drive, it was done with my credentials, if I didn't have permission it would fail.
by bigbadfeline | 2026-01-13 19:22:58+00:00
I'll be honest, when I see another "Hate Firefox" fest, I ask only one question "Quo bono?"

> I haven't seen anything from Mozilla in recent years that makes me trust this has a future.

As opposed to what? Chrome? What's the future there?

The various Firefox derivatives will die a quick death if Firefox dies. The strings attached to Chrome derivatives make them pointless. So, what's left? What are we discussing here? There's no alternative, it's that simple.

On the other hand, joining the hate-fest on various forums cannot and does not help Mozilla to find a better way. One is peeved by this, another by that, go figure... I'd call it childish if it wasn't so damaging.
by andrepd | 2026-01-13 19:23:24+00:00
What in the world... Both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have reported on the escalation of repression in Iran. BBC, NYTimes, WPost, and well, virtually every major media outlet in the World has been reporting on Iran at least since the major escalations around 5-6 January.

That's just such a bald-faced set of obvious lies that can be debunked with a 5-second google search... I struggle to see what your aim is in all this.
by cadamsdotcom | 2026-01-13 19:23:29+00:00
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. Sam Altman despite his flaws played a key role in kickstarting the capital war that’s led to the insane investment in infrastructure that’ll carry us to a new age once the hype dies down.

He created and continues to create an atmosphere for innovation inside OpenAI that showed the way for the fast-followers.

He lit a fire under the ass of Google for gods sake.

Whatever he did or didn’t invent, he made a ton of invention possible.

Where to from here is uncertain but without sama maybe ChatGPT didn’t happen the same way - or maybe it crashed and people shrugged. Maybe in the other timeline that leads to another AI winter. But one thing is for certain, without sama the whole thing would’ve been a lot smaller.
by b1085436 | 2026-01-13 19:23:37+00:00
I genuinely don't understand the "permissioned data" assumption. Presumably, all the current models that were trained on illegitimate scraping of vastly larger sources will always have the upper hand (in terms of raw power, obviously at the cost of regurgitating evil stuff too), because they just have absorbed way more diverse data in their training. So the models trained on ethical datasets only will not be able to compete, unless they too rely on a common base of "foundational sin" data and just add those datasets as an ethical layer to cover the rotten roots.

Is it really possible to start training from scratch at this stage and compete with the existing models, using only ethical datasets? Hasn't it been established that without the stolen data, those models could not exist or compete?
by lenerdenator | 2026-01-13 19:23:46+00:00
There are still plenty of local papers that run based on subscriptions and ad placements. They're not the big names, but I am willing to bet you could find at least one in your county if you're in the US. There's going to be a relatively small newsroom and a few reporters who do go to public meetings and the like to get the news.

The problem is about 25 years ago, a few main outlets bought up a lot of publications, from small-town papers to larger regional papers, and loaded up on debt to do so, thinking that there would be a good way to get that money back. My regional paper, the KC Star, built a huge printing press building in the middle of downtown, thinking that of course, they'd need this extra capacity. This coincided with the rise of the internet in popular use, and a lot of the traffic went to social media.

These main outlets, and their investors, of course, wanted to make a profit off of their purchase of these publications. You can absolutely run one of those publications in the internet era and cover all of the costs, but if you're expecting unending/ever-increasing growth in returns every 90 days forever, you're going to have a problem. Naturally, that's exactly what the investors expected, and instead of just taking the haircut, they started to gut their investments.

There are classes of institutions in societies that need to exist and can cover their own expenses for the most part. Not everything needs to be a unicorn. That's where we screwed ourselves on local journalism.
by millipede | 2026-01-13 19:23:51+00:00
Events like this show that the Internet is pretty heavily centralized. The original DARPA Internet was supposed to be resilient to stuff like this, but it's clear that the old Internet, and the new Internet, are not the same. We as Internet engineers really need to be better here, and design hardware and software to be ready to handle any errors, even unlikely ones like a state actor breaking things.

It's like installing smoke alarms; no one thinks they need them until they do.
by chasil | 2026-01-13 19:23:51+00:00
The permissions on the parent and lock directory could restrict the access to a specific user and group, but yes, other processes could interfere with this locking if directed to do so.

One condition where this interference is helpful is a crash, where a @reboot entry in the crontab could:

[ -d /your/lockdir ] && rmdir /your/lockdir

You would also not want to place the lock directory in /tmp or otherwise where other users could manipulate (or see) it. In Red Hat, there is a /var/run/lock directory that might be appropriate.

My biggest use case for directory locking in scripts is handling inotify events.
Show HN: MemSky: Bluesky timeline viewer web app that saves where you left off
by memalign | 2026-01-13 19:23:56+00:00
Hi HN!

I created this web app (with PWA support) because the official Bluesky app lacks the one thing I want: to start me at the place I left off in the chronological timeline.

This is intended as a reader, not a full Bluesky client. I use it in conjunction with the Bluesky app or website. Tap the timestamp of a post to open it in Bluesky.

I’ve tried my best to display stable timeline updates that match what the Tweetie app pioneered so long ago: keeping your visual place in the timeline when refreshing. This was tricky to do in a web app… I wrote more about it here[0].

0: https://memalign.github.io/p/memsky.html
by LTL_FTC | 2026-01-13 19:24:06+00:00
Not a musician (dabble with the guitar from time to time but I do absolutely love music) and don’t make music but one of my best friends growing up has been playing instruments forever. He writes songs and song lyrics. He has started a YouTube channel and shares some of the music he makes, and it sounds really great. I am amazed sometimes how great. But he puts in lots of effort to craft these songs and lyrics. They are not “one-shot” prompts.

If we look at this through the lens of making software with ai, which also allows for creativity, blanket bans may keep lots of quality stuff from being made.

How will the tracks be distinguished? Any ai and you’re out?
by cameronh90 | 2026-01-13 19:24:20+00:00
What are we supposed to do to “clean up our city”? I live in one of the worst areas, statistically, for crime and haven’t experienced anything beyond porch piracy and someone trying my car door.

My girlfriend walks to/from the train station daily in the early morning and late night without any trouble and personal safety isn’t even something we spend any time thinking about. Obviously crime happens, but against other comparable large cities it’s only really Tokyo and a few cities in semi-authoritarian countries that seem that much safer to me. Big European cities are about the same and US cities are much worse.

Beyond reporting anything I see, which I do, I’m not sure what kind of cleaning up you expect me to do? Obviously it’s a factor in how I vote, but it’s not even a top 3 issue to be honest.
by dennis_jeeves2 | 2026-01-13 19:24:32+00:00
>I can hear the argument that the Chinese government serves their people better than the US gov. Not necessarily agree with it but it's worth discussing.

Correct, as a general rule (true) slaves think more highly of their slave owners, compared to people about their politicians/leaders who were elected by them.

(what happens behind the scenes is this: the slaves/dissidents who are rebellious are killed off by the dictator - only the most ardent supporters survive)
by jacquesm | 2026-01-13 19:24:40+00:00
Yes, Tanenbaum was right. But it is a hard sell, even today, people just don't seem to get it.

Bluntly: if it isn't secure and correct it shouldn't be used. But companies seem to prefer insecure, incorrect but fast software because they are in competition with other parties and the ones that want to do things right get killed in the market.
by secabeen | 2026-01-13 19:24:45+00:00
Battery swap was and remains really risky for anyone doing it. You're taking a $10k asset, and swapping it for another $10k asset of unknown provenance. Does anyone really want to be in a situation where they purchase a new Tesla with a brand new, max-range battery pack, then swap it once on a road trip and get one that's been used for 300k miles and is at 75% of original capacity?
by saulpw | 2026-01-13 19:24:55+00:00
There are two kinds of work being conflated here.

In The Prophet (1923), Kahlil Gibran writes On Work: "Work is love made visible." This is the kind of work you're talking about.

However, the OP question is "would you still show up to work?" This kind of work is usually for a for-profit company owned by capitalists, with their time controlled by their employer, and their effort disconnected from its impact (the alienation of the worker, per Marx).

It makes total sense that someone would stop "showing up to [someone else's] work" and start developing their own independent work ethic towards their own goals. These two types of "work" are not the same, even if we generally use the same word to describe them.
by Archio | 2026-01-13 19:25:29+00:00
I appreciate your understanding here.

Another way to put it: the point of protesting generally isn't solely to express being upset with an injustice. It's to get some actor/stakeholder - usually one's government - to DO something about the injustice.

Because of this, it's entirely rational to NOT protest with equal opportunity for every injustice that occurs around the world. Those American campus students aren't just protesting to make noise, they are hoping that their government leaders - that DEPEND on their votes - will cease enabling atrocities.

The American government hates Iran with bipartisan support and has it sanctioned to hell and back, I have no idea what I'd protest American leaders to do here?
by mindslight | 2026-01-13 19:25:52+00:00
You made plenty of emotional appeals in your comments. You just made them as assertions of facts ("no legitimate reason", "acting belligerently towards the agents", "serious threat of death or injury"). You even went so far as to bring up the fact that she was protesting as if this indicts rather than exonerates her!

I've had two prior of these threads where I went around in circles tediously refuting these types of emotional appeals, so forgive me if my patience is shot on that front.

If you want to see where I am coming from rather than writing me off as one of the caricatures your media sources have told you to pigeonhole the opposition into, you can just read those threads in full: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46557993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46543786

But as I said, my only real question to you is how many more Americans need to be killed before you admit that maybe us critics have a point about the methods being used here.
by 19-84 | 2026-01-13 19:26:03+00:00
I have also published sub statistics and profiling for each platform. these can be used to help identify which subs to prioritize for archiving.

reddit: https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver/blob/main/tools/subre...

voat: https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver/blob/main/tools/subve...

ruqqus: https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver/blob/main/tools/guild...
by lurk2 | 2026-01-13 19:26:12+00:00
One of my favorite blogs is a curmudgeon from a city I used to live in reporting on the gangs there. It’s his entire life and he’s been at it for probably 20 years now.

Even subjects that aren’t local interest are usually produced at a loss. Forums can often attract subject matter experts who discuss issues like this effectively altruistically (vs. platforms like YouTube where it almost always a commercial interest). The general trend is for these communities to fall apart as new users alienate the subject matter experts by being uneducated, presumptuous, and impolite (usually in that order).

Given the comparatively lax moderation of Hacker News, I’m surprised it has held out as long as it has. It’s nowhere near as good as it was even five years ago, but it’s still one of the only online spaces I visit everyday. There are a lot of people here (older guys especially) who could be doing anything else with their time, but spend at least a portion of it providing the discussion that makes this place so interesting to visit.

This is a dynamic you also see in education; anyone qualified to work as a journalist could probably make more money doing something else (“Those who can’t do, teach,”), so you select for a group that is either incompetent to be reporting on the stories they are covering, technically competent but unreliable because they grift to subsidize the field’s lower earning potential, or are technically competent but independently wealthy and thus potentially unaware of certain issues.
by greycol | 2026-01-13 19:26:44+00:00
One thing to remember is as it becomes more widespread line costs will go up (assuming they are subsidized by kwh use, which they generally are) and no-sun power prices will increase as it's the only time when the grid needs power from non solar producers and they still need to cover cost incurred while they're not producing.

That will push the economics towards completely off grid systems as more people adopt solar, so if people are planning it for themselves they should probably consider that it will make sense to expand their set up in the future and that there might be a price crunch due to higher demand because of larger systems coupled with more people wanting to switch.
by wojciii | 2026-01-13 19:27:02+00:00
This is the third uprising. They have so far followed the same recipe. People raise up. Internet is turned off. People are arrested and killed by the authorities. They are using the death penalty to teach the Iranians that raising up will get you killed.

While I dislike trumpism, I do hope that the Iranian authorities will get bombed. They deserve to die for how they treat their own people.
by sgtwompwomp | 2026-01-13 19:27:21+00:00
Mintlify is really good. If you're a serious developer tool not sure why you wouldn't use it. For example I went into your docs and I don't see AI chat so I can ask quick, natural language questions. No MCP I can install so Cursor can query. Prob no llms.txt. No quick Copy to Markdown. This stuff is table stakes, if you don't have it and a competitor does, I'm not even considering you guys

It's just a worse developer experience. Fine if you aren't a serious business, but yeah I wouldn't play down the value of Mintlify or similar products. It's seriously good and it's why huge companies use it
by cess11 | 2026-01-13 19:27:39+00:00
It would have been easy for you to check whether he was a "MAGA guy or not", which he was in the sense that he spent the last years of his life spreading neonazi adjacent rhetoric.

Some of it goes quite far back, even:

https://web.archive.org/web/20070222235609/http://dilbertblo...
by wkcollis1 | 2026-01-13 19:27:46+00:00
Yes — good question. In this study “voltage spread” does not mean per‑battery terminal differences. I did *not* disconnect the packs or probe each unit individually.

Because the cells are hard‑paralleled, their terminals are forced to the same potential, so true inter‑battery divergence can’t be measured without isolation taps. Instead, “spread” refers to:

*Voltage_Max – Voltage_Min of the pack‑level voltage within each hourly window.*

This captures short‑term variation in the measured pack voltage (ADC noise, EMI artifacts, inverter mode shifts, temperature coefficient), not cell‑to‑cell imbalance.

The raw data is in `Data/combined_output.csv` with columns:

```
Timestamp, Voltage_Min, Voltage_Max
```

Those come from 60‑second samples aggregated hourly. The analysis scripts compute:

```
Spread = Voltage_Max – Voltage_Min
```

So the ~10–15 mV “spread” in the report reflects the measurement envelope of the pack, not divergence between individual batteries. Measuring true per‑battery drift would require either per‑cell taps or momentary isolation, which wasn’t part of this study.

Happy to go deeper if you want details on sampling or noise characterization.
by bpt3 | 2026-01-13 19:27:49+00:00
I figured that was the semantic game he (and you apparently) are playing.

1. The Democratic Party represents the left in the US, so the left is in power when they are in power.

2. In other parts of the world, parties and individuals who are further left on the political spectrum than the US Democratic Party (either nationally or in any location under discussion here) obtain power. As those are generally repressive regimes, their media is generally highly biased in their direction, making them biased towards both the left and the people on power.

If you want to have a meaningful discussion, feel free to stop being coy.
by famouswaffles | 2026-01-13 19:27:53+00:00
Science often advances by accumulation, and it’s true that multiple people frequently converge on similar ideas once the surrounding toolkit exists. But “it becomes obvious” is doing a lot of work here, and the history around relativity (special and general) is a pretty good demonstration that it often doesn’t become obvious at all, even to very smart people with front-row seats.

Take Michelson in 1894: after doing (and inspiring) the kind of precision work that should have set off alarm bells, he’s still talking like the fundamentals are basically done and progress is just “sixth decimal place” refinement.

"While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice. It is here that the science of measurement shows its importance — where quantitative work is more to be desired than qualitative work. An eminent physicist remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals." - Michelson 1894

The Michelson-Morley experiments weren't obscure, they were famous, discussed widely, and their null result was well-known. Yet for nearly two decades, the greatest physicists of the era proposed increasingly baroque modifications to existing theory rather than question the foundational assumption of absolute time. These weren't failures of data availability or technical skill, they were failures of imagination constrained by what seemed obviously true about the nature of time itself.

Einstein's insight wasn't just "connecting dots" here, it was recognizing that a dot everyone thought was fixed (the absoluteness of simultaneity) could be moved, and that doing so made everything else fall into place.

People scorn the 'Great Man Hypothesis' so much they swing too much in the other direction. The 'multiple discovery' pattern you cite is real but often overstated. For Special Relativity, Poincaré came close, but didn't make the full conceptual break. Lorentz had the mathematics but retained the aether. The gap between 'almost there' and 'there' can be enormous when it requires abandoning what seems like common sense itself.