MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by pjmlp | 2026-02-14 09:54:18+00:00
Good luck with that, it is basically Modula-2 with C like syntax, and we aren't even getting into the whole ecosystem that it is missing on.

Any C++ or C replacement will need to win the earths of mainstream OS and game console vendors, otherwise it will remain yet another wannabe candidate.

Those have already their own languages, alongside their own C and C++ compilers, and are only now starting to warm up to Rust.

Zig or any other candidate will have a very hard time being considered.
by Tyrubias | 2026-02-14 09:54:39+00:00
Many ultra-wealthy individuals borrow against their holdings to avoid having to sell their assets and therefore paying taxes. They shouldn’t be allowed to have their cake and eat it too. Relying on “realization” for taxation stops being reasonable when access to cash is basically the same as income. If anything, not taxing unrealized gains essentially punishes people who labor for income and unfairly favors people who use asset appreciation as a form of income.
by clktmr | 2026-02-14 09:55:42+00:00
It's pretty good at dead code elimination. The size of Go binaries is in large part because of the runtime implementation. Remove a bunch of the runtime's features (profiling, stacktraces, sysmon, optimizations that avoid allocations, maybe even multithreading...) and you'll end up with much smaller binaries. I would love if there was a build tag like "runtime_tiny", that provides such an implementation.
by goworkout | 2026-02-14 09:56:56+00:00
A marathon a month is less than a mile a day. Semi regular exercise is an excellent way to burn some extra calories. Especially when your weight is relatively stable and your diet isn’t completely awful (so it’s not trivial to make huge improvements for little effort).

This isn’t even getting into the many benefits of exercise in general, or the virtuous circle of "well I didn’t particularly enjoy that hour on a bike in shitty weather so I refuse to waste the benefit on a shitty donut purely out of spite".
by gethly | 2026-02-14 09:56:57+00:00
Remember that it was Jai that inspired all these new languages. When you talk about the capabilities like comptime, that's all from Jai and why John no longer does public presentations(as people keep stealing his unfinished ideas).

Your comment about gamedev focus makes no sense as that it the most hardcore segment of all the programming there is. So if a language is good for gamedev, it's good for everything else - with high performance.

I'm still in the GC camp with Go and don't see myself leaving any time soon but Zig is just rust-fugly and takes for ever to complete(it started 10 years ago, mind you). Odin is essentially complete, just lacks official spec. I like it but can' bring myself to use it as it lacks methods and I won' be going back to writing a procedural code like its 2002.

I'm curious to see Jai being released, despite having no use case for it. My initial post is merely about purposefulness, or the lack of, for named programming languages as nowadays John's name will carry more weight than Zig could ever have. so without Zig being 1.0 after a decade, and having no competitive advantage over Jai, it has no chance to survive after Jai is released. As I said, Odin will likely will as it is quite simpler, more niche language. Zig just goes directly against Jai and it will lose.
by magic_hamster | 2026-02-14 09:57:26+00:00
I don't agree that it's flawed. There's so much to gain by writing your own words. It's something to practice and after a while, it's even fun to be able to express something the way you intended. Even today I do my own writeups and articles manually. I want the text to come from me, to show how I'd put it, even if I have a typo here and there. I feel like it's worth it to keep your own personality instead of having AI do it for you - or even edit for you. Even if you think your writing suck, it's still your voice and it's just more interesting for me to read an actual human being.
by akoboldfrying | 2026-02-14 09:57:28+00:00
What I'm suggesting is just a way to do less computation to get the same result as before, it doesn't change the correctness of the algorithm (if implemented correctly!). Instead of testing every curve segment at each (x, y) pixel location in the target bitmap, you only need to test those curve segments that overlap (or, more precisely, aren't known not to overlap) that y location, and what I described is a way to do that efficiently.
by alex-moon | 2026-02-14 09:57:44+00:00
So I came to Babylon 5 late in life, when my partner's mother revealed she had the entire box set on DVD. My partner had recently introduced me to The Expanse, which, like many, I consider the greatest sci fi TV show of all time - she described B5 to me thus: "Babylon 5 walked so the Expanse could run." Suffice to say, my expectations were sky high.

No other TV show has so greatly exceeded my expectations.
by zeroCalories | 2026-02-14 09:59:23+00:00
I like to experiment with a variety of diets / deficits. On some of the more extreme ones like week long water fasting, or Lyle McDonald's rapid fat loss diet, you absolutely need to consume electrolytes because you're not going to get enough passively through eating. Personally I don't have a lot of success with very mild 200-400 calorie deficits, where electrolytes are not a major concern. I suspect it's due to factors related to the linked article, and that in general, the margin for error is much smaller.
by henrikschroder | 2026-02-14 09:59:53+00:00
I remember the GDPRpocalypse which had a lot of Americans up in arms because of the wildly different approach to lawmaking that the EU has. Everyone on the US side was screaming for a checklist they could implement, and assumed they would get maximum penalties if they didn't cross every t and dot every i. But it just doesn't work like that, EU laws are generally not very procedural, they are a lot more about intent.

These findings are very much in line with that, they bring up a feature, a checkbox, a specific thing TikTok did to pay lip-service to protect minors, and then they're simply saying that it doesn't appear to work. So it doesn't matter that TikTok checked the box and crossed the t.
by sosojustdo | 2026-02-14 10:00:31+00:00
I faced this exact struggle when trying to get clean Word exports for clients who don't touch Markdown. Pandoc is powerful but the CLI and template management can be a massive overhead for simple tasks.

I ended up building MarkdownCo Pro to bridge that gap. It focuses on maintaining formatting precision without needing to mess with Haskell filters or complex LaTeX setups. It’s been a fun challenge to handle nested lists and table alignments properly in .docx—definitely one of the trickier parts of the conversion logic.

http://markdownconverter.pro/markdown-to-word
by wdkrnls | 2026-02-14 10:03:04+00:00
From what I've read, DS9 was heavily based on the Babylon 5 Bible which was pitched by JMS to Paramount years before. You might charitably say DS9 was the Guix to the Nix of Babylon 5: Same core ideas mapped onto different story universes. The earlier B5 Bible apparently even had a changeling security officer which evolved into the "changeling net" plot shown in the pilot episode.
by TeMPOraL | 2026-02-14 10:03:55+00:00
Except that's sort of... exactly what they do.

The food industry has pretty much invented the whole process of making "addictive" products and then "test[ing] out recipes on the public to make it even more addictive". Of course, we usually call it making products that taste good, and running taste panels with the public for product development (making a new tasty thing), quality control (ensuring the tasty thing stays tasty), and market research (discovering even tastier things to make in the future). Each part of it employs all kinds of specialists (and yes, those too - nutrition psychology is a thing).

The process is the same. The difference between "optimized for taste" and "addictive" isn't exactly clear-cut, at least not until someone starts adding heroin to the product (and of the two, it's not the software industry that's been routinely accused of it just for being too good at this job).

Not defending social media here in any way. Cause and effect is known these days, and in digital everything is faster and more pronounced. And ironically, I don't even agree with GP either! I think that individuals have much less agency than GP would like it, and at the same time, that social media is not some uniquely evil and uniquely strong way to abuse people, but closer to new superstimulus we're only starting to develop social immunity to.
Show HN: Mool (Loom clone). Free, offline-only, no signup
by william-cohen | 2026-02-14 10:04:09+00:00
Long-time HN lurker, first time poster.

This is something I put together over a few days, it's a simple offline-only screen recorder with webcam compositing that works on any modern desktop browser.

As much as I love Loom to avoid meetings, I don't want to pay for useless features and have my recordings essentially paywalled. I hate SaaS.

With Loom's recent price increase, I thought I'd finally share it. Feedback is welcome
by enugu | 2026-02-14 10:04:11+00:00
This is not about employer vs employee and job security. In fact, the post mentions that there could be good reasons for layoffs. What the post highlights is -

1. Trust - When an employer tells the employee something and then ignores it - then a truth based culture gives in to cynicism. Communications in the company become suspect. Even when there are win-win situations, where cooperation could lead to positive outcomes for both management and workers, a lack of trust means the company cant execute.

Also, this will affect communications with customers and shareholders.

2. Regardless of being right, the author is helping others in similar situations, who can adjust their expectations.

3. The post isn't so much about company vs employee, but competing factions within the company, who are invested in alternative tools/proposals. Promotion is used as a means of making one's faction stronger. This need not be for the benefit of the company or customers. Lobbying will also, of course, affect truth.

Factions might be inevitable (and there can even be good reasons - people genuinely have differences of opinion). But, if the company has good leaders, they will prevent this from erupting into a strong zero-sum conflicts which drown other goals - company's profits, promoting competent people, a culture of trust.
by LegionMammal978 | 2026-02-14 10:04:22+00:00
You also need some extra bits at the top so that it doesn't overflow (e.g., on an adversarial input filled with copies of the max finite value, followed by just as many copies of its negation, so that it sums to 0). The exact number will depend on the maximum input length, but for arrays stored in addressible memory it will add up to no more than 64 or so.
by geysersam | 2026-02-14 10:04:25+00:00
I feel we can't make laws against the subject of moral panic every generation. People have felt the same way about the activities of youths since forever. But ultimately it often turns out fine. Change can bring new problems, but it also brings positives that are hard to understand and even formulate, that's culture. Trying to be the arbiter of that is foolish.

Is ticktock addictive because of it's design, or is it addictive because it brings thousands of people and experiences and emotions right to you? Probably both, but it's hard to separate one from the other. Apps are not opium, it's not as clear cut.

Instead of micromanaging technology and culture they should make sure that society is kind, that there is slack in the system, that people don't have reason to want to flee their real lives, that those hurt by new technology get support.

Of course truly malicious dark patterns and fraud should be punished. But that feels like a different category.
by castigatio | 2026-02-14 10:05:23+00:00
I'm not sure where people think humans are getting these magical leaps of insight that transcend combinations of existing things. Magic? Ghost in the machine? The simplest explanation is that "leaps of insight" are simply novel combinations that demonstrate themselves to have some utility within the boundaries of a test case or objective.

Snow + stick + need to clean driveway = snow shovel.
Snow shovel + hill + desire for fun = sled

At one point people were arguing that you could never get "true art" from linear programs. Now you get true art and people are arguing you can't get magical flashes of insight. The will to defend human intelligence / creativity is strong but the evidence is weak.
by alexey-salmin | 2026-02-14 10:05:41+00:00
Not op, but the number of cards doesn't matter. Only one shuffle can exist at a time, the "number of shuffles" is not a number of natural objects but rather a cardinality of a set. And as we know sets and cardinalities open the gates of hell.

This doesn't mean it's not a "relevant thing to talk about". It just means that these mathematical constructs while useful don't maintain a direct connection to reality, kind of like complex numbers.
Show HN: AI Station Navigator – LLM=CPU, Agents=Processes, Skills=Apps
by mazilin | 2026-02-14 10:05:55+00:00
Subject: My attempt at an "OS-inspired" AI architecture
Hi HN,
I'm a Product Manager, not a systems engineer. I built AI Station Navigator as a proof-of-concept to solve a specific problem I faced: Context Pollution.
When using AI agents for complex tasks, the context window gets cluttered quickly, causing the model to hallucinate or get confused.
To solve this, I designed this project using a Computer Architecture Analogy. I treated the agent system like a traditional OS to better manage resources and isolation.
Here is the mapping I used to design the system:
-- CPU approx. LLM (Claude)
The raw computing power driving the capabilities.
-- Kernel approx. Orchestration Layer (Claude Code + CLAUDE.md)
Handles intent recognition, task scheduling, and context management.
-- Processes approx. Sub-Agents
The core feature: Execution runs in isolated sub-agents. When a task is done, the sub-agent "dies," freeing up context. This prevents the main thread from getting polluted.
-- Applications approx. Skills (GitHub Repos)
"App Store-style" installation of tools via GitHub links.
-- Drivers approx. MCP + Hooks
Standardized interfaces for external tools and system automation.
-- Runtime approx. Portable Environment
Self-contained Python/Node environment (no installation hell).
The Code: https://github.com/canishowtime/ai-station-navigator/
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this architectural approach.
by benstopics | 2026-02-14 10:06:57+00:00
I honestly get it. I wouldn't have made that comment but I get why it was made. It tells me I need to go back and put some more effort into it and clean it up. You know, in-between working 80 hours a week at the prompt factory and working on the actual game... Without Claude there would be no story to read. I pay Anthropic $200/mo and Claude is a robot. I don't think anyone shed a tear that I didn't put "coauthored by Claude" at the bottom.
by GavinRatta | 2026-02-14 10:07:12+00:00
Honest post: I'm a solo dev, I'm 15, and I went all-in on this for 4 months. I need to move on and I'd rather sell it for whatever someone's willing to pay than let it sit on my hard drive forever.

It's a full Electron workspace app — infinite canvas, 16 tools, AI agent, design editor, browser. 177 files, documented, working. Demo video in the link.

I'm not looking for a specific price. Just make an offer. $50, $500, $5,000 — I'll take the best one. Crypto accepted.

If you've ever thought about building a workspace app — this saves you months.
by maccard | 2026-02-14 10:07:42+00:00
I think you’re very unlikely to garner any sympathy here for living somewhere for 16 years without learning the language.

I also think it’s perfectly reasonable for a country to not allow someone who refuses to prioritise integration with the country to vote on loosening those restrictions. It seems the requirement is roughly equivalent to a B2 level.

I’m a bleeding heart leftie, pro migration, pro EU, and honestly I think visa renewals should come with language requirements. An initial visa sure, but after 2 years an a2 in the language should be achievable. There are definitely edge cases (do you require Spanish or Catalan in Catalonia), but if you can’t speak enough of the local
Language after 2 years to be able to get around, you’re not really trying.
by creatonez | 2026-02-14 10:08:54+00:00
> isn't LfS all about the basics of the distro than building a fully fledged system?

Not at all, and I'm not sure why so many people have this perception. It's never been this way. LFS is the tutorial you follow to get a full GNU/Linux system. In LFS, not having a base that can theoretically support the latest desktop environments is considered a fatal bug. It's just a conventional distro but in document format.

This is good for its comprehensiveness and as a way of documenting what existing Linux distros are doing, but it limits its utility as a learning aid as well as for embedded development. Most people interested in barebones Linux should instead start with a kernel and busybox and ignore most GNU packages.
Show HN: Drink Now: Water Reminder App
by suryanshJ | 2026-02-14 10:08:55+00:00
Drink Now – Water Reminder & Hydration Tracker

Staying hydrated should be simple. Drink Now helps you build healthy hydration habits with smart reminders, effortless tracking, and a clean interface designed for macOS.

Whether you are working, studying, or relaxing, Drink Now gently reminds you to drink water and keeps track of your daily intake so you can stay focused, energized, and healthy.
by keiferski | 2026-02-14 10:09:09+00:00
It’s perfectly possible to be professional and not come off in the way you’re describing as desirable.

In fact, acting in the way you’re describing is itself a negative social rule that will lose someone business opportunities. Because people with value that don’t want to operate in a coldly transactional environment will be turned off by it.

“I don’t owe you anything other than money for the task you’re doing,” is a good way to eliminate a sizable portion of potential high-quality employees.

The further up the economic chain you get, and the more relationship or service oriented the work is, the more important this becomes.

It doesn’t make you seem professional, it just makes you seem like a difficult person to deal with, and thus someone to avoid.
by mkl95 | 2026-02-14 10:09:51+00:00
In the zero-interest rate economy, it was easy for early to mid-career engineers with average skill to switch to a company that paid them 20%+ more money. I did it myself multiple times.

The current economy and AI have turned the tables. Even today, waiting for three years is pushing it for most folks, but understandable. Career growth is being decimated across the industry, and opportunities simply aren't there anymore like they used to be. You can be dedicated and above average, but you are still stuck in the same industry as everyone else.
by elihu | 2026-02-14 10:10:45+00:00
The other side of this is that if you want your open source project to be useful to people, relevant, included by default in Linux distributions, highly regarded by the community, and so on then it's expected that you treat your users well.

Not every project aspires to such things, but if you do then the path to success requires at a minimum not treating users as a burden.

Some users might be particularly rude or entitled, in which case you can politely decline their feature requests and move on.

Basically, it's never rude for a user to file a bug report or request a feature. It's never rude for the maintainer to decline to implement a feature if they haven't budgeted time (or other relevant resources) to do it, it doesn't align with the fundamental goals or architecture of the project, or they simply don't know how to do it.

It would be rude for a user to demand of maintainers more than they're willing to give, and it would be rude of a maintainer not to be at least somewhat mindful that spending at least a little bit of effort to respond to reasonable requests, fix known bugs, and keep documentation accurate and up-to-date can prevent a lot of random strangers from wasting a lot of time on something that isn't useful to them. No one has any contractual obligation to provide anything, but I think everyone should treat other people's time and attention as a scarce and valuable commodity, not to be wasted.
by anal_reactor | 2026-02-14 10:11:19+00:00
I'm gay, so I don't care about impressing women. But besides this... I don't understand what's wrong with incorporating teenage hobbies into adult lifestyle. Sure, nobody wants to marry a mental teenager, but if I do have adult self-development hobbies, then I see no problem that next to that I'd also have teenage hobbies. I find it very sad when guys completely discard their personality just to keep wife happy.

It's just that, at current point of my life I think I'm ready for a relationship. My daily life loop is satisfactory for me, the only thing I'm missing is someone to be with.
by ofalkaed | 2026-02-14 10:12:00+00:00
So no one should even try because they will never win over all of the C/C++ crowd so are doomed to fail and forever to be a wannabe? I think Andrew has gone about things in a good way, going back to C and exploiting hindsight, not trying to offer everything as quickly as possible. Extend C but keep C interoperability and do both better than C++ instead of trying to be the next big thing and he goes about it in a very deliberate and calculated way. He may not succeed, but the effort has given us a great deal.
by PaulRobinson | 2026-02-14 10:12:06+00:00
A great idea with quite a few bugs. I would suggest watching people who have never played this game before try and play it and you'll notice a lot of things are going wrong that you've not seen before, and you're going to figure out how to make a lot of things a lot better. Really fun idea though, I'd love to try it again when it's less glitchy and the UX has had some work.
by insin | 2026-02-14 10:12:26+00:00
> I say LLM, not “AI”, when talking about the text generation models at the heart of most of the “AI” explosion. I’ll prefer technical terms to marketing buzzwords the whole way through, even at the cost of being awkward and definitely a little stodgy. Useful precision beats vacuous true statements every time, and the difference now very much matters.

Yes! Put it directly into my veins^W brains
by D-Machine | 2026-02-14 10:12:27+00:00
Everything about frontier AI companies relies on secrecy. No specific details about architectures, dispatching between different backbones, training details such as data acquisition, timelines, sources, amounts and/or costs, or almost anything that would allow anyone to replicate even the most basic aspects of anything they are doing. What is the cost of one more secret, in this scenario?
by hodgehog11 | 2026-02-14 10:13:13+00:00
Oh yes, that's one of the more recent papers from Hutter's group!

I don't believe there is a contradiction. AIXI is not computable and optimality is undecidable, this is true. "Asymptotic optimality" refers to behaviour for infinite time horizons. It does not refer to closeness to an optimal agent on a fixed time horizon. Naturally the claim that I made will break down in the infinite regime because the approximation rates do not scale with time well enough to guarantee closeness for all time under any suitable metric. Personally, I'm not interested in infinite time horizons and do not think it is an important criterion for "superintelligence" (we don't live in an infinite time horizon world after all) but that's a matter of philosophy, so feel free to disagree. I was admittedly sloppy with not explicitly stating that time horizons are considered finite, but that just comes from the choice of metric in the universal approximation which I have continued to be vague about. That also covers the Corollary 3.4, which is technically infinite time horizon (if I'm not mistaken) since the length of the string can be arbitrary.