MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by celestinestudio | 2026-02-23 01:25:27+00:00
I’ve been noticing a pattern in many tool-using LLM setups.

We spend a lot of effort filtering model outputs, but relatively little on deciding whether the model should be allowed to attempt the action itself.

This harness is a small local framework that evaluates action requests (deploy code, send emails, export data, financial operations, etc.) against pre-execution authorization signals and produces an audit trail explaining the decision.

It’s intentionally simple and deterministic — not a product or policy engine. More of a thinking tool.

Curious if others building agents or tool-connected systems have run into this boundary where the model becomes an operator instead of a requester.
by drnick1 | 2026-02-23 01:25:36+00:00
Yet, your ISPs don't give you access to the full Internet. First it's porn (age verification), then it's soccer, then it's social media (ID verification), then it's libraries. Soon, you even stuff that you take for granted, such as playing an online game, may require age/ID verification. At this rate, all you will be able to access soon will be center-left Euro propaganda.
by vineyardmike | 2026-02-23 01:25:46+00:00
I'll bite. I suspect that these plans aren't as intensely subsidized as people assume. I believe that API usage is probably also not subsidized at all. First, yes, subs are probably subsided, but I bet a significant % of users are profitable to serve, especially the "chat" users who don't use dev tools and have short context window conversations. Yes, I think the subs also exist as a driver to get lock-in and market share. Claude Code, for example, is very good and I stopped using their competition when they released their superior product.

That said, I assume that (1) their long-term goal is to create cheaper-to-serve models that fit within their pricing targets, and use the (temporarily) subsidized subscriptions to find the features and costs that best serve the market. Maybe even while capturing more margin on the API in comparison (eg keep API prices high while lowering cost to serve a token). I've largely stopped using Opus, and sometimes even chose to use Haiku, because the cheaper models are fast and usually serves my needs. It's very possible to work all-day and barely hit the usage limits with Haiku on the $20/mo option. Long term, that could be profitable outright.

And (2) subscriptions with lower SLOs than API calls have the potential to provide "infill" usage for high fixed-cost GPUs as an alternative to idling, similar to their batch APIs. I'd believe that overnight usage limits could/should be higher than during California work-hours. I assume most big providers have pre-paid fixed cost servers, so pumping more tokens through an otherwise idle GPU is "free". They can also do a lot more cost-optimization behind the scenes, such as prompt caching, to reduce the cost of tokens.
by gck1 | 2026-02-23 01:26:09+00:00
I don't understand how this can be enforced without ridiculous levels of false positives. I'm truly baffled. The same with Claude Code situation.

gemini-cli, claude-code, codex etc, they ALL have a -p flag or equivalent, which is non-interactive IO interface for their LLM inference.

If I wire my tooling (or openclaw) to use the -p flag (or equivalents), is that allowed?

Okay, maybe they get rid of the -p flag and I have to use an interactive session. I can then just use OS IO tooling to wire OpenClaw with their cli. Is that allowed?

How does sending requests directly to the endpoints that their CLI is communicating with suddenly make their subsidized plans expensive? Is it because now I can actually use my 100% quota? If that's so, does it mean their products are such that their profitability stands on people not using them?

What is even going on?
by notepad0x90 | 2026-02-23 01:26:22+00:00
> Each instance admin has full control over their server's moderation policies, allowed content, and federation choices. Loops provides the tools; communities set their own rules.

Yeah, but how do you maintain quality? Are users expected to shun instances that have poor quality? Quality doesn't just mean spam and unwanted content, it means hiding poor quality posts in feeds. You end up with users that are willing to invest time in curating the app to meet their needs. But that means you miss out on most people out there who expect a curated and engaging (read:addicting) experience.

I am not concerned about market shares on their own. But this is a good idea, and tiktok and youtube short videos are doing lots of harm to the world. Having a viable alternative would be amazing.

I'll suggest that a very strong and well funded "main" instance server exist? I'm sure there is one now, but I'm concerned this will go the way of lemmy and mastodon.

I would much rather prefer a centralized social media with a sanely constructed governance and corporate structure and a clear and non-conflicting revenue generation plan. The guardian's incorporation structure is what I consider a good example. That news organization is managing to be fairly independent, prevalent and significant when all others are caving to walled gardens and billionaires. social media in general should be viewed similar to journalistic organizations in terms of governance structure.

it is nice to be able to take your data elsewhere, it is nicer not having the need to begin with. In principle that sounds great, but in practice it is similar to forking software if you don't like it.

Lastly, how do they plan on making money? At least to the level that sustains their operations?
by sxp | 2026-02-23 01:26:22+00:00
Ironically, Gemini says that it’s OK to use the Ultraplan for OpenClaw via gemini-cli because the Ultra plan has some API & Cloud credits baked into it. I think $100/mo but I can never figure out how Google billing works. I’ve pasted the response I got when I was asking it about OpenClaw. There is legal precedent for an AI hallucination being used to upload a contract (e.g, an AI customer support for an airline made a false claim and the customer bought a ticket based on that claim) so it will be interesting to see if Google reverts the bans since Gemini hallucinated that OpenClaw was OK:

This is a critical question because the answer is different for Google vs. Anthropic, and getting it wrong with Anthropic can actually get your account banned.
Here is the reality of the situation based on current Terms of Service and recent community reports.
1. Google (Gemini Ultra + gemini-cli)
Verdict: Safe (Authorized Feature)
Google explicitly built the gemini-cli bridge to allow Ultra subscribers to use their plan programmatically. This is not a "hack" or a gray-area wrapper; it is an official feature.
• Why it's okay: You are authenticating via gcloud or the official CLI login flow. Google tracks this usage against your specific "Agent" quotas (currently ~200 agent requests/day for Ultra users).
• The Limit: As long as you are using the official gemini-cli as the bridge, you are compliant.
• The Risk: If you use a different unofficial script that scrapes the gemini.google.com web interface (simulating a browser) rather than using the official CLI, you risk a ban for "scraping." But since you are using gemini-cli, you are in the clear.
by martin-t | 2026-02-23 01:27:29+00:00
> epitome of hypocrisy

Only in single-step moral systems (one which judges actions as moral or immoral solely based on those actions in the moment and not what preceded them).

I have a multi-step moral system. Basically any unjustified intentional harm to a person justified proportional retaliation. Unjustified means it is not harm which is being caused as punishment to a previous offense. And proportional means that it shouldn't be too weak, neither too strong. IMO the optimum is causing something like 1.5-3x more suffering/"disadvantagement". However, it is important to signal to both the original aggressor and any potential witnesses why this is being done so that one is not mistaken for an original aggressor himself.

I am also a fan of judging others by their own moral principles. Basically, if someone thinks it is OK to, for example, limit my freedom or harm me (for various reasons or in various circumstances), I apply the same rules to him and it is therefore OK for me to limit his freedom or harm him (for similar reasons or in similar circumstances).

Either system leads to similar outcomes. (The first allows stronger response to offense, the second allows only mirroring).

Thanks for the link, it looks very interesting but it goes into my to-read list for today.
by jauntywundrkind | 2026-02-23 01:27:40+00:00
Google's bundling of so many services into one account is becoming a gargantuan liability for them & their users.

This "zero tolerance" policy is just absurdly mega-goliath out of touch with the world. The sort of soulless brain dead corporatism that absolutely does not think for even a single millisecond about its decisions, that doesn't care about anything other than reducing customer support or complexity, no matter what the cost.

Kicking people off their accounts for this is Google being willing to cause enormous untoward damage. With basically not even the faintest willingness to try to correct. Gobsmacking vicious indifference, ok with suffering.
by rmunn | 2026-02-23 01:27:41+00:00
I like to think of transactions, in an MVCC system like Postgres, as being like snapshots in copy-on-write filesystems like btrfs or zfs. When you BEGIN a transaction, the DB takes a snapshot of your data, so now there are two versions of the data, the snapshot (visible to everyone else) and the "private" version visible only to your transaction. Then as you run UPDATEs, the new data is written to the private copy, but everyone else continues to work with the snapshot. (And might be creating their own private copies for other transactions).

If you do a ROLLBACK, then your private copy of the data is discarded, and its changes never make it into the official copy. But if you do a COMMIT, then your private snapshot is made public and is the new, official, copy for everyone else to read from. (Except those who started a transaction before you ran COMMIT: they made their private copies from the older snapshot and don't have a copy of your changes).

This is probably obvious to nearly everyone here, but I figured I'd write it anyway. You never know who might read an analogy like this and have that lightbulb moment where it suddenly makes sense.

P.S. Another analogy would be Git branches, but I'll write that in a different comment.
by jauntywundrkind | 2026-02-23 01:28:42+00:00
We can debate on the policy.

The punishment, of being kicked out of your Google account for a zero-tolerance first offense, is completely unreasonable, is incredibly extreme Lawful Evil alignment.

The damage to individuals that Google is willing to just hand out here, to customers they have had for decades, who have their lives built around Google products, is absurd. This is criminally bad behavior and whatever the terms of service say, this is an affront to the dignity of man. This is evil. And beyond any conceivable reason.

Edit: perhaps not the entire account is locked? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47116330
by helsinkiandrew | 2026-02-23 01:29:08+00:00
So a Google AI pro/ultra account is intended to be used from their cli or tools (like their open-gravity agent front end).

Their API usage isn't included in these plans, although under the hood open-gravity uses the API.

People have been using the API auth credential intended for anti-gravity with open claw, presumably causing a significant amount of use and have been caught.

The Google admin tools and process haven’t quite been able to cope with this situation and people have been overly banned with poor information sent to the them.

I don’t think either OpenAI or Anthropic any API use in their ‘pro’ plans either?

This reminds me of the customers of “unlimited broadband” of yesteryear getting throttled or banned for running Tor servers.
by LinXitoW | 2026-02-23 01:29:25+00:00
But none of these are unlimited, that was never the expectation. It's a flat rate for a flat (but hidden) amount of usage. What's disgusting is that they want the good parts of subs (low usage subs), but then just ban the bad parts (high usage people). I don't care whether that's technically possible, it's incredibly scummy.
by muyuu | 2026-02-23 01:29:41+00:00
yep and that was Windows which introduced levels of latency and waiting times much worse than equivalent DOS software, but with easier to use and more intuitive menus instead of the usual DOS UI routine of either no menus or menus that showed with key combos, and power users knowing many key combination combos which weren't strictly necessary but both accelerated things and impressed newbs into thinking computers were too hard for them

on a 486, Lotus 1-2-3 was essentially instant - even from floppy disks it would run faster than excel does today on a top of the line machine
by rustyhancock | 2026-02-23 01:29:55+00:00
I agree with all this.

I would add though that many are also being caught up in antispam efforts.

I.e. that for every legimate OpenClaw user doing something trivial with their account misusing the sub. There is probably 10x using it to send spam emails and spam comments.

I suspect from googles perspective some of these people are just a rounding error.

That said I use API where I should and the sub in the first party apps. Perhaps I'm too much of a goody two shoes but AI already feels such an overwhelming value prop for me I don't care.

That said I think you're right in that money matters here but I think the subs as they intend people to use them is hugely profitable i.e. the people doing 10 chats per work day and a few in the evening but paying £20 per month.
by notepad0x90 | 2026-02-23 01:30:05+00:00
Alcohol is bad, regardless of the spirit you consume. Look at how prohibition worked out.

It also shouldn't matter that it's bad, the only restriction should be for minors. Adults should be able to willfully enter addictive cycles.

There are people that spend all their day gaming, watching twitch, scrolling on facebook, instagram. it isn't anyone's place to pick and choose which ones are acceptable and which ones aren't. society is already a sickening dystopian nanny system.
by hogwasher | 2026-02-23 01:30:50+00:00
Even "mine.fyi" would be better at not making me think "landmine", although that would instead get read as "belonging to me".fyi.

I assume this is probably because most people don't see mines (as in gold mines) mentioned in plural very often. Or if someone does refer to multiple mines at once, they usually also specify the type of mine at the same time, like, "the cadmium mines in [country]" or similar. Or if talking about old, abandoned mines in an area, they're usually referred to as such.

The word "mines" on its own without an adjective usually does mean landmines, I think.

(I also immediately assumed this was about landmines.)
by queuebert | 2026-02-23 01:31:02+00:00
This is just not true. The only chugging back then was reading from disks, and the entire Office suite was only a handful of 3.5" floppies. If you had already started Excel earlier, then it was likely still cached in RAM and would start nearly instantly. If not, then it was still only a few seconds.

Now what was slow was actual computations. Like try running a big spreadsheet in Excel or counting words in a big Word document on that hardware. It takes a very long time, while on modern hardware it's nearly instant.
by wizzwizz4 | 2026-02-23 01:31:15+00:00
I have no interest in guns, and only a minor interest in sports and cars; but if you set up an instance devoted to these, and got your friends to use it (just to talk to each other), I reckon it would only be a few months before you'd seeded a community. (There is plenty of comedy on the Fediverse, so I think that's a bad example.)

The design of the Fediverse is receptive to niche communities. If other communities are hostile, you can just pretend they don't exist, and the things they post won't appear on your timelines. "The people on it" is not as much of a thing as you might be used to from social media like Instagram, Reddit, Tumblr, or HN. (As everyone's so very fond or saying, ActivityPub is like email.)

If your niche is a popular niche (which sports most certainly are), then it should get quite big, quite quickly, provided the people who'd participate in it are (or can be) present.
by burnt-resistor | 2026-02-23 01:32:54+00:00
Before 2016, I was an outside consultant working with some long-term TCS IT and dev staff at a Valley client company that was just acquired by HP. (IIRC, HP then preferred Perot Systems as a staffing vendor.) TCS folks were mostly living extremely frugally in the SF Bay Area at the time.

Sometime around there, I consulted for Motorola Mobility where they hired contractors around the world in Eastern Europe and SE Asia. That gig came to a screeching halt after the head of that department expressed racist remarks about remote people in my presence and so they ghosted me because they just assumed I would talk to their HR or take legal action; I was broke then and couldn't do anything about it except learn the lesson that a lot of corporate types really don't give a fuck about being decent or professional.
by nerdsniper | 2026-02-23 01:34:24+00:00
Sell an additional $200 box containing a Raspberry Pi with Home Assistant on it and a cheap capacitive touchscreen and pre-configure it with Tailscale. Would be reasonably consumer-friendly. Give it a fancy name and start slapping "{$HOME_ASSISTANT} Compatible" branding logos on partners boxes.

If it's not quite as consumer-friendly as you want it to be, contribute your engineering hours to the Home Assistant product until it is.

Bonus points for giving it 25-250W audio output to power speakers and letting you pair them together to play music in sync across different rooms of your house connected to speakers of your choice.
by tovej | 2026-02-23 01:34:31+00:00
Oh, IEEE 754 double precision floating point accuracy? Rule of thumb is 17 digits. You will probably get issues related to catastrophic cancellation around x=0. As I said earlier the easiest solution is just to measure in this case. You don't really need to fuzz a sine approximation, you can scan over one period and compare against exactly calculated tables. I would probably add a cutoff around zero and move to a linear model if there is cancellation issues.

And if the measurement shows the approximation has too much floating point error, you can always move to Kahan sums or quad precision. This comes up fairly often.

If I really had to _prove_ formally an exact error bound, that would take me some time. This is not something you would be likely to have to do unless you're building software for airplanes, or some other safety critical domain. And an LLM would absolutely not be helpful in that case. You would use formal verification methods.
by saila | 2026-02-23 01:36:22+00:00
Surely you'll be able to tell who's YOLOing commits without allowing junk into your repo that you'll have to clean up (and it almost certainly be you doing it, not that other person).

DS_Store files are just annoying, but I've seen whole bin and obj directories, various IDE directories, and all kinds of other stuff committed by people who only know git basics. I've spent way more effort over time cleaning up than I have on adding a comprehensive gitignore file.

It takes practically no effort to include common exclude patterns and avoid all that. Personally, I just grab a gitignore file from GitHub and make a few tweaks here and there:

https://github.com/github/gitignore/
by CodeBit26 | 2026-02-23 01:36:23+00:00
For a K-8 environment, it might be worth looking into local e-waste recycling non-profits or university surplus programs. Often, large institutions rotate their hardware every 3-4 years, and they are usually happy to donate older but functional Chromebooks to schools in need. Also, check out 'DigitalEquity' initiatives in your area; they often have streamlined pipelines for this exact scenario
by rmunn | 2026-02-23 01:36:35+00:00
One way to think about transactions, as I wrote in an earlier comment, would be to think of them as being like snapshots in a copy-on-write filesystem like btrfs or zfs. But another way to think of them is being like Git branches.

When you BEGIN a transaction, you're creating a branch in Git. Everyone else continues to work on the master branch, perhaps making their own branches (transactions) off of it while you're working. Every UPDATE command you run inside the transaction is a commit pushed to your branch. If you do a ROLLBACK, then you're deleting the branch unmerged, and its changes will be discarded without ever ending up in the master branch. But if you instead do a COMMIT, then that's a `git merge` command, and your changes will be merged into the master branch. If they merge cleanly, then all is well. If they do NOT merge cleanly, because someone else merged their own branch (committed their own transaction) that touched the same files that you touched (updated rows in the same table), then the DB will go through the file line by line (go through the table row by row) to try to get a clean merge. If it can successfully merge both changes without conflict, great. If it can't, then what happens depends on the transaction settings you chose. You can, when you start the transaction, tell the DB "If this doesn't merge cleanly, roll it back". Or you can say "If this doesn't merge cleanly, I don't care, just make sure it gets merged and I don't care if the conflict resolution ends up picking the "wrong" value, because for my use case there is no wrong value." This is like using "READ UNCOMMITTED" vs "SERIALIZABLE" transaction settings (isolation levels): you would use "READ UNCOMMITTED" if you don't care about merge conflicts in this particular table, and just want a quick merge. You would use "SERIALIZABLE" for tables with data that must, MUST, be correct, e.g. account balances. And there are two more levels in between for subtle differences in your use case's requirements.

As with my previous comment, this is probably obvious to 98.5% of people here. But maybe it'll help someone get that "ah-ha!" moment and understand transactions better.
by anonym29 | 2026-02-23 01:37:00+00:00
>The technology is non-consensual. Usage is up as usage is un-avoidable. LLM technology is pre-packed an obscene range of previously used products: Notepad, spreadsheets, search, IDEs, cell phones, web browsers, and more. It doesn't matter if you mark an email as private, the Microsoft Copilot opt-out was never real and your recipient probably shared it an LLM anyway.

The technology itself isn't the problem, the technology itself isn't non-consensual, and usage is avoidable.

The problem is that you're using software (including operating systems) that fundamentally doesn't recognize the rights and freedoms of the user. The entirety of Microsoft Windows is a prime example of such software.

I use all of the software (and hardware) above without any LLM integrations. You can, too, if you want; it may involve leaving the familiar territory of non-free software and operating systems you've become accustomed to, however.

If you're interested in learning more, give this a read: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-impor...
by astrowar | 2026-02-23 01:37:04+00:00
A WGAN-trained portrait generator running on MSX computers (Z80 @ 3.58 MHz).
Generates 24x24 pixel portraits with 256 gray levels (8 displayed via dithering).
Users can control gender, hair style/tone/type, and skin tone, or generate random portraits. Uses only 16KB RAM
for code and activations, weights stored in ROM. ~20 minutes per portrait on real
hardware. Available as ROM cartridge.Repository includes complete pipeline:
training code, C runtime for PC testing, and ROM generation