MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by positron26 | 2026-02-17 16:37:47+00:00
Just can't help humming in my head reg yoo la toe ree cap chur

Any system that can juice itself by increasing both funding and cost will scale both until the natural incentive gradients (are you smart? do you actually want to do stuff or do you just want a desk job?) vanish into the noise. When everyone went to college, nobody learned anything.

University is one of those things you always want to be capability rather than means gated, but those of means will always want their kids to get in regardless of how they were raised. After all, they worked hard. Why should their kids? They will ally with every convenient rationalization in order to moralize for the politics, taking advantage of arguments about "disadvantaged backgrounds" etc to treat everything as a means problem, but the goal is to dilute the capability aspect, and that robs talent.

If you have exceptional talent, you need to know the truth. Systems naturally try to optimize the dumb-rich to smart ratio so that there's a lot of subsidy available for anyone who actually needs to be there, but consequent GPA inflation demands that we make the education somewhat meaningless, so you're really on your own to set goals, and any good ones are way higher. Check the boxes, take the free lunch, and then treat the overall coddling like a charade that must be ignored. Then again, isn't self direction always that way?
by rorylaitila | 2026-02-17 16:38:18+00:00
I can totally relate. I enjoy the craft of developing and making the product 'just right.' I do use AI as a fancy auto-complete, but I don't want to lose situational awareness and go full-vibe. I think that is the sweet spot for me, just another tool. However, I see my market value of this style of work rapidly deteriorating. I'm suspect I'll be the programming-Amish. I am probably going to transition my business to more of a community-studio, with tech being an implementation detail.
Show HN: ChangeWord, transformative word game in 6 languages
by oliwary | 2026-02-17 16:38:34+00:00
Hi!

I just launched changeword, a daily word game where you have to transform one word into another by replacing or inserting one letter at a time. Each inbetween word has to be a valid word as well.

Changeword is my first multilingual word game - you can play it in English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch and Swedish.

Any feedback is appreciated! :)
by satiated_grue | 2026-02-17 16:38:53+00:00
ASCII was started in 1960. A terminal then would have been a mostly-mechanical teletype (keyboard and printer, possibly with paper tape reader/punch), without much by way of "circuit logic". Think of it more as a bit caused a physical shift of a linkage to do something like hit the upper or lower part of a hammer, or a separate set of hammers for the same remaining bits.

Look at the Teletype ASR-33, introduced in 1963.
by Aurornis | 2026-02-17 16:39:13+00:00
I’m always surprised that student loan forgiveness appeals to anyone who should otherwise be able to think about all of the bad second order effects.

The more we inject money into the education system, the higher prices go. Setting a precedent that the government will just pay off your loans if you don’t pay them off only encourages more people to take out loans without thinking about paying them back.

There are so many things wrong with this idea that I can’t believe it continues to be popular. The only thing I can think of is that it’s a litmus test for who can and cannot consider second order effects of economic decisions, or who believes money can spent en masse without altering the system.
by NIKHILFP | 2026-02-17 16:39:26+00:00
When Clawdbot rebranded to OpenClaw, it almost felt symbolic.
Add “Open” to the name long enough and eventually OpenAI calls.

The founder of OpenClaw (Peter Steinberger) joining OpenAI is more than a hiring update. It reflects a structural pattern in AI.

Open-Source has quietly become the ecosystem’s proving ground. Builders experiment in public, take risks without institutional constraints, and earn credibility at the edge. When their work reaches a certain threshold, the largest labs absorb the talent.

It is efficient and strategic. It is also centralizing.

Every time a strong open-source founder moves to a frontier lab, the center grows stronger. The edge becomes slightly thinner. This does not make the decision wrong. Ambitious engineers will always gravitate toward ambitious problems. In many ways, it validates that building in the open still produces serious technical depth.

But we should be clear about the dynamic.

Open-Source in AI is increasingly becoming a pipeline. Build publicly, prove capability, and get pulled into one of a few centralized institutions. The gravity is strong, and it keeps reinforcing itself.

The real question is not whether talent emerges in the open. It clearly does. The question is whether it stays. Because the future of AI will not just be shaped by model performance. It will be shaped by where power consolidates.

And moves like this make that direction harder to ignore!
by drakythe | 2026-02-17 16:39:34+00:00
That's why it should be a one time event in conjunction with reworking the whole system.

Why can I, as an 18 year old, sign for a loan that _cannot_ be forgiven, graduate into a crashed economy, and still be held accountable for choices that impact me when I only had a small part in them? The system needs reformed, and we need to do something for the people still on the hook of the old system (and I say this as someone who has paid off all my student loans).
by elayabharath | 2026-02-17 16:39:47+00:00
Here are a few I found useful:

- https://ade3.substack.com/p/how-to-make-a-glitch-camera

- https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BbJMZmAN7hbA2YoD0xsV...

- https://fubar.space/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Glitchwerks-C...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/CircuitBending/ [Many posts are about cameras]
by NoboruWataya | 2026-02-17 16:39:48+00:00
Washing what, exactly? If you are suggesting that pension funds are investing via PE funds in assets that the pension funds themselves are prohibited from investing in, that's not how it works. The mandate between a pension fund and the PE fund will be quite clear on what assets the PE fund may or may not invest in on behalf of the pension fund, and will mirror the restrictions that apply to the pension fund.
by ineptech | 2026-02-17 16:39:52+00:00
The depositors were using SVB because SVB was willing to hand out loans to startups with no revenue that other creditors wouldn't fund, right? Using a less reliable vendor to get a better rate is a risk, whether that vendor is supplying labor or parts or banking services.

One could argue that the depositors didn't know SVB was unreliable, but that's kind of undercut by the fact that there was a run on the bank in the first place.
by brodouevencode | 2026-02-17 16:40:02+00:00
Every post on Chomsky is so obviously trying to sound smarter than they really are and this post is no exception. What about that guy attracts such try-hards?

Also to call Chomsky a libertarian is such a gross exaggeration that only if you squint REALLY hard at a couple of lines you might be able to be convinced.
by SpicyLemonZest | 2026-02-17 16:41:01+00:00
People who start lobbying for it quickly discover that 87% of people who petition for their student debt to be cancelled in bankruptcy get it (https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/29/bankruptcy-student-loan-borr...). I support removing the special treatment entirely, but ultimately most student debt holders don’t go bankrupt.
by MontyCarloHall | 2026-02-17 16:41:16+00:00
Isn't the main problem with pensions today the dramatic increase life expectancy post-retirement? They were never intended to support decades of retirement: in the old days, you retired at 65 and there was a good chance you'd be dead by 70, at most 75. (When Social Security was established in the 1930s, life expectancy was only 61.) Nowadays, there's a good chance you'll live beyond 90, with expenses increasing disproportionately towards end-of-life. Combine that with a shrinking birthrate, and no feasible increase in ROI/worker contributions can sustain pension-funded retirements of 25+ years.
by mint5 | 2026-02-17 16:41:20+00:00
Yeah a known Russian propagandist would say that, obviously. He’s specifically know for reciting Russian dissinformation on Ukraine.

It’s very very tellingyour go to source was a Russian disinfo guy.

Col Jacques baud per Wikipedia: He has been criticized for his relaying of several conspiracy theories, his denial of the Syrian regime's responsibility for several chemical attacks and for his pro-Vladimir Putin positions, including through the sharing of disinformation during Russia's invasion of Ukraine
by xscott | 2026-02-17 16:41:26+00:00
Very simple code is UB:

int handle_untrusted_numbers(int a, int b) {
if (a < 0) return ERROR_EXPECTED_NON_NEGATIVE;
if (b < 0) return ERROR_EXPECTED_NON_NEGATIVE;
int sum = a + b;
if (sum < 0) {
return ERROR_INTEGER_OVERFLOW;
}
return do_something_important_with(sum);
}

Every computer you will ever use has two's complement for signed integers, and the standard recently recognized and codified this fact. However, the UB fanatics (heretics) insisted that not allowing signed overflow is an important opportunity for optimizations, so that last if-statement can be deleted by the compiler and your code quietly doesn't check for overflow any more.

There are plenty more examples, but I think this is one of the simplest.
by meimeixoxi | 2026-02-17 16:41:29+00:00
Hi HN,

I built PokeDex++ originally as a mobile app, but I couldn’t afford the Play Store developer fee at the time.

So I decided to rebuild the entire thing as a web app and deploy it independently.

It includes:

– full Pokédex with individual pages
– card collection system
– buddy progression
– virtual coins and skins

This is a solo project built over time as a passion project.

Would love feedback.
by Aunche | 2026-02-17 16:41:31+00:00
> Because the taxpayers (and all users of USD) repeatedly bail them out.

The taxpayer didn't pay for those bailouts. They were funded by the DIF, which was replenished by premiums that banks pay.

> They’re a pretty bloated middleman if their sole purpose is to update a database to reflect incoming and outgoing cash flow.

Did you just look into what banks do at all before making this claim? If that were the case, companies like Apple, Bilt, and Robinhood wouldn't be relying on real banks and could easily start their own.
by barrkel | 2026-02-17 16:41:42+00:00
This is a good statement of what I suspect many of us have found when rejecting the rewriting advice of AIs. The "pointiness" of prose gets worn away, until it doesn't say much. Everything is softened. The distinctiveness of the human voice is converted into blandness. The AI even says its preferred rephrasing is "polished" - a term which specifically means the jaggedness has been removed.

But it's the jagged edges, the unorthodox and surprising prickly bits, that tear open a hole in the inattention of your reader, that actually gets your ideas into their heads.
by qingcharles | 2026-02-17 16:41:58+00:00
I know people serving life without parole. One of them especially I'm fond of. One of the funniest, nicest people I've met. Two people were killed. Did he do it? I couldn't tell you. I've read his entire case file multiple times and I can't say for certain if he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was arrested at 19 and will never see the light of day unless the law changes. If he had a lot of money for a lawyer he could probably get his sentence converted to a fixed duration, since there is now case law saying those under 21 should not be given indefinite sentences due to the undeveloped nature of their brains.

I'm actually amazed at the statistic that only 3% return to prison. There are actually very little resources for those getting released, and if your entire family and friends are gone, you have no support network to fall back on. Perhaps getting out above retirement age gives you access to more charities and a small state pension that will allow you to find a place to live and buy food.

One of the saddest cases I know of is a man who did 50 straight years then needed money when he got out, so his daughter persuaded him to go shoplifting with her and he got arrested immediately and sent back for another three years.
by hluska | 2026-02-17 16:42:03+00:00
I really don’t care if something is built with AI or not, however, when I check out Show HN, I’m interested in seeing new and novel things. Clawntown, the Show HN this article is about, was neither new nor novel. It’s another clone of things that I choose not to use.

Yet most of the time, if I spend five minutes a day on Show HN, I’ll find something new that I find interesting. I wouldn’t say that Show HN is drowning, but creativity should be on life support. I’m sure that’s somewhat a generative AI problem, but they’re pretty good rubber ducks and so I’m surprised by how acute the issue has gotten so quickly.
by Braxton1980 | 2026-02-17 16:42:19+00:00
If you had a choice between nothing being done and forgiving student loans which would you pick?

Second. Let's say universities did take on the burden of loans, of course that would be via a bank right?

If that's the case. How would they enforce risk? Based on certain majors? Who would give a loan with no collateral to young people with no credit on the hopes the major they picked had a viable job market years from that point?
by aftbit | 2026-02-17 16:42:45+00:00
You still seem to be ignoring derived works a bit. For example, if I downloaded a copy of "Harry Potter" and replaced every "Harry" with "Harvey" and every "Potter" with "Plumber", my new book "Harvey Plumber" would be a derived work from the original, meaning I would not have the right to sell or distribute the new work, even though it wouldn't be exactly the same.

What if I did something similar, but rather than a simple Ctrl-H replacement, I asked an LLM to rewrite each paragraph in different words? What if I did the rewrite myself, by hand? Is there a difference? If so, why? If not, why not?
by rockdiesel | 2026-02-17 16:42:46+00:00
Posting my other comment from above:

Yeah. I'm trying to figure out how to combat these inconsistencies. Right now, I have some manual overrides, but not sure it's sustainable to keep manually overriding inconsistent listings.

Any thoughts? Should I default to what's in the product title instead of the unit count? Not sure the best way to combat this.
by WillPostForFood | 2026-02-17 16:42:56+00:00
"A modern F-150 isn’t a 70s F1 car made cheap by new tech. "

Yes, it pretty much is. You have to consider technology in cars is moving on two seperate/distinct paths.

1: improving manufacturing processes, materials, quality, which is lowering prices over time. Megacasting aluminum car parts is an example.

2: Adding totally new complex parts and systems that cars didn't have. This is things like airbags, antilock breaks, infotainment system, catalytic converters. This adds to the total cost.

#2 is far outpacing #1, which is why prices of cars are going up faster than inflation, wages, etc.
by Spivak | 2026-02-17 16:43:03+00:00
Your argument is basically that current university costs are intrinsic and can't possibly be reduced but we know that isn't true. We have not two generations ago people paying for their college tuition with money from their part time jobs.

My grandpa paid his way to a PhD as a line cook. Got no financial support from family who were only slightly above dirt poor.

Like I don't want to be completely reductive but a good chunk of university classes are 30-100 people paying for a single dude and a room with chairs to lecture for 5 hours a week. This doesn't have to be ruinously expensive.
by thomastjeffery | 2026-02-17 16:43:20+00:00
As great as GrapheneOS has been, I'm still tempted to switch to LineageOS. Sure, it would be objectively less secure, but at least then I might be able to disable the obnoxious "automatically disabled 3 unused background apps" notifications.

The biggest problem with security culture is its obsessive hyperfocus on security. Any change that could possibly be less secure (even in extremely exclusive circumstances) must be wrong. Even if it improves accessibility, it must be rejected out of hand.

GrapheneOS promises to liberate us from the enshittification of Google's anticompetitive moat; but it focuses that effort exclusively on security. Everything else that was enshittified gets carefully preserved as-is in the name of "security".

All I want is a mobile computer that does what I tell it to. Why is that constantly treated as an unreasonable fantasy?
by bux93 | 2026-02-17 16:43:28+00:00
Well, let's start with banning debt push down and then move on to the next tool used to privatise profit and socialise risks. You know, it used to be that unfair business practices were researched and banned, simple as that. Just throwing up your hands and saying "Well, what to do?" when there's, you know, a whole science in which people are trained, is disingenuous.
by zackify | 2026-02-17 16:43:34+00:00
As a long time iOS user, I now mainly run Graphene + GadgetBridge with a helio strap. Pretty nice and private setup.

My running watch is from a chinese company that I do not trust, so I lock down the permissions quite far. I like that Graphene lets me control the network permission and have offline maps that cannot report anything external.

Overall the most annoying thing is not being able to iMessage... I moved who I could over to signal.

Also the battery life is amazing because I keept restricting apps from background usage and the defaults already do a good job of that
by seanmcdirmid | 2026-02-17 16:44:05+00:00
> Asking it why it did something is completely useless because you aren't interrogating a person with a memory or a rationale, you’re querying a statistical model that is spitting out a justification for a past state it no longer occupies.

Asking it why it did something isn’t useless, it just isn’t fullproof. If you really think it’s useless, you are way too heavily into binary thinking to be using AI.

Perfect is the enemy of useful in this case.
by bmahir22 | 2026-02-17 16:44:07+00:00
Hey HN,

I built Edwin, a physical AI assistant you talk to like a person. It sits on your desk, listens when you speak, and handles things for you.

Text someone, search the web, schedule meetings, find files, play music, draft emails whatever you'd ask a human assistant to do.

No screen, no app, no chat window. You keep working, Edwin handles it in the background.

Think less 'voice command tool,' more ambient assistant that understands context and gets things done.

Shipping daily demo videos showing real tasks.

Day 1 is sending an iMessage entirely by voice. Find it here.

https://x.com/mahirb22/status/2023798359450865970?s=20

What would you want your desk assistant to do?

Would love to hear what use cases matter most.

getedwin.tech
by AlexandrB | 2026-02-17 16:44:21+00:00
It's a question of supply and demand though. Sure we should fund science post grad, I'm not so sure about humanities (supply already outstrips demand there). Saying we should fund "post grad" in general elides this complexity.

Public school is as much about providing babysitters for parents that have to work as it is about education. Notice how hard it is to be expelled from public school. Grades are irrelevant. This is very different from how post secondary education operates.
by the_harpia_io | 2026-02-17 16:44:21+00:00
I don't think it proves the rule though, I think it's two completely separate failure modes that happen to look similar in code review. the illiterate crowd submits AI code because they can't write it themselves - sure. but the experienced crowd submits AI code because they wrote a good prompt and the output looked reasonable and they moved on to the next ticket. the second group is harder to catch because their PRs have the right structure, reasonable variable names, comments that make sense. you're not gonna flag it the way you'd flag someone who clearly doesn't understand what a middleware chain does. idk maybe I'm wrong about the proportions but in the codebases I've worked on the scary bugs came from people who should have known better, not from people who never knew in the first place. the illiterate ones get caught in review. the competent ones get a rubber stamp because everyone trusts them
by happyopossum | 2026-02-17 16:44:38+00:00
> Pension capital is money that will not be needed for 20 to 40 years.

Is it though? Much of the article talks about public employee pensions, and many of those are ridiculously underwater. People tend to think of pensions as deposit accounts that grow a bit while you wait to retire, but in reality many of them pay out a portion of your pension deposits directly to retirees, because the money those retirees deposited has already been spent.
by palmotea | 2026-02-17 16:44:58+00:00
> He is not chickening out in committing international piracy and abduction.

The boat attacks are small actions, unlikely to result in any consequences. Trump will do low-cost stuff like that. Also piracy requires plunder. Blowing boats up isn't piracy, because there's no plunder.

No one liked Maduro, and he probably stole his last election (at least), so no one's really crying for him. Are you?

> Greenland is a soft, conquerable target - can hoist the Stars&Stripes and stomp the natives under boots without much trouble.

Didn't Trump already back down on that?

> Canada, on the other hand, is bloody hard and conquest won't happen.

So you concede my point? Even with Canada's military exactly as it is right now, there's no realistic military threat to it from Trump, because he's never going to commit to anything that costly.
by shermantanktop | 2026-02-17 16:45:07+00:00
The unfortunate reality is that your kindness and empathy is a resource that is being exploited by unseen actors.

You are being taken for a ride and you feel good about it.

I absolutely support maximizing access to education and I'm willing to pay for it. I'm not willing to prop up a giant unsecured-loan grift that transfers financial risk onto those least able to bear it, while universities jack up their tuition to grab their slice of this new pie.