MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by coryrc | 2026-02-04 03:58:22+00:00
1. No, absolutely not. Why would you settle for COP=1 when you can have COP>1?

2. The electrical to heat conversion efficiency is indeed 100% regardless of the temperature of the resistor. And if you're putting out 1000W, then all input losses are also identical. If you put a 1000W light bulb in the middle of your room, or 2 of them but run both at 500W, you'll get EXACTLY the same heat output in your room, but the single bulb is much hotter.
by mananaysiempre | 2026-02-04 03:59:56+00:00
Buy an SSD, and you can get both at the same time!

That is to say, all the (high-end/“gamer”) consumer SSDs that I’ve checked achieve 10% overprovisioning by exposing a given number of binary TB of physical flash (e.g. a “2TB” SSD will have 2×1024⁴ bytes’ worth of flash chips) as the same number of decimal TB of logical addresses (e.g. that same SSD will appear to the OS as 2×1000⁴ bytes of storage space).
by randomor | 2026-02-04 03:59:58+00:00
This is an inherent value trap that’s really not sustainable for VC backed startups. Which will inevitably burn to the ground as the revenue dwindles. Pocket, Omnivore, Upnext, your next favorite server based read-later app. One of the reason I believe is the market is saturated with undifferentiated apps that’s all free.

While I think self-hosting is great, you probably want to solve mobile capturing and consumption, hosting a server, then paring a modern maintained mobile app that you can configure so it connects to your self-hosted server. Omnivore maybe your best shot? Although maybe vibe code may get you there sooner?

If you are on Apple ecosystem though, there is another self-sustainable way that doesn’t require you to host anything on your VPS, that works with mobile, which is iCloud/Cloudkit based apps.

There are at least a dozen options here. I made one of these:

- no account, no server, no tracking

- Liquid Glass Mac app that launch from menu bar.

- Separate iOS app purposefully designed for mobile

- Doesn’t use a browser extension, but monitors double copies from clipboard.

- Shows all the cards in a waterfall grid, so you don’t have to click into these cards to see what the link is about. Every website you use, from TikTok to GoodReads, will show up as well designed cards.

- Uses Apple Intelligence on device to auto-tag links.

- free to capture without limit, has a one time purchase option (that removes the sub nudge) as well as affordable subscription option with PPP in 10 territories (purchase power parity pricing).

I believe it’s the sweet spot in this category, and with the subscription revenue we have, it will never shutdown as long as Apple still offers iCloud, plus, you own the binary.

It’s at https://doublememory.com if this sounds interesting to you.
by fc417fc802 | 2026-02-04 04:01:56+00:00
Now that I think about it, I see KiB and kb all the time but I don't know that I've ever encountered Kib or kB in the wild. Maybe I'm in a bubble? Or maybe we should accept that kb is power of 10 but kB is power of two?

Well I guess we already basically have this in practice since Ki can be shortened to K seeing as metric k is always lower case and we clearly aren't talking about kelvin bytes.
by throw3836372 | 2026-02-04 04:03:29+00:00
You should check out Michael Lynch's blog series about building TinyPilot.

He tried to source from America companies first, but the products were actually worse and much more expensive than his Chinese vendors.

He has one blog post which details the quality differences, and the Chinese vendors were much better than the American ones. The American ones also took longer and we're less communicative to him than the Chinese vendors.
by iJohnDoe | 2026-02-04 04:05:25+00:00
FTA - The original person posting about the unusual behavior was truly helpful.

https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/27212/autoupda...

Thankfully the responses weren’t outright dismissive, which is usually the case in these situations.

It was thought to be a local compromise and nothing to do Notepad++.

Good lessons to be learned here. Don’t be quick to dismiss things simply because it doesn’t fit what you think should be happening. That’s the whole point. It doesn’t fit, so investigate why.

Most tech support aims to prove the person wrong right out the gate.
by starky | 2026-02-04 04:06:43+00:00
A lot of success in working with suppliers in China (and really anywhere in Asia) is in building a relationship with them where they know exactly what your expectations are and holding them to it until they understand that it is just easiest for them to do it right to start.

I've got suppliers who I can send a difficult part to and know that I'm going to get exactly what I expect, faster and cheaper than just about anyone else. It took a few years to get to that point, but these few vendors make it really hard to go with anyone else, much to the chagrin of the sourcing team who rightly recognize it a risk to rely on just a few suppliers.

Once you get to a certain type of supplier you end up running into the problem where their processes are such that they won't do anything without you clearly documenting it. They simply refuse to make any assumptions on your behalf. They can be so frustrating when you are used to the other way of doing it. I simply cannot answer some questions because I'm so used to my other suppliers just doing it correctly and haven't ever asked about it.
by jkestner | 2026-02-04 04:06:50+00:00
You might like the updates from my current project. It’s got it all—-tariff surprises, flaky suppliers, switching manufacturing processes midstream, and most of all, the slog: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/pickup-...

Pixels dice have also been going on a “fun” journey with the weight of a huge crowdfunding raise. I’ve been following their updates with sympathy: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixels-dice/pixels-the-...
by jiggawatts | 2026-02-04 04:06:56+00:00
Meanwhile, here in Australia I spoke with small business owners (cafes, gyms, etc...) about their preparedness for the COVID lockdowns before the first one we had. All of them just had a wide-eyed look and a mumbled "Lockdowns? Really? Here? You think so?"

More than half of them went bankrupt.

One guys kept dumping money into a new gym buildout mere weeks before the months-long lockdowns commenced.
by seanmcdirmid | 2026-02-04 04:07:34+00:00
China is still far away with a mostly segregated software ecosystem, so why would we hear much about it? I would be interested in hearing how Chinese are leveraging LLMs, especially the more efficient Chinese models coming out of Alibaba, tencent and deepseek, but I’m probably in the minority and news, like HN, mainly serves majority demand.
by michaelm244 | 2026-02-04 04:07:57+00:00
Comulate | Senior Engineer (3+ YoE) | ONSITE in San Francisco, CA

We're building automation software for the $7T insurance industry, accelerated by AI. Seed stage in terms of headcount (~ 20 people) but Series B in terms of business traction (+ cash-flow positive). We've intentionally stayed under the radar.

- Product has caused customers to literally cry tears of joy

- Experienced eng team from Airbnb / Brex / LiveRamp

- Stack: TS, Postgres, React, GraphQL, and Next.js

Apply here: https://about.comulate.com/careers
by josephg | 2026-02-04 04:08:04+00:00
I mostly agree but ...

> In the same way someone working on software shouldn't be required to use an end-user consumption system when they are at work.

I'm worried that many software developers (including me, a lot of the time) will only enable security after exhausting all other options. So long as there's a big button labeled "Developer Mode" or "Run as Admin" which turns off all the best security features, I bet lots of software will require that to be enabled in order to work.

Apple has quite impressive frameworks for application sandboxing. Do any apps use them? Do those DAWs that sound engineers use run VST plugins in a sandbox? Or do they just dyld + call? I bet most of the time its the latter. And look at this Notepad++ attack. The attack would have been stopped dead if the update process validated digital signatures. But no, it was too hard so instead they got their users' computers hacked.

I'm a pragmatist. I want a useful, secure computing environment. Show me how to do that without annoying developers and I'm all in. But I worry that the only way a proper capability model would be used would be by going all in.
by eric2675 | 2026-02-04 04:08:09+00:00
Author here.I've been analyzing why RL-based reasoning models like DeepSeek-R1 exhibit specific instability patterns (language mixing, loops) despite their high logic capabilities.I modeled this as a control theory problem: treating the "Chain of Thought" as a noise-reduction loop ($\eta \to 0$). The math suggests that while this maximizes gain (reasoning power), operating without a "grounding manifold" ($M_{phys}$) mathematically guarantees divergence.I included a Python simulation in the Gist to verify the stability difference between grounded vs. ungrounded systems. Happy to discuss the math.
by andylizf | 2026-02-04 04:09:23+00:00
Update: My account has been re-enabled this morning. Google apologized for the delay.

To clarify some questions in the comments:

This was a personal account. I normally use my university account for research. I hadn't even used up the $200 free trial, just doing some inference.

I had multiple projects for different AI Studio purposes. Google's automated system likely flagged this as an attempt to circumvent quota limits, even though I was just organizing different use cases into separate projects.

The "2 years" wasn't me ignoring it. I followed up multiple times over this period, but every attempt went nowhere - just automated replies. Eventually I got fed up and decided to post here.

I wasn't paying for support since it was just a personal account for small experiments.

Thanks everyone. The HN visibility definitely helped.
by rtpg | 2026-02-04 04:09:25+00:00
Though I think there's way less of this issue in Japan because there are a lot of gov't-involving procedures and record ownership in land ownership transfers making it quite hard to go all the way(and hey, even in the US you have title insurance), there was a bit of a wild case a couple years back where a fraudster sold a 5.5 billion yen piece of land to a major developer[0].

Fraud is always fun to look at because people are constantly looking for those little windows of trust that end up forming in these flows because otherwise everything would take months to execute upon.

[0]:https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20181121/p2a/00m/0na/00...
by r-johnv | 2026-02-04 04:10:20+00:00
I've found that it's often useful to spend the time thinking about the way I would architect the code (down to a fair level of minutia) before letting the agent have a go.

That way my 'thinker' is satiated and also challenged - Did the solution that my thinker came up with solve the problem better than the plan that the agent wrote?

Then either I acknowledge that the agent's solution was better, giving my thinker something to chew on for the next time; or my solution is better which gives the thinker a dopamine hit and gives me better code.
by _aavaa_ | 2026-02-04 04:11:17+00:00
There is no confusion about that. I think the confusion is repo being used for both 1) the actual remote git repo hosted by GitHub and 2) the “repo” at GitHub.com/username/project.

I know that opening a PR does not affect the first, but it very much affects the second. For my project both are mine, and just as I have the right to ignore a PR and I have the right to reject any after they’re opened, so too do I have the right to reject PRs before they’re opened.

> their version

And they can keep doing that without cluttering my page.

> what you guys are suggesting…

So what? Who or what states they are entitled to have their changes visible as a request on my repo?

Having publicly accessible issue and PR pages opens breeds the kind of entitlement you are showing here: they do not have a right to open requests on my page any more than people have a “right” to comment on a blog post or a YouTube video. And keeping an issue/PR section available leads people to assume that they have a right to do it simply because they can.
by jackyli02 | 2026-02-04 04:12:34+00:00
Reasons this piece is unimpressive:

1. It never really seemed to explain WHY poor countries stopped doing better. It just framed it as "sike, they never were getting better!". But the WHY is still missing.

2. The penultimate paragraph present a thesis that China's commodity boom is the main driver behind the "great convergence". This claim is baseless. Just because the commodity boom in China coincide with the great convergence does make one the "product" (verbatim quote) of the other. In fact these two events are structurally connected and there is no simple one-way causation relationship. Other factors like financial deregularization played a vital role in the great convergence but was completely ignored.

3. Some of the evidences (eg. "Dutch disease") are over-generalizations and ignore the differences between nations.
by lelandbatey | 2026-02-04 04:12:52+00:00
And yet, it is a constantly used decentralized system which does not require content addressing, as you mentioned. You should elaborate why we need content addressing for a decentralized system instead of saying "10MiB limit + spam lol email fell off". Contemporary usage of technologies you've mentioned don't seem to do much to reduce spam (see IPFS which has hard content addressing). Please, share more.
by innis226 | 2026-02-04 04:13:11+00:00
People are gettingtoo hung up on the radiator math and completely missing the massive input advantage of AM0 versus AM1.5. On Earth you get around 1,000 Watts/m^2 (ideal), but in realtiy shave off 20–25% because of clouds and night time. In a sun-synchronous orbit, you’re pulling close to 1300 W/m^2, and that's 24x7. That is easily a 5x to 6x energy yield advantage per square meter of panel per day, and when you have that much surplus energy free from the vacuum, you can afford to brute-force the cooling problem by dumping massive wattage into active heat pumps to raise your radiator temps, effectively paying for the inefficiency of space cooling with the abundance of space power.
Google terminated my YouTube channel even thought I made no videos or used it
by paulpauper | 2026-02-04 04:14:07+00:00
This is really weird. Google requires everyone to make a youtube channel before they can use youtube. Everything has been going fine for years and now somehow my channel, which never had a video and I was not even aware existed, was terminated and now I cannot use youtube at all. Appealing failed. This make no sense. how can I lose my channel when I never used it? Is there anyway to recover my channel subscriptions or use youtube without the channel?
by aboardRat4 | 2026-02-04 04:15:13+00:00
No it's not. GPL is quite the opposite. GPL means that "you own what you buy", which is the foundation of capitalism. You own what you buy, including programs, which you can buy, replicate, modify, and sell.

Due to the nature of software, especially in the 80s, it existed in both text and binary form, which made it easy to perverse the nature of selling software from selling code to selling binaries, and big companies went even further in their collusion with the government socialists by making even re-selling even your own binaries illegal.

GPL is just trying to fight this madness with its own weapon. The GPL is an attempt to go back to capitalism of small business owners and individual service providers.
by nuwansam_87 | 2026-02-04 04:15:47+00:00
AI agents work best with plain .md files organized in folders.

Most work-planning tools today (Jira, Linear, etc.) are DB-centric and form-driven, which makes them awkward for agentic workflows.

I’ve been building an alternative where user stories and scenarios live as structured .md files syncable to your repo, with human workflows layered on top.

I’d appreciate feedback on where this fits (or doesn’t), and what you’d expect from an approach like this.
by aykrieger | 2026-02-04 04:16:26+00:00
Location: Cleveland Heights, Ohio. US

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Kotlin, Java, Vertx, functional programming, SQL, back-end, Linux, some Python/Django/Flask, some Android

Résumé/CV: On request

Email: andy [at] aykrieger.com

Personal Site: aykrieger.com

GitHub: https://github.com/aykrieger

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-krieger/

Hi, I'm Andy and I have 7 years of experience working on back-end financial APIs. I'm looking for a full-time software engineering role and I'm eager to learn new technologies.

Even though I’m working through my hacking addiction at Anonymous Anonymous, I’ve been clean from production incidents for years.
by cyode | 2026-02-04 04:16:40+00:00
The supersized option in a line of products is always funny for some reason.

Last week I chuckled upon seeing this online store's inventory of coffee makers: ...10 cups, 12 cups, 18 cups, 50(!) cups: https://www.bialetti.com/it_en/shop/coffee-makers.html?cups=...

(The 50 cups option turned out to be a decorative piece.)
by koolba | 2026-02-04 04:16:59+00:00
> There are ways to do better. A national holiday for elections has been mentioned countless times.

Sure. But let’s get rid of all early voting and mail in balloting. No excuses right? Throw in voter id too.

> We could do like Australia and mandate required voting.

I never quite understand why mandatory participation is a meaningful goal. If people are neither informed nor interested, why do you want them to have a say at all? At best they’ll be picking a last name that sounds pronounceable. Or going with whichever first name sounds more (or less!) male.

> Prisoners should be able to vote. But this country is too hell-bent on punishment.

We already strip them of their freedom of movement. Why do you want everyone up to and including rapists, pedophiles, and murders voting? Is there a particular voting bloc that you think would add value with their point of view?

> Registration can be made on the same day of voting, rather than some states require 30 days, and others per state.

I’m generally for this though there are a bit of logistics when you’re dealing with preprinted paper ballots and some expectations of processing quantity. Prior registration also addresses people showing up at the wrong polls in advance.

> But in reality, none of these are done. Changes are glacial, if they do happen.

Not always a bad thing either. If all it took was the stroke of an executive’s pen, you’d see a lot of things I bet you would not be fond of rather soon.

> But these would all increase a democratic choice. Right now, its a horrendously gamified minority of a minority who decides, based on electoral college results.

The electoral college is a feature. It forces you to win across large and small States.
by theamk | 2026-02-04 04:17:51+00:00
> But there are a growing number of people who are discontent, among both software engineers and UI/UX experts and enthusiasts. Who long for the traditional UIs of Windows or Mac OS, pre XP & X. Who want to pass the love of the 90s aesthetic on to all posterity. Who wish for an alternate timeline where the 90s reigned supreme. Who want to keep pushing the envelope to see what we can make.

(looking at my machines which run Mate and XFCE) What are you talking about? My current UIs are pretty similar to old-style Windows - similar colors, task bars, distinctive buttons with borders. Look at theme list - a Windows 2000 user would love many of those [0].
And all the improvements are either under-the-hood, or very beneficial (like multiple desktops or search in start menu)

https://www.mate-look.org/browse?cat=125&page=2&ord=rating
by musicale | 2026-02-04 04:18:33+00:00
This seems like another sad indicator that Microsoft has deteriorated from the company it used to be.

Though Steve Jobs infamously closed the Apple Library (which had existed since 1981) after he returned in 1997:

> “Who uses all of this?” asked Steve.

> Monica answered, “The engineers use this to do research.”

> Steve’s response: “They should know all that already.”

...

> Word spread throughout Apple that the library was closing. Employees were outraged, but an email campaign to save the library proved hopeless. Condolences came in from Microsoft’s library staff, and flowers and thank you notes were left outside of the locked doors by employees.

https://annamancini.substack.com/p/how-the-apple-archive-end...
by hahahahhaah | 2026-02-04 04:19:22+00:00
I think AI didn't do this. Open source, libraries, cloud, frameworks and agile conspired to do this.

Why solve a problem when you can import library / scale up / use managed kuberneted / etc.

The menu is great and the number of problems needing deep thought seems rare.

There might be deep thought problems on the requirements side of things but less often on the technical side.
by nayuki | 2026-02-04 04:19:47+00:00
This is a frustrating replay of the DRM (digital rights management) / copy protection debate from about 20 years ago. That time, it was about restricting fully general-purpose computers and storage devices from copying or displaying certain bit patterns in the hopes of stopping media piracy. The pro-restriction side spent enormous amounts of money, engineering talent, and legal firepower, yet hackers have defeated every copy-protection system ever devised.

This time, it's about restricting fully general-purpose 3D printers (and perhaps CNC machines) from following instructions according to certain bit patterns in the hopes of stopping the manufacture of firearms. I have a feeling it's going to play out in the same way, leading to an long and expensive intellectual war that accomplishes nothing.

Fighting a war against general-purpose tools is as futile as making water not wet. When will legislators learn this and give up?
by SilverElfin | 2026-02-04 04:22:12+00:00
ICE has no problem kidnapping citizens, kidnapping children, executing citizens, drawing guns on people legally following / observing them, unconstitutionally raiding homes, and more. ICE is absolutely a test for Trump. He is normalizing the violent force he will use as part of a scheme to steal or disrupt elections. Expect these Gestapo goons to be terrorizing voters in swing states and cities.
by paladin314159 | 2026-02-04 04:22:26+00:00
I echo this sentiment. Even though I'm having Claude Code write 100% of the code for a personal project as an experiment, the need for thinking hard is very present.

In fact, since I don't need to do low-thinking tasks like writing boilerplate or repetitive tests, I find my thinking ratio is actually higher than when I write code normally.