MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by steve_adams_86 | 2026-02-24 06:38:59+00:00
In my kids' lives, I've spent about $160k on childcare. So crazy to think of how hard we've worked to not be with our kids. I'm going to guess my parents spent under $10k in all of my childhood, inflation adjusted.

This model doesn't really make good sense. On one hand, I'm glad my wife and I can have careers. On the other, I doubt I would care much if we lived in a society where we didn't need to so badly. $160k of childcare doesn't pay for itself.
by AlexCoventry | 2026-02-24 06:39:02+00:00
> If you look at the code, you’ll notice it has a strong “translated from C++” vibe. That’s because it is translated from C++. The top priority for this first pass is compatibility with our C++ pipeline. The Rust code intentionally mimics things like the C++ register allocation patterns so that the two compilers produce identical bytecode. Correctness is a close second. We know the result isn’t idiomatic Rust, and there’s a lot that can be simplified once we’re comfortable retiring the C++ pipeline.

Does this still get you most of the memory-safety benefits of using Rust vs C++?
by janeway | 2026-02-24 06:39:10+00:00
“We have no cure. I don’t want to know.”

If astronomers announced that a large asteroid might strike Earth in twenty years, and that we currently had no way to deflect it, nobody would respond by saying, “Come back when you already have the rocket.” We would immediately build better telescopes to track it precisely, refine its trajectory models, and begin developing propulsion systems capable of interception. You do not wait for the cure before improving the measurement. You improve the measurement so that a cure becomes possible, targeted, and effective.

Medicine is no different. Refusing to improve early, probabilistic diagnosis because today’s treatments are modest confuses sequence with outcome. Breakthroughs do not emerge from vague labels and mixed populations. They emerge from precise, quantitative stratification that allows real effects to be seen. The danger is not that we measure too early. It is that we continue making irreversible clinical and research decisions using imprecise, binary classifications while biological insight and therapeutic tools are advancing rapidly. Building the probabilistic layer now is not premature. It is how we make future intervention feasible.
by strogonoff | 2026-02-24 06:39:19+00:00
I find that implementing a sound solution from scratch is generally lower effort than taking something that already exists and making it sound.

The former: 1) understand the problem, 2) solve the problem.

The latter: 1) understand the problem, 2) solve the problem, 3) understand how somebody or something else understood & solved the problem, 4) diff those two, 5) plan a transition from that solution to this solution, 6) implement that transition (ideally without unplanned downtime and/or catastrophic loss of data).

This is also why I’m not a fan of code reviews. Code review is basically steps 1–4 from the second approach, plus the final step of verbally explaining the diff.
by bigstrat2003 | 2026-02-24 06:39:56+00:00
Yeah, IMO the small standard library in Rust is a big mistake, one of the few the language has made. When push comes to shove the stdlib is the only thing you can count on always being there. It's incredibly valuable to have more tools in the stdlib even if they aren't the best versions out there (for example, even if I normally use requests in Python urllib2 has saved my bacon before), and it doesn't hurt anything to have them there.
by simonw | 2026-02-24 06:40:13+00:00
Less code isn't as important as it used to be, because the cost of maintaining (simple) code has gone down as well.

With coding agent projects I find that investing in DRY doesn't really help very much. Needing to apply the same fix in two places is a waste of time as a human. An agent will spot both places with grep and update them almost as fast as if there was just one.

It's another case where my existing programming instincts appear to not hold as well as I would expect them to.
by golem14 | 2026-02-24 06:40:20+00:00
I agree! Wouldn't it be scientific to test this with other sounds of round and spiky objects?

Formulating theories is all nice and dandy, but it ain't science.

Does the original paper (I couldn't find it in the article) explore this a bit more ?

It's actually nice if the effect can be studied on chickens, they are definitely less expensive and more plentiful than human babies.
by farhanhubble | 2026-02-24 06:40:21+00:00
There could be many plausible explanations.

1. The model's default world model and priors diverge from ours. It may assume that you have another car at the wash and that's why you ask the question to begin with.

2. Language models do not really understand how space, time and other concepts from the real-world work

3. LLM's attention mechanism is also prone to getting tricked as in humans
by Darkstryder | 2026-02-24 06:40:59+00:00
As a father of an 8 years old, this is very moving.

While Terence is -without a doubt- born with prodigious abilities, I think credit should also be given to his parents Billy and Grace who seem to have managed to simultaneously nurture these special abilities while still letting Terence have a happy (?) childhood. This is not easy to do.
by aix1 | 2026-02-24 06:41:08+00:00
> 94.5% is actually terrible.

This statement is quite broad and misses several important factors.

First of all, a test's sensitivity and specificity. The math in your example assumes a balanced test, but on what basis? The math comes out quite different for high-sensitivity or high-specificity tests. (Unfortunately, I could not find the numbers for the test in the linked article.)

Secondly, whom are we testing? The prevalence rate in your example (1%) is unrealistically low even for the general population. But would we screen the general population? No, we'd screen high-risk groups: the elderly, those with certain APOE genotypes etc. Predictive values of a test depend hugely on the prevalence rate.

Lastly, it depends on how the results are used. If it's a high-sensitivity test used to decide whom to send to the next tier in a multi-tier diagnostic system, it could actually be quite effective at that (very rarely missing the disease while greatly reducing the need for more expensive or more invasive testing).
by steve_adams_86 | 2026-02-24 06:42:10+00:00
> If you leave your kid with a friendly neighbor

That's perfectly legal where I live, but... There are no friendly neighbours with that kind of time on their hands. My entire townhome complex of 34 units (ranging from 2–4 bedrooms each) has only one single elderly woman who's retired. Everyone else is young people in their 20s (working), or families with their own kids and—in all families but one—two working parents.
by rkomorn | 2026-02-24 06:42:24+00:00
There are people wired like Tao (or superstar athletes, supermodels, or other remarkable people) that don't achieve the same results.

Even among the people who have similar "luck" in that respect, some still stand out. The people we think of as elite performers aren't just elite relative to the 99% of us. They're also elite within the top 1% that makes up their field: they're dominant even among the people who should be their peers.
by qsera | 2026-02-24 06:42:38+00:00
>Peer review means that EITHER the author or the peer are trustworthy.

The point is that trusting two is not better than trusting one when both of them have equal chance to be malicious.

> human society if built on the exact same vague fuzzy framework.

May be, but we can try to call a spade a spade and not pretend that something is more trustworthy than it is.
by AnthonyMouse | 2026-02-24 06:42:56+00:00
> Is that really a non-sequitur though?

You have something (human communication) which is not intrinsically harmful -- indeed it is intrinsically necessary -- but has been made harmful on purpose. That is very much unlike those other things, where the harm is in their very nature and isn't prevented by the provider just not being a schmuck on purpose.

That makes age gating a ridiculous farce, because you would end up in one of these scenarios, each of which is inane: 1) Providers all put up age restrictions and meaningfully enforce them and then teenagers are totally prohibited from communicating over the internet. 2) Providers all put up "age restrictions" which teenagers bypass in ten seconds and the whole thing is a pointless fraud. 3) You try to separate places for kids from places for adults, but then either a) Adults prefer adult spaces where they're not censored, so they congregate there and those spaces get the network effect, and then teens have to sneak in even if they're not looking for adult content because that's where the bulk of all content is, or b) Nobody likes to show ID even if they're an adult so adults congregate in the least restrictively moderated space where they don't have to show ID, and that space gets the network effect. Then to the extent that they censor, they're censoring the adults which is the thing that wasn't supposed to happen, and to the extent that they don't censor, you have a "kid space" that contains adult content.

It's a trash fire specifically because there's a network effect, which is an aggregating force causing adults and kids to be in the same space so they can communicate with each other. Then the space with the network effect would either have to censor the adults even though they can't leave because of the network effect, or not censor the adults and then have adult content in the space the kids have to be because of the network effect.

The way you fix this is not by trying to separate the networks into kids and adults, it's by tagging specific content so the client device can choose not to display adult content if they're a kid. Which also solves the privacy issue because you don't have to provide any ID to the service when the choice of what content to display happens on the client and the service is only tasked with identifying the content.
by throwmeoutplzdo | 2026-02-24 06:43:06+00:00
You’re mixing up funding with control.

Mozilla Corporation takes money from Google for search placement. That doesn’t turn it into a subsidiary. Google doesn’t own it, doesn’t run its roadmap, and doesn’t ship its code. Mozilla negotiates search deals the same way Apple does for Safari. Revenue deal ≠ corporate control.

On telemetry: you’re overstating it. Firefox ships with telemetry on, but it documents what it collects, lets users turn it off, and exposes most of it in about:config. Google Chrome ties into a much broader account system, sync stack, and ad network. Chrome doesn’t operate in isolation; it plugs straight into Google’s data ecosystem. Firefox doesn’t own an ad network to feed.

“Almost comparable” needs evidence. Comparable how? Volume? Type? Identifiability? Retention? Without specifics, the claim collapses into vibes.

The bigger difference sits lower in the stack: engine independence. Firefox runs on Gecko. Chrome runs on Blink. If you care about web monoculture, that matters more than marginal telemetry deltas. When one engine dominates, web standards start drifting toward what that engine implements. We watched that happen in the IE6 era.

As for uBlock Origin: yes, it’s a major reason people choose Firefox. But browser architecture shapes how long powerful content blockers survive. Chrome’s extension model changes (Manifest V3) restrict what blockers can do. Firefox kept the older, more capable API. That choice signals priorities.

If your argument reduces to “both collect some data, so it doesn’t matter,” you flatten meaningful differences. The question isn’t purity. The question asks who controls the engine, who sets extension policy, and who benefits from surveillance at scale.

If you think those differences don’t matter, make that case directly. But don’t blur structural distinctions into “basically the same.” They’re not.
by qudat | 2026-02-24 06:43:28+00:00
OpenClaw is not going to be a thing in 6 months. The core idea might exist but that codebase is built on a house of cards and is being replicated in 10% of the code.

I don’t think anyone is arguing against code agents being good at prototypes, which is a great feat, but most SWE work is built on maintaining code over time.
by generuso | 2026-02-24 06:44:25+00:00
The efficiency of X-ray tubes is proportional to voltage, and is about 1% at 100kV voltage. This is the ballpark for the garden variety Xray machines. But the wavelength of interest for lithography corresponds to the voltage of only about 100V, so the efficiency would be 10 parts per million.

The source in the ASML machine produces something like 300-500W of light. With an Xray tube this would then require an electron beam with 50 MW of power. When focused into a microscopic dot on the target this would not work for any duration of time. Even if it did, the cooling and getting rid of unwanted wavelengths would have been very difficult.

A light bulb does not work because it is not hot enough. I suppose some kind of RF driven plasma could be hot enough, but considering that the source needs to be microscopic in size for focusing reasons, it is not clear how one could focus the RF energy on it without also ruining the hardware.

So, they use a microscopic plasma discharge which is heated by the focused laser. It "only" requires a few hundred kilowatts of electricity to power and cool the source itself.
by geocar | 2026-02-24 06:44:29+00:00
> I’m an expert and I find it very frustrating

So you say, but I think _I'm_ an expert too, and I wasn't frustrated in the slightest. Maybe you're just not an expert in this space. Did you consider that?

Of course it would be nice if everyone communicated to us in our preferred way, but I think making the reader work a little bit before they have a conversation is a good way to figure out if you're dealing with an expert or not, because an expert actually worth talking to about your ideas will not find it to be too much work to understand them

Students can especially benefit from this advice, because they are still too new to be able to recognise experts from the substance of their words
by slopinthebag | 2026-02-24 06:44:53+00:00
When you talk about maintaining code, do you mean having the LLM do it and you maintain a write-only codebase? Because if you're reading the code yourself and you have a bloated tangled codebase it would make things much harder right?

Is the goal basically a codebase where your interactions are mediated through an LLM?
by apparent | 2026-02-24 06:45:08+00:00
What does "legally protected maternity leave" mean? From your stipend comment it sounds like it's not fully-paid. Does it just mean your company has to offer you your job back when you want to return? What happens if the company has eliminated the roll/laid people off in the meantime? Can they not get rid of your position if you are on maternity at the time?
by globular-toast | 2026-02-24 06:46:01+00:00
There is an inequality between the sexes here. A female model does indeed get more attention and money based purely on the genes they didn't have to work for. It's not the case for men, though. Men also have to actually deliver something, whether it's being a performer like an actor, singer, footballer etc, or winning the Field's medal which you don't just get for being quite good at maths when you're 8. Trying to think of men who are famous just for genetics is quite hard. I guess like Orlando Bloom or the members of K-pop bands and whatnot, but they still have to perform and can't just prance around in fancy clothes and call it a day. In the case of Tao, if he had just decided to do something else or not accomplished anything you'd never have heard of him. Men always have to work for it. Women often don't, and if they try it doesn't work. It's the source of a lot of disgruntlement between the sexes, but probably a "grass is always greener" thing.
by lich_king | 2026-02-24 06:47:01+00:00
Is this your experience? Do you think 30% of your friends or family members can't answer this question? If not, do you think your friends or family are all better than the general population?

I'd look for explanations elsewhere. This was an online survey done by a company that doesn't specialize in surveys. The results likely include plenty of people who were just messing around, cases of simple miscommunication (e.g., asking a person who doesn't speak English well), misclicks, or not even reaching a human in the first place (no shortage of bots out there).

If you're interested in the user experience, it's this: https://www.reddit.com/r/MySingingMonsters/comments/1dxug04/... - apparently, some annoying ad-like interstitial that many people probably just click through at random.
by lelanthran | 2026-02-24 06:47:25+00:00
> the interesting shift is where the time goes. before: thinking + typing. now: thinking + reviewing.

It's widely accepted that you can't learn just by reading, you have to write. So only thinking and reviewing is a great way to lose all the business domain knowledge.

> the thinking part didn't get cheaper -- domain knowledge, edge cases, integration constraints -- none of that is free. what changed is you now review AI output instead of type your own, which is genuinely faster but not as different as it sounds

It's very different - you lose business domain knowledge if you're only reading.
by weatherlite | 2026-02-24 06:49:17+00:00
No .. not really. Not even close.
Just like even if I practiced music 8 hours a day I wouldn't be able to come up with the music Kurt Cobain has or Mozart. There are plenty of musicians who try really hard but lack the innate talent - at best they can learn to play other people's music but never can come up with good original music, at least not something other people want to hear.

As someone wrote here innate ability is a real thing
by slopinthebag | 2026-02-24 06:50:04+00:00
Hmm interesting, I didn't realise people were using it as a typing replacement instead of having it work agentically. Does that mean when you want to change a line of code somewhere, you just prompt the LLM to replace line 334 with your changes etc? So do you not use the LLM autonomously at all then? Sounds like it since you're still doing the iteration yourself.
by shevy-java | 2026-02-24 06:50:17+00:00
Why wasn't this there from the get go? Many people dislike the AI spam; I do too. I use chrome-based browsers usually (I also hate how dependent I have become on Google; default firefox refuses to play audio on my linux system as they claim we need pulseaudio, chrome instead makes no such assumption and audio plays just fine, so one can go and figure out why mozilla acts worse than Google here - all the google-bribe money killed its THINKING ability), so when I do, I use a few extensions such as "disable AI overview" or similar. It is annoying that we have to invest time in order to uncripple the world wide web. Browser vendors should be much more responsible, from the get go. But they all want to jump on the hype train, to milk out more money. Greed is the driving theme nowadays. (They could offer AI based on people who want or need that, rather than cram it down onto everyone.)
by micw | 2026-02-24 06:51:09+00:00
Maybe that's a bias from training data. I would assume that most documents skip the "clarifying the question/scope" part of reasoning. Imagine a scientific text or even a book. Most will start with a clear context/scope. Either with a thesis or a well defined question or (in case of a book) with a story. Texts that start with a question that first needs to be refined are probably rare.
by OutOfHere | 2026-02-24 06:52:03+00:00
Leaving memory enabled risks introducing bias and baggage from past chats and experiences that are better off being left behind. It however then becomes my responsibility to tell ChatGPT everything it needs to know in every chat.

Note that there are other sources of bias besides memory. For example, for each Custom GPT, an OpenAI staff Karens looks to type up and insert custom instructions that apply with a higher priority, and often are detrimental to the output, thereby sabotaging the Custom GPT. It would be better off if they didn't do any of it. I have had multiple Custom GPTs that initially worked flawlessly get sabotaged by OpenAI in this way.
by locknitpicker | 2026-02-24 06:52:27+00:00
> This is also why I’m not a fan of code reviews.

That's specious reasoning. Code reviews are a safeguard against cowboy coding, and a tool to enforce shared code ownership. You might believe you know better than most of your team members, but odds are a fresh pair of eyes can easily catch issues you snuck in your code that you couldn't catch due to things like PR tunnel vision.

And if your PR is sound, you certainly don't have a problem explaining what you did and why you did it.
by shevy-java | 2026-02-24 06:53:15+00:00
In theory you are not incorrect, but Google bribes Firefox and Google makes most money via ads. Mozilla gave up on firefox a long time ago.

> It continually amazes me how people use a Google product on their desktop, as if they don't send enough data to an ad company.

I'd love to have alternatives, but which ones are there? Firefox is not an alternative; audio does not work for me as I am pulseaudio free here. On chrome-based browsers audio works fine, out of the box, so it is not my system that is at fault; it is mozilla that is at fault. I also reported this, the lazy firefox dev said all Linux users use pulseuaudio these days. Well ...

I could recompile it but compiling firefox is a pain in the ...:

https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/xsoft/firefox...

I am not going to use a build system that is +20 years old and only exists because Mozilla is too lazy to switch to cmake or meson/ninja as primary build tool.

> Actually, I'm not sure why I type this, any rational arguments are definitely not winning them over.

Well I gave one rational argument: can't play audio on my linux box if I use firefox (by default that is). I can give many more reasons too. You seem to make the point that Google is worse, so we should also use a bad product (firefox). I think we really need better browsers in general. Firefox simply isn't one and that is Mozilla's fault. There is a reason why it went into decline. Mozilla gave up the fight - the ad-money made it weak.
by abustamam | 2026-02-24 06:53:54+00:00
I don't think it's the lack of the ability to reason. The question is by definition a trick question. It's meant to trip you up, like '
"Could God make a burrito so hot that even he couldn't touch it?" Or "what do cows drink?" or "a plane crashes and 89 people died. Where were the survivors buried?"

I've seen plenty of smart people trip up or get these wrong simply because it's a random question, there's no stakes, and so there's no need to think too deeply about it. If you pause and say "are you sure?" I'm sure most of that 70% would be like "ohhh" and facepalm.