MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Show HN: I'm 75, Building an OSS Virtual Protest Protocol
by sakanakana00 | 2026-02-14 13:28:51+00:00
Hi HN,

I am a 75-year-old former fishmonger from Japan. Currently, I work at the compensation desk for the Fukushima nuclear disaster (TEPCO). Witnessing deep social divisions and the limitations of bureaucracy firsthand, I realized we need a new way for people to express their will without being "disposable."

To address this, I’ve designed the *Virtual Protest Protocol (VPP)*. It’s an OSS framework for large-scale, 2D avatar-based digital demonstrations. I recently shared this with the *Open Technology Fund (OTF)* and received an encouraging "This is great" response. Now, I am looking for the HN community's expertise to turn this spec into a reality.

*The Concept:*
* *Beyond Yes/No (Avoiding Polarization):* Introducing an *"Observe"* status. Modern social media forces people into binary "For or Against" camps, deepening social division. VPP allows the silent majority to participate by simply "being there," visualizing the scale of public concern without forcing a polarized stance.
* *Cell-Based Scaling:* To handle thousands of participants, avatars are managed in "cells" of 50 units. New cells instantiate as the crowd grows, ensuring compatibility with low-spec devices and low-bandwidth environments.
* *Privacy by Design:* We only collect anonymous attributes (age/gender/region). All event-specific data is wiped immediately after the demonstration.
* *OIN Membership:* We have joined the [Open Invention Network (OIN)](https://openinventionnetwork.com) to ensure this remains a patent-free global public good.

*Why I’m doing this:*
At 75, I belong to the generation that will soon "retire" from society. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to leave a better infrastructure for the next generation?one that isn't burdened by the financial and social "debt" we've accumulated. I am not looking for personal gain; I want this to be a sustainable, global infrastructure.

*GitHub:* https://github.com/voice-of-japan/Virtual-Protest-Protocol/b...
*Project Site:* https://voice-of-japan.net

We are looking for collaborators with expertise in:
* Scalable Web Architecture (Node.js, Go, etc.)
* High-performance Canvas/WebGL rendering
* AI-based real-time moderation (LLM integration)
by ramanova | 2026-02-14 13:29:15+00:00
No phone is perfect, It's the overall complexity of the systems that is causing the multiple issues.
I moved from iphone 13 to pixel 10pro and it wasn't such a great transition. It's totally not "better". Each have their own disadvantages.
Android:
- Pixel really sucks at apps and sharing content in app/ between apps. This is really killing me, because it's impossible to share more than image from whatsapp to telegram e.g. No image copy in apps.
- The apps are not as polished
- The gaming performance not even close to apple (or samsung for that matter)
- Wifi / GSM doesn't feel as reliable or fast as it was on my 4yo iphone
- Videos cameras switching is unreliable, photos colors are washed out and dead
- You can't compare Pixel watch and Apple Watch (same goes for Garmin with it's terrible sluggish UI)

Iphone:
- No Screen text translate in real-time like on Pixel. Currently the only deal breaker for me personally and reason I'm using the Pixel.
- The keyboard is dumb. But speech recognition is ok.
- Duplication of photos between icloud and google photos. The Google Photos is crazy good in comparison to the icloud.
by tialaramex | 2026-02-14 13:29:17+00:00
No. This just underscored that if you don't encrypt stuff them idiots will break it. Notice that they didn't break any parts of TLS 1.2 which were encrypted, everything they broke is the unencrypted stuff, and so by encrypting more stuff (everything except client hello) in TLS 1.3 we improved that, and then by encrypting even more stuff in ECH (Encrypted Client Hello) we expect to improve it again.

Government regulation is good in that it can work, but it's terrible in that almost every other choice would be better if it works. For TLS 1.3 we made choices which work, if we'd waited for your hypothetical government intervention we'd still be using TLS 1.2 and Trump would presumably be collecting an inaugural "Super good Bank Encryption Champion" trophy from EDCO or somebody who fought against TLS 1.3 because it meant they'd have to actually do a good job.
by cardanome | 2026-02-14 13:29:33+00:00
> The OCD mention functions similarly and it explains the overanalysis as a feature, not something that might be creating friction with colleagues.

Because it is both and this is a very classic problem for neurodivergent people.

As a ADHD person I could very much relate. My pattern recognition allows me to see connections and structure where neurotypical people only see chaos. I am often three, four, five steps ahead and can see potential problems and solutions so much earlier.

Of course this doesn't help. If I point these things out, I will only be met with resistance regardless if I happen to be right later on or not.

So really the best solution is to just shut up. Let them catch up eventually. It just feels so isolating and frustrating. Not only do I have to mask the deficits that ADHD gives me but also my talents.

I think this is the core issue here. OP is hated and discriminated for their OCD. Corporations are not equipped harness the talents of people that think differently. They are not a "culture fit".

I don't really have a solution. Yes you can learn to mask and play the game but that is also not healthy in the long term.
by staticassertion | 2026-02-14 13:29:42+00:00
> I don't think you can claim a middle ground here, because I still largely agree with the sentiment:

FWIW I am not claiming any middle ground. I was suggesting that maybe you were.

> Sometimes, an appropriate response or argument isn't some sort of addressing of whatever nonsense the AI spat out, but simply pointing out the unprofessionalism and absurdity of using AI to try and cancel a maintainer for rejecting their AI pull request.

Okay but we're talking about a concrete case here too. That's what was being criticized by the initial post I responded to.

> "Fuck off, clanker" is not enough by itself merely because it's too terse, too ambiguous.

This is why I was suggesting you might be appealing to a middle ground. This feels exactly like a middle ground? You're saying "is not enough", implying more, but also you're suggesting that it doesn't have to be as far as the maintainer went. This is... the middle?
by flohofwoe | 2026-02-14 13:31:40+00:00
> I don't think Rust is "a better C/C++". It's a new kind of beast. Interesting, but very different.

The same can be said about Zig's comptime. It's entirely unlike anything C, C++ or Rust has to offer.

> I expect LLMs to be really good at converting C to Zig.

While it's possible to translate C to Zig code - and you don't need an LLM for that, it's a Zig compiler/build-system feature - the result will be quite different from a project that's developed in Zig from the ground up since the translation output wouldn't make use of Zig's unique features (and Zig isn't really unique as 'C translation target', C can also be translated to unsafe Rust, or even to Javascript - see early Emscripten versions).

Also, the 'C compatibility' of Zig is implemented via a separate compiler frontend, Rust toolchains could do exactly the same thing by integrating the Clang frontend into the Rust compiler.
by threethirtytwo | 2026-02-14 13:31:54+00:00
Yeah it's pervasive. It's also delusional.

Take a look at this entire thread. Everyone and I mean everyone is talking as if AI is some sort of fraud and everything is just hype. But then this thread is all against, AI, I mean all of it. If anything the Anti-hype around AI is what's flooding the world right now. If AI hype was through the roof we'd see the opposite effect on HN.

I think it's a strange contradiction in the human mind. At work outside of HN, what I see is roughly 50-60% of developers no longer code by hand. They all use AI. Then they come onto HN and they start Anti-hyping it. It's universal. They use it and they're against it at the same time.

The contradiction is strange, but it also makes sense because AI is a thing that is attacking what programmers take pride in. Most programmers are so proud of their abilities and intelligence as it relates to their jobs and livelihood. AI is on a trendline of replacing this piece by piece. It makes perfect sense for them to talk shit but at the same time they have to use it to keep up with the competition.
Show HN: Stillpoint – Debugger for Cognitive Loops
by schneak | 2026-02-14 13:31:55+00:00
Context: Earlier this week asked how engineers "step through" their own anxiety. 20+ comments with methods: externalizing, nervous system regulation, "next thought" hack, 4-mile walks.

Built a tool for the gap: 2am, 6 layers deep, can't access your toolkit. 10 Socratic messages, no login, no memory.

Not therapy. Not optimization. Just pattern recognition when you're stuck mid-loop.

Try it: https://thestillpoint.netlify.app/

Thanks to everyone who shared their actual practices.
by g947o | 2026-02-14 13:31:59+00:00
I am finding less value in reading Ars:

* They are often late in reporting a story. This is fine for what Ars is, but that means by the time they publish a story, I have likely read the reporting and analysis elsewhere already, and whatever Ars has to say is stale

* There seem to be fewer long stories/deep investigations recently when competitors are doing more (e.g. Verge's brilliant reporting on Supernatural recently)

* The comment section is absolutely abysmal and rarely provides any value or insight. It maybe one of the worst echo chambers that is not 4chan or a subreddit, full of (one-sided) rants and whining without anything constructive that is often off topic. I already know what people will be saying there without opening the comment section, and I'm almost always correct. If the story has the word "Meta" anywhere in the article, you can be sure someone will say "Meta bad" in the comment, even if Meta is not doing anything negative or even controversial in the story. Disagree? Your comment will be downvoted to -100.

These days I just glance over the title, and if there is anything I haven't read about from elsewhere, I'll read the article and be done with it. And I click their articles much less frequently these days. I wonder if I should stop reading it completely.
by komali2 | 2026-02-14 13:32:01+00:00
> I was given a warning because said proposal was (unknowingly) opposed to a Senior Director's vision, one they'd already presented to the customer prior to seeking my input and neglected to mention when I reached out. My timing was perfect for the market, but poor for the systems of power within the organization.

I feel like there's two paths you can take in your career: corporate stooge, or productive worker. The corporate stooge will be more capitalistically rewarded, because businesses aren't optimized for productivity or quality, they're optimized for capitalistic rewards.

There was an article recently about dating apps and their inherently contradictory incentives. They're incentivized to keep you on the app, which means getting you kinda good matches, but not so good that you stop needing the app. The business world seems to be nothing but these contradictions, and it seems our choices are to learn to take this Kafkaesque fully into our internal model of the world, or give up and accept that we'll be disposed of every few years, despite keeping some part of the company's heart beating (a part some exec will one day gleefuly rip out of their own metaphorical chest so as to drive up price immediately before acquisition or something).
by Majromax | 2026-02-14 13:32:25+00:00
> And receiving a formal warning is an extremely serious signal.

To be nitpicky, the article doesn't say 'formal warning,' just 'warning.' That could have been anything from a gentle let-down to a reprimand.

That being said, I think your broader point is reasonably true: the author frames the 'political games' of promotion as a regrettable necessity rather than a job requirement beyond the juniormost levels. Despite their self-description as helpful and cooperative, they disdain the dyadic sport of cooperatively making their boss look good.

That's not to say that one should submit to base exploitation, of course, but there's a fine art to understanding the constraints and incentives of others and working with (and often within) that framework.

A second skill is being able to separate the person from the position, to maintain friendly or at least respectful personal relationships with people who might be professional adversaries at the moment. This is harder, but if professional hostility reads as personal contempt that will definitely destroy one's social weight in an organization.
by avianlyric | 2026-02-14 13:33:32+00:00
> You are in a great place in your life, if your most significant problem is caused by not liking a stupid meme and a breakfast photo your friends posted on a random Tuesday...

Or you’re in a terrible place in your life, and the small endorphin release from liking stupid memes and breakfast photos is how you try and escape from terrible things that haunt you day-to-day.
by Hamuko | 2026-02-14 13:33:52+00:00
Asking your host country to provide you a four-day working week with a fully funded fifth day just for language study is nuts, especially for a highly-paid engineer.

>This would not be charity. It would be an investment.

Why are you unwilling to make that investment? Is your money situation so tight that you can't work a reduced week without the state paying for it?
by danielroe | 2026-02-14 13:34:27+00:00
thank you for the feedback!

I will be thinking closely and I really prize all thoughtful feedback like this.

we're currently on a collective holiday: https://npmx.dev/recharging. but when we're back, you would be really welcome to join us and make it better - if you want!

it's open source at https://github.com/npmx-dev/npmx.dev
by iso1631 | 2026-02-14 13:34:56+00:00
> The Blu-ray collection appears to be available for about $100.

It saddens me that people aren't willing to pay a pittance in cash (about $1 an hour) for entertainment. They're willing to spend their time, but not their money.

This isn't just buying a 100 episode box set, it applies to people complaining "I'd have to spend $10 on $streaming_service to watch that 5 hour miniseries, that's terrible" too.
Show HN: Two-Dimensional Phase Portrait Plotter
by hrldrvry | 2026-02-14 13:35:18+00:00
Hi!
I made a two-dimensional phase portrait plotter website page.

Purpose: If you don't have any study guide for exercises related to dynamic systems or too lazy to run python and set up sliders to visually see potential bifurcations, you can play around with said dynamic system (numerically) to visually get a feel of the system.

It includes numerical approximations for:

- Euler/4th Order Runge-Kutta solver for the system --> You can also pick initial point + backwards integration.

- Poincaré Index (index theory)

- Nullclines

- Eigenvalues of the Jacobian matrix (sometimes called "stability matrix" in the literature)

It's based on old python code that I made for a dynamic system course that I converted to JavaScript using Grok, Sonnet 4.5 and Gemini Pro.

Does not include:

- Bifurcation diagrams - can't make it without a computer algebra system (CAS), way above my skill level...

- Anything that isn't two-dimensional (for one dimension you can just use a regular calculator) - 3D got highly computational heavy fast (for a website so to speak). I'm keeping it simple since it is a practice tool to draw your own phase portraits yourself by hand (like most exams requires you to do).

For real applications, you need to either solve stuff analytically or use more advance tools. This is just for educational purposes and enjoyment.
Show HN: An AI Workstation Inspired by Computers
by mazilin | 2026-02-14 13:36:09+00:00
For a clean main context, convenient application management, and potentially unlimited scalability, an AI workstation based on Claude Code skills was created, referencing computer architecture : { CPU ==> LLM }, { System Kernel ==> Claude Code + CLAUDE.md }, { System Processes ==> Sub-Agents }, { Apps ==> Skills }, { Appstore ==> github }, { System Drivers ==> MCP + Hooks }, { Monitor ==> Windows Terminal }, { Runtime Environment ==> Portable Environment }; The Code: https://github.com/canishowtime/ai-station-navigator/
by lbreakjai | 2026-02-14 13:36:37+00:00
But what is their wealth, exactly? Assets which no longer have value. Money which no longer has a use. Who's going to maintain their jets when the economy collapses? Who's going to build the parts? Who's going to build the tools to build the parts? Who's going to mine the ores?

Their lives are built atop the same supply chain we all depend on. They don't have their own miners, or aerospace engineers to design planes, or naval architects to build their boats.

They can not consume the marginal capacity of an economy that doesn't exist.
Show HN: A small embeddable Datalog engine in Zig
by habedi0 | 2026-02-14 13:36:58+00:00
Hi everyone,

I've made an early version of a Datalog engine (called Zodd) in Zig. Datalog is a logic query language. It's not as well-known as SQL, but it has its own use cases. If you're interested to know more about the project, including its possible use cases and features, you can check projec's GitHub repo: https://github.com/CogitatorTech/zodd
by pron | 2026-02-14 13:38:56+00:00
> Part of the active maintenance is to decide whether to upgrade to a new compiler toolchain version

Of course, but you want to make that as easy as you can. Compatibility is never binary (which is why I hate semantic versioning), but you should strive for the greatest compatibility for the greatest portion of users.

> FWIW, trying to build a 20 or 30 year old C or C++ application in a modern compiler also isn't exactly trivial

I know that well (especially for C++; in C the situation is somewhat different), and the backward compatibility of C++ compilers leaves much to be desired.
by embedding-shape | 2026-02-14 13:40:04+00:00
Well, one would be destructive to an existing community (which, may or may not actually impact the quality of said community) and the other isolating whatever the outcome is.

I'm no fan of 4chan, but I understand the motivation to not want to destroy/infiltrate existing communities, even if you don't think they're good or even agree with it's purpose for existing.
by vessenes | 2026-02-14 13:40:07+00:00
Spacewar was ported to Plato from Control Data; I played a little, but I played a lottt of Avatar. There are a number of Plato games that probably have some older / early game developers. Out of curiosity I just looked up Avatar, Bruce Maggs coded it in ‘76 and went on to among other things be one of the Akamai founders. But he’s 20 years younger than Russell.
by g947o | 2026-02-14 13:40:35+00:00
Hard agree.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/06/meta-debuts-playstati... is an example I remember. The story subject is not controversial, and it's just another Game Pass like subscription, but the comment section is full of -- yes you guessed it -- Meta BAD! There is absolutely no meaningful discussion of the service itself.

I mostly stopped paying attention to the comment section after that, and Ars in general.
by threethirtytwo | 2026-02-14 13:40:45+00:00
>Only a fool would think we aren't potentially on the verge of something truly revolutionary here. But only a fool would also be certain that the revolution has already happened, or that e.g. AGI is necessarily imminent.

This sentence sounds contradictory. You're a fool to not think we're on the verge of something revolutionary and you are a fool if you think something revolutionary like AGI is on the verge of happening?

But to your point if "revolutionary" and "agi" are different things, I'm certain the "revolution" has already happened. ChatGPT was the step function change and everything else is just following the upwards trendline post release of chatGPT.

Anecdotally I would say 50% of developers never code things by hand anymore. That is revolutionary in itself and by the statement itself it has already literally happened.
by macintux | 2026-02-14 13:41:35+00:00
Notable for this audience but perhaps not widely known: JMS engaged with Usenet to promote and discuss the show; if I remember correctly, the B5 newsgroup was active even before the pilot aired.

Obviously there was no social media at the time, and I would bet that was the first time a U.S. TV show’s creator was communicating directly with fans via the Internet.
by embedding-shape | 2026-02-14 13:42:06+00:00
> It's not about the slur's effect on the sluree [...] but on the slurrer

So it's unkind to myself to call a specific piece of technology "clanker"?

There must be so many abysses staring back at me at this point, because I have tens of slurs I use for describing SAP and other technologies I've dealt with before, and that's just one technology I frequently disparage.
by Telemakhos | 2026-02-14 13:42:26+00:00
Having been alive at the time, I can tell you that the effects were amazing then. B5 was one of the first shows to use computer graphics and partially-virtual sets. It wasn't limited by the number of times you could re-composite a handful of models together, so it showed whole armadas of ships. Windows didn't open onto a black felt field of stars but a green screen that allowed ships to pull up right outside the window.

The effects don't hold up to what has followed in the past quarter century, and they weren't preserved in a good resolution, so they'll never look very good on a high-resolution monitor instead of an old CRT. But, at the time, they were amazing.
Why High-Performers Restart Instead of Compound
by seq23 | 2026-02-14 13:42:26+00:00
I’ve been studying a behavioral pattern I see in capable, ambitious people.

They don’t usually quit.

They restart.

They build a system, execute for several days, miss once, then redesign everything instead of continuing.

I call it the Continuity Collapse Pattern.

The core idea:

Most productivity systems are built for ideal conditions. Real life includes emotional variance and activation cost. When a miss is interpreted as identity failure, restart becomes the default response.

The solution isn’t more motivation. It’s designing systems around return speed instead of streak length.

Full breakdown here:

https://spryexecutiveos.com/continuity-collapse-pattern/
by Majromax | 2026-02-14 13:43:02+00:00
> I don't really have a solution.

The trick is to be the Oracle of Delphi, not Cassandra.

Make the prediction once, with politeness and humility, and preferably in enough company that your opinion is noted even if (when) it is overridden. Use it as an opportunity to be seen as wise, not just smart.

Then, keep contingency plans. When the problem manifests, have a solution ready as best you can given your limited position. Even when it's too late to avoid the whole problem, you might be able to limit the blast radius. Again, be public but polite about it, and most importantly never say "I told you so" or otherwise appear smug.

You want to cultivate the reputation of "the person who is right but easy to work with, and who always has your back in a pinch."
by zelphirkalt | 2026-02-14 13:43:56+00:00
When I watched Farscape for the first time, I got a similar feeling. Costumes seemed weird, compared to Star Trek or Star Gate and some others. But I still watched and became a fan. Recently, I rewatched it and nothing seemed particularly weird or strange or low quality. I guess for Babylon 5 it will be a similar experience. Might watch that soon.
by voidlunk | 2026-02-14 13:44:16+00:00
This is a production-ready SIEM + SOAR platform that includes:
- Real-time threat detection
- Automated response (auto-block IPs, create tickets)
- Forensics investigation
- Threat intelligence (VirusTotal integration)
- Multi-tenant + RBAC

Deploy in 5 minutes. $0 cost. Open source.

Built because startups shouldn't pay $150K/year for security.