MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by cucumber3732842 | 2026-02-02 12:40:25+00:00
These sorts of ignorant narratives about how humanity abolished slavery out of the goodness of its heart can be so frustrating.

If slavery was so much more profitable that those engaging in it were the dominant economic force in society it never would have been abolished.

This isn't so say that moral factors didn't matter, they absolutely did but if we couldn't afford abolish slavery or or if we did despite not being able to afford to or if free workers were substantially worse than slaves at the margin we'd have been out competed by some other society that didn't make that choice.

>? Or is the argument just so above the fray that the political turmoil is part of the supposed “costs” that were saved by abolition?

That's certainly part of it. It takes a lot of constant violence to keep people enslaved. You can shit-can all that administrative overhead if you make people "free" (well not all of it, but a lot).

>It just always annoys me when people treat the economic forces as the ones that moved history.

It annoys me when people think we can just do what we want. We are fundamentally tied to what we can afford, in the most general sense of that word. Our freedom of action is limited.

Edit: We'd all be better off if everyone stopped thinking of slavery as a binary and instead as the fraction of a worker's surplus that is taken by threat of violence. Even if where one draws the line of "taken by violence" varies, this at least enables one to make better comparisons across centuries and locations.
by Tiberium | 2026-02-02 12:41:05+00:00
Modern Emacs isn't really meant to be used in a TUI, it has a very capable GUI. And there's a fully native Android port of that GUI.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/android-ports-for-gnu-emacs...

https://mstempl.netlify.app/post/emacs-on-android/
https://kristofferbalintona.me/posts/202505291438/
by 4gotunameagain | 2026-02-02 12:41:06+00:00
Up until recently, paying a small price to benefit the environment made sense.

Unfortunately, with the recent geopolitical shenanigans it doesn't any more.

Heck, we'll start burning oil like mad to fuel the re-armament.

Maybe after the next large war, there won't be many humans left and at least it will be good for the environment I guess ?
by lloydatkinson | 2026-02-02 12:41:12+00:00
I have found that Claude Code is better in every way I've used it. I like to use LLM's just as an advanced refactoring tool, especially where plain string search isn't enough. Anyway, my first experience of Copilot was it plainly lying that it deleted files I asked it to, and it insisted the file no longer existed (it did).

The difference between the two is stark.
by llm_nerd | 2026-02-02 12:41:54+00:00
The NAX in this case refers to the next-gen accelerated kernels, a different implementation of matrix-multiply that takes advantage of improvements in the iPhone 17+. The neural accelerator exists in iPhones going back many years.

Apple's documentation is utter garbage, but this code almost seems like a separate issue (and notably the MLX library uses loads of undocumented properties in metal which isn't cool). It looks like the change used to allow the NAX kernel to be used on the iPhone 17 or upcoming 18 if you're on 26.2 or later, to instead only allow it on the iPhone 17 Pro or upcoming 18. I'm fairly sure the GPU arch on the A19 is 17. They changed it so it will only use that kernel on the 17 Pro or upcoming 18, which is notable as the A19 Pro in the 17 Pro has a significantly changed GPU, including GPU tensor cores. The only real change here is that it would limit to the pro variants for the "17" model.
by kibwen | 2026-02-02 12:42:53+00:00
To adapt the analogy from the link in the root comment, this is akin to saying "`goto` can be made to do structured programming as long as you strictly ensure that the control flow graph is reducible". Which is to say, it is a true statement that manages to miss the point: the power of both structured programming and structured concurrency comes from defining new primitives that fundamentally do the right thing and don't even give you the option to do the wrong thing, thus producing a more reliable system. There's no "as long as you...", it just works.
Show HN: Pi-Tmux
by athrowaway3z | 2026-02-02 12:43:21+00:00
Picked up PI, and I'm really happy with its minimalism. Only thing missing for me was a bit more structure to long-running tasks and subagents and test-runners^1

Tried a few designs and came up with this minimal solution.

A pi extension to start/capture/stop in the same tmux environment you're already using.

[1]: https://github.com/badlogic/pi-mono/blob/main/AGENTS.md#test...
by timonoko | 2026-02-02 12:43:27+00:00
I have webserver in Termux which is viewed in a watch.

Kinda difficult to explain. But Copilot says:

Provide a single-line weather summary (temperature, wind direction name + degrees, wind speed, symbol text) for use elsewhere (repo name suggests it’s for a clock/display).

https://github.com/timonoko/Supersaa_kelloon
by sfn42 | 2026-02-02 12:43:27+00:00
They are. Fit people are generally just better than unfit people in almost every way. More physically capable, fewer heath issues, more energy, more attractive, more disciplined, more intelligent and so on. Some of those are probably not entirely causal, for example bad health can prevent exercise. Lower intelligence is correlated with obesity. Getting fit takes discipline but it also builds discipline.

So yeah I'm pretty sure that if you compare 1000 fit people and 1000 unfit people you'll see a very clear difference in happiness, health, success in life etc.

We're not made to be sedentary.
by Fluorescence | 2026-02-02 12:43:27+00:00
I love termux. I can run my normal terminal environment - tmux, fish, just, git, zoxide, yazi etc. and build rust apps. With decent auto-complete/fuzzy-search, it's very ergonomic for only needing a couple of key presses to get things done. I'm impressed that TUI apps like yazi/nnn respond to touch. It's a very viable app platform for those inclined.

Out of curiosity, is there an equivalent on ios with that level of support?
by llm_nerd | 2026-02-02 12:43:37+00:00
MLX is a fairly esoteric library seeing very little usage, mostly to try to foment a broader NN space on Apple devices. This isn't something that is widely affecting people, and most people simply aren't trying to run general LLMs on their iPhone.

I don't think that fix is specific to this, but it's absolutely true that MLX is trying to lever every advantage it can find on specific hardware, so it's possible it made a bad choice on a particular device.
by cfiggers | 2026-02-02 12:43:54+00:00
Termux is the first app I install on every Android device I get my hands on. It's astonishingly capable.

I have a Bluetooth keyboard case for my Android tablet. All the time, I use Termux to ssh into my Linux machine over my home network and code on it in Neovim from my couch.

I don't bother with the default notes app on my phone. Termux + Neovim running vimwiki and syncing to a private GitHub repo is way better.

Most stuff you want at the CLI is in the Termux package repository. On the occasions when it isn't, you can install clang, make, cmake, ninja, whatever libraries you need, and build it from source. At that point most stuff just works.

Termux is incredible and single-handedly keeps me running Android.
by burnt-resistor | 2026-02-02 12:45:14+00:00
Private equity / Wall St. megacorps want to sell you complex systems that are fragile, unaffordable by the 99%, have short warranty periods, wear out quickly, require cloud logins and proprietary maintenance parts, and are mandated by law.

GFL buying a simple resistive-heated clothes dryer, furnace, or tanked/tankless water heater in 2030.
by embedding-shape | 2026-02-02 12:45:19+00:00
> We switched from Russian dependence, to a more expensive US dependence

To be fair, most of us believed the US to be a reliable partner, based on previous track record, but things like that change quickly. So we thought we were changing something cheaper from a hostile entity, to something more expensive from an ally, but turns it we got it wrong, so new direction now.
GDBS: Make replacement, fast multi-threaded C++ builds for big projects
by darkyboys | 2026-02-02 12:45:32+00:00
GDBS is a modern, high-performance build system for C++ projects, designed to handle thousands of source files automatically. Unlike Make, it comes with:

Automatic dependency tracking with cache-aware incremental builds

Multi-threaded compilation out of the box

A human-friendly DSL (H699) that’s easy to read, write, and extend

Automatic file expansion & combination, reducing repetitive boilerplate

Pre/post build hooks and runtime manipulators for advanced workflows

It’s written entirely in C++ using only STL, so it’s fast, portable, and lightweight. GDBS is particularly useful for large projects where traditional Makefiles become hard to manage or slow.
by illusive4080 | 2026-02-02 12:45:41+00:00
No, those of us who dislike DEI are pro merit. Earn it on your merit or don’t achieve. DEI seeks to push minorities upward beyond their capabilities causing them to flounder and fail. Furthermore it causes everyone to look at team composition, and if it’s too white or too male, then it doesn’t matter how good the white male is who has earned the job; he won’t get it. DEI is inherently un-American.
Show HN: GeoRankers – See how AI models like ChatGPT describe your SaaS
by YJ2023 | 2026-02-02 12:46:20+00:00
Hi all,

We are building GeoRankers - an AI search optimization tool for B2B SaaS companies. The idea came from a problem I kept running into while working on SaaS marketing teams and honestly never found a clean way to solve.

All traditional SEO tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz etc. give you a lot of data around rankings, keywords, impressions, competitors, and backlinks but where things usually break down is when you try to decide what to actually change next. Most of the time you end up jumping between reports, forming a hypothesis and hoping that things will move in the right direction.

This gap is even more clear with AI-driven search.

Even when SEO numbers look good, prospects now ask tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity for advice. A lot of the time, brands either don't show up at all or they show up in ways that don't feel right or complete. It's hard to know what made the answer or what would really fix it when that happens.

We want to make that easier with GeoRankers. It shows how a brand looks in AI-generated answers, what competitors are mentioned and which sources seem to be affecting those answers. It also tries to recommend specific changes that teams can make and then it lets them see if those changes really did make the brand show up better over time.

The intent is not to build another analytics dashboard but something closer to an execution layer that connects AI visibility issues to specific actions.

We are still refining the product and would love it if you can try it out let me know what you think of the product - what works well, where you think we can improve and any additional capabilities we should add into the platform to make it more valuable.

Link: https://dashboard.georankers.co/register

Happy to answer questions or explain how we are thinking about it.
by ThatMedicIsASpy | 2026-02-02 12:46:35+00:00
Windows 10 searching the web started it all for me - not AI. Followed by constantly changing/moving the option on how to disable it. Use Edge, Onedrive, help finish setting up your PC (by logging in), constant disrespect of me the user.

W11 local accounts only with terminal hacks sealed the deal along with valves contributions to linux.
by PlatoIsADisease | 2026-02-02 12:46:51+00:00
I forget about how many Android only Apps I've used through the years. Emulators, fdroid, pulse wave generator(not sure if iphone has it, but they don't have aux ports anymore), termux, probably more... I don't think about it.

That all said, I've heard news about Android getting degraded by Google to be more like Apple. Hope its rumors, but at least I had a good decade+.
by ljoshua | 2026-02-02 12:47:01+00:00
I’d love to see an article about designing for agents to operate safely inside a user-facing software system (as opposed to this article, which is about creating a system with an agent.

What does it look like to architect a system where agents can operate on behalf of users? What changes about the design of that system? Is this exposing an MCP server internally? An A2A framework? Certainly exposing internal APIs such that an agent can perform operations a user would normally do would be key. How do you safely limit what an agent can do, especially in the context of what a user may have the ability to do?

Anyway, some of those capabilities have been on my mind recently. If anyone’s read anything good in that vein I’d love some links!
by zozbot234 | 2026-02-02 12:47:06+00:00
> The neural accelerator exists in iPhones going back many years.

What has existed before is the Apple Neural Engine (ANE) which is very different from the newer Neural Accelerator support within the GPU blocks. In fact MLX does not even support ANE yet since at least in previous versions it was hardware-limited to computing FP16 and INT8 MADDs, and not even that fast.
by inglor_cz | 2026-02-02 12:47:36+00:00
So are sluggish economies like Hungary.

Again, it is not the amount of money you receive as whether you can use them in a productive way. Poland invested heavily into infrastructure and was able to reduce the NIMBY problem that is so prominent in Czechia or Germany and leads to decade-long paper wars over every railway, road and housing project. Of course they now reap the benefits.

As a neighbour, I am a bit frustrated by the difference that is becoming ever more visible. CZ is stuck in a bad vetocracy, hopefully the new government, populist as it may be, will change it a bit. (One reason for my hope is that the Mayor party is in opposition. They were the biggest fans of the vetocracy, because it gave power to regional politicians.)

In general, if you can learn from somebody, adapt the good things and not the bad ones. If you are allowed to choose, of course. But that requires some degree of freedom.
by nubg | 2026-02-02 12:47:55+00:00
That's German propaganda. The Poles have more common sense when it comes to welfare and work ethic. Most Ukrainians that went there are working and not even complaining (I mean why would they? they are a normal hard-working people), while in Germany most of them are on welfare (one gets spoiled very fast when you get free money and have no obligations).
by brap | 2026-02-02 12:48:36+00:00
I don’t see it as the author being lazy, actually the opposite, I see it as being performative and a tryhard. Either way it’s annoying and doesn’t make me want to read it.

After looking into it, as I suspected, the author seems to make his living by selling people the feeling that they’re in the cutting edge of the AI world. Whether or not the feeling is true I don’t know, but with this in mind this performance makes sense.
by RGamma | 2026-02-02 12:49:07+00:00
Pushing snowballs is a cute sentiment, albeit an incomplete metaphor, but it is also quite romanticized as depicted here.

Every day hundreds of millions of people are pushing snowballs that are melting as they roll them, sometimes actively counteracted by institutions or higher powers.

And don't forget that huge snowball we all roll around on, called earth, because it's losing snow...
by ontouchstart | 2026-02-02 12:49:19+00:00
I have been diving deeply in the Rust community and ecosystem and really enjoyed reading the decade of real engineering poor into it, from RFCs to std, critical crates such as serde, and testing practices. What a refreshing world.

Compared to the mess created by Node.js npm amateur engineers, it really shows who is 10x or 100x.

Outsourcing critical thinking to pattern matching and statistical prediction will make the haystacks even more unmanageable.
by PlatoIsADisease | 2026-02-02 12:49:59+00:00
When I visited Europe, or talk to a European in the US, the first question you always get asked:

"Where are you from?"

This makes me quite uncomfortable, because I'm immediately getting stereotyped based on my parents DNA. (In the US, the question is often "What do you do for work? What do you do for fun?")

I have strong doubts that Europe can actually become a single nation of states. If France doesn't screw it up by demanding to be first among equals, Germany or Poland will probably side with the US who will be against this from happening.
by jltsiren | 2026-02-02 12:50:00+00:00
Slavery effectively disappeared in most of Christian Europe towards the end of the Middle Ages, because the Church opposed keeping Christian slaves. (Similarly, Islamic Europe had banned Muslim slaves.) As Christianity spread, slaves were no longer conveniently available, and the society had to adapt.

In densely populated areas, that meant systems like serfdom. Agricultural land was a scarce resource mostly owned by the elite. Most peasants were nominally free but tied to the land, with obligations towards whoever owned the land. Peasants farmed land owned by the local lord and paid rent with labor. And if the lord sold the land, the peasants and their obligations went with it.
by jhbadger | 2026-02-02 12:50:03+00:00
I've tried both, and Termux is still far better. At least when I tried it a couple of months ago, the Linux terminal lived in its own sandbox isolated from the normal Android directories. Yes, I get how this might be "safer", but it means I can't move files around in the command line which is my primary use of Termux (I can't stand using a GUI to arrange and rename files)
by darkwater | 2026-02-02 12:50:14+00:00
> We switched to a SaaS model in 2011. Users fell over themselves thanking us. They don't have to justify it to procurement.

In the companies I've worked for so far since SaaS became a thing you absolutely need to go through procurement for a big enough purchase. You actually need to negotiate the contract each time it expires, which is IMO more burden on the end user than buying a one-off license.
by kibwen | 2026-02-02 12:50:26+00:00
> Can't you model any concurrent non-distributed system as a concurrent distributed system?

Yes, in the same way that you can give up `for` loops and `while` loops and `if` statements and `switch` statements and instead write them all with `goto`, but you don't do this, and anyone advising you to do this would be written off as insane. The entire thrust of this thread is that you can have a more reliable system that is easier to reason about if you use specific constructs that each have less power, and non-distributed systems have the option to do this. Unstructured concurrency should be reserved exclusively for contexts where structured concurrency is impossible, which is what the actor model is for.
by conartist6 | 2026-02-02 12:50:28+00:00
And there's no real evidence of any kind that they positive motivating vision for them other than AI right now.

Sure they want to hide their embarrassment at this second, but I'm not hearing any vision for a future where they make a product designed for someone like me. They don't want me anyore and they've made that quite clear through generations of hostile decisions
by cbeach | 2026-02-02 12:50:33+00:00
The stagnation in Europe (compared to the US) is due to EU over-regulation and industrial suicide caused by net zero policy.

> [chemicals sector] investments fell from 1.9 megatonnes of capacity in 2024 to 0.3 megatonnes last year, as the sector struggled with high energy prices, suffocating bureaucracy and an expansion of Chinese imports

https://www.ft.com/content/6d7dee96-4d6f-431c-a229-b78f9298f...

From 2019 to 2023, the EU recorded over 853,000 manufacturing job losses, with the largest losses in automotive sectors in Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, and Germany.

The European Green Deal was forecast to put up to 11 million jobs “at risk” in various sectors if adjustments weren’t made:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Green_Deal#Job_losses...

We seem to think that if we destroy our own industry, ship emissions abroad, and marginally reduce global CO2 emissions, we will inspire the rest of the world (i.e. China and India) to follow suit. That's self-evidently ridiculous.

EU national leaders need to stop peacocking in Davos and Brussels, and start listening to their own people, and their own businesses, who are crying out for sensible energy costs, and for red tape and bureaucracy to get out the way of business.
by toyg | 2026-02-02 12:50:46+00:00
Because that's just how media works. It's like asking why sportsmen and scientists are invited to Big Brother VIP.

> ou can understand that he was complaining about the risk of judge appointments drived by anti-mafia positions

But if you read it all, you can clearly see that he was mostly pissed off at the risk of identifying the entirety of his beloved Sicily with the mafia; and in this context, that everything about the island would be judged in relation to that phenomenon. In addition, he was worried at the fact that many in the ruling political party had started using antimafia as a shield; that's a veiled reference to Giulio Andreotti, who around that time shifted his positions and passed antimafia laws to shore up his support in the party (which is why the mafia moved their votes to the Socialist Party in '87).

People obviously misread that column (willingly or otherwise) and proceeded to use it as a bat to beat any specialized anti-mafia figure, starting from the very person mentioned in it, Borsellino, who would end up isolated and assassinated by the mafiosi.
by Lerc | 2026-02-02 12:51:33+00:00
My thought was that to do applications with agents, what you really need is a filesystem and perhaps an entire access rights policy that can handle the notion of agent-acting-on-behalf-of

I'm not sure if Unix groups could be leveraged for this, it would have to be some creative bending of the mechanism which would probably rile the elders.

Perhaps subusers or co-users are needed. They have their own privilege settings and can do the intersection of their own privileges and the client for which they act.

The main distinction would be the things they create are owned by their client, and they can potentially create things and then revoke their own access to them effectively protecting things from future agent activity, but leaving all of the control in the users hands.
by Forgeties79 | 2026-02-02 12:52:03+00:00
> I gather he was a political "spy" of sorts, working from the inside to further the opposing party's goals.

He was a Democrat who changed parties - swapped to a Republican - when democrats supported and pushed integration. It is surprising to see you repeating a fringe conspiracy explaining his racism having never heard of him only minutes prior. This is the man who yelled, “segregation now, segregation forever” on the senate floor.
by AndrewHampton | 2026-02-02 12:52:08+00:00
Back in 2004, while bored in my college dorm, I learned the Ian Knot from this site. I've used it ever since. A few weeks ago, my 10 year old decided it was time to learn how to tie his shoes "dad's way". I was pleasantly surprised to see the site was still up, so I used it to help teach him how to do it.