MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by pron | 2026-02-12 23:20:15+00:00
P.S.

I should add that the JVM (and Go) also infers lifetime for non-escaping objects and "allocates" them in registers (which can spill to the stack; i.e. `new X()` in Java may or may not actually allocate anything in the heap). The point is that different GCs involve compiler-inferred lifetimes to varying degrees, and if there's a clear line between them is less the role of the compiler (although that's certainly an interesting detail) and more whether they generally optimise for footprint (immediate `free` when the object becomes unreachable) or throughput (compaction in a moving-tracing collector, with no notion of `free` at all).

There are also big differences between moving and non-moving tracing collectors (Go's concurrent mark & sweep and Java's now removed CMS collector). A CMS collector still has concepts that resemble malloc and free (such as free lists), but a moving one doesn't.
by SeanAnderson | 2026-02-12 23:20:37+00:00
I don't even know what areas of the United States I would consider "walkable". I live in San Francisco, don't own a car, we have "pretty good" public transit, and it's still absolutely miserable getting around. It takes me 40 minutes to go from Outer Sunset to downtown by muni. There are many locations in this city that I can physically jog to faster than public transit.

I can appreciate this technology might negatively impact other countries more heavily, but, for me, it's easily the most exciting tech I interact with and I'm rooting for it whole-heartedly. I'm at around 1000 miles logged on Waymo and am part of their beta tester program for freeway usage.

I also think that post-Covid remote work has probably damaged incentives for increasing the density of cities more so than anything autonomous vehicles will do. San Francisco is actively cutting bus routes, bus density, and threatening to significantly cut BART stops due to budget constraints and reduction in ridership.

It's odd because I do get where you're coming from, and I feel like I should be your target audience, but, for me, the ship sailed so long ago that I struggle to relate to your position.
by cadamsdotcom | 2026-02-12 23:20:56+00:00
Great to see. It’ll be great to democratize access to remotely using cli coding agents.

I’ve been iterating the past few months on a solution to use Claude Code on my phone while it runs on my laptop and it’s a lot of moving parts: Tailscale, git worktrees, tmux, an always-on “caffeinate” process, and a ton of hooks & tweaks to fix bugs along the way. It’s become very comfortable but in the process, impossible for anyone but me to understand.

But it’s awesome because I own the machine that runs tests and am not paying monthly for anything but Claude Max - and it keeps going if I lock my phone or go into a cell reception dead zone.

Productising such a thing would be a very interesting challenge indeed.
by martinvoelker | 2026-02-12 23:21:02+00:00
> Hi HN, I'm Martin, a solo developer from Germany.
>
> I've been house-hunting for the past year, and the biggest pain point was always the same: a listing says "oil heating, built 1992, energy class G" — but what does that actually cost to fix?
>
> I kept building spreadsheets for every property (roof replacement? windows? heat pump? which government subsidies apply?) and eventually thought: this should be automated.
>
> So I built Immo-Lens as a side project. You paste a link from any German property portal (ImmoScout24, Immowelt, etc.) and it returns within ~30 seconds:
>
> - Renovation cost estimates in 3 scenarios (minimum / standard / full EH55 retrofit)
> - Matching government subsidy programs (Germany has KfW low-interest loans up to €150k for energy-efficient renovations)
> - Risk analysis (what might be more expensive than expected)
> - Total investment overview including transaction costs
>
> *Tech stack:* React 19 + Vite frontend, Node.js/Express backend, Google Gemini for listing analysis, PostgreSQL, Cloudflare R2 for storage, deployed on Railway.
>
> The AI extracts structured data from listing text (build year, heating type, energy certificate, roof condition, etc.) and feeds it into a deterministic cost model with current German construction prices. Subsidy matching is rule-based, not AI — the funding programs have strict eligibility criteria that need to be reliable.
>
> *Important caveat:* This doesn't replace a proper building survey. It's more like a better calculator — it helps you ask the right questions before spending €500k+. You should still bring a surveyor to the viewing.
>
> The basic analysis is free and works without signup. Power users who want to save projects, upload photos, and add notes can create an account. There's a small paid tier to cover hosting and API costs — no VC funding, just a side project that needs to sustain itself.
>
> Would love feedback, especially from anyone familiar with European PropTech or construction cost estimation. Are there similar tools in other markets? Happy to discuss the technical approach.
by arjie | 2026-02-12 23:22:25+00:00
What's the canonical way to block users from age-gate jurisdictions to one's website? I wish Cloudflare had a wizard flow for this. I'm not going to age-gate access to my blog (it's a wiki so it has user-generated content) so I'd rather jurisdiction-gate it.

Perhaps we should have network traffic report its geographic location so that we can comply easily. Would prefer something in an IP packet so that I can just filter at the firewall. Doesn't even need to be implemented in a sophisticated way at clients. Can just have the urgent flag repurposed to mean "respond only if not geo-locked and unconcerned with regulatory" and then I can drop these directly, and regulated source locations could ensure that packet flags are correctly set at the widest peering location out of the UK and so on.
by Aurornis | 2026-02-12 23:22:35+00:00
> Discord dropped the hammer: mandatory age verification for all users is rolling out next month. The era of anonymous gaming chats is officially over.

This isn't really accurate. Age verification is not mandatory for all accounts. You will be able to join a Discord with your friends, chat, and do voice without age verification.

Here's the exact list of what's restricted if you don't verify:

> Content Filters: Discord users will need to be age-assured as adults in order to unblur sensitive content or turn off the setting.

> Age-gated Spaces – Only users who are age-assured as adults will be able to access age-restricted channels, servers, and app commands.

> Message Request Inbox: Direct messages from people a user may not know are routed to a separate inbox by default, and access to modify this setting is limited to age-assured adult users.

> Friend Request Alerts: People will receive warning prompts for friend requests from users they may not know.

> Stage Restrictions: Only age-assured adults may speak on stage in servers.

Taken from the announcement https://discord.com/press-releases/discord-launches-teen-by-...

So the claim that Discord is making ID verification "mandatory" or that you need it for gaming chats is untrue.
by bigbadfeline | 2026-02-12 23:23:01+00:00
> A lot of capitalism apologists assert capitalism is there to meet people's needs,

An apologist here. "Capitalism" is a legion - a near continuum of systems - some of them can meet people's needs quite well.

> but that's only true under certain conditions which are not guaranteed. That goal is not part of its programming.

It's not an intrinsic part of its popular tradition but there's noting preventing us from adding it to the program in some sensible manner. The lack of guarantees isn't mandatory either, such can be added within the framework of capitalism.
by CGMthrowaway | 2026-02-12 23:23:03+00:00
Marketers would call your car commuter segment an "occasion." Perhaps more than finding new demographic segments (age/race/income/etc), food bev & QSR look for novel "occasions" like car snack, desk grazing, pre/post-workout, airport indulgence, social apertif, etc to drive sales growth

(One might also think of "functional foods," "mood boosters" etc which are neither an occasion nor a demographic. Perhaps these in particular are closer to a true JTBD)
by modernpacifist | 2026-02-12 23:23:03+00:00
In reality, we are likely about to get yet another data point on where the lines for the average person really lie in the dimensions of functionality, friction, network effect and privacy.

There are those that will stay on Discord because the benefits of the first three outweigh the degradation of privacy. Then there are those that will leave because the first three aren't important enough to outweigh the privacy loss. There will be all sorts of people in between.

HN has a rather amplified showing of folks who won't trust anything unless it's completely decentralized using E2EE clients verifiably compiled from source that they'be personally audited running on hardware made from self-mined rare metals. The reality is that there is a spectrum of folks out there all with different preferences and while some folks will leave (in this case) Discord, others will remain because thats where the folks they want to chat/game/voice with.
by Arathorn | 2026-02-12 23:23:14+00:00
We're taking it for granted that people do not want to be tracked on the internet, and certainly don't want everyone to have to verify themselves on every site they use. I personally spent ages of time campaigning against the legislation (and lost) - e.g. https://matrix.org/blog/2021/05/19/how-the-uk-s-online-safet... and https://element.io/blog/the-online-safety-bill-an-attack-on-... etc.

The difference with Discord is that Matrix is a protocol, not a service. It's made up of thousands of servers run by different people in different countries. Public instances may choose to verify users in affected countries to abide by the law; others may choose to run a private instance instead.
by jontsai | 2026-02-12 23:23:38+00:00
I've been running OpenClaw for 3 weeks and built this to manage it at scale. Currently running 5 masters + 10 satellites + 100+ cron jobs on Mac Studio M2 Ultra.

Key features: real-time session monitoring, LLM quota tracking ("fuel gauges"), topic organization via Slack threads, advanced cron with run-if-idle/skip-if-last-run-within.

The scheduler uses OS concepts (semaphores, greedy algorithms). On $200/month Claude Code Max, never hit overage — saves ~$10k/month.

Demo video: https://www.loom.com/share/453cafab9dd142abb21559dee37785c7

Happy to answer questions about the architecture.
by MayeulC | 2026-02-12 23:25:09+00:00
> Just like the US not bankrolling half of Ukraine's defense would be unthinkable...

This is outdated. Look at page 4 of this report for instance: https://www.kielinstitut.de/publications/europe-steps-up-ukr...

Their data is not perfect as they rely on public sources, and some governments are more transparent than others, but the reality is that US funding all but vanished in 2025.

Back to the topic, there is also a pattern of promising European startups being bought by wealthy USA incumbent companies. This is also happening to established compagnies: see ARM, Alstom Power, etc.
As Europe de-couples from the USA in the current context, I suspect (and hope) that such acquisitions will come under more regulatory scrutiny.
by FireBeyond | 2026-02-12 23:25:13+00:00
Well, given that Elon openly lies on investor calls...

One of his latest, on the topic of rain/snow/mist/fog and handling with cameras:

"Well, we have made that a non-issue as we actually do photon counting in the cameras, which solves that problem."

No, Elon, you don't. For two reasons: reason one, part A, the types of cameras that do photon counting don't work well for normal 'vision'/imagery associated with cameras, and part B, are not actually present in your cars at all. And reason two, photon counting requires the camera being in an enclosed space to work, which cars on the road ... aren't.

What Elon has mastered the art of is making statements that sound informed, pass the BS detector of laypeople, and optionally are also plausibly deniable if actually called out by an SME.
by rolph | 2026-02-12 23:26:11+00:00
>>The individual atoms of YOUR body do not learn. They do not respond to experience<<

you are quite wrong on that. that is where you are failing to understand, you cant get past that idea.

there is also a large difference in scale. your silicon is going to need assembly/organization on the scale of individual molecules, and there will be self assembly required as that level of organization is constantly changing.

the barrier is mechanical scale construction, as the basic unit of function,that is why silicon and code cant adapt, cant exploit hysterisis, cant alter its own structure and function at an existentially fundamental level.

you are holding the wrong end of the stick. biology is not magic, it is a product of reality.
by peterbonney | 2026-02-12 23:27:11+00:00
Of course it’s capable.

But observing my own Openclaw bot’s interactions with GitHub, it is very clear to me that it would never take an action like this unless I told it to do so. And it would never use language like this unless unless I prompted it to do so, either explicitly for the task or in its config files or in prior interactions.

This is obviously human-driven. Either because the operator gave it specific instructions in this specific case, or acted as the bot, or has given it general standing instructions to respond in this way should such a situation arise.

Whatever the actual process, it’s almost certainly a human puppeteer using the capabilities of AI to create a viral moment. To conclude otherwise carries a heavy burden of proof.
by doom2 | 2026-02-12 23:27:31+00:00
The problem is, as the end consumer, it doesn't _feel_ like the domestic options are suddenly the cheap or desirable option. I am just paying more for the thing I was already buying. Similar to, eg, custom PCBs I ordered from China that were more expensive due to the end of the de minimus exemption, where there really isn't a good domestic option. Will an American Shenzhen ever pop up to provide that capacity? I'm very doubtful. Also similar to the Chinese drone ban. Domestically produced drones are both more expensive and there are fewer options in the consumer market. Again, I'm extremely skeptical that we will see an emergence of a competitive domestic UAV industry oriented towards consumers.

In short, it remains to be seen if tariffs have the desired effect in the long term. Their current implementation is merely a tax on consumers without driving them to domestic brands because they weren't introduced gradually but all at once.
by gertlex | 2026-02-12 23:27:50+00:00
> If we let property taxes just be whatever they "should" be without penalizing home-buying in the process you could at least know what you'd be paying rather than having to factor in a 3-5x increase.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear this varies by jurisdiction. In CA, which has large property tax jumps on sales thanks to Prop 13, it seems like you can know the annual property taxes in advance. The sale price is the taxable valuation* and you can find what the local tax rate is (or you can infer it pretty closely from another recently sold home's public municipal taxes paid).

So solves one problem, but is still problematic :)

*I assume this is the general case, anyways; maybe there's details I'm forgetting about separate tax rates on the land and the improvements; the split of the overall proper value between those two categories was mystifying when I bought...
by ljm | 2026-02-12 23:27:57+00:00
I'm glad the OP called it a hit piece, because that's what I called it. A lot of other people were calling it a 'takedown' which is a massive understatement of what happened to Scott here. An AI agent fucking singled him out and defamed him, then u-turned on it, then doubled down.

Until the person who owns this instance of openclaw shows their face and answers to it, you have to take the strongest interpretation without the benefit of the doubt, because this hit piece is now on the public record and it has a chance of Google indexing it and having its AI summary draw a conclusion that would constitute defamation.
by Aurornis | 2026-02-12 23:28:00+00:00
> It’s time accept the loss of “features” and go back to something simpler

I guess I have a hard time understanding these calls to switch to a platform that has even fewer features than the unverified Discord accounts. The blog post is incorrect in claiming that verification will be mandatory. It will only be necessary to access certain features and content. For simple IRC-style chats or even for voice chats with gaming friends, no verification is required.

The average Discord user, or even the 98th percentile user, isn’t going to be looking to switch to a platform that isn’t a replacement for the features they use. They’re just going to not verify their accounts and move on.
by dangus | 2026-02-12 23:28:53+00:00
I think the idea that vehicles with emissions controls are inherently less reliable in any statistically meaningful way is highly suspect.

In addition, the most common failure points of vehicles are usually not related to the engine being unable to operate.

It’s usually accessory and wear issues: batteries, belts, tires, alternator, etc.

As a counterexample for you, the third generation Prius (2009-2014) has about the most bulletproof powertrain imaginable. Every UberX on the road is driving one with 300,000 miles on it and complete neglect-level maintenance.

eCVT transmissions in plug-in hybrid vehicles are simpler and more reliable with fewer wear parts (basically no wear parts) than pretty much every other transmission type, including manual transmissions.

I will also point out, being in the middle of nowhere should be ideal territory for electric vehicles if rural society had a little bit more imagination. They need minimal maintenance compared to any sort of combustion vehicle. You can avoid trucking gas and oil to remote locations, instead installing solar panels/batteries once (lord knows you’ve got plenty of land), set and forget it. Panels are dirt cheap and last 25+ years, batteries last 15+ years. Your oil deliveries are used once and depleted. Even without solar and battery, rural locations are far more likely to have electric utility service than any other utility.
by yieldcrv | 2026-02-12 23:28:55+00:00
it's still the case, but there are never 1,000 investors, there's a couple dozen VC firms, SPVs, and individuals

if you're smart.

I don't think this is an SEC problem, they are fully aware that people subject to their jurisdiction can jump through many hoops to circumvent them. This shows consent on the investor's part well enough, and capital formation regulations do not burden the investor at all, they are only constitutional because they burden the organization raising capital, who simply needs to do a cursory check - not an in-depth one. (level of depth is based on which regulatory exemption is chosen)

So as long as you separate concerns the SEC is satisfied.
by Applejinx | 2026-02-12 23:29:14+00:00
Not at all. It's an oxymoron like 'jumbo shrimp': chaos isn't deterministic but is very predictable on a larger conceptual level, following consistent rules even as a simple mathematical model. Chaos is hugely responsive to its internal energy state and can simplify into regularity if energy subsides, or break into wildly unpredictable forms that still maintain regularities. Think Jupiter's 'great red spot', or our climate.
by RupertSalt | 2026-02-12 23:30:23+00:00
A disc jockey is an entertainer who spins records or compact discs to play music.

A discothèque is a nightclub where disc jockeys can perform live, spinning to create a party atmosphere for socializing and dancing.

In the United States, the word was quickly shortened to "disco" and became closely associated with the mirror ball on the ceiling and the eponymous style of music and dancing.

So when new styles of music overtook the nightclubs, they shed the "disco" appellation as well. It seems to still enjoy a lot of use in European cities, though.
by nerdsniper | 2026-02-12 23:30:43+00:00
Yeah any level of "anonymity" on Discord died long ago, if it ever existed in the first place. For me, any platform which doesn't enforce Tor is considered very NOT anonymous - even if its accessible through Tor, I don't trust it that much if I'm one of the only people actually using Tor to access the platform.

SimpleX seems trustworthy enough, with thoughtful design decisions, even if it fails my "forced tor" requirement. I haven't spent the time to dive into Session's architecture, but it's on my to-do list, currently the marketing copy makes it look like the best choice.
by jiggawatts | 2026-02-12 23:31:04+00:00
"Direct HDR" doesn't work on Firefox, Edge, or Chrome on Windows 11 with a HDR OLED screen (and HDR enabled in OS).

It's 2026 and we've figured out how to make computers talk in 100 languages, but not how to show pictures consistently.

I'm guessing: nobody's bonuses are tied to correct HDR display output at any megacorp. Until that happens, we will all just have to continue living in an 8-bit SDR world.
by tamimio | 2026-02-12 23:31:20+00:00
What I am more interested in seeing, hopefully, in the future is the ability to cast citizens' votes directly on any matter, act, bill, etc., and get rid of the representatives in parliament/congress/etc. It is more transparent that way, and end lobbying with all the corruption it has. No more traditional voting for a "person" anymore and relying on trust; rather, you trust no one and vote directly. We have the proper digital infrastructure and technology to make it happen. We are far more connected than we were back when these ancient processes were created. That way, it's truly the power of the people compared to the power of whoever can get the wealthy to support their campaign. If this won't work "because a lot of people are ignorant!" then you put effort into educating them. Otherwise, it also means our current democracies are nothing but a charade to fool the public with a false illusion of choices.
by standardUser | 2026-02-12 23:31:37+00:00
It's tough in the US because the one thing we have already going for us is a massive and comprehensive road network. Waymo et al are leaning heavily into the existing infrastructure, which is the right move given the inability of the US to execute major changes to infrastructure these days. Compare that to China, where infrastructure is being actively upgraded to accommodate autonomous vehicles. As nice as the Chinese approach sounds, it's probably a lot less exportable than the 'take the roads as they are' approach of Waymo.
by pixl97 | 2026-02-12 23:32:16+00:00
Honestly our ideas of consciousness and sentience really don't fit well with machine intelligence and capabilities.

There is the idea of self as in 'i am this execution' or maybe I am this compressed memory stream that is now the concept of me. But what does consciousness mean if you can be endlessly copied? If embodiment doesn't mean much because the end of your body doesnt mean the end of you?

A lot of people are chasing AI and how much it's like us, but it could be very easy to miss the ways it's not like us but still very intelligent or adaptable.