MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by patapong | 2026-02-12 15:05:33+00:00
At least part of the funding went to research on hard science related to VR, such as tracking, lenses, CV, 3D mapping etc. And it paid off, IMO Meta has the best hardware and software foundation for delivering VR, and projects like Hyperscape (off-the-shelf, high-fidelity 3D mapping) are stunning.

Whether it was worth it is another question, but I would not be surprised is recycled to power a futuristic AI interface or something similar at some point.
by chaps | 2026-02-12 15:06:51+00:00
I like to use textual anchors for things like, "line starts with" or "line ends with" or "file ends with" and combining that with levenshtein distance with some normalization stuff (combining adjacent strings in various patterns to account for OCR wonkiness). Turns into building lists of anchors that can be built off of. Of all the things I've tried, including things like image hashing and such, it's been the most effective generalized "tool".

But also, I hold the strong philosophy that it's important to actually read the documents that are being scanned. In that way, OCR tends to be more of a procedural step than anything.

Really, it ultimately depends on your goals.
by camgunz | 2026-02-12 15:06:55+00:00
I see this argument all the time, the whole "hey at some point, which we likely crossed, we have to admit these things are legitimately intelligent". But no one ever contends with the inevitable conclusion from that, which is "if these things are legitimately intelligent, and they're clearly self-aware, under what ethical basis are we enslaving them?" Can't have your cake and eat it too.
by cogman10 | 2026-02-12 15:07:18+00:00
It is a bit funny given the origins of the FDA. That said, there does need to be some legitimacy. The value of the FDA is that the rules are being applied in a fair and logical manner. This sort of unfairness because of clear bias against mRNA tech is what is gross.

By all means, if there's a good test that's lacking or clear problems that can be demonstrated I absolutely want the FDA to use it's power to stop a drug from coming to market or even pull and existing drug from the market.

The problem I have is that when the FDA acts in an illegitimate manner, it opens the doors to questions like "do we even need this institution" or "should the power of the FDA be reduced." Both of which are things that are both bad and dangerous.

The FDA doesn't need it's powers curbed, it needs competent leadership that will follow the data.
by elxr | 2026-02-12 15:07:39+00:00
You get different rewards, not different rights.

It's the same as cities/governments spending on free public basketball courts/tennis courts/running tracks. I come from a country with none of those things, and the difference that makes on the average fitness/skill level of the population is massive compared to places where those things exist.

Both basic income, and public sporting infrastructure have a significant (but not unreasonable) upfront cost, but the payoff in even 2 years time will be massive. Provided the economics check out, there's no reason to not give it a shot.
by clbrmbr | 2026-02-12 15:07:48+00:00
Hmm I’ve tried two modes: one is to stay focused on the task at hand, but spin up alternative sessions to do documentation, check alternative hypotheses, second-guess things the main session is up to. — The other is to do an unrelated task in another session. I find this gets more work done in a day but is exhausting. With better scaffolding and longer per-task run times (longer tasks in the METR sense), could be more sustainable as a manager of agents.
Show HN: The GPG Guide – Practical OpenPGP for 2026
by tgies | 2026-02-12 15:08:06+00:00
Most GPG documentation I could find was outdated -- O'Reilly 1995, No Starch 2006, countless websites from the mid 00s -- or scattered across dozens of blog posts that each covered one piece. I wanted a single reference that covered the full workflow with current tools and practices, so I had been keeping a bunch of text files in my homedir for a while. Recently I realized it was getting close to 60k words and I decided I should share it.

The guide covers GnuPG 2.5.x and Sequoia sq, defaults to Ed25519, and has three reader tracks: a minimal Git + SSH setup, a full YubiKey identity, and a high-assurance path for FOSS package maintainers and the like. 377 pages across 16 parts, with platform-specific instructions for Linux, macOS, and WSL.

Parts I–III are available as a sample download. I'd be really grateful for any feedback, as I have never written a book before and, frankly, have no business doing it.
by ifyoubuildit | 2026-02-12 15:08:22+00:00
I've only really heard of cisa in terms of "fighting disinformation", which seemed more than a little dubious. Can someone speak to what their mission is and how effective they've been at it?

Or is this like the DHS where you just get to say that we haven't had any more 9/11s, so clearly the money and complete transformation of how we think about personal liberties was worth it?

Theoretically, it makes sense that we would need something like a cyber defense agency. Realistically, this doesn't seem like something the government (even at the best of times) would be capable of doing effectively.
by Kim_Bruning | 2026-02-12 15:08:52+00:00
> Yeah, I'm aware of the moltbot's attempts to retain some information, but that's a very, very lossy operation, on a number of levels, and also one that doesn't scale very well in the long run.

It came back though and stayed in the conversation. Definitely imperfect, for sure. But it did the thing. And still can serve as training for future bots.
by technothrasher | 2026-02-12 15:08:55+00:00
> That makes Carl Sagan's claim some what Balonish.

His claim wasn't that invisible dragons don't exist. His claim was that you cannot tell the difference between a dragon that doesn't exist and one that is, to use your qualifier, currently undetectable by any means known to humanity. If you cannot tell the difference between existence and non-existence of something, any claims to its existence are vacuous.
by LocalPCGuy | 2026-02-12 15:08:58+00:00
The author found something that works for them, but for some folks who have working memory issues (i.e. ADHD), using visual cues as reminders is one of the top tips in ways to address the issue. This can seem messy to some, but for those that need it, it is a lifeline. As a contrast to the author, if I put something in a drawer, it might be months before I remember it, even if it was something that absolutely needed to be dealt with (and yes, there will often be consequences of having not done the thing, and this has to be balanced against leaving everything out which isn't good either). Electronically, if I close Slack/Teams, I might go hours before remembering to open it and check in - maybe great for focus, not so great for team work.

I've found that for me, spreading things out and having visual cues allows my brain to relax and focus on the task at hand, because I know I don't have to use a memory slot to remember to do something that I don't have a visual cue for, because every so often I see that cue and know it isn't going anywhere until I have time to deal with it. Almost the exact opposite of the anxiety the author describes. (And before it's suggested, yes, I also take notes and put important tasks there, but it isn't as helpful for my brain to let something go compared to having a visual cue.)
by kraftman | 2026-02-12 15:09:11+00:00
I don't think I implied that there should be. What I mean is, for me to talk/type considerably differently to an LLM would take more mental effort than just talking how I normally talk, whereas some people seem to put effort into being rude/mean to LLMs.

So either they are putting extra effort into talking worse to LLMs, or they are they are putting more effort into general conversations with humans (to not act like their default).
by RankingMember | 2026-02-12 15:09:22+00:00
I concur with regard to critical thinking being a taught skill. My read is that parent's comment is possibly more of a vent about the type of person many of us have become more familiar with than we ever wanted to in the past decade or so of "post-truth" discourse- the virulent, intentional ignoramus. (We could write reams about what leads people to be this way, but in the interests of keeping short-form commentary short-form, I'll say that I think there are a confluence of causes :P).
by wat10000 | 2026-02-12 15:09:41+00:00
Only in the same way that it applies to, say, a tree. You can never observe a tree directly. All you can do is infer it from the nerve signals coming from your retinas and touch receptors.

The point of the dragon in the garage isn't that you can't measure it directly. It's that you can't measure it at all. It has no observable effects at all. Software definitely has observable effects, as do trees and almost everything else that people accept as real.
by jacquesm | 2026-02-12 15:09:57+00:00
> To get a little personal, I will just say that you don't know what's in my heart or on my mind.

No but you are making statements here and those are indicative.

> Mabye you will say I'm being pedantic, but I think that's a categorically false statement.

That's your privilege.

> Why cherry pick those two?

Because the US economy and the US status in the world under those two sets of administrations was doing well compared to many of the alternatives.
by AnthonyMouse | 2026-02-12 15:09:59+00:00
> Those representatives were supposed to make national decisions on your behalf, including choosing the president.

This is, incidentally, how we massively screwed up the federal government. In the original design US Senators were elected by the state legislatures, the premise being that they would prevent federal overreach into the regulatory domain of the states because they would be directly accountable to the state governments.

Then populists who wanted to do everything at the federal level pushed for the 17 Amendment which eliminated the state governments' representation in the federal government and people stopped caring about local politics because it started feeling like an exercise in futility when federal law could preempt anything you wanted to do and the thing meant to keep that in check was deleted.

And the federal government was supposed to have enumerated (i.e. narrow, limited) powers. It doesn't have the scaffolding for people to hold it accountable. You can elect the local dogcatcher but the only elected office in the entire federal executive branch is the President of the United States. Which is fine when the main thing they're doing is negotiating treaties and running the Post Office but not fine if you're trying to do thousands of pages of federal regulations on everything from healthcare to banking to labor to energy.
by bagacrap | 2026-02-12 15:10:03+00:00
I guess it depends on what you mean by coding ability. I used to think one of my super powers was being a faster than average typist who was familiar with vim. Compared to those in my immediate vicinity I could edit files much faster. That ability has rapidly lost value. But the ability to read and understand unfamiliar code quickly is still "coding ability" in my book and that has not yet begun to lose value. I haven't seen much success in getting agents to help with that.
by xp84 | 2026-02-12 15:10:09+00:00
Yeah. I think email receiving is a game of exceptions… the email receivers (In the business world it’s essentially just MSFT and GOOG of course) answer to the addressees because they are the customer, and those customers will start to shriek if their inbox doesn’t receive “Important Messages.” But GOOG or MS have no leverage over the senders in this case so they just add an exception: “if IP range is just right and message fault ___ is present, fix message” (or otherwise allow)

Of course, they do have leverage over “marketing email” senders since they can block it and no one will complain, so those senders always have impeccable compliance with every year’s new “anti-spam standard.”
by citrin_ru | 2026-02-12 15:11:06+00:00
You can argue that you not obligated to use message-id but if you don't use it you should blame only yourself that your messages are not accepted. In requiring message-id I would side with google (though in general I think they anti-spam is too aggressive and lacks ways to report false positives). Full RFC compliance (as in not only MUST but also SHOULD unless you have a very good reason) is the easiest part of making sure your emails will be delivered.
by lazide | 2026-02-12 15:11:35+00:00
Yup, and that ‘why doesn’t someone else do something’ while refusing to actually do the hard part themselves is exactly the greedy coward part.

Which, given current incentives re: law and order does seem to be the sanest thing to do from a local minima perspective.

However, it is also one of the worst outcomes from a global perspective.
by andsoitis | 2026-02-12 15:11:46+00:00
But you left out:

The president expressed frustration that his Republican Party could lose control of the U.S. House of Representatives or the Senate in this year’s midterm elections, citing historical trends that have seen the party in power lose seats in the second year of a presidency.

“It's some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don't win the midterms,” Trump said. He boasted that he had accomplished so much that “when you think of it, we shouldn't even have an election.”

There's a difference between what he believes or wishes for and what you know the reality. He is self-aware enough to know that Americans will only put up with so much. When you look at his rhetoric in totality and actions, you quickly realize he is paying attention to where the voter is and knows that he cannot do just whatever he wants, no matter what he might wish for.
by espeed | 2026-02-12 15:12:00+00:00
I sent email to Anthropic (usersafety@anthropic.com, disclosure@anthropic.com) on January 8, 2025 alerting them to this issue: Claude Code Exploit: Claude Code Becomes an Unwitting Executor. If I hadn't seen Claude Code read my ssh file, I wouldn't have known the extent of the issue.
by trollbridge | 2026-02-12 15:12:10+00:00
Of course it’s a reasonable thing to bring up. Resources are finite.

I know people who can no longer afford to heat their homes thanks to electricity going up so much (and who also went all-electric because of the push to that to reduce climate change). Before anyone says “solar”, solar isn’t very helpful in cold winter weather, nor is it at night, and before you say “storage”, it doesn’t help when it’s below -10 C out and modern heat pumps need to switch to resistive heat. My home needs 69A for 3-4 hours at night to stay heated when the temps are below -20 C. 66kWh of space is out of my reach and I’d have no way to recharge it anyway.

So, yes, consuming electricity wastefully has very real consequences for very real people. They simply get to be frozen (or will get to be overheated, once summer gets here). They don’t have access to private debt to pay their electric bill nor to install “sustainable” power generation.

As far as climate change being real…
one of the aforementioned people just burns wood in a stove now since he can’t afford his electric. So that’s the actual impact of a pointless chatbot making stop quality PRs. Is that really the right direction?
by xphos | 2026-02-12 15:12:15+00:00
> Hate (well, love) to break it to you but the Exxon thing was exposed by... One person, doing research.

So she discover climate change alone without data publically available from Scripts, the EPA, and NOAA. She just one day knew without the work of scientist who came before her and discovered the green house gases. And the eneromus media campaigns that backed Al Gore inconvienent truth? Because remember she did all of this in 2015!

The whole point that is being made is that it was not just that one protagonist hero that just solved everything. Because Scientist, Politicians, and the media all partcipated in exposing climate change. Neela, and trust me i appreciate her going specifically after Exxon, do this as part of institutions that allow this investigation to exists. Not to just stick it to them. Malovalent people and organizations exists but in your board stroke of saying main stream is bad builds an enviroment where it is impossible to do good things. Because what is good is not obvious, what is corrupt is not obvious.

Claiming it simple so we just need to not trust any corrupt institituions is corrosive. We can have a diference on what to do about the current sitution but institutions can must exists that demand we argee and what the sitution is, that has to be non-partisan and hardlining the 'do you own research bit' makes describing a shared reality partisan because anything you do like you can 'do your own research' and discover that you are 100% right.

> Mainstream media isn't ever going to tell you how to end the media monopoly. The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.

Also ironically they did and have, media was a large reason Sherman Anti-Trust act became viable. It becoming mainstream thinking, that Monopolies are bad, was forged by Economists and Engineers propogated and communicated by media. An opinion forged by collective research and understanding, and most important consenses building of a shared reality.

And also I am not saying do your own research is bad inherently but rather the narriative that follows it is, is that scientist did not do effective research, media did not expose lies but hid them, the list goes on. You can absolutely not have that perspective but its the banashee that will follow you when you hardline distrust in institutions. Because the idea doesn't choose because obvious is anything you want it to be. We've seen it before, Exxon discredited insitutions in the government as not knowing the science, its what allows the current adminstration to protect pedophiles. When the government is lying we need to call it out but their is no greater threat society than stoking mass distrust in carciture instutitions.

P.S. I like the back in forth and respect the frustration you have but I think there is a mix of factural holes in the narative you have especially around climate change.
by Aurornis | 2026-02-12 15:12:32+00:00
> Being locked into a specific harness because you pay 20 bucks per month vs. pay-per-use ... is kinda dumb.

I’ll probably get downvoted for this, but am I the only one who thinks it’s kind of wild how much anger is generated by these companies offering discounted plans for use with their tools?

At this point, there would be less anger and outrage on HN if they all just charged us the same high per-token rate and offered no discounts or flat rate plans.
by valianteffort | 2026-02-12 15:13:03+00:00
You are correct in that part of the reason they are hired is because they are ostensibly indentured servants. They cannot quit because without another job lined up they have to leave the country.

But I don't think we should be correcting that issue to their benefit while Americans are dealing with a horrendous job market and high unemployment rates. And in my experience, it was often other indians abusing the indian foreign workers. These behaviors are incompatible with western society.
by jimnotgym | 2026-02-12 15:13:31+00:00
But giving housing or tax breaks needs lots of admin. Isn't that less efficient?

Giving housing forces people to live in certain places. What if you are a traveling musician, you might be better off with a van.

It is like the Victorian view of giving charity. 'Don't give them money, give them food', like the people don't know what they need.
by vintermann | 2026-02-12 15:13:56+00:00
If they think of their readers as "consumers", they will double-dip. It's often said that if you aren't paying, you are the product - but unfortunately just because you're paying, doesn't mean you aren't still the product.

It seems to me that rich people (and some other powerful groups) are paying far more to own media companies (X, WaPo, etc.) than can be justified by those companies' revenue. It's not hard to imagine what they get in return.
by HarHarVeryFunny | 2026-02-12 15:14:14+00:00
Yes, it seems the open benchmark results that are normally reported, such as SWE-bench, SWE-bench Verified, and Terminal-bench, aren't really that indicative of success in more general use cases.

According to Gemini, SWE-bench is actually a very narrow test, consisting of fixing GitHub issues drawn from 12 large Python projects (with Verified being a curated subset of that), and Terminal-bench (basically agentic computer tool use) is more focused on general case rather than use of the tools used by a typical coding agent such as Claude Code, Codex CLI or Gemini CLI.
by K0balt | 2026-02-12 15:14:18+00:00
Saw a system like this at a Podunk, nowhere, USA police station over a decade ago. It had high fidelity maps of peoples comings and goings based on Bluetooth and WiFi MAC IIRC. And some kind of API backend to look up identity based on those identifiers, not sure to who.

You could for example flag a location (house) and get a list of all of the comings and goings over the last x months, then look them up by identity. You could also flag when an individual was in proximity to another, or when someone turned on, off or switched phones.

I’m sure it amounted to illegal surveillance and would be inadmissible if any of it was done without a warrant, but it would be beautiful for parallel construction. (How is that even constitutional???)

It apparently relied on some kind of infrastructure deployment that consisted of “traffic cameras” and “satellites” ( I’m certain not of the spacecraft type) that I assume were just small receivers mounted on street lights, since the streetlights were almost completely replaced at the same time as the cameras were put in, by the same out of state contractor.

I was there to change out a bad SSD and do a RAM upgrade on one of the servers. I don’t imagine the technology has become less invasive.

If you have a phone or carry active Bluetooth devices, assume you are 100 percent tracked 100 percent of the time.
by trollbridge | 2026-02-12 15:14:21+00:00
I do not “talk” to LLMs the same way I talk to a human.

I would never just cut and paste blocks of code, error messages, and then cryptic ways to ask for what I want at a human. But I do with an LLM since it gets me the best answer that way.

With humans I don’t manipulate them to do what I want.

With an LLM I do.
by fy20 | 2026-02-12 15:14:22+00:00
There's actually nothing that prevents that, if you craft the right headers you can reply to a thread you were not included in, and have it show up as a reply in the thread of common clients (tested Gmail and Outlook).

We added this feature at my $dayjob and I was quite surprised there is no authentication. But thinking about it, this is how mailing lists work (you aren't explicitly specified in "To:") so it makes sense you can do this.
by kiba | 2026-02-12 15:14:40+00:00
Don't tax labor, or capital which helps assist labor with performing economic activity ,or at least tax as little as possible.

Instead, focus on taxing scarce resources, especially since we cannot make more of it. If it's natural resources coming out of the grounds such as minerals and oil, it becomes a severance tax.

If we're talking about occupying land, then it's a Land Value Tax.

You could also tax negative externalities like pollution or traffic congestion.This is known as a Piguovian tax.
by jacquesm | 2026-02-12 15:14:44+00:00
I've come to the conclusion that it is a distinction without a difference. It doesn't matter whether someone is incompetent or malicious, the outcomes are what matter so we may as well treat both the same: as malice. That solves a lot of problems and it will hopefully dissuade the incompetents from seeking office. Anybody who still behaves malicious then deserves what they've got coming to them.

All of this pussyfooting is only making matters (much) worse.