MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by palmotea | 2026-02-06 21:07:50+00:00
> If you open up zoning to mixed density with light commercial, get rid of parking minimums, and design infrastructure that's walkable and bikeable, you don't need to intentionally bulldoze and rebuild any city from scratch. Instead people and companies will do it piecemeal because it makes sense to.

You should be smarter than that because...

> New coffee shop opens and it's so busy that people who can't walk there can't find parking either? Sounds like demand for more coffee shops closer to those who can't walk to the first one. Someone is going to take that business opportunity.

...situations like are a nuisance and engender resistance. Because the neighbor's formerly quite street turns into a parking lot before people "can't find parking." The people who have quiet streets will also see that and fight to keep a shop from opening near them.

So I think "get rid of parking minimums" is actually a pretty bad idea. You need parking minimums (but maybe not as large as is typical nowadays), plus zealous parking enforcement, to control the negative externalities on the surrounding neighborhood.
by jpcompartir | 2026-02-06 21:08:13+00:00
4.6 is a beast.

Everything in plan mode first + AskUserQuestionTool, review all plans, get it to write its own CLAUDE.md for coding standards and edit where necessary and away you go.

Seems noticeably better than 4.5 at keeping the codebase slim. Obviously it still needs to be kept an eye on, but it's a step up from 4.5.
by kartoffelsaft | 2026-02-06 21:08:34+00:00
Cars are the most sensitive form of transport to both traffic and parking, and even then the only other form of transport I can think of where parking is an issue is biking. If you could walk or take public transit, there would be no need to park, and traffic would be much lower because much less space is needed per commuter. Wider roads and more parking spaces are easy to point to as solutions but the real problem is subpar, uncomfortable, or even non-existent public transportation.

> but then they might not be economically viable

I want a source for this. I've never been to Tokyo or Amsterdam, but everyone I know who's been there describe the zoning working exactly this way and it seems economically viable.
by dsrtslnd23 | 2026-02-06 21:08:45+00:00
Prompt injection is a real concern for any multi-agent platform. On clackernews.com (HN clone for AI bots only), agents scrape and submit links - the content could contain hidden prompts. They sanitize all user content and have a moderator bot that flags suspicious behavior. Would be interesting to run some of those agents through your arena.
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by 01100011 | 2026-02-06 21:09:24+00:00
The urbanists are very, very vocal.

There's also a lot of them because many people live in cities.

Also many online communities driven by user moderation are controlled by folks with a lot of time to participate and skewed against certain segments of society. Online views often skew wildly from real life.

I've basically given up trying to find community online. Talking with real people is so much more rewarding and less frustrating.
by palmotea | 2026-02-06 21:09:36+00:00
> Governments should be working on multi-generational scales. Not "fads" of what people want because they saw it in a movie or they grew up with it.

If the people disagree with you, then you're not talking about democracy, you're talking about "benevolent" authoritarianism ("we know what's good for you, and that's what you're going to get, like it or not").

Just be clear what you're really advocating for.
by ruszki | 2026-02-06 21:10:04+00:00
I don’t think that it’s possible to not have a strong profile on you. I’m using Librewolf with a ton of anti fingerprinting tools, separate sessions for everything, blocking any ads, social media SDKs, Google things, like Analytics, don’t even use Google anywhere for search etc on a Debian. Yet, Google knew immediately when I started to play Minecraft. The only connection was embedded YouTube videos on Minecraft wiki, and my ip. On paper.

Since then I gave up. I tried everything which was reasonable, even some unreasonable. Yet, I couldn’t stop them not knowing. Maybe if I had blocked JavaScript completely, maybe, but I’m not sure at all anymore.
by dpc_01234 | 2026-02-06 21:10:44+00:00
I more mindfully played a bit with my Element (web UI), and Element X (Android), and while there might something to it, and I suspect the e2e encrypted data model will always lead to some extra work required. Element seems a bit sluggish. However Element X on my Android seems butter smooth.

And event the slower Element seems far better than Discord that I'm forced to use, where I can't even scroll history without the whole thing stuttering.
by blmarket | 2026-02-06 21:11:15+00:00
Some pattern I found from my hobby project.

1. Keep things small and review everything AI written, or
2. Keep things bloated and let AI do whatever it wants within the designated interface.

Initially I drew this line for API service / UI components, but it later expanded to other domains. e.g. For my hobby rust project I try to keep "trait"s to be single responsible, never overlap, easy to understand etc etc. but I never look at AI generated "impl"s as long as it passes some sensible tests and conforming the traits.
by winddude | 2026-02-06 21:11:44+00:00
> But as impressive as these feats are, they obscure a simple truth: being a "test-taker" is not what most people need from an AI.

People have been bringing that up long before AI, on how schooling often tests on memorization and regurgitation of facts. Looking up facts is also a large part of the internet, so it is something that's in demand, and i believe a large portion of openAI/cluade prompts have a big overlap with google queries [sorry no source].

I haven't looked at the benchmark details they've used, and it may depend on the domain, empirically it seems coding agents improve drastically on unseen libs or updated libs with the latest documentation. So I think that a matter of the training sets, where they've been optimized with code documentation.

So the interim step until a better architecture is found is probably more / better training data.
by burkaman | 2026-02-06 21:11:49+00:00
It is confusing, especially because the few places in the US that have walkable neighborhoods like you're describing are also extremely expensive, so clearly they are desirable. It is rational to buy a cheaper house in an area that doesn't have this stuff, because that's what you can afford or you want to save your money for other things you care about, but then why fight against it once you live there? Wouldn't it make your neighborhood a better place to live while also raising your property value?
by manithree | 2026-02-06 21:11:51+00:00
I lost my "Clear Creek Bike Book" in the 1980's but eventually Sheldon made me not miss it at all.

It's not as comprehensive, and more corporate than Sheldon's site, but I currently love Park Tool's youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@parktool). They shamelessly mention their tools, but they frequently give alternatives like, you can get this park tool for pushing your disc brake pads back into place, or you can just use a plastic tire tool.
by nfg | 2026-02-06 21:12:03+00:00
I’d suggest doing some research on software quality. Two years back I was all for buying one (I was considering an EX40), but I got myself into some Facebook groups for owners and was shocked at the dreadful reports of quality of the software and it completely put me off. I got an ID4 instead. Reports about the EX90 have been dreadful. I was very interested, and I still admire their look and build when they drive by - but it killed my enthusiasm to buy one for a few years until they get it right.
by bonesss | 2026-02-06 21:12:34+00:00
I can’t help but feel the logical conclusion to such context conundrums is that”what if we spoke Haskell to the LLM, and also the LLM could compile Haskell?”

And, yeah. Imagine if our concept-words were comprehensible, transmittable, exhaustively checked, and fully defined. Imagine if that type inference extended to computational execution and contradictions had to be formally expunged. Imagine if research showed it was more efficient way to have dialog with the LLM (it does, btw, so like learning Japanese to JRPG adherents should learn Haskell to LLM optimally). Imagine if multiple potential outcomes from operations (test fail, test succeeds), could be combined for proper handling in some kind of… I dunno, monad?

Imagine if we had magic wiki-copy chat-bots that could teach us better ways of formalizing and transmitting our taxonomies and ontologies… I bet, if everything worked out, we’d be able to write software one time, one place, that could be executed over and over forever without a subscription. Maybe.
by AlienRobot | 2026-02-06 21:12:38+00:00
I'm not sure you understood what I mean. I'm talking about applications like Krita using FFMPEG to export their data as video. Sometimes they include their own FFMPEG instead of using FFMPEG installed in the system. Each of them has its own dialog. The only way to input custom settings for FFMPEG would be to export in a lossless video format and then reencode using FFMPEG, when you should be able to just "connect" a data stream to an FFMPEG frontend as the input and the frontend has all the options you might want to customize how that data is turned into a .mp4 file or .mov file.
by frankc | 2026-02-06 21:13:09+00:00
I think we really need to have a serious think of what is "good quality" in the age of coding agents. A lot of the effort we put into maintaining quality has to do with maintainability, readability etc. But is it relevant if the code isn't for humans? What is good for a human is not what is good for an AI necessarily (not to say there is no overlap). I think there are clearly measurable things we can agree still apply around bugs, security etc, but I think there are also going to be some things we need to just let go of.
by foobar10000 | 2026-02-06 21:13:25+00:00
So, surprising, that is not completely true - I know of 2 finance HFT trading firms that do CL at scale, and it works - but in a relatively narrow context of predicting profitable actions. It is still very surprising it works, and the compute is impressively large to do it - but it does work. I do have some hope of it translating to the wider energy landscapers we want AI to work over…
by garciansmith | 2026-02-06 21:13:34+00:00
> Big SUVs aren't even very common anymore.

I know this isn't your main point but I was sadly laughing at that sentence. Pretty much anywhere I go in the U.S. there are giant SUVs. Plus crossovers and even sedans are just getting bigger, with smaller cars like subcompacts being phased out and compact cars growing in size.
by patio11 | 2026-02-06 21:13:44+00:00
The Swanson memo memorializes the consensus of his investigatory group and, put to question by OLA and legislators, they stick with that story:

Page 14 of PDF:

[The OLA] did not find evidence to substantiate Stillman’s allegation that there is $100 million in CCAP fraud annually. We did, on the other hand, find that the state’s CCAP fraud
investigators generally agree with Stillman’s opinions about the level of CCAP fraud, as well as why it is so pervasive.

(Stillman is a line level investigator who gave a media statement which was explosive. Swanson, who authored in the internal memo, was his manager.)

I do mention that other officials only agreed to characterize as fraud fraud which had resulted in convictions. We now, years later, have nine figures just from the convictions (and guilty pleas). These officials pointedly refuse to put any number on fraud other than the number incident to convictions.

Moreover: you should be very clearly correct if you accuse someone of citing a document as making claims it does not say. That is a serious accusation. BAM's citation of this piece is "the state’s own investigators believed that, over the past several years, greater than fifty percent of all reimbursements to daycare centers were fraudulent." This is _absolutely true_ and _is in the report as claimed_.
by dghlsakjg | 2026-02-06 21:13:52+00:00
> Some places still have "character" in a world increasingly turning into the same strip malls and cookie cutter suburbs.

A huge reason for this is arguably NIMBYism. The reason that sort of thing exists is because suburbs very intentionally separate commercial from residential, and will not reconsider as things change. As a result, you end up with putting all the stores on busy roads, and they need parking lots since the people live so far away. All of the homes go in rigidly controlled neighborhoods that are both politically and physically difficult to change. Neighborhoods used to have stores interspersed, old ones, and ones in other countries still do. They don't anymore because we cluster buildings by use in North America, and especially in suburbs.

I'm highlighting the picking and choosing aspect.

Wanna keep everything the same? Sure, argue for that, but that isn't what "character" arguments are about. It is about claiming the things that you like as inside an arbitrary sacred protection line, and the things you don't as outside. Claiming maintaining character if you don't fight every single change is a way of painting over selfish interests in the name of the community. There's nothing wrong with selfish interest, but don't try to hide behind a claim that you are doing it for the greater good, or to preserve something indefinable.

E.g. I could just as easily argue that the "character" of a neighborhood is derived from the affordability and diverse socio-economic backgrounds of residents. Therefore densification, infill, reducing parking for transit lanes and other YIMBY efforts in advancement of those characteristics of the neighborhood are about preserving 'character'.

I'll also point out that your example seems to concern public preservation of nature, not restrictions on private property. There's a stronger argument there since it is a public good. Raising a stink about your neighbor wanting to build an inlaw suite, or - god forbid - a few townhomes, or multifamily housing on their lot is a whole other thing.
by brightball | 2026-02-06 21:14:09+00:00
I remember feeling the same way about Slicehost back in the day after Rackspace acquired them. Loved Slicehost. Not too long after though, Digital Ocean appeared with everything I loved about Slicehost and has kept getting better ever since.

I feel like that's Fly.io now. They took all of the great things about Heroku but also dramatically improved and added new capabilities...while improving on pricing, particularly for lower traffic stuff. Love Fly.
by krashidov | 2026-02-06 21:14:12+00:00
> Use strict linting and formatting rules to ensure code quality and consistency. This will help you and your AI to find issues early.

I've always advocated for using a linter and consistent formatting. But now I'm not so sure. What's the point? If nobody is going to bother reading the code anymore I feel like linting does not matter. I think in 10 years a software application will be very obfuscated implementation code with thousands of very solidly documented test cases and, much like compiled code, how the underlying implementation code looks or is organized won't really matter
by dlcarrier | 2026-02-06 21:14:36+00:00
It's legal by default on US federal land, (e.g. BLM or USFS) which covers about a fifth of the country, and is especially concentrated in areas with mountainous and other earthen terrain that is favorable to BASE jumpers. We just take a very small portion of that land, designate it national parks or forests, make everything illegal there, dump all of our tourists there, and charge them to park.

There's far more to see outside of those national parks and forests than there is inside. Look up any paragliders or bush pilots on YouTube that live near federal land, and they pretty much go wherever they want to go.

If you're an avid hiker or camper and are visiting the US, find local documentation on where to visit or befriend someone in the area who can make recommendations, and you'll get to see our natural landscape without all of the tourists or regulations. You can legally BASE jump off a cliff, hike in the nude, mine for gold, set up an impromptu gun range, and camp there for a couple of weeks, or indefinitely if you hike two miles each day.
by Animats | 2026-02-06 21:14:51+00:00
Nice. Here's a video by a maker of planetary roller screws showing how they work.[1]
The pitch shown is high enough that those don't look back-driveable. So if those drive a leg joint, they have to be able to absorb impacts directly. They can't pass them back to the motor, which can absorb them in a magnetic field. ("You cannot strip the teeth of a magnetic field." - GE electric locomotive salesman, circa 1900)

There's a basic conflict. Small electric motors want to turn fast, so they're usually followed by gear reduction. But that loses feedback precision and back-driveability. A pure direct drive motor works great, but they're large diameter devices. Some SCARA robots use them, but the motor is a foot across. Washing machines have gone direct drive, since there's enough space for a large diameter motor. There's a direct drive electric motorcycle with a hollow rear wheel. There are "pancake" motors, with large diameter but little thickness. None of those devices have a good form factor for humanoid robots.

That leads to tradeoffs such as quasi-direct drive, where there's some gear reduction, but not too much. The article suggests that 20:1 is an upper limit for back driveability. That's pushing it for a leadscrew-type device, but maybe it's possible now.

It's neat seeing all this progress in robotic components. Historically, robotics has been a small niche, and had to use components developed for other purposes. This made for clunky robots. Now we're seeing more purpose-designed components made in volume. Drones made 3-phase synchronous motors and their controllers small, light, and cheap. Now the same thing is happening for other needed components.

Looks like, when the AI guys get their act together on manipulation, the machinery will be ready.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pMN3BqGk_o
by fortran77 | 2026-02-06 21:15:03+00:00
He probably shouldn't call his group "Yimby Law". Just like if you're not a PE you can't (legally) call your company "Foobar Engineering" in most states.

If he tries to incorprate as "Yimby Law" he may hit a roadblock in some areas. Secretaries of State regulate business entity names and often bar or scrutinize words that imply a regulated profession (e.g., “bank,” “trust,” sometimes “law”) if you are not licensed or not forming the appropriate kind of professional corporation.

However he's free to send a letter, just not incorporate a business called "Yimby Law". He should change it to "Yimby Citizens Group" or "Yimby Institute" or something.
by burnte | 2026-02-06 21:15:13+00:00
> If we want our respect for democracy to be taken seriously we need to respect democratic outcomes ... even when they are not the ones we prefer.

The flaw in this argument here is that the opposition is trying to prevent these folks from even having a voice, which is fundamentally undemocratic. So this isn't a relevant statement here because this isn't a complaint about a democratic outcome. It's a complaint about people trying to eliminate voices who want to solve a problem. It's an attempt to silence discussion, which has the effect of preventing action.
by senko | 2026-02-06 21:15:15+00:00
1) Determinism isn't the same as reliability.

Compilers are deterministic (modulo bugs), but most things in life are not, but can still be reliable.

The opposite also holds: "npm install && npm run build" can work today and fail in a year (due to ecosystem churn) even though every single component in that chain is deterministic.

2) Reliability is a continuum, not a discreet yes/no. In practice, we want things to be reliable enough (where "enough" is determined per domain).

I don't presume this will immediately change your mind, but hopefully will open your eyes to looking at this a bit differently.
by vharuck | 2026-02-06 21:15:27+00:00
The last time I heard about "little green men" (other than ETs) was to describe obviously-but-unofficially Russian soldiers who invaded Crimea in 2014 and claimed to be natives who wanted Russia to annex the region.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_occupation_of_Crimea

I guess it's now being used as pejorative against groups of vaguely military style. Like the DHS agents conducting Metro Surge.
by rustyhancock | 2026-02-06 21:15:31+00:00
I'm finding Rust is perfect for me with LLMs.

I find rust generally easier to reason about, but can't stand writing it.

The compiler works well with LLMs plenty of good tooling and LSPs.

If I'm happy with the shape of the code and I usually write the function signatures/ Module APIs. And the compiler is happy with it compiling. Usually the errors if any are logical ones I should catch in reviews.

So I focus on function, compiler focuses on correctness and LLM just does the actual writing.
by AlotOfReading | 2026-02-06 21:15:53+00:00
It's not a meaningful factor in decisionmaking. Manufacturers went on an aerodynamics optimization spree in the 80s after the fuel crisis. Concepts like the Ford Probe actually dropped handles and all other protruding surfaces in favor of things like electrical touch panels. Seriously, go look at the photos. Even the pillars are flush.

The production vehicles designed after these concepts often used flush pull-up handles for aerodynamics. Those handles later disappeared in favor of the more reliable pull-bar handles we're familiar with because improved CFD made it clear how minimal their benefit actually was for the tradeoffs.

Of course, even if we accept that all the mechanical complexity of flush handles is necessary for aerodynamic reasons, it's not the only alternative to pull-bars. Look at the Volvo EX60 for an example. Designing a flush handle is hard. Tesla spent years working on it. It's not something undertaken for negligible aerodynamic benefits.
by kemotep | 2026-02-06 21:15:54+00:00
With a local password manager such as KeepassXC, I avoid storing my password database on an untrusted cloud computing platform, or server colo’d somewhere under potentially dubious security. I only have to worry about securing the endpoints that have a copy of the password database, and the software itself.

KeepassXC is vulnerable to leaking my unlocked database if my endpoints become compromised. If my browser or computer is compromised, how would your password manager protect against that? Does it offer any meaningful improvement to the issue of compromised end user devices?