MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by pod4g | 2026-02-28 06:52:20+00:00
Hi HN, I built this as a side project. PicShift converts images (HEIC, WebP, AVIF, PNG, JPG) entirely client-side using WebAssembly encoders — MozJPEG for JPEG, OxiPNG + imagequant
for PNG, libwebp with SIMD detection for WebP, AV1 for AVIF, and libheif for HEIC decoding.

Nothing is uploaded. All processing happens in Web Workers (up to 4 parallel) with the WASM modules lazy-loaded per format.

A few technical highlights:

- HEIC decoding: native createImageBitmap on Safari (17-39x faster), libheif-js WASM fallback on Chrome (2-3x faster than the pure JS decoder heic2any)
- PNG has a three-stage pipeline: imagequant palette quantization → secondary color reduction → OxiPNG lossless optimization
- Streaming ZIP packaging with fflate (STORE mode, no re-compression)
- All WASM encoders fall back silently to Canvas.convertToBlob() if they fail

Happy to discuss the architecture or answer any questions.
by csense | 2026-02-28 06:52:59+00:00
I've taken trips to California in the past for both personal and professional reasons. I'm seriously reconsidering whether I'll do that again in the future.

What happens if I bring a laptop with an "illegal" OS without this unwanted "feature" into the state? Will I be denied access to public wifi in hotels and restaurants? Or will it grant me access, but snitch on me -- make a call to the state police to come deal with someone with an illegal laptop? Will I be forced to install a different OS while a police officer watches? Will my laptop be confiscated and destroyed as contraband? Will I be thrown in a California prison?

I don't want to take a risk and find out.
by oenton | 2026-02-28 06:53:33+00:00
My apologies. I thought $10/day daycare was universal in Canada. I guess my broader point was the difference in disposable income between U.S. workers vs. other countries becomes a lot more nuanced when things like healthcare, childcare, retirement, and taxes are taken into account.

> I'm sure the $80,000 extra dollars is enough to pay for the healthcare premiums and daycare.

You're probably right. That said, SWE compensation in the U.S. has been quite an anomaly compared to the vast majority of American labor, especially in the last 5-10 years. I don't think those who are comfortable right now are thinking far enough ahead about what they'll do if that changes, or perhaps when that changes. If this AI hype has taught me anything it's that those with capital cannot wait to start trimming their pesky engineers with those high salaries. And maybe that's always been the case, but seeing them go full mask off hits different.

Unrelated, I like your website. It's simple and the color scheme is aesthetically pleasing.
by LarsDu88 | 2026-02-28 06:54:06+00:00
The Iran situation is unique. If it is true that Epstein was part of a blackmailing operation run by Israeli intelligence, then the time to act is limited. It may only be a matter of time before the US-Israel special relationship begins to deteriorate, especially as the House of Representatives starts digging into what was going on.

For hardline right wing Israeli government officials who would be privy to such information, the window of time to leverage to US to enact regime change on the Islamic Republic is closing. The survival of Israel over the long run really depends on not having a hardline Islamic regime in Iran developing nuclear weapons. Things like AI safety and US elections are secondary to such prerogatives. The question for voters in the US is whether it really is worth it to the average US citizen to shed blood and tax dollars for this stuff.

I hope there can be a peaceful regime change in Iran and that there will be peaceful relations with Iran and Israel in the future. But damn I wish things could go back to normal with our US political system once this is all settled.
by xvector | 2026-02-28 06:54:12+00:00
This feels kind of like a masterclass in negotiation. I suspect Dario just didn't get along with the DoW. Sam comes in, takes Anthropic's place, gets the same concessions.

Hell, this may open a path for Anthropic to survive. Everyone can save face if the Pentagon says "we got Anthropic to agree to the same terms as OpenAI" and Anthropic gets their guardrails anyways.

On the other hand it's equally likely that the government just destroys Anthropic regardless because they don't like it anymore (and it dared to disagree in public.)
by maxlybbert | 2026-02-28 06:54:18+00:00
You asked:

"Yes, but it only has two senators. The 39.5 million people in California have the same Senatorial representation as the less than 600 thousand people in Wyoming.

"In what world is that fair or remotely democratic?"

I answered "Not everything in the constitution is meant to be democratic."

I'm sorry if you are not capable of understanding how that answers your question.
by spongebobstoes | 2026-02-28 06:55:27+00:00
anthropic has nothing but a contract to enforce what is appropriate usage of their models. there are no safety rails, they disabled their standard safety systems

openai can deploy safety systems of their own making

from the military perspective this is preferable because they just use the tool -- if it works, it works, and if it doesn't, they'll use another one. with the anthropic model the military needs a legal opinion before they can use the tool, or they might misuse it by accident

this is also preferable if you think the government is untrustworthy. an untrustworthy government may not obey the contract, but they will have a hard time subverting safety systems that openai builds or trains into the model
by nickysielicki | 2026-02-28 06:56:53+00:00
> The government isn't banning Anthropic because using it harms national security. They are banning it in retribution for Anthropic taking a stand.

You might be completely right about their real motivations, but try to steelman the other side.

What they might argue in court: Suppose DoD wants to buy an autonomous missile system from some contractor. That contractor writes a generic visual object tracking library, which they use in both military applications for the DoD and in their commercial offerings. Let’s say it’s Boeing in this case.

Anthropic engaged in a process where they take a model that is perfectly capable of writing that object tracking code, and they try to install a sense of restraint on it through RLHF. Suppose Opus 6.7 comes out and it has internalized some of these principles, to the point where it adds a backdoor to the library that prevents it from operating correctly in military applications.

Is this a bit far fetched? Sure. But the point is that Anthropic is intentionally changing their product to make it less effective for military use. And per the statute, it’s entirely reasonable for the DoD to mark them as a supply chain risk if they’re introducing defects intentionally that make it unfit for military use. It’s entirely consistent for them to say, Boeing, you can’t use Claude.
by Merovius | 2026-02-28 06:57:24+00:00
To be clear, I have no skin in the game here. I thought the point you made sounded plausible and as I have zero experience or expertise, I wouldn't argue against it.

I just thought it's ridiculous - and kind of funny - to deny making the claim you literally made. I'm not sure you have a lot of legs to stand on, accusing others of "anti-science thinking" and a "failure of reading comprehension" when asking us to ignore the clear, textual evidence of that contradiction.

> For it to be a "narrative", there would need to be an additional claim that this specific case and context, which is factual, generalizes to most unrelated cases.

Says who? That seems a very narrow and unusual definition of what makes a "narrative", bent to your purpose. It seems to me, a "narrative" in common parlance just means "telling a story" or "relaying a sequence of events". I honestly have never seen someone use the word to imply generalization (doesn't mean no one ever did, of course).

In any case, given that you responded to a comment talking about the two examples of Texas and Hawaii with an example about California and an "actually", it seems pretty fair to me to say, that you even fulfilled this artificially narrowed definition.

I mean, come on, you have got to admit that you have at least been unclear, if you didn't intend to make this argument. Instead of just defensively flinging insults.
by 9dev | 2026-02-28 06:57:41+00:00
I’m not sure if you deliberately choose to not understand the problem. It’s not just that Lockheed can’t put Anthropic AI in a fighter jet cockpit, it’s that a random software engineer working at Lockheed on their internal accounting system is no longer allowed to use Claude Code, for no reason at all.
A supply chain risk is using Huawei network equipment for military communications. This is just spiteful retaliation because a company refuses to throw its values overboard when the government says so.
by disobae | 2026-02-28 06:57:50+00:00
I got the itch one night to play a startup simulator game and I couldnt find one anywhere, so I built one... for fun.

It’s a lightweight, free simulator where you make founder/raise decisions over time using a random seed, and see how your cap table and startup evolves.

No signup, no monetization, no email hook, there in fact is hardly a landing page. Its just a sandbox to play with startup scenarios.

Curious how founders here think it compares to real-world dynamics. I want to make it realistic, informative, fun.

Note: the leaderboard is most certainly cooked. In fact the app is partially an experiment of how many lovable AI tokens I can throw at this to keep building depth. haha

If you want to build/contribute to this I would also happily add you to the lovable for this
by CodeBit26 | 2026-02-28 06:58:00+00:00
This sounds like a classic topological brain teaser. If you’re driving clockwise on an island, the ocean remains on your left (in right-hand drive logic). But the real edge case is the 'island within a lake on an island' scenario. In 2026, with autonomous navigation, these recursive boundary definitions are actually a practical challenge for mapping algorithms. It's a great reminder that local geometry isn't always as simple as a single loop.
by tedsanders | 2026-02-28 06:58:03+00:00
I agree it makes little sense, and I think if all players were rational it never would have happened the way it played out. My understanding is that there are other reasons (i.e., beyond differing red lines) that made the OpenAI deal more palatable, but unfortunately the information shared with me has not been made public so I can't comment yet on specifics. I know that's unsatisfying, but I hope it serves as some very mild evidence that it's not all a big lie.
Show HN: TapPause – A dead-simple timer for intentional breaks
by louischen | 2026-02-28 06:58:16+00:00
I’ve been struggling with "digital twitchiness"—that reflexive habit of opening a new tab or checking a phone the second a task ends. I realized I had lost the ability to just sit with my thoughts for even 5 minutes.

Most "mindfulness" or "focus" apps felt too heavy. They have streaks, gamification, ads, or complex onboarding. They felt like more "noise" to manage.

So I built TapPause. It’s a 5–30 minute timer designed to be a "circuit breaker."

Key constraints I set for myself:

No Tracking: I don't want to know how many times I paused. No data to optimize.

Zero Friction: No accounts, no "plans," just a tap to start.

Intentionality: It’s not a Pomodoro timer. It’s a tool to help you transition between tasks or just reclaim your headspace.

It’s a small, opinionated tool built for my own needs. I’d love to hear how others here manage their "digital downtime" and if you think we’ve over-engineered the simple act of taking a break.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/hk/app/tappause-pause-timer/id6758304...
(Feedback is very much appreciated.)
by jolmg | 2026-02-28 06:59:02+00:00
> I'm not sure where the line between "hobby" and "professional" lies when it comes to linux distributions. Many of them are nonprofit but not really hobbyist at this point. Debian sure feels like a professional product to me (I daily drive it).

In this context, these would be the appropriate definitions:

> professional - Performed by persons receiving pay

> professional - Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/professional

Debian is free (gratis), and that makes it not professional.
by ImPostingOnHN | 2026-02-28 06:59:25+00:00
"The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement" is incredibly wishy washy.

What does it even mean to reflect those principles in law? Did they pass a law that says they can't do it? Which one?

What does it mean to "put them into our agreement"? Did they just have a section in the appendix listing various principles, or is there agreement from both parties to not violate those principles? What system does the contract specify for independent verification of compliance?
by tombert | 2026-02-28 07:00:10+00:00
Same, I had put Claude in my metaphorical shopping cart about two weeks ago but I already had some inertia with ChatGPT + Codex and figured it wouldn't be better enough to justify changing.

That has changed, so I canceled my ChatGPT membership and signed up for Claude. I still have five bucks of credit I bought a year ago for the OpenAI API that I do not believe I can have refunded back, so some of my apps are going to have to stick to OpenAI until those credits run out since I'm not going to just donate five bucks to them.

Playing with it now, I honestly can't tell too much of a difference, which as far as I am concerned is a good thing.
by throwawaywd89e | 2026-02-28 07:01:35+00:00
"AI shouldn't be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons". The statement from OpenAI virtually guarantees that the intention is to use it for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. If this wasn't the intention them the qualifier "domestic" wouldn't be used, and they would be talking about "human in the loop" control of autonomous weapons, not "human responsibility" which just means there's someone willing to stand up and say, "yep I take responsibility for the autonomous weapon systems actions", which lets be honest is the thinnest of thin safety guarantees.
by JodieBenitez | 2026-02-28 07:02:09+00:00
> You can lie, just like porn sites today.

In the US maybe, but where I am you can't fap in peace without using a VPN or have some kind of age verification. Some of them being baroque. Example:

"We analyze your email’s digital footprint (history and reputation) against trusted databases. This is often enough to confirm that you're of legal age."
by louischen | 2026-02-28 07:02:13+00:00
"I’ve spent the last few years feeling 'digitally overstimulated.' I noticed a recurring habit: the moment I finish a task or hit a wall, my thumb instinctively swipes to a social feed or a news site. My brain has lost the ability to just sit with a gap in time.

I tried several meditation and 'focus' apps, but they all felt like more 'work.' They wanted me to track streaks, join communities, or 'level up.' It felt ironic to use a high-engagement app to solve an engagement problem.

So I built TapPause. It’s a dead-simple utility designed with a few strict constraints:

Zero Data/Tracking: I don't want to know how many times I've paused. There is no 'performance' to optimize here.

Minimal Friction: No accounts, no onboarding, no 'daily goals.' You open it, you tap, you sit.

The 5-30 Minute Window: I found that 5 minutes is the minimum to actually 'reset' the nervous system, and 30 minutes is the maximum before it feels like a scheduled event. This is for the 'in-between' moments.

The goal isn't to 'meditate' in the traditional sense. It's to create a 'circuit breaker' for the digital reflex.

I’m curious to hear from the HN community: How do you handle the 'transition anxiety' between deep work tasks? Do you find that dedicated tools help create a mental ritual, or do they just add to the noise?

I'd love any feedback on the UI or the philosophy behind it."
by inkyoto | 2026-02-28 07:02:53+00:00
> The "German cognate is closer" is not helpful!

It is not helpful because comparing English from 1000 AD with Modern High German is the wrong premise to start off with.

The correct and more interesting comparison would be with Old High German from around the same time although it did not indicate the umlaut in the spelling at the time (which would happen 400-500 years later) – even though the i-umlaut had already developed.

So «schön» was «scōni» (or «sconi») in OHG. Also, ö and ü developed from /o/ and /u/, so juxtaposing them with English ē is likely incorrect.
by tombert | 2026-02-28 07:03:17+00:00
I never really understood people's need to post these cynical doomer posts. "Things can't be perfect so don't bother doing anything ever I am so smart".

Will a few dozen people canceling their accounts change anything? Probably not, but at least we know that we're not actively giving our money to Sam Altman.

There's not a lot in the world that any of us have control over. Most of us aren't billionaires who can buy a government. Really the only variable we have any amount of freedom with is how we spend our money.
by goku12 | 2026-02-28 07:03:22+00:00
Passkeys are an antipattern in UX design. You want to make it simple for the users? Great! But stop treating them as too stupid to decide anything on their own. Stop locking them out of the decision loop and doing things behind their back. This is practically the corporate design philosophy of the past two decades. You can see this a lot in smartphone design.

I keep asking what advantages passkeys offer over TLS self-signed client certificates. I haven't got any answers so far. Perhaps increase the security by encrypting the private key with a password or an external token. This is safe, like SSH and unlike regular passwords, because no secrets are sent to the server. TLS certs and (encrypted) keys are more tangible and easier to manage.

Perhaps passkeys do offer some advantages over TLS certs. But can't those be added to TLS, rather than rollout an entirely new system? The infuriating part is that this facility exists in browsers. They just let it rot to an extend that it's practically unusable. Meanwhile, Gemini browsers are using it quite successfully (for those who use Gemini).
by ImPostingOnHN | 2026-02-28 07:03:37+00:00
There is a distinction between laws limiting what you can do in general, whether with computer or not, and attempting to control what happens on the computer even when no other laws are being broken. I believe you may be unintentionally blurring that line.

To wit, the specific example you and I are discussing, is running open source software on a computer you own.
by scarmig | 2026-02-28 07:03:41+00:00
> it's also unprecedented for a contractor to suddenly announce their products will, from now on, be able to refuse to function based on the product's evaluation of what it perceives to be an ethical dilemma

That is a deeply deceptive description of what happened. Anthropic was clear from the beginning of the contract the limitations of Claude; the military reneged; and beyond cancelling the contract with Anthropic (fair enough), they are retaliating in an attempt to destroy its businesses, by threatening any other company that does business with Anthropic.
by spongebobstoes | 2026-02-28 07:03:47+00:00
it seems like oai deal does include the same red lines, plus some more, and the ability for oai to deploy safety systems to limit the use cases of the model via technical means

this seems strictly better than what anthropic had. anthropic has ruined their relationship with the US govt, giving oai a good negotiating hand

the oai folks are good at making deals, just look at all the complex funding arrangements they have
by tombert | 2026-02-28 07:05:33+00:00
Department of Defense: You just bombed the wrong Georgia! The people of Atlanta are furious!

ChatGPT: You're absolutely right, and you're right to call that out. Upon examination it does appear that there might have been a mistake with the coordinates of the bomb. Let's try again, this time we will double check before we launch any missiles! :missile emoji:
by pmontra | 2026-02-28 07:05:56+00:00
This is what I have to do for online payments.

Credit cards, which are US companies, use 3D secure. It's a 6 digits PIN plus a code sent to me by SMS. Amazon stores the card data and very seldom asks me for those PINs.

One bank gave me a hardware OTP generator. I type in the code, plus the bank PIN, plus a random number they show on screen.

Other banks send a push notification to their app on my authorized device (only one of my devices can be authorized at a given time). I must confirm the operation with my fingerprint or with the bank PIN. The fingerprint is easier, no password manager to open.

The result is that I can do online banking anywhere around the world but I can't use credit cards online unless I am in my home country, because for some reasons SMSes don't reach me abroad. There might be something wrong in my contract but I've not been able to sort it out.

The last time I've been in Australia I put a local SIM in slot 2 of my phone and used it for local communications and data. I could receive calls on my home SIM but no SMS. I even contacted the customer service of a credit card to attempt to make SMSes reach me on the Australian number. Fat chance.
by tavavex | 2026-02-28 07:05:59+00:00
I think it's the other way around. They have always wanted to do those cruel things that have real victims. It took them many years of dedicated, coordinated efforts as they slowly inched many systems to align with their insane ideas. The villain branding is just that - branding. Many of them actually like the 'bad guys' in those stories, especially if those bad guys are portrayed as strong, uncompromising, militaristic, inhumane, and having simple, memorable iconography that instills fear - the more allusions to real life fascists, the better. But that enjoyment follows from their ideology and what they want to do in the world, not the other way around.
by utopiah | 2026-02-28 07:06:10+00:00
For a random website, no, for bank and primary email (used for account recovery), they probably should.

It honestly takes a minute to add a key and it's just that, a physical key.

IMHO what's risky in terms of UX and habits is precisely that most workflows do not highlight this. So people rightfully are scared of losing that 1 precious key, so they don't activate 2FA because of that. Meanwhile if the UX when they activate 2FA would clarify that they only have 1 key stored, adding a 2nd one or saving codes (most do propose that option for 2FA authenticators but not hardware passkey AFAIK) is what will make them both safe against attacked but also against their own accident (shit happens) then maybe behaviors would change.

Anyway, yes, you're right, most people don't do that or aren't even aware of it but arguably as more and more important and intimate part of our lives are online, it becomes crucial for one owns sanity to better understand how this all works.
by HardCodedBias | 2026-02-28 07:07:43+00:00
So much insanity.

Anthropic wanted a veto on use of force by USG. That is intolerable, no private party can have a veto over the sovereign. It is that simple.

Anthropic should have just walked away (and taken the settlement lumps) when they realized that the USG knew. But no, they started some crazy campaign.

This is so irrational on Anthropic. Purchasing managers across the US (and the world) have to understand now that while Anthropic has the best model on the planet, it is not rational (if you prefer it is not rational in ways commonly understood). It is a risk and must be treated as such.