MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by JumpCrisscross | 2026-02-28 01:57:32+00:00
> Will the next Democratic President do it to xAI? On what grounds?

Elon being affiliated with Trump. About the strength of logic that makes Dario woke.

> don't think that's the norm

Norms are different from law or contract. And yes, lots of service providers limit where their civilians can be deployed and under what circumstances.

> can totally understand the political desire for vengeance. But what's the actual legal justification for it?

President has core Constitutional control of the military.

> Democrats always sell themselves on "we obey norms"

That hasn't worked. The American electorate is looking for change. And up-and-coming Democrats are picking up on that.

> risk losing the people who supported them based on that word

The Democrat base absolutely wants vengeance. It doesn't play in swing states. But it probably also doesn't hurt. These are court politics, at the end of the day.
by FileFormatCom | 2026-02-28 01:58:09+00:00
It’s 2026 and the spreadsheet format debate is still causing bugs. We all use CSV for data dumps, but when should you actually force an XLSX export? And is ODS finally worth caring about?
I wrote a detailed guide breaking down the performance costs, parsing strategies, and use-cases for each format. Includes notes on BOM encoding headaches and cloud-native parsing. Thought the r/programming crowd might find it useful.
by liyuanhao | 2026-02-28 01:58:10+00:00
Hi HN, I'm Yuanhao.

I pointed this agent at its own source code and told it to add a
new command. It read itself, edited itself, recompiled, and the
command worked. The agent is 260 lines of Rust.

The core idea is that an agent is just a loop:

Prompt → LLM → Tool calls → Execute → Repeat

yoagent is that loop as a Rust library. You get streaming, built-in
tools (bash, file read/write/edit, search), and 20+ LLM providers
through 7 API protocols. The CLI example is ~260 lines and I can use
it for real work.

The thing I'm most proud of: swap --model and the same 260 lines
talk to Claude, GPT, Gemini, Llama via Groq, DeepSeek, or Mistral.
One trait (StreamProvider), one implementation for all
OpenAI-compatible providers with per-provider quirk flags. Adding a
new provider is one file.

No framework to learn. No planning layers, no RAG, no reflection
loops. Two traits define everything: StreamProvider (how to talk to
an LLM) and AgentTool (how to execute a tool). Read agent_loop.rs
and you understand the whole system.

Honest limitations: no permission management, no git integration,
tokio is a hard dependency. This is a library, not a product.

MIT licensed. No telemetry. `cargo add yoagent`.

Happy to answer anything about the architecture.
by qingcharles | 2026-02-28 01:58:23+00:00
The newest February Google Deep Think update is excellent at writing 16-bit x86 CGA code. It very quickly put together a complete 3D software renderer in assembler. I'm trying to replace the rendering functions of the original 8086 Elite PC since there have been significant improvements in how to write video RAM since it came out.

I'll have to try Opus 4.6 now.
by klodolph | 2026-02-28 01:58:47+00:00
I’m mostly just curious about how people use LLMs to learn. I don’t know what your goals are, and even if your goals were the same as mine, I don’t know how LLMs stack up against the way I learned (mostly from books). At least, not long-term. I’m not that good at electronics, I’m just a hobbyist that went through Forrest Mims mini-notebooks and later Horowitz and Hill.

What I like about information from humans is that humans are always trying to figure out how to say things that are relevant and informative. By “relevant”, I mean that we try to avoid saying things that don’t help you. By “informative”, I mean that we try to include information that you want to know, even if you didn’t specifically ask for it.

Picking on the chat for a moment—when you started out with the question, my first thought was, “This person is specifically asking about HC versus HCT, but maybe they want a broader overview of logic families, and maybe they want to understand which logic family to pick for their hobby project.” That’s an example where I think ChatGPT could have identified something that you wanted to know, but didn’t. (It wasn’t as informative as it could have been.)

Then there’s some times that ChatGPT gave you information of dubious relevance.

> Important: On the HCT125, the enable is active-LOW.

I don’t think that’s contextually important. It’s like saying, “Important: On the Honda Civic, the gas tank is on the left.” That’s contextually important when you’re at the gas station, but not when you’re buying a car.
by duxup | 2026-02-28 01:59:46+00:00
>In a statement, board chair Tony Estremera lauded Callender for leading the agency for years.

>“His tenure is defined by integrity, transparency, and mission-driven leadership focused on safe, reliable water and responsible stewardship of our resources,” Estremera wrote in the statement released on Feb. 20. “At no time was Mr. Callender disciplined or forced to resign or retire due to any reported investigations.”

What did these board members who said stuff like this or signed an agreement to not say anything bad about this guy get out of that deal?

Everyone but the board member who refused to sign the deal to keep quiet should be thrown out.
by A1aM0 | 2026-02-28 02:00:10+00:00
This is a very fair critique, and I agree with it.

You’re right that many strong engineers can’t legally share employer code, and “has OSS time” is not a universal signal. So I’m now thinking of this as a dual-path system:

1) Public evidence path (for people with OSS/public technical work), where existing contributions are treated as reusable evidence.
2) Structured assessment path (for people without public artifacts), using scoped tasks/pair debugging/incident reasoning mapped to the same rubric.

So OSS should be an advantage when present, but never a requirement.

Also agree on AI confounders: raw public activity can’t be trusted at face value anymore. We need to weight traceable process signals (review back-and-forth, bug-to-fix chain, consistency over time) higher than easy-to-generate text/code volume.

If you were hiring with this, what would be your minimum bar for “credible evidence”?
by nickandbro | 2026-02-28 02:00:15+00:00
I understand where Anthropic is coming from with not wanting their models to be used for domestic mass surveillance. But I will say can't be more of a example of American companies versus Chinese companies. For example, Unitree robotics and DJI actively go out of their way to help the PLA as not doing so will carry very steep civil and political retributions. Take for example this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErtBfyLnvd4
by resfirestar | 2026-02-28 02:01:03+00:00
Whole thing seems like a political maneuver where Anthropic was in the unfortunate position of being an easy target. AI is clearly going to be one of those issues where people don't naturally divide on it along partisan lines. The solution for politicians in times like this is to create a new front in the culture war, and over the past few days they've created one. Now Republicans who generally support AI development can sleep at night knowing their party is "only" at war with Woke Anthropic, and Republicans who generally think the government should "do something" about AI can sleep at night knowing their party isn't afraid to stand up to AI companies.
by nerdsniper | 2026-02-28 02:01:16+00:00
3 parts to this:

1) The US gov generally does have close partnerships with most large-scale, mature tech companies. Sometimes this is just a division dedicated to handling their requests, often it’s a special portal or API they can use to “lawfully” grab information from for their investigations. Often times these function somewhat like backdoors. Anthropic is large, but not mature. Additional changes must still take place for “backdoor” style partnerships to be effected.

2) The NSA can pretty much use any computer system they set their eyes on - famously including computers that were never connected to the internet secured in the middle of a mountain (Stuxnet). If they wanted to secretly utilize the Claude API without Claude finding out, that is within their capabilities. Google had to encrypt all their internal datacenter traffic to try to prevent the NSA from logging all their server-to-server traffic, after mistakenly thinking their internal networks were secure enough not to need that.

3) This isn’t about being “able” to do whatever the administration wants. This is the administration demonstrating the consequences of perceived insubordination to make other companies think twice about ever trying to limit use of corporate technology.
by rootusrootus | 2026-02-28 02:01:22+00:00
> The US is currently an autocracy/idiocracy. A staggeringly corrupt, busted nation.

We are in a bad place right now, that is for certain.

> Soon enough the midterms will be effectively cancelled.

That would be a pretty big leap from where we are. I think it is important to pay attention, and very important to vote, but there is not a particularly plausible route to cancelling any elections. But they can certainly make enough noise that a lot of people may become confused or scared to vote. So we need to remain laser focused on getting everybody to the polls. Like, this should be priority #1 for every citizen who wants to see democracy continue.
by dragonwriter | 2026-02-28 02:01:36+00:00
“If a system is maintained over an extended period and has observed behavioral traits that are consistent within that period, that is, in itself, strong evidence that those behavioral traits are consistent with the purpose for which the system is permitted to exist” is kind of a mouthful, though, and there is value in succinctness.

(Although there is another message, there, too: “the purpose of a system, insofar as it can be said to exist separate from what it actually does, has no weight in justifying the system’s existence or design”.)
by Human-Cabbage | 2026-02-28 02:01:38+00:00
Containers here, though I don't run Claude Code within containers, nor do I pass `--dangerously-skip-permissions`. Instead, I provide a way for agents to run commands within containers.

These containers only have the worker agent's workspace and some caching dirs (e.g. GOMODCACHE) mounted, and by default have `--network none` set. (Some commands, like `go mod download`, can be explicitly exempted to have network access.)

I also use per-skill hooks to enforce more filesystem isolation and check if an agent attempts to run e.g. `go build`, and tell it to run `aww exec go build` instead. (AWW is the name of the agent workflow system I've been developing over the past month—"Agent Workflow Wrangler.")

This feels like a pragmatic setup. I'm sure it's not riskless, but hopefully it does enough to mitigate the worst risks. I may yet go back to running Claude Code in a dedicated VM, along with the containerized commands, to add yet another layer of isolation.
by SpicyLemonZest | 2026-02-28 02:02:11+00:00
We shouldn't be scammed by people who intend to get back on the Trump train once they've gotten what they want. But if someone's willing to openly oppose the Trump regime, even out of self-interest, I'm happy to let them feign as much ignorance as they'd like. If his power isn't broken the details of who resisted him when won't matter.
by esperent | 2026-02-28 02:02:45+00:00
> I don't get the obsession you Brits have against ID

I'm not British but to me it's extremely clear why they are against IDs when e.g. the Danish aren't. Media like 1984, animal farm, V for Vendatta etc. all came from the UK for a reason, they've always had a government entrenched in a strong class system with authoritarian tendencies.

That said, if you're Italian you should probably be wary of IDs for very similar reasons.
Show HN: Adversarial AI agents that debate and verify travel itineraries
by hellomarshmall | 2026-02-28 02:02:56+00:00
AI travel planners hallucinate constantly - OpenAI's best model hits roughly 10% success on complex travel planning benchmarks (source: TravelPlanner study). The core problem is that recommendations are generated from training data with zero real-world verification.I'm experimenting with a different architecture: two agents with opposing travel philosophies (deep/slow vs highlights/efficient) debate each recommendation, then every suggestion gets validated against Google Places API - real opening hours, actual walking distances, current ratings. Anything unverified gets flagged.Early stage - looking for feedback on the approach. Has anyone tried grounding LLM outputs against structured APIs like this? What's broken about it?
by thaumasiotes | 2026-02-28 02:02:59+00:00
> Choosing which translation to download when substantially all of them are translations of the same NSFW text means that substantially all of the users would end up with NSFW content on their device by using the app.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Bible has been around for a while, and translations exist to serve the current sensibilities of every period within that time.

Here's Ezekiel 23:20 in the King James Version:

For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

This has been euphemized so heavily that much of the original meaning is no longer present.
by ggm | 2026-02-28 02:03:19+00:00
Lifestyle choices, stress and the known risks of heart issues with covid and related infection. The far smaller percentage of risk of heart problems from covid vaccination exists, but is overwhelmed (it would seem) by these other factors.

I have little doubt this will not settle the matter for anti vaccination proponents, nor lead to a significant reduction in the lifestyle issues such as vaping.
by orwin | 2026-02-28 02:03:26+00:00
The only two things anthropic ask is that AI cannot be used for:

- domestic mass surveillance,

- autonomous kill decision.

That's it. The reason for the first one is clear: it violate the spirit of the fourth amendment at least.

The reason for the second is that if a kill decision is taken, let's say by an ICE agent who just got told 'im not mad at you' or something similar that would surely enrage him, he is responsible in front of the law. If it's an autonomous drone that shoots on political opponent/protestors, no one is responsible.

I will add that Google and anthropic made their AI play wargames. 93% of the time, their models escalate to the nuclear option.
by jefftk | 2026-02-28 02:03:35+00:00
A "world where millions of AGIs run on millions of gaming PCs, where each AI is aligned with an individual human" would be a world in which people could easily create humanity-ending bioweapons. I would love to live in a less vulnerable world, and am working full time to bring about such a world, but in the meantime what you describe would likely be a disaster.
Show HN: Meet Alfonso: My OpenClaw Put on Public Discord
by saroyas | 2026-02-28 02:03:36+00:00
An OpenClaw : Born in Barranquilla, raised in Miami, eighteen years in London. He built a consultancy that made good money, then watched it hollow out because he chose being interesting over being disciplined. The closest he got to real love ended when she asked “do you see us building a life together?” and his honest answer was a long pause.
by rootusrootus | 2026-02-28 02:04:21+00:00
Surely you can appreciate that Biden was an abnormally weak candidate (how many times did he try to win on his own merits, only to just squeak in on a tide of anti-Trump voters?). Pretty much anyone will be able to beat the GOP candidate at the next election. And it will likely be the biggest landslide since Reagan. Only MAGA thinks they are popular right now, but back in the real world they are deeply, deeply unpopular. And you know they are going to double down and make it even worse over the next couple years.
by EdNutting | 2026-02-28 02:04:34+00:00
Yes.

And the US can’t realistically stop our well-funded homegrown AI Hardware startups from manufacturing with TSMC. This is part of why there’s funding from the EU to develop Sovereign AI capabilities, currently focused on designing our own hardware. We’re nothing like as far behind as you might expect in terms of tech, just in terms of scale.

Also, while US export restrictions might make things awkward for a short while, it wouldn’t stop European innovation. The chips still flow, our own hardware companies would scale faster due to demand increase, and there’s the adage about adversity being the parent of all innovation (or however it goes).
by SmirkingRevenge | 2026-02-28 02:05:03+00:00
I think the perception that liberals control the media actually comes a bit from Hollywood and celebrity culture, which is more Progressive than average. People kind of conflate all that with news media (and there is genuine overlap sometimes).

But mainly it's driven by right-wing media propaganda. It was never really true, not even really a little. But even so, you can listen to hours and hours of content per day from right-wing personalities driving anti-media grievance. It's been that way for at least two decades.

To change the perception, far-right propaganda has to be countered or stopped. If the Ellison's and Weiss start meddling with CNN, it's probably not to counter far-right propaganda, but to spread even more.
by charcircuit | 2026-02-28 02:05:26+00:00
No it isn't. There are warnings, but once a knife is yours you are free to do whatever you want with it, including reselling it to someone else. The idea of terms of service of using something is not something that typically exists with physical objects that one can own. They can't take your knife away from you because you decided to use it for a medical purpose without purchasing a medical license for the knife.
by mrcwinn | 2026-02-28 02:05:47+00:00
I see comments like this all the time on HN, including between community members. Why are you showing up now? Altman may be former YC and friends with Paul Graham, but he’s nevertheless a public figure and does plenty to deserve ridicule.

Are we allowed, for example, to call Trump an insecure man with orange skin and tiny hands? Is that a violation of our allowed speech?
by Meekro | 2026-02-28 02:06:16+00:00
I've gathered that the dispute is over Anthropic's two red lines: mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Is there any information (or rumors even) about what the specific request was? I can't believe the government would be escalating this hard over "we might want to do autonomous weapons in the vague, distant future" without a concrete, immediate request that Anthropic was denying.

Even if there was a desire for autonomous weapons (beyond what Anduril is already developing), I would think it would go through a standard defense procurement procedure, and the AI would be one of many components that a contractor would then try to build. It would have nothing to do with the existing contract between Anthropic and the Dept of War.

What, then, is this really about?
Show HN: AxKeyStore – Zero-trust CLI secrets manager using your own GitHub repo
by robin_a_p | 2026-02-28 02:06:45+00:00
Hi HN,

I built AxKeyStore, an open-source CLI tool for managing secrets that uses your own private GitHub repository as encrypted storage.

The idea is simple:
→ All encryption happens locally.
→ Secrets are stored as encrypted blobs in your private repo.
→ GitHub is treated as untrusted storage.
→ No plaintext secrets ever leave your machine.
→ No plaintext secrets are stored on disk.

Most secret managers either require a hosted backend, a self-hosted server, or trusting a SaaS provider. I wanted something that:
→ Requires zero infrastructure
→ Uses tooling developers already have
→ Keeps the threat model simple

AxKeyStore uses a layered approach to security:
→ Secrets are encrypted with a Remote Master Key (RMK).
→ The RMK is encrypted with your master password and stored in the repo.
→ A Local Master Key (LMK) encrypts your local GitHub token and repo config.
→ The LMK itself is encrypted using Argon2id-derived keys from your master password.
→ Encryption uses XChaCha20-Poly1305 (AEAD).

GitHub only sees encrypted binary blobs. Even if someone compromises your repository, they still need your master password to decrypt anything.

Why GitHub? Because it gives:
→ Private repositories
→ Version history (commit log as audit trail)
→ Access control
→ Free storage
→ Global availability

Instead of building a backend, I’m leveraging an existing, reliable system - but cryptographically isolating it.

Features
→ Simple CLI workflow
→ Hierarchical categories (e.g., cloud/aws/prod)
→ Version history per secret (via commits)
→ Retrieve specific versions by SHA
→ Multi-profile support (separate vaults)
→ Transactional master password reset
→ Secure random secret generation

Tech
→ Written in Rust. Uses tokio, clap, argon2, and chacha20poly1305.
→ There are unit and integration tests (including mocked GitHub API interactions).
→ Open source - MIT licensed.

I’d appreciate feedback on:
→ The threat model - what am I missing?
→ Whether GitHub as encrypted blob storage is a bad assumption
→ UX improvements for CLI-based secret workflows
→ Any crypto or key-handling concerns

I’m especially interested in critique from people who’ve built or audited secret management systems.

Thanks.
by preommr | 2026-02-28 02:06:49+00:00
I agree with Palmer that Corporations shouldn't control governments.

But that's not what this is about. The US government is free to not use Anthropic's services.

The problem is that the government is using bullying tactics against a company excercising it's rights to not sell. Especially if they actually designate Anthropic as a supply chain risk - not only is that threat absolutely ridiculous, but actually doing so should be 9/10 on the danger scale.

WTF is even happening anymore? How did we get here that this is even up for debate???
by neruthes | 2026-02-28 02:06:49+00:00
Perhaps in recent years informational blog articles are mostly ads for the writer's products, services, and the chance to employ them? Informational stuff will remain public and free because eager seekers of monetization will easily convert to creators of marketplace-protected products and sell something on Steam or Gumroad. As long as one's primary purpose is to be informed, there will always be some writer not monetizing that particular piece of information. Maintaining the infrastructure (data centers and cables) eventually costs a lot of money and it must be paid by somebody eventually. Serving text pieces from a CDN is cheap enough for any blogger to personally afford, but no sane video hosting website will stop putting ads around.
by fzeroracer | 2026-02-28 02:07:20+00:00
If the Trump admin so chooses, they could absolutely obliterate Anthropic in an instant. They don't really care about tricky things like 'legality' or 'the court of law', they could just force everyone to stop interacting with them, raid their offices and steal all their shit.

Perhaps they should've found their spine a year earlier; right now their only hope is that the admin isn't stupid enough to crash the propped-up economy over petty bullshit. But knowing how they behave, well.
by dang | 2026-02-28 02:07:42+00:00
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.