MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by kaicianflone | 2026-02-09 14:09:17+00:00
I’m working on an open source CLI that experiments with governance at inference time for autonomous systems.

The idea is to let multiple agents propose, critique, and stake on decisions before a single action is taken, rather than letting one model silently decide. It’s model-agnostic and runs locally, with no blockchain or financial layer involved.

I’m mostly exploring whether adding explicit disagreement and cost at decision time actually improves outcomes in high-stakes or automated workflows.

https://github.com/consensus-tools/consensus-tools

I've also created an AgentSkill to interact with the cli:

https://github.com/kaicianflone/consensus-interact
by adrian_b | 2026-02-09 14:09:43+00:00
A 1-bit integer can be interpreted as either a signed integer or as an unsigned integer, exactly like an integer number of any other size.

Converting a 1-bit integer to a byte-sized or word-sized integer, by using the same extension rules as for any other size (i.e. by using either sign extension or zero extension), yields as the converted value for "true" either "1" for the unsigned integer interpretation or the value with all ones (i.e. "-1") for the signed integer interpretation.

So you could have "unsigned bool" and "signed bool", exactly like you have "unsigned char" and "signed char", to choose between the 2 possible representations.
by mattst88 | 2026-02-09 14:09:45+00:00
I've loaded the PROM in Ghidra. The ability to decompile to C is great.

I looked at some particular parts of the PROM that took a while to understand to see if I could have understood them quicker with Ghidra. In particular, the part of `sloader` that searches for the `post1` and `firmware` sections and then calls `post1(&firmware)`. Given that I already understand how this works, I can see that this is happening from the decompiled C, but the lack of labels, comments, etc really hampers my ability to understand from the decompiled C alone.

This might all be down to inexperience with the tool.

The ability to iteratively add a label, rerun the decompiler, reread the decompiled assembly, make more inferences was really the key to building an understanding for me.

Another aspect I'm unsure how to handle in Ghidra is that the base address differs between sections of the firmware. E.g. the `firmware` section is copied to RAM and executed from `0x81000000`. It's not clear to me how to configure this in a granular way, rather than a single base address for the whole PROM image.
by enz | 2026-02-09 14:10:40+00:00
> MariaDB (and MySQL‑family engines) avoid this entire class of problems by cleaning up row versions at transaction time. There is no background janitor. No vacuum lag. No wraparound timer. No need to tune autovacuum workers or throttle I/O to keep the system responsive.

The article seems a bit misleading. AFAIK, MariaDB (InnoDB) have to "vacuum" too. The implementation details are different between InnoDB and PostgreSQL, and maybe the InnoDB's Undo Log approach is less subject to bloat and maintenance cost, but it still exist as the InnoDB Purge Thread: https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-usage/storage-engines...
by PaulHoule | 2026-02-09 14:11:14+00:00
It's a glib argument that "state capacity" is the problem here, and it is partially true, but it's also a reality that the moon is much further away in momentum than it in position, particularly if you are making a round trip.

If "state capacity" is the problem, it is manifesting as an inability to be honest about the challenge.

Warner von Braun considered hundreds of possible mission plans before arriving a the one that Apollo used and probably despaired of the possibility of realizing Kennedy's dream until he discovered the one that made it possible. Any other plan to return astronauts from the moon is much more difficult and expensive.

In particular, Starship won't save us at least not in a "return the whole vehicle" configuration. Assuming they get it to orbit and solve refueling, it is a huge vehicle that can return a tiny payload back from the moon. Sending a large number on a one-way trip and breaking them up to establish a base might work, and a similar vehicle using hydrogen-oxygen fuel might be refueled from the glaciers we believe exist at the poles, but any mission like that is difficult and expensive and not being talked about seriously.
by spicyusername | 2026-02-09 14:11:31+00:00
I usually don't find it too bad.
I don't need to focus as much on the nitty gritty the whole time, which is where context switching really gets you.

Once you get to the review stage is where the focus is really needed and the context switching pauses.

That being said, it's definitely a different workflow from just getting in the zone and coding for four straight hours.
by rorylaitila | 2026-02-09 14:11:33+00:00
There are many layers to this. But there is one style of programming that concerns me. Where you neither understand the layer above you (why the product exists and what the goal of the system is) nor the layer below (how to actually implement the behavior). In the past, many developers barely understood the business case, but at least they understood how to translate into code, and could put backpressure on the business. Now however, it's apparently not even necessary to know how the code works!

The argument seems to be, we should float on a thin lubricant of "that's someone else's concern" (either the AI or the PMs) gliding blissfully from one ticket to another. Neither grasping our goal nor our outcome. If the tests are green and the buttons submit, mission accomplished!

Using Claude I can feel my situational awareness slipping from my grasp. It's increasingly clear that this style of development pushes you to stop looking at any of the code at all. My English instructions do not leave any residual growth. I learn nothing to send back up the chain, and I know nothing of what's below. Why should I exist?
by kaizenb | 2026-02-09 14:11:37+00:00
● AI brands are moving away from stereotypical tech aesthetics towards more human-centered designs.

● Visual identities often incorporate gradients, abstract shapes, and calming color palettes to convey innovation and approachability.

● Many AI companies are focusing on building trust through transparent and user-friendly interfaces.

● The aesthetics of AI are evolving to reflect the technology's increasing integration into everyday life.

Good design is good business.
by tgloureiro | 2026-02-09 14:12:08+00:00
I'm building Banger, a work email platform for builders (service + apps). It helps you to:

-> host your own custom domains and plug existing email sources with privacy;

-> share mailboxes with teammates and AI agents without having to share pwds as in the 80's;

-> git review like UX to collaborate with humans and AI agents; local AI to save money on mundane email tasks;

-> native apps + cli/mcp/api with guardrails for external AI agent access

waitlist on https://bangermail.com
by rramadass | 2026-02-09 14:12:43+00:00
> I know I could do C++, and you could argue that's better, but I find C++ to be exceptionally irritating to use. Every time I've used C++ I get people telling me I'm using it "wrong", sometimes in contradictory ways. Sometimes I should use a "friend" function, sometimes "friend functions are evil". Sometimes multiple inheritance is fine, sometimes it should be avoided like the plague. Sometimes you should "obviously" use operator overloading, sometimes you should avoid it because it's confusing because you don't know which functions are being called.

That is because you are looking at Design in C++ wrong. Language features and low-level abstractions are just mechanisms. You have to put them into a coherent framework for modeling a problem domain via commonality & variability analysis (aka domain engineering) onto a solution domain consisting of language features, idioms and patterns.

For a very good explanation, see the classic book, Multi-Paradigm Design for C++ by James Coplien.

The above can also be found in his PhD thesis Multi-Paradigm Design available in pdf form here - https://tobeagile.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/CoplienThes...
by catapart | 2026-02-09 14:13:06+00:00
Ah! That's interesting! I've never actually had that be difficult at all. Every time I ask "I'm just trying to get X. Is that something you can speak to?", I get a pretty concise answer, even if the response itself is meandering and non-committal (that's a "no", if you're unclear).

Would you have an example of a discussion where you weren't able to determine if both people were working towards the same goal?
by recursivedoubts | 2026-02-09 14:13:12+00:00
screens are for output, buttons (and toggles, knobs & sliders, they all have their strenghts) are for input. Voice is also good for input but should never be the only (or primary) way of interacting with important functionality.

automakers are slowly figuring this out but, unfortunately, the move to electric may retard this realization because "high-tech"
by testdelacc1 | 2026-02-09 14:13:15+00:00
It literally was out of the blue. There were minimal troops stationed there. India had streets named after the friendship agreement with China, there were slogans that went “Indians and Chinese are brothers”. Brothers can have minor disagreements, but we have their back and they have hours.

The border was guarded about as well as the US-Canada border on the Indian side.

The surprise war caught India completely off guard. The surprise was so effective that China captured all the territory they wanted, killed thousands of Indian troops and declared a unilateral ceasefire before India could marshal a response.

Prime Minister Nehru was badly shocked by this betrayal. He never recovered from it. His health deteriorated rapidly and he died a little over a year later.

Consider that maybe a 2 minute skim of Wikipedia teaches you very little. Certainly not as much as reading many books on this subject, which I have.
by jermaustin1 | 2026-02-09 14:13:17+00:00
I can't tell if it is just me, but a digital analogue clock is weird. I'm all for analogue time keeping with hands circling a face, but when it is put on a flat screen, it feels cheap.

There aren't enough buttons, there is too much to read, and all of this while I'm driving.

I remember my friends dad had a Corvette or something in the mid-late 90s, and it had this red projected HUD on the windshield. All of your information was right at eye level, and you never had to look away from the road to see your RPM or speed, and probably more, but that was 30ish years ago, and I barely remember yesterday.
by tovej | 2026-02-09 14:13:24+00:00
LLM's have not "read" social science research and they do not "know" about the outcomes, they have been trained to replicate the exact text of social science articles.

The articles will not be mutually consistent, and what output the LLM produces will therefore depend on what article the prompt most resembles in vector space and which numbers the RNG happens to produce on any particular prompt.
by lproven | 2026-02-09 14:13:31+00:00
Um.

Could someone please tell me what these phrases mean in old-people English?

> Bethesda was kit bashing the initial titles.

And

> Griefers don't get mad...

And in context...

> we all know it is true

And this emoji?

> =3

This comment and having to ask makes me feel 116 instead of 58. Jeez.
by ethbr1 | 2026-02-09 14:13:53+00:00
> making sure their subcontractors know what they're doing and are appropriate fits for the project, keeping work on track, ...

I think this is where the reality falls apart. Often agencies are just skimming their percentage without adding real value to the project.

I.e. all those scenarios where a consulting company requires a PM and BA be billed, but the dev+customer are doing 99% of the communication and work directly

> being accountable for delivery/operational execution to the client

This is actually what most VPs are paying for: being able to pick up a phone and chew IBM GCS, TCS, CG, etc. out when the schedule slips.
by anthk | 2026-02-09 14:14:00+00:00
9front's manuals will teach you the basics, the actual basics of CS (plan9 intro if you know to adapt yourself, too). These are at /sys/doc.
Begin with rc(1), keep upping the levels.
You can try 9front in a virtual machine safely.
There are instructions to get, download and set it up
at https://9front.org .

Write servers/clients with rc(1) and the tools at /bin/aux,
such as aux/listen. They already are irc clients
and some other tools. Then, do 9front's C book from Nemo.

On floats, try them at 'low level', with Forth.
Get Muxleq https://github.com/howerj/mux. Compile it:

cc -O2 -ffast-math -o muxleq muxleq.c

Edit muxleq.fth, set the constants in the file like this:

1 constant opt.multi ( Add in large "pause" primitive )
1 constant opt.editor ( Add in Text Editor )
1 constant opt.info ( Add info printing function )
0 constant opt.generate-c ( Generate C code )
1 constant opt.better-see ( Replace 'see' with better version )
1 constant opt.control ( Add in more control structures )
0 constant opt.allocate ( Add in "allocate"/"free" )
1 constant opt.float ( Add in floating point code )
0 constant opt.glossary ( Add in "glossary" word )
1 constant opt.optimize ( Enable extra optimization )
1 constant opt.divmod ( Use "opDivMod" primitive )
0 constant opt.self ( self-interpreter [NOT WORKING] )

Recompile your image:

./muxleq muxleq.dec < muxleq.fth > new.dec

New.dec will be your main Forth. Run it:

./muxleq new.dec

Get the book from the author, look at the code on how
the Floating code it's implemented in software. Learn
Forth with the Starting Forth book but for ANS forth,
and Thinking Forth after doing Starting Forth.
Finally, bacl to 9front, there's the 'cpsbook.pdf' too from Hoare on concurrent programming and threads. That will be incredibily useful in a near future. If you are a Go programmer, well, you are at home with CSP.

Also, compare CSP to the concurrent Forth switching tasks.
It's great to compare/debug code in a tiny Forth on Subleq/Muxleq because if your code gets relatively fast, it will fly under GForth and due to constraints you will force
yourself to be a much better programmer.

CPU's? Cache's? RAM latency? Muxleq/Subleq behaves nearly the same everywhere depending on your simulation speed.
In order to learn, it's there. On real world systems, glibc, the Go runtime, etc, will take care of that making a
similar outcome everyhere. If not, most of the people out there will be aware of stuff from SSE2 and up to NEON under
ARM.

Hint: they already are code transpilers from Intel
dedicated instructions to ARM ones and viceversa.

>How garbage collection works inside of the JVM?

No, but I can figure it a little given the Zenlisp one
as a slight approximation.
Or... you know, Forth, by hand. And Go which seems easiers and it doesn't need a dog slow VM trying to replicate what Inferno did in the 90's which far less resources.
by lawgimenez | 2026-02-09 14:14:03+00:00
I developed my first macOS app, an API client built purely with SwiftUI/AppKit. It has themes like Nord, Monokai and 8 others. Been using it for my own personal use for the past 6 months.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/burn-them-apis/id6758321600
by testdelacc1 | 2026-02-09 14:14:23+00:00
It sort of made sense.

The 1962 war secured the road route between Tibet and Xinjiang. Very strategically valuable.

It also had the effect of uniting India, killing some budding separatist movements. It also made the Indian government prioritise strengthening the army for the first time, which meant the army was ready to fight Pakistan to a draw in 1965 and a victory in 1971.

So the war strengthened both China and India, and poisoned relations between them. Which was fine with Mao, he didn’t really care about good foreign relations.
by djoldman | 2026-02-09 14:15:08+00:00
> Now, ask yourself why these defects happen too often. ... It is programmers who create defects – not languages.

> And what is it that programmers are supposed to do to prevent defects? ... TEST!

Unfortunately, altering people's behavior by telling/commanding/suggesting that they do so, whether or not supported by perfect reasoning, rarely if ever succeeds.

It's overwhelmingly the case that people, including programmers, do what they do in reaction to the allowances and bounds of a system and so it is far more effective to alter the system than attempt to alter the people.
by catapart | 2026-02-09 14:15:09+00:00
Personally, I just go for "plateaus of understanding". As a filthy socialist in a deep red area, I never had a chance at convincing people all in one go. So I give them just enough that they'll come back around for another bite at convincing me why I'm wrong. Where I'm from, that mostly looks like waiting on the news cycle to say something bad about a democrat and then letting them bring it up purely to dunk on me, rather than to actually engage with the conversation. So I take the opportunity to redirect the dunk. "Oh, that IS bad. Wow, they really fucked up. Isn't this like how So and So did something similar?" Now they are explaining to me the nuances of difference between the situations. That's what they'll remember later - the arguments THEY made. And when they start comparing that to other things, reason wears them down like it does anyone else.

In effect, you end up getting them to agree with some otherwise unthinkable positions, just one plateau at a time. There's only so much erosion that can take place before they fall back to their own lines of thought termination (like "all I care about is immigration", or whatever). So you end up with a kind of "anchor" that we can both agree on (ex: corporations are fucking us), which still has the hard edge of politics. At that point, all it takes is for the politics to do enough that the hard edges start to erode. But, there's no accounting for that. Just gotta assume the people who are doing wrong will keep proving it (as they historically have been unable to avoid, no matter how hard they try or how long they are successful at it prior).

As you say: life is complicated. I know people will roll their eyes at this answer as much as any other response I could give you. And I know that a political-focused answer isn't directly analogous to many other situations. But, my answer is as simple as I can think to make it. Just meet people where they're meeting you and don't worry about forcing a point.
by vagab0nd | 2026-02-09 14:15:10+00:00
I'm working on a search engine for clinical trials around the world.

I was frustrated by the process of searching for clinical trial info using the clunky and slow registry websites. So I aggregated all trials around the world and made the search faster. Additional features:

- You can watch a trial and get email updates

- Sometimes a trial is done and a paper published, but no updates to the official page. I try to find these papers and link them

- I try to link trials with the same drug together, showing the drug going through different phases

https://findtrial.co/
by ciccada1337 | 2026-02-09 14:15:43+00:00
Hi HN, I built SoundTime because I wanted a self-hosted music platform that could also share tracks across instances without relying on a central server.

The stack:

Backend: Rust (Axum 0.8, Sea-ORM, PostgreSQL)
Frontend: SvelteKit 2, Svelte 5, Tailwind, shadcn-svelte

P2P: iroh (by n0.computer) encrypted QUIC connections, content-addressed storage via BLAKE3 hashes

Audio: Symphonia for decoding/waveforms, Lofty for metadata,
OPUS adaptive streaming (320/128/64 kbps)

Some things that might be interesting technically:

- Tracks are identified by BLAKE3 hashes and transferred via iroh-blobs, so deduplication is built in

- The P2P layer uses NAT traversal through relay servers, so it works without port forwarding

- There's a public node directory where instances can optionally register themselves it's a separate lightweight service (Node.js + SQLite) that does health checks every 5 min

- Full search across peers

- AI-generated editorial playlists using any OpenAI-compatible API.

It's one curl | bash to install (Docker Compose), works on x86_64 and ARM64. Licensed AGPL-3.0.

I'd love feedback on the architecture, especially the P2P approach.
by jodrellblank | 2026-02-09 14:15:56+00:00
This is a subthread of "I wonder why matrix isn't more widespread at this point". When people reply why it doesn't work for them, that's not time for "you didn't say thank you".

> "They are not writing it for you."

From matrix.org[1]: 'The values we follow are: Accessibility rather than elitism. Empathy rather than contrariness.' ... 'act as a neutral custodian for Matrix ... for the greater benefit of the whole ecosystem, not benefiting or privileging any single player or subset of players. For clarity: the Matrix ecosystem is defined as anyone who uses the Matrix protocol. This includes (non-exhaustively): End-users of Matrix clients. Anyone using Matrix for data communications'

> "They have no reason to write them for you."

How are Matrix/Element going to get anywhere with their mission to replace proprietary chat networks if they don't write their new one for millions of ordinary people to be willing to use?

[1] https://matrix.org/foundation/about/
by wahern | 2026-02-09 14:17:02+00:00
> they will combine a world model with the word model.

This takes "world model" far too literally. Audio-visual generative AI models that create non-textual "spaces" are not world models in the sense the previous poster meant. I think what they meant by world model is that the vast majority of the knowledge we rely upon to make decisions is tacit, not something that has been digitized, and not something we even know how to meaningfully digitize and model. And even describing it as tacit knowledge falls short; a substantial part of our world model is rooted in our modes of actions, motivations, etc, and not coupled together in simple recursive input -> output chains. There are dimensions to our reality that, before generative AI, didn't see much systematic introspection. Afterall, we're still mired in endless nature v. nurture debates; we have a very poor understanding about ourselves. In particular, we have extremely poor understanding of how we and our constructed social worlds evolve dynamically, and it's that aspect of our behavior that drives the frontier of exploration and discovery.

OTOH, the "world model" contention feels tautological, so I'm not sure how convincing it can be for people on the other side of the debate.
by drob518 | 2026-02-09 14:17:04+00:00
Yea, I’ve thought about getting an M4 refurb or used off EBay once the M5 line comes out completely and Apple stops selling M4s. I have an old x86-based Mac Mini that serves as the family media server and backup server. I’ll need to upgrade that at some point to Apple Silicon as Apple stops support for x86. As is, Apple dropped support for it with MacOS 26, so just some security updates to Sequoia from here on. That said, I’m not a fan of Liquid Glass, so I don’t really care for the time being, but eventually I’ll have to upgrade. I tend to buy a lot of refurb Macs and run them into the ground before I upgrade, often pushing them to full EOL.
by bluGill | 2026-02-09 14:17:51+00:00
Slight correction: It was the 1830s when the railroad arrived that we started to be able to build cities far from navigable water. (navigable is important - if your water can only support small boats your city will be smaller than if it can support large ships). Trucks in the 1900s allow the same thing, and have enough advantages that we would use them for smaller cities, but large cities are still going to get rail transportation. And water transport is still powerful enough that the largest cities still likely need it even though it isn't a strict requirement.