MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by scatbot | 2026-03-11 14:00:53+00:00
Lego is one of those companies that is simultaneously amazing and kind of sucks. On one hand the core product is incredible. The tolerances on the bricks are micrometer-level precision and the fact that pieces from the 70s snap perfectly into ones made today is mind blowing.

On the other hand, a lot what the company does today just sucks. Set prices are outrageous. Printed bricks get replaced with stickers and many sets feel like display models than something you can play with. The Mindstorms/NXT line had huge potential but then just sort of fizzled out. And the push towards smartphone-dependent toys feels weird. Who actually wants their kids staring at a phone to play Lego?

It's so sad, because the core product is basically perfect.
by wongarsu | 2026-03-11 14:01:17+00:00
The results would probably be underwhelming. The bitnet paper doesn't give great baselines to compare to, but in their tests a 2B network trained for 1.58bits using their architecture was better than Llama 3 8B quantized to 1.58bits. Though that 2B network was about on par with a 1.5B qwen2.5.

If you have an existing network, making an int4 quant is the better tradeoff. 1.58b quants only become interesting when you train the model specifically for it

On the other hand maybe it works much better than expected because llama3 is just a terrible baseline
by lolc | 2026-03-11 14:01:50+00:00
Please realize that Switzerland holds many votes per year. There is no big voting day where I have to go somewhere. I could go cast my ballot in person, but I can also fill out and send in my ballot in advance. That is entirely routine and part of my day like other paperwork.

The problem with e-voting is that it is much harder to validate. My paper ballot rests at a community building where it will be counted on the day of the vote. I can understand the process from start to finish in physical terms. Throw in a USB stick and anything could happen. It is possible we will never know what went wrong here.
by beautiful_apple | 2026-03-11 14:02:09+00:00
You can have e-voting systems that protect ballot secrecy and are verifiable.

You can use homomorphic encryption or mixnets to prove that:

1) all valid votes were counted

2) no invalid votes were added

3) the totals for each candidate is correct

And you can do that without providing proof of who any particular voter voted for. A few such systems:

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

https://www.belenios.org/

Authentication to these systems is another issue - there are problems with mailing people credentials (what if they discard them in the trash?).

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ontario-municipal-elections-o...

Estonia (a major adopter of online voting) solves this with the national identity card, which essentially is government issued public/private keys.

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

Lots of cyber risks with the use of online voting though, especially in jurisdictions without standards/certification. I outline many in my thesis which explores the risks to online elections in Ontario, Canada (one of the largest and longest-running users of online voting in the world)

https://uwo.scholaris.ca/items/705a25de-f5df-4f2d-a2c1-a07e9...
by catapart | 2026-03-11 14:02:21+00:00
I appreciate this, but I'm not concerned with the capabilities of the terminal or the GUI. What would be unhelpful, to me, would be to build a TUI because then if I wanted to send the actual app state to - for instance, a web browser which runs the library in WASM - the only way would be to pipe the terminal output across the shared buffer, instead of just blitting the app/editor state into it (or the relevant messages, like CRDTs).

Contrast that with a library: I could capture the inputs from any source - browser, native app, network, etc - work with the data using the single library, and then render the result in whatever client (or as many clients) as I wanted.
by westurner | 2026-03-11 14:02:35+00:00
Hoare logic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoare_logic

> The central feature of Hoare logic is the Hoare triple. A triple describes how the execution of a piece of code changes the state of the computation. A Hoare triple is of the form {P}C{Q}
where P and Q. are assertions and
C is a command.

> P is named the precondition and
Q the postcondition: when the precondition is met, executing the command establishes the postcondition. Assertions are formulae in predicate logic.

> Hoare logic provides axioms and inference rules for all the constructs of a simple imperative programming language.

[...]

> Partial and total correctness

> Using standard Hoare logic, only partial correctness can be proven. Total correctness additionally requires termination, which can be proven separately or with an extended version of the While rule
by devnotes77 | 2026-03-11 14:03:17+00:00
The compute throughput question (whether FMA equals ADD on modern CPUs) is accurate — that's not where the gain is. The real win is memory footprint.

A 100B ternary model packs to roughly 20-25GB (100B params at ~1.58 bits each). FP16 would be ~200GB, INT4 ~50GB. That difference is what moves the "doesn't fit" threshold. You go from needing HBM or multi-GPU NVLink to running on a workstation with 32GB DDR5.

DDR5 at ~100 GB/s is still much slower than HBM at ~3 TB/s, so memory bandwidth is still the inference bottleneck — but bandwidth is only a problem once the model actually fits. For 100B-class models, capacity was the harder constraint. That's what 1.58-bit actually solves.
by ChildOfChaos | 2026-03-11 14:03:31+00:00
I remember reading about this in a book, 'The enigma of reason', basically it was saying that reasoning was exactly that, we decided and then we came up with a reason for what we had decided and usually not the other way around.

This is because, the 'reasoning' part of our brain came from evolution when we started to communicate with others, we needed to explain our behaviour.

Which is fascinating if you think of the implications of that. In the most part we think we are being logical, but in reality we are pattern matching/impulsive and using our reasoning/logic to come up for excuses for why we have chosen what we had already decided.

It explains a lot about the world and why it's so hard to reason with someone, we are assuming the decision came from reason in the first place, which when you look at such peoples choices, makes sense as it's clear it didn't.
by devnotes77 | 2026-03-11 14:03:31+00:00
The ControlMaster mention deserves a full config block since the defaults make it awkward:

Host *
ControlMaster auto
ControlPath ~/.ssh/sockets/%r@%h:%p
ControlPersist 10m

`mkdir -p ~/.ssh/sockets` first. With this setup, every subsequent ssh/scp/rsync to the same host reuses the existing master connection — no re-auth, near-instant open. ControlPersist keeps the socket alive for 10 minutes after the last session closes, so short gaps don't force a new handshake.

This pairs well with the ~C escape discussed here: adding a port forward mid-session via ~C -L 8080:localhost:8080 doesn't require a new connection or re-authentication when a ControlMaster is already running. Useful for those "I need to tunnel something I didn't anticipate" moments.
by a1j9o94 | 2026-03-11 14:03:34+00:00
This is an interesting space. Right now we've gotten to a point where agents can do most tasks, but they will get lazy/skip steps if you're not precise in the requirements. We need ways to validate that expands beyond software tests. This is a good direction but a few thoughts:
1. From what I can tell the agent who does the task is running the validation. Keeping the validation agent as a separate context avoids the validator knowing what the software is supposed to do vs what it does
2. There's a lot of prior art around org structures to validate things that we've built out over the last ~100 years that we can apply in this space. E.g. look at the way that blind trials are run
Show HN: Trackless Links – clean URLs, no tracking (Safari)
by xlth | 2026-03-11 14:03:38+00:00
Built this because I was tired of sharing URLs full of tracking cruft. Safari extension for iOS and macOS that strips utm_*, fbclid, gclid, and 50+ other tracking parameters automatically. Runs entirely on-device with zero data collection.

Also bundles CRED-1, a domain credibility dataset (2,672 flagged domains with 5 independent trust signals) that can warn you before visiting sources known for misinformation.

Available on the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
by webpolis | 2026-03-11 14:03:46+00:00
The hard part here isn't checkpointing the agent's conversation state — that's just a list. It's checkpointing the world state. If step 5 wrote rows to Postgres and step 7 called a third-party API, forking from step 6 means you need the DB at its post-step-5 snapshot and some way to mock or replay the external call. Without that, you're replaying agent logic against a world that's already diverged. We ran into this enough building agent sandboxing at Cyqle (https://cyqle.in) — our approach is snapshotting the entire ephemeral environment at each checkpoint so the fork includes filesystem, DB state, everything. Curious how Time Machine handles external side effects that can't be rolled back.
Show HN: AIRiskCalc – AI-Powered Health Risk Calculators
by mosbyllc | 2026-03-11 14:04:05+00:00
Last year, my doctor mentioned I should pay attention to my cardiovascular risk. I searched for online calculators and found two problems: they were either filled with ads or simply threw numbers at you without explaining what they meant.

So I built AIRiskCalc. It's a collection of free health risk assessment tools with AI interpretation.

Currently live with five calculators:

ASCVD Risk (10-year cardiovascular risk based on ACC/AHA 2013 Pooled Cohort Equations)
Type 2 Diabetes Risk (ADA assessment model)
Cardiovascular Risk (multi-factor evaluation)
CVD Risk (cerebrovascular focus)
Miscarriage Risk (early pregnancy assessment)
Implementation: Next.js 15, Cloudflare Pages. AI layer uses Vercel AI SDK with Claude.

One detail I paid attention to: the ASCVD formula involves logarithmic transformations and coefficient matrices from the original 2013 paper. I transcribed the equations into TypeScript and verified against sample data in the paper's appendix.

Each calculator displays the reference source in code comments. Results include AI-generated explanations of what the numbers mean. No personal data is collected.

The question I'm thinking about: where's the line between helpful AI interpretation and overstepping into medical advice? I want the tool to be useful without replacing professional judgment.

Feedback welcome on this balance.
by pixl97 | 2026-03-11 14:04:16+00:00
You see where this becomes a religious like argument right? Since it's secretly and sneakily there is no way to measure it. So as far as any other participant knows there is no measurable difference, hence your argument depends on said agents to be 'pure' and 'true', hence the exact definition of the no true Scotsman fallacy.

I hope you see how this quickly will advance from a project being about accomplishing some goal, to a project becoming about humans showing they are the ones writing code. Much like we see in religions where people don't give money to the poor to benefit the poor, but show they give money to the poor to benefit themselves. Hence the game playing will continue and the underlying problem will never be addressed.
by utopiah | 2026-03-11 14:04:32+00:00
Nostalgia... Lego was amazing decades ago so we want it to remain so. It's not anymore though. The whole raison d'etre, namely infinitely recomposable bricks to be creative, was lost the moment they realized they were a LOT more money in custom sets. Sets become collectible, perishable, trends can form, secondary markets exists, etc. It's simply about the baseline, not the principle. Sorry.
Workflow to build context for coding agents
by wek | 2026-03-11 14:04:35+00:00
Here’s the workflow my team and I have found works best with coding agents:

- Plan: Write a plan in markdown. Edit this. Iterate. The plan isn’t a throwaway note. It tracks status as work progresses (draft -> in-development -> in-review -> completed), versions with git alongside the code, and serves as the single source of truth. When the agent later implements, it reads this document. When we review the work, we compare against it.

- Diagram: Have the agent enrich the plan with architecture diagrams and data models. Edit this. Iterate. These artifacts live alongside the plan and the code. When the agent later implements, it doesn’t need us to re-explain the architecture or the schema. It reads them directly.

- Mockup: For anything with a UI, we create mockups before touching code. We generate interactive html/javascript most of the time. This replaces the Figma-to-engineering handoff entirely. When the agent implements the UI, it already knows what it should look like. No exporting, no describing screenshots in words, no “make it look like the design.”

- Tests: We have the agent write tests based on the plan, diagrams, and mockup. We review them, add edge cases, and now we have an executable definition of “done.”

- Implement: Now we tell the agent: “Implement the notification system. Run tests after each major change. Keep going until all tests pass.” The agent works iteratively. Implements the database migration from the data model. Runs tests — schema tests pass. Builds the WebSocket server. Implements the frontend. Runs Playwright and catches a CSS issue from the screenshot, fixes it, reruns. Eventually: all green.

- Review the work. When the agent finishes, we review. We click through the changes, see exactly what was added, modified, or removed, and compare it against the plan and mockup.

- Commit

- Update the Plan: After committing, we close the loop. We ask the agent to update the plan: status moves from in-development to completed, acceptance criteria get checked off, and any implementation notes get added. If anything doesn't match, either the plan gets updated or we rework the code.

- Update Docs and Website: The agent updates our documentation and our website, keeping everything in sync and up-to-date

What I like about this and why it works is that each step produces context that the next step consumes. By the time the agent starts writing code, it has the spec, the architecture diagram, the database schema, the mockup, and the test suite. Once its done coding, we update everything giving us clean context to build on.
by kjs3 | 2026-03-11 14:05:05+00:00
Lotus users were just as fanatical.

They were, and Excel users are just as devoted if not more so. We had many people return their shiny new mac because Excel on MacOS is not exactly like Windows. And they were mad about it.

Lotus on a Sun? Why not.

How about 1-2-3 on SCO Unix. And Wordperfect. We had a salesrep (VAR) back in the day who made some scratch in the local legal market with the pitch "why give every secretary an expensive PC when you can buy one PC and a bunch of really cheap Wyse serial terminals". Our support folks came to really hate that guy (start at "you were using a typewriter 5 years ago...now you get to learn the Unix CLI" and it only got worse).
by saalweachter | 2026-03-11 14:05:08+00:00
I feel like when I was a twenty- something I would have been at risk of exfiltrating data like this not for any specific nefarious purpose or money-making scheme but just out of data hoarding.

Anymore I have zero desire to keep any copy of work code or other data on any personal device. Nope, never gonna need it, don't want it, just a potential legal headache with no upside.

But when I was younger? I could totally imagine getting a big juicy dataset like that and wanting a copy for myself. It'd make me feel special, having information no one else had.
by tolerance | 2026-03-11 14:05:10+00:00
I think that the friction lies somewhere in between what you’re observing and what ~safety1st addresses below.

The author has a specific issue in mind. Today the author chooses joy and refuses to evoke the woe and worries of the audience thus omitting their concerns; the audience fails to inherit the author’s optimism, likely due to some kind of asymmetry in sociopolitical outlook and status between the two parties.

HN is succumbing to the discordant trends in common discourse found elsewhere online. Demographic changes may have something to do with this.
by mghackerlady | 2026-03-11 14:05:13+00:00
Markets being completely free got us in this mess, and while sound on paper has so many potential ways to go wrong it should be controlled by the working class either directly or indirectly through voting

Theft is a symptom, not a disease. Eliminate the disease and theft effectively disappears

Educational choice deserves to be respected so long as it isn't being used to propagate objectively false information
by KingOfCoders | 2026-03-11 14:07:04+00:00
Ex-employee alleges data copied to a flashdrive.

Agency:
"Social Security initially denied Borges’s allegations and said the data referenced in his complaint is stored in a secure environment walled-off from the internet."

Ah walled of the internet, so no one can get there and copy the data to a flashdrive. Move on, move on!

You can't make that up.
by slibhb | 2026-03-11 14:07:07+00:00
> LLMs are fundamentally capped because they only learn from static text -- human communications about the world -- rather than from the world itself, which is why they can remix existing ideas but find it all but impossible to produce genuinely novel discoveries or inventions.

This seems wrong to me on a few levels.

First, there is no way to "experience the world directly," all experience is indirect, and language is a very good way of describing the world. If language was a bad choice or limited in some fundamental way, LLMs wouldn't work as well as they do.

Second, novel ideas are often existing ideas remixed. It's hard/impossible to point to any single idea that sprung from nowhere.

Third, you can provide an LLM with real-world information and suddenly it's "interacting with the world". If I tell an LLM about the US war on Iran, I am in a very real sense plugging it into the real world, something that isn't part of its training data.

Finally, modern LLMs are multi-modal, meaning they have the ability to handle images/video. My understanding is that they use some kind of adapter to turn non-text data into data that the LLM can make sense of.
by newpavlov | 2026-03-11 14:07:10+00:00
I am not saying that RISC-V should mandate performance. If anything, we wouldn't had the problem with Zicclsm if they did not bother with the stupid performance note.

I would be fine with any of the following 3 approaches:

1) Mandate that store/loads do not support misaligned pointers and introduce separate misaligned instructions (good for correctness, so its my personal preference).

2) Mandate that store/loads always support misaligned pointers.

3) Mandate that store/loads do not support misaligned pointers unless Zicclsm/Oilsm/whatever is available.

If hardware wants to implement a slow handling of misaligned pointers for some reason, it's squarely responsibility of the hardware's vendor. And everyone would know whom to blame for poor performance on some workloads.

We are effectively going to end up with 3, but many years later and with a lot of additional unnecessary mess associated with it. Arguably, this issue should've been long sorted out in the age of ratification of the I extension.
by Squid_Tamer | 2026-03-11 14:07:21+00:00
While (relatively rare) left-hand exits are a thing in the US, I don't think that's what the arrows on this app is showing. The screenshot appears to be showing a single exit.

The arrows probably tell you whether your first turn will be a left or a right immediately after leaving the interstate. Many exits have two lanes, one for left turns and one for right turns onto the connected surface street. You have to know which exit lane you want to be in.

On a road trip, gas stations and fast food to the "right" of your travel direction on the interstate are slightly preferable because you don't have to wait for any left-turn signals. The US allows you to turn right at a red traffic light as well, saving even more time.
Show HN: PayrollEngine – Open-source regulation-based payroll framework (.NET)
by payrollengine | 2026-03-11 14:08:23+00:00
Instead of hard-coding payroll rules, PayrollEngine models business logic as
composable Regulation layers — versioned JSON/YAML config + runtime C# (Roslyn).
Layers inherit and override like CSS cascade: national law → industry → company.

v0.10.0-beta.1 shipped earlier this week alongside the new docs site (payrollengine.org).

The most interesting new example: MultiCountryPayroll — DE/FR/NL sharing a
single base regulation, with a split employee whose contract crosses borders
mid-period. The regulation handles it without a single country-specific
code path.

Other additions:
- Payrun Preview: in-memory calculation, no DB writes
- Async payrun jobs: HTTP 202, bounded queue, webhook on completion
- Parallel employee processing with per-employee state isolation

Stack: .NET 10, SQL Server, Docker, Roslyn

GitHub: https://github.com/Payroll-Engine/PayrollEngine
Docs: https://payrollengine.org
by microtonal | 2026-03-11 14:08:43+00:00
Now, I think imposing limits in the open world is a specific challenge. To your point, you’ll see kids at restaurants on iPads. Well, now your kid wants iPad. You don’t give it? They start a shitstorm.

Our daughter certainly did not have access to an iPad at that age. Maybe she could use her mom's iPad (I don't have one) once every few weeks for a brief period. The shitstorm only happens a few times, they get over it pretty quickly.

It got harder once she was 9 or 10, because most kids have access to a phone after school. Once she got a phone and a tablet, there have been very clear time restrictions. A lot of kids hang around on devices all afternoon, the rule here on weekdays is that she can have some screen time before dinner. (I remember that also being TV time for us when we were kids.)

She was allowed to play on the Nintendo Switch when she was 7 or 8, but only fun, non-addictive games (the typical Nintendo titles) and no multi-player.

Hard to impose a device limit on a kid if that kid watches you use your device constantly. I’m not some hero here - constantly reminding myself to be aware.

Yeah, that is hard. I think banning phones from shared moments like (the time around) breakfast, dinner, or when having a cup of tea together is an easy and impactful move. Those are moments when they are also not playing, so it's a good time to be together without distractions.
by adola_ring_2026 | 2026-03-11 14:09:00+00:00
Nice work on the widgets. The Oura ecosystem keeps growing with third-party tools like this.

Tangentially related -- for those interested in the smart ring hardware space beyond Oura, there are some interesting developments in the sub-$100 segment. In particular, rings with onboard PDM microphones for snore detection and sleep-breathing analysis are starting to appear, which could be a meaningful addition to the sleep tracking toolkit. The challenge is that Oura's data export and API make it relatively easy to build apps like this, while newer ring platforms often lack that developer access.