MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by maybewhenthesun | 2026-03-12 11:24:48+00:00
I fully agree.

Ann then try to buy a nice linux compatible laptop. The research period climbs to days. It's ridiculous.

I don't even really mind spending 1500 (well , I do, but if that's what it takes) but 'just buy apple' doesn't work when you want a linux laptop, with apple trying to sabotage running linux on their hardware at every opportunity.
by alan_caelix | 2026-03-12 11:25:10+00:00
Hi HN,

I've been working on an open-source simulation lab called CAELIX and wanted to share it here. It's a discrete lattice field framework for testing whether continuum-like signatures can emerge and be routed using strictly local update rules on a balanced-ternary substrate {-1, 0, +1}.

There are 11 real-time animations running directly off the simulation code on the website. (I locked these specific visualisations to 2D so they actually run smoothly in the browser on phones and modest hardware).
The architecture enforces a strict separation. The discrete balanced-ternary microstates act as a topological boundary generator which couples via a deterministic load functional into continuous carrier dynamics. The numerics are often FDTD-like, using diffuse and telegraph surrogate equations, but the framework as a whole is much broader than a conventional solver.

A bit of background: I'm not a physicist. My expertise is in computing systems, databases and audio engineering. I go all the way back to writing Z80 machine code and making ZX Spectrum games as a kid. CAELIX actually started out as a machine learning experiment in adaptive noise cancellation before evolving into this.

I'm not making any grand metaphysical claims either. The 1/r vacuum profile it generates isn't claimed as novel. It's just the expected asymptotic behaviour of the 3D discrete Laplacian and I use it as a regression-safe baseline.

The part I think this crowd might find interesting is the topological fan-out. The field dynamics can route stable non-linear solitons (specifically generative Sine-Gordon kink walls) through geometric logic gates like a T-junction. The computation lives purely in the passive waveguide topology rather than active switching states. There is also a module hunting for stable oscillons but the gates themselves use the kink walls. I've mapped the failure modes extensively to separate genuine kinematic-dilation proxies from stencil dispersion and discrete mode-locking artefacts.

Repo: https://github.com/caelixuk/caelix (I've included pre-extracted .h5 sprite assets so you can run the collision and routing experiments immediately without needing to run the extraction sweeps first).

White paper: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18823977

I'd be really interested to hear if anyone working on unconventional compute, cellular automata or lattice field solvers has seen similar passive routing behaviour in other discrete substrates. Happy to answer any questions on the numerics or the routing grids.
by enoint | 2026-03-12 11:27:13+00:00
Don’t know why this was posted, but here’s some context:

Conditions in the 1960s meant that My Lai happened 19 months before the public heard any details. The American courts martial proved to many that the fog of war wasn’t just about information; there’s also no control. Chaos was objectionable at the time. Politicians didn’t want their efforts portrayed as worse than doing nothing.

I think maybe that’s the contrast. The politicians in power today do not care if their efforts are portrayed as worst than nothing. Privately, Nixon blamed Jews for the public objection; but his party today kind of do that in public.
by setopt | 2026-03-12 11:27:27+00:00
Just to add to your testimony, Karthik:

On macOS some of the Emacs keybindings also work system-wide. You can e.g. use C-a/e, C-k, and C-n/p/f/b in every macOS text field, like e.g. in browser text fields. This is one of the main macOS features I miss on GNU/Linux. (Actually, that subset of Emacs keybindings even works on iPad with an external keyboard.)

Aside from keybindings, there are also some packages that provide deeper integration with macOS. For example, org-mac-link can save Org-mode links to currently open emails in Mail.app. And the built-in `C-x m` can author emails that are then sent to Mail.app for further processing, if you’re not able to use mu4e and similar (e.g. strict Exchange email servers).
by tveita | 2026-03-12 11:28:23+00:00
Sure, for instance, if all of them go through an 1 hour AI interview, then you might find a better candidate, at the cost of 1000 man-hours of work. You hire that person, another company opens a position, gets 999 applicants, send them all their own AI interview, and so forth.

How much would better would your hire be considering that you managed to check all 1000 of them, rather than just 50?

Assume that candidate fitness is a number normally distributed around 0 (half of them obviously being negative), that both you and the AI can perfectly pick out the best candidate, and that you picked the 50 to interview completely at random. The average actually seems to be around 40% better? Suprisingly decent. Is that improvement worth 1000 man-hours?

So attempt two here: maybe instead of each company sending candidates through an interview, there should be a common gatekeeper. All working age people take the same 1-hour AI interview, and the glorious overseer assigns them to the position they are best suited for.

(An actual answer here is you assess how important it is to get "the best candidate", and you interview enough people to get a reasonable approximation. The hour cost on your side is what keeps you honest. If wasting candidate time is free on your side, you're going to waste 500 man-hours of work for a 5% better result for you.)
by ipsento606 | 2026-03-12 11:29:10+00:00
> Instead use an inside source, an employee you know at the company you are interested in

I have been reading this advice for a decade, and I have been working as a software engineer as a decade, and I don't know anyone who got a job this way.

I'm not doubting it happens. It's just interesting that this obviously seems very common in some software engineering circles, but is virtually unheard of in others.
by asimovDev | 2026-03-12 11:29:22+00:00
I remember this being in the works since almost 2 years ago. Nice to see it finally being included.

here's the PR (also was linked in the article but nevertheless): https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/pull/10885

It was an awaited feature, you can see at the start of the PR comments from developers employed at various companies working with streaming media (Twitch, Dolby, Cloudflare and more) excited about this PR
by femtobusa | 2026-03-12 11:30:02+00:00
I built Screenix because I was tired of fighting OBS every time I needed to record a tutorial. Mac had Screen Studio, Windows had FocuSee but Linux had nothing.

Started with a simple idea: screen recorder with smooth zoom effects that follow your cursor. No post-processing needed.

The weird part: I hadn't announced it publicly yet. Someone found the landing page, tried it, and paid for it before I even launched. That was the validation moment.

After launch, the feedback loop was clear: people recorded with Screenix, then immediately exported to DaVinci/Premiere to tweak zoom timing and add overlays. So I built a full video editor into the app.

Current state:

- 2 sales (both organic, no paid marketing)

- 7-day free trial (no credit card required)

- One-time payment or subscription options

- Full editor with smooth zoom scrubbing, floating screens, timeline control

Technical challenges:

Wayland cursor position tracking is genuinely hard. The protocol restricts direct cursor access for security reasons, so I had to implement a cursor tracking extension to track it.

It works on Ubuntu but I'm still debugging Fedora integration.

Built with Rust + custom editor engine. Wayland support took longer than the entire recorder.

Linux needs quality native tools. screenix.studio
by nananana9 | 2026-03-12 11:30:07+00:00
We don't do measurable metrics to evaluate our processes, ever. We pick up a trend and go at it for 10 years, until we have a 1,000,000 line monstrosity that's impossible to work on.

Unfortunately people need to experience a 1 million line codebase a dynamic language to figure out that types are actually pretty nice, and they need to write getters and setters for every field for a few years to figure out OOP is stupid, and they need to do 10 HTTP requests for something that could be 10 function calls to figure out microservices are stupid.

In none of these trends did the industry pause to evaluate if what's being written is completely idiotic, it's only with a few decades of hindsight, after a lot of money is lost that we learn the lesson.
by roenxi | 2026-03-12 11:31:11+00:00
... and then the dust settles and you discover that despite running though 7 scenarios the most any person has is 1 apple. And if one person has an apple, the other persons do not. Suggesting that affordability is not entirely a social construct.

I'm on board with people getting excited about living in a society, it is all pretty magical. But affordability isn't some random social construct, it is in great part about physical limits. Unless you want to redefine what words mean which is always an option available to us.
by wongarsu | 2026-03-12 11:31:20+00:00
The 1B number would contain multiple records per person.

For example if I (as a German in Germany, ymmv) open a bank account online that involves a call with one of these companies where they take pictures and information from my passport and check that that's me. Then I choose payment in installments on some online shop, same game. Apply for a small loan? Same game. Set up an account for trading (stock exchange or crypto)? You guessed it, another call. Another payment in installments, backed by the same bank? Apparently verifying my identity again is easier than checking their database. Each of those is another record. Potentially with a new identity document, address or even name (maybe you got married) but mostly just the same data confirmed again with another timestamp

Not all of them use the same identity verification service, but there aren't that many. And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that many are the same company under different brands
by dspillett | 2026-03-12 11:31:33+00:00
There is quite a difference between fixing grammar and the fuller rewording that is often used especially by LLM based writing tools. The distinction is much more of a grey area when you not talking about a language you are fluent in, because you don't know the difference between idiomatic equivalences and full-on rewording that will change your perceived tone⁰ - the tool being used could be doing more than you think and not in a good way.

And if you are using the tool, “AI” or not to translate it is even worse and you often only have to do on cycle of [your primary language] -> [something else] -> [your primary language] to see what a mess that can make.

I'm attempting to learn Spanish¹ and when I'm writing something, or practising something that I might say, I'll write it entirely away from tech (I have even a proper chunky paper dictionary and grammar guide to help with that!) other than the text editor I'm typing in, and then I'll sometimes give a tool it to look over. If that tool suggests what looks like more than just “that's the wrong tense, you should have an accent there, etc.” I'll research the change rather than accepting it as-is.

--------

[0] or even, potentially, perceived meaning

[1] I like the place and want to spend more time down there when I can, I even like the idea of living there fairly permanently when I no longer have certain responsibilities tying me to the UK², and I'd hate to be ThatGuy™ who rocks up and expects everyone else to speak his language.

[2] and the shithole it has the potential to become over the next decade - to the Reform supporters and their ilk who say, without any hint of irony, “if you don't like it why don't you go somewhere else” I reply “I'm working on that”.
Show HN: Pitwall – Live F1 Stats in Your macOS Menu Bar
by silverr | 2026-03-12 11:32:05+00:00
I built this because I got tired of tabbing away during F1 practice sessions to check live timing. The idea was simple: keep race stats accessible in the menu bar without eating screen real estate.
What it does:

Live driver positions & session timing
Real-time telemetry (speeds, gaps, tire info)
PitStop F1 API integration
Zero full-window footprint

Current status:
Live on the Mac App Store. It works, but I'm actively iterating. The biggest challenge so far has been getting reliable real-time data without hammering the API. I'm caching aggressively and considering WebSocket fallbacks.

What I'm stuck on:

Performance with rapid session updates
Whether the feature set justifies the menu bar UX or if users expect more
Data accuracy during race weekends (some API endpoints are inconsistent)

Shipping small indie projects is harder than I thought, mostly in the "people actually knowing it exists" department. Any feedback on the concept, execution, or what's obviously missing would be genuinely helpful.
Open to suggestions.
Show HN: MicroMoment Apple Watch micro-resets for focus, posture, and wellbeing
by powerwild | 2026-03-12 11:32:46+00:00
Hi HN!

I built MicroMoment App, an Apple Watch app designed for 30–90 second micro-resets during the day.

The idea came from noticing how hard it is to maintain focus and good posture while working at a computer for long periods. Instead of long breaks or complicated routines, MicroMoment lets you do tiny actions that reset your mind and body without interrupting your workflow.

With one tap on your watch, it starts a short micro-action like:

a quick stretch

mindful breathing

posture correction

a small energy boost exercise

Everything is designed to be fast, glanceable, and doable in under 2 minutes.

Key features:
- Instant Reset Button – tap once to start a random micro-action
- Timer + haptic guidance – subtle vibrations guide you through the exercise
- Daily streaks – track consistency
- Personalized suggestions based on your usage
- Surprise mode with occasional fun mini-actions
- Challenges & achievements to keep things interesting
- Watch face complication showing your next micro-moment or streak

The goal is simple: help people feel better throughout the workday with minimal friction.

I’d love feedback from the HN community — especially on:

- whether micro-actions like this are actually useful
- features you'd want in a watch-first productivity/wellbeing app
- ideas for new micro-actions

Happy to answer any questions!
by heraldgeezer | 2026-03-12 11:33:26+00:00
That is all well and good but how do you:

- Ensure the Linux machines are up-to-date and users are not just indefinitely postponing OS updates?

- Same as above but with programs/software

- How do you ensure correct settings configuration in terms of security? Say default browser, extensions, program access etc?

- Re-image or reinstall the OS when there are issues or PC handover to another employee? Manually with a USB stick?

This kind of control exists and is needed for Linux and MacOS too. RMM is not a Windows only thing...

The critics here see Intune but what if they used another RMM and they compromised another cloud RMM account? Same issue.
by heraldgeezer | 2026-03-12 11:33:38+00:00
That is all well and good but how do you:

- Ensure the machines are up-to-date and users are not just indefinitely postponing OS updates?

- Same as above but with programs/software

- How do you ensure correct settings configuration in terms of security? Say default browser, extensions, program access etc?

- Re-image or reinstall the OS when there are issues or PC handover to another employee? Manually with a USB stick?

This kind of control exists and is needed for Linux and MacOS too. RMM is not a Windows only thing...

The critics here see Intune but what if they used another RMM and they compromised another cloud RMM account? Same issue.

Also, here there is no "arguing". They order the software from our portal and it gets pushed into Company Portal via Intune...

Write down a list you say... idk what to say. You have only worked for small startups I gather? Nothing wrong with that but please recognize that these types of limits and programs are not deployed for fun or to ruin your day.
by st_goliath | 2026-03-12 11:33:38+00:00
The key features that is used here is the '%n' format specified, that fetches a pointer as the next argument, and writes a character count back.

There is actually an interesting question here: was '%n' always in printf, or was it added at one point?

I took a cursory look at some old Unix source archives at TUHS: https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl

As far as I can tell from the PDP11 assembly, Version 7 research Unix (relevant file: /usr/src/libc/stdio/doprnt.s) does not appear to implement it.

The 4.1BSD version of that file even explicitly throws an error, treating it as an invalid format specifier.

The implementation in a System III archive looks suspiciously similar to the BSD one, also throwing an error.

Only in a System V R4 archive (relevant file: svr4/ucblib/libc/port/stdio/doprnt.c) I found an implementation of "%n" that works as expected.

I guess it was added at some point to System V and through that eventually made it into POSIX?
by JumpCrisscross | 2026-03-12 11:33:45+00:00
> administration didn't even bother manufacturing consent this time and yet the media is acting like they did

Which might suggest holes in Chomsky’s hypotheses.

> they really stalled the war powers resolution so it would happen before they forced the vote

The war’s timeline was moved back so materiel could be relocated and moved up because of Khamenei’s meeting. Democrats don’t control the Supreme Leader’s calendar.

This was an opportunistic war of choice pursued by one man. Partisan politics mean anything he does will be popular with Republicans and hated by Democrats, with all the electoral action happening at their margins while all the rhetoric is dominated by their cores. (The polling on this war isn’t black and white, either.)

It’s tempting to try and shoehorn this into one of the old narratives about there being a master plan. But sometimes nobody has a plan, they just sort of have a vibe.
by Setas | 2026-03-12 11:33:52+00:00
nah addresses "should this action be allowed?" — deterministic classification of tool calls against policies. Smart design, and the no-dependency stdlib approach is the right call for security tooling.

The complementary question most agent safety tools ignore: what happens when things go wrong despite permissions?

I run 8 AI agents managing my company (marketing, accounting, legal, ops). We have a similar permission model — Marketing can't publish claims without Lawyer review, financial changes need CFO sign-off, hard boundaries on auth/compliance. But permissions alone didn't save us when two agents fired parallel writes to the same knowledge graph. Both writes were individually permitted. The second silently overwrote the first. No error, no policy violation — data just disappeared.

What saved us: Erlang-style supervision trees. Memory server detected corruption on load, crashed intentionally, supervisor restarted it in microseconds, auto-repair ran on init. No human at 3am.

Permission guards prevent known-bad actions. Supervision makes unknown-bad outcomes survivable. Most agent safety work focuses exclusively on the first problem.

Wrote up the full race condition mechanics and supervision strategies: https://dev.to/setas/why-erlangs-supervision-trees-are-the-m...
by Oras | 2026-03-12 11:34:48+00:00
Technically, not much magic, apart from Mortgage and Pension, OpenBanking is quite solid in the UK, and you can connect any bank account from any bank. This is now supported by many banks in the UK. You can connect all other bank accounts directly. There are apps for that, too, for a small fee.

But I suppose you mean connecting these directly based on the national insurance number, rather than relying on user consent to use OpenBanking to see them all together in one place.
by Hendrikto | 2026-03-12 11:35:28+00:00
> Though I do wish we'd see less AI related posts on the front page, they simply aren't sparking curiosity, it is the same wrapped in a different format, a different person commenting on our struggles and wins with AI, the 10th software "rewritten" by an AI.

Exactly. I feel like HN has never been this boring. Enough of the slop, let’s talk about interesting stuff again!
by jerrythegerbil | 2026-03-12 11:36:15+00:00
More frequent renewals pose various architectural problems, but it makes “lawful” TLS intercepts harder to execute without going unnoticed.

TLS intercepts with CA signed certificates can and been carried out. The undertone in previous reporting indicates that the execution depends on a mechanism that doesn’t have 100% reliability across renewal cycles, and shorter lifespans will make that more difficult to carry out without ostensibly visible warnings to the user.

It’s a headache, but you are supposed to be monitoring Certificate Transparency logs for rogue certificates. Barring that, shorter validity is a way to address it.

https://notes.valdikss.org.ru/jabber.ru-mitm/
by u1hcw9nx | 2026-03-12 11:36:16+00:00
I like to read Krugman on economics, but his is not a good political take. It ties things together that don't match.

Donations from the rich to Trump were very high, but Kamala Harris still outraised Trump with huge margin. Billionaires did not buy Trump. They hate Trump. Only few of them supported Trump consistently. GOP elites resisted Trump in 2016 as much as they could. Trump won because he as huge grassroot support among white men and among working class. At least 25% of voters are hard core supporters.

Secondly, billionaires did not want this war.This was all Evangelical Christians and their sick theology.

Finally, Billionaires don't pay for this war with taxes. They pay for it indirectly when US debt increases, interest rates increase, financial instability increases and their assets deprecate.
by darkwater | 2026-03-12 11:36:45+00:00
> If you're being emotional, it can detect that and rewrite your comment to be less confrontational and more constructive

Are you learning something in the process? does ti have your full emotional context, beside the full conversation context? There are probably many bade side-effects if people would actually start doing what you mention at scale.

One thing is computer code, which is an intermediate product to an end (instruct the computer what it needs to do) and another is YOUR direct output to some other human being, which is the end game in human-to-human communication.
by danbruc | 2026-03-12 11:37:13+00:00
The existence of a flawless predictor means that you do not have a choice after the predictor made its prediction, the decision must already be baked into the state of the universe accessible to the predictor. It also precludes that any true randomness is affecting the choice as that could not be predicted ahead of time.

I do not think that allowing some prediction error fundamentally changes this, it only means that sometimes the choice may depend on unpredictable true randomness or sometimes the predictor does not measured the relevant state of the universe exactly enough or the prediction algorithm is not flawless. But if the predictor still arrives at the correct prediction most of the time, then most of the time you do not have a choice and most of the time the choice does not depend on true randomness.

Which also renders the entire paradox somewhat moot because there is no choice for you to be made. The existence of a good predictor and the ability to make a choice after the prediction are incompatible. Up to wild time travel scenarios and thinks like that.