MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by atoav | 2026-03-11 18:38:14+00:00
Just imagine you have to explain a child in kindergarden how the collective choice is made. Raising hands works. Putting different pieces of paper into a jars works. Magical machine says the result was X does not work unless they trust it, regardless of how correct the magical machine was under the hood, because the majority lacks the skill of intuitively understanding this themselves. Sure, they could trust an expert or an figure of authority, but that is a fleeting thing. A fleeting thing that may be enough for inconsequencial decisions, but not enough to steer countries.

Even I as someone who would have the skillset to understand why it has to be correct would have an easier time verifying a paper ballot process than ensuring that network connected complexity behemoth was running the program I checked for weeks correctly in any moment during an election. And even if you had a way to guarantee that, who tells me this was the case in the whole country or thst evidence wasn't faked a millisecond before I checked?

Meanwhile with paper and poll watchers from each party it is very easy to find actual irregularities and potential tampering — trust is a gradual thing with paper while it is much more binary with digital. If there is a sign for the digital machine being untrustworthy you can throw the whole result into the bin.
by nonameiguess | 2026-03-11 18:38:25+00:00
Acknowledging the reality of history and business here that there's a 99% chance you don't exist in a few years, I would encourage you nonetheless to break EC2 and AWS in every single way you can possibly imagine and in ways you can't, obviously not in your customer account, but in a separate one. I was doing consulting services for a machine learning company that sold pre-configured EC2s and associated data infra to third-party researchers at a markup and basically stood up and ran their whole environment for about two years. Networking is probably the most frustrating thing you'll ever encounter and beware when they change their APIs and parameters that used to default to null no longer do. It's especially fun when the Linux kernel on the hypervisors you can't see messes with your packets.
by alistairSH | 2026-03-11 18:38:52+00:00
This. The process in my precinct is roughly...

- Enter queue

- A front of queue, show ID of some sort (various accepted) to volunteer

- They scratch you from the list and hand you a paper scantron sheet

- Go to private booth, fill out scantron

- Go to exit, scan ballot (it scans and then drops into a locked box for manual tally later, if necessary)

The "easy" ways to vote fraudulently are also easily caught... fake ID documents, voting twice, etc.

For people who forget their ID or have address changes that haven't propagated through the voter roll, there is provisional voting - you do the same as above, but they keep the ballot in a separate pile and validate your eligibility to vote at a later time. IIRC, the voter gets a ticket # so they can check the voter portal later to see if the ballot was accepted.

As noted, the number of fraudulent votes are astonishingly small, given the amount of money spent on proving otherwise. The current GOP has spent 100s of millions or billions on proving wide-spread fraud and so far, all they've managed to prove a few voters, most of whom were actually GOP-leaning, have committed fraud (and most of them were caught day-of already).
by ekjhgkejhgk | 2026-03-11 18:38:54+00:00
That IS how language works. However, people notice language a choose how to use language.

I hear people say "ask" and people say "aks". I hear both, and I see there's a difference. In your mind people who say "aks" can't see there's two variants. Why not? You're being patronising. I think they do and they make a choice, like I do. I COULD start saying "aks" and choose not to.

What next, are you going to argue that people who wear their pants down by their knees don't know that's now how you use pants? I think they know there's alternatives, and that's what they choose to do.
by Bender | 2026-03-11 18:38:57+00:00
Regardless of how this goes I for one will be holding onto whatever Linux ISO's do not contain this crap and holding onto old hardware. If that means I can not access websites then so be it. The problem solves itself for me anyway... My plan is to eventually be 100% brick and mortar business and support the local businesses to the best of my ability. As for security patches I will forego them and just make each OS read-only and not put sensitive data anywhere near it. Making most operating systems ephemeral is not really that hard these days.

I wish the best of luck to all OS and app developers to keep the fascistic API's out of their code especially when this could have been solved without attacking the privacy of people [1] including that of politicians by the way. Their data and browsing habits will also be in the "leaks" and I for one will be sure to give the articles discussing their leaked data the Streisand effect [2] as will many others.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46152074

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
by alexpotato | 2026-03-11 18:39:01+00:00
> Having strong analytical skills seemed essential

and

> they have a knack for corporate maneuvering

One way to view this is that that combination of skills is both rare and very useful. That means it's expensive. So instead of hiring someone like that at "full rate" and keeping them around, you can "borrow" them from McK to solve a problem your regular crew can't (or isn't able to for various reasons).

Plus, as one manager of mine said many years ago:

"We use consultants b/c they are both easy to hire AND easy to fire"
by keeda | 2026-03-11 18:39:23+00:00
I still have a Surface Book 1 that I occasionaly use and I never encountered any of those issues. I even used it for some sketching and there was no lag or spurious touching from the pen. In fact, sketching was why I was "drawn" to it (heheh), largely influenced by this review: https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2015/11/16/surface-bo...

My big problem with it is that the battery got swollen a few years ago, pushing out the bottom panel, and the device is way our of warranty to get it replaced. I'm waiting to find time to get that replaced.
by ryandvm | 2026-03-11 18:39:24+00:00
Cute, and while I will agree that Apple hardware is generally superior or at least an excellent value, and OS X is miles beyond Windows in usability, I can't in good conscience recommend a Mac on principle.

They impose obsessive control over their walled garden, constant pressure to use Apple ecosystem products, and they are staunchly opposed to interoperability regardless of it being an obviously anti-consumer tactical moat.

Buying a Mac in spite of such anti-consumer behavior reminds me of voting for a bad person because you like their policies.
Show HN: Hyper – A stupidly non-corporate voice AI app for IRL conversations
by shainvs | 2026-03-11 18:39:29+00:00
Hey HN, we're building Hyper: an iOS voice recorder for the conversations that matter too much to pause and take notes. 1:1s with your cofounder, coffee chats, standups, whiteboard sessions. One tap to record, and when you're done you get a summary, full transcript, and tappable action items (calendar events, reminders, email drafts) — no notes needed.

We built this because at our last company (a robotics startup), the most consequential decisions happened spontaneously — in hallways, over lunch, on walks. None of it got captured. Every recorder we tried was built for scheduled Zoom calls with agendas. We wanted something for the messy, unstructured conversations where the real work happens.

How it works: Hyper transcribes your conversations in real-time. On-device wakeword detection lets you ask it questions mid-conversation with “hey hyper” or via chat without breaking flow — "wait, what did we decide about the deadline last time?" — and it pulls from every past conversation. After the meeting, another agent extracts structured actions and maps them to the rest of your tools (like Calendar, GMail, and native iOS integrations).

The bet we're making: existing meeting tools stop at "here's a document." We believe people don't want better documents from their meetings, they want answers to their questions.

We envision a future where people can simply ask across all conversations and get the answer instantly — without files or folders or manual organization. We’re building out a long-term memory framework that lets Hyper resolve conflicting information, surface stale information, and help untangle the gnarliest of problems.

We're two founders, currently self-funded, building in SF. We’d love for you to try it out in your next exciting conversation and to hear your feedback. Thanks!

-- Shalin & Kanyes
by ctdinjeu2 | 2026-03-11 18:39:46+00:00
If developers are honest with themselves, this has been a long time coming.

In the early 00s, nobody even knew what the hell we were doing. Most people asked things like “do you do IT?” nobody really got it.

The idea of photoshopping a mockup, or the idea that Wordpress is how you build the website for their business and why they now need “HTML5”, the cloud and advent of IaaS/PaaS, I digress:

All the esoteric aspects of the work and knowledge have been curricularized.

There are a million Joe React Developers now, everybody can use Figma, anyone can manage a sprint, and with AI forget it - anyone can play now.

Buuut not so fast you say, and yeah I agree with you!

And yet, I know that you know that they know that we know that they know. You know?
by embedding-shape | 2026-03-11 18:39:47+00:00
> Novelty - JS has had more time and effort spent in hardening it

Taking this argument to its extreme, does this mean that introducing new technology always decreases technology? Because even if the technology would be more secure, just the fact that it's new makes it less secure in your mind, so then the only favorable move is to never adopt anything new?

Supposedly you have to be aware of some inherent weakness in WASM to feel like it isn't worth introducing, otherwise shouldn't we try to adopt more safe and secure technologies?
by justsomehnguy | 2026-03-11 18:40:22+00:00
> But doesn’t negate that it’s still very usable.

As a glorified terminal? Sure.

> Did you even bother to watch the video for responsiveness before commenting?

I did, now what?

> Also it was a couple years after the transition to arm t

Hello, we are talking about Neo with the same 8GB.
by flohofwoe | 2026-03-11 18:40:27+00:00
FWIW my home computer emulators [1] already run at about the same performance (give or take 5..10% depending on CPU type) in WASM versus their natively compiled counterparts.

Performance is already as good as it gets for "raw" WASM, the proposed component model integration will only help when trying to use the DOM API from WASM. But I think there must be less complex solutions to accelerate this specific use case.

[1] https://floooh.github.io/tiny8bit/
by scoofy | 2026-03-11 18:40:58+00:00
I think the idea is that in the future, everyone will need a philosophy degree to go along with whatever business they will work in. It’s no longer going to be about “I know this skill, tell me what you want me to do,” but will be about “I know how we can solve these problems with this skill.”

If that stops being the limiting factor, then we’ll be in a post-scarcity world.
by JoshTriplett | 2026-03-11 18:41:08+00:00
That's an orthogonal problem. First it needs to be possible and straightforward to write GCed languages in the sandbox. Second, GCed languages need to be willing to fit with the web/WASM GC model, which may not exactly match their own GC and which won't use their own GC. And after that, languages with runtimes could start trying to figure out how they might reduce the overhead of having a runtime.
by tmp10423288442 | 2026-03-11 18:41:18+00:00
Karpathy is a notable researcher and broader AI leader. Among many, many other things, he invented the term "vibecoding". He also recently posted his autoresearcher project, which is using a swarm of agents to optimize the LLM training and recently produced a training process that is the fastest to achieve GPT-2-level performance using a very small model.
by scottyah | 2026-03-11 18:41:19+00:00
Not liking interacting with an OS is a fair choice to make, but don't be fooled by the bolted-on specs like "more RAM" when less of it is available to the user due to the built-in software and driver compatability issues. It's almost always slower, older, and less quality. They do Product Binning and give the worst quality leftovers to the built-in machines where people are less likely to notice and because it won't change the brand's reputation. The difference between i9, i7, etc are just how many defects there are- they're printed identically on the same wafers.

Even IF the processor and RAM combined with Windows and bloatware is faster, you know they're going to have to cut corners on things like keyboard, trackpad, monitor, battery, webcams, heatsinks, etc.
by csense | 2026-03-11 18:41:33+00:00
My personal opinion:

- The US killed ~100 schoolchildren by accident.

- The Iranian regime killed 30,000+ protestors on purpose.

Iran is a country that's racing to develop nukes and ballistic missiles, has a bunch of terrorist friends to get those nukes where they want them to go, and will gleefully mass murder their own people.

September 11 was bad and only killed ~3000 people -- we said "Never again". What if Iran decided to nuke New York and kill millions this time?

I doubt Ayatollahs GAF about killing innocent Americans. In fact "Death to America" is their slogan. MAD might not work on them, they are obsessed with martyrdom and virgins in heaven. Leaders don't always mean what they say, but is it really wise to bet millions of lives they don't mean it when they're acting exactly as they would if they did mean it?

The US kills a hundred civilians and there's an official inquiry into what went wrong. Nobody commanded those civilians to be killed; the subheadline says "Outdated targeting data may have resulted in a mistaken missile strike". The New York Times is allowed to freely report on the matter and we're allowed to freely and frankly discuss it in spaces like this one. The reporter can sign the article with their real name without fear of getting jailed or worse.

Contrast that with Iran where they shut off the Internet so no one can talk about what's happening and how much the Ayatollahs suck. People who criticize the Ayatollah aren't just shot, the body isn't released to their family unless the family pays for the bullet that killed them [1].

I'm astounded at the mental gymnastics people go through to say the US is in the wrong for taking decisive action against a morally heinous regime that wants to kill millions of Americans, don't care if they themselves or their citizens also get killed in the process, is racing to acquire the means to do so, and refused to negotiate in good faith to avoid a conflict.

Yes war is bad, yes innocent people getting killed is bad, yes it might not meet the standards of "international law" whatever that means. I wish the critics of this war could see the alternate timeline where they got their wish and the action against Iran was limited to sanctions and stern disapproval; seeing the radioactive hole in the ground that used to be New York might change their minds. I lived through September 11, I would much prefer to die of old age without ever seeing terrorists nuke the United States, and I feel the current Iran operation is an appropriate use of military force to realize that objective.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%932026_Iranian_prot...
by Bender | 2026-03-11 18:41:36+00:00
remain undetected than cheating by altering records in a database.

Absolutely. Any time something is centralized it becomes an irresistible target for unlimited numbers of bad actors and the bar to entry for remote anonymous access makes it a much easier target. Anonymous access to paper ballots means someone is going to be on at least a handful of cameras and has to bypass many security systems so if cheating happens it is because the people gathering the votes want it that way.
by yason | 2026-03-11 18:41:57+00:00
And if it could tell you that then a third party could force you to reveal that you voted "right" as agreed before.

Paper ballots with mutually suspicious representatives of all parties watching themselves during handling and counting is the only way to go for big things like parliament/presidential elections and national referendums where, in the worst case, the greatest of all matters are at stake. And foolproof method for voting is most needed when the levels of trust are at the lowest.
by jasode | 2026-03-11 18:42:00+00:00
>Sure you can, you just need [...] , you walk up to a desk and identify yourself, are crossed off a list, and handed a paper ballot. [...]

Your counterpoint about in-person paper ballots doesn't seem relevant to the thread's article or the gp you're responding to.

The article is about digital electronic voting. The voters are remote and can't walk up to a desk. Quote: >the problem with its e-voting pilot, open to about 10,300 locals living abroad and 30 people with disabilities,

The electronic voting without paper is clearly the context of the gp's quote: >I don't care how much maths and encryption you use, ...

The article also has a further link to another piece about e-vote database manipulation can't be detected: https://www.theregister.com/2019/03/12/swiss_evoting_system_...
by nomdep | 2026-03-11 18:42:34+00:00
I think this comment is substantially more informative than the article itself:

https://newatlas.com/environment/5-200-holes-peruvian-mounta...

Each hole is constructed- dug out and lined with rock.
These are not mining holes, nor used to store things.
If you want to store stuff, you would put these pits
along the bottom of the hill, not running a long distance
up the hill.

They tried to keep the lines somewhat straight, crossing
gullies. I can't guess what valid use they might have had,
other than religious. They seem pointless.
by tzs | 2026-03-11 18:43:02+00:00
If the house is paid off it can be a lot cheaper to support it than you probably expect.

For example my house is paid off. My total yearly spending comes out to under $25k/year. That omits irregular things like the occasional need to replace a broken appliance, or upgrade to a new computer/phone/tablet/watch, or get a new car.

Looking at how often those irregular things happen and how much they cost, another $7k a year reserved for that would be sufficient, assuming in any years where that is not spent the left over is carried forward.

That's $32k/year income needed to live comfortably in my house. My house is worth a little less than half a million according to Zillow. I'd guess a million dollar house would cost about twice as much to insure, and is bigger so costs more to heat or cool. Assuming 2x insurance and 2x electricity costs would add another $3k, suggesting $35k/year income needed for a million dollar house, at least if my standard of living is acceptable.
by mhurron | 2026-03-11 18:43:17+00:00
Do you forget what Apple in '96 was? Or are you saying that Tahoe is too polished for the Apple of '96?

Apple was not a bastion of quality in the 90's. They couldn't modernize the Mac OS, and that continued with little more than window dressing over what was released in the 80's. The Mac line up was a horrible mess of barely different models that needed a Ph.D to figure out what was different. The company was bleeding money and seriously close to bankruptcy.

The Apple of the mid 90's wishes it could release something like Tahoe.
by alberto467 | 2026-03-11 18:43:23+00:00
"in some sense" is doing a lot here.

It's not really a collective decision, it's the decision of governments, but also it was a temporary decision (basically every pandemic in history lasted a maximum of about 3 years), not a permanent one.

With a longer time-frame, there is time for people to elect new governments, and guess what would happen when a new politician comes along pitching: "hey i will stop all this green stuff which costs money and i'll give it to you curing poverty and making you richer, the other countries are still polluting who cares anyway". Meanwhile the other politicians pitch is: "No we have to make sacrifices to reduce our emissions, we can give up some comforts or pay more for them".

Guess who would win that election...
by JoshTriplett | 2026-03-11 18:43:40+00:00
There is exactly one case where I'd like to write "raw wat" (and for that matter "raw wasm bytecode"): I'd love to do something like the "bootstrappable builds" project for wasm, starting with a simple wat-to-bytecode parser/translator written in raw bytecode, then some tools wirtten in raw wat for bootstrapping into other languages. :)
by koenschipper | 2026-03-11 18:44:29+00:00
This article perfectly captures the frustration of the "WebAssembly wall." Writing and maintaining the JS glue code—or relying on opaque generation tools—feels like a massive step backward when you just want to ship a performant module.

The 45% overhead reduction in the Dodrio experiment by skipping the JS glue is massive. But I'm curious about the memory management implications of the WebAssembly Component Model when interacting directly with Web APIs like the DOM.

If a Wasm Component bypasses JS entirely to manipulate the DOM, how does the garbage collection boundary work? Does the Component Model rely on the recently added Wasm GC proposal to keep DOM references alive, or does it still implicitly trigger the JS engine's garbage collector under the hood?

Really excited to see this standardize so we can finally treat Wasm as a true first-class citizen.
by throwaway27448 | 2026-03-11 18:45:01+00:00
I'm not trolling.

How long does it take to start emacs for you?

> Multithreading just sidesteps the problem while introducing its own can of worms.

In the meantime we're all stuck waiting for package downloads. I don't know the specifics about why emacs can't move to a concurrent model but it's embarrassing at this point

> The current async facilities are fine by me (I don’t use any auto* things, so YMMV).

Yes, it is clear the people who maintain emacs are fine with it. This is why using emacs in 2026 is so shitty.
by figassis | 2026-03-11 18:45:26+00:00
I'd like to think I am pretty security conscious, but I still don't get the obsession with magic links (and passkeys). This is the one thing where I think I disagree with most of the industry. I thought forgetting passwords was a solved problem. I thought 2fa is much faster than searching for the last email for X provider the maybe takes 1 minute to arrive, requires retries and high tend up in spam? Some one please help me get on board.
by goodmythical | 2026-03-11 18:45:47+00:00
You have no idea how many otherwise well meaning financial/professional advice 'influencers' are touting exactly the same thing.

Want a job that AI won't take? Learn a trade! Like, they all think the immaculate future is humans doing difficult painful sweaty jobs.

And what's worse is just because the shit isn't automated yet doesn't mean it won't be in the next five years. We already have the tech to perform surgery remotely, and the exoskeltons and robots are only getting more fidelity in smaller frames.