MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by fc417fc802 | 2026-03-09 01:20:26+00:00
The problem with that logic is that evolution iteratively builds on top of old systems. The foundations are often remarkably crufty.

My favorite concrete example is "unusual" amino acids. Quite a few with remarkably useful properties have been demonstrated in the lab. For example, artificial proteins exhibiting strength on par with cement. But almost certainly no living organism could ever evolve them naturally because doing so would require reworking large portions of the abstract system that underpins DNA, RNA, and protein synthesis. Effectively they appear to lie firmly outside the solution space accessible from the local region that we find ourselves in.

I agree with your second point though that this system is massively more complex than necessary for the behavior demonstrated.
by QuaternionsBhop | 2026-03-09 01:21:07+00:00
> Reasoning about code written this way makes me experience profound fatigue and possess an overwhelming desire to return to my domicile;

I didn't understand that you were making fun of verbosity until the word 'domicile'. I must be one of those insufferable people who expresses simple thoughts with ornate vocabulary...

The article was comprehensible to me, and the additional function colorings sound like exciting constraints I can impose to prevent my future self from making mistakes rather than heavy winter gear. I guess I'm closer to the target audience?
by ACCount37 | 2026-03-09 01:21:12+00:00
A lot of that seems to be the usual "you're training them wrong".

Sonnet 3.5 is old hat, and today's Sonnet 4.6 ships with an extra long 1M context window. And performs better on long context tasks while at it.

There are also attempts to address long context attention performance on the architectural side - streaming, learned KV dropout, differential attention. All of which can allow LLMs to sustain longer sessions and leverage longer contexts better.

If we're comparing to wet meat, then the closest thing humans have to context is working memory. Which humans also get a limited amount of - but can use to do complex work by loading things in and out of it. Which LLMs can also be trained to do. Today's tools like file search and context compression are crude versions of that.
by ajayvk | 2026-03-09 01:21:18+00:00
Have been building a project https://github.com/openrundev/openrun/ which aims to make it easy for teams to easily deploy internal tools/webapps. While creating new apps has gotten easier, securely deploying them across teams remains a challenge. OpenRun runs as a proxy which adds SAML/OAuth based auth with RBAC. OpenRun deploys containerized apps to a single machine with Docker or onto Kubernetes.

Currently adding support for exposing Postgres schemas for each app to use. The goal is that with a shared Postgres instance, each app should be able to either get a dedicated schema or get limited/full access to another app's schema, with row level security rules being supported.
Show HN: ChatML - Run Claude Code Parallel Sessions in a Desktop app
by mcastilho | 2026-03-09 01:21:53+00:00
Hey HN,

Over the past 10 months I've been using Claude Code heavily, and one limitation kept coming up: you can really only run one coding agent at a time.

While one agent is refactoring something, the rest of the repo is basically blocked unless you start manually juggling branches and working directories.

The core issue is that AI coding agents operate directly in your filesystem. If two agents run in the same working directory they quickly start stepping on each other’s changes.

Git worktrees turned out to be a surprisingly good primitive for solving this.

So I built ChatML, a Desktop app that runs multiple Claude Code sessions in parallel, each isolated in its own git worktree.

Each task gets its own branch, working directory and runs Claude Code session using Agent SDK

That lets one agent write tests while another builds a feature or investigates a bug — all in the same repo without conflicts.

We ended up building most of ChatML itself using this workflow and merged 750+ pull requests generated through parallel agent sessions. That experiment convinced me the model actually works.

More about that experience building here:
https://chatml.com/blog/we-built-entire-product-with-ai-750-...

GitHub
https://github.com/chatml/chatml

Website
https://chatml.com

The project is open source and currently macOS-focused.

I’d especially appreciate help from anyone interested in bringing it to Windows and Linux. If you’ve worked on cross-platform desktop apps, packaging, or filesystem/watchers issues across platforms, contributions or advice would be very welcome. We have it running but with a few bugs.

For context, I previously co-founded KnowBe4, now co-founder of ReadingMinds.ai and for the past few years have explored developer tools around AI-assisted software engineering. Our engineers in several companies I am involved with are using ChatML and we have received great feedback, bugs and security issues.

Happy to answer questions about the architecture, the git worktree model, or how parallel agent workflows feel in practice.

I am using this tool for ALL of my development, and I am happy to share with the community.

-Marcio
by expede | 2026-03-09 01:22:00+00:00
Author of the article here! I've actually come to agree with you since writing that article. I'm actually not a fan of mutexes in general and miss having things like TVars from my Haskell days. Just to shout out a deadlock freedom project that I'm not involved in and haven't put in production, but would like to see more exploration in this direction: https://crates.io/crates/happylock
by mtejo | 2026-03-09 01:22:59+00:00
Ive been running with this little ongoing project of making little nintendo ds games with rust.

I put together a pretty basic portal clone. I think its pretty cool to see it come together, animations, level creation, portal jumps.

The basic hardware on the ds makes 3d pretty approachable. Ive found opengl overwhelming in the past. It seems like a fun platform to make games on, but idk if there is any active ds homebrew communities. Anyway sharing because i thought it was cool, hard to find anyone that seems to be to interested. I thought about getting a 3ds but they are surprisingly expensive now
by famouswaffles | 2026-03-09 01:23:33+00:00
>Turing's imitation game is about making it difficult for a human to tell whether they are communicating with a computer or not. If a computer can trick the human, then... what? The computer is "thinking" ?

If you read his paper, Turing was trying to make a specific point. The Turing test itself is just one example of how that broader point might manifest.

If a thinking machine can not be distinguished from a thinking human then it is thinking. That was his idea. In broader terms, any material distinction should be testable. If it is not, then it does not exist. What do you call 'fake gold' that looks, smells etc and reacts as 'real gold' in every testable way ? That's right - Real gold. And if you claimed otherwise, you would just look like a mad man, but swap gold for thinking, intelligence etc and it seems a lot of mad men start to appear.

You don't need to 'prove' anything, and it's not important or relevant that anyone try to do so. You can't prove to me that you think, so why on earth should the machine do so ? And why would you think it matters ? Does the fact you can't prove to me that you think change the fact that it would be wise to model you as someone that does ?
by opello | 2026-03-09 01:23:43+00:00
Thanks, it wasn't out of doubt that I asked, but it seemed having a reference to point at would help resolve the contention. The Docker blog post covered a lot more detail, even about WSL2, which was really informative and I hadn't seen.

I wonder exactly how much work "container" is doing in that Microsoft blog post's description, because it doesn't seem like it's the same kind of environment as a runc or containerd container?

I also wasn't quite sure how much detail to infer from the behavior of vmmemWSL or vmcompute.exe, because my casual understanding is that there's some adaptation layer that handles mapping Linux calls to Windows calls. It seems reasonable to allow for process mapping or accounting shenanigans for any number of good reasons.
Show HN: Ajen – Open-source platform where AI employees build your startup
by yash_chudasama | 2026-03-09 01:23:52+00:00
I started building Ajen today.

The idea is simple: describe a startup and AI employees (CEO, CTO, CMO, etc.) collaborate to plan and build it.

It's fully open source and still very early. I’d really appreciate feedback on the idea, architecture, or anything that could make it better.
by smakt | 2026-03-09 01:24:00+00:00
Heh, I had not seen that one in a while.

This site is designed so that the wannabees are incentivized to lie and show off to get some of the sweet VC the whales are sitting on. The ease of lying at volume is down to zero, and here be nerds trying to solve a human problem with technology. Maybe show first that you can solve spam or bot networks.

Somehow lighthearted solution: employ Unix graybeard volunteers to weed out the garbage. I'd like to see HN showoff slop like "Distributed Kubernetes Package Manager using Blackwell-Hermann CRTDs in 500 lines of Go" get past Linus or Stallman.
by ozten | 2026-03-09 01:24:43+00:00
Hey HN — I'm Austin in Seattle, a solo technical founder with 20+ years of engineering experience and 4 years of biz/marketing.
I've shipped a lot of software. Selling it has always been the hard part.

I see a lot of Indie Hacker / bootstrap founders follow the same arc: build something Your proud of, Google "how to find your first customers," get a wall of generic advice, context-switch between six tabs of ChatGPT conversations that forget everything by tomorrow, and eventually just go back to writing code because at least that feels productive.

I built Cantrip to fix this. It's a go-to-market engine — not a chatbot, not a consultant replacement, not an all-in-one platform that wants to own your stack.

What it actually does:
You describe your product (paste a README, explain it in plain English, whatever). Cantrip builds a Context Graph — a persistent, structured map of your business: ideal customer profiles, pain points, value propositions, channels where your customers hang out, competitors, and experiments to validate your assumptions.

The system runs continuous gap analysis. No ICP defined? That's a gap. Competitors not analyzed? Gap. Channels identified but untested? Gap. Each gap becomes a prioritized opportunity with three options: let Cantrip research it with AI, get a context-rich prompt to use in any LLM, or fill in what you already know.

Everything AI-generated enters a review queue. Nothing is treated as ground truth until you accept it. The graph deepens over time — each cycle builds on the last.

What's technically interesting:
Cantrip is agent-native from day one. Every capability is exposed as one of 17 MCP tools — cantrip_snapshot, cantrip_next, cantrip_review, etc. Any

MCP-compatible agent (Claude Code, OpenClaw, Cursor, custom workflows) can read and write to your Context Graph programmatically.

This means your coding agent can finish a feature, call cantrip_snapshot, discover no value proposition covers the new capability, call cantrip_next to find the gap, and surface it in your review queue — without you leaving your IDE. The Context Graph becomes shared state for multi-agent coordination, with human review as the trust boundary.

The daemon handles identity, auth, and credit gating transparently. Agents read .cantrip.json from the working directory — no project IDs as parameters, no auth ceremony. One API surface powers the MCP server, dashboard, and CLI with zero drift between interfaces.

Business model: Credits, not subscriptions. GTM work is bursty — intense before a launch, quiet for weeks. Credits match that reality. Every feature available from day one; credits unlock depth, not access. Reads are always free.

This is super rough around the edges but if you want to kick the tires on the MCP server or CLI, join the Discord and I'll give you some free credits if paying is a barrier.

I've seen some "Autonomous company" launches, this isn't that. Check out the FAQ...

I'd genuinely love feedback on the architecture, the MCP tool design, or the overall approach. What am I missing? What would make this useful to you?
by holden_nelson | 2026-03-09 01:26:12+00:00
I also found it really unintuitive what needs to be made mutable. And still do to some degree.

When I first had learned that rust had this concept of “opt-in” mutability, I thought that it must then be an accepted pattern that we make as little as possible be mutable in an attempt to help us better reason about the state of our program. I had come to rust after learning some clojure so I was like “ahh! Immutable by default! So everything’s a value!”

But in reality it feels like rust code is not “designed” around immutability but instead around appeasing the borrow checker - which is actually pretty easy to reason about once you get the hang of the language. But it’s a ton to learn up front
by macintux | 2026-03-09 01:26:41+00:00
Now that I've returned to working on the project tonight, I just remembered another failing of our code. (I'm not in any way claiming these are universal problems, just that they are something to be wary of.)

Naming is so incredibly important. The wrong name for a configuration key can have cascading impacts, especially when there is "magic" involved, like stripping out or adding common prefixes to configuration values.

We have a concept called a "domain" which is treated as a magic value everywhere, such as adding a prefix or suffix. But domain isn't well-defined, and in different contexts it is used different ways, and figuring out what the impact is of choosing a domain string is typically a matter of trial and error.
by seanwilson | 2026-03-09 01:27:06+00:00
An accessible color palette editor for creating branded palettes built from the ground up that pass WCAG/APCA contrast rules (which is much quicker and less of a headache compared to doing manual contrast checks and fixes later):

https://www.inclusivecolors.com/

The current web tool lets you export to CSS, Tailwind and Figma, and uses HSLuv for the color picker. HSL color pickers that most design tools like Figma use have the very counterintuitive property that the hue and saturation sliders will change the lightness of a color (which then impacts its WCAG contrast), which HSLuv fixes to make it much easier to find accessible color combinations.

I'm working on a Figma plugin version so you can preview colors directly on a Figma design as you make changes. It's tricky shrinking the UI to work inside a small plugin window!
by Leftium | 2026-03-09 01:27:13+00:00
# My over-engineered console.log replacement is almost API/feature-stable: https://github.com/Leftium/gg

- Named `gg` for grep-ibility and ease of typing.

- However Claude has been inserting most calls for me (and can now read back the client-side results without any dev interaction!)

- Here is how Claude used gg to fix a layout bug in itself (gg ships with an optional dev console): https://github.com/Leftium/gg/blob/main/references/gg-consol...

---

# I've been prototyping realtime streaming transcription UX: https://rift-transcription.vercel.app

- Really want to use dictation app in addition to typing on a daily basis, but the current UX of all apps I've tried are insufficient.

---

# https://veneer.leftium.com is a thin layer over Google forms + sheets

- If you can use Google forms, you can publish a nice-looking web site with an optional form

- Example: https://www.vivimil.com

- Example: https://veneer.leftium.com/s.1RoVLit_cAJPZBeFYzSwHc7vADV_fYL...

- DEMO (feel free to try the sign up feature): https://veneer.leftium.com/g.chwbD7sLmAoLe65Z8
by tartoran | 2026-03-09 01:27:17+00:00
I don’t think your comment had anything to do with you defending Trump, I don’t think you are. I just drew the logical conclusion with respect to US and China striving for supremacy. While China is somewhat ‘in sync’ we have a leader who’s sawing chaos and impulsively starting wars without having long term plans. If something it adds to the point you were making. Cheers
Ask HN: Are we going to see more job postings asking for only agentic coding?
by ronbenton | 2026-03-09 01:27:18+00:00
Was perusing job postings today and saw this on a Zapier listing:

"You work through AI agents, not alongside them. Your daily development workflow is built around directing and reviewing agent-written code, not writing it by hand. You have opinions about which models to use for which tasks, you've hit real failure modes and built mitigations, and your workflow is actively evolving. Bonus: you use multi-agent patterns, enable others on your team to build faster with AI, or have scaled AI impact beyond yourself."

This took me aback a little as I don't think yet I have seen companies talking about hand-writing code being bad.

Is this happening more often?
by sherry-sherry | 2026-03-09 01:27:35+00:00
Sorry. I really meant that there's nothing people are reading or viewing that has higher contrast in the natural world. I should've been clearer (and less forthright).

Your points about day/shade contrast and eyes adjusting are correct, as are screen brightness levels people use.

> Look up at a bright cloud and then glance into a shaded doorway.

Yes, and that causes strain on the eyes. Our eyes very are good at adapting (as you said), but it is not pleasant to do rapidly or while trying to concentrate and interpret text.

Bleached white paper and black ink is (pretty generously) ~15:1 contrast ratio in a well lit room, which any half decent screen in the past 20 years surpass.

Pure black/white text is harder to read on screens since they are producing and pushing light at you (as opposed bouncing back ambient light like on paper). We have never seen text printed on paper at the contrast ratios a modern screen can produce, since there is no paper white enough or ink dark enough.

There are many things with typography that are finicky and sometimes counter-intuitive. Making text bigger and all-caps won't always make something more readable (see here: https://www.mentalfloss.com/transportation/roads/why-road-si...), likewise more contrast doesn't always make it more readable for everyone.

Of course there are people who require more contrast and larger type sizes and the great part about reading stuff on screens is we can often accommodate that better. Some websites/apps/etc handle accessibility options well and some really don't.

So I kind of went on a much longer thing than I wanted to... oh well. Sorry if I was too forthright in my initial comment, I guess clarity in intent/meaning can be just as important as readability.
by komali2 | 2026-03-09 01:27:56+00:00
> I'd at least like to know what is the end game here. Have those groups effectively given up any hope of changing the country and mainstream society at large, so the new strategy is now retreating into gated communities

I noticed this occasional tendency in the west to analyze an action or behavior by hypothetically scaling it to way beyond the scope of the actual action or behavior, and I've been wondering if this is some kind of judicial application of Kantian thinking?

I'd push back on that and say, not everything has to be scaled. Not every behavior is an indictment of other behavior. People doing things isn't necessarily an argument that all people should do those same things. Nor is it an indication that those people only want to do those things that way - just because some black people want a reprieve from whatever their perception of day to day western life is, doesn't mean they've "given up" on making any changes to that society.
by deterministic | 2026-03-09 01:28:06+00:00
If you are thinking about AWS or (worse) deploying on AWS you are definitely behind the curb of the companies who badly regretted that decision and are moving away from AWS due to cost.

The smart companies completely skip the cost and time spent moving to AWS. They instead use Linux-boxes-in-the-cloud solutions with zero integration of AWS specific services, making it easy to deploy on multiple host platforms world wide, and saving $millions.
Tell HN: Tired of Generic Long Form A.I Posts
by dzonga | 2026-03-09 01:28:20+00:00
they all sound generic - monotonous - soul or individual voice

same tidbits all over:

>> Here's the game change

>> What the math says

>> What everyone doesn't know

>> the em-dashes --

for everyone who still writes in their own voice, thank you. if you generate social media slop for either linkedIn, Shitter, HN then F*k You
by awesome_dude | 2026-03-09 01:29:05+00:00
> Natural languages are ambiguous. That's the reason why we created programming languages. So the documentation around the code is generally ambiguous as well. Worse: it's not being executed, so it can get out of date (sometimes in subtle ways).

I loathe this take.

I have rocked up to codebases where there were specific rules banning comments because of this attitude.

Yes comments can lie, yes there are no guards ensuring they stay in lock step with the code they document, but not having them is a thousand times worse - I can always see WHAT code is doing, that's never the problem, the problems is WHY it was done in this manner.

I put comments like "This code runs in O(n) because there are only a handful of items ever going to be searched - update it when there are enough items to justify an O(log2 n) search"

That tells future developers that the author (me) KNOWS it's not the most efficient code possible, but it IS when you take into account things unknown by the person reading it

Edit: Tribal knowledge is the worst type of knowledge, it's assumed that everyone knows it, and pass it along when new people onboard, but the reality (for me) has always been that the people doing the onboarding have had fragments, or incorrect assumptions on what was being conveyed to them, and just like the childrens game of "telephone" the passing of the knowledge always ends in a disaster
by bluegatty | 2026-03-09 01:29:27+00:00
Probably not, they are preparing but that does not mean they will ever do it.

Xi just faced a mutiny and had to put top generals away.

Key people in China military oppose the plans.

Even as they near readiness with some things, others remain far behind, and untested.

It's an extremely risky move and they don't take those kinds of risks.

Island landing 100 km away = Chinese D-Day means absolutely enormous casualties, and no guarantees of success.

If they lose that fight, CPP will be overthrown, that sounds dramatic, but those are the stakes at that level esp. with casualties.

The #1 objective is to infiltrate and take it without a fight, and/or cause pain and get citiznes to take the 'easy pill' and Taiwan slowly comes into China fold without ever any incident at all.

Barring that a blockade would be the thing, and then only usa could even hope to run it, it would be a sight to see, and very hard for us to do as China has long range weapons now and many things specifically designed to keep USN away from 1st island chain, means they can strangle Taiwan into submission with no invasion.

But if that happens, USN closes gulf and Malaca straigths, probably goes into S. China Sea. Very bad. China needs food and fuel to import.

It's very complex and China is not a monolith, many actors, it's authoritarian yet citizens are not dummies, they protest all the time we just don't hear about it.

Probably the chances are most acute 2029-early 2030s. This is from former Australian PM Kevin Rudd how is Western World's #1 non-Chinese China expert.

Xi is playing against bad headwinds though and the direct opportunity may not resent itself.

If they 'thought like us' and were a bit more decisive and risky, yes, 'now' would be a grand time to do it, wouldn't it? But no.