skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
GEB is in my top three as well. But looking back at it and the other important books in my life, it seems that it matters very much when I read them, and where I was at the time. For example, the Lord of the Rings was hugely influential for me, in part because I bought it (in one volume paperback) with the sales of my first program, and read it in school (also during our English lessons, the good teacher let me do that when she saw what I was reading).
Post author here! I wrote this post five years ago. Since then, my conviction in the value of customizable software has only grown, but I've also updated my thinking in a few ways:

1) AI

AI is rapidly getting better at coding. Current AI is often bad at high-level architecture but is capable of making small local tweaks. Seems like a good fit for the kind of code you need to write a browser extension!

I'm exploring this direction; wrote more about it in "Malleable software in the age of LLMs" [1]

2) Security

Having talked to people who worked on various extension platforms including the browser extensions API, I see more clearly than I did five years ago that security is often the key bottleneck to deploying extension platforms meant for mass adoption. Anytime you want everyday computer users to be installing invasive extensions to important software from untrusted third parties, it's gonna be challenging to protect them.

That said, I still think that conversations around extensions tend to focus too much on security at the expense of all else. Customizability is important enough that it may be worth prioritizing it over security in some cases.

I also think there are many reasonable paths forward here. One is to exchange extensions with trusted parties -- e.g, coworkers or friends -- rather than installing from random people on the internet. Another might be to only build your own extensions; perhaps that'll become more viable with AI-assisted programming, although that introduces its own new security issues. And finally, I've met a few people who have smart ideas for architecting software in a way that helps resolve the core tensions; see [2] for an example.

3) Backend access as a key limitation

I've increasingly realized that the fact that browser extensions can only access client code in a fairly server-centric web means that many deep customizations are out of reach. Perhaps you can't read the data you want, or there's not a write API to do the thing you need.

While I'm optimistic about what extensions can do within the boundary of the client, this is an inherent limitation of the platform.

At Ink & Switch (the research lab I now work for), we're working towards local-first [3] software: collaborative software where the data and the code lives on your device. Among other benefits like privacy, we think this is the right foundation for more powerful extensions, since your data and the app code aren't locked away on a server.

[1] https://www.geoffreylitt.com/2023/03/25/llm-end-user-program...

[2] https://www.wildbuilt.world/p/inverting-three-key-relationsh...

[3] https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/
My previous partner is on the genz/mil cusp and she never owned a computer and wrote all of her reports/papers/etc for ALL of her years in school on her iphone.

I have never had something make me feel like an absolute old boomer than that. I don't even like texting on my iphone I typo so much and everything else I will do anything to be able to use my desktop/laptop over my phone.
AKA; ...'eeeeyyyyy, IgottaGuy..."
If my math is right, the angular resolution of the EHT is such that you could image an object just 99m across on the surface of the moon. Or a 2in object could be resolved from a low earth orbit satellite. Not bad.

They are imaging an object 0.6ly across at a distance of 250M ly or so. Just insane.
> Humans are nearly all mimics, at least 98%+. They are LLMs.

We are GIs, at least 98%+, LLM like behavior may exist in our cognitive repertoire, but we certainly aren't limited to it. Can an LLM drive locomotion?

I never understood AGI as generating sui generis ideas as a requirement. I thought that AGIs could also be uncreative mimics.
until California (it's always California) bans paper cups.
I'd think the primary defense against drones on a naval vessel would be that the ship's made of metal, and doesn't have squishy humans wandering around (unless it's a carrier).

IOW a very small drone also means a very small payload.
The earth loses about 100,000 tons/year via hydrogen and helium escaping. The earth gains about 50,000 tons per year via space dust, etc.

Since temperature = energy, e=mc^2, therefore temperature = mass, the earth gains 160 tons/year due to global warming.

So Earth's mass and gravity is therefore decreasing over time. If you assume global warming is directly proportional to population, we'll need ~2.5 trillion people before we can start increasing gravity.
Yes, but even more so. Linux “expects” programs to link to libc, but many other Unix-like OSes require programs - in any language — to link to libc. The kernel syscall interface is not considered a stable API.

Windows has a similar structure, but the required kernel interface library is not the same one as the C runtime, so it’s less confusing language-wise.
So true. One of the major config mgt utilities which shall remain nameless, (cough, Ansible, cough), is written in python but created an excrable POS config language build on YAML. At least Ant had the excuse that Java was not suitable for a config language. Will people never learn that building scripting languages on markup languages will inevitably end in tears?
> If we're exclusively discussing my personal carbon emissions

No worries, we definitely aren’t.

Unfortunately I have an early flight tomorrow so won’t be able to continue the conversation. Still, thank you for the discussion. Have a nice <your time of day>.
Okay, then in your terms my question would be "why is the best language for configuration not an existing language?"
Just to double-check - does this mean Ubuntu 18.04 cannot be a VSCode remote target anymore?

> VS Code 1.86 (aka the ‘January 2024’ update) saw Microsoft bump the minimum build requirements for the text editor’s popular remote dev tools to ≥glibc 2.28 — but Ubuntu 18.04 LTS uses glibc 2.27, ergo they no longer work.
Karpathy: Early Thoughts on Vision Pro
Strong typing helps to catch more errors at compile time versus weak typing.

It is not "testing", nor it is a substitute for testing but it does play a similar role in discovering and preventing errors.
Ask HN: Best books/courses to learn the theory behind strength training?
Using Stable doesn't mean that you are not getting new releases of consumer software. It only means more vetting and the fact that fundamental changes (like switching from X to Wayland) are not going to happen all of a sudden. Read Ubuntu's or Mint's "What's new" posts to understand what kind of changes we are talking about.

There is a reason why Release Candidates exist. There is a reason why testing exists and why, despite that, there will always be things not working for the first time, that would require bug-fixing releases.

And yes, Stable releases being more stable than bleeding-age, is a mathematical/statistical fact. You can prove it yourself with the magic of a spreadsheet:
- Make a graph that grows X1% on average. This indicates the quality of the software (it is getting better, after all; otherwise there would be no point in updating). But that is the average growth. In practice it is random; daily it can grow or decline by X2, pretty severely as well, but on average it grows.
- You can play with X1 and X2 numbers.
- Calculate percentages that the update will be better than the previous state for both cases: (1) update 365 times, (2) update 2 times
- also take into account that dropping the quality is not equal in strength to growing by the same number. There is a good reason why people are risk-aversed. Quality being dropped means all kinds of trouble and should be calculated as negatively impacting the following X3 (play with this number) days.

If you do that, you will mathematically prove me right. :-)
You know why there's isn't a library for Python? The answer will surprise you.
They annoy people that already don't really care, and want an excuse to be vocal about it. It takes effectively zero effort to keep a reusable bag around, and you don't even have to use it every time to have a sizable impact.

The reason why these bans are effective is because people like me don't want a bag anyway, and before these bans were in effect, I didn't have a choice. And these things do not end up in the trash, in part, because they are so light weight.

The same thing happened when they banned smoking. Normalizing not using a bag unless you need one will feel normal for the next generation, but never feel normal for us.

When your concerns about environmentalism extend only to "unless it's inconvenient" then you're not actually concerned with environment, you're concern with feeling socially shamed.

Look, I have plenty of concern about faux environmentalism bullshit, like recycling plastic, but plastic bag bans are not one of them, because there are myriad alternatives that exist.
Brilliant early work from Bourdain that (I believe) launched his career, which was tragically cut short. Just last month, I feasted on bun cha next to the table in Hanoi where Obama and Bourdain ate in 2015. He was a global ambassador who united the world through our universal love of food, and really had an amazing impact bringing attention to all cultures and traditions.

It's also important to learn from Bourdain's life that even if someone's life looks perfect from the outside, you never know what people are going through. Everyone deserves empathy. And please, if you are suffering, remember that you are not alone and there are people who can help.
> otherwise you may think that testing and the static analysis performed by a compiler are interchangeable. They are not

I agree with you, but I think this is the issue. A lot of people used to working in dynamic languages spend time writing up lots of tests for things that get covered “automatically” in statically typed languages, leading to the confusion you note. This, I’d argue, effects people who “convert” to liking the static language, and to those who think static lands cause only overhead.
I love your typology, which puts my experience to words very well. Did you invent it?

I'll add an old quote attributed to Voltaire:

"Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one."
Would your language also accept this?

list = %[
chair, table
]

And this?

list = %[
chair, table,
]
Here's a video about those Soviet cellars. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I_zvj4R5DaY

It's wild to me that people would do this in the city right near their apartment building.
I would actually love to see an article on the design process for transforming toys like Transformers.

It seems like such a cool design feat to come up with those. At least I thought so as a kid...
It depends of course, on where you are and what type of recycling schemes are available. As a general rule, “don’t put plastic bags in with your regular recycling” is correct. But we have a very successful ‘soft plastic’ recycling scheme in New Zealand that results in useful products (I have 52 fence posts made with thousands of recycled milk bottles and plastic bags).
I have an an-law who is vegan, who has compared me eating meat to pedophilia and suggested that the only moral choices I had was to either commit suicide or become vegan. A constant barrage of utter bullshit, going on for years. All with plenty of assurances that she is doing it out of love, and it would be unloving not to say anything.

It's not like this is a one-off case either. The meme about vegans being this way exists for a reason. Look up That Vegan Teacher[1] for more examples of this behavior.

So it's possible the author had real life exposure vegans.

I'll grant that maybe 50% of vegans aren't raving lunatics. But the ones who aren't raving lunatics need to distance themselves from the raving ones. Maybe call themselves "non-abusive vegans" or something like that. If their didn't all occupy the same label that would be helpful. Of course, the abusers would probably adopt the new lingo too since they're supposedly doing it for your own good. :(

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-q4j_ttUgWmir4-Cwh_Hrg
The Matrix changed everything. DP had to upgrade.
recently a group targeted expat/temp students and their families. they somehow coerced the kid to go camping don't pick up to anyone, and then they told the family the kid is with them. the family paid.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/utah-missing-foreign-exchange-stud...
Valve Index is similiar. I've had my whole desktop freeze but the spatial orientation is still drawing within the VR as the headset is moving albiet in a frozen state.
There's nothing wrong with asking others for a perspective you never had. You gotta learn somehow and "well people have different opinions and hobbies" isn't a very satisfying answer.
The bar to write secure desktop software is significantly higher than for browser extensions. Especially with all the Electron crap these days, you're one XSS away from full-blown RCE.
Interesting to see my own feelings reflected in the larger trend. I switched to the Mac back in the day (10.2 Jaguar) because OS X was Unix without the headaches. These days I am increasingly tempted by Linux. Linux is where most of the interesting technical action is (ML, CUDA, HDLs, etc.), my perception is that it has matured considerably for desktop use, I already use it for cloud servers and training, I already game on it (Steam Deck), and Apple is increasingly moving MacOS away from being a Unix that just works and towards being another walled garden like iOS.

The only thing holding me back is Apple Silicon. The Apple Silicon laptops are just that darn good. When the new Snapdragon X Elite laptops come out, or whenever Asahi Linux gets good enough, I’ll probably give Linux a spin as a daily driver.
LOL, I had a phone screener three days ago and did the exact same thing. Asked which health plan they offered with the explicit purpose of filtering out UHC. They're the lowest of the low and even doctors hate them. (At least one of mine audibly groaned when I mentioned being on a UHC plan and then he said "Guess there's no point in trying <drug>."
"Available on Firefox for Android™" - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/location-guar...

You said it works on your browser...
You can build a web server and do ETL with PowerShell?

If it's a simple script, bash is in the box... If it's more complex, I'll reach for a more rich scripting platform.
that sounds right to me.. worked universit help desk in the late 90s. wow, the number of distressed people who kept their only copy of their thesis on this one floppy drive that no longer works. some harsh lessons in backups ...
Didn't Fox start a new football league this year?

I think the NFL is more of an entrenched business with great brand recognition than a cartel. College football players want an NFL contract because they trust that the NFL will be around in 10 years. (Same reason that CS grads want to work for Google and not a random startup; Google will be around in 5 years.) This means that the NFL gets first pick on the most talented players. That is what prevents upstart leagues from being successful. Players have seen what happened to competing leagues; their counterparts are now unemployed. Without good players, nobody is going to watch your thing, and thus, the NFL will continue to dominate.

I think that with an infinite amount of money, you could probably create a new football league for a new generation. You will need billions of dollars to build 32 new stadiums. You will need billions of dollars to pay Patrick Mahomes $500M a year to switch sides. (x32 teams x53 players on the roster = 800 billion dollars a year in salary costs ;)

Because nobody has an infinite amount of money, it's not really going to happen that way. I bet you could woo a number of viewers over by having a sane online streaming package. I want to watch every game in the season for a fixed price. No blackouts. No ads. No delay.
Looks very interesting. Thanks for the pointer.
Lasers don't need cavities. (This may not be a universally held opinion.)

X-ray lasers, nitrogen lasers, and astrophysical masers are examples I've seen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_laser

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophysical_maser
Thank you for the clarification. I am glad you disclosed and disappointed your friends didn't.
You can still walk or drive - just take the headset off to do it…
> Did the ban on plastic make a meaningful reduction in co2 emissions? Did it make people happier? Did it make a meaningful improvement to the environment?

Those are the questions to ask.

Instead, many people focus on behaviour control fantasies & gotchas.
https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/manual/cmake-cxxmodules....
I thought the value of these types of people are their people skills.

Nobody would accuse me of great people skills and while I'd like to point to my technical acumen as the reason I can spot fakes like this easily, it's my primate brain that knows something is wrong.
> I've yet to find a reputable, established psychology scholar that actually believes psychology is a serous science.

I know some, and I think we could find some who write publicly.
I share your experience and I've tried it three times. Couldn't get through any of his Metamagical Themas articles in Scientific American, either. I thought he was in love with writing, not communicating, and didn't want to remove a word once he'd put it down.
No not yet, but the scripts in the docker directory have several steps involving both go and Node. Guess it's scripts for setting up the Docker stuff?
I'm working on something that may end up being rcl-like.

My intention is to make it something that can update existing configuration files just as well as -be- a configuration file, such that if somebody finds it useful, they can use it without their colleagues needing to be aware and with the same commit diffs as if they'd done the same work by hand.

How well that will work in practice is still an open question, though a bunch of my experiments in that direction seem to have worked out nicely so far.

But so long as it helps -me- make changes to a repository that are good, so long as I can ensure nobody else working on that repository needs to care that I used it to help, I figure it's worth the attempt.

(also, hey, I'm having fun :)
Unfortunately his tendency to dramatize and catastrophize either came with his depression, contributed to it, or both. He suffered for his art to our benefit. I wonder, if he was chill enough to survive, would we know his name?
Yeah and to add to this I think people are forgetting why Bell was given a sanctioned monopoly. Because there were just cables everywhere. When people say natural monopolies exist in markets with network effects, that can mean literal networks of cables that will block out the sun. Sure, this stuff will improve too, but I think people are also forgetting about the increased surface area and the increased gravity which makes each of these cables required to be thicker or require more support.

https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/58872/did-they-r...
same thing happened here. it became illegal for grocery stores to give out single use plastic bags here so now they just give out thicker bags that they call multi-use.
I could see a driving mode being useful since you could do things with nothing but your eyes leaving your hands free.
sharknado + sharktopus = sharktopusnado
I don’t care about sports much. Grew up in society where cricket is religion. I suffered through too many boring live matches at home.

Never understood the appeal of live sports or watching games in person. Some teams I followed, I just looked up if they won or not, next day.

Went to a random soccer match a few years ago. That was one of best experiences of my life. The energy of crowd gets you really in the game. Everything else in your life doesn’t matter for a few hours.

It changed my perspective on watching sports in person. Same thing with watching sports at home or in a bar with really passionate fans is a lot fun and way better than watching it by yourself or with not very passionate fans.
Most human nutrition studies have the same confounding problem. This is often referred to as the "healthy subject effect" or "healthy user bias". For example, observational studies that purport to show that vegetarians have better health outcomes are usually flawed because existing Western cultural biases already label vegetarian diets as "healthy" and so people who choose them tend to make other healthy lifestyle choices as well. Researchers are aware of this issue but it's impossible to control for all of the confounding variables.
I thought Newton was a mathematician, not a scientist.

> the intuition of the crowds sucks. If it was any good, we'd have had the right physics in 5,000 BCE not starting in the 17th century.

Eh. People used to stay in their lane. Only these days can you get a city person voting on proper farming techniques.
Browser extensions, if we use the analogy as apps running within browser as an OS, are lacking simple capacities to manage the risks. Just like any app a user can install on their devices, extensions extend the attack surface. As we cannot avoid the risk by removing all of them, we can just allow users to have more control on them regardless of the browser they use. I suggested[0] using standard management APIs provided by browsers, therefore the ecosystem can use them as building blocks for FOSS and/or commercial tools. That's a very naïve idea but why not?

0. https://zaferbalkan.com/2023/10/03/browser-extension-api.htm...
> Can an LLM drive locomotion?

Can't see any principled reason it couldn't, if it was a big enough, sufficiently trained one, running on fast-enough hardware, if you represent the sensor data in its token vocabulary, and have the reverse for control outputs.

Quite probably not the most efficient way to drive locomotion, though.

> I never understood AGI as generating sui generis ideas as a requirement.

Creativity is among the applications of intelligence that I would deem included in the "G" in AGI; OTOH, like most proposed binary categories, its probably more useful to view generality as a matter of degree than a crisp binary attribute.
Browser extensions are bad.

Don't create them.

Don't use them.

Use Tampermonkey/userscript instead.
Or you can read it and not tell anyone. This comment is a pretty pathetic attempt at shaming anyone who displays even a modicum of discourse higher than the baser level. Congratulations.
The most valuable thing about GEB for me was how self-indulgent it is. The book is entirely Hofstadter having fun: all those tricky dialogues, acrostics, puns where the setup and payoff are hundreds of pages apart, the marrying of form and content, just the overall tone of excited sharing…. Hofstadter has put a lot of himself into it—it's a deeply personal book—and it was revealing to me to see that one's emotions don't have to be set aside when writing, nor is it necessary for the kinds of feelings that mathematics evokes to be “translated” into more familiar ones.

(Edit: As an aside, Hofstadter's translation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin is similarly self-indulgent, and a joy to read. Of course one ought to read a couple of other translations first and keep them nearby, to become familiar with the content, but in terms of sheer wordplay and outrageous rhymes, it tops anything.)
(Edit 2: Ha, a search reveals I posted a similar comment a little over a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32830008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32878471)