skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Oh, oh! I finally get to chip in with my experiences, since I lived with folks on the food stamp programs and still have neighbors reliant upon it for basic sustenance.

On the topic of “treats”, like soda or candy bars, the general takeaway I have after my experiences is that these should be allowed in moderation (say, a fixed price cap per period for non-nutritious treats like candy and soda), but that the actual implementation doesn’t allow for that sort of granularity in most states (and those that can, often aren’t allowed to due to the rules governing the food stamps programs). Everyone should be able to treat themselves, after all, regardless of income.

The problem that arises with a lack of granularity is dependence and abuse: sugar is highly addictive, which sodas are almost entirely comprised of (after water), and alcohol/tobacco are also addictive and habit-forming. So forced within the constraints of the program and its funding, the decision was made to just flatly ban the use of food stamp money for those goods. It’s the same rationale that prohibits the use of food stamps for prepared foods, like a deli sandwich (don’t want folks eating out at restaurants, even though for disabled folks on food stamps, they may be unable to prepare healthy food themselves).

Which is all a roundabout way of saying: welcome to what happens when your country doesn’t meaningfully continue regulating and modernizing its assistance programs to fit with changing market conditions. The soda companies see the potential cash on the table with food stamps for themselves, and obviously want to take taxpayer money to inflate their revenues somewhat. A reasonable government would push back given the glut of studies about sugary drinks and foods and their health consequences, maybe capitulating or compromising in the form of a “spending cap” on those goods from a food stamps budget (say, 5%). Combined with an incoming administration that’s both nakedly hostile to the poor and wholly pro-business, and this will almost certainly go through.

As always, the answer is moderation. If you’re dependent upon the government for necessities to survive, then the government should have a say in what that money can be spent on. Food Stamps absolutely has room for modernization and improvement, but it’s far more granular when you get into the issues at hand.
Think of all the times you've seen a news headline that reads "Company X settles with [regulatory body], does not admit guilt". Corporate malfeasance rarely reaches the courtroom, so their wrongdoing is not entered into public record in a way that can be cross-examined.
I had exactly this! I kept having flare ups and couldn't figure out the pattern until we tore up a bathroom and discovered mold. Suddenly I realized my lungs hurt everytime I had people come stay over. They'd use the spare shower, it'd excite the mold and then I'd need an inhaler. Cheap hotels also put my lungs into a tizzy. Definitely worth checking cause mold is everywhere.
OpenAPI Spec for the OpenAI API
Best you can probably do is to put mirrors on the perimeter of your vehicle.

I've noticed that I am quicker to drop my high beams when I approach an 18-wheeler at night with chrome mud-flaps.
No, the job market will adapt, just like it did during the industrial and information revolutions, and life will be better.
Driving on public roads is highly regulated.
A well diversified portfolio contains an allocation in gold. If one is not an american it is even more important.
I never understood why people say SF is NorCal. It's only halfway up the coast. I know of Crescent City because I drove up 101 once, and we stopped there. We were amazed at the size of the redwoods around there. Each time we drove around a switchback our headlights illuminated another one which we would collectively gasp at. Later on we got a traffic ticket on our way to Grants Pass. It was worth it though, as Crater Lake was similarly impressive.
I enjoy this train of thought a lot. Capturing shareholder value by just creating it yourself. The destruction of a moat I fear is worth less than the existence of a moat a competitor has successfully built. So don’t forget to buying puts Nvidia.
no, it'll be because it's aligned with rich people's interests. robot police holding back the unwashed masses is in our near future.
If the route we want to go down is looking at lobbying my guess is that the more complexity you add to the SNAP rules, the more lobbying you will get. If this is on the table every food company and their dog will be lobbying to X,Y,Z product on the list. The more prescriptive you are the more you're opening the door to lobbyists putting in quirky rules that benefit themselves over the competitors. It also just seems like a bad idea to let one unelected weirdo personally choose the rules surrounding millions of people's groceries. Plenty of people are saying "oh, well I agree with him on this one" - you haven't seen the list yet, it's RFK, by the end of this we're probably going to have anabolic steriods and bear meat subsidized, I'd read every line of small print before endorsing this.
Toys or DIY Projects Like Neurosmith Music Blocks
My daughter loved this toy which I purchased ~2000. No longer manufactured. Wanted to get something similar for a friend's child. Also curious if there are any DIY open-source projects built in Raspberry Pi for example.
Adding Python Plugin support to my assistant app Llama Run to automate your PC
Hey HN,

I wanted to share a project I’ve been working on—an assistant app called Llama Run . I initially built it to do simple tasks on my PC (change settings, perform automation, etc.), but as the project evolved, I became interested in making it extensible with Python Plugin support.

Here's the backstory:
While researching automation libraries, I came across PyAutoGUI, which allows you to control your PC through Python (moving the mouse, typing, clicking, etc.). It got me thinking about the potential of combining Python's flexibility with event-driven automation inside my app.
Later, I found a GitHub repo that combined PyAutoGUI and OpenAI API for automation—this inspired me to give users the ability to create and run custom Python scripts directly in Llama Run.

How it works:
I’m integrating Python through the CPython API alongside C++, allowing the app to run Python scripts dynamically.
The plugin system will allow users to write Python code to interact with the app and automate their own workflows.
By using a plugin system, I’m also keeping the app's core logic separate from custom user functionalities.
I’m still developing this feature, but I’d love feedback or suggestions from the HN community. I’m eager to discuss the process and gather ideas on how to make this even better. In the meantime, if you're interested, here’s the Microsoft Store link: [https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9NW950ZX02CQ?hl=en-us&gl=IN&ocid=pdpshare] (This doesn't include the plugin system).
I knew you could do that, but never knew you could do it with "|&" as a shorthand. TIL!

I found this comment in a bash documentation example to verify:

# To send stderr through a pipe,
"|&" was added to Bash 4 as an abbreviation for "2>&1 |".
HP brought Samsung’s printer division, while Lexmark makes most Xerox branded printers, so that seems unlikely.
Where is the in perpetuity language in the bond terms? Doesnt it say until full repayment?
He doesn't mean complex/ research-level tasks.

He means complex in bridging together many non-public libraries, APIs and services which the LLM doesn't know well. That kind of complexity
I agree It’s not a trivial difference in implementation and the concurrent write performance is probably a lot worse.

But it’s talked about as if it’s a categorical limitation, the app will fail if there is concurrency. But it’s just a question of how much time will be spent locking.

A website with a 16 process pool for handling requests will be fine.
Maybe the coming onslaught of AI slop "proofs" will give a little bump to proof assistants like Coq. Of course, it would still take a human mathematician some time to verify theorem definitions.
this headline feels like i'm in 1996 again
Flour is at the top of the list with over 4000 calories per dollar, though obviously you need to bake it with something, and not coincidentally, white bread is next on the list with about 3000 calories per dollar. Bags of granulated sugar are also up there, and then the first things you can just boil and eat start to appear with rice, plain oats, ramen, and pasta providing about 1500-2000 calories per dollar.

In comparison, fast food like a 2-liter bottle of Coke or Pepsi provides about 450 calories per dollar, while a fast-food hamburger provides about 100. While the corn syrup lobby and fast food industrial systems are strong, they're not even close to being a cost-effective way to feed yourself.
> Honestly, yeah. Just look at the comments.

Guilty. I don't feel strongly enough about this to really give anybody a hard time that uses their food stamps for it.. it's their choice, I'll roll my eyes and move on. It's just an opinion I have on the matter. I don't think what people buy with their food stamps is anywhere near a big enough problem to prioritize over most other things.
Building AI Products–Part I: Back-End Architecture
Google must be really going downhill. DDG “gpt turing test” provides nothing but relevant links. Here’s a paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.08007
That is what they were going for, yes.
I have the 122-key version and a ton of Emacs bindings to make the most out of the 24 function keys and the 12-key panel on the left. It is simply the best.
Show HN: Pig – PostgreSQL Extension Manager on Linux, 340 ext on 10 distro
In the AI Coding Era, Templates Are More Important?
Whether it's Cursor, Windsurf, or Copilot, AI coding is becoming increasingly smooth, intelligent, and impactful. However, anyone who has used it knows that AI has difficulty coding a decent application from scratch. Compared to starting from scratch, AI is particularly adept at replicating and modifying existing models: if you provide a template and ask it to make changes, it can quickly develop an application that satisfies you.

BTW: I strongly believe in the statement above, which is why my website was also developed using a combination of templates and AI. Overall, I am very satisfied with it.

So, where can you find these templates? Hence, template0.com was created.

> Why do I think the opposite, that templates are static and AI is dynamic? With AI, template site traffic should decrease because people won't need templates to jumpstart; they'll have AI generate things more aligned with their needs.

From what I understand, AI still struggles with generating cohesive, comprehensive websites, and simple customization of templates can also be challenging for non-developers or those not familiar with the tech stack. The combination of AI coding and templates perfectly complements each other, making it very fast to launch a website like the one mentioned above. I've personally experienced that AI's auto-completion and editing capabilities are relatively high in usability.

This is also evident in the prompts we commonly use with AI assistants. Providing examples is a crucial technique to improve the accuracy of AI (LLM) Chat responses and is one that everyone uses frequently.
It's a nice coincidence but I doubt it was intentional or even subconscious - The Wall was released in 1979, when casette tapes were only just starting to become popular (it was the same year as the first Walkman was released, which contributed hugely to their growth). The vast majority of record sales were vinyl and most bands would be concentrating on that format.
The bash side will still work but the tools called by bash won't. Same goes for python/packages.
Launch Token MBR – AI Agents in Solana
Hello, community! Our product is fully functional, and we’re working on adding even more features. We’re integrating Solana’s blockchain technology and launching our own native token on the Solana network. Learn more and follow us on Twitter to stay updated with all the latest news.
Has it passed the Turing Test?

Keep in mind that the actual test is adversarial - a human is simultaneously chatting via text with a human and a program, knowing that one of them is not human, and trying to divine which is an artificial machine.
Show HN: ChatGPT 404 page is a haiku
Y'all probably noticed but, of course, OpenAI's 404 page is a short poem.-

I am inclined to think it is AI generated, of course.-

PS. Stand (self-) corrected: The haikus repeat themselves. And, they are not tied to the URL requested ...
Emacs, etags, elpy.
Is celulose a 'microplastic' though? Obviosly most tea bags are not made of plastic, at least historically...
For reference this is part of Project Leyden [1][2] which was introduced in 2022 with the first ideas showcased at JVMLS 2023 [3].

[1] https://openjdk.org/projects/leyden/

[2] https://inside.java/tag/leyden

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnth19Kf-x0
That is some genius move by LinkedIn...

I can understand it if someone's sending out something like a Google Doc collaboration invite, especially to a non-GMail address, the email will be in the Google Docs UI language of the sender. But LinkedIn has your profile with all your preferences!

What next, a colleague shares the link to a location, you open it in your car, and your car UI turns into Chinese?
Even if they meant that, that's not relevant to the article. It's not saying anything like "you shouldn't use these tools in your daily workflow"
> accurate enough

Ask it something non-trivial about a subject you are an expert in and get back to me.
Oh good, now it will be blazingly fast
That talks already started in March 2024. Now the board signed on it.

> Nissan and Honda signed an MOU on March 15 regarding a strategic partnership for the era of vehicle intelligence and electrification. Since then, the two companies have held discussions aimed at collaboration in various fields.
Sometimes, something longer is generated:

Welcome, traveler. You’ve reached a page that doesn't exist, a place where content used to be—or maybe never was. Let’s take this moment to pause and reflect.

Take a deep breath in, and let it out slowly. Notice the space around you, empty yet full of possibility. Imagine that each exhale clears away confusion, leaving room for clarity.

As you sit with this blank page, know that it’s okay to be here. You’ve discovered something unexpected, and that’s part of the journey. Gently release any frustration, knowing that every path leads somewhere—even this one.

Now, when you're ready, slowly return to your search. Trust that the right page, the right information, will appear when you need it. Take another deep breath, and when you exhale, click back or try again. The internet, like life, is full of surprises.

Thank you for taking this moment of calm. Your journey continues.
The Unity of Consciousness (2017)
I don't think Ruby has this natively, but Rails adds it with Object#presence. https://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/Object.html#method-i-pre...
What materials do different brands of tea make their tea bags out of, I wonder?
I’m surprised to see them characterize the cellulose from a paper teabag as releasing “microplastics.” I get that cellulose is a polymer, but do practitioners not distinguish between naturally-occurring polymers and synthetic plastics in this kind of microplastic/nanoplastic research?

When I boil some vegetables, do they leach microplastics into the cooking liquid, or is that something different from what this study is describing?

(Edit: on looking to the study itself, it seems like this was more about developing a methodology than asserting anything in particular about the paper teabag, which they described as a random pick stripped from some green teabags from the store.

Specifically I didn’t understand it to suggest that synthetic microplastics had gotten bound up in the paper matrix somehow and THAT was what was being released… so maybe it was, after all, just “model intestines absorb cellulose but not super well.”

Maybe practitioners would understand the cellulose results to be used like a control here?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352...
)
At this point the question might be, what doesn't release micro plastics.

I don't use tea bags, all my tea is loose leaf, but I'm sure it's still got micro plastics somewhere in it
The LLMentalist Effect: chat LLMs replicating the mechanisms of a psychic's con
Lets get creative

- There will be a "Predictions for 2026" thread. (Hehehe)

- OpenAI announces GPT-5 will be the last model of the GPT-n series (As in they won't release a GPT-6)

- Apple will sell a backpack (With some sort of technology included of course)

- Magnus Carlsen will lose his 1st place in the FIDE top ranking. ("He has held the No. 1 position in the FIDE world chess rankings since 1 July 2011")

- E.T. will get a sequel
Some more practical examples would be nice, including security impact
If you tap again on search, it does pop up the keyboard for input BTW.
Burn and CubeCL: Going Big and Small for 2025
Here's my controversial idea on one of the aspects mentioned in OP. Here's my approach to dealing with dependencies in Python:

* When setting up the project, in the initial stage, install dependencies with pip or conda, whichever was used for the project.

* Examine what was installed and figure out why it was needed.

* Remove dependencies that are only touched by code paths that aren't executed by the project I'm working on.

* Write a script that downloads the thinned out list of dependencies, skipping pip or conda. Unpacks and installs it w/o the help of either. Then, possibly post-process the installation (a bunch of Python packages come with a lot of junk, like unit tests, scripts to call library functions etc.)

* Finally, use this script, and on a side install the same combination of packages with pip or conda once every so many months (maybe about half a year) to see if there are any changes. If there are worthwhile changes: incorporate them back into my script.

On the face of it, this is more work than writing some configuration file that pip or conda will understand. On the other hand, for so many times I was burned by Python's dependency problems, this approach proved to work better for me in terms of how many times CI was broken, and the time I had to spend investigating CI errors went noticeably down.

So, to restate it: I see package management software, at least in Python world, as one of, if not the most important contributors to the failure of ensuring project's longevity. This software prioritizes the ability to fetch and to adjust for the new stuff to the ability to support the old stuff. This software prioritizes information and wishes of the third-party developers over the wishes of the user installing the software. I don't think it does this out of malice. It's probably natural for most people to want new things than to try to preserve the old.
Currently, BskyUtils have 2 main features:

* Analytics Tool
Gain deep insights into your BlueSky activity with comprehensive metrics and trends. Understand engagement patterns and monitor your growth.

* Follow Checker
Identify users who follow you but you don't follow back (and vice versa) to better manage your connections.
Lexmark being IBM’s former printer division is well known. Former employees purchased the keyboard business from Lexmark and made Unicomp.

Meanwhile, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies was IBM’s hard drive division and Lenovo was their PC division. IBM has sold off so many parts of itself over the years it is surprising there is much left.
You are sure about that? The oldest machine I have seen at my University IT was a server with an uptime of 16 years. Judging be the look it was probably 30 years old. I could name you numerous services that came and went within three decades, granted that old machine did something simple (can't remember, probably a NTP server), but I am pretty sure an external service would have been more unreliable throughout that timeframe.
> Lexmark creates cloud-enabled imaging and IoT technologies that help customers worldwide quickly realize business outcomes. Through a powerful combination of proven technologies and deep industry expertise, Lexmark accelerates business transformation, turning information into insights, data into decisions, and analytics into action

Great, so I have no idea what they do.
There are only 1 hard problems in computer science: memoization and ... shoot what was it again?
I bought a Unicomp Type M once to replace my IBM because it had USB, more keys, etc. It was Model M “Lite”: same key feel, same delightful clicky, but much lighter and more flexible.

You could march into battle with an IBM Model M. I don’t think you could take on more than one local thug with the Unicomp version.
My 1986 M is still going strong.

> If you've never used a Model M, they're beasts.

I jokingly call it the preppers keyboard as it can double as a clubbing weapon when SHTF.
They should name the joint company NiHon
> Lifespan differences among these slow-growing groups were sizable. Even the slow growers with the shortest lifespans lived an average 204 years. But the longest-lived trees grew for 1,724 years, on average

Thats just crazy.
Sure, I (and more importantly - many many experts in the field such as Hinton, Bengio, Lecun, Musk, Hasabis etc etc) could be believing something that might not materialize. I'd actually be quite happy if it stalls a few decades, would like to remain employed.
Are we living through the end of wildlife migrations?
> I enjoy McDonald’s food. Sounds like you really need to get out of your elite bubble more.

You should leave yours to be honest. I'm not talking expensive restaurants here. There's a bunch of places I can think of off the top of my head in my relatively small and semi-rural tiny ass city that would cost ballpark the same as a coupon-less McDonalds that utterly wreck McDonalds.

There's a hole-in-the-wall burger joint about 10 minutes from my house by bike, that serves the best smash burgers I've ever had, and if you're feeling spendy they have an angus steak burger for like $12, the most expensive thing on the menu, and it tastes like ground angel wings. So good.

If you're not feeling a burger, we have 2 different local Mexican places. You'll definitely pay more than McDs but you can also easily leave with enough leftovers for 2 additional meals if you portion it out correctly. That's the hardest part though because I've ordered probably 2/3 of what's on their menus at this point and it's all incredible.

Or, if you're really hard up for cash, to be honest our go-to is increasingly Taco Bell, the only fast food titan still standing that respects your wallet in my experience, that hasn't jumped on trying to be Chipotle with shittier ingredients. And yeah the food isn't great, sure, but they rotate menu items in and out so there's usually something new, and the prices are shockingly reasonable.

Like I'm not even saying McDonalds is bad. It's... aggressively fine. I don't think it's good enough for the prices they are asking now, I think it was in about 2007? But nowadays if you and your spouse both get a combo you're looking at easily breaking $25, and I'm sorry, it is not that good at all IMO. Especially since it's not low odds at all your sandwich is gonna look like someone assembled it from across the room for a TikTok video.
cellulose on its own is not a plastic but they make bioplastics out of cellulose that are plastics.
I mean... I'm not troubled by it, but as a person who has worked in a job where I received direct calls from the public that I had no choice but to deal with it, I am definitely annoyed on behalf of the operator. It's not the worst thing in the world, but... wow, what an annoying day.
Can you imagine six months later, you hear your most annoying day at work played on an album?!
Digest of December 2024 AI news
Does ollama still execute whatever arbitrary python code is in the model?