skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I know a guy who always says you're not senior until you've had to maintain your own project that's become legacy and I agree. Too many developers serially job-hopping every 18-24 months. They all have experience with other people's legacy code but not their own. They're all happy to build something new but if they don't stick around long enough to see the consequences of their decisions, they're lacking critical experience.
I've been on HN for a while, I saw the previous hype cycles. I have no doubt we'll see a Zig hype cycle as well.

One of the reasons Rust succeeded, especially in CLI was

1. Low fixed memory overhead (compared to most popular VM based language - Python, Ruby, Java).

2. Startup time is nearly instantaneous, compared to the same languages. Don't have to wait 50-100ms or so just to start executing code.

3. Run time is faster as well, especially so for programs like ripgrep that use SIMD.

4. Single static binary with no dependencies. Didn't need a VM or toolchain to be installed on the user's computer.

Having a great CLI library like clap.rs brought it all together.

If you think this is simply a cycle and Zig will replace Rust, I'm slightly skeptical. Rust had an easier time competing with the status quo because of the 4 advantages it had.

Zig however, will have to compete with Rust. Sure, you can start ziggrep, but it'll be about equal in all these 4 factors. So why would anyone adopt something that has fewer features than ripgrep and about the same performance, memory consumption and ease of use? Just hype? Some people will, but not enough to get the critical mass ripgrep has.

That's why I'm bullish about Rust - the performance of existing codebases means that in many cases, it's hard to migrate away from it, or replace Rust programs with reimplementations. You'd have to be getting something really unique that Rust doesn't offer. You said Roc, and Roc is actually a great example of benefiting from something unique. Roc plans to reuse the Zig compiler's library that emits LLVM bitcode. There's no Rust equivalent.

But I'd argue that that's pretty niche. How many other examples are there of Zig libraries that have no Rust equivalent? Something that would make Zig the no-brainer choice over Rust, even if you had to reimplement in Zig.

Again, I'm sure people will try to rewrite things in Zig. But I'll confidently assert -> the most popular toolchain for Python in 5 years will be Rust based, not Zig or any other language. $10 on that.
Speaking as an engineer, not a scientist.

I worked with a lot of people who failed at projects with Word2Vec and Glove even though "I told you so" over and over again. I saw upwards of $20M worth of investment disappear with my own eyes and the blast radius must have been several unicorns worth of valuation. I quit a job which I really needed because I couldn't bear to see us go down that dead end (medical literature, out-of-vocabulary, lose 50% of the critical information, you lose before you even started... [1])

On one level one of my favorite kinds of of arXiv paper is "build a classifier for some mundane text classification problem", I've collected enough of these to do a meta-analysis if I was an academic. I'm interested because I build these things for myself and I'm working towards building a reliable model trainer that can be applied to a wide range of tasks.

Practically I find these papers depressing though because inevitably they try a bunch of things that predictably were going to suck, especially Word2Vec and Glove. BERT + pooling + classical ML always puts up a good showing in comparison, a good showing period for topic classification, worse if the order of the words matters. The one kind of model simpler than that which is worth looking at is Bag Of Words + classical ML because it can do a pretty good job considering we were doing it in 2000.

You usually see people stumble in the dark quite a bit past that, for instance, I've yet to see a reliable procedure to fine-tune BERT models for classification, some of the reason why people have the luck they do is that they have tiny training sets (say N=500), I am just not convinced that with N>5000 these models are really able to learn anything they don't learn with N=500 (is it catastrophic forgetting? my training curves should look like it)

People really should be trying to expand the 'efficient frontier' of accuracy, computational resources, and development efforts -- it's not easy but one step is to 'ignore' anything that is predictably away from that frontier. Glove and word2vec have always been that, but it's not generally known: reading is supposed to let us learn from other people's mistakes but in this field it just helps people repeat other people's mistakes.

[1] LLM's did show that my 'predictive evaluation' methodology of the time was pessimistic; you can throw out critical information and a model that's sufficiently incapable of reasoning under uncertainty [2] can get the right answer frequently by the wrong path. I would have seen a 50% ceiling, a system that hallucinates might get 80% accuracy, but you can't get that last 20%

[2] My "always gets voted down" opinion is that the Chomsky/Pinker "language instinct" is actually a derangement of the ability to reason with uncertainty that we share that makes languages learnable because they live on a collapsed lower-dimensional manifold.
> There generally seems to be a lot of confusion, even in legal circles, about what ePD requires informed consent for.

That seems to be true, going by this comment section and the other ones I've seen.

It's hard to get a non-hyperbolic answer to the question: if everyone is so confused, what's the real-world consequence of best-effort implementation?

Some would say it's the ultimate responsibility of the app owner to understand the law, but how much further can you go than hiring a lawyer?

If more diligence needed to be done than that none of us would get anything built, we'd all just be running around researching the laws around these dumb popups.

What are the real-world consequences of making a mistake here? What kind of boundary would you have to trip over to actually get the authorities to prosecute you for not having a consent popup or doing it badly?
ZeroBench: An Impossible* Visual Benchmark for Contemporary Multimodal Models
The way we do TLS now is too fiddly and accommodating of legacy code. What to keep TLS simple and fast? Treat it like an arena.

1. On each thread startup, including the main thread, carve out a huge chunk of address space, say 1GB, for that thread's TLS arena

2. on dlopen (or main program startup), allocate each loaded DSO's TLS out of the arena. Fail in the unlikely case that we run out of address space

3. on dlclose, recover committed memory using MADV_FREE on any now-unused parts of the TLS arena (once for each thread

4. to access a thread local, pull the offset of the variable out of the GOT and offset into the per thread arena. Nice and simple.

Does this approach waste address space? You bet. Will it work on 32 but systems? Absolutely not. Is it simple, fast, and robust? Yes.
Launch HN: Roark (YC W25) – Taking the pain out of voice AI testing
Hey HN, we’re James and Daniel, co-founders of Roark (https://roark.ai). We built a tool that lets developers replay real production calls against their latest Voice AI changes, so they can catch failures, test updates, and iterate with confidence.

Here’s a demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu8mo28LsTc.

We ran into this problem while building a voice AI agent for a dental clinic. Patients kept getting stuck in loops, failing to confirm insurance, or misunderstanding responses. The only way to test fixes was to manually call the agent or read through hundreds of transcripts, hoping to catch issues. It was slow, frustrating, and unreliable.

Talking to other teams, we found this wasn’t just a niche issue - every team building Voice AI struggled to validate performance efficiently. Debugging meant calling the agent over and over. Updates shipped with unknown regressions. Sentiment analysis relied only on text, missing key audio cues like hesitation or frustration, which often signal deeper issues.

That’s why we built Roark. Instead of relying on scripted test cases, Roark captures real production calls from VAPI, Retell, or a custom-built agent via API and replays them against your latest agent changes. We don’t just feed back text, we preserve what the user said, how they said it, and when they said it, mimicking pauses, sentiment, and tone up until the conversation flow changes. This ensures your agent is tested under real-world conditions, not just synthetic scripts.

For each replay that we run, Roark checks if the agent follows key flows (e.g. verifying identity before sharing account details). Our speech based evaluators also detect sentiments such as frustration and confusion, long pauses, and interruptions - things that regular transcripts miss.

After testing, Roark provides Mixpanel-style analytics to track failures, conversation flows, and key performance metrics, helping teams debug faster and ship with confidence. Instead of hoping changes work, teams get immediate pass/fail results, side-by-side transcript comparisons, and real-world insights.

We’re already working with teams in healthcare, legal, and customer service who rely on Voice AI for critical interactions. They use Roark to debug AI failures faster, test updates before they go live, and improve customer experiences - without manually calling their bots dozens of times.

Our product isn’t quite ready yet for self-service, so you’ll still see the dreaded “book a demo” on our home page. If you’re reading this, though, we’d love to fast-track you, so we made a special page for HN signups here: https://roark.ai/hn-access. If you’re working on Voice AI and want to try us out, please do!

Would love any feedback, thoughts, or questions from the HN community!
Not really, it's about the general understanding that while China produces a lot of stuff for other countries, its own products are very often obvious knock-offs or subpar versions.

Nothing to do with any myth, it's just how it is for a huge variety of reasons.

And if you ever went to a university, you'd instantly lose that notion, since you'd be probably be interacting with both rich (or at least very well off) and intelligent Chinese people.
Because it was re-using the dirty syringes that was keeping people off the streets before.
Can you explain how exploding Nordstream pipeline and setting back Germany - EU engine - to the dark ages was USA wishing for everybody to do well?

Europe has no corruption ? We are literally led by an unelected woman who sent us to war and single handily decided to buy vaccines from pfizer
https://projects.propublica.org/parler-capitol-videos/ - doesn't look like "walking through" the building to me. Source: I chaperoned a school group through the Capitol back in 2017 or so, and our tour did not look like this.

not to mention the brazen attempts to pressure states, specifically Georgia, to "find" enough votes to change the election outcome:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/us/politics/trump-raffens...

https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2023/02/15/read-full-transc...
I ran https://www.gnustep.org/ for a little while, but it was so long ago I don't recall what made me stop (err, other than the world moving on from it, so even today I don't know that I could still run it)
Yep! And also psychosis (although generally not as the sole treatment).

Regarding premenstrual dysphoric disorder, a common treatment is to take birth control alongside an SSRI. Coincidentally, the current US federal government wants to ban both of those.

We still don't really know how most brain meds treat mental health issues, but most brain meds have far-reaching effects from the brain to the vascular system. So, a certain single medication may be used to treat both a mental health issue and a blood pressure issue.
This doesn't make much sense to me. Why would someone want to pay each and every open source project to see the SBoM when they could pay a single provider or use an open source tool to get that info for all of their dependencies?
Augmenting a legacy government / mission-critical app with a chrome extension was the highlight front-end experience of my career.
I'm sorry, you're saying military commanders and judge advocates knowing and understanding the bounds of their authorities are mere technicalities?

This "armed and emotional" bit gives off some real "I never served and don't understand the military as much as I think I do" vibes.
I can get behind a hook manager that's a single binary. Where I have an issue is with (for instance) python hook managers where you now need to have python interpreter management that's aware of both the python app you're working on, and the tooling which might have a non-intersecting version requirement.
Isn’t it so stupid how cities don’t just install port a potties everywhere? Same issues here where they aren’t installed because people will make them gross. Well the alternative to a gross port a pottie is to have people poop and pee in the road which I’d say is a lot worse. Like none of our train stations in LA have bathrooms because they would get “gross” so instead people piss in the elevator on the floor because that is better apparently than having a dirty bathroom. Not building bathrooms doesn’t stop biology from happening.
>There are exceptions. Common sense goes a long way.

On a visit to London last year, walking down a street with some kiosks displaying pictures of aquatic life in the waters around the British isles, I was approached by a women who asked if I would mind taking a brief survey about the organization sponsoring the kiosks (Royal something or other). In the end she gave me £5 note for my time.
I'm sure you'll know when the time comes. And if you were not interested to learn it beforehand it won't serve you for a long while.
Private "or identifying information" that seems to fit to me...

The idea that if any info about an individual is on the internet, they have a linked in profile or such, that they can't be doxed I don't think makes any sense.
There are two types of meetings: ones where you come up with a decision/plan of action, and ones in which you pass down information. Make sure you know which type it is first. Your list then applies to the first type.
At the end of the day it comes down to enforcement. If the rules make no sense, and they can't be enforced. They might as well not exist.
> Just watch how topics of poor white MAGA voters who are being sold out are avoided and flagged on all sides. No one wants to hear about that.

What are you talking about here? Please share more about this.
Yeah, inflation worries have me concerned too. I am not sure what to do.

I might look into one of the “total world” funds instead of just the US based ones like I usually do.
Wow, Surya looks legit! https://www.datalab.to/
Step-Audio: Apache 2.0-licensed end-to-end voice model
Yes, let's minimize the only dev working on legacy software.
Interesting.. But clickhouse is an entirely different database engine, no? I will look into it, thank you!
The moat is real. A shiny new project can always be cancelled, but withdrawing support for a suitably large legacy application that doesn't have a replacement is harder.
That is because commissioned officers are especially responsible for upholding the Constitution as opposed to swearing an oath to one person or a group of people.
__builtin_thread_pointer() is the non-x86-specific way to get the appropriate register
I replied to a comment about crypto whale pump and dump schemes in a threat about predicting crowd behaviour in reference to running of the bull festival, which happens to be, at least loosely, couple to the idea of a raging bull. Wall St has a raging bull sculpture.

I feel dumber having just written that out. Don't they teach reading comprehension at school any more?
I'd say 'jerf is correct here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43078998

The equation we use to describe the motion does not contain a term for the ground being there. That assumption exists outside of the model described by the equation, and you use that assumption after the fact to reject a solution that would otherwise be valid, and describe the movement of the ball that's pulled down by gravity.

In this form, it doesn't really describe a proper orbit, just a trajectory of being pulled down by a constant force. I believe this would correspond to an infinitely-ish heavy object located infinitely far below. The proper equation that gives you an orbital curve has the force of gravity proportional to inverse-square distance and point at the center of the body, which is what makes it possible to describe a circular or elliptical motion this way. Parabolic orbits exist too, but they're interpreted as failed orbital capture - "object is moving so fast that it'll curve around and fly away to infinity before turning around and coming back".

And in all cases, the solutions make physical sense (+/- infinity), on the assumption the trajectory doesn't cross the ground, as there's no term for it there :). If you want, you can describe the ground as another equation (or inequality), and solve the resulting system - it'll then be clear what exactly is it that rejects some of the solutions.
A good way to secure your position is to be the go-to expert for a product with many years of life ahead of it.

Fixing stuff on a legacy product may make management happy but if that product is discontinued next year then you haven't accrued technical expertise valuable to the company (but you may have built a reputation as a fixer and quick learner).

So, as usual, it is a balancing act.

Edit: this is my perspective from the embedded world. It probably applies generally, though.
The Insurrection Act[1] is still in force. The President can legally suspend Posse Comitatus with a simple proclamation and then he can use federalized Guard or regular troops to enforce law as he pleases.

Article II and Congress have invested absolutely vast powers in the Presidency. The main check on their exercise is not Congress, or the Judiciary, or even the Deep State, but rather just traditions. Unfortunately, both parties have been attenuating those traditions for many administrations.

I don't think we're going to see the US government morph, Roman style, into a new form of government that's only nominally a republic. I think it's already happened quite some time ago. And just like in ancient Rome, most people have no idea it happened, because it will continue to use the same legal structure, just applied in new and interesting ways.

What we're seeing now is the struggle between two factions of the elites over who controls this new system.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act_of_1807
> It seems Herbst is the one that wants a non-inclusive environment (ie. exactly conforming to his personal political preferences).

You have to understand that "inclusive" is newspeak and now pretty much always means that.
Those USB-C to microUSB adapters are handy, I keep one in my backpack since my camera and some other things are microUSB.
At the bottom of the article the author provides links to regression reports. In one workload calculating the thread local address was taking 10% of execution time up from 1%. The burden of proof would seem to be on you.
oh the hills that were conquered and those to have died upon, captain hindsight strikes again!
Additionally, reading through other people's code is educational and it also builds self-esteem.
Nope. If you're willing to take on the shitwork without a lot of handholding and show real progress (which actually impact earnings) you'll have a really good stab at new opportunities.
How could I understand Elon's character from using X? I get it from his biography, and other things I read about him.
I enjoy it too, I explained why in an SE answer some years ago and I still feel this way - https://workplace.stackexchange.com/a/139878/5229
I have been working on a new definition of real numbers which I think is a better foundation for real numbers and seems to be a theoretical version of what you are doing practically. I am currently calling them rational betweenness relations. Namely, it is the set of all rational intervals that contain the real number. Since this is circular, it is really about properties that a family of intervals must satisfy. Since real numbers are messy, this idealized form is supplemented with a fuzzy procedure for figuring out whether an interval contains the number or not. The work is hosted at (https://github.com/jostylr/Reals-as-Oracles) with the first paper in the readme being the most recent version of this idea.

The older and longer paper of Defining Real Numbers as Oracles contains some exploration of these ideas in terms of continued fractions. In section 6, I explore the use of mediants to compute continued fractions, as inspired by the old paper Continued Fractions without Tears ( https://www.jstor.org/stable/2689627 ). I also explore a bit of Bill Gosper's arithmetic in Section 7.9.2. In there, I square the square root of 2 and the procedure, as far as I can tell, never settles down to give a result as you seem to indicate in another comment.

For fun, I am hoping to implement a version of some of these ideas in Julia at some point. I am glad to see a version in Python and I will no doubt draw inspiration from it and look forward to using it as a check on my work.
This seems very expensive.

Compared to PV, according to ChatGPT:

* Low-end estimate ($800 per kW): 30,000,000 kW × $800 = $24 billion.

* High-end estimate ($1,500 per kW): 30,000,000 kW × $1,500 = $45 billion.

In 2047, when it should be completed (not counting delays – for which nuclear construction is renowned), i wonder how even more cheaper PV will be.
Fluoxetine has an insanely long half life, and your brain is sensitive to its affects. Not really a viable option for acute treatment.
Yes :) however Mozilla is in a mixed state today, FB/Google/MSFT are interested in Rust to modernize legacy code bases - but I don't see the same kind of Rust artifacts coming out of these firms as they produced for JS (React), or Java (Guice). Perhaps they are still tinkering on this point, but something doesn't add up.
You can pry my JS ecosystem from my cold (& well manicured) dead hands.
> sell their skills to foreign countries?

200 of the world's most experienced nuclear personnel are now unemployed. Yes, these people are the kind that get actively recruited by nation states.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. This isn’t an unprofitable codebase at some VC funded atrocity where consequences don’t exist.

This is the real world where societal structures save hundreds of millions every year.

The amount of suffering that would exist if society dissolved is unfathomable.
>Companies that own dating apps.

And they're lobbying against which regulations that would stop them?

>Have you thought of blocking countries that permit malicious activity to cross international borders? Have you thought of blocking their IP addresses?

The financial system is far more centralized than the internet and at least theoretically has KYC, but US sanctions against enemy states, terrorist groups, and drug gangs are as airtight as a sieve. What makes you so sure that IP blocking countries will have any effect, when anyone can buy a no-log VPN for $5/month?
perhaps the pervasive narratives of systemic toxicity and chronic social issues that get us down? are those good for society? should we listen to those news stories all day? and believe that things are so awful that There Oughtta Be A Law And Reform?

those who cried out to quote Tax The Rich unquote, were likewise upset by the tariffs being imposed which are taxes on the rich... a really uniform and effective one! taxing corporations by tariffs is much father reaching than taxing individuals. individual heroes.

those who cannot interpret epic fantasy sagas as allegory or larger than Life metaphors are already helpless and they just need entertainment and some opiates.