skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If you want to decode transmissions from common weather sensors, be sure to check out rtl_433 [https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433]. If you have and RTLSDR dongle, it should just work.
Show HN: Land the Super Heavy booster game
I've made a browser game where you need to land a SpaceX Super Heavy booster into the Mechazilla's chopsticks.

The game is built on top of HTML DOM and is powered by about 300 lines of JavaScript.

The source code is not obfuscated or minified - you can check it out. Nothing fancy, but it turned out to be a lot of fun to play.

Give it a try and share your impressions
I'm proud to say that I have worked for Ecosia, though ages ago. Christian, the CEO, is really one of the kindest and most honest people I have worked with. Also 100% committed to the cause, he walks the walk.

Yes I'm just some rando from the Internet, and things might have changed since I've left, but I have my faith in that guy.
> then cook up nonsense about how they gave away their identities due to some weird Stack Overflow question no one could ever notice

In case people don't understand why the government can do this, it is called parallel construction and the SCOTUS deemed it constitutional.

Btw this comment is not me approving this behavior. And that last sentence was not a hint of me approving that behavior in secret :). Those last two sentences are a hint of what I think about the scotus on this topic though :)
> Then they would let people contribute money to the browser

People keep saying things like this, but the truth is that direct contributions to any ad-supported system contribute more like 1%-10% (at best) of their income.

You are not the majority you think you are.
The whole point is to introduce more players into the system so there is the possibility of competition. At present it is very efficient in the sense that you have a single company with monopolistic control over what content gets surfaced and how content gets monetised. That's a conflict of interest that's so obviously harmful to consumers Page and Brin actually call it out in the original "Anatomy of a Search Engine" paper.

"Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users...we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.

Since it is very difficult even for experts to evaluate search engines, search engine bias is particularly insidious."

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf (see the whole section entitled "Advertising and Mixed Motives".
"We don't want the building to look like a ghetto". Seriously. That's the explanation I got from the rental manager for why it was banned on their property.
TBH that last 0.05% doesn't matter much. Over a generous 40 year time it would be a <2% difference. It's not like moving from a 2% mutual fund to a 0.1% ETF.
Does this break Chromium, the non-DRM open source version of Chrome?
Perfect timing to steal all content and then flood the web with slop making me want to spend less time online altogether.
That's a mixed bag of claims all jumbled together.

> How do you "strip the formulae out of the XML" then?

Use any XML parser, or any pre-existing Excel library which can do that, e.g. the Import-Excel PowerShell module mentioned earlier:

PS C:\test> $x = Open-ExcelPackage book1.xlsx
PS C:\test> $x.Workbook.Worksheets[1].Cells["B3"].Formula
SUM(B1:B2)

> "trivially findable via the git history (and in larger software searchable via tools like "git bisect", etc...)".

So put a pre-commit hook which dumps the spreadsheet as some kind of text file instead of a binary blob.

> "And the reason for this is that source code is intended to be read by human beings"

That's not "the reason" that's an unrelated popular saying. If it were true, reverse engineering, maintenance, refactoring, and porting between different languages would be easy. It isn't. Instead source code appears to be intended to be read by the compiler/interpreter the programmer is using, and if anyone else can make anything out of it, good luck to them.

> "often including things like "comments" and "style guidelines" and "literate programming" to help the process".

If you allow helpers external to the source code as part of the development process, that's good because it cuts off your incoming reply saying that a pre-commit hook writing the formulae from spreadsheet to text is too hard/too much work/unreasonable.

> "None of that exists for ad hoc GUI tools"

Ad-hoc gui tools aren't programmable. Notepad isn't programmable. Calculator isn't programmable. Excel isn't an ad-hoc tool, Excel is one of the most famous, most used, GUI tools on the planet with some of the largest ecosystem and community around it, and one of the most pluggable, scriptable, documented, standardised, systems going.

> "and the result is that you can't meaningfully develop them as software".

Humans wrote Microsoft Excel itself, wrote Windows search indexers for searching inside Excel documents, wrote SharePoint which can index and work with Excel content, wrote the Microsoft Graph API and M365 cloud which can integrate with Excel spreadsheets, wrote the OpenOffice/LibreOffice Excel importers/exporters, wrote the ImportExcel module and the DLLs it's based on, rewrote Excel in TypeScript for Office365. Claiming that humans can't meaningfully write code to work with ... weird formats? Excel? spreadsheets? Files that were once touched by a GUI? ... is such a throwing-hands-up-and-giving-up-without-trying take on things. People could if they wanted to. People running $16Bn departments with Excel sheets could if they took it seriously and invested an appropriate amount of money in doing so.

It just occurred to me to google "diff excel spreadsheet" and look, there's one built-in: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/compare-two-versi...

And there's a SaaS product which does it: https://www.diffchecker.com/excel-compare/

And another SaaS product: https://xlcompare.com/

And another SaaS product: https://www.textcompare.org/excel/

and more I didn't click on.
No he did not make up his claim. The parent is just using his own brain, while you’re just blindly following your leader
> And you aren't ad-blocking YouTube due to the spying, so don't be disingenuous.

I don't watch YouTube. If all those influencers want to reach me, they should give me a written summary, I don't have time to listen to talking heads for hours.

However, if I ever follow an youtube link, it will be ad blocked because i run firefox with uBlock Origin, for as long as uBlock Origin blocks youtube ads by default.
I'm nowhere near cool with that either...
How confident can you be in this? Have you analyzed what exactly the billions of weights do?

I’ve got my opinions about what LLMs are and what they aren’t, but I don’t confidently claim that they must be such. There’s a lot of stuff in those weights.
It's like a never-ending horde of zombies that comes in and makes this cheap shot over and over. My understanding is the CEO makes slightly more than 1% of their revenues. And it's actually low compared to the typical tech CEO.

But what's the story of cause and effect here such that if they'd invested 1% of their revenue differently, they would jump from 3% market share back to 30% or wherever they were previously? Once you ask these questions out loud, it's clear that people aren't thinking through the steps of the argument.
Call me crazy, but since the DOGE hatchet-wielding started, I've redeemed all my US bonds. I just don't have confidence that the people needed to keep TreasuryDirect running will still have their jobs if/when I need to redeem them in the future.
> Tesla is still up compared to where it was a year ago.

Sure, you're right, but for context we have:

2024-03-10: 177.77 (a year ago)
2024-11-04: 242.84 (election day)
2024-12-17: 479.86 (peak)
2025-03-10: 221.60 (currently)

It's rapidly decreasing. It's now only 24.5% up from a year ago. Just yesterday it was over 50% up from a year ago. It's now one of the most volatile stocks you can own. Not to mention the massive revenue hits its taking throughout Europe and even parts of the US. Sales last month were down 72% in Germany, 48% in Norway, and 42% in Sweden. Even though it's set to gain in the US (relative to competitors) because of US tariffs and gov't contracts it doesn't seem to be enough when its failing in every other market
>crotchspawn

New word for me. Good one.
ABIT was such an amazing motherboard manufacturer, thanks for the KT7-A Thunderbird platform <3 R.I.P.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Abit
It's easy to install system level ad-blocking in MacOS and iOS.
Yea but, I think its a bit misplaced to be angry at Google for this. Surely its the content creators that place the ads in their content to blame for this.

I don't understand why they ads are not spliced into the stream. It would be undetectable by extensions at all.
Same. I use the element picker tool all the time to rid the web of crap I don't care about. Example:

whatever_class:has-text(/YouTube Shorts/)

On Android you can even do this on your phone in Firefox. The UI is a bit tricky on such a small device, but it's so worth it. I went so far as to uninstall Chrome (well, disable it) on my Android.
Wat's your update strategy today, HN? Main possibilities seem to be 1) The faster, the better I am protected. 2) I wait a few days/weeks. The second mouse gets the cheese.
I believe you're referring to the First Sale Doctrine (17 U.S.C. § 109)?

On a cursory search, I believe while you can resell, lend, or give away your copy, ripping it is problematic because you need to break the DRM involved, which explicitly goes against the DMCA (you'd be "accessing its content in an unauthorized way").

I didn't know the legal situation around the topic was this dire over there, I'm a bit surprised to be honest. I thought personal use was okay, but after an extensive discussion with my lawyer (gpt4o), seems to me that the parent comment is unfortunately correct.
Ask HN: What is the actual cost basis of the stock market?
Does anyone know what is the actual cost basis for the entire US stock market.

I mean at what price did the current stock holders got/bought their stocks.
NASA closes offices, lays off staff, prepares for larger workforce reductions
You should always have 2-3 years of runway in cash or other safe liquid savings (CDs, Bonds) as you get older (6 months minimum when you’re in 20s and 30s). You shouldn’t be really relying on selling assets to pay your monthly bills.
"...ruminating on the feeling of loneliness is the key underlying factor that explains the adverse effects of loneliness in the generation of depression"

This doesn't suggest that gratitude is necessarily the prescription. Rather, activity. If you spend your time doing engrossing things, then you're less likely to become depressed - and (I would argue) more likely to meet interesting people.
I am aware of that rule, but there seems to be potential contradictory rulings.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2010/07/court...

I don’t think it’s completely clear.

I suppose for legal reasons I should point out that I was of course speaking entirely hypothetically, if that was not obvious.
I am starting to understand why "Abolish the ICE" has been a slogan, sounds like a cesspool of heavy-handed extra-judicial lawlessness.
Another key slogan phrase: Do not open for the ICE.
They may be anti-consumer garbage, but they're black-letter law, and repealing them would require violating international treaties. So they're not going anywhere.
A company optimises for profit. Real shocker.
Not really, no.

Putting security in scare quotes doesn’t make the actual risk go away. This is a blatant anti ad block move, but you aren’t making reasonable arguments either.
I'd be interested in a RTX-enhanced software renderer. Ie replace the baked lighting with the GI raytracing, but otherwise keep the rest of the software renderer. Have a feeling that could be an awesome blend.

Would be a bit challenging with the palette but should be doable.
The person you are referencing is a well-known shitposter.
Here is a discount code: EARLY now it's free
doing some random house chores

"Domestic servant" is a profession.
>Remember when USA americans were demanding Europe would just give their money to Elon instead of working on their own stuff?

No Americans did this, except in your imagination.
I ran K3S locally during the pandemic and the only issue at the time was getting PV/PVC provisioned cleanly, I think Longhorn was just reaching maturity and five years ago the docs were pretty sparse. But yeah k3s is a dream to work with in 2025 the docs are great and as long as you stay on the happy path and your network is setup it's about as effortless as cluster computing can get.
This way you're missing out on specific js patches for sites with hard to block ads (like YouTube)
*Points at firefox*
One of the mistakes that people make is not understanding that people tend towards solutions that are sold as "counter-intuitive" or "smart" because they are largely unable to independent decisions. And financial markets will respond and move in the direction of maximum pain (governments can pump trillions into the market to support them but, eventually, as has happened in Europe and now the US...they run out of taxpayer's money because this destroys productivity). Easy decisions don't exist.

ETFs are a better technology (marginally, they don't solve the issues of open-end funds) but they are primarily a psychological product, not a financial one.
The story is missing an important detail, I'm not assuming malice btw, why was she refused entry into Canada as well?

Edit: Lol, there's literally nothing wrong with this observation. HN has truly gone down the gutter. I know not everybody here is part of the hivemind but the few that are completely spoil the experience for everybody else.
Ah yes, "determinedly deluded loyalty to the company that will never be loyal to him".
>article dated Mar 10, 2025
Because Tourists aren't issued the requisite tax filing information.

Because a large corporation could put a factory on the boarder, bus in "Tourists" to do work.

Because we put up barriers to protect labor.

Pick one or all and order how you like.
Does he care? He has a new source of revenue, the U.S. Treasury. Fort Knox soon.

Anil Dash -- Understanding DOGE as Procurement Capture

https://www.anildash.com//2025/01/04/DOGE-procurement-captur...
>Is the only way of getting and preserving media piracy now?

I really do think that it is, and if I’m correct then it’s far from unethical.
What does compete with the government mean?

Should FedEx not compete with USPS on parcel delivery?
> What if your hypothesis is that the fundamentals have changed?

There's been recent research on survivorship bias in market returns, especially with regards to the US:

> Using international data, we quantify the magnitude of survivorship bias in U.S. equity market performance, and find that it explains about one third of the equity risk premium in the past century. We model the subjective crash belief of an investor who infers the crash risk in the U.S.~by cross learning from other countries. The U.S. crash probability shows a persistent and widening divergence from the implied global average. We attribute the upward bias in the measured equity premium to crashes that did not occur in-sample and to positive shocks to valuations resulting from learning about the probability.

* https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3689958

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FwgCRIS0Wg

I'm Canadian, so I have a different home market, but that is correlated to the US economy (cf. tariffs), but my portfolio (TSX:VGRO) also has non-US/CA equities.
Probably shouldn't tell border patrol you're doing unpaid labor in a country you're visiting. When speaking to authorities it's best to say the absolute minimum required for the encounter.
The use case Google care about is almost certainly LLM companies scraping YouTube for model training. Such clients use a lot of bandwidth, don't generate ad revenue, and mean Google gets no benefit in AI from its ownership of that asset.
I think ousting Musk would be a marketing win for Tesla, and likely the only path to staying in business at this point.

Most people I talk to about Tesla, some of whom were diehard Musk-can-do-no-wrong fans as recently as last year, tend to share similar sentiments with me today.
Tesla has been the most heavily subsidized automaker in the US. Biden's historic investments in EV subsidies only increased that. It was leading the EV industry and it seemed impossible for it to fail even with the safety scandals that plagued it for nearly a decade

It's truly incredible that someone could fuck up such a favorable position
It's a fair point. And even short of "going to zero" the Nikkei didn't recover its 1989 high until last year. 35 years is a long time to get back to breakeven.
Setting aside politics for the moment, Tesla really has lost its way. It has made many extremely customer-unfriendly UX and technology changes over the past few years, including:

* As mentioned in the article, removing the turn signal stalk. Other than the obvious mess that is, the stalk also provides other important functionality such as cleaning the windshield, forcing the wipers to swipe (which is critical since Tesla's automatic windshield wiper setting is famously terrible), and switching off the headlight high beams (also necessary due to the poor automatic mode).

And even when they recently re-added the left stalk, they still omitted the right stalk which controls the drivetrain (PRND) and the parking brake.

* You know where the horn button is on every vehicle? Of course you do, because it where it should be. On some Tesla, it was moved to a tiny button on the right side of the steering wheel - just where you'd never find it in an emergency. There was also the (mostly) unpopular yoke-style steering wheel, which was initially forced on Model S/X buyer, then the round steering wheel was available as a more expensive option, and finally it became the default.

* Removing ultrasonic sensors on the bumper and replacing them with camera-only obstacle detection. This was very buggy for some time and even now, almost all Teslas do not have a camera on the bumper, so there is an area in front of the car where the cameras can not see due to the hood. Ultrasonic sensors are cheap and work very well, and provide an alternative sensing technology to vision-only, but conflict with the mantra that since humans can drive with vision-only, cars should too. This mantra also prevents the use of radar (which was present in early Teslas and then disabled) or LiDAR - both of which could be important additional/supplimental safety technologies, which are explained away as being less reliable than vision.

There are probably some other examples, but these are just a few off the top of my head. Once you include politics and alienating the company's most loyal fans, the increasing quality of the competition, and the Tesla charging network advantage disappearing, I'm having a hard time seeing Tesla growing in the future.
One of my current models for LLMs is that they're compression algorithms. They compress a large amount of training data into a set of weights. A query is a key into that compression space. Hallucinations happen when you supply a key that corresponds to something that wasn't in the training set.
I'm crossing my fingers but history seems to be against them. You have to pay the piper at some point.
Saying that something "is like XY" when you really mean "is like XY, at least in comparison to C++" isn't what most people mean.

C is not a portable assembler.

In C, "a += 1" could overflow, and signed overflow is undefined behavior--even though every individual ISA has completely defined semantics for overflow, and nearly all of them these days do two's complement wraparound arithmetic. With C's notion of undefined behavior, it doesn't even give you the same wraparound in different places in the same program. In fact, wraparound is so undefined that the program could do absolutely anything, and the compiler is not required to even tell you about it. Even without all the C++ abstraction madness, a C compiler can give you absolutely wild results due to optimizations, e.g. by evaluating "a += 1" at compile time and using a different overflow behavior than the target machine. Compile-time evaluation not matching runtime evaluation is one of a huge number of dumb things that C gives you.

Another is that "a += 1" may not even increment the variable. If this occurs as an expression, and not as a statement, e.g. "f(a += 1, a += 1)", you might only get one increment due to sequence points[1]--not to mention that the order of evaluation might be different depending on the target.

C is not a portable assembler.

C is a low-level language where vague machine-like programs get compiled to machine code that may or may not work, depending on whether it violates UB rules or not, and there are precious few diagnostics to tell if that happened, either statically or dynamically.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_point
The enterprise value of VW is 200B. Tesla is down ~100B today.
> One thing I've noticed is that sometimes modern authors are too married to their big ideas, and neglect the rest of the story.

IMO that's very far from a new phenomena. Even Tolkien, for all the accolades he got, gets carried away describing absolutely irrelevant stuff that barely anyone cares about (controversial opinion, shoot me, but I know many others love his universe and agree with that take at the same time).

To me falling in love with your fantasy / scifi universe is a huge writer sin. It seriously detracts from the quality of the writing and I've noticed this in authors young and old, and super popular and praised ones too.

Same goes for Asimov btw... he tries so hard to present you a narrative and/or do some world-building that some (if not most) of this characters end up being extremely simplistic plot devices. They don't feel like living breathing humans at all.

Examples abound.
Not out of the box I think; I wouldn’t trust any self-assesment like that. With enough compute, you could probably come up with a metric by doing a beam search and using an LLM to evaluate how many of the resultant answers were effectively the same as a proxy for “confidence”.
About time, given that lots of Europeans are self-described experts on American politics
A lot of Chromium browsers use Google's extension store, so even if they're not as strict about it now, you won't be able to install it anyway.
Of course it's only baffling if you assume it's asked in good faith.
I use it to download short clips or meme videos and send them to friends when they're blocked from embedding for whatever reason. I do it often enough that I wrote a Fish function (appropriately named `vine`) to make it as easy as `vine -n filename (pbpaste)`.

https://github.com/nozzlegear/dotfiles/blob/master/fish-func...
Now, if that is a good thing or a bad thing, depends on your perspective. If you want a Russia style system, it's a great thing.
Oh, I'm attempting to do absolutely everything foss: audio recording, audio editing, transcriptions, hosting of all services, documentation, social media, you name it. There is an absolute ton to experiment with.
Hah, now the TSLA stock is down by 54% since it's high at December 17th. 63% if you’re trading in EUR.
The US functionally left NATO already.
Having the passwords available automatically when logging in to gmail on a new device feels simpler and easier since I'd be doing that anyway, as opposed to needing to DL a new app
Anecdotally, DCA is a worse strategy when you’re doing it on the way down. Market sentiment is important. Buying on the way up is more important, and so is selling on the way down. Take profits when you can, and buy back in when the sentiment improves. It’s a better strategy than investing while the market continues to drop.