gfiorav

Spot checked a life from 1990s in the Iberian peninsula and it cites the population at 72 million people. Off by quite a bit. Pretty cool regardless!

complaining about 17mb in 2026 has to be virtue signaling of some sort...

yes I know we went to the moon with a few kb but are we going to hang on to that for ever?

what happened to him?

I think Hotz basically created super specific software for the gpus that throws away anything that doesn't contribute to inference (not turing complete, for example).

95% of these announcements are exactly how you say. There're just too many incentives to layoff and call it AI:

- CEO (under pressure to move in the AI space) comes across as an AI maven

- The shareholders improve margins

I think we're reeling from rate increases. Too much free money for too long.

As a die-hard vim fan, I feel bitter-sour saying that I switched to nvim. Honestly, I think the vim maintainers should find a way to merge in nvim.

I’m not against public spending. US presidents from both parties have increased public spending when necessary.

Your perspective on the US political spectrum is where I suggest you reconsider. Most Europeans are ethnonationalists, regardless of their political leanings.

Consider the rise of the far right following immigration. While the outcome remains uncertain, I fear it won’t be pretty. It certainly won’t be something to boast about. Europe is on the brink of experiencing its most extreme, fascist, racist, and rightward shift in a long time.

This raises the question of why you’re so certain that Europe is “left-leaning.”

Great. I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree. Time will tell. I’m still a bit confused about the right-wing remark though.

As I mentioned, my only claim here is that I’ve lived for years in various Western countries. I’ve paid taxes, held jobs, bought and sold homes, made friends, volunteered, and so on. I believe my experiences give me an edge over others who just are “traveling” or “spending the summer.”

I grew up in Europe, and I can tell you that you’ll encounter more right-wing perspectives in a random bar on a Tuesday than you’ll find anywhere in America. Europe has always been an ethnonationalist continent, which is why it surprises me that calling out its inner workings would result in accusations of being right-wing.

Like I said, time will tell.

This is where you’re being naive. I meant this in other parts of the thread: Americans are more connected to the outcome of taxes because the government doesn’t control every aspect of life.

For Europeans, while they understand the concept of taxes, the government’s vastness and involvement in everything make it a black box that they fund without having a say. They can just hope it’s being used effectively (although many believe it isn’t).

Most European elections revolve around sentimental signaling and rarely present concrete plans that explain practical solutions to problems.

Americans assume the rest of the world is on the same page, but that’s not the case IMO

To be clear, I don’t believe it’s an “education” issue. I think it’s a “for too long removed from politics” problem.

For most Europeans, a tax is an unclear bill at the end of the month, leaving them feeling powerless to do anything about it.

One thing I learned from living in America is that people here are much more engaged in civic life and politics. The UK (which I also lived in) is perhaps the exception to this European rule.

What could possibly be my source for such a claim? Who is funding studies on this topic?

My source is my upbringing in Europe and my subsequent long-term residence in two other countries, which provided me with a unique perspective on people’s feelings and beliefs.

My source is my diverse life experiences, during which I actively engaged with people from all walks of life as much as I could. I am not making any claims about science or indulging in conspiracies. For such claims, I would require concrete evidence.

What I am saying is that a majority of the Europeans, particularly the youth, has become disconnected from the fundamental principle that to distribute wealth, you must generate it first.

I hope that helps.

Ah, yes, thank you. I was trying to hide my right-wing tendencies. That’s what right-wing people do... they’re very shy!

I’m not sure. If we compare the US to Europe (and I say this with a heavy heart), I wouldn’t be confident that the EU has a positive balance. There hasn’t been any growth in the EU in the last 25 years.

What’s Europe’s future? What's its current relevance?

Sure, the US could eliminate all other expenditures and provide every American with the best subsidized healthcare in the world. But what would that achieve? A few decades of chess-thumping to the world? Then bankruptcy? Who will fund the next innovation in healthcare? Is this what Europe did only now those decades of runway are coming to an end?

When you look at the US, you should note that the poorest state here has about the same per-capita GDP as Germany. And the disposable income for people is 50% higher than even Germany. If you don't consider Germany, the poorest state is richer than every EU country and has a disposable income 80% higher.

You want to feel free? You need disposable income. You want to start a company and have clients? You better hope those clients have disposable income.

You want a welfare state? You better have a strong economy. EU isn't trending too hot in that department.

Many of the usual suspects that defend social welfare "just because" also say things like "face the data!" I suggest you do. Just my thoughts.

Thanks for your comments. I agree--HN has been quite disappointing lately. For a place that's supposed to be full of tech contrarians, it does sound like an answering machine around here sometimes :)

Regarding your retort, I believe it should possible to measure the economic return of every social benefit. I strongly suspect that there are social benefits that more than pay for their own cost.

However, the most effective way to prove this is by measuring it.

Yes. Plus, taxing those with higher incomes is hardly “taxing the rich.” After all, the wealthy don’t have incomes; they borrow against their assets.

However, they do fund political campaigns, which is why politicians focus on the “work mules” of social welfare: the top 1% earners who contribute 90% of all welfare benefits. This distraction diverts attention from the “real rich” and the top earners can hardly do anything to address the issue... perfect scapegoat.

Right. I believe every socialist should feel offended by the term “free healthcare.”

Building an economy capable of sustaining such a system requires immense effort and collective support. Describing it as “free” is a marketing tactic that assumes people are stupid.

I hope you were right, but I strongly suspect you are mistaken.

Most people fail to understand:

- Social welfare programs come at the expense of reducing everyone’s income.

- The extent of the social welfare overspending is significant; we have long surpassed the point of helping those in dire need and are now funding numerous programs that, if fully understood in its long-term cost, would likely not be supported.

- The top 5% of income earners contribute 90% of the welfare programs and are not “the greedy rich.”

- The actual greedy rich do not have income and fund political campaigns, which is why politicians often conflate high-earners with the rich (to obscure the influence of interest groups)

What would be a more accurate term than “free”? Subsidized. It may not be as catchy, but it provides a more precise description.

Agreed. Many in this thread appear confident that “everyone” comprehends that anything labeled “free” actually implies “subsidized.” However, I still believe they are mistaken.

People fail to realize that increased social programs inevitably result in reduced income for everyone. If they understood this, you would observe the polls on this issue, which already reflect the fact that most individuals are willing to assist those in need but do not support most social programs.

This is one of my pet peeves. If you believe in the welfare state concept, you should never refer to anything that’s subsidized as “free.” It’s a recipe for disaster. As a European who was uprooted and settled in the US, I’ve become painfully aware of how little we Europeans comprehend the workings of the economy. I believe this is partly due to the propaganda surrounding the welfare state as “free.”

Of course, nothing is truly “free.” It comes at a significant cost that must be carefully understood and balanced for the future. It hinders market dynamism and credit flow, which can easily stifle innovation over time. Calling it “free” is a mere emotional appeal, not a rational justification for its long-term sustainability. It’s no wonder that business in Europe, despite being more regulated and restrained than any other part of the world, is so vilified by the youth. We must stop conflating prosperity with corporate misgivings if we are to progress at all.

I nervously hover over the VSCode Copilot icon, watching the premium requests slowly accumulate. It’s not an enjoyable experience (whether you know how much you've used or not :) )

You know, I get the spirit of this criticism. But, specially in the age of AI, we're going to get thousands of barely reviewed websites on Cloudflare.

If you know what you're doing, turn these protections off. If you don't, there's one less hole out there.

I agree. From a product perspective, I would also support the decision. Should we make the rules more complex by default, potentially overlooking SQL injection vulnerabilities? Or should we blanket prohibit anything that even remotely resembles SQL, allowing those edge cases to figure it out?

I favor the latter approach. That group of Cloudflare users will understand the complexity of their use case accepting SQL in payloads and will be well-positioned to modify the default rules. They will know exactly where they want to allow SQL usage.

From Cloudflare’s perspective, it is virtually impossible to reliably cover every conceivable valid use of SQL, and it is likely 99% of websites won’t host SQL content.

Spent maybe 3 min with it and got the hang of it. I thought no qwerty was going to be a deal breaker but I think I could get "fluent" with it in a day or two.

The worst parts are: no upper case and the fact that there's no connection between what you typed and the keyboard once you submit.

I wonder what the speed of this approach vs traditional ocr techniques. Also, curious if this could be used for text detection (find a bounding box containing text within an image).

One of the big WTF moments I've had in the "web vs. device" Ad-related privacy journey was realizing that even if you create an "anonymous" account on an app in your phone, your device ID is shared and can be recognized by Ad vendors.

Example:

- You're using a known account on a Mac to search for a shelf to buy

- You're using a anonymous account to browse Reddit on an iPhone

And the shelf Ad pops up on the Reddit feed. Yep, as long as you logged in with a known account on both devices, they're now linked by device id. An all you do on those devices (regardless of the account) can be traced back to you.

I read about this in "Chaos Monkeys" but it never really hit me until this experience.

I use this method with X. I only follow a few accounts and exclusively use the following view (which prevents algorithmic content push).

The drawback is that it can become monotonous. However, there’s the “For You” view and the curated news section to mitigate this.

Mentoring isn’t just about time; it’s a mental investment. The few people I mentor often come to mind frequently. I reflect on our conversations, even though the actual time spent talking is minimal. I take it very seriously and genuinely feel their progress as my own.

I don’t think I could mentor even 10 people without failing. You have to genuinely care about their progress.

Perhaps the author means coaching. That’s scalable. Teach people how to do something you’ve successfully done repeatedly. That’s something I could do even for groups.

Mentoring requires a significant amount of effort when done effectively. I find it hard to believe that anyone would willingly offer to mentor in such a broad manner. It makes me quite suspicious that the author has a genuine understanding of what mentoring entails.

In my opinion, mentoring has become a trend and a status symbol. The current definition of mentoring does not genuinely benefit anyone except the egos of those offering it.

To be honest, this entire post reeks of that.

I see your point, and the Electoral College may need some updating (there’s also gerrymandering, which is problematic). However, I’d argue that the “popular vote” is not the best approach.

For huge countries where people’s lives are very varied, I think you need something to equate regions to others. The ancient Greeks tried direct democracy, and it didn’t work. The Founding Fathers knew this and called direct democracy “anarchy.” Not far off from the truth if you ask me, and the Greeks are a great cautionary tale on this.

Representative democracy, strongly coupled with local representation and a two-party system (yes, yes, I know) is where it’s at. The two-party system forces local reps to align with the bloc that most represents their interests ahead of the election. If you look at Europe, many citizens vote for a party only to see them make alliances and concessions with other minority parties that they wouldn’t have approved (e.g., Spain with independence parties).

Many things need updating, but I think it’s a mistake to forget history and assume that the U.S. political system was just randomly put together. There’s a lot of interesting history to dig into there (for example, the Federalist Papers).