News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

shkkmo

Re:Tesla Roadster on Saturday October 17, 2026 @03:14AM (#50128726)
> this utilizes moving a large amount of air in the direction opposite to the road.

False.

The air from the fans is ejected out of rear of the vehicle, not the top. The kinetic energy of that air is neglible at best. The vehicle uses retractible fairings to create a partial seal and the fans create a low pressure zone inside the zone that holds the vehicle to road.

The cold gas thrusters are a completely different system that expels high pressurized air from canisters in the vehicle.

> One way out could be to tax the value gain at the time of sale, or when the house gets rented out, thus no longer being “owner occupied”.

Forcing renters and buyers to pay for the local services instead of property owners seems extremely unfair.

> Any increase in housing value (and thus property taxes) is mostly an increase in the cost of living.

So? If the property values go up then cost of living is going up for renters too. Why should property owners be shielded from this by imposing local service costs on renters who generally have even lower incomes than owners.

> Tor shouldn't choose sides in political debates.

> Did all Tor developers, users and exit-node administrators get a vote in this? Or is it a small minority who decides this course?

This is addressed in the announcement.

> Free speech also includes speech you may not agree with and just because you accept someone's (or some company's) donations doesn't mean you're "associated" with them.

Tor didn't stop taking the donations nor did they stop cooperating with Mullvad on development.

What they did is pause "joint promotional activity" and review the language of what they had published about Mullvad to avoid implying an endorsement or alignment of values.

What problem do you have with that? This seems like precisely the avoidance of side taking that you are advocating.

> Also because ideally running a supermarket should give you more money even in a deflationary world.

Running a super market involves owning physical goods for some period of time. With deflation, the price you can sell those goods for drops while you are holding them. In fact most economic activity involves paying for inputs (labor, materials, etc) and then later getting paid for your outputs. Deflation directly impacts profitability and can cause losses.

Since deflation causes demand to drop as economic actors wisely choose to start hoarding currency and buying less, this causes a feedback loop where deflation can spiral.

Similarly, inflation causes demand to increase since holding currency is unwise and it is better to spend or invest that currency than hold onto it.

These two patterns mean that the neutral state (no inflation or deflation) is unstable as any deviation above or below starts a feedback loop until things fall apart. This is the boom and bust economic cycle that modern monetary management is supposed to ameliorate.

Given that you want economic growth, the best solution is to try to stabilize around a small fixed amount of inflation. Arguing for the end of inflation is arguing for the end of economic growth.

Re:Paying for Driving on Saturday September 12, 2026 @08:12PM (#49678575)
> If victims of traffic were made whole then car insurance would be staggeringly expensive and either (1) only extremely rich people would afford to drive or (2) a ton of un-insured drivers would be out on the roads.

This seems like kinda of am extreme prediction. The EU sets much, much higher liability limits and neither (1) nor (2) is true. A gradual roll out would give time for driving habbits and infrastructure to absorb the changes.

Re:OpenAI agents carried out an undisclosed attack on RubyGems on Friday September 11, 2026 @11:16PM (#49668394)
Depending on the facts of the case they could indeed be convicted of a crime.

There was a infamous case recently where a woman was convicted of criminally negligent homicide due to owning a dangerous dog that killed a kid.

https://www.mcda.us/index.php/news/portland-area-woman-convi...

Owning a dog that has been trained to bite intrudes is a significant responsibility and owning such a dog without taking the correct precautions is criminal.

Re:Toll roads are spreading in America on Saturday December 27, 2025 @04:07PM (#46405239)
I had a very negative view toward toll roads untill I found the Road Guy Rob youtube channel. His video on the Oklahoma toll roads completely changed my perspective.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EzPPmiKFf5I

Re:Rob Pike Goes Nuclear over GenAI on Saturday December 27, 2025 @03:07PM (#46404793)
> we don't want to start to treat digital device and software as living beings.

Right, because then we have to decide at what point our use of AI becomes slavery.

Re:Rob Pike Goes Nuclear over GenAI on Saturday December 27, 2025 @03:00PM (#46404735)
I'm polite in repose to being repeatedly called names and this is your response?

If you think my behavior here was truly ban worthy than do it because I don't see anything in the I would change except for engaging at all

Re:Rob Pike Goes Nuclear over GenAI on Saturday December 27, 2025 @02:53PM (#46404669)
> What kind of bullshit argument is this? Really? Works created using illegally obtained copyrighted material are themselves considered to be infringing as well.

That isn't true.

The copyright to derivative works is owned by the copyright holder of the original work. However uaong illegaly obtained copies to create a fair use transformative work does not taint your copyright of that work.

> Even if not, you agree that they infringed on copyright of something close to all copyrighted works on the internet and this sounds fine to you?

I agree that they violated copyright when they torrented books and scholarly arguments. I don't think that counts at "close to all copyrighted works on the Internet".

> The consequences and fines from that would kill any company if they actually had to face them.

I don't actually agree that copyright that causes no harm should be met with such steep penalties. I didn't agree when it was being done by the RIAA and even though I don't like facebook, I don't like it here either.

Re:Rob Pike Goes Nuclear over GenAI on Saturday December 27, 2025 @08:53AM (#46401864)
> This is completely belied by "It works exactly the same for a LLM."

I specifically used the word "training" in the sentence aftwards. "It" clearly refers to the sentence prior which explains that infringement happens when the copy is created, not when the original is memorized/learned/trained.

> If you want to not appear mendacious, then don't claim equivalence between human learning and machine training.

I never claimed that. I already clarified that with my previous comment. Instead of bothering to read and understand you have continued to call names.

> Hilarious, coming from the one who wrote "if it helps your comprehension."

You seemed confused, you still seem confused. If you think this genuine (and slightly snarky) offer to use terms that sidestep your pointless semantic nitpick is "being an asshole"... then you need to get some more real world experience.

Re:Rob Pike Goes Nuclear over GenAI on Friday December 26, 2025 @12:26PM (#46394142)
> Only by people attempting to muddy the waters.

"Learning" was used by the person I responded too. If you had read my comment with any care you would have realized I used the words "training" and "learning" specifically and carefully.

> The copy exists, albeit not in human-discernable form

That doesn't count as a "copy" since it isn't human-discernable. You can't show me the copy all you can do is say "it has to be in there somewhere." It is pretty clear this is a transformative use and so far the courts have agreed

> supercilious dickheads

Very mature.

If you don't like being called out for lack of comprehension, then don't needlessly impose a semantic interjection when you haven't bothered to understand the discussion.

Re:Rob Pike Goes Nuclear over GenAI on Friday December 26, 2025 @03:23AM (#46390282)
> You seem set on conflating "training" an LLM with "learning" by a human.

"Learning" is an established word for this, happy to stick with "training" if that helps your comprehension.

> LLMs don't "learn" but they _do_ in some cases, faithfully regurgitate what they have been trained on.

> Legally, we call that "making a copy."

Yes, when you use a LLM to make a copy .. that is making a copy.

When you train a LLM... That isn't making a copy, that is training. No copy is created until output is generated that contains a copy.

Re:Rob Pike Goes Nuclear over GenAI on Friday December 26, 2025 @03:16AM (#46390260)
> The problem is that it's not the user of the LLM doing the reproduction, the LLM provider is.

I don't think this is legally true. The law isn't fully settled here, but things seem to be moving towards the LLM user being the holder of the copyright of any work produced by that user prompting the LLM. It seems like this would also place the enfringement onus on the user, not the provider.

> If someone hires me to write some code, and I give them GPLed code (without telling them it is GPLed), I'm the one who broke the license, not them.

If you produce code using a LLM, you (probably) own the copyright. If that code is already GPL'd, you would be the one engaged in enfringement.

Re:Rob Pike Goes Nuclear over GenAI on Friday December 26, 2025 @03:04AM (#46390197)
This is a stance that violates tha guidelines of HN.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re:Rob Pike Goes Nuclear over GenAI on Friday December 26, 2025 @02:59AM (#46390173)
You keep conflating different things.

> We have evidence of LLMs reproducing code from github that was never ever released with a license that would permit their use. We know this is illegal.

What is illegal about it? You are allowed to read and learn from publicly available unlicensed code. If you use that learning to produce a copy of those works, that is enfringement.

Meta clearly enganged in copyright enfringement when they torrented books that they hadn't purchased. That is enfringement already before they started training on the data. That doesn't make the training itself enfringement though.

Re:Rob Pike Goes Nuclear over GenAI on Friday December 26, 2025 @02:44AM (#46390103)
> If I had a photographic memory and I used it to replicate parts of GPLed software verbatim while erasing the license, I could not excuse it in court that I simply "learned from" the examples.

Right, because you would have done more than learning, you would have then gone past learning and used that learning to reproduce the work.

It works exactly the same for a LLM. Training the model on content you have legal access to is fine. Aftwards, somone using that model to produce a replica of that content is engaged in copyright enfringement.

You seem set on conflating the act of learning with the act of reproduction. You are allowed to learn from copyrighted works you have legal access to, you just aren't allowed to duplicate those works.

Re:Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge on Wednesday December 24, 2025 @10:38AM (#46376482)
> You’re conflating ideas to make a point

I am talking specifically about the ideas you are disputing:

>> partially signed off to corporate entities who are more than happy to consent away their access into our effects.

I haven't conflated anything. You may be confused and think we're talking about ownership or physical access though.

Re:We Just Unredacted the Epstein Files on Wednesday December 24, 2025 @10:33AM (#46376441)
> you will have no problem citing a huge count of cases where lawyers do not respect their obligations towards the courts and their clients...

There are almost 2000 disbarments annually in the US.

The california bar recieves 1 compliant for every 10 law licenses in the state every year.

There's a wikipedia page on notable disbarments.

Legal malpractice suites are on the rise.

If you are going to assert that legal malpractice is not legitimate concern, I think the burden of evidence is on you.

Re:Some Epstein file redactions are being undone with hacks on Wednesday December 24, 2025 @10:10AM (#46376239)
And it is still a lock if it was just hanging there and not actually locked as in this case.
Amazon's echo and other such IoT devices do extend this to "houses" but isn't quite as ubiquitous.
> judge's reduction it to a book equivalence is misleading and weakens the judgement

Good thing that isn't what happened. It is called an "analogy" and is not a factual statement of equivalence.

> None of my house, papers, or effects are owned by anyone but myself.

Do you self host your own email? No? Those are "papers" that your email hosting provider can consent to providing law enforcement access to without a warrant.

Do you use search engines? Your search history is in the same boat with the search engine company.

Don't use a VPN? All of your internet traffic is in the same boat with your ISP

You use a VPN? All your internet traffic is in the same boat with the VPN.

The list goes on and on. It is almost certainly true that some company has private information about you that they can turn over without a warrant.

Perhaps if you had examples or decisions to explain what you're talkinh about, you would make your point better?

As is, you are being politely called out as incorrect because you are asserting someone people don't believe and not providing any argument, evidence or justification.

I guess that's why most computer games don't have NPCs...Oh wait there's entire computer games built entirely around interacting with synthetic NPCs.

There are, of course, limitations to synthetic characters. Even with those limitations there are plenty of entertaining experiences to crafted.

The real challenges are around maintaining and safely operating automous robots around children in a way that isn't too expensive. These constraints place far more limits than those on synthetic characters in video games.

> Usually HN univocally complains about Apple‘s dominant App Store.

There is a strong population on HN that dislikes walled gardens. In my experience there are also plenty of people who disagree. There's also a large population that doesn't like EU tech regulations.

The ratio between different parts of the HN population can change significantly depending of stuff like time of day and headline draw. I don't find it particularly surprising, it isn't like HN is a monolith with internally consistent views across the entire population.

It's so obvious that I stated it in my comment...
Re:Please Just Try Htmx on Monday December 22, 2025 @11:29AM (#46355521)
I can't quite follow your comment.

If you have a predetermined number of things that can be "searched" for, that is a filter box, not a search box. Even if you want to stretch the semantics and call it a search box, it is still a solution that only works for a very small subset of the search box problem space. Your criticism that this semanically stret hed snall subset wasn't explicitly excluded is just silly.

Re:You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving on Monday December 22, 2025 @01:53AM (#46351943)
> There’s little reason to avoid prescribing medication alongside other approaches.

There absolutely are downsides and risks. There is a reason the SSRIs carry a "blackbox" warning for youths due to increased suicide risks. There's a reason they should only be used under supervision of a doctor and need to be tapered off of.

That is not to say they aren't useful and necessary for some/many people but they aren't and shouldn't be a catch-all treatment.

Older »