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hedayet about 4 hours ago

Ask HN: Where can I track training cost trend for AI models?

I'm curious how the cost of training AI models (compute, energy, data, etc) has changed over time.

Are there any public resources or datasets tracking training costs for open-weight models (I'm guessing this data is hard to get for closed models, but happy to be proved wrong.)

I'm especially interested in understanding which architectural changes (e.g., attention variants, parameter sharing, mixture-of-experts) have led to major cost optimizations, and NOT just from the companies behind these models, but from anyone who has trained or replicated them.

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david927 2 days ago

Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2025)

What are you working on? Any new ideas that you're thinking about?

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d_sc about 6 hours ago

Ask HN: Blogs / Sites / Channels for agentic coding topics

Hey HN,

I _really_ like reading blogs on agentic coding/claude code topics that are exploring new ideas and discussing advanced topics on agentic coding.

Jesse's recent few articles on his blog blog.fsck.com is a good example of what I'm looking for. Reading articles like these are really inspiring, educational, enjoyable and exciting.

Geoffrey Huntley's blog at ghuntley.com is another one that I really enjoy reading when he posts a new article.

Whether it's a blog, an aggregator site or youtube channel, if you know of authors/content creators that are really into this space I'd really appreciate your suggestions.

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ofalkaed 3 days ago

Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

Just curious and who knows, maybe someone will adopt it or develop something new based on its ideas.

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cuber_messenger about 14 hours ago

Ask HN: What do you do while ChatGPT-5 is thinking?

I use ChatGPT-5 Thinking a lot for day-to-day work. I prefer the response quality over speed, so I always pick the longer-thinking model. It takes ~1–5 minutes (often 1–2) to respond, but those short waits are getting increasingly distracting.

I find myself doing something else, and it eventually takes more than the thinking time. Such as right now, it takes me 5 minutes to write this post, and ChatGPT responded like 3 minutes ago.

Does anyone else have the same problem? What do you do during these gaps? :D

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dotancohen about 11 hours ago

Ask HN: Desktop Agents for Linux

I'm a Kubuntu user, writing an application to organize my personal knowledgebase. I will be soon adding MCP support, but I have yet to choose a desktop agent. Suggestions appreciated.

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xrd 8 days ago

Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

I want to get a second TV which will more or less be a second monitor for my System76 laptop which is plugged into a bunch of music equipment, like a korg midi keyboard, and a novation drum pad, all of which work great with linux.

I want to buy this TV used. I'm seeing a bunch of Samsung, LG, RCA, Sony, etc on Facebook Marketplace. What a cesspool Facebook has become, right?

Any suggestions on the best brand or even model for that kind of thing? I don't really want to battle with a bunch of shit that tries to coerce me to install another app from a streaming provider slash gambling entrypoint.

I imagine mostly it will just need HDMI to work, and all the TVs will support that. But, I thought maybe there would be a fun brand that offers interesting other options.

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tones411 about 14 hours ago

Ask HN: Which cross platform desktop GUI to use instead of Electron?

Electron gets hate due to filesize and memory bloat. C++ gets hate for memory leaks. Rust with Tauri relies on a webview which could change versions underneath the app when the OS gets an update.

Which language and cross platform desktop GUI framework checks the boxes for being lightweight in terms of filesize and memory usage, has native controls, supports accessibility and uses retained mode rendering, and works the same ten years from now as the day it was installed?

If someone were to build an installable desktop app with buttons, checkboxes, inputs etc. (so not a video game) which language and GUI framework should they to use to please the memory and filesize conscious?

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marxism 1 day ago

Ask HN: Has AI stolen the satisfaction from programming?

I've been trying to articulate why coding feels less pleasant now.

The problem: You can't win anymore.

The old way: You'd think about the problem. Draw some diagrams. Understand what you're actually trying to do. Then write the code. Understanding was mandatory. You solved it.

The new way: The entire premise of AI coding tools is to automate the thinking, not just the typing. You're supposed to describe a problem and get a solution without understanding the details. That's the labor-saving promise.

So I feel pressure to always, always, start by info dumping the problem description to AI and gamble for a one-shot. Voice transcription for 10 minutes, hit send, hope I get something first try, if not hope I can iterate until something works. And when even something does work = zero satisfaction because I don't have the same depth of understanding of the solution. Its no longer my code, my idea. It's just some code I found online. `import solution from chatgpt`

If I think about the problem, I feel inefficient. "Why did you waste 2 hours on that? AI would've done it in 10 minutes."

If I use AI to help, the work doesn't feel like mine. When I show it to anyone, the implicit response is: "Yeah, I could've prompted for that too."

The steering and judgment I apply to AI outputs is invisible. Nobody sees which suggestions I rejected, how I refined the prompts, or what decisions I made. So all credit flows to the AI by default.

The result: Nothing feels satisfying anymore. Every problem I solve by hand feels too slow. Every problem I solve with AI feels like it doesn't count. There's this constant background feeling that whatever I just did, someone else would've done it better and faster.

I was thinking of all the classic exploratory learning blog posts. Things that sounded fun. Writing a toy database to understand how they work, implementing a small Redis clone. Now that feels stupid. Like I'd be wasting time on details the AI is supposed to handle. It bothers me that my reaction to these blog posts has changed so much. 3 years ago I would be bookmarking a blog post to try it out for myself that weekend. Now those 200 lines of simple code feels only one sentence prompt away and thus waste of time.

Am I alone in this?

Does anyone else feel this pressure to skip understanding? Where thinking feels like you're not using the tool correctly? In the old days, I understood every problem I worked on. Now I feel pressure to skip understanding and just ship. I hate it.

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p0w3n3d 1 day ago

Ask HN: Locally enabled vibe coding environment?

Hello, I've been trying to use cursor with locally served Chat GPT or Qwen, but once I get offline it fails. It seems that there once had been a possibility to override API url, but now this is not the case.

Is there any development environment or plugin that you're using for local LLM?

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Openai2 3 days ago

Ask HN: What's the best alternative to Dragon NaturallySpeaking?

Looking for windows software that replaces the need for keyboard and mouse and lets me control Windows

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rrmdp 2 days ago

Ask HN: Is Hacker News a good place to find a job in tech?

I read somewhere that HN is not a good place to find a job in tech any longer.

Do you use HN for job search? Any luck?

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itdude 1 day ago

Ask HN: What are some of your favorite documentaries?

This question has been asked several times before (see below), but looks like the most recent was about a year ago.

Thoughts on why are also appreciated.

  1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18085765
  2 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18537512
  3 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18271167
  4 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32799789
  5 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41906454

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truakon89 1 day ago

Ask HN: Comments Navigation Feature Request

Hi HN folks, I'd like to request a feature where pressing the N key navigates to the next comment. If I hold CTRL while pressing N, it should take me to the "parent.child" comment, and if I continue holding CTRL and press N again, it should navigate to the child.child comment.

That's all I wanted to request; if you find this helpful, please leave a comment to support it.

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hikerell 4 days ago

Lost all my sites overnight: Vercel terminated my account without notice

This week, my Vercel account was suddenly disabled and all of my deployments and data were deleted.

I received no warning, no suspension notice, and no post-action explanation. When I emailed their support to ask what happened, they refused to give a reason and simply said they wouldn’t restore the account or data.

I’ve been a Vercel user for over two years and never had any issue until now. It’s honestly shocking to lose everything overnight without a single email or warning.

I’m now migrating all my projects to Cloudflare, but the experience has been incredibly frustrating. I just want to understand why this happened — and whether anyone else has faced a similar sudden ban.

Has anyone here managed to get a clear answer from Vercel in a situation like this?

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JustinELRoberts 2 days ago

Ask HN: How are senior SWEs using AI?

I’m a SWE with ~5.5 years of professional experience now and anecdotally see AI used primarily by juniors who use it as a crutch. Moreover, the vast majority of the “best” engineers I know do not use any AI-assisted coding tools (e.g. Copilot). They do, however, occasionally use LLMs as a search engine for unqualified questions (I.e. where they identify that there are unknown unknowns). Is my anecdotal experience representative of reality? If not, I’d love to hear peoples’ workflows (especially the historical high performers)

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cryptography 2 days ago

Ask HN: What Are the Main Principles That Make You Appreciate Someone's Content?

Hey everyone!

I'm doing a small research project for my studies to better understand what makes certain accounts go viral. What actually makes them stand out? Is it mostly about the content itself, or does the creator’s background/personality play a big role?

I know this is a broad question, but I’d really appreciate it if you could share a few things that make you enjoy someone’s content — and maybe even follow them. What grabs your attention and keeps you coming back?

Thanks in advance!

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AbstractH24 9 days ago

Ask HN: Any advice on pivoting out of VC-backed tech?

I'm exploring moving away from work with VC-backed B2B SaaS startups and towards working with B2C businesses on Main Street.

For anyone else who's felt inclined to make a similar pivot - any advice? Particularly when it comes to remaining challenged, informed, and translating valuable hype-cycle concepts to people who don't care about hype.

While it's interesting to play with shiny toys, helping investors make money by creating products related to the hype-cycle de jour that get used by other B2B SaaS companies just feels soulless.

(My background is in GTM systems and data analytics mostly, but I think the question applies to anyone)

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