Hacker News
1CVE program faces swift end after DHS fails to renew contract [fixed]
- MITRE's Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program, a crucial 25-year-old cybersecurity database, will end on April 16, 2025, after DHS did not renew its funding contract. The program's termination has raised concerns among experts who consider it essential for global cybersecurity defense and vulnerability tracking systems.
Future funding and privatization
Discussion of whether private industry should fund CVE after government cuts, with concerns about conflicts of interest if tech companies control vulnerability tracking and debate over public vs private responsibilityExisting system problems
Debate about current CVE implementation issues including backlog, scoring accuracy, and script kiddie spam, though most agree having an imperfect system is better than no systemPolitical motivation
Discussion of whether cuts were due to ignorance/incompetence or deliberate attempt to weaken security infrastructure, with concerns about broader pattern of defunding government institutions
2Show HN: Unsure Calculator – back-of-a-napkin probabilistic calculator
- This article introduces an uncertainty calculator that helps people make calculations with uncertain numbers using a simple range notation with a tilde (~). It enables practical decision-making in situations like career moves, financial planning, and scientific estimations by considering possible ranges of values instead of single, precise numbers.
Statistical pitfalls
Discussion of common mistakes when using statistics, including overconfidence in 95% intervals, incorrectly assuming uncorrelated probabilities, and overuse of normal distributions without proper justification.Alternative tools
Various existing calculators and tools that serve similar purposes are shared, including command-line options, mobile apps, and spreadsheet-based solutions like Guesstimate, Squiggle, and Carlo.Calculator improvements
Suggestions for enhancing the calculator's functionality, including support for different probability distributions, handling constraints, and better treatment of ranges, particularly for preventing impossible negative results.
3America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back
- The article discusses why new import tariffs ranging from 10% to 49% announced for 2025 won't succeed in bringing manufacturing back to the United States. Written by an industry expert, it outlines challenges including insufficient tariff levels, weak industrial supply chains, lack of manufacturing expertise, and infrastructure limitations.
Business culture & employment
Discussion of how American business culture has become hostile to worker development and domestic manufacturing, with reduced training, career planning and employee retention, leading to a workforce crisis and reliance on overseas productionStrategic manufacturing
Debate about whether US needs to restore manufacturing for strategic/security reasons vs economic ones, with focus on targeted reshoring, automation, and building alliances versus trying to compete directly with ChinaInfrastructure challenges
Analysis of the complex manufacturing ecosystem and supply chains China has built over 40+ years, and the significant challenges the US faces in trying to replicate that infrastructure and skilled workforce domestically
4How the U.S. became a science superpower
- The article discusses how the U.S. surpassed Britain in science and engineering during WWII, largely due to different approaches in weapon development. While Britain relied on military labs, the U.S. funded university-based research under Vannevar Bush's leadership, creating a lasting innovation ecosystem that dominated for decades.
US research funding model
Discussion of how the US decentralized research funding system with indirect cost reimbursement led to university excellence, but now faces threats from funding cuts while China invests heavilyHistorical context
Debate over whether US science supremacy came from its funding model or other factors like being undamaged by WWII, absorbing European scientists, and having greater industrial capacity pre-warDebt and funding priorities
Arguments over whether US debt justifies research funding cuts, with many noting research funding is minor compared to other spending and generates economic returns that help address debt
5Generate videos in Gemini and Whisk with Veo 2
- Google is expanding video generation capabilities in Gemini Advanced and Whisk. Users can now create 8-second high-resolution videos from text prompts using Veo 2 technology. The feature allows for cinematic realism and fluid motion, while Whisk Animate lets users turn still images into animated clips.
Whisk technical details
Discussion of how Whisk works under the hood, using prompt transmutation to convert images to text descriptions and leveraging Imagen 3's text encoder, with debate about latent space vs text representationAI movie creation
Debate about whether a solo creator could make a $100M movie using AI by 2027, referencing Flow's success and discussing barriers around distribution, copyright, and market saturation when creation becomes easyCreative control limitations
Exploration of why AI tools are predominantly text-based rather than offering more granular creative controls, with discussion of dataset availability and training approaches as key factors
6Hacking a Smart Home Device (2024)
- A detailed exploration of how the author reverse engineered a smart air purifier with an ESP32 microcontroller to integrate it with Home Assistant. Through network traffic analysis, mobile app inspection, and physical device disassembly, they discovered how to intercept and understand the device's communication protocol, ultimately gaining local control without relying on the manufacturer's cloud service.
Local control vs cloud dependence
Strong preference for devices with local control capabilities like RTSP, Zigbee, or Z-wave. Users reject cloud-dependent devices due to privacy/security concerns, with many advocating Home Assistant and separate network isolation for IoT.Firmware hacking and security
Discussion of ESP32-based devices' security, firmware modification capabilities, and surprising lack of encryption/protection measures. Some note upcoming EU regulations may affect this accessibility.Simple vs smart solutions
Debate over whether IoT complexity is necessary when simpler solutions exist. Some argue for basic hardwired solutions, while others value smart features for analytics and customization.
7OpenAI is building a social network?
- OpenAI is reportedly developing a social network prototype with a focus on ChatGPT's image generation capabilities. CEO Sam Altman is seeking feedback on the project, which could either become a standalone app or integrate into ChatGPT. The move could intensify rivalries with Elon Musk's X and Meta's upcoming AI social features.
Social media criticism
Widespread agreement that social media is harmful to wellbeing, with many users reporting improved happiness after quitting. Comparisons made to cigarettes' addictiveness. Discussion of how early internet forums/IRC were better than modern social platforms.OpenAI's strategy
Debate about whether building a social network indicates OpenAI isn't close to AGI as claimed. Some argue it's about gathering training data, while others see it as a desperate move to compete with xAI/Grok's success on Twitter.AI content concerns
Discussion of AI-generated content flooding platforms and debate on whether AI should be used to generate vs filter content. Concerns about distinguishing human from AI content and maintaining content quality on social platforms.
8Clolog
- Clolog is a logic programming system that embeds Prolog-like functionality within Clojure, allowing seamless integration between the two languages. It emphasizes expressive power and execution transparency, making it suitable for rapid prototyping and proof-of-concept development, though not optimized for speed.
State management concerns
Criticism of Clolog's imperative API and global state usage, arguing it should use immutable Clojure data structures instead. Concerns about state conflicts between different parts of programs using Clolog.Logic programming use cases
Discussion of when to use logic programming, including scheduling, product configuration, genealogy, static analysis, medical diagnosis, travel planning, and legal reasoning systems.Comparison with core.logic
Explores differences between Clolog and core.logic, focusing on their different approaches (Prolog vs Mini-Kanren), search algorithms (depth-first vs breadth-first), and relative maintenance status.
9Teuken-7B-Base and Teuken-7B-Instruct: Towards European LLMs (2024)
- A research paper presents two multilingual Large Language Models (LLMs) supporting all 24 official EU languages, trained on predominantly non-English data with a custom multilingual tokenizer. The models show strong performance across various multilingual benchmarks including European versions of ARC, HellaSwag, MMLU, and TruthfulQA.
Multilingual performance
LLMs perform better in English than other languages, with users noting improved results when translating queries to English first. Some models occasionally switch languages during reasoning, particularly to Chinese or English.Language model architecture
Discussion of how LLMs process language layers and whether they should focus on single languages vs multiple languages, with debate about training efficiency and translation approaches.European LLM development
Various European LLM projects are discussed, including EuroLLM and Mistral, with users sharing experiences about performance in different European languages and comparing them to larger models.
10Palestinian activist arrested by ICE while expecting U.S. citizenship interview
- A Palestinian student and legal U.S. resident, Mohsen Mahdawi, was arrested at a Vermont immigration office during what was supposed to be a citizenship interview. Mahdawi, who led protests against the Gaza war at Columbia University, was detained by ICE agents, sparking concerns about retaliation.
Political action and organization
Discussion of need for Americans to organize and take preemptive political action, with warnings that waiting for established politicians to act may be too late. Emphasis on power of collective action.First amendment concerns
Debate over freedom of speech limitations and detention of activists, with focus on rights of non-citizens and changing political climate in America regarding protest and dissent.Allegations and evidence
Discussion of whether claims against detained individual are substantiated, with debate over burden of proof needed for deportation and nature of supporting evidence.