cowmix

US academia has a ridiculous amount of institutional entropy” — I wouldn’t count on that saving it. These institutions aren’t built for a top-down attack on the very core of how they operate. They’ve spent decades aligning to how grants are funded, how programs are run, how collaboration works. Now the government has blown that up — and done it in such a sloppy, unpredictable way that the institutions don’t even know how to react.

The “activism” angle is a red herring — they’re screwing with all foreign students now, regardless of what they do. And honestly, activism is one of the things that made the US stand apart — or used to.

The US government, while far from perfect, was once seen as a neutral partner in research — a place where scientists from everywhere could coordinate, mix, and build. It cost us relatively little compared to what we gained, and that leadership was admired both domestically and globally. It wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty damn good — and now it’s being killed.

The government doesn’t just “fund innovation” — it creates the fertile ground where it can happen at all. It also bankrolls the unprofitable, high-risk research the private sector can’t or won’t touch. Cut that, and you’re ripping out the roots, not just trimming a branch.

I’m sorry, but when someone posts about a medical miracle here on HN — sure, I spend 2 seconds appreciating it — and then my mind immediately jumps to the fact that the very system that directly and indirectly made it possible is being dismantled as I type. This topic doesn’t get nearly enough ink here on HN, IMHO — and the wreckage isn’t even over yet. Just like how the full effect of tariffs took time to hit, the systematic destruction of research and science in the US hasn’t fully been felt, here or abroad. The gaps we’re creating are insane — and no amount of LLM hype or VC funding is going to cover them.

I’m not saying everyone should “come to the US.” But I don’t want people avoiding the US because of insane, self-inflicted barriers our own government chooses to put up. I’d rather see top candidates pick Canada, the EU, or even China because they’re getting a genuinely better opportunity — not because the US went off the rails. We’re forfeiting leadership in science and innovation for petty, internal, anti-progress reasons.

MSFT simply has done half-assed attempts at ARM for each wave / attempt over the past 10+ years. APPL, for each processor move, "bet the company" and it was full speed ahead whereas MSFT has never HAD to align everything for a move.

Having said all that, I've been using a Snapdragon Elite X laptop since day one and the experience has gotten better over the year plus I've been using it. Once there was a native port of command line git (yes, THAT didn't even work) - my life got a lot better.

Most of my build config run on either platform (Gitea and Github) interchangeably.

Heh.. this comment made my day.

I’m just getting into MCP (building my own server and trying some canned ones), and one thing I’ve noticed — some servers seem to devour your context window before you’ve even typed a single token / question.

My favorite example is the public Atlassian one — https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/remote-mcp-serv...

Even with Claude or Gemini CLI (both with generous limits), I run out of context and resources fast.

With local LLMs via LM Studio? Forget it — almost any model will tap out before I can get even a simple question in.

Yeah, it’s wild how many projects—especially container-based ones—have already jumped to Debian Trixie as their “stable” base, even though it’s still technically in testing. I got burned when linuxserver.io’s docker-webtop suddenly switched to Trixie and broke a bunch of my builds that were based on Bookworm.

As you said, Debian 13 officially lands on August 9, so it’s close—but in my (admittedly limited) experience, the testing branch still feels pretty rough. I ran into way more dependency chaos—and a bunch of missing or deprecated packages—than I expected.

If you’re relying on container images that have already moved to Trixie, heads up: it’s not quite seamless yet. Might be safer to stick with Bookworm a bit longer, or at least test thoroughly before making the jump.

OTOH, no.

Been self-hosting for 35+ years. Docker's made the whole thing 300% easier — especially when thinking long term.

Oh thank god Google has stayed so principled under political pressure! Even with the threat of being broken up, they’ve been a rock. And rest easy—your Gmail definitely isn’t being quietly indexed and funneled into some RAG system to help certain friendly agencies flag “disloyal” citizens for... let’s say, enhanced oversight.

As for “Don’t be evil” disappearing from their core values? Totally normal. Just streamlining the brand, I’m sure.

And of course, I hardly know anyone who’s lost years of email, only to have Google’s famously responsive support team leap into action and do absolutely nothing to recover it.

I use Windows 11. Podman/WLS2 works way better than I thought it would. And when Gitbash was finally ported (officially) - that filled other gaps I was missing in my workflow. Windows ARM Python still is lacking all sorts of stuff, but overall I'm pretty productive on it.

I pre/ordered the Snapdragon X Dev kit from Qualcomm - but they ended up delivering a few units -- to only cancel the whole program. The whole thing turned out to be a hot-mess express saga. THAT computer was going to be my Debian rig.

This sorta reminds me of the lie that was pushed when the Snapdragon X laptops were being released last year. Qualcomm implied the NPU would be used for LLMs — and I bought into the BS without looking into it. I still use a Snapdragon laptop as my daily driver (it's fine) but for running models locally, it's still a joke. Despite Qualcomm's claims about running 13B parameter models, software like LM Studio only runs on CPU with NPU support merely "planned for future updates." XDA The NPU isn't even faster than the CPU for LLMs — it's just more power-efficient for small models, not the big ones people actually want to run. Their GPUs aren't much better for this purpose either. The only hope for LLMs is the Vulkan support on the Snapdragon X — which still is half-baked.

WSL/2 has a lot of overhead and it NOT Windows native. I used it all the time, but I also use Windows Git Bash -- which is also like this project.

OTOH, artistic choices were made at the time with these limitations in mind.

I'm not sure what bugs me more. People using GenAI for making content or people using GenAI AND being lazy about it.

I think we're gonna find that there are different ways to quantify "humanness" other than IQ. Someone with an IQ of 95 might seem "more real" than an LLM with a computed IQ of 145.

jwz makes the list -- against his will.

About three years ago, when the major state university my wife worked for was starting its "return to office" push, the head of HR gave a Zoom town hall filled with condescending remarks. He said things like, "I don’t know why you all aren’t back in the office already..." and "I love going to the MU and chatting with students about their college experience."

Keep in mind, COVID was still raging at this point.

Right in the middle of his calm rant, a courier—UPS or Amazon, I think—knocked on his door, rang the bell, and then dropped off a package, loud and clear for everyone to hear. It was hilarious and completely undercut his entire message. Funny, but also infuriating.

It is always shocking to me that someone with those kinds of resources can get duped like that -- with little checks and balances.

I love, love all the energy in the ‘self-hosting’ space. These apps are all that stand between us and the cloud hegemony goin' on.

This is correct. I just submit the prompt and 'rate it' in my head.

I wish there was a 'historical' or fiction version of that subreddit though.

When I test new LLMs (whether SaaS or local), I have them create a fake post to r/AmItheAsshole from the POV of the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

It's a great, fun test.

Which hospital system is this?

The other day, I finally decided to kick the tires on Coolify. I had a few small projects lined up and thought it’d be a good fit. So, I mindlessly installed it and was pretty impressed at first. But then I discovered it was written in PHP, and I could feel myself starting to sour on it. That’s when it hit me — I was ashamed of my own bias against PHP.

100% - this could be Intel's ticket to capture the hearts of developers and then everything else that flows downstream. They have nothing to lose here -- just do it Intel!

THIS. The ARIYA is the first EV they've widely released (last year) with any active thermal management. I live in AZ, and all my friends with Leaf's all have had to have their batteries replaced at least once.

All my Chevy based EV/PHEVs have had great battery life (so far) - knock on wood.

Made my day. No notes!

I JUST tried this in ChatGPT (4o) and it ignored the instructions in the image.