Hacker News Reader

DebtDeflationon Anthropic raises $13B Series F

The wildest part is that the frontier models have a lifespan of 6 months or so. I don't see how it's sustainable to keep throwing this kind of money at training new models that will be obsolete in the blink of an eye. Unless you believe that AGI is truly just a few model generations away and once achieved it's game over for everyone but the winner. I don't.

DebtDeflationon Why haven't quantum computers factored 21 yet?

Since most QC researchers are saying that the real use cases are not Shor's or Grover's but rather molecular simulation (calculating ground state energies), do we have a timeline for doing anything useful in this space with quantum computers? A quick Googling indicates it take about 12 logical qubits to simulate extremely simple molecules like LiH and H4. Does the qubit requirement just scale linearly with the total number of electrons or is there an exponential function in there somewhere? I'm trying to get a sense of whetherf material science and biological applications are similarly 30+ years out or might come substantially sooner.

DebtDeflationon Why haven't quantum computers factored 21 yet?

The article claims that 15 was done without precompilation (in the 2015 experiment but not the 2001 experiment), but only because 15 is a very unique number (after decomposition, only the last multiplication has to be performed because all the previous multiplications involve multiplying by 1).

That said, we are REALLY far off from having a useful quantum computer. Jensen was probably being conservative when he said 20-30 years away, hence the immediate pressure he received form the investor community to reverse his statement followed by the flood of ridiculous press releases from the usual companies claiming to be 2-3 years away.

DebtDeflationon Nvidia DGX Spark

It's a great idea that they utterly gimped with the 273 GB/s memory bandwidth. You can buy a Macbook Pro M4 Max with 128GB that has TWICE the bandwidth. A 4090 has 4 TIMES the bandwidth. I get that they're terrified of doing anything that competes with their H100/B200 but there is an enormous gap between 273 GB/s and the >2TB/s of their data center products.

DebtDeflationon Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

It is absolutely 80%+. The majority of the time, it is a company looking to sponsor an H1B for a role or they have an H1B in the role who they want to sponsor for PERM status (Green Card) and the law requires them to post the job to prove there are no Americans available. The next most common reason is they have identified an internal candidate for the role but corporate policy requires all jobs to be posted externally to show they are looking for the best person. The next most common reason is HR conducting market research on compensation. In all cases, there is no intent to actually fill the role with an external hire.

DebtDeflationon Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android

The are apk's floating around from the Ice Cream Sundae days where the developer went out of business and is no longer on Play Store and this is literally the only way to run the app.

I have a Concept2 rower with the old PM3 monitor which is no longer supported by their ErgData app and the only way to connect my phone to my rower is by sideloading the ancient version of the app that supports it. So that's going to break now?

DebtDeflationon IBM's Power11 Processor Architecture

There used to be stories about small manufacturing companies that bought AS/400s in the early 1990s, installed them in their factories, then at some point there was construction and walls were built around them, and then they were discovered 20+ years later, still running, when they were upgrading their production lines and trying to figure out what was actually running them.

DebtDeflationon The ROI of Exercise

There's also a lot of reverse causation here. Healthy people don't fall very often and when they do they generally don't break their hips. Falling frequently and suffering broken hips when falling are both general signs of poor systemic health and overall fragility which portend a short remaining lifespan regardless.

DebtDeflationon Sunny days are warm: why LinkedIn rewards mediocrity

As a recently laid off tech worker, I was excited to have a recruiter contact me regarding what seemed like a dream job. After passing an initial phone screen, a face to face interview was scheduled. I spent several days preparing. On the day of the interview, I took the train into the city and had a 4 or 5 block walk to the new company's office. While walking, I noticed a scraggly dog laying in the alley. I was pressed for time, but stopped to get some food and water to give to the dog. He was very appreciative, barked playfully, and licked my face. I continued on my way. When I got to the office, I signed in, took the elevator to the 7th floor, and opened the door. Imagine my shock, the dog was the interviewer. <-- This is the kind of nonsense I generally see posted on LinkedIn, perhaps only slightly exaggerated.

DebtDeflationon Sam Altman is in damage-control mode after latest ChatGPT release

https://www.theverge.com/command-line-newsletter/759897/sam-...

>“When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth...Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes."

How is Sam Altman admitting an AI bubble not front page news everywhere?

DebtDeflationon Time to End Roundtripping by Big Pharma

100%. All of these schemes depend on the existence of a jurisdiction with low (or non-existent) corporate taxes that they can shift profits to in order to avoid paying taxes in the actual jurisdictions in which they manufacture and sell. Doesn't matter whether at its core it's a transfer pricing scheme, an IP royalty scheme, or a thin capitalization scheme. You need a man (country) in the middle with low/no taxes where you will recognize the profit you don't want taxed.

DebtDeflationon Gartner's grift is about to unravel

Over 100 just for the AI market?

DebtDeflationon Gartner's grift is about to unravel

A few months ago I saw one of Gartner's AI Magic Quadrants (there are several) and it had IBM, Oracle, and a few companies I'd never heard of in the Leaders quadrant and OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google in the bottom left. Obviously companies like OpenAI and Google have absolutely no need to pay Gartner for anything. But how is this actually considered credible research by people in non-tech companies? You'd have to be living in a cave to not know who is really leading in AI.

DebtDeflationon GPT-5

Is this a new model or a router front-ending existing models?

DebtDeflationon AI is propping up the US economy

AI isn't propping up the economy. The BELIEF that AI will replace almost all labor (employees) is what's propping up the economy. Or rather, propping up the stock market. I'm not sure what kind of economy we're going to have when 99% of the income flows to 0.001% of the population.

DebtDeflationon Three weeks after acquiring Windsurf, Cognition offers staff the exit door

>employees were given until August 10 to decide whether they want to take the buyout, which amounts to nine months of salary

This isn't a "buyout" and it certainly isn't "making them whole" which is what they said they'd do a couple of weeks ago. This is just a layoff with a severance payment.

As I said when the initial story broke, this is setting a terrible precedent for the startup world. Why on earth would anyone join a startup and accept low cash comp in exchange for equity if the default terminal event will be an acqui-hire of the founders with all other employees being shown the door rather than an IPO or acquisition?

DebtDeflationon Intel CEO Letter to Employees

Notice how they stopped talking about this after the election?

But yes, together, the Big 3 are the single largest shareholder in 88% of SP500 companies.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-and-politic...

DebtDeflationon Intel CEO Letter to Employees

He will announce they're selling the foundry business within the next 12-18 months. I'm certain of it.

DebtDeflationon Ozzy Osbourne has died

Now I REALLY wish I would have figured out a way to make it to the UK for Black Sabbath's final concert a couple of weeks ago.

DebtDeflationon Man wearing metallic necklace dies after being sucked into MRI machine

You're in luck. Video of an MRI magnet being quenched that I posted above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SOUJP5dFEg

DebtDeflationon Man wearing metallic necklace dies after being sucked into MRI machine

If anyone is curious what pushing the button to turn off (AKA "quench) the magnet looks like, there's this video of an MRI machine being decommissioned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SOUJP5dFEg

You push the button, then 15 seconds later the liquid helium is vented through a pipe on the roof of the hospital (it's quite a spectacular display), and then the superconductor starts to heat up and no longer be a superconductor so the current that's been flowing through the coils (they are energized once, when the machine is first installed, and then continue flowing forever so long as the superconductor is superconducting since there's no resistance) and the magnetic field decays to nothing.

It's not an instantaneous process.

DebtDeflationon Shutting Down Clear Linux OS

Layoffs have just become a way to manage quarterly EPS.

DebtDeflationon Intel's retreat is unlike anything it's done before in Oregon

I was super disappointed by the recent "18A will be an internal only node, 14A will be for external customers" announcement. Immediately reminded me of "we're skipping 20A because 18A is better than expected". If Panther Lake on 18A gets delayed again beyond Q1 2026, it's pretty much over for Intel as we know it and the foundry will get spun off in late 2026.

DebtDeflationon Intel's retreat is unlike anything it's done before in Oregon

The one constant through Intel's almost two decade long downfall across multiple CEOs has been the BOARD. At what point do they get assigned blame?

DebtDeflationon Molecule produced by gut bacteria causes atherosclerosis

A quick Google search reveals these bacteria produce the imidazole propionate from histidine. Unfortunately, histidine is an essential amino acid (necessary for life and our bodies can't produce it so we need it in our diet).

DebtDeflationon Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines valued at $12B in early-stage funding

Remind me, does she have plans to release an actual product? Or is this like Ilya's company where their first and only product will be AGI, if/when that ever happens?

DebtDeflationon LLM Inevitabilism

It doesn't though. Go to your local Wal Mart, Costco, Home Depot, Target, etc. and try to make a purchase with it. Go to a local supermarket or restaurant and try to buy food with it. Stop at a gas station and try to buy fuel with it. Go to Amazon or eBay and try to make a purchase with it. Go to an airline or hotel website and try to book travel with it. Go into your Uber app and try to pay with it. Call your landlord and try to pay your rent with it. Objectively, it doesn't "work just fine as a currency" or we'd have empirical evidence of it actually being used as such in real life.

DebtDeflationon LLM Inevitabilism

It does matter whether something is useful and I really wish people would stop making comparisons to crypto because it's an absolutely terrible comparison.

AI is certainly in a bubble right now, as with dotcoms in 1999. But AI is also delivering a lot of value right now and advancing at an incredible pace. It will become ubiquitous and at a faster pace than the Internet ultimately did.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin has been around for 17 years and there still are no non-criminal use cases apart from buying it and hoping it will be worth more in the future.

DebtDeflationon Anthropic signs a $200M deal with the Department of Defense

Also, apparently it's not just Anthropic.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/14/anthropic-google-openai-xai-...

Google, OpenAI,and xAI also get $200M each.

DebtDeflationon Anthropic signs a $200M deal with the Department of Defense

> With CDAO and other DOD organizations and commands, we'll engage in:

- Working directly with the DOD to identify where frontier AI can deliver the most impact, then developing working prototypes fine-tuned on DOD data

- Collaborating with defense experts to anticipate and mitigate potential adversarial uses of AI, drawing on our advanced risk forecasting capabilities

- Exchanging technical insights, performance data, and operational feedback to accelerate responsible AI adoption across the defense enterprise

What exactly is the government getting for $200M? From the above, it sounds like it will be a management consulting style Powerpoint deliverable containing a list of use cases, some best practices and insights, and a plan for doing...something.