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Article URL: https://meet.hn/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648747

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

After thinking about it for a while I am wondering, is everything data compression? Perhaps trivially so?

Like chaotic and nonchaotic systems alike can be described by their ability to be compressed. The less compressible the less chaotic [1]. And this is where we define explicitly chaos is in the regime of positive Lyapunov exponents. And so that creates an intrinsic link between dynamics and information. And information is what the universe is fundamentally made out of to say metaphorically.

But then that is why neural networks are so good at their jobs compared to anything else when predicting chaotic things [2] because they literally are attempting to compress the space of data. Which is a descriptor of chaos.

And the reason we say that neural networks are unexplainable or at least hard to explain is that they don’t show directly the solution. But if we switch our mental model to that the universe is simply only able to be described by literally compressing it into something, then neural networks are the best estimator for any function [3].

Which implies that neural networks are the best we can get. So all you can do is work towards more sophisticated architectures to understand anything. Because there isn’t anything that’s a true data model, function approximations are all we will ever get [4]. And also the reason they can predict further into the future than though possible is because previously we simply had worse compression algorithms than before.

And to me this all seems trivially true, or likely less than that because there seems to be no implications from it that are more than cursory observations and perhaps I am simply naive. So I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction to read or do more to understand these things. Because I have organized a conference to understand these ideas [5] and I think I should organize another one but also I’m not sure how to interact with these ideas because most of my time is spent doing geophysics and data science and not this.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0370157301000254

[2] https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.5.043252

[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S089360809700097X

[4] https://projecteuclid.org/journals/statistical-science/volume-16/issue-3/Statistical-Modeling--The-Two-Cultures-with-comments-and-a/10.1214/ss/1009213726.full

[5] conference talks on YouTube (not all the talks were recorded and also the conference was broader in topic than this post). https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6zSfYNSRHalAsgIjHHsttpYfxJ_XIPbt&si=VVWAE-fsv_WfFwfK

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648742

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

Article URL: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/amazons-chinese-sellers-to-raise-prices-or-quit-us-market-as-tariffs-hit-145/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648737

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

Article URL: https://centminmod.com/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648731

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

When Let’s Encrypt, a free certificate authority, started issuing 90 day TLS certificates for websites, it was considered a bold move that helped push the ecosystem towards shorter certificate life times. Beforehand, certificate authorities normally issued certificate lifetimes lasting a year or more. With 4.0, Certbot is now supporting Let’s Encrypt’s new capability for six day certificates through ACME profiles and dynamic renewal at:

• 1/3rd of lifetime left
• 1/2 of lifetime left, if the lifetime is shorter than 10 days

There’s a few, significant reasons why shorter lifetimes are better:

• If a certificate's private key is compromised, that compromise can't last as long.
• With shorter life spans for the certificates, automation is encouraged. Which facilitates robust security of web servers.
• Certificate revocation is historically flaky. Lifetimes 10 days and under prevent the need to invoke the revocation process and deal with continued usage of a compromised key.

There is debate on how short these lifetimes should be, but with ACME profiles you can have the default or “classic” Let’s Encrypt experience (90 days) or start actively using other profile types through Certbot with the --preferred-profile and --required-profile flags. For six day certificates, you can choose the “shortlived” profile.

These new options are just the beginning of the modern features the ecosystem can support and we are glad to have dynamic renewal times to start leveraging a more agile web that facilitates better security and flexible options for everyone. Thank you to the community and the Certbot team for making this happen!

Love ♥️ Certbot as much as us? Donate today to support this work.

Hi, my name is Anguel and I am one of the developers of WhoDB (https://github.com/clidey/whodb)

I am not a fan of the dbeaver, beekeeper, adminer, etc experience because they are bloated, ugly, and at best okay but not great.

Hence why I started working on WhoDB.

The approach:

- browser-based (chrome/firefox)

- no bloat

- jupyter notebook-like experience (Scratchpad)

- built-in AI co-pilot with ollama (local) or openai/anthropic

We just shipped query history and replay (time travel?) to the Scratchpad.

Would love for you to check it out and give some feedback aka roast us into oblivion:

docker run -p 8080:8080 clidey/whodb

Food for thought:

1. What's your biggest database pain point?

2. Any killer feature missing from current tools?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648713

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://research.trychroma.com/generative-benchmarking

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648618

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

The new sensor — expected to launch in the second half of 2025 — will provide easier diabetes management for eligible users.

Article URL: https://radpod.ai/share/openai-vs-elon-musk-countersuit-april-2025-snapshot-ec7ce89c

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648587

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/my-daughter-is-ready-for-her-first-smartphone-im-not-ready-to-give-it-to-her-fb038e6f

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648585

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

I built Cheaprr based on two premises:

1. AI is now good enough to handle most creative tasks that once required human freelancers. 2. Still, subscription fatigue is real. Many people (myself included) don’t want to pay monthly for tools they use occasionally.

That’s why I created Cheaprr: a platform where you can “hire” AI bots for specific tasks on demand. It brings top AI tools (OpenAI, Midjourney, ElevenLabs, etc) together in one place.

The best part? Instead of paying for a subscription, you buy credits (called "Volts") and only spend them when you need a task done.

Cheaprr is still in beta, and I’m building it solo, so I’d love any feedback!

Website: https://cheaprr.com

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648578

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://twitter.com/trycua/status/1910455692861071414

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648560

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://theamericanenterprise.com/the-russian-paradox-so-much-education-so-little-human-capital/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648559

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/10/bezos-backed-ev-startup-slate-autos-pickup-truck-spotted-in-the-wild/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648546

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/darlene-forde/nominal-aphasia-problems-name-retrieval

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648536

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp17819.pdf

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648530

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://starcrossed.franzai.com/?hn

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648528

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

Article URL: https://rodyne.com/?p=2368

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648526

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

Article URL: https://coursetable.com/catalog?course-modal=202503-13705

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648517

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-time-of-monsters

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648516

Points: 2

# Comments: 0