haensi

I’ve been keeping up with the classics (NCF, Wide & Deep, LightGCN), but the field seems to have shifted dramatically in the last 18–24 months toward LLM-based reasoning and graph-based retrieval at scale.

I’m looking for the "state of the art" in 2026. Specifically:

LLM4Rec: Beyond just using LLMs for feature engineering—who is doing generative recommendation well?

Retrieval vs. Ranking: Any new breakthroughs in the "Two-Tower" paradigm or vector database integration?

Real-world Scale: Papers that address the latency/cost trade-offs of these newer, heavier models.

What has been the most influential paper you’ve read recently that changed how you think about discovery?

Hi HN,

I’ll be visiting San Francisco in about 4 weeks and am hoping to get some book recommendations. Here’s what I’m looking for:

1. *For my kids (ages 3 & 5):* I’m particularly interested in science books for young children that are only available or easiest to find in the US. I’d love to bring back some unique and educational reads that might not be readily available in Germany.

2. *For myself:* I’m a machine learning engineer with interests in linguistics, philosophy, theology, natural history, and epistemology. If you know of any extraordinary books in these areas, especially those that are hard to find or are particularly renowned in the US, I’d love to hear your suggestions.

3. *Must-Reads:* Finally, if there are any other books—across any genre—that you consider a must-read, I’m all ears. Whether it’s fiction, non-fiction, or anything in between, I’m looking to expand my library with some great reads.

Also, any tips on where to buy these books in SF would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance for your recommendations!

What technology do you use today that is far from mainstream? Think Tony Stark technology. Examples are mobile phones / internet in the 80s, metal 3D printers, quantum ML, night vision device, large language models (GPT-3) for personal communication, CRISPR, manned drones.

My wife (staying at home) and I have a 2yo girl and a 7mo girl and raise them trilingually (English, Spanish, German). To our surprise, the 2yo has a better pronunciation than monolingual peers. She also has a remarkable memory and can remember names of places and people. Moreover, she discovers letters on signs and posters. Her favorite book is a visual dictionary. [3] In general, our daughters can have access to all tools after a short introduction and under supervision. Scissors? Hold em like this. Kitchen knife? Handle with care. China plates? Careful.

Most people in our neighborhood do not have a strategy on how to raise the children. They rather trust in day care to take care of that or follow their intuition.

I feel a strong need to strategically work out an education. So far, I have been studying the Montessori work, namely 'Montessori, the Science Behind the Genius' [2].

I am interested in the following questions:

1. What educational strategy / syllabus do you have for your children?

2. At what age do you introduce smartphones / tablets for their independent usage? ()

   1. What do you think of the WHO guidance [4]?

   2. How much screen time do you think is beneficial / detrimental?

3. How do you provide an optimal environment for your children to learn at any time?

4. How do you teach technological foundations (STEM) without technology?

5. What activities do you perform outside / in nature? (e.g., Usage of animal guides / plant guides)

6. My daughter sees me working a lot with tablet / laptop and wants to do the same. (She's even 'scheduling meetings'). How would you deal with this?

() I am familiar with a related question from 2014 (Ask HN: How much screen time do you let your kids have?[1]).

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[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8746045

[2]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/019536936X

[3]: https://www.dk.com/us/book/9781465447562-5-language-visual-dictionary/

[4]: https://www.who.int/news/item/24-04-2019-to-grow-up-healthy-children-need-to-sit-less-and-play-more