Hacker News Reader

Logans_Runon The UK’s Secretive Web Surveillance Program Is Ramping Up

... or concurrent to it

Logans_Runon NYPD urges citizens to buy AirTags to fight surge in car thefts

From TFA

Mayor Adams was asked during the press conference if AirTags work with Android (they don't).

"Why would anyone have one [an Android phone]?" Mayor Adams responded.

Oh and given that this in New York we're talking about here, the vigilante mob are gonna go wild for this, especially after Citizen worked out so well ....

But by last month, Frame was enthusiastically backing the idea of manhunts, according to screenshots of internal company communications seen by NBC News and first reported by Motherboard [1]

[1] "Inside Citizen: The public safety app pushing surveillance boundaries" https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/citizen-public-safety...

Logans_Runon Fakespot Is Acquired by Mozilla

NSFW definition (depending on I.T. policies)

[1] Pizzle is a Middle English word for penis, derived from Low German pesel or Flemish Dutch pezel, diminutive of pees, meaning 'sinew'. The word is used today to signify the penis of an animal, chiefly in Australia and New Zealand.

[2] Interestingly, it is used in medical slang (Dictionary of medical slang -Jacob Edward) and it is defined as exhausted, or to its point:

~ Pizzle chewer ... A female who relieves a male of his phallic tension by fondling the instrument in her mouth.

~ Pizzle-grinder ... 1. A butcher. 2. A prostitute.

~ Pizzle honker ... A prostitute who satisfies her patrons by manual friction.

~ Pizzle warmer . . . The pudendum muliebre, esp. the vagina.

~ Pizzled . . . Exhausted physically or mentally.

So I guess you could say that Pocket is a Fizzled[3] Pizzle.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzle [2] https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/166295/etymology... [3] Fizzle: To finish slowly in a way that is disappointing or has become less interesting & There is often an initial indication of interest, but then it fizzles out and no cash materialises. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fizzle

Logans_Runon Netflix loses 1M users in Spain over password policing

Indeed. I enjoyed 'The Mentalist' series (The Pilot and Series 1 in particular) which was also on Netflix if memory serves.

Logans_Runon Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

A fascinating read, including the Nat Geo article OG link; but couldn't help chuckling at one of the quotes in it .... ..Sucking up carbon from microbial crusts would [make large fruiting bodies] possible. fnar, fnar. But seriously though, Mind. Blown.

That is all :)

Logans_Runon Chinese Researchers Announce 711 Wh/Kg Lithium Battery

Thanks, Well spotted - I've ammended it

Logans_Runon Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) – An Introduction

Glad its getting traction, it was a fun read and introduced me to something new (tm). One issue I had about 'Zaps' was the 'pay-to-play' aspect which seemed in discord/disharmony with the OG vision of Solving the Right Problems

There is no blockchain. No proprietary social sign-in. No “real-name policy” No distributed hash table, onion routing, raft consensus, or peer-to-peer protocol. There is just a method of providing simple digitally signed text, and a simple, scalable search service.

I mean I get it aaannnndd 54 lines of Spec etc and there is a need for something like you offer/describe and I'm glad to have stumbled across the link that lead to this blog that leads to the GH <phew!>

Logans_Runon Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) – An Introduction

To be clear: I am the submitter not the author. The link is just something I stumbled across while browsing ReclaimTheNet.

Logans_Runon Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) – An Introduction

Rebuttal/response to/of your comment/thought/input. From the Wiki -

I ran across Nostr when I was looking for an excuse to do some network programming. I have a thing for small standards, and the Nostr spec was 75 lines of exactly what I was looking for.

Logans_Runon Cigna saves millions by having its doctors reject claims without reading them

Free Market, Self-Regulation, Share-Holder Value.

My Friends, The Revolution is near. There comes a time when the common man can no longer stand idly by and watch as their brothers and sisters (and themselves) continue to be screwed over.

There are many amongst you that fear speaking out in the vain hope that some day that they will get their share of 'the Good Life'. I regret to inform you that if it was going to happen, it would have happened to you by now.

Don't remain silent nor inactive in fear of rocking the boat, the 'they' are mocking you and holding out a carrot on a stick while you blindly plod on in the hope of 'some day'.

Do what you can, when you can. Even the smallest ant can overcome an elephant.

Do not be discouraged nor disheartened if you feel there is nothing you can do. That is what the 'they' count on.

Enough of this Shit!

Logans_Runon Mice grow ‘mini-antlers’ thanks to deers’ speedy stem cells

...If only someone would provide a full access link to the paper (Sigh & hint-hint). Then perhaps We (the HN Community) could have an adult conversation beyond what the Click-Baity submission title portrays.

Logans_Runon Survival Time – (SANS Internet Storm Center)

Related (of course) to https://isc.sans.edu/data/threatmap.html

Logans_Runon How to Detect Profanity in JavaScript?

Indeed... One could merrily say that thoust's pox-ridden appendige was verily emitting the most foul and sulphorous odor such that it would make lucifer him very self spew and splutter in disgust... (edit in case not clear - I don't mean you obviously !)

My mind goes to even worse insults but....

Logans_Runon Chinese banks cause alarm as capital flight measures intensify

I'm not so sure about that. China has brought a lot of US debt https://www.ey.com/en_cn/china-overseas-investment-network/o...

Logans_Runon Free Music/Audio Visualizer Software to Render Videos

A really nicely laid out landing page. It managed to convey what it is and what it does at a glance.

Logans_Runon 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]

If memory serves (and it was a long time ago) Win98, Office 97 and NT4 all had an easy to guess key. As long as the ABC (product type eg. Pro, Home) followed by the -xxx (first two digits added up to 9 as the last digit eg 639) -xxxx and the last 4 digits also added up to 9 as the last digit) all would be good and passed all the validation checks. A product key of xyz-000-0000 would work although it was a bit obvious where as something like fgh-729-32139 would sail through.... Ah, the good ol' days

Logans_Runon FBI takes down, operates Bitcoin tumblers (2021)

Quote from a linked article in tfa The FBI has tumbled more Bitcoin than anyone else in human history. Pot meet kettle as they say on this side of the pond.

Logans_Runon Ask HN: What to do when your technical ineptitude is hurting startup progress?

The information provided is a little sparse but I would consider hiring a person for a fixed term contract of 2-3 months and then use the freed up time to split 50/50 between QA'ing their code (and perhaps picking up some tips and tricks) and studying/MVP'ing.

After the 2/3 months is up - Re-Evalute the situation.

Logans_Runon 20 Rules of thumb for writing better software

Compiler errors are better than runtime errors
Runtime errors are better than bugs
Tooling is better than documentation

Documentation is better than nothing

As a grumpy old gray-beard those four are my favorites

Logans_Runon Human brain organoids respond to visual stimuli when transplanted into rats

Note: I swiped the submission headline from somewhere else because the paper's title of 'Structural and functional integration of human forebrain organoids with the injured adult rat visual system' is just unparsable for the layman.

( https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stem.2023.01.004 )

Edit To Add: https://archive.is/Xy1FS

Logans_Runon Operation Luigi: How I hacked my friend without her noticing (2017)

Perhaps in the world where you (the red-teamer) sets up their phone and/or laptop as an unencrypted/open wifi hotspot access point and then follow them (the blue-teamer) to their favorite coffee spot / burger bar / etc?

If I recall correctly even current phones will connect to open wi-fi spots preferentially and/or automatically. Bingo, job MITM done! Bonus points for having a tool on the red-teamers' laptop that can send wi-fi de-auth packets :)

That would be the first thing I would look in to to see if it is still do-able today if the problem was 'hmmmmm. Given the parameters, how could I MITM the blue-teamer?'

I'm sure that others can come up with even wilder ideas involving can-tennas or bird-dogging the blue-teamer into a elevator with a 'running useful and interesting stuff' laptop in a backpack and wait for the blue-teamers' cell phone to start reaching out desperately for a way to remain connected (cell tower, wifi, 2G cell signal etc) either of which might work

Logans_Runon New AI classifier for indicating AI-written text

In my {semi-tongue-in-cheek} opinion - Thus begins the origins of Arnies' Skynet.

The {semi-cynical} part of my corporate soul screams ‘oooh, what a great way to boot-strap your own ML/AI and have marketing trumpet it as 'So good that it was trained on OpenAi data and Human™ Error Labelling!'.

The Futurist (Luddite???) in me shudders at the thought of two very powerful computer systems (models) working to out compete each other in a way that turns out to be ‘rather unfortunate’ a.k.a ‘Oh shit! We should have thought about how we (the human race) can somehow be able to tell machine output vs. human output’. But that is a discussion I will leave to the lawyers and ethicists to thrash out a solution/definition that outputs a simple binary Y/N with a Five-Nines certainty.

But Meh - A) The above is a rather random comment and B), Time will tell and hopefully this and other similar efforts remain 100% Libre as in 'free to all individuals forever and is non-revocable'

Logans_Runon Working for a Dating Website (2015)

What you are describing sounds remarkably similar to the dating videos concept from the 1980's. I guess all that is old becomes new again!

(Did a quick search that turned up two low quality links to illustrate what I mean)

https://www.thrillist.com/sex-dating/nation/lessons-learned-...

https://www.businessinsider.com/found-footage-awkward-80s-vi...

Logans_Runon Switzerland: snow flown in by helicopter in attempt to keep ski slopes open

Global warming being caused in part by internal combustion engines and aviation results in less snow for skiers... Solution? Chopper some more snow in to counter the effects of I.C.E's and aviation. Huhmmmm.... Does anyone else spot a dichotomy in thinking here?

Logans_Runon Tesla FSD Beta 10.69.25 Struggles in Snowy Detroit MI: A Scary Video

I'm not a Tesla fan but to me the car seemed to handle it in a reasonable manner i.e. by disengaging whenever the FSD sensed slippery conditions (although the traction control system when on autopilot certainly seems to need some tweaking). I'm not sure what sort of tires were fitted but it seemed to struggle more when FSD was engaged vs. the human driver.

Logans_Runon Increasing freshwater supply to sustainably address global water security

TLDR; for the time constrained -

They propose a vertical capture surface that is 210 m wide and 100 m tall, roughly corresponding to the vertically projected area of a large cruise ship, can provide a sufficient volume of extractable moisture to meet the daily potable needs of approximately 500,000 people, on average.