HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

SeanDav

5,715 karma · joined October 20, 2010

submissionscomments
SeanDav··on Never argue with your boss (2009)
By all means argue with your boss, but:

Do it respectfully and accept the decision if it goes against your advice. Your boss is either aware of issues you are not, or might otherwise have good reasons. In any case there is very seldom 1 "best" solution to a problem.

If your boss is genuinely an idiot, then still accept the decision, but start looking for a new job or assignment to a different team.

SeanDav··on AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale
OpenClaw. Vibe-coded and one of the most rapidly successful and popular pieces of software ever developed.
SeanDav··on Flipper One – we need your help
I am far more relaxed about the actual or potential use of AI to help with delivering an article. As long as the content is accurate, then why care?

There are several valid reasons why AI could have been used - e.g. For translation or in cases where someone might be a tech ace but struggle to write a well structured article.

This is not a forum for literature or poetry. As long as it is readable and accurate, that is what counts.

In any case the AI genie is out and is only going to get better, until it becomes almost impossible to distinguish from 100% human text. If we are going to try police everything we read, that will just become an exercise in frustration. There are bigger things in the world to worry about.

SeanDav··on Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools
I would hardly define allowing your child access to the internet as neglect. Like anything else, like crossing the street for example, there are dangers that can be mitigated against by education by parents and schools.

The government is vastly overreaching in this and quite frankly if one argues that this is a good thing, then where to draw the line? Will we want to see government legislation for every possible permutation of potentially harmful behaviours or consequences.

Sorry Johnny can't come out to play because I have not yet bought the latest government-legislated knee guard armour to prevent a graze, and BTW I notice that you have not renewed the foam coating on your sidewalk, if Johnny trips and falls there...

SeanDav··on Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools
It has always been the responsibility of parents to raise their children "properly" (whatever that means). What is special about internet access that now requires the government to legislate for it, and as a side-effect, greatly reduce the privacy of the rest of the population. This is without even addressing the argument that these measures may even make the privacy situation for children worse.
SeanDav··on Clean code in the age of coding agents
Humans are quite capable of bankrupting financial companies with coding issues. Knight Capital Group introduced a bug into their system while using high frequency trading software. 45 minutes later, they were effectively bankrupt.
SeanDav··on Veracrypt project update
This is likely the first step, and in itself is not much of a concern but only if it stops there, which it almost certainly will not. The next step, where the government argue that simple attestation is not secure enough to protect the children, and now we need to show a government ID is when the true damage starts.

This is a little like the joke: "Madam, would you sleep with me for 1 million dollars?", to which she replies "I would". "Madam, would you sleep with me for 1 dollar?", to which she replies, "Sir, what sort of woman do you think I am?" To which he replies "We have already established what sort of woman you are, now we are just trying to establish your price!"

By agreeing to this initial Age Verification, companies are establishing that they are willing to implement checks on age for their users, now we will see just how much more they are willing to do - all to protect the children of course.

SeanDav··on Microsoft terminated the account VeraCrypt used to sign Windows drivers
This has got very little to do with children - that is just the excuse that sounds good. "Think of the children" is a rhetorical tactic that anyone who wants to get unfettered access to your data rolls out whenever they can. It is a tactic that unreasonable people use to influence reasonable people, because it is so difficult for a reasonable person to argue against without coming across as uncaring and/or bigoted.
SeanDav··on Veracrypt project update
Sure, for now... I simply don't believe it will stop at "simple attestation", because we all know that simple attestation is practically useless, but once the various distros accept this "trivial" inconvenience, "Age verification 2" with harsher requirements will soon be on the way.

I would be ecstatic to be proved wrong on this, but experience tells me that is not likely to happen.

SeanDav··on Microsoft terminated the account VeraCrypt used to sign Windows drivers
Except compulsory age verification in Linux is now becoming a real threat. Some Linux distros are actively against this but many are not seemingly interested in fighting it: CachyOS, Ubuntu, Fedora and others.

Age Verification is the thin end of a much bigger wedge in "open" OS's

SeanDav··on Microsoft terminated the account VeraCrypt used to sign Windows drivers
This is worrying on many levels. So Microsoft force you to create an account to use Windows and then they reserve the right to block you from your own account, thereby potentially making you lose access to all your OWN data. This is crazy and yet another reason to stop using Windows as soon as possible.
SeanDav··on Chuck Norris has died
The earth was too scared to have him on it anymore...
SeanDav··on The “small web” is bigger than you might think
With the increasingly intrusive legislated age verification and content monitoring being forced globally, I can easily see this as a catalyst to drive the Gemini protocol past critical mass.
SeanDav··on No leap second will be introduced at the end of June 2026
I assumed that leap seconds could be determined algorithmically, it appears I assumed badly. This is a bit of a can of worms...
SeanDav··on “Microslop” filtered in the official Microsoft Copilot Discord server
Remember, it is for the children. /s
SeanDav··on Discord distances from age verification firm after ties to Peter Thiel surface
Even a face scan is a hard no for me. I have no desire to make it easy for companies to start linking me (the person) to anywhere else, directly via my face metadata.
SeanDav··on Descent, ported to the web
I think we might have different risk/reward levels. For me, using VR can make me feel sick and vaguely disorientated for many hours afterwards. Almost nothing is worth that.

I love the idea of VR but my brain / balance system most certainly does not!

SeanDav··on Show HN: I spent 3 years reverse-engineering a 40 yo stock market sim from 1986
I.Don't.Care.

I enjoyed the narrative. It was true. Who cares if it was written by a ghost writer, an AI or anything else.

SeanDav··on “Captain Gains” on Capitol Hill
Right, no insider trading going on here at all /s
SeanDav··on Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)
I hate the flat, borderless, barely visible scroll bar mess that is Windows 11. Just try to determine where one window starts and another ends with multiple overlapping windows open, especially in dark mode.

Windows UI peaked at Windows 7 and has been steadily in a race to the bottom ever since.

Windows 11 is going to be the final straw that prompts me to relegate it to a game playing or only-use-because-I-must secondary OS. Linux, here I come - if only I could decide which flavour...

SeanDav··on How I fell in love with Erlang
Until you hit a knot in the wood and get kickback, which leads to exciting times... j/k I get what you are trying to say.
SeanDav··on How I fell in love with Erlang
It is not a lie it is just apparently familiar notation that actually has an entirely different meaning. It is not an equation, it is an assignment.

X := X + 1 is perhaps less confusing, even if meaning the same thing.

SeanDav··on How I fell in love with Erlang
I am just wondering when the next "We-Love-Haskell" cycle is going to start!
SeanDav··on The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful
One of the potential upsides to this as that people just might start taking time to engage in a bit of critical thinking before reacting. Is this real? How likely is this AI nonsense? What is the source? Is this the full picture? etc.

Perhaps I am too optimistic...

SeanDav··on When stick figures fought
> Zhu initially won in court. Then the appeals process ran until 2006, when he finally lost. The stick figures were too different, according to the judges, and the imagery was too simple to copyright. Nike was in the clear.

I am sure if I add an extra couple of pixels to the end of the Nike Swoosh, I can use it for my own branding everywhere, because it is not the same and a rounded tick is just too simple to copyright in any case ... /sarcasm

I could even cite the original ruling against Zhu as a precedent for extra kharma points.

SeanDav··on Slack has raised our charges by $195k per year
Our company is thinking of moving to Slack from Teams. In addition we use Salesforce. I have already reached out to senior decision-makers pointing out do we want to be paying for a company's services that resorts to this kind of behaviour, when very credible alternatives exist.
SeanDav··on School AI surveillance can lead to false alarms, arrests
What the article seems to have glossed over is this:

>>> A court ordered eight weeks of house arrest, a psychological evaluation and 20 days at an alternative school for the girl.

If one assumes that the court did take into consideration context and age, it appears to largely validate the follow up decision once flagged. (I don't agree with lack of parental contact, to be clear.)

SeanDav··on The Big OOPs: Anatomy of a Thirty-Five Year Mistake
You stopped too soon - those apparently OOP semantics ultimately require decidedly non-OOP machine code at the real level it is executed. Everything else is just abstraction.

Trying to argue that you are, in fact driving a steam engine, requires one to assume a level of abstraction and definition, in order to set an arena in which a discussion can occur.

SeanDav··on The chemical secrets that help keep honey fresh for so long
I used to keep a few bee hives until I started getting increasingly severe reactions to bee stings, so reluctantly quit before I had an anaphylactic reaction.

Utterly fascinating and wonderful hobby and contributes towards the environment, while having a delicious outcome. Could not recommend enough!

SeanDav··on Writing toy software is a joy
I agree. Use with caution. One of my personal pet peeves with LLM answers is their propensity to give authoritative or definite answers, when in fact they are best guesses, and sometimes pure fantasy.
Page 1 of 34Next →