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TheMiddleMan

398 karma · joined May 8, 2011

https://playingcards.io Previous: CrowdAI (YC S16), AppSheet
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TheMiddleMan··on Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO
15 years ago: "why is google putting so much effort into building a web browser? it must be because they want to see the web grow and by extension more people will use their services"
TheMiddleMan··on Experiments with Plotter Art
https://www.reddit.com/r/PlotterArt/
TheMiddleMan··on Google has stopped pushing Git tags for some Android source code
Relevant: https://keepandroidopen.org/

> Starting in 2027*, a silent update, nonconsensually pushed by Google, will block every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with Google, signed their contract, paid up, and handed over government ID.

TheMiddleMan··on More than 10 firms pay up to $100k a month for access to Truth Social posts
They've also been primed to ignore it, citing "fake news". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
TheMiddleMan··on Rewrite Bun in Rust has been merged
This may be the largest AI-generated codebase right now, by a lot. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Frontier AI software development still falls short in the design/architecture department, in my recent experience. Though it's pretty impressive at making "working" code.

This being a fairly direct conversion from one language to another, even keeping the same interfaces across files, means the architecture is already in place.

The detailed test coverage is also very helpful for Claude. But even detailed testing can't cover every edge case.

So my questions are: How well did Claude do on the edge cases? And how maintainable will this codebase be going forward?

TheMiddleMan··on H.264 Streaming Fees: What Changed, Who's Affected, and What It Means
It's coming along nicely https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#Hardware_encoding_and_deco...

Also decoding on a reasonably powerful (non-accelerated) cpu is fast enough for 1080p, not ideal for battery life but still.

TheMiddleMan··on Malus – Clean Room as a Service
Couldn't this be done on proprietary software as well? Have an agent fuzz an interface (any type) for every bit of functionality and document it. Then have it build based on the document?
TheMiddleMan··on 1Password Raising Prices ~33%
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47139951
TheMiddleMan··on Non-Zero-Sum Games
FYI your browser back button should bring you back where you were.
TheMiddleMan··on Sign in with Google in Chrome
Don't worry about misclicks, Google already tracked your visit when the webpage was loaded.

Google One Tap works via a script tag from Google servers: https://developers.google.com/identity/gsi/web/guides/displa...

TheMiddleMan··on Show HN: I rewrote my Mac Electron app in Rust
Very nice. I've been trying to find an image duplicate detection algorithm/system that suits my use-case for a while. Your app seems promising, however, I'm not willing to pay $99 just to see if it works with my (uniquely challenging) duplicate images.

After realizing there was no demo I was looking for a way to contact you directly with a few sample images, but can't find contact information on the website.

Consider adding a demo and contact info.

Otherwise, the app is looking solid. This seems like a great use of AI.

TheMiddleMan··on AlphaEvolve: A Gemini-powered coding agent for designing advanced algorithms
Yes, but is the inflection point in 12 months or 12 years?

Either way, it's pretty wild.

TheMiddleMan··on Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
Dems and republicans both do their political corruption, Trump is something else.

https://commonslibrary.org/authoritarianism-how-you-know-it-...

What are the Top 10 Elements of the Authoritarian Playbook?

1. Divide and rule: Foment mistrust and fear in the population.

2. Spread lies and conspiracies: Undermine the public’s belief in truth.

3. Destroy checks and balances: Quietly use legal or pseudo-legal rationales to gut institutions, weaken opposition, and/or declare national emergencies to seize unconstitutional powers.

4. Demonize opponents and independent media: Undermine the public’s trust in those actors and institutions that hold the state accountable.

5. Undermine civil and political rights for the unaligned: Actively suppress free speech, the right to assembly and protest and the rights of women and minority groups.

6. Blame minorities, immigrants, and “outsiders” for a country’s problems: Exploit national humiliation while promising to restore national glory.

7. Reward loyalists and punish defectors: Make in-group members fearful to voice dissension.

8. Encourage or condone violence to advance political goals: Dehumanize opposition and/or out-groups to justify violence against them.

9. Organize mass rallies to keep supporters mobilized against made-up threats: Use fearmongering and hate speech to consolidate in-group identity and solidarity.

10. Make people feel like they are powerless to change things: Solutions will only come from the top.

TheMiddleMan··on A Year of Telepathy
You might be right but consider these old talks:

Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Uyfqi_TE8

Elon Musk talks Climate Change and Carbon Tax at the Sorbone 2015 https://youtu.be/sUFwwlmxRsw?t=978

It could be that he was just following the trends knowing there was money to be made, but I detect some real passion back in these videos.

Of course no motivation comes from a single source and there's some mix of philanthropy and money driving this, among other motivations.

Either way his tone has changed a lot, to say the least.

TheMiddleMan··on A Year of Telepathy
Not everyone has the precise same definition of hate, and you know what they ^ mean.

Elon used to be all about truly advancing society, now he only seems interested in gaining wealth and power.

TheMiddleMan··on Skia Canvas: Browserless implementation of the HTML Canvas drawing API for node
Yes, I'm doing exactly this with https://www.npmjs.com/package/jest-image-snapshot
TheMiddleMan··on Europe's Internet resilience mitigates impact of submarine cable cuts
This is a great video on undersea cables https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFt9le2ytW0

"Sabatoge" and repair is discussed at 11:45

TheMiddleMan··on Learning to Reason with LLMs
Trying out Double now.

o1 did a significantly better job converting a JavaScript file to TypeScript than Llama 3.1 405B, GitHub Copilot, and Claude 3.5. It even simplified my code a bit while retaining the same functionality. Very impressive.

It was able to refactor a ~160 line file but I'm getting an infinite "thinking bubble" on a ~420 line file. Maybe something's timing out with the longer o1 response times?

TheMiddleMan··on Ask HN: How to transcribe 1000s of handwritten notes
I've found decent success with Googles Cloud Vision API for transcribing cursive writing on the backs of 1000s of family photos.

https://cloud.google.com/vision/docs/handwriting

I threw together a basic UI with the transcribed text in an editable area next to the image where I would edit any adjustments as it wasn't 100% perfect.

TheMiddleMan··on Elegant open source project tracking, Trello like but self-hosted
Yeah it feels weird to me too.

Similar/inspired-by software is fine but if a commercial project were to rip off everything down to the style and design of an existing app it would not be okay at all, what makes it okay if it's open source?

TheMiddleMan··on Ask HN: Do you also marvel at the complexity of everyday objects?
Here's the article: https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/05/us/bush-encounters-the-su...

You seem very convinced that the NYT pulled this notion from thin air and Bush was experiencing a moment of wonder towards everyday technology (the theme of this thread).

After reading the article, I believe this is the first electric scanner Bush saw. Bush is quoted saying "This is for checking out?" "I just took a tour through the exhibits here," "Amazed by some of the technology."

"Some grocery stores began using electornic scanners as early as 1976, and the devices have been in general use in American supermarkets for a decade."

This tells me that he hadn't been to a grocery store with this technology, which seems very plausible for many politicians, then and now. They have people to do that for them, they're out of touch (at least to some degree).

TheMiddleMan··on React Is the New IBM (2023)
> React’s logical model of recreating the UI on change of state is incredibly difficult to do right at scale. By that I mean that as applications and teams get larger, the chances of writing components with side effects increases due to differing levels of skill, knowledge, experience, and simply having a larger body of code to cover.

This is a problem with all UI libraries. React at least makes it difficult to write components with side effects.

TheMiddleMan··on Former Mozilla exec: Google has sabotaged Firefox for years (2019)
For years, when searching "Firefox" on the Google Play store, the only way to install apps on most Android devices, the first result would be a Google ad for Chrome.
TheMiddleMan··on Hacking ADHD: Strategies for the modern developer
I actually love them a lot! Came here to comment about how great they are. Why the hate?
TheMiddleMan··on Heat pumps can't take the cold? Nordics debunk the myth
It's my understanding that, in ideal but realistic conditions, it's more efficient to burn fuel in a powerplant and use the generated electricity to run a heatpump, than it is to just burn the fuel for heat. Pretty neat!
TheMiddleMan··on The iOS option to charge battery to "80% Limit" shouldn't just be for iPhone 15
I've also been using it on a 14" M1 MacBook since launch (Oct 2021). I'm currently at 86% battery health.

I keep it at ~80% limit normally with occasional charges to 100% for long trips, etc. I do spend a lot of time on battery though so it's charging and draining a lot, but rarely goes above 80% charge.

Thanks for posting your results, I'm curious just how much the charge limit helps battery longevity.

TheMiddleMan··on The iOS option to charge battery to "80% Limit" shouldn't just be for iPhone 15
Related: for MacOS, AlDente allows you to set a battery charge limit.

https://apphousekitchen.com/

I've been using it successfully for around a year. It works pretty well sans a couple quirks due to hardware limitations e.g. if you plug in with the screen closed (sleep mode) it will charge fully to 100%.

TheMiddleMan··on Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco
Same on firefox/osx
TheMiddleMan··on Ts_zip: Text Compression Using Large Language Models
Is it reasonable to imagine a future where most devices come with a, say, 500MB file used for decompressing?

Imagine the potential bandwidth savings. I bet this has applications as a modern "Dial-up accelerator" for people with slow connections and fast hardware.

TheMiddleMan··on Tell HN: Nearly all of Evernote’s remaining staff has been laid off
Don't you think having so many competitors offering free notes apps is a large part of it?
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