Hacker News Reader

Thegnon Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

Those who would ask you to trade your privacy for security don’t have your security in mind.

Thegnon U.S. Department of Energy Launches the Genesis Open Models Initiative

“Gomi” is the Japanese word for garbage. Gotta wonder if someone has a sense of humor…

Thegnon US and Iran announce deal to end military operations

Yeah, if you watched Obama’s energy he had kind of a “Thanks guys, but why?” air about him through the whole thing.

Thegnon Claude Desktop spins up a VM without no way of stopping it

Let me know when we have actual AI and we can get right on it.

Thegnon Accelerando (2005)

At the time I read the story, Economics 2.0 and its effect on humans that installed the upgrade paralleled with some stuff I had read about sociopathic behavior. Stross later wrote about the same ideas in Rule 34.

Thegnon The greatest shot in television: James Burke had one chance to nail this scene (2024)

He did, but he was such a stickler for accuracy that he insisted they shoot on location.

Thegnon New Orleans's Car-Crash Conspiracy

‘Pride is all very well, but a sausage is a sausage,’ he said.

- Terry Pratchett

The poor have ethics just like the rest of us. They just can’t afford to keep it.

Thegnon Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

I suspect that this might not ship given the recent dramatic change in memory prices.

Thegnon Statement from Jerome Powell

With the added fun of nuclear weapons!

Thegnon GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

For the duration of gaben’s life, to be fair. Beyond that there be dragons.

Thegnon The RAM shortage comes for us all

They didn't buy DDR5 - they bought raw wafer capacity and a ton of it at that.

Thegnon There may not be a safe off-ramp for some taking GLP-1 drugs, study suggests

I know they (Ars Technica) do A/B title tests sometimes from discussion with one of the people who works there.

Thegnon Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?

I have mild tinnitus, and I don’t really notice it at all when my hearing aids are in. (Phillips, got them at Costco) Sadly, it’s a lot more noticeable once I take them out. I am still waiting for that electrostimulation therapy I read about a few years ago to pan out.

Thegnon Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

I can speak to this - the main variations are in the kind of butter you use. Using salted, unsalted, or margarine result in similar yet different cookies. I personally use unsalted and feel like it creates the most “cookie” like experience. Flour brand and texture also makes a difference. You will get a very different result based on using the store brand vs (for example) King Arthur flour.

Thegnon A Minecraft server written in COBOL

I know one of those two is Bevy, what is the other one?

Thegnon Fusion power is getting closer

Well, we could always just set up solar panels and use it to capture output from the massive fusion reaction 8.5 light minutes away from us. Does that count as a successful utilization of fusion?

Thegnon Fears children born during lockdown are years behind as they start at school

I don’t have a source now, but a while ago (pre-pandemic) I saw a study that showed babies don’t pick up basic language structures very well at all from videos for whatever reason.

Thegnon Homegrown Rendering with Rust (2021)

My gut says Nintendo, because Microsoft doesn't give a shit what you use as long as you write for them, and Sony doesn't feel like they'd be that petty.

Thegnon My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore

I also moved over to PopOS over a year ago and have been quite happy with the end result. Between Steam and Lutris I’ve been able to run everything I want to, and I don’t have to play whack-a-mole with Microsoft’s “features” that I’m not interested in.

Bonus points: I’m having fun with my computer again!

Thegnon Microsoft Recall should make you consider Linux

https://www.qualcomm.com/developer/blog/2024/05/upstreaming-...

I know someone who works for Qualcomm, he says they are taking Linux support very seriously.

Thegnon Loss of nearly a full decade of information from early days of Chinese internet

We just need to ask the NSA for their copy via a FOIA request.

Thegnon What would happen if a nuclear bomb went off in your backyard

I live near an airport that is very likely a major target. My plan in the event I am aware something is kicking off is to get on a bicycle and get as close as I can. Hoping to get vaporized by the initial blast.

Thegnon What would happen if a nuclear bomb went off in your backyard

They can try to collect it from the shadow of me burned into the wall of the building…

Thegnon When do we stop finding new music?

I'm personally a fan of the old stuff (Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Chick Webb, Jimmie Lunceford, Slim Gaillard, Ella Fitzgerald to name a few) but the best thing you can do is go to dances and lessons, and when you hear a song you like, go up to the DJ and ask them what it was. The best music is the music you like and that makes you want to dance, regardless of who made it.

Thegnon When do we stop finding new music?

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Thegnon Windows 11 now comes with its own adware

I moved to PopOS about a year ago; I've tried a few times to move to Linux and until this most recent jump I've had to move back. It's gotten a lot better than it used to be, although I have to acknowledge that it's still got some rough edges. In a vacuum I'd probably go back to Windows, but Microsoft has been actively making the Windows experience worse as well to the point that I'll deal with the occasional Linux hiccups.

(Well, that, and I'm actually having FUN with my computer again...)

Thegnon When do we stop finding new music?

I admit I'm uncomfortable explaining it by skin color, but I've never found anybody who has been able to explain to me what the difference is, and I will admit lacking the musical knowledge to explain it. I fell into that style from dancing Lindy Hop; I was loving the music I was hearing when I was out dancing, so I went and bought an album from the only name I knew at the time - Glenn Miller. It was some of the most boring and trite music I'd ever heard in my life, and did not inspire me to dance.

For me (and I don't judge people for thinking differently) there's a certain joie de vivre in the music that is just lacking from what white musicians released commercially. I know they were capable of it (I once found a recording of Glenn Miller swinging it just as hard as anything Basie put out) but they were playing to their audience at the time. As I've learned more about the history of Swing and Lindy Hop, this was a specific choice made to "civilize" (as the white people of the time would have said) Jazz's savage rhythms. There's actually posters from the Arthur Murray school in the 1940s saying this exact thing.

(Aside, I had a friend who played a radio show in the 2000s playing old Jazz music. She told me once that if she put anything from a black musician on the show, she'd get hate mail from the listeners. Go figure.)

Thegnon When do we stop finding new music?

What I find curious about it though is that it's obviously recognizing the style - it plays 1-2 musicians from the "black" group, then circles into only playing Miller/Goodman/Rat pack and never comes back around to playing the music that I originally was trying to play. If it was behaving the way you are thinking, I'd expect it to mix the two styles.

Thegnon When do we stop finding new music?

One problem I've run into with the music services is with older styles. For example, I'm specifically into black musicians from the 1930s-1950s who played swing style music. I have yet to find a service that actually will play more than 2-3 songs in that style before deciding that what I really want to hear is rat pack or swing by white musicians. No matter how much I thumbs down it, I get Glenn Miller/Frank Sinatra/Benny Goodman instead of Count Basie/Duke Ellington/Slim Gaillard. The services have that music (I can find the songs and seed stations from it) but for whatever reason all of the ones I've tried (Spotify/Apple/Amazon/Pandora, and I have a feeling I've tried others and forgotten) just don't want me to listen to the style I'm looking for.