Hacker News Reader

WallyFunkon Ask HN: Is it a red flag if a job doxxes its devs?

> by doxxing i mean things like expectations around having your company github profile being public

It's the other way around for me. I like my work to be publicly viewable on GH because these days it's the bare minimum amount of effort required for visibility into your online persona and demonstrates how committed you are on delivering end products.

I also have a basic blog where I do technical deep dives on various matters, to virtue signal to potential employers that I'm knowledgeable in certain areas.

Proper and malicious doxxing would be outing the precise location where you live and listing your private phone number without your consent. This has never happened to me.

WallyFunkon Ask HN: Which programming language to learn in AI era?

> Should I choose React.js

React is just a framework. Learn vanilla JS instead.

WallyFunkon Ask HN: Is AI a glorified memory machine?

(Current) AI is a glorified stochastic parrot[0]. Randomness != Reason.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_parrot

WallyFunkon Switching from Chrome to Firefox

> Firefox’ built-in profile switcher is far worse than Chrome’s. To open it, you need to start Firefox with the -p parameter.

You can also just go to `about:profiles` in the address bar, without having to launch Firefox with the -p switch. I even have `about:profiles` as my homepage so when I launch Firefox, I then decide which profile I will be using.

WallyFunkon Ask HN: Can we have link to the person bio/page when we have a black bar?

OP is correct. It needs context. /Two/ prominent tech people have passed. It would be useful to know which the black bar is referencing, or is it referencing both?

https://www.reuters.com/technology/adobes-co-founder-john-wa...

https://nivenly.org/blog/2023/08/19/an-announcement-regardin...

WallyFunkon Demystifying ESIM Technology [video]

> SIM cards also have their place

They're trying to kill physical SIM cards like they did with CDs. They only have their place insofar as you can say 'I can touch this, and also swap it out with another one' / otherwise 'tangible computing'.

WallyFunkon Ask HN: What is the effective way to develop the sense of humour?

Humor is mixing the real with the absurd. We laugh because something is absurd, not because it's 'funny'.

WallyFunkon Ask HN: Will Google kill 1Password, LastPass and others?

LastPass is already dead https://www.wired.com/story/lastpass-breach-vaults-password-...

WallyFunkon Ask HN: Navigating Private Browsing Amidst Google's Shadow

> While Brave offers this feature, it's accompanied by an insistence on incorporating cryptocurrency, which might not align with everyone's preferences

You can disable all the crypto/web3 stuff in Brave's settings. You're not forced to use it.

> Which browser truly serves our needs in this complex landscape?

It's not either/or. You can use multiple different browsers for different purposes.

WallyFunkon Ask HN: How would you re-design Hacker News?

The favicon should be the logo here: https://news.ycombinator.com/y18.svg

SVG is allowed in favicons.

WallyFunkon Twitter Deletes Photos Posted Between 2011-2014

RIP Twitpic

https://www.twitpic.com/

https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/twitpic

WallyFunkon Ask HN: Photo Sharing Solutions

https://www.photoprism.app/

WallyFunkon Tetris Randomizers (2018)

> These games are by definition finite and sometimes end rather quickly

You should try Hatetris: https://qntm.org/files/hatetris/hatetris.html

WallyFunkon Fake meat: As Beyond Meat sales fall, have we had our fill?

> and not as tasty as real meat

Exactly this. Fake meat is a frankenfood and you have to beat millions of years of evolution signaling to humans that meat tastes good.

WallyFunkon YouTube Shorts is disabling clicks for comment links in effort to fight spam

Triple clicks URL, right clicks for a context menu and opens in new tab

WallyFunkon Ask HN: Database of timestamped cringe moments in movies

> What would be a good business model for something like that?

Making GIFs of these moments would be fruitful, although you're up against Giphy and a few others who have monetized GIFs.

WallyFunkon My Thoughts on GitHub

I never liked it for one reason: people use it to virtue signal to potential employers that they've been active in open source and have worked diligently on various side-projects. Whilst there's nothing wrong with that, it gets tricky when the person is over-involved with GitHub, since GitHub has many metrics people try to game, and GitHub does 'gamification' style tactics to keep users hooked.

It's basically social media, but for code. If people just calmed down a bit and stopped trying to earn badges and keep their contributions graph green, that would be great.

WallyFunkon Ask HN: What Markdown editor do you use?

There's a good list of MD editors here:

https://github.com/mundimark/awesome-markdown-editors

WallyFunkon US takes $1.2B gamble on carbon-sucking vacuums

Defund the weather engineering programs and re-allocate that money into this. It's a no-brainer.

WallyFunkon Ask HN: Describe some work scenarios for which one PC on the table is not enough

> another is on the secure/air-gapped network

If you don't mind me asking, what type of work requires an airgap?

WallyFunkon Ask HN: What is your preferred domain registrar?

https://www.sav.com/

https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/domains/

WallyFunkon Ask HN: How to Use Instagram?

> there are hashtags but no categories beyond that

Hashtags also enable better discovery of your content. Instagram even suggests what hashtags to use, and sometimes the hashtags you pick personally may not even be that popular and limit discoverability.

WallyFunkon Squeeze the hell out of the system you have

> Of course, I’m not saying complexity is bad. It’s necessary.

Weird thing about computers, even after a fresh install of your favorite OS, the whole thing is sitting on a mountain of complexity, and that's before you start installing programs, browse the web, etc

Only the die-hard use things like MINIX[0] to do their computing. Correction: MINIX is in the Intel Management Engine so you have /two/ computers.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minix

WallyFunkon Thought: Technological Freedom Index

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2021/global-driv...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/21/internet-...

WallyFunkon Can somebody please invite me on lobste.rs

> The quickest way to receive an invitation is to talk to someone you recognize from the site or request one in chat:

https://lobste.rs/chat

WallyFunkon Ask HN: Use RPi to host my photos, simple solution like umbrel?

I got these from here: https://github.com/AwesomeDog/awesome-nas

https://hub.docker.com/r/photoprism/photoprism

https://hub.docker.com/r/viktorstrate/photoview

WallyFunkon Ask HN: How much of human intelligence is cultural inheritance?

Well I can't program and puzzle solve without Googling, so I'm hyper-media dependent if that answers your question. Burdensome tasks have been offloaded to LLMs, search engines, note-taking tools, and bookmarking services. I think I'm an externalist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externalism

WallyFunkon Ask HN: What was your first post submission on Hacker News?

To keep up with the tech industry. Tech moves very fast, and is always innovating. Also, I like when I learn of a new game changing tool/service/product.

WallyFunkon Ask HN: What was your first post submission on Hacker News?

From: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=WallyFunk&next=286...

Looks like my first post was this:

`Scanner: Efficient Video Analysis at Scale`: https://scanner.run/

Looks like the domain expired too!

WallyFunkon Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

No regrets. If I'm in a state of regret, I transmute it to 'lessons learned' and move forward. We either treat regret like a teacher, or wallow in self-pity.