Hacker News Reader

akosteron U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

While I agree with you, so many new cars offer remote start/remote engine heating block initiation or even the ability to summon your vehicle from a parking garage and have it drive toward the exit. Many consumers will not purchase cars without these new features, all of which require an external server to issue commands to a vehicle. Definitely a huge security risk, especially with lack of manual controls.

Where are the “low-chip-count” new cars with VFD radio displays, dials, traditional keys, no screens and especially no cellular modem?

akosteron Z (Military Symbol)

Thanks for sharing! Twitter thread formatted in a single page: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1500495309595725831.html

akosteron Ask HN: Why not have HN meetups?

This sounds similar to 2600 meetings I used to attend in the before times - lots of interesting people and ideas, always coming away from them with a ton to add to my video queue and reading lists. I would maybe say one could get 70% of what you'd want from an HN meetup but I would still be down for an HN meetup if one was organized and not too far away.

https://www.2600.com/meetings/

akosteron Longbet: By 2027, software will be metered/sold by the second

IIRC while on an internship at Broadcom, lots of EDA tools were utilized by sending a script to a (Sun Solaris?) grid compute cluster to save on license costs or due to licenses being billed per minute or cpu-minute. I do recall some internal "wall of shame" dashboard listing users with the most (idle?) minutes using an EDA tool.

akosteron There was a time before Mathematica (2013)

Link to the forum thread if the direct link doesn't work: https://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/1983204

akosteron Slackware 15.0

The main FTP ISO mirrors are a bit slow - thankfully there are torrents available here https://seedbox.slackware.uk/

akosteron Midnight Commander Tips and Tricks

Muxe's fork is still alive and kicking! http://www.ndn.muxe.com/

akosteron I Am Satoshi

Thanks for clarifying - I was scratching my head why that commit wasn't showing up on git.kernel.org https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...

akosteron Discord Is Down

Update - We are continuing to work through some issues with one of our database clusters. We are still rate limiting login traffic. Next update in 15 minutes. Jan 26, 12:21 PST

Update - We have instituted a rate limit on logins to manage the traffic load. Users who are logged in are successfully using Discord at this point, and we will be slowly raising the limits here to allow more users in as we can. We expect this to be resolved in the next 15 minutes. Jan 26, 12:07 PST

Identified - We have identified the underlying issue with the API outage but are dealing with a secondary issue on one of our database clusters. We have our entire on-call response team online and responding to the issue. Jan 26, 12:03 PST

Investigating - We are currently investigating a widespread API outage. Jan 26, 11:49 PST

akosteron Economists are revising their views on robots and jobs

https://archive.is/L6TDA

akosteron Paul Falstad's Math and Physics Applets

I used to use the Java versions of these applets [1]. I'm glad and thankful he rewrote these in JavaScript but there are sadly so many great Java Applets I have come across (games, but especially STEM demos [2] [3]) and not to mention Flash-enabled sites that haven't gotten the same treatment.

IIRC there were some projects a few years back to "convert" SWF files to HTML5 + JS compatible source and assets but not so much for Java applets. I'm curious if something similar might exist or if any forward motion has gone into preserving such content.

[1] https://mrl.cs.nyu.edu/~perlin/

[2] https://mrl.cs.nyu.edu/~perlin/

[3] https://physlab.physics.ucdavis.edu/physlab/ph14e/index.html

akosteron Plaid Settlement Affected Services Google Spreadsheet

Direct link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hCjPz_gNYVcvhek5_fd8...

akosteron Highlights from Git 2.35

Original mailing list post (also linked in article): https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqee4x3pij.fsf@gitster.g/T/#u

akosteron Ask HN: Is Google Hangouts circling the drain?

> If you viewed it in reverse-chronological order, it actually looks like progress.

You are far from alone: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-...

> … they're already in the sewer. Sadly they still don’t know it on this front https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/after-ruining-androi...

Though at least on the payments front they are attempting to acknowledge reality instead of passing blame?https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-pay-hopes-to-...

akosteron Ask HN: How easy is it to get Covid tests in your country?

US/Southern California

Similarly cannot get rapid test kits at drug or department stores. I too heard this was due to our government pushing for a "warp speed" vaccine plan but not focusing as much on testing. I am holding out for the 4x free USPS rapid tests [0].

Free PCR test collection sites are plentiful though appointment slots are not. Some used to have walk-in or drive-up options but nearly all require appointments. Many of the chain drug stores (CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid) listed on this HHS page [1] only allow booking 3 days in advance of which there will be zero availability. Shy of paying possibly $50-100 for a slightly faster result or commuting farther (as some folks did in a recent NPR Planet Money podcast episode [2]) I found Covid Clinic, which I have used to test a few times a week over the past few months since I currently work in person. [3]

To get a test, select any site and time slot, fill out (lengthy) form and you are given an order number. Go to any other Covid Clinic site with that order number any time they are open and they will test you. I've walked or driven up to 5-6 different sites in my area and never have been turned away for being at the wrong site or not having an appointment. I'm usually driving off in 10 minutes from checking in (confirming your order number, name, birthday, email, phone and that you want the free PCR test) and at most sites in my area, there are 1-5 people ahead of me during lunch or after work. Then email you a PDF attached with your result. No account, no password, quite straight forward compared to the competition (except for their lengthy sign up form).

The caveats are that test results that used to come back in 24-28 hours like clockwork before the omicron surge now take 5 days or more, but I have heard this is common even with other testing companies. I also waited 2 hours in line a few days prior to Christmas and New Year's, and had to submit the form several times before it provided an order number due to a likely traffic surge. Now I just sign up 2-3 times at the start of the week and use those order numbers when I arrive (they seem to at least last 5 days).

[0] https://special.usps.com/testkits [1] https://www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/community-based-testing-site... [2] https://www.npr.org/2022/01/14/1073227859/the-rapid-testing-... [3] https://covidclinic.org

akosteron Show HN: Hacker XP – Hacker News styled as a Windows XP Outlook email client

I’m excited to try it but getting “ 500 Internal Server Error.” right now. Will check back later- looking forward to it!

akosteron Ask HN: Alternatives to Google Drive?

http://box.com

Box’s free tier used to occasionally have 50GB for free offers but file size is limited to 250MB iirc. My family has been using their accounts when this deal was on a few years back and the file history recovery option helped in a pinch where ransomware encrypted both one of their PC + then connected external HDD backup data at once. Also though they have a new sync client “Box Drive” their legacy “Box Sync” client still functions without any major interface or major boot changes one has to learn or get used to (for now).

Update: Sadly no promos now (https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043694774-Box-P...) but free personal account signups here with 10GB of storage https://box.com/personal

akosteron Soviet Military Maps of North America and UK

Wired had a interesting piece on this back in 2015: https://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps/

And with some spooky details on San Diego, California (and many other places): https://www.wired.com/2015/07/soviet-militarys-eerily-detail...

akosteron Activision Workers Forming a Union

I have heard both the market is competitive but also the talent pool has to be somewhat slimmer than the general software market as a whole. I knew of someone who worked at Blizzard for maybe 2 years IIRC, claiming he felt it wasn't a great fit as he was not passionate about games. I imagine the game dev industry would generally select a candidate who is passionate about gaming (and preferably their products) over someone with similar skills but without that passion (which would possibly narrow the labor market somewhat?)

akosteron Activision Workers Forming a Union

Without a paywall: https://web.archive.org/web/20220121171619/https://www.nytim...

akosteron Activision Employee Group Forms Union, a First in Video Games

Indeed Vodeo games proceeds this in North America in December as indicated by the NYT piece posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30026473

akosteron Ask HN: Alternative to Google Translate?

Yandex Translate? http://translate.yandex.com

Or Babbelfish? https://www.babelfish.com/

akosteron Ask HN: What are options to replace “G Suite legacy” when it's retired in May?

Yandex Connect? https://yandex.com/support/connect/add-domain.html

Up to 1000 mailboxes per domain https://www.yandex.com/support/connect/create-mailbox.html

For free, for now (though they now have a paid-tier https://360.yandex.com/business/ which they have integrated somewhat into the legacy and still free Yandex connect)

akosteron Bitwarden: Free, open-source password manager

Though it looks and sounds good, how would security be impacted by using the google chrome-based electron runtime to run the desktop client’s TypeScript and CLI runtime to run the server’s C# code? Wouldn’t this increase potential attack surface and probability of introducing vulnerabilities through more complexity (though this could be said for writing more of the stack oneself)? Im thinking about pass (https://www.passwordstore.org/) and KeePass 1.x (https://keepass.info) for comparison.

akosteron The Big Business of Uyghur Genocide Denial

Like HRW_14’s comment [1] and yours it’s quite staggering all the investments China-based gaming companies own or own stakes in such as Tencent [2], let alone your GitHub example. What also concerns me is a similar relationship playing out in Hollywood with China-based corporates buying stakes in American film studios and movie theaters in the US [3]. Even before this large amount of Chinese money flowing into the industry, there was still a competition among studios to insure no content could accurately portray news in China such as the Uyghur Genocide or even portray China or a Chinese company as a villain [4]. Fortunately some filmmakers have fought back against calls to censor or change their films to appease the CCP or Chinese audiences [5] [6] but as you stated I imagine it would be near impossible for an indie filmmaker to distribute through a major studio or theater chain without making such changes without a lot of clout. Scary times for free expression or even reporting news and the truth about ongoing genocides accurately.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29984784 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent#Foreign_gaming_investm... [3] https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/09/how-holl... [4] https://pen.org/report/made-in-hollywood-censored-by-beijing... [5] https://www.indiewire.com/2020/01/sony-tarantino-edit-hollyw... [6] https://deadline.com/video/judd-apatow-hollywood-censorship-...

akosteron Humble subscription service is dumping Mac, Linux access in 18 days

Funny because for this developer [1] [2] it appears that small user base more than pulls its weight for submitting high quality bug reports. (That alone seems like great value that should encourage supporting alternative platforms like Linux that even a MBA-holder can understand).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28978086

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/qeqn3b/despite_hav...

akosteron Counterfeit KN95 respirators

Other made in the USA N95 options include Prestige Ameritech[1] which was referenced in Rick Bright's testimony mid 2020 [2] when masks were extremely scarce in the USA. It seems to buy genuine Prestige Ameritech masks, one needs to go through a medical supplies distributor and instead, I opted to buy direct through their ProGear consumer sales channel [3][4]. There is also DemeTech, which also manufactures in the USA [5].

[1] https://www.prestigeameritech.com/ [2] https://www.wgbh.org/news/national-news/2020/05/14/ousted-sc... [3] https://www.prestigeameritech.com/progearmasks [4] https://www.progearhealth.com/ [5] https://www.demetech.us/

akosteron Life at 800 MHz

Nice post - Reminds me of my experiences using an IBM Thinkpad T42 (2GB RAM, 1.6 GHz single core CPU) and Raspberry Pi Model B (512MB RAM, 700MHz single core CPU), quite a bit of compilation required these days due to a lack of binaries but still a fun exercise on a weekend

akosteron Google says iMessage is too powerful

And another far-from-original variant is still kicking, aptly named ‘ICQ’ [1]. AOL sold off its ICQ assets to Digital Sky Technologies (now Mail.ru) group [2] which continues to develop and invest in it to this day. From what I understand, like LiveJournal (acquired similarly by a Russian company Rambler [3], ICQ continues to have a sizable user base in Eastern Europe from what I gather.

[1] https://icq.com [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICQ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveJournal

akosteron Tokyo police lose 2 floppy disks containing info on public housing applicants

They are decently easy to find in popular capacities at http://floppydisk.com