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anilakar

2,254 karma · joined February 12, 2016

https://github.com/andyn/

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/andyn; my proof: https://keybase.io/andyn/sigs/0ipWiKo54LBrIxwWnkis5rWcXS9D-OoP-Izw-OXbfEc ]

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anilakar··on Ephemeral Testing
> A library with hidden state, surprising defaults, or incomplete docs produces a pile of patches and failures.

Sigh.

Write a C or C++ API that works with pointers. Make it handle null pointers and errors elegantly so that the API user can safely chain calls and only check the final result. Claude decides it's better to be safe than sorry and peppers its code with intermediate nullptr and return value checks anyway.

anilakar··on Find the flattest route between any two points in SF
I wonder how that would work here with horribly inaccurate elevation data. I often ride a specific flat straightaway and Strava and other tracking apps always show me pedaling up and down 20-meter pine trunks next to the bike path.
anilakar··on An algorithmic failure beneath the secret ballot
> To keep the published record anonymous, ballot scanners shuffle the electronic records randomly before releasing them

So they were never secret in the first place.

I have never understood the desire to have voting machines when a paper ballot works just fine. We tried electronic voting in three municipal elections in 2008 and courts ended up invalidating the results due to horrible usability issues.

anilakar··on Denmark data breach exposes 8.8M people's personal data
> big data breaches are inconsequential for an average person

A relative killed herself after her therapist was hacked[1] and the data was leaked. If that is inconsequential, I do not know what isn't.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vastaamo_data_breach

anilakar··on When did Google get so weird?
If I type exact document identifiers, the LLM either tells me that I have either mistyped something or that I am searching for a specific document. Hell yeah, I am doing exactly that! Give me the link instead of babbling about it!
anilakar··on Spain orders blocks on Archive.today and its mirrors
> Isn't that accusation, if true

Trying to insult someone by calling them gay and nazi[1] is straight out of the Russian online troll playbook. Nobody except people who personally drink that Kool-Aid would resort to such boring insults.

> just a case of FAFO?

Who fucked around and what did they find out?

[1] https://archive-is.tumblr.com/post/807369905134518272/the-fi...

anilakar··on Winning the visa lottery
> Everyone who fears immigration is going to take their job should read this and realize that fear is not only false

This is only because immigrants are willing to do jobs at wages and working conditions that locals do not accept. Employers in the Finnish berry industry were just jailed for human trafficking. Meanwhile the same companies have been loudly complaining that no Finn wants to work for them.

anilakar··on Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?
We have had end users scammed because Android QR code readers show scammy "pay now" ads. We do not support online payment but that does not prevent non-technical people from clicking large UI element-like ads and entering their credit card information on nondescript online payment pages.
anilakar··on Working with Git Worktrees in Magit
worktree clone: Basically git clone that initializes a worktree root according to this guide: https://dev.to/metal3d/git-worktree-like-a-boss-2j1b

worktree add: `git worktree add` that creates a local new branch and a directory with the same name and sets upstream to match; alternatively checks out an existing remote branch.

worktree rm: Removes worktree directory, first checking it is in porcelain state. Then prunes them and removes local branch pointers if they match the remote ones.

These all are handwritten and probably buggy, but still less prone to errors than typing out `git worktree add -b foo-123-fix-missing-semicolon foo-123-fix-missing-semicolon origin/develop` manually every time. One pass with Claude or Codex would probably do wonders.

anilakar··on Working with Git Worktrees in Magit
Worktrees are a must if you work with monorepos or just multiple branches in general. Lack of conventions (or rather the braindead defaults) and having to explicitly type out everything is what hinders adoption the most.

I've solved this by running thin bash script wrappers that keep the workflow SVN-like with a root directory that contains per-branch directories and a hidden bare repo).

anilakar··on We have a year to fix security everywhere
Probably nine out of ten Wordpress sites do not need active content. Why are we not rendering static copies and serving them to customers?
anilakar··on Keep Our Servers Running
I was looking for some CNATRA (US naval aviation) unclassified, non-distribution-controlled training manuals and noticed that the newest ones had been deindexed when they were put behind authentication.

Stop hiding public data and I might reconsider.

anilakar··on Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber
Will Gemini refuse to work like Claude when it hits modulo 11 calculation on a number string or finds a variable named CVV?
anilakar··on Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity
> ensure consistent placement of condensers

You can install one on the balcony below the railing level.

The housing company is responsible for the exterior surfaces and thus also responsible for whatever happens to fall on bystanders when it will inevitably happen.

AC installers are also notoriously bad at following placement guidelines.

anilakar··on Google Workspace thinks my domain is an email provider (2025)
Google has a computer making decisions that affect humans, and then they then have humans defending the decisions a computer did. We live in a dystopia. I hope "Karen" sees the irony in the day job she is doing.

A COMPUTER CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE. THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST NEVER MAKE A MANAGEMENT DECISION.

—IBM, 1979

anilakar··on I dream of quieter computing
We had CRT displays that could easily do 100 to 120 Hz. Then we regessed to LCD panels that could do 60 Hz and it somehow became the performance target.
anilakar··on Hyperspace
For Windows users looking to save space, there's Compactor[1] that uses the NTFS built-in compression opportunistically for only those files that benefit from it. It is not a deduplicator but the basic idea is the same: take an underutilized OS feature and make it usable.

Pretty handy when your flight sim game takes 1.2 terabytes with most of that being sparse terrain mesh data and uncompressed textures. Compressing the whole directory would take over a day according to Microsoft and their infamous progress bar; Compactor gets it done in fifteen minutes.

[1] https://github.com/Freaky/Compactor

anilakar··on Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard
No ISO? No numpad? Also we're doing preorders for preorders now?
anilakar··on Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc
Average Ubisoft game experience on Steam.
anilakar··on HMD Touch 4G
Considering how bad the Windows Phone ecosystem was, the smartphones were not much better...
anilakar··on OnePlus halts operations in USA and Europe
> After two years your battery will be almost unusable

After two years increasingly complex web apps will have made your hardware obsolete. Batteries can be swapped, bad web development at scale cannot be fixed.

anilakar··on TS-2026-009: Insecure argument handling in Tailscale SSH permitted root access
We did Tailscale-like SSH reverse tunnels at scale first in 2013 and the main issue has always been that there are no good libraries. Bash scripting around the OpenSSH binaries is pretty much the only way to go.

There's Paramiko, but Python is still a huge liability in memory-constrained systems.

anilakar··on I'm a USB-C Maximalist
> C7 and its 2.5A max current

If 250 W (in the absolute worst case, a 100 V .jp grid) is not enough for travel purposes, I have no idea what will satisfy your requirements.

anilakar··on New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
When I was in high school my German teacher taught us to tip by default by rounding up and paying with exact change. Is that still a thing when everyone is paying with card?
anilakar··on Good Tools Are Invisible
The best tool has just a single button that has already been pressed for you. The mechanical action is there just for satisfaction.
anilakar··on Has_not_been_viewed_much
This feels like I am violating something that is sacred.

The last time I felt the same was when I accidentally found a Japanese Youtube channel that had tons of clips of konbini storefronts, a few seconds long each, most of them with zero views.

anilakar··on Vulnerability reports are not special anymore
CVE 10.0 if you happen to use one specific functionality in the library. Non-CVE if you do not, and because it's an old bug, you cannot just downgrade to get a non-red result from Trivy.
anilakar··on The time the x86 emulator team found code so bad they fixed it during emulation
GPU driver packages are already a huge collection of workarounds for bad game engine coding.

An Nvidia employee once told me that one of the easiest ways to squeeze out a few extra frames on your old machine is to rename the game executable to hl2.exe.

anilakar··on Your ePub Is fine
Only in EU because of the Accessibility Act[1]. Copywrong holders are allowed to disable screen readers elsewhere because that allows them to sell more audiobooks. You will apparently also lose many other features, among them Asian scripts and developer mode.

[1] https://www.kobo.com/kobo-writing-life/blog/our-commitment-t...

anilakar··on Statement on US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5
Nineties called and they want their shitty export grade computing back. Anyone still remember OpenBSD?
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