Hacker News Reader

drweevilon Meta launched a new AI optimism ad set to a song about human extinction

Yup. Look at Palantir. What government wouldn't want an All Seeing Eye of Sauron? Their client list is telling.

drweevilon US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

While I like the idea behind GrapheneOS, I'd rather not place myself in jeopardy of some ridiculous charge like this one. I prefer to travel with a travel device, some inexpensive phone and/or laptop that contains nothing interesting. If they then wish to take it from me because I won't unlock it, then have at it! That said, the situation with respect to our Bill of Rights at the border has gotten ridiculous.

drweevilon ASK HN: Why has technology become so unreliable?

> Forget the ridiculous AI hype, forget about the lack of ethics and a moral compass;

I’m afraid these things are related. Time-to-market and short-term profitability are paramount, trumping good customer relations.

My sister has an old Macbook Pro. I asked her to save it for me when she’s done with it, it’s such a solid machine. I still don’t have it. So, do you build something excellent that your customers love, that lasts a decade or more? Or do you build something that breaks in 3 years and allows you to sell a replacement? This is where the ethics and moral compass come in.

drweevilon Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight

In 2004 I visited my family in Valencia, Spain. There was a local construction boom. There were family owned shops everywhere. Bakeries, fruit stands, etc. When I went back in 2014, it seems everything had changed. The shops were gone. The construction had slacked off. Instead there were now giant supermarkets and superstores. They were on the Euro now. My cousins blamed the EU for this. I'm assuming something similar happened in Italy, tho it is not mentioned in the article, which instead tends to blame the victims. When you replace the local food supply chain with prepared branded foods (Nutella, etc.), you get this. The EU has been great for European capitalists, but a detriment to the people in Europe.

PS This was one of the major complaints of the long forgotten yellow-vests protests in France.

drweevilon Government orders GitHub to remove Bluetooth-based chat app Bitchat: Jack Dorsey

> “The application enables anonymous communication without mandatory user registration, phone number verification, or centralised logging of communications.“

Those are features, not bugs ;) Seriously tho, the I4C is describing face-to-face communication. Is that illegal too? Perhaps the problem here is not the protesters, but an overreaching government.

drweevilon Pixar lays off over 100 Bay Area workers using ElastiGirl letterhead

> “When our teams are aligned and working in a connected way, we can build on our strengths, reach people wherever they are, and deepen their relationship with Disney.”

God I hate these people. The irony is that any half-decent AI can say stuff like that.

drweevilon The Collapse at Netflix Signals the End of Audience Capture

This is a death-spiral. If a company instead adopts a sustainable, customer-centered business strategy they will be punished in the stock market for "stagnant growth," the CEO gets replaced and or a hostile takeover occurs, and there we go again.

drweevilon Jeff Bezos Is Funding a Wild Hunt for the Brain's 'Core Algorithm'

This is the right idea. But this is not a problem amenable to le startupism and the VC culture, which are susceptible to jumping up a local maxima faster than a flea jumps. There is likely not a “core algorithm”. Unlocking how the brain works will require sustained, patient research work with committed long-term funding. Something China is capable of doing.

drweevilon On reading Iain M. Banks

>"Among readers who quote Player of Games and Consider Phlebas, Surface Detail tends to be the Banks novel they haven’t quite gotten around to. They’ve not noticed who it is about."

Exactly.

drweevilon Hotels are slashing World Cup rates as FIFA cancels rooms

Those very rates are a big turn off. We’ve heard of the expensive tickets, and mass transit rates have skyrocketed. Even locals will be priced out. FIFA has forgotten what this is all about. 48 teams, 3 host countries, premium pricing, it’s all a bit much.

drweevilon Why the Washington Post Lost in Virginia

You can argue whether a billionaire owner of big media is a “MAGA billionaire”. But you cannot argue whether they’re billionaires. Most of the Post’s readers understand which of those descriptors is truly relevant.

drweevilon Theft Is Now Progressive Chic

It’s not theft if it’s done at scale, I guess.

drweevilon School uses AI to remove 200 books, including Orwell's 1984 and Twilight

“Safeguarding”. How very, um, Orwellian.

drweevilon We do not think Anthropic should be designated as a supply chain risk

Then don't take the contract that was offered to Anthropic.

drweevilon Flock cameras gifted by Horowitz Foundation, avoiding public oversight

I sounds naive to assert that the jurisdiction of city government doesn't extend beyond just "whatever is funded by taxpayers."

Also, if someone were to destroy one of these things, the damage caused, by a similar logic, is $0, right? /s

drweevilon Show HN: Formally verified FPGA watchdog for AM broadcast in unmanned tunnels

AM is a good modulation choice for low signal environments. It is used in the airbands for this reason.

drweevilon Trump officials met group pushing Alberta independence from Canada

Trump administrators meet with traitors. And there's oil involved. Wow, what a surprise. Also, "three in 10 would vote for it..." that means 7 in 10 wouldn't.

drweevilon The tech monoculture is finally breaking

> A Timex ad went viral this year: “Know the time without seeing you have 1,249 unanswered emails.”

Sometime last year I got tired of using my phone as a clock. I dug out a 2-decade old watch from a drawer, put in a new battery, and eventually realized I really missed its simplicity. It has calendar functions, and a mechanical rotating dial I can use as a timer. Its interface never changes. I never lose it. What's not to like?

drweevilon Booting from a vinyl record (2020)

I used to have a cassette storage device for my Atari 800. This is totally geeky and awesome!

drweevilon When employees feel slighted, they work less

The subject may sound silly, but we evolved this way. For the greatest part of human existence we were part of small social groups. We each took part in every activity. Our 'work' was for the group, and for ourselves. Those we worked with, we lived with, so in order to maintain group cohesion (and to not get stabbed in our sleep) we learned to get along. Current work practices violate a lot of those deeply set social mores. I'd love to see a study that looks into this hypothesis. Could explain a lot of the misery and depression in our modern life.

drweevilon Trump says the USA will indefinitely "run the country" of Venezuela

>Venezuelans in the capital have voiced mixed reactions to the US’s operation, with some celebrating the “positive change” and others saying Maduro’s capture creates “an even worse conflict.”

A claim backed up by...a link to itself? What? (as of now, the link is in the phrase "voiced mixed reactions".) Our media is showing us how much rot actually prevails within the large news orgs. How did they arrive at a framing like "some do, some don't"? Did they have reporters on the ground?. Or is this an unfalsifiable phrase designed to sow doubt? (fwiw, the only ones I can think of who would approve are members of the old ruling class, who form a small minority of the country's population.)

drweevilon Donald Trump says US is 'going to run' Venezuela after overnight strikes

This is a result of legitimate elections, right? /s

drweevilon Nationwide Tax Strike

It is. It is very reminiscent of the 2009 ACORN hatchet job by Breitbart et. al. Same features: undercover, video, practices that are not up to journalistic standards, etc. It feels like deja vu all over again.

Wikipedia on the ACORN takedown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACORN_2009_undercover_videos_c...

Minn. Public Radio on Shirley: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/12/29/youtuber-nick-shirl...

drweevilon You Can't Trust Your Eyes to Tell You What's Real Anymore, Says Instagram Head

Anymore? Photos have always been imperfect approximations of the truth that should be considered with appropriate skepticism. Photographers choose when, where, and what/who their subjects are, when they frame their image and release the shutter. Editors choose which ones to include in a story. AI may be doing us a favor by making this more obvious.

As with other media the solution has been and still is corroboration. Are there several, independent photographs of the same event? Great! Otherwise, treat with due skepticism. This is good news, as it doesn't require all the tech ("fingerprints and cryptographic signing of images from the cameras that took them") that Mosseri proposes.

drweevilon DHS Says DHS-Certified Real IDs Too Unreliable to Confirm U.S. Citizenship

> ...when our Fourth Amendment rights are eroded, there is no evidence or piece of plastic that will suffice to overcome an officer's "reasonable suspicion" once the government decides you're a target.

This is the real issue here. The government is choosing to act in bad faith, and no legislated law can prevent this if the courts fail to enforce the law.

drweevilon Poll HN: How do you feel about AI generated images on blog posts?

This. Every time I catch myself thinking "depends on its purpose..." I have to remind myself of this. The negative social and environmental costs of AI overwhelm any supposed benefit.

drweevilon Tech billionaires threaten to exit California over proposed wealth tax

Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.

drweevilon Why did we use leaded petrol for so long? (2017)

And yet, tetraethyl lead is a deadly poison. Surely that is a factor worth considering?

drweevilon Ask HN: What did you lose forever because you had no backup?

I lost some DSP code I was working on (DOS, ca. '95). I wanted to recompile it, so I did something like 'del *.obj'. Or meant to. I typed 'del * obj' instead. Lost a day’s worth of work. (DOS even asked me if I was sure. “Of course I’m sure”, I thought as I mashed the Enter key.)

Result? I learned how to use make. (Borland had a nice one). I also started using my first VCS tool, sourcesafe (pre-Microsoft).

drweevilon Inside CECOT – 60 Minutes [video]

My own experience is that they've been solid throughout. Certainly better than many other options, at a time when the technical press has been generally disappointing.