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elric

9,117 karma · joined December 31, 2019

Curious software engineer with an interest in the human body, human rights & privacy in particular. Occasionally more snarky than desired. More questions than answers.

Pardon my typos, touchscreens and sausage fingers are the spawn of the devil.

Blog: https://blog.melnib.one

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elric··on My favorite keyboards
Kinesis Freestyle Gaming for me. The "traditional" Freestye has a wrist pad that's made out of a material so horrible I returned the keyboard immediately. Yuck. This was years ago, maybe newer models are better? But I'm very happy with the Freestyle Gaming in general.
elric··on The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
From what I remember from an interview with the rabbi in question, the "oral suction" was not involved in this case. But because these procedures are being performed illocitly, it is hard to know what's going on or how sanitary it is.
elric··on The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
That isn't even the point though. The circumcision itself is perfectly legal in Belgium. The legal issue is with the lack of qualifications of the ones performing them in this case.
elric··on The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
I hope the journalists in question will lodge a complaint with the Belgian police watchdog, Comité P: https://comitep.be

Belgium has been pretty repressive towards certain journalists for a while now. Our "World Press Freedom Index"-score has gone down a fair bit in recent years, and rightly so. The current prime minister and his friends have a history of litigating against journalists who exposed some questionable deals, so it's all to be expected.

elric··on The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
For context: he's accused Belgium of being anti-semitic because a couple of Orthodox Jewish mohels are being prosecuted for practicing illicit medicine (i.e. performing ritual circumcision without a medical license). The investigation started after a complaint was filed by a rabbi, so it's hard to chalk this up to anti-semitisim, but that's modern day US diplomacy for you.
elric··on One million passports leaked online
I agree with the theory, but I guarantee you that in practice the vast majority of orgs are storing way more data than they should.
elric··on HackerRank open sourced its ATS. My resume scored 90/100. Oh wait 74. No – 88
Under GDPR, you have the right to request manual processing whenever personal data is processed automatically to make a decision about you that has "significant impact". Not being hired seems like it would qualify.
elric··on EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors
Yes, EP has rejected it, and now the president of the EP is ignoring that outcome.
elric··on The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online
Never been ID checked at a bar in my life. The whole concept is alien to me.
elric··on EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors
This is going to further increase anti-EU sentiment. This is unacceptable behaviour, but no politician is ever going to experience any negative consequences over this because they're so very far removed from the democratic process.
elric··on Hey Nico, you didn't vibe code your data room but stole it from Papermark
Surely "only for humans" is the obvious default given that there were no AI megacorps when these licenses were written?

Surely it's always been obvious that the person doing the sharing is the one to decide on the terms of the sharing? Maybe I want to share my cake with you but not with someone I don't like? How is that not my decision to make?

I'm absolutely fine with people having different sharing philosophies. Different licenses with different nuances are a thing. But I don't like this take that everything that was shared is automatically retconned to be included in AI training data. That's not the spirit in which I shared my stuff. Maybe that's the spirit in which you shared yours, and I respect that.

elric··on Doing a masters while working in Spain
I've been considering doing the same (going back to uni, not moving to Barcelona). But I find the choices are overwhelming, and the time investment is no joke.
elric··on Hey Nico, you didn't vibe code your data room but stole it from Papermark
What a load of crock.

FOSS licenses were obviously written in the spirit of sharing with humans. Some later licenses made the license less amenable for sharing with corporations because some authors didn't feel like they were being treated fairly. Some authors today have similar feelings about their code being used by Gen AI. It is perfectly fine for authors to want to place restrictions on how they want others to use their work.

> Step out of the FOSS swamp, step in to human dignity.

What is that even supposed to mean?

elric··on Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice
Same in Belgium. Easy peasy. Took no time at all.
elric··on Danish privacy activist Lars Andersen raided by police
They're probably not being sarcastic. Wrong, and ppssibly evil, but not sarcastic. There are some weirdly big Palantir fans on HN. No clue what drives them, but I'm guessing they're not keen students of history.
elric··on Whole cross-sectional human ultrasound tomography
No X rays are involved in MRI.
elric··on UK Home Office launches £75M 'PoliceAI' to capitalise on artificial intelligence
And you're saying that's not scary?
elric··on UK Home Office launches £75M 'PoliceAI' to capitalise on artificial intelligence
I personally found the murder of an innocent man by Metropolitan police to be a pretty big deal that's been pretty much ignored.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jean_Charles_de_Men...

elric··on Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)
And sometimes it doesn't work. Patients are then given the option of going ahead without sedation, or rescheduling for general anaesthesia.
elric··on Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)
Which end are we scoping? Colonoscopy is often done without anaesthesia but tends to take longer than 2 minutes, so I'm not sure if that's what OC is referring to. It's uncomfortable, but that's ok. Scoping nose/mouth->stomach also doesn't come with any drugs, just some lube.
elric··on Apache Burr: Build reliable AI agents and applications
Why wouldn't it? The ASF has a long history of incubating new FOSS projects. Some graduate and become household names. Others fail and end up in the attic. The ASF can provide organisational support and generally fosters good communities.
elric··on A €0.01 bank transfer could compromise a banking AI agent
I see far more SVG injections than SQL injections these days, but YYMV. My programming ecosystem has very robusy SQL libraries, from simple prepared statement bindings to complex ORMs and everything in between.
elric··on I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
I wouldn't buy a laptop that requires the use of Fn for any key I commonly use. I don't particularly care about PrtScr, Break or ScrollLock. Can't remember the last time I used either of those. But Home/End/PgUp/PgDown are requirements.
elric··on Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?
> Meanwhile, a lot of managers calendars are purely just 1:1s with devs on the team which clearly has very little value add to the team.

Depending on the manager and on the team, 1:1s with people can be very valuable for all involved.

elric··on I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
Thinkpad laptops thankfully have a BIOS option to revert the behaviour to normal, where F1-F12 perform their nominal functions. I'd probably pay an extra €50 for a laptop that didn't come with a stupid Fn button at all. Might want to throw some more money at a few more keyboard modifications: my bottom row is Fn CTRL Win Alt Space AltGr PrtSc Ctrl; that PrtSc button clearly has no business being there. Arrows & PgUp/PgDown are too small. Backspace is too short. Etc.
elric··on Why are so many young people getting cancer?
Several things at play here:

1. As others have mentioned, males were excluded from vaccination until relatively recently. This seems like such a stupid decision in hindsight. When I (male) got my vaccines, I was told that it wasn't routinely done in boys "because of availability issues", which I took to mean "because it's expensive".

2. Initial vaccines offered protection against 4 strains of HPV, newer vaccines protect against 9. People who got the older vaccines remain susceptible to the other 5 strains.

3. It can take years for an HPV infection to become dangerous or cancerous.

4. This last one is speculative, but I assume that when a woman tests positive for HPV or cervical cancer, their partner is also looked at. With the rates of symptoms and cancers going down in woman, their partners might fall through the gaps: there are no routine tests for males.

elric··on The Butlerian Jihad Has Begun
> An easy way out of this is universal basic income and universal mortgage/rent freezes now.

Of all the unlikely things to happen, these seem like the most unlikely. There's a bigger chance of a violent mob blowing up every datacentre on the planet than there is of UBI being implemented within the next century.

elric··on GrapheneOS user reported to authorities for using GrapheneOS
Any insights on what Yoti is or what might motivate them to take those moronic actions?
elric··on 32GB of DDR5 now costs $375 – AI shortage continues to squeeze PC building
How much of is this is actually due to the AI hype cycle, and what's the impact of the global energy clusterfuck that is the Strait of Hormuz?
elric··on Having your insulin pump die while you're on vacation
Sounds familiar. I was often told "just use your inhaler, you'll be fine!". How I wish it were that simple.
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