HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

methodsignature

79 karma · joined May 18, 2020

submissionscomments
methodsignature··on Don't Feed the Thought Leaders
"Rules" often contradict each other. For example, in software development, "keep it simple" often directly conflicts with "dont repeat yourself" as it takes increased complexity to achieve reuse of code. I often see keeping it simple take a back seat in newer developers as they slavishly follow the don't repeat yourself trail. The end result is routinely a brittle, rigid, and overly complex solution.
methodsignature··on Thunderbird stored OpenPGP secret keys without master password protection
Probably high for them are usage issues, like broke buttons in their UI or chopped text.
methodsignature··on Google Removed ClearURLs Extension from Chrome Web Store
They may have noble intent, but they also have conflict of interest given Google basically signs their paychecks. [I do use Firefox regardless]
methodsignature··on A Note about Functional Efficiency
Self plug / just wrote a thing.
methodsignature··on Are Xiaomi browsers spyware? Yes, they are (2020)
> but a properly security-paranoid home automation aficionado wouldn't be caught dead giving some proprietary black box power and network inside their own home.

That sounds like the definition of a cell phone.

methodsignature··on Judge in Google case disturbed that 'incognito' users are tracked
Google Chrome UI: "We aren't tracking you". Google Terms: "We are absolutely tracking you". Google: Fingers were crossed; doesn't count.
methodsignature··on US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins
Sure, if data from US would be enough to understand and fight disease. Otherwise, you need to create some sort of world health organization to share meaningful data and investigate inside all country participant without the appearance of [or actual] invasion of sovereignty.

Thus, we have the WHO. You wanna replace it, it's gonna take a decade to get to another agreement if one even is made. Then it will have its own set of issues. During a pandemic, seems better to me to work with and hold accountable the one we have... kinda like the WH is doing today.

methodsignature··on Apple has threatened to remove Amphetamine from the App Store
I posit that it is capriciousness, not hypocrisy.
methodsignature··on Craft – A fresh take on documents
Something along the lines barring the compilation of iOS apps with 3rd party tools or some such in TOS or blocking apps made with them from the App Store outright. Not saying the would, but if they had reason to fear they are losing control of something in their ecosystem, no telling what they would do. Just would not give a zero chance of something crazy as such happening.
methodsignature··on Craft – A fresh take on documents
Also "Frictionless sharing and collaboration" seems not valid at all when it exists in the closed ecosystem that is Apple. Probably the decision is to follow with Android and web [windows+linux].
methodsignature··on Craft – A fresh take on documents
Software development technology is getting close. A couple few more years maybe and that problem will start to go away fairly rapidly [relatively speaking], like possible 30-40% cross platform by the end of maybe 5 years-ish. 12 year android dev here seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with some newer performant (dev wise and user wise) frameworks and architectural patterns. Of course this all depends on Apple not saying FU to the entire industry in a dramatic, squashing those frameworks with their iron fist sorta way.
methodsignature··on No, Cellebrite Cannot “Break Signal Encryption”
Signal seems a bit of a jerk company. They should have "stayed above the fray". Instead, they ridiculed. They were in their rights to do so but should have been the better. Throwing insults, however well grounded, is never good for a brand and shows a lack of level-headedness. They could have simple stated the story is a non-story and stated why. This could have been paired with working with the BBC to get a retraction in place, taught someone at BBC something, and maybe even gotten a little free positive PR from them in the process.
methodsignature··on ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)
The Matrix gets it wrong. There won't need to be a war.
methodsignature··on Double Blind Passwords a.k.a. Horcruxing
> Integrating a password manager with a browser is too fragile and risky way of using both. It is best to have them fully separated so they can't communicate. They should communicate exclusively via the user.

Which gets targeted more and why, the user or the password manager?

If you are suggesting that we should be manually entering passwords into sites as copied/observed from our password managers, that removes the anti-phishing benefits of password managers altogether by giving primary control back to the human. If I never type a password again, those hackers sending fake login page links "from my boss" will never gain me. Not so with no direct connection between my password manager and my browser.

methodsignature··on Double Blind Passwords a.k.a. Horcruxing
A 2nd password manager for the 2nd part of the password breaks maybe the key advantage of this mechanism by putting the "something you know" into a decryptable by design storage space that is most likely duplicated in the cloud.
methodsignature··on Fuzzy logic rice cookers (2016)
An entire continent full of kitchens keeps rice in cookers/warmers for days at a time. There us just no there there.
methodsignature··on Write code. Not too much. Mostly functions.
They all probably read Clean Code, the discussion on functions in that book may be the most harmful/costly to programming in the last 20 years.
methodsignature··on Firefox Was Always Enough
Sometimes you just need the differentiator in your feature set. Then you let your marketing team go to work.
methodsignature··on Firefox Was Always Enough
I switched my wife to FF from chrome and completely uninstalle chrome. She hates the inconvenience of any minor glitches or peculiarities - I hear a lot about it when she doesn't like something. I almost forgot she was switched over b.c. I didn't hear a thing about it from her.
methodsignature··on Firefox Was Always Enough
Yap. People ask the internet now maybe more than their techie friends, and the marketers are probably as likely to be the ones amswering.
methodsignature··on FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services
And how do you research for the formulation of such a law? Not really trying to defend anyone here with not much info, just it seems that asking parties for information about how the soup is made so you know how to regulate the making is pretty common, no?
methodsignature··on Expanding Fuchsia's open source model
So maybe open source, [mostly] closed ecosystem? Add a bunch of Spyware from Google and get every app maker to add a dependency to Google services and they are golden for the collection of data on all your "smart" things

Sorry/not sorry for the cynicism; I feel it is warranted given what "open source" means on Android. Google talking like they have noble open source ambitions means nothing. They have a lot of amends to make before they begin to seem like a win for society and the industry and they seem to be going in the opposite direction.

methodsignature··on The Code It Yourself Manifesto (2016)
Learning is nice and all, but if you didn't document well, and regardless probably the first time the next guy needs a feature that exists in off the shelf solutions, that code will likely be ripped out pdq (given the problem space was non-trivial).
methodsignature··on Email a Dumpster Fire
The "reinvention" is primarily in the client (but also in the client service) and has to do with getting you to use email differently by having you emails behave in a non-traditional manner.
methodsignature··on Google is testing end-to-end encryption in Android Messages
> Because the key is in sole possession of each user, end-to-end encryption prevents everyone else—including the app maker...

This needs to be redacted. If you can read it in the app, the app can send it to the app maker. Its irresponsible to say such thing b.c. Google is LIKELY to not only grab your messages, but also grab your entire message history when you install and send it along to their servers.

methodsignature··on Google Messages E2EE
> Because the key is in sole possession of each user, end-to-end encryption prevents everyone else—including the app maker...

This needs to be redacted. If you can read it in the app, the app can send it to the app maker. Its irresponsible to say such thing b.c. Google is LIKELY to not only grab your messages, but also grab your entire message history when you install and send it along to their servers.

methodsignature··on Starting January 4 Google will block sign-ins from embedded browser frameworks
The user you asked has apparently decided to pretend that particular reality doesn't exist.
methodsignature··on Chrome exempts Google sites from user site data settings
Might just be that Google doesn't test on Firefox and also maybe are "to smart for their own good" coming up with out of the box solutions that can be more likely to fail to begin with. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I kinda read myself as saying "they probably just don't give a sh!+."
methodsignature··on How and why I attempt to use Links as main browser
Printer dialogs in browser [_we hates it_].
methodsignature··on Exciting Days for ARM Processors
I would also like my laptop to run cool enough to, idk, put on top of my lap.
Page 1 of 2Next →