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pisky

235 karma · joined March 31, 2018

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pisky··on John McAfee Developed One of the First Social Networks
Icq's chat feature definitely did around 97/98/99. I remember it being different from the IM feature in that way.
pisky··on Google TV
Can't YouTube serve up the videos in formats that the original Chromecasts can consume? Surely either YouTube can know which Chromecast is making the request, and serve up an appropriate quality, or allow the Chromecast to request a lower quality version of the video. To be clear, I don't expect to be able to see videos in higher quality than was available at the time of purchase. I expect to be able to 'watch YouTube' as was advertised on the device's box.
pisky··on Google TV
This infuriates me. Google must know about this, and can surely lower the bitrate for these old Chromecasts, yet have chosen not to. Every time I encounter this on my old Chromecasts it reminds me of how they ruined the Nexus 7 with its final major os update. Blatantly trying to get people to buy new devices. Do no evil, my arse.
pisky··on Cat vs. panel heater: which is better?
And they will save you a fortune on vet bills compared to allowing your cat to roam free outside.
pisky··on US Border Patrol says they can create central repository of traveler emails
Looking forward to the first gpt-3 version of 'it was the best of times, it was the blurst of times'.
pisky··on Google files opening Supreme Court brief in Oracle v. Google copyright lawsuit
Has that site been hacked? When I use Chrome's simplified view there is a paragraph injected talking about and linking to live porn.
pisky··on Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates
Here in Australia most people now buy food and drink by tapping their bank cards on a reader. Can't be long now until a particularly smart crow sees this at a beach side shop, and steals a card to copy this. Is a shopkeeper obligated to serve other species? I for one will welcome our new flying thief overlords.
pisky··on Boris Johnson uses search terms in interviews to hide negative articles?
Isn't the most likely case that his advisers told him to do this?
pisky··on Anti-Eczema Diet of Lamb and Cheerios Leads to Boy's Vision Loss (2017)
From the article: potatoes, pork, lamb, apples, cucumbers and Cheerios.

The addition of potatoes and apples makes the case far more interesting imo, as it makes the diet closer to what many people might think is sufficient.

pisky··on Ask HN: How can HN allow login without an email and not be full of bots?
Reddit doesn't require an email either - they just use a dark pattern on the registration popup to somewhat hide the fact. I doubt any bot makers fall for it, so I don't think they did it to prevent bots anyway.
pisky··on Android Q Beta
I use Netguard for this. Works well.

https://www.netguard.me

No root required, open source etc.

pisky··on Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube
It's not afaics. It's on f-droid though.
pisky··on E-Cigarette Maker Juul Just Gave Its Employees an Average 1.3M Bonus
I was thinking more along the lines of meditation for stress, and IF for weight loss. I've seen both work well amongst non smokers, so hoped they could work for smokers too.
pisky··on E-Cigarette Maker Juul Just Gave Its Employees an Average 1.3M Bonus
The few people I know who still smoke do it for stress and weight issues. I have casually mentioned a few healthier alternatives to them but none seem receptive so maybe there are other, more personal reasons.
pisky··on Chrome OS: Ready for Web Development [video]
I did this for years until Google demanded a phone number in order to log in. (HN thread about it in my history.)
pisky··on Tell HN: Google requiring phone number to log into Chromebook
I understand the measures they have to go to to stop bots, but Google have more than enough data to know these accounts are not bots (they have years' of browsing history and whatever other hooks they use on Chromeos). Unfortunately these accounts were created years ago and I assumed 'recovery options' would only be required if I forgot my password (which I never would). Beginner's mistake.
pisky··on Tell HN: Google requiring phone number to log into Chromebook
Hi, op here. They're asking me for any phone number, not for one tied to the account (there is none). I've confirmed this by comparing with the message a friend sees with two factor authentication turned on.

Some people are posting here saying they got in using a stranger's number so I still don't understand how providing a number proves who I am.

pisky··on Command-line Tools can be 235x Faster than a Hadoop Cluster (2014)
Also, 'parallel' if you've got any idle cores on your infrastructure.
pisky··on Chart of the Milky Way Includes More Than 1B Stars
I've probably missed something obvious here, but what about Tardigrades and bacteria?
pisky··on We saved $50k/year with a Go microservice coded in a hackathon
There is one thing that bugs me about all the talk of postgres' superiority: why haven't these companies switched to postgresql? Surely they weren't all too far invested in mysql before a "more knowledgeable" DBA came along saying postgresql is better.