Hacker News Reader

psutoron Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

Same here, also as a former bassoonist - each note on the bassoon has extremely unique timbre, and I find it very easy to identify them.

No perfect pitch for other instruments.

psutoron US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

Yes, probably that because Alaska and Hawaii were not admitted as states until 1959. Otherwise there would be Pearl Harbor counts as well.

psutoron Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

They did add back non-cloud support a while ago after the cloud forcing didn't go over well, but it is a second-class experience.

The day after I set my UDM Pro up as non-cloud, it corrupted the login somehow and I had to factory reset it and redo all settings (as it hadn't been running long enough to run any automatic backups first). I capitulated and just set it up again as a cloud login to avoid having the same fiasco at some random point in the future again.

I immediately regretted going with the UDM to save (quite) a few bucks over a OPNsense/pfSense appliance to fit my requirement of handling a full 10G of WAN.

I will admit having the app to monitor usage remotely is a somewhat neat trick. I find the firewall configuration in GUI obtuse enough to be next to unusable.

psutoron Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2022)

Interesting to see Nix in the nice to haves!

psutoron California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

Don't know if parent has been edited to correct something, but:

9: 14-15

10: 15-16

11: 16-17

12: 17-18

psutoron Asahi Linux for M1 Macs: progress report for September 2021

You are saying that the "why" of Apple doing these things is purely "user hostility", which is highly implausible.

A company does not make decisions based on a pure "will to be evil".

They probably think that the reputation hit from not allowing repair is less damaging than the reputation hit from users dissatisfied with repairs. Other design choices can be for cost cutting in design or production.

So sure, it is not nice for the user, but the reason is not a desire to spite users. They likely simply think the additional costs, tangible and intangible, of being repair-friendly are not worth it.

psutoron I Am Not Satoshi Nakamoto

Coinbase can disable your withdrawal/sending ability at any time on a whim.

Their support is email-only and has a backlog of months. Try taking a look at /r/coinbase for examples.

There are some very good reasons to put your crypto somewhere you control. I am in the process of moving everything I had off of Coinbase after they silently disabled my send/sell ability, but not purchase/receive, without ever providing a reason. Others were not so lucky as I was for them to reply to my support ticket after only 6 weeks of this status. None of their FAQs or support emails acknowledged the exact problem correctly or plausibly answered any of my questions as to why.

psutoron The Perils of an .xyz Domain

I host my own email, and I got nothing but huge amounts of spam from .xyz domains, so I manually increased the SpamAssassin score for just .xyz to +4.0, as KAM was only adding 0.75 for it. It's the only TLD I've had to do that for.

Unfortunately for the people with legitimate uses, for email admins it's just a really easy (and arguably necessary) shortcut to block a ton of spam.

psutoron Complexities of e-mail validation logic

I use this scheme (company@mydomain.com) and one that I remember blocking for this reason is Aliexpress/Alibaba - aliexpress@mydomain.com was rejected so I use ali@mydomain.com.

No idea what sort of security this is supposed to provide.

psutoron Complexities of e-mail validation logic

I host my own email server, and .xyz is one of the 2 or 3 TLDs I went in the config files and manually blocked since nothing but spam comes from it (and lots of it).

Definitely would not recommend using it for your personal address.

psutoron Applying Apple's Framework for Avoiding Mediocrity

A quick look at the Bragi Dash Kickstarter shows it was started in February 2014 and had raised nearly $3.4MM by March 31, 2014. It looks like it finally shipped in early 2016 (original promise late 2014).

psutoron Show HN: History suggest box for your shell

I was about to comment that this kinda looks like fzf + ncurses.

psutoron MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

Won't each college having to have their own test lead to many/most colleges, especially smaller ones, finding it easier or more cost effective to purchase their test from a central source, leading to some large College Board-like company making exams and a prep industry for that standard exam?

psutoron Everything I googled in a week as a professional software engineer

That's how I memorized it too! Really struggled with it until I started thinking of it that way.

psutoron Why Our Super Bowl Ad Failed

I verified that the tweets are real. I checked out the usernames and all of those with locations easily findable (half of them) were in Chicago (where CAH is based) - so it is certainly plausible they only aired in Chicago.

psutoron Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

I bought my smart thermostat (Ecobee) for a couple reasons -

1. Economic - it easily paid for itself in one summer by not running the A/C when no one is home. I have geofencing set up to do this automatically.

2. Comfort - my office/bedroom temperature is all I really care about as it's where I spend all my time. My thermostat was not wired to there, and temperatures fluctuated wildly in my office. Ecobee has remote sensors so that I can set the rooms I care about to the correct temperature.

Overall, it has certainly made my life a lot less complicated; I never have to touch the thermostat again to get comfortable in my office, and I save a lot of money too.

psutoron Prosecutors Are Reading Emails From Inmates to Lawyers

The article expects you to know that $125/hr is way below the normal rate for a criminal defense attorney in a major city, which I would expect to start at about $300/hr.

psutoron Nobody. Understands. Punctuation.

For clarity in this case, you would distribute the "to" if the writer's mother is indeed Ayn Rand:

  To my mother, Ayn Rand, and to God

and otherwise assume not (or completely distribute the "to" for no ambiguity).

EDIT: My sibling post has another good alternative.

psutoron Balanced Will Release an API to Push Money to Debit Cards

Why are Americans afraid of giving out their bank account numbers? The only thing you can do with an IBAN is send money to it, and that's hardly malicious.

In the US you only need a name and bank account number (and to know which bank it belongs to to find the routing number) to make ACH withdrawals. That's why.

I'm not aware of any reforms in the banking system to change this awful system, so these online services are the next best thing. I am still waiting to find a good opportunity to use Square Cash.

psutoron Don't commit when you're drunk

I'd think the best use of this interface would be to only allow you to commit while in the Ballmer Peak.

psutoron Heirloom Chemistry Set

I'm in Kansas City too, I'll have to stop by!

psutoron Electric Nissan Leaf has become the most popular car in Norway

IIRC Norway has a 200% tax on petroleum-powered vehicles (despite being a huge producer), so this is not terribly surprising.

This makes a Tesla more in the price range of a small- or mid-sized BMW, and I suppose the Leaf would be extremely affordable, making it an obvious choice for anyone who is OK with the logistics of electric cars.

psutoron What is your most productive shortcut with Vim?

Linux sysadmin here - although I use vi for almost everything on the terminal, I still consider Notepad++ a "killer app" for Windows. It perplexes me that in all this time I have not been able to find anything comparable for Linux.

Games and Notepad++ are the only real reasons I have had for using Windows on my desktop instead of Linux.

psutoron Why I Hacked Apple’s TouchID and Still Think it is Awesome

It is also extremely easy for your acquaintances (or even patient thieves) to learn your PIN, unless you unlock in a weird, secretive way that is sure to cause teasing or funny looks.

In this way Touch ID is a far far superior defense against snoopy acquaintances unless you happen to be unconscious around them.

psutoron Why Would Anyone Want To Host The Olympics?

Although economically true these days, I found "Greece has no business in doing [the Olympics]" ironic.

psutoron The Steely, Headless King of Texas Hold ’Em

IIRC, the article only mentioned the "dumbed down" version now in casinos being beaten by pros.

The earlier part of the article (when it was full strength and in testing) has no mention of it being beaten.

psutoron Disable Facebook Chat Seen Status - Chrome Extension

Thanks for this, I just added a rule to block that in my AdBlock on FF.

psutoron Fake Signs On Bay Area Highways Say Drones Looking For Speeders

Or it could be a good way of desensitizing the public...

psutoron Official statement from WikiLeaks regarding Edward Snowden's exit from Hong Kong

This thought crossed my mind as well after I spent some time thinking how a president could still get things done with how little power they actually have vs. entrenched entities.

I still think it is extraordinarily unlikely though.

psutoron Snowden: US hacks Chinese mobile phone companies, steals SMS data

What you describe in your edit has been happening between the US and UK for decades. They spy on each other (using the more permissive "foreigner" spying privileges) and then share the data.