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rbobby

1,297 karma · joined August 19, 2013

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rbobby··on What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph
I feel like I've seen this comment before...
rbobby··on 1-Click GitHub Token Stealing via a VSCode Bug
> best thing to do is segregate and control damage

I first encountered that concept with a client that put every webapp in it's own virtual server and expected the vm to get compromised at some point. Seemed like a very sensible idea 15 years ago.

rbobby··on Fully in-browser container builds
And uses SOAP for identity and authorization.
rbobby··on Microsoft's 6502 BASIC is now Open Source (2025)
The Apple ][ basic interpreter placed its "get next token" routine down in the first 255 bytes of the computer's memory. Being there allowed for the machine instructions to be fetched twice as fast as "high memory". And "get next token" is definitely a good guess for hotpath.
rbobby··on FBI director's Based Apparel site has been spotted hosting a 'ClickFix' attack
The economy is so bad even the Director of the FBI has a side gig.
rbobby··on asp-classic-emulator: Run ASP Classic on macOS, Linux and BSD
Now do ASPX? Pleeeeeeaaasse?
rbobby··on How to Perfectly Crack an Egg (With One Hand) [video]
I've learned to accept getting a bit of raw cold egg white on my fingers.
rbobby··on Why Is the Press Attacking Home Schoolers?
John Oliver did an eye opening bit on homeschooling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsZP9o7SlI&pp=ygUVam9uIG9sa...

The lack of regulation is concerning. What's truly disturbing is how easily it is for children to fall through the cracks when there are no teachers to report possible abuse. Frightening.

rbobby··on Super Simple Storage Service
If I recall correctly the read/write head of a floppy drive rested directly on the media. This meant the disks wore out faster the more you used them.
rbobby··on Two-minute battery changes push India’s delivery riders to switch to e-scooters
Can you plug in a gogoro to a regular wall socket? Better a slow charge than to be stuck.
rbobby··on A DARPA Perspective on Artificial Intelligence [pdf]
> Nobody can build something with squirrel levels of manipulation and agility, even in simulation.

While not squirrel level, this impressed the heck out of me: https://ashish-kmr.github.io/rma-legged-robots/

rbobby··on First images from James Webb telescope exceed expectations
Maybe it's a quantum observer effect and the galaxies only exist because there's an observer. Dark matter/energy is need to make things balance only because we haven't been looking in all the right places.

The universe would be an odd old place if that was true.

rbobby··on American mask makers are going out of business
> Why can't the US government mandate hospitals need to purchase a percentage of their supplies from US manufacturers in order to receive medicaid/Medicare.

Trade agreements most likely.

I would not be surprised if that sort of preferential treatment would count as a subsidy and be actionable under NAFTA (whatever it's called now).

rbobby··on Show HN: Test your shape rotation skills
12 matches, 10 seconds per shape.
rbobby··on Trudeau tries to bring back online censorship bill
As a Torontonian... the Sun isn't much of a paper. Good for sports and fish wrap. Breathless crime reporting too. City politics. That's about it.
rbobby··on Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide
> Arguably the more important outcome than monetary damages

Every single consumer that bought a product from one of these third party sellers, or a matching product from Amazon, has been cheated out of several dollars. For each product, for each sale... that adds up to way more than $2.5 million.

And the funny part is that a few database queries could likely surface exactly who has been harmed, how many times, and a gross sale amount affected.

Easy proof for a class action?

rbobby··on IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts
Hmm... maybe the magic in magic quadrants is in how they attract the sorts of people that will act on the information conveyed by the grid. Way better than an Ouija board for IT recommendations. Ouija is very hit and miss, really depends on what spirit you get connected with. Magic quadrants just work.

/lol

rbobby··on Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work
I would think basic income would only cover the basic necessities, plus some extra. Not enough for one person to live without a roomate, or have the latest and greatest technology.

So... to pay for a private apartment maybe that crap retail job would be ok.

rbobby··on Intel completely disables AVX-512 on Alder Lake after all
> AMD supports ECC on their consumer chips

And now the next desktop consumer upgrade I purchase will be AMD and will have ECC (well... unless it's way more expensive).

rbobby··on Elizabeth Holmes found guilty
Shhhhhh! You'll disturb the market!
rbobby··on Microsoft Exchange stops passing mail due to bug on 1/1/22
YYMMDD + 4 digits of versions. At a glance, even a bit more than a glance, that seems fine for a long. And if 2020 worked and 2021 worked... why would 2022 break?

Lol.

I'd bet the conversation about this way back when it was being decided was "will 3 digits for daily version/build be enough" and the answer "go with 4, better safe than sorry".

rbobby··on Winnie the Pooh to Enter the Public Domain in 2022
Disney will be suing. I'm sure they already have worked out an overall litigation strategy.

But... with 2 years left there's plenty of time for legislation to be updated.

rbobby··on Tell HN: Canada Posts systems to be down for 6 hours of “unplanned maintenance”
Sounds like a plan... until you realize why your label printer keeps restarting.
rbobby··on No one is certain what Roman bronze dodecahedrons were used for (2018)
With a bit of string you'd have a game.

Doesn't really account for the varying sizes of holes.

rbobby··on Raytracing diamonds
Gemprint... the OG NFT.
rbobby··on A New Origin Story for Dogs (2016)
And the cause
rbobby··on Raytracing diamonds
If you shine a laser into diamond centered and perpendicular to the table face, the beam will be split and returned out of the table to show a pattern of dots (some bright, some dim). The pattern is unique to each diamond.

Gemprint.com uses this to fingerprint diamonds. You can see some images of "gemprints" here: https://www.gemprint.com/light-performance.html

rbobby··on How to develop black and white film at home with coffee (2019)
Polaroids (self developing color pictures) are a good example of everyday magic. Sure it's chemistry and not magic, but how sure are you?

If magic was real, wouldn't those who knew how to use it figure out how to profit off it on a wide scale? Flying carpets? Too much time investment for too few trips. Aluminum "wings" that fooled even Bernoulli... no there's a business that continues to make billions. DNA testing? Don't get me started about prepackaged identity spells.

:)

rbobby··on How are Rome's monuments still standing?
> A modern beer bottle looks paper thin compared to one a century old.

I wonder if that is due to how much smoother transportation is now.

rbobby··on Two lines of CSS that will improve HN on mobile (IMO)
I wish there was a higher contrast ratio between text and the tan background.
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