Hacker News Reader

For security.

shimonamiton ZincSearch – lightweight alternative to Elasticsearch written in Go

Or https://github.com/typesense/typesense

shimonamiton SQLite is not a toy database (2021)

Note the difference between "lots of writes" and "lots of concurrent writes". "Lots of writes" in succession without heavy concurrency support is just fine for desktop/mobile apps. It is not okay for busy webapps.

shimonamiton Gambling and Adult content DNS blocking using Mullvad VPN

I use SafeDNS which filters adult content (plus many more categories), without forcing YouTube Restricted Mode. But, you can opt into YouTube Restricted Mode if you choose.

shimonamiton Railway lines once connected the Middle East

They did, at least in Israel. The Jerusalem-Beit Shemesh route was restored and it is a beautiful commute.

shimonamiton Google classroom and Google docs can not be used when YouTube is blocked

With age comes responsibility, so with time and coaching we remove restrictions. But it takes time, and I'm not willing to sacrifice my child's education in the meantime for YouTube and gaming distractions. I've grown to recognize there are certain distractions that are simply too difficult for young children to refuse.

shimonamiton Google classroom and Google docs can not be used when YouTube is blocked

Practical tip for parents here struggling with the problem of 'distractions during school hours': use a DNS filtering service.

I use the Family package from SafeDNS and I'm generally happy. It is also cheap at $20/year. I like SafeDNS because they provide a Desktop client that prevents tampering.

You can configure different profiles such as 'Education', 'Creative' and 'Default' for different modes you want to put your child's computer on - remotely. So during schooling hours I configure their computers to be on 'Education' mode, but if they want to just do Scratch or some other brain-stimulating activity, I put it on 'Creative' mode. For free time I'll put it on Default which I've configure to allow YouTube.

I configure each profile to block preconfigured vendor-supplied site archetypes such as Videos, Gaming, Advertising, Shopping, Chat etc. I have full control over each profile type. I can also whitelist a domain if they get in a snag.

I'm sure there are other good DNS filtering service providers, but this one is the one that worked best for me.

shimonamiton Ask HN: How to do cross platform GUI?

I was examining Zoom's bin directory looking for a cross-platform GUI library they might be using, and found a library called DirectUI, also duilib. DirectUI was originally developed by Bjarke Viksoe. Looks like this here: https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/372559/DirectUI. Maybe someone else can add some insight?

shimonamiton Microsoft's latest Windows 10 updates come with nasty printer bugs

Printing in Windows is an unsolved problem. It never was.

To print in Windows I have a checklist: 1. Print 2. Restart printer 3. Cancel print job, try to print again. 4. Restart print spooler, try to print again. 5. Restart computer, try to print.

Usually works with #4 or #5. Having a family member print is a major tech support undertaking.

shimonamiton “Our primary goal is to un-fork the Tor Browser”

I haven't tried it recently (as in the past month), but I like to fire up the browser, press Ctrl+L, type an address and press Enter in a few seconds. That seems to take forever on Firefox compared to Chrome.

shimonamiton After the coup, Turkey turns against America

The U.S. stores nukes in Turkey as part of the NATO deterrence strategy. During the coup the Turkish authorities were quick to siege the military base supposedly hosting the nukes. From CNN:

  > Turkish authorities encircled the base, cut off the power
  > supply and temporary closed the airspace around Incirlik 
  > as they fought off the coup launched on Friday.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/19/politics/us-nuclear-weapon...

shimonamiton Rails 5.0.0.beta1: Action Cable, API Mode, Rails Command

An interesting tweet by Sam Saffron:

"@dhh this is just a bit too much https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/rails.gemspec#L28 … now every Rails install requires redis, eventmacine, celluloid and faye"

https://twitter.com/samsaffron/status/678701348297158657

shimonamiton Microsoft nixes ActiveX add-on technology in new Edge browser

HTML5 is an excellent alternative to ActiveX, particularly in the area of mime type handling, but it does not facilitate native desktop interaction. There is still a basic need for certain websites to interact with pre-installed native/legacy applications using a secure method such as Google Native Messaging, but Microsoft hasn't committed to anything similar.

shimonamiton Render HTML via WebGL

Not necessarily. Looks like it is an immediate mode, HTML-like syntax but without the DOM.

shimonamiton PHP 7's new hashtable implementation

Javascript's arrays cannot be used as maps or associative arrays. Arrays require numeric, consecutive keys. Otherwise it's an Object.

Clarification edit: Creating a new key on an array using arr['key']=1 creates a property on the arr Object but does not add an element to the standard array.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8630471/strings-as-keys-o...

shimonamiton Opera is really nice.

Not Mobile Chrome.

shimonamiton Opera is really nice.

So far Mobile Opera is the only browser to support:

* Readable text size after double-tap-to-zoom

* Text reflow

I still can't find a browser that remembers my zoom level per site.

shimonamiton CSS3 Box Model behaviour

Paul Irish also discusses this in his blog post from Feb. 2012:

http://www.paulirish.com/2012/box-sizing-border-box-ftw/

shimonamiton Recursive raytracer in 35 lines of JavaScript

The author writes in the link:

> Note that the goal here was to make the source code as small as possible, not clarity; so even the original code before minification is a horrible mess. This doesn’t do justice to the elegance and simplicity of proper raytracer code; I’m writing a book to right this wrong.

shimonamiton Forced Exposure

The longest key in the world won't protect you from a FISA warrent.

shimonamiton Starting a consulting business. Can I get some feedback on my new site?

Just imagine how I'll feel if he says we/us on his site and then I discover in our introductory call that he is a loner. Only say "we" if you can justify it. If you tell me you're networked and have a working relationship with ux/designers/programmers maybe that will fly.

shimonamiton Recurly billing down -- some customer data lost

"This failure corrupted encryption keys used to access stored credit cards to process recurring transactions"

Looks like they were sharing encryption keys by replication or shared storage.

shimonamiton How RESTful is Your API?

Adding HATEOAS resource links should not break client code. It is nothing more than adding an attribute or sub-element to your xml.

shimonamiton How RESTful is Your API?

Easier for you, that is. The problem with HATEOAS is that it requires commitment on both parties (server and client) to that convention. For the client developer that means no hard coding changing URLs. But they will, and you'll be to blame when your server changes break their code. You'll say "but you didn't HATEOAS" and they'll say "my app is broken, fix your API now" and you... who wants to go there?

shimonamiton John Siracusa's OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Review

Isn't there a TL;DR;TL;DR;TL;DR^25 somewhere?

shimonamiton Show HN: Meteor, a realtime JavaScript framework

I would assume their client DB stubs invoke server RPCs. A few server hooks for your webapp would solve that.

shimonamiton The all-new Basecamp is live

http://basecamp.com/transition

I want to migrate, but...

> Basecamp Classic and the new Basecamp don't offer the same features, so some data in Classic won't make it into the new Basecamp.

So maybe I'll stay. But wait...

> Will you continue to improve Classic? The majority of our design and development efforts moving forward will be focused on the all new Basecamp, but we'll continue to support Classic as long as customers continue using it. We expect that to be for many many years.

Maybe. Maybe not. The web moves very quickly you know. New browsers, standards, security risks etc. I can think of a million and one reasons Classic will get EOL'd sooner rather than later.

This is certainly faithful to their backwards compatibility intolerance. The new product couldn't be bound by the "burden" of the old. Now I the customer am left with a very distasteful choice to make.

shimonamiton Submarine Cable Map

I see no cables actually get routed through the Suez canal, even though many cables come up the Red Sea. The same is true for the Panama canal. Is it because they are too shallow? Maybe too concentrated?

shimonamiton Scientists' proposed calendar synchronizes dates with days

Indeed, it is a corporate-friendly calendar.

They say their calendar would make it easy to plan annual activities, from holidays to academic schedules to financial calculations.

shimonamiton Daring Fireball: The Case for Going Metro-Only on ARM

I completely concur. I am beginning to suspect another release flop ala Windows Me and Windows Vista... if Microsoft default to Metro on traditional workstations. I say 'if' because they're still a bit vague on their roadmap. There's lots of hype in the air now, but once the dust begins to settle I think more people will come to this realization.

EDIT: Changed Windows 2000 to Windows Me. Windows 2000 was generally considered to be a successful release.