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simpleguitar

312 karma · joined December 31, 2020

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simpleguitar··on The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
As the article points out, there are laws that say people who pay via SNAP debit cards "cannot be charged more than others".

If cash payments are rounded down, but debit card payments aren't, they are in violation of state law.

The article also points out that rollback of pennies in Canada and other places were planned, addressing these kinds of issues. USA is doing it with no such planning.

simpleguitar··on We must ban boilers to force public to switch to £10k heat pumps'
So everyday people don't want to fight climate change? I know some do.
simpleguitar··on Is your SSH key still safe?
> Honestly, I wish PGP was widely accepted.

I wish the opposite. I wish PGP would go away.

Web of trust model of keys simply doesn't work. One key forever doesn't work.

SSH keys work great without "all of this key management and rotation by hand" if you just use ssh certificates.

simpleguitar··on TypeScript as fast as Rust: TypeScript++
I love this concept!
simpleguitar··on Wall Street was the real winner of the GameStop saga
Because that would be illegal market manipulation.

Any institute, including GameStop themselves, would be committing a crime if they knowingly triggered a short squeeze. The SEC rules on this is quite clear.

What's interesting to me is that the official SEC report on GameStop "squeeze" specifically called out that the rise in price WAS NOT due to short covering, but rather a large increase in retail buying and market makers balancing options. So the reported % short went from more than 100% to less than %20 with zero short covering and prices falling? Yeah, sure.

simpleguitar··on Competitive Programming with AlphaCode
It doesn't even have to be average human.

Let's say AI only gets to 10% (or 20% or 30% or whatever, it doesn't really matter), that's a huge number of jobs being lost.

Imagine having a machine write all the "simple/boring" code for you. Your productivity will go through the roof. The smartest programmer who can most effectively leverage the machine could replace many hundreds of programmers.

I should brush up on my plumbing and apply for a plumbing license soon. (I think plumbing is safer than electricians, because many CS people have good EE foundations).

simpleguitar··on Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft Weave a Fiber-Optic Web of Power
My 10 year old self couldn't imagine having these massive artificial brains scattered throughout the world connected by high speed fiber network being a real thing.
simpleguitar··on LastPass says no passwords were compromised following breach scare
just put "steam" in the url?
simpleguitar··on LastPass says no passwords were compromised following breach scare
On iOS, opening up saved passwords just uses firefox's password manager. On the desktop, I just open up firefox's password page. It's always running anyway.

It works just like another password app.

simpleguitar··on LastPass says no passwords were compromised following breach scare
> I wish there were a good solution

The answer is right there in the article: Use the browser's password manager.

I find Firefox's password manager + Sync a good solution, and I don't understand why people don't advocate it more. It's free and open source. Mozilla is a reputable software house with a good security team. Their revenue stream does not depend on you paying for the password manager. It doesn't even depends on monetizing your personal information.

Yesterday I found it even works as a password store for all of iOS.

simpleguitar··on LastPass users warned their master passwords are compromised
Self hosting sucks for an average user, and terrible for a mobile user. It is possible to have hosted password solution that is secure, so why not use it?

This is basically the same "cloud" vs "on-prem" debate. Cloud won, I think.

simpleguitar··on LastPass users warned their master passwords are compromised
LastPass's statement via HowToGeek: https://www.howtogeek.com/776450/lastpass-says-it-didnt-leak...
simpleguitar··on My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer
My grief (and grieving) is not with this.

If you had an advanced degree in math or physics, hedge funds in NYC was always an option to maximize your talent in exchange for money. But one also had an option to choose something different and still make an upper middle class living.

It seems these days, only the finance/tech offer such living. NOT choosing tech is choosing barely middle class living, and everyone else is delegated to hand-to-mouth living.

simpleguitar··on My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer
I disagree with everything you've said.

The only difference between myself and my other friends (who also have advanced degrees from top universities in the bay area) is that I abandoned my field of study and jumped into tech.

After 10 years, we have vastly different financial outcomes now.

A lot of hard working, well educated, dedicated people struggle financially around here, because they happened to not choose tech.

Add in the teachers and other under-appreciated careers, I do feel guilty that I should have so much, and they so little.

simpleguitar··on Bitwarden compatible server written in Rust
>it still eats up more that 2GB of RAM for my single-user setup

Call me old fashioned, but that seems like an insanely large amount of resources to host one person's passwords.

simpleguitar··on U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general
Have you seen the statistics on American gun ownership, particularly handgun ownership? And what fraction of Americans have a concealed carry permit? And how many people carry a gun on their person when they are out getting a sandwich?

Yes, it’s real.

simpleguitar··on Fun with Red Star OS
He's talking about old mechanical style typewriters. Due to mechanical tolerances of the time, the letter shape and the alignment of the type bar would be slightly imperfect, and unique to that typewriter, acting as a fingerprint.

It's the reason why ransom notes from old movies are made of letters cut out from different magazines and newspapers. No handwriting, and no typewriter.

Did you know that US Secret service has samples of ink from various ball point pens? (https://www.12news.com/article/news/nation-world/look-inside...)

simpleguitar··on Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?
500 years is not children of your grand children. If people still have children at 30, your "children of your grandchildren" would be born only 90 years after you, and even if they live to 90, that's only 180 years.

Doing the same math, the 90 year old that sees your web page 500 years from now would have to be born 410 years from now, and at 30 years per generation, that's 13+ generations. At that point, this descendant is related to you as much as a you are to a random stranger from your city.

Look around and see what lasts 500 years: tombstones, statues, family heirlooms.

Your best bet might be to create a ritual, and have your children practice it as part of a religious ceremony!

simpleguitar··on Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users
> Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

I remember when google made the URL bar as a search bar. It had the convenience factor, and google had the "search for everything" philosophy.

But we call that a "dark pattern" now.

simpleguitar··on SHA-1 'fully and practically broken' by new collision (2020)
I have a question.

Is it not possible to create a good cryptographic hashing algorithm that results in 128bit or 160bit hash?

It seems all the modern, secure ones are 256 bits or larger. Is that because 160 bits is too easy to compute collisions for any algorithm, or are we just not able to fully realize the entropy that can be recorded into 160 (or even 128) bits?

simpleguitar··on Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable
googling for "ivermectin hospitalizations" shows actual hospitalizations from ivermectin.

Maybe they are not "significant" enough for you.

Anyways, I've seen enough "iver" posts on [1] to keep me away from it.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/

simpleguitar··on Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable
Actually, it does.

The only reason one would be taking iver prophylactically, is because one wasn't vaccinated. And the only reason to take iver after covid symptoms develop is because you didn't take the vaccine.

If one was vaccinated and are feeling sick enough to take iver, she would be better off with oxygen and hospital SOC.

simpleguitar··on Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable
If iver is a good gamble, then wouldn't the vaccine be a better gamble?

After all, unlike iver, there is very good hospitalization data about vaccinated vs unvaccinated now.

simpleguitar··on Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable
> The Ivermectin paper was surely bad, but it wasn't outrageously bad nor unexpectedly so.

Oh, yes it was bad. Very very bad. Outrageously bad. The data was mostly fabricated:

https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin-for-covid-19-based-on...

simpleguitar··on What the Wall Street Journal Got Wrong (by FB VP of Global Affairs)
Yes, He’s just stonewalling.

And if this is the official response from Facebook…

simpleguitar··on Sputnik V: fraudulent clinical trial data
Pfizer vaccine is approved for 16+. 12+ is still under EUA.
simpleguitar··on Scientist says cleaning indoor air could make us healthier and smarter
Box fan with a 20x20x1 filter makes the fan work much harder.

20x20x2 or 20x20x4 filters have much larger surface area, which is better.

Creating a cube with four 20x20x2 is the best in terms of energy use and air output.

And then you add a fan shroud for even more efficiency.

https://www.texairfilters.com/how-to-improve-the-efficiency-...

simpleguitar··on Scientist says cleaning indoor air could make us healthier and smarter
Box fan with a 20x20x1 filter makes the fan work much harder.

20x20x2 or 20x20x4 filters have much larger surface area, which is better.

Creating a cube with four 20x20x2 is the best in terms of energy use and air output.

And then you add a fan shroud for even more efficiency.

https://www.texairfilters.com/how-to-improve-the-efficiency-...

simpleguitar··on Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era
If you look at FAANG earnings, their annual gross revenue (before expenses), is at least $1M per employee. Last time I looked Apple does $1.5M including all their Apple store employees.

It's not just insane valuation. If the employees are bringing in $1M per head, you can afford to spend more on those who are making stuff.

simpleguitar··on Over half of Covid hospitalisations tested positive after admission
A PCR test that is sensitive is a great tool. Remember the NBA bubble? A less sensitive test would have allowed outbreaks inside the bubble, making some player sick and unable to play, as well as eroding the public's confidence on PCR tests.

Factories and meat packing plants used negative PCR tests to create their own bubbles and keep them running.

There is large positive economic value to a highly sensitive test with a small false negative and a larger false positive. There is much less economic value in a test that allows escapes (rapid tests).

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