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stevenwliao

328 karma · joined January 9, 2015

Software engineer (Google, Twitter, Doordash). I like distributed systems and marketplaces.
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stevenwliao··on Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?
I last tried Ubuntu as a daily driver in 2009. How has Linux reliability improved for consumers since then?
stevenwliao··on 1300 Still Images from the Animated Films of Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli (2023)
It might have been that the OP wanted to try for themselves using an app or some source code.
stevenwliao··on Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices
I check prices on my reciepts. I shop at Costco, Walmart, 99 Ranch, Sprouts, and Trader Joe's.

I'm fairly certain the error rate for all those shops is less than 5%.

stevenwliao··on OpenAI needs to raise at least $207B by 2030
Same as any other ad supported services- the service is useful or entertaining.
stevenwliao··on I miss using em dashes
Provenance matters because LLM writing is cheap compared to actually having to think about what to say.

I only have a limited amount of time to read. Skipping someone's Internet comment because it looks like spam often means I get to engage with something else.

stevenwliao··on Show HN: hcker.news – an ergonomic, timeline-based Hacker News front page
Thank you for the keyword filter!
stevenwliao··on New Vulnerability in GitHub Copilot, Cursor: Hackers Can Weaponize Code Agents
Not sure about internationalization but at least for English, constraining to ASCII characters seems like a simple solution.
stevenwliao··on New Vulnerability in GitHub Copilot, Cursor: Hackers Can Weaponize Code Agents
There's an interesting paper on how to sandbox that came out recently.

Summary here: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/11/camel/

TLDR: Have two LLMs, one privileged and quarantined. Generate Python code with the privileged one. Check code with a custom interpreter to enforce security requirements.

stevenwliao··on Goodbye, Slopify
Unless I'm missing something, the opt-out is one click away. I don't understand the problem.

Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/2tLoFkQ

stevenwliao··on Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?
Airalo works well on my iPhone for travel. I had super fast data in Europe (including UK), Japan, Mexico.

IIRC the rates are not competitive compared to local plans though, so not sure if it's worth it for you.

stevenwliao··on Google is overhauling search results with AI overviews and Gemini organization
> unattributed

Plenty of AI models cite their sources.

stevenwliao··on Juno – A YouTube Client for Vision Pro
I'm skipping 2 hours of ads per month for $15. IMO it's a pretty good deal.

(Assumptions: I watch 10 hours of YouTube videos per week, YouTube shows 30 seconds of ads per 10 minutes of video)

stevenwliao··on Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff
Twitch subs remove ads for subscribed channels, so OP doesn't buy subs.

Which is the more likely scenario?

1. OP buys bits and throws them at their favorite streamers despite not being willing to pay for subscriptions.

2. OP pays nothing for Twitch and doesn't watch a single ad.

stevenwliao··on Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO
You think he could be personally liable for eight figure plus damages?

Where is the precedent for this?

stevenwliao··on Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO
Unless D'angelo has some expensive eight figure lifestyle, he's not going to a poorhouse anytime soon.

> He was chief technology officer of Facebook, and also served as its vice president of engineering, until 2008.

> D'Angelo was an advisor to and investor in Instagram before its acquisition by Facebook in 2012.

stevenwliao··on OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO
> Free AGI

Who pays for the R&D?

stevenwliao··on Vehicles with higher, more vertical front ends pose greater risk to pedestrians
Emerging markets don't buy small cars as a conscientious environmental decision, they buy them because it fits their budget. Small cars cost less than large cars to buy and run.
stevenwliao··on They can and will ruin everything you love
- Google (Search, YouTube, Android)

- Facebook (Groups, Messenger)

- Amazon (Store, Audible)

- eBay

- Spotify

stevenwliao··on We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score
When my phone was taken in an armed robbery, it ended up in Ho Chi Minh City.

No threats though... I assume they just parted it out.

stevenwliao··on Texas paid Bitcoin miner more than $31M to cut energy usage
> if paying these miners to stop has the desired effect of reducing the load on the grid, miners not existing would surely have a similar effect.

In a privatized system, a large, predictable, static load would attract additional infrastructure. Assuming how that's how Texas' system works, if these miners did not exist, the peak capacity would be lower.

stevenwliao··on FCC refuses to scrap rule requiring ISPs to list every monthly fee
They are also in a race to the bottom.

Some booking sites will have an option to show prices after all fees, but it will never be on by default.

stevenwliao··on I would rather see my books get pirated than this
Most people don't run an adblocker on their phone, and these torrent sites would cease to exist or become malware sites themselves if enough users used adblock.

Let's not kid ourselves- these site runners are not Aaron Swartz.

stevenwliao··on I would rather see my books get pirated than this
> Search for torrent or download link, click,

Hope that you didn't click a sketchy ad that looks just like the download link, because the site didn't police any of its ads.

stevenwliao··on The Screwed-O-Meter (2013)
I guess to be more specific, zero-days that they don't fix even after they're exploited.
stevenwliao··on The Screwed-O-Meter (2013)
Start by analyzing whichever email service you use.

Add additional checkboxes:

- [y/n] Is SMS the only 2FA method available?

- [y/n] Is there no 2FA at all?

- [y/n] Do they have a history of unpatched zero-days?

- [y/n] Is it possible that if there is a security breach, you won't hear about it because no tech journalist pays attention to this service?

- [y/n] Can someone socially engineer the support team to get access to your account?

- [y/n] If a hacker gets access to your account, can your bank accounts be drained?

stevenwliao··on Twitter has officially changed its logo to ‘X’
If someone wanted to buy your house for three times its market value and their grand plan was to turn it into lumber, would the smart move be to decline?
stevenwliao··on A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022)
Driving an old vehicle makes others less safe. The risk of collision decreases with safety features like ABS. The 70s truck doesn't have these safety features.
stevenwliao··on National Geographic lays off its last remaining staff writers
What do you subscribe to on PBS? Didn't even know they had a subscription program.
stevenwliao··on National Geographic lays off its last remaining staff writers
Every newspaper already has a payment platform. The only value add is distribution.
stevenwliao··on National Geographic lays off its last remaining staff writers
How much extra would HN pay?

The answers in this thread are essentially all under $1. There seems to be not much rationale behind these numbers besides "it should be cheaper," so the anchor point is probably $0.

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