Hacker News Reader

sysadm1non Ask HN: Is Java in Decline?

    NoItIsNotInDeclineDueToItBeingAbleToBeWrittenOnceAndBeingAbleToRunEverywhere

sysadm1non Good Bookmarking Tools?

https://github.com/wallabag/wallabag

https://github.com/go-shiori/shiori

https://github.com/Kovah/LinkAce

https://github.com/sissbruecker/linkding

sysadm1non MIT physicists turn pencil lead into electronic gold

Title is misleading. I thought this was some sort of modern-day alchemy that yields actual gold, as in this type of gold, chemical element symbol Au: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold

sysadm1non Ask HN: Are You Religious?

When my national census form arrives and asks what religion I follow, I put 'Jedi'.

sysadm1non F*** Paywalls

Looks like they use some sort of proxy:

https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2023%...

Typically news sites rate limit how much a particular IP can be used to read articles. I assume the proxy IP is different each time.

sysadm1non Ask HN: How would French police locate suspects by tapping their devices?

For smartphones, assume an always-on wiretap situation. But for laptops, it may be harder depending on how hardened your setup is, and how tight your opsec is. There is the possibility that if you're a high value target and you bought your laptop online that it could be bugged, but you would have to be someone like a drug trafficker or a journalist or some other high profile person.

sysadm1non Ask HN: Is Linux Mint a good choice for a laptop with 8gb of RAM?

You're right, Ubuntu feels bloated to me. It's subtle, but noticeable. Mint is a good lightweight alternative. 8GB is enough for everyday computing, although some people multitask with several apps open which can choke things a bit.

sysadm1non As the public begins to believe Google isn’t as useful, what happens to SEO?

'The People' when really it's mostly bots these days, and getting smarter with LLMs too. Only a few blogs/articles are written by actual humans, and something strange has happened to my cognitive abilities lately; is discerning whether an article is written by an LLM or a human. I regularly play a game called 'bot or not' now.

sysadm1non Ask HN: How to Get Noticed

> whom I chat with over IRC

What, IRC is still used in 2023? There is a panoply of other discussion forums to shill your talent/products/services.

sysadm1non Ask HN: Virtual Desktop is a hacker tool?

> How do you defend against hackers using these to attack your SaaS server?

This is a broad question. There are multiple ways to defend, besides basic security like firewalls. Blocking nefarious IPs or domains only gets you so far, as something will slip through the cracks. Try reading this: https://opsec101.org/

sysadm1non Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for creatives?

There is Designer News:

https://www.designernews.co/

It's not just about design, some other creative-themed things get posted.

sysadm1non Ask HN: What are your hacks to learn faster?

Apart from cheating with nootropics, I start small and build momentum.

sysadm1non Razor 1911

You can browse chiptune/keygen music here: https://chiptune.app/

sysadm1non jQuery 4.0 99% Complete

It does not matter that much, relatively speaking. People include 1MB font libraries in their site without a care in the world, and force 1-2MB PNGs and JPEGs down the wire without caring. A few extra bytes in jQuery is nothing compared to that.

sysadm1non Ask HN: How do you decide what to read next?

I try and find books that are not popular, since if you want to Think Different, you have to read what others are NOT reading, so you have an advantage over your competition who are all indoctrinated by the latest trend or groupthink. Old dusty libraries & bookshops with obscure literature are my favorite for procuring these items.

sysadm1non Elon Musk gives X employees one year to replace your bank

Why not fork it into a separate product? I understand the Everything App premise, but companies like Meta have their products in distinct buckets (Instagram, Whatsapp, Threads, etc). That way people's pseudonymous accounts are not tied to their finances. I know for me, I don't want my Twitter/X alt account anywhere near my finances.

sysadm1non Elon Musk's Twitter, one year later

Should have been nationalized and made a public utility IMHO. Musk just wanted a new toy to play with, and has trolled Twitter from day one. Billionaires buying up the media is nothing new.

sysadm1non Ask HN: How do you discover new things on the internet in 2023?

https://www.producthunt.com/ (For new SaaS products and interesting books)

https://sumi.news/ (One quick sweep of current events)

https://pinboard.in/popular (Everything that is trending on the web)

And of course, Hackernews (I regularly browse /newest when I am feeling serendipitous).

sysadm1non A $30M Cash-for-Bitcoin Laundering Ring in the Heart of New York

> they still need to convert the crypto to cash

And this gets trickier each time you do it. Eventually you end up literally with duffel bags full of unwashed notes being traded publicly in the ever surveilled New York.

sysadm1non Ask HN: How to Retrieve Lost Files?

And if backing up, use the 3-2-1 strategy:

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-strategy/

> You may have heard of the 3-2-1 backup strategy. It means having at least three copies of your data, two local (on-site) but on different media, and at least one copy off-site.

sysadm1non Just turned 29, any advices?

“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

sysadm1non CEO of Web Summit tech conference resigns over Israel comments

Trial by social media. Now CEOs have to walk on eggshells because their sponsors could pull out because of some cherry-picked tweet. Paddy is a smart guy who also revealed bias in the Irish Media not so long ago. He didn't need to resign IMHO.

sysadm1non The fake browser update scam gets a makeover

Seriously considering running a JIT-less JavaScript free browser should be the standard for surfing these days, and only whitelisting sites you trust (like your online banking site or Amazon for example). Disabling JS wipes out entire classes of attacks. I know developers assume the user has JS enabled and codes their site to that end, but a small minority disables JS to get rid of various annoyances and for accessibility reasons, and, malware issues in the browser.

This attack can still be pulled off without JS though: using plain old CSS & HTML. It seems these attacks are targeted to the non tech savvy, but even I (tech savvy) get duped by persuasive messages in my browser. This is why I advocate for a Phishing/Malware 101 course which is mandatory for all types of tech-related courses and learning.

sysadm1non What is the Demoscene? An interview

I remember downloading demos from Pouet and testing them out on my machine. I quickly realized some of these only worked on higher-spec'd machines than mine, and some of them were laggy and glitchy af, but they still worked.

What I gathered is that every line of code counts in a demo, and the hardware constraints were a good thing as you had to push the envelope of the hardware. Now people spin up bloated Electron apps on their machines which could be slimmed down substantially if more effort was put into reducing lines of code and all those wasted CPU cycles are embarrassing.

But people have beefy setups that can run Electron and a host of other apps simultaneously, so they don't care to put in the effort anymore.

Always code as if you're coding a demo is my mantra.

sysadm1non Ask HN: Why are there no serious competitors to YouTube's monopoly?

> serving online videos is not too advanced a technology unless I'm missing something

Google leverages their huge datacenters. They're a monopoly precisely because of that.

sysadm1non Ask HN: Are gut problems behind everything?

90% of serotonin is made in the gut. So if you look after your gut, you will feel less gloomy / depressed. I take probiotics, kimchi, eat plenty of fiber, and get good fats into my diet (avocados, eggs, nuts).

sysadm1non Cars are a 'privacy nightmare on wheels'

> It's completely possible to build an EV that isn't connected

    sudo ifconfig eth1 down

sysadm1non Ask HN: Is it just me or is mobile web browsing awful?

> How do you tackle this?

Disabling JS in Safari gets rid of a lot of annoyances whilst surfing. You could also try the Brave browser or the DuckDuckGo browser on iOS which block ADs by default.

But this is just a bandaid for the problem. What I would like to see is DNT (DoNotTrack) being honored and taken as a sign that you've opted out of tracking, instead of tracking happening even though the DNT flag is set to true.

I'd also like if all browsers including Safari on iOS shipped with a Consent-o-matic / 'I dont care about cookies' type of functionality which globally & automatically opts you out without having to press buttons or close a modal window / popover.

sysadm1non Ask HN: How to monetize a site that receives 120 visits a day? video games niche

https://www.ethicalads.io/

sysadm1non Ask HN: Track Users Without Fingerprinting

> That's the reason you see websites requiring phone number or credit card verification these days

And this is trivial to overcome (depending on how eager the registrants are). The pro freeloaders have access to many different numbers and typically order SIM cards in bulk, and CC's can be spun up easily too all using different names. The real pros buy these in bulk from the dark web, so it's a non-issue for them. Passport scans and a 3D selfie that matches is the gold standard for auth now.