HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

systoll

680 karma · joined June 3, 2014

submissionscomments
systoll··on The deceptive PR behind Apple’s “expanded protections for children”
> there's no local vs cloud separation anymore which you can use to delineate what is under your own control

If uploading a perceptual hash of a photo breaks 'local vs cloud separation', the uploading the whole photo in the clear surely does the same.

systoll··on Apple Ships Mysterious macOS 11.5.2 Update
They do somewhat do that.

2.93GB is for the delta update from 11.5.1.

The full version, which doesn’t try to include only the parts that are needed, is 11.6GB.

My understanding, however, is that it’s done on a per-file basis, and any update to a system library invalidates the dyld shared cache… which is a 2gB file all by itself.

systoll··on Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources
Ok.

So iCloud Photos circa 2020 [and Google Photos and Facebook and Dropbox and OneDrive] aren’t a risk you should be willing to take.

This feature doesn’t change anything in that regard; the scanning was already happening.

systoll··on Automattic has acquired Pocket Casts
Succeeded.

It was originally a one off $4 for iOS, $4 for Android, and $10 for the web service + electron apps.

Following acquisition by NPR et al, they announced that the base mobile apps would go free, and the web apps would be part of a $10/yr Pocket casts plus subscription, along with some extra functionality.

Following some backlash, they gave web-app buyers a lifetime Pocket Casts Plus subscription.

You could never actually buy the lifetime PocketCasts Plus membership.

systoll··on Why Europeans Don't Refrigerate Eggs but Americans Do
> It is rather obvious when they are.

Commercial egg-laying hens aren’t going to be let anywhere near a rooster, so you’re not going to get fertilised eggs from the store.

But… unless they’ve been incubated, the only difference is a white spot in the yolk.

If you get eggs from a recreational / family farm, you may well get a bunch of fertilised eggs — you wouldn’t notice unless you knew what to look for.

systoll··on I Stopped Using Emojis
It’s literally that – they’re called stickers if you set the interface language to English.
systoll··on The Idempotency-Key HTTP header field
That’ll be a problem regardless – if the client provides an idempotency-key but the server doesn’t use it, it’ll reprocess on retry. Under this spec, the client needs to check server docs to figure out if/when/how idempotency keys are used.

The weird part of calling them idempotency keys is that seperate requests will often fall in the same idempotent group.

EG: If traffic lights were controlled over HTTP, a pedestrian pressing the crossing button 20 times in a row would create 20 distinct requests which would need 20 distinct idempotency keys. But pressing the button once is the same as pressing it 20 times.

systoll··on Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal
> Corporate tax seems like double taxation, and its existence seemingly means that all companies have a lower margin than they would otherwise, meaning that they need to charge higher prices to be equally profitable. For companies that sell products to consumers, one would presume this would result in higher prices for everyday items.

Isn’t this a good thing? The core reason for incorporation is to have limited liability, leading owners to have a limited potential downside, and unlimited potential upsides.

But the downside is still there, it’s just externalised.

Corporate tax seems to be a fairly reasonable approach to paying for this liability insurance.

systoll··on CRISPR gene-editing breakthrough opens door to treating broad array of diseases
That’d be a logical fallacy: Denying the antecedent.

If your program won’t compile, it has a bug somewhere.

If your program will compile, it almost certainly still has a bug somewhere.

systoll··on Show HN: iPod.js – An online iPod that connects to Spotify and Apple Music
As of about a month ago, Spotify can download content to watch too.
systoll··on Show HN: iPod.js – An online iPod that connects to Spotify and Apple Music
It can cache music locally – it does some guessing as to what you want by default, but you can also sync specific playlists. Current models have 32gB of storage.
systoll··on Stonks Are What You Can Get Away With: NFTs and Financial Nihilism
> Whether you keep the "real" item to wear or wear a counterfeit is inconsequential. The real value of the item passes along with the NFT to the new owner. The remaining item whether is real or not has vastly less value.

IE, it assumes that attaching an Hermes NFT to Birkin bags would cause Birkin bags to become worthless.

The reduction in incentive to counterfeiters is in direct proportion to a presumed reduction in value of the bags themselves.

I think the more likely outcome would be that the NFT is mostly worthless, but wherever things wind up, it remains as two seperate markets.

Hermes could probably get someone to pay for NFTs they create. Pretending they’re tied to their other goods just adds reputational risk.

systoll··on Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess
My first impression when they opened the sidebar was that that's what we were going to get.

The only thing really missing are disclosure triangles: https://imgur.com/a/6AkHI7d

A sidebar like that would serve tab-hoarders better than either the new or old tab bars, while coexisting with the new UI.

systoll··on Spatial Audio
It’s supported in the beta version of Apple Music for Android.
systoll··on FaceTime on the web requires Chrome or Edge, no mention of Firefox
Because the Zoom web client doesn't support end-to-end encrypted calls. Only their apps do.

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360048660871-End-t...

systoll··on New Firefox
Firefox color lets you easily customise those colours: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firefox-color...
systoll··on The Shortest Possible Game of Monopoly (2010)
Right… but neither player made any bids, because doing so would make the game longer.

If we don’t care about players conspiring to shorten the game, player 2 can go bankrupt before making a move.

Player 1 lands on any property, and puts it up for auction.

Player 2 immediately bids $2000.

Player 2 wins the auction and bankrupts themselves.

systoll··on Rethinking the computer ‘desktop’ as a concept
Not that I disagree with your overall point, but there are multiple products in that space. It's clearly not a deal-breaker for most; but if anyone's lamenting the lack of a GoogleDocsFS, they can get one:

https://mountainduck.io

https://cloudmounter.net

https://www.expandrive.com/desktop/

https://github.com/pranavmk98/gDocsFS

systoll··on The Shortest Possible Game of Monopoly (2010)
Properties go up for auction if the player that lands on them chooses not to buy.

The losing player had the option to bid a total of $4 and get Electric company, Illinois Avenue, Pennsylvania Rail Road, and Baltic Avenue.

Mortgaging those properties would give them enough money to afford rent, and having a mortgaged property is still better than not having the property at all.

It is irrational to not bid up to the mortgage price.

systoll··on Undefined behavior in C is a reading error
The definition logically implies that compilers are allowed to assume UB doesn't happen. The definition is:

> undefined behavior: behavior, upon use of a nonportable or erroneous program construct or of erroneous data, for which this International Standard imposes no requirements.

With these optimisations, either:

1. The program contains no UB, the transformed code acts as expected, and the compilation is valid.

2. There's UB; the standard imposes no requirements on what behaviour that translates to; and so the transformed code is valid, regardless of what it does.

systoll··on The data model behind Notion's flexibility
The behaviour demonstrated at

https://www.notion.so/Tree-breaking-3a90e2bcd2154f4fab06a3c7...

Breaks the tree model, as 'Complete Task' would need to have both 'Subtasks' and the page itself as its direct parent.

That said… it's mostly a tree, and there may be merit to optimising for that access pattern.

systoll··on Lima: Linux-on-Mac
It would override command+A for select all.

You could rebind select if you wanted, I wouldn't really suggest doing that though. The command key sends the same key-code as the windows key, but it's not on the same place on the keyboard.

If you're on a Mac keyboard, the muscle memory should map to Option+a. Which by default types å.

If you're using a PC keyboard with your Mac, and you're not already used to it… you might want to look at 'System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys...' so that your setup either:

1. Puts the modifier keys where they are on Mac keyboards, by setting Option->Command, and Command->Option.

2. Puts most shortcuts where they are on PC keyboards, by setting Control->Command.

systoll··on Three things to never build yourself: auth, notifications, payments
Auth0 and fusionAuth don’t have APIs but will process requests manually.
systoll··on An NFT That Saves Lives
Whatever the NFT contains/links to, anyone can make another NFT with the same content, and prove they own that NFT.
systoll··on NFTs Are a Pyramid Scheme and People Are Already Losing Money
Among others, he did so himself.

He didn't make the comparison, but his figures would put his entire touring history at ~2000 token transfers worth of emissions.

Leaving aside, you know, the cost of performing -- this involves creating and transferring a lot more than 2000 'tokens' which grant people access to those performances. Thankfully venues just handle those with a database.

systoll··on JavaScript from 2001 on India's largest private bank site
WET code?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_repeat_yourself

systoll··on EMA Covid-19 data leak and mRNA vaccine instability
Officially, BMJ is just BMJ, and doesn't stand for British Medical Journal (anymore). See https://www.bmj.com/company/bmj-resources/brand-guidelines/

That said, it is rather bold of them to start their 'about us' page with 'Who we are, and what we stand for'... and then not say what the B M and J stood for.

systoll··on Excel Never Dies
The dotted border is kind of the problem. It represents an active connection between the current spreadsheet and what was copied, and that connection shouldn’t exist.

When implemented normally, ‘copy’ puts a copy of the selection on the clipboard; ‘paste’ takes whatever was on the clipboard and puts it at the current location.

Once you copy, it shouldn’t matter what you do on the spreadsheet, because you’re pasting from the clipboard.

Normal behaviour can be emulated by copy+pasting into a blank spreadsheet when you want to copy, and then copy+pasting from there when you want to paste.

But then you’ve just turned that spreadsheet into what the clipboard is supposed to be.

systoll··on Facebook Australia: PM Scott Morrison 'will not be intimidated' by tech giant
I think it does, for two reasons.

Firstly — it shows value that Facebook was providing.

Secondly — that’s what the law says. Those sites include “content that reports, investigates or explains current issues or events of interest to Australians”, and so, as per the law, are news.

If the discussion were ‘Facebook stopped people from sharing Guardian articles on Facebook because they don’t want to pay for them’, there’s no obvious ‘villain’ in the discussion.

If it’s ‘Facebook isn’t allowed to let me link to the NSW government’s public health orders without agreeing to give News Corp money’ it’s a bit more obvious where the issue lies.

There’s no reason why Facebook would pretend the law is more reasonable than it is.

systoll··on About those vector icons (2011)
SVGs can respond to their size, yes -- essentially the same way websites can -- see https://codepen.io/pjwdev/pen/dypVLgg

In addition, vector-effect="non-scaling-stroke" allows you do declare that a line is [eg] 1px thick, regardless of the image size.

Snapping to sizes would be possible, but not straightforward, until CSS supports calc(round()) https://www.w3.org/TR/css-values-4/#round-func

← PreviousPage 5 of 11Next →