Hacker News Reader

tediousdemiseon Welcome to the M1 Windows project

IANAL but I'd like a license that goes something like this:

Companies: If you are working for a company/corporation/profit-generating entity, or otherwise intend to sell or use such code derived from this repository for profit-generating purposes, you shall not be permitted to use any of the source code herein until you email me (author email here) and we can come up with the appropriate terms and conditions for your use case.

Everyone else: Have fun!

Obviously it's missing some necessary edge cases and disclaimers, but yeah.

tediousdemiseon Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

Can someone with information on the caste system chime in on how caste members recognize one another (especially outside of their native environment/homeland where cultural modes of expression such as clothing may be vastly different)?

tediousdemiseon EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

Definitely, those Apple-supplied cables suck hard. Adding little tension relief springs[0] to the ends can protect them if you don't want to buy another (or more robust) cable and create more e-waste. You can find the springs in clicky pens.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCIo8xGTUX0

tediousdemiseon EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

It's kind of sad to me that Apple doesn't make Lightning an open standard.

In all my years, I haven't had a single Lightning connector fail on me. The solid metal where the contacts reside is just too robust to wear out or get damaged (unless you somehow step on it the right way or let it corrode).

USB-C connectors, on the other hand, seems to loosen after a rather small number mates and de-mates, leading people to use preemptive workarounds such as magnetic connectors.

tediousdemiseon Amino acids found in asteroid samples collected by Japan's Hayabusa2 probe

The universe is infinite and continuously expanding. This cosmological scale, the monumental distance between celestial objects in deep space, would make it quite literally impossible for any extraterrestrial to feasibly be aware of or make contact with humans and vice versa. Even if we could travel beyond the speed of light, we'd still probably never make contact; there would be too many things that could go wrong. It's depressing to think about.

Space limits everything, and is the simplest solution to the Fermi paradox (following Occam's razor).

Source: I am a software engineer who works on cool space stuff

tediousdemiseon Musk SEC Filing

> Though if you believe the headlines, everybody probably should be hanged, and the planet would be better off without all of us.

Resentment for the wealthy/elite is not a new concept, nor is it being "fed" to anyone with half a brain. [0]

I am a mild to moderate anti-capitalist; some may mischaracterize this as envy, greed, or hate.

It's important to point out flaws (and by association, pass judgement) in people and systems; that is how we make them better!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eat_the_rich_(slogan)

tediousdemiseon Musk SEC Filing

There are no "roundabout morals" here.

This man told 110,000 of his employees to return to the office or find another job, during a still-surging pandemic. This is immoral and reckless from any angle.

If his net worth is reduced, it will reduce the impact of his actions on people and the environment.

We all share this planet. It is not a free-for-all stomping grounds for the highest paid capitalists.

tediousdemiseon Musk SEC Filing

Good! They say the wealthy have a better chance at success (especially when it comes establishing businesses) due to their huge financial safety nets.

It would be nice to see this table turn for once; the 1% shouldn't always be able to have their cake and eat it too. Hopefully this bankrupts Musk in a stark turn of sweet, sweet karma deliverance.

tediousdemiseon Proton is trying to become Google without your data

I like to see it as an unsolved problem. Similar to when Diffie and Hellman revolutionized cryptography with the concept of public/private keys, I like to think that one day, a revolutionary proof will drop that demonstrates a true trustless privacy model where backdooring isn't even a remote possibility.

tediousdemiseon Proton is trying to become Google without your data

Thanks for chiming in. I've been having some difficulty expressing my thoughts lately so sometimes I don't make the most sense.

Yes, I definitely agree with you--democratization is a much better way to put it.

tediousdemiseon Proton is trying to become Google without your data

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore

> XKeyscore (XKEYSCORE or XKS) is a secret computer system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) for searching and analyzing global Internet data

> XKeyscore is a complicated system, and various authors have different interpretations of its actual capabilities. Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald explained XKeyscore as being a system which enables almost unlimited surveillance of anyone anywhere in the world, while the NSA has said that usage of the system is limited and restricted.

Think about that for a split second: anyone, anywhere. Also, who would you trust more: the US government, or a man who sacrificed his life, health and wellbeing to expose this scandal to the world?

Alas, privacy for the masses is dead.

tediousdemiseon Proton is trying to become Google without your data

Couldn't have said it better myself! Privacy is first and foremost a discipline and a practice, just like security. It's a form of self-respect, in my eyes. Some would say it's even a natural human right.

Commoditizing it is a recipe for disaster.

Edit: Expansion of the self-respect tidbit. Lack of privacy enables others to have control over you. Feeling like you are not in control, or actually being controlled by someone (shame, blackmail, etc.) can be very damaging to your mental health. Respect yourself, strive for privacy. You deserve it as much as anyone else.

tediousdemiseon Credit Scores Can Run – and Ruin – Our Lives

Intended by the US government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore

tediousdemiseon Credit Scores Can Run – and Ruin – Our Lives

As intended. There is no better way to influence someone's behavior than when they have the feeling of constantly being watched. It's about control.

tediousdemiseon Credit Scores Can Run – and Ruin – Our Lives

It's okay because we're just servants tied to our bank mortgages with little to no say in what the elite shareholder-run private sector dictates behind closed doors (and in which the legislative elites are also privvy/permissive).

Year over year, your freedoms and finances will slowly dwindle. A law is passed that destroys your privacy... local/state/federal taxes are increased... the cost of groceries and housing keeps creeping up... but your employer need not cut you any slack, because you're just a number in one of their spreadsheets, serving a means to an end.

There are no laws that dictate companies must pay a livable wage; instead we are brutalized and battered by the free market, with nothing left but a steadily decreasing quality of life.

tediousdemiseon The great junk transfer is coming

I think that's the point they were trying to make. I can see things from their perspective: it is pretty antisocial and callous to focus solely on material things when the fact of the matter is that somebody has passed away.

tediousdemiseon The great junk transfer is coming

George Carlin wasn't wrong when he said houses are just a place to put our stuff. Why are we all so attached to stuff?

I've found myself slowly letting go of material things, and with that comes a feeling of tranquility.

tediousdemiseon Sugar deposits found under seagrass meadows

Haha, seriously.

Us humans will completely devastate anything we can get our greedy, shitty little monkey paws on.

tediousdemiseon Sugar deposits found under seagrass meadows

Cool! But let’s give the rampant environmental destruction a break and leave the ocean sugar right where it belongs in its natural ecosystem.

tediousdemiseon Founders Resign at Mycroft.ai

Mycroft?

Sounds like they were trying to make their company name sound/look extremely close to Microsoft...

tediousdemiseon California considers a shortened, 32-hour workweek for larger companies

> There would be no cut in pay, and those who work more would be compensated at a rate of no less than 1.5 times the employee’s regular rate of pay.

tediousdemiseon California considers a shortened, 32-hour workweek for larger companies

I'm already on a 4 day workweek, but the company still wants 40 hours. It's madness.

tediousdemiseon Ask HN: Which movie(s) best represent hacker culture for you?

The Matrix trilogy is an essential one for me.

tediousdemiseon Americans’ views on the war reveal a striking generational divide

Hit the nail on the head. Boomers grew up in an age without the internet, where government propaganda was spoonfed to them straight through their brand new living room television sets and doorstep newspapers.

Just imagine: the only bastion of information was your local library. Granted, information in libraries is curated and of substantially higher quality than the unfiltered garbage that you can encounter on the internet... but who was really going to libraries that often back in the day? Information was sparse, and that was exploited to manipulate people to an uncanny degree.

tediousdemiseon Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost

How do you define success? The answer to that is rooted in your present unhappiness, but you have the power to redefine success.

From an outsider's perspective, your life is the one that I want to live, a life I would call successful! I would kill to be in a position to retire around the age of 40. I hate working! Starting a homestead and living off the land while I kick back and enjoy life, rather than generating profits for some nameless elite in a skyscraper.

You can make any plans you want going forward. What do you value? What is your calling? What is your crusade? The answer lies within.

tediousdemiseon US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea blockchain presentation

Let's put emotions aside and look at the situation. This man is an expert in his field and possesses a lot of knowledge. He doesn't have to share this information with anyone, but he does so for the advancement and progression of society. Sharing information in this scenario was evidently a crime.

How did we get to the point where knowledge sharing lands you in prison? It's because we have mindless shells of human beings in society, the type of people that would call this man a traitor. Let me set something straight: if you are a citizen of a country, it doesn't imply that you love and support your country. You are likely a citizen simply because you were born and trapped there. If you have an urge to defend and protect an imperialistic, globally-dominating sack of shit like the United States Government, you're part of the problem.

Nationalism is a disease.

tediousdemiseon Sam Altman’s Worldcoin promised them free crypto for an eyeball scan

> tens of thousands of people who have been destroyed by Coinbase

Could you elaborate on this part? Are you referring to people whose crypto was stolen?

tediousdemiseon Ask HN: Why don't PCs have better entropy sources?

We should use the white noise or turbulence generated by our PC fans as entropy sources. Brownian motion is one of the best entropy sources we have.

tediousdemiseon Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”

Two words: web app. We need to collectively abandon these walled gardens and reject putting all of our eggs into one company's basket.

tediousdemiseon When or If

Semantically, "when" implies that something will happen, whereas "if" implies that it could happen.