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tompagenet2

1,103 karma · joined June 8, 2010

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tompagenet2··on Two-tier encryption in the UK
I'm going to assume good intent against every possible signal here. See https://www.gov.uk/types-of-british-nationality/british-subj... for why you're wrong
tompagenet2··on Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech
The law doesn't make it a crime for children to access social media, but for the companies that provided it to allow that child to access it.
tompagenet2··on Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others
This is an absolutely massive loss for me. I had no idea it wasn't backing up my OneDrive files. A horrible way to find out and a massive loss of trust.
tompagenet2··on European Parliament decided that Chat Control 1.0 must stop
This figure in the UK is unsourced and I'm fairly sure is not true (or at least not what you've labelled it), and has been quoted out of context by people trying to stir trouble not reasoned debate. I'll assume good faith here and say the start of the video lays out why the figure is not what you've labelled it to be

https://youtu.be/tB3WVygAM8I?si=2KVNjw7mc29sNbQw

tompagenet2··on Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure
As always this is grossly oversimplifying. As well as the misleading safety stats, as graemep has noted, it ignores that journeys just absolutely exploded under privatisation [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatisation_of_British_Rail]
tompagenet2··on Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels
Amazing! I don't know how you're doing it but there are no Shorts in YouTube now!
tompagenet2··on Japan telecom giant NTT Docomo to end own emoji after 26 years
This is a good piece on the history of emoji and the role of NTT Docomo and Softbank

https://blog.emojipedia.org/correcting-the-record-on-the-fir...

tompagenet2··on Watching o3 guess a photo's location is surreal, dystopian and entertaining
I thought from this [0] that o3 makes up using python when it doesn't actually do so, or have I misunderstood or unduly trusted that link?

[0] https://transluce.org/investigating-o3-truthfulness

tompagenet2··on If you believe in "Artificial Intelligence", take five minutes to ask it
I asked Perplexity (Pro, if it matters). Seems pretty solid to me. I'm not sure this article is making any point other than "the knowledge back of static artificial intelligence systems is finite and they don't express uncertainty well". Amusingly it links to this blog post, but you'll see the sources it uses are largely not this post.

---

The reassignment of Brachiosaurus brancai to its own genus occurred through a series of steps by different paleontologists:

## Initial Classification In 1914, Werner Janensch first described the African species as Brachiosaurus brancai, considering it part of the existing Brachiosaurus genus[4].

## Path to Reclassification Gregory S. Paul made the first step toward separation in 1988 by proposing a subgenus classification, Brachiosaurus (Giraffatitan) brancai, after noticing significant skeletal differences[4][10].

George Olshevsky then elevated Giraffatitan to full genus status in 1991, though this change was largely disregarded by the scientific community at the time[4][10].

## Formal Establishment The definitive separation came in 2009 when Michael P. Taylor published a detailed study demonstrating 26 distinct osteological differences between the African and American species. This comprehensive analysis firmly established Giraffatitan as a separate genus, creating the combination Giraffatitan brancai[3][4]. From 2012 onward, most researchers have accepted this classification[10].

Citations: [1] https://svpow.com [2] https://svpow.com/2009/09/09/brachiosaurus-brancai-is-not-br... [3] https://www.miketaylor.org.uk/dino/pubs/taylor2009/Taylor200... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giraffatitan [5] https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/dino-directory/giraffatitan.h... [6] https://svpow.com/2025/02/14/if-you-believe-in-artificial-in... [7] https://www.jurassic-pedia.com/brachiosaurus-altithorax-sf/ [8] https://blog.everythingdinosaur.com/blog/_archives/2023/03/1... [9] https://dinomuseum.ca/2019/05/your-brachiosaurus-is-not-a-br... [10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brachiosaurus [11] http://www.extinctblog.org/extinct/tag/Wilhelm+von+Branca [12] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1671/039.029.0309 [13] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/a-baby-brachio... [14] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3045712/ [15] https://boasblogs.org/dcntr/the-brachiosaurus-brancai-in-the... [16] https://www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/en/visit/exhibitions... [17] https://thepaintpaddock.wordpress.com/brachiosaurus-altithor... [18] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242264129_A_ReEvalu... [19] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2011.5... [20] https://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app68/app011052023.... [21] https://blog.everythingdinosaur.com/blog/_archives/2008/06/2... [22] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brachiosaurus

---

tompagenet2··on The Origins of Wokeness
At no point in this long piece does the author seem to consider that people may be "woke" because they sincerely believe that they need to raise their and other people's awareness of prejudice or ways in which society puts people down. Instead it immediately assumes it's a liberal arts movement from those lefty universities.

Of course any cause or point can and likely will be distorted, and some will be performative. There are also, e.g. performative people who like to moan about lefties in universities, but this kind of low effort behaviour doesn't in itself undermine reasonable criticism about e.g. universities sometimes being too intolerant of free speech.

My point is this is fairly lazy. It starts assuming woke, which I note the author agrees is often used perjoratively (and therefore is surely used in a specific loaded way, in the same way if I call someone a piece of shit I'm not generally using it to praise the human body's ability to excrete waste effectively), is some performative nonsense and not wondering or being curious whether there's something useful or at least sincere underneath that.

This would all be fine if there was a bit more thoughtful distinction and critical appraisal of the author's work, and he wasn't treated with such uncritical reverence.

tompagenet2··on Show HN: New search engine and free-FOIA-by-fax-via-web for US veteran records
I think the people in this are deceased? Does that change your view (genuinely asking)?
tompagenet2··on Mistake to take organs from a living person was averted, witnesses say
I had to look it up (although I realise now that's what all the chemicals shown on Six Feet Under were about). Sadly as I get older I've been to many funerals here in the UK. Not one of them had an open display of the dead body. All but one of them was a cremation. Is embalming a very US thing or is it common elsewhere?
tompagenet2··on I Left the Verge – Becca Farsace [video]
Shared here because when watching it the first reason for her departure was the sterility of being on her own and not part of a work group since people increasingly work from home. It made me wonder how many other people have found this. I don't do anything remotely similar to YouTube videos, but I also find working on my own quite stifling
tompagenet2··on Lens Flair – Reviews of camera lenses
Oh crumbs you shouldn't have shown me that! I didn't know about the 90mm f/2.8 macro. It looks very nice. £614 second hand.....

One aspect I've loved of writing the reviews is some very cheap lenses (the Canon 135mm cost me very little second hand) take truly extraordinary pictures, and I don't think I'd have tried that lens if I hadn't had a go at this blog.

tompagenet2··on Lens Flair – Reviews of camera lenses
Hey all. I have been on HN for a very long time, and am generally in awe of the creativity and ideas. I created this site in part because HN inspires me; yes there can be criticism, but there are also amazing ideas and projects being shared.

I'm no coder, but I have read a lot of "don't think about it, do it" posts here. I love photography; I'm very average, but I like trying something new and late last year I realise I have a lot of lenses and I thought I should force myself to use each of them in 2024 and 'review' them. It's an excuse, as much as anything, to lean into the constraint that each lens uses. I can't remember what I was reading here when I had the idea, but I do remember it was one of those "Amazing demo in [tiny amount]KB" and it made me think how much joy there is in constraint and trying something different, just for the fun of it.

I also am posting here as I've read a lot of "just get on with it"; arguments against faffing with formatting and tweaking, and it was with this in mind that I've used a fairly standard template in Wordpress (where I don't really know what I'm doing) and just got on and taken pictures and written, and not mucked around too much. I'm ten (of about 36) lenses in now, and enjoying it. Comments, criticism and anything else greatly received.

tompagenet2··on Rotating house goes up for sale in New Zealand
This Tom Scott video explains how a similar house works https://youtu.be/gisdyTBMNyQ?si=n7RoeCdOcP3MycSu
tompagenet2··on The dating app paradox
I'm pretty sure the point being made is that people having partners helps reduce isolation which can lead to extremism in some
tompagenet2··on Show HN: 48x32, A minimalist gaming platform for kids, part II, Software
I seem to need to sign in
tompagenet2··on Ask HN: Why is Bluetooth still so unreliable?
I know it's not helpful to say "well it works for me", but...."well, it works for me". I'll try and be more helpful:

I have several Windows computers - all four now running Windows 11. In all cases at the minimum Bluetooth keyboard and mice are used all the time and in all cases it works absolutely fine with no faults. This is with decent, high-ish-end-branded devices (Logitech, Microsoft) and generic nonsense from Amazon.

I use Bluetooth earpods - cheap things from Amazon - with my phone and sometimes my laptops again without issue. The very worst that will happen is that it won't connect one time, I'll put them back in the case, take them out again and it will work fine. I've had three bluetooth earphones/headphones before this and all have worked the same.

So I wonder if this is something about the specific kit you use (or you've been very unlucky, or I've been very lucky). Or a specific other condition of the environment you're in, e.g. very high interference on the 2.4GHz band. Are you able to check this by moving these to a very different location? Or have you a friend with a Windows laptop who you could try the devices on? If you cannot connect a single BT device to a Windows device under any circumstances that does seem highly unusual and likely to be about something else.

tompagenet2··on In Europe, trains are full, and more are on the way
I'm sure there are a mix of reasons. It's definitely significant for us and as we went to Cornwall this year we spoke to people on the way there and way back who offered this without promting for why they took the train. Different people may choose trains for a mix of different reasons.
tompagenet2··on Firefox on the brink?
I think there are plenty of decisions worth consideration, but this is nothing to do with why Firefox is declining. It's because if I buy an iPad it comes with Safari and doesn't really let me use anything else (only a skinned version of Safari). If I buy a PC it's Edge. If it's an Android device it's Chrome. A Mac? Safari. Firefox is the default nowhere, and in this world because Google has almost limitless marketing power and owns one of the world's most popular websites they can push Chrome to mean that on PCs and Macs there is a strong push for people to move from the defaults to Chrome.

Firefox works great for me. It's just incredibly hard to get anyone to use it.

tompagenet2··on The surprisingly subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed the way we use language
This doesn't seem to have any evidence, and just says Word _may_ have changed English.
tompagenet2··on Snoop unto them as they snoop unto you
I did this, and it's a good first call, but the slides look designed to be talked along with, so I am not really any wiser now
tompagenet2··on A Uyghur mother pleaded for her detained son. Now she’s missing, too
I'm going to assume best intentions despite your snark. This is certainly not one person making up stuff. Sterilisation is not in any world acceptable to be forced on people. Nor is rape. Here's one decent and disturbing article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-55794071
tompagenet2··on The Cost of Good Movies
Genuine question that I couldn't see in the article; does everyone on a film get residuals, or just the more notable roles like writer and actor? If not, did e.g. a lighting specialist not contribute at least as much as a person whose face was scanned?
tompagenet2··on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release
I know people say this, and of course the art style is stylised. But playing it last night and watching the day-night cycle, the grass moving around on the first sky island, the physics simulation as I dropped my clumsily-made creations and I thought it was pretty impressive. I do think it's a wonder this runs on a low power tablet computer from 2017 but if I open up Teams on a brand new machine it can be a laggy mess. I do think we have lost track of how much computing power we have and how poorly it is used.
tompagenet2··on Airbnb nightly rates shot up 36% in 3 years
For me it’s absolutely horrible staying in a hotel with kids. You either all stay in one room (so no fun once they’ve gone to bed and we sit in the dark) or you buy two rooms (normally really expensive) and then either try and find the normally-unavailable option on hotel websites to buy interconnecting rooms or sleep one adult and one child in twin beds in each room. It’s rubbish. There’s nowhere for them to really play either. AirBnB fixes all of this.
tompagenet2··on BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout
“They tend to always produce negative pieces about…” is quite an unevidenced statement. I would think fair journalism would produce negative pieces on a lot of people, and perhaps those where the relationship isn’t going well might stick in the mind more.

More generally though, what’s the game plan here if, as your comment seems to posit, there could be (or could be seen to be) an ulterior motive. UK has left EU. Wants trade partners. Not going as well with India as it could. So make documentary to make it go worse? I’m not sure how this would be the BBC being the puppet of the government.

tompagenet2··on Promotion of alternative social platforms policy
Because he's always been an insecure child, who says what he thinks will make him popular or stand out to a group of acolytes. Sometimes that'll work for a while, sometimes it'll really help, but over time you get more cocksure, more convinced of your own greatness and more foolish.
tompagenet2··on Highway EV charging will soon need a ton of power
Replying in good faith: yes! Two! And having them has made me all the more committed to not owning a car as I try to minimise how much I destroy their future.
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