Hacker News Reader

w0z_on Chinese hackers exploit VMware bug as zero-day for two years

You tend to comment "it's war mongering" and how nobody actually knows who the attackers are, but you seem to say this out of alliance with no technical background in how these connections are made.

w0z_on FedEx launches new e-commerce platform

That's true but there is a filter on the left, "Works With"

"[] Google Assistant, [] Alexa, [] Apple HomeKit, ..."

w0z_on YouTube begins new wave of slowdowns for users with ad blockers enabled

It's a slippery slope. I pay $80/mo for Hulu Live TV and you still get 4 minutes of ads (every 10~ minutes) from the Hulu backend.

At this point I may as well go back to regular cable and... Tivo. Yes I said it, Tivo.

w0z_on FedEx launches new e-commerce platform

What are you talking about, how am I biased? I use Amazon weekly to purchase things. The quality of products has gone extremely down hill and shipping is not as efficient as it once was. This is my own personal experience I'm relaying. Why would I even bother to say it if I didn't find it true for myself?

w0z_on FedEx launches new e-commerce platform

https://www.homedepot.com/s/HomeKit-compatible%20light%20swi...

Ok, I see a bunch of HomeKit compatible light switches with that search phrase. What's the issue?

w0z_on We Are Doomed: A pessimistic point of view of "modern software engineering"

Most companies aren't like Rockstar Games or older Valve. More MBA's pushing for product & market-share grab than building from passion. IMO

w0z_on FedEx launches new e-commerce platform

This is an interesting problem.

If FedEx's platform can't promise 1 or 2-day delivery, it will never take off.

On the other end of the spectrum, Amazon promises 1-2 day delivery but has been falling through more often than first seen and can become a 2-4 day delivery. Amazon does seem to absolutely bleed their workforce to keep up, but also push more absolute junk through their platform now.

Costco is in kind of a prime position to offer quality-tested products with 1-2 day delivery... but they just do not care to offer this "Prime" type of service. Costco is still quick, just not as quick, and their website / app is trash to use compared to Amazon.

One honest competitor I see rising up - Home Depot. They are making incredible moves in this space (in terms of web/app UI/UX and expedited deliverable date).

w0z_on Right turn on red? With pedestrian deaths rising, US cities are considering bans

because they definitely don't stop on green...

w0z_on CPU-Z's Inadequate Benchmark

"They should run typical desktop applications"

This by itself is a terrible benchmark. What "typical desktop application" 1) does not slaughter your RAM usage, 2) does not require a high-end spec computer to run without hiccuping constantly, 3) does not open 10 processes for 1 application.

I have Adobe Creative cloud, I still use Photoshop CS6 because of how bad new Adobe products use resources. Same with Google Chrome - I only QA with it because it's a TERRIBLE daily browser resource-wise. Excel? F*ck I hate opening large data-sets with that.

Now if you steer away from business applications and look at gaming (what most CPU-Z users benchmark for) - look at the game engines or the games. 99% of games are absolute trash at utilizing resources correctly.

Valve and some Blizzard titles were the only companies that really cared and put forth effort behind optimizing their games so lower end PC's can play them, hence their explosive popularity world-wide.

w0z_on Bayer hit with $332M judgement in Roundup cancer trial

Wait until you hear about how healthy soy is farmed with 4x the herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, etc. as regular vegetables. Mmm.

w0z_on Razor 1911

Music was also binded to AOL progz - miss those days.

w0z_on Razor 1911

Haha, same - found it on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCMzIE9p07Y

I didn't think many people cracked Vegas back in the day, I needed it for digital media presentations :)

w0z_on Show HN: Is It Toxic To? – Check if a plant is toxic to your pets

Not hot dog.

w0z_on Even Google CEO Sundar Pichai doesn't understand Google's privacy controls

Is it really a surprise Google started rolling down the hill when Sundar Pichai became CEO?

What big thing has Google done since Sundar Pichai stepped into the CEO role?

Absolutely nothing. It's all past projects that came to fruition.

For what Google was, and what it has become... it's very sad.

w0z_on Growing AI presence is re-energizing parts of San Francisco

Oh wow, another useless ChatGPT text prompt answer... Good job... ?

w0z_on Working in Silicon Valley was fun. Now it's just another miserable corporate gig

It's anti-western.

w0z_on Google Proposes New Mseal() Memory Sealing Syscall for Linux

Your reply is pretty much spot on.

w0z_on When 80 percent of US generals go to work for arms makers

Same thing happens in China.

w0z_on Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

My Model S was hit in the unibody and not totaled, not sure how you're making this up.

w0z_on American bully XL dogs to be banned, Sunak says

I find it odd so many people support pitbulls, they're obviously more socially driven with this opinion than job/task driven...

Pitbulls were originally bred for bull baiting and dog fighting.

Dogs have instinctual purpose. Social justice keyboard warriors will overlook this and think the common person can own a pitbull and they are a product of their environment... not nature.

lol

w0z_on North Korean campaign targeting security researchers

Given it's an official Google blog post related to a nation-state threat actor, somebody asking for valid attribution could be a way attackers try to:

1) Derail the conversation 2) Find out ways to further cloak their footprint

IMO if you've worked in the field, you know it's a dumb question meant to invoke something.

"Look! We've succeeded! We've dragged out 'w0z_' and have identified him as a possible (x)!"

Sadly, I am a nobody who happened to see DPRK not tunnel to a VPN.

w0z_on North Korean campaign targeting security researchers

"SoUrCe?"

This is clearly comment bait. If you've done any type of opsec before you know the legal hurdles.

This is coming from someone (me) who personally saw North Korean IP blocks visit malware research articles via combing the server IP logs and verifying the block.

w0z_on Facebook use among teens dropped from 71% in 2014-15 to 32% in 2022

I've seen this across "XYZ business/investment made me $X amount of money in X time" videos... so yes, if you get into the financial side of TikTok you'll come across these. TikTok sucks because they don't have a moderator staff count of 50,000 employees verifying these claims? How many of these accounts are being created per hour? :) Interesting problem to solve, I guess the only solution is for TikTok to become a ban-brigade like Facebook did, right? Great solution... Hence why Facebook and others are in the hole now.

w0z_on Show HN: Neat – Minimalist CSS Framework

Interesting, a few observations:

-It's really just a container, p, img, and button CSS framework (short of CSS's default flexbox)

-There are no components (Codeblock, quote, etc.)

-There is a semi-obfuscated IP tracker in index.html

While I find it noble in some aspects to create a simplistic blog layout, I also find it odd to post this project.

w0z_on Facebook use among teens dropped from 71% in 2014-15 to 32% in 2022

That's more-so dependent on the content creator. They can address specific problems, or the project as a whole. I follow a ton of DIY accounts - so I'll follow some that encompass the entire project, and some that focus on specific steps within projects.

FYI - the TikTok video length was extended to 10-minutes.

w0z_on Facebook use among teens dropped from 71% in 2014-15 to 32% in 2022

Anytime I need to fix something in my house, I research it via Bob Villa or ThisOldHouse and cross-reference TikTok videos to see what people & professionals are actually doing in quick-video form.

I'm not quite sure what your angle is for this example, TikTok clearly serves low-follower & low-view videos in their algorithm. It's probably about every 1 in 8 videos if you scroll on the FYP. Each video is given a 1000-view chance to see if it gets boosted further.

Depending on what you like is what you're served, so if you like Home DIY videos & follow those accounts - you'll be served that. They then mesh in the more popular videos depending on external likes of people you follow, general trending (probably 1 in every 5 videos), and location.

If people are telling me TikTok serves scam, manipulating content... it's because of the videos they liked & people they follow. I doubt their account is dedicated to looking up SDR radios, fixing electronics, and general DIY videos.

It's incredibly easy to test this. There's a rough 4-week learning curve per account created that fine-tunes the content delivered to the user.

w0z_on Facebook use among teens dropped from 71% in 2014-15 to 32% in 2022

TikTok mastered delivering the most relevant content in the quickest manner.

Facebook is over-moderated and delivers extremely low-quality content. Their Instagram division got a bit better and is the only relevant competitor, however Reels is still highly unusable in Search form if you're looking for new, quality, and unique niche content.

If you're 18 years old and want to learn to fix a plumbing leak quickly, TikTok can deliver you a high quality video with the learning aspect done in 30-60 seconds. YouTube, you have to sit through 10 minutes of SEO / filler content, skip to 3/4 the way, and watch the process slowly because they prioritize 15-20 minute videos.