Hacker News Reader

weimingon Hong Kong student leaders and their families face anonymous threats

The Sinclair video seemed creepy at first, but then again, these are literally paid TV announcers whose job consists of reading a script. One would expect the content to be scripted, and that's why I prefer indie people on YouTube over TV talking heads.

weimingon Hong Kong student leaders and their families face anonymous threats

Seems not too different from our (US) celebrities posting the same political messages in unison. Like most of the Avengers cast and others. I've always wondered how scripted this is.

weimingon US Rules Airlines Must Allow Miniature Horses to Fly as Service Animals

The flipside is that these actions can also be cruel to animals. I've sat next to one very very miserable non-trained service "comfort" dog on a long flight, who unfortunately got sick (vomiting) mid-flight.

weimingon iTerm2 3.3

"- Add touch bar mitigations: haptic feedback, key click, and blink cursor when touching esc."

Thank you for this! Can't believe how many times per day I accidentally trigger touch bar Esc.

weimingon Capital One Says Breach Hit 100M Individuals in U.S

Most useful tool (has been for a decade+) to stop the junk credit advertisements that many people don't know about.

weimingon Apple expected to adopt keyboard with scissor mechanism for 16-inch MacBook Pro

For anyone curious to compare, an animation of a mechanical keyboard switch: https://www.cherrymx.de/en/mx-original/mx-brown.html#techSpe...

Click on top of the page for other switch types.

weimingon Apple expected to adopt keyboard with scissor mechanism for 16-inch MacBook Pro

Might be one of those "designed to look good and sell more units, not for actual users" Apple ideas. There was a post about it on HN a few weeks ago. Edit: linked below

weimingon Apple expected to adopt keyboard with scissor mechanism for 16-inch MacBook Pro

Now if only they could also get rid of the TouchBar. Most frustrating "feature" ever as I keep accidentally pressing some parts of it while resting my hands or typing. Not to mention that I don't look down at the keyboard area as I type.

Keep the TouchID button, get rid of the rest, just like the current Airs.

weimingon Ask HN: Twitter perma-banned my popular bot for a false reason

PS Given how popular you are, maybe you don't even need Twitter. Just put up your own site with a simple feed, the word will spread quickly.

weimingon Ask HN: Twitter perma-banned my popular bot for a false reason

Damn, that sucks. You are a hero to many.

Twitter 'enforcement' can be completely arbitrarily if you have been following some of the news stories in the past months. Maybe you can make a new one that doesn't use a trademarked name and see if it sticks.

weimingon Notifica – an app for if you're at risk of being detained by ICE agents

I guess someone could show a driver license as it requires a bunch of prove-your-identity documents to get, at least in my state.

weimingon Notifica – an app for if you're at risk of being detained by ICE agents

"If you are 18 or older, you do have to carry your green card with you. Section 264(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (I.N.A.) requires all lawful permanent residents (LPRs) to have “at all times” official evidence of LPR status."

[1] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/do-i-really-need-car...

So, I'd just show my green card instead of pulling out an app.

weimingon Urinary tract infections are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics

TIL that one of the drugs mentioned in the article has a side effect of rupturing tendons. [1]

[1] https://www.webmd.com/osteoarthritis/news/20080708/fda-warni...

weimingon Ask HN: How to Change Industries?

> even when companies thought I was technically excellent and a good cultural fit, they rejected in favor of candidates with closer matching professional experience

This sounds like companies giving less than honest feedback. We would never pass up on a technically strong candidate, regardless of their background.

I'd brush up on algo/data structures and give it another try.

weimingon Japan's 7-Eleven payment app gives easy access to scammers

Japanese 7-11 take contactless just fine, even Apple Pay works. I guess they just wanted to add their own "flavor" to the already maddening mix of available payment and loyalty card options.

weimingon Toys ‘R’ Us, Back from the Dead, Will Open U.S. Stores in 2019

Where do you buy well-made and most importanly safely sourced toys for your children (especially small children who may bite on them)?

We are having a heck of a time trying to find stuff not made in China, primarily concerned with toxic plastic/rubber coatings and elevated amount of lead reported in some of these imports.

weimingon From Python to Go to Rust: an opinionated journey (2018)

You can accomplish iterations more concisely using other means, for example list operations in `Enum` [1]. Not too different from other modern languages often using `foreach` vs. i-based iteration.

Also, try `IO.puts inspect foo` for printing stuff.

`IO.puts` can be compared to print() behavior in other languages expecting toString() is fully implemented (`to_string` in this case for your custom typed data structs. [2][3])

[1] https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/Enum.html

[2] https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/String.Chars.html

[3] https://code.tutsplus.com/articles/polymorphism-with-protoco...

weimingon What Happens After Amazon’s Domination Is Complete? Its Bookstore Offers Clues

Try to find the real manufacturer. If it's a no-name/no-brand seller from China, then you should know what to expect.

Example:

1. Search for "car battery charger"

2. "Amazon's Choice" result is a brand called Ampeak

3. Google "Ampeak trademark"

4. Ahhhh, "AMPEAK is a trademark of SHENZHEN JIADING ECOMMERCE LTD."

Exercise of trying to find any information about "Shenzhen Jiading Ecommerce LTD" left to the reader.

Also:

1. Try to find a website for both the brand and the manufacturer. "Ampeak" does have a website but lacks company information.

2. Note if the listing is dominated by gushing 5-star reviews and 1-star "what the heck did I just buy" reviews, something you can observe in the Ampeak charger listing.

weimingon World’s top bicycle maker is moving U.S. orders to Taiwan factory

Thank you. Looking Japanese stuff is a great idea. They are one of the few places to still keep some manufacturing "in-house."

Searching is hard and companies are not always fully transparent about their process. E.g. "Assembled in the USA" for a frying pan could mean that the pan and handle are made in China, but riveted to each other in the USA. Sigh.

weimingon World’s top bicycle maker is moving U.S. orders to Taiwan factory

Assumption (partly from personal experience) that products may be more likely tainted with unknown or harmful substances for the sake of cost cutting somewhere in the pipeline.

weimingon World’s top bicycle maker is moving U.S. orders to Taiwan factory

We just moved and needed to buy some new kitchenware. You would not believe how difficult it is to find so much as a spoon that is not made in China. Even from any name brand, even in a "fancy" store like Williams-Sonoma.

weimingon Walmart Grocery is now offering a $98 per year ‘Delivery Unlimited’ subscription

Roughly mirrors my experience trying online ordering from Safeway. Figured they haven't yet automated processes in the way Amazon has.

weimingon In Defence of the Technical Interview

I wouldn't take it personally. Language-specific tests sometimes focus on memorizable trivia instead of problem solving. Like, "How many generations does the garbage collector have?"

weimingon Why are CVS receipts so long? (2018)

What I noticed last time at McD's, is that the ink literally rubs off from the colorful paper mat (on the tray) on which I have been putting ketchup and fries my whole life. Try rubbing it with your finger next time, yikes.

weimingon Why are CVS receipts so long? (2018)

Anything with toxic thermal paper immediately goes to the trash if I can help it. Other than arguably being bad for the environment (so much paper wasted) they can also be harmful to you simply from touch. E.g. "A significant increase in urinary total BPA concentration was observed for cashiers handling daily thermal paper receipts. " [1][2]

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4927604/

[2] https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/03/the-health-...

weimingon Nanolaw with Daughter (2011)

"heartful, smart [science fiction] story about the future of bulk litigation"

For context, summary courtesy of Boingboing.

weimingon SwiftUI

https://xcodereleases.com

Best-kept secret with direct download links (from apple.com)

weimingon Amazon must remove toxic school supplies, kids’ jewelry from US marketplace

We wanted to order Evian or Fiji bottled water from Amazon but were put off by reviews mentioning oddly attached labels, misshapen bottles, wrong tint on bottle caps. So we just stuck with local supermarket water delivery. Fake water? Wondering if anyone has tried ordering these.

weimingon Refused U.S. visa eight times, Zoom CEO is now a billionaire

The story of being denied a visa appears to be from years/decades ago. He attended Stanford Business School around 2006. He also worked at Cisco and WebEx for 10+ years. Heck, Zoom headquarters are in California. Way to spin an article about a great achievement, Bloomberg.

weimingon Amazon ‘flooded by fake five-star reviews’ – report

Have you had actual experiences with fake food? Some reviews for bottles of Evian or Fiji water sounded alarming when I wanted to order from Amazon (labels attached incorrectly, bottle cap unusual tint, things like that), so we just stuck with local supermarket delivery.