Hacker News: Arkanum

New comment by Arkanum in "Turning a Decommissioned iPhone into a UniFi Protect Camera"

Arkanum — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 11:46:07 +0000

New comment by Arkanum in "Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law"

Arkanum — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 12:50:49 +0000

AIUI Apple has deliberately kneecapped PWAs on iOS to stop them competing with their App Store.

New comment by Arkanum in "Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law"

Arkanum — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 12:47:36 +0000

I agree, except the DMA specifically only applies to companies over a specific size. I think if the German newspapers were at FB/Apple scale, in terms of number of users, then the DMA would apply (i.e. they would be designated gatekeepers or similar) and they could also be fined. Although I think pay for no ads is also a violation of GDPR maybe?

New comment by Arkanum in "Tim, don't kill my vibe"

Arkanum — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 13:53:55 +0000

Surely there is a middle ground where its at least possible to install apps that apple haven't approved[1]? I also like the idea of the _higher_ bar that the app store is supposed to have (not that this bar is always met), but the lack of any alternative is really crappy.

[1]: https://atp.fm/628 & https://mastodon.social/@rileytestut/114043540322770608

New comment by Arkanum in "Brazilian Electric "Suicide" Shower Heads [video]"

Arkanum — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 09:00:03 +0000

I don't think any current flow in the water is deliberate. The heating comes from the resistive heating of the coil. The issue (i think) is the coil being uninsulated, allowing some current to leak out through the water, hence the tingling sensation others have mentioned.

New comment by Arkanum in "Splatt3R: Zero-Shot Gaussian Splatting from Uncalibrated Image Pairs"

Arkanum — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 15:30:44 +0000

I think the novelty is that they don't have to optimise the splats at all, they're directly predicted in a single forward pass.

New comment by Arkanum in "Splatt3R: Zero-Shot Gaussian Splatting from Uncalibrated Image Pairs"

Arkanum — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 15:27:12 +0000

Probably not much harder, but you wouldn't get the same massive jump in quality that you get going from 1 image to 2. NeRF/Gaussian Splatting in general is what you're describing, but from the looks of it, this just does it in a single forward pass rather than optimising the gaussian/network weights.

New comment by Arkanum in "Apple vs. the "Free Market""

Arkanum — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 14:10:16 +0000

I thought, (although the rules might have changed), that Apple explicitly forbids having different prices between your website and the app, and will kick you out of the store if it finds you doing this?

New comment by Arkanum in "U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly"

Arkanum — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 15:00:12 +0000

Oh 100% I agree. My question/point is about how the US system treats monopolistic practices, and I worry that actually that example works in Apple's favour as they would likely argue that consumers are free to switch to android if they want cheaper apps.

New comment by Arkanum in "U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly"

Arkanum — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 14:57:52 +0000

I don't think that's enough though is it? To my mind the strong counter argument is that consumers are choosing to pay higher prices for "higher quality" (i know that often not the case with the scams on the app store) apps and if they want cheaper apps they are free to switch to android.

New comment by Arkanum in "U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly"

Arkanum — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 14:44:38 +0000

Isn't part of the problem how US anti-monopoly law is worded requiring proof of "consumer harm" which is normally measured in increased costs? In the case of Apple's monopoly, its not clear how you would measure that let alone prove it to a court.

New comment by Arkanum in "Drugmakers are abandoning cheap generics"

Arkanum — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 07:29:08 +0000

I think the word you might be looking for is "Monopsony"

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

New comment by Arkanum in "Tesla Terminated Dozens in Response to New Union Campaign, Complaint Alleges"

Arkanum — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 16:44:43 +0000

As I'm not an expert on American Employment and Labour Union laws, does anyone with more experience know: is this not very likely to cause significant problems for Tesla with the NLRB?

New comment by Arkanum in "Apple signs union agreement for Glasgow Apple Store staff"

Arkanum — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 17:15:32 +0000

I might argue that the issue is not "having ways for the employees in the stores to communicate their needs to corporate.". But rather having corporate act on those needs, and in the face of larger investors like Buffet and Vanguard, who would probably like more to see dividends and share price increases, unions are a good way to balance the scales a bit.

New comment by Arkanum in "Audiobooks on Spotify"

Arkanum — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 16:21:37 +0000

I wonder if the decision in the US around Epic and external links[0] will benefit spotify in Europe or not (when it is eventually resolved).

[0]:https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/8/22814147/epic-apple-app-s...

New comment by Arkanum in "I've said it all before but here we go again"

Arkanum — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 10:29:40 +0000

It feels like you're doing exactly what the article was complaining about: ad hominem attacks, rather than refuting the argument she's making.

I also think this comment is not in keeping with the HN guidelines.

Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

Arkanum — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 13:19:06 +0000

Article URL: https://webdevlaw.uk/2022/07/11/your-compliance-obligations-under-the-uks-online-safety-bill/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32055756

Points: 621

# Comments: 461

New comment by Arkanum in "Apple, Google, Facebook's AV1 standards group under EU antitrust investigation"

Arkanum — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 08:21:39 +0000

Not wanting to sound too snarky, but TSMC is entirely dependent on the Dutch ASML for the machines used in their fabs.

New comment by Arkanum in "Linus Torvalds: Rust for the Kernel Could Possibly Be Merged for Linux 5.20"

Arkanum — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 15:21:05 +0000

My limited understanding is that rust provides significant advantages in terms of memory safety[1], that should reduce the chance of errors and bugs, whilst c++11 does not provide these same advantages.

[1] Comparison of memory safety of c vs Zig vs Rust (from elsewhere in the comments): https://www.scattered-thoughts.net/writing/how-safe-is-zig/

New comment by Arkanum in "The bait-and-switch hidden in today’s cookie announcement"

Arkanum — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 12:59:39 +0000

I think the author was not the one performing the reductio ad hitlerum, but was referencing a tweet[1] citing a doctoral thesis on AI ambiguity (which made the "fallacy") and (i'm guessing here as I haven't read it) concerns biases present in modern vision systems.

[1] - https://twitter.com/clancynewyork/status/1535686305438478339