Hacker News: Hoodedcrow

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache"

Hoodedcrow — Tue, 05 May 2026 20:09:31 +0000

IDK about "most", there are plenty of kids on the streets. Like, just going to and from school and extracurriculars gives opportunities.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache"

Hoodedcrow — Tue, 05 May 2026 11:04:13 +0000

How so? You never see kids outdoors?

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok"

Hoodedcrow — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 07:00:01 +0000

If we're talking about people having a hard time affording a phone - why tf are you bringing up high-end phones at all? I'm in no way poor and my $300 phone was already a pretty painful expense. In those cases, we'd be talking about a <$200 Chinaphone. Also yeah, indeed, there are affordable laptop options given how much of a necessity it feels like. That tends to be more value per dollar in a laptop too. Personally not comfortable buying secondhand though because I can't risk money on that scale, and there are much less guarantees on the state of the hardware, although would like to eventually learn how to do it as safely as buying new.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok"

Hoodedcrow — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 06:50:12 +0000

For me, a phone is mostly less distracting because it's not very comfortable to use compared to a laptop. It's much less likely to get sucked into doing unrelated things when the experience is actively not that pleasant (especially when it comes to anything with typing).

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok"

Hoodedcrow — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 06:48:30 +0000

I don't feel comfortable reading from my laptop or phone in general. If a text isn't very short, I prefer saving it as .html or .pdf onto my e-reader, and that's such a MASSIVE improvement. That includes long comment sections too.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok"

Hoodedcrow — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 06:46:14 +0000

The only situation I can think of is when you're in public transport and settling down with a laptop or paper is not really feasible. But if that came up frequently, I'd rather buy a tablet. Some students in my class also use tablets in class instead of laptops.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "Your phone is an entire computer"

Hoodedcrow — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 10:51:27 +0000

First - why are you singling out Apple devices? Most kids who do have tablets are probably using something cheaper, it's not like a tween can be trusted with a device this expensive. And second - a lot more kids have phones than tablets, so the difference for a lot of people is still there.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "Your phone is an entire computer"

Hoodedcrow — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 18:49:03 +0000

If true, then it's just unfamiliarity, not comfort. A bigger screen and bigger buttons are a pretty objective upgrade. "Why switch if you're already good at using touch controls" - because you assume it could be better? It not obstructing vision and being more precise is a good enough argument to try it out.

Although personally still not used to controllers. I mostly play FPS so that's only KB+M.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "Your phone is an entire computer"

Hoodedcrow — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 19:57:07 +0000

I don't think it's generational at all, doing things on a phone is pretty objectively less comfortable.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "Jolla on track to ship new phone with Sailfish OS, user-replaceable battery"

Hoodedcrow — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 06:10:47 +0000

A couple hundred is still a lot tho

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "Jolla on track to ship new phone with Sailfish OS, user-replaceable battery"

Hoodedcrow — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 05:57:26 +0000

To my understanding, you need Google services for passkeys to work, at least for now. I wouldn't want them even sandboxed, and on Lineage they're not restricted in any way so this would be a big concession.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "NewPipe: YouTube client without vertical videos and algorithmic feed"

Hoodedcrow — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 20:21:24 +0000

For me, the main benefit over the browser are the progress tracking and playlists. You can do both with bookmarks in the browser, but it's much less convenient.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "NewPipe: YouTube client without vertical videos and algorithmic feed"

Hoodedcrow — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 20:19:45 +0000

For downloads, I prefer Seal - a wrapper for yt-dlp. yt-dlp can update faster like this since doesn't have to update together with the app, and can add metadata and apply Sponsorblock. Could just use yt-dlp from Termux but this is more convenient.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "NewPipe: YouTube client without vertical videos and algorithmic feed"

Hoodedcrow — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 20:16:59 +0000

I'd feel very ripped off because it gives a directly worse experience than free tools. Not only does it not turn off Shorts, as previous commenters mentioned, but the most offensive scam in my eyes are downloads. I'd need to use yt-dlp for them anyway, as the paid downloads are directly inferior - DRMed and expire without online checks. Worthless for archival that I'm currently doing a lot.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "Discord distances from age verification firm after ties to Peter Thiel surface"

Hoodedcrow — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 12:18:27 +0000

Wouldn't the age verification provider then be able to retain logs of what exact credentials it signed and for whom? And if the certificates are identical for every user, couldn't everyone change the presented certificate for the universal correct one?

Second one is a lot more sensible.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "uBlock filter list to hide all YouTube Shorts"

Hoodedcrow — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 20:00:23 +0000

To be fair, Ublock Origin is a lot more common, and the less extensions the better, so or a lot of people this would be the better way.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "The 'untouchable hacker god' behind Finland's biggest crime"

Hoodedcrow — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:50:15 +0000

to be fair - kind of yeah. I do have a bank card, but minimize its usage for privacy reasons, mainly using cash. As for electronics - I do keep most of my data local and use OSes that don't upload them on their own.

And yeah, as the previous commenter said - those are not quite comparable.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "Linux phones are more important now than ever"

Hoodedcrow — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 19:18:42 +0000

When it comes to age verification - I still don't understand how you'd make it subpoena-proof? Like, the ones I've seen proposed protect you from the site itself getting more data than it should. But what about a government agency subpoenaing the website to see what credential this account was verified with and then comparing with the age-assuring agency's logs?..

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "Libre – An anonymous social experiment without likes, followers, or ads"

Hoodedcrow — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 18:28:55 +0000

Thankfully, Ublock Origin in advanced mod can block those requests by default. It's just very irritating and I'd say disrespectful when you HAVE to unblock them for the site to work.

New comment by Hoodedcrow in "I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C"

Hoodedcrow — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 11:12:25 +0000

It also works with Gadgetbridge without having to pair it in the official app first (for Xiaomi bands, you need to do it to extract a key, not sure how consistently it's doable nowadays). Apparently the supported featureset is not as complete as for Xiaomi devices, but seems to be enough to cover the basics.

So Huawei are also easier to use without having to send your data anywhere.