Hacker News: JohnTHaller

New comment by JohnTHaller in "UEFA slams FIFA's 'unprecedented, unjustifiable' Balogun decision"

JohnTHaller — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 19:01:42 +0000

Convicted fraud pressures organization with multiple historical fraudulent activities and convictions to commit fraud

New comment by JohnTHaller in "Spain Orders Blacklist of Palantir from Public and Private Companies"

JohnTHaller — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 13:05:08 +0000

In addition to the more well-known stuff, China DDoSed Github because they were mad that two projects let Chinese citizens read non-propaganda news in 2015.

New comment by JohnTHaller in "PlayStation Is Deleting 551 Movies from Customers' Accounts"

JohnTHaller — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 20:43:03 +0000

Because it's not a purchased product. It's a sub-license of Apple's license for you to temporarily play a work.

New comment by JohnTHaller in "Why were Covid vaccine trials so fast?"

JohnTHaller — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 18:05:50 +0000

And males under 40 have a material increased risk of myocarditis from the virus itself. More-so than the vaccine. A friend under 40 is on beta blockers thanks to Covid.

New comment by JohnTHaller in "[dead]"

JohnTHaller — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 21:52:15 +0000

They paid the fighters using the Trump "scam" crypto coin (as folks call it) and the Trumps were apparently looking to bet on the fights using inside info on Polymarket et al according to some Twitter posts.

New comment by JohnTHaller in "FDA OKs first new sunscreen ingredient in more than 25 years"

JohnTHaller — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 18:21:11 +0000

This chemical has been approved by better safety bodies in Europe and Japan for decades. There are dozens of others as well that the US still doesn't have access to. Imported sunscreen will still be much better.

New comment by JohnTHaller in "FDA OKs first new sunscreen ingredient in more than 25 years"

JohnTHaller — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 18:19:42 +0000

Imported sunscreen has been SO much better than US variants for decades. They have dozens of approved ingredients the do a better job of blocking UVA and UVB, lasting longer, and not adversely affecting skin.

New comment by JohnTHaller in "Euro-Office: First version of the open-source web office is here"

JohnTHaller — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 14:55:47 +0000

You can zap the element in Firefox with uBlock Origin

New comment by JohnTHaller in "Chrome is looking to permanently drop MV2 extension"

JohnTHaller — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 17:17:51 +0000

My Firefox currently has 33 tabs open (way more than usual). It opens in seconds on my 9 year old i7-7700k desktop.

New comment by JohnTHaller in "Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee"

JohnTHaller — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 02:08:36 +0000

Teachers are paid less than they should be and and must complete specific undergraduate and graduate degrees as well as additional ongoing certifications. They are, unfortunately, not well respected by many groups. And right-wing folks have been making noise about augmenting and replacing teachers with AI. I have multiple friends who have left teaching due to lack of respect and support from student parents. I still have two teachers in my family.

New comment by JohnTHaller in "Learn PHP in 2026 (Yes, Really)"

JohnTHaller — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:59:59 +0000

That LinkedIn overview is also written by AI

New comment by JohnTHaller in "Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say"

JohnTHaller — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 18:54:00 +0000

President Trump has written a strongly worded check to Netanyahu in response (according to The Onion)

New comment by JohnTHaller in "Notepad++ v8.9.6.4 Tiananmen Massacre Commemoration"

JohnTHaller — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 17:48:01 +0000

Also worth remembering that all of us had to deal with China attacking Github and taking it mostly offline for quite a while 11 years ago. China used the great firewall of China to inject a malicious script into Baidu analytics javascript files. Every website outside of China that used Baidu analytics wound up serving those infected file to every visitor. All of those visitors were then reloading two Github projects over and over. The two projects were designed to allow Chinese citizens to view uncensored news from the NY Times and from the greater internet.

Never incorporate third party Javascript, CSS, images, etc served from a server within China through their great firewall in anything you do.

New comment by JohnTHaller in "32GB of DDR5 now costs $375 – AI shortage continues to squeeze PC building"

JohnTHaller — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 17:07:15 +0000

Supply is constrained. AI bought up so much that we're seeing wafer shortages. Absurd US tariffs messed with stuff. And we're just getting started.

New comment by JohnTHaller in "He Blew the Whistle on DOGE. Then His Brakes Were Cut"

JohnTHaller — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 16:52:12 +0000

It's why I switched PortableApps.com to hCaptcha

New comment by JohnTHaller in "Microsoft announces Scout, an autonomous AI agent built on OpenClaw"

JohnTHaller — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 20:33:26 +0000

_Final_v10.4_ActualFinal7

New comment by JohnTHaller in "Cloudflare Turnstile requiring fingerprintable WebGL"

JohnTHaller — Sun, 31 May 2026 23:00:55 +0000

If you're in any way semi-popular and a decent size, you're gonna get hammered. PortableApps.com was partially offline for weeks due to China-based AI scrapers. You block the useragent, they start hitting you with another one from the same IP in the same way. You block the IP, they switch to another. You block the subnet, they use another. At one point it was nearly a thousand different IPs from around China hammering away. For all intents and purposes, a DDoS. This wasn't a little "extra load", this was load that was thousands of times beyond what our legitimate userbase was using.

And if you're thinking about blocking all of China, while this particular AI bot didn't use them, a bunch of other ones I've encountered use VPNs and hacked clients worldwide.

New comment by JohnTHaller in "Chewing gum restores dad's taste and smell years after Covid"

JohnTHaller — Thu, 21 May 2026 19:54:11 +0000

I last had Covid 2 years ago. My sense of smell came back to about 25% of what it used to be. I describe it to people like distance. Like when a neighbor a couple floors below in an apartment building is cooking tomato sauce and you can smell it a bit by your apartment door. That's what it smells like when my face is over it cooking.

I'd definitely try this gum.

New comment by JohnTHaller in "[dead]"

JohnTHaller — Thu, 21 May 2026 03:19:26 +0000

Both can be true

New comment by JohnTHaller in "I hate the recent open-source rise"

JohnTHaller — Tue, 12 May 2026 16:28:39 +0000

These aren't religious beliefs. This is altering behavior in a way that's inconsequential to you but can make your project/workplace/friend circle feel more welcoming to others.

> Side note: I’ve repeatedly noticed this same self-righteousness advertised by similar autistic / ADHD-coded people online, particularly in the software dev space, and particularly amongst what I’d call the bluesky / mastodon set.

Ah, this explains a lot about your views