Hacker News: SeanDav

New comment by SeanDav in "Veracrypt project update"

SeanDav — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 23:50:49 +0000

This is likely the first step, and in itself is not much of a concern but only if it stops there, which it almost certainly will not. The next step, where the government argue that simple attestation is not secure enough to protect the children, and now we need to show a government ID is when the true damage starts.

This is a little like the joke: "Madam, would you sleep with me for 1 million dollars?", to which she replies "I would". "Madam, would you sleep with me for 1 dollar?", to which she replies, "Sir, what sort of woman do you think I am?" To which he replies "We have already established what sort of woman you are, now we are just trying to establish your price!"

By agreeing to this initial Age Verification, companies are establishing that they are willing to implement checks on age for their users, now we will see just how much more they are willing to do - all to protect the children of course.

New comment by SeanDav in "Veracrypt project update"

SeanDav — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 15:50:38 +0000

This has got very little to do with children - that is just the excuse that sounds good. "Think of the children" is a rhetorical tactic that anyone who wants to get unfettered access to your data rolls out whenever they can. It is a tactic that unreasonable people use to influence reasonable people, because it is so difficult for a reasonable person to argue against without coming across as uncaring and/or bigoted.

New comment by SeanDav in "Veracrypt project update"

SeanDav — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:24:17 +0000

Sure, for now... I simply don't believe it will stop at "simple attestation", because we all know that simple attestation is practically useless, but once the various distros accept this "trivial" inconvenience, "Age verification 2" with harsher requirements will soon be on the way.

I would be ecstatic to be proved wrong on this, but experience tells me that is not likely to happen.

New comment by SeanDav in "Veracrypt project update"

SeanDav — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:06:30 +0000

Except compulsory age verification in Linux is now becoming a real threat. Some Linux distros are actively against this but many are not seemingly interested in fighting it: CachyOS, Ubuntu, Fedora and others.

Age Verification is the thin end of a much bigger wedge in "open" OS's

New comment by SeanDav in "Veracrypt project update"

SeanDav — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 09:57:57 +0000

This is worrying on many levels. So Microsoft force you to create an account to use Windows and then they reserve the right to block you from your own account, thereby potentially making you lose access to all your OWN data. This is crazy and yet another reason to stop using Windows as soon as possible.

New comment by SeanDav in "Chuck Norris has died"

SeanDav — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 16:32:08 +0000

The earth was too scared to have him on it anymore...

New comment by SeanDav in "The “small web” is bigger than you might think"

SeanDav — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 16:41:59 +0000

With the increasingly intrusive legislated age verification and content monitoring being forced globally, I can easily see this as a catalyst to drive the Gemini protocol past critical mass.

New comment by SeanDav in "No leap second will be introduced at the end of June 2026"

SeanDav — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 16:21:24 +0000

I assumed that leap seconds could be determined algorithmically, it appears I assumed badly. This is a bit of a can of worms...

New comment by SeanDav in "“Microslop” filtered in the official Microsoft Copilot Discord server"

SeanDav — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 16:29:26 +0000

Remember, it is for the children. /s

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

SeanDav — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 13:17:11 +0000

Even a face scan is a hard no for me. I have no desire to make it easy for companies to start linking me (the person) to anywhere else, directly via my face metadata.

New comment by SeanDav in "Descent, ported to the web"

SeanDav — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 13:03:19 +0000

I think we might have different risk/reward levels. For me, using VR can make me feel sick and vaguely disorientated for many hours afterwards. Almost nothing is worth that.

I love the idea of VR but my brain / balance system most certainly does not!

New comment by SeanDav in "Show HN: I spent 3 years reverse-engineering a 40 yo stock market sim from 1986"

SeanDav — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 15:17:52 +0000

I.Don't.Care.

I enjoyed the narrative. It was true. Who cares if it was written by a ghost writer, an AI or anything else.

New comment by SeanDav in "“Captain Gains” on Capitol Hill"

SeanDav — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 14:15:00 +0000

Right, no insider trading going on here at all /s

New comment by SeanDav in "Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)"

SeanDav — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 15:49:21 +0000

I hate the flat, borderless, barely visible scroll bar mess that is Windows 11. Just try to determine where one window starts and another ends with multiple overlapping windows open, especially in dark mode.

Windows UI peaked at Windows 7 and has been steadily in a race to the bottom ever since.

Windows 11 is going to be the final straw that prompts me to relegate it to a game playing or only-use-because-I-must secondary OS. Linux, here I come - if only I could decide which flavour...

New comment by SeanDav in "How I fell in love with Erlang"

SeanDav — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 10:32:19 +0000

Until you hit a knot in the wood and get kickback, which leads to exciting times... j/k I get what you are trying to say.

New comment by SeanDav in "How I fell in love with Erlang"

SeanDav — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 11:58:21 +0000

It is not a lie it is just apparently familiar notation that actually has an entirely different meaning. It is not an equation, it is an assignment.

X := X + 1 is perhaps less confusing, even if meaning the same thing.

New comment by SeanDav in "How I fell in love with Erlang"

SeanDav — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 11:20:47 +0000

I am just wondering when the next "We-Love-Haskell" cycle is going to start!

New comment by SeanDav in "The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful"

SeanDav — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 14:52:17 +0000

One of the potential upsides to this as that people just might start taking time to engage in a bit of critical thinking before reacting. Is this real? How likely is this AI nonsense? What is the source? Is this the full picture? etc.

Perhaps I am too optimistic...

New comment by SeanDav in "When stick figures fought"

SeanDav — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 15:27:38 +0000

> Zhu initially won in court. Then the appeals process ran until 2006, when he finally lost. The stick figures were too different, according to the judges, and the imagery was too simple to copyright. Nike was in the clear.

I am sure if I add an extra couple of pixels to the end of the Nike Swoosh, I can use it for my own branding everywhere, because it is not the same and a rounded tick is just too simple to copyright in any case ... /sarcasm

I could even cite the original ruling against Zhu as a precedent for extra kharma points.

New comment by SeanDav in "Slack has raised our charges by $195k per year"

SeanDav — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 10:01:20 +0000

Our company is thinking of moving to Slack from Teams. In addition we use Salesforce. I have already reached out to senior decision-makers pointing out do we want to be paying for a company's services that resorts to this kind of behaviour, when very credible alternatives exist.