Hacker News: VogonPoetry

New comment by VogonPoetry in "Someone is running mass vulnerability scans, spoofing AI bots like ClaudeBot"

VogonPoetry — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 17:50:00 +0000

Your site does not currently seem to be reachable / responsive when I try to reach it from a US Comcast IPv4 address - you are not advertising IPv6.

Edit / Update: It was Apple's Private browsing mode that causes it not to respond. I can now see it when this is disabled.

New comment by VogonPoetry in "Why does Mail app contact iCloud when sending a non-iCloud email?"

VogonPoetry — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 22:40:28 +0000

I wonder if "Piano Mover" is a reference to the Goon Show episode called "Napoleon’s Piano" [1]

If you like absurdly silly comedy; Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, you should track these down. These were made in the 1950's for BBC Radio.

[1] https://goonshow.org/goonshow/s6p4/

New comment by VogonPoetry in "The computer that helped win World War II"

VogonPoetry — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:55:23 +0000

There are a lot of articles written about early machines available from the (British) Computer Conservation Society. The CCS journal is available online at [1]. One article (with a link to a GitHub) discusses making an FPGA version of Colossus.

There are many articles written by people who were involved in early computing in the UK.

[1] <https://www.computerconservationsociety.org/resurrection.htm>

New comment by VogonPoetry in "Killed by Apple"

VogonPoetry — Mon, 11 May 2026 18:04:16 +0000

It is still possible to adjust the speed in QuickTime Player: from .5 to 2x. Not available via Quicklook, but definitely there in the player, either in the menu bar or by clicking the >> in the video window.

New comment by VogonPoetry in "My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix"

VogonPoetry — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 02:28:07 +0000

This is fantastic info, thank you. I've now set mine to 5.

New comment by VogonPoetry in "My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix"

VogonPoetry — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 23:25:26 +0000

The post was fixed about 30 seconds after making it - due to the *s being interpreted as italics. It is a shame there isn't a preview button when composing posts.

New comment by VogonPoetry in "My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix"

VogonPoetry — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 21:36:15 +0000

Does this also mean only using "standard" parts? Or does the manufacturer have to over-produce the parts for, lets say 7 years, and then warehouse and ship those parts, probably multiple times. Or keep a low rate production line running for 7 years? What happens to the parts that don't get used? Are they scrapped?

That "what if" cost is going to be built into the cost of the laptop. Repairability doesn't always keep the cost low. The purchaser will definitely have to foot the cost otherwise it isn't sustainable.

New comment by VogonPoetry in "My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix"

VogonPoetry — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 21:26:25 +0000

That 2mm uses at least (2*335 + 2*235) * 2mm * 1mm = 2,280 mm^3 more material for the case. (a wall thickness of 1mm)

New comment by VogonPoetry in "I Reverse-Engineered the TiinyAI Pocket Lab from Marketing Photos"

VogonPoetry — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 09:54:04 +0000

Please can you explain the evidence that this is generated content.

Yes, the site is new, but other posted articles are 100% consistent with the author wanting a guaranteed level of local inference with large models.

What I read was written by a skeptic who took claims and systematically addressed a number of issues. The debunking was concise and used simple sentences.

The boxes in the pictures were, to my eyes, generated manually using the macOS Preview annotation feature. They are not well aligned. I've used this technique many times to general overlays. If this were me, I'd get called out. I like nicely spaced and proportioned boxes! NB: iFixit tear downs are mis-aligned as well and it bugs me.

People have a distasteful habit of assigning others into boxes. Particularly if that box currently has a negative connotation. Boxing is a primary tool of the; misguided, bullies, sycophants, censors and those with an unspoken agenda. Humor: Which box applies?

New comment by VogonPoetry in "macOS's Little-Known Command-Line Sandboxing Tool (2025)"

VogonPoetry — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 07:50:55 +0000

I took the "granularity doesn't cut it" comment to mean there aren't enough entitlements to eliminate the need for custom SBPL. Followed by a sentence about apps that have temporary exception SBPL. Combining the two seems to imply that if there were more entitlements the custom SBPL might not be necessary. In the followup you noted; the split in reasoning and evaluation is rough and potentially not needed. I read this as a conclusion of wanting to do something, but could not as there were not enough entitlements to make it work, so custom SBPL would be necessary.

New comment by VogonPoetry in "macOS's Little-Known Command-Line Sandboxing Tool (2025)"

VogonPoetry — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 23:57:46 +0000

I am not sure using sandbox-exec is a good security architecture for AI agents. It sure is convenient and available to everyone right now. I've made another comment elsewhere in this discussion about what I think "deprecated" means - it is a sharp tool that could break if not tracking everything that changes, including every change in a SW update. It is also easy to get wrong if there is not a "(default deny)" in the profile. An agent could escape if they can find a mach service or some other system call coordinated proxy service. Java, Silverlight and Flash had backdoor communication mechanisms with other instances of themselves that could be abused.

New comment by VogonPoetry in "macOS's Little-Known Command-Line Sandboxing Tool (2025)"

VogonPoetry — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 23:22:41 +0000

Does this mean you tried to ship an App in the Apple App Store but could not because of some restriction?

New comment by VogonPoetry in "macOS's Little-Known Command-Line Sandboxing Tool (2025)"

VogonPoetry — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 21:56:04 +0000

The Sandboxing and Entitlements mechanisms are very different. Sandboxing can only drop access to resources, it cannot grant access that was not already there [1]. Entitlements are all about giving additional selective privileges or to make the sandbox NOT remove access (like full disk access or debug ability ). Entitlements are bound to processes only and are non-transferable. This is in contrast to a capability based system where they can be passed around. Reasoning about capabilities is challenging because analysis effectively requires global knowledge of the system. Binding entitlements to libraries or Frameworks would turn them into capabilities.

[1] a GUI app can restore access to files by using a trusted external selection process.

Edit: change footnote reference to prevent markup error.

New comment by VogonPoetry in "macOS's Little-Known Command-Line Sandboxing Tool (2025)"

VogonPoetry — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 21:25:08 +0000

The runtime engine is not known to be turning complete. It has no expressions and cannot loop, only forward jumps are permitted.

New comment by VogonPoetry in "macOS's Little-Known Command-Line Sandboxing Tool (2025)"

VogonPoetry — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 21:18:49 +0000

"sandbox-exec" is deprecated in the sense of "please don't use this method to run sandboxes" rather than the mechanism going away.

If you are using "sandbox-exec" then you are likely maintaining your own seatbelt profile. Keeping those up to date can be challenging, especially for 3rd parties as any changes to underlying Frameworks and libraries can break a hand crafted profile.

If you are using it to secure your own stuff and accept this and not complain, even for minor SW updates, then you are going to be fine. Don't ship things to 3rd parties without also accepting this. That is what this deprecated means.

New comment by VogonPoetry in "A fictional interview with Frances Allen"

VogonPoetry — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 11:17:34 +0000

I have received feedback from Vox. The article has been updated with a new leading paragraph indicating the fictional nature of the article.

New comment by VogonPoetry in "A fictional interview with Frances Allen"

VogonPoetry — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 11:15:57 +0000

I have received feedback from Vox. The article has been updated with a new leading paragraph indicating the fictional nature of the article.

New comment by VogonPoetry in "A fictional interview with Frances Allen"

VogonPoetry — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 02:34:32 +0000

I've written to about how deceptive it was to put the Editorial Note at the end instead of upfront. I stopped reading because sections felt fabricated - but it was presented as an oral history or actual interview. What a terrible way to present the work of a pioneer.

New comment by VogonPoetry in "A fictional interview with Frances Allen"

VogonPoetry — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 02:15:46 +0000

An Editorial Note is at the bottom (as others have now noted), it should have been at the top. Had I not seen other comments I would likely have believed everything was made up. This is a terrible way to recount the memory of Frances Allen.

New comment by VogonPoetry in "A fictional interview with Frances Allen"

VogonPoetry — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 02:06:28 +0000

There is something off about this piece. Particularly the section that starts "You passed away on your eighty-eighth birthday – 4th August 2020. Do you reflect on mortality?" I stopped reading after that.