Hacker News: _factor

New comment by _factor in "Who's afraid of Chinese models?"

_factor — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 01:17:24 +0000

It’s not hypothetical. Magic strings are a known and implemented feature for standard model interaction. Nearly impossible to detect unless you know where to look with current technology.

New comment by _factor in "ECC and DDR5"

_factor — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 01:09:00 +0000

Next up. CPUs that will spit out the wrong calculations 1/1M times. You’ll have to pay more for the enterprise version to get uncorrupted processing. The spare traces cost 5 cents, but we can charge 20% more for the privilege instead.

Just because you can allow it, doesn’t mean you should. I don’t want to live in a world where you need a PhD to avoid being scammed by increasingly sophisticated ploys. Data isn’t free anymore and the right questions are becoming harder to ask.

New comment by _factor in "ECC and DDR5"

_factor — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:24:33 +0000

Right, the opinion shifting to the people being unworthy of uncorrupted data unless they’re wealthy enough to pay the artificial extortion price for integrity.

New comment by _factor in "European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS"

_factor — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 09:09:19 +0000

This will ensure there never is.

New comment by _factor in "New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices"

_factor — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 00:32:08 +0000

Mostly lack of competition and anti-trust regulation. Who would use a worse service when a healthy alternative exists?

New comment by _factor in "CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps"

_factor — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 16:46:21 +0000

You need to work on your reading comprehension. I am not the parent.

New comment by _factor in "A better way to tie your gym shorts. (Or any drawstring) [video]"

_factor — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 14:51:56 +0000

You just pull the loose string end to relieve the knot? The loop just pulls out.

New comment by _factor in "CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps"

_factor — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 13:20:28 +0000

Your accusatory ignorance is not mine to relieve.

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

New comment by _factor in "CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps"

_factor — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 08:58:40 +0000

To what end? I can think of 10 reasons immediately off the top of my head, but it’s far easier to fill existing open source projects with agent contributors for most of them.

Do you really need someone to rhyme out why state actors do what they do?

New comment by _factor in "International chess federation sanctions Kramnik"

_factor — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 18:25:32 +0000

His final stream is illuminating if you can still find it. He speaks directly about Kramnik who he grew up idolizing right before his friend had to pull him away for erratic behavior. His comments during that stream strongly point to a suicide.

Kramnik never let off the accelerator.

New comment by _factor in "International chess federation sanctions Kramnik"

_factor — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 17:57:27 +0000

He basically pushed a player going through a crisis to suicide with his baseless accusations. Proceeded to make public derogatory remarks right after they passed while the family barely started grieving. This is a slap on the wrist.

New comment by _factor in "CarPlay Is Additive"

_factor — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 06:41:45 +0000

Conveniently it cost around $200 every 5-7 years to replace all 4.

New comment by _factor in "CarPlay Is Additive"

_factor — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 06:33:17 +0000

That’s just a line. More like, “We can collect our own data”, or “We can lock them in and collect subscription fees.”

New comment by _factor in "Show HN: Searchable directory of 22k+ products from worker-owned co-ops"

_factor — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 02:48:10 +0000

Real coffee beans not genetically engineered to grow fast with caffeine densities high enough to make explosives out of.

New comment by _factor in "GLM 5.2 beats Claude in our benchmarks"

_factor — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 21:48:02 +0000

The robot figured out how to bump the lock. The obvious solution is to ban the robot.

New comment by _factor in "What happened after 2k people tried to hack my AI assistant"

_factor — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 10:42:43 +0000

Then proceeds to state a smarter model and instruction following as the reasons for success.. without actually testing anything.

New comment by _factor in "Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users"

_factor — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 16:10:01 +0000

They don’t just understand, they basically promote it.

New comment by _factor in "How to earn a billion dollars"

_factor — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 01:56:19 +0000

1. The contractors move to where the money is. They will migrate to specialized work that will not benefit those who can’t afford “competitive” prices.

2. You can borrow 1T dollars in cash, effectively maxing out what the physical world will allow you to spend it on.

New comment by _factor in "How to earn a billion dollars"

_factor — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 01:24:36 +0000

1T dollars allows you to corner the best contractors, maybe most of them, for your own projects while houses remain unbuilt.

New comment by _factor in "It's death"

_factor — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 04:50:30 +0000

It’s not the lifestyle that makes some people unhappy, it’s the knowledge that there is suffering around the world they can do near nothing to stop.

Not everyone frames their happiness solely on conditions within their own sphere. Knowledge comes with responsibility.