Hacker News: aleph4

New comment by aleph4 in "Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo"

aleph4 — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 17:12:00 +0000

You said it better than me. This is the real reason Firefox has declined, and it's basically because of a monopoly.

New comment by aleph4 in "Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo"

aleph4 — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 14:35:59 +0000

Exactly.

Unfortunately, we live in a time when anti-trust regulations mean nothing.

The fact that it's difficult to separate Chrome from Android dooms most competitors, which is bad for everyone.

New comment by aleph4 in "Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo"

aleph4 — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 14:34:26 +0000

Yes, although they can't go all in on that because it doesn't help monetization...

New comment by aleph4 in "Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo"

aleph4 — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 14:33:47 +0000

Well, that's kind of their whole point-- can AI be done in a way that guards privacy. It's not impossible even with cloud processing.

And "Trust" should be a big deal-- unfortunately most people don't care and Chrome has a much bigger marketing budget (and monopoly on Android).

New comment by aleph4 in "Building Text Classifiers: A New Approach with Less Data"

aleph4 — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 22:45:08 +0000

So what actual model are they using? The details are super vague.

New comment by aleph4 in "Firefox Money: Investigating the Finances of Mozilla"

aleph4 — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 15:01:38 +0000

They do have a focus on that, it just hasn't really panned out. To be fair, you're talking about the billion dollar question. It's not exactly an easy problem.

New comment by aleph4 in "Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release"

aleph4 — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 14:57:54 +0000

Yes, I also love this. I much rather have control, and decline to install apps.

New comment by aleph4 in "Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release"

aleph4 — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 14:57:00 +0000

So you just hate everyone? Got it.

New comment by aleph4 in "Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release"

aleph4 — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 14:56:08 +0000

Same, and its amazing.

How can people complain about FF so much, when it's the only mobile browser that even gives you this option, and radically cleans up mobile browsing.

New comment by aleph4 in "Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release"

aleph4 — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 14:53:45 +0000

Seriously, there's an amazing amount of shooting from the hip happening here.

New comment by aleph4 in "Keep your AI claims in check"

aleph4 — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 05:12:15 +0000

No, it really doesn't.

New comment by aleph4 in "The Rise of the Electric Scooter"

aleph4 — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 21:43:00 +0000

Also, it turns out all those batteries are not exactly eco-friendly.

New comment by aleph4 in "The Rise of the Electric Scooter"

aleph4 — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 21:37:49 +0000

Also in Austin, and agree. Bikes just feel so much safer to me, especially at higher speeds for longer distances. I've already almost died twice on scooters, and have almost no close calls on my bike on a regular basis.

New comment by aleph4 in "Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?"

aleph4 — Wed, 18 Jul 2018 17:51:07 +0000

Same. Maybe it's just my specific track pad (Precision 5520), but libinput works great for me, with really good palm rejection. I never really used the other fancy trackpad features so I got over it pretty quick.

Having said that, before libinput I was ready to return my laptop, because the palm rejection was so horrendous with synaptics.

New comment by aleph4 in "Digital Exile: How I Got Banned for Life from AirBnB"

aleph4 — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 22:38:41 +0000

After getting bedbugs at an Airbnb last year, I was recently shocked to find out that Airbnb let the host continue to operate after our incident (which they also poorly handled). 2-3 people immediately after us also got bed bugs. Somehow this place still has 4.5 stars, even though we reported to Airbnb that the host was using mattresses meant to be donated to charity!

New comment by aleph4 in "Digital Exile: How I Got Banned for Life from AirBnB"

aleph4 — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 22:36:00 +0000

Try getting bed bugs and Airbnb refusing to refund you... That said, I'm staying at an Airbnb against next month for the reasons you stated...

New comment by aleph4 in "What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?"

aleph4 — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 17:46:09 +0000

I don't see this as a purely financial decision. A coffee shop here in Austin recent re-introduced Wifi after years of famously not having it. Presumably, this was because they were lacking the business from the laptop crowd.

Obviously, use common sense and courtesy. Don't take up a large table. Don't teleconference. Buy a something regularly if you plan to stay a while. Don't bring outside food in.

Having said that, I welcome coffee shops that choose not to have wifi. But frankly, I'm less likely to go to them.

New comment by aleph4 in "Announcing CoffeeScript 2"

aleph4 — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 19:02:51 +0000

It's "just" Javascript, so it plays quite well with everything. Definitely jQuery. Main issue was that the missing JSX support. It definitely a Pythonic JS, and I much preferred it to JS a few years ago.

New comment by aleph4 in "1Password Leaks Your Data"

aleph4 — Sun, 18 Oct 2015 19:17:52 +0000

Sounds like some people are self-hosting their 1PasswordAnywhere files, and thus are easily indexable.

New comment by aleph4 in "Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth"

aleph4 — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 06:51:19 +0000

I agree. I use Nuzzel for this and its amazing to me this functionality is not built in to Twitter at all.