Hacker News: baranul

How rogue officers turned a nationwide camera network into a tool for stalking

baranul — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 07:39:52 +0000

Article URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/08/02/how-police-officers-used-vast-network-cameras-spy-their-exes/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49152464

Points: 40

# Comments: 4

New comment by baranul in "A mystery virus started killing horses, then humans, in 1994"

baranul — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 07:23:19 +0000

If only the CDC was not so greatly diminished, that people could feel more comfortable about an agency and high level professionals being on the job to help protect the public from strange diseases.

I stopped trusting USB-C cable labels and started testing them

baranul — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 07:12:57 +0000

Article URL: https://www.makeuseof.com/i-stopped-trusting-usb-c-cable-labels-started-testing-with-meter-instead/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49152255

Points: 258

# Comments: 265

New comment by baranul in "'Crush this lady': how eBay harassment campaign led to $56M payout"

baranul — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 07:08:06 +0000

But it's mind-boggling that any subordinate couldn't understand that such levels of depravity and insanity could land them in legal trouble, and that's besides the ethical issue.

A Black woman enhanced the audio in Nolan Wells' case. People listening closely

baranul — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 06:50:19 +0000

Article URL: https://thegrio.com/2026/07/28/a-black-woman-enhanced-the-audio-in-a-call-related-to-nolan-wells-case-what-she-heard-has-people-listening-closely/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49152076

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by baranul in "Border Agents Can Search Your Phone by Hand, No Suspicion Needed"

baranul — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 05:20:02 +0000

A person's smartphone is not the same as luggage, because one is an electronic device and the other is not, which should be common sense. Treating both as the same doesn't make any sense.

It is way past time for the Supreme Court to make a decision about what is or is not reasonable when it comes to searching through people's personal and private information on their smartphones without needing probable cause or a warrant. Just too weird, arguably disgusting, that this question is continually left in limbo.

New comment by baranul in "Don't Take the Black Pill [video]"

baranul — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 03:39:24 +0000

> why "the speaker" has quit HN

Quitting HN[1] might have more to do with feeling he and Zig had already harvested the maximum benefit and marketing propaganda usage for elevating itself, including using it to thoroughly smear its C alternative language competitors. Thus, it came time to figuratively give HN the middle finger while on top (selling high before the stock may fall).

Many might not have done a review of the history, as he quit Twitter and Reddit too[2], years ago (2023). Arguably excuses are given to cover for offloading any personal involvement on a particular social media platform, as either they are self sustaining without his presence or no greater benefit is thought to be possible.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47928645 (Tell HN: Site Is Trash Now)

[2]: https://andrewkelley.me/post/goodbye-twitter-reddit.html (So Long, Twitter and Reddit)

New comment by baranul in "Don't Take the Black Pill [video]"

baranul — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 02:48:11 +0000

> which reward talkers and liars, rather than good engineers

Part of that is also about who management and HR are socially comfortable with and candidates that may have connections with people in the company. It's often not a level playing field because of cronyism, nepotism, and many other -isms.

That's also why a good engineer, confident in their skills and value, needs to read the room or figure out what's going on. If the situation is not to their liking, then jump to another company or start their own business, whenever the chance presents itself.

New comment by baranul in "Fil-C: Garbage In, Memory Safety Out [video]"

baranul — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:11:08 +0000

> I haven’t seen C topping programming language popularity charts

C is still highly ranked on many charts. C (as of July 2026) is ranked #2 on the TIOBE index. PYPL has C and C++ weirdly merged, the annoying C/C++, and that comes in as #3. The IEEE and Redmonk have C firmly in the top 10, using different methodologies. We also have to consider how many years back that C's run in the top 10 goes.

We have to also use context, as popularity can be a measure beyond simply job demand, relative to usage by students, hobbyists, open-source, and legacy. Furthermore, demand can be relative to location and country. Because it is less in your specific area or company, doesn't mean that's so in other areas or countries.

Amazon cracks down on use of AI images by sellers after New York law

baranul — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 23:28:18 +0000

Article URL: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/23/amazon-makes-sellers-label-ai-generated-people-in-images-after-ny-law.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49042870

Points: 10

# Comments: 0

New comment by baranul in "Fil-C: Garbage In, Memory Safety Out [video]"

baranul — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 23:19:16 +0000

Of the group of languages presented, your argument has more merit for Go. With C# and others, there is an additional OOP argument in there, that splits into different factions.

But what is being overlooked, is the massive numerical dominance of C programmers and projects, along with legacy and embedded code. There is going to be a preference for writing and using C, that could arguably fuel Fil-C for a very long time.

New comment by baranul in "Fil-C: Garbage In, Memory Safety Out [video]"

baranul — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 23:06:40 +0000

I think it's not so much that Fil-C renders Rust completely useless, but rather it reduces the supposed validity and wild arguments to frivolously rewrite anything and everything in Rust.

AI Bubble: 'The risk is everywhere' – Ed Zitron [video]

baranul — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 22:14:26 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTwnn-5TpmQ

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49042262

Points: 6

# Comments: 0

New comment by baranul in "I regret migrating to Codeberg"

baranul — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 09:21:24 +0000

Agree. Providers who don't want to deal with LLM generated code should be respected as part of the free market. Let the market decide which direction is for the better or at least allow for niches that cater to certain audiences.

New comment by baranul in "Show HN: I replaced a $120k bowling center system with $1,600 in ESP32s"

baranul — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:53:42 +0000

That's questionable, in terms of both outcome and cost. LLMs can misunderstand intent, hallucinate, or produce unwanted results too. As you noticed. But, among the advantages in favor of real programmers is outside of the context understanding of what the customer may want and fixing their request or solving the problem in unforeseen ways, despite the expected result not being properly stated.

True, LLMs can spit things out faster, but often in context to needing greater specificity and giving cookie cutter results. In regards to that, humans can copy and paste too. The time saved on the front end, can be lost by needing to come up with tighter specifications or the need for human review, to ensure quality.

Police Keep Losing Their Jobs for Using Flock Cameras to Stalk People

baranul — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:42:46 +0000

Article URL: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/07/police-losing-jobs-flock-cameras-alprs/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49032862

Points: 9

# Comments: 1

New comment by baranul in "It's an Apple Lisa, on a FPGA"

baranul — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:35:02 +0000

This and the various Lisa emulator projects are a great way to keep a piece of history alive for younger generations and the nostalgic. Besides the true experience of it, there might still be some new ideas to come from understanding how things were done.

Stop the NDAA: Congress Is Giving Away America's Sovereignty [video]

baranul — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:20:40 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0860p-QK8c

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49032686

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by baranul in "OpenAI’s accidental attack against Hugging Face is science fiction that happened"

baranul — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:17:35 +0000

A way to help prevent some of that catastrophic damage, is to make companies accountable for what their AIs do. A major problem with AI companies is that they like to point to the AI, as if they're minimally involved innocent bystanders, when that's the furthest thing from the truth.

New comment by baranul in "Iran says it attacked Amazon infrastructure in Bahrain"

baranul — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 11:02:40 +0000

Regular people can only hope that cooler heads and more sense can avert this obvious disaster. It's like watching cars about to crash into a brick wall, yet drivers have their foot firmly on the accelerator, instead of the breaks.