Hacker News: beams_of_light

New comment by beams_of_light in "I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok"

beams_of_light — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 18:06:34 +0000

This cuts to the heart of it for me. I will not install Meta or LinkedIn apps on my phone because they have been found to be very intrusive.

New comment by beams_of_light in "Short Little Difficult Books"

beams_of_light — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 16:24:31 +0000

This is a problem I have yet to see schools tackle. A kid in junior high school has no mental context for the Russian Revolution of 1917, for instance. Having them read Animal Farm is a pointless waste of time.

New comment by beams_of_light in "US will not send officials to COP30 climate talks"

beams_of_light — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 22:23:36 +0000

This and the other accounts critical of COP30 were created very recently. The one above you, 3 hours ago.

Interesting.

New comment by beams_of_light in "Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah"

beams_of_light — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 02:36:14 +0000

Or perhaps anything left of fascist evil is considered controversial?

We can each play this game.

New comment by beams_of_light in "Deepseek Unmasked [pdf]"

beams_of_light — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 19:34:33 +0000

It's interesting that they call out NVIDIA specifically as an enabler. MAGA going to war against NVIDIA now?

New comment by beams_of_light in "US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU"

beams_of_light — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 16:58:07 +0000

That's an odd, fundamentally disconnected mechanism that, I think, would have devastating impacts for Main St.

New comment by beams_of_light in "US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU"

beams_of_light — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:33:09 +0000

I assure you that the fantasy of this being a band-aid rip-off moment will turn sour when the sore becomes infected and you're living through a depression.

New comment by beams_of_light in "Every .gov Domain"

beams_of_light — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:54:30 +0000

dei.gov redirects to waste.gov. It's a PHP site with only a password entry form.

New comment by beams_of_light in "Scanning ultrasound removes amyloid-β, restores memory in Alzheimer mouse model (2015)"

beams_of_light — Sun, 12 Jan 2025 03:45:49 +0000

I watched that last year. It's very interesting research and seems effective not just for Alzheimers but for treatment of addiction as well. I'm seriously counting on this treatment for any family members who may end up being diagnosed with it later in life.

New comment by beams_of_light in "White House unveils Cyber Trust Mark program for consumer devices"

beams_of_light — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 20:52:37 +0000

Things like this are useless, in my mind, because hackers are always going to innovate and find ways around protection mechanisms. Today's "locked down" IoT device could easily become tomorrow's "vulnerable to an easily exploitable pre-auth RCE".

What the government probably _should_ do is begin establishing a record of manufacturers/vendors which indicates how secure their products have been over a long period of time with an indication of how secure and consumer-friendly their products should be considered in the future. This would take the form of something like the existing travel advisories Homeland Security provides.

Should you go to the Bahamas? Well, there's a level 2 travel advisory stating that jet ski operators there get kinda rapey sometimes.

Should you buy Cisco products? Well, they have a track record of deciding to EOL stuff instead of fixing it when it's expensive or inconvenient to do the right thing.

Should you buy Lenovo products? Well, they're built in a country that regularly tries and succeeds in hacking our infrastructure and has a history of including rootkits in their laptops.

New comment by beams_of_light in "Willow, Our Quantum Chip"

beams_of_light — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 03:58:10 +0000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGP_hijacking#Public_incidents

A long-term tactic of our adversaries is to capture network traffic for later decryption. The secrets in the mass of packets China assumedly has in storage, waiting for quantum tech, is a treasure trove that could lead to crucial state, corporate, and financial secrets being used against us or made public.

AI being able to leverage quantum processing power is a threat we can't even fathom right now.

Our world is going to change.

New comment by beams_of_light in "Ask HN: How to Deal with IT Gatekeepers?"

beams_of_light — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 00:00:11 +0000

That's correct.

Ask HN: How to Deal with IT Gatekeepers?

beams_of_light — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 18:52:42 +0000

At a few F500 companies now, I've sought to automate repetitive tasks, which often requires access to APIs and/or databases. When I submit requests, I'm often either rebuffed by an outright rejection of the request, or a lengthy conversation questioning why I want or need to do something. Once I provide the reasons for why I want to do something, the conversation typically turns into a matter of compute resource protectiveness or IT saying they're working on similar automation, which never comes. It's like a flow chart in which options lead to a rejection.

How have you handled this sort of bureaucracy?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41650676

Points: 1

# Comments: 6

New comment by beams_of_light in "Study shows N95 masks near-perfect at blocking escape of airborne Covid-19"

beams_of_light — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 13:28:21 +0000

Sadly, if we call could just care about each other a little more, this country would be a true shining city on a hill.

New comment by beams_of_light in "Study shows N95 masks near-perfect at blocking escape of airborne Covid-19"

beams_of_light — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 13:25:12 +0000

How would one even work toward positive results with leadership doing things like this? https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/trump-white-house-...

Eudaemons

beams_of_light — Thu, 23 May 2024 05:14:02 +0000

Article URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaemons

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40450702

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

PyWinAssistant [video]

beams_of_light — Sat, 11 May 2024 04:35:12 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSRBesvBCtI

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40325973

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by beams_of_light in "Passkeys: A shattered dream"

beams_of_light — Sat, 27 Apr 2024 15:28:46 +0000

"Alright Mom, here's what you have to do..."

New comment by beams_of_light in "Hackers got nearly 7M people's data from 23andMe"

beams_of_light — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 17:34:52 +0000

Not in this case.

New comment by beams_of_light in "Hackers got nearly 7M people's data from 23andMe"

beams_of_light — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 17:34:15 +0000

Encrypted data still has to be decrypted in order to be presented. These “hacks” would have gotten decrypted data regardless of whether it was encrypted at rest and in flight.