Hacker News: chopin

New comment by chopin in "Stop Turning every purchase into a tip request"

chopin — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 22:50:13 +0000

In Germany, it is not very common. Where I see it, I avoid the business.

New comment by chopin in "Vancouver PD website features Quick Escape button that wipes itself from history"

chopin — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:58:24 +0000

What does eggcorn mean?

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

chopin — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:39:37 +0000

The app will likely have access to a bunch of unique identifiers on the phone. At least on Android whichs core concept is spying on the user.

For me, it's enough that your activity could be linked to any unique identity. I don't want mandatory government apps on my phone, that's very chinese. We should strive for better.

Edited to add: your linked FAQ conveniently leaves open how the communication between the web site and the app happens. There are myriad of ways that ones behaviour leaks in this step.

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

chopin — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 19:22:52 +0000

Governments will track with whom you verify. Much worse.

New comment by chopin in "A metallurgist's doubts about self-replicating probes"

chopin — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 18:05:52 +0000

Honestly, I always assumed that consensus was that replication is the hardest part. I believe we have almost none of the technologies required for that.

Whenever I read of von Neumann probes I always thought "How can that even made possible?".

New comment by chopin in "A bug which affected only left handed users"

chopin — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 15:58:12 +0000

You don't seem to use scissors.

New comment by chopin in "Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July"

chopin — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 14:05:39 +0000

Apparently, West...

Edit: before 1989.

New comment by chopin in "Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July"

chopin — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 14:02:38 +0000

Faring better than some other country doesn't mean its good.

Try calling up rt.com via a German phone network.

And calling our chancellor a liar will get your house searched.

New comment by chopin in "Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July"

chopin — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 07:50:33 +0000

I was referring to"hey you probably shouldn’t blow your hand off”. I am not against regulations per se, I am German after all.

But a sane discussion should be had how far this should go. Regulating things which are dangerous to the person taking a risk knowingly is over the top in my book.

New comment by chopin in "Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July"

chopin — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 07:38:01 +0000

But that is the maxim which drives almost everything we do on a daily basis.

New comment by chopin in "Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July"

chopin — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 07:22:13 +0000

But this is none of your business. I live in Germany, where everything is regulated by well meaning people. Going so far to regulate what you ought to say or to watch.

It is hellish. I don't recognize the country any more in which I was born and raised.

New comment by chopin in "If you're a button, you have one job"

chopin — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 07:11:25 +0000

But there are things like consistency which one can check for. And should.

New comment by chopin in "Hackers shoveled snow for company, were rewarded with network admin access"

chopin — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 15:23:25 +0000

I loathe two things in password requirements: special characters and not allowing spaces. C'mon, it's 2026. Require 20 characters and call it a day.

New comment by chopin in "Choosing a Public DNS Resolver"

chopin — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 11:43:47 +0000

I use 9.9.9.9 but it failed me a couple of times in the past two months. Cloudflare is very robust but I just don't like them. Falling back on them silently is not what I want. I am rather using them directly when quad9 fails.

New comment by chopin in "Danish privacy activist Lars Andersen raided by police"

chopin — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 07:55:57 +0000

I tend to disagree. 1984 seems the playbook for the majority of politicians. For them, it's inspirational.

New comment by chopin in "Project Valhalla, Explained: How a Decade of Work Arrives in JDK 28"

chopin — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 15:34:06 +0000

The problem in a large codebase is keeping consistency when upgrading.

I upgraded a codebase of approx 100 kloc from Java 7 to Java 8 a couple of years ago. As I didn't want mixed patterns for the same thing throughout the code base I replaced most of the loops with their streaming equivalent. I had the luxury of having the budget for doing so.

Mixing patterns of newer language features alongside older ones can make the code base hard to read.

New comment by chopin in "Curl will not accept vulnerability reports during July 2026"

chopin — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 16:47:30 +0000

It presumably runs in a gazillion scripts.

New comment by chopin in "FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs"

chopin — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 16:51:03 +0000

That's an illusion. Two days of location data and you can pin down the owner pretty well.

I thought about getting a SIM when Germany was about to introduce ID requirements. I quickly realized this being a moot point.

New comment by chopin in "India's surprise baby bust"

chopin — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 15:56:31 +0000

Where in Europe should that be? I live in Germany and for example Stuttgart has a shortage of nurses because they can't afford living in a 1 hour commuting range (one way).

New comment by chopin in "CBP Directive 3340-049B: Border Search of Electronic Devices"

chopin — Mon, 25 May 2026 10:53:38 +0000

Same experience with Australia. Japan is very painless, as well. Friendly, helpful staff on both.