Hacker News: ciarannolan

New comment by ciarannolan in "FireEye Shares Details of Recent Cyber Attack"

ciarannolan — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 23:02:26 +0000

Didn't help Iran: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet

New comment by ciarannolan in "U.S. Judge Halts TikTok Ban"

ciarannolan — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 17:36:12 +0000

I'm not sure I completely understand your point, sorry.

I'm saying that it makes no sense to lose on purpose just to say you "played fair".

New comment by ciarannolan in "U.S. Judge Halts TikTok Ban"

ciarannolan — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 17:31:13 +0000

> The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance." Popper expands upon this, writing, "I do not imply for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force..."

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

New comment by ciarannolan in "U.S. Judge Halts TikTok Ban"

ciarannolan — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 17:27:37 +0000

> If US social media companies are banned in China, that means the US needs to allow Chinese social media companies to operate in the US.

Actually lol'd at this. "If they're not willing to play fair, then _we_ must play fair."

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

New comment by ciarannolan in "SpaceX Starship Users' Guide [pdf]"

ciarannolan — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 03:46:38 +0000

> SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled revised plans to travel to the Moon and Mars at a space industry conference today, but he ended his talk with a pretty incredible promise: using that same interplanetary rocket system for long-distance travel on Earth. Musk showed a demonstration of the idea onstage, claiming that it will allow passengers to take “most long-distance trips” in just 30 minutes, and go “anywhere on Earth in under an hour” for around the same price as an economy airline ticket.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/29/16383048/elon-musk-spacex...

New comment by ciarannolan in "SpaceX Starship Users' Guide [pdf]"

ciarannolan — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 02:56:30 +0000

All the references like "Please contact sales@spacex.com to evaluate how Starship can meet your unique needs" are pretty funny.

I'd like to imagine some mid-level manager working on his little satellite project browsing this pamphlet, thinking, "Hmmm, this 'SpaceX' company looks interesting. Let me send them an email."

New comment by ciarannolan in "Agents raid home of fired Florida data scientist who built Covid-19 dashboard"

ciarannolan — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 02:33:02 +0000

> The depiction of police (allegedly) escalating the situation with threat of deadly force, especially with kids present [...]

Not "allegedly". There is video: https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665

New comment by ciarannolan in "What the Church Meant for James Baldwin"

ciarannolan — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 20:26:29 +0000

+1 to The Fire Next Time

God gave Noah the rainbow sign -- no more water, The Fire Next Time

I found the book to be much more intellectual and insightful compared to modern pop-race-psychology or whatever the latest wave of books should be called.

New comment by ciarannolan in "Google employees say AI researcher did not resign, despite what exec claims"

ciarannolan — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 20:18:48 +0000

I feel strongly that it was one particular option that you listed, but I think this is a fair assessment. Wonder why it's being downvoted (maybe I'm missing something from this story too).

New comment by ciarannolan in "Zero-click, wormable, cross-platform remote code execution in Microsoft Teams"

ciarannolan — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 17:06:05 +0000

Microsoft only grossed $100,000,000,000 last year. What makes you think they can afford more than $500 for a bug bounty?

New comment by ciarannolan in "A tool for recovering passwords from pixelized screenshots"

ciarannolan — Sun, 06 Dec 2020 22:34:07 +0000

Redact ---> print ---> scan ---> distribute.

I think US courts and lawyers are finally starting to learn this.

New comment by ciarannolan in "Reddit Claims 52M Daily Users, Revealing a Key Figure for Social-Media Platforms"

ciarannolan — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 20:48:04 +0000

> Didn't they champion themselves as the bastions of free speech at one point?

Didn't liberals too?

New comment by ciarannolan in "Reddit Claims 52M Daily Users, Revealing a Key Figure for Social-Media Platforms"

ciarannolan — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 20:47:12 +0000

They make the mobile site shitty to use on purpose, so that you download their app and let them harvest even more information about you.

New comment by ciarannolan in "Reddit Claims 52M Daily Users, Revealing a Key Figure for Social-Media Platforms"

ciarannolan — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 19:57:54 +0000

> At this point I'm convinced Reddit's platform is being used as a propaganda tool, with the goal of bombarding users with the same views in every major subreddit.

It's not even subtle anymore. You can predict with 99% accuracy the ideology of any political statements in content on the first 10 pages of r/all. It's a 52M daily user echo chamber.

New comment by ciarannolan in "China is the greatest enemy to freedom – US intelligence chief"

ciarannolan — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 23:09:18 +0000

> "SEC filings: The parent company of Dominion Voting Systems received $400 million from an Investment Bank in Switzerland that is 75% owned by the Chinese government. UBS Securities is a Swiss investment bank which owns 24.99% of UBS Securities Co LTD, a Chinese Investment Bank. The remaining 75% of UBS Securities CO LTD is owned by the Chinese government,” states the report."

Instead of making vague insinuations, why not just make the accusation that you're alluding to?

New comment by ciarannolan in "AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google"

ciarannolan — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 23:02:58 +0000

People with this ultimate victim attitude are absolutely toxic to employ and work with. I go out of my way to screen them out of hiring in technical roles.

New comment by ciarannolan in "Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK"

ciarannolan — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 15:33:57 +0000

> only ~94% effective

Lol.

New comment by ciarannolan in "Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK"

ciarannolan — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 15:33:17 +0000

It just old and sick people dying, don't worry about it!

New comment by ciarannolan in "Salesforce Deal to Buy Slack Expected to Be Announced Tuesday After Market Close"

ciarannolan — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 19:15:30 +0000

+ Tableau

New comment by ciarannolan in "Salesforce Deal to Buy Slack Expected to Be Announced Tuesday After Market Close"

ciarannolan — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 19:13:51 +0000

> So welcome, Microsoft, to the revolution. We’re glad you’re going to be helping us define this new product category. We admire many of your achievements and know you’ll be a worthy competitor. We’re sure you’re going to come up with a couple of new ideas on your own too. And we’ll be right there, ready.

This whole thing is dripping with condescension and ego. It reads like a nasty letter written to an ex-girlfriend about how you're super successful now and gee I'm glad you're doing well too. Yuck.