Hacker News: coderatlarge

New comment by coderatlarge in "A deep dive into Apple's .car file format"

coderatlarge — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 16:56:32 +0000

one use-case is if you need to be able to stream the data.

New comment by coderatlarge in "Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month"

coderatlarge — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 08:57:36 +0000

i can live without discord but I’m required by law to interact with irs and therefore idme and their mess…

New comment by coderatlarge in "I was banned from Claude for scaffolding a Claude.md file?"

coderatlarge — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 01:08:56 +0000

at least with physical drugs you know how many grams you bought, with cc it’s all hidden behind the curtain.

New comment by coderatlarge in "Apple introduces new AirTag with longer range and improved findability"

coderatlarge — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 15:18:08 +0000

why not pets?

New comment by coderatlarge in "Microsoft gave FBI set of BitLocker encryption keys to unlock suspects' laptops"

coderatlarge — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 21:25:40 +0000

user notification is another major litmus test.

New comment by coderatlarge in "First impressions of Claude Cowork"

coderatlarge — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 11:05:51 +0000

i propose the following benchmark task that i think can serve as a baseline of whether these local automation systems can really save time:

starting with a bare ubuntu desktop system with plenty of RAM and CPU, setup three ubuntu VMs for secure development and networking skills learning (wireshark, protocol analysis, etc etc):

one ubuntu “virtual” desktop to simulate a working desktop that an end-user or developer would use. its networking should initially be completely isolated.

one ubuntu server to simulate a bastion machine. route all “virtual desktop” traffic through this “bastion”. it will serve as a tap.

one ubuntu server to serve as edge node. this one can share internet access with the host. route all bastion traffic through the edge node.

use this three vm setup to perform ordinary tasks in the “virtual desktop “ and observe the resulting traffic in the “bastion”. verify that no other traffic is generated on or from the host outside of the expected path virtual desktop -> bastion -> edge.

i claim this is a minimal “network clean” development setup for anyone wanting to do security-conscious development.

extra credit: setup another isolated vm sever to act as the package manager ; ie mirror anything to be installed on the “virtual desktop” onto this package server and configure this server as the install point for apt on the “virtual desktop”.

i doubt an AI can set this up right now. (i’ve tried)

New comment by coderatlarge in "Show HN: See what readers who loved your favorite book/author also loved to read"

coderatlarge — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 17:29:09 +0000

maybe an account has to build up cred or investment to be more trusted like on hn

New comment by coderatlarge in "2025 Letter"

coderatlarge — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 16:42:44 +0000

from the piece:

“ the median age of the latest Y Combinator cohort is only 24, down from 30 just three years ago “

does yc publish stats to validate?

New comment by coderatlarge in "Show HN: See what readers who loved your favorite book/author also loved to read"

coderatlarge — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 21:15:45 +0000

no ties to my other accounts would be ideal from my perspective

i understand that it’s easier to get a stronger “trust” signal by being more invasive

but hopefully the product will be so valuable that users will value their accounts as assets (like on hn) that they won’t want to compromise with bad behavior

New comment by coderatlarge in "Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM"

coderatlarge — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 04:30:25 +0000

that’s good to know thanks but creates more special cases to manage if i just want to backup my stuff so i can manually recover when i need to (on lost device say).

New comment by coderatlarge in "Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM"

coderatlarge — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 04:29:11 +0000

i wish there were a straightforward way to export a file of some sort that i can backup without creating yet another special case to manage.

New comment by coderatlarge in "Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM"

coderatlarge — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 04:27:30 +0000

i just ran into a situation activating a new device in which apple were trying to send to a device i had forgotten to “properly” remove from that icloud account.

and also another situation in which the 2fa code would flash on the remote device and disappear in a fraction of a second. i eventually captured it with screen recording but every time i did it the code was not accepted.

my conclusion: apple had silently ruled that i would not be allowed to activate using that particular icloud account. no idea why. i tried a different one and things went through ok.

arbitrary power in practice.

New comment by coderatlarge in "Show HN: See what readers who loved your favorite book/author also loved to read"

coderatlarge — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 02:03:18 +0000

well hn allows voting without email

New comment by coderatlarge in "Show HN: See what readers who loved your favorite book/author also loved to read"

coderatlarge — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 18:35:34 +0000

tying this data to a login instead of a pure cookie model like hn seems dangerous.

New comment by coderatlarge in "Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn"

coderatlarge — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 18:24:35 +0000

i love that meme which shows three identical paper clips in a row but one is upside down relative to the others which is a minute difference. the caption reads “chaos German style”

New comment by coderatlarge in "Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM"

coderatlarge — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 17:23:25 +0000

this carrier approval to move esim problem is more generalized on modern “smartphones”. unless you opt in to cloud providers holding your data there is no easy way afaik to migrate your authenticator apps to another phone. and a host of other authentication/authorization data is tied to the device in an opaque way. don’t get me started on apple’s unpredictable model of sending 2fa to some other “trusted” device which means tou never know what tou need to bring with you.

New comment by coderatlarge in "Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM"

coderatlarge — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 17:07:33 +0000

in some countries (ex china) local carriers won’t provision esim for nonlocally made phones. including iPhone not specifically made for their market.

New comment by coderatlarge in "Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?"

coderatlarge — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 13:47:28 +0000

if you do read french, proust’s “in search of lost time” (vol 1) is a lot more accessible and enjoyable than my high school teachers made it sound years and years ago. it even contains a depiction of what a learned engineer should be like.

New comment by coderatlarge in "Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge"

coderatlarge — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 16:42:06 +0000

perhaps it then becomes a matter of policy to periodically reformulate the law so it is compact and understandable and illustrated with examples for the general public. i wonder if llms will be able to do this reliably ever.

New comment by coderatlarge in "Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge"

coderatlarge — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 04:06:25 +0000

maybe we’re inching towards rule by law vs rule of law by making things so abstruse that you need a multiyear education to understand what is allowed, when and where.