Hacker News: dstroot

New comment by dstroot in "Show HN: I made an emergency page for my family"

dstroot — Wed, 27 May 2026 20:27:31 +0000

In a wider disaster, such as a fire, earthquake, tornado or hurricane both companies and families want to contact employees or loved ones to make sure that they are OK. Unfortunately, land networks, Internet, links and mobile networks may be compromised by the emergency further, people may be caught away from home. Their laptop or mobile device might run out of power.

I thought a solution might be some type of “check-in” service - especially for employees. Are you OK? How can we reach you? Are you available for work? Do you need assistance? Etc.

Things like slack, teams, etc. can fit the bill so it was not really monetizable.

New comment by dstroot in "iOS 27 is adding a 'Create a Pass' button to Apple Wallet"

dstroot — Tue, 05 May 2026 17:18:18 +0000

> “The biggest UX issue Apple has for that persona isn't the wallet, it's the lack of physical home button”

So true! Also my 84 year old mother can never figure the difference between a web site and an app. If I could add a home button and solve the second issue her life would be much better.

New comment by dstroot in "Make macOS consistently bad (unironically)"

dstroot — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 21:06:44 +0000

> “mac users are not serious people.”

I can’t tell if this is a serious comment or humor.

New comment by dstroot in "We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do"

dstroot — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:02:21 +0000

> “not even pretending to care about people they affect.”

“Not even pretending to care about the people they elect.”

There, I fixed it for you.

New comment by dstroot in "Thoughts on slowing the fuck down"

dstroot — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 17:35:16 +0000

> I'm not even sure building software is an engineering discipline at this point. Maybe it never was.

If I engineer a bridge I know the load the bridge is designed to carry. Then I add a factor of safety. When I build a website can anyone on the product side actually predict traffic?

When building a bridge I can consult a book of materials and understand how much a material deforms under load, what is breaking point is, it’s expected lifespan, etc. Does this exist for servers, web frameworks, network load balancers, etc.?

I actually believe that software “could” be an engineering discipline but we have a long way to go

New comment by dstroot in "Chuck Norris has died"

dstroot — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 15:08:39 +0000

John Wick wears Chuck Norris pajamas. RIP to a legend.

New comment by dstroot in "Tesla: Failure of the FSD's degradation detection system [pdf]"

dstroot — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 21:21:29 +0000

I own two Tesla’s. When conditions are adverse, i.e. fog, heavy rain, the system simply shuts off and reverts back to manual driving. Elon has said several times that humans can drive with two eyes and Tesla should be able to drive with X number of cameras. however, it suffers from the same problems humans do: if it can’t see it can’t drive and ironically that’s when it reverts back to human control.

New comment by dstroot in "Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections"

dstroot — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 22:00:34 +0000

"trust" is a fuzzy concept - people use iMessage and have no concept of how it's architected or how it works. But they trust it. Why? because trust is something that is transferable. If you trust me, and I tell you iMessage is safe then you have a high likelihood of trusting iMessage. If this is reinforced by other people you trust, even better. There would be ways to create a voting system in the open, and have it validated by third parties. If you've ever bought stock it's because underlying the transaction, and auditor has certified their financials...

New comment by dstroot in "Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections"

dstroot — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 21:55:15 +0000

I find that argument lacking. Each of those people is also a potential weak link or even an adversary from a security standpoint. Would I rather have 10,000 weak links or one software system with rigorous testing and logging?

New comment by dstroot in "Tesla ending Models S and X production"

dstroot — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:42:42 +0000

Anyone who owns a tesla vehicle with "full self driving" is probably chuckling to themselves about Tesla ever making useful general purpose robots any time soon. Disclaimer, I own two tesla's with FSD and it's far from "full" or "self". I am very sceptical of robotaxis unless they have the appropriate sensors & SW (e.g. Waymo) which Elon has not done.

Finally, I know lots of people who own cars, but none who own robots. Many friends will not have Alexa in their homes due to privacy concerns. How many people will trust Elon to have a robot in their homes and assume he's being benign and safe with your personal data?

New comment by dstroot in "CISA’s acting head uploaded sensitive files into public version of ChatGPT"

dstroot — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:10:45 +0000

South Dakota has a population of less than 1 million people and the complexity of a CTO job of a state like South Dakota would be quite low. It is < 0.3% of the US Population and likely has de minimis benefit programs.

New comment by dstroot in "Tesla ending Models S and X production"

dstroot — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 15:37:07 +0000

And Elon canceled the S and X models but not the Cybertruck? C’mon…

New comment by dstroot in "Internet voting is insecure and should not be used in public elections"

dstroot — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 02:26:41 +0000

I suppose I'm an optimist. I believe it is possible to create a secure online voting system. My life savings might be held at Fidelity, Merrill, or elsewhere, my banking is online, 90% of my shopping is online and it all has "good enough" security. Plus most banks seem to be well behind the state of the art in security. I believe with the technologies we have available today, we could create a secure, immutable, auditable voting system. Do I believe any of the current vendors have done that? NO. But I believe it could be done.

New comment by dstroot in "Ask HN: Share your personal website"

dstroot — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 20:14:43 +0000

https://www.danstroot.com.

New comment by dstroot in "Scott Adams has died"

dstroot — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:05:50 +0000

I will probably be downvoted for posting something that “doesn’t add value” but I have to say that is a beautiful post about a difficult topic. I could never put into words my feelings as well as you just did. I loved his art. I did not love the man.

New comment by dstroot in "The Vietnam government has banned rooted phones from using any banking app"

dstroot — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 19:07:18 +0000

Consumer level security always has to contend with the lowest common denominator. As my 80 year-old mother‘s technical support team I can testify that she will download and install anything she sees on Facebook. The consumer security world has to protect us from people like her. It’s also the reason I will only allow her iOS devices.

New comment by dstroot in "A web developer posted a payment shaming message on their client's site"

dstroot — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 18:06:05 +0000

Well… if you control their DNS you have their MX record…

New comment by dstroot in "Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin, usr/sbin split (2010)"

dstroot — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 17:25:16 +0000

> Oh, how I wish I was born in the '60s, when the world was still sane.

As one who was, I find it makes the current world even harder to accept. Be careful what you wish for.

New comment by dstroot in "Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes"

dstroot — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 14:34:30 +0000

>If Trump becomes dictator tomorrow

The moment he started ignoring the US Constitution, he became one.

New comment by dstroot in "Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes"

dstroot — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 14:25:21 +0000

Or Afghanistan