Hacker News: efreak

New comment by efreak in "Tl;dv: Over 180k meetings left wide open"

efreak — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 23:50:29 +0000

I suppose you might be able to argue that everyone is authorized to view the data if they made no attempt whatsoever to prevent you from doing so.

New comment by efreak in "Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM"

efreak — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 20:50:37 +0000

As much as I hate the weather app myself, this isn't an equivalent solution. The weather app shows the temperature in the taskbar itself, without opening anything. Also, I don't keep my browser open 24/7, so it's more than just loading a single extra tab, you need to wait for the browser process itself to start up.

If you want to load weather in a browser from the taskbar instead of having it available without having to open another application, I'd recommend using dillo or some such to load wttr.in or similar. A single http request that loads fast from a comparatively simple application that also loads fast. You might even be able to load it as a .hta file.

New comment by efreak in "AI companies are shredding rare books"

efreak — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:06:05 +0000

The DMCA doesn't care exactly how the authorization works, it only cares that it's needed.

Quote from Wikipedia[0] of DMCA section 103:

> No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. > "circumvent a technological measure" means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and > a technological measure "effectively controls access to a work" if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention_laws#Circum...

New comment by efreak in "98.css"

efreak — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 20:04:43 +0000

Worse is when the hotkey is underlined but doesn't actually work (multiple buttons with same hotkey, and instead of switching between them it just doesn't do anything. Admittedly this is rare). Or when the list is an MRU that can be navigated with the first letter of the item names, but some letters are reserved for static functions (looking at classic shell start menu: I can't start certain programs from the MRU or pinned list without the mouse because (A)pps Sh(u)tdown (S)ettings are reserved. Numeric helps with MRU, but can't be used in multiple places for the same reason)

New comment by efreak in "98.css"

efreak — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 19:57:17 +0000

Younger people love not having to wait in line. If I'm really hungry and I'm stopping at McDonald's because it's the only place close enough to the bus stop, then I want to order and pay, not wait for the person ahead of me. If I only have one item at the market/drug store, I want to use a self-checkout machine, and I don't want to be waiting behind someone with a cart full of items who doesn't know they have to actually unload their cart for the cashier, or who decides to go back for "one more thing" that happens to be at the back of the store where they get caught up talking to someone they know.

New comment by efreak in "98.css"

efreak — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 19:47:55 +0000

I have a vague feeling that tabs should be doable in pure CSS/HTML, but I might be thinking of menus (where the menu is a sub element of the button and thus visibility can depend on mouse position)

New comment by efreak in "Ghost Cut – Or why Cut and Paste is broken everywhere"

efreak — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:31:13 +0000

The paste action gives you feedback by having the cursor move to the end of the selected text after it replaces the text you copied with itself.

If you're on Android, lately it actually does give feedback by putting the copied text into the predictive text/autocomplete bar above the keyboard (I find this annoying as I'm usually copying text to save for later use, and I use the appearance of text I want in the corrections as an indication I've swiped wrong. If only I could touch-type while lying down...). In other apps that don't display the keyboard, it sometimes gives you a toast that an app has access the clipboard, though it gives the same toast for pasting or just for accessing it (eg pasting with termux or using an RDP app that syncs the clipboard)

New comment by efreak in "LG to ban residential proxies from smart TV apps"

efreak — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:24:59 +0000

Technically the processor is on in low power mode, but the TV unit itself is not running. On pressing the power button, the interface does not appear immediately. First the screen displays the Samsung logo, then the system loads, then the (broadcast/HDMI/analog) TV signal appears several seconds later. I can hook up a power meter (if I can find it, unlikely), but if the system was fully running it would be near-instant like when you switch to your cable box that has a fan running 24/7 expelling hot air (in this case it would only have to turn on the screen itself). This is about 3x longer than it takes my monitors of the same age to power on. (Samsung and Acer and Dell).

I do not have the smart features enabled, not do I have it connected to any networks.

New comment by efreak in "So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe"

efreak — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:05:18 +0000

A meme is a _self-propagating_ unit of information. Like a gene.

Tangent: I would call a datum the basic unit of information. Not sure if there's an official word, given the prevalence of the Wikipedia article for unit of (digital) information in every relevant search.

New comment by efreak in "So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe"

efreak — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 19:36:38 +0000

Counterpoint: usernames of people counting numbers with no context whatsoever are so important they have their own tokens, despite being of no value (in fact, negative value, going by the issues they caused when actually used).

New comment by efreak in "Ghost Cut – Or why Cut and Paste is broken everywhere"

efreak — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:51:41 +0000

Copy and paste gives you visual feedback without reflowing the document. I also use it to intentionally add a marker in undo history in documents in not planning to change, as that way I can use the undo history to jump to different areas.

New comment by efreak in "LG to ban residential proxies from smart TV apps"

efreak — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:17:00 +0000

Some browsers would individually request you approve each cookie s website set. This is a feature of the browser itself that the website is unable to control. Lynx still has this option, I believe.

New comment by efreak in "LG to ban residential proxies from smart TV apps"

efreak — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:14:20 +0000

Why would your TV always be on? My TV is only on when I'm using it.

New comment by efreak in "The lost joy of music piracy"

efreak — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 22:25:20 +0000

There's no physical media here anywhere (necessarily). This is comparing your computer (music on your PC that you purchase beforehand and do whatever you want with) to someone else's computer (cloud streaming that requires the platform to pay a license and get permission, that could one day be taken away without notice).

New comment by efreak in "The lost joy of music piracy"

efreak — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 09:32:38 +0000

And Sony would never remove movies from your account

New comment by efreak in "LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent"

efreak — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 20:27:00 +0000

What's more frustrating than that is the inability to have more than one control panel open at a time. Have your post of issues software open and want to change display resolution real quick? Sorry, you've lost your place in the list. Security settings are a separate app, but it's even worse because it requires elevation _every time_ before it can reload the list of issues. You thought this executable was already bypassing whatever protection, so you elevate to open the list of exceptions...then lose your place in the log and have to elevate yet again to find out the details...and open each list item in turn because the main list doesn't provide enough details to know know which item you were looking at and there's no detailed view. But you still can't cross-reference against your list of exceptions and forgot to take a screenshot, so you have to start over.

New comment by efreak in "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor"

efreak — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 07:01:13 +0000

So the models will be protected by contact law instead. Can you get an apple update without agreeing to the iOS terms?

New comment by efreak in "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor"

efreak — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 06:59:18 +0000

Last time I asked my Google speaker for a simple multiplication (#00 x #, embarrassingly), it started with "on the website facebook.com". I'm not sure if this is a good comparison.

New comment by efreak in "New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices"

efreak — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 04:21:21 +0000

That's why you don't say _in town_. That's verifiable and specific. You just say _lowest prices_ (nobody cares if you aren't specific), or add fine print that specifies a time/location (Amazon renewed: comparison price is the brand new version of same item on Amazon itself) or _only at $store_ (your competitors aren't participating in your branded sale).

New comment by efreak in "Decoding the obfuscated bash script on a Uniqlo t-shirt"

efreak — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:03:13 +0000

I don't recall the exact command I used, but I had my console font set to Comic Sans for a while (though it wasn't quite recognizable due to low resolution and aliasing). There's tools out there to convert type 1 and other fonts to console font format (I couldn't quite manage to get the opentype converter tool working, but truetype worked fine at large sizes)