Hacker News: fl0wenol

New comment by fl0wenol in "Young people are flocking to astrology"

fl0wenol — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 08:11:20 +0000

Also consider that while star sign might be the stated reason for incompatibility, the truth could have been an impression or gut feeling and so the astrological mismatch is simply a way to give a reason for their feelings, whether done consciously to save face, or subconsciously to have something decisive to latch onto.

New comment by fl0wenol in "The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter"

fl0wenol — Sun, 25 Dec 2022 19:28:26 +0000

While I agree with the premise of your statement, remember that: 1) A court order is only required for a subpoena to request information that the service provider isn't already voluntarily providing. It has been common pratice for decades where telecoms and now social media works together with federal entities outside of a legal action. And this was not limited to trap/trace. 2) It's never so specific to be about protecting an individual candidate. It's about the foreign interference, and if that interference backs a specific candidate and attacks their rivals, then it will look like they're trying to protect the rivals. But at the end of the day it they have to trace it back to the foreign influence campaign if they're going to do anything with it. If Twitter jumps the gun and suspends or bans someone they're trying to work backwards from before having evidence its unfortunate but I blame that on Twitter not having stricter standards about such a partnership.

New comment by fl0wenol in "How Ray Tracing works and how to do it faster [video]"

fl0wenol — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 06:15:39 +0000

Honest to goodness the results don't seem worth it for the power usage. Pre-baked lighting, environment maps, material shaders look _really good_ and are easy to get decent frame rates out of without sacrificing artistic freedom. Why are we making it more difficult for ourselves with global illumination which just introduces more problems. It's just very difficult to realistically light things while still maintaining high-visibilty of game assets in dynamic situations.

It sells graphics cards but I just don't think it's very practical.

New comment by fl0wenol in "Should traffic lights be abolished? (2021)"

fl0wenol — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 19:30:49 +0000

These exist in many different generations (sensor-based traffic control devices) but as there are state and/or local certifications each solution and implementation must meet to be deployed, plus the additional cost of installing and periodically calibrating sensors, they are not warranted unless the situation calls for it. The inconvenience of waiting an extra minute at a minor cross-street doesn't usually cut it.

If you live where there is a light that causes disruption or accidents because it needs sensors based on the traffic flows nearby, you should bring it to the attention of your local government. At the very least you could get them to do a study on it.

New comment by fl0wenol in "Luna Cryptocurrency Collapse: How UST Broke"

fl0wenol — Fri, 13 May 2022 23:45:19 +0000

I really hope you forgot a /s

New comment by fl0wenol in "Among a certain set, counterfeit luxury bags may be more popular real ones"

fl0wenol — Wed, 11 May 2022 16:05:32 +0000

This is what the subreddit mentioned in the article sort of "discovered"; they spend a lot of time obsessing over the details and subtle variations they can get by working directly with factories and artisans in China. By using a real design as a template they cut out the difficult part of designing the whole concept from scratch and can work from a template but still achieve quality with some minor tailoring.

New comment by fl0wenol in "Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin, usr/sbin split (2010)"

fl0wenol — Wed, 11 May 2022 15:52:16 +0000

Incidentally, did you know that PowerShell on Linux respects the XDG specification? It was rather unexpected when I first noticed it and it just tickles me pink.

New comment by fl0wenol in "Practical bruteforce of military grade AES-1024 (2021) [video]"

fl0wenol — Mon, 02 May 2022 15:52:51 +0000

Only for grandfathered-in systems that are critical to keep operating that can't be replaced. New systems and lower-impact existing systems cannot use 3DES at all, unless it's only to decrypt stuff previously encrypted with it.

New comment by fl0wenol in "Practical bruteforce of military grade AES-1024 (2021) [video]"

fl0wenol — Mon, 02 May 2022 15:46:15 +0000

NSA is the entity in the DOD which sets certain minimum requirements and validates their cryptographic implementations. NIST owns the overarching standards for the whole government and sets requirements and performs validations through NVLAP that NSA doesn't, usually with their input.

When you see "FIPS", that means NIST approved/validated.

NSA approval/validation is relevant when the system has to handle classified information and often (but not necessarily) you start with components that have FIPS certification.

New comment by fl0wenol in "Jack Dorsey’s $2.9M NFT dropped 99% in value"

fl0wenol — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 15:56:46 +0000

"[...] a bored ape is pleasant to look at [...]"

Is it really, though? Maybe the word you're looking for is striking or distinctive. Possibly-- competent. But pleasant is not the first word that comes to mind.

BAYC had first-mover advantage, there isn't anything particular about them that wasn't done better by a project that came later. That they are uniquely fugly made them stand out as a novelty.

New comment by fl0wenol in "Sam Altman’s Worldcoin promised them free crypto for an eyeball scan"

fl0wenol — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 15:56:27 +0000

Unfortunately, this is a reputation your organization cultivated for itself.

For gods' sake, the name is _Palantir_

If anyone truly needed rebranding right now, it's you guys.

New comment by fl0wenol in "Elon Musk owns 9.2% of Twitter"

fl0wenol — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 16:00:55 +0000

I don't think Elon was strategically necessary to get EVs over the adoption hump, in that the market was primed for _someone_ to do it. And retrspectively it's been a huge distraction from the change we really need, which is the improvement of public transportation in our largest cities.

But I can't comment on the reusable rockets thing, I suppose time will only tell.

New comment by fl0wenol in "www.userfriendly.org seems to be gone, RIP Erwin, Dust Puppy and Co :("

fl0wenol — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 18:15:02 +0000

I think I remember "Westward Ho!", but I can't find anything that isn't the 1924 novel anymore. Do you have any more information about it?

New comment by fl0wenol in "www.userfriendly.org seems to be gone, RIP Erwin, Dust Puppy and Co :("

fl0wenol — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 17:52:52 +0000

Roomies! got rebooted spiritually as Dumbing of Age. That iteration has been going for _12 years_

New comment by fl0wenol in "Cybercriminals who breached Nvidia issue one of the most unusual demands ever"

fl0wenol — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 01:24:10 +0000

The fact that people keep trotting out this idea about the future potential of NFT gaming is evidence that people know basically nothing about making video games or the assets that go into them. And neither do the founders of any NFT projects with the rate at which they crash and burn if they aren't outright scams.

New comment by fl0wenol in "What makes writing more readable?"

fl0wenol — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 20:02:14 +0000

I think for the layperson, "deaf" without any qualifier is treated the same as profoundly deaf. I think the term "hard of hearing" is used when someone exists elsewhere on that continuum for most.

New comment by fl0wenol in "What makes writing more readable?"

fl0wenol — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 19:58:16 +0000

It's a demonstration of the concept in action; I love this!

New comment by fl0wenol in "A record 4.5M workers quit their jobs in November"

fl0wenol — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 19:38:35 +0000

It sounds like you really just don't like being told what to do.

Which I think is more the fundamental issue of a lot of people who flip out about many things, including this issue.

Pray for the retail workers that frequently cannot wield your expected level of judgement themselves.

New comment by fl0wenol in "“Free PACER” bill advances through Senate judiciary unanimously"

fl0wenol — Thu, 09 Dec 2021 22:47:18 +0000

It's frustrating that the government doesn't step in to pay/fund on behalf of the public in situations like that. Standards organizations should want such a guaranteed income stream.

New comment by fl0wenol in "I resigned from Twitter"

fl0wenol — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 16:50:42 +0000

This makes me uncomfortable. Not the idea of it per se, but the narrative the GOP's anti-cancel-culture bloc builds around it. Echoes of Thiel's involvement with Bollea vs. Gawker.