Hacker News: garciansmith

New comment by garciansmith in "Hackers claim control over Venice San Marco anti-flood pumps"

garciansmith — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 02:11:57 +0000

Slop.

"And most importantly, it reinforces a simple but urgent truth: In the world of OT, security is no longer optional. It is foundational."

New comment by garciansmith in "Microsoft starts removing Copilot buttons from Windows 11 apps"

garciansmith — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 19:46:55 +0000

In the article's example, Notepad, there's still a button that does the same thing in the exact same spot. All they did was change the icon.

New comment by garciansmith in "One item purchased, ten emails"

garciansmith — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 23:17:33 +0000

Most don't spam texts, but those that do I've switched out. And yeah, I should probably use a fake number so whoever has Jenny's number in my area code doesn't get messages about how a toilet tank gasket is being delivered from Home Depot to my house...

New comment by garciansmith in "One item purchased, ten emails"

garciansmith — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 19:06:05 +0000

This actually misses some, namely the "your order is out for delivery" email which precedes the "your order is delivered one". And some places might split up the delivery into parts so you get even more despite being delivered together (in some cases in the same box!).

Worse is if they require a phone number then text you each and every step as well as email you. Some places you can "opt out" of texting but then the next order will just repeat the process.

All I want is an order confirmed email, and an order shipped email with the tracking number. I get maybe some people want a "delivered" email but I don't even want that, I'll see it, it can sit there an hour it's ok; if it's something really important I'll be looking at the tracking anyhow.

And while I'm complaining, it sure would be great to get rid of the syrupy language some use: "Get excited!!! Your order is being packed!!!!" Yes, I am glad I will receive a bunch of paper towels, but it is, I can assure you, not exciting.

P.S. edit: I just got two emails a few minutes ago (both for the same single order) stating that my order was on the way and would arrive... in twenty minutes. Which I think is a new one, I don't think I've gotten an "your order is less than half hour away" email before.

New comment by garciansmith in "Breaking the console: a brief history of video game security"

garciansmith — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:24:48 +0000

I disagree, it wasn't about consumers, but rather other businesses. The walled garden approach Nintendo took in America was needed to convince retailers to stock video games on store shelves again. And of course the Famicom didn't have that same approach, and while Nintendo hated the fact third parties could easily make Famicom carts, the open nature of the system certainly didn't hurt it in Japan.

New comment by garciansmith in "LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation"

garciansmith — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:21:25 +0000

Thank for the clarification, but it all should really be in that post if your goal is to try to persuade people of your argument (and "put an end to the speculation" about what happened), since people who don't know the background will have no clue where to find that info. At the very least links to those earlier posts are needed. And I say this as someone who uses LibreOffice daily both for work and my personal uses, someone who really hopes LibreOffice will succeed. Hopefully all this works out.

New comment by garciansmith in "Musician says AI company is cloning her music, filing claims against her"

garciansmith — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 22:12:43 +0000

https://xcancel.com/i/status/2040577536136974444

New comment by garciansmith in "LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation"

garciansmith — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 21:34:16 +0000

I wish this was more clearly written. Maybe I missed something, and I guess this is supposing the reader already has a lot of background, but there are several points that confused me.

"At the time, nobody could imagine that the companies that had supported OpenOffice.org until then would create a project to kill LibreOffice."

Did they mean... to kill OpenOffice? Or had supported LibreOffice would want to create a project to kill it later? Because that fact that companies who had previously supported OpenOffice then switched to LibreOffice doesn't strike me as odd, given the situation with Oracle back then. Also, what is the "project" that is trying to kill LibreOffice?

I am not clear on how the Board of Directors differs from The Document Foundation (are they just the Board of Directors of The Document Foundation then?).

What is "TDC"? It is not even clear what that stands for, nor what this "parallel organization" was supposed to do and how it differed from The Document Foundation. And if "the plan to transfer many of TDF’s tasks and assets" to "TDC" didn't happen back in 2020, why is it being brought up here? But then the next paragraph talks about the transfer so it did happen the year before? But then was terminated? Again though, I don't get why it matters now except maybe that some people were upset by that move over five years ago.

"This attempt resulted in permanent damage to relations between the project’s components, and especially between certain BoD members and the team."

Who is "the team"? The Document Foundation?

"After years of discussions marked by accusations and finger-pointing, during which no real progress was made in resolving the legal issues, the authorities requested an audit..."

Who are "the authorities" requesting the audit?

A "third audit" was mentioned, but it is unclear if the one audit mentioned above in the post was that third one or one of the previous ones (describing these and when they happened would have helped).

I still have no clue as to what Collabora's relationship was and is to The Document Foundation.

They apologize for the need for this post, but I don't really understand why. I get the idea that, given their non-profit nature, there were issues, but making those more clear seems laudable (even if I don't think the post especially helped in doing so).

New comment by garciansmith in "Someone at BrowserStack Is Leaking Users' Email Address"

garciansmith — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 14:59:47 +0000

Yeah, Fastmail's aliases are great. I used to do things described by some other commenters, like myemail+nameofservice@ and whatnot, but this way the email is automatically generated and you don't have to put any thought into it.

New comment by garciansmith in "The Document Foundation ejects its core developers"

garciansmith — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 15:19:11 +0000

There's more context in another HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47602859

As an outsider it's pretty opaque to me. I think the Document Foundation (handling LibreOffice) wanted to (re)release an online office suite that seems to compete with Collabora, which sells one. But the biggest contributors to LibreOffice are Collabora employees. I thought maybe they feared Collabora taking over the org, but it looks like there are formal legal disputes between the two, I think (see the post from the LibreOffice side https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/04/01/comment-...).

And of course when legal issues are involved everyone is being very vague. I just hope it doesn't hurt LibreOffice's development too badly.

New comment by garciansmith in "LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions"

garciansmith — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 15:24:08 +0000

I never get the fear behind extensions, at least not to the level where you wouldn't use an open-source extension that's extremely well vetted. And even if that isn't good enough for you, choosing to browse the web without using a content blocker is a far, far greater security risk.

New comment by garciansmith in "Android’s new sideload settings will carry over to new devices"

garciansmith — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 23:14:45 +0000

You can root GrapheneOS, they just don't recommend you doing so.

New comment by garciansmith in "Hong Kong Police Can Now Demand Phone Passwords Under New Security Rules"

garciansmith — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 14:43:14 +0000

They have? What was the relevant case? It was my understanding that some lower courts have ruled one way, others the opposite. There are also many nuances in particular cases (e.g., the police wanting a broad search of a device for something that may or may not be there versus them knowing for a fact a device has certain information they want).

New comment by garciansmith in "Personal Encyclopedias"

garciansmith — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 16:06:45 +0000

Making those connections are what builds a narrative: writing history is looking at the sources and constructing a narrative around that you think is significant. And if you really do find a connection so tedious, maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe the, for example, list of songs played one night at some event doesn't have any significance at all, it's just an unimportant detail pointlessly padding out the story.

AI here is not a tool, it's the author, or at the very least a co-author that greatly influences the human author. It selects what's important and then writes the narrative. It has its own biases. The narrative isn't based on what's personally important to the human creator, but rather the availability of data, those sources that are digitized. And then in turn the output shapes the human author's own perspective, changing even what the human will write on their own.

New comment by garciansmith in "Firefox introduces Split View: Two tabs side by side, right where you need them"

garciansmith — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 01:29:41 +0000

It means the content of two tabs is side by side but nothing else like the browser chrome. Haven't used this in Firefox yet, but I certainly find it useful for other apps like file browsers.

New comment by garciansmith in "Overcoming the friendship recession"

garciansmith — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 23:38:51 +0000

Or perhaps people down voted because absolute statements on social relationships are often not absolute at all. Or maybe they even have a personal experience that is contrary to your statement. I say this as a childless person whose closest friend has a child and a significant other whose two closest friends have children. And yes, I would describe all those friendships as deep.

New comment by garciansmith in "WTF: Police responded on Saturday night due to a zero-day"

garciansmith — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 23:47:29 +0000

Ublock Origin's element zapper or picker gets rid of it. Can't seem to reach archive.today/is/whatever sites today.

New comment by garciansmith in "Senior European journalist suspended over AI-generated quotes"

garciansmith — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 17:23:05 +0000

The idea that somehow AI is magically unbiased and not influenced by those making it is incorrect.

New comment by garciansmith in "The Soul of a Pedicab Driver"

garciansmith — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 20:27:42 +0000

Browsing the internet without an ad blocker is indeed dangerous.

New comment by garciansmith in "Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps"

garciansmith — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 04:47:01 +0000

Odd, I don't have those issues (date is on the lock screen, network signal strength when wifi is off is there). Played around with font settings but that changed nothing. Up to date stable version of Graphene on an 8a. Are these beta versions? Or maybe it's phone dependent.