Hacker News: hagbard_c

New comment by hagbard_c in "Android May Soon Restrict On-Device ADB"

hagbard_c — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:18:39 +0000

That seems rather unlikely given the the ways of the fruit factory. They don't stand to gain anything from loosening their stranglehold on their flock while they could lose substantially if someone were to open the gate and let the sheep escape. Nope, keeping them penned in is the best way to reliably fleece them.

New comment by hagbard_c in "SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]"

hagbard_c — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:02:32 +0000

You don't need to virtue signal your dislike of Musk-the-person to be allowed to show your admiration for the exploits of SpaceX. I don't care what you think about Musk and I'm pretty sure I'm far from the only one. Yes, SpaceX is doing great, hopefully other companies will follow their clear lead and make space access more reliable and 'affordable' so that those great wheels-in-the-sky may one day become reality.

New comment by hagbard_c in "Twain Town, USA"

hagbard_c — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 23:07:37 +0000

Well, that explains a lot. It would have been far more surprising for someone with her background to write a positive article about some no-nothing town in fly-over country than the sour grapes she produced here. I hadn't looked into her background more than the short bio at the end of the article which omits her Columbia connection.

New comment by hagbard_c in "Lobste.rs is now running on SQLite"

hagbard_c — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 22:58:39 +0000

I don't think it is a much a hive mind but it is - or at least was - susceptible to manipulation by individuals who know how to game the system to push their own narrative. I got into a discussion with one of these, a 'furry' who posted semi-relevant articles laced with furry-themed illustrations where those illustrations seemed to be the main point of the articles. After a number of such articles I remarked on this and was banned shortly after, somewhat out of the blue. The moderator did not like this type of 'sensitive' discussion which more or less meant the site was fair game for those willing to abuse it knowing that any discussion on their abuse would be suppressed. Maybe things have changed, maybe they haven't but it did leave me rather disillusioned with the way the place was moderated and as such I haven't been there for years.

New comment by hagbard_c in "Reynard: A real Firefox web browser for iOS 13 or later"

hagbard_c — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 23:12:08 +0000

Nope, they're not rational actors by supporting marketing-driven limitations. These limitations are not needed to create a well-working device, they're only there to keep the profits up because heavens forbid, someone might offer an alternative which allows users to get their software fix without paying their pound of flesh to the app store.

The example you gave on it not just being you who needs to change but the family I share photos and videos and other things [with] is all the more proof that you shouldn't touch these mobile prisons with a 3-metre pole. I share my photos and videos and other things with family as well but I don't care what they're using to access them 'cause I use a (self-hosted, but that is not essential) web service for it. No lock-in, no nothing. If you want to view those photos on your Commodore-64, have at it. There's even apps you can use, including one for those stuck on fruit phones.

I don't believe the 'security and privacy' story the fruit factory pushes, there've been far too many examples to disprove the narrative. Not that I trust Google, mind you. I use Android but I do not use Google, do not have a Google account, don't have Google services (etc.) on my devices.

New comment by hagbard_c in "Reynard: A real Firefox web browser for iOS 13 or later"

hagbard_c — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 22:54:07 +0000

Yes, it seems Google has been oogling that juicy fruity profit margin thinking mine!. I recently got a new phone and given that I tend to use the things for about 8-10 years it might well be my last Android device if they make it (close to) impossible to avoid them. The new phone - a Motorola G75 - is de-Googled just like all my other devices, I did not allow it any internet access before taking off (as in 'disabling', the thing is not rooted yet) everything Moto and Google and replaced it with everything F-Droid. It is still on Android 14 and does not try to get me to install any updates 'cause the updater is also disabled - something which many people seem to think is impossible. I got another G75 and will try to get something like Lineage or maybe most of Graphene to run on it.

Should Android become too distasteful I guess the next step will be a Linux device of some sorts. I have about 8-10 years to find or build one assuming these G75s hold up like the Redmi Note 5 Pros did (used them for 8 years) and the Motorola Defy/Defy+ before that (used for 9 years). All those devices still work, one of the 2 Redmis is my new 'dangerous work phone', the other plays Linux server since it no longer has a screen (which is what happens when you lend it out...). One of the Defy's is in use as a trailer camera, also without a screen. Android devices remain useful long after the market has given up on them.

New comment by hagbard_c in "Reynard: A real Firefox web browser for iOS 13 or later"

hagbard_c — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 14:43:53 +0000

Well, there's a solution to this: ditch that fruit phone until the fruit factory allows owners to use their hardware with the software they want. Let them click some boxes that yes, they understand that they'll leave the boundaries of fruity fruitland and beyond this checkbox dragons abide so abandon all hope all who enter here but otherwise let them install the software they want.

...

Yes, I thought so too, they won't, not without a court order. Now that several courts have ordered such and there is a precedent which makes clear that those dragons aren't all that fierce the fruit factory shouldn't have any excuses any more but that doesn't bother them just as long as the true believers keep on coming for their indulgences. Hence, ditch that thing and maybe they'll get the message.

New comment by hagbard_c in "Twain Town, USA"

hagbard_c — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:24:48 +0000

Not just a woman from New York City but a woman from New York City who is a literary critic and biographer whose work appears in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Harper’s, and elsewhere. It'd be hard to find someone more steeped in urban elite snobbery marinated in concentrated ideology outside of Columbia.

New comment by hagbard_c in "Show HN: HTMLDrive – serve HTML files from your Google Drive"

hagbard_c — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 12:50:46 +0000

> You can request deletion of your Google user data by emailing the official support channel.

Waiting for the apology Google gives for not having deleted all user data when asked to do so. An intern made a mistake, Gemini did it, "we're only following government order", a technical problem, anything.

New comment by hagbard_c in "It seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history"

hagbard_c — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 21:48:48 +0000

Some jazz hands 'cause I don't want to upset the sensitive Atlantic readership. No, did not read it, did read Clockwork Orange back in high school, still reading every day 42 years later but then I did not attend an Ivy League uni in the 2020's so that probably explains a lot.

New comment by hagbard_c in "EU now one step away from reviving private message scanning rules"

hagbard_c — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 23:44:49 +0000

Some of 'm have been doing things for decades now, moving to self-hosted services free from the government censors. The harder they squeeze, the more people will move to that server-under-the-stairs or hitch a ride on one hosted by a family member or friend.

New comment by hagbard_c in "EU now one step away from reviving private message scanning rules"

hagbard_c — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 23:39:01 +0000

They won't scan my messages since I run my own XMPP server and clients using only free software - prosody for the server, Conversations/dino/gajim/converse.js for the clients. OMEMO (the encryption scheme used by 'modern' XMPP systems) uses the same double-ratchet encryption as Signal without the dependency on a central Signal server.

Prosody can run on just about anything and is mostly maintenance-free, give it a try I'd say. You'll want to get a domain for it but that's easy and cheap.

New comment by hagbard_c in "Grok 4.5"

hagbard_c — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 23:29:32 +0000

Appeal to authority is your best retort? It tends to not work out that well.

New comment by hagbard_c in "Midtown Manhattan blocks evacuated after beams buckling at construction site"

hagbard_c — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 21:12:59 +0000

Seeing how elevators are akin to vertical subways I think that problem goes both ways.

New comment by hagbard_c in "Midtown Manhattan blocks evacuated after beams buckling at construction site"

hagbard_c — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 21:11:37 +0000

In that case the helicopters lower in the pecking order will chop off the strings for the higher ones. I thing seagulls is a better idea, if it worked for a giant peach it should work for a building. Plenty of those around and they'll work for peanuts.

New comment by hagbard_c in "U.S. officials believed Israel was plotting to kill Iranian negotiators"

hagbard_c — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 19:25:39 +0000

If you don't like that link - which is just one of the many I got when searching for 'national IQ average' there are many other similar studies to be had. Here's a few of them, again just some results from the first page in my SearXNG instance. The results are not identical but they are comparable.

https://international-iq-test.com/en/test/IQ_by_country

https://www.worlddata.info/iq-by-country.php

https://www.universaliqtest.com/statistics/average-iq-by-cou...

https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/average-iq-by-country

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229401257_National_...

https://openpsych.net/files/papers/Parra_2025a.pdf

New comment by hagbard_c in "U.S. officials believed Israel was plotting to kill Iranian negotiators"

hagbard_c — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:13:58 +0000

I did not mention the GOP, you did. Of course it is implied that it is either the D or R party since you only have two of them (that matter, anyway) which makes your accusation of it being me who mentions the D party rather pointless.

Stop it? Stop what? Pointing out the obvious? Why would I stop that, other than to appease those who ignore the elephant or donkey in the room? If you're tired of being confronted with people pointing out the emperor has no clothes I'd suggest you just look away or tell the emperor or his keepers it is time to put on some.

New comment by hagbard_c in "U.S. officials believed Israel was plotting to kill Iranian negotiators"

hagbard_c — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 22:16:19 +0000

Countries don't have to do tests, that is done by people who take tests organised by institutions, The results are grouped by whatever factors the test developers consider interesting and the results are published. We can quibble about the value of these results, about the value of IQ as a concept, about the sample size of IQ-test-taking groups in different countries and much more but that is all irrelevant when considering the question whether there is something like an average IQ score grouped by country. Those scores exist and the results from several independent studies are largely the same.

New comment by hagbard_c in "U.S. officials believed Israel was plotting to kill Iranian negotiators"

hagbard_c — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 22:09:41 +0000

Yes, there does seem to be a genetic component to IQ but as I stated you don't need to include it here to explain why cultures which place emphasis on education and discipline score higher than those which don't. Even if intelligence were not heritable those cultures would on average still perform better than those which don't value education and discipline. Adding a heritable component makes the effect stronger, especially in cultures where intracultural marriages are common or the norm.

New comment by hagbard_c in "U.S. officials believed Israel was plotting to kill Iranian negotiators"

hagbard_c — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 22:02:34 +0000

Yes there are no matter whether you consider IQ a valid concept or not. In the context of the grandparent's remark about Ashkenazi Jews being 'smarter' it is relevant to compare specific group averages (e.g. Ashkenazi Jews) with national averages, especially in the case of Israel where there is a marked difference between the national average IQ and that for the group 'Ashkenazi Jews' (about 24% of the total Israeli population calculated from the numbers presented in [1]).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel#Jews