Hacker News: janice1999

New comment by janice1999 in "New iPhone age and identity checks restrict internet freedom in the UK"

janice1999 — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 10:23:46 +0000

Two billion dollars of lobbying (i.e. bribery) by Facebook is the real answer.

https://www.gadgetreview.com/reddit-user-uncovers-who-is-beh...

New comment by janice1999 in "LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation"

janice1999 — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 20:13:58 +0000

There are plenty of non-profit software projects headquartered in Berlin, e.g. KDE since 1997, and they seem to do just fine.

New comment by janice1999 in "Atlassian says it had right to fire engineer for suggesting CEO is 'rich jerk'"

janice1999 — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 16:22:17 +0000

The best email I ever received was a notification my company was moving off Jira. Atlassian’s own stated philosophy is “Open Company, No Bullshit”. I wish that was true. Maybe they would have better products.

New comment by janice1999 in "Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps"

janice1999 — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 19:12:30 +0000

The DSA covers App stores with a large numbers of users - this is about allowing users side load unsigned apps. Afaik there is no requirement to identify the developers of applications that can be installed on a vendors platform (outside the app store). Otherwise Microsoft would require Government ID to compile and email someone an EXE.

New comment by janice1999 in "Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps"

janice1999 — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:50:45 +0000

They already announced it. Here they only mention the special case where it does not apply:

> In addition to the advanced flow we’re building free, limited distribution accounts for students and hobbyists. This allows you to share apps with a small group (up to 20 devices) without needing to provide a government-issued ID or pay a registration fee.

i.e. Government-issued ID and fees are needed for more than 20 devices, e,g, every app on F-Droid

New comment by janice1999 in "Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps"

janice1999 — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:46:46 +0000

Developers, including non-US citizens, are forced to give Google their government ID to distribute apps. This enables Google to track and censor projects, like NewPipe, an alternative open source Youtube frontend, by revoking signing permissions for developers.

New comment by janice1999 in "Show HN: Three new Kitten TTS models – smallest less than 25MB"

janice1999 — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:41:02 +0000

What's the actual install size for a working example? Like similar "tiny" projects, do these models actually require installing 1GB+ of dependencies?

New comment by janice1999 in "Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps"

janice1999 — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:36:32 +0000

The apps might not be available though. Many developers are simply stopping in the face of Google's invasive policies. I don't blame them. Say goodbye to useful apps like Newpipe.

New comment by janice1999 in "Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps"

janice1999 — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:35:29 +0000

The forced ID for developers outside the Play store is already killing open source projects you could get on F-Droid. The EU really needs to identify this platform gatekeeping as a threat. As an EU citizen I should not be forced to give government ID to a US company, which can blacklist me without recourse, in order to share apps with other EU citizens on devices we own.

New comment by janice1999 in "Montana passes Right to Compute act (2025)"

janice1999 — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 15:28:48 +0000

The 2nd rule is clearly intended to be a shield and distraction. It's there to pretend the law serves the public, when in reality it's designed to defend datacenter builders from the public interest. Politicians can talk about meaningless sci-fi concepts like SkyNet and how it can defeat it with off switches, instead of real issues like noise pollution, tax giveaways, electricity prices and mass surveillance.

New comment by janice1999 in "Every company building your AI assistant is now an ad company"

janice1999 — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:32:01 +0000

> ...exploitative practices of the silicon valley elite have gone mainstream and will hopefully course correct the industry in time.

I have little hope that is true. Don't expect privacy laws and boycott campaigns. That very same elite control the law via bribes to US politicians (and indirectly the laws of other counties via those politicians threats, see the ongoing watering down of EU laws). They also directly control public discourse via ownership of the media and mainstream communication platforms. What backlash can they really suffer?

New comment by janice1999 in "I hate AI side projects"

janice1999 — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 23:44:19 +0000

The problem is that the effort required to understand the quality of a project has also gone through the roof (and not just due to the number of them). Good looking READMEs and docs, large test suites, well constructed code - LLMs can generate credible versions that take time to digest and understand the limitations of. AI is fantastic at faking the outward signals of a good project and hyping it up. I've lost count of the projects that appear here and on Reddit that initially look good but fall apart once a domain expert spends the time to dig into it.

New comment by janice1999 in "Professors Are Being Watched: 'We've Never Seen This Much Surveillance'"

janice1999 — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 22:14:26 +0000

From a European perspective this response and your other comments ranting about "pronouns" and "Marxist ideology" makes me think you're either a troll parroting bizarre US political memes or, if serious, you're the one indoctrinated in a radical ideology. Either way, I suggest closing the browser and talking to people in real life.

New comment by janice1999 in "Professors Are Being Watched: 'We've Never Seen This Much Surveillance'"

janice1999 — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 21:42:34 +0000

Intent matters though. Malicious actors, who are very much in power, will use the information to target universities and ideas [1] they don't like. Don't build databases for your enemies. Censuses were a great tool too, until certain people took power, then destroying them became the moral thing to do [2].

[1] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/academic-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_Amsterdam_civil_registry_...

New comment by janice1999 in "Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction"

janice1999 — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 23:12:09 +0000

US wind farms are 30 miles from the coast at most? No country is attacking that under some plausible deniability and it not being seen as an act of war.There are more important power lines further from civilisation running through rural areas in the US. These are not fiber cables a 1000 miles from the coast.

Gas generators can be spun up to provide megawatts in seconds btw. With less than a quarter of the grid being renewable, intermittency is not an issue. Grids are built with resilience in mind (or at least should be...).

New comment by janice1999 in "Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers"

janice1999 — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 14:28:18 +0000

> Do data centers in space actually make sense?

No. It's currently a fantasy. Even if the cost of getting payloads to orbit decreased another x100, you still have the issues of radiation and heat dissipation.

New comment by janice1999 in "Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers"

janice1999 — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 14:20:47 +0000

Data centers don't create local jobs once construction is complete. 40 people, most remote, can run a data center. The F-35 program claims to have over 250,000 people employed in its supply chain in the US and has large factories with high paying, often unionised jobs.

New comment by janice1999 in "Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers"

janice1999 — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 14:14:13 +0000

“We’re going to have supervision,” Oracle founder Larry Ellison said. “Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times, and if there’s a problem, AI will report that problem and report it to the appropriate person. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”

New comment by janice1999 in "Show HN: SpeechOS – Wispr Flow-inspired voice input for any web app"

janice1999 — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 22:00:00 +0000

If you're processing people's data it doesn't matter if it's free or not, you need to understand your legal obligations. You can't have a blank Terms of Service. You should really talk to a legal professional.

New comment by janice1999 in "Show HN: SpeechOS – Wispr Flow-inspired voice input for any web app"

janice1999 — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 21:52:54 +0000

You want companies to pay you to process their customers voices and private data, but I don't see a privacy policy or even what jurisdiction you operate in. Your Terms and Conditions is literally a placeholder. That's a huge red flag.