Hacker News: magic_smoke_ee

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "Little Snitch feature nobody knows about"

magic_smoke_ee — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 21:47:40 +0000

Then you don't have control or visibility over Apple or third-party apps sending analytics likely without your approval.

LuLu has a fatal flaw: it drops or closes TCP connections randomly resulting in dropped SSH sessions. No amount of TCP keepalives on the client- or server-side will resolve this. This makes it a non-starter for anyone doing anything real.

Also good:

- BlockBlock - disk access application "firewalling" on top of macOS'es privacy & security settings is very good

- RansomWhere? - ransomware process mass file change interception

- ReiKey - input interception monitor

- ProcessMonitor, DNSMonitor, FileMonitor, TaskExplorer, KextViewer, NetIQuette, Dylib Hijack Scanner, KnockKnock

- Oversight - webcam and audio hijack monitor (although I use ancient EOL Growl + Hardware Growl just to catch hardware events too)

- No longer useful or usable: Do Not Disturb, LuLu

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "Meta's Threads to Show Ads in US, Japan"

magic_smoke_ee — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 21:45:17 +0000

Google Plus: Meta Edition

FEMA May Be Eliminated

magic_smoke_ee — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 21:44:33 +0000

Article URL: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-trump-says-hes-considering-getting-rid-of-fema-during-briefing-in-north-carolina

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42817212

Points: 30

# Comments: 45

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "New Tesla Model Y"

magic_smoke_ee — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 08:09:03 +0000

Small business owners on Etsy give me hope for humanity through:

- Funding civilians in war-torn areas like legit Kyiv Ukrainian addresses

- 3D-printed vintage car parts

- Handmade confrontational ceramics spicing up mundane objects like coffee mugs

- Ultra-niche items corporate retailers refuse to carry due to the ruthless tyranny of SKU profit maximization

- And, of course, anti-establishment bumper stickers suitable for the petite et moyenne bourgeoisie

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "New Tesla Model Y"

magic_smoke_ee — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 07:52:47 +0000

Yes, and never forget Tesla refuses to sell repair parts when people have cash in hand, partially arbitrarily and otherwise deliberately. Also, their CEO performs Sieg Heil, and don't let anyone tell you it's a "Roman salute" because this is merely a cinema factoid. This is likely unavoidable when such a weirdo is placed on a pedestal like Henry Ford or William Randolph Hearst.

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "PennyFarming - Tractor motorcycle penny-farthing [video]"

magic_smoke_ee — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 02:00:51 +0000

Field (no pun intended) testing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzxcB_-C-E4

PennyFarming - Tractor motorcycle penny-farthing [video]

magic_smoke_ee — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 01:57:34 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYy6CRAfzvc

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42809872

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "Siri Is Super Dumb and Getting Dumber"

magic_smoke_ee — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 01:54:00 +0000

Siri, the app Apple acquired from a promising Palo Alto startup once upon a time, for close-ended, fixed phrase commands hasn't changed that much for accomplishing Apple-specific tasks. However, yes, going out to the interwebs or answering open-ended questions is more problematic now than it used to be.

Amazon's Echo has also enshitified such that many skills don't work and command phrases that used to work no longer give the same results. I used to be able to ask Echo "What's the IMDB rating for [movie name]?" but it invariably gives an unrelated or a wrong answer or does a HAL-9000.

It seems like an obvious category killer app to have an AI personal assistant able to perform free-form queries and operate on allowed services with a degree of trust and care so that it can't email everyone you've ever known a photo without a high level of interactive confirmation.

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "Device uses wind to create ammonia out of air"

magic_smoke_ee — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 05:46:48 +0000

1/3 the energy density of diesel and way more dangerous to lives and property.

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "NY Assembly Bill: Criminal background checks for (nearly all) 3D printers"

magic_smoke_ee — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 05:41:34 +0000

Even if this were a serious bill rather than ostensible fodder, the possibility of Fahrenheit 451 turning from an indexed satire into a documentary as it was ground into swarf and burned is doing anything but decreasing.

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "NY Assembly Bill: Criminal background checks for (nearly all) 3D printers"

magic_smoke_ee — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 05:25:49 +0000

Sorry, but you got lawyer nerd-sniped.

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "NY Assembly Bill: Criminal background checks for (nearly all) 3D printers"

magic_smoke_ee — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 05:23:26 +0000

https://youtu.be/d9JJrjvWvT0

An iffy 3d-printed gun using crappy materials can technically work for a few hundred rounds doesn't mean much in a country full of lots of legal guns of all sorts. And while I don't want TdA mass-producing RPGs, but that's not a problem solvable by regulating milling machines.

The problem is some people want total, invasive, inconsistent control over what other people can do, make, and be for ideological reasons rather than rational ones.

A/UX – Mac classic and Unix on 68k

magic_smoke_ee — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 04:23:42 +0000

Article URL: https://www.aux-penelope.com/hardware.htm

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42734059

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "College student sues after being expelled, accused of using ChatGPT on exam [video]"

magic_smoke_ee — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 15:24:00 +0000

I'm glad the reporters did the due-diligence to uncover that they had a prior beef with him. My reading is it appears "evidence" was made-up to get him kicked out a second time. Now the matter is in state court, so it seems like he has a strong case to prove to a disinterested judge or a jury with a functional brain that ChatGPT doesn't leave any form of signature and there's no deterministic method to distinguish human-generated text from that created by an LLM.

College student sues after being expelled, accused of using ChatGPT on exam [video]

magic_smoke_ee — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 15:19:49 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPqdNdaOA7Y

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42698260

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "If we had the best product engineering organization, what would it look like?"

magic_smoke_ee — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 09:44:11 +0000

First, it would be worker-owned co-op with very little turnover and intense competition for the few roles that get filled.

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "Scanning ultrasound removes amyloid-β, restores memory in Alzheimer mouse model (2015)"

magic_smoke_ee — Sun, 12 Jan 2025 18:29:35 +0000

34.88 and 42.55 THz (Mid-wavelength IR)

Potential terahertz therapeutic strategy for the prevention or mitigation of Alzheimer’s disease pathology

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-023-01289-x

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "Scanning ultrasound removes amyloid-β, restores memory in Alzheimer mouse model (2015)"

magic_smoke_ee — Sun, 12 Jan 2025 18:26:32 +0000

There's the possibility of damaging side-effects in humans using energy levels high enough to replicate the mouse model.

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "China Suddenly Building Fleet of Special Barges Suitable for Taiwan Landings"

magic_smoke_ee — Sun, 12 Jan 2025 15:56:19 +0000

You're absolutely mistaken. These are obviously designed exclusively to bypass Taiwanese coastal defenses to move masses of extremely heavy vehicles rapidly a great distance over the coastal barriers. Ordinary transport ships that would move large quantities of heavy vehicles would be designed in a different manner that would load and unload slower, and wouldn't need absurdly-long, self-contained ramps.

Taiwan must immediately build littoral landing craft denial barriers in the regions just outside of the surf zone. They have a little time to mobilize and make these landing craft obsolete. Japan must also continue to prepare and coordinate joint exercises as they've been doing.

New comment by magic_smoke_ee in "Rewilding the Self"

magic_smoke_ee — Sun, 12 Jan 2025 15:28:59 +0000

There's a word for it: anthropocentrism. Also a common fallacy/myth: the noble savage.