Hacker News: maratc

New comment by maratc in "Hackers had a live feed of every ID verification company scanned for over a year"

maratc — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 18:47:51 +0000

None of that applies to my (non-biometric) passport, and we were talking about banks that don't have the passport-reading equipment to begin with.

New comment by maratc in "Netherlands pulls gold out of the US"

maratc — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 13:03:08 +0000

This move looks like a nothingburger to me but everyone's invited to treat this as a Rorschach test and see whatever they want to see.

New comment by maratc in "Hackers had a live feed of every ID verification company scanned for over a year"

maratc — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 13:53:51 +0000

Already today nobody can open a bank account in my name with just a picture of my passport, as the original would be required. My passport doesn't have any of the "eID/CAs/ZKP/PKI", so the question of "what exactly the addition of it solves" remains open.

My national ID card supposedly has some of it, the 17-year olds who want to pass as 18-year olds usually show a doctored gif file of their ID card, with a year of birth one or two years before the actual one; this works in ~98% of the cases.

New comment by maratc in "Hackers had a live feed of every ID verification company scanned for over a year"

maratc — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 13:44:50 +0000

Reminds me of

   If you think cryptography can solve your problem, you don’t understand your problem and you don’t understand cryptography.

(Bruce Schneier dug into origins of this here: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/laurie-anders...)

New comment by maratc in "Hackers had a live feed of every ID verification company scanned for over a year"

maratc — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 13:02:34 +0000

I've experienced this "solved problem" when visiting Germany during COVID. On every entrance to a mall there was somebody with a scanner device, and they only let you in if the scanner showed a green mark. I've been fully vaccinated (not EU) but my code didn't show a green mark on their scanner and I was promptly denied entry. The solution was to show them my German friend's code on my phone, this registered just fine, so I could enter anywhere.

So the whole "eID/CAs/ZKP/PKI" mumbo jumbo can be easily fooled by a gif file.

New comment by maratc in "Japan halves speed limit to 30km/h on all narrow city streets"

maratc — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 11:53:02 +0000

You are likely referring to prefabricated rubber speed bumps, outlawed because the material becomes very slippery when wet, endangering motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles.

Asphalt and concrete street bumps seem to be legal in 30 km/h zones.

Here's an offer from Citroen which is free and "open to all 34000 French mayors via an online form": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-AI70ImUgE

New comment by maratc in "Japan halves speed limit to 30km/h on all narrow city streets"

maratc — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 11:16:30 +0000

I pass three speed bumps on my street every day. I'm driving at low speed, and the bumps are designed so to not create discomfort at these speeds. I don't even brake before them. They only create discomfort to people who drive way above the limit, which is the whole purpose, and the bumps are very effective at that.

New comment by maratc in "Japan halves speed limit to 30km/h on all narrow city streets"

maratc — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 10:54:27 +0000

Street bumps are much more efficient in lowering speed than either "automated controls" or "manual controls". You (plus neighbours, probably) could petition your council to put one (or several) on your street.

New comment by maratc in "Longest Straight Line Paths on Water or Land on the Earth (2018)"

maratc — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 12:11:15 +0000

Indeed, this route would be about 13,250 km, or about 2,000 km longer than the one TLA suggests.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=10%B0+24%27+41.4%22+N,+14%B0+31...

Or, using nearby airports: https://www.greatcirclemap.com/?routes=gucy-vmmc

New comment by maratc in "Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down"

maratc — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 18:09:42 +0000

My actual argument is that the theory that he's a puppet being pulled is not a serious one. Much like a chocolate for hunger, it's just an intellectually lazy explanation for people who look for intellectually lazy explanations.

New comment by maratc in "Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down"

maratc — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 13:09:27 +0000

I'm confused. Is he a Putin's puppet or Netanyahu's? He can't be both: these two don't align.

New comment by maratc in "Casio F-B100W-1A"

maratc — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 13:07:09 +0000

For those out of range of DCF77 and others, there are apps that simulate it on the phone, or this: https://timestation.pages.dev

New comment by maratc in "Casio F-B100W-1A"

maratc — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 12:59:52 +0000

±10 seconds per year would be quite an expensive quartz movement. To be that reliable anywhere it should be thermocompensated, too. This is the range of Grand Seiko 9F, Citizen Chronomaster, or Bulova Precisionist.

New comment by maratc in "Casio F-B100W-1A"

maratc — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 17:48:23 +0000

You might wanna take a look at Casio AE-1500WH.

New comment by maratc in "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"

maratc — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 18:54:41 +0000

Yet half of the recommendations here are self-hosted this and self-hosted that.

New comment by maratc in "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"

maratc — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 15:06:04 +0000

I feel like something is missing from your list of "classic CI vendors" but can't exactly jput my jfinger on jit.

New comment by maratc in "Antiqua–Fraktur dispute"

maratc — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 10:21:30 +0000

On screens every US government agency already uses sans-serif, as required by "Americans with Disabilities" act[0]. This is not in any way affected by neither previous change from TNR to Calibri, nor by this change from Calibri back to TNR.

[0] https://digital.gov/resources/an-introduction-to-typography

New comment by maratc in "Antiqua–Fraktur dispute"

maratc — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 21:40:07 +0000

https://ec.europa.eu/component-library/eu/guidelines/typogra...

New comment by maratc in "Antiqua–Fraktur dispute"

maratc — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 18:23:24 +0000

But would associate with "pragmatic" and "efficient"?

New comment by maratc in "Antiqua–Fraktur dispute"

maratc — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 16:43:59 +0000

The reason almost all books and newspapers use serif typefaces is exactly that: serifs help with readability. It could be argued that serifs help our eye by making each letter more unique, or it can be argued that our eyes have been trained since childhood to read serifs -- by almost all books and newspapers we've consumed. Whatever the cause and the consequence is, serif fonts have advantage on the readability front when we talk about printed communication.