Hacker News: mmagin

New comment by mmagin in "The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation"

mmagin — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 20:35:31 +0000

To be fair, they're operating in a situation (budget vs. volume of material to collect and share with the world) where it's necessary to minimize the human overhead of this mechanism AND to attempt to reduce their legal exposure -- sure they can get legal help from some of the very best, but mostly out of people's goodwill, they don't have the budget to be defending themselves constantly.

(Disclaimer: former IA employee, but I do not in any way speak for IA.)

New comment by mmagin in "The Brave Browser Will Pay You to Surf the Web"

mmagin — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 03:41:51 +0000

I'm still waiting for Brendan Eich to apologize for donating $1k to the campaign to to pass Prop 8 which held up same sex marriage in California for five years.

New comment by mmagin in "Facebook moderators in America"

mmagin — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 22:15:48 +0000

Then there would be the risk that the rest of fb's employees might be exposed to the reality of this.

New comment by mmagin in "Why Captchas have gotten so difficult"

mmagin — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 00:00:29 +0000

What's actually wrong with reCAPTCHA is that google has convinced so many sites all over the web to require it to use them, and all that free labor is going to just improve Google's machine learning programs.

New comment by mmagin in "Converting Wi-Fi signals to electricity with new 2-D materials"

mmagin — Thu, 31 Jan 2019 21:13:43 +0000

There's a remarkable array of ways you can get a crude semiconductor junction. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusty_bolt_effect

New comment by mmagin in "What Is Glitter?"

mmagin — Sun, 23 Dec 2018 06:12:18 +0000

Not the same thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalate#Identification_in_pl...

New comment by mmagin in "Yes, You Should Walk Your Cat"

mmagin — Fri, 07 Dec 2018 21:33:49 +0000

I also recommend cable ties (the long ones that won't be accidentally swallowed).

New comment by mmagin in "Build a do-it-yourself home air purifier for about $25"

mmagin — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 23:58:39 +0000

Having both, I'd say that the indoor sensor is not worth it. It doesn't have both sensors so it isn't equipped to test them against each other. I do like the outdoor sensor though.

New comment by mmagin in "The Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids Is Not What Was Expected"

mmagin — Fri, 26 Oct 2018 18:42:05 +0000

I think the real way to see this is as "who is being taught how to think and who is being taught how to do mindless busywork in minimum-wage jobs?"

New comment by mmagin in "iPhones are hard to use"

mmagin — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 22:46:41 +0000

No, it is not like touch-typing. That is a skill that won't be obsoleted when a vendor decides to change the user interface on a whim with the next OS release.

New comment by mmagin in "Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?"

mmagin — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 19:38:11 +0000

Learn how to understand who the "customer" of your software is and how to deliver what they need. Learn what you're inherently good at and not so good at (and develop strategies to work around your weak points.) Learn that code reviews are discussion of how you did something, not an attack on your ego. (or at least they shouldn't be.) Find mentors you can trust.

New comment by mmagin in "Voice Phishing Scams Are Getting More Clever"

mmagin — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 22:07:09 +0000

It seems that what changed is that sometime in recent years it became much easier for shady gateway providers to remain in business. In earlier times, it would appear that originators of fraudlent caller ID data where shut down rapidly.

New comment by mmagin in "The iPhone SE was the best phone Apple ever made, and now it’s dead"

mmagin — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 23:10:50 +0000

How has apple managed to make iOS as bad as Windows 95?

New comment by mmagin in "Intel Responds to Complaints About Microcode Benchmarking Ban"

mmagin — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 19:25:33 +0000

I was casually wondering the other day if Intel had hired some Oracle lawyers recently :)

New comment by mmagin in "Memristor – The fictional circuit element"

mmagin — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 19:06:34 +0000

Such things were possible with core memory, bubble memory, and FRAM. None are really fast enough by today's standards, though you can get some microcontrollers and battery-backed SRAM replacements made with FRAM.

New comment by mmagin in "Amazon's electricity rate discounts have pushed up utility costs"

mmagin — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 18:02:41 +0000

Kind of like what they've done to shipping costs!

New comment by mmagin in "Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous"

mmagin — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 20:05:24 +0000

Ironic that Tyler Cowan's book The Great Stagnation was the first book I read on Kindle.

New comment by mmagin in "A timesyncd failure and systemd's lack of debugability"

mmagin — Thu, 09 Aug 2018 03:56:17 +0000

as a start, try "man -k systemd"

New comment by mmagin in "Ask HN: Best way to block the sound of human voices in an open office?"

mmagin — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 21:37:19 +0000

On the other hand, I find white noise exhausting. Not sure if this is a neurological difference between people.

New comment by mmagin in "No Shirt, No Swipe, No Service"

mmagin — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 19:47:51 +0000

I'm not sure if I'm more worried about the privacy implications, or that of a future where a Visa/MC duopoly collects a tax on all retail.