<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: niam</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=niam</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2026 10:07:36 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=niam" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "Ask HN: Is there some sort of stigma around Qubes OS on HN?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Coincidentally I started toying around with it this week. It's pretty cool. I've known about it at least since Snowden namedropped it, but the main reasons I hadn't tried it before:<p>- I already isolate workloads between VMs or containers<p>- Wayland support isn't really there yet without breaking the interop that Qubes provides<p>- Personal Qubes use cases (e.g banking) overlap with GrapheneOS profiles for me, which I already use. Though Graphene profiles are less ergonomic in that they don't support templating yet.<p>But I've thrown it on my carry-around Thinkpad to give it a shot and I like it so far.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 09 Apr 2026 12:22:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47702754</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47702754</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47702754</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "Proton meet isn't what they told you it was"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>When have Proton turned their data over to law enforcement without a Swiss court order?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 10:09:57 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47624921</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47624921</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47624921</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "How the AI Bubble Bursts"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I considered that but I don't see it being very impactful. It presumes a user who cares enough about "their" ChatGPT that they can't move from a particular model provider, but simultaneously does not care enough that model providers themselves have a financial motivation to shoo users onto their newer and more efficient models.<p>The transition from GPT4 to GPT5 was not well recieved among this crowd -- nevermind that I think this crowd is pretty small (comparatively) to begin with. I just don't imagine you can build a business on that sliver of a sliver, much less one that justifies OpenAI's spending.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 21:31:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47579967</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47579967</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47579967</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It's my understanding that they predate llms, and internet snivel.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 19:46:06 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47578836</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47578836</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47578836</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "How the AI Bubble Bursts"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't discount this as a possibility but my impression is that the OpenAI brand isn't very sticky.<p>Internet Explorer being pre-installed on Windows devices didn't prevent it from being demolished by newcomer Chrome throughout the 2010s. Now we're looking at a product that's even less integrated, and whose value is exposed through universal interfaces (human language, images, etc.).<p>If OpenAI succeeds, I imagine that remarkably little of it will have come from the brand. But subtracting the first-mover brand advantage: they can either compete on the frontier, which seems difficult and bears potentially diminishing returns (particularly wrt to distillation); or compete as a commodity, which I imagine cannot justify their valuation/spend.<p>It seems very uphill of a battle.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 19:26:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47578609</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47578609</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47578609</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The article you're responding to is making specific operational claims about Claude's (basically non-) relevance. I'd be interested to hear if you're directionally correct, but forgive me if I need more details than "but it integrates Claude".</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 17:39:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47545813</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47545813</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47545813</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "Thoughts on slowing the fuck down"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If we're on the subject of tropes: <a href="https://theonion.com/report-stating-current-year-still-leading-argument-for-1819576151/" rel="nofollow">https://theonion.com/report-stating-current-year-still-leadi...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 17:25:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47520441</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47520441</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47520441</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "Open source isn't a tip jar – it's time to charge for access"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> There's so much unexplored space in licenses [...]<p>Am I wrong that this is orthogonal to "pick a side"? It sounds like you're suggesting that the sides themselves are inappropriately drawn.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 14:42:00 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47517967</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47517967</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47517967</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "Kagi is contemplating the removal of the assistant from its professional tier"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I didn't consider that bundling Search & Assistant maybe puts them in a tricky spot among some users who revile LLM features, and others who will utilize them to the cap. To the degree that the former is subsidizing the latter, or costing them customers (probably not a ton): I can see why separating the two offerings makes sense.<p>Though I'm sympathetic to the users for whom this would basically be a strict downgrade in featureset.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 18 Mar 2026 12:03:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47424635</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47424635</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47424635</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Wow small world. Hello from a fellow L1 (2012-2016). I didn't realize Ronimo had gone bankrupt, so I suppose I should be glad I have a chance to boot it up again.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 14 Mar 2026 23:54:40 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47382649</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47382649</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47382649</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The title writer might be doing the project a disservice by using the term "formal" to describe it, given that the project talks a lot about "specs". I mistook it to imply something about formal specification.<p>My quick understanding is that isn't really trying to utilize any formal specification but is instead trying to more-clearly map the relationship between, say, an individual human-language requirement you have of your application, and the code which implements that requirement.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 12 Mar 2026 18:47:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47355357</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47355357</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47355357</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "Entities enabling scientific fraud at scale (2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The Library of Babel comparison is too fatalistic imo, even granting that it's maybe just an extreme example. The real world doesn't quite resemble a closed system with no metadata. We can still establish chains of trust.<p>Whether or not people will build resilient chains is another story, contingent on whether the strength of that chain actually matters to people. It probably doesn't for a lot of people. Boo. But inasmuch as <i>I</i> care, I feel I ought to be free to try and derive a strong signal through the noise.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 11 Mar 2026 15:06:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47336594</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47336594</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47336594</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "Pentagon formally labels Anthropic supply-chain risk"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I was sympathetic to this line of reasoning but I feel it's repeatedly shown to be self-defeating.<p>What chance have the proverbial good-guys got if, <i>even after _proving_ some modicum of good will</i>, people will nonetheless condescend any attempt to influence bad/wildcard actors? It feels great to tell someone they 'should've known better' but I'm convinced that that's basically void of cautionary utility.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2026 16:12:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47276835</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47276835</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47276835</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' Protester"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This seems misleading inasmuch as your correspondents aren't all on the same mail servers.<p>Yes, correspondence between you and Build-A-Bear, and between you and your local terrorist cell, are unencrypted individually. But Build-A-Bear presumably doesn't know about your correspondence with the cell, and the latter presumably has some interest in not sharing organizational data access with the former.<p>I suppose you do have to trust that Proton isn't served a directive to snoop on your correspondence in transit with other providers. But that's still a much better position than leaving all of your historical data unencrypted at rest.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2026 02:40:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47270157</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47270157</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47270157</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "Motorola GrapheneOS devices will be bootloader unlockable/relockable"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That relates more to the public rhetoric surrounding Graphene than with how the OS itself operates imo. It's pretty practical and enables (or allows you to enable) everything that a typical Android does, except where Google Play Integrity checks fail, which is not in Graphene's control (e.g Google Wallet payments).<p>People bill it as making a ton of usability compromises in the name of security, but that doesn't match my experience. The only redeeming observation is that your phone _does_ lean towards secure-er and ungoogled defaults, which _does_ break functionality that a lot of people expect to "just work" OOTB. But it's trivial to restore it, and the upfront effort getting things to work is amortized over the lifetime of the device. It's maybe an hour's worth of work.<p>The counterfactual world where users need to forumcrawl how to get to secure/private defaults seems worse to me. By contrast, it's pretty easy to recognize when an app isn't working.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 13:04:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47246855</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47246855</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47246855</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "I'm losing the SEO battle for my own open source project"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If it saves anyone else the effort: I went to doublecheck the claim that those articles cited the wrong page, and it seems you're correct on The Register, but archive.org's earliest copies of the other two articles don't seem to reference the impostor site. They refer instead to the GitHub.<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20260301133636/https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/01/nanoclaw_container_openclaw/" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20260301133636/https://www.there...</a> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20260211162657/https://venturebeat.com/orchestration/nanoclaw-solves-one-of-openclaws-biggest-security-issues-and-its-already" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20260211162657/https://venturebe...</a> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20260220201539/https://thenewstack.io/nanoclaw-minimalist-ai-agents/" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20260220201539/https://thenewsta...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 03 Mar 2026 14:12:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47232613</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47232613</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47232613</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "U.S. science agency moves to restrict foreign scientists from its labs"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>So as to not mislead anyone who didn't read the article, the section following your quoted text is:<p>> Researchers from lower risk countries have been told they could lose access beginning in either September or December if at that point they have been at the lab more than 2 years or, under a waiver, 3 years.<p>In other words: they're also looking to bar foreign nationals outside of that quoted list, which to my mind is less understandable.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2026 16:28:55 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47220164</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47220164</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47220164</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "How will OpenAI compete?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>When unstructured human language is the bulk of your interface, it takes effort to contrive any vendor lock-in that doesn't approach zero.<p>The same doesn't go for traditional, structured software ecosystems, which can afford to coast for a lot longer.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2026 15:22:35 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47167293</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47167293</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47167293</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "What podcasts are you listening to?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Complex Systems by Patrick McKenzie (patio11). Casual interview format with guests from myriad industries, who try to distill human/technical bits of respective systems. Often it's about tech/finance/govt, or relates to them.<p>I found it independently of his other work (e.g Bits About Money, or VaccinateCA), which is fitting. The amount of stuff I've read from that guy (including on hn) but did not attribute to a single person seems anomalously high for me. <a href="https://www.kalzumeus.com/greatest-hits/" rel="nofollow">https://www.kalzumeus.com/greatest-hits/</a><p>That, and "The Optimal Amount of Fraud is Non-Zero", which is an idiom I paraphrase frequently by this point.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2026 14:07:23 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47166286</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47166286</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47166286</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by niam in "Denver dumps Flock, awards contract to Axon"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The discussion is probably better started from the question of "why should that data be centralized?" and "why should the government be able to purchase this data, and why are those reasons more compelling than the downsides?".<p>I have to guess that the folks clamoring to put computer vision "back in the bag" are somewhere on the margins, and resemble straw more than steel.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Feb 2026 03:33:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47146965</link><dc:creator>niam</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47146965</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47146965</guid></item></channel></rss>