Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49381767

Points: 7

# Comments: 0

As we can see from the Tunic case, providing a "duress password" to cause data to be wiped on site when entered leaves you vulnerable to destruction of evidence charges, even if Tunic ultimately prevails.

What computing device vendors specialize in bulletproof, convenient wiping and restoration?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49303435

Points: 3

# Comments: 5

While I agree with Camus’s philosophical points about the absurdity of existence and the indifference of the universe, within the scope of our tiny little lives there is morality and meaning. Taking action to address the suffering caused by an epidemic is meaningful. So are the deaths of an Arab or one’s mother, and the premise that a human would be so alienated that they would feel nothing at them is unconvincing, even if the universe doesn’t care.

There was an essay in The Guardian a couple days ago on a related topic, positing that the essence of the self is the biological body including the brain, rather than the isolated mind. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/30/alive-...

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49111862

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49064392

Points: 45

# Comments: 8

99% of an individual's life experiences are lost when they pass. 99.99% of what's left moves from distinct memory to amalgamated collective experience within a generation.

Even for those of us who are blessed with loving friends and family, nearly everything will fade away. The adolescent me harbored mild delusions that history might care about my notes. The mature me is no longer burdened by those expectations, and my notes are better for only having a single audience.

The primary activity of note-taking is forming words and grappling with ideas, though — it's not like all benefits are lost when using a keyboard. To a certain extent other activities like typesetting achieve similar ends.

My brother writes novels longhand, and I've thought hard about this topic. Ultimately, certain personality quirks held me back and I never felt carefree when hand-writing notes. Version control liberated me.

Marking up books didn't come naturally to me, but I did it for a while. Paper books are just decaying bundles of plant fiber — and the ideas within them are likewise ephemeral. The illusion of permanence must be confronted and reckoned with.

But for the last 15-20 years, I have been taking notes in text files that are saved to version control, which I find suits me better.

* Notes are not space-constrained by the space of the page margins, nor by the initial form they take on the paper page.

* Notes can be revised at will without requiring complete duplication to maintain optimal appearance and organization. There is no reason to resist revising notes — the history is completely preserved in old versions, so nothing will ever be destroyed even if deleted. Even though those old versions will almost certainly never be revisited, knowing that they exist frees the mind.

* I can indulge my perfectionism and write math notes in LaTeX, music notes in Lilypond, diagrams using SVG... The act of typesetting is itself a form of active engagement the source material, although it does not have all the advantages of hand-copying and can be time-consuming.

* Digital notes take up no physical space, compatible with a minimalist lifestyle. They can expand infinitely without needing to be stored or carted around.

* Digital notes don't need to be defended against physical threats such as fire, flood, or vermin. However digital notes still require precautions to preserve them in the form of a backup regime, so this is something of a wash.

* Ultimately, I don't expect anyone but me to be interested in my notes, and I don't owe anyone my notes. When I'm gone, the notes will vanish into nothingness — and since they are not constrained by being part of a legacy for heirs to pick through, they can take whatever form suits me best during my life.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/champing%20at%20t...

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/champ

The migration of "champing at the bit" to "chomping at the bit" is inevitable.

There don't seem to be many idioms like this, where the newer version is both semantically intuitive/meaningful and accepted by authorities. The closest is probably "hone in on", but the verb form of "home" as in "homing device" is still current, unlike the verb form of "champ". Another interesting one is the migration from "just deserts", using an archaic meaning of "desert" as in something deserved, to the modern form "just desserts". However there's much greater distance between "desserts" and the archaic meaning of "deserts" than between "chomp" and "champ".

I don’t get the rest of your post either.

There is a small group for whom it is literally impossible to obtain supporting documentation — this is the group that you're focusing on, but to my mind it's not that important.

There is a much larger group for whom the difficulty of obtain supporting documentation makes them statistically less likely to obtain it — and this larger group is the one targeted by voter ID laws to suppress their votes.

Because voter suppression strategies will absolutely not be abandoned, we're on an inevitable path towards national IDs.