Hacker News: smileybarry

New comment by smileybarry in "CrankGPT"

smileybarry — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 15:04:59 +0000

Whether it's a parody or satire or a fake product page for a DIY project, emphasizing the climate cost of AI while using AI to generate every video there kind of ruins it.

New comment by smileybarry in "CrankGPT"

smileybarry — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 15:03:51 +0000

And also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_People_(Black_Mirror)

New comment by smileybarry in "Managing the Unmanaged Switch"

smileybarry — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 22:41:51 +0000

Archive.md link: https://archive.md/BXov8

In case you were also inexplicably blocked by Cloudflare.

New comment by smileybarry in "Android now stops you sharing your location in photos"

smileybarry — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 17:22:08 +0000

Odd, it was off for me the first time I opened that website, maybe it's persisted from some other context.

New comment by smileybarry in "Android now stops you sharing your location in photos"

smileybarry — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:06:01 +0000

iOS does this by default too, but it tells you about it and gives you the option to not strip the location from EXIF: the bottom of the photo picker has the text "Location not included", and the context menu opened by the "..." button on the left has a "Location" toggle. Just tested this myself on iOS 26.4.1.

New comment by smileybarry in "Windows native app development is a mess"

smileybarry — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 14:58:52 +0000

This is why I said Electron-esque. I meant you didn't need a wrapper or renderer of some kind. You literally didn't bundle anything executable, your app was a ZIP of JS files & images that Windows spawned a host process for.

New comment by smileybarry in "Show HN: Open-Source Animal Crossing–Style UI for Claude Code Agents"

smileybarry — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 20:30:24 +0000

Yeah, I was expecting something like the Animal Crossing dialog bubble or something. At least put Tom Nook as the boss character.

New comment by smileybarry in "Windows native app development is a mess"

smileybarry — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 05:14:15 +0000

WinJS was a bit different, where your app was genuinely just a bundle of JavaScript and a UWP host process dealt with the rendering. (No Electron-esque to deliver with your app) Made for some tiny, succinct apps.

New comment by smileybarry in "Meta will shut down VR Horizon Worlds access June 15"

smileybarry — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:23:33 +0000

It's funny that Horizon Worlds will shut down before its actual launch here. Meta Quest headsets are sold here but the Horizon Worlds part of the OS was entirely blocked off. (The mobile app shows it, but I could never get the headset to navigate anywhere, just stuck in the homeworld lobby)

New comment by smileybarry in "I fixed Windows native development"

smileybarry — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 07:16:30 +0000

I would also read "Windows Native Development" as driver development or compiling directly with `nmake` (neither of which are described there).

New comment by smileybarry in "I fixed Windows native development"

smileybarry — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 07:13:11 +0000

Windows SDKs, WDKs (driver dev), Visual Studio releases, and .NET SDKs all coexist peacefully on a machine. If a project build breaks due to newer SDKs, it's because it was configured with "use newest version". (Which is usually fine but sometimes requires pinning if you're using more "niche" things like WDK)

New comment by smileybarry in "I fixed Windows native development"

smileybarry — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 07:03:15 +0000

> You don't have to install executables downloaded from an unknown GitHub account named marler8997. You can download that script and read it just like any other shell script.

You do because the downloaded ZIP contains an EXE, not a readable script, that then downloads the compiler. Even if you skip that thinking "I already have VS set up", the actual build line calls `cl` from a subdirectory.

I'm not going to reconstruct someone's build script. And that's just the basic example of a one file hello world, a real project would call `cl` several times, then `link`, etc.

Just supplying a SLN + VCXPROJ is good enough. The blog post's entire problem is also solved by the .vsconfig[1] file that outlines requirements. Or you can opt for CMake. Both of these alternatives use a build system I can trust over randomgithubproject.exe, along with a text-readable build/project file I can parse myself to verify I can trust it.

1: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/install/impor...

New comment by smileybarry in "JuiceSSH – Give me my pro features back"

smileybarry — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 23:08:50 +0000

If you haven't already, you can ask Google for a refund on that (the second, recent) in-app purchase:

https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/15574897?hl=en

The policies are "up to 48 hrs after purchase" but I'm sure "purchase does not work at all" is an exception. (It is on iOS)

New comment by smileybarry in "Microsoft gave FBI set of BitLocker encryption keys to unlock suspects' laptops"

smileybarry — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 21:29:44 +0000

It could also just pretend to encrypt your drive with a null key and not do anything, either.

You need some implicit trust in a system to use it. And at worst, you can probably reverse engineer the (unencrypted) BitLocker metadata that preboot authentication reads.

New comment by smileybarry in "Microsoft gave FBI set of BitLocker encryption keys to unlock suspects' laptops"

smileybarry — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 21:27:24 +0000

BitLocker recovery keys are essentially the key to an at-rest, local copy of the real key. (I.e., they need access to the encrypted drive to get the real encryption key)

When you use a recovery key at preboot, it decrypts that on-disk backup copy of the encryption key with your numerical recovery key, and uses the decrypted form as the actual disk encryption key. Thus, you can delete & regenerate a recovery key, or even create several different recovery keys.

New comment by smileybarry in "Microsoft gave FBI set of BitLocker encryption keys to unlock suspects' laptops"

smileybarry — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 21:24:34 +0000

No, you can just revoke and regenerate the recovery key with `manage-bde`.

New comment by smileybarry in "Microsoft gave FBI set of BitLocker encryption keys to unlock suspects' laptops"

smileybarry — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 21:19:25 +0000

Not anymore, modern hardware running Windows 11 Home now also has FDE, technically running on BitLocker, just that it's called "Device Encryption" and doesn't have the same options:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/device-encryptio...

> For reference, I did accidentally login into my Microsoft account once on my local account (registered in the online accounts panel)

Those don't usually count as the "primary" MS account and don't convert a local account. For example, you can have a multiple of those, and generally they're useful to save repeated signins or installing stuff from the Microsoft Store that require a personal account.

New comment by smileybarry in "Microsoft gave FBI set of BitLocker encryption keys to unlock suspects' laptops"

smileybarry — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 21:16:14 +0000

> so they can never target just one individual

You assume the binary can't just have a machine check in itself that activates only on the target's computer.

New comment by smileybarry in "Microsoft gave FBI set of BitLocker encryption keys to unlock suspects' laptops"

smileybarry — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 21:13:54 +0000

That's for Entra/AD, aka a workplace domain. Personal accounts are completely separate from this. (Microsoft don't have a AD relationship with your account; if anything, personal MS accounts reside in their own empty Entra forest)

New comment by smileybarry in "Microsoft gave FBI set of BitLocker encryption keys to unlock suspects' laptops"

smileybarry — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 21:11:26 +0000

That's actually a misunderstanding that blew up to an outright lie:

The Start Menu is fully native. The "Recommended" section (and only it) is powered by a React Native backend, but the frame & controls are native XAML. (I.e. there's a JS runtime but no renderer)