Hacker News: smileybarry

New comment by smileybarry in "Message your other Claude Code sessions"

smileybarry — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 18:52:38 +0000

Remote Control requires (relatively) manual pairing per session and setting the controlling session as trusted, even if the controlling session is a web browser. You can enable a more well-encompassing remote control "server" mode, but it requires extra configuration that isn't (at least clearly) visible in the app itself.

New comment by smileybarry in "Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM"

smileybarry — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 07:02:31 +0000

> That doesn't take away at all from the complete absurdity of this level of bloat.

When the article compares that figure directly to macOS Weather.app's 250MB usage, yes it does. It brings the sensationalist comparison down from "5x" to 2x. Then you can question why both platforms take 250-450MB of RAM for a weather app, instead of just repeating the "windows so bloated" circle again and again.

New comment by smileybarry in "Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM"

smileybarry — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 23:19:17 +0000

I don't want to "akshually" this, but on a stock[1] up-to-date Windows 11 x64 25H2 (aka: my desktop) Weather takes up around ~670MB of RAM at launch, not 1GB. While writing this comment it dropped to 450MB. All in all much lower than 1GB.

1: i.e.: not "debloated" or running a bunch of random customizer scripts.

New comment by smileybarry in "Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM"

smileybarry — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 23:13:42 +0000

WebView2 has some memory optimizations across several WebView2 instances, so it should save memory once you have multiple WebView2 apps running.

New comment by smileybarry in "Microsoft Confirms Windows GDID Device Identifier That Cannot Be Disabled"

smileybarry — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 19:12:23 +0000

I think it defaults to showing the account in Edge but enabling sync still requires a button click. I'll see if I can verify this with a spare PC somewhere.

New comment by smileybarry in "Microsoft Confirms Windows GDID Device Identifier That Cannot Be Disabled"

smileybarry — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 17:45:11 +0000

> so they'll then get sent to Microsoft and associated with your Microsoft account.

The import is entirely local, the "sent to Microsoft" bit is if you have Edge sync enabled. This is identical to Chrome importing your Firefox data and then syncing it back to Google. Except the Edge import was, by reports at the time, accidentally auto-enabled. But you'd still have to sign into Edge and enable sync.

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.