Hacker News: smsm42

New comment by smsm42 in "Meta removes ads for social media addiction litigation"

smsm42 — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 15:47:02 +0000

Not likely to survive 1st Amendment challenge - it is possible to compel somebody to certain speech as a result of losing a case, but doing this as a prerequisite when the case has just started is not likely to fly. Otherwise I could force Facebook (or any other platform) to publish anything just by suing them - and anybody could sue anybody else on virtually any grounds.

New comment by smsm42 in "Show HN: Brutalist Concrete Laptop Stand (2024)"

smsm42 — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 21:14:46 +0000

I hate the brutalism and would never have anything like that in my home, but I certainly admire the work. Great job. It is true art, even if not for me.

New comment by smsm42 in "Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs"

smsm42 — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:48:53 +0000

I probably would if they had something in my area of expertise and decent pay/benefits. Then again, isn't the point of this exercise to avoid doing exactly that?

New comment by smsm42 in "Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs"

smsm42 — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:47:14 +0000

In my observation, job market wasn't great even before ai. AI made it worse by clogging existing channels - already not that great - with a ton of slop.

New comment by smsm42 in "Oracle files H-1B visa petitions amid mass layoffs"

smsm42 — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:26:18 +0000

I din't know which planet you are on, but on this one replacing is enforced extremely infrequently, and anybody who had to deal with the process knows it. Your example, where they catch the whopping 12 (!) cases - out of almost 100k h1bs per year - is only a testament of how small the enforcement is.

New comment by smsm42 in "Gone (Almost) Phishin'"

smsm42 — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:16:26 +0000

It's sad how often the best way to recognize a scam is "the real company would never care that much about me or my account".

New comment by smsm42 in "Gone (Almost) Phishin'"

smsm42 — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:10:05 +0000

And yet, a multitude of banks, credit card companies, stores, etc. routinely send promotional emails where the only way to do what they want you to do is either click on the link (5 seconds) or try to log in through their home page and then find the same option among approximately 9000 menu items, banners and popups.

Are those things important? Well, never life-or-death important, for sure. Is getting 20% off your next order worth the risk of getting your account stolen? Probably not, but I suspect the majority of the population would still act as if it were.

How we caught the Axios supply chain attack

smsm42 — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:03:36 +0000

Article URL: https://www.elastic.co/security-labs/how-we-caught-the-axios-supply-chain-attack

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47621815

Points: 8

# Comments: 1

New comment by smsm42 in "Artemis II Launch Day Updates"

smsm42 — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 15:37:29 +0000

Yes, of course there are risky systems in there, and calling attention to one of them is fine. What I object to is framing it as a "safe/not safe" issue - as if without the tests the author proposed it were "not safe" and with them, by implication, it would become "safe". That's not like replacing old tires on your car with new tires - there are a lot of things that can go wrong, and many of them are "unsafe", and it's always a complex equation which can not be (at least at current level of technology) solved with doing more tests or anything else to make it "safe". The "safe" framing is the one I object to.

New comment by smsm42 in "NASA Artemis II moon mission live launch broadcast"

smsm42 — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 23:15:52 +0000

Because one day, far far in the future, the humanity would reach out to the stars, and these are the first tiny steps to enable this. There's always the question of directing the resources, and this program is not that expensive, really - around $100bn. Given that fraud at COVID time alone is estimated to have cost the Treasury twice as much, seems like a worthy investment into the future.

New comment by smsm42 in "Artemis II Launch Day Updates"

smsm42 — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 22:58:31 +0000

Of course it's not "safe"! We put a ton of explosives into a huge can, put a small can with humans on top of it, set it on fire and try to control what happens and get the humans into space, and then we try to drop the same can from the space, while it's traveling at miles per second, and land it on the ground. It's not "safe" and won't likely be "safe" in our lifetimes, there's always big risk, that's why astronauts get so much respect - they take a lot of risks. These risks become smaller with time, but still they are quite serious. And of course anything that reduces risks - while not disabling the whole program - is good, but I don't think "safe" is the word that is justified when talking about those things.

New comment by smsm42 in "Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age"

smsm42 — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 22:45:10 +0000

Having age verification in every operating system? I think it is onerous. Imagine you need to update every embedded system because your wise lawmakers made it a crime to run any code that does not include age verification API.

New comment by smsm42 in "Honda is killing its EVs"

smsm42 — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 22:42:06 +0000

> I wasn't saying that a Tesla and some economy car are identical,

You literally said:

> The only difference between a Tesla and an economy car from Stellantis is whether the software is well written or not.

You didn't say "one of many differences". You said "the only difference". Maybe you wanted to say something else, and you still can, but you can't claim it's my fault you said that.

> It should go without saying that software alone can't turn a Cherokee into a Model Y for the same reason that software alone can't turn a HomePod into an Apple Watch.

Which invalidates your statements that the cars "are software". They are more than software. They are a complex combinations of software and hardware, each of them having its part - and, obviously, if one of the parts is bad, it makes the car worse.

New comment by smsm42 in "Honda is killing its EVs"

smsm42 — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 06:58:40 +0000

Cars have software. But I don't think cars are software. Can I apply a software update to make my Honda Accord into Tesla or Dodge Ram?

> The only difference between a Tesla and an economy car from Stellantis is whether the software is well written or not.

Is that actually true? I mean, assume I have access to all software in the world and all IP lawyers got kidnapped by aliens - could I just write a software for Stellantis Economy to turn it into Tesla (or vice versa)? I don't think so.

New comment by smsm42 in "Honda is killing its EVs"

smsm42 — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 06:50:41 +0000

I'm not sure what exactly pisses me off so much in this idea - after all, I am not upset by the existence of $Brand Basic, $Brand Premium, $Brand Luxury and $Brand Now-Everybody-Knows-You-Have-Money, each of which has different features and bells and whistles. But put it in one single box and charge me monthly rent to go from Basic to Premium - and it does feel wrong. Even if TCO of Premium comes out as lower over time. I don't know why exactly it feels that way but it looks like it feels that way to a lot of people. Maybe it's daily reminder that all the luxuries are right here, right under your fingers, if only you weren't so miserably poor? Or the constant necessity of begging somebody else for permission to use your own car (yes, car loans, but they feel different)? Not sure. But it feels like it's real, even if it's only in my head.

New comment by smsm42 in "Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age"

smsm42 — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 03:31:32 +0000

Or get another source of demographic data and suppress smaller competitors who can't comply with onerous regulation.

New comment by smsm42 in "Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age"

smsm42 — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 03:06:29 +0000

Looks like it: https://tboteproject.com/

New comment by smsm42 in "Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional"

smsm42 — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 21:43:12 +0000

You can add using banks as a leverage to suppress legal but "undesirable" activities - see Operation Choke Point.

New comment by smsm42 in "Florida judge rules red light camera tickets are unconstitutional"

smsm42 — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 21:40:01 +0000

TBH, if those became legally invalid, I wouldn't lose a lot of sleep. There's a huge potential for abuse in these things, and their deterrent value is minimal. Especially in a heavily heterogenuos country like the US, where each municipality can have their own rules and their own courts. Sometimes these thing turn into literal highway robbery.

New comment by smsm42 in "Is legal the same as legitimate: AI reimplementation and the erosion of copyleft"

smsm42 — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 21:33:08 +0000

PRNG is not intended to use information sent into it in a substantive way (in other words, for PRNG does not matter if what you feed into is is Shakespeare's sonnets or white noise). Sure, if your machine is an electronic analogue of a shredder, then yes, the result is not a derivative work in any sensible meaning. But LLMs are not that kind of a machine.