Hacker News: snazz

New comment by snazz in "Fingerprints are the new cookies"

snazz — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 03:31:55 +0000

Wow, that is a seriously impressive demo. I wonder how it’s able to distinguish people using identical hardware and software versions (e.g., iPhones on the same iOS version). It was able to correlate my sessions across multiple independent ISPs, with a VPN, and with Apple’s extra tracking resistance in private mode.

New comment by snazz in "The RAM shortage is bringing back DDR4"

snazz — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 15:17:16 +0000

There is a state utility regulator that is supposed to ensure this stuff is fair, and it is disclosed ahead of time. Regardless, for small energy users like me, the fixed costs and extra fees are a huge percentage of the total. Thankfully the total electricity bill is not terribly consequential for my household budget.

New comment by snazz in "The RAM shortage is bringing back DDR4"

snazz — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 13:58:31 +0000

That is expensive. If it makes you feel better, U.S. utilities' published kWh rates don't include a whole bunch of other things that make bills much higher than you'd imagine. For example, I used 280 kWh last month for my apartment, at a nominal rate of either 11 or 13 c/kWh (the rate changed from 13 to 11 partway through the month as it got cooler).

But after all the "sales true ups" and "affordability charges" and "resource adjustments" and "fuel cost charges" and "interim rate adjustments", not to mention the city fees and sales tax, the final bill divided by my usage gave me an effective rate of 23 c/kWh.

New comment by snazz in "California closed the Montana license plate loophole"

snazz — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 13:27:05 +0000

If I had to guess, this is not the default because most cars actually get driven.

New comment by snazz in "Ask HN: Do you still own a printer?"

snazz — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 01:44:15 +0000

No, I just use the one at work when needed. I encouraged my parents to get the absolute cheapest Brother laser printer, which has worked great for a lot of years at a very reasonable cost (both for the printer and per page).

New comment by snazz in "Accept 'bad things' in return for benefits of AI, says Sam Altman"

snazz — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 13:24:11 +0000

> “There’s about a 50% chance we all die because of the development of smarter-than-human AI systems,” he said, adding that actions taken over the next two to 10 years would be decisive.

What’s the mechanism by which this happens? I feel like people making these predictions live on a different planet.

New comment by snazz in "Apple and a hacker's future"

snazz — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 12:40:58 +0000

I hope what they offer is the ability to set more granular rules, like allowing my Borg backup script to access the whole disk, but not any random Git precommit hook (for example). Given that practically all of the existing restrictive security features on macOS (for example, SIP) can be disabled, I feel confident that Apple will make hobbyist and professional use cases still possible, just requiring some extra scary messages. I’m ok with that trade off.

New comment by snazz in "Classified estimates show the NSA is paying billions to test AI models"

snazz — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 21:23:22 +0000

I see. I misunderstood your comment.

New comment by snazz in "Factorio that you can touch"

snazz — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 19:33:38 +0000

You can play Factorio on laptops and other devices that don’t have dedicated GPUs. A mid-grade computer from 2013 would be a $599 laptop with a Core i3 integrated GPU that shared the 4 GB of system RAM.

New comment by snazz in "Classified estimates show the NSA is paying billions to test AI models"

snazz — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 19:24:11 +0000

Telecom stuff and industrial automation are both cybersecurity Swiss cheese for the most part, so it doesn’t require a particularly fancy LLM to do some damage to either of those.

New comment by snazz in "The Mafia may be keeping fentanyl out of Italy"

snazz — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 14:53:13 +0000

The services ads at the top of the Settings app (when you get a new iPhone or add another device to your account) have been there for years and long predate Ternus.

New comment by snazz in "Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence features on Mac"

snazz — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 12:34:25 +0000

I’m not sure. If given the choice in isolation, perhaps most people would be happy to sign up for the new Siri. When it’s a trade-off that requires 25 GB of storage for Apple Intelligence and sticks various unhelpful buttons on the keyboard, maybe fewer people want it.

And there is certainly also a contingent of young people (especially) who dislike generative AI on ideological/moral/environmental grounds. That group may be overrepresented online, but it does exist.

New comment by snazz in "Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence features on Mac"

snazz — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 01:13:36 +0000

My work Mac is not signed into iCloud and the writing tools popup appeared when selecting text on it after updating to macOS 27. I disabled that in the Screen Time settings.

New comment by snazz in "Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence features on Mac"

snazz — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 21:30:56 +0000

Seems like they think turning it off is only for kids’ devices. Perhaps they are missing the fact that many adults don’t want it either.

New comment by snazz in "Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence features on Mac"

snazz — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 21:14:59 +0000

What have you found to be effective for you? I recently heard of this (basically Brick but open source and with any NFC tag or barcode), but I haven’t gotten a chance to test it out yet: https://www.foqos.app/

New comment by snazz in "Minimal Phone 2"

snazz — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 03:24:28 +0000

It would probably work on T-Mobile and maybe on Verizon, but it’s missing b14, b30, and b29 which are definitely required for AT&T (not to mention AT&T’s whitelist). Also weird that it doesn’t have any 5G FDD bands other than n71.

Edit: Verizon would also benefit from b48, although that may be optional.

New comment by snazz in "GrapheneOS Overhauled Default Apps and Secure Clipboard"

snazz — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 02:06:33 +0000

It's a totally parallel IP stack that's handled differently on the device and the base station hardware. Being on a call will affect what frequency bands your phone uses, handoff behavior, carrier aggregation, and other things that over the top calls like WhatsApp audio wouldn't.

New comment by snazz in "iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27"

snazz — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 02:00:21 +0000

The majority of the people in your address book probably store their contacts in iCloud but do not have Advanced Data Protection enabled, so their entire address books are held by Apple unencrypted. I wouldn't be surprised if most of my friends allow social media apps to read all their contacts, also.

New comment by snazz in "iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27"

snazz — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 01:53:33 +0000

I got the same feeling from the scene about the new Apple Watch features in the media event on Wednesday. Having a device listen to your conversations for you, so that you can avoid the hassle of having to ask someone to repeat themselves when you zone out, seems a little depressing to me. It makes Apple seem a little out of touch as well. (Are AI note taking "pins" and hardware devices really something people want? Why emulate them?)

New comment by snazz in "iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27"

snazz — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 01:46:49 +0000

In my experience in a Subaru, a Toyota, and a Volvo, it seems to be connected to the car's light sensor (so it triggers at the same time as the automatic headlights). A third-party head unit I've tried was just always light.