Hacker News: t0suj4

New comment by t0suj4 in "Parsing an Undocumented File Format"

t0suj4 — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 20:07:49 +0000

The best binary parser I had was in the Practical Common Lisp book in the MP3 chapter. I was able to use it to reverse engineer several custom formats used to stitch files including FoxPro db format I had no idea existed.

New comment by t0suj4 in "Ozone hole goes large again"

t0suj4 — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 09:15:05 +0000

It depends on how the lawmakers see it and how far the enforcers are willing to go.

Not everyone is willing to shoot lead into a large gathering of people the less of them the better.

If you're lucky the judges will overturn the law and keep their jobs.

New comment by t0suj4 in "Ozone hole goes large again"

t0suj4 — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 08:50:40 +0000

I've heard from a law student in China that the law is a tool to control the masses. Assuming that is true, ignoring the law is simply taking things under control and bribery is the cost of doing business.

New comment by t0suj4 in "The rent is too damn algorithmic"

t0suj4 — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 12:25:57 +0000

Vacancy tax is insane idea. What is stopping a bunch of crooks scaring away your renters until you sell them a house you intended to hand over to your children?

New comment by t0suj4 in "Poland may seek extradition of Ukrainian Nazi WW2 veteran Hunka from Canada"

t0suj4 — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 09:02:59 +0000

There is an implication that they clap for whomever they think they are supposed to clap for in your statement. I have doubts that is a good thing.

New comment by t0suj4 in "Poland may seek extradition of Ukrainian Nazi WW2 veteran Hunka from Canada"

t0suj4 — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 08:53:15 +0000

If he "had" to fight for Germans he would be in Wehrmacht. Not in Waffen SS that was the tip of the spear of Nazi ideology.

New comment by t0suj4 in "Target to close 9 stores across four states because of theft and organized crime"

t0suj4 — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 07:39:49 +0000

Organized crime during prohibition was there because there was demand and someone willing to risk it for money. Demand for cheaper (stolen) goods was always there and the risk was significantly lowered so a lot of thieves took that opportunity to make some money.

Whether someone chooses the path of crime out of desperation depends on one's culture.

If the crime organization has an hierarchy then it might be easier to take out the leaders.

New comment by t0suj4 in "Unity's Self-Combustion Engine"

t0suj4 — Sun, 17 Sep 2023 07:22:24 +0000

Isn't that grounds for a lawsuit?

New comment by t0suj4 in "The Decline of Usability (2020)"

t0suj4 — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 07:44:40 +0000

Almost every company internally works as command economy. I doubt that it can scale any more than that.

New comment by t0suj4 in "How Big Tech Got So Damn Big"

t0suj4 — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 05:16:56 +0000

In other words, your stock investment better be worth it or get taxed if you change your mind. This tax policy introduces positive feedback loop that makes big companies like Amazon bigger. Not sure how profound this component is, people trade stocks all the time.

New comment by t0suj4 in "How Big Tech Got So Damn Big"

t0suj4 — Sun, 10 Sep 2023 17:59:51 +0000

Isn't there a tax policy where investors have to pay a tax when they sell shares? Therefore incentivizing them to keep investing in companies promising long-term stable growth (aka Amazon) over other companies with various growth strategies?

New comment by t0suj4 in "Why Socialism? (1949)"

t0suj4 — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 14:49:12 +0000

Who decides whether there is need for a receptionist that watches TV all day and occasionally yells at teenagers smoking in the hall? How is such job compensated? How do you measure consequences if such job disappears?

New comment by t0suj4 in "Why Socialism? (1949)"

t0suj4 — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 14:34:03 +0000

If you need someone else to force something they don't want to do (get a certification) you negotiate with the entity who has the monopoly on violence to maybe consider your recommendations. Then you need to wait for an opportunity (a mishap in the field, someone got their toe cut off) the monopoly of force might want to act on. Then you can offer a solution (a certification program) supported by your prior negotiation that makes the monopoly on violence mandate a requirement (your proposal).

The result is that you now offer a service and a mandatory certification and your competitors must go through you to be able to offer the service to anyone else or face the monopoly on violence.

There doesn't have to be any exchange of funds or favors. You simply offer the confused representative of monopoly on violence a solution, all you need is to sell it well.

New comment by t0suj4 in "The Pentagon’s $52k trash can"

t0suj4 — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 12:54:21 +0000

> The problematic element of it is when companies charge these sorts of absurd fees for a design that was produced decades ago (the E-3 is not a new aircraft by any means) and not adding meaningful value on top of it.

I think the problem is that they're so disconnected from the value of money that they are willing to pay that much.

New comment by t0suj4 in "Linux Namespaces Are a Poor Man's Plan 9 Namespaces"

t0suj4 — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 06:27:49 +0000

After staring down find(1) on an AIX system I regret not going down the du | grep path. At least that way I wouldn't be stuck trying to mash GNU's parameters into completely incompatible version of find.

New comment by t0suj4 in "Ask HN: How do you approach a problem you are not sure has a solution?"

t0suj4 — Fri, 26 May 2023 09:26:00 +0000

I usually tell it to add confidence score of whether it's real and to prioritize real stuff

New comment by t0suj4 in "GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers"

t0suj4 — Sun, 21 May 2023 14:15:21 +0000

From talking to a handful of people it is usually to fulfill someone else's expectations. If the goals aren't aligned ethics don't matter, the student doesn't want to be in that school anyway.

Cheating is the easy way to get away from that situation. And if the student is behind, it's the only way.

New comment by t0suj4 in "Canada extends copyright protection another 20 years to meet trade obligation"

t0suj4 — Mon, 08 May 2023 12:36:24 +0000

I think the only way to change it is for the change to come from within the industry.

As the factions that get hurt by this get stronger the more likely they succeed.

New comment by t0suj4 in "Passkeys: The beginning of the end of the password"

t0suj4 — Thu, 04 May 2023 07:29:26 +0000

From what I've understood it's a TOTP without the air gap of user typing the code manually.

New comment by t0suj4 in "AI Will Make Our Society Even More Unequal, Economists Warn"

t0suj4 — Mon, 01 May 2023 15:09:52 +0000

AI (or any other breakthrough tech) will only exaggerate the difference set up by the tax code. As long as there is an incentive to keep corporations growing the divide will increase.