Hacker News: takoid

New comment by takoid in "EFF is leaving X"

takoid — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 18:34:53 +0000

But it's worth their time to stay on platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon? Something isn't adding up.

OpenNOW: An open-source desktop client for GeForce NOW

takoid — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 17:34:17 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/OpenCloudGaming/OpenNOW

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47678691

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

An Analysis of 8K Polling Rates

takoid — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:40:22 +0000

Article URL: https://www.igorslab.de/en/latencies-and-marketing-why-in-the-end-only-end-to-end-matters-and-why-8k-polling-is-often-smaller-in-practice-than-advertised/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47663283

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Live TSA Wait Times Dashboard

takoid — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 19:56:05 +0000

Article URL: https://tsa.fromthetraytable.com/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47508180

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

New comment by takoid in "Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona"

takoid — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 16:36:58 +0000

To answer how it got so big: it didn't start out trying to replace Slack. It just solved an acute pain point for gamers. Skype was becoming increasingly enshittified, and people were floating between TeamSpeak, Ventrilo, and Mumble, none of which were that great. Discord captured the market because it was completely free and had the audio mechanisms in place to make people with shitty mics and background noise tolerable without forcing everyone to use push-to-talk. That’s really it. By the time non-gaming communities were looking for a Slack alternative, they just defaulted to Discord because 90% of their target audience already had the client running in the background.

New comment by takoid in "Gemini 3.1 Pro"

takoid — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 16:48:45 +0000

Shared this in the other Gemini Pro 3.1 thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47074735) but wanted to share it here as well.

I just tested the "generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle" prompt and this is what I got: https://codepen.io/takoid/pen/wBWLOKj

The model thought for over 5 minutes to produce this. It's not quite photorealistic (some parts are definitely "off"), but this is definitely a significant leap in complexity.

New comment by takoid in "Gemini 3.1 Pro"

takoid — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 16:41:47 +0000

I just gave it a shot and this is what I got: https://codepen.io/takoid/pen/wBWLOKj

The model thought for over 5 minutes to produce this. It's not quite photorealistic (some parts are definitely "off"), but this is definitely a significant leap in complexity.

Scientist builds machine to disprove Havana Syndrome; gets brain damage

takoid — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 19:11:09 +0000

Article URL: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/02/15/scientist-builds-machine-havana-syndrome-brain-damage-usa/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47038977

Points: 7

# Comments: 1

New comment by takoid in "[dead]"

takoid — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 14:33:48 +0000

Where did you see this? Elon's account looks fine and I'm not seeing any discussion on X about this.

Live Intruder Map

takoid — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 13:45:22 +0000

Article URL: https://knock-knock.net/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912756

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

New comment by takoid in "Microsoft will give the FBI a Windows PC data encryption key if ordered"

takoid — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 15:30:28 +0000

Related discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46735545

Waze built the largest crowdsourced surveillance system

takoid — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 03:23:31 +0000

Article URL: https://twitter.com/harrris0n/status/2014197314571952167

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46727990

Points: 5

# Comments: 2

New comment by takoid in "X Is Down"

takoid — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 14:34:31 +0000

https://downdetector.com/status/twitter/

X Is Down

takoid — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 14:34:23 +0000

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46601445

Points: 13

# Comments: 4

In Ukraine, an Arsenal of Killer A.I. Drones Is Being Born in War Against Russia

takoid — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 01:12:59 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/magazine/ukraine-ai-drones-war-russia.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46507539

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by takoid in "The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)"

takoid — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 04:03:55 +0000

I always enjoyed D’Angelo Barksdale’s interpretation from The Wire:

> D’Angelo: "He’s saying that the past is always with us. Where we come from, what we go through, how we go through it—all that shit matters. Like at the end of the book, you know, boats and tides and all. It’s like you can change up, right? You can say you’re somebody new, you can give yourself a whole new story. But, what came first is who you really are, and what happened before is what really happened.

> And it don’t matter that some fool say he different ’cause the only thing that make him different is that he say it. But it ain’t the truth. Gatsby, he was who he was, and he did what he did. And because he wasn't willing to get real with the story, it caught up to him."

> Inmate: "So you're saying he couldn't get over?"

> D’Angelo: "No, I’m saying he was who he was. They found him out. They found him out in the end. And that’s what it is. You can’t get over. You can’t even get out."

New comment by takoid in "GitHub is returning Gateway Time-outs"

takoid — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 14:53:20 +0000

Appears to be working now for me.

Edit: Down again.

Edit 2: Up again.

New comment by takoid in "Postponed '60 Minutes' segment on Salvadoran prison is streamed by Canadian news"

takoid — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 13:08:24 +0000

It was flagged off the front page yesterday. I'm not sure for how long, but you can read discussion about this in the thread itself.

New comment by takoid in "Postponed '60 Minutes' segment on Salvadoran prison is streamed by Canadian news"

takoid — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 12:56:45 +0000

Earlier discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46361024 (543 points, 57 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46362149 (135 points, 8 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46362214 (184 points, 34 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46362032 (137 points, 30 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46361571 (122 points, 7 comments)

New comment by takoid in "FCC Updates Covered List to Include Foreign UAS and UAS Critical Components [pdf]"

takoid — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 12:52:22 +0000

The grandfathering clause is the tell. If these drones were an active national security threat, they wouldn't let civilians keep flying them.

This looks like industrial policy masquerading as defense in order to clear the board for domestic manufacturers just as the Pentagon starts handing out contracts to politically connected players.

Case in point: Unusual Machines just secured a massive Army contract for drone motors. Their advisor and major shareholder? Donald Trump Jr. [0]. Banning the import of foreign "critical components" conveniently forces the market into their funnel.

[0] https://www.ft.com/content/4cedc140-4a02-4ab6-9f78-93dd8c51a...