Hacker News: tempestn

New comment by tempestn in "Ask HN: Do you delete your browsing history?"

tempestn — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 20:56:16 +0000

We're talking about browsing history, not cookies and cache.

New comment by tempestn in "Magnolias are so old that they're pollinated by beetles, not bees (2025)"

tempestn — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 18:20:49 +0000

We've got a fly-pollinated bush in our yard. Smells like rotting death when it's wet to attract them. (I did not plant it...)

Brief Answers to Cosmic Questions (~2000)

tempestn — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 05:27:32 +0000

Article URL: https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/faq.htm

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49065479

Points: 7

# Comments: 0

New comment by tempestn in "Ask HN: Do you delete your browsing history?"

tempestn — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 01:46:10 +0000

I also explicitly save stuff I plan to use later, but you can't always predict that in advance.

New comment by tempestn in "Kill The Cookie Banner"

tempestn — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 01:44:45 +0000

The practical argument I can understand. From the abstract argument though, it sounds like you'd be opposed even if the anonymization could be guaranteed, which I don't understand. Why is it "spying" to try to understand in aggregate how users are using your website? How are you supposed to eg. identify usability problems without this information? And what is the harm to users? (Again, in the abstract case where we leave aside any possibility of individual users being identified.)

New comment by tempestn in "Kill The Cookie Banner"

tempestn — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 22:51:22 +0000

You're right about explicitly set preferences.

What do you see as the harm in website owners using aggregated analytics data to improve their sites?

New comment by tempestn in "Kill The Cookie Banner"

tempestn — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 17:59:46 +0000

My understanding is that any front-end analytics solution will require consent. You're right about explicitly set preferences. I was mixing that up with inferred preferences.

New comment by tempestn in "Kill The Cookie Banner"

tempestn — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 17:57:34 +0000

You're right; I haven't looked into this in detail in some time. You can't save inferred preferences, but can save things that the user has explicitly selected to save.

Ask HN: Do you delete your browsing history?

tempestn — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 17:24:32 +0000

I'm torn on this. Not infrequently, some random page I saw months ago will come to mind, and I'll use browser history to find it. More infrequently, I'll go even further back than that. And just for posterity, I enjoy having it all accessible.

That said, it also makes me a bit nervous having it all there, especially synced to my Firefox account, for some hypothetical hacker, or discovery process, or who knows what.

Got me thinking, I wouldn't be surprised if HN is as split between history savers and deleters as I am internally. Curious how you all handle it.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49060245

Points: 4

# Comments: 14

New comment by tempestn in "Kill The Cookie Banner"

tempestn — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 17:09:47 +0000

You can't even save user preferences (like language or other settings) without showing a cookie banner. Edit: I was mistaken. You can't save inferred preferences, but can save explicit user-saved options.

And for a serious website, front end analytics are kind of a necessity to understand how users interact with pages and improve the experience. Note that it certainly doesn't require tracking the behaviour of individual users, just understanding how controls are used in aggregate.

I know it seems like you could work around this with careful design and maybe focus groups and such, but I can tell you we regularly uncover surprising insights from (aggregate) trends in front-end events.

New comment by tempestn in "Kill The Cookie Banner"

tempestn — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 17:01:47 +0000

Aggregated analytics do, and you can't run a serious website without some kind of analytics. Preference-storing does as well, despite any reasonable user expecting that, if they set a preference, it will be saved.

New comment by tempestn in "Kill The Cookie Banner"

tempestn — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 16:57:12 +0000

"I didn't read it," sure. But, "A reasonable person would not read it?"

New comment by tempestn in "AIs don't do what you want. This is bad"

tempestn — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:50:59 +0000

I've found Gemini to be one of the better ones as far as disagreeing.

New comment by tempestn in "An old patent inspired the new "Y-zipper", a three-sided fastener"

tempestn — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:41:16 +0000

Even if it weren't lighter, it might be faster to set up and take down.

New comment by tempestn in "How to stop Claude from saying load-bearing"

tempestn — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 06:24:12 +0000

Agreed, that was a great line. The whole comment made me wish I could upvote more than once.

New comment by tempestn in "How to stop Claude from saying load-bearing"

tempestn — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 06:14:00 +0000

Literally a true statement, I guess.

New comment by tempestn in "Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)"

tempestn — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 18:20:14 +0000

And in fact, a significant subset of users will pester you to make an app, even if your website can and does do everything an app could do.

New comment by tempestn in "Count Binface, Nigel Farage's space-warrior foe"

tempestn — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 19:45:22 +0000

Yeah, I mean obviously. Who among us hasn't received a casual £5M from friends now and again? Why would it have anything to do with his political campaign?

New comment by tempestn in "Count Binface, Nigel Farage's space-warrior foe"

tempestn — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 00:58:20 +0000

Same reason as always. Someone found it interesting and submitted it. Others found it interesting and up voted it within a period of time.

New comment by tempestn in "How to Write an Email"

tempestn — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 18:38:36 +0000

The thing I've been struggling with recently is how to sign off. When "Thanks" isn't called for, I always feel awkward using any of the standard sign-offs, like "Cheers", "Best", "Regards"... I'm somewhat leaning toward just using Thanks when it makes sense, and if it doesn't, then just "-Myname" is probably fine.