Hacker News: terribleperson

New comment by terribleperson in "What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance"

terribleperson — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 19:02:26 +0000

This is already possible. There's not enough people doing it, so instead we get age verification schemes.

The benefit of an age attestation scheme is that it makes it easy for parents, while also diffusing future attempts to use children as an excuse for control.

New comment by terribleperson in "Steam Machine launches today"

terribleperson — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 18:02:34 +0000

The benchmarks I've seen - only a few, and only because my partner was watching them - show it basically neck and neck with a PS5. Not a PS5 Pro, to be clear, and a PS5 slim is only $650, but the Steam Machine isn't underpowered in console gaming terms.

New comment by terribleperson in "What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance"

terribleperson — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 17:59:40 +0000

It doesn't even need 'age verification'. Ostensibly, the goal is to prevent children from accessing content their parents don't want them to see. That means all that's needed is a standard way for parents to make sure that websites know their children are children. They don't need identity, they don't need actual age, we don't even need a complicated cryptographic solution.

California had the right idea - establish a standard way for a client to identify that the user isn't an adult (or you could do it the other way around, but that's less permissive), mandate that websites obey the flag, mandate that OSes include the feature and that browsers use it. In the end, anyone who owns a device can set their age group flag however they want it - it would be up to parents to make sure their children only use devices set the way they want. The parents could set their 8 year old's age group to whatever age group they want, and rest assured that websites would respect it.

New comment by terribleperson in "Steam Machine launches today"

terribleperson — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 19:07:55 +0000

With current hardware prices, I'm not sure it'll be 'old' in gaming terms in a few years. I'm expecting the PS6 to be only a moderate upgrade over the PS5, not arrive for another year at least, and probabky take 5 years to overtake the PS5.

New comment by terribleperson in "Steam Machine"

terribleperson — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 19:04:26 +0000

I think calling the hardware generations out of date when it performs on par with a PS5 on new games is a bit inaccurate.

I would, admittedly, be interested in an anticheat that reboots the machine for deck into a secure mode.

New comment by terribleperson in "Minecraft: Java Edition 26.2, the first version with Vulkan 1.2"

terribleperson — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 16:25:18 +0000

I don't think there's much chance Sony or Nintendo would have blocked the publishing of a Java version of Minecraft, if that had been on offer in place of Bedrock.

The rules are always flexible for huge games, especially when they'd otherwise be an exclusive for a competitor.

New comment by terribleperson in "AI agent runs amok in Fedora and elsewhere"

terribleperson — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 03:20:09 +0000

It's scalable, personalizable social engineering. I think that makes it a lot more dangerous.

New comment by terribleperson in "In a first, wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026"

terribleperson — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:17:33 +0000

If this is the video I'm thinking of, both versions are up. I think the toned down version is meant to be more palatable to certain people.

New comment by terribleperson in "The Kaiser and a "Mediocre Man" Theory of History"

terribleperson — Sun, 31 May 2026 23:09:25 +0000

Did I say that? No, I responded to the claim that people were not allocated resources by society.

New comment by terribleperson in "Creatine raises brain energy levels and slows cognitive decline: study"

terribleperson — Sun, 31 May 2026 21:41:50 +0000

Could it have been dehydration?

New comment by terribleperson in "Meta is reportedly developing an AI pendant"

terribleperson — Sun, 31 May 2026 02:09:13 +0000

Facebook marketplace killed craigslist, I guess?

Sure, it's part of Facebook but it's not the same as the core product.

New comment by terribleperson in "The Kaiser and a "Mediocre Man" Theory of History"

terribleperson — Sun, 31 May 2026 00:40:14 +0000

What is the stock market if not a way for society to allocate resources?

New comment by terribleperson in "Google changes its search box"

terribleperson — Wed, 20 May 2026 04:27:50 +0000

I think it's less expense-driven and more user-driven. Most forums I frequented in the 2000s were funded by donations. The userbase, though, disappeared. The network effects of facebook and reddit and such are hard to overcome, and worse when you consider how google search prefers to surface either social media sites or blogspam/content theft sites.

New comment by terribleperson in "Google changes its search box"

terribleperson — Tue, 19 May 2026 19:52:55 +0000

As a user and fan of kagi, the problem with kagi is that it reveals how badly degraded the web is.

The vast majority of original content is now in one or another social network or on discord. News articles are an exception, though the news has its own problems. Some wikis still exist and are actively maintained, of course, but not a ton. If it's a topic that's academically studied you might find information in papers, but those have poor web visibility and are better located with specialty tools. LLMs seem to be quite good at locating papers, though.

New comment by terribleperson in "A digital billboard company has the technology to make 3D ads on moving trucks"

terribleperson — Sun, 17 May 2026 22:57:37 +0000

This is a terrible, awful idea. Playing videos on the side of trucks is what I would come up with if I was intentionally trying to cause accidents. Even if they only play when stationary, it's a terrible idea.

New comment by terribleperson in "I Bought a “Junk” PSP From Japan"

terribleperson — Sat, 16 May 2026 11:17:00 +0000

Meanwhile in the U.S., 'tested, working' seems to mean "I plugged it in and the power light came on", unless there's evidence of more comprehensive testing.

New comment by terribleperson in "Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license"

terribleperson — Thu, 07 May 2026 03:55:07 +0000

Aren't steam account suspensions pretty much limited to criminal activity? Any other kind of restriction doesn't prevent you from playing the games you have licenses for.

New comment by terribleperson in "Reverse-engineering infrared-based electronic shelf labels"

terribleperson — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 19:09:56 +0000

Stores already uniquely identify customers with membership cards/accounts. They're also doing their damndest to link those more closely - see how Kroger is shifting from the Kroger card to digital coupons that require you to sign into an account.

They could simply offer the worst prices if you don't use your card (Kroger basically already does this), so you're effectively required to identify yourself.

New comment by terribleperson in "A Brief History of Fish Sauce"

terribleperson — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 05:54:59 +0000

I need to try this. Typically I make my mapo tofu with dry-fried mushrooms and mushroom stock (I've found this much tastier than a pork or beef-based mapo tofu), but I don't always have the mushroom preparation on hand and punching up a pork mapo tofu with fish sauce would be much more convenient.

What kind of fish sauce do you use?

New comment by terribleperson in "Fix monitor that goes black, off or blinks due to static electricity in chair"

terribleperson — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 21:44:30 +0000

Mine: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Kw7wh9 It was happening more often when I had a Sapphire NITRO+ RX VEGA64, but the 6950 XT isn't immune.

other things not encapsulated in the parts list: My PC sits on the bottom shelf of a foodservice-style wire shelving rack. My motherboard's I/O shield is integrated and wasn't a perfect fit into the case.

The DP cable is, probably, in-spec. I usually buy Cable Matters or BlueRigger.

I do wonder if ferrite cores would help.

edit: The only similarity I notice in our builds is lower-end ASRock b650 motherboards.