Hacker News: things

New comment by things in "Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15"

things — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 10:50:01 +0000

The non-use of collected data is the most ridiculous part of all this. I work with many companies that collect tons of data and only use a small percentage of it. All they're doing is building a bigger haystack.

This is partially due to the fact that Google Analytics is free and the default for most website/app builders. But, still, it's ridiculous.

TikTok fails 'disinformation test' before EU vote, study shows

things — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 08:07:22 +0000

Article URL: https://www.euractiv.com/section/elections/news/tiktok-fails-disinformation-test-before-eu-vote-study-shows/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40571888

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Priceless barn find: first microcomputers discovered by cleaners

things — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 11:51:51 +0000

Article URL: https://newatlas.com/computers/first-microcomputer-found/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39452697

Points: 10

# Comments: 2

New comment by things in "San Francisco decriminalizes psychedelics"

things — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 08:39:49 +0000

Ken Kesey of merry pranksters fame "discovered" LSD via being a volunteer in the CIA's MKUltra experiments. So, interestingly, the CIA's experiments were one of the major triggers for the whole 60s counterculture.

New comment by things in "Use of Google Analytics declared illegal by French data protection authority"

things — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 16:31:21 +0000

I believe the issue isn't specifically with anonymised IP addresses in GA. The problem is that the Google Analytics code is loaded from a third party server and, to do that, this server gets your IP address even if the data sent by the GA code itself contains an anonymised one.

New comment by things in "Will Apple Mail threaten the newsletter boom?"

things — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 07:13:08 +0000

I've seen people enter their email into those intrusive "sign up for our newsletter" popovers because they think that's the only way to bypass them. Which is probably one reason why sites keep using them. Not everyone is as web savvy as we like to think.

New comment by things in "Powell’s says it won’t sell books on Amazon anymore"

things — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 16:52:00 +0000

As mentioned by others, Amazon owns them. I used to use them until I found out about that, then switched to https://blackwells.co.uk/ and https://wordery.com which are usually pretty close price-wise and also offer free shipping.

New comment by things in "Improve your walking technique"

things — Thu, 14 May 2020 09:23:44 +0000

I found reading "Whole Body Barefoot" by Katy Bowman was a good primer.

New comment by things in "Ok Google – it's time you discovered cyclists"

things — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 18:20:27 +0000

I get that cycling is complex to route but when I ask Google Maps for directions to the city centre from my apartment, it sends me over a huge row of stairs.

I notified them of the issue a couple of years ago and it got fixed a few months later, but it came back again. At that point I gave up as I don't really use the service for cycling anyway. I know my city well enough and when I cycle outside of it, I use Strava.

New comment by things in "Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible"

things — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 12:56:57 +0000

It's not super clear but, if I'm reading it correctly, the 7 days are 7 days of use. So if you don't open the site for 3 days, the counter is still at 0.

New comment by things in "The Art of Warez [video]"

things — Sat, 03 Aug 2019 08:40:00 +0000

Brings back great memories of long nights spent making ansi screens in TheDraw. I still have the muscle memory for all the keyboard shortcuts (it seems weird nowadays to imagine drawing with the keyboard).

I was even a minor member of iCE for a while. My first experience of impostor syndrome :)

New comment by things in "JetBlue explains to a passenger how it got a photo of her face"

things — Fri, 03 May 2019 07:06:30 +0000

There is a human looking at the photos. When you take the Eurostar you can see them sitting in a booth after the gates. If you look into the booth as you pass, you'll see a grid of photos on screen. I'm assuming they're overseeing it all rather than checking everything manually.

I noticed that these gates were quite slow ID'ing me the first couple of times I went through them but now I hardly have the time to see my face flash on the screen before the gates open. Maybe there's a human check on initial passes. Either that or their code has gotten way better or they store data that helps matching after a few uses.

New comment by things in "EU approves internet copyright law, including ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’"

things — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 12:59:33 +0000

If you think being outside the EU will stop politicians voting for these types of laws, here's a nice UK example for you that "make administrators and moderators of certain online forums responsible for content published on those forums"

https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/onlineforums.ht...

New comment by things in "iOS 12 introduces new features to reduce interruptions and manage Screen Time"

things — Tue, 05 Jun 2018 07:45:06 +0000

It also seems to reset fixes. One example: when asking for cycling directions into the city from where I live, Google maps tried to send me down a staircase in a local park. I notified google and it was fixed a few months later. Now it's back… I've seen it for other fixes too.

New comment by things in "1960s Kodachrome photos of London’s East End"

things — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 18:49:21 +0000

If you dial back the date in streetview, you can see it more clearly.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5189372,-0.0763029,3a,75y,...

New comment by things in "1960s Kodachrome photos of London’s East End"

things — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 18:47:05 +0000

Thanks! I suspected I had the wrong angle but couldn't figure out the right one.

New comment by things in "1960s Kodachrome photos of London’s East End"

things — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 09:56:00 +0000

That would be this one:

https://www.google.be/maps/place/@51.514314,-0.0532876,3a,75...

New comment by things in "1960s Kodachrome photos of London’s East End"

things — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 09:35:45 +0000

I attempted to locate the photos in this set on streetview. Some were easier than others.

In the same order:

Whitechapel Road https://www.google.com/maps/place//@51.5173129,-0.0668225,3a...

Spitalsfield Market https://www.google.be/maps/@51.5190196,-0.0773324,3a,75y,74....

Belhaven Street (no longer exists, got as close as I could) https://www.google.be/maps/@51.5286117,-0.0380893,3a,75y,27....

Stifford Estate (demolished) https://www.google.be/maps/@51.5174684,-0.0497713,3a,75y,285...

Mile End Road https://www.google.be/maps/place/@51.5243606,-0.0367707,3a,7...

Three Colt Street (difficult to get the exact location so got one with visible landmark) https://www.google.be/maps/place/@51.5096904,-0.03012,3a,75y...

Watney Market (massively changed but pointing in the right direction over the area) https://www.google.be/maps/@51.5128337,-0.0581398,3a,75y,348...

Gardiner’s Corner (nothing left, the department store burnt down in the seventies) https://www.google.be/maps/@51.5151995,-0.0716539,3a,75y,289...

New comment by things in "Too many people have peed in the pool"

things — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 17:50:32 +0000

I've seen this mainly with non-native English speakers. It may have migrated from there too.

New comment by things in "How Facebook makes us dumber"

things — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 14:45:27 +0000

I'm not a facebook user but this just seems to be another article on the filter bubble.