Hacker News: vman81

New comment by vman81 in "Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them"

vman81 — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 13:55:08 +0000

They'll argue you're "buying" a license that they can revoke when they feel like it. My feelings on the matter have been summed up by someone else more clever than me as:

If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing.

New comment by vman81 in "I'm a USB-C Maximalist"

vman81 — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:22:34 +0000

> And yes, USB as main connection standard was driven by Apple. But USB as main charging standard was set by the EU.

Hard disagree. Yes, they were quick to say that if you want to connect a device to their computers, you'd better be prepared for it to be USB. But their computer market share simply wasn't there to drive anything. More of a "lead by example" deal.

With phones OTOH, they COULD have driven it, but in the end they had to be whipped by Brussels to adopt standard USB(c).

New comment by vman81 in "Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait"

vman81 — Tue, 19 May 2026 08:52:19 +0000

What do you base "its international waters" on? It is considerably narrower than the 12nm limit for territorial waters.

New comment by vman81 in "OpenSSL 4.0.0"

vman81 — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 20:23:02 +0000

Well, I may want to have a say in what websites the employees at work access in their browsers. For example.

New comment by vman81 in "Google removes "Doki Doki Literature Club" from Google Play"

vman81 — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 09:07:33 +0000

> I’m generally with you, but I am not prepared to say companies should be forced to host and distribute content they believe reflects badly on them.

If Apple and Google are hell-bent on killing sideloading, and they control 99% of the mobile market, I think they have an obligation to host things they don't like, as long as it is legal.

New comment by vman81 in "Every GPU That Mattered"

vman81 — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 12:38:35 +0000

It's pretty, but almost exclusively focused on ATI/AMD and Nvidia with an intel thrown in for fun. Not actually a list of important GPUs.

New comment by vman81 in "Every GPU That Mattered"

vman81 — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 09:45:13 +0000

Honorable mention, the Rendition Vérité 1000 https://fabiensanglard.net/vquake/index.html

Released before the Voodoo 1 with glquake and gl support for Tomb Raider.

New comment by vman81 in "Ubuntu 26.04 Ends 46 Years of Silent sudo Passwords"

vman81 — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 12:56:50 +0000

Yea, add a VNC jump host and a flaky spice based terminal and there are a bunch of things that can make your input not register properly.

New comment by vman81 in "Can Ozempic Cure Addiction?"

vman81 — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 14:50:50 +0000

Plenty of bad habits that cause chemical dependence would still benefit from a pause, even if temporary.

New comment by vman81 in "France's homegrown open source online office suite"

vman81 — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 14:25:22 +0000

Managing documents on the back end can be very sensible, depending on your work context. Not having to deal with installations is also a real advantage in a heterogeneous environment with a mix of US-controlled operating systems and unencumbered OSes. It also makes migration between them easier, since you only need a common browser to be supported.

New comment by vman81 in "The Science of Fermentation [audio]"

vman81 — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 10:05:33 +0000

About half of all Faroese traditional food is fermented mutton or fish - air dried and boiled/roasted it triggers a lot of savory flavors that simply aren't on the spectrum of food you can buy at a supermarket. All of these methods were developed out of necessity before refrigeration was a thing. You needed the october meat to last till summer of next year in a subarctic climate. Methodical drying and curing did the trick. There is a wonderful spectrum of aged/fermented/dried before actual inedible rot/decay.

New comment by vman81 in "Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC"

vman81 — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 12:26:33 +0000

I'll allow it.

New comment by vman81 in "Heretic: Automatic censorship removal for language models"

vman81 — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 10:22:22 +0000

After seeing Grok trying to turn every conversation into the plight of white South African farmers, it was extremely obvious that someone was ordered to do so, and ended up doing it in a heavy-handed and obvious way.

New comment by vman81 in "California Will Stop Using Coal as a Power Source Next Month"

vman81 — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 15:28:14 +0000

There's also a good case for geothermal plants at these sites, if the geology permits it. There has been a good deal of development, and more sites are usable.

New comment by vman81 in "This map is not upside down"

vman81 — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 18:13:01 +0000

Writing top to bottom, and even left to right has/had advantages for mostly right-handed writers to avoid moving your hand over and smudging previously written text.

New comment by vman81 in "MacPaint Art from the Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today"

vman81 — Sat, 12 Jul 2025 13:57:19 +0000

Reminds me of the youtube video where Ahoy recreates one of the classic 4 Byte images from the 80's 4-Byte Burger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4EFkspO5p4

New comment by vman81 in "EU ruling: tracking-based advertising [...] across Europe has no legal basis"

vman81 — Thu, 15 May 2025 09:36:00 +0000

> Entrenches Google, Facebook, etc. because they are the only people that have enough money to comply with the regulation.

I have very little sympathy for the idea of NOT storing user data is some sort of onerous regulatory burden.

Just stop collecting it

New comment by vman81 in "EU ruling: tracking-based advertising [...] across Europe has no legal basis"

vman81 — Thu, 15 May 2025 09:32:09 +0000

> As long as a market exists that can profit from exploiting PII, and is so large that it can support other industries, data will never be radioactive.

The EU bureaucracy machine can be slow moving, but has the potential to fix this. The stricter the rules, the simpler the implementation. You could cut a LOT of the administrative burden by specifying what data is allowed to be stored at all, instead of what isn't.

Big tech needs to be put in their place, and as others have commented; if this kills your business model, your business model doesn't deserve to exist.

New comment by vman81 in "International Workers' Day"

vman81 — Thu, 01 May 2025 14:56:45 +0000

Much like the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is nominally democratic.

New comment by vman81 in "I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad"

vman81 — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 11:01:57 +0000

Corner to corner with their hinge opened to 180°