Hacker News: wbshaw

New comment by wbshaw in "Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality"

wbshaw — Sun, 24 May 2026 13:48:51 +0000

"We have received reports..." Is factually true and plausible given the accompanying photo and statements from city officials.

New comment by wbshaw in "Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out"

wbshaw — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 16:22:42 +0000

I have no Meta or Amazon apps on my phone. It's been this way since I quit buying my phones through my carrier where all their crap and "partner" apps required jailbreaking to remove.

This isn't perfect but I feel better.

New comment by wbshaw in "A new spam policy for “back button hijacking”"

wbshaw — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:37:15 +0000

Is there any click-bait news site that DOESN'T do this? You hit back and land on a list of their click-bait articles and add links instead of the page you expect.

New comment by wbshaw in "“Nothing” is the secret to structuring your work"

wbshaw — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 14:24:31 +0000

This is one of the foundations of GTD. Basically, everything in its place, everything has a place. The linchpin is trusting your storage and recall systems.

New comment by wbshaw in "The Singularity will occur on a Tuesday"

wbshaw — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 19:36:07 +0000

I got a strong ChatGPT vibe from that article.

New comment by wbshaw in "A judge gave the FBI permission to attempt to bypass biometrics"

wbshaw — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 14:05:53 +0000

I have heard for years that this is a common tactic used by TSA when you get selected for special screening. Basically, they couldn't force you to divulge your unlock code. However, if you left your phone in a vulnerable state w/r/t biometrics, they could unlock your phone on your behalf without permission.

Mine gets a quick reboot for going into a checkpoint. This disables biometrics until I enter a passcode.

New comment by wbshaw in "I scanned 2,500 Hugging Face models for malware/issues. Here is the data"

wbshaw — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 14:37:52 +0000

Calling them broken files might not be correct. However, I can see where if you are not diligent about watching commits to those git repos, you end up with a Trojan Horse that introduces a vulnerability after you've vetted the model.

New comment by wbshaw in "Nuclear elements detected in West Philippine Sea"

wbshaw — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 18:12:41 +0000

Great. So on top of everything else, now we have to worry about Godzilla.

New comment by wbshaw in "I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too"

wbshaw — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 12:59:50 +0000

Even though the author trivialized the problems he had getting his laptop up and running, there were enough obstacles to keep 90% of non-techies from actually getting it working. How many normies have a USB ethernet laying around and understand enough to uninstall drivers that are interfering with the UI?

New comment by wbshaw in "Mamdani Targets Junk Fees and Hidden Charges in Two Executive Orders"

wbshaw — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 19:02:26 +0000

I don't understand why you couldn't just use up the balance and then pay the balance due via another method. I do it all the time.

I believe the real scheme is how many gift cards never get redeemed at all.

New comment by wbshaw in "The battle to stop clever people betting"

wbshaw — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 14:43:53 +0000

I always understood bookmaking as the house making money on the vig. They don't care who wins or loses. They just want to make sure there's an equal number and they take their percentage off the top of all the bets. Too many people betting the over? Move the line.

New comment by wbshaw in "Bricklink suspends Marketplace operations in 35 countries"

wbshaw — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 13:58:39 +0000

Most of my South American buyers on Bricklink have me ship to one of the freight forwarders in Miami. Not complicated for me as a seller and it probably makes things simpler for the buyer too.

New comment by wbshaw in "The Banished Bottom of the Housing Market"

wbshaw — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 18:55:29 +0000

That is why some local governments create Community Development Districts (CDDs). The master developer installs the infrastructure and it becomes part of the tax burden for homeowners. The what developers play the fee until they've attained critical mass and then the taxes become the homeowner's responsibility. Sucks if you're living on the edge and the escrow portion of your mortgage goes up by hundreds of dollars per month.

New comment by wbshaw in "Secret Boat Strike Memo Justifies Kills by Claiming Targeting Drugs, Not People"

wbshaw — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 13:46:53 +0000

You can make up any story you want about the actual reason these people are in the boats, where they're going, or if they are or are not committing crimes (even intermittently). None of those stories are true. At the end of the day, we are murdering people without due process. Full stop.

New comment by wbshaw in "Americans can't afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried"

wbshaw — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 15:44:39 +0000

If you think outright financing is bad, try leasing a car and then giving it back when they screw up the residual value estimate. Dealers will try to Jack you with every imaginable fee to get you to buy the car from then at the end of the lease.

You also need to walk in the door with your own financing. Even if they give you financing through your preferred bank, it's not uncommon for them to juice the interest rate for some additional profit without any kind of disclosure.

New comment by wbshaw in "Morgan and Morgan takes Disney to court over 'Steamboat Willie' in ads"

wbshaw — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 11:37:46 +0000

...after expenses which can be considerable.

New comment by wbshaw in "Haribo recalls sweets in the Netherlands after traces of cannabis found"

wbshaw — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 17:21:31 +0000

It's a feature, not a bug.

New comment by wbshaw in "Jeep Introduces Pop-Up Ads That Appear Every Time You Stop"

wbshaw — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 12:41:21 +0000

Roku TVs now inject ads into your non-Roku viewing. Amazon and Netflix have normalized ads in their products.it won't be long before they move them into more expensive product tiers.

If other auto manufacturers follow suit, this too will be normalized. Enshittification seems inevitable without collective action.

New comment by wbshaw in "IRS using AI to make sure people aren't playing the system (2023)"

wbshaw — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 14:10:56 +0000

Fast forward to now and imagine the breadth and depth of training data Grok is about to ingest.

New comment by wbshaw in "Some homes withstood the LA fires – architects explain why"

wbshaw — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 14:05:49 +0000

Attics have been replaced by engineered trusses to hold up roofs. The trusses are made of.... wood. These trusses are also made offsite. This leaves very little room for usable attic space.