Hacker News: williamscales

New comment by williamscales in "60% of Legal Searches Now End Without a Click"

williamscales — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 23:55:41 +0000

The article links through to a list of the most expensive: https://attorneyatlawmagazine.com/legal-marketing/why-law-fi...

Baton Rouge truck accident lawyer at $1000

New comment by williamscales in "Trick users and bypass warnings – Modern SVG Clickjacking attacks"

williamscales — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 15:51:03 +0000

Yeah I had to turn off dark reader in firefox to see the examples "properly".

New comment by williamscales in "The writing is on the wall for handwriting recognition"

williamscales — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 17:41:47 +0000

I agree, I noticed the same thing. To my eye it appears smudged.

New comment by williamscales in "Is a movie prop the ultimate laptop bag?"

williamscales — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 01:22:32 +0000

Appears to be about $37 for a grocery bag with handles

https://www.dependableexpendables.com/products/silent-grocer...

New comment by williamscales in "Vector database that can index 1B vectors in 48M"

williamscales — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 21:08:45 +0000

Agree the correct abbreviation is min.

Nitpick: could be wrong but I don’t think minutes is an SI derived unit.

New comment by williamscales in "Claude for Chrome"

williamscales — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 20:04:23 +0000

I think most people want computers to be predictable and repeatable _at a level that makes sense to them_. That's going to look different for non-programmers.

Having worked helping "average" users, my perception is that there is often no mental model at any level, let alone anywhere close to what HN folks have. Developing that model is something that most people just don't do in the first place. I think this is mostly because they have never really had the opportunity to and are more interested in getting things done quickly.

When I explain things like MFA in terms of why they are valuable, most folks I've helped see usefulness there and are willing to learn. The user experience is not close to universally seamless however which is a big hangup.

New comment by williamscales in "AnduinOS"

williamscales — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 19:24:59 +0000

They used to send you free CDs to hand out if you asked!

New comment by williamscales in "Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser"

williamscales — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 15:15:14 +0000

In my recollection, Firefox used to ask you which profile you wanted to use on launch. I don't think I've seen that in years.

New comment by williamscales in "Left to Right Programming"

williamscales — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 18:06:14 +0000

I find myself writing a very simple style of python that avoids list comprehensions and so on when working in a shared code base.

For a language where there is supposed to be only one way to do things, there are an awful lot of ways to do things.

Don’t get me wrong, writing a list comprehension can be very satisfying and golf-y But if there should be one way to do things, they do not belong.

New comment by williamscales in "US state department stops issuing visas for Gaza’s children to get medical care"

williamscales — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 17:01:22 +0000

The WHO is organizing some evacuations internationally

> the World Health Organization supported the transfer of 32 children and six adults to Italy, Belgium and Turkey, but more than 14,800 patients are still waiting.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/16/malnourished-p...

New comment by williamscales in "Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]"

williamscales — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 16:58:33 +0000

Dang, this would suck. I really like Kodak film, like Portra 400 and Ektar 100.

Writing’s been on the wall for quite a while though. I’m not surprised.

New comment by williamscales in "We caught companies making it harder to delete your personal data online"

williamscales — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 16:48:47 +0000

I’m guessing Amazon could have info on their side about your eero. Without knowing more about the router’s cloud functionality it’s hard to say what exactly they would have.

New comment by williamscales in "Perplexity is using stealth, undeclared crawlers to evade no-crawl directives"

williamscales — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 03:55:13 +0000

I guess it could be trained to respond to those sort of queries by offering to compile a list of some finite number of web pages. Then it could be prompted to visit them and do something (check images, say).

Maybe that would result in limited fetching instead of internet wide fetching. I dunno, just spitballing.

New comment by williamscales in "Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M"

williamscales — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 19:59:35 +0000

The tax hit, too, depending on the type and amount of options

New comment by williamscales in "Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope"

williamscales — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 23:13:45 +0000

A lot of the moralizing pressure groups are also against sexual content on TV (at least historically they have been).

One of the slippery slopes here would be that initially they go after smaller players and then work their way up. Would they ultimately go after Amazon or Warner Bros? It’s not totally clear to me that they wouldn’t.

New comment by williamscales in "Mary had schizophrenia, then suddenly didn't"

williamscales — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 17:11:01 +0000

Definitely seems like the sort of thing that MKUltra would have looked at. Those folks were big into ideas like creating specific mental states in people.

New comment by williamscales in "At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says"

williamscales — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 21:01:30 +0000

Thank you for the added detail.

New comment by williamscales in "Turmeric is the culprit in a global lead poisoning mystery (2024)"

williamscales — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 20:50:10 +0000

OK, so the method given for artificial coloring on that page. I'm curious if that works for lead chromate. It seems so simple that it must have been tried in this case? Regardless I'll file it away to at least try on stuff to avoid what colors it can detect.

New comment by williamscales in "Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)"

williamscales — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 20:22:28 +0000

I don't see any method for lead chromate in turmeric powder, unless I'm missing something.

New comment by williamscales in "Lead pigment in turmeric is the culprit in a global poisoning mystery (2024)"

williamscales — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 20:19:54 +0000

I'm curious about getting a personal XRF device for this reason. They don't look "that" expensive, I found some for $5k to $10k on Alibaba. Is it overkill? Probably yes. Am I overly paranoid about my health and would also like to generally have an XRF device? Also yes.