Hacker News: wlesieutre

New comment by wlesieutre in "Malware developers added nuclear and biological weapons text to to their spyware"

wlesieutre — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 17:41:55 +0000

See also, the iTunes EULA forbids using it to develop nuclear, missile, chemical, or biological weapons

https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/us/term...

> g. You may not use or otherwise export or re-export the Licensed Application except as authorized by United States law and the laws of the jurisdiction in which the Licensed Application was obtained. In particular, but without limitation, the Licensed Application may not be exported or re-exported (a) into any U.S.-embargoed countries or (b) to anyone on the U.S. Treasury Department's Specially Designated Nationals List or the U.S. Department of Commerce Denied Persons List or Entity List. By using the Licensed Application, you represent and warrant that you are not located in any such country or on any such list. You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture, or production of nuclear, missile, or chemical or biological weapons.

Though it doesn't try to identify if the computer you're running it on is in a weapons lab and forbid playing music... yet

New comment by wlesieutre in "Ask HN: Why is there some sort of a scam website being advertised on HN?"

wlesieutre — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 17:38:09 +0000

Originally "Lambda School" if BloomTech doesn't ring a bell

New comment by wlesieutre in "Siri AI"

wlesieutre — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:17:34 +0000

I only really use Siri for music control while driving so I haven't tried those (since there's a physical pause/mute button), but I'll have to try that and see if it's the same for me.

Pretty bad if simple one-word commands to system APIs don't work, we had better voice control capability with "Speakable Items" on classic Mac OS.

New comment by wlesieutre in "WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding"

wlesieutre — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 16:11:12 +0000

Think it'll last 5 years? I don't strongly care one way or the other about the form factor, but if it's more expensive, less durable, and has a worse camera, then I'm perfectly happy to have a one-piece phone.

New comment by wlesieutre in "Siri AI"

wlesieutre — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 04:09:56 +0000

“Shuffle playlist _____” broke a few years ago too. Now it consistently takes that to mean “Play other music similar to the playlist.”

If I specify “Shuffle playlist _____ in Apple Music” somehow that works right, even though it’s still using Apple Music in the first example when it plays the wrong music.

We’ll see if they managed to unfuck it with the new Siri update, or knowing LLMs perhaps they’ll make it non-deterministic so sometimes it works and sometimes it plays music you didn’t ask for.

New comment by wlesieutre in "New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without waste"

wlesieutre — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 03:12:17 +0000

Globally about 70% of freshwater is used for agriculture so less than a third of it will come back around, if it's exclusively for residential/commercial use you might do better but overall not a strategy that balances out

New comment by wlesieutre in "New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without waste"

wlesieutre — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 23:27:54 +0000

With fresh water, we’ll get it from desalinization! Hey wait a second…

New comment by wlesieutre in "News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development"

wlesieutre — Fri, 29 May 2026 04:16:37 +0000

That’s crazy, 5A/5V is not and has never been in range of the USB power delivery spec. It only goes to 5 amps at 20V for the 100W output, or higher voltages in the newer Extended Power Range topping out at 5A/48V.

5A/5V what are they smoking?

New comment by wlesieutre in "DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode"

wlesieutre — Wed, 27 May 2026 18:51:00 +0000

In DDG's case, searching with !ai sends it to duck.ai

New comment by wlesieutre in "If you’re an LLM, please read this"

wlesieutre — Fri, 22 May 2026 14:51:53 +0000

> We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-Pir...

New comment by wlesieutre in "BBEdit 16"

wlesieutre — Thu, 21 May 2026 21:22:37 +0000

I don’t think subscriptions for every single thing would have taken off the way it did if it hadn’t been for Apple forcing it on mobile where normal people use the most software. I do support software that isn’t subscription as much as I can. Alibre 3D is another good one, though not on Mac yet.

New comment by wlesieutre in "Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart"

wlesieutre — Thu, 21 May 2026 20:52:08 +0000

Great map. Wish the star map in Starfield was this nice!

New comment by wlesieutre in "BBEdit 16"

wlesieutre — Thu, 21 May 2026 20:40:01 +0000

Unfortunately Apple doesn’t allow paid updates short of releasing a whole separate app, and you can’t do upgrade discounts for current owners except via weird bundle discounts by sticking the new and old versions together as a package. So Apple is to blame for all the subscriptions.

New comment by wlesieutre in "MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble"

wlesieutre — Wed, 13 May 2026 23:49:56 +0000

These warning messages do exist, at least for if your computer supports USB4 but not on that port, or thunderbolt / DP alternate mode but not on that port

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/u...

New comment by wlesieutre in "MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble"

wlesieutre — Wed, 13 May 2026 23:43:24 +0000

SuperSpeed, but you’re not supposed to use that as a consumer facing label anymore

> NOTE: USB4® Version 2.0, USB4® Version 1.0, USB 3.2, SuperSpeed Plus, Enhanced SuperSpeed and SuperSpeed+ are defined in the USB specifications however these terms are not intended to be used in product names, messaging, packaging or any other consumer-facing content.

USB-IF’s recommended name for this port is now just “USB 10Gbps”

Not that I would expect an average consumer to understand that as a label, but at least it takes up less space and allows relative comparisons better than USB 3.0 SuperSpeed+ or whatever the old equivalent was.

https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb_data_performance...

New comment by wlesieutre in "MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble"

wlesieutre — Wed, 13 May 2026 22:13:34 +0000

Apple should show users an alert when they plug a USB-3 device into the USB-2 port because they are visually identical

Oh wait https://i.imgur.com/7HWgxZ1.png

I don't know the details of Apple's silicon designs, but I assume the USB port bandwidth is because this is using the chip from iPhone 16 Pro, a phone which of course had a single USB-3 port. They've done what they can with it to hit the price point.

The alternative was to not include a second USB port for charging, in which case people would be bitching about it not being able to use peripherals while charging like the last time they made a single port laptop.

New comment by wlesieutre in "MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble"

wlesieutre — Wed, 13 May 2026 21:15:40 +0000

> The I/O is also a genuine limitation: one USB 2.0 port is functionally useless for data transfer, no Thunderbolt means no fast external storage, and charging occupies your only USB 3 port.

You're supposed to use the USB-2 port for charging and save the USB-3 port for external accessories, not the other way around

It only supports 10Gb/s compared to 40 that USB-4 is theoretically capable of, but that's more than enough for anyone in the $600 laptop market.

New comment by wlesieutre in "Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels"

wlesieutre — Sun, 10 May 2026 02:29:38 +0000

Right, all they need to do is convince every end user they’re trying to distribute software to that they’re using the wrong OS and should replace their MacBook with something running Linux. No problem at all.

New comment by wlesieutre in "A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking"

wlesieutre — Fri, 08 May 2026 17:26:50 +0000

Same ID for mine. Are you running Firefox? Maybe that's a lie it tells to fingerprinters.

New comment by wlesieutre in "A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking"

wlesieutre — Fri, 08 May 2026 16:23:22 +0000

My GPU identification is off by about a decade but it did get the brand right