<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: xarball</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=xarball</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2026 21:56:43 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=xarball" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "Canada's population is booming – access to family doctors hasn't kept pace"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>50% of migrants can't find a job.<p>Our banks are publishing papers that for every 1% our population increases, home prices appreciate 3% above the target CPI of 2%; AFTER accounting for interest rates.<p>It's flat out a Ponzi Scheme.  Our real wages are absolute CRAP.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 28 Jan 2024 22:12:53 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39170338</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39170338</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39170338</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "ChatBCG: Generative AI For Slides"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Oh my goodness, I typed "My Butt", and then couldn't catch my breath laughing.<p>A+, that was a journey I wasn't prepared for =P</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 29 Dec 2022 04:33:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34169582</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34169582</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34169582</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "Raspberry Pi update removes the default user"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Did he say anywhere that he wasn't logging into them :)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 07 Apr 2022 23:27:06 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30951553</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30951553</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30951553</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "Large Eruption Near Tonga, Heard in NZ. Tsunami at Tonga and Fiji"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Wow I'd never have known the line between day and night ever had a name, before you used that word! :)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 15 Jan 2022 08:40:53 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29944858</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29944858</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29944858</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "We do not break userspace (2012)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This isn't really relevant to bring up in 2022.  But this thread always brings a huge grin to my face.<p>I'm probably one of the few that really likes watching the "Steve Jobs" level of product quality, just blast across the internet at all expenses.  Because it helps me feel better about what passes for quality in a lot of my day to day.<p>It brings me hope to see that level of passion over reliability.  There's a time and place for that, but yeah, things happen.<p>(Unfortunately I have to flag this post for relevance, because 10-year old threads are not exactly meeting the quality for content we want on HN!)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 08 Jan 2022 11:19:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29850626</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29850626</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29850626</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "Call of Duty Adds Kernel Level Driver for Anti-Cheat"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I agree that your point on cloud gaming is probably valid for companies trying to maintain a rigid grip over software piracy when the companies still build things that can be stolen -- But I don't think it's strictly necessary for the development of anti-cheat systems.<p>In the next version of Windows, we're seeing a rapid acceleration in the amount of hardware/software fingerprinting and secure storage going on in home computing, with the introduction of the TPM 2.0 and UEFI requirements.<p>I am almost certain that Microsoft is progressing to be able to sell a completely hardware-protected memory address space to game developers, so that they no longer HAVE to worry about cheating.  Because if everything from boot onwards is both signed and supports DRM, it's the perfect place to authenticate everything that happens afterwards.<p>This is interesting in that it will almost certainly lead to an explosion of DRM, DLC, and software sold via subscription models.  And while this kind of thing will probably be initially well received by players hoping for decent anti-cheats, it will almost certainly lead to users forfeiting even more control to corporations over the final direction of the software programming.<p>(This kind of control may eat itself alive given enough time; we'll really only know after humanity has already gone that far!)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 14 Oct 2021 03:11:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28860124</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28860124</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28860124</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "Linux 5.8 Formally Adds the Inclusive Terminology Guidelines"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Negative associations have been highlighted by virtue of the darkness and unilluminated things in general being traditionally considered negative.<p>It really depends where you go.  Contrary to popular belief, America is not the center of the universe...<p>Your argument associates Black = Bad = Black people.  But as an example, they don't do this in Russia.  Yes, they do associate Black = Bad to an extent, but black people do not come into the picture at all!<p>I'm fairly sure that when I say they're not racist towards black people, I say it for every Slavic country out there.<p>So it really does matter where you go when making that kind of claim about ethnically motivated interpretations behind words.  We might need to go as far as to appreciate if/when the complete opposite of Black = Bad may be true.<p>This action on the whole though needs to be careful about whether it is doing anybody any favors, by trying to force the speaker's /intent/ about what was said, where none was necessarily had to begin with.<p>On the whole, you can't just change people by changing words. You have to show them a reason to WANT to change.  The bigger the change, the more powerful reason you have to give them.  Telling people what they /meant/ though, is not quite the same as trying to fix a racism problem.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 13 Jul 2020 07:06:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23817855</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23817855</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23817855</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "Italy opens antitrust probe into Google because of a rejected Android Auto app"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I work in the auto industry in HMDs, and I think the last comment was somewhat on the right track, but perhaps missing bits of a larger issue at hand.<p>We can get the impression that Waze was built on a lot of technical debt by the amount of corners Google had to cut to even get it on screen -- how much it doesn't fit in their UI framework, and how poorly it runs when streamed to the HMD.  Even Google Maps in satellite view runs terribly on the 90% of vehicles on the road that implement Android Auto.  The underlying protocol used to convey that amount of data to the HMD runs like crap on most vehicles, and for better or worse the current protocol is pretty much frozen in time because most vehicles don't apply OTA updates yet.  (Some manufacturers even charge labor for applying updates!)<p>The reason I'm picking on Waze specifically though is because HMD's have much stranger User <-> Interface considerations for what is safe, legal, and not crappy UI design.  Add fire to fury, the performance is barely passable today.<p>Apps must have this, and so will Google if they are to be successful here.   Whether Google even knows where they're going with a reliable HMD framework for using cookie-cutter UI components is largely unknown, but I don't think they're satisfied with the current API.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 18 May 2019 17:52:22 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19948705</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19948705</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19948705</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The ridiculous part is if you had once had location tracking on before, and had previously set your Home/Work address - Android Auto will still occasionally offer you directions to Home/Work <i>spontaneously</i>, despite Android Auto refusing to let you "Navigate Home/Work" when you attempt to do so on demand?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 25 Sep 2018 22:39:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18071154</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18071154</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18071154</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "ACLU files charges against Facebook for targeting job ads to young males"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Hiring discrimination is not the same thing as advertising/outreach.<p>You are free to to apply to any company you want, and they are legally required to judge you on the basis of your skills (equality of opportunity).  They are not legally required to hire you on the basis of any demographic you fall into (no equality of outcome).<p>If 60% of your workforce came from European universities, while 40% other universities -- are you required to advertise to them all equally?  What if that 60% figure came about on its own, with no external influence on your part.  Maybe they have more international renown for the skills your company just happens to desire?  Would you spend the same advertising budget on both institutions?<p>Sometimes these things happen on their own,  But pretending that the businesses doing outreach are 100% accountable for "SOLVING" every demographic composition is simply not vested in reality, especially when these things weren't necessarily broken in the first place.<p>Presuming bigotry can be in itself a form of intolerance -- we need to be careful!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 18 Sep 2018 23:29:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18020248</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18020248</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18020248</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "Inside the Whispery, Wonderful Golden Age of ASMR"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You can even go the extra step and get them realistic noise-canceling ones for sleeping.  They'll probably even thank you for it!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 05 Sep 2018 06:35:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17915524</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17915524</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17915524</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "How to Scrape Web Using Python, Selenium and Beautiful Soup"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Selenium sets up the browser profile for you, so you can disable images, videos, css, javascript, embeds, all to your heart's content.<p>I've recently started using Selenium with the privoxy proxy, exactly because browser headless modes are still fairly new tech.  They don't all necessarily support all the standard profile features (addons, settings, etc), or behave the same way.  It's really neat seeing where they're going, but they sometimes need a bit of help MITM-ing traffic, so that's where a good filter comes in handy.<p>In the user-facing web world, 'slow' is kind of a relative term.  Even with a barebone system, you're nearly always going faster than most servers will put out.  I just take my chances bringing in bigger tools, because the personal cost of maintaining an under-equipped tool is usually a greater time-waster to keep up to date as your target site evolves, than the personal cost of waiting for variably-optimized background work to perform its duties.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 03 Sep 2018 07:13:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17900983</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17900983</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17900983</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "How to Scrape Web Using Python, Selenium and Beautiful Soup"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Why would you switch from selenium to beautiful soup halfway through what you're trying to do, and force your program to re-request the same information from the web server?  Selenium has access to the entire DOM, and the entire JavaScript session already loaded in a running web browser.  It has way more power for data mining than beautiful soup does.<p>It looks like they're just trying to use selectors, but these directions seem to completely miss that functionality in Selenium's API.  Just search the WebDriver documentation for 'find_element_by_':<p><a href="https://selenium-python.readthedocs.io/api.html" rel="nofollow">https://selenium-python.readthedocs.io/api.html</a><p>I use Selenium for all my web crawling, exactly because I would rather have one crawler with all the backing support of a modern web browser, than corner myself into not having something as crucial as a JavaScript parser halfway through implementing a bot that's designed to hook what's basically an end-user interface sitting on top of all that.<p>The most obvious benefit of Selenium to me, is that by having all that, I can make my interactions with a web server look <i>more</i> like a user, and fly under the radar a little more.  This tends to require less work on my part when I treat websites more like a whole package (though more RAM, yes!)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 02 Sep 2018 02:44:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17895224</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17895224</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17895224</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "France Bans Street Harassment, Approving Hefty Fines for Catcallers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't think the video depicts any need for a new law.<p>Harassment already has laws.  But I think what happened in the video was clearly a step up from that, and would fall under criminal assault.<p>Not sure what the woman in the video expects to get done by pushing for more change.  Everybody at that restaurant stopped eating.  A man in a white shirt grabs a chair to defend the woman.  I counted at least 3-4 ready to jump in after him.  All pedestrians stopped.  There was more than enough evidence to perform a citizen's arrest (assuming that's legal in France?)<p>To me this is an indication that the current laws are working fine. They may not be heaven, but they are effective at curbing any immediate danger as best can be afforded without treading on other public freedoms (i.e. the freedom to express oneself!)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 03 Aug 2018 07:45:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17677981</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17677981</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17677981</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "2D or not 2D (in the C++ Standard) – that is the question"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That sounds a lot more like what they should aim for:  Formalizing algebra.<p>It's probably a far safer bet that algebra won't be changing  very often, much less so than any graphics pipeline!<p>I think they would be wise to think a little beyond beginners though.  Algebra does not have to be always complicated, but it definitely needs to be open-ended to extend its usefulness.<p>The standard has been burned by short-sightedness before.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 11 Jun 2018 06:41:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17282281</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17282281</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17282281</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "My Life Isn't Your Porn: Why South Korean Women Protest"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I find fourth-wave feminist articles like this to be a complete sham, because they completely stop short of asking a far more constructive question:<p>'Why is this happening?'<p>Is there something unique about South Korea that motivates  the use of spycams and sexually explicit non-consensual recordings?  Imo that would be a far more useful place to start.<p>Lax laws/enforcement do not motivate people to do things.  That is, unless we start from the assumption that all men are basically barbaric (Which I have to reject on face value alone), then there's no way to blame this on the legal system or the police.<p>Not far off from South Korea is a phenomenon in Japan called "grass-eating men":  Men who give up on pursuing women and careers, and instead live online in subpar apartments and out of internet cafes to live out their lives.  Perhaps there's something in common between what motivates that, and what we're seeing here?<p>How happy are men (as a class) in South Korea?  How beneficial are their 'good' alternatives here?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 10 Jun 2018 16:11:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17278758</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17278758</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17278758</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>As a dead animal carcass whos insides are torn out and spewed out along the side of the road, I wish I could use reddit for similar, yet somewhat more distant categories too ^.^</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 30 May 2018 19:13:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17190733</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17190733</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17190733</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "Impersonators who are paid to flirt on dating apps"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>While I agree with the general thrust of this, and am perfectly fine with the consequences and outcomes that redpill might land you if you're showing responsibility and taking steps to flirt with someone to such length -- I genuinely loathe appealing to a stereotype of women that are interested in this, because the kind of person it appeals to, or the kind of relationship it generates doesn't get me anything I like when it works!<p>That is to say, unless I feel like being more plastic than a Ken barbie doll, and less significant in identity, emotion, and purpose than the next 5,000 Ken models off the factory line, then I don't see how I couldn't possibly feel any <i>more</i> alone after applying redpill?<p>What I found after taking redpill and succeeding by their standards, I didn't find myself in any way <i>happier</i> or more at peace with myself, or happier in the company of anyone that is attracted to that.  Maybe it has just been highly successful at producing traumatic experiences, which does help me grow.  But there has been nothing redpill or the women it has been able to match me with that has been able to counter the type of gutless, "take-take", or just purely sexual tension-oriented relationships it seems to encourage men to get involved with!  Those are highly destructive experiences if you're not careful.<p>My peace of mind is worth so much more than that.<p>I can respect redpill, because I understand what it's for.  But I don't enjoy the people it connects me with.  I think it boils down to a lack of a proper examination of personal happiness in redpill's promise at large, and i don't think they contend with that subject nearly as much as they should!  (Though I can understand why the women like it, because it encourages men to not care about what they need to grow as a person, while essentially demeaning them to the point of being uncompensated and emotionally-deprived and ego-devalued sex servants =P)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 27 Apr 2018 06:50:39 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16938887</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16938887</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16938887</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "Elon Musk reveals his productivity rules in a letter he sent to Tesla employees"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Metro's branding was a failure of imagination and a failure to properly capture and convey intent.  There are many other options out there:<p>| <i>"Touch UI"</i> | <i>"Mobile UI"</i> | <i>"Everywhere UI"</i> | <i>"Fisher-Price UI"</i> |<p>... or my personal favorite...<p>| <i>"Mega-Bloks"</i> |</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 21 Apr 2018 22:23:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16893711</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16893711</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16893711</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by xarball in "Microsoft Offers Bug Bounty to Prevent Another Spectre-Meltdown Fiasco"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I think Microsoft is trying to fill in a meaningful, yet tentative part of the pie.  It wouldn't be right for them to put forward the full cost of every cloud company's potential losses.<p>At the same time it raises the stakes by begging the question for other cloud providers to fill in by asking "why isn't this higher?"  So in that light, the number they've chosen may have served its purpose quite well, by encouraging others to think about what another massive 0-day CPU security flaw might cost them.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 17 Mar 2018 22:26:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16609377</link><dc:creator>xarball</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16609377</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16609377</guid></item></channel></rss>