Hacker News: zvmaz

New comment by zvmaz in "Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015)"

zvmaz — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 02:27:11 +0000

Thanks for asking, I had to search the quote since I recalled it from memory. I couldn't find it, but here's the closest I got [1]. The disdain and arrogance of this person is just incredible.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHGTs1NSB1s

New comment by zvmaz in "Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015)"

zvmaz — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 01:50:04 +0000

"I don't know how to make a screenshot"

Linus Torvalds often says that he does not know how to do X (like install a Linux distribution, or other simple stuff). I wager that it's a status thing.

New comment by zvmaz in "How elites could shape mass preferences as AI reduces persuasion costs"

zvmaz — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:45:02 +0000

> If anything, LLM's seem more resistant to propaganda than any other tool created by man so far, except maybe the encylopedia. (Though obviously this depends on training.)

How would you know? My first thought is that the data on which LLMs are trained is biased, and the commercial LLMs enforce their own "pre-prompts".

New comment by zvmaz in "Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship"

zvmaz — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 15:02:07 +0000

> It's a shame

No, it's not. This goes against the whole thread and the article posted.

New comment by zvmaz in "Run ancient UNIX on modern hardware"

zvmaz — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 01:22:48 +0000

Videos that go through the xv6 source code: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbtzT1TYeoMhTPzyTZboW...

New comment by zvmaz in "Linear algebra explains why some words are effectively untranslatable"

zvmaz — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 16:55:34 +0000

> I hope these rather unorthodox leaps between linguistics and mathematics helped make it almost obvious that some words and ideas are untranslatable in practice. I also hope you don't take the analogy too seriously, because it won't go much further than this.

Phew! Thanks for clarifying.

New comment by zvmaz in "Samsung Family Hub for 2025 Update Elevates the Smart Home Ecosystem"

zvmaz — Sun, 09 Nov 2025 17:12:03 +0000

I don't buy any appliance that has "smart" in it. Yeah, no, thanks.

New comment by zvmaz in "Becoming a compiler engineer"

zvmaz — Sat, 08 Nov 2025 13:15:53 +0000

Maybe a less subtle self-promotional blog post, as compared to others.

New comment by zvmaz in "The Linux Boot Process: From Power Button to Kernel"

zvmaz — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 16:34:23 +0000

Thanks! Nice to see it has plenty of diagrams.

New comment by zvmaz in "A Word on Omarchy"

zvmaz — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 12:36:58 +0000

How does he know who is "native brit" and who is not? Rhetorical question.

New comment by zvmaz in "LLMs can get "brain rot""

zvmaz — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 12:29:44 +0000

I wish I had your confidence in "detecting" LLM sentences. All I can do for now is get a very vague "intuition" as to whether a sentence is LLM-generated. We know how intuitions are not always reliable.

New comment by zvmaz in "Entire Linux Network stack diagram (2024)"

zvmaz — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 23:41:34 +0000

Incredible work! I really wish the author's book had an English translation.

New comment by zvmaz in "Xubuntu.org Might Be Compromised"

zvmaz — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 15:53:48 +0000

From what I understood, it's the torrent link that downloads a compromised zip file rather then the authentic image:

"Torrent downloads over at https://xubuntu.org/download/ are serving a zip file with a suspicious exe and a tos.txt inside. The TOS starts with Copyright (c) 2026 Xubuntu.org which is sus, because it is 2025. I opened the .exe with file-roller and couldn't find any .torrent inside."

New comment by zvmaz in "Xubuntu.org Might Be Compromised"

zvmaz — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 15:17:52 +0000

Yes indeed. Qubes has a good article on verifying distribution images not only with checksums but also with cryptographic signatures that verify the checksum files [1].

[1] https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/project-security/verifyin...

New comment by zvmaz in "Xubuntu.org Might Be Compromised"

zvmaz — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 15:10:57 +0000

On second thought, Qubes OS does not prevent such types of malicious downloads; it can also happen to Qubes images. Verify your downloads with checksums and cryptographic signatures [1].

[1] https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/project-security/verifyin...

New comment by zvmaz in "Xubuntu.org Might Be Compromised"

zvmaz — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 15:06:38 +0000

That is why I use Qubes OS [1] in order to have a certain peace of mind.

[1] https://www.qubes-os.org/

EDIT: further comment below:

On second thought, Qubes OS does not prevent such types of malicious downloads; it can also happen to Qubes images. Verify your downloads with checksums and cryptographic signatures [2].

[2] https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/project-security/verifyin...

New comment by zvmaz in "Are we living in a golden age of stupidity?"

zvmaz — Sat, 18 Oct 2025 13:21:16 +0000

> What do you find insulting about the title?

The title itself. Without reading the article, I can sense the "we are living in a stupid age" arrogant trope characteristic of the "winning" social classes.

New comment by zvmaz in "Are we living in a golden age of stupidity?"

zvmaz — Sat, 18 Oct 2025 13:02:50 +0000

Insulting title. Sorry, but no thanks.

New comment by zvmaz in "GrapheneOS is ready to break free from Pixels"

zvmaz — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 00:30:25 +0000

At any rate, they explicitly said that they are not working with fairphone [1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44678459

New comment by zvmaz in "Why Is SQLite Coded In C"

zvmaz — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 23:54:25 +0000

In the link you provided, this is what I read: "An in-process SQL database, compatible with SQLite."

Compatible with SQLite. So it's another database?