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7786655

202 karma · joined August 19, 2019

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7786655··on Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads
On mine I was able to do an offline firmware update by loading the new firmware onto USB flash drive. Was hoping the new firmware would fix a bug in the built-in video player, but it didn't.
7786655··on It used to be simpler to teach Unix

    $ touch $'foo\'\n\'bar'
    $ ls --quoting-style=shell-escape-always | while read -r escaped; do
    >   eval "filename=$escaped"
    >   echo "[$filename]"
    > done
    [foo'
    'bar]
7786655··on Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes
The users are free to choose not to buy those games. If the developers offered you a deal you don't like, don't take it.
7786655··on Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes
>Someone may publish a free app to avoid paying anything to Apple, and then charge users [an asston of] money to ""unlock"" via an alternate payment system.

So don't use that app.

>Users may not be able to see a list of all in-app purchases (and their guaranteed prices) as they can on the App Store, without downloading the app.

If a store is missing a feature you want, you can simply choose not to use it.

>Sharing your payment details and other information with multiple entities, and having to continually trust each of them (e.g. to not abuse or leak).

This is a real problem, but solving it with an app store monopoly is a case of the cure being worse than the disease. Besides, I think the risks of sharing you credit card number are wildly overstated. You can issue a chargeback on any transaction, and reverse fraudulent purchases.

>Confused users may clog up Apple's customer support with complaints related to third-party payment systems.

Confused users already have enough complaints to clog up Apple's customer support with. Apple can just tell them to contact the third party's support.

>Angry users may demand Apple to offer refunds for shit that was paid for via third-party payment systems.

And Apple may tell them no. They're adults, the made a decision, now they have to live with the consequences.

>How will iOS sandboxing be enforced for apps delivered via third-party stores? Will those apps still have to be submitted to and signed by Apple?

That's not how sandboxing works.

>Store apps would need the privilege to write binaries on your iPhone. How will that privilege be regulated to prevent abuse? e.g. what happens if a store starts writing malware?

Malware is software that acts against the interests of the user. Nobody can know what the user wants except the user themself, so it must be the user's responsibility to install only the apps that they want on their device. This is already the current situation, since malware exists on the Apple App Store.

It's worth noting the although I'm technically on Epic's side here, I don't trust Epic and I would not install any of their software on one of my computers.

>Users may sometimes have to wait longer for an app to update on one store than on others (as already happens on Steam vs GoG).

Sometimes there are good reasons for this. For example, F-Droid users usually have to wait longer for updates than Google Play users, since F-Droid has a much more thorough review process. I think it's worth waiting longer so that I know the app hasn't introduces anti-features with its updates. Other people might disagree, and prefer getting updates as fast as possible. That's fine, Android allows multiple app stores so we can both get what we want.

I think this is also an interesting point: We've talked a lot about users who think the Apple App Store's rules are too strict but what about the users who think they aren't strict enough?

>Developers would no longer be assured that they will have access to literally all the users that iOS has, by publishing on just one store.

The Apple App Store will still be installed on every iOS device, unless you choose to remove it. No one is arguing otherwise.

>You would have to submit to each store, wait for approval on each of them, update for each of them... to come close to the userbase that you can currently access by just publishing once on the App Store.

Maybe so, but this is a relatively minor inconvenience, and apps are still free to choose to provide their app only on the Apple App Store, which every iPhone will have except where the user chose to remove it.

7786655··on Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%
>food choices are something we can more immediately control

A great deal of evidence suggests otherwise.

7786655··on Facebook says it may quit Europe over ban on sharing data with US
Good. Now if only they would quit the US too.
7786655··on Padlocks, Phishing and Privacy; the Value Proposition of a VPN
Personally, I don't consider it a tax at all.

My VPN subscription has saved me hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

7786655··on Padlocks, Phishing and Privacy; the Value Proposition of a VPN
I'm not sure how a VPN would help you attack a ship and steal its cargo.
7786655··on Reddit.com on July 25th, 2005 – 1 month after launch
HN is basically a Reddit clone (deliberatly so, it was created before Reddit has subreddits). Since the sites are so similar it kind of makes sense that they attract the same type of people.
7786655··on C’s Biggest Mistake (2009)

    #define ARRAY_SIZE(x) ((sizeof x) / sizeof *(x))
But ideally there would be a builtin to do this, since this gives nonsense results if you pass a pointer instead of an array.
7786655··on How WebAssembly Changes Software Distribution
It won't because WASM applications still use the DOM.

In theory it could push everything through a <canvas>, but that can be done in JS as well and doesn't seem to be that common.

7786655··on React is becoming a black box
1. When React mounts your component, it creates an object to contain its internal state, including the state of all hooks.

2. Before calling your render function, it stores a reference to that object in a private, global variable. (Global in the sense that there's only one per JS VM) (Javascript is single-threaded so this is perfectly safe to do).

3. Each of the built-in hooks has access to that variable, and use it to increment a number representing the current hook index and then store information in an array at the current index.

4. The next time your component is rendered, that information is still there and the hooks can retrieve it.

5. Also some hooks like useEffect set up functions to be called by react later.

7786655··on Common Mistakes to Avoid in HTML
You can use <div role=button tabindex=0>.
7786655··on Common Mistakes to Avoid in HTML
href="javascript:;" is also bad. It doesn't work if you try to open it in a new tab. Just use a real url!
7786655··on Learn Vim (the Smart Way): a book to learn the good parts of Vim
With enough plugins, Vim can do everything VSCode can. But using a Vim-emulator in a different editor will always be an "uncanny valley" experience. Also on my system VSCodeVim is so slow it frequently lags behind me while typing.
7786655··on How to not fear your death: An Epicurean perspective
Well, if you get eternal life, and you don't like it, you can always change your mind.
7786655··on The fate of antiques and heirlooms in a disposable age
Source?
7786655··on A tale of webpage speed, or throwing away React
Every time you collapse a thread, that's saved on the server. Then, if you return to the page, it will render those threads collapsed. So that's a decent amount of state.
7786655··on University of Utah pays $457k to ransomware gang
The whole point of Bitcoin is that you don't get to decide whether I can use it.
7786655··on Back to the Future: Unix Wildcards Gone Wild (2014)
And here Google delivers almost this exact vulerability:

https://offensi.com/2020/08/18/how-to-contact-google-sre-dro...

>An attempt to modify the database name in the API call from ‘mysql’ into ‘--help’ results into something that surprised us...

7786655··on Back to the Future: Unix Wildcards Gone Wild (2014)
This is really a vulnerability that applies in any case where you pass user supplied arguments to a command line program. Suppose you have a bunch of files on a server and you allow the user to send a list of files that they want to download as tar. You're careful to avoid directory traversal attacks so you reject filenames that contain slashes. Then, you do:

    exec(["tar", "cz", ...user_wanted_files])
The user sends you a GET /api/storage/download_tar?files=--checkpoint%3D1&files=--checkpoint-action%3Dexec%3Dsh+shell.sh which causes you to execute the contents of shell.sh. No shell, no glob necessary.

To do it correctly, you would have to do:

    exec(["tar", "cz", "--", ...user_wanted_files])
Or add ./ to the start of each filename.
7786655··on App stores, trust and anti-trust
You're trying to argue that Apple IAP is a good deal for Epic, but Epic has clearly decided that it isn't.
7786655··on Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store
>Microsoft already does exactly this on console.

Yes, and that's also bad.

7786655··on Transparent OLEDs
You can already do the first one, just put a mirror in front of a regular display. The light from the display will be visible through the mirror.
7786655··on Google resumes its attack on the URL bar, hides full addresses on Chrome 86
uBlock Origin can block a lot more things than a DNS-based blocker can. Some websites load ads from the same domains they load content from.
7786655··on Why Should You Learn Vim in 2020
My experience with VSCodeVim is that it's so slow it lags behind my typing. So I went the time consuming and finicky route instead, and it actually works pretty well. I can't think of anything I would get from using VSCode.
7786655··on You don’t need reproducible builds
The whole point of the article is that in order to check if the play store version is the same, you have to download the github version and build it from source. At that point, you might as well throw away the play store binary and use the one you just built.
7786655··on You don’t need reproducible builds
Why can't app stores build their apps? Debian and F-Droid do.
7786655··on TikTok and the Sorting Hat
I never said that sites that present a semi-accurate view of society shouldn't exist. But I don't think any particular site has an obligation to be fair, as long as they aren't misrepresenting their content.
7786655··on TikTok and the Sorting Hat
I don't thing the things GP is talking about are indicators of a lesser society. I don't want to look at unattractive people, and there is nothing wrong with a social media service optimizing for that preference.
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