Hacker News Reader

McDevon Swappa.com for GrapheneOS compatible devices – Stay Away

FWIW I've tested Android Auto before with sandboxed Google Play, works fine.

McDevon Show HN: OffChess – Offline chess puzzles app

If it were my Chess app, I'd get them from the Lichess open database (currently at 5M puzzles): https://database.lichess.org/#puzzles

McDevon Tesla Gives New UK Owners a ‘Reacher’ Stick to Deal with Left-Hand Drive Cars

Wherever you're driving you want to be positioned towards the center of the road. Tesla are mad for selling these in the UK regardless of their 'stick'.

McDevon Google Bard blocks all European Union countries

They are. I was going to say the UK's ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) are entirely impotent, however it appears they recently fined TikTok £12.7M for data misuse.

McDevon Microsoft broke a Chrome feature to promote Edge

After what I think was the same Windows 10 update last month I noticed a giant Edge search bar planted in the middle of my desktop which I did not ask for. I've since rolled back the update and group policy disabled Windows Updates entirely

McDevon Chess is booming among teens

There was never any conclusive evidence. He did file a defamation lawsuit against Magnus though which is still ongoing.

McDevon iOS 17 will reportedly set the stage for sideloading apps on iPhone

Then don't install them.

McDevon OpenAI has temporarily stopped selling the Plus plan

From my experience with their Plus plan GPT 4 usually just times out no matter what the prompt, forcing me to revert to 3.5. I'm not sure why I haven't asked for a refund yet.

McDevon Why a European mobile operating system can’t challenge Android and iOS

>First of all, Stryjak should have been aware that /e/OS is compatible with any mobile application from the Android world

This is probably because /e/OS IS Android. It also contains microG, an open source framework that talks to Google Play Services.

McDevon Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit

Better to have the final say come from someone at the controls rather than a desk in Silicon Valley. Humans aren't going anywhere.

McDevon X-Plane 12 Early Access

I used MSFS a lot for practising VFR navigation / dead reckoning skills, very helpful for that with how good the scenery is. Not sure I could achieve the same in XPlane

McDevon New York rolling out noise law, listening tech for souped-up speedsters

Before covid I would commute daily in London to work filtering (lane splitting) through traffic. You operate on the assumption that they don't see / hear you and you need to anticipate their movements, and be much more switched on. I can almost guarantee no one has ever heard my bike from a car until I've passed by it but it's irrelevant I find as cars try to kill me even when they do see me. Biking is just more dangerous and there comes a point where you are only as safe as you are lucky.

McDevon Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook

>his developers can deliver good and working product really fast. (And from what I understand, it's a really small team.)

Fun fact, their Android code [0] (haven't seen iOS) is unmaintainable mess and on the surface just looks like a complete disaster. I find it baffling how Telegram Android not only hasn't fallen to bits requiring a full rewrite, but has continued to deliver brilliant UX and features.

0. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DrKLO/Telegram/master/TMes...

McDevon Fairphone 4 has a five-year warranty and aims for six years of updates

I came across https://shop.fairphone.com/en/spare-parts, seems like they do sell spare batteries for all versions

McDevon Palantir: NHS faces legal action over data firm contract

This is our NHS, not a social media company. You can't compare the two.

McDevon Most healthcare apps not up to NHS standards

The last time I'll never use a healthcare app was when I heard about [0]. I can't trust our current tech / startup company culture with such sensitive things.

[0]: https://www.digitalhealth.net/2020/09/babylon-to-face-no-fur...

> Babylon Health will face “no further action” for a data breach that allowed a user of its GP app to access video recordings of other patients’ consultations.

McDevon RethinkDNS – monitor app activity, block ads and firewall apps on Android

Off-topic but I'm glad to see them offering the APK download right under the Google Play link. More organisations should do this!

McDevon Fueling Reddit’s Future

They've straight up started banning certain subreddits from the mobile website, forcing you to download the app. As I write this, I just noticed it was an A/B test and I'm able to go on the subreddit in question again ... Argh!

McDevon A Flash Player emulator written in Rust

That runs on Java unfortunately

McDevon Cab Ride: Drive a train, forever, through a dreamlike land

This looks great. On a side note, I was wondering why the controls were freaking out when I was trying to depart, and then realised I had my foot on my rudder pedals I use for flight sim (not useful for trains despite my best efforts). I was trying to disable it in Brave browser but couldn't find a way. It seems any website can just read your gamepad input?

This doesn't happen on Firefox and this [0] is probably why. I imagine this could be used for fingerprinting, am I missing something?

Anyway, back to driving trains.

[0]: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2020/07/securing-gamepad-api/

McDevon Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules

That would be due to this https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-us-automatic-e...

McDevon Stop Asking Me to “Sign Up” (2014)

I was intrigued by this comment and downloaded TikTok, only to find that they now push for sign up immediately!

McDevon YouTube Channels to Level Up Your Programming Skills

McDevon FAA issues emergency directive on 2,000 Boeing 737 NG, Classic planes

I supposed they'd be using something like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micrometre

McDevon Tired of note-taking apps

Would you mind elaborating on why Standard Notes is too buggy? Only thing that comes to mind is the use of React Native and Electron (suboptimal performance / UX) but I've never had any issues myself.

I'd like to hear of alternatives that apply the same e2e encryption model.

McDevon LinkedIn is copying the contents of my clipboard on every keystroke

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23708166

McDevon FFFG: Freedom from Facebook and Google

Is the Privacy Policy link broken? It just links to https://www.economicliberties.us

If you then navigate to the privacy policy on that site, it contains stuff like:

"For example, we may use remarketing with Google Analytics or other remarketing tools to advertise online. This enables third-party vendors, including Google, to show our ads on sites across the Internet...."

McDevon We’ve built a towering pile of shite

"[Android] development tools are focussed on large teams of highly trained software engineers, who all intimately understand every esoteric aspect of App development."

This really rings true to me. I almost cringe when I have to explain how to do some of the most basic things to non android developers.

Aside from the dozens of libraries you need to include, and need to know where to find and what version is compatible with what, the tooling itself is an insurmountable mess for new developers. It's also not getting any simpler.

McDevon Government finally publishes NHS contracts with Palantir, Faculty and big tech

I'm confused about what data is being provided to these companies. Is it the patient data that my GP has for example, or is it purely data that the NHS aim to gather from the contact tracing app?

McDevon A photo is crashing some Android phones

Curiosity (stupidity?) got the better of me and I ended up awake until 2am fixing this last night on my Pixel 3a.

I was fortunate enough to have developer mode & USB debugging enabled, which allowed me to install some code to clear the wallpaper using the WallpaperManager [0].

Sadly it wasn't as simple as pushing the code to the phone and running a command to execute it. When the device boots, it would crash _almost_ instantly and reboot into recovery mode after attempting to show the wallpaper a few times. This meant I couldn't put my passcode in, which meant Android refused to run the application I made to clear the wallpaper.

The ADB (Android Debug Bridge) tool [1] lets you replicate user input for the connected device, so you can basically swipe the screen / enter keys from the command line. I was able to use ADB to swipe up on the lock screen and enter my passcode. This was a start but wasn't enough, as the crash was happening before the wallpaper deleting app could be started.

I figured the unlock process was taking too much time, and found out after Android 8 (Oreo) you can actually use ADB to change or remove your passcode [2], provided you know your existing passcode. After I removed my passcode I was able to reboot the device, and run a single ADB command to swipe up on the screen and delete that cursed wallpaper.

And no it wasn't worth it, but I enjoyed the challenge

[0]. https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Wallpape...

[1]. https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/adb

[2]. https://android.stackexchange.com/a/194779