HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

anticorporate

2,389 karma · joined December 2, 2023

Making money is not the purpose of computing, and it's never an acceptable justification for unethical behavior.

HN user since 2013; decided to create an account not tied to my real name.

submissionscomments
anticorporate··on Goodbye Claude, hello Pi
I don't get why many of the products from major providers are GUIs, don't they know how to generate a proper terminal-based tool?
anticorporate··on Tesla to wind down Cybertruck production
I have a hitch for my current truck and honestly a dump trailer wouldn't be a bad idea anyway for some use cases, but even if I had one I'd probably only use it when I had to. The convenience factor just being able to hop in and drive, or having the truck bed with you when you didn't plan on moving something just wins out.
anticorporate··on Tesla to wind down Cybertruck production
> Anybody who knows how people that actually need trucks use trucks saw this coming

I'm a current truck driver and very excited to swap out my ICE truck for a Slate next year. I need something that can haul my trash to the dump, grab a load of wood chips for the garden, and bring home the occasional sheet good from the home store.

I agree with your assessment as it applies to the Cybertruck or F150, but not the idea of an electric truck. Some people buy trucks because they need a light-duty hauling solution; unfortunately, the market seems to only want to sell luxury SUVs that happen to have truck beds.

anticorporate··on From Linux to Wikipedia: How Volunteers Build the Internet
> arguably there isn’t a single big, bad wolf tech company that was started by MBAs

The parent commenter didn't say anything about founders, that was your addition.

A reasonable interpretation of the parent comment is that these companies were in fact fun places to work until the MBAs arrived. Personally I don't take offense using MBA as a shorthand for "individuals more focused on profitability than purpose" even though I recognize that doesn't describe everyone with that degree, although admittedly, part of that is because I don't have a better term for it. It's a bit like my own handle; I don't in fact think every corporation is inherently evil, but when I say "anticorporate" there is a common understanding that I'm opposed to many of the shitty behavior of modern corporations, and not that I'm nitpicking that LLCs or sole proprietorships are somehow better forms of legal entity.

anticorporate··on OccupySaaS
> The whole reason to pay for software is to offload the liability to a 3rd-party... FOSS doesn't fulfill that requirement, therefore, adopting FOSS means the user owns the liability of using the software.

Let me introduce you to Red Hat.

anticorporate··on US Reps Lead Democratic Resolution Opposing A.I. Bubble Bailout for Big Tech
> without a veto proof majority, they might as well not be in the majority.

I don't understand this position. Two years of stalled government would be a godsend after the past two years. Dear lord, if we could just slow the daily assaults on people and the environment, domestically and abroad, I'd sing Hallelujah.

anticorporate··on Wealth Inequality in America drawn to scale
That's for each person to decide on their own.

I'd much rather everyone think deeply about this question than merely hope we all come to the same conclusion.

anticorporate··on Wealth Inequality in America drawn to scale
I'm not sure why people push this false narrative around jealousy. Well, I could speculate, but that likely wouldn't be helpful.

I have no desire to be rich, certainly not as rich as the far right 1% column. I find that level of wealth nauseating and embarrassing. But regardless, "legitimately earned wealth" is doing a lot of work in that last sentence. Perhaps (doubtful) it's possible to earn that much while being legally legitimate, although that speaks more to how fucked up our system is than anything else, but certainly not possible to do so in a morally legitimate way.

anticorporate··on Genie 4
I mean, sure, some advertisers might get more sophisticated. The garbagefest of internet advertising won't go anywhere, though. It'll still be as bleak and obnoxious as always, because someone will always accept a buck to let you barrage their visitors' eyes and ears.
anticorporate··on Oldest GUI application that still runs on Windows 11
One crucial part of my role as my family's de facto IT support was making sure my mom's FreeCell score record (which was just a Windows registry value) made it from each computer to the next across countless upgrades. She hated the new version that came out somewhere along the way because the card decks changed. (Windows 7? Windows 10? I switched to Linux full time in the XP era so my memory is a little fuzzy.) So I made sure to keep a backup of the Win32 version she was used to, and loaded it onto every machine she ever owned. It wasn't quite the 33 years of its lifetime, but probably close to 30.

Mom passed earlier this year, so the FreeCell score record won't ever increment again, but I still made a point to back it up one last time when going through her desktop this summer.

anticorporate··on CSS-Tricks has a new owner
I wish I didn't have such a bleak outlook for community-focused tech publishing. Sites like LWN and 404 Media seem to be hanging on, but they're more likely the exceptions that prove the rule.

My paycheck for the better part of a decade came from publications run by a large tech company in an arrangement not too dissimilar from DO's relationship with CSS-Tricks. It was great while it lasted, but shortly after I left it was the first thing on the chopping block when the layoffs started. That was 3-4 years ago and the landscape for quality tech publishing hasn't gotten any easier.

anticorporate··on Nine-Inch Snails
I just imagine a field of giant snails approaching me at a glacial pace, all loudly singing "Bow down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve." Nightmare fuel.
anticorporate··on Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?
I like the confidence with which you through around "99%" when there is ample research suggesting that the percentage of smart phone users (at least in the US) who use their phone for banking is much closer to half.

I'm not offended at the idea that someone might want to bank from their phone, just, a lot of us don't have that need. Having my ability to run the software I want on my phone taken away, just to support corporations insisting that they be able to control my device for a function I don't need, however, is offensive.

anticorporate··on QGIS enacts moratorium on AI contributions
Then, as the parent commenter suggested, fork the dead project.

No project is obliged to accept your contributions. It's on you to market them, either to the maintainers of the existing project for merging, or to the community through a fork.

anticorporate··on Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?
> if you can't run all your favorite bank apps in your phone any phone is dead nowadays

I guess I've been running dead phones for ::checks notes:: a quarter century now? I actually don't even know if my primary banking institution (a regional credit union) has an app to begin with. It's never occurred to me to need it.

anticorporate··on QGIS enacts moratorium on AI contributions
> That's not entirely true: my work might get zero traction because nobody will know about it.

Being able to market your work and build community are key skills for open source contribution. The history of forges is littered with interesting code that never got enough attention to go anywhere.

anticorporate··on I would like the value of my home to rise, while my property taxes fall
While I grant you that they are two different things, two-thirds of the average sale price in my area is from gains in value accrued over the time the home was occupied prior to sale, almost all of which is currently untaxed.
anticorporate··on I would like the value of my home to rise, while my property taxes fall
> One way out could be to tax the value gain at the time of sale, or when the house gets rented out, thus no longer being “owner occupied”.

My local government put exactly this on the ballot: a small percentage transfer tax on the sale price of the home, which would offset some of the costs we currently pay in ad valorem property taxes.

The local real estate community had a meltdown and poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into defeating it, which my neighbors obliged and did.

anticorporate··on Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?
I could, but the security model would be different. Caddy plus my WireGuard configuration buys me some additional isolation and peace of mind. My VPS is always configured to be as locked down as I need it; I don't want to have to remember that I got high last night and did something funky to my local firewall.
anticorporate··on Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?
I run Caddy on a $4/mo VPS that's totally overkill for what it does.

My primary use case is to be able to use [dumbthingiwanttoshare].mydomain.tld without having to touch DNS records. The VPS has a static IP; I often don't.

anticorporate··on Visa, Mastercard, major banks facing new litigation over 'anticompetitive' fees
Once you've diverged from the listed price actually being the price you pay, I don't see much value in just keeping is vaguely close but still incorrect. I'd prefer either a completely itemized price or an all-inclusive price to a sort-of-inclusive price.

The best answer is probably a combination of the two: break out the bullshit costs the customer has to pay so that the consumer can see them, but still give them the upfront cost as early in the transaction as possible.

anticorporate··on What is going on with ceiling fans
Trust me, it could be worse. When we bought our house, the living room fan was hardwired with no switch. Literally you could only control it directly and hope it did what you asked it to do, there was no way to turn it off without turning off the entire circuit.

I suspect this is a code violation, but considering part of the lighting wiring in the basement had been done with speaker wire and automotive cabling, I don't think compliance was on the top of the previous owner's list.

anticorporate··on I quit OpenAI because its culture is broken
I worked in corporate marketing for long enough to become an activist against surveillance capitalism.
anticorporate··on Why media fans want to escape algorithms with CDs, DVDs and vinyl
https://listenbrainz.org/ is an open source alternative to Last.fm that I can confirm works with Navidrome. You can also self host it if you would prefer to keep your listen history private.
anticorporate··on Best LLM for every budget, updated daily
> A vanishingly small number of people can or would want to go to the hardware expense of running something like GLM 5.3 Flash, much less something like K3.

It's probably worth letting the user specify their actual costs in such a tool. I run a Framework Desktop 128GB that I bought before memory prices got crazy; the current retail price is almost double what I actually paid a year ago.

anticorporate··on Seattle Bans Rental Junk Fees
This is the only junk rental fee I might actually support, for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with property damage.
anticorporate··on Seattle Bans Rental Junk Fees
Retailer here. I would absolutely love all inclusive pricing legislation. Since we're not trying to screw our customers (we're a co-op, so our customers are also our owners), I'd love to be on a fairer playing field with frontline pricing from the businesses trying to lie, cheat, and steal their way to a higher margin.
anticorporate··on Giving up on smart rings
The only thing I can figure is that my change wasn't extreme enough. I guess mine is centered on a roughly healthy weight, with fluctuations ~30% above and below that, which might be quite different than fluctuations only above. (Thankfully I'm now much closer to the midpoint now).
anticorporate··on Giving up on smart rings
To be fair to the parent commenter, I wondered the same thing, and I'm someone whose weight has fluctuated by >60% over the course of my marriage without needing my ring resized. Having been both obese and medically underweight over the course of that time, I'm not particularly contemptful of people who are either.
anticorporate··on The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021
Some of us owned thousands of albums (or movies, or shows) on physical media before the legal streaming party even started.

Personally, I also listen to a lot of ad-free college radio and watch a lot of online videos. Depending on what type of entertainment you enjoy, it's really not hard to pay next to nothing for it without compromising.

Page 1 of 11Next →