Hacker News Reader

astaroth360on GPU Hoarding: ‘I Felt Like I Was Buying Drugs’

Another negative point to throw on the pile. Cryptocurrency has been overhyped to an unbelievable degree. It is environmentally harmful and generally a nuisance. I like making money off of wildly fluctuating markets as much as the next guy, but cryto is, at least in its current form, pretty damn stupid. All this enthusiasm for something which, as of now, there still isn't really a good use case for, is crazy.

astaroth360on Kodak shares up as it announces KODAKCoin cryptocurrency

Just waiting for this insane cryptocurrency bubble to pop hard. Riches are being made, but a ton of people are going to end up broke and broken, and the bigger the bubble grows the worse the popping will be.

astaroth360on Atom's new concurrency-friendly buffer implementation

Yay, hopefully no more jankiness. Maybe I can actually use Atom again.

astaroth360on Equifax Faces Multibillion-Dollar Lawsuit Over Hack

Time to get rid of credit agencies as a whole. They are entirely useless. Make a Government agency that handles it instead of trusting the private industry to make as much profit as they can to the detriment of damn near everyone.

astaroth360on Ask HN: What audio resources can improve my technical skills during my commute?

Jazz is good too, for those of us who like jazz :P

astaroth360on Shady Conservative Group Is Flooding the FCC with Anti-Net Neutrality Comments

Yeah, but I don't remember hearing chants of "lock him up" during the election, despite his nearly endless list of unethical and potentially illegal financial transactions. Oh, and let's not forgot about Russia hacking the DNC and giving it WikiLeaks. Little by little, they gave up more to Assange, so that the outrage machine would never die out. Putin threw the democrats into complete chaos, and Sanders didn't do much to help, what with his, "oh it's a rigged election" BS. Trump took that line straight from Bernie: "This election is rigged you know". Pathological liars and unethical monsters should not be running the only real superpower in the world, barring China.

astaroth360on Shady Conservative Group Is Flooding the FCC with Anti-Net Neutrality Comments

Trump is bought and paid for by corporations. He may pretend to be POTUS, but all he is doing is serving his own self-interest, which most of the time screws anyone who doesn't make 60k+ a year. All the tax breaks he's proposing would bankrupt our country. Frankly FCC rules are low on my list of fears with this maniac. It's time to impeach already. Every single thing he has done in office has been detrimental to the American people.

astaroth360on “Restoring Internet Freedom” Notice of Proposed Rulemaking [pdf]

And so the internet dies...

astaroth360on Vanlife, the Bohemian Social Media Movement

This feels like some kind of hippy-tainted ultra-hispterism to me.

astaroth360on Vanlife, the Bohemian Social Media Movement

Am I the only person that thinks this is a terrible idea? I couldn't stand living in a van for a month, let alone any extended period of time. The only way I'd do it is to save money; that's not the kind of adventure I consider fun. I'm also not the sort of person who sits around drooling over other peoples' adventures, so I guess I'm not the target audience here.

astaroth360on Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

Apple needs to get their shit together. OSX has gone downhill fast, they don't seem to know who their target audience is, the new Macbook Pro's have crap battery, what else could they even do wrong at this point?

They need to completely turn things around if they are going to keep the developer community. I guess they just worry about the iPhone, but by ignoring everything else they're going to alienate their customers.

astaroth360on Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid

@ Crimea, it doesn't really matter that there was a coup, Russia still outright stole a chunk of another country.

@ US nukes, this is nothing new right? I don't see how that should matter to them too much.

@ missile defense shield, I kind of agree with that bit, although I find the idea that either side would ever use nukes ridiculous

@ NATO paranoia, I'd say Crimea and Russian ambitions to re-establish a more USSR-looking country make those fears well founded.

@ pipeline... that's just economics. Having your own pipeline and not having to rely on a somewhat hostile power is always going to be preferable.

astaroth360on Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid

@ quick rise to power, I was referring to this: "The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing 293 and injuring more than 1000 people and spreading a wave of fear across the country. The bombings, together with the Dagestan War, led the country into the Second Chechen War.

The blasts hit Buynaksk on 4 September, Moscow on 9 September and 13 September and Volgodonsk on 16 September. A similar explosive device was found and defused in an apartment block in the Russian city of Ryazan on 22 September.[1] The next day Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin praised the vigilance of the inhabitants of Ryazan and ordered the air bombing of Grozny, which marked the beginning of the Second Chechen War.[2] According to sentences of judicial authorities of Russia, acts of terrorism were organized and financed by heads of the illegal armed group Islamic institute "Caucasus".[3] Thirty-six hours later, three FSB agents who had planted this device were arrested by the local police. The incident was declared to be a training exercise. There are allegations that the bombings were a "false flag" attack perpetrated by the FSB in order to legitimise the resumption of military activities in Chechnya and bring Vladimir Putin to the presidency.[4][5]"

I for one, think Putin orchestrated said bombings.

@ troop deployments, having a smattering of troops in countries around Russia doesn't really make them "surrounded by troops" imo

@ autocratic nightmare, lol, yes, it is an autocratic nightmare state. Putin kills or exiles opposition and press that is in any way negative towards him. There is no freedom of the press in Russia. There is no right to protest in Russia. Gay people are regularly killed or imprisoned in Russia. Corruption reigns supreme in a way that we could never even touch.

As for the rest, I never said the US was morally pure. I disagree with many things that we do, but that doesn't change the fact that I consider the manipulation of our elections to be tantamount to an attack on our country.

Russia may be backed into a corner in many ways, but that doesn't excuse them fucking with European and US politics.

astaroth360on Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid

1) Where do we have nukes in Europe? 2) Russia invaded Georgia and stole Crimea, that's more hostile activity than anything we've done in response. 3) Russia has started making advanced missiles to bypass missile defense systems and will have them soon, so who really cares of the missile defense shield? 4) Russia is an autocratic nightmare state where Putin, a man rumored to have engineered the terrorist attacks that led to his quick rise to power, kills or exiles any opponents or critics. 5) Russia hacked the fucking DNC to make Trump win, which is an act of war. 6) NATO has never threatened Russia. If Russia is terrified of NATO, it is due to paranoia. 7) Russia isn't encircled by US troops. 8) It makes sense for the EU and US to avoid using Russia's pipelines when Russia is a morally reprehensible country the way it is being run right now.

astaroth360on Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid

Also this:

https://twitter.com/RobertMLee/status/815251935666327556

"Did Russia hack the DNC? Yes. Is the DHS/FBI report good? No. Does either have anything to do with the electric utility in Vermont? Nope."

astaroth360on Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid

https://twitter.com/DanaHoule/status/815227058334892032

"Hope everyone remembers just before Trump took office @ggreenwald was praising Breitbart & @jeremyscahill was joking about working for Putin"

^ This

astaroth360on Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid

I'd like to see better evidence of the US election being hacked, but I understand they wouldn't want to release anything that could cut off their ways into Russian systems. I don't know how anyone expects to get real proof of it without us deciding to give away strategically important gaps in Russian infosec.

astaroth360on Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid

If sanctions were a precursor to war, don't you think we'd already be in a war with Russia?

astaroth360on Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid

That's because ever since Snowden he's started to turn into a Russophile. I think him being attacked for releasing Snowden triggered him to start just ranting against any US political or "establishment" forces and start supporting Russia because they helped out his source in the biggest story he's ever written.

astaroth360on Major Investor Sues Theranos

Isn't her activity like the textbook definition of fraud? Not to mention the dude who she basically pushed into committing suicide. I hope she gets at least as much time as Madoff.

astaroth360on Human age limit claim sparks debate

Yeah, except they don't include any sort of scientific advance. Who cares about the natural age limit? We're mankind, the first species to be able to guide our own evolution. Basically this article means nothing significant.

astaroth360on Panama Papers Reveal Clinton’s Kremlin Connection

If Facebook likes were votes Sanders would be trouncing Clinton in the polls and Trump would be the only person left running for the Republicans. However, people discussing politics on Facebook tends to be completely toxic and representative of the most enthusiastic, sometimes vitriolic, people around. It's very, very different than the layout of voters as a whole.

astaroth360on Panama Papers Reveal Clinton’s Kremlin Connection

Woohoo, the Sanders people found some lobbyists that have a connection with a foreign bank that happen to be connected to the Clinton's. By their logic, this proves Clinton is a pawn of Vladamir Putin.

This has got to be about the least interesting thing to come out of the Panama Papers.

astaroth360on U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

If they actually manage to break into the phone, will that damage Apple's reputation in the realm of security?

Anybody have any ideas what this 3rd party method could be?

astaroth360on Django Awarded MOSS Grant from Mozilla

I would love it if django were able to compete for more funding like this! Things tend to move much more quickly when there is decent funding involved :D

astaroth360on Django CMS 3.2 released

Hmmm, my company has switched over to Wagtail at this point and they've been happy with it. I'll have to look over new Django CMS and see what I think.

astaroth360on A letter to our daughter

Well, I'll say that I appreciate the effort on Zuck's part, but somehow I still can't make myself like the guy :\

Oh well, I guess I don't have to like him to appreciate that kind of cash going into worthy causes.

astaroth360on Va. mayor suggests internment camps over Syrian refugees

So this is a new low as far as reactions to the refugee crisis goes... wow.

astaroth360on Build a Bitcoin-Payable HTTP Proxy

I think it's mainly meant to be convenient to start developing services at some point and messing around with the minor amount of satoshis that the chip can provide.

$400 might be a bit much for people on this, I feel like they'll need to modify the price and/or the machine in order for people to fully embrace the idea.

astaroth360on Build a Bitcoin-Payable HTTP Proxy

"Do you realize it's tens of millions of dollars to spin an 18nm ASIC? They're not doing additional revisions, the (at their websites admission) loss-producing miner is as good as it gets." @steckerbrett There could be updates to the design in the future. 21.co is such a mystery for the most part, who knows what their plans are?