Hacker News Reader

gdrifton [dead]

The Islamic Republic wants to charge the world’s largest tech companies for using the subsea internet cables laid under the Strait of Hormuz, and state-linked media outlets have vaguely threatened that traffic could be disrupted if firms don’t pay. Lawmakers in Tehran discussed a plan last week which could target submarine cables linking Arab countries to Europe and Asia.

gdrifton Fix monitor that goes black, off or blinks due to static electricity in chair

Happened to me too with a new chair.

I suspected static electricity. The solution was a thin cotton pillow on the seat. Problem gone.

gdrifton We May Be Living Through the Most Consequential Hundred Days in Cyber History

Freedom, Security, Convenience. Choose two.

gdrifton [dead]

This maybe?

https://zropi.com/

gdrifton Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth

That hasn't changed. It's still ~90% junk.

  Total Essential/Functional (so far) = 8.7%
  Total Junk (so far) = 65%
  Unknown (probably mostly junk) = 26.3%

  https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2011/05/whats-in-your-genome.html
  https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2008/02/theme-genomes-junk-dna.html

gdrifton Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth

Still 90% junk.

https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2011/05/whats-in-your-genome.h...

gdrifton The Lords of Silicon Valley Are Thrilled to Present a 'Handheld Iron Dome'

It's already been done:

  SMASH provides kinetic protection against evolving C-UAS threats to dismounted forces by featuring built-in targeting algorithms that can acquire, track and hit small drones.

https://www.smart-shooter.com/

gdrifton Please don’t upload my code on GitHub

Self hosted GitBlit.

https://www.gitblit.com/

gdrifton Experts warn yearly checkups carry risks and do not reduce mortality

> You would think doctors would be able to collect data and then come up with statistical tables of “hey you may have xyz.

There's a project that's attempting to collect such data on a large scale and long time span:

  The purpose of Project 10K is to develop methods that will predict
  diseases years before they break out.

<https://www.project10k.org.il/en>

gdrifton A History of the FFmpeg Project

  I'd rather not have to round trip a temporary file
  I just need to use the CLI tool and pipe standard IO

Or use Process substitution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_substitution

gdrifton Codeberg: A GitHub alternative from Europe

And also GitBlit

https://gitblit.github.io/gitblit/

gdrifton Universal Media Server. A DLNA, UPnP and HTTP(s) Media Server

To stream from MPD you can configure an output plugin such as: http, shout, snapcast.

https://mpd.readthedocs.io/en/stable/plugins.html#output-plu...

gdrifton U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

  > hundred billions or so dollars ... every year

More like ~$4B (out of a total foreign aid of ~$50B annually).

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-military-aid-does-the...

gdrifton The bullet effects in Terminator 2 weren’t CGI

Reminds me of this Vonnegut short story:

  "amendments to the Constitution dictate that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The Handicapper General's agents enforce the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful, loud radios that disrupt thoughts inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron

gdrifton Improving first impressions on Signal

To send an SMS to a signal contact, press and hold the send button then from the popup select `Insecure SMS`.

gdrifton Impact of circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants on mRNA vaccine-induced immunity

Please also consider:

    Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) was first identified in April 2020 by doctors at children’s hospitals in the United States and the United Kingdom. The condition has also been called pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS). MIS-C is an illness that can occur after COVID-19 infection and affects mostly school-age children. While the syndrome is rare, it can be dangerous.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...

gdrifton Apple acquires classical music streaming service Primephonic

My favorites:

Baroque / Europa Galante / Fabio Biondi

Ancient music / La Capella Reial de Catalunya / Jordi Saval

gdrifton Google is testing its new ad targeting tech in millions of browsers

You get "free" sites that you actually pay for indirectly through the ad costs embedded in the price of any advertised product you pay for. Also, how is the claim that "Untargeted ads means less revenue" supported?

gdrifton 17 year old Firefox feature request fixed

One of the most voted for issues is closed WONTFIX: single click selects all in address bar and search box.

I use Firefox exclusively and this is the single most annoying change they made for no apparent reason. So annoying.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1621570 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?votes=133

gdrifton Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?

Weight tracking site I made for myself and keep using for years: http://yadt.iotide.com/

It's no longer developed just maintained. There are two other users besides me :) (the sample weight history is my own weight over the last 15 years).

MPD android client I made for myself and eventually published as a paied app (just to keep myself commited).

I keep developing and supprting it altough it earns in a month less than what I earn in two hours work as SW developer. https://mafa.indi.software/

gdrifton Programs are a prison: Rethinking the building blocks of computing interfaces

Open intents is trying to standardize and promote such cooperation between apps on android. Tasker and similar apps are also a way to stitch together apps.

http://www.openintents.org/

gdrifton FreeYourMusic lets users migrate their playlists off Spotify

MPD on linux + Android MPD client as the the GUI works well for me.

gdrifton From its name to its drug interactions, there’s a lot going on with grapefruit

For the most up to date COVID information there's this from WHO:

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

> These materials are regularly updated based on new scientific findings as the epidemic evolves. Last updated 5 October 2020.

gdrifton Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

> genes that don't confer any particular advantage tend to peter out when inserted into large populations

Not sure that's true.

Natural selection is not the only force driving evolution.

Neutral and nearly neutral (slightly deleterious) alleles can be fixed in a population by random genetic drift.

Source: https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2020/10/on-importance-of-rando...

gdrifton Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

I was blocked from my gmail account for attempting to log in without the dot. My address is firstname.lastname@gmail. Had it for years. When I learned that dots don't matter I tried to log in without the dot and was immediately blocked for suspicious behavior. Luckily it wasn't used for anything important. Few months later the block was removed. Never tried to play with the dots again since.

gdrifton Amazon’s UK FBA operations will be split from the EU

BFA (Fulfilment by Amazon) EFN (European Fulfilment Network)