Hacker News Reader

giantfrogon Tool book of a Nuremberg knight from 1505

Imagine going to a history museum and there’s a sign outside that says “Some of the information here is totally made up”

giantfrogon The myth of Snow Leopard

Fair!

giantfrogon The myth of Snow Leopard

I have great memories of Snow Leopard. It even gave you back a few GB of storage (IIRC) at a time when every GB really counted.

giantfrogon Decker, a platform that builds on the legacy of Hypercard and classic macOS

The Fallout analogy is perfect. Limitation stimulates imagination. I think that’s part of why essentially limitless AI models produce things that are so devoid of it.

giantfrogon JetZero

An airplane is not something I would personally want to beta test

giantfrogon GLM 5.2 Is Out

Putting aside whether or not I agree with the policy or whether it’s at all reasonable, a policy of restricting access to information because there’s a fear it could be used to create a weapon of mass destruction seems entirely different than restricting access to historical facts because they are embarrassing to the government.

giantfrogon GLM 5.2 Is Out

The fact that your username is a racist meme seems relevant to this complaint and how legitimate it is.

giantfrogon A Peter Thiel-Backed Tribunal Is Putting Journalists on Trial

But on April 21, I received a remarkable email. “Someone has filed an objection against something you wrote,”

No one in their right mind is going to do anything other than ignore and/or delete an email this stupid.

giantfrogon Greg Brockman interview [video]

I think there might be a difference between “I’m violating copyright law to enjoy a work of art” and “I’m violating copyright law on a global, species-wide scale to create a trillion dollar company and enrich myself.” Maybe you can argue the former is wrong but there’s no way it’s equivalent to the latter.

giantfrogon Google changes its search box

If Google changes the internet so that no one visits websites anymore, no one is going to make or maintain websites. And at that point, A) What is left of the internet and B) What is left for Google to summarize via AI?

giantfrogon Bitwarden CLI compromised in ongoing Checkmarx supply chain campaign

How the hell are most people supposed to balance the risk of not updating software against the risk of updating software?

giantfrogon Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective

Libertarian publication run by the wealthy suggests course of action that will disproportionately harm the poor, I’m shocked!

giantfrogon Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

This system introduces a fun question: What’s more likely, that you suffer total spontaneous memory loss or your best friends betray you?

giantfrogon Psychometric Jailbreaks Reveal Internal Conflict in Frontier Models

This is fanfic not science

giantfrogon Guinea worm on track to be 2nd eradicated human disease; only 10 cases in 2025

RFK Jr: “Not so fast”

giantfrogon Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features

Because Firefox users have been clamoring for the ability to turn them off rather than the opposite.

giantfrogon [dead]

Cool idea, bad AI slop execution

giantfrogon Emailing a one-time code is worse than passwords

Still seems far, far more likely that the average user will have their account stolen via password theft/reuse than the more complicated scheme the author is describing. Links instead of codes also fixes the issue.

giantfrogon Anandtech.com now redirects to its forums

Big loss for the web.

giantfrogon Allianz Life says 'majority' of customers' personal data stolen in cyberattack

This will never, ever, ever stop happening until executives start going bankrupt and/or to jail for negligence. Even then it won’t stop, but it would at least decrease in frequency and severity.

giantfrogon What will become of the CIA?

The author was not only a longtime CIA employee, but staff historian. Not the most trustworthy source here.

https://nationalsecurity.gmu.edu/nicholas-dujmovic/

giantfrogon How I Use Kagi

If you'd told me several years ago I'd be paying $10/month for a search engine, I'd say that's crazy talk. But it genuinely is worth it.

giantfrogon Stalking the Statistically Improbable Restaurant with Data

This is a really fun exercise; a rare example of something that's "data-centric" without being soulless.

I think it's fascinating how it illustrates weirdness about how Americans think about and categorize "ethnic" food. For example, the author's analysis of Google data shows Glendale, CA ranks #1 for "Highest prevalence of Mediterranean Restaurants." But I am nearly certain the majority of these, given Glendale's demographics, are in fact Armenian or Persian restaurants. Both Iran and Armenia are of course quite far from the Mediterranean region, but for whatever reason (rice? flat breads? grilled things on a stick?) have gotten lumped in with some Americanized, genericized conception of "the Mediterranean" that's indistinguishable from "the Middle East." I would imagine you'd find the same thing happening on Yelp etc.

giantfrogon Fiber optic drones are changing combat operations

Which brands?

giantfrogon EFF Border Search Pocket Guide

I'd argue it's not extreme enough: Use an alphanumeric password or passphrase, as long as you can tolerate, instead of a PIN.

giantfrogon EFF Border Search Pocket Guide

Right, I'd recommend anyone worried about this to power off their laptop (assuming you've got full disk encryption turned on) and phone before going through security, customs, etc.

giantfrogon EFF Border Search Pocket Guide

Fun tip: If you have an iPhone, rapidly pressing the power button five times will force your phone to require a password before Face ID will work again. Turning your device off entirely will also necessitate password reentry.

giantfrogon This is no world for an axolotl

We’re really messing this place up huh

giantfrogon Underrated Soft Skills: Charisma

This reads like a dispatch from an alien who’s spent the past year studying human beings.

giantfrogon Legalyze.ai: Review Medical Records with AI

Looks like an efficient way to lose a lawsuit.