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mattmaroon

19,886 karma · joined March 28, 2007

http://www.mattmaroon.com
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mattmaroon··on Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait
Geography prevents most people from exerting the form of control Iran has. It would be much more difficult for, say, Canada to control it. The Iranian coastline is pretty favorable.

Also, most governments are more susceptible to being bombed than Iran. They’ve been preparing for it for decades. If nearly any country (except for maybe a couple of Irans neighbors) tried, they’d be easily routed.

mattmaroon··on Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait
Crypto but not Bitcoin.
mattmaroon··on Googlebook
Apple might not specify a time upfront but they do consistently support hardware for a good length of time. IPhones generally get OS updates for 5-6 years and security for at least a couple more.

I’ve never used anything they made long enough to get there.

mattmaroon··on The FCC wants your ID before you get a phone number
We were specifically discussing privacy from government as that’s what the original post is about. The FCC making cell providers check IDs like a bank will have no privacy ramifications in any other regard. My provider knows who I am, gives my government any info they want (probably all of it without even having to be asked, possibly without their knowledge), and sells it “anonymized” to all sorts of people. Graphene won’t help with any of that. I’m sure it is wonderful in other ways, but they’re just not ones that rank on my list of concerns.

And you’re right I should.

mattmaroon··on The FCC wants your ID before you get a phone number
Oh no, random people on the internet who don’t understand simple logic and can somehow take “we need a constitutional right to privacy” as not caring about privacy are judging me. Whatever shall I do?

If you’re worrying about a light rain while you’re drowning in the flood, that was the end goal and you fell for it. My life is materially impacted by spam calls, as a small business owner, it is far beyond an annoyance, so I’m going to enjoy the rainbow until I figure out what to do about the flood

mattmaroon··on The FCC wants your ID before you get a phone number
The 4th amendment has been interpreted by the courts to not be a broad right to privacy, and the overturning of Roe specifically stated this. Even if you think it should be interpreted as a broad right to privacy, it is clearly capable of being interpreted otherwise and is in no way adequate in today’s world.

You can only have SOME privacy on a phone with Graphene if you don’t really use the phone the way people use theirs most of the time. You’ve still got a SIM card talking to cell towers owned by a company who sells your information. You’re still presumably using apps and websites that require authentication. The government can still find where you were and what you were searching for unless you take extraordinary measures. That’s not privacy.

mattmaroon··on Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler
So basically, ReCaptcha should be spun off into a not-for-profit.
mattmaroon··on The FCC wants your ID before you get a phone number
Yeah I strongly suspect this will allow them to use it in court considerably more frequently.

But still, I know they know who I am. Anyone with a cell phone in their pocket has no privacy. It’s the best tracking device ever.

Anyone who thinks anything at all can make that problem worse simply doesn’t understand that they have none.

I’d rather have zero privacy and zero spam calls than zero privacy and lots of spam calls. Obviously I’d prefer privacy and I think we need a constitutional amendment to that effect, but as far as showing our ID to eliminate spam in a world where zero privacy exists, sign me up.

mattmaroon··on The FCC Wants Your ID Before You Get a Phone Number
Does anyone imagine the government doesn’t already know who owns every phone number?

Also, couldn’t this system be optional, numbers that are ID-verified are somehow flagged so (assuming I choose) when one calls my phone knows to let it through and when an unverified number calls it doesn’t ring?

mattmaroon··on Ted Turner has died
Oh! I thought it was Jim Obama, the owner of Obama Chevrolet of Sheboygan!
mattmaroon··on Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results
Oh sure but I meant in their case they might be their own biggest customer. Companies shuffle money from one pocket to another often for tax/financial reasons.
mattmaroon··on GameStop Preparing Offer for eBay
Yeah I don’t blame them. They didn’t create the meme but once it happened, any responsible leader would start doing secondary offerings to raise money. I sure would. If morons want to keep investing in the stock of a company that has no other chance of survival, great. Now they’ve got $9 billion on hand and they’ve had time to find a niche, right-size, and the interest on the cash pile is great too.
mattmaroon··on Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants
Unfortunately that support doesn’t seem to extend to making the process take less than decades and cost less than gazillions due to overregulation so there’s no incentive to build.
mattmaroon··on Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results
I think they make most of their money off searches with intent (“vehicle detailing near me”) and things for which they still send you somewhere. The kind of searches that an LLM can just answer probably largely just sent you to Wikipedia or somewhere nobody was paying much for anyway.

It’s possible AI will do a better job of capturing ad dollars by better serving intentional searchers.

mattmaroon··on Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results
Or deals with their own/third party LLMs?
mattmaroon··on Alphabet Announces First Quarter 2026 Results
When I went through YC in 2007 a founder whose name you know drunkenly told me at a party that Google Docs and Macbooks would have Microsoft out of business by 2012. Someone here told me in 2018 I was nuts to buy a gas-powered car because in less time than you would drive a car for, everyone will have switched to electric and there will be no gas stations left.

The impending deaths of most things are greatly exaggerated.

mattmaroon··on UAE to leave OPEC
It does seem like the petrodollar is coming to an end. Even if we wanted to keep killing/abducting the leader of every tiny oil nation shortly after the decide to sell oil in another currency (like we did to Iraq, Libya, and Venezuela), bigger ones we can’t just do that to practically are going to start.

The writing is on the wall. It might take decades, but it’ll end.

mattmaroon··on Tell HN: An app is silently installing itself on my iPhone every day
Can’t be sure it isn’t others. This a very large app, so it may just be the one that gets noticed the most.
mattmaroon··on Amazon won't release Fire Sticks that support sideloading anymore
Meh. These sorts of restrictions are a problem with cell phones because you have two choices.

For this application, you can just get a raspberry pi for about the same price. And they’re not even taking it away from ones that I already had it. They just aren’t selling the ability anymore so you know it when you bought it.

mattmaroon··on [dead]
You’d think Republicans would become pro-trans-men at least then.
mattmaroon··on Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
None of those are examples of violating a court order, in fact the first is an example of following one. The second happened when he was out of office. The third is ongoing.

I definitely did not say he doesn’t get ruled against by the courts.

mattmaroon··on Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
“All” might be a stretch but the idea that they just do what they want regardless of what the courts say is just incorrect propaganda. And continuing to find creative ways to defy court orders is something every administration does. And my opinion of the administration is low also, I just don’t like the propaganda and have never understood why we need to make up things about them when there’s so much to dislike that isn’t fictional.
mattmaroon··on Anna's Archive loses $322M Spotify piracy case without a fight
The US, or any nation state?
mattmaroon··on Anna's Archive loses $322M Spotify piracy case without a fight
While true, most people don’t (and won’t ever) know how to use it. But enough will to keep Wikipedia updated I suppose.
mattmaroon··on DIY Soft Drinks
I’m not sure, but they do sell some pre-hydrated gums and usually call them “perfected”. They are largely buying in commercial quantities and re-packaging for restaurant-scale use with their gums because a lot of the bigger ingredient companies that make the best products won’t sell in smaller than 50 lb (or sometimes even much larger) increments.

Pre-hydrated gums are usually just hydrated and then spray dried ones.

mattmaroon··on DIY Soft Drinks
Depends what I’m bottling and if it needs to be shelf stable. There’s actually just as much work in the packaging of a beverage as the product sometimes.
mattmaroon··on DIY Soft Drinks
Yeah, that would be my guess. Crystal Pepsi tastes noticeably different than regular, and caramel color is used in such small qtys that it is considered borderline flavorless.

If you look at popular grapefruit sodas Fresca is clear, but Squirt is cloudy because Fresca uses water soluble flavors and Squirt uses oils. (Squirt is the better product by far IMO because a lot of the grapefruit flavor is from the oil in the peel.)

It’s always possible the geniuses at the flavor houses Pepsi buys from have some magic I don’t know about though. But I’ve never heard of any way to make emulsified oils clear, since they refract light differently.

mattmaroon··on US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional
It would violate equal protection.
mattmaroon··on US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional
I did mention all of that. When the same topic came up a few days ago.
mattmaroon··on DIY Soft Drinks
That’s a good question and it probably depends on the ingredient. Most of what we call flavors are a mix of volatile aromatic compounds. Some of those are fat soluble. Some water soluble.

Alcohol is great for extracting as it can pull out both.

The flavor extracted depends on what you’re extracting with and even the concentration.

So really, you’d have to buy it and try. I’ve only ever made root beer a couple times for my own experimentation with oil.

Nature’s Flavors is awesome though and you might ask them.

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