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pif

3,134 karma · joined July 26, 2012

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pif··on The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy
You see, when someone talks about "the governments" without realising that they do represent the people in a democracy, their ignorance show so much that it is difficult for them to attract any sympathy in those places where the laws are discussed.
pif··on The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy
And any phone could be tapped with a signature by a judge.
pif··on The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy
I am always surprised that people get shocked when online privacy is put at risk, as if it was a fundamental human right.

REMOTE PRIVACY NEVER EXISTED BEFORE A FEW DECADES AGO!

And what happened in these decades are enough for the societies to wonder whether this new possibility in human connections (i.e. remote privacy) is globally a good thing. Just stomping your feet because the new toy may be declared illegal is not helping anyone. Governments are expressing serious doubts: this discussion needs serious interventions, not temper tantrums.

pif··on 8086 Segmented Memory was a good idea
> Need more than 64KB? Allocate two blocks.

How is that compatible with an array and a simple implementation of the index operator?

pif··on Why do commercial spaces sit vacant? (2025)
Say what you want, but a law that lets you pretend that the value of a building is based on what you ask, rather than what you can actually obtain, is a stupid law.
pif··on Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million
That's as stupid as it is old. Locals would do it for a proper salary. But the same locals do not want to pay the proper salary!

Turn the brain on from time to time!

pif··on German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews
Which is what thay should be in any sane environments. LLMs can be wonderful tools, but they cannot be trusted.
pif··on Lies we tell ourselves about email addresses
Display a warning and propose to edit instead of blocking the operation: your customers will be happier!
pif··on The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen
> Why did they give it any of that?!

Because they are idiots. You need to be a freaking idiit to trust AI.

pif··on C extensions, portability, and alternative compilers
Spending time on your hobby is wondwerful. Expecting the world to consider your hobby important is arrogant.
pif··on Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore
You may substitute StackOverflow with Quora and your answer would not get less valid.
pif··on C extensions, portability, and alternative compilers
Also, people confuse "good" with "ought to live forever". It's time to leave BSD and LISP in the history books.
pif··on The death of the brick and mortar toy store
> devastating for someone with a loan

Sorry, I can't understand why. Could you please expand a bit?

I don't get how decreasing the value of the building makes the loan more difficult to repay.

pif··on Mercurial, 20 years and counting: how are we still alive and kicking? [video]
> some things are just not possible to do right

If git doesn't let you do them "right", your concept if "right" is wrong.

pif··on Ask HN: We just had an actual UUID v4 collision...
All the comments I've been able to read are missing the elephant in the room: no high-quality entropy source can turn a "should" into a "must".

If you want something that is difficult to guess, ask the cryptography guys. But if you need something that is -_guaranteed_ unique, you must build it yourself.

pif··on I spent 6 years building my Kanban as I hated how managers run the boards
I keep stating proudly to any team mate and any manager that I've never ever needed a board to know what I had to work on.
pif··on Girl, 10, finds rare Mexican axolotl under Welsh bridge
If you want it to be pronounced "sh", just write it "sh".
pif··on XOR'ing a register with itself is the idiom for zeroing it out. Why not sub?
Which part of "mathematical operations don’t reset the NaT bit" did you not understand?
pif··on Saying goodbye to Agile
> if it fails, it is only considered evidence that you were not doing it enough.

20 years ago, this was the meme about XML.

More seriously, this was also the answer about Communism.

pif··on Saying goodbye to Agile
> "We will do x and y as a compromise but not z"

This reminds a lot of this: "I'm going to try this extremely difficult pastry recipe at home, but I'll use margarin insted of butter because <idiot reason> and a teasponn of stevia instead of the prescribed 200 g of sugar for <another idiot reason>."

pif··on Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)
Wake me up when a heavily industrialized country will be in the list, thanks!
pif··on Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence
Hello, could you please elaborate about those laws?
pif··on Tech hobbyist makes shoulder-mounted guided missile prototype with $96 in parts
> you now can annihilate them [...] from a comfortable distance

The problem is: they can, too.

pif··on A Tiny Camera Revealed a Hidden Passage in the Great Pyramid
Muons are not stable, thus you cannot tear them off matter as you'd do with electrons. And they have a mass of 105 MeV each, which means you need a nice particle accelerator to create a few of them.

Furthermore, if you want (most of) them to fly in a particular direction, you need to scale that accelerator up.

pif··on The American Healthcare Conundrum
She taught me to only speak the truth.
pif··on The American Healthcare Conundrum
> I'm talking from the perspective in Europe > > No law maker asked about the major decisions the EU made.

Idiot brexiteer talk...

pif··on The American Healthcare Conundrum
In civilised places, the government is the people. And civilised people know they are the government.
pif··on The American Healthcare Conundrum
The important question is: which fraction of people can afford it in either country?
pif··on The American Healthcare Conundrum
No, this is just what pays big dividends to useless managers.
pif··on Ask HN: How are you all staying sane?
> No one can predict anything.

Nobody ever could. Accept this reality and everything will be fine.

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