HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

rendx

4,898 karma · joined October 30, 2014

Statements are my opinion and are subject to change.
submissionscomments
rendx··on Guy Goma's Accidental BBC Interview Lives on After 20 Years
The "idea" behind it I guess is to make people angry at Cloudflare and not realize it's not CF's doing.
rendx··on Internet Archive Switzerland
It's a mistake to assume courts need "proof" for a ruling. It's totally sufficient if courts find that it's just the most likely. "Not guilty until proven innocent".

If you receive child porn in your mailbox and the package is caught, you better have a really good story. Like, prior documented proof of harassment.

In regards to your question, and Germany specifically: Media companies hire specialist lawyers. These lawyers prefer to sue in Hamburg, where the courts are known to be very media company friendly. It's just not likely that you ran some experiment and didn't upload anything, so you better have it documented well enough to convince the court.

rendx··on The End of Violence
> addiction as a whole has only gotten worse over time.

How would you go about providing data/facts for that kind of statement? You make it sound like a fact, which I find difficult to challenge or explore. I don't even know which definitions of "addiction" to include (illegal drugs only? sugar? sports? gambling? prediction markets? cars?), and how to use that then to measure effectiveness of a "disease model of behavior" (vs other models? treatment options? treatment availability? social environment behavior? or what?). I'd guess even if you magically switched over "all therapy" to that model, and kept availability stable somehow, it would take some decades to show its effects.

What are you challenging exactly? And what alternatives are you comparing it to? It sounds like you're dismissive of the model and what kind of discoveries or attempts it may lead to explore it like that, but I cannot tell exactly, or on what grounds.

rendx··on [dead]
It's fine, go ahead! Lots of people only post links to their own articles. I don't think this is what the rules and mods mean when they talk of "promotion".
rendx··on The Soul of Man Under Socialism (Oscar Wilde) (1891)
"And as I have mentioned the word labour, I cannot help saying that a great deal of nonsense is being written and talked nowadays about the dignity of manual labour. There is nothing necessarily dignified about manual labour at all, and most of it is absolutely degrading. It is mentally and morally injurious to man to do anything in which he does not find pleasure, and many forms of labour are quite pleasureless activities, and should be regarded as such. […] Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt. All work of that kind should be done by a machine.

And I have no doubt that it will be so. Up to the present, man has been, to a certain extent, the slave of machinery, and there is something tragic in the fact that as soon as man had invented a machine to do his work he began to starve. This, however, is, of course, the result of our property system and our system of competition. One man owns a machine which does the work of five hundred men. […] Were that machine the property of all, every one would benefit by it. It would be an immense advantage to the community. All unintellectual labour, all monotonous, dull labour, all labour that deals with dreadful things, and involves unpleasant conditions, must be done by machinery."

rendx··on Is my blue your blue?
> Your boundary is at hue 174, just like the population median. You're a true neutral.
rendx··on We found a stable Firefox identifier linking all your private Tor identities
> to have every tor browser always generate a random fingerprint

Browsers do not "generate" fingerprints. They expose data that can be used to fingerprint users. You cannot "randomize" this; even if you were to return random values for, say, user screen size, with various visual side effects, it would just be another signal to fingerprint: "Oh, your browser is returning random values? Must be a Tor browser user".

rendx··on All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027
With Apple, at least in Germany, you schedule an appointment online, you walk in at that time, and you can come pick it up an hour later. Many independent shops offer basically the same for Android and Apple phones.
rendx··on Native Instant Space Switching on macOS
I didn't check if it makes any difference, but I see hardly any animation with “Reduce motion” enabled.

The article mentions this has the unfortunate side effect of also setting prefers-reduced-motion in browsers, but that can be mitigated by changing the browser settings (Firefox: about:config: ui.prefersReducedMotion. 0 (enable) or 1 (disable)).

rendx··on Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?
Good massage classes cost quite a bit of money. I still find it well worth it on a lot of levels, even if you're just interested in the receiving (for now)! I would compare it more to other hobbies, which often do cost substantial amounts of money (material, travel, equipment, club fees, etc -- none of which you need for this).

In multi-session trainings, it is often suggested or sometimes even required to meet with other participants to exercise between the official trainings. Even in cases where that's not officially part of the trainings, I want to encourage you to speak up and announce you're willing to provide your body to others for their training (who may be there for a professional career) -- in fact it's not like you're "asking for a free massage", you are offering a very valuable contribution, since you can give them feedback based on what you both learned in class, which is something other people they know will not be able to do. Also, it takes a bit of courage to ask friends, especially at the beginning, and hesitancy to touch friends in new ways; there's something about being in class together that makes it easier to accept touching the other; it's a 'professional' relationship.

rendx··on Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?
What I rarely read about as hobby but I really enjoy is touch! Taking massage/therapy classes, like lomi-lomi, craniosacral, acupressure, shiatsu, etc. -- plenty of great courses available. They're typically aimed at professionals since it is "under-explored" as a hobby, but well worth it as self experience. Not only the receiving but also the giving during the training(s), plus all the chances to give nice touch experiences to your friends and family! How many bodies have you deeply touched in your life?

Another niche hobby of mine is constellations groups: you meet with others to simulate and explore a problem somebody within the group is facing; a bit like impro theatre but real-life issues. Very interesting and doesn't require any skills, you just "do". I often just go and participate as a viewer: Better than cinema!

I also like NVC (non-violent communication) classes and trainings. It's a hobby but a bit more effort, you spend time with other likeminded people, learn something about the inner functioning of others, plus it improves my communication and conflict skills, both in personal and business areas.

rendx··on The Last Quiet Thing
> Some people choose to rent instead of buying because they don't want to deal with property upkeep (which is undoubtedly a bad deal, but one that some choose to make regardless.)

Is it? My understanding is that strictly return-wise, index funds are distinctly better than property value in most countries, especially if you factor in all the maintenance cost and risks. Some countries have pretty good tenant protection, which is another big factor in practice.

Separately: Personally, I've really enjoyed and benefitted from not having to deal with the complexities of ownership, and it is well worth it in my own time/money/hassle/annoyance calculation. My own time is the single most valuable asset I have; one could say: it is ultimately the only real asset I have. Everything else merely translates to that.

rendx··on Usenet Archives
Is there an easy way to grab messages/threads? I would like a copy of my own posts.
rendx··on Universal Claude.md – cut Claude output tokens
To me, it's precision in language. "Doing" involves an action. You could in that sense compare the computer part of a robot to the mind of an animal. The mind may be involved in planning or the main source and possibly in control of the action, but it doesn't do. Your example robotic lawnmower is not merely a computer. It may contain one. The computer inside it does not mow the lawn.

To put my comment in context again: I replied to a comment that said "By that logic, nothing computers do is scary." as a response to "Why would it be scary? Claude is just parroting other human knowledge. It has no goal or agency.". I was following the train of "logic" of this chain of comments.

As long as this hypothetical Claude doesn't have control over objects, it cannot do anything. It completely depends on how its output is processed and received. An LLM spits out words, a computer ultimately spits out bits; what makes them "scary" is not what they produce, but fully depends how that product is translated into action by its environment. It cannot be determined in isolation by only looking at the computer/LLM ("mind") part.

The mind part does not do. A computer may be attributed to have "agency", but the "objects" around it can have agency too. A computer cannot force anything on its own; a toddler (or a president) may have agency, but they require cooperation by their environment to exercise that agency. If you break a leg, you can want to move it all you want, it won't do.

It's not merely a "linguistic semantics thing". Think Nuremberg trials. Who is responsible, in a network of 'autonomous agents'?

rendx··on Universal Claude.md – cut Claude output tokens
Computer don't do anything.
rendx··on The Cloud: The dystopian book that changed Germany (2022)
Interesting. Southern German, born in the early 80s, and this book was HUGE in my childhood. Definitely covered at school, at depth.
rendx··on I decompiled the White House's new app
I don't know if you're being serious or not, but in case you are: There is a difference between (re)using other people's open sourced code, hopefully reviewed, and giving anyone in control of the third party repository the ability to run arbitrary code on your user's devices. Even if the "random GitHub repo" doesn't contain any malicious code right now, it may well contain some tomorrow.
rendx··on Project Nomad – Knowledge That Never Goes Offline
There are internet and electricity outages in many places over the world, controlled and uncontrolled. Also natural desasters take out infrastructure at least temporarily.

One "popular" example for those whose horizon doesn't extend over US country borders:

"Hurricane Katrina devastated communications infrastructure across the Gulf Coast, incapacitating telephone service, police and fire dispatch centers, and emergency radio systems. Almost three million customer phone lines were knocked out, telephone switching centers were seriously damaged, and 1,477 cell towers were incapacitated. Most of the radio stations and many television stations in the New Orleans area were knocked off the air. Paul McHale, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense, summarized the damage by stating, “The magnitude of the storm was such that the local communications system wasn’t simply degraded; it was, at least for a period of time, destroyed."

https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/reports/katrina-...

"Our preparedness culture must also emphasize the importance of citizen and community preparedness. […] Thus, citizens and communities can help themselves by becoming more prepared. If every family maintained the resources to live in their homes without electricity and running water for three days, we could allocate more Federal, State, and local response resources to saving lives. Similarly, if every family developed their own emergency preparedness plan, they almost certainly would reduce the demand for outside emergency resources. As the 9/11 Commission Report states, “One clear lesson of September 11 is that individual civilians need to take responsibility for maximizing the probability that they will survive, should disaster strike."

https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/reports/katrina-...

rendx··on FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms
How Legal Punishment Affects Crime: An Integrated Understanding of the Law's Punitive Behavioral Mechanisms (2025)

"This article explains what these 13 potential effects of punishment are and how they have been theorized. It further reviews the body of available empirical evidence for each of these mechanisms."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47266997

rendx··on Ceno, browse the web without internet access
USA: DMCA 17 U.S. Code § 512 (b) System Caching https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512

EU: Digital Services Act Article 5: Caching https://www.eu-digital-services-act.com/Digital_Services_Act...

rendx··on Put the zip code first
Here you go (2013): https://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-a...

Also: the awesome-falsehood collection: https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood

rendx··on The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me
My point being: If you value hanging out with people you don't like, it's still "selfish" (revolving around your own values).
rendx··on this css proves me human
You mean: use Grok?
rendx··on How Legal Punishment Affects Crime: Law's Punitive Behavioral Mechanisms (2025)
"Unfortunately, so far, the existing empirical work has not had a central place in policy, legislation, and political discourse (Loughran 2019, Nelken & Hamilton 2022). Unsurprisingly, scholars have been frustrated that their insights on, for instance, the inconclusive evidence for the deterrent effect of incarceration on violent crime or the evidence that treatment can help to rehabilitate have not had sufficient impact (Cullen et al. 2011, McGuire 2013). Empirical research has failed to sway policymakers and political leaders for many reasons, too many to cover fully here."

"Researchers must not give up but instead continue to engage with the public and with policy makers. They also must accept that although many policy makers (or their staffers) may be aware of these conclusions, the accumulated science may not change policy for various reasons, including their constituents’ viewpoints, their perception that being tough on crime will sway voters, and so forth. Yet, researchers should not throw in the towel. […] Given the various costs associated with punishment, this seems to be a paramount consideration."

rendx··on The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me
From my own experience, and yours might differ, I typically don't find that pretty or rich (or any other such attributes) make for more interesting and nicer. Why is it either selfless saint or egocentrism? You can do both!
rendx··on The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me
Have you actually shown genuine interest in their adventures, or is it you who defines what is adventurous and what is not, and not see that they defend against your interests, and by that protect their own? Why do you feel the need to make decisions for them? Is it you that is unhappy about their choices, or is it them? (How did your parents react to your wishes and desires? Was your autonomy celebrated, or dismissed? Do you find yourself subordinating your own interests below those of others, and say yes to things you would rather say no to?)

    “NO is always a YES to something else.” - Marshall Rosenberg
I've been to Paris often enough, no thank you. And I prefer to go with people that respect and celebrate my autonomy. I wish you a good trip though!
rendx··on Our Agreement with the Department of War
> OpenAI acceded to demands that the US Government can do whatever it wants that is legal. Anthropic wanted to impose its own morals into the use of its products.

Excuse me, but what a fucked up perspective. "Impose its own morals into the use of its products"? What happened to "We give each other the freedom to hold beliefs and act accordingly unless it does harm"? How on earth did it come to something where the framing is that anyone is "imposing" anything on another simply by not providing services or a product that fits somebody else's need? That sounds like you're buying into the reversed victim and offender narrative.

And this is not about whether one agrees with their beliefs. It is about giving others the right to have their own.

rendx··on When Your Ally Turns Narcissistic: Manual for Navigating Transatlantic Relations
Study/Policy recommendations: https://gppi.net/assets/StoffelHerzberg_2025_When-Your-Ally-...
rendx··on The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling
> The GDPR has overwhelmingly made my experience browsing the web worse, not better.

From where I sit that's hard to evaluate since you cannot actually see most data abuses and privacy concerns, and you also don't know how it would have been without it. You also see the effects of various laws and regulations in combination, so the ones related to GDPR are not easy to be singled out. Are you thinking only of the cookie banners? Maybe sites would be plastered with even worse bullshit. Did you consider that GDPR also resulted in privacy policies that (if actually somewhat legal) are fairly easy to read and not just copy pasta but specific to the service(s), have proper contact information, you get some transparency about which data partners the sites work with, sites need to have full data export, right to be forgotten (removal of your data/contributions), and so on. I am certain you benefit from it often, potentially without realizing, and you wouldn't know what the world would be like without them today so it's not so straightforward to reason about.

rendx··on The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling
"Strictly necessary cookies — These cookies are essential for you to browse the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the site. Cookies that allow web shops to hold your items in your cart while you are shopping online are an example of strictly necessary cookies. These cookies will generally be first-party session cookies. While it is not required to obtain consent for these cookies, what they do and why they are necessary should be explained to the user."

https://gdpr.eu/cookies/

← PreviousPage 3 of 22Next →