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sqren

263 karma · joined November 5, 2012

Innovative minds + technology = fun

GitHub: http://github.com/sqren Twitter: http://twitter.com/sqrendk Gmail: sorenlouv

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sqren··on Incident with Github.com [resolved]
They do not need to make any technical changes. They could make the change overnight: $1 per repo per month (or whatever). This would stop the aggressive growth that they clearly cannot handle anyway.

The question is: are they willing to compromise growth for QoS. So far the answer is a resounding: "no". They are deliberately sacrificing the experience of existing users to gain new ones.

sqren··on Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week
> Did I misread history about Bill Gates sleeping in his office or did he run MS from his kitchen table?

Yes, Bill Gates worked like a maniac and didn't see his family. His wife took care of the kids. I think that's a terrible example to set (I wouldn't want to do it) but each to their own.

sqren··on Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week
@kwanbix: do you have kids? I feel that's one of the primary deciding factors for working from home. People without kids are much more flexible with their time, whereas people with (small) kids are severely more limited. Freeing up commute time and being able to do small chores like starting the washing machine creates significant happiness, which totally offsets the downsides of not seeing your co-workers (that) often.

Before kids I would also become depressed if I worked remotely full time. But today my "alone time" is already pretty much gone outside work hours so I don't mind being by myself during the day.

sqren··on Why GitHub won
Whether Google wanted to win or not: Don't kid yourself into believing they _could_ have won even if they had tried. Google has a history of being terribly at executing on product ideas and Google Code never had the same "feel" that Github did. There's a reason Microsoft paid billions for Github. If Google could have created that in-house themselves they would have done it.

Not saying Google tried and failed - they may just have realised that actually winning this was never an option.

sqren··on Why GitHub won
Why make this about Google Code? It reads a little like Main Character Syndrome.

Github beat basically every Code hosting platform out there. Probably dusins of Github-like startups tried and failed because Github did so well.

So whether Google Code "wanted to win" or not doesn't really take away anything from the posts argument that Github won due to timing and taste.

sqren··on Meta does everything OpenAI should be
You make it sound like it's a bad thing that it aligns with their business goals. I'd turn this around: if it didn't align with their business goals I would be worried that they would course correct very soon.
sqren··on JavaScript Allongé, the "Six" Edition (2019)
This is a five year old book. Am I missing something?
sqren··on Why woodpeckers can hammer without getting headaches (2022)
If you've ever heard a wood pecker in action, 20/second doesn't sound completely crazy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6XOyUey4nQ
sqren··on A web app to generate valid QR codes with readable images
Agree! And those QR codes actually worked for me.
sqren··on Achieving 100Gbps intrusion prevention on a single server
To learn about Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) I found Unifi's documentation quite helpful. It's specific for their product but most of it is applicable elsewhere.

https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006893234-UniFi-USG...

> What are some common rules that get applied?

This is specifically answered under "Categories and Their Definitions":

> Compromised: This is a list of known compromised hosts, confirmed and updated daily as well.

> Scan: Things to detect reconnaissance and probing. Nessus, Nikto, portscanning, etc. Early warning stuff.

> SpamHaus: This ruleset takes a daily list of known spammers and spam networks as researched by Spamhaus.

> Web Apps: Rules for very specific web applications.

sqren··on React Concurrent Mode
> it feels like in the majority of cases the library is misued and people just create normal sites (that could have existed 15 years ago, but a loat bloatier) instead of creating the apps

So React shouldn't get new, powerful features because some people might (ab)use them for simple websites that don't need it? That's bollocks and I'm sure you can see that. If you are generally annoyed about this, go rant on Twitter - no reason to do it here.

sqren··on Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality
Sure, this doesn't work everywhere. But think of Los Angeles. Very high population density, apart from a few hills it's mostly flat and the climate is nice. To get to any place 1 mile away I'd have to go by car. Often there is congestion and I have to wait in traffic. Plus, there is no direct route to the place so have to go a huge detour - perhaps even shortly on a highway. This could be so much easier and healthier by bike - if the city was built for this.

Bottom-line: some cities can never be be great for bikes. But most can but just aren't.

sqren··on Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality
As another commenter said: require city council to build wider bike lanes. Another example from Copenhagen:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Dronning...

You can easily ride 3 bikes next to each other (and also four if you want). A single slow transporter won't block the traffic on wide lanes like this.

sqren··on Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality
To the people who say you need a car if you have kids - this is how we do it in Copenhagen:

https://live.staticflickr.com/3662/3465284112_5aab494014_b.j...

A transporter bike can carry 2-3 kids easily. It's the most convenient, cheap and healthy option. As soon as the kids are old enough they get their own bike.

Of course, it's convenient to have access to a car a couple of times a month. But definitely not on a daily basis.

sqren··on A problem worse than Zoom?
This is Hacker News. We all know this. That's not the point. The point is: is it reasonable in 2019 that websites you visit can make requests to devices on your local network? To be honest I'm not sure. But I sure think it's a relevant discussion to have.
sqren··on How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013)
Are you referring to VAT? If so, how does this necessitate "constantly re-tag merchandise"? In Denmark the VAT is the same for all goods, and was last changed in 1992 [0].

[0] https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moms

sqren··on Show HN: Dark Reader extension – Dark mode for every website
I'm a big fan of dark mode, particularly because I was of the impression that it was easier on the eyes.

Turns our, it's not so black and white...

In a study from the 1980s: > However, most studies have shown that dark characters on a light background are superior to light characters on a dark background (when the refresh rate is fairly high). For example, Bauer and Cavonius (1980) found that participants were 26% more accurate in reading text when they read it with dark characters on a light background. Reference: Bauer, D., & Cavonius, C., R. (1980)

So perhaps dark mode actually puts more strain on the eyes? At least when the user is not in a dark room.

Very interested to hear about similar research done in this area.

Further reading here: https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/53268/22606

sqren··on Nocode: The best way to write secure and reliable applications
... and a couple of hours later it has 12,000 stars. It's funny again.
sqren··on Berlin's Plan to Become a City for Cyclists
> You can easily transport 3 children in the back of a car without difficulty (try doing that on a bicycle).

I see this everyday in Copenhagen:

https://christianiacykel12.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/image...

sqren··on Tracking friends and strangers using WhatsApp
Very well written article - and I love your drawings! I did a similar story a while back on how you can track your friends sleep patterns using Facebook Messenger [1]. I'm sure there are lots of other services that have this problem, and most users are blissfully unaware.

[1] https://medium.com/@sqrendk/how-you-can-use-facebook-to-trac...

sqren··on HTTPS on Stack Overflow: The End of a Long Road
A company that trust their employees. There are so many ways to get around this anyway so it doesn't make sense to try to enforce it in the first place (considering the issues that follows).
sqren··on Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hacking Tool
Wow, that's pretty amazing work!

How is he able to add new supernodes to the cluster? I would expect a supernode to have some sort of credentials that are used for authentication. If not, isn't it possible to neutralize the botnet by overloading it with supernodes that don't send malicious commands?

sqren··on Developer Preview of Android O
I'm most excited about the new APIs for autofilling. Using a password manager on the phone today is a pain. Password filling on webpages and native apps is wonky (to say the least), and most of the time I end up manually coping passwords to clipboard, which is both cumbersome and insecure.

I really hope the major password managers are quick to adopt this, and it improves the current user experience.

"Autofill APIs: Android users already depend on a range of password managers to autofill login details and repetitive information, which makes setting up new apps or placing transactions easier. Now we are making this work more easily across the ecosystem by adding platform support for autofill. Users can select an autofill app, similar to the way they select a keyboard app. The autofill app stores and secures user data, such as addresses, user names, and even passwords. For apps that want to handle autofill, we're adding new APIs to implement an Autofill service."

sqren··on Chrome 56 will mark HTTP pages with password fields as non-secure
"Studies show [...] that users become blind to warnings that occur too frequently."

So right now it would be counterproductive to mark all http pages as "not secure". But it's the long-term goal.

sqren··on A testing system for catching visual regressions in Web applications
This project hasn't been updated in two years. A couple of active alternatives:

https://github.com/BBC-News/wraith Wraith: A responsive screenshot comparison tool.

https://github.com/garris/BackstopJS BackstopJS: visual regression testing by comparing DOM screenshots over time.

https://github.com/Huddle/PhantomCSS PhantomCSS: Visual/CSS regression testing with PhantomJS.

sqren··on Why are Adults so busy?
Maybe this should be worded: Why are American adults so busy.

I've been living in the US for a couple of years, and have thoroughly enjoyed it, but it occurs to me that life is more "rushed" than I'm used to from Denmark.

RE: 1) Have Money

The standard work week is 37 hours. I love my job, but this leaves me plenty of time to do other stuff I enjoy.

RE: 6) Bills, Bills, Bills

Living in the US for a couple of years taught me this: cheques are a real thing and most payment processes are manual. Denmark: I no longer receive bills. The banking infrastructure allow consumers to "subscribe" to businesses, who can then withdraw the correct amount. If the amount increases the consumer won't have to change a thing. And it is easy to unsubscribe again :)

RE: 8) Transport + 9) Staying Healthy

Get a bike and combine commuting with exercise ;)

RE: 11) Taxes

Paying taxes in the US is A PAIN. Ordinary people need to hire an accountant (and still do most of the grunt work themselves) to make sure they pay the right amount. Denmark: fully automated system. Yes, the government has access to my bank account and investments (!privacy!), but my only tax-related action is to click "Accept" once a year.

sqren··on Node OS
Not going to defend npm here, but how is using Github as registry going to avoid left-pad-gate?
sqren··on Desmos Graphing Calculator – HTML5 with LaTeX editor
This looks great. I've been using fooplot.com but Desmos is much more polished, so will consider switching.

Initial things I like:

- Latex representation

- Ability to save expressions

- Pretty UI

Initial issues:

- Keyboard shortcuts. I cannot jump to start/end of line.

- Copy/paste. I get something like this when copying an expression: "\sqrt{\left(x\right)}"

All in all: great job!

sqren··on VNC Roulette
Just because locks have existed for thousands of years doesn't mean they are used everywhere. When I lived on the countryside in Australia we didn't lock the doors. That's not "an extremely long time ago" ;)
sqren··on How you can use Facebook to track your friends’ sleeping habits (Open Sourced)
I have open source all necessary code, and it is available here: https://github.com/sqren/fb-sleep-stats
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