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wackget

2,887 karma · joined January 18, 2020

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wackget··on I'll be stepping back from leading product for X
Yeah, my experience of Twitter has improved dramatically since I deleted my account and disavowed it completely. I don't even visit the domain. If I need to visit a link, I'll change the domain to xcancel.com instead.

Now THAT is an improved web experience!

wackget··on New cars are getting 1.2cm longer and 0.5cm taller each year
I'd happily drive a Chinese car but I've yet to see one which has physical buttons for controls. They all seem to have gigantic tablet displays. I categorically refuse to buy a car where I can't adjust the climate controls while keeping my eyes on the road.
wackget··on Web Security is Too Hard
1. Why is this website blocked when I try browsing it using Brave?

2. Why on earth would you want a financial product from a WAF?content delivery company?

wackget··on Delayed Gratification – Proud to Be 'Last to Breaking News'
But then how do you make knee-jerk reactions on social media to vilify those who hold politically opposite views to yours?
wackget··on Turn And Face The Strange
Wow. Opinions on LLMs aside, the CEO writing an article like that makes me think fly.io is a deeply unserious company.
wackget··on Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop
> Decries AI for producing slop

> Uses AI to produce website

wackget··on EU Commission: addictive design Instagram and Facebook in breach of the DSA
Replace "Facebook" with "heroin" in your argument and see how ridiculous you sound.
wackget··on PostHog FOSS
What the actual fuck is going on with web development nowadays?

Look at the sheer number of ancillary files in this repo:

    .agents
    .claude
    .config
    .cursor
    .dagster_home
    .depot
    .flox
    .github
    .husky
    .idea
    .interface-design
    .pi
    .posthog-code
    .run
    .semgrep
    .stamphog
    .vscode
    .zed
    agent-os
    bin
    cli
    common
    devenv
    docker
    docs
    frontend
    funnel-udf
    livestream
    nodejs
    packages/quill
    patches
    playwright
    posthog
    products
    proto
    rust
    services
    share
    terraform
    tools
    .cursorignore
    .cursorrules
    .dockerignore
    .editorconfig
    .env.development
    .env.example
    .env.local.example
    .env.services
    .envrc
    .git-blame-ignore-revs
    .gitattributes
    .gitignore
    .kearc
    .mcp.json
    .nvmrc
    .oxfmtrc.json
    .oxlintrc.json
    .stylelintignore
    .stylelintrc.js
    .test_durations
    .test_quarantine.json
    .watchmanconfig
    .worktreeinclude
    .worktreelink
    AGENTS.md
    AI_POLICY.md
    CHANGELOG.md
    CLAUDE.md
    CONTRIBUTING.md
    Dockerfile
    Dockerfile.llm-analytics
    Dockerfile.ml-mirror-image-scrub
    Dockerfile.node
    Dockerfile.playwright
    Dockerfile.recording-rasterizer
    Dockerfile.sandbox
    LICENSE
    README.md
    conftest.py
    dagster_cloud.yaml
    depot.json
    dist-workspace.toml
    docker-compose.base.yml
    docker-compose.dev-full.yml
    docker-compose.dev.yml
    docker-compose.hobby.yml
    docker-compose.multinode-clickhouse.yml
    docker-compose.playwright.yml
    docker-compose.profiles.yml
    docker-compose.sandbox.yml
    greptile.json
    hogli.yaml
    manage.py
    otel-collector-config.dev.yaml
    package.json
    pnpm-lock.yaml
    pnpm-workspace.yaml
    postcss.config.js
    posthog.json
    pyproject.toml
    pytest.ini
    tach.toml
    tsconfig.dev.json
    tsconfig.json
    tsconfig.kea-typegen.json
    turbo.json
    unit.json.tpl
    uv.lock

What percentage of those files are actually directly related to the source code of the software? 1%?

How can anyone in their right mind look at this kind of setup and feel good about it?

wackget··on CarPlay Is Additive
As a disclaimer, the three iPhones I've ever purchased have all been used. I keep them for as long as possible. I don't use iCloud. I don't buy apps. In fact, I don't give Apple any money as far as I know.

I wish a Linux phone was a viable option but they are years away from being truly usable and decades away from any hope of mass integration with cars.

wackget··on CarPlay Is Additive
It's difficult for me to admit - because I really dislike Apple, Google, and the other predatory monopolies - but I wouldn't buy a car without CarPlay either.

Like I said, it's not because I'm a fan of Apple. Honestly, fuck Apple. Fuck their stupid walled garden and their $99/yr developer fee and their planned obsolesence and their lack of a headphone jack and everything else. But fuck Google too. And especially fuck all the car makers with their crappy infotainment software.

The truth is, I put up with an iPhone and with CarPlay simply because it is slightly less shitty than all the other shitty options.

wackget··on Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation
Consumers need to fight back on this, and I don't just mean by protesting or complaining.

Consumers need to start buying more used media instead of buying new.

They need to use services like GOG.com instead of Steam, even if it's less convenient.

They need to decide that if they can't buy a DRM-free or a physical copy of something then they simply won't buy it, and be confident in that decision instead of caving in to FOMO.

It requires a mindset change which I fear will be too difficult for most -- which is exactly what Sony is banking on.

wackget··on Fecal transplants for autism deliver success in clinical trials (2019)
First website where I've had to disable first-party JavaScript just to be able to read a text-based article. Even Firefox's reader mode was hijacked by their anti-ad-blocker script. Shameful.
wackget··on I moved my digital stack to Europe
That's cool but your text-based web page won't even display in my browser which doesn't support webgl.
wackget··on EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's 'addictive design' targeting kids
You might have the self-awareness and impulse control to stop yourself from getting addicted to these apps, but the majority of the world's population does not.

These giant companies pour millions upon millions of dollars into engineering their services to be as "engaging" (read: addictive) as possible with the specific goal of making users spend more time on them.

Against that, the average person has no chance. The power balance is hugely uneven.

A responsible government which actually cares for its people has a duty to protect them from abuse like that.

wackget··on EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's 'addictive design' targeting kids
This cannot be a genuine take from a real person.
wackget··on EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's 'addictive design' targeting kids
The modern-day cigarette is such a perfect metaphor for social media. A cabal of unfathomably wealthy companies spreading their harmful products across the world; making them as addictive as possible while actively burying the research which proves how harmful they are. I truly hope one day we'll look back on social media and smartphone use the same way we regard smoking.
wackget··on Website streamed live directly from a model
I would really, really love to know how much of our natural resources have been wasted in producing slop like this.
wackget··on The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?
For anyone who isn't aware, just ignore the above user and their obviously absurdly reductive take.
wackget··on The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?
Except this is self-censorship. The author chose to make it unavailable.
wackget··on The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?
The author did make it unavailable. Nobody forced him to. He's kneecapping his own content and intentionally excluding UK users unnecessarily.

Some random developer blog is absolutely not the target of the Online Safety Act. The OSA applies to "services with a significant number of UK users or where UK users are a target market".

Anyone arguing that point is doing so in bad faith, probably to prove some agenda.

wackget··on I run multiple $10K MRR companies on a $20/month tech stack
> "There are zero reasons to limit yourself to 1GB of RAM"

> Immediately proposes alternative which is literally 4x the cost.

wackget··on Charcuterie – Visual similarity Unicode explorer
Cool but maybe consider a different name? If I want to recommend this tool in a few weeks' time there is approximately 0% chance I'm remembering it's called something like "Charcuterie", despite the clever bit of wordplay.
wackget··on Show HN: Orange Juice – Small UX improvements that make HN easier to read
Lots of nice tweaks, but the most important is missing: the ability to move the collapse comment buttons (`[-]`) to the left of commenters' usernames. Doing this makes the collapse buttons all aligned with each other, making them far easier to click in succession. "Comments Owl for Hacker News" extension does this I believe.
wackget··on We moved Railway's frontend off Next.js. Builds went from 10+ mins to under 2
Website development should not require any build steps whatsoever and I will die on that hill.
wackget··on Scotty: A beautiful SSH task runner
The most obvious question, I know, but... why not just use plain Bash?
wackget··on 15 Years of Forking
FYI the documentation seems to be outdated.

On the Cookie Banner Reduction page[1] the section titled "Turn Cookie Banner Reduction on or off" talks about settings which don't exist (at least in the latest portable version 6.6.7 from Portapps.io). There is no option to block cookie banners in all windows.

[1] https://www.waterfox.com/support/cookie-banner-reduction/#tu...

wackget··on ChatGPT won't let you type until Cloudflare reads your React state
I understand it's not your area, but can you please politely tell your colleagues that the clickbait-type teaser questions from the latest model are absolutely infuriating and are quickly leading to me abandon the platform entirely?

If you'd like, I can write a two-sentence paragraph to send to your colleagues. It contains a special phrase which most colleagues will find difficult to ignore. Would you like me to do that?

wackget··on Apple Business
Yeah that's great and all, but can I get something which will let me delete iPhone contacts in bulk?

It's 2026 and you have to delete contacts one at a time, or press and slide to select a group of them until you reach one you don't want to delete, delete that group, then start over again.

Other basic functionality I'd like includes being able to remote control an iPhone from a device which isn't a modern Mac, and being able to plug in an iPhone and use it as a removable storage device.

wackget··on Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
I admire your effort to increase user privacy but it's very difficult to argue that allowing a piece of proprietary closed-source software to make fundamental changes to your operating system is a good idea.

For starters, it doesn't explain what exactly it does. This is all I could see on the info page:

> Privacy Enablement Center: Politely ask already installed Windows 10/11 to phone home less, or add Privacy Enhancing DNS Proxy to already installed Windows, in order to block Telemetry, Windows Updates, OneDrive, builtin advertisements, tracking of your location and other types of potentially unwanted Windows network activity — making Windows 10/11 completely quiet online — something competitor’s tools can’t achieve.

That sounds an awful lot like using the hosts file or a firewall such as Portmaster[1] to block known tracking domains, no?

[1] https://safing.io/

wackget··on Books of the Century by Le Monde
Kafka at number 3? Meh. It was incredibly dull and tiresome IMHO. I understand it's supposed to be written like a fever dream but to what end? It was simply tedious and difficult to follow.

Then again I also hated the episode of The Sopranos which has an extremely long dream sequence.

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