MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by naasking | 2025-10-16 16:00:31+00:00
> If you want to be able to prevent root kits you need secure boot

I think this is very misleading. Secure boot was a response to the poor security of commodity operating systems which allowed programs easy access to make low-level system modifications. In other words, the poor security models of commodity operating systems was the actual cause that allowed rootkits to spread and become a major threat that required mitigation.

In an alternate world in which operating systems enforced least privilege on all programs, the likelihood of a rootkit spreading would be orders of magnitude smaller, almost not even worth mentioning. The motivation for secure boot in this world is really only to prevent supply chain attacks, which can also be solved by just buying hardware from reputable companies. Secure boot arguably would not have been created in this world, thus avoiding the new dangers inherent to it.
by nradov | 2025-10-16 16:00:48+00:00
Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label.

Antibiotic resistance is a concern but the FDA has made progress in that area.

https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/safety-health/antimicr...

The EU bans routine antibiotic use for promoting animal growth but antibiotics are still widely used for other purposes.

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/first-report-eu-wide-sales...
by DocTomoe | 2025-10-16 16:00:54+00:00
By definition, a meme is an idea, image, phrase, or piece of behaviour that spreads through imitation—usually because it captures something funny, relatable, or sharply true about human experience.

These are as old as mankind itself. All major religions are essentially meme-conglomerates. 'Music to invade Poland to' is a memetic concept, so is the dies-irae-theme in all music since the 1400s. Memes itself are 'sodgy narratives, and dinosaur-like news, history, or novels (hell, novels are meme-machines - they have sprung everyhing from quintessential fantasy races to actual mythofascist-occult ideas to bona fide suicide waves).

I'd argue that behaviours/media/ideas eventually need to be at least explainable to a significant part of a culture to become memes. You can explain 'Courage Wolf' to a completely uninitiated person of average intelligence in 30 seconds. You can explain 'Trollface' in a minute (with the whole cast in two more).

Skibidi Toilet escapes such explanations and is thus not, IMHO, a meme format. It's viral, not memetic, it spreads, but does not encode universally-understood meaning. There's no payload, just absurd emptiness.
by ndiddy | 2025-10-16 16:01:11+00:00
The 1985 GNU Manifesto explicitly brings up the possibility of third-party companies whose sole business is charging for setting up, running, and managing free software:

> Meanwhile, the users who know nothing about computers need handholding: doing things for them which they could easily do themselves but don't know how.

> Such services could be provided by companies that sell just handholding and repair service. If it is true that users would rather spend money and get a product with service, they will also be willing to buy the service having got the product free. The service companies will compete in quality and price; users will not be tied to any particular one. Meanwhile, those of us who don't need the service should be able to use the program without paying for the service.
by vlovich123 | 2025-10-16 16:01:37+00:00
Aside from the complexity not being possible to misuse (which is trivial in C++), I still find it easier. Moreover, even if you didn’t know about this if you use clippy it’ll suggest construct replacements that are more idiomatic. So even if you didn’t know about lightweight clones, you’ll get suggestions to leverage them once they’re available for your codebase (and you can apply the vast majority trivially by asking clippy to do it automatically via --fix). This is distinctly not a superpower c++ has and why the complexity of c++ keeps piling up with either no one using the new features or using them in unnecessarily complicated ways.
by afavour | 2025-10-16 16:01:40+00:00
I find that Rust is a language that feels insurmountable when you examine it from a distance but once you get your hands dirty it feels natural very quickly.

Case in point, my first read on lifetimes just left me confused. So I used Rc<> everywhere and made a perfectly functional program. Picking up lifetimes after mastering the basics made it a lot easier. Most people won't even need to care about lightweight clones.
by cyrialize | 2025-10-16 16:01:51+00:00
If you don't mind me asking, why do you prefer this set up over just using brew?

I've poked around articles and other posts about this, but I'm not sure I quite get it.

If I just need to install packages, would brew just work for me?

I have a collection of bash scripts in my dotfiles for setting things up, and I've been meaning to adapt them for my linux laptop. It seems like Nix may be helpful here!
by dennis_jeeves2 | 2025-10-16 16:02:04+00:00
>The flat tax would not make tax preparation any bit easier.

there are many way to 'define' a 'flat' tax. My way would be a fixed sum. Not a fixed rate. ( yes the rich pay the same as poor) This would ofcourse have it's own if/buts but it would eliminate 90%+ complexity.

The ideal situation would be be no income tax and many other forms of taxation.
by preisschild | 2025-10-16 16:02:14+00:00
I think (free / libre) Android is still alive today (although it is endangered now with Google not yet having released Android 16 QPR1. I would still hope with enough contributors we could fork it). Forks like LineageOS/GrapheneOS exist, which further improve allow you to use Android completely without proprietary Google Spyware. There is also a quite big ecosystem of free open source apps (on FDroid and other repos)
by KAMSPioneer | 2025-10-16 16:02:22+00:00
No, GP is misinterpreting Windows's message. It prompts for a recovery key because the TPM is bound to, among other things, Secure Boot == enabled. When Secure Boot is disabled, the TPM notices that and refuses to release the key, that's how you know to reënable Secure Boot or throw away your device.

The fact that Windows is compromised does not make it capable of extracting secrets from the TPM, though maybe a naïve user can be convinced to enter the recovery key anyway...
by formerly_proven | 2025-10-16 16:03:05+00:00
> run EDR

> does not detect initial compromise

> does not detect persistent so

> does not detect preloads

> does not detect injection

> does not detect exfiltration

What does the D stand for again? Besides the entire threat vector and article being an unsurprising non-story. Yes, if you can modify the execution environment you can modify the executed code.
by pjc50 | 2025-10-16 16:03:22+00:00
This is generally better yes, especially if it's going to end up inside another LINQ operation - you can avoid materializing the list.

Cases where it isn't:

- risk of multiple execution (there is a CA warning for this)

- when returning data protected by a mutex, you should always materialize a copy of the returned list/array rather than return an enumerable
by LeifCarrotson | 2025-10-16 16:03:35+00:00
There are only a few options here.

You can file the ticket claiming that the shiny new promoted thing is actually an antifeature and that you hate the popup. You can then hope that the PM or exec who is currently receiving adulations or making speeches in the hope of a bonus or promotion after the rollout gets assigned the ticket, rather than some lowly volunteer. Then, the next time they get asked to make something, they'll think "wait, maybe I shouldn't advertise this new thing by forcing a popup on every Firefox user?" If that happens often enough to become part of the shared zeitgeist at the organization, they may be able to enact a Mozilla-wide policy against such popups and stop building antifeatures. Good luck, I hope it works for you.

Or you can throw sand in the works. When the accessibility department complains that people keep filing tickets and wasting their time whenever a new feature includes a popup, that component of the organization can push back

Every time I inadvertently find myself at a gas station with those horrific advertisement kiosks installed at the pumps, I either look around for a nearby station that doesn't have ads playing, or I stab the "Help" button to page the cashier. I am well aware that the minimum wage employee stocking the shelves and helping people prepay does not have the phone number of the GSTV producers or the executive decision makers at ExxonMobil or whoever, and I have no animus against that person - I'm infallibly polite with the individual. But I ask them to keep the line open to mute the ads, and they usually do. My only hope for eliminating those ads is either shopping at different gas stations - but how are they ever going to distinguish that microscopic boycott from the noise - or hoping that this communication filters up through the organization.
by pmarreck | 2025-10-16 16:03:42+00:00
I have written 2 utilities that may be of use to digital archivists:

printable-binary: A way to visualize/serialize raw binary data into a string form that doesn't break terminals (converts to/from specially-selected utf8 glyphs that stay monospaced in most fonts) which has some unique features: https://github.com/pmarreck/printable-binary

bitrot_guard (yeah, apparently I can't decide whether to use hyphens or underscores in names yet, lol): A way to restore a user-configurable percent of data degradation in a file or set of files... without touching the original files. Only dependency is par2: https://github.com/pmarreck/bitrot_guard

Both should work on macOS/Linux/WSL.
by TimTheTinker | 2025-10-16 16:03:49+00:00
> Conflicts between making things simple and incentivizing a behavior

Yes. When there's a negative behavior that the free market incentivizes, tax code updates can address it without sounding as scary as "More Industry Regulations". Same with social policy and other goals.

A lot of Americans are against the idea of "big government", which incentivizes government to use the tax code and other low-visibility means to accomplish larger goals.
by mikestew | 2025-10-16 16:04:15+00:00
And the company can be sued at any time, for any reason or no reason at all. That does not mean the plaintiff will win, but against deep enough pockets, it can be worth a try. PIPs take time, and HR isn’t about to let you skip them, and bad employees know they’ve got six months to spend their workday looking for a new job while not doing their current job. I’ve worked at those companies, and sometimes managed at same, and when OP says they have stories, I believe them.
by leakycap | 2025-10-16 16:04:26+00:00
> Franework [sic] ... they are for from the best [sic] ... from what I read

That's a lot of typos to just repeat someone else's first hand experience you read about. I guess I should have opinions on Airbus vs. Boeing, too -- mind you, I've never flown a plane, but you know, I've read some stuff online so I'm basically an expert.
by angiolillo | 2025-10-16 16:04:32+00:00
I agree that it's more "difficult" than "infeasible" so I've corrected above.

But I'm not sure I agree that the difficulty is due to being an oligarchy. In a democracy where the majority of citizens have the majority of their capital tied up in land (as is the case in the US and many capitalist democracies), shifting the tax burden onto land seems like it would be broadly unpopular.

I do agree with your main point though that a democratic society with a free market economy could work very differently, it's really the transition that would be broadly unpopular, and therefore politically difficult in a democracy.
by ddtaylor | 2025-10-16 16:04:37+00:00
A project manager gets paid more than minimum wage and those are actual skills that are in demand.

Going through hoops to have to cash out some of your money is a big red flag you're probably scamming yourself.

I think it works similar to most low-tier street crimes. If you zoom out and look at the vast majority of the "labor" they only make some of the pennies they keep. In the same way there are a few stand-out "high tier" drug dealers, etc. there are a few scammers collecting a decent check, but the vast majority are stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.
by doctorpangloss | 2025-10-16 16:04:41+00:00
Games are experiences, all aspects of the experience, such as how the game is made and by whom, is on the table (is “valid”).

That said, the best way to achieve the goals of the article at a studio like EA is make it an issue for the games’ primary audience, 13 year old boys.

The way that comments like these get downvoted shows why these developer union guys, whom I support, have so far to go.
by dayvster | 2025-10-16 16:05:18+00:00
That is precisely what prompted me to write this article, it was an update to a piece of software I require to use for work that suddenly just stopped working properly.

That's actually a point I wish I touched upon more in the article, how SaaS and the ability to patch software issues later down the line made sloppy coding a norm, because you can always just push a patch and expect your users to update to resolve their issues.

Whereas back in the ol' days (promise I'm not that old) a bug in your software would essentially mean severely dissatisfied costumers that may not purchase the next version from you
by danans | 2025-10-16 16:05:20+00:00
> I'm personally glad that Steve Jobs wasn't a protectionist

Me also. What does that have to do with Jobs being represented on currency?

Why not do the same for the pharmaceutical CEOs who have set up generic drug supply chains overseas, or the leaders of apparel companies who set up overseas sweatshops to enable us to have disposable clothing?

Arguably, affordable antibiotics and underwear have made a vastly bigger positive impact on standard of living than iPhones.
by M95D | 2025-10-16 16:05:40+00:00
1) Phages are specific for each bacteria species or sub-species. Can't treat E.coli and Klebsiella with the same phages like we do with antibiotics. Not even the test kits are the same. There are hundreds of phages for each bacteria species and only a few of them would work for each patient.

2) Phages are live organisms (as much as you can call a virus "alive"). The shelf life is very very short. A couple of days probably.

1 + 2 => A hospital would have to store thousands of different phages to be able to treat most of it's patients and it would have to replace those stores twice a week.
by hollerith | 2025-10-16 16:05:44+00:00
Yes, but when an individual hacker needs a secure computer and is deciding which computer to buy, it does him no good to tell him that if the whole industry had evolved in a more convenient way over the last 4 decades, he would have been able to avoid secure boot: in the actual world, the only user-facing computers on the market with decent security use secure boot to help deliver that decent security where "user-facing" means "used to browse the web and maybe other things".

Also remote attestation has pro-social uses. Without it, photographs will soon become useless as evidence because soon there will be no way to distinguish a photo of a real scene from the output of generative AI.
by stanac | 2025-10-16 16:05:55+00:00
Not a horror story. I like how marten worked with postgres and wanted something similar for sqlite, so I made a library that stores data as json, and translates linq to sql using json query functions. It wasn't very fast, but it was fun experience. For next attempt (once I have more time) I will probably include source generators to precompile queries and skip if not all, then most translation at runtime.
by mcculley | 2025-10-16 16:07:15+00:00
I have written applications for macOS in Objective-C and remain a Swift skeptic. Maybe the language has more serious design behind it now. I don’t know. As much as I hate JavaScript, maybe it is time for Apple to provide a JavaScript API or their own official Electron layer. I really hate how Electron apps don’t use the same text input field as the rest of macOS.
by gpm | 2025-10-16 16:07:41+00:00
I'm entirely unconvinced that a low-level† memory safe C that is meaningfully simpler than rust is even possible, let alone desirable. IMHO Basically all of rust's complexity comes from implementing the structure necessary to make it memory safe without making it too difficult to use††.

Even if it is though, we don't have it. It seems like linux should go with the solution we have in hand and can see works, not a solution that hasn't been developed or proved possible and practical.

Nor is memory safety the only thing rust brings to the table, it's also brings a more expressive type system that prevents other mistakes (just not as categorically) and lets you program faster. Supposing we got this memory safe C that somehow avoided this complexity... I don't think I'd even want to use it over the more expressive memory safe language that also brings other benefits.

† A memory-safe managed C is possible of course (see https://fil-c.org/), but it seems unsuitable for a kernel.

†† There are some other alternatives to the choices rust made, but not meaningfully less complex. Separately you could ditch the complexity of async I guess, but you can also just use rust as if async didn't exist, it's a purely value added feature. There's likely one or two other similar examples though they don't immediately come to mind.
by bko | 2025-10-16 16:07:41+00:00
I don't think you need to "justify layoffs". If a company feels an employee is not being productive, they should be allowed to let them go. Same way if an employee feels he is getting underpaid or wants to work somewhere else, they should be allowed to leave.

I've actually always liked working for companies in which the objective was straight forward. None of this "we're a family" stuff. You should be kind, and all the places I was at were kind. But layoffs are a reality and reducing headcount at times is part of that. You need a way to get rid of dead wood, otherwise you would be too afraid to grow and hire when you need to.
by cudgy | 2025-10-16 16:07:53+00:00
Maybe with your research into social patterns of nature, you can figure out a way around this issue or at least approaches that might work to increase the social transaction depth for humans.

I wonder, though, whether the issue with humans coming together on a global basis for common issues like labor, has less to do with cerebellum size (or individual weakness) and more to do with active interference from governments and corporations to prevent these alliances from forming.

If people are upset and angry about more fringe issues, it is possible to distract them from the impactful issues they may agree on like wage growth, education, healthcare. I believe until people start to realize this tactic and recognize it and counteract it, the average human will continue to lose ground.
by bflesch | 2025-10-16 16:08:11+00:00
I assume they absorb VOC until you tear down the chalk or clay plaster.

With clay the indoor problem is more about radioactivity, but it's best in terms of humidity control. Chalk creates an alkaline environment on the surface which makes it inhabitable for mold (however the wooden furniture you put in front of it can still get mold if the indoor air humidity is too high).
by lawn | 2025-10-16 16:08:21+00:00
In practice it's mostly fine actually.

But yes, for interactive elements it's not optimal. They have some JS helpers for simple things but you may need to drop down to JavaScript hooks yourself if you want do better.

I've been playing around with Hologram, which transpiles Elixir to JavaScript. It's very early days but it has the potential to be a much better solution than LiveView.

https://hologram.page/
by yjftsjthsd-h | 2025-10-16 16:08:51+00:00
So funny thing. I was planning to agree and write something about how you can find data loss stories for literally any filesystem, but the relative frequency and nature of those stories is important to differentiate.

However.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=btrfs+data+loss&ia=web - first 2 results about data loss or corruption, especially on power loss

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=ext4+data+loss&ia=web - first 2 results about data loss or corruption/truncation on power loss or OS crash

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=xfs+data+loss&ia=web - first result about data loss when losing power

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=zfs+data+loss&ia=web - First result is someone claiming data loss after setting sync=disabled on a single disk over usb with slog+l2arc on the same disk, and scrub turns up 50k errors; i.e. they did everything they could to hold it wrong, and in the end their disk physically failed, which I really don't think is a ZFS problem. Second result is a stack overflow thread discussing why ZFS doesn't fail the usual ways. Third result is official docs. If I go down the rest of the first page of duckduckgo results, it's mostly discussions of how ZFS protects against data loss, with the one exception of https://forum.level1techs.com/t/solved-zfs-monthlong-changes... ... which looks bad until you realize the use didn't mount a filesystem, and once they found it they recovered their data just fine.

So no, based on random web searches I conclude that ZFS remains head and shoulders above every other option.

---

Edit: If I search for "zfs Linux data loss hacker news", I get https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22005181 which appears to contain zero stories of losing data on ZFS, although there's a bunch of stories about BTRFS doing so. Most of the remaining results are news stories about a single bug from 2023 and one story about ZFS's native encryption having problems (which I grant is a footgun).
by SkyPuncher | 2025-10-16 16:08:52+00:00
I work in this space. The article does a poor job of explaining exactly what this role does - but they allude to it with Chris Peake's comments.

> Peake, a former CISO, said a lot of the skills from his previous role have translated into his current one. However, he said the CTrO role differs from the CISO role because it operates more on the “business level,” as the work done by a CTrO can directly impact revenue generation, contract negotiation, and onboarding new customers.

In my view, it's a role that sits between Sales and Security. A major part of the role is getting customers and prospects information about your business and security controls to validate their own needs (e.g. compliance requirements). It's still a semi-technical role, but isn't necessarily focused on the nut-and-bolts of ground-level security.
by andrewflnr | 2025-10-16 16:08:54+00:00
The odds of the counter revolution deciding to go exactly back on their grandparents original course, out of what is honestly quite a large space is possibilities, seems quite low to me. And even that's assuming the original revolutionaries don't plainly see the cost of turning around; I think it will be pretty obvious. And the first generation of people born in the starship won't exactly be yearning for an Earth they've never known.

Once you're on a starship with just enough fuel to reach the destination, the only real question is what the political organization will be at the end.