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Hoodedcrow

Re:Ask HN: Which TV do you recommend for privacy? on Monday November 02, 2026 @08:32AM (#50336602)
Also so that any electronics don't get fried. Wi-fi board borking itself would be good, but I'd be worried about it affecting something else down the line.
Re:Ask HN: Which TV do you recommend for privacy? on Monday November 02, 2026 @08:29AM (#50336577)
I wonder how likely it is though? The consumer access points don't come without passwords by default. Where I am, having an open access point without identifying the users is illegal, so it's unlikely a regular person would do that, and if some cafe does - it'd just have a captive portal asking for a phone number. And even if the business owner doesn't want to bother with that identification - there would 100% be a password on such a hotspot.
Never really thought of this! But I do sometimes find downloads that come with the booklet scans and that's always interesting to see.
Eh, I feel like data gets sold around so much that it could find a way to harm or at least impact you, especially if it's this extensive.

Also I personally am not even a Westerner, for me Chinese data collection could indeed impact me more directly than Google's.

First - a lot of things are just not on there. And second - not allowing alternative sources gets really bad when said store is asked to censor apps, like, say, proxy clients or alternative social media apps (Newpipe, etc.).
No Google services, but let's not pretend Huawei ones are any better in terms of privacy.
Last time I looked, it didn't even allow installing apps from outside AppGallery at all. Also, I don't think the Huawei services are any less intrusive than privileged Google Play.
For backup, I'd rather do a 3-2-1 together with my other important data, it's not like CDs are the best for general backup anyway.
Books are also the one thing I much prefer to have physically! I can usually get fiction in my language (mostly in secondhand bookstores now), but I still have to get most things digitally. Most books I read are in English and my country isn't English-speaking, so getting them would cost a fortune. And sometimes out-of-print books even in my language are also hard to find due to scarcity. So pdfs and epubs it is.
Seems like CDs are redundant here though, given that they get digitized anyway.
Re:Pixel 11 Pro Fold feels like the end of an era on Friday August 21, 2026 @11:48PM (#49396404)
I don't even think this counts because then you'd be paying for the brittle and useless big folding display as well, when all you want is the smaller outer one. Plus the worse repairability.
Re:Everything You Do Is Being Recorded on Monday August 10, 2026 @04:10AM (#49240787)
To be fair, most phones have invasive Google/Apple/Chinese OEM services that work with high privileges and are invasive on their own, without apps. The share of people using degoogled OSes is small enough to assume it isn't the case. And, to be fair, if someone has a degoogled phone, you'd probably know that by now (I say as also a degoogled user XD)
Re:Everything You Do Is Being Recorded on Monday August 10, 2026 @04:07AM (#49240760)
Statements like this are a stretch. This was not the fact of using the OS, but specifically the fact of wiping it. The situation is atrocious enough as is, no need to make up additions.
Re:How Do We Stop Vibe Coding? on Friday July 24, 2026 @10:14AM (#49035988)
> Much like with artists 90% of the commercial stuff - copy/ads with generic guy in suit picture - will be AI that is "good enough".

Eh, wouldn't be sure. Every time I see slop in such a context, it makes my day worse. And usually ensures I wouldn't go to that business, or at least unconsciously biases me against it.

Re:The lost joy of music piracy on Thursday July 16, 2026 @03:54AM (#48931520)
> It's important to remember that to this day, streaming sites do not have a full archive of the music out there.

And even if they did, you'd still need to pirate a copy of your collection to own it (as there's a chance not all of it is sold digitally and DRM-less).

Re:The Graph That Should Be Front-Page News on Monday July 13, 2026 @06:01AM (#48890295)
"Eat less meat, smaller homes, no flights"? Sounds like an average person to me because of poverty, lol. Even my family, well above the threshold for poverty, has to do this.

"Electric cars" is less likely tho because having a car at all is a money drain.

Re:ActivityPub over ATProto on Sunday July 12, 2026 @04:11AM (#48879325)
Big thanks for clearing that out! Makes sense.
Re:ActivityPub over ATProto on Saturday July 11, 2026 @12:14AM (#48868682)
> The fact that BlueSky runs the PLC central server is supposed to be fixed by them creating a swiss association to run and control it instead, but while they announced this, it is unclear if it went anywhere.

That I didn't know! So... Basically the whole solution is still "trust me bro"?

Re:ActivityPub over ATProto on Friday July 10, 2026 @12:02PM (#48861770)
The answer here would be "there's no such thing as a generic "server" like in ActivityPub because it's split into different components, of which a PDS is only one".

Honestly my main question here is "If you disagree with various ActivityPub instances' defederations, you can get around this by starting your own instance that federates with everything; is there an equivalent for bypassing Bluesky's moderation decisions?"

I didn't mean anything exact, more like a joking suggestion.

But yeah, if we're talking seriously - seems like this boils down to a ton of luck (good genetics and a secure enough employment or opportunity).

The best biohacker is some 100+ year-old Japanese lady who just eats healthy and avoids stress
It's funny how I haven't even clicked on the article yet, but the title and this first comment IMMEDIATELY made it clear which guy this is about
I don't think it's generational. I got the impression it's a share of about every age group.

Also, ownership can be a side effect for even those who don't care, just because they're used to not paying for things. For example, when I got Minecraft for free as a little kid, it was because nobody would buy it for me, while in hindsight this also meant no account that could potentially be lost when transition to Microsoft accounts began.

I see nothing wrong with abandoning physical media - as storage got larger and internet faster, being limited by clunky disks has become kinda pointless unless you're specifically into collecting. I see nothing wrong with moving on from them as long as it's towards local DRMless files.
Why would anyone use slop alternatives though? I don't think people wouldn't be creating non-slop ones.
Lol, relatable. For me it's not the library (because I have backups of that), but the in-game items. And not even for their monetary worth (which is relatively low), but for sentimental value (the stats counted on them).
Profiles are a thing in "stock" Android too, they just don't have the toggle to disallow them working in the background, the "Install available apps" option and Google services also keep working across profiles.

If you want something less disruptive for isolation, there's Private Space. What I like is that this can stop apps there from working in the background on stock Android as well.

Can confirm Graphene also has it
Re:The AirPods Effect on Friday June 19, 2026 @01:21PM (#48600808)
I see nobody saying "good afternoon" in a grocery store, that's the one place where you keep interactions to a minimum. Also, self-checkouts are not always an option because at least the ones at grocery stores here never accept cash.
Re:The AirPods Effect on Friday June 19, 2026 @04:44AM (#48596351)
Also "Father hiding behind his newspaper at the dinner table" has been a meme since forever.

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