News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

dtien

Re:Game Engine Black Book: Doom [pdf] on Monday December 05, 2022 @12:50AM (#33861951)
Thank you for posting this, sent $$ and a thank you! Love finding stuff like this.
Re:Show HN: Osso – Open-source SAML SSO service on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @01:49PM (#26017477)
Wow, this is amazing at first glance. Will definitely have to dive into to see that it hits all the requirements. But as someone who trodded down this rathole when a client asked if we supported SSO, it would be an amazing utility to have around.

How battle tested is this with real companies and different IDPs?

In any case, congrats on the launch and will definitely be taking a closer look.

Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? on Thursday January 14, 2021 @06:04PM (#25784228)
Can you elaborate what it means to remove the chunks of silence? Aren't there valid cases where there's no sound but you're actually showing/doing something on the video.
Ahh thanks for that, I hadn't seen this post. And the comment thread perfectly summarizes and addresses some of my shock and questions when I read the article.

Just insane the amount of numbers a site this Shared is throwing around.

not sure if this is sarcasm, but photos you liked aren't yours so this would be violating their privacy rules.
Re:Who’s behind the “reopen” domain surge? on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @01:40AM (#22932317)
I checked a few links listed in that MassMove github repository around the Bay Area in CA, including:

  https://sanjosestandard.com/

  https://sanmateosun.com/

  https://sanfransun.com/
I wouldn't characterize these as fake news, they just appear to be massively automated sites generated from public press releases from local government. In several of the articles they list the byline as "By Press Release submission". So it appears they aren't trying to be too deceptive, and if you search the text from the articles is does link back to the actual press release from a real .gov site in that locality.

Also looking at the bylines from metric media news service itself ( just append /author/metric-media-news-service to the main domain ), I would have expected a more discernible pattern of articles biased towards a particular viewpoint, but again, I didn't see anything too nefarious.

So at first glance, it looks like a reasonable local site albeit very cookie cutter, and primarily regurgitations of press releases from local official govs. And at second glance, it doesn't appear to be much worse than that.

NOW having said all of that, I can easily see how this can be turned sideways very easily and quickly by the site maintainers. If you're actually able to build up a good readership with some of this 'basic' content, then come election time or some other critical moment where influence is important, you can easily seed more biased content into the articles. And these don't necessarily need to be blatantly 'fake', they can just be slanted a certain way. They could certainly go full bore and insert some really fake content in there once in awhile.

The sheer magnitude of it all is impressive, taken in isolation these sites would seem legitimate but seeing them all side by side and seeing the content laid out it becomes painfully obvious there's an ulterior motive to it all.

Thanks to the parent comment for making me ( and hopefully more of us ) aware of this type of activity.

There have been published research in widely peer reviewed medical journals, for example: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...

Main points being that brain activity and cognitive tests have shown that kids with excessive screen time use exhibited negative results. Granted these tests likely refer to unattended, non-interactive screen time which is slightly different than this particular app's situation. But the general idea and question of screen time is relevant.

Also anecdotally, I have a young nephew and niece who's parents recently instituted a screen time purge for weeks at a time -- ( parent is an MD and recently attended a conference where research showed similar negative impacts in children's brain development after screen time use ). They've seen less hyperactivity, less meltdowns and improved listening and behavior. Again, one example, so take it for what it's worth.

Raising kids is a time consuming, challenging endeavor for most people, and everyone's experience is going to be unique. So, to each their own. And I'm someone who grew up with NES and after school cartoons. But even given that, I intend on leaning towards caution in this respect and limit screen time as much as possible certainly towards the younger age spectrum.

Do you mind sharing what the managed HIPPA setup is? What vendor do you go with for that?

I've always wondered about how easy it would be to setup a SAAS that adheres to HIPPA.

Very interesting read on the intersection between Tech/Politics/Money.

Personally I think it's bad idea to inject this type of (essentially) spam email marketing into politics to drive fundraising, but the alternative of Super PAC isn't very attractive either.

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