News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

ompogUe

Re:Unreal Agent on Tuesday September 22, 2026 @04:28PM (#49807614)
Wonder how much this was influenced by both drivers and riders gaming the system.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IYaBPIwope0

Re:Normalized Fascism in Open Source: $12M Given to DHH on Wednesday September 02, 2026 @02:21PM (#49540278)
Not sure where this was ever a mainstream narrative.

I guess if by mainstream culture you mean some sort of thin-skinned incel echo chamber. Which, yes, those "men" are pretty weak and pitiful, but I've never seen and calls to kill any of them.

Re:Normalized Fascism in Open Source: $12M Given to DHH on Wednesday September 02, 2026 @02:15PM (#49540204)
I guess if you want to live in a hateful society, you'd accept it in the interests of hateful free speech. Kind of a race to the bottom, though.

However, if you look, for example, at the history of constitutional amendments over the centuries, turns out they've consistently been to provide more inclusivity/less hate. And that's arguably what made america great.

Seems the maga crowd wants to make America great at being stupid, mean and weak, instead of that inspirational light on the hill.

Re:If You Knew God Exists, Wouldn't You Become a Priest? on Tuesday September 01, 2026 @03:53PM (#49527206)
Seems he's neither benevolent nor omniscient if he didn't know we'd "rebel", and then was so shallow about punishing us for it.
Did a similar thing where I had a neighbor who raised dobermans and rottweilers - it's a bit difficult to code with 8 or 9 large dogs barking in the yard outside your window.

Set up an amp and speakers that would pump out ultrasonic noise when it heard the barking, sending them running to the other side of their house.

Yes, go back to sleep. I will always be out of fashion when the hip look is being an ostrich with it's head up it's butt.
Re:Why It Might Be Time to Rethink the Human Family Tree on Saturday August 22, 2026 @07:57PM (#49405013)
If we're joking:

A Roman walks into a bar and says, "Can I have a martinus?"

The bartender asks, "Don't you mean a martini?"

The Roman responds, "If I wanted a double, I would have asked for it."

Re:How We Made a Text-to-Speech Model Respond in Sub-50 ms on Saturday August 22, 2026 @07:46PM (#49404952)
Does hardware count? Like a Roland VT-4?
Hear, hear! Cadillac using Led Zeppelin broke something in me.

I'm on the fence with the Beastie Boys getting used in movie fight scenes. They said they'd never do ads. Elevates the scenes, but it also elevates the IP of Disney and Paramount.

Nope, the pure evil award goes to Stephen Harper. He literally auctioned off and trashed decades of paper scientific research reports to get rid of all of those pesky climate statistics.
Craziest part of the dolphin story is before he got the NASA funding and subsequent debauchery.

In the 50s when he started to study them, he learned that you cannot open up their brains while they were still alive and poke at them. Apparently killed 5 or 6 of them that way before trying different ways to study them.

Re:Buckminster Fuller: everything I know on Thursday August 06, 2026 @01:07PM (#49199436)
Reread this within the last 3 months. Read originally as the first book in my Industrial Design coursework.
This has been a self-deprecating joke in SW Louisiana since at least the 1970s. But an oil rich Acadian and "hollow statue" said in a Cajun accent.
Once again, see Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge. Foresaw exactly this. Written in 2006, takes place in 2025.
Really, the original vision 20+ years ago (i.e. Rainbow's End), was that the user would have an overlay of the world they wanted to live in.

Where your pub might appear to you to be swords and sorcery world, with an orc for a bartender, the bartender would be in a sci-fi world and you would be a robot.

The cameras were needed to keep track of the real world.

I agree though, and this whole pervy use case wasn't really envisioned as much then.

> says that it's easier to change the world by inventing new technology than through democracy

It had a better ring to it to me when Buckminster Fuller said essentially this. He was trying to do it through design rather than control.

My understanding was that they don't shut immediately upon touch to avoid false positives (leaves, water droplets). They only close up a second touch (something alive). They actually count.

Also, talks about the cells softening, but fails to mention what I think is most interesting: those cells contain water under super high pressure.

Re:Anthropic confidentially submits draft S-1 to the SEC on Wednesday June 03, 2026 @04:50PM (#48389843)
Was on a team that was trying to sell AltaVista a social media presence (before facebook/myspace/etc). Our people were mostly using Google, but we still wanted the client. One of the "moderation experts" on our side (i.e. - not tech or busniess) who evidently didn't understand what AltaVista was about asked them "Why don't you just use Google? It's better".
Re:Why Japanese companies do so many different things on Friday May 22, 2026 @10:27PM (#48243955)
As the owner of a Juno 106, I can't disagree. In the 90's, to me, it was Panasonic video gear that I found amazing. Had to take apart a couple of toughbooks tonight, and they are great little machines.

Although, to me, what I've always loved about Japan is how they will take every medium that arrives on the scene and treat it with loving craftsmanship. From jazz to skateboarding to yo-yos.

What I remember is the big box book stores coming to town and putting the independent and smaller stores out of business. While I did appreciate having access to stacks of modern computer manuals, it didn't last long: once the mom-and-pops were out of business, the big box stores pivoted to converting half of their floor space to selling candles and pillows.
Re:Echoes (Live at Pompeii) on Friday May 15, 2026 @09:22PM (#48155928)
Gratuitous Beastie Boys homage: "Gratitude"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdJ5e70Q8mw

Re:I’ve banned query strings on Saturday May 09, 2026 @07:18PM (#48079269)
Something I discovered looking back at some old sites: "pages" defined by URL params don't always make it into the Wayback Machine.
Re:If Apple makes an iPad Neo, it's all over on Thursday April 30, 2026 @05:17PM (#47968342)
The only Apple product I still have is a 2010 ipad 1. Only use it as a clock, violin tuner, and workout timer, but am amazed it's still going like an old volkswagen.
I wonder if Paul remembers that his company (Apple Corp.) had several trademark lawsuits[1] against Apple Computer over the name. Which is why System 7 had a alert sound called "sosumi".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer#S...

So, Google's browser says downloading a tool to download files from Google's servers is "Suspicious"? Not surprising.
Re:Malus – Clean Room as a Service on Thursday March 12, 2026 @05:12PM (#47357179)
^This. A large % of jurisprudence is in just trying to keep up with how tech disrupts society.
Re:Bubble Sorted Amen Break on Thursday March 12, 2026 @03:56PM (#47356217)
Reminds me of Motown's James Jamerson [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jamerson

Re:Think Twice Before Buying or Using Meta's Ray-Bans on Tuesday March 10, 2026 @10:24PM (#47331148)
I thought the AR UI in "Rainbow's End"[1] made more sense than hand gestures: with digital clothing, all of our movements become controls. And we each train our inputs according to our own slight tweaks and movements. Also, pretty sure this book was a big impetus for Google, Meta, etc to get started with AR, drones, and self-driving cars.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End_(Vinge_novel)

I only use authenticator with an old phone next to my work computer. No sim card, minimal apps. Don't do work apps on my main phone, especially InTune.

Older »