BobbyTables2 (u/BobbyTables2)

BobbyTables2 commented on Show HN: Algorithmically finding the longest line of sight on Earth alltheviews.world... · Posted by u/tombh

BobbyTables2 · 9 hours ago

Would probably be really useful for Amateur Radio enthusiasts making low power long distance contacts using VHF/UHF.

I wonder if air quality/humidity permit actually seeing this far though… That’s a lot more “air” than looking up toward space…

BobbyTables2 commented on UEFI Bindings for JavaScript codeberg.org/smnx/prometh... · Posted by u/ananas-dev

spijdar · 12 hours ago

Funny, I've always found it interesting how "on point" it was...

Granted, yeah, we never (or haven't yet) really transitioned to running "full legacy software" inside the browser, or at least it's not common place. That said, I've seen people compile Wine to wasm, Linux to wasm, and lots of other things to wasm, and run em in a browser. Many of the "fake" demos could be done for real now.

The one aspect that remains thoroughly farcical is an equivalent of Wine for OS X/Cocoa good enough to run a web browser. :-(

[edit] And asm.js kind of died on the vine. Not sure how to feel about that one. Wasm could he described as an evolution of the same idea, but in a lot of ways it's something entirely different.

BobbyTables2 · 9 hours ago

We already can execute DOS / Win 3.1 in QEMU in the browser.

Probably wouldn’t be too hard to boot Linux (under QEMU compiled for wasm), and then fire up a Windows 95 VM using QEMU TCG …

Could repeat this a few times - Inception style…

BobbyTables2 commented on Slop Terrifies Me ezhik.jp/ai-slop-terrifie... · Posted by u/Ezhik

gyomu · 2 days ago

> The short life boots are great for everyone (boot makers, suppliers) except the end user.

And the environment, which now gets polluted with discarded short life boots, and all the waste byproducts required for their production/transportation

And the social fabric inevitably changes for one reflecting the priorities of a world of cheap disposable boots made far away

BobbyTables2 · 10 hours ago

Also good for the environmental cleanup companies and waste management ones (/s)

BobbyTables2 commented on Nobody knows how the whole system works surfingcomplexity.blog/20... · Posted by u/azhenley

lazystar · 20 hours ago

> Granted one person can't know/do everything,

watch me try, at least.

> but large companies in particular seem allergic to granting you any visibility whatsoever. It's particularly annoying

If the blind spot is directly causing customer pain, find metrics that demonstrate the impact. If it ends up driving away your customers, then your company is securing itself to death.

BobbyTables2 · 10 hours ago

It’s a lot like the “how shit happens tale”.

The product may take 20 minute to boot - a testament to its complexity and greatness (/s). But pointing that out might end badly when it’s the SVP’s pet. They will not entertain alternatives or efforts that distract from their mental plan.

And if a developer finds themselves getting feedback or communication from customers, things are probably on fire - absolutely literally.

BobbyTables2 commented on Nobody knows how the whole system works surfingcomplexity.blog/20... · Posted by u/azhenley

scottLobster · a day ago

The irony is "ownership" is a common management talking point, but when you actually try to take ownership you inevitably run into walls of access, a lack of information, and generally a "why are you here?" mentality.

Granted one person can't know/do everything, but large companies in particular seem allergic to granting you any visibility whatsoever. It's particularly annoying when you're given a deadline, bust your ass working overtime to make it, only to discover that said deadline got extended at a meeting you weren't invited to and nobody thought to tell you about it. Or worse, they were doing some dark management technique of "well he's really hauling ass right now, if he makes the original deadline we'll be ahead of schedule, and if he doesn't we have the spare capacity".

If the expectation is I'm a tool for management to use, then I'll perform my duties to the letter and no further. If the expectation is ownership, then I need to at least sit at the cool kids' table and maybe even occasionally speak when I have something relevant to contribute.

BobbyTables2 · 10 hours ago

Taking ownership is hard but fending it off is even harder.

I’ve been dragged into modifying my team’s product to fix deficiencies in others’ designs.

They didn’t want take ownership and freely pushed it onto us!

BobbyTables2 commented on We mourn our craft nolanlawson.com/2026/02/0... · Posted by u/ColinWright

sosomoxie · 3 days ago

I started programming over 40 years ago because it felt like computers were magic. They feel more magic today than ever before. We're literally living in the 1980s fantasy where you could talk to your computer and it had a personality. I can't believe it's actually happening, and I've never had more fun computing.

I can't empathize with the complaint that we've "lost something" at all. We're on the precipice of something incredible. That's not to say there aren't downsides (WOPR almost killed everyone after all), but we're definitely in a golden age of computing.

BobbyTables2 · a day ago

I miss the simplicity of older hardware.

The original NES controller only contains a single shift register - no other active components.

Today, a wireless thing will have more code than one would want to ever read, much less comprehend. Even a high level diagram of the hardware components involved is quite complex.

Sure, we gained convenience, but at great cost.

BobbyTables2 commented on Slop Terrifies Me ezhik.jp/ai-slop-terrifie... · Posted by u/Ezhik

encom · 2 days ago

>until something goes significantly wrong

Data breaches are so common they don't even register any more, and people share far more personal information now (willingly or not) than they used to. Remember when the common advice was "don't use your real name online"? Now every service demands your phone number to register, and those temporary email services (like 10minutemail) rarely work any more, in my experience. Downtime makes the news if it's bad enough, but Cloudflare, Microsoft and Amazon still control most of the internet. They fuck up badly all the time, and nothing ever happens. Windows 11 is literal adware, and Linux desktop usage is still a rounding error.

Remember that Tea "dating" app that leaked pretty much everything last year? As far as I can tell, it's still in business.

Many such cases.

BobbyTables2 · 2 days ago

Equifax arguably shouldn’t still be in business…

And yet not long ago its stock was nearly triple that of the time of the 2017 breach…

BobbyTables2 commented on Slop Terrifies Me ezhik.jp/ai-slop-terrifie... · Posted by u/Ezhik

dijksterhuis · 2 days ago

> Most users just absolutely do not know about, care about, or worry about security, privacy, maintainability, robustness, or a host of other things.

nitpick: most users don’t care about these things until something goes significantly wrong and it impacts them, e.g. a massive data breach or persistent global downtime.

then they get angry. very angry.

just because people don’t care about it now doesn’t mean they won’t care about it in the future.

edit — these are the hidden requirements.

> For example, it's possible to make hiking boots that last a lot longer than others. But if the requirement is to have it last for just 20 miles, it's better to pay less for one that won't last as long.

until requirements change, or the hidden requirements come out to play … most software engineers can probably recall multiple times when the requirements changed half way through. hell, i’ve done it on solo projects.

now we’re stuck with boots that can only last 20 miles, but we need to go 35.

BobbyTables2 · 2 days ago

It’s the externalized costs that bite society in the end.

The short life boots are great for everyone (boot makers, suppliers) except the end user.

A slightly higher quality boot could reduce their expenditure (monetary and time) and collectively allow society to devote the time and resources saved to higher goals.

However the wants of the few outweigh the needs of the many.

BobbyTables2 commented on Roundcube Webmail: SVG feImage bypasses image blocking to track email opens nullcathedral.com/posts/2... · Posted by u/nullcathedral

smelendez · 2 days ago

I often think the best way to defeat email open tracking would be for a mainstream email client to prefetch every image when a non-spam email is received and cache it for 72 hours or so.

Every email gets flagged as “opened,” so the flag is meaningless, and recipients can see the images without triggering a tracker.

BobbyTables2 · 2 days ago

That still provides “human” vs “bot” feedback to the sender.

An automated system processing emails isn’t going to be fetching images or rendering attached SVGs.

BobbyTables2 commented on Early Christian Writings earlychristianwritings.co... · Posted by u/dsego

api · 4 days ago

I’ve always seen American evangelism as a political movement first and a religious one second.

This impression has strengthened quite a bit in recent years as it’s become clear that political movements and politicians that are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus are perfectly okay if they align on other more immediate secular political issues.

There’s always been a claim that the US is an outlier compared to other developed nations in terms of religiosity. I don’t really believe this anymore. I think we have a lot of politics with heavy religious veneer, but if you look only at sincere belief in the tenets of a faith I don’t think the US is much more religious than the UK for example.

BobbyTables2 · 3 days ago

What about the Spanish Inquisition?