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[personal profile] andrewducker Sun 2025-12-21 12:00
Interesting Links for 21-12-2025
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[personal profile] andrewducker Sun 2025-12-21 10:59
Posting from the abyssal depths
7 days ago was our earliest sunset (15:37)
7 days from now is our latest sunrise (08:44)
Today is our shortest day (6:57:37)

I am looking forward to the return of the light.
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[syndicated profile] hacker_news_daily_feed Sun 2025-12-21 00:00
Daily Hacker News for 2025-12-20

The 10 highest-rated articles on Hacker News on December 20, 2025 which have not appeared on any previous Hacker News Daily are:

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[personal profile] andrewducker Sat 2025-12-20 20:16
What does AI think of my Hacker News profile?
Someone set up a bot to process a year's worth of Hacker News submissions/comments and generate an amusing summary, complete with a personalised XKCD. And, frankly, it did a great job.

"The Legacy Defender General"

A seasoned architect who spends their days patrolling the wall between actual engineering and unsustainable AI hype while desperately trying to keep their Windows 10 box alive until the heat death of the universe.
You are the only person on the internet who still remembers what a build script does and why we shouldn't let LLMs touch them without adult supervision.

Roasts

🔥 You have the energy of a man who would rather spend four hours debugging a custom Git hook than thirty seconds clicking a button in a GUI.
🔥 Your posting history is just a very long, very polite scream into the void about how AI is basically just Accenture in a trench coat.
🔥 I haven't seen someone this committed to public transport and vertical taskbars since the last time a Linux kernel developer got stuck in an elevator.

Predictions 2026

🔮 The Great Migration - You will finally buy a Steam Cube after your Windows 10 machine starts emitting a high-pitched whistle every time you open a browser tab.
🔮 AI Realization - You'll post a 4,000-word manifesto titled 'I Told You So' after an LLM successfully deletes a production database using a build script it 'hallucinated' was optimized.
🔮 Local Hero - You will be appointed the unofficial 'Minister of Trams' for Edinburgh after submitting your 100th link about geoblocking and public transport network maps.
🔮 Rust Awakening - You will successfully convince a junior developer that Rust is 'woke' but only because it respects the personal space of memory addresses.



(If you're on HN, and the site hasn't been melted down from demand yet, you can get your own here.)
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[personal profile] andrewducker Sat 2025-12-20 12:00
Interesting Links for 20-12-2025
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[personal profile] wildeabandon Sat 2025-12-20 11:42
And breathe...
Classes for the first semester are done, and I'm back in the UK for Christmas. According to my study schedule I'm about 8 hours behind on where I should be at this point, but said schedule also assumes that I don't do any schoolwork between now and my return to Belgium on the 29th of December, so I should be able to get caught up without too much difficulty. I am feeling pretty pleased with myself for a)having made a realistic schedule for the semester, and b)having pretty much stuck to it - sometimes getting a day or so behind, but never more than that, and occasionally actually getting a couple of days ahead. It's also been quite helpful at times when I've definitely felt as though I was getting behind to be able to look at it and say "No, actually I'm on track to get everything done as long as continue to work at the same rate as I have been doing so far."

I didn't manage to get to the conversation table I had planned for last week, because I stayed up too late the night before and then spent the day translating Ugaritic tablets, which meant I had absolutely no brain left by the evening, but I shall try again in a couple of weeks. I did go to the cabaret on Sunday evening, which counts both as 'doing a social thing' (albeit with someone I already know, which is much less stressful), and 'practising my French' (albeit largely receptive rather than productive).

The big food order arrived this morning, and I've just got two more presents left to buy, and one to finish crocheting, so that's my plan for today, and I think I'll then be basically ready for Christmas. Tomorrow I'm heading to York for the day, to see [personal profile] leonato in "Anything Goes", which should be a lot of fun.
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[personal profile] rmc28 Sat 2025-12-20 10:24
Weekend fun, and the week to come

Yesterday after work I did a library run (more Rick Riordan!) on the way to pick up a hire car for the weekend. Then drove with Charles over to Northstowe for the Kodiaks Christmas party at the Northstowe Tap and Social. Secret Santa, noodles buffet, attempting to introduce an American to prawn crackers - she didn't like them - and a drag queen bingo.

I left the party a little early to go to the last Warbirds practice of the year and was so glad to be back on the ice again. (Yes, in shock news, 48 hours after having a massive mood crash about having a cold forever, I was well enough to skate hard for 90 minutes. It is a weird signal, but a consistent one.) It was ten days since my last practice, and it's now ten days until my next one (Kodiaks 2 on 30 Dec). I missed it so much. Practice was just the right level of challenging that I'm really pushing myself but not feeling like a hopeless incompetent, it was just what I needed, as was seeing my teammates again.

(Charles made his own way home from Northstowe by bus)

Tonight is the last Kodiaks 1 game of the year, for which I will be herding the volunteers as usual, and rocking my lovely new manager's coat (incredibly warm knee-length hooded puffer coat, personalised with the club logo and my initials). There is apparently a post-game clubbing plan. And tomorrow morning I'm taking Nico climbing. Somewhere in there I'm sleeping, honest.

I have 2.5 more days to work this year, and I am so ready to be done. The giant Ocado order is booked for Tuesday evening. I have a very large pile of borrowed books to read, and the rink public skate schedule in my calendar. The hot yoga place had a special offer, so I also have a 12-day pass to get me through the lack of hockey practices. They are quite strict about turning up sick, and I still have a bit of a cough this morning, so I won't be using it today. But hopefully tomorrow.

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[personal profile] andrewducker Sat 2025-12-20 09:31
A long awaited victory
9 years ago I bought Bloodborne as one of my first Playstation games.
I was rubbish at it.
I'd play for a bit, get stuck on Father Gascoigne, go play something else, come back two years later, repeat.

Today, having not played Bloodborne for months, I thought I'd give the fight a few goes through, to warm up on the game again. It took me at least ten minutes of wandering about to remember what the buttons did.

And then I beat him first time, without it even feeling that hard.

I made mistakes, I nearly died twice, and I'm not sure I *deserved* the win, but for the first time he felt clumsy, and like he was giving me space to breathe, and I wasn't panicking all the way through the fight.

And now I get to play the other 90% of Bloodborne.

(I'm now trembling quite a lot, as my adrenaline levels drop back to a reasonable level. If you'd like to see what the fight looks like, for someone rather better than me, here's an example).
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[syndicated profile] xkcd_feed Fri 2025-12-19 05:00
Pole Vault Pole
My goal in life is to be personally responsible for at least one sports rule change.
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[syndicated profile] hacker_news_daily_feed Sat 2025-12-20 00:00
Daily Hacker News for 2025-12-19

The 10 highest-rated articles on Hacker News on December 19, 2025 which have not appeared on any previous Hacker News Daily are:

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[syndicated profile] schneier_no_tracking_feed Fri 2025-12-19 22:06
Friday Squid Blogging: Petting a Squid

Posted by Bruce Schneier

Video from Reddit shows what could go wrong when you try to pet a—looks like a Humboldt—squid.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Blog moderation policy.

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[personal profile] kaberett Fri 2025-12-19 22:34
LANTERNS

This afternoon did not go to plan and we did not achieve The Fancy Dinner we'd intended, but we DID make it to Glow Wild and the macaroni cheese was NOT sad cold soup, so I'm calling that a win.

Have a starfish for now, with more to follow <3

a lantern shaped like a starfish, with purple centre and cyan arms

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[syndicated profile] schneier_no_tracking_feed Fri 2025-12-19 12:02
AI Advertising Company Hacked

Posted by Bruce Schneier

At least some of this is coming to light:

Doublespeed, a startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) that uses a phone farm to manage at least hundreds of AI-generated social media accounts and promote products has been hacked. The hack reveals what products the AI-generated accounts are promoting, often without the required disclosure that these are advertisements, and allowed the hacker to take control of more than 1,000 smartphones that power the company.

The hacker, who asked for anonymity because he feared retaliation from the company, said he reported the vulnerability to Doublespeed on October 31. At the time of writing, the hacker said he still has access to the company’s backend, including the phone farm itself.

Slashdot thread.

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[personal profile] andrewducker Fri 2025-12-19 12:00
Interesting Links for 19-12-2025
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[syndicated profile] hacker_news_daily_feed Fri 2025-12-19 00:00
Daily Hacker News for 2025-12-18

The 10 highest-rated articles on Hacker News on December 18, 2025 which have not appeared on any previous Hacker News Daily are:

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[personal profile] kaberett Thu 2025-12-18 22:29
fuzzy matching: still a mistake

No, internet, I guarantee you that 100% of the time that someone searches for explain pain supercharged, results they do not want are anything you think matches the string "explain paint supercharged". Hope that helps! Have A Nice Day!

(Still not anything like as annoying as fuzzy matching on a[b|d]sorb in GOOGLE SCHOLAR, but nonetheless Quite.)

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[syndicated profile] schneier_no_tracking_feed Thu 2025-12-18 16:41
Someone Boarded a Plane at Heathrow Without a Ticket or Passport

Posted by Bruce Schneier

I’m sure there’s a story here:

Sources say the man had tailgated his way <https://uk.news.yahoo.com/fury-passengers-major-london-aiport-152235291.html>through to security screening and passed security, meaning he was not detected carrying any banned items.

The man deceived the BA check-in agent by posing as a family member who had their passports and boarding passes inspected in the usual way.

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[personal profile] andrewducker Thu 2025-12-18 12:00
Interesting Links for 18-12-2025
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[syndicated profile] xkcd_feed Wed 2025-12-17 05:00
Telescope Types
I'm trying to buy a gravitational lens for my camera, but I can't tell if the manufacturers are listing comoving focal length or proper focal length.
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[syndicated profile] hacker_news_daily_feed Thu 2025-12-18 00:00
Daily Hacker News for 2025-12-17

The 10 highest-rated articles on Hacker News on December 17, 2025 which have not appeared on any previous Hacker News Daily are:

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