3form's comments

On: Michigan 'digital age' bills pulled after privacy concerns raised

[3form]

How does someone's refusal to install an extension necessitate millions of users having to close the popup? I guess you mean someone as in "vast majority of population"?

On: Michigan 'digital age' bills pulled after privacy concerns raised

[3form]

A proper course in technological literacy would also necessarily include the fact that browser extensions are quite possibly not safe.

On: Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)

[3form]

One thing I would like to see addressed is the misconception that QC can help turn NP problems into P. I see this floating from time to time.

[msolomentsev → 3form]

Yes, totally. I feel like the computational complexity part of quantum computing is actually pretty well explained to the 'layman' by some of Scott Aaronson's work, but unfortunately it's not well placed in context (i.e. it very much focuses on the theoretical CS, and not the whole QC picture). You have to sort of start digging for material about computational complexity theory/quantum and stumble into his output.

On: Code is run more than read (2023)

[3form]

I like the final conclusion. And sadly I don't feel like anything changed for the better on this topic since 2023.

I am afraid that without a major crash or revolution of some sort, user won't matter next to a sufficiently big biz. But time will tell.

[dbalatero → 3form]

I've found the users-first mentality degrading over the years at companies. It's a bit jarring too, since a lot of my early training was pretty user-centric.

[pydry → dbalatero]

This is definitely true. In growth companies there is way more emphasis these days on investor hype over user centricity.

For companies that have a solid competitive moat they have at best gotten lazy about user centricity and at worst actively hostile.

[3form → dbalatero]

I do have a feeling that the example of bigger players is carefully followed by many of the other companies, kind of as a cult of success. And that example for a long time has been rather lacking.

On: France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech

[3form]

And importantly, older games now tend to work better in Linux than they do in Windows.

On: Meta removes ads for social media addiction litigation

[3form]

"Lawyer benefitting from cases about prostitution equals to a pimp" kind of argument.

On: Open source security at Astral

[3form]

Only if they provide the software or software as a service. Then I suspect it's good enough if the modifications or forks made are shared internally if software is used only internally, but on the other hand I'm not a lawyer.

[0x457 → 3form]

> if software is used only internally

Internal users are still users tho. They are entitled to see source code and license allows them to share it with the rest if of the world.

[fweimer → 0x457]

Employers might argue that such internal use and distribution would fall under the “exclusively under your behalf” clause in the GPLv3, which is inherited by the AGPLv3.

[0x457 → fweimer]

Oh, I guess it would. Ignore me.

On: Meta removes ads for social media addiction litigation

[3form]

Maybe, but so what? Your remark lacks a conclusion.

Mine is that it could then well be required to do so by law. Companies are not individuals, so I don't think they are owed any freedoms beyond what is best for utility they can provide.

On: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok

[3form]

Plus the corollary, which I think is something that many here, including myself, struggle with - we are not important.

On: Running out of disk space in production

[3form]

Neat! I optimized for my own case, and I'm storing my ramdisk on SSD to gain persistence.