Ask HN: What has melted your brain recently? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What has melted your brain recently?

#181

Post by wcarss » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

tengwar2 wrote: post #175

nequo wrote: post #114

I am late to this game so I assume everyone else’s brain was melted by this in 2017: Every Intel CPU since 2008 includes an autonomous computer called the Intel Management Engine that runs Minix, completely circumvents your own OS, has full access to memory, has network access, and cannot be turned off by the owner of the hardware (you). We also don’t know what it does because it’s extremely difficult to reverse engi…

Yes and no. It could potentially use the network. To do so, it would have to acquire an IP address, which in the case of IPv4 would show as ARP messages. More significantly, any attempt to call out could be detected at the router (IPv4 or IPv6). Now I know that most people don't look through firewall logs looking for comms from unexpected internal addresses - but some people do. And since this has been around since 2…

> we can be pretty confident that it is not happening.

We don't _really_ know this. It could of course wait for a signal (say, in a certain memory region, depending on the host OS) and be activated only by remote control in collaboration with other vectors, for special use against, say, heads of state, or the rare meaningful dissidents against whoever it is who has access.

Re: Ask HN: What has melted your brain recently?

#182

Post by MockObject » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:32 PM UTC

tonfreed wrote: post #179

MockObject wrote: post #149

The vast scale of the organized child sex abuse activity among Catholic clergy. I have a hard time understanding how such organized activity can be performed by people who literally fear divine judgement, so I am alarmed by the number of clergy who are evidently atheist.

Among the elite in general. How the hell did they throw the book at Gislaine Maxwell without going after any of her clients as well?

Right, that's outrageous.

But young people presumably enter the clergy driven by a deep commitment to faith. Yet something along the way seems to convince them that God isn't real at all. I wonder what that is.

Re: Ask HN: What has melted your brain recently?

#183

Post by BizarroLand » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:44 PM UTC

neonsunset wrote: post #161

BizarroLand wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a known thing and questioning common knowledge is generally the tactic of a contrarian or a manipulator with the intent of diffusing the conversation.

"Known things" and "common knowledge" are specific to your context of existence. The tactic to weave in the threads of logical statements or irrefutable facts together with person's/organization's agenda is used by everyone from radical individuals to sects to popular political parties. However, you cannot turn this argument on its head by saying that a reasonable statement shared by "bad" people makes it bad or inva…

Godwin's Law, "if you mention Adolf Hitler or Nazis within a discussion thread, you've automatically ended whatever discussion you were taking part in."

Re: Ask HN: What has melted your brain recently?

#184

Post by atc » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

neonsunset wrote: post #51

Reality check I got after being accused of having anti-minority opinion while arguing for protection of all categories of people, just without double standards and without giving priority to some over others. This got me instantly banned from a community I had professional interest and participation in, which made me realize the damaging effects of culture wars that are about to get worse for major corporations. With…

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: What has melted your brain recently?

#185

Post by BizarroLand » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:53 PM UTC

postsantum wrote: post #173

BizarroLand wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a known thing and questioning common knowledge is generally the tactic of a contrarian or a manipulator with the intent of diffusing the conversation.

The whole dogwhistling accusation tactic is a well-known method of derailing a conversation

I mean, there's nothing I can say or do to ever convince a person to see my viewpoint once they have decided that someone's race decides their value.

There are no magic words, no sudo "be a kinder person" command, no entreaties, no begging, no threats, no guile that can convince someone on the internet who has decided to take a confrontational stance to stand down, or reconsider.

If you act racist on the internet then you are racist. If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

It is a safe assumption that they are here to try to rile people up and make people upset and have no interest in speaking fairly or changing their position under any circumstances.

I am no more interested in the feelings of either racist people or the people who choose to act like them than I am with the quality of your coworker's friend's pet's bowel movements.

If you enjoy making people upset on the internet by spewing racist rhetoric then I hope your conversations constantly get derailed.

Re: Ask HN: What has melted your brain recently?

#186

Post by t0bia_s » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 9:58 PM UTC

Fact that my work is completely dependent on proprietary SW (Adobe) and os (Win). Every update brings me questions like... Should I switch my profession to be more independent? Every update brings features that I don't need, have to pay for it, need to update to fix/broke things, send more data, be more online, etc. Those companies shape my workflow, literally dictates me how to create. It may sounds trivial, but in large scale, there is no freedom.

Re: Ask HN: What has melted your brain recently?

#187

Post by ploppyploppy » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 10:33 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #34

was_a_dev wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only recently?

yes. I live in Scotland and am not a conservative voter but through the Cameron/May days I found myself in disbelief but the current PM and government are playing the trump playbook

Sturgeon is doing the same thing. Towing the Globalist/Neo-Liberal playbook. Allowed to get away with stoking nationalist ideology because she's pro-EU. Which reminds me - how is independence for Scotland a meaningful pursuit if you'll immediately attempt to join the EU?

Re: Ask HN: What has melted your brain recently?

#188

Post by throwawaylala1 » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 11:01 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #118

throwawaylala1 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do your thing I guess. The results will speak for themselves. Just know that even in the mid-2000s (when the market was red hot) there were all sorts of hurdles you'd have to go through to get a good gig. A lot of that involved doing work "for free". A little hustle pays dividends long term. It's much worse in other industries.

"A little hustle pays dividends long term." Only if you're lucky too. Hustle by itself means nothing.

You're not wrong, but there is a large spectrum of success out there. It's not like you get only "one shot, one opportunity" (Eminem) or nothing. Yes there's also a spectrum of the work/reward ratio and sometimes it's skewed in a crappy way. For some people it's too easy and for some people it's too hard

Point is that reaching upper middle class and higher is totally feasible no matter your walk of life as long as you keep the hustle going. Success could only happen in one's late 30s though.

(There are of course overriding factors like having an abusive childhood or something like that. Systematic discrimination plays a big part too. But that's outside the scope of this particular thread)

Re: Ask HN: What has melted your brain recently?

#189

Post by ryandrake » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 11:28 PM UTC

ant_li0n wrote: post #178

neonsunset wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're pretty ignorant of the topic, then why do you know about the fact that "All Lives Matter" phrase only rose to prominence after "Black Lives Matter" movement in the US? This is a pointed question led with dishonesty. It's important to ask oneself what was the motivation behind trying to manipulate other readers' perception instead of just dropping the "I'm pretty ignorant of this, but..." part in the first p…

No, I really was asking a question. I don't know, was the phrase "All Lives Matter" in common circulation, before "Black Lives Matter" came around? I really do not know, that's why I asked

"All Lives Matter" was not in common circulation until "Black Lives Matter" entered the scene, because the phrase is used as a rebuttal to "Black Lives Matter." That's why it's commonly understood to be a dogwhistle. When person A says "Black Lives Matter" and person B says "All Lives Matter", person B is really saying "NO. All Lives Matter" the un-spoken "NO" is their disagreement with "Black Lives Matter." If they agreed that "Black Lives Matter" they would not have had to come up with a rebuttal to counter it.

Re: Ask HN: What has melted your brain recently?

#190

Post by Viliam1234 » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 11:30 PM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #172

sofixa wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> France just narrowly avoided voting in the daughter of a noted neo-nazi She's drastically less neo-Nazi than her father, just an empty far-right populist. But yeah, not great. > It's also got a hijab ban, which puts it in the company of places like Russia, or Xinjiang in China, not noted bastions of tolerance and diversity It's more complicated than that. The hijab ban isn't coming from intolerance or to force conf…

> Religion is a private matter you practice however you please as long as you harm noone I think the chinese make this argument in Xinjiang much more convincingly, after all, unlike the french, they do not have large, bell-ringing churches and cathedrals in the centers of literally every settlement, all of which are blazoned with symbols of the faith. It's also the argument they make in Germany, where you're not allo…

> I can say for certain that every muslim woman, whether they wear the headscarf or not, is oppressed by having this choice taken out of their hands.

Game theory is complicated. Sometimes having a choice taken away from you is good for you... for example if it is a choice you never really wanted to take, but your environment would punish you for avoiding it voluntarily. When the choice is taken away, the punishment would not make sense.

Children do not choose their religion; it is chosen for them, and sometimes the punishment for breaking the rules or trying to leave the religion is death. I am pretty sure there are girls born in muslim families, who are happy for the opportunity to feel the fresh air.