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I will say that I'm surprised no other LLM picked this up, since the issue should be somewhat evident to people familiar with C++ and how COM works. COM APIs cannot represent "owned" strings.

Still better than whatever JS rats nest they came up with for the new Outlook.


What do you mean by "owned" strings?

WinRT, which is ultimately just an evolution of COM, has HSTRING which can own the data inside it (as well as contain a reference to an existing chunk of memory with fast-pass strings).


If someone at work was writing blog posts with white-supremacist code, then yes, I would probably go to HR and they would probably get in trouble. Maybe they wouldn't be fired, but they would be placed on another team. And then the people on that team would find the blog posts, and the same thing would happen, and they would probably be let go at some point.

Because people that do that type of thing usually cannot shut up about it.


Genuine question for someone trying to follow along:

Is it white-supremecist code because of distasteful comments in the community, in the code, something specifically written in the codebase?

Or because the author is who they are?


I think you should read DHHs recent non-technical blog posts (highlights like "As I remember London") and make your own mind up about that. Me and a lot of other people on the internet want nothing to do with it.

But I haven’t.

So let’s work off of that - expecting the entire internet to read the personal blogs of open source contributors before deciding which packages or modules to run is…not really a solution to the problem you’re putting forward.

Is it?


Noam Chomsky: 'If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.'

Also, your solution doesn't solve your problem: your colleague won't stop to hold ideas that you don't like, nor his blog will disappear. If it's just a blog, he didn't harmed anybody, whereas you got him fired.


There's multiple levels of freedom of expression. You could argue, and people do, that the company has it's own right to freedom of expression, and wants to portray itself in the way it wants, and that necessarily involves deciding who they work with.

For example, if I told you that you are forced to associate yourself publicly with someone you don't like and don't want to associate with, then you might say I'm hindering your freedom of expression.

And this is missing the elephant in the room: white supremacy is fundamentally anti-free-expression. That's one of it's core tenants. So we have a little bit of tolerance paradox here.

If we allow those who oppose free expression to freely express that, then they express it by limiting free expression, then by allowing free expression we've actually suppressed free expression. So, it's tricky.


In case of a blog, it's separated from the professional life. The colleague can just behave normally and avoid political topics.

It's normal to hinder freedom of speech, up to a certain level in the context of the company: I would not like to be teached about Marxism-Leninism by the barista making my coffee.

It also allows people to separate professional and private life, just line sexuality: if you like latex parties, you can enjoy them without having to tell everyone or coming at work wearing latex. It allows collaborators of different sensibilities to work together. Your supremacist colleague may even then work with non-white people and find them nice and competent!

Last, you are projecting ideas: I'm sure that many white supremacists are pro-free speech, having experienced censorship. You clearly aren't.


> In case of a blog, it's separated from the professional life.

I mean, it might be, but a lot of bloggers don't do this.

> Your supremacist colleague may even then work with non-white people and find them nice and competent!

I feel like maybe you're not understanding what, exactly, white supremacy is.

> I'm sure that many white supremacists are pro-free speech, having experienced censorship.

Right, no, the ideology is fundamentally anti-free-speech and anti freedom in general. Believing some humans are inferior and deserve less rights just works like that.

You don't have to defend white supremacists, they're doing just fine politically and socially. Better than the people they believe inferior, I'd say.

> You clearly aren't.

Yeah yeah whatever, go explain to someone else how oppressed white supremacists are.


The Telekom story mentioned in this article is 100% as bad as they make it out to be, most of the users we support with issues reaching our services are with Telekom Germany. Or in an authoritarian nation that blocks access to western services.


Can confirm, recently moved to o2, it was insufferable.

For anyone wondering: netzbremse.de/

EN https://netzbremse.de/en/


Would you recommend o2?


Can't complain so far, reddit loads in the evenings again.


Isn't 02 Telefonica?

I don't believe they peer either


That will never happen, AI cannot be allowed to fail, so we'll be paying for that AI bail-out.


It's fine, I don't think he can tell the difference.


I don't even bother anymore, it feels like word vomit to me. This could probably be half its length.


You've misunderstood the assignment if you don't reuse those, they are perfectly fine for that and will last a long time. Just have one in your bag or car. I've even reused paper bags for more than half a year since the ban.


Maybe he might be winning in courts, but I will never depend on any WordPress.com service again. Don't play with your users and developers that have supported you for more than a decade this childishly. Your public image will not recover from this.


Don't worry, he's not winning in the courts as much as he seems to be trying to claim (I'm reading the legal doc, not his blog post, but going off of the context of his headline and the comments here).

I wouldn't touch Wordpress.com, ever, although I still use wordpress the software and am happy to see movement in decentralizing the plugin and core repos.


100% agree. I don't see how I could forget what happened.


Not to mention that one of the major issues in that debate (for the supposedly "centrist" party) was abortion rights - even though most of her views on the topic were fairly in line with other sitting judges.

It's now alleged that this was caused by a disinformation campaign targeting MPs of that party.

https://www.volksverpetzer.de/analyse/brosius-gersdorf-union...


Safari is not a good browser, by design, because it's in Apple's interest to cripple the Web as a platform. If they want their browser to be actually competitive instead of forcing people to use it, they should make a good browser. That is markets working as they are supposed to.


Counterpoint: Safari is by far the best mainstream browser, because it's got the only engine that gives half a shit about battery life, and because they push back on shitty features Google wants to make "standard" so they can trash my UX and the computing ecosystem even more.


Counterpoint: Your whole narrative is just Apple PR talk in disguise.

If Safari were even remotely close to being "the best mainstream browser" as you claimed, it would manifest itself in Safari capturing a dominant market share i.e. people would naturally gravitate towards Safari without Apple forcing it upon users. Apple would also invest much more into Web technology, but they don't have any interest in doing that since it would threaten their App Store business model.

"Pushing back on features" translates directly to "preventing web apps from becoming a viable threat" and none of this is about UX, which is just one of the convenient pretexts to make Apple's devious and self-serving behavior more palatable. No matter how often Apple shills try to rephrase and euphemize it, anyone who has recognized Apple's conflict of interest in this regard will see through it.


FWIW, Mozilla seems to share the same sentiments about many of the standards that Google has been pushing for. They may have different incentives, but Apple does not sit alone on every one of their views.


Mozilla doesn't have a multi-billion dollar App Store creating a direct conflict of interest. Their motives aren't comparable. A few overlapping concerns don't refute the primary evidence of Apple's self-serving behavior. The key decisions that hobble web apps and protect the App Store moat are specific to Apple's conflict of interest.


Of course there's conflict of interest. I'd prefer we address all the things their actions motivated by that conflict of interest are shielding me from before we smack them down, though. After that, yeah, I'll take up a pitchfork, too.

For now, they're my AnCap-approved optional private enforcement regime against a bunch of the antisocial and market-capturing behavior of the rest of tech, since public regulators are asleep at the wheel. I'd much prefer real, very aggressive (by modern standards, if not historical) enforcement of meaningful consumer protection, standards mandates, and trust-busting across the board, but this is the only option I've got (aside from "just use less tech, and far less-usefully")

All hurting them now does is hand more control of the tech ecosystem to Google.

Meanwhile: yes they in fact have the best mainstream browser, and it's not even close.


>Meanwhile: yes they in fact have the best mainstream browser, and it's not even close.

You have lost all credibility. I mean, you had very little to begin with using a 5-day old Apple-shill account, but now you have zero.

Safari is the absolute worst browser, by far, approaching Internet Explorer levels of wtf. On iOS it implements touch gestures completely differently than other browsers, because Apple does what Apple wants - forcing developers to buy a real iPhone just to debug their shitty browser. Their lack of webAPIs is absolutely to push developers to their App store - and I know this first hand because I have a web app that works on every other browser but Safari due to its lack of APIs. So if I want to support apple, I have to pay them for the privilege to develop said app, as well as pay them to buy their hardware to develop and test the app. Fuck all of that. I don't have to do that for any other browser or platform.


My initial suspicion of you being a bad faith actor who is just regurgitating "Apple PR talk" has been proven true.

1) Here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44813704 you regurgitate the classic Apple propaganda of "web apps are akshually not 'real' apps" - what makes apps 'real' for Apple propagandists is clearly when everybody is forced to pay Apple 30% tax.

2) The hallmark of the irrational Apple shill is also how increasingly bizarre and contradictory the apologia in defense of the trillion dollar company's anti-competitive business practices becomes, as you've just proven: "private enforcement regime against a bunch of the antisocial and market-capturing behavior of the rest of tech" - what kind of absurd logic is that?

Apple should be allowed to break the law according to you, so they can pretend to oppose something they are also guilty of themselves!? Then you disingenuously claim that "I'd much prefer real, very aggressive enforcement of meaningful consumer protection, standards mandates, and trust-busting across the board, but this is the only option I've got", but that's clearly not the "only option you've got" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2... ) since you are literally opposing the other option by fighting regulators through spreading of disingenuous talking points in defense of Apple's unlawful business practices.


You've got some serious biases sending you some weird places in evaluating my posts.

> 1) Here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44813704 you regurgitate the classic Apple propaganda of "web apps are akshually not 'real' apps" - what makes apps 'real' for Apple propagandists is clearly when everybody is forced to pay Apple 30% tax.

Yeah, that's my opinion on every platform, including back when I used Android. It's my opinion on Void Linux. It's my opinion everywhere, whether or not Apple's getting a cut (why would I possibly care that they make more money? Hell I'd love for them to have actual competition in their specific niches, to put downward pressure on their profitability, as far as their actual products they sell go). I've come to it through extensive engagement with the Web and various native ecosystems over decades, as both a user and developer. Webtech is a steaming pile of ass. It's so bad it makes the prior standard-setters for "steaming pile of ass" in its field look good. If I were somehow made Dictator of Technology for the World by a wish-granting genie, I would ban web apps, flat out (and do a lot of other things that would make market-distorting massive tech companies, including Apple, very sad)

> Then you disingenuously claim

Frankly, fuck off. You're being a dick for absolutely no reason. That's the flat-out truth. I could wrap that in HN-friendly passive-aggression, but screw that, you need to chill the fuck out, to be blunt.


Accounts like these have me wondering if Apple marketing has some guerrilla marketing branch to spam the internet.


>You've got some serious biases sending you some weird places in evaluating my posts.

You are talking about a "serious bias" after spamming the same debunked Apple propaganda, with a 5 days old account? lol.

>> 1) Here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44813704 you regurgitate the classic Apple propaganda of "web apps are akshually not 'real' apps" - what makes apps 'real' for Apple propagandists is clearly when everybody is forced to pay Apple 30% tax.

>Yeah, that's my opinion on every platform, including back when I used Android. It's my opinion on Void Linux. It's my opinion everywhere, whether or not Apple's getting a cut (why would I possibly care that they make more money? Hell I'd love for them to have actual competition in their specific niches, to put downward pressure on their profitability, as far as their actual products they sell go). I've come to it through extensive engagement with the Web and various native ecosystems over decades, as both a user and developer. Webtech is a steaming pile of ass. It's so bad it makes the prior standard-setters for "steaming pile of ass" in its field look good.

Well your opinion is biased nonsense and conveniently regurgitates propaganda designed to defend anti-competitive business practices. Web Apps do an excellent job despite being actively sabotaged and you clearly have no idea what you're talking about since your rhetoric is drenched in misinformation.

>Frankly, fuck off. You're being a dick for absolutely no reason. That's the flat-out truth. I could wrap that in HN-friendly passive-aggression, but screw that, you need to chill the fuck out, to be blunt.

I get that you're not used to getting called out on your dishonest and manipulative rhetoric, but you should have anticipated that before spamming the same debunked Apple propaganda for the 1000th time with a fresh account, because you know that it's bullshit propaganda.


Oh stop this fake incredulity. You're shilling for Apple and did such a bad job of it that you were found out while your account is still green. Take it on the chin instead of lashing out. Better luck with your next shill account.


Humans aren’t perfectly logical. The free market and the best options rising to the top is made up liberal hegemony propaganda.


There's a grain of truth to it — Apple has learned from Microsoft's history that making the whole browser shitty is too obvious and annoys users. Apple was smart enough to keep user-visible parts of the browser in a good shape, while also dragging their feet on all the Web platform features that could endanger the App Store cash cow.


I don't want web apps on my phone (or, in an ideal world, anywhere else) so that's also a good thing. If they're not viable, it forces developers to make real apps or else just make a web page instead of whatever awful-UX nonsense they were planning.


90% of real apps are 95% web views. Let go ahead and be for real. Even on desktop most apps are Electron these days.


>I don't want web apps on my phone (or, in an ideal world, anywhere else) so that's also a good thing. If they're not viable, it forces developers to make real apps or else just make a web page instead of whatever awful-UX nonsense they were planning.

Well what you personally want is irrelevant to the law and what regulators judge to be unlawful, so that's the real good thing.

>If they're not viable, it forces developers to make real apps or else just make a web page instead of whatever awful-UX nonsense they were planning.

They are perfectly viable and it has nothing to do with UX, but you have already exposed your bias and made clear that you are arguing in bad faith by spreading misinformation in your other comments.


I remember there was a time years back when there were "light" variants of apps, usually intended for underpowered or older Android phones, but that also came in handy if you were in a situation where you had shitty cell service, or if you needed to preserve your battery. You could run the Opera Mini browser on a trash phone and it was blazing fast without wrecking your battery. Maybe 5% of sites would have a rendering issue, but you could always switch back to your main browser if you needed to use it.

Nowadays, I think the trend is more toward putting a battery-saver or data-saver mode inside an existing app, rather than creating an entirely new app, and I don't see any reason why Apple couldn't do something like this in Safari if they wanted to.


Counterpoint: Safari uses more battery than Chrome while providing less functionality: https://birchtree.me/blog/everyone-says-chrome-devastates-ma...


What is your argument that Safari is not a good browser?

Using market forces to encourage more consolidation into a single engine is *bad*.


> What is your argument that Safari is not a good browser?

https://ios404.com/

Safari is missing many performance and device-related features that would allow you to create a compelling web application and bypass the App store.

I tried once, you run into the most unexpected roadblocks and come to the conclusion "I have to release this as an App." Well... guess why.


About a quarter of that list is stuff I don't want a browser futzing with... volume control, autofocus, background sync (assuming this has huge battery implications), WebUSB, WebNotifications, and a few others.

That said, about half the list appears to be stuff I don't care about one way or the other. At least not without spending way more time researching those CSS elements than I care to invest.

And I'd be totally fine with an "Allow Alternate Browser Features: Y/N" setting or similar, as long as it defaulted to the current behavior (locked down Safari only).


> About a quarter of that list is stuff I don't want a browser futzing with... volume control, autofocus, background sync (assuming this has huge battery implications), WebUSB, WebNotifications, and a few others.

Yeah, looks like a nice checklist of things to turn off to me…


About half that list is marketing for why I use Safari instead of something else on my laptop.


Half those are genuine missing features; the other half are the things I'm glad Apple doesn't implement because websites would use them (or I'd be spammed with permissions dialogs).


Several of the 'missing' features listed on that site are contentious e.g. WebUSB


> What is your argument that Safari is not a good browser?

Safari is often the hold-out on implementing features[1] that would be useful to users - presumably because it would make web apps viable on iOS, and compete with App store apps where Apple takes a 30% cut

> Using market forces to encourage more consolidation into a single engine is bad.

Competition on a level playing-field is not bad, even if you dislike the superior product (as determined by the free hand of the market.)

1. If memory serves: various APIs useful for PWAs were delayed or kneecapped on Safari


> What is your argument that Safari is not a good browser?

It doesn't support Ublock Origin.




Safari is often regarded as the "new Internet Explorer" by front-end developers because of how much is unsupported or has to be worked-around...


> markets working as they are supposed to.

Where Apple is doing everything they can to make that “market” work in their interests instead of as it is supposed to from a user perspective. And when you don't have a choice, it's not really a market either.


It's funny, I prefer to use Safari on iOS instead of native apps because I have more control over shaping my experience (through user scripts and custom css) and Apple's focus on user privacy which may be all lip service, but at least it's part of their talking points; something I don't see with Chrome.

I'm sure Safari sucks to support for web developers and is missing a lot of cool apis, but I'm willing to take those tradeoffs for the increased privacy I get as a result.

That being said, I do think Apple should allow third party browser engines.


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