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Comment by Pawka | Hacker News Reader

This piece looks really nice and I almost want it!

But have no idea what to do with it. What are your plans folks? How you are using similar hardware?

I would use it to ssh and tmux to my servers, to display stats/logs and start simple scripts when needed, like a "wireless KVM".

I understand many people use smartphones or tablets for that, but I don't like the idea of having a smartphone with me at all times: I have one, but in a drawer. I charge it and use it when I need to travel. It's too intrusive otherwise.

I can use ssh from my laptop, but I like a distraction free environment: most of my apps run in full screen, to help me maintain my concentration.

So a separate device I could turn quickly, check what's happening, and type commands, would be very valuable.

I would certainly try to find a way to add sixel support to the terminal (BSD console terminals have that) then have gnuplot display some key measurements like latency scatters on top of the moving averages.

Another role would be very natural thanks to being cheap: the USB port could help me check devices without having to fear hardware damage to my laptop USB ports (voltage issues etc) or software issues (virus/trojan etc)

> I understand many people use smartphones or tablets for that, but I don't like the idea of having a smartphone with me at all times

This is where I stand. Regrettably it becomes harder and harder now that everything uses 2FA, cannot leave home without the phone.

> cannot leave home without the phone.

You most certainly can: I do that every day.

> Regrettably it becomes harder and harder now that everything uses 2FA

Which companies cause you problems? Maybe I can offer suggestions.

I barely tolerate TOTP (thanks to oathtool), but any business that want to impose SMS 2FA on me will not have me as a client.

> but any business that want to impose SMS 2FA on me will not have me as a client

Where I'm at org policy requires a specific 2FA solution. Thanks for the suggestions, though, I'm hoping to move on in a year or so and I should hopefully be able to a void this going forward.

I don't have a smartphone so I have installed 2FA app to my laptop. That works great:)

I want a "forever computer" and I think this fits the bill. I don't actually expect it to last forever, but with unix command line tools we've got one lineage of computing that has lasted more than 30 years. I want to put a solar panel and a lora modem on it, and have a little computing device that will last the rest of my life. An artifact that will be as useful in 40 years as it is now, like how old calculators with nixie tubes still fundamentally work as calculators.

Might even try finally learning orgmode, maybe use vim-orgmode one it.

For similar reasons, general future proofing, I recently started using orgmode for my todo lists, journaling and a light project management workflow. I'm a vim person, and using spacemacs with evil mode has been good for learning. I imagine I'll eventually start from scratch and only keep the pieces I like, but it's been a reasonable starting point.

This looks great for those purposes, it should interact nicely. There's a decent chance I'll pick up the watch today. (Can I make it buzz for pomodoro? Hmm.)

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