BenjiWiebe

2,887 karma · joined February 17, 2017

Located in central Kansas. Work with cheese/neighborhood IT guy/hobby programmer. Born and raised on a dairy farm (and ~1/3 of the milk gets turned into cheese). Random qualifications: Amateur Extra (ham radio), volunteer firefighter in a very quiet area for 5+ years, Rubik's cube PB 19 seconds, can pick open an American Lock 1100 series if given enough time. Contact: itsme at (my HN username).com.

Family business: www.jasonwiebedairy.com

BenjiWiebeon Keep Android Open

I can't deposit checks over the website, and I use a bank with no physical locations near me.

BenjiWiebeon Rolling your own serverless OCR in 40 lines of code

Precisely. And serverless uses servers.

BenjiWiebeon My smart sleep mask broadcasts users' brainwaves to an open MQTT broker

It did get me thinking - maybe there should be IoTS devices, where the S stands for Security. A commitment to updates for a certain amount of time, the source code in escrow to be released when updates/support ceases, probably other things I'm not thinking of.

BenjiWiebeon My smart sleep mask broadcasts users' brainwaves to an open MQTT broker

So are the brain waves the cause or the effect?

Are beta waves a sign that my mind is racing and wide awake, or are they the reason?

BenjiWiebeon My smart sleep mask broadcasts users' brainwaves to an open MQTT broker

Right - the saying indicates that IoT stuff is well known for ignoring security.

BenjiWiebeon Converting a $3.88 analog clock from Walmart into a ESP8266-based Wi-Fi clock

That does require being connected to the AP though.

BenjiWiebeon Converting a $3.88 analog clock from Walmart into a ESP8266-based Wi-Fi clock

Could easily be solar weather related propagation changes, but probably not Sporadic E specifically - that's much higher frequencies.

BenjiWiebeon Silver plunges 30% in worst day since 1980, gold tumbles

Nominal value is in name only, IMO. Which makes it not the value. I can sign my name on a piece of paper and say it's for sale for $5million (nominal value, right?) but it's value is nowhere near $5million, and noone will accidentally purchase it for $5million because they truly thought it was worth that.

nominal: existing or being something in name or form only (Merriam-Webster)

BenjiWiebeon My iPhone 16 Pro Max produces garbage output when running MLX LLMs

*commutative

BenjiWiebeon Just the Browser

Phone numbers aren't secret. There's too few of them. It's feasible to send messages to every phone number.

The spam messages I receive don't address me by name. They're generic.

BenjiWiebeon JuiceSSH – Give me my pro features back

The last app update was January 2021, 5 years ago. The IAP price for Pro was changed (apparently, I didn't see it myself) but it wasn't an app update.

BenjiWiebeon JuiceSSH – Give me my pro features back

Do you consider it piracy when the user paid for a lifetime license, which then quits working, so the user modifies the app to keep the feature working?

I don't, since it was a lifetime license.

BenjiWiebeon Mobile carriers can get your GPS location

I think the GPS antenna is either omnidirectional or very nearly so., since my phone can get location in many orientations.

So I don't think a single foil sticker would make much difference.

BenjiWiebeon GOG: Linux "the next major frontier" for gaming as it works on a native client

Why would the hardware care if the pressure is higher in the case than ambient? How could it even tell?

BenjiWiebeon A list of fun destinations for telnet

Grex only shut down recently, in 2023.

BenjiWiebeon JuiceSSH – Give me my pro features back

It's far quicker and easier to hit a toggle in JuiceSSH to turn on a port forward than to open up termux and type in the commands.

BenjiWiebeon JuiceSSH – Give me my pro features back

It worked for years with no/few changes. Then the price increases and pro features stop working. I'm not too likely to give the devs the benefit of the doubt. Patch out the 'pro' check and release an update. Or reply to one of the many new 1 star reviews and say you lost access to the source code, if that's what happened.

Complete silence + taking money...

BenjiWiebeon Modetc: Move your dotfiles from kernel space

I truly wasn't sure if they were aware of man's search and go to options, as they brought up 95 pages as being why it was hard to find configuration file locations for bash.

When I'm searching for configuration file location, I do use '/FILES' or PgUp from the bottom of the manpage, so the length of the manpages is irrelevant.

BenjiWiebeon IPv6 is not insecure because it lacks a NAT

I brought up CGNAT because my American ISP does use CGNAT. We are now paying an extra monthly fee for a static IP, which I believe is the only option they have for getting a public IP (i.e. no intermediate fee amount for a public non-static IP).

BenjiWiebeon Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

Wouldn't that only be able to steal money one time though? Whereas a traditional skimmer captures the card number, and can charge the card indefinitely until the card is reported stolen and replaced.

BenjiWiebeon Modetc: Move your dotfiles from kernel space

'man bash'. Type G. Press PgUp until you see the FILES heading (took one press for my terminal size). There's your list of files. Alternatively, instead of G and PgUp, type /FILES<Enter>.

Of course, this doesn't help at all when software either doesn't have manpages, or doesn't include the list of files in the manpage. Just nitpicking your bash example.

BenjiWiebeon Many Small Queries Are Efficient in SQLite

SQLite did add 'STRICT' tables for type enforcement.

Still doesn't have a huge variety of types though.

BenjiWiebeon Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

No, credit card companies aren't giving out rewards at a loss. Better cards have a higher interchange rate, ie the merchant pays more fees to accept a good card.

Hence why cash discounts are a thing (and yes they're legal again).

BenjiWiebeon Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

Unfortunately a 2% rewards card usually costs the merchant more then 2%.

High tier cards are more expensive to accept, unless your merchant rate is a high enough flat rate that it covers the average and then some.

BenjiWiebeon Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

Thankfully the US is very slowly catching up. We actually have NFC at most payment terminals already.

Even better, our small town (pop. 100) gas station upgraded their pumps a while back, and they have NFC! Finally my normal fill-up location is skimmer-resistant. Or is it skimmer-proof?

BenjiWiebeon Why does SSH send 100 packets per keystroke?

First time I've been reading on HN and come across my name randomly.

BenjiWiebeon Why does SSH send 100 packets per keystroke?

Why do you guess? I wouldn't expect SSH to be used on a telemetry link. Nor TCP, and probably not IP either.

BenjiWiebeon IPv6 is not insecure because it lacks a NAT

Until you run into CGNAT...

BenjiWiebeon There's a hidden Android setting that spots fake cell towers

WPA3 adds perfect forward secrecy.

BenjiWiebeon Should Reward Credit Cards Be Banned?

No kidding. For that matter, if you're paying annual fees, you're doing it wrong (unless you KNOW that you aren't).