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Findecanor

2,855 karma · joined September 24, 2021

Fell in love with computing on the Amiga. Started programming in BASIC and assembly language, as you did in those days.

Multiple cancer survivor; Mechanical keyboard enthusiast; Prop replica collector; Technorealist; Vegetarian.

Unemployable: Recruiters are full of prejudice for unemployed people, which I was after my first cancer, which made me fall into a depression awaiting my cancer to come back. It did and I "survived". I'm looking forward to dying from the next cancer under a bridge somewhere. I just want to work in a righteous occupation, without taking part in exploiting people with gaming/phone/social media/AI addiction, or to be exploited myself. That shouldn't be too much to ask.

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Findecanor··on Why Is Sam Altman a Free Man?
From what I have learned, to charge someone for hacking the prosecutor has to show that the perpetrator had intent.

Unfortunately, gross negligence -- which you could argue to be the case here -- is often not enough, unless you could show that it has caused real harm.

From my perspective, it is only a matter of time before it is: and that's why there is need for better legislation covering what AI models do.

Findecanor··on Amiga Screens: A Primer
Later Amigas also supported VGA monitors with 31kHz horizontal refresh rate, with just a passive adaptor. I used a VGA monitor with my Amiga 1200 up until I switched to PC, and a tweaked video mode with 704×520 pixels.

If you wanted to play games on an Amiga or an Atari ST you needed to use a TV-signal compatible 15kHz monitor or a Multisync monitor. I ran desktop programs in 640×200 mode with four colours on both my ST and my Amiga 500 before I upgraded.

There were also "flicker fixer" add-ons for the Amiga, converting the interlaced modes to VGA signals: one was built into the Amiga 3000.

Findecanor··on My weird new hobby: Wandering around Tokyo on Google Maps
I long suspected that I had been shadow-banned from commenting on his channel, and I couldn't figure out why. Then I found a subreddit with several threads about his behaviour and it made a little more sense.
Findecanor··on Key symbols we lost to time, pt. 2: The Mac side
Many European layouts do have more symbols outside ASCII. For example German has ° (degree) and ß (ess-tset) and § (paragraph). German PC keyboards also tend to have µ on the M key, but it is available with the right Alt key.

Macintosh keyboard layouts tend to have many symbols on Option-combinations but they are not always printed.

Findecanor··on Key symbols we lost to time, pt. 2: The Mac side
The symbols are from a weird ISO/IEC standard (9995-7 ?) that never really caught on except in a few places. I have seen the lock-key symbols more often on lock light panels than on keycaps.
Findecanor··on Apple Reference Image: A New Approach for Verified Photography
> all three iPhone cameras simultaneously, ideally as a 2-3s video, and use the parallax/multiple perspectives to extract depth information.

I think optics could be used to make each camera see a different image.

A video could show shake, which could be verified against readings from the phone's accelerometer -- but you could just hold it still and claim that it was on a tripod.

Findecanor··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2026)
I'm designing a retro-style gaming mouse for retro-computing: Amiga, Atari, C64, and several protocol variants. It also has USB. It has a scroll wheel: read using extended protocols introduced by recent adaptors from USB, and a configuration interface.
Findecanor··on Key symbols we lost to time, pt. 1: The PC side
Reverse Tab ⇤ is still with us, above the Tab ⇥ symbol. It is at the top to indicate that it is generated while holding Shift.

Many people have got the misconception that both symbols together is the Tab symbol, though. There is even a symbol consisting of both close together in Unicode: ⭾ and many PC keyboards that similarly have both arrows closer together than on keys with printed symbols generated with and without holding Shift. (Apple has been printing only ⇥ though)

Findecanor··on List of references on Sony websites to players "owning" their digital games
I've been posting a similar idea for years. Require that for each piece of commercial software there is a "method" to open it up and use without requiring on-line servers. The method is be registered with a special government agency for that purpose, who first verifies that the method works.

Later when the agency considers the software to be "abandonware", it publishes the method.

Findecanor··on iPhone Duo
The iPad Mini starts at $599, with a more comparable screen size.

And there isn't really any competitive tablet with Android in that size. I've only seen cheaper tablets with lower specs.

Findecanor··on I resigned from Anthropic today
People already entrenched near the poles will fight to keep others out. Right-wing anti-immigrant parties are on the rise right now already.

They also tend to not want to recognise climate change -- because that would imply that people could migrate because of it.

Findecanor··on Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982
I have seen the date "September 1" be disputed on forums. Is there a credible source other than the book that the article refers to?
Findecanor··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2026)

   Location: Stockholm, Sweden
   Remote: Up to 50%
   Willing to relocate: Only within the county.
   Technologies: Programming video (everything: codecs to A/V), input devices (embedded), compilers (back-end), UI.
   Résumé/CV: Weak.
   Email: The above username at Google's or Proton AG's email service (take your pick)
Findecanor··on Tim Curry has died
You seem to need caffeine, considering that it is on your mind... :)
Findecanor··on OpenLogi
Firefox now supports WebSerial though. An alternative to Via/Vial could perhaps use that, with the USB device exposing a virtual serial port.

Kinesis' keyboards with their "Clique" keyboard has a web-based configuration tool that does that. Their older "SmartSet" firmware instead exposed a virtual USB drive, with the configuration as a text file, and a firmware update could be done by dropping a new blob in there.

Findecanor··on Count Binface receives over a quarter of votes in Clacton by-election
Long list here: https://meettheuk.substack.com/p/a-complete-list-of-count-bi...

I could get behind most of them, actually ... were I to live in the UK.

Findecanor··on Cool URIs Don't Change (1998)
One of my pet peeves are pages that detect that I am from another region and then redirect: not to the corresponding page in my language: but to the site's front page with a different region/language setting. Sometimes it is another domain altogether.

This makes it difficult to share links to info on some products in forums, chat or a Wiki -- because the recipient may not be from the same country as I am.

See also: https://xkcd.com/869/ for a variation of the same problem.

Findecanor··on Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?
Growth is unrealistic. During the industrial revolution, people were still exploring the world and expanding their reach, establishing new colonies for raw materials.

We are living in a global economy now. There is no growth into unexplored territories left to do.

The amount of carbon we're spewing into the atmosphere is unsustainable, and will lead to more worldwide instability. The first effects have already been seen. Remember that the "Arab Spring" (rise to IS, wars and refugee crisis) had been triggered by rising food prices.

Findecanor··on Anime User Interfaces
One GIF is a clip from the Hollywood movie WarGames (1983).

Not that there isn't animation in it, but... the animation was projected onto a large screen and then that screen with other things around it was filmed.

Findecanor··on Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History
I'd say that 4-6 hours is often the cut-off point for total travel time city-to-city -- provided that the train is fast.

I and a friend once started at Stockholm Central station to Malmö Central Station at the same time. I boarded a bullet train; he took the bus to the airport ... We arrived at the same time six hours later.

I've been looking at travel in Japan recently. Between Hiroshima and Tokyo, the bullet train (fast Shinkansen) and flight are both about four hours.

A bullet train is much more comfortable than flight within these limits because there are so fewer steps: no travel to/from airport, fewer tickets to book and often no check-in or security checkpoint.

Findecanor··on Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History
I think the way airline tickets are priced is a big factor, and needs to change.

It is often cheaper to take a connecting flight to an airport and flying from there than to start from that airport. That disincentivises taking a low-carbon-emission train to the airport and experiencing more of (and spending more in) the city near the airport than just its airport.

Often, for longer flights, the more stops, the cheaper the total ticket gets. Planes consume more fuel at take-off and landing, making the the carbon footprint increase with these cheaper tickets. And the more you fly, the more points you get that could pay for more flights.

It should be the other way around: air-travel carbon tax should be progressive. You should pay more each time if you fly more often. That would reduce the number of flights in total while still allowing everyone to take that "trip of a life-time".

Findecanor··on LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent
You could use any programmable microcontroller with a USB interface. Consumer products tend to have fuses set to they can't be programmed again.

The latest driver registered with Microsoft for the product you're going to spoof would need to have a vulnerability to exploit. You can't supply any driver.

Findecanor··on LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent
A few years ago, plugging in a Razer USB mouse made Windows download and run a installer from which the current user could start PowerShell with administrator privileges. Razer first tried to downplay the issue, but fixed it later. [1]

The USB protocol does not have any authentication, just a VendorID/ProductID pair: 2×16 bits that Windows uses for looking up the driver package to install. Programming a MCU to use any VendorID/ProductID is straightforward. A USB device could even appear innocuous at first but after a timer or external trigger disconnect and reconnect masquerading as another device.

1. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/08/need-...

Findecanor··on Reviving a 15-year-old netbook with Arch Linux
The other day, I tried the latest Kubuntu on a Samsung netbook from 2011. It was impossibly slow, and Wayland did not even render colours correctly on the screen.
Findecanor··on Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
The 3D file browser was one of the demo programs that came pre-installed on SGI machines, at least in the late '90s.
Findecanor··on Sam Neill has died
It is a touchy subject. When you have it, you don't want to think about it all the time.
Findecanor··on Ghost Font: A font that humans can read but AI cannot
It has bugs with long words: I typed "MARRY AND REPRODUCE". That was the only try that got the last word on a single line, but with too much space between U and C.

If the string is empty, I can read "WRITTEN IN GHOST FONT" very faintly. I'm guessing that is a watermark Edit: Ah, it's decoy text. Of course.

Findecanor··on Fable turned reMarkable into Tom Riddle's diary from Harry Potter
Install/Enable support for the Compose key. Map it to Menu or some other unused key. Then press Compose and three hyphens in sequence.

I have used emdash, typed this way for many years before LLMs. I had got the habit from mimicking my journalist father's writing style.

The Compose key is useful for many other symbols «×»÷₁²♥⋄•

Findecanor··on Fable turned reMarkable into Tom Riddle's diary from Harry Potter
One of my hobbies is making replicas of movie props, and my own creations that seem to be from fictional universes. I would love to see the tablet and "quill" embellished a bit.

Would it be possible to run a custom LLM that acts and has knowledge specifically like Tom Riddle?

Findecanor··on If you're a button, you have one job
I think that if you'd need to debounce requests, it would be better to put it in a pressed and/or highlighted state until the button is ready again. Then you'd indicate to the user that the press was successfully received and that pressing it again won't do any good.

The buttons in an elevator panel typically work this way. They each light up to confirm a pending request to reach a floor. They each turn off when its floor has been reached. And while a button is lit up, pressing it does nothing.

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