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Marc_Bryanon Hakari – the hardest puzzle game you'll ever play

any hints on level 28?

Marc_Bryanon Hakari – the hardest puzzle game you'll ever play

v'z fbeel. fgvyy pbhyqa'g svther vg bhg. v'z abg guvaxvat fgenvtug v thrff be gbb qhzo. v gevrq erirefvat gur ragver hey, ohg ynaqvat abjurer.

Marc_Bryanon Hakari – the hardest puzzle game you'll ever play

fgvyy pbhyqa'g svther bhg nsgre nyy gurfr uvagf. cebonoyl v'z abg guvaxvat fgenvtug be fgerffrq bhg qhr gb bgure snpgbef. fbzr uryc jbhyq ernyyl qb sbe guvf...

Marc_Bryanon Hakari – the hardest puzzle game you'll ever play

reached level 22. Any more hints?

Marc_Bryanon Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

Yep. I've sent a party mail and free lunch or snacks sponsor to the team. Have got them a couple of times as well. A lesson well learned...

Marc_Bryanon I still use Flash

Screw Apple! I'm moving away from it. The system is just not suited for any system's development. Too many undocumented and unexposed crap in the OS. If one want's to do something with the AV, it is near to impossible because of the restrictions and it is not something they've invented. They are bunch of lazy people who doesn't want anyone to mess around with their OS. They will never learn or change. Better stick with Windows or Linux (It has greatly improved for AV in the recent years and it's just the fragmentation which is causing a lot of issues which might eventually get consolidated or streamlined. That's another issue by itself!! :))

And all these notorization and getting a certificate every year is just too much to continue the development for a small bunch of users who doesn't even know or care about what is existing.

Some good folks amongst the users are there, but they can be counted with one hand. All other Mac or Apple users doesn't even have a clue about what is under the hood. It just has to look good with oohs and aaahs... And that's pretty much it... Offcourse as long as it works the way it is supposed to work (and that is how the 99% of it's dum dum users use it), they'll continue to remain a trillion doller company... iOS is another story by itself...

Anyways, peace out!

Marc_Bryanon Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

Created a LIMS system (Lawful Interception and Monitoring Systems) in 2000-2001.

It was abused at a large scale in some large enterprises in India to monitor it's employees network communication.

Thought I was doing a good work for govt. agencies, but in turned out otherwise due to the abuse and affected a lot of privacy. Since then, I've made myself away from any and all mass techs as much possible and stuck with manual methods, cash and privacy friendly alternatives.

It's like creating a double edged sword. All the newer age, continuous monitoring and etc, etc., are doing more harm then what it solves...

Like in medical community, but an opposite... Risks outweigh the benefits!! Enough said! Peace!

Marc_Bryanon Why I’m Cryptophobic

It is really an irony that they themselves have the antidote to Cryptophobia!!

https://www.bvp.com/atlas/the-antidote-to-cryptophobia

Now, tell me what to take as a direction? How contradicting views will spoil one's own thought process!!

Marc_Bryanon Ask HN: Becoming a Director of Engineering

Certainly professional network plays an important aspect of one getting the job.

Marc_Bryanon Indie Hackers: Now Invite-Only

An invite code would be awesome! Thanks if anyone can share!

Marc_Bryanon Ask HN: CTOs/VPS of Engg, what lessons you wish you'd known before?

I have played / playing CTO for multiple startups spanning over 6 years with a total experience of over 20+ years.

I am fairly successful (!?) (though the perspective is my own and satisfied with the mix of life I'm into and whatever I'm!) in my career and have enjoyed a good and competent technical team with me all the time.

I mentor my team mostly from ground-up and have found that anyone can become a fantastic and a dependable competent resource provided enough freedom and directions. Also worked as a startup coach. Been into startups since early 2000s

Obviously, this handle is my pseudonym and not my real name. Extremely sorry for that as I value privacy more than anything and people call me that I'm a paranoid. I'm still not in a position to divulge much personally.

I'll try to list down common issues faced and lessons learnt by startup a CTO as much possible.

- Having to deal with a non-technical founder is very hard

- Technical work could be very challenging if you are one of the few who takes cares of many things or try to play multiple roles

- Getting competent resources could prove to be a very tough task if you are in a third world country. (I'm not talking about the Bay Area types)

- Have a process right from day one. Do everything in a documented manner and work like what will happen if you get run over by a truck (it could happen to anyone on the team). Then what?

- Technical stack identification for an initial MVP will take time until one gets it right considering a 360 degree view covering all the aspects

- Having business knowledge / outlook is a must and without that, however technical one could be, he/she will not bring value on a long run. There could always be a better one who will replace you

- Strike the deal from the day one. There is no free lunch. Negotiate hard and properly for what you are worth. No slack or compromise on those aspects

- There are no shortcuts for anything

- Everyday is a learning day

- There are newer ways of doing things which gets into the mainstream and some might even come from you!

- Keeping the team together and motivated is an extremely tough thing to do if you are in a non-commercial decision making role. Try to vest some powers towards that direction if you are joining a team (not as a part of core founding / decision making team, but just playing a CTO / VP of Tech or something akin to it)

- Pleasing everyone is not possible all the time. Learn to cope with frustrations and take decisions based on long term goals

- Never get driven by emotions

- Be ready to adopt to any situation, and be adept at many things. Learn, learn and learn and put to use

- Have a birds eye view on everything and have the vision of an ant on specifics (up close!)

There is much more to write (it's my part time passion and mostly use it for internal communications, mentoring and teaching), but seriously considering it towards a book of experience in (near?) future.

Though the above is incomplete in many ways, would like to hear the thoughts / views from other technical people. Thanks for reading so far!

Marc_Bryanon Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

They are a bigtime scammers. Recently was assisting a friend to get access to a domain name which was registered in godaddy. They scammed him for a couple of hundred dollars for contacting the domain owner to get a deal on the domain and eventually nothing happened. Not even a mail was sent on behalf the scammed money as we found that the domain was owned by another friend and eventually got it transferred. He confirmed that he has not received any mail from godaddy's domain buy service since the contact was under privacy protection. Another scamming method to siphon money from people.

To make it more clear, if you need a domain which is registered in godaddy and has privacy protection enabled, please do not pay money to godaddy to broker a deal on behalf of you with the existing domain owner. They take huge sum of money, do nothing and stop responding. It's like giving your hard earned money for free to these godaddy scammers. One of the worst registrars and I don't want to open another can of worms with their really really bad service (hosting, emailing and all such services!)

Marc_Bryanon Ask HN: Linode blocking outgoing SMTP connections from application

This apparently looks like an issue with their mumbai, indian data center where one of the node is located.

Marc_Bryanon BBS Graphics History: Pretty awesome, until the web showed up

Yep. Nostalgic times! Memory flyby to a bygone era!

Wish could time travel and live that life again!

Not a fan of the current developments though! Sadly!

Marc_Bryanon Multiple service providers are blocking DuckDuckGo in India

I believe RTI has become dysfunctional in India. That's what the recent news is. Most of the RTI requests are being denied citing national security (!!) or things alike. I'm not sure about it though.

Marc_Bryanon Multiple service providers are blocking DuckDuckGo in India

India, ruled by some big(!) heads who doesn't understand a dot in technology. They are governed by impulsive decisions of the policy makers and it's a name sake democracy. No real freedom of speech is allowed there AFAIK. Govt / Private / Policing is just too much and a lot of gag order as well. They just can't stand anything and consequences could cost a life too! Technology is being used by most of the population who doesn't even know what is behind the scenes. ISPs utilise it do whatever they want and there is a ruling body known as TRAI / DOT which doesn't care to explain the rationale behind any of their decisions for blocking / banning etc., God save that country!

Marc_Bryanon Expose – A fully open-source ngrok alternative written in PHP

Seriously, does PHP suitable for this?

It can be handled using a single go binary using pgrok which comes less the source code size and not to mention without any dependencies on almost all platforms!

This requires unnecessary things to bundle and too complex for some simple stuff. Mileage may vary though.

But just my views.

Marc_Bryanon Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

PFE - Programmers File Editor. Was way more advanced then any of the editors available now. Could handle GB sized files easily. Had macro that can record your operations and playback. Was very nifty and virtually consumed no memory and was simply superb. I still use it though as it is available in 32 Bit version.

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/staff/steveb/cpaap/pfe/pfefiles.....

Would love to see a 64 bit version and with some more advanced features.

Still loving it and it's one of my main stream editor which just works with just one executable and part of my big list of portable apps collection which mostly consists of single executable based tools for almost any task!!!

Marc_Bryanon Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

PFE - Programmers File Editor.

Was way more advanced then any of the editors available now. Could handle GB sized files easily. Had macro that can record your operations and playback. Was very nifty and virtually consumed no memory and was simply superb. I still use it though as it is available in 32 Bit version.

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/staff/steveb/cpaap/pfe/pfefiles....

Would love to see a 64 bit version and with some more advanced features.

Marc_Bryanon [dead]

https://myaccount.google.com/reservations

Will show up all your reservations (flights/hotels etc, etc). And we can do nothing about it!!!

Marc_Bryanon Ask HN: Best robust laptop for everyday software development

Can't stand the weight of it. It is not a portable system. Though very powerful, you need to be muscular to lug it on long walks across business districts! I prefer X1 Carbon or T480s!

Somehow hate Macs!

Marc_Bryanon Integrating NLP into Language Learning with Dutch

Why is the site blurred? Unable to view it in any browser.

Marc_Bryanon Last satellite in the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System launched

IMHO, it's pretty useless compared to the current government and country's scenario. They better electrify the villages and provide better sanitation to the people rather then spending millions on mars, moon missions to prove their superiority! What a waste!

It may stop working in a year or two like any of their indigenous inventions!!

I'm not undermining any Indians, nor the way they work but as they are governed is by far the worst considering the current and past situations.

No quality, no nothing.

Marc_Bryanon Ask HN: What is the best AI powered product demo you have experienced?

Nope! It is available at: https://github.com/google/tacotron

Check it out.

Marc_Bryanon LessPass: sync-less open source password manager

Lastpass is free now for mobile devices! If that is what you were willing to pay for!

It syncs seamlessly across all desktop browsers, iOS and Android devices without any issues.

Marc_Bryanon LessPass: sync-less open source password manager

Lastpass is free now for mobile devices. Enjoy!