HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

alan5

369 karma · joined May 20, 2013

submissionscomments
alan5··on Signal is having technical difficulties
I just donated to Signal after seeing the error banner in the app.

I realised I was more than happy to pay WhatsApp's yearly charge back in the pre-Facebook days (think it was 70p or so?).

Figured I could give Signal a few quid every now and then, maybe keep a server up for a few seconds :)

Donation link should anyone be interested: https://signal.org/donate/

alan5··on Unexpected cracking found on critical Boeing 737 Next Generation part
> Engineers design pickle forks to last the lifetime of the plane, more than 90,000 landings and takeoffs, a term known as "flight cycles" in the aviation industry, without developing cracks.

That number made me do a double take. Seems planes never stay on the ground for very long.

alan5··on Please Don't Say Just Hello In Chat (2013)
co-worker: @here

co-worker is typing...

co-worker is typing...

co-worker is typing...

co-worker: Could you help me with $x?

Nothing more annoying than grabbing everyone's attention with the first message and _then_ spending time to compose the question.

alan5··on Moving efficiently in the CLI
If you modify your .inputrc with the following this should propagate to all of readline as well (e.g. python):

    set editing-mode vi
alan5··on What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt
I assumed they were remote, otherwise I would have thought they would have premises costs stated. Rent, heating etc.
alan5··on What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt
I know in addition to salary there are other "hidden" costs like health care etc, but even taking that into account their employees must be taking home a pretty significant wage.
alan5··on I may be the only evil bit user on the internet
While not quite to the same level of obfuscation, your suggestion reminded me of this project: http://www.cipherdyne.org/fwknop/ Its essentially port knocking with a single encrypted packet.

Haven't tried it (yet) myself but sounds interesting.

alan5··on Ask HN: Does anyone still use QR codes?
Steve Gibson's SQRL looks to be an interesting application of QR codes. https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm