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bonyt

3,777 karma · joined March 25, 2011

I'm a lawyer in New York City. I've also always loved to tinker, and I used to work as a programmer and as a system administrator before I went to law school. =)

- Web: https://tonybox.net/

- Contact: https://tonybox.net/posts/contact/

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyb486/

- Mail: hn@tonyb.xyz

- Phone: 347-708-6692

Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or clients.

I'm not your attorney, nothing on here is any of the following: legal advice, a legal opinion, or the opinion of my law firm.

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/tonyb486; my proof: https://keybase.io/tonyb486/sigs/8h0YhPavJMbSRHuXHdR5NgD6xpqJivdBhMWIaVsgjIo ]

submissionscomments
bonyt··on 56k.rip – the 1996 dial-up internet experience
A while back, I set up a server that limits bandwidth through it to roughly max dialup speeds https://dialup.moveything.com/. It has some gifs, progressive jpegs that are fun to watch load, and a mirror of xkcd.

It uses rate limit buckets per-IP on the server side, applied before SSL termination so it doesn't include that overhead. If you open two tabs, they'll have to share. If your behind a NAT, you'll have to share with your NAT-mates. And, it also has headers saying not to cache anything, so you can continue to enjoy the experience.

bonyt··on WangNet – 1.8 MB, zero-dependency Numberwang adjudication in 11 languages
You're playing with fire here, don't forget the tragedy of Colosson. Computers weren't meant to do this.
bonyt··on Having your insulin pump die while you're on vacation
> Each issue is reasonable by itself...

The problem of many hands - when responsibilities in a group that collectively does harm are divided between many people, who can be held accountable when each person individually acted reasonably?

I think organizations are, more and more, siloing roles in this way intentionally (or at least emergently), such that blame can only ever be collective if they do harm. Since it's so much harder to redress collective blame, this can be effective in avoiding consequence entirely.

bonyt··on Scaffold a 1990s Geocities-themed static website
I set up a server that limits bandwidth through it to max dialup speeds, with rate limit buckets per-IP: https://dialup.moveything.com/. It has some gifs, progressive jpegs that are fun to watch load, and a mirror of xkcd.
bonyt··on SingleRide: Longest route on NYC Subway without visiting the same station twice
Some folk on YouTube played a game like this (Snake) in real life with the South Korean rail network. It's Jet Lag: The Game - a great show, most seasons are different games. I think the one where they played Snake is one of their more complex seasons - they also play Hide and Seek and Tag across continents, and games like that.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB7ZcpBcwdC4ZwbTbCqIC...

bonyt··on If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?
“This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

bonyt··on Show HN: Dull – Instagram Without Reels, YouTube Without Shorts (iOS)
For YouTube, I've used it in Safari on iOS for a while with UnTrap for YouTube that lets you disable short[1]. On desktop, a uBlock origin filter works[2].

[1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/untrap-for-youtube/id163743805...

[2]: https://github.com/i5heu/ublock-hide-yt-shorts

bonyt··on My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix
Sure - of course! Hope it can be helpful.
bonyt··on My MacBook keyboard is broken and it's insanely expensive to fix
I replaced the keyboard MacBook Air M1 keyboard with a $20 model from Amazon and it's been going strong for a full year. I had spilled ginger ale on the original.

The board is riveted in, but there are enough screws to hold the replacement in place. Removing the board is a shockingly violent process, but it worked for me.

Keyboard: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQBVMM3X (price has gone up).

Video of rivets breaking: https://i.tonybox.net/9f2083b218d5.mp4 (you can see I missed a screw and slightly cut my hand here too).

bonyt··on Observations from carbon dioxide monitoring
The article linked in the first paragraph is almost more interesting to me[1]. Some of these places, like the subway, have air frequently circulated that can filter aerosols but leave CO2; this limitation makes me somewhat doubt its usefulness as a proxy for disease transmission risk.

Apart from disease transmission, since I've gotten a CO2 monitor in my apartment I've noticed that running the gas stove or oven for even a little while will make a huge spike in CO2.

[1] https://grieve-smith.com/ftn/2026/02/so-you-want-to-monitor-...

bonyt··on Typing and Keyboards
I'm a fan of scissor switch keyboards, which I think makes me a bit odd - I got used to them from laptops and now I have an MX Keys Mini that I really like. I like the short travel and the tactile nature of them - I tried a slim mechanical (Nuphy Air75) but it still slowed me down considerably and was uncomfortable. I touch type but not home-row, so maybe my chaotic typing style doesn't work on heavier keys.
bonyt··on Netflix raises prices for every subscription tier by up to 12.5 percent
Can't even get 4K on most streaming services on macOS now... It's not just Linux anymore.

Netflix lets you in Safari[1]; Disney+ limits you to 1080p[2]; and Hulu limits you to 720p[3].

[1]: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/55764 ("Mac computer with an Apple processor or Apple T2 Security chip").

[2]: https://help.disneyplus.com/article/disneyplus-video-quality ("Please note 4K streaming is not available on computer browsers").

[3]: https://help.hulu.com/article/hulu-video-quality ("Hulu.com streams in quality up to 720p").

bonyt··on Show HN: Echo, an iOS SSH+mosh client built on Ghostty
Neat, it's staggering that there hasn't been a good non-subscription option for a simple utility like this for iOS. I've used Termius for a while, but it pushes a subscription and AI features pretty hard.

I think this really needs the ability to generate SSH keys on the secure enclave, like Secretive[1] does on macOS.

[1] https://secretive.dev/

bonyt··on List animals until failure
I just made a variant of this that uses the browser speech recognition API. It's simplified, with none of the flair of the original, but should be fun to play in person. It's fun to shout animal names at computer with friends.

https://t.moveything.com/animalscream/

(works best on desktop chrome. it's too slow on safari in my testing.)

bonyt··on The appropriate amount of effort is zero
"Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I thought it could be."

- Office Space (1999)

bonyt··on DNA Learning Center: Mechanism of Replication 3D Animation
Hey, working at the DNALC was my first job when I was in high school. I made a port of their iOS 3D brain app for Android, based on pre-rendered images (which was the style at the time - 2009-ish). It looks like it has since been taken down, which makes sense - I targeted my G1 at the time for acceptable performance, and Android broke things as it moved on. I also helped out on some web apps at the time. Great experience.

https://dnalc.cshl.edu/resources/products/3d-brain-app.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20230307055457/https://play.goog...

bonyt··on Shop Sans is a typeface for curved text paths
I think your license has a typo that inverts the meaning:

> This license does now allow for the fonts to be embedded in software apps or e-books.

bonyt··on A day at Hetzner Online in the Falkenstein data center
Does each container network of the 256 really need its own /64? Is there some constraint that doesn't let them work on a /72?
bonyt··on ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk
Looks like openDesk uses Collabora Online, which is itself based on libreoffice online - web based libreoffice.

https://www.opendesk.eu/en/product#document-management ("Collabora Online powers openDesk with a robust office suite designed for efficient teamwork and secure document editing.")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collabora_Online ("Collabora Online (often abbreviated as COOL) is an open-source online office suite developed by Collabora, based on LibreOffice Online, the web-based edition of the LibreOffice office suite.")

bonyt··on Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade
uv is fast enough that you can put things like this in your profile:

   alias ytd="uv tool upgrade yt-dlp && yt-dlp"
Which is pretty cool.
bonyt··on Pong Wars: A battle between day and night, good and bad
This is fun!

Mine got stuck in a cycle for a bit, but broke the cycle just after I stopped screen recording: https://i.moveything.com/c1d941787599.mp4

bonyt··on Investigating a Forged PDF
The PDF format supports this, at least Adobe Reader can validate a signed PDF if it's signed in a certain way[1]. I know DocuSign does this - and Reader even has a little button to view the signed version (embedded in the PDF, I think)[2]. [1]: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/desktop/e-sign-documents/man... [2]: Example in Adobe Reader: https://i.moveything.com/1cf1e4ea5619 (redacted partly by me)
bonyt··on Show HN: The text disappears when you screenshot it
I've found taking two screenshots and adding them as separate layers works well, and then setting one as Difference, and then tweaking the opacity.

Here it is in Pixelmator Pro: https://i.moveything.com/299930fb6174.mp4

bonyt··on CubeSats are fascinating learning tools for space
I think you can file a NOTAM for a weather balloon even if you don't need clearance. Might depend on the size and payload, though, like if it's closer to a party balloon than a real weather balloon, and how high it's going.
bonyt··on Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels
On iOS and on desktop, I use my ad blocker to block shorts[1]. On iOS, this means not using the YouTube app, so I just uninstalled it and use the mobile website, which seems fine.

[1]: https://github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-shorts

bonyt··on Don't watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons in suits
> Court filings have strict requirements around formatting. This isn't any different from trying to file in Comic Sans or a 48-pt font.

For example, the Northern District of California rules require a 12-point standard proportional-width font, with no more than 28 lines per page 8½ inch by 11 inch white paper with numbered lines. This is their way of requiring double-spacing and enforcing the page limits[1].

BUT - The rules don't say anything about requiring the paper to be portrait rather than landscape. 28 lines on a landscape page would allow for a lot more text.

Alas, I'm not daring enough to try it, as the intent of the rule is clear, and I'm sure no judge would take kindly to it.

Some courts have moved to word count limits, requiring a certification of word count at the end with a lawyer's signature.

[1]: https://cand.uscourts.gov/wp-content/uploads/CAND_Civil_Loca... (Civ. L.R. 3-4(c)).

bonyt··on Pi Pico Rx – A crystal radio for the digital age?
When I look at that crystal radio kit, my fingers hurt. I had a kit like that as a kid in the 90s - not sure if it was a radio or more generic electronics - with the springs to hold wires together. At some point, made a short circuit and burned my fingers. Immediately upon seeing that, the memory comes back. I guess it's burned into my memory.
bonyt··on Reverse Engineering iOS 18 Inactivity Reboot
> 1. surely unconditionally rebooting locked iPhones every 3 days would cause issues in certain legit use cases?

I wonder if this explains why the older iPhone I keep mounted to my monitor to use as a webcam keeps refusing to be a webcam so often lately and needing me to unlock it with my password...

bonyt··on Beyond the route: Introducing granular MTA bus speed data
> They never actually tore up most of these lines; the city just paved over them.

I spotted one of these in July in long island city by vernon blvd while they were repaving. You can see them embedded in the cobblestone. Here's some impromptu phone pictures: https://imgur.com/a/MLdjvxo

bonyt··on Microsoft formally deprecates the Windows Control Panel
Where the ribbon fails most for me is when you narrow the window width and various options are made basically inaccessible.
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