HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

byteflip

127 karma · joined April 25, 2022

submissionscomments
byteflip··on Steam Machine launches today
My steam deck is underpowered as a living room gaming PC.

Wish it was cheaper but would look forward to a “just works” experience including sleep/instant game resume.

Add my thousands of already owned Steam games and it makes me excited for a great couch gaming experience. It’s the reason I don’t get a PS5/Switch cause I don’t wanna rebuy all the games and they are not on sale as much.

byteflip··on A macOS app that blurs your screen when you slouch
Would be cool to see integration with something like Upright Go or other sensors you place on your back that detect tilt etc.
byteflip··on The "email is authentication" pattern
I'm coding up a webapp with this exact login process - the issue I've found is on mobile phones - apps like gmail won't let you copy the link into a browser without a preview. The preview consumes the link. (next.js auth)

It's a bit annoying, since I don't want to login into the gmail in-app browser, I want to login on my regular browser.

byteflip··on Small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline
After failing to add my new credit card to my business Instagram account - it's locked me out. The "request review" form doesn't work on their page. Fun times. I'm literally trying to give them money.
byteflip··on My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder
Wow, super inspiring.

I've coming up on a crossroads where I'm considering leaving my high-paid low-pressure cushy remote job at some big tech company to chase some silly ideas I have. The timing feels right - but I can't help but be fearful of a jump without any sort of indication on whether I can actually pull that off.

Thanks for the transparency and sharing - you've got a new fan!

byteflip··on Will US companies hire fewer engineers due to Section 174?
I was just thinking about trying to incorporate an LLC for a side project. I'm also a remote employee for a U.S. company working in another country. Seems like a bad time all around.
byteflip··on DaedalOS – Desktop environment in the browser
This gave me a good chuckle. Obviously titles mean different things at different places but my god my accomplishments as a "Senior Software Engineer" title pales in comparison to what Dustin has built here. Kudos to him and it inspires me to shoot for more.
byteflip··on New models and developer products
I've been in contact with society and I'm still losing my mind.
byteflip··on Build your own private WireGuard VPN with PiVPN
Yes, I've been using this since I moved overseas. Works great, was able to add NextDNS for ad blocking.

I still find some websites will block you as your traffic will be originating from a datacenter (if going cloud option like me), but most work. I find this setup also works for some services that do not work via VPNs such as Mullvad.

If you want to talk to other devices check out the `BetweenClients_DROP` setting ("road warrior")

byteflip··on The Need to Read
Nice tips and resources thanks!
byteflip··on The Need to Read
I’ve always been quite mediocre at reading and writing. This has been confirmed by my grades over the years.

Just this week, I’ve been writing a script for a YouTube video and it is difficult for me. Organizing my thoughts and making it “seamless” is a lot of work. In my software job I usually default to bullet points for technical writing — which I feel is a cop out. I had decided before reading this article that I want to invest some time in these neglected skills.

Does anyone have any recommendations for improving these skills?

byteflip··on Ask HN: Any good black Friday deals?
Looks nice I probably will pick it up - any thought about adding a "filler" word detection/removal such as "umms" and "ahhs"?
byteflip··on Ask HN: Any good black Friday deals?
I picked up some discounts on recurring software/app subscriptions I use:

Fitbod Elite - Workout tracking/planning - 40% off - 47.99 annually - I was paying 12.99$ a month!!!

Plex Pass Lifetime - 25% off - 90$ once - Regular $120

I have used YNAB for budgeting for years. I wish I could find a discount on that. Still keeping an eye out for any other similarly useful deals on stuff I already pay for.

byteflip··on Tell HN: After 10 years of experiments, custom username emails receive no spam
Been using Hide My Email from Apple’s iCloud and I’ve been really loving it!

Semi permanent fake addresses ending in @icloud.com that forward to my gmail address. Apple is also one of the few companies I’d probably trust to the task.

Wish it was a standalone app rather than buried in the settings menu.

byteflip··on The Economics of the Tesla Semi
How difficult would it be to use interchangeable/hot-swappable batteries? Stations could just be constantly charging banks of batteries. Would make refueling much faster. Also could make repairs easier as you could take batteries out of service without need to take the truck off the road.
byteflip··on Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED
Yea that’s been a problem for me when I don’t use my personal Apple account on my work laptop.
byteflip··on Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED
I’m unlikely to buy a foldable laptop, but a foldable monitor while traveling sounds kinda nice. I’m working from a hotel right now, so I can easily imagine it. Folding flat would offer protection from scratches in a bag/backpack and take less space. Would be hard pressed to fit a 17” portable monitor in my bag, but if it folds in half that’s more tenable!
byteflip··on Airflow's Problem
Yes, curious if the Taskflow API introduced as part of Airflow 2.0 reduces this pain. It appears much easier/saner than working with XCOMs directly - less coupling and removes the need for lots of boilerplate code.
byteflip··on Bluetooth remains an 'unusually painful' technology after two decades
100%. Interoperability is the complexity. You’ll find old popular devices for example that are slightly different in behavior to the “norm”. It could be straight up incorrect behavior or maybe something more subtle. Do you drop support for those devices or change your behavior dynamically based on the device? Would your customers complain if you did drop it? Can you identify the device reliably? What if they update their software/behavior in the future - would your workaround break? Does your BT software stack even give you enough control to do fix it? Does your hardware/software vendor give you enough support to fix things if you can’t do it yourself? How many other devices did you test against?

It was painful but fun to work on.

byteflip··on Bluetooth remains an 'unusually painful' technology after two decades
As someone who worked on Bluetooth in consumer electronics for years the title gave me a good laugh.
byteflip··on Tiny Huts by MUJI (2017)
A link with way more detail about layout and materials: https://www.muji.com/jp/mujihut/en.html

Cost is ~22k USD

byteflip··on SMS phishing is way too easy
Great to know, so far I’ve been able to still receive SMS 2FA messages but it’s only been a couple of days since porting.
byteflip··on SMS phishing is way too easy
It’s probably trivial for the average HN reader, the key is to do it before you move. Otherwise it can be difficult since Google Voice is not available in most countries. (Will need a VPN). FYI iMessage is real wonky that I’ve removed my phone number.

Should be obvious but you will lose your phone service, so you want to time it close to when you are leaving.

byteflip··on SMS phishing is way too easy
As someone who’s moving overseas shortly, changing/removing your number is a nightmare. It really is the primary UID. So many things use it for 2FA. In a lot of cases you HAVE to list a phone number. I ported my number to Google Voice as a decent alternative, but you kinda have to know what you’re doing ahead of time. My gf who moved first did not and deeply regrets it.
byteflip··on Shotcut is a free, open-source, cross-platform video editor
I’ve only used resolve a handful of times but it’s fantastic. Also pretty sure you get a lot of features in the free version of Resolve… it was more than capable for my needs.
byteflip··on Lessons learned from running Apache Airflow at scale
So interesting, a lot of comments seem to be negative experiences. I haven’t used Airflow at scale yet but would love to convert our extremely limited, internally built orchestrator + jobs over to Airflow. I think it would allow us TO scale, at least for some time. I think a lot of companies are still really behind the times. Our DAGs are fairly simple, and Airflow has been a major improvement in my testing. The UI is great for helping me debug jobs / monitoring feed health / backfilling. DAG writing has been a bit frustrating but is much improved format over the internal systems we have. Am I just naive? Is everyone writing extremely complex graphs? Is this operational complexity due mostly to K8s (I’ve just been playing with Celery)? Anyone enjoying using Airflow?