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mimmingon Global, U.S. Growth in Smartphone Growth Starts to Decline

I made the switch to a cellular tablet (9.7" iPad Pro) a couple years ago and it's been great.

It reduces the urge to whip out my mobile device at every moment of mild boredom, and collaborative apps like ported board games shine.

The one downside is that I look pretty silly when taking photos.

mimmingon Beyond Passwords: 2FA, U2F and Google Advanced Protection

Generally yes, but the admin has the power to either enforce it (for some or all users) or disable it domain wide.

If you were to create a new GSuite domain today, it'd be allowed for all users.

mimmingon Beyond Passwords: 2FA, U2F and Google Advanced Protection

Yes google does.

The spec strongly encourages providers to allow multiple keys, and allow you to nickname them.

As far as I know everyone allows as many keys as you like except Vanguard and Amazon AWS (which both also only accept Yubico keys)

mimmingon Beyond Passwords: 2FA, U2F and Google Advanced Protection

You use a less convenient backup authentication.

The specifics depend on the use case, but even if you fall back to something less secure like an email and TOTP, you still come out ahead overall because most authentications are done by U2F.

mimmingon Beyond Passwords: 2FA, U2F and Google Advanced Protection

Essentially it borrows the protections from TLS. Here's a link to the relevant part of the spec: https://fidoalliance.org/specs/fido-u2f-v1.2-ps-20170411/fid...

(Sorry if this comes across as RTFM, but I figured the source is better than my attempt at explaining)

mimmingon AWS now supports U2F/Yubikeys

Aw, that's a bummer. First Vanguard and now AWS support only Yubikey brand U2F devices. I wonder why that's happening?

Hopefully this practice remains limited. I really don't want haul a bag of different security keys around with me to access all of my services.

mimmingon AWS now supports U2F/Yubikeys

They mention Yubikey a lot by name in the post. Has anyone tried a U2F device from a different manufacturer?

mimmingon Google Unveils Titan Security Key, a Yubico-Like Phishing Resistant 2FA Device

It’s not as big of a deal as you might expect because:

- The spec requires providers to allow independent addition / removal of multiple keys per account, so it’s easy to manage backup U2F keys.

- Providers can use any backup authentication method they want. This includes SMS codes, TOTP / HOTP apps, email resets, or maybe VCing in to tech support.

And even if the backup method is less awesome (e.g. sms codes) it still reduces your risk because because you use it less often.

[edit for formatting]

mimmingon Big Bang telescope finale marks end of an era in cosmology

That’s starting to be the case. Check out https://projectpanoptes.org It’s network of ~$5000 exoplanet robotic survey telescopes. There’s also https://skynet.unc.edu/ which is aimed at larger scopes.

mimmingon Google: Security Keys Neutralized Employee Phishing

The protocol specifics 3 transport options with this in mind: usb, nfc, and Bluetooth.

As others mention, nfc works great for android. Bluetooth is your only option for iOS, and it’s clunky because you have to deal with pairing.

mimmingon Google: Security Keys Neutralized Employee Phishing

The U2F-Zero is about $9, and the cheapest U2F device I know of. They work well, but aren’t as durable as other options.

https://www.amazon.com/U2F-Zero/dp/B01L9DUPK6

mimmingon Repl.it 1.0: IDE that Grows from Playgrounds to Fullstack Apps

The teacher you're thinking of from last year is me :)

Thanks a lot for the great classroom product, and your support. It made my work a lot easier.

mimmingon Ask HN: What did you work on in 2017?

I started streaming coding on Twitch - https://twitch.tv/mimmingcodes

It’s rekindled my excitement of using the Internet to share knowledge.

mimmingon Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

http://dinopacks.com

I fill out those 'other comments' on order forms with a request for a dinosaur drawing.

mimmingon Windows XP at Defcon: Preparation

Thanks! Please do say hi in person if you see me :)

mimmingon Google Glass is getting a second life in the manufacturing industry

This is the best option I've seen: https://www.vufine.com

mimmingon Bay Area Bike Share is one of the least-used systems in US, costs $5k per bike

Also, as I sadly discovered, beyond a 2 second LED blip, there's no way to verify a successful bike dock. And a botched docking could cost you $1200.

mimmingon Ask HN: What have you achieved in 2016?

I wanted to get better at speaking and lecturing, so presented about 80 times.

I convinced a few people to draw me dinosaurs.

mimmingon Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?

Kind of like the rememberance agents the early wearable computing people used? http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~rhodes/Papers/wear-ra.html

mimmingon Ask HN: What “missing” technical solution(s) do you wish existed?

I started to take a swing at the comments part a couple years ago with firebase: https://github.com/mimming/firebase-jekyll-comments

mimmingon Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?

After years of software, I discovered that my favorite part of the job was teaching stuff to my peers.

I started by dabbling in teaching:

- Mentored some high school robotics teams in the evenings - Taught night school / weekend classes as adjunct faculty at local universities - Shifted my day job from developer to developer advocate

And then a few months ago I took the plunge... sort of. I went on sabbatical for a semester to teach CS 101 full time at a small university across the country.

It's been a great experience, but it made me realize how much I miss programming. I really miss the intellectual growth that I get from working with professional software developers. I suspect I'll resolve the conflict by going part time in my day job, and picking up more classes as an adjunct.

mimmingon How Diane Greene Transformed Google's Cloud

Thanks for the writeup! I'll poke the appropriate teams. Sorry about the paper cuts -_-

mimmingon How Diane Greene Transformed Google's Cloud

Sorry to hear things are more difficult. I'd love to hear specifics, if you're interested in sharing. I'd love to try to get them fixed :)

And yeah, I'm a developer advocate on GCP

mimmingon Give yourself permission to have work-life balance

It looks like time spent doing things that my employer wouldn't pay me to do. Over the course of my life, it's changed.

Sometimes it looks pretty similar to my day job, but to the benefit of a different organization, like when I mentored a FIRST robotics team.

Recently it's looked very different. I balance work with sports so that I can keep my body working well enough to enjoy a longer career :)

mimmingon Ask HN: How “technical” Is a Technical Solutions Engineer Position at Google?

The Google TSEs I know have a background in software engineering / comp sci. And from my informal conversations with them, they seem to be deep enough in code to their liking.

But you're probably going to get better information from the recruiter, or better yet, the interview panel. I'd go, do the interview, be honest, and ask the interviewers about this stuff.

mimmingon Announcing Google Cloud Bigtable

Understood.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, right? The only way I can respond to that is by delivering good stuff. It will take time for that evidence to accumulate.

For today I just wanted to communicate that we are paying attention :)

mimmingon Announcing Google Cloud Bigtable

The table flip is more about whimsy than effectiveness. :) Given many options, I usually pick the one that's most fun.

Honestly, I plan to read all of the feedback. I worked on the Firebase docs, and I've see how effective a tight feedback loop can be for improving polish.

mimmingon Announcing Google Cloud Bigtable

It looks like my previous reply vanished into the ether. Leme try again.

I don't intend to shift any blame here. The feedback link isn't a solution. I know you can't un-see docs and reclaim your lost time.

But, there are a lot of words in there for us to fix, and that feedback does help us prioritize :)

mimmingon Announcing Google Cloud Bigtable

I've never done much Python stuff at all (It's a great language, I just never used it on a major project). I just spent the last hour catching up on the chronicles of Python 2 -> Python 3 (not just at Google, but everywhere).

Sorry, but here's my answer: http://i.imgur.com/tZOS8.gif

mimmingon Announcing Google Cloud Bigtable

This is probably outside of my area of expertise, but I'll see if I can dig up an answer.

I need more context though. Where are you trying to use Python 3 and what problem are you trying to solve with it?