Hacker News: comfydragon

New comment by comfydragon in "Copy Fail"

comfydragon — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 22:41:26 +0000

It's a loadable module:

    CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API_AEAD=m

Using bpftrace to watch calls to module_request, openat, etc., it looks like when the kernel calls modprobe, it doesn't even look at the disable-algif.conf file:

    [module_request] pid=3648 comm=python name=algif-aead
    [umh_setup] pid=3648 comm=python path=/sbin/modprobe argv0=/sbin/modprobe argv1=-q argv2=-- argv3=algif-aead argv4=
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/etc/ld.so.cache
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/lib/liblzma.so.5
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/lib/libz.so.1
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/lib/libgcc_s.so.1
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/lib/libc.so.6
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/etc/modprobe.d
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/lib/modprobe.d
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/lib/modprobe.d/dist-blacklist.conf
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/lib/modules/6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2/modules.softdep
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/lib/modprobe.d/systemd.conf
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/etc/modprobe.d/usb.conf
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/proc/cmdline
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/lib/modules/6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2/modules.dep.bin
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/lib/modules/6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2/modules.alias.bin..
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/lib/modules/6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2/modules.symbols.b..
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/lib/modules/6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2/modules.builtin.a..
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/lib/modules/6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2/modules.builtin.b..
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/sys/module/algif_aead/initstate
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/sys/module/af_alg/initstate
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/sys/module/algif_aead/initstate
    [openat] pid=3688 file=/lib/modules/6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2/kernel/crypto/alg..
    [finit_module] pid=3688 comm=modprobe fd=0 flags=0
    [module_load] pid=3688 comm=modprobe name=algif_aead

Restart WSL2, run the bpftrace, and try `sudo modprobe algif-aead`, and that shows it looking at (or I guess opening) other files in /etc/modprobe.d, including the new one.

The mystery is why.

New comment by comfydragon in "Copy Fail – CVE-2026-31431"

comfydragon — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 21:29:22 +0000

Weirdly, the mitigation does not seem to work under WSL2 (at least in Ubuntu 24.04).

    Linux wsl2 6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2 ...

`modprobe algif_aead` errors out, but if I run the POC, it succeeds.

Outside of WSL2, the mitigation does appear to work though.

New comment by comfydragon in "Your job is to deliver code you have proven to work"

comfydragon — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 00:29:03 +0000

> The branch itself gets created with the ticket number and everything follows from that, there's no extra effort.

Only problem there is the potential for a deeply-ingrained assumption that the Jira key being in the branch name is sufficient for the traceability between the Jira issue and commits to always exist. I've had to remind many people I work with that branch names are not forever, but commit messages are.

Hasn't quite succeeded in getting everyone to throw a Jira ID in somewhere in the changeset, but I try...

New comment by comfydragon in "Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain"

comfydragon — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:09:27 +0000

Pebble Time 2 has a compass sensor and HRM. https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-time-2-design-reveal#final-...

Unless you specifically are after a barometer, in which case I don't think the PT2 has that.

New comment by comfydragon in "Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward"

comfydragon — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 23:14:06 +0000

I think most of the battery life improvement is the much more power-efficient SOCs available. The original Pebble used an STM32 processor and a TI Bluetooth chip, where nowadays having BLE integrated into the SOC is table stakes.

New comment by comfydragon in "How To Build A Smartwatch: Software"

comfydragon — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 21:58:35 +0000

Did you get it in black like I did? My buttons also cracked practically right away (within a day), I suspect because the reinforcements were installed poorly (the buttons are VERY hard to press). It made the down button unusable.

But kudos to Eric and Claudio, they're shipping me a replacement (in white, which, as I understand it and as they said in their email, should be less susceptible to the issue, something about the white rubber versus black makes it less problematic). My only frustration was how quickly it failed, since I know it's a new-old-stock case.

Highly looking forward to the Time 2. I only stopped using my Pebble Time Steel when the battery life degraded to ~3 days (after about 6 years), used a Fossil Hybrid for a few years, now a Pixel watch. Measuring battery life in weeks will be a breath of fresh air :)

New comment by comfydragon in "IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products"

comfydragon — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 16:14:40 +0000

> Matter simplifies this. It defines the API layer.

Technically Zigbee _also_ defines an API layer -- the Zigbee Cluster Library, or ZCL -- but that's more like an opt-in standard you _could_ implement, rather than any hard requirement. And no surprise, the Matter Cluster Library Specification, being authored by the same CSA that made ZCL, is eerily similar to ZCL...

But as I understand it, you're right that Matter is essentially "hey everyone, let's _actually_ standardize around a common application layer". It isn't technologically revolutionary (the building blocks have been around for more than a decade), but it's a better packaging of it all.

Source: My employer has been involved with Zigbee and other low-power network technologies for a long time.

New comment by comfydragon in "Setting the clock ahead to see what breaks"

comfydragon — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 03:47:14 +0000

Assuming you have an ability to run your whole bare-metal application in a simulated/"dev" environment. Not everyone has that luxury. That becomes much easier if the micro you're targeting has support of some kind in say QEMU, but those are fairly few and far between.

New comment by comfydragon in "Things I’ve learned in my years as a software engineer (2021)"

comfydragon — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 05:52:11 +0000

The way I interpreted that point is basically "if you don't think the tool/language/library you're using sucks in some way, you're not using it enough". As in, "opinionated" here doesn't mean "you should use this, everything else sucks" (which is what opinionated usually means in software contexts), it means you have opinions about these things that are founded in experience, not impressions. In that light, you ARE opinionated.

New comment by comfydragon in "CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers"

comfydragon — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 03:48:12 +0000

Various MicroPython implementations, specifically the STM32 port (which runs the PyBoard), expose their filesystem as a USB mass storage device that you can copy files into directly. So I wouldn't say that it's exclusive to CircuitPython by any stretch.

New comment by comfydragon in "Quick Start Guide for Flipper Zero"

comfydragon — Mon, 16 May 2022 04:38:52 +0000

In the US, at least the 433 and 915 MHz, and of course 2.4 GHz, bands are unlicensed and widely used by all sorts of commercial, industrial, and DIY electronics. All my wireless temperature sensors in my house are on the 433 MHz band, my natural gas meter speaks (ERT) on 915...

New comment by comfydragon in "Lazygit: A simple terminal UI for Git commands"

comfydragon — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 04:38:14 +0000

git remote prune origin ?

New comment by comfydragon in "Notes from the Meeting on Python GIL Removal Between Python Core and Sam Gross"

comfydragon — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 02:53:36 +0000

MicroPython isn't really an alternative implementation of Python so much as it is an embedded scripting language that looks pretty much identical to normal Python.

New comment by comfydragon in "20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?"

comfydragon — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 06:30:54 +0000

I got a REAL ID several months ago and definitely didn't get fingerprinted in the process.

New comment by comfydragon in "strcpy: A niche function you don't need"

comfydragon — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 21:48:43 +0000

williamvds's point is that the first argument to printf is still itself a null-terminated string, so it's basically turtles all the way down if you're using the C standard library.

New comment by comfydragon in "FTDI FT232RL: Real vs. Fake (2014)"

comfydragon — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 00:20:05 +0000

Not quite, at least not necessarily. One feature of FTDI chips is an EEPROM that can be used to customize the enabled features, enumeration strings, and other things. That programming could probably be done in a separate jig, or in-circuit. So yes, 5 minutes of hardware work, but more potential rework at a higher level.

Not to mention the possibility of sealed cases/enclosures or potted PCBs.

New comment by comfydragon in "Emacs 27.2"

comfydragon — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 18:48:49 +0000

> The community has migrated over to Spacemacs

I'm guessing you meant to say Doom Emacs there?

New comment by comfydragon in "The kernel has 6 separate ASN.1 parsers"

comfydragon — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 18:03:18 +0000

Not in core Python, but in a widely-used library, yes. https://github.com/pyca/cryptography/issues/5771

New comment by comfydragon in "Perseverance Rover lands on Mars [video]"

comfydragon — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 20:59:43 +0000

We actually got a picture like 3 minutes after landing. (Okay, a picture from shortly after landing.)

New comment by comfydragon in "Why Wasn't Ruby 3 Faster?"

comfydragon — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 00:41:28 +0000

By resizing my window down to mobile-ish width, the "get your free e-book" thing on the right side covers the whole screen.