Hacker News: crottypeter

New comment by crottypeter in "Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective"

crottypeter — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 15:29:24 +0000

Single family homes are sparse. Ground level (not multi-storey) car parks are sparse.

New comment by crottypeter in "Beliefs that are true for regular software but false when applied to AI"

crottypeter — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 09:16:20 +0000

But at the time that software was "new" and unreliable.

New comment by crottypeter in "Making Florida More Flood Resistant Is Forcing Hard Choices for Homeowners"

crottypeter — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 13:05:22 +0000

They are doing it now.

Summed up in a recent headline "Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill that deletes climate change from state law"

New comment by crottypeter in "No Calls"

crottypeter — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 12:24:01 +0000

I think you mean this link: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-...

New comment by crottypeter in "A 10-Year Battery for AirTag"

crottypeter — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 01:39:23 +0000

Maybe you only get a second notification if you dismiss the first?

New comment by crottypeter in "Posting a 5x5 crossword every day"

crottypeter — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 08:15:48 +0000

Can I see the clues after I have solved it?

New comment by crottypeter in "Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption"

crottypeter — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 22:42:23 +0000

It does, but is priced uncompetitively compared to mobile data.

New comment by crottypeter in "Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption"

crottypeter — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 22:40:54 +0000

Just checked my provider's pricing ( in the UK) MMS are capped at 300kB and cost 30p (0.39 USD) per message.

That kind of pricing made WhatsApp an infinitely preferable alternative.

Phones automatically switching to MMS would be catastrophic.

Data (WhatsApp) is essentially free in comparison. £10 (13 USD) per month gets you 20GB: which doesn't care how many messages/recipients/photos you send.

New comment by crottypeter in "Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption"

crottypeter — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 16:25:13 +0000

Group messages.

If I send an SMS message to a group of people, they all see a message from me. They don't know who else got it. And if they reply, they reply only to me. Is your experience different?

WhatsApp (and I think iMessage) allow me to create a group with a name/purpose and send messages to the group and receive replies to the whole group.

(P.S. I went from dumb-phones to Android and have limited exposure to iMessage's feature-set).

New comment by crottypeter in "I wish Asciidoc was more popular"

crottypeter — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 09:22:58 +0000

100% this.

It might not occur to people in North America that even British English users are inconvenienced when restricted to ASCII only (GBP vs £) and therefore the name implies that this tool is not for us.

New comment by crottypeter in "Tell HN: Locked out of Gmail account even after right password, recovery email"

crottypeter — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 08:44:38 +0000

You can configure alternative phone numbers to receive the SMS code. (Family members, friends).

They would only get a message if you hit "try another way" and choose one of your alternative numbers during the login challenge.

New comment by crottypeter in "Why are semi trucks in the US and Europe so different? (2018)"

crottypeter — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 16:25:27 +0000

Another source on the "Jake brake" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_release_engine_bra...

New comment by crottypeter in "Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%"

crottypeter — Fri, 05 Nov 2021 15:24:18 +0000

But the virus is already in the live prod environment!

New comment by crottypeter in "How to bypass Sprint/T-Mobile 2FA in under 5 minutes"

crottypeter — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 22:20:28 +0000

That's the PAC (Porting Authorisation Code). Not the PUK (Personal Unblocking Key).

New comment by crottypeter in "YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days"

crottypeter — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 15:39:54 +0000

> A cloth mask will not protect you against an aerosol

I thought the reason we should all wear masks is to protect everyone else around us by preventing our breathing/speaking from creating clouds of airbourne droplets.

I.E. it is supposed to filter the air you put out more than the air you breathe in.

New comment by crottypeter in "Office Drama on macOS"

crottypeter — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 14:04:43 +0000

Pages is not a suitable Word replacement at all!

Send a Word attachment to _anyone_ to collaborate. They can open, read and edit the file (cross platform: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS)

Send a pages attachment. Receiving party won't know what it is and won't be able to open or read it let alone edit it.

New comment by crottypeter in "How well do cars do in crash tests they're not optimized for?"

crottypeter — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 16:06:09 +0000

Yes, in Abu Dhabi in 2010, Michael Schumacher spun 180 and Vitantonio Liuzzi then hit him head on.

It was at relatively low speed (for F1) but Schumacher's head was very nearly hit as the other car rode over his.

New comment by crottypeter in "Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content"

crottypeter — Mon, 18 May 2020 10:30:41 +0000

If you find it here and delete it, I think it will cease to influence your recommended videos.

https://www.youtube.com/feed/history

New comment by crottypeter in "Zoom Has a Dark Side – and an FBI Warning"

crottypeter — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 14:18:33 +0000

I don't think the 'bad' PR is going to be very costly at all.

More like free advertising.

A massive proportion have heard of Zoom this week compared to last because of the PR. Pretty much an ideal free viral marketing campaign!

New comment by crottypeter in "'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees"

crottypeter — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 08:54:36 +0000

In fact the word "jeep" came from the colloquial contraction of "GP" - general purpose (vehicle).