Hacker News: epicalex

The WiFi only works when it's raining (2024)

epicalex — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 20:47:36 +0000

Article URL: https://predr.ag/blog/wifi-only-works-when-its-raining/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46816357

Points: 312

# Comments: 112

Prompting Nowhere: crafting an AI powered by a sewing machine and Raspberry Pi

epicalex — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 21:06:52 +0000

Article URL: https://maxpark.design/prompting-nowhere

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45543790

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Gboard Dial Version [video]

epicalex — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 14:39:49 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgdWyD0cBx4

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45503638

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by epicalex in "Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam"

epicalex — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 20:41:30 +0000

The specifics were about whether it required any additional preparation like a traditional poppadom vs being a ready to eat snack like a crisp.

Walkers lost the case.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/19/walkers-min...

New comment by epicalex in "EU Parliament Civil Liberties Committee adopts position on CSAR"

epicalex — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 14:45:34 +0000

The etymology of dialogue is from the Greek `dia` meaning `through` and `logos` meaning `words`.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/dialogue explains the common confusion with di-

New comment by epicalex in "The Password Game"

epicalex — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 09:12:54 +0000

You can just search for the answer to save having to do that

New comment by epicalex in "Ask HN: Those making $0/month or less on side projects – Show and tell"

epicalex — Sat, 28 Jan 2023 20:58:32 +0000

We used this site to help choose our baby name, thank you for building it! If only gratitude could pay server costs...

New comment by epicalex in "🥺: the best sudo replacement"

epicalex — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 19:45:56 +0000

I believe the British Airways site still does something similar to this, or it did until very recently if it's been fixed. Add a password that is too long, it gets truncated and the truncated version saved with no warning or error.

It took me several password reset attempts to realise what was going on, as my literally just set and password manager-saved password didn't work.

I think in BA's case the password input also had a character limit on it, which is ultimately how I realised what was happening, even though there was no info anywhere that such a limit existed.

New comment by epicalex in "Reddit's favorite products in one place"

epicalex — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 18:50:23 +0000

There is an FAQ on each page with a question "What's the time frame for this analysis?", and the answer is posts and comments from within the last two years

New comment by epicalex in "Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads"

epicalex — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 08:37:12 +0000

I've just had a similar experience with ebay.

About 75% of the times I log on to ebay, (no exaggeration, I only purchase something a few times a year and this happens almost every time), my account gets locked for suspected unauthorised access and I'm forced to reset my password.

I have a static IP, and only ever use the same two devices. I have a strong unique password.

I spent 15 minutes on the phone with their account security team who could tell me nothing about what triggered the lock, nor did they have any advice on what I could do to prevent this from recurring.

Something in their automated system is giving a false positive, and neither I nor seemingly anyone on the account security team has any way to address it.

New comment by epicalex in "Ask HN: Dark mode for HN please?"

epicalex — Sat, 16 May 2020 11:27:01 +0000

It's not just you. I don't have any sources to link to, but 15 years ago a website was frowned upon for having light text on an (almost) black background because it was bad for readability and made your eyes strain.

I tended to agree and find this dark mode craze quite curious because of how the industry has completely flipped its opinion.

Maybe someone has sources/studies that contradict this, but that's my memory of the situation.

New comment by epicalex in "DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use"

epicalex — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 19:36:04 +0000

This has become increasingly frustrating for me, and I now have to overuse quoting to get the things I want.

Why would I include a word if I wanted results that didn't include it. I could understand that on later pages to include more results, but regularly even the very first results don't include one of the key words in my search.

New comment by epicalex in "Is this Paypal experience customary?"

epicalex — Sat, 06 Jul 2019 06:53:31 +0000

>When I changed my password there, not too long ago, it was worse. The "change password" page (I later discovered) silently cropped the long random password I pasted, while the "log in" page required the saved (truncated) password exactly. I don't know how they expected anyone to figure that out

The British Airways site does exactly the same thing, took me about 5 attempts at resetting my password before I realised what was going on...

New comment by epicalex in "VirtualBox E1000 Guest-to-Host Escape"

epicalex — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 22:46:44 +0000

That wasn't a slip

New comment by epicalex in "Mmm, Pi-hole"

epicalex — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 22:30:36 +0000

Wouldn't that in itself involve tracking your behaviour on the web, though, which is what commenters on this thread started off saying they disliked?

New comment by epicalex in "Serverless Docker Beta"

epicalex — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 22:38:01 +0000

I believe technically it requires lower bitrates to maintain the same quality (as mp4 etc), as opposed to just having de facto better quality. The lower bitrate is what results in less bandwidth usage.

New comment by epicalex in "Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US"

epicalex — Wed, 30 May 2018 22:20:38 +0000

Worth recognising that each subreddit is its own community, and like individual forums, will likely vary wildly by subject. My experience of subreddits for my interests and hobbies is the opposite to yours; information is correct and discussion useful.

New comment by epicalex in "Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US"

epicalex — Wed, 30 May 2018 22:15:17 +0000

In my experience that tends to only be true in the larger subreddits. The (potentially) more niche subreddits I use don't have that same problem outside of maybe a 'read the FAQs before posting'

New comment by epicalex in "How Many Years of Life Does That House Cost?"

epicalex — Sat, 09 Sep 2017 13:42:43 +0000

Yep, Sandbanks brings the average up http://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/Sandbanks.html

New comment by epicalex in "Yahoo installed a backdoor for the NSA behind the back of the security team"

epicalex — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 11:55:36 +0000

Woosh