Hacker News: explodingwaffle

New comment by explodingwaffle in "Authorize, don't authenticate"

explodingwaffle — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 10:49:25 +0000

I really like this concept (though the post is terribly named as others have said). "Databases that are easy to make as documents" is so obvious that you wonder why it isn't more of a thing. Add in "untitled" databases that live in a session/browser so you can "try before you buy", maybe the option for single file databases with no intermediary/service (so you have a Databases folder that is as messy as your Downloads folder... but is that really so bad? better than a password manager full of garbage services IMO), and you basically get EASY seperation between application and data, which is Good for a lot of reasons (lock-in, ownership etc)

New comment by explodingwaffle in "98% isn't much"

explodingwaffle — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:27:43 +0000

man, HN is awesome

New comment by explodingwaffle in "TCXO Failure Analysis"

explodingwaffle — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 17:53:02 +0000

just because it is digital doesn't mean it has to be a microcontroller though, right?? i see no reason this wouldnt just be a state machine or whatever out of plain old logic.

New comment by explodingwaffle in "Usenet personality"

explodingwaffle — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 10:43:03 +0000

this is great, thanks for pointing to it! been looking for this ideal sort of RSS reader

New comment by explodingwaffle in "Show HN: I spent 6 years building a ridiculous wooden pixel display"

explodingwaffle — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 16:57:25 +0000

This is awesome! Just so you know, you are legally obligated to do Bad Apple when interest dies down.

New comment by explodingwaffle in "I tried Servo"

explodingwaffle — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 17:49:08 +0000

Certainly not a "Rust UX _expert_", but I do find GPUI interesting. Some nice examples here of not-"just text/button widget programs": https://github.com/longbridge/gpui-component

New comment by explodingwaffle in "Tell HN: 1.1.1.1 Appears to Be Down"

explodingwaffle — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 22:41:15 +0000

I tested with 1.1.1.1 first, didn’t get anything, and gave up for the night. Maybe I should put a different provider as DNS backup? (any DNS gurus to say that that’s a bad idea?)

New comment by explodingwaffle in "Thunderscope update: My take: Why open source is better"

explodingwaffle — Mon, 05 May 2025 01:32:36 +0000

This is coming in the next release of Kicad: https://forum.kicad.info/t/post-v9-new-features-and-developm...

The rate of development since V6 is crazy fast IMO. Very much an OSS success story.

New comment by explodingwaffle in "Just barely fitting a full Wi-Fi stack on the nRF9151"

explodingwaffle — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:49:51 +0000

Thoughts on Zephyr? Especially wrt code size. I've heard all kinds of things regarding the requirement for it with Nordic chips

New comment by explodingwaffle in "Solving the ABA Problem in Rust with Tagged Pointers"

explodingwaffle — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 17:38:53 +0000

Who says you can’t make a library that does both? Rust makes it pretty easy to conditionally compile code based on architecture.

It could even be possible to make some sort of “ABA primitive” and use that for these sort of data structures. This could well exist: I’ve not looked. These sorts of things really aren’t that common in my experience.

On LR/SC: to any atomics experts listening, isn’t it technically “obstruction-free” (as per the Wikipedia definitions at least) rather than lock-free? (though in practice this makes basically no difference and still counts as lock-free in the C++ (and Rust) sense) Just something that stuck out last time I got sucked into this rabbit hole.

New comment by explodingwaffle in "T1: A RISC-V Vector processor implementation"

explodingwaffle — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 16:16:46 +0000

TIL this github "list" feature. neat

New comment by explodingwaffle in "VPR: Nordic's First RISC-V Processor"

explodingwaffle — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:42:18 +0000

What would you consider the “RISC-V equivalent” of TrustZone? Last time I was curious I didn’t find anything.

(FWIW I agree with the other commenter that these ""security"" features are useless, and feel to me more like check-box compliance than anything else (Why does TrustZone work with function calls? What’s wrong with IPC! Also, what’s wrong with privileged mode?). Just seems like a bit of a waste of silicon really.)

New comment by explodingwaffle in "Inserting a 0 bit in the middle of a value"

explodingwaffle — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 10:55:46 +0000

that page + the book Hacker's Delight are a big part of the reason I am so convinced of this :)

If compilers/languages/standard libraries provided these bit permutations, and it was just something ~everyone had learned, it would be a lot easier to work with bits without needing to come up with the bitwise ops (or use that generator). In addition it would probably make better use of the hardware: sure, people like to pretend that we’re still programming C for PDP11, but modern hardware supports more operations than C has operators for (RISC-V B extension and co have the right idea <3)

Modern compilers are probably pretty good? but I doubt they are perfect at turning code like that in OP into the best instructions. It is probably a bit late for C/C++ though. maaaybe possible to get it into LLVM and Rust.

New comment by explodingwaffle in "Inserting a 0 bit in the middle of a value"

explodingwaffle — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 10:27:42 +0000

The more and more bit-hacks I see, the more convinced I am that they should be handled by a cleverer compiler. Some intrinsic(s) where you say “do x, y, to these bits” and it just figures out the optimum way of doing it for whatever platform you compile for.

New comment by explodingwaffle in "Apple Passwords’ generated strong password format"

explodingwaffle — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 14:12:52 +0000

At least in my iOS 18 Passwords app, the passwords are shown in a monospace font that (probably deliberately) differentiates all these (e.g. a slashed zero).

New comment by explodingwaffle in "MikroPhone: A privacy enhanced, simple and featured RISC-V mobile phone"

explodingwaffle — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 09:51:54 +0000

I wouldn’t call it a pet peeve but I understand where you’re coming from with this: but I think the main reason for it is electronic engineers, with little-to-no product design or even mechanical design/CAD background. IMO it’s a shame: it’s sort of like the open source hardware version of the “Blender before it got good UX” problem.

New comment by explodingwaffle in "USB Sniffer Lite for RP2040"

explodingwaffle — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 19:54:28 +0000

The cheap option is https://github.com/ataradov/usb-sniffer which is actually by the same guy as the OP :)

Open hardware so you could build your own for fairly cheap. I bought a clone (is it a clone if the creator never sold them? I'd have preferred to buy it from him...) off aliexpress for ~$50.

BatBadBut: You can't securely execute commands on Windows

explodingwaffle — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 20:05:38 +0000

Article URL: https://flatt.tech/research/posts/batbadbut-you-cant-securely-execute-commands-on-windows/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39983661

Points: 77

# Comments: 42

We Built an Orb: The Making of the Steam Deck OLED Launch Trailer

explodingwaffle — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 01:10:23 +0000

Article URL: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110/view/4118051100641390121

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39762001

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by explodingwaffle in "Rust for Embedded Systems: Current state, challenges and open problems"

explodingwaffle — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 18:07:56 +0000

You mean, like this? https://probe.rs/docs/tools/debugger/