Hacker News: implements

New comment by implements in "Why Sony can't bring back its classic Walkman models"

implements — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:46:59 +0000

If you want something Walkman-like and aren’t short of a few bob, there’s always:

https://teenage.engineering/products/tp-7

- scratches a similar itch, but is also a:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objet_d'art

New comment by implements in "Superintelligence: The Idea That Eats Smart People (2016)"

implements — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 07:08:39 +0000

Cheetahs (genus “Acinonyx”) are the largest ‘small cat’, apparently [1] - separate from the genus “Panthera“ containing the ones that will attack humans (lions, tigers, leopards).

[1] There’s a well known viral video of a wildlife park keeper who sleeps with three cheetahs who behave pretty much like large house cats.

New comment by implements in "What Apple and Google are doing to push notifications"

implements — Thu, 28 May 2026 06:49:47 +0000

Tip: The iPhone Passwords App has basic TOTP functionality (manually create a password entry and click “Set Up Code”). I have a few dummy passwords which are effectively just labels for some login codes - it’s one less App to install.

New comment by implements in "Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit"

implements — Wed, 20 May 2026 17:45:15 +0000

Excuse the whataboutism, but how many Americans are arrested for “disorderly conduct” each day? (Which from my YouTube police footage watching appears to be “being an annoying arsehole in public” [1] ie a broadly similar moral misbehaviour)

> [1] An overt act or conduct in public (or affecting the public) that disturbs the peace, safety, morals, or order (e.g., fighting, making unreasonable noise, using obscene/abusive language or gestures, obstructing traffic, creating hazardous/physically offensive conditions, refusing to disperse).

Our online laws which Americans often seem to view entirely through the lens of free speech are more about public (dis)order. It’s not ideas that are being censored, it’s personal conduct online which may be harassing, threatening, abusive or may create a breach of the peace.

New comment by implements in "What British people mean when they say 'sorry'"

implements — Thu, 07 May 2026 19:32:04 +0000

Part of the transaction is the performance of a service role - they’re thanking you for allowing them to help you. But also it might be a habit if they’re used to serving a queue of customers (“Thank you for waiting”) or just a polite verbal cue that the transaction has started or again the habit of saying thank you on being passed something hand to hand (often shortened to “ta”).

New comment by implements in "Why Law Is Law-Shaped"

implements — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 21:32:25 +0000

> A lot of people say that going through a trial, even as a victim, is a punishment …

“You can beat the rap but you can’t beat the ride” (rap being the charge and ride being the whole process from arrest to acquittal: time, money and emotional trauma)

New comment by implements in "Why Law Is Law-Shaped"

implements — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 16:07:49 +0000

I wondered whether K’s original crime was being “the sort of person who would express excessive pride before the law” - a Minority Report style “Contempt of Court”.

Or was it originally just mistaken identity?

New comment by implements in "The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew"

implements — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 11:25:30 +0000

I was taught “Edible (fit to be eaten as food) vs Eatable (capable of being chewed up and swallowed)” but modern usage seems to treat them as synonyms (the former just being more pleasant to eat than the latter).

New comment by implements in "Artemis II crew see first glimpse of far side of Moon [video]"

implements — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 16:43:12 +0000

Remember that they’re not flying towards the Moon but to a point in space where they and the Moon will be closest together in a day or two, hence the Moon is now ‘off to their side’ and they can see a segment of it that is hidden to Earth observers … I think.

Also, the dark side of the Moon is often illuminated but we call it dark because it’s also hidden from earth due to the Earth and Moon being tidally locked (the same side of each always faces the other body).

New comment by implements in "A Japanese glossary of chopsticks faux pas (2022)"

implements — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 18:04:38 +0000

Ahh! Yeah, my teachers were equally unimpressed - but none of them gave the argument you mentioned, which could at least be understood (like elbows on tables).

New comment by implements in "A Japanese glossary of chopsticks faux pas (2022)"

implements — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 16:05:03 +0000

I’m right handed, but eat with the fork in my right hand and knife in the left.

Is the issue that people have difficulty cutting with their left hand? Because if you can the process of eating is pretty efficient: hold with fork, cut with knife, move food on fork to mouth …

New comment by implements in "Ask HN: How many of you hold an amateur radio license in your country?"

implements — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 20:29:39 +0000

Yeah, I’ve got a UK Foundation licence but have never actually made a call - it was more of a “have transceiver might as well be legal to use it” thing.

(Also, HF antennas - just didn’t anticipate how difficult they were to set up properly)

New comment by implements in "Using FreeBSD to make self-hosting fun again"

implements — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 08:07:16 +0000

Speaking of Linux, OpenBSD’s hypervisor (vmm) supports it so I managed to get docker and containers running on my server via Alpine Linux. Opens the door on all the latest ‘modern server stuff’ running happily on an OBSD box.

New comment by implements in "10M people watched a YouTuber shim a lock; the lock company sued him – bad idea"

implements — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 07:24:26 +0000

Yep. There’s a safe engineer on YouTube who was explaining the history of dial combination locks commonly used for government filing cabinets, etc. He pointed out that you can drill them in minutes but you’d need several hours to make good the damage such that the break in wouldn’t be easily detected. The combined time is therefore the ‘strength’ of the security. (Also, why it might be a good idea to have open sensors on safes, cabinets, etc)

New comment by implements in "Become unbannable from your email"

implements — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 15:30:32 +0000

Cloudflare aren’t a bad registrar (imo) - they sell and renew domains at wholesale cost, forward emails, can do website landing pages with a Worker (etc). Understand the product in depth and would seem like a reasonably safe bet. (Not shilling for them, just personal experience).

New comment by implements in "Cloudflare Email Service: private beta"

implements — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 09:06:04 +0000

You can roll your own email if you can get your head around setting up an OpenBSD box and configuring OpenSMTPD and the correct domain DNS records - but the issue will be email deliverability. Gmail etc are going to treat as spam most emails that turn up from a residential or VPS linked IP address.

Personal email servers will communicate with each other happily but you need a middleman one for important recipients if you want to be sure it gets into an inbox.

New comment by implements in "Leatherman (vagabond)"

implements — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 11:12:39 +0000

Don’t want to edit Norm, but a (perhaps British sensibility) alternative is:

“The more I hear about this Hitler fellow, the less I like him”

New comment by implements in "Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator"

implements — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 16:45:04 +0000

> My pet idea is to make some use of longwave! […] At 60 kHz the wavelength is 5 kilometres long …

Dim memory from my Ham Radio days that you’d need an antenna length of 1/4 the wavelength, which wouldn’t be very convenient for portable devices, unfortunately.

New comment by implements in "Thai Air Force seals deal for Swedish Gripen jets"

implements — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 09:54:09 +0000

> The UK had an aircraft called Harrier - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrier_jump_jet …

Also, the French: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEPECAT_Jaguar which was designed to be useable from improvised runways, hence the extremely robust landing gear.

New comment by implements in "Online Safety Act: What went wrong?"

implements — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 14:48:26 +0000

Any device with a Government service (eg NHS) or a Banking app knows who and old the primary user is, so seems the obvious technological solution is some kind of securely anonymous attestation that websites can request from the OS.