Hacker News: otterpro

New comment by otterpro in "Anti-fraud tools can't keep pace with robocall scammers"

otterpro — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 16:08:26 +0000

I no longer can answer my phone. I get at least 20-40 spam/scam calls per day, and many are legitimate companies calling for loans and refinancing offers, which started after I got a home loan. I cannot seem to stop them from calling, and even though my phone number is listed in National Do Not Call Registry for many years, it hasn't worked at all. The only relief is that on my iPhone, I was able to block all calls not found in my contacts (ie whitelist phone numbers only).

Now, my only worry is that I might get a call from someone who I need to talk to, but is blocked and I won't even know it. For example, what if I get an emergency call from police/fire/hospital and I won't even know it. I also tried using "Screen unknown caller" feature, but then, no one likes them and sometimes they think it is AI bot and they usually just hang up (which is great for spam caller but not for legitimate caller)

My only solution that I could think of is to have a dedicated phone line just for friends/family/work, and a second line for banking/shopping/utilities/everything else.

New comment by otterpro in "Writing by hand is good for your brain"

otterpro — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:54:26 +0000

> you’re going to get tired faster if your muscles have to exert more force

I like to handwrite, but my right hand gets tired very fast, especially as I got older. I write almost a shorthand style, and it is hard to read, but I value speed of writing things down versus the neatness or readability afterward. The author recommends fountain pen or gel rollerball pen, which I have both tried.

Does anyone have any other advice for preventing fatigue? I've also tried to learn to use my left hand, so I can switch hand when my hand gets tired. But even after months (or years?) of trying, I could never get it to write, or atleast to my satisfaction.

New comment by otterpro in "Show HN: IKEA Complexity Index"

otterpro — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 21:20:22 +0000

I'm just an average guy, and I love assembling Ikea furniture. It feels like an adult Lego. But sometimes, I wonder if this is like an IQ test, as I need to sometimes figure out what the illustration is asking me to do. My feeling is that those who have higher IQ will do better. Anyway, now these days, it feels like Lego costs more than Ikea furniture.

New comment by otterpro in "OpenBSD 7.9 Released"

otterpro — Tue, 19 May 2026 15:21:40 +0000

That's too bad. I might need bluetooth on keyboard, mice, headphone/earbuds, etc. OpenBSD seems so nice, but right now it is limited to running as a server, and not a desktop, which could be considered a good thing, as it focuses on simplicity. However, I do wish it had more hardware support.

EDIT: Running openBSD in a VM might get me the best of both world, with hardware support on host OS (linux/win) and the benefit of running OpenBSD.

New comment by otterpro in "Website streamed live directly from a model"

otterpro — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 21:29:14 +0000

It's pretty cool. I created a beautiful isometric illustration of home garden, which is worthy of being featured in a real book or magazine. I really like the isometric view to explain things, and the color palette is consistent and pleasant.

New comment by otterpro in "3.4M Solar Panels"

otterpro — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 14:08:09 +0000

In Florida, the irony is that hurricane is the reason for not having too many solar panels. For example, Miami-Dade county requires commercial solar panel installation to have hurricane-approved solar mounts, which can withstand up to 160mph+ winds. This means installation is very costly. Even for homes, many insurance company will not insure homes with roof solar panel because of hurricane.

New comment by otterpro in "Show HN: Mini-Diarium - An encrypted, local, cross-platform journaling app"

otterpro — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 17:25:20 +0000

I like the idea, as a niche project for users that don't have control over their hardware/OS, or run on USB flash for portability.

Speaking of which, I have notes / journal entries dating back several decades, all in plain text files. I'm worried about these new projects and their longevity and whether it'll be actively supported 30 years from now. For simplicity, I'd use gocryptfs, Veracrypt, or other general file-based encryption which suits your risk tolerance, and use whatever editor (ie Obsidian, vscode, OneNote, etc) I want to use.

New comment by otterpro in "Delphi is 31 years old – innovation timeline"

otterpro — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 22:49:44 +0000

My memory is fuzzy, but as for me, Delphi died the day it suddenly became too expensive for hobbyists and students, and I couldn't justify spending more on Delphi than on a brand new PC at that time. Borland sold it away and we saw price up in the thousands of dollars for a single license. When the free community edition came out, it was a decade too late. I also miss dBase, as it was far superior to MS foxpro or Access.

New comment by otterpro in "Reliable 25 Gigabit Ethernet via Thunderbolt"

otterpro — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 13:11:53 +0000

> reduces temperatures by at least 15 Kelvin, bringing the ambient enclosure temperature below 40 °C,

I had to do a double-take when it mentioned Kelvin since That is physically impossible.

New comment by otterpro in "Show HN: Baby's first international landline"

otterpro — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 18:17:43 +0000

I love this idea as I grew up with ancient dial up phones, and I miss actually holding a handset and dialing a number to make calls. However, gen alpha has grown up in completely digital era, and most interaction occurs on FaceTime (or other video chat), and I don't think we can ever go back even if we wanted to. My kids' grandparents WANT to see their precious little grandkids so we always use video calls, if it involves kids and grandparents.

I, on the other hand, want this to communicate with friends who want to do the same.

New comment by otterpro in "Show HN: Baby's first international landline"

otterpro — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 18:08:37 +0000

see TinCan phone mentioned in the comments, which does this. However, it means that all their friends need to buy the phone as well.

New comment by otterpro in "Why Exercise Is a Miracle Drug"

otterpro — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 17:10:58 +0000

Exercise "simulate the arduous tasks that were once necessary to make it through a life" makes sense, as most of our ancestors were blue-collar workers and farmers. I try to integrate more physical activity in my life, which seemed like labor before, but now feels like life-saving activity. For example, I am intentionally trying to fix/diy things with my house like painting my garage, mowing my lawn instead of hiring someone else to do it, and even learning woodworking and gardening. Even in the heat of the summer, I feel more invigorated working outdoor whenever I can, and helps offset the sluggishness I feel after a day of sitting, coding, and staring at the monitors at work.

New comment by otterpro in "Show HN: Tattoy – a text-based terminal compositor"

otterpro — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 15:57:37 +0000

I'd probably run cmatrix for looks or maybe htop on the background. Also, Rick-rolled in the screenshot.

New comment by otterpro in "Eleven v3"

otterpro — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 01:34:45 +0000

This is straight out of the movie "Her", when OS1 said something like this. And the voice and the intonation is eerily similar to Scarlett Johansson. As soon as I heard this clip, I knew it was meant to mimic that.

New comment by otterpro in "Show HN: F2 – Cross-Platform CLI Batch Renaming Tool"

otterpro — Sat, 24 May 2025 16:32:38 +0000

Wow, it can integrate with exiftool. I use exiftool to rename photo files, but I think f2 offers more flexible renaming features.

New comment by otterpro in ""Is This Tech Dead?" A snarky autopsy engine for your dead frameworks"

otterpro — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 03:11:51 +0000

I don't know what's going on with this website, but it just slowed my browser to a complete halt, and I've never seen any website that did this. I had to restart Chrome but still have some serious performance issue.

New comment by otterpro in "How Nintendo bled Atari games to death"

otterpro — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 20:33:04 +0000

I got Atari 5200 when I was a kid, and the disappointment was immense, considering the marketing and hype that went into it. The controller made playing games very difficult. And the games were pretty bad as well. Later, I got a Commodore 64 and then also NES, which just revolutionized home gaming in general.

New comment by otterpro in "I bought a Mac"

otterpro — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 01:54:12 +0000

I bought a PowerMac G3 (from ebay, about 15 years ago) and while it was not very powerful, the thing was just fun to work with. I ran Linux and had added all kinds of PCI cards like old analog TV tuner card and SATA RAID card to run it as NAS. And the case was very beautiful. I'm not sure how they did it, but Apple and Steve Jobs made plastic look very pleasing to the eyes. Afterward, I also saw someone's PowerMac G4 in person and that thing looked incredibly nice, especially the mirror finish. These macs looked better in real life than in photos. I never got the G4, and I wish I still had that G3.

New comment by otterpro in "FOSS infrastructure is under attack by AI companies"

otterpro — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 14:51:34 +0000

Yes, this might be the best solution. and put read-only repo on github or some public facing host.

New comment by otterpro in "Computers and Mice – Mister Rogers Neighborhood"

otterpro — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 01:35:26 +0000

Me, too. I got anxious when Mr. Rogers began to do the unthinkable. Surely he is not going to plug a ps/2 mice into a live PC, is he? And he did. Oh, so many memory of me crashing my PC whenever I did that, forgetting that the PC was powered on.