Hacker News: rodarmor

New comment by rodarmor in "Stephen's Sausage Roll remains one of the most influential puzzle games"

rodarmor — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 20:44:20 +0000

I wish that Opera Omnia, also by Stephen Lavelle, got more attention. It is mind-blowing exploration of the idea of propaganda and revisionist history, which somehow also manages to be engaging and fun, with an incredibly unique core mechanic.

Show HN: Filepack: a fast SHASUM/SFV/PGP alternative using BLAKE3

rodarmor — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 04:46:26 +0000

I've been working on filepack, a command-line tool for file verification on and off for a while, and it's finally in a state where it's ready for feedback, review, and initial testing.

GitHub repo here: https://github.com/casey/filepack/

It uses a JSON manifest named `filepack.json` containing BLAKE3 file hashes and file lengths.

To create a manifest in the current directory:

  filepack create

To verify a manifest in the current directory:

  filepack verify

Manifests can be signed:

  # generate keypair
  filepack keygen

  # print public key
  filepack key

  # create and sign manifest
  filepack create --sign

And checked to have a signature from a particular public key:

  filepack verify --key

Signatures are made over the root of a merkle tree built from the contents of the manifest.

The root hash of this merkle tree is called a "package fingerprint", and provides a globally-unique identifier for a package.

The package fingerprint can be printed:

  filepack fingerprint

And a package can be verified to have a particular fingerprint:

  filepack verify --fingerprint

Additionally, and I think possibly most interestingly, a format for machine-readable metadata is defined, allowing packages to be self-describing, making collections of packages indexable and browsable with a better user interface than the folder-of-files ux possible otherwise.

Any feedback, issues, feature request, and design critique is most welcome! I tried to include a lot of details in the readme, so definitely check it out.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47097590

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by rodarmor in "A brief history of oral peptides"

rodarmor — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 22:22:13 +0000

It would be hilarious if people wound up snorting or boofing their GLP-1s (≧▽≦)

Lol: Vibe Scripting

rodarmor — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 06:34:09 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/casey/lol

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46867316

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by rodarmor in "Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone"

rodarmor — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 07:15:42 +0000

The best example of managing expectations of all time is in the Time Zone Database documentation:

> The tz database predicts future timestamps, and current predictions will be incorrect after future governments change the rules.

New comment by rodarmor in "OpenZFS deduplication is good now and you shouldn't use it"

rodarmor — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 02:45:36 +0000

General-purpose deduplication sounds good in theory but tends not to work out in practice. IPFS uses a rolling hash with variable-sized pieces, in an attempt to deduplicate data rysnc-style. However, in practice, it doesn't actually make a difference, and adds complexity for no reason.

New comment by rodarmor in "The best browser bookmarking system is files"

rodarmor — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 05:56:25 +0000

This is stupid good advice. I use quicksilver as a launcher, and by putting bookmarks in a folder, I can index them and launch them like any other app or document on disk. Thanks for writing this up!

Where does the Rust '\n' character come from?

rodarmor — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 05:42:36 +0000

Article URL: https://rodarmor.com/blog/whence-newline/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41564527

Points: 6

# Comments: 1

New comment by rodarmor in "Just: A Command Runner"

rodarmor — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 00:16:42 +0000

I definitely don't think Just will ever unseat Make. Just doesn't have file-based dependencies, so it's not a build system, just a command runner.

As far as unseating Make as a command runner, I think that might just take Just being available in more places, since one of the main advantages of Make that many users cite is that it's available everywhere. Just is already available in a lot of package repos, but not all of them. Finally packaging Just for Debian[0] would help a lot.

[0] https://github.com/casey/just/issues/429

New comment by rodarmor in "Pepsi: Breathtaking Design Strategy (2008) [pdf]"

rodarmor — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 05:49:17 +0000

This is the canonical video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmVMh-nT200

What are examples of programmers disregarding aesthetics for productivity?

rodarmor — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 07:58:11 +0000

I really enjoy it when I see programmers with a deranged disregard for aesthetics in the name of efficiency or productivity. Some of my favorited examples from my own experience:

- An extremely productive, like, 100x senior engineer I know works on a stock Ubuntu box with the default desktop wallpaper and an un-customized IntelliJ IDE and when he opens an IDE window he doesn't even full screen or center it. Just blasting code in an un-centered 68% width IDE.

- The smartest person I know (like, easily) uses the tcsh shell, the nvi editor, and the twm or ratpoision window manager, all ancient, unmaintained tools. I think they were the state of the art when he started using Unix and he never bothered switching.

- I saw a very clever bitcoin developer just set `contenteditable="true"` on an HTML element and use it as a text editor, I think because he already had the window open.

- Another developer I know with insane quality standards just names things "foo" when he can't think of a name for things, to the point where we worked on a project together for a month in a repo called "foo" until we came up with a name.

What are some good examples you've witnessed?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31905280

Points: 3

# Comments: 5

New comment by rodarmor in "An Interview with the Old Man of Floating-Point (1998)"

rodarmor — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 00:13:34 +0000

One time me and a friend having an animated conversation on the 7th floor of Soda hall at Berkeley and William Kahan came out and gave us a coupon for Sizzlers. I think that was his way of telling us to get the fuck out.

New comment by rodarmor in "Facts every web dev should know before they burn out and turn to painting"

rodarmor — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 06:32:42 +0000

It's usually actually bread baking, not painting, in my experience.

New comment by rodarmor in "What John von Neumann Did at Los Alamos"

rodarmor — Mon, 27 Sep 2021 22:52:07 +0000

Misread the title as "Which John von Neumann Died at Los Alamos?" and now I really want to read that article.

New comment by rodarmor in "A flawed paradigm has derailed the science of obesity"

rodarmor — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 01:15:22 +0000

Don't let the article put you off, the paper, no paywall, is much better and much more concrete:

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/advance-article/doi/10.1093/aj...

New comment by rodarmor in "Germany wants smartphone makers to offer 7 years of software updates"

rodarmor — Fri, 10 Sep 2021 15:55:25 +0000

The fact that consumers don't want phones with 7 years of guaranteed updates (if they did, they would be willing to pay more for them, and smartphone makers would happily oblige) means that the impact on resale values would likely be small, or that consumers are unlikely to try to resell their phones.

New comment by rodarmor in "Germany wants smartphone makers to offer 7 years of software updates"

rodarmor — Mon, 06 Sep 2021 19:09:08 +0000

If this law comes into effect, consumers will pay the increased cost of delivery of 7 years of software updates when they purchase new phones.

Smartphone makers don't sell new phones with a higher price tag and the guarantee of 7 years of software updates, likely because consumers would prefer a lower price and no guarantee.

Thus, the law would effectively force people to buy something that they don't want.

New comment by rodarmor in "I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem"

rodarmor — Sat, 28 Aug 2021 07:49:32 +0000

The post doesn't seem to offer any evidence for its claim.

New comment by rodarmor in "OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October"

rodarmor — Thu, 19 Aug 2021 23:20:10 +0000

Fortunately, if you're feeling entrepreneurial, you can spin up an Agora* instance and start selling whatever you want for Lightning Payments.

* https://github.com/agora-org/agora/

New comment by rodarmor in "Show HN: Agora: Sell Files on the Web"

rodarmor — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 18:28:23 +0000

You bet!