Hacker News: smalltorch

New comment by smalltorch in "Show HN: Rad PDFs – Hacker News for PDFs Only"

smalltorch — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 01:02:38 +0000

I dig this variant!

New comment by smalltorch in "Ask HN: Why aren't Americans rising up against tipping?"

smalltorch — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 01:16:07 +0000

What's even worse is when on presenting the check the waitress tells you 18% tip already included.

I've seen it normalized for parties of 6 or greater...but not for any party size until recently.

I find that completely wild. If that's the case it should be posted and announced prior to anything taking place.

Incidentally it was the worst service I had ever gotten in a very long time, presumably because it didn't matter at all

New comment by smalltorch in "YouTuber Says Cops Visited Him After He Built a Flock-Style Camera to Track Cops"

smalltorch — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 03:58:02 +0000

It was actually removed though. But they left the pole up and someone saw an opportunity to place the flag.

New comment by smalltorch in "YouTuber Says Cops Visited Him After He Built a Flock-Style Camera to Track Cops"

smalltorch — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 22:54:23 +0000

I drove past one with a literal American flag planted on it today so maybe we are taking back the Homeland alas?

It was a beautiful thing.

The state ordered the cameras removed but they left the posts, someone stuck a flag inside the old post.

https://postimg.cc/q6vSQ01V

New comment by smalltorch in "The dawn of the age of the exoskeleton"

smalltorch — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 21:41:23 +0000

I moved 3 pallets of 60lb bags 4 days ago. You have to move heavy stuff from time to time. In these exact moments you learn how to plan for the next time to avoid moving things very far.

Normal construction just isn't that straining to be wearing a exoskeleton.

Even extreamly heavy stuff like countertops, there's purpose built stuff to move these things the last 100 feet already.

In construction, if you know a heavy thing needs moved you procure the means to move it long before expecting someone to show up with a exoskeleton.

I'm not saying it's not cool. I just don't see a major efficiency gain. And, I don't see why anyone would want to rely on a exoskeleton to perform their daily job.

New comment by smalltorch in "A statement on the Tor Project's relationship with Mullvad"

smalltorch — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 18:04:41 +0000

Meh, and yet anyone can run a relay or onion service in a few clicks.

It's the best tool regular people have for privacy without a doubt.

>The regular person using it doesn't get as much of the privacy benefits, but the charade is making it seem like they do.

Just false.

If your model is simply to avoid corporate surveillance and tracking its a fantastic defense.

If your trying to go up against nation states, it never claimed to protect you from that.

New comment by smalltorch in "The dawn of the age of the exoskeleton"

smalltorch — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 00:49:24 +0000

>None of that material handling is cheap.

None of it is handled directly by humans either. Exo skeletons would be sweet, I just think in reality construction is already highly optimized for regular strength humans. Would be very slim productivity gains.

New comment by smalltorch in "The dawn of the age of the exoskeleton"

smalltorch — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 23:40:54 +0000

I was just thinking trades wouldn't benifit that much. We have trucks and cranes and stuff.

What construction material weighs 100kg? All the stuff is made to be installed by a guy or two. Big stuff is hoisted with cranes, heavy concrete is pumped. A sheet of plywood is carried by one man, a cement block gets plopped 2 feet from where it needs installed one by one, doors and windows are a one man show.

New comment by smalltorch in "I think we might lose public key cryptography"

smalltorch — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 23:24:12 +0000

In reality you can't get past a 2^256 limit of dev/urandom cspring without introducing your own random number generator which is possible.

But yeah its easy math, lets say the pair is 1,000,000. Thats 1,000,000! possible combinations. You could stack 1,000,000 PB drives across the universe and not be able to store all the unique combinations.

New comment by smalltorch in "I think we might lose public key cryptography"

smalltorch — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 21:52:54 +0000

Seems pretty un loseable to me as well

New comment by smalltorch in "OpenAI annualised revenues $20B less than previously signalled"

smalltorch — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 17:43:49 +0000

Is there any understanding of how it's even 50b? Makes no sense to me.

New comment by smalltorch in "Telnet BBS Guide"

smalltorch — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 14:38:49 +0000

I think onion services are actually a really great way to make a BBS service. It's extremely easy to setup.

Here's a little demo forum I've been working on. Can runs on a potato.

https://gitlab.com/here_forawhile/torumplus/-/raw/main/Torum...

New comment by smalltorch in "Morse Code in 2026: Why the U.S. Navy Brought It Back"

smalltorch — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 02:57:20 +0000

What's the best morse code software out there?

New comment by smalltorch in "Where Are the Builders?"

smalltorch — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 02:44:50 +0000

The builders are building, if you can find what they build is another thing.

Most are perfectly fine building stuff without being found out. That's not the fun part of why people build things.

Although there is satisfaction in knowing something you built getting used.

New comment by smalltorch in "A Cop's Case for Flock"

smalltorch — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 17:09:50 +0000

It's not the path of least resistance to get the cameras banned. It's been a highly resistant path and that's what most people want.

Flock took the path of least resistance setting them up often skirting any normal discussion that should have taken place with the community before they were installed.

New comment by smalltorch in "Show HN: SecretGate – self-hosted anonymous inbox, E2E encrypted in the browser"

smalltorch — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 17:01:36 +0000

Cool I like it but I wasn't able to setup a box, I get errors. I made a similar alternative with this ethos. https://gitlab.com/here_forawhile/tmailplus

You don't have to trust the host, cause you are the host!

New comment by smalltorch in "Commercial Telegraph Codebooks ABC, Bentley's, Lieber's · 1870s–1930s"

smalltorch — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 13:38:57 +0000

I'm a big fan of codebooks.

This is my own codebook. Instead of word level coding, it uses phrases, paired with a enormous amount of duplicates.

https://gitlab.com/here_forawhile/edasm

New comment by smalltorch in "Partyline Pager"

smalltorch — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 13:22:57 +0000

Open a room on one chat network, and everyone who subscribed on any chat network gets a way into it.

Partyline Pager

smalltorch — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 13:22:57 +0000

Article URL: https://partyline.holtzweb.com/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49992471

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by smalltorch in "ChatGPT is adding real cartoonists' signatures to fake New Yorker cartoons"

smalltorch — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 05:05:02 +0000

It's not a good analogy cause no one sues each other for little hammer injuries. It's more like the guy who gets wacked saying 'hey what the heck man that's my distinct hammer design but you made a machine that makes almost precisely my exact hammer and I hold a patent for this'...(or something like that)