Hacker News: teddyh

New comment by teddyh in "SIGSALY: Churchill's top secret hotline to the president"

teddyh — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 20:56:02 +0000

> I think that the relevant patents remained classified until 1975.

If they were classified, they can’t have worked as patents. Patents, by their nature, must be open and available for others to read.

New comment by teddyh in "Namecheap just seized and disabled all my domains"

teddyh — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 20:24:20 +0000

Like I have said previously¹ about choosing a registrar: If you have regular backups, and if some downtime is not really a problem, it might be fine to use web site hosting, e-mail (and in extreme cases even DNS hosting), from some fly-by-night el cheapo provider. But your domain name registrar? Pick them carefully, don’t skimp, and make sure they have good support. Because when things go pear-shaped, you really want to be able to actually talk to someone to change your web server or e-mail DNS records (or even DNS servers) to somewhere else.

Big registrars can’t afford any support costs since they prefer to squeeze the price down as far as possible, and therefore they prefer to simply lose or outright drop any customer in case of any and all problems. Conversely, small registrars may charge more, but have better (i.e. actually existing, and sometimes even dedicated and personal) support for when things go wrong, and have a vested interest in keeping you as a customer.

A small registrar might also be so small as to know you personally, which will help monumentally against any social engineering attacks.

Full disclosure: I work at such a registrar, but you’re probably not in our target market.

1. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32095499>

New comment by teddyh in "PalmOS Lemmings"

teddyh — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 19:31:05 +0000

There was also a version of Lemmings on the HP48 calculator: <https://www.hpcalc.org/details/530> (incidentally by the same author as Alpha Waves, a.k.a. Continuum)

New comment by teddyh in "RPKI now protects 70% of internet routes"

teddyh — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 18:50:14 +0000

> At some point a few years back

Turns out it was on January 28, 2025 – 20 months ago: <https://internet.nl/article/release-1.9/>

New comment by teddyh in "The history of development of Norton Commander (2011)"

teddyh — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 16:14:44 +0000

I came to Unix from an MS-DOS background, where I used Norton Commander a lot. I used to keep an older version of NC – which would fit on a floppy – with me at all times. But on Unix, I ended up not using any of the clones; not even Midnight Commander, which was a key-for key clone, and should have fit me perfectly. It turns out you, or at least I, just don’t use Unix the same way as I did MS-DOS. When I need to manipulate files in any quantity, I use Emacs and its dired-mode.

See especially the “wdired-change-to-wdired-mode” command, now available on the usual “toggle read-only mode” keystroke C-x C-q – it’s magical.

(This has been an 11 year old repost of <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9474384>.)

New comment by teddyh in "RPKI now protects 70% of internet routes"

teddyh — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 20:02:10 +0000

I ”blame” <https://internet.nl/>. At some point a few years back, they started only giving 100% to an address if it also had RPKI. A shareable link with large clear text, with a numerical score that is lower than your competitors? And your competitors are sharing this link to your customers, trying to win them over? This stuff works wonders for executives; suddenly there is no higher priority than fixing RPKI.

New comment by teddyh in "The Fatal Flaw of 911"

teddyh — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 19:45:43 +0000

Obligatory: <https://mudcompany.thecomicseries.com/comics/148/#content-st...>

New comment by teddyh in "Claude reveals ECDSA curve origins"

teddyh — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 19:28:39 +0000

> The fifth binary seed, B-163, fits nothing Claude has tried and remains unexplained.

The simplest explanation would be that it was generated the same way as the others, but somebody mistyped a digit somewhere along the way to publishing, and therefore a solution could not be found with the assumption that the number is correct.

New comment by teddyh in "What was a Token Ring network?"

teddyh — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 17:35:43 +0000

This link works better for me: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1996-05-02>

New comment by teddyh in "How the Military Will Hack the Election"

teddyh — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 17:24:06 +0000

Feel free to back up your claim with actual links.

New comment by teddyh in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

teddyh — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 22:15:03 +0000

> I think many people are confused what's AI has given to them. An ability to be a boss.

And most people have personal experience with how much a boss actually contributes.

New comment by teddyh in "Beauty in DVD Menus"

teddyh — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:23:03 +0000

The feeling I get with DVD menus is that I sometimes feel like watching some classic movie, and so I put on the DVD. But then the DVD menu already shows all the classic scenes and characters, so when I finally have navigated all the menus and started the movie, I no longer want to watch the movie. The DVD menu clips have completely refreshed my memory of what the movie was like, so I can no longer re-watch it with satisfaction.

(Re-post: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41801993>)

New comment by teddyh in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

teddyh — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:14:16 +0000

> As with AI it's no different than delegating work to a group member. What counts is vision and execution.

If I delegate something to somebody else, I can’t then claim that I made it, because of my “vision and execution”.

New comment by teddyh in "Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser"

teddyh — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 12:47:44 +0000

> Demoscene was always about doing

Yes, but “doing” with AI is not actually doing it, is it? Yes, something gets done, but the end result was never the point of the demoscene. The finished product was merely the proof-of-work.

New comment by teddyh in "FTL: A new operating system for clouds"

teddyh — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 21:13:35 +0000

> He even mentions how awesome it could be if every game came with it's own bootable USB. Now back then it truly was unthinkable,

Not only was it thinkable, it was common: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_self-boot...>

New comment by teddyh in "Make Tmux the OS"

teddyh — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 13:05:44 +0000

twm(1)? <https://manpages.debian.org/trixie/twm/twm.1.en.html>

New comment by teddyh in "Pirating the Pirates"

teddyh — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 19:16:07 +0000

That is obviously false: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_copyright>

You could just as well say that political protest is not a thing, that it’s just vandals looking for reasons to break stuff.

New comment by teddyh in "Stallman: Thousands Dead, Millions Deprived of Liberties (2001)"

teddyh — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 14:22:36 +0000

> Note the date and remember this VERY late “change of heart” coincidentally took place one month after Epstein died and became the current sensation he remains.

It actually happened in 2016: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21092184>, so no ”coincidence”.

New comment by teddyh in "I'm Tired of Being on the Network"

teddyh — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:38:09 +0000

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

New comment by teddyh in "I'm Tired of Being on the Network"

teddyh — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:36:43 +0000

One can be against something and still make use of it. Don’t be ”Mister Gotcha”: <https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/>