Hacker News: twiclo

New comment by twiclo in "eBay Restricts Listings of Radio Equipment, but Exempts Ham-Band-Only Gear"

twiclo — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 19:16:17 +0000

Doesn't meshtastic operate in the unlicensed bands? Would that mean they're blocked? The article says they're only blocking devices that need FCC certification and since meshtastic is unlicensed it doesn't need FCC certification as far as I know.

New comment by twiclo in "The Haunted Toys R Us"

twiclo — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 14:57:39 +0000

When I went to the UK for the first time I was blown away at how much old stuff you guys have. I was allowed to walk through a centuries old castle by myself. I could have taken home a castle rock if I wanted to. Here if something is 300 years old you can look at it from 6 feet away behind a velvet rope.

It was pretty wild to me going to a toy store that was itself older than America.

New comment by twiclo in "Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?"

twiclo — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 15:22:35 +0000

When I ran the OP6 5 years ago on PostmarketOS it wasn't working. I had a PR open with the devs and we tried to figure it out but lost steam. It looks like someone on Reddit got it working two years ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1e05mlr

New comment by twiclo in "Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?"

twiclo — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 15:06:29 +0000

I forgot about the Librem. I originally used the PinePhone 5 years ago and had to switch to a OP6 because the PinePhone was unbearably slow. It looks like Mobian and PostmarketOS both support VoLTE on the PinePhone now which is good.

New comment by twiclo in "Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?"

twiclo — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 14:51:04 +0000

I'm always surprised when I read articles about Linux phones that don't mention VoLTE support. Without it, phone calls will drop constantly as we tear down old cell infrastructure. In my experience I've only been able to find one phone that supports VoLTE in America. I get the impression that there's much more interest in Linux phones in Europe where VoLTE (or whatever it is over there) support seems much easier to achieve.

The Furi guys put an insane amount of work into getting their phone working on every network in America. They have a Telegram channel where you can talk with the developers themselves. They will SSH into YOUR phone and poke around if they can't figure out what's going on on their end. These people work like crazy to make the experience seamless.

Phone specs, UI, security support, etc are important but if I can't make calls on the thing I'll never even consider it.

New comment by twiclo in "Court agrees with EFF: Utah's VPN law demands a technical impossibility"

twiclo — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 20:16:57 +0000

They're also required to identify the user with an address and ID. My understanding is some take your SSN

New comment by twiclo in "Court agrees with EFF: Utah's VPN law demands a technical impossibility"

twiclo — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 03:54:01 +0000

I'm not looking to get into a debate on the law just curious why these websites can't force accounts for everyone just like the gambling sites do.

New comment by twiclo in "Factorio that you can touch"

twiclo — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 16:42:55 +0000

I've never played a game where it was more obvious that the developers really played and enjoyed their game. It's just brimming with QoL features.

New comment by twiclo in "Fairphone 6 and PostmarketOS working main camera"

twiclo — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 03:27:51 +0000

The problem isn't this developer being lazy or 15 years late, it's that this hardware wasn't built for Linux and only blessed groups (with a lot of money) get access to binary blobs. The FSF has a project to reverse engineer these blobs but it takes time. Same problem Linux used to have with laptops.

If you're looking for a daily driver the most reliable I've seen is the furi phone. Those guys are passionate and have put in a pathological amount of time to getting calls working world wide. They can only pull it off by supporting one phone that they sell.

New comment by twiclo in "Fundamentals of Wireless Communication (2005)"

twiclo — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 13:53:08 +0000

I have a HAM level understanding of wireless communication and want to expand it. This book and the ones you listed seem like they'll go over my head. Any recommendations on an "101" style text book?

New comment by twiclo in "Wages in America Are Too Low for the 30% Rule to Work for Renters Anymore"

twiclo — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 13:50:54 +0000

The get a percentage cut of the sale price of a house.

New comment by twiclo in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)"

twiclo — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 13:57:44 +0000

Turning my Unihertz Jelly Star into an Xperia Play like device. Basically I want to add a slide up controller to this tiny phone. I was reminded of my Gameboy Micro while watching a review of Mina the Hollower on it and now I'm determined to play that game on this tiny thing. No idea if it will actually run.

Learning FreeCAD to create a sliding insert between the body of the phone and the screen. If I can pull that off the rest should be easy.

Unfortunately the controller board will have to connect to the phone over BT although it will use the phone's battery. I wanted to connect it over USB internally but there's no bus on this phone and trying to hijack the lines running to the USB C port would be feature creep that would stop the project. Another idea was to take over an I2C line going to some peripheral I don't care about but I think that would require a custom android kernel so BT it is.

By the way this phone is awesome. Highly recommend for anyone who wishes they didn't need to carry a smart phone.

New comment by twiclo in "Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank"

twiclo — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 15:28:55 +0000

One of my 5 sources is from Fight the New Drug and you turn to an ad hominem because I guess Mormons can't make good arguments and it's ridiculous to say that people can be addicted to porn. Sounds like you're in denial of that for yourself.

We don't have to choose between two evils. If adults want to watch porn they need to prove they're an adult. You wouldn't say we should stop age verifying people for online gambling just because there are "dark web" gambling websites.

New comment by twiclo in "Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank"

twiclo — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:38:54 +0000

I agree with you. I plan to not be pressured by what other parents are doing. But that pressure is real and many parents end up thinking it's what's best. It's better that they have friends and a phone than neither of the two.

New comment by twiclo in "Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank"

twiclo — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:34:11 +0000

What law requires that? From what I've seen laws like the one in Utah require any account to be in "child mode" until you can prove you're an adult.

Also these law makers don't want their kids on social media.

New comment by twiclo in "Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank"

twiclo — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:27:05 +0000

Parents will get their kids phones worrying that they're missing out. The more parents do that the more the kids without phones are actually being left out. If the government puts restriction on these things than parents are much less likely to worry.

I've heard of parents of children for a certain grade getting together and all signing a pact that the kids won't have phones until a certain point, say 16. It only goes into effect if something like 75% of the parents for that grade sign on. I like that idea.

New comment by twiclo in "Remind HN: Today is Mother's Day, call your moms"

twiclo — Sun, 10 May 2026 17:15:35 +0000

You should call her

New comment by twiclo in "DoesItAgeVerify: The age verification status of Open Source Operating Systems"

twiclo — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 02:33:28 +0000

Can anyone tell me exactly what these laws do? Is it just going to ask for a birthday when I run `adduser`? What's the point? Is it meant for one admin account to restrict other user accounts?

New comment by twiclo in "Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events"

twiclo — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 19:08:03 +0000

> Sex objects

New comment by twiclo in "Kagi Small Web"

twiclo — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 15:22:41 +0000

I haven't used this but looks someone created a self hosted version of Microsoft's Recall

https://github.com/openrecall/openrecall