Hacker News: xoxxala

The first British person in space

xoxxala — Wed, 20 May 2026 15:47:26 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260518-helen-sharman-the-story-behind-the-first-british-person-in-space

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48209691

Points: 98

# Comments: 50

New comment by xoxxala in "A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous"

xoxxala — Mon, 11 May 2026 16:09:22 +0000

When I say something inappropriate on the phone or over Discord, I always tell the NSA guy listening it was a joke.

New comment by xoxxala in "Bitter Lessons from the ISSpresso"

xoxxala — Sat, 09 May 2026 02:07:31 +0000

That was an excellent read for explaining why space isn’t just hard, but expensive.

New comment by xoxxala in "Man finds $1M worth of Yu-Gi-Oh cards in a dumpster"

xoxxala — Fri, 08 May 2026 20:48:40 +0000

I've seen Magic the Gathering fakes that are higher quality than the real cards.

New comment by xoxxala in "PC Engine CPU"

xoxxala — Fri, 08 May 2026 16:55:52 +0000

The Jaguar catalog was mostly meh, but there were a few gems that I really enjoyed (Aliens vs Predator, Doom, Wolf 3d, Iron Soldier, and Tempest 2000). AvP alone was worth the price of the system.

I was a proud Turbo DUO owner. It had some fantastic multiplayer games, especially 5-player Bomberman. That got a lot of play, including tournaments at work. Dungeon Explorer is another one we played through multiple times.

New comment by xoxxala in "Appearing productive in the workplace"

xoxxala — Wed, 06 May 2026 21:34:27 +0000

I design boardgames and it's easy to write a lot of rules. It's more difficult to write concise rules. Most of my time is spent editing rules to their absolute minimum.

"I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had time to make it shorter." - Blaise Pascal

Over 200 Japanese firms have paid ransomware attackers; 60% fail to recover data

xoxxala — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 20:12:43 +0000

Article URL: https://japantoday.com/category/crime/over-200-japanese-firms-paid-ransomware-attackers-60-fail-to-recover-data

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47839871

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by xoxxala in "Show HN: PanicLock – Close your MacBook lid disable TouchID –> password unlock"

xoxxala — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 17:54:22 +0000

The website has some more info on the biometric vs. password debate and legal situation:

https://paniclock.github.io/

New comment by xoxxala in "Modifying FileZilla to Workaround Bambu 3D Printer's FTP Issue"

xoxxala — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 18:06:22 +0000

> Also Bambu the company mostly is fine, but there's some worry that they'll eventually lock people into using only their filament, but doesn't seem to have happened yet. So buyer beware.

I'm not sure how Bambu could actually do that. They use RFID tags to identify their filament type/color. I taped a tag from a used roll to some prusa filament and the printer couldn't tell the difference.

Just in case, my Bambus are LAN only and don't get updated. I use Orca Slicer instead of the Bambu slicer.

New comment by xoxxala in "Rare concert records going on Internet Archive"

xoxxala — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 15:12:09 +0000

I'm reading this article and Weird Al's Don't Download this Song pops up on random play. Did Microsoft add Copilot to Media Player or something?

"Don't download this song (Don't do it, no, no) Even Lars Ulrich knows it's wrong (You can just ask him)"

New comment by xoxxala in "Microsoft isn't removing Copilot from Windows 11, it's just renaming it"

xoxxala — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 20:23:09 +0000

I don't need anything more than a simple text editor. Notepad worked fine for a long time, but the bloat is real. I tried a bunch of replacement editors, but none really scratched that Notepad itch. Surprisingly, I'm now a fan of MS Edit:

https://github.com/microsoft/edit

It's very simple and here's hoping they don't bloat this one out, too.

New comment by xoxxala in "Newly created Polymarket accounts win big on well-timed Iran ceasefire bets"

xoxxala — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 02:28:53 +0000

There's a saying in poker that if you sit down at the table and can't immediately find the donkey(1), you are the donkey. At some point, anyone playing around in a prediction without insider info will be the donkey.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_poker_terms#donkey

New comment by xoxxala in "Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?"

xoxxala — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 19:42:58 +0000

I had no idea such a thing existed until this post a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47631515

New comment by xoxxala in "I ported Mac OS X to the Nintendo Wii"

xoxxala — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:27:39 +0000

Very neat project and an extremely enjoyable read.

New comment by xoxxala in "Number in man page titles e.g. sleep(3)"

xoxxala — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:22:39 +0000

Or they were removed for other reasons than security.

In Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, we had a hidden animation of Captain Kirk's toupee jumping off his head and running out of the room. It was caught before release and they made us take it out since no one wanted to piss off William Shatner.

New comment by xoxxala in "LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions"

xoxxala — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 13:56:45 +0000

https://www.firefox.com/

New comment by xoxxala in "'Project Hail Mary' Crosses $300M in Sales to Become Amazon/MGM's Highest-Gross"

xoxxala — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 22:52:00 +0000

Yeah, my wife and I saw it earlier this week. I thought it was an excellent adaptation of a very good book. My wife, who hasn’t read the book, didn’t like it and took a nap. (I think that’s a pretty minority position for most people who have seen the movie without reading the book.)

New comment by xoxxala in "What came after the 486?"

xoxxala — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 13:36:55 +0000

My very first hard drive was for an Apple //gs. It was the size of a shoebox and was a whopping 5 megabytes. I was an Egghead employee at the time and after my employee discount, it was something like $600-$700.

New comment by xoxxala in "Woman who never stopped updating her lost dog's chip reunites with him after 11y"

xoxxala — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 01:37:28 +0000

They are very short range RFID tags that contain no personal information, just an ID number. They don’t make good tracking devices.

Some owners do use GPS trackers or AirTag like devices.

New comment by xoxxala in "Woman who never stopped updating her lost dog's chip reunites with him after 11y"

xoxxala — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 01:26:53 +0000

“It’s not the dog, it’s the owner.”

There is a self-selecting bias with pit bulls. People who buy and raise pit bulls often want a “mean” “tough” dog, so that’s what they get. You get a loving sweet pit bull if you raise them in a loving sweet way. Dogs are like children; they are very observant and pick up on even the tiniest of cues.

Although, like people, some dogs (of all different breeds) are born more aggressive. That can usually be corrected with training. It’s mostly nurture, and part nature.