Hacker News Reader

xythobuzon Have I Been Pwned 2.0

Then these people _obviously_ are not fit to drive a multi-ton killing machine at all and should have their license permanently revoked, when they had multiple chances for introspection.

xythobuzon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (January 2025)

  Location: Germany (South)
  Remote: Preferred
  Willing to relocate: Yes
  Website / Portfolio: https://www.xythobuz.de
  Technologies: Embedded development with a strong Linux/Unix background. C, Python, Shell, ARM assembly.
  Résumé/CV: Please request by email
  Email: thomas@xythobuz.de

10 years of industry experience in embedded software development, from low-level (motor control, sensors, robotics) to high-level (network hardware), on ARM, AVR and MIPS platforms. BSc in applied information engineering. Always looking for new opportunities.

xythobuzon Why is printer ink so expensive?

Sure. The prints fade quickly, especially in the sun. And they are susceptible to heat, rubbing your fingernail along is enough friction heating to cause a black line. So they are not all that usable for something more permanent than a burger receipt.

xythobuzon Smart Meter Bridge – Xythobuz.de

Huh. Never heard of it. But after quickly reading up on it, I'm kinda happy that my meter does not have that. Seems a bit overengineered. But that's to be expected from our DE/EU standards organizations, I guess. My meter has been installed around two years ago.

xythobuzon Smart Meter Bridge – Xythobuz.de

Author here. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them :)

xythobuzon The Secret Life of XY Monitors (2001)

I just want to mention Oscilloscope Music [1]. You can find other artists on YouTube. It can be played on analog oscilloscopes with an XY mode. I also recently made a little player with a Raspberry Pi [2].

[1]: https://oscilloscopemusic.com/

[2]: https://www.xythobuz.de/osci_music_player.html

xythobuzon Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?

https://www.xythobuz.de/

xythobuzon Show HN: I built a custom USB Trackball

Awesome project!

Yes, I've also thought about mounting the switches vertically. And more surface should also provide more grip on the table.

xythobuzon Show HN: I built a custom USB Trackball

Interesting, I did not think about the possibility of moving the sensor to another position. But it makes sense. The Logitech Trackballs I've seen also have a slight offset that could be in the ballpark of 20 degrees.

I will have to do some further experimentation. Thanks!

xythobuzon Ask HN: Those making $0/month or less on side projects – Show and tell

https://www.xythobuz.de

I don't have anything fancy to show, so here's a link to my personal website with all my projects.

xythobuzon Survey: Help us design a VNA for hobbyists and professional users

Do you use Vector Network Analyzers (VNA) on the job or for fun? If so, we would like to invite you to participate in our survey.

We are a team of young engineers and want to further develop an open VNA. By participating in our survey you help us to get a first impression about the market requirements.

You can participate via this link: https://survey.feldlabor.eu/index.php/714679

The survey will take between 3 and 5 minutes.

xythobuzon Lawmakers Drink Raw Milk to Celebrate Legality, Become Immediately Sick (2016)

In Germany eating raw minced pork is a specialty called "Mett". There are high safety standards and it is only allowed to be sold on the day of production, with care taken not to interrupt cooling, for example. It is generally considered very safe. Source: am German, eating it often.

xythobuzon Our fridge just emailed us to say we opened its door too many times

that's really just physics. warm air gets in through the opened door, after closing it rapidly cools down, because air does not hold that much heat energy. Because it cools it contracts, which reduces the pressure inside the freezer, causing the outside air pressure to hold the door shut more firmly.

No electromagnets or anything.

xythobuzon Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

The Xbox 360 for example used these fuses in the CPU to prevent downgrades [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_eFUSE

xythobuzon Play Counter-Strike 1.6 in your browser

I think you can, it has a native Mac port on Steam.

xythobuzon If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs

This blog post [1] has at least two anecdotal examples. Also see the corresponding HN discussion [2].

[1]: http://stop.zona-m.net/2018/01/indeed-it-seems-that-google-i...

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19604135

xythobuzon Savitech USB audio drivers install a new root CA certificate

They would need to MITM you somewhere, but that could probably happen in their audio driver that's already installed and running on the target machine.

xythobuzon America is now a second-tier country

Just to add to that: I'm studying in Germany and pay 140 Euros per Semester, so 280 Euros or a bit more than 300$ per year. So another order of magnitude less than your estimate :)

xythobuzon NSA OSS Technologies

I really don't understand it, to be honest I think it's unbelievable. I'd say we, as in the IT community, shouldn't touch anything coming out of the NSA with a 10 feet pole, even if we're absolutely sure it's not some kind of morally dubious attack tool.

Fuck the NSA!

xythobuzon Apple Mac computers targeted by ransomware and spyware

Just a little nit-pick: checking for kernel extensions that don't have Apple in their name is definitely not the same as checking for 3rd-party extensions... :P

xythobuzon Gnirehtet – Reverse-tethering tool for Android

Cool, but a couple of days ago I used [another Android app](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.floriandra...) that does the same thing, even with a cross-plattform Java server, too. Is there anything different with this one (except the price)?

xythobuzon Arduino.cc and Arduino.org have settled their differences

For anyone interested in the history of Arduino, definitely read The Untold History of Arduino:

https://arduinohistory.github.io

I think it's really appaling how the original inventor is (not) credited.

xythobuzon BeagleBone Black Wireless

This has definitely changed. I'm using the current mainline kernel and it includes proper configs for the BBB. Works pretty much hassle-free.

xythobuzon “Has something ever failed in the field due to a bug in a CAD tool?”

I've heard of this for the first time and just talked to a family member that worked at Airbus and was part of the team using Catia V5.

They had heard of this story, which is told often, but it's just not that simple. Problems like this should have been noticed and fixed much earlier with the proper processes.

Now blaming Catia for the organizational problems seems too easy.

xythobuzon Background Music, an OS X audio utility

Woah. I've recently tried to do something similar in userspace, but came to the conclusion that it's not possible without a kernel driver. I'm impressed, and tempted to use this soon :)

xythobuzon What Is Code?

Well now you've got me to investigate. There seems to be a video in the article. However, it is only displayed as a white box in my browser (Safari), without any controls. I can't stop it, I don't even know it's there, except it it playing audio. Strange...

xythobuzon What Is Code?

Very funny... I currently have other audio playing on my computer that I don't want to stop.

xythobuzon What Is Code?

I like the idea, but is there really no way to mute the audio? Sadly I did not finish the article because of that.