Top all-time · #7585
Keacher.com
Personal blog · keacher.com · on HN as teuobkhardwareculturewriting
Keacher.com is a personal blog at keacher.com about hardware, culture and writing. Since 2009, 10 different Hacker News readers have linked it 25 times, most often “How I introduced a 27-year-old computer to the web”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-24, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (7) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link keacher.com for the author's personal projects: plugging a 1986 Mac Plus into the modern web, an energy-harvesting holiday card, and a write-up of turning a software thief into a customer.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 7 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- How I introduced a 27-year-old computer to the web4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2013-12-12
- Energy-Harvesting Electronic Holiday Card 20242 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-12-12
- /1060/how-i-got-to-my-first-sale/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-06-14
What Hacker News says?
Indeed, I gave it a go with a blind deconvolution product for the consumer market. In the end, I decided to kill it. Here's my blog post describing why I pulled the plug: http://www.keacher.com/?p=872
Comment linking /?p=872
on “Photoshop 'unblur' leaves MAX audience gasping for air”Submitted How I introduced a 27-year-old computer to the web as a story · 407 points
HN discussionPerhaps build your own web proxy which strips images, CSS and JS for a better web experience. Someone did that a year ago for his Macintosh Plus: http://www.keacher.com/1216/how-i-introduced-a-27-year-old-c...
Comment linking /1216/how-i-introduced-a-27-year-old-computer-to-the-web/
on “Show HN: Hacker News' “most unique support email of 2014””Submitted Energy-Harvesting Electronic Holiday Card 2024 as a story · 197 points
HN discussionhttps://www.keacher.com/xmas24/ uses OOK for data communication, with the benefit of energy harvesting the WiFi signal to not require batteries.
Comment linking /xmas24/
on “Liberating Wi-Fi on the ESP32 [video]”Submitted Plugging a 1986 Mac Plus into the Modern Web (2013) as a story · 141 points
HN discussionI spent a few min reading the referenced paper, and they do seem to demonstrate that there's the possibility of electronically compromising car electronics, including brakes. However, steering and brakes are mechanical systems in Hastings' 2013 Mercedes C250 (like almost every other car), and cannot be electronically overridden. The steering wheel is connected directly to the wheels, and can't be controlled by the e…
Comment linking /672/title-fight-brakes-versus-engine/
on “ Snowden distributed encrypted copies of NSA docs around the world”Submitted How we got a Y Combinator interview but blew it as a story · 97 points
HN discussion“At its core, the card harvests energy from light, radio, and/or a USB connection to enable the blinking of LEDs.”[0] So the last is USB, the sneakily obvious one. 0: https://www.keacher.com/xmas24/tech_info.htm
Comment linking /xmas24/tech_info.htm
on “Energy-Harvesting Electronic Holiday Card 2024”Submitted How I Made a Cheap PCB as a story · 83 points
HN discussionThere more info here: http://www.keacher.com/1060/how-i-got-to-my-first-sale/ The first result for "blurity serial number" points to https://www.trademarkia.com/blurity-77870929.html Edit: Entering the serial number does indeed produce the easter egg dialog, with a coupon code that still works. BTW, there is a typo on the buy page 'regsitration'.
Comment linking /1060/how-i-got-to-my-first-sale/
on “How I converted a software thief into a customer”Submitted How I had a bygone 72-pin connector remade just to play Duck Hunt as a story · 5 points
HN discussionLooks like it got syndicated to The Kernel from the original ... here's the original: http://www.keacher.com/1216/how-i-introduced-a-27-year-old-c... And here's the HN discussion from last time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6892935
Comment linking /1216/how-i-introduced-a-27-year-old-computer-to-the-web/
on “Plugging a 1986 Mac Plus into the Modern Web (2013)”Submitted Going for it: I'm not unemployed, I'm an entrepreneur as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThe first product sale is euphoric and a bit magical. "Holy cow, somebody actually paid me for something I built!" I just had my first sale of my software this past weekend, and it was fantastic: http://www.keacher.com/1060/how-i-got-to-my-first-sale/
Comment linking /1060/how-i-got-to-my-first-sale/
on “Making money with a product: a myth?”Submitted How long can you run a car without an alternator? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionShort answer is likely "yes" though I think there's a surprising amount of variation even there. Longer answer is that I'm not sure the direct comparison ever really happens because in a spirits tasting competition where there would be double blind testings, it's never pitted against the whiskies it's being "marketed against" (e.g. a "real" bourbon or scotch). Sip 2021 puts it in "other whiskies" in which it gets th…
Comment linking /1334/scotch/
on “What makes a champagne vintage great? Ask a deep learning model”Submitted Are Yahoo Mail users better customers than Gmail users? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHere's a map I put together of the Weatheradio (one "r"!) service coverage in Canada, assuming each station has a range of 60 km: https://www.keacher.com/files/dir12/weatheradio_map2.png Perhaps unsurprisingly, the coverage is most dense where the population density is also highest, with some exceptions. And if anybody is curious, here's the coverage for the equivalent Weather Radio service in the United States: htt…
Comment linking /files/dir12/weatheradio_map2.png
on “Closure of the Weatherradio Service in Canada”Submitted Pulp Entrepreneurship as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIt's been a couple years since I pulled the numbers, but here's a chart of the undergraduate admission rates for Harvard, MIT, and Stanford for class years 2004-2011: http://www.keacher.com/files/undergrad-admissions.png As you can see, the trend is nothing new. The only question is: where will it end? Updated: I added the data for the two most recent years: http://www.keacher.com/files/dir3/undergrad-admissions-rev…
Comment linking /files/dir3/undergrad-admissions-rev2.png
on “Harvard Admissions Drop to 7% on Record Applicants”Submitted Facebook friend attrition as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to sell software as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted When malware saved the day as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
