Top all-time · #2233
Alan Pope
Personal blog · popey.com/blogsystemsprogramming
Alan Pope's personal blog at popey.com covers systems and programming. Since 2008, 33 different Hacker News readers have linked it 81 times, most often “Command-Line Only Laptop”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-02-21, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Alan Pope's personal blog, linked for his posts on a command-line-only laptop, the malicious Exodus crypto wallet snap, and his synthetic voice in Mycroft's text-to-speech. Mostly cited as sources.
- Recommended for · 1 comments
- His blog entry on a command-line-only laptop, called brilliant and recommended as reading.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Landing Page
Most-linked posts?
- Command-Line Only Laptop4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-02-10
- A Virus for the BBC Micro3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-09-10
- Raspberry Pi Boot to BASIC3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-01-26
- Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-02-20
- Guess Who's Back? Exodus Scam Bitcoin Wallet Snap2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-03-19
- Windows 3.11 on QEMU 5.2.02 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-09-06
- The Allure of the Terminal2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-02-10
- Hand over the PCMCIA Card, Sir2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-10-06
- Outdated Snap Packages2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-09-16
- Blog to Speech – In My Voice2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-10-11
What Hacker News says?
> I don’t have any quick fixes or easy answers. Oh but there are - and if we're being honest with ourselves we already know it. If you can't defeat it head on (and you can't) you have to take extreme actions - ditch your smartphone for something dumber, block the sites using something like nextdns. Maybe you could go even further, see Popey's brilliant blog entry on his command line only laptop - https://popey.com/b…
Comment linking /blog/2021/02/command-line-only-laptop/
on “My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll”Submitted Null as a story · 726 points
HN discussionLove that book. It enabled me to have one of my favourite flights of all time. Sat next to Chris Turner, chatting about his time at Acorn for about 9 hours. I blogged about something related and included this anecdote part way through. https://popey.com/blog/2023/09/a-virus-for-the-bbc-micro/ - under "A short aside"
Comment linking /blog/2023/09/a-virus-for-the-bbc-micro/
on “I've forked neofetch to keep it alive”Submitted Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle as a story · 222 points
HN discussionThere's a whole cottage industry springing up around these. https://popey.com/blog/2020/12/keyboards-old-and-new/ In future I might pair one with a thinkcentre nano, e-ink or touchscreen and a big lithium battery.
Comment linking /blog/2020/12/keyboards-old-and-new/
on “The “Ultimate” ThinkPad (2020)”Submitted Mute Your Microphone While Typing with Hushboard as a story · 162 points
HN discussionGnarly like this? “Steals your crypto wallet” but the snap is marked as “safe”. https://popey.com/blog/2024/03/exodus-wallet-part-three/
Comment linking /blog/2024/03/exodus-wallet-part-three/
on “Interviewing at Canonical”Submitted Contributing Without Code as a story · 115 points
HN discussionWith the AUR and PPAs, random members of the community that weren't involved with developing the original software can submit software. This means you can't go off of the software's reputation alone, as someone may have uploaded a malicious version of existing software (i.e. what happened around a month ago on the Ubuntu Snap store with a malicious Bitcoin wallet: https://popey.com/blog/2024/02/exodus-bitcoin-wallet…
Comment linking /blog/2024/02/exodus-bitcoin-wallet-490k-swindle/
on “Trusting Content on the KDE Store”Submitted Raspberry Pi Boot to BASIC as a story · 87 points
HN discussionHey! That ships with my voice! Well, a synthetic version of it anyway. It used to be horribly robotic, but they've improved it quite a bit for mimic-3. Worth a look. I wrote a blog post recently which talks a little about the origin of my voice in Mycroft, in case anyone is interested. https://popey.com/blog/2022/10/blog-to-speech-in-my-voice/
Comment linking /blog/2022/10/blog-to-speech-in-my-voice/
on “Ask HN: Are there any good open source Text-to-Speech tools?”Submitted Guess Who's Back? Exodus Scam Bitcoin Wallet Snap as a story · 9 points
HN discussionMycroft.ai has a quest to produce a 'local' speaking and listening AI assistant that is free of the constant tyranny of cloud access and the present push to tie functionality to Internet access. Its platform contains elements (like Mimic3 TTS) that are functional in their own right. If you can, you should attempt to build a configuration that is useable by your mother and can have cheap equipment spares, works on an…
Comment linking /blog/2022/10/setting-up-mimic3/
on “Ask HN: My mother is slowly looking her eyesight, how to prepare?”Submitted A Virus for the BBC Micro as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI mean there are plenty of 8-bit emulators out there which come with BASIC roms, and plenty of Basic interpreters for generic current machines - I'd suggest BBC Basic for SDL [1] if you're after an "old-style" basic that is still structured, or there's quitebasic as linked by SonOfKyuss. You can even get a raspberry Pi (if you have one, getting hold of a new one is harder these days) to boot directly into BASIC [2].…
Comment linking /blog/2021/01/raspberry-pi-boot-to-basic/
on “Why Johnny can't code (2006)”Submitted Raspberry Pi: Boot to Basic · as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Windows 3.11 on QEMU 5.2.0 as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Caps Lock Behaviour Disabled in Gnome as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Command-Line Only Laptop as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Allure of the Terminal as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted You did something! as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Magewell HDMI Capture with Ffmpeg as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Distrowatch is not a measure of popularity as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Best Portable ZX Spectrum as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Ubuntu Artful Desktop July Shakedown as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Building Apps for Linux Without Linux as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Ubuntu is switching the default search from Google to Yahoo as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted You Stole My Lighter as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Ninety percent updated in a week – Alan Pope's blog as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Hand over the PCMCIA Card, Sir as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
