Top all-time · #1352
Gyrovague
Personal blog · gyrovague.com · on HN as jpatokalsecurityculture
Gyrovague is a personal blog at gyrovague.com about security and culture. Since 2012, 52 different Hacker News readers have linked it 108 times, most often “Archive.today: on the trail of mysterious guerrilla archivists of the Internet”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-24, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 2 of 34 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Gyrovague for investigative posts on who runs archive.today/archive.is, the debugging story 'Crashes only on Wednesdays', and essays on Wikivoyage, trains and COVID measures.
- Recommended for · 2 comments
- One commenter calls the 2023 archive.today post an entertaining read; another calls the bug-story links, including 'Crashes only on Wednesdays', a gold mine.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 34 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
vaguely heretical musings on travel and technology
Most-linked posts?
- /2026/02/01/archive-today-is-directing-a-ddos-attack-against-my-blog/10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2026-02-03
- Archive.today: on the trail of mysterious guerrilla archivists of the Internet10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2023-08-05
- Crashes Only on Wednesdays (2015)6 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2016-05-18
- Why e-books will soon be obsolete3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2012-09-07
- SMS set back the mobile internet by ten years (2014)3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-03-14
- Anatomy of a boarding pass: how to detect fake flight tickets by scammers3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-02-23
- /3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-03-22
- The last subway line in Japan3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-05-21
- How Clash of Clans earns $500,000 a day with in-app purchases3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-06-05
- Why $100k company revenue becomes $57k in San Francisco but $99k in Singapore2 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2013-10-30
What Hacker News says?
> is it good that a game is so boring that players are willing to pay real-world money to skip parts of it? If you're designing a free to play game and want to make money from it, this is not just good, it's a design goal -- as long as the developer is the one making the real world money. Clash of Clans perfected this model over 10 years ago: https://gyrovague.com/tag/clash-of-clans/
Comment linking /tag/clash-of-clans/
on ““Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs”Submitted The last new subway line in Japan as a story · 125 points
HN discussionAlso happens to likely be where the site owner is based https://gyrovague.com/2023/08/05/archive-today-on-the-trail-...
Comment linking /2023/08/05/archive-today-on-the-trail-of-the-mysterious-guerrilla-archivist-of-the-internet/
on “FBI tries to unmask owner of archive.is”Submitted How Clash of Clans earns $500,000 a day with in-app purchases as a story · 100 points
HN discussion> Another private investigation from 2024 comes to a different conclusion. It names a software developer from New York as the alleged operator. According to this investigation, following the trail to Eastern Europe proved to be a red herring. Any pointers to what this "private investigation" is? The other linked blog pointing to Russia (or at least a Russian) seems pretty convincing: https://gyrovague.com/2023/08/05…
Comment linking /2023/08/05/archive-today-on-the-trail-of-the-mysterious-guerrilla-archivist-of-the-internet/
on “FBI tries to unmask owner of archive.is”Submitted Crashes only on Wednesdays as a story · 12 points
HN discussionGreat post. I used to work with SMS for a living, and still remember the first time I visited a customer's data center and watched one of their engineers send an SMS... by telnetting directly into the SMSC and punching out a command in raw EMI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMI_(protocol) And an old blog post of mine on why MMS failed but still managed to delay actual mobile internet by 10 years: https://gyrovague.c…
Comment linking /2014/06/27/how-sms-set-back-the-mobile-internet-by-ten-years/
on “The Route of a Text Message”Submitted Archive.today: on the trail of mysterious guerrilla archivists of the Internet as a story · 11 points
HN discussionI'll admit it's less broken than most places, but it's still pretty nuts at times: http://gyrovague.com/2012/08/10/notarizing-your-fingerprints... Singapore used to be ridiculously awesome (work visa approvals usually processed in under 24 hours), but they've really tightened the screws in the last few years, particularly on granting permanent residence, due to political reasons.
Comment linking /2012/08/10/notarizing-your-fingerprints-for-fun-and-profit/
on “I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed”Submitted SMS set back the mobile internet by ten years (2014) as a story · 10 points
HN discussionCrashes only on Wednesdays: https://gyrovague.com/2015/07/29/crashes-only-on-wednesdays/
Comment linking /2015/07/29/crashes-only-on-wednesdays/
on “War story: the hardest bug I ever debugged”Submitted How SMS set back the mobile Internet by ten years as a story · 10 points
HN discussionRelevant: https://gyrovague.com/2015/07/29/crashes-only-on-wednesdays/
Comment linking /2015/07/29/crashes-only-on-wednesdays/
on ““My wife has complained that OpenOffice will never print on Tuesdays” (2009)”Submitted Internet Brands suing Wikitravel volunteers as a story · 6 points
HN discussion+1 for Singapore, at least from a business perspective: http://gyrovague.com/2013/10/30/half-the-donut-why-an-entrep... Personally, I'm going for Australia though -- there's more to life than low taxes.
Comment linking /2013/10/30/half-the-donut-why-an-entrepreneur-earning-100k-gets-to-keep-over-99k-in-singapore-but-under-57k-in-san-francisco/
on “Why you might not want to incorporate in the USA”Submitted Down, down, down: Books, e-books and apps all trending to zero as a story · 5 points
HN discussionBecause it's Bitcoin-friendly and a great place to run a company? http://gyrovague.com/2013/10/30/half-the-donut-why-an-entrep...
Comment linking /2013/10/30/half-the-donut-why-an-entrepreneur-earning-100k-gets-to-keep-over-99k-in-singapore-but-under-57k-in-san-francisco/
on “The Mt. Gox alleged insolvency document has been posted”Submitted Why e-books will soon be obsolete as a story · 5 points
HN discussionTL;DR: Google's focus on the mass market, social stuff and slick appearance is precisely the wrong path to be going down for a user interface as novel as this. http://gyrovague.com/2013/01/25/dorky-is-ok-google-glass-doe...
Comment linking /2013/01/25/dorky-is-ok-google-glass-does-not-have-to-be-the-next-iphone/
on “Google Glass - If I Had Glass”Submitted Covid theater: the upcoming gauntlet of dubious air travel safety measures as a story · 4 points
HN discussionOne thing about that site is that it is owned by a Russian and Finnish IPs are blocked from accessing it. Here's some context https://gyrovague.com/2026/02/01/archive-today-is-directing-... Edit: I did a web search and it seems to go even further back. There are discussions online about archive.is blocking Finland already 10 years ago. But the block was definitely off between then when it was put back on earlier thi…
Comment linking /2026/02/01/archive-today-is-directing-a-ddos-attack-against-my-blog/
on “I Don't Like LLMs”Submitted How SMS set back mobile by 10 years (2014) as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThe major exception is Monaco, although this is only hypothetical since they haven't actually issued any cards. It's also, ahem, a house of cards for its investors, but that's another story told on my blog: https://gyrovague.com/2017/06/16/monaco-doing-the-math-on-an...
Comment linking /2017/06/16/monaco-doing-the-math-on-an-ico-where-the-house-always-wins/
on “Bitcoin Visa debit cards are cancelled”Submitted Why $100k company revenue becomes $57k in San Francisco but $99k in Singapore as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI wouldn’t call it a minor nitpick. From the Internet Archive’s Wikipedia page: > The Internet Archive is an American nonprofit digital library founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive In other words, it’s a legal entity and we know who’s behind it. In contrast, we don’t even know who runs archive.today. https://gyrovague.com/2023/08/05/archive-today-on-the-trail-...
Comment linking /2023/08/05/archive-today-on-the-trail-of-the-mysterious-guerrilla-archivist-of-the-internet/
on “Modern-day spying: sometimes old technology is more secure”Submitted Wikipedia globally blacklisted archive.today after DDoS and snapshot tampering as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThis old blog post of mine needs a refresh, but there's nothing magical or permanent about $9.99: the average price of an e-book bestseller (= Amazon Top 100) has been trending down roughly by a dollar a year, and was already at $7 last year. Likewise, the share of $5 books in the top 100 is already close to 50%. http://gyrovague.com/2013/03/26/down-down-down-books-e-books... Some crappy code for pulling these stats…
Comment linking /2013/03/26/down-down-down-books-e-books-and-apps-all-trending-to-zero/
on “Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption”Submitted Archive.today is directing a DDoS attack against my blog as a story · 3 points
HN discussionPlease read this, then come back and tell me that Australia's visa system is sane: http://gyrovague.com/2012/08/10/notarizing-your-fingerprints...
Comment linking /2012/08/10/notarizing-your-fingerprints-for-fun-and-profit/
on “The Australian Computer Society should be disbanded”Submitted Anatomy of a boarding pass: how to detect fake flight tickets as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
