rufo
Joined 18 years ago
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Apr 13
Software engineer. Previously @ GitHub, now working on side projects and old computers for a spell. rufo at rufo sanchez dot com.
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Comment · 1 day ago
Just seconding this real quick; I bought New 3DS systems in both standard and XL sizes from Japan. It's easy enough to jailbreak/install CFW on them and get it set up so you don't have to worry about it. (Note this was well before tariffs and other import problems, so I have no idea what the market looks like and if there are any caveats to be aware of if you live in the US.)
Comment · 2 days ago
As someone doing a lot of DVD transcoding at the time, I remember being excited for Quick Sync on my new Sandy Bridge build - only to find that, while fast, it had absolutely _horrendous_ quality. I revisited it on my previous main Plex server build, which I think was a Haswell, and it was still unusable for transcoding compared to x264.
It took Nvidia until the encoder they bundled into 20xx series cards and Intel until the 6th or 7th generation of Quick Sync, but their hardware encoders are _finally_ at a point you can get decent quality at reasonable bitrates. Even so, x264 (and x265!) beat the pants off of them if one can spare the time and electricity; they're still that far ahead.
Comment · 20 days ago
If you have or acquire an Apple Watch - yes, I know, it's a _different_ several hundred dollar device - and enable the "unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch" feature, it will function in _just_ about every place that Touch ID is required, including the 1Password Touch ID prompts. Like some other Apple functionality, it does some sort of fancy Wi-Fi/Bluetooth time-in-flight calculations to ensure the watch is close by before it unlocks your Mac, with a tap on the wrist and a button to re-lock your Mac if needed; and it requires a double-tap on the side button for application authentication prompts.
Comment · 20 days ago
For passkey export, there is a FIDO specification for both a format and secure protocol for exchanging passwords and passkey information between password managers, with support on all Apple platforms, and implemented by 1Password, Bitwarden, Dashlane, and more:
https://rmondello.com/2026/09/07/switching-password-managers...
https://fidoalliance.org/download-credential-exchange-specif...
For the iCloud syncing, I believe they've done that since iCloud Keychain/Apple Passwords was first a thing; I've been aware of it since they introduced it, but perhaps that was more explicit when it was first added. The comment below from a now-defunct 1Password employee account describes the thinking there:
> Importantly, the entire role of the Secret Key is to protect you from us and anything that might happen on our end, like a breach of 1Password’s servers. It does not (and can not) protect you from a local attack. This is mentioned in 1Password’s Security Design white paper [ed: on page 74 of an old PDF; I've linked the newer HTML document below], which goes into detail about the locally exposed Secret Key.
https://www.reddit.com/r/1Password/comments/10iqhdp/comment/...
https://agilebits.github.io/security-design/index.html
I do get why that might be surprising. Without going through the whole onboarding process on a fresh device I can't say how well they highlight that or how easy it is to blow past. All I can say is 1) I've known about it for years and 2) having read through the white paper of how iCloud Keychain works I _personally_ trust iCloud Keychain/Passwords about as much as I trust 1Password, maybe _slightly_ more - but I am also not a security professional, so take my word with very little salt :)
Comment · 20 days ago
Except that this is not true. There is a FIDO specification for both a format and secure protocol for exchanging passwords and passkey information between password managers, with support on all Apple platforms, and implemented by 1Password, Bitwarden, Dashlane, and more:
https://rmondello.com/2026/09/07/switching-password-managers...
https://fidoalliance.org/download-credential-exchange-specif...
Comment · 1 month ago
He started selling Floppy Emus in 2014[1], bought a run of 10,000 DB-19 connectors in 2016[2], mentioned that he sold "several thousand" in 2021[1], and decided he no longer needed to horde as many DB-19s as he had held onto in 2025[3]. So based on all if that, probably somewhere between 4,000-8,000? (One of which is currently on my desk for connecting to an Apple IIe I recently acquired.)
[1]: https://www.bigmessowires.com/2022/02/16/bmow-business-updat...
[2]: https://www.bigmessowires.com/2016/06/04/db-19-resurrecting-...
[3]: https://www.bigmessowires.com/2025/06/30/bulk-lots-of-db-19s...
Comment · 1 month ago
Voodoo 1-3 couldn’t render 32-bit color, so maybe you were noticing the lower bit depth?
3dfx did design some tricks into the video pipeline on Voodoo 2 and 3 cards that allowed for what they called 22-but color, and it definitely looked better than other 3D accelerator cards’ 16-bit modes - but it was still not as clean looking as true 32-bit color. (Interestingly, the filtering they did was applied after the framebuffer, so screen captures would only ever show the lower quality original.)
Comment · 1 month ago
Because, as one of the original GUIs, when they conceived of how the Macintosh worked, you used the command keys to perform actions on files, and you could rename the file just by typing. Cmd-O was the shortcut for opening files, which makes sense for obvious reasons.
When they released the Macintosh to the world, Andy Hertzfeld realized that people were renaming items in the Finder by accident; so he added the "return" key (already used to confirm actions) as an "arming" step[1].
Now, one might ask: wouldn't that interrupt people navigating via the keyboard? No, because the original Macintosh didn't have arrow keys on the keyboard. This was an intentional choice—or, perhaps, mandate from Jobs—as a way to get users to use the mouse as their primary input device, and to force developers to create mouse-driven interfaces. With no arrow keys, no typeahead search implemented, and a clean slate for designing an interface, I'm guessing using Return to open a file wasn't a strong consideration at the time.
Why wasn't it changed? Because Mac OS X was made for Mac users, and we all have muscle memory dating back decades :P
[1]: https://www.folklore.org/A_Floppy_named_lsadkfjalhkjh.html
Comment · 2 months ago
As positive as I can be without having bought one just yet. The ones I've seen specifically say they "solve the problem that low power devices cannot be powered via C to C", that they support 480Mbps data transmission, and are listed as 5.1K ohm resistor adapters.
Comment · 2 months ago
As someone with a bunch of "USB-C" devices that do this, I'd wondered for years why nobody sold these. I recently just found them on Aliexpress in a more finished format (nice-looking case and such), so I'm hopeful they'll start to filter out into the world more. (If you're interested, do a search for "usb c resistor" and you'll find them for ~$2-$4.)
Comment · 2 months ago
Gotcha. I look forward to checking it out.
Comment · 2 months ago
Ooh, is this public anywhere? Definitely an area of interest of mine :)
Comment · 3 months ago
Seconded. I went in with only a vague awareness of what Bois' thing is and knowing it somehow involved Tims, Als, and oceanic telegraph cables. I was not disappointed.
Comment · 3 months ago
Ah, interesting - I saved the video but haven’t gotten around to watching it yet. I don’t know if this is touched on, but it certainly does seem like Gabe’s statement could be a nicer-sounding front for what Becky says; if there are fewer users than the math for supporting HL on Macs on an ongoing basis doesn’t make as much sense.
Comment · 3 months ago
Apple’s new Foundation model for the 27 OS releases does some interesting things in exactly this area: https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/introducing-third...