Shane Reed (u/shane_reed)

Posts

My $60 Yubikey felt stupid until it stopped a login from Brazil

Bought the thing on a whim after reading about phishing, thought it was a hassle for months. Then last Tuesday I got an alert for a login attempt from Sao Paulo that the key blocked instantly. Now I keep it on my keyring. Anyone have a good backup method for these in case you lose it?

3 comments

c/coding-for-beginners•

shane_reed•3mo ago

A friend told me to skip Python and go straight to C. Worst advice ever.

Last year, my buddy Mark, who works as a systems engineer, insisted I should learn C first to 'really understand computers.' He said it over beers at The Rusty Nail. I tried it for about three weeks and got completely stuck on pointers and memory allocation. It was so frustrating I almost gave up coding entirely. I switched to a beginner Python course online and built my first little script in a weekend. That small win kept me going. Has anyone else been given 'expert' advice that totally backfired when you were just starting out?

3 comments

c/astronomy-photos•

shane_reed•3mo ago

Always skipped dark frames, but a weird streak changed my view

I used to think taking dark frames was just extra time for no real gain, you know? But then I got this bright line in all my shots of the Andromeda galaxy last night, and it ruined the whole set. After digging around, I found out my camera's sensor has amp glow that only dark frames can fix. So I took some, stacked them in, and boom, the line was gone, so now I'm a believer.

3 comments