J

James Stanley

incoherency.co.uk · Personal blog · on HN since 2013

James Stanley writes about personal projects including chess hardware tricks, CAD tools, small web games, watchmaking, and music generation.

What HN saysCommenters enjoy its projects, calling the Nightdrive music version amazing and praising his Countdown practice game. They also link his posts on engines and building a watch.
57HN people shared it
25linked it in comments
127stories submitted
5.8Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2013people per year2026

Most-shared posts

  1. 1
    Cheating at chess with a computer for my shoes
    9 people · 523 points · first shared 2022 · 254 comments on HN
  2. 2
    Nightdrive
    4 people · 1.4K points · first shared 2022 · 242 comments on HN
  3. 3
    FreeCAD vs. SolveSpace
    4 people · 9 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
  4. 4
    Hiding Messages in Chess Games
    4 people · 7 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
  5. 5
    Autopatzer: My Automatic Chess Board
    4 people · 6 points · first shared 2020 · 1 comments on HN
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
    Chess Steganography
    2 people · 224 points · first shared 2019 · 48 comments on HN
  9. 9
    I made a mechanical keyboard with 3D-printed switches
    2 people · 191 points · first shared 2020 · 34 comments on HN
  10. 10
    The story of Max, a real programmer
    2 people · 139 points · first shared 2025 · 93 comments on HN
  11. 11
    The ChatGPT Linux System
    2 people · 81 points · first shared 2024 · 15 comments on HN
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
    Against Exponential Backoff
    2 people · 8 points · first shared 2025 · 1 comments on HN
  15. 15
    Thoughts on Signed Distance Functions for CAD
    2 people · 7 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN

What HN people wrote when they linked it

Lukesys · 2022-09-23
This gentleman made a great web game for the UK TV show, Countdown. Been using it for years... https://incoherency.co.uk/countdown/practice/
system2 · 2022-09-23
Music version is amazing: https://incoherency.co.uk/nightdrive/
jstanley · 2022-08-15
I received my Librem 5. I wrote a short review[0] when I first got it. Since then it has developed a fault whereby the phone crashes immediately as soon as I switch the wifi kill-switch on. Just instant black screen, nothing happening. Sometimes I have to take the battery out to get it to boot back up. I just don't use wifi. Apart from that it still works great. [0] https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/librem5-first-impressions.html
AlanYx · 2024-08-22
A good starting point is to try to build a pin-pallet escapement design, like Timex used in the 60s and 70s. This is largely doable at home with a 3D printer and basic tools, e.g.: https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/the-watch-project.html Getting to modern accuracy is hard though.
rezmason · 2024-04-05
If you're more into evoking a feeling than simulating countryside, I humbly suggest (aka shamelessly plug) my project and another person's project: https://rezmason.github.io/drivey https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/nightdrive.html
mftrhu · 2023-08-02
It is forth-specific. It refers to blocks of 1024 bytes of code, arranged in 64 columns by 16 lines and manipulated through a more-or-less standard vocabulary[1], supported by most Forth systems. You can see it in action in e.g. the CollapseOS emulator[2], as it comes preloaded with ~300 blocks: try writing "0 LIST" (uppercase, as it is case-sensitive - see also [3]). [1]: https://forth-standard.org/standard/block/ [2]: https://schierlm.github.io/CollapseOS-Web-Emulator/ [3]: https://incoherency.co.uk/collapseos/blk.txt.html
cardine · 2022-10-05
Someone has already created a proof of concept for this: https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/sockfish.html
exodust · 2022-09-29
I quite like this guy's choice of green text and background shade of grey... from a post I saw here recently... https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/nightdrive.html But go with your choices, it can take time over a few sessions. Notice colours in the real world and notice ones you like.
yreg · 2022-09-26
jstanley here on hn made such a cheating device as a hobby project: https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/sockfish.html
Overtonwindow · 2022-09-23
It’s 11 o’clock at night and this is absolutely perfect. Bravo on the music version. https://incoherency.co.uk/nightdrive/
fictionfuture · 2022-09-21
KingMob · 2022-09-20
The shoe insert has actually been built, though I haven't heard if it, or something similar, has been used in real cheating yet. It's a shoe-to-Pi device called Sockfish (a pun on the Stockfish chess engine): https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/sockfish.html
serf · 2022-09-19
just make sure to x-ray everything. 0]: https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/sockfish.html
yboris · 2022-09-19
In your shoes ;) -- it's called "Sockfish" https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/sockfish.html
grumple · 2022-09-19
I saw this recently, so not only is it possible, but it's fairly simple: https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/sockfish.html
krallja · 2022-07-31
CollapseOS has a “just to show it’s possible” port to the TI-84+ - https://incoherency.co.uk/collapseos/hw/z80/ti84/index.html
rjh29 · 2022-03-09
> How soon will I be able to buy a machine more powerful than the world's computing power when I was born? An AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X is 2.3M MIPS. If you were born prior to ~1977, you are currently able to do this, according to https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/world-computing-power.html If born after, you still can but you need a lot more money.
eat_veggies · 2021-06-27
James Stanley did that last year -- using magnets! https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/autopatzer.html
AlexITC · 2020-01-18
This project accepts Bitcoin [1] and it even accepts 0 confirmation payments [2]. [1] https://smsprivacy.org/ [2] https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/zeroconf-payments.html
chronial · 2019-01-06
That is intended behavior. Game ending moves are not allowed. See the explanatory blog post: https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/chess-steg.html
JoshTriplett · 2017-10-27
Sometimes I wonder if it's a good idea to brute-force these kinds of "vanity" onion prefixes. Take a look at the addresses used in http://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/hidden-service-phishing.html ; they brute-forced the same prefix with a different suffix. Would anyone really notice?
Lex-2008 · 2022-06-25
re: whether the new version is actually an improvement - yes, I like new version more than the old one :) While I agree that in new design headers are more recognizable as clickable links, I still find "Read more" link being useful (after reading the article paragraph). Regarding adding name and photo - I think it's a personal taste :) Personally I don't feel a need to have them on the main blog page, but if you like it - please do, to give the blog a bit of personality. With name and photo the blog will probably feel more personal - written for those people who know you (either IRL or online). And without - the blog feels more like designed to be a thing by itself. Although note that it's my personal opinion, which might change tomorrow morning :) Regarding tags - note that you can see "main page with tags" at https://incoherency.co.uk/blog2/tags/all.html :) Wonder how much heavier it makes the page look. Maybe hide it behind some "show tags" link? Also check the <title> tag of the main page - I'm not sure if it was your intention to name the page "incoherency - ", but for me it looks kinda broken (something's missing on the right side of "-"), so maybe call it something like "incoherency - all posts"?
segfaultbuserr · 2019-02-21
His name is James Stanley. His personal blog is https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/, and it has many good articles about privacy and cryptography applications, such as Tor and IPFS, some has made to the HN homepage. You can obtain such an anonymous physical phone number from his personal service, https://smsprivacy.org/, by paying 0.003 Bitcoin, at the current market price, about ~12-15 USD, per day. Such a high cost can be justified by very nature of a physical phone number. But I have to say that It's not a complete solution, it has its own limitations. Once a phone number expires, it just expires, and I don't think you can get your previous number back retroactively... So it can only be used as a workaround for verification code to register your account. If the service decides to issue a SMS challenge to you in the future, you'll have my Facebook problem, as I mentioned in the comment section. Perhaps I can write to him to see whether he can implement a solution for this problem. I don't personally know him, I'm just a reader in the field of security and privacy, and he happens to have a nice blog and an interesting service. > I very much dislike the privacy aspect of the whole phonenumber game and also the environmental impact of burner use. Then, you should also care about the environmental impact of cryptocurrency, Proof-of-work literally works by burning the energy, and in order the secure the network, it must burn as much energy as currently available for general…
DyslexicAtheist · 2019-01-13
I shared it because I've been messing around with ricochet this weekend. I did look at the sources and couldn't find anything that I hated. Some problems exist in the latest debian package (in sid) related to the AppArmor configuration ... (see my issue I created in their github). So this is how I ended up posting it ... I wasn't aware of this other WhatsApp post. WhatsApp is snakeoil imo. Though you're probably right about the tendency of people to share related things. Not just when a non FOSS project gets posted on HN but in general people remember similar things and then post it. See the comment here on briar, which is a promising project too. But it serves a different use-case - I want a non mobile solution I can run on FOSS system with FOSS hardware TL;DR: I no longer use phones in the traditional sense - only burner phones for 2FA without apps and not for making calls ... Ricochet delivers that because I can launch it via a Debian, Tails[1], QubesOS whatever ... :) [1] requires a little fuckery but not too bad: https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/ricochet-tails.html

Keyboard shortcuts

/Search
j kNext / previous blog
EnterOpen selected blog
vVisit the blog site
fFollow / unfollow
lSwitch grid / list view
dSwitch dark mode
g hHome
g pTop posts
g tTopics
g fFollowing
g lLiked
g yHistory
g qFAQ
EscBack / close