Show HN: Hacker News' “most unique support email of 2014”

[striking]

(TL;DR: http://i.imgur.com/LuPHqiN.png)

While digging around in drawers that hadn't been touched for decades, I found a wonderful piece of history. The Palm Treo 600 [1] was the Mercedes-Benz of the cellphone 10 years ago, and I was lucky enough to rediscover one.[2]

So I decided to restore it to working order, slapping in a T-Mobile SIM[3] and a fresh battery. It worked! It could browse the Internet[4], send/receive text messages[5], make phone calls...[6] The onboard browser even passed Acid1[7,8] and could do some level of JavaScript![9]

Unfortunately, most websites were a little heavy on this poor thing's CPU. One site that I knew wasn't heavy was Hacker News!

Unfortunately again, it didn't work. It "didn't work" in an odd way, though: it raised a "Communication Error" that would never occur on other pages, just Hacker News. So I did what any inquisitive individual would do: record a video, and ask HN support!

This is what I sent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqn-EmU5KPw

This is what they got back to me with: http://i.imgur.com/LuPHqiN.png

I am truly honored to accept this award. I'd like to thank Palm, for making such an incredible phone (10 days of battery life!), as well as the Academy. And also my parents. And you, dear reader. Thank you so much!

PS: kogir :)

PPS: I've always wanted to do some teardowns of old device UIs and see what our mobile device forefathers thought up. I have a couple of really cool archeological finds that I could share.

[1]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_600 (gallery of 2-6,8-9 here: http://imgur.com/a/Gu70R) [2]:http://i.imgur.com/xVdpUST.jpg [3]:http://i.imgur.com/2Yy8fkM.jpg [4]:http://i.imgur.com/nZ7GwC1.jpg [5]:http://i.imgur.com/OJuZmh3.jpg [6]:http://i.imgur.com/z9mNkHt.jpg [7]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid1 [8]:http://i.imgur.com/9VKcxlY.jpg [9]:http://i.imgur.com/5KeI9TI.jpg

[hyp0]

> TL;DR http://i.imgur.com/LuPHqiN.png

> This is what I sent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqn-EmU5KPw

> This is what they got back to me with: http://i.imgur.com/LuPHqiN.png

> [1]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_600 (gallery of 2-6,8-9 here: http://imgur.com/a/Gu70R) [2]:http://i.imgur.com/xVdpUST.jpg [3]:http://i.imgur.com/2Yy8fkM.jpg [4]:http://i.imgur.com/nZ7GwC1.jpg [5]:http://i.imgur.com/OJuZmh3.jpg [6]:http://i.imgur.com/z9mNkHt.jpg [7]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid1 [8]:http://i.imgur.com/9VKcxlY.jpg [9]:http://i.imgur.com/5KeI9TI.jpg

  (links as comment so clickable)

[obituary_latte]

If only I had scrolled a bit first, I could have saved myself minutes. Thank you, and my support request is: please start auto-linking safe urls.

[majke]

I suspect this device can't do TLS. Blame POODLE for killing SSLv3:

* https://blog.cloudflare.com/sslv3-support-disabled-by-defaul...

Also RC4 is about to die:

* https://blog.cloudflare.com/killing-rc4-the-long-goodbye/

* https://blog.cloudflare.com/killing-rc4/

* https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-web-is-world-wide-or-who-sti...

[leesalminen]

My gut says that they've disabled SSL v2/v3, and that the device does not support TLS.

[kogir]

I'd love to see the results from visiting the Qualys SSL Client Test: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/viewMyClient.html

I imagine the issue is that we only support TLS 1.0+ and not SSLv2 or SSLv3. https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=news.ycombina...

[marcosscriven]

Same happened to me trying to use Safari Books Online on my Kindle browser (as the only official way yo access their content on an eInk display). They dropped SSLv3, and in doing so the old 'experimental' Kindle browser can no longer access it.

[Animats]

Security Theater Everywhere strikes again. Unless you're logged in and entering data, Hacker News does not need SSL.

[BorisMelnik]

I used a Palm treo up until about 3 years ago, and used to browse HN quite often. My treo was modified and upgraded I should say :) beleive it or not, some poor soul actually stole it, probably not knowing it would be worth more on ebay as an obscure item than at a pawn shop.

[wpietri]

Yeah, fellow former Treo user here. I loved that thing.

When people talk about how Steve Jobs invented the smartphone, I used to say, "but but but..." Now, though, I just sigh and nod like I'm still listening to them.

[edeion]

I hoped Nokia E6 would come close to the Palm Treo. The shape is about the same but slimmed down and without the antenna. And hardware is good. But the software is somehow disappointing (I expected more from a descendant of Psion). If I recall, the to-do lists on Palm were so much nicer, for instance.

[rndn]

Perhaps build your own web proxy which strips images, CSS and JS for a better web experience. Someone did that a year ago for his Macintosh Plus: http://www.keacher.com/1216/how-i-introduced-a-27-year-old-c...

[keithwarren]

I had this same phone, in the post iPhone era we tend to forget that smartphones did exist and some of them were actually pretty fantastic devices. From the 600 I upgraded to the 700w and that was probably my favorite phone of all time.

[chrissyb]

Totally agree, i sometimes reminisce about the good ol' days with my Nokia N70 i bought in 2005. Here's some memorable achievements:

- I watched most of the world cup 2006 games live streamed over 3G. -I used to frequently use google maps which without GPS would use cell towers triangulate my position within a couple hundred meter radius. - Used it as a wireless AP -And even uploaded videos to youtube.

When i first heard of the iPhone i wasn't that impressed as i already been using what i considered a smartphone. Obviously i that's all changed now! ;)

[beachstartup]

i also had a treo 6xx (then upgraded to 7xx) and it was the first device that i could actually do work on the road with (email, basic web, ssh, phone).

i remember it had outlook integration which was especially awesome because my employer at the time used outlook and i was able to leave my work-from-home post during the day to have lunch or drinks with friends in san francisco and not be out of touch.

even though this was barely ten years ago, now i feel really old.

[jarrettch]

While I never did own a Treo, I did have a Sony Ericsson P900, which came out about 2-3 years before the iPhone I believe. My friends thought I was crazy for buying such an expensive phone, but I was happy with it for so long that I kept it for about 5 years. Lots of flagship phones made years later still didn't match the features of that phone. I still have it, so maybe I'll try booting it up as well.

I think my experience with that phone is the reason I'm in love with the Samsung Galaxy Note series now.

[jacquesm]

This is the first thing I'd look at to make this work:

  telnet news.ycombinator.com 80
  Trying 198.41.190.47...
  Connected to news.ycombinator.com.cdn.cloudflare.net.
  Escape character is '^]'.
  GET / HTTP/1.0
  Host: news.ycombinator.com

  HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
  Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 03:19:43 GMT
  Content-Type: text/html
  Connection: close
  Set-Cookie: __cfduid=d2949a43e20a9ea8923fe50222805b7621421810383;
      expires=Thu, 21-Jan-16 03:19:43 GMT; path=/; 
      domain=.ycombinator.com; HttpOnly
  Location: https://news.ycombinator.com/
  Server: cloudflare-nginx
  CF-RAY: 1ac05f0dbbeb0743-AMS

<html>

<head><title>301 Moved Permanently</title></head>

<body bgcolor="white">

<center><h1>301 Moved Permanently</h1></center>

<hr><center>nginx</center>

</body>

</html> Connection closed by foreign host.

Maybe you could set up a https->http proxy and access that to see if that solves your problem?

[j45]

My palm Treos are still the most productive devices I've ever owned. Android is starting to get close but that keyboard and shortcut keys to go directly into an app on the Treo has been unrivalled.

Hoping with the sale of the Palm Trademark, and WebOS being free, which is a generation ahead of all mobile operating systems, before the javascript app craze came up, might, in some way, come to lead and inspire the way again.

[yourad_io]

I was recently looking for a sliding qwerty keyboard phone and to my dismay I realised that while we weren't looking, the NSA took them all away!

In my quest I found a phone database where you can search by features (I forget which one right now) and sorted through all possible candidates. My hopes went up momentarily when I saw the Dell Venue Pro[1] before I clicked "next" and saw how wrong they got it[2].

Eventually I sumbled on the Motorola Photon Q[3] - which I'm not even supposed to have, as it doesn't come with a SIM slot at all. Luckily some enterprising Korean guys have figured out the modding process and are selling them on ebay. I tried my luck and received it a few days ago. Really good value for money, loving the sliding action and physical keys but wish it were a bit more powerful. I think I've compensated for this mostly by cutting out a lot of fat and its puny dual core CPU now runs 4.4 fairly comfortably. I'll probably go back to my Nexus 5 soon but it's a great backup phone and I love the keyboard.

I'm half convinced that a custom N4/5 backplate with a built-in keyboard would sell like crazy. #kickstarterideas

TL;DR: Look at Moto Photon Q.

[1] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Dell_Venu...

[2] http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/dell_ven... I literally burst out laughing as soon as I saw this. Bless you, Dell. (also: windows)

[3] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Motorola_...

[drdeca]

Out of curiosity, have you tried viewing a static page with the same content as HN, and checking whether it has that error?

Very interesting, and congratulations on your award!

[allending]

Speaking of HN support emails, we emailed Daniel at 4:10PM a few days ago and got a reply at 4:12PM. Send a follow up email and another reply 6 minutes later. Brilliant.

[Joona]

That is very impressive. Almost as fast, or maybe even faster than me answering on IRC!

[soneca]

Funny, but this post doesn't follow Show HN guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html). Should be a "Tell HN" instead.

[codezero]

I had a similar issue when I broke out my iBook from 2000ish. It seems like the root certificate authorities had changed, or the certificates sent by websites weren't able to be resolved. Whether that was the changes to SSL/TLS, or the root authorities, I didn't get into :P

[yuhong]

If you are using Classic Mac OS, Classilla has the most up-to-date SSL/TLS support (with both SHA2 certificate and SNI support!)

[wazoox]

In my drawers, I still have all of my Handspring/Palm "smartphones", I used almost all their PalmOS lineup during the naughties:

* Handspring Visor+Visorphone (2002): huge!

* Handspring Treo 270 : broken lid

* Handspring Treo 600 : working, but broken screen

* Palm Treo 650 : working

* Palm Pré : still working, but broken USB connector

[giacomoharp]

This one showed up early in the morning and executives were scurrying to find out what happened:

Subject: XXXX Case #XXXXXX : Priority changed to Customer Down Date: Tue, 6 May 2014 03:17:47 -0700 From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

CC: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

* Case Priority change * Case Priority has recently been changed to: Customer Down

Case Details:: Case #: XXXXXXXX Company: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Contact Name: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Status: New Category: Support System - Support Accounts

Subject: My name is spelled XXXXXXXX

Apparently, the customer could not function if their name was spelled wrong...

[endeavour]

I don't think it's possible for something to be the 'most unique'.

[teach]

I used to be similarly pedantic with English. But a few years ago I converted to descriptivism[0], and I've been much happier ever since. :)

[0] http://english.blogoverflow.com/2012/10/prescriptivism-and-d...

[Confusion]

Not in a single metric. But you can formalize what is meant: there are many metrics in which something can be unique. Something is deemed the 'most unique' when it is unique in so many metrics that the utterer estimates no thing is likely to be unique in more metrics. Even mathematicians use sloppy language.

[Chanie]

Ha! this is great! Congratulations on your award ;)

[Chirael]

Still using my Palm Pilot daily :)

[enthdegree]

Have u tried with NetFront

[rizumu]

Uniqueness is absolute, so the support email is either unique or not. There are no degrees of uniqueness for something to be more unique than another thing. Sorry, but this grammar mistake is a big pet peeve.

[dang]

Now if we ever issue this award again we will be obliged to repeat the mistake forever. :)

Had I thought about it I probably would have written "most unusual". Still, I'm not sure the pedant's case holds up on this one. Two things may differ from everything else to varying degrees; both are unique, but the one that stands apart more is arguably more so. Even among the unique support requests of 2014, Rob's email stood apart the most by a long shot.

[warbiscuit]

I'd argue that definition is incorrect.

To be unique, all something needs is to have a collection of properties which (taken together) are possessed by no other instance within some larger population.

Even then, it's still quite possible to have multiple unique objects within a set.

This quality of "uniqueness" can then be ranked, based on how many of those unique properties (or subsets of them) are sufficient to still make the item unique.

E.g. blue sphere among blue cubes is less unique than a red sphere among blue cubes.

So yes, "more unique" is perfectly reasonable IMHO :P

[chrismorgan]

I would urge you to, like I realised I had to a few years ago, get over it. Language is not defined by a dictionary or by history; roots and origins are truly meaningless. A word is defined by its usage; it’s one of the delightful things in the world for which it can be said that if enough people say something is true, it becomes true.

Uniqueness may once have been a boolean property (I cannot say for certain one way or another), but at present it is not.

[mikeash]

My dictionary lists two definitions for "unique." One is "being the only one of its kind" and is thus a binary property as you say, but the other is merely "particularly remarkable, special, or unusual," which is perfectly amenable to modifiers like this.

[raldi]

That's only sorta true.

[coherentpony]

You must be a blast at parties.