Hacker News Reader

83on Environmental Discs of Tron Roadside Pickup

I run into this with tools at auctions. Want a small milling machine you can move into your garage on your own? $2k. Want a giant one from the 60s that takes a crane to move in? $400

83on Automakers try to scuttle Massachusetts ‘right to repair’ law

Seems like that would be trivially managed with a firewall (canbus security gateway). Is it purely cost that they don't lock down or segment off the canbus? Being able to steal a car by talking to the immobilizer through the headlights comes to mind.

83on Digikey's Physical Connectors Tutorial

For those of you watching ebay - the M22520 tools are DMC (Daniels Manufacturing Corp) AF8 and AFM8 crimpers.

As someone who just got into using these for an automotive application, there is a great set of lessons on wiring/crimping using these tools from High Power Academy on Youtube or $50 if you pay for their full wiring class (worth it).

83on Digikey's Physical Connectors Tutorial

I commonly see the .1" pin headers (single or dual row) and sockets used for this.

https://www.te.com/usa-en/products/connectors/pcb-connectors...

83on Digikey's Physical Connectors Tutorial

The higher end (Daniels / DMC) are very precise tools that you should calibrate with a go/no go gauge. If you handle one you can see why they are fairly expensive - everything is precise, heavy, and without slop and must remain so over thousands of crimps.

83on Dropped iPad implicated in fatal Rotak Chinook helicopter crash

Because while the FOD might not be an immediate problem, it could bounce around and get caught in a mechanical linkage causing a fatal crash, could be rubbing against wires causing a fatal crash, could start on fire (if it has lithium battery) causing a fatal crash, could cause a huge delay when maintenance finds a random part bouncing around later on and they don't know what it's from... you get the idea.

83on The Bathyscaph Trieste: Technological and Operational Aspects (1962)

This is misleading. Only raw CF is like a rope, once made into a composite with resin it becomes a stiff member with entirely different properties. It's more analogous to a wood beam - very stiff and resistant to bending but once you get past it's limit it cracks.

I suspect the failure mode in a submersible like this isn't so much the carbon fibers themselves but either the carbon > metal interface at the ends or gradual delamination between layers of fibers due to the cyclical pressure loads.

83on The Bathyscaph Trieste: Technological and Operational Aspects (1962)

There's nothing wrong with using carbon fiber for a compressive load like this. Like most engineering the devil is in the details - how do you interface the carbon to the metal end caps for example? They likely are a weak point as the compressibility will be different for both materials making them want to shift (or fracture if they are glued together) during pressure cycles. I'd love to know how they solved this (or if they didn't and that's why we're reading this).

83on The hidden cost of air quality monitoring

Ego commercial blower: 170mph 600cfm (only during turbo boost, unclear how long that can last)

Stihl gas blower: 239mph 912cfm

Not even getting into weight, cost, or refuel times - that's extremely far from parity.

83on The hidden cost of air quality monitoring

The electric blower yard probably still has leaves on it.

I'm all for electrifying yard tools, but electric blowers still aren't anywhere near a high end Stihl or Husqvarna in performance.

83on Sears offered complete houses in large DIY kits

I tend to agree that we're past a point of optimal amount of bureaucracy in housing. I don't know that I'd go as far as saying these were more than good enough, though they are close.

Things like fire rated doors/drywall might not lower the likelihood you'll have a house fire, but they will give the occupants time to exit safely. Ditto for electrical breakers/gfci.

83on Sears offered complete houses in large DIY kits

Prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18265533

This often comes up as a "look how much cheaper housing used to be" discussion. Keep in mind things like gfci outlets, fire code, insulation requirements, electrical/plumbing inspectors, permits, etc weren't an issue back then.

83on FedEx Accused of Largest Odometer Rollback Fraud in History with Used Vans

Everyone in the rust belts should be putting fluid film/woolwax/krown under their vehicles. I think decades of shady "rust proofing" sprayers that were either a scam or did more harm than good (plastic/rubber under coatings) have put people off of doing this but there are products now that work well.

83on Suit alleges recreation.gov cluttered with junk fees, seeks millions in refunds

Pacer charges per page, but if you keep it under $30 in a quarter the bill is forgiven (so free).

You'll eat up 300 pages pretty quickly - there's roughly 20 filings between now and March 10 which I'm guessing is around when this article came out, probably too many pages to fit under the free limit but then again a lot of the activity isn't very interesting.

83on Titanic director James Cameron accuses OceanGate of cutting corners

The submersibles need to be less dense than water on average so they rise when you release ballast.

It's always a cost tradeoff - I think Challenger Deep (Cameron's former sub) was steel construction which required a large volume of syntactic foam that can resist high pressures to counteract the weight of the steel. That makes for a much larger vessel.

Titan's submersible for exploring the Mariana Trench I believe is largely titanium so much lighter than steel, but at a hugely increased cost.

83on The art of refurbing old computers

I think a lot of places don't accept them because they aren't good at judging what is valuable and what is trash - and the trash they have to pay to get rid of as e-waste.

83on Where people are moving in the U.S.

For some odd reason they cherry picked a chart out of the middle of the source website, it shows "Average household income of people entering and leaving each county during 2020-21"

83on Where people are moving in the U.S.

Article is just a short blurb describing this source, link should be https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2023/maps-migration/

83on Reddit App – Suspicious high number of recent 5 star, one word reviews

It would have been so easy for them to deescalate that they must think there's something to gain from it, they can't be that incompetent right?

It'll be interesting to see if the current outrage machine actually has any long term effect or if next year things will just be business as usual at Reddit.

83on Mercedes is bringing ChatGPT into its cars

The ChatGPT system can also interact with other applications to handle things like making restaurant reservations or purchase movie tickets

Purchasing things on my behalf is right below constantly surveilling me on the list of things I want my car doing. Perhaps I'm a luddite, but cars need less tech not more.

Disclaimer: I really enjoy chatGPT, just not while driving.

83on Anker’s Solix home solar battery system is its answer to Tesla’s Powerwall

Plenty of options exist in adjacent industries. Stage rigging has a lot of nice stuff for powering lighting/effects (like Neutrik powercon) as does automotive (deutsch dtp or dthd).

https://www.neutrik.com/en/products/power/powercon-20-a

https://www.te.com/usa-en/products/connectors/automotive-con...

83on Shreddit is a Python program to remove all your Reddit comments

And you can pretty safely assume all those deleted entries reference the size of someones balls or say "This is the way".

83on Average color of the NYC sky every 5 minutes

The first two night photos have logos for EarthCam, Live, and some location data. Seems they found a way to remove those in later images.

83on Ask HN: What would you do if you had the summer off as a technologist?

Make things - welding, woodworking, fiberglassing, etc. Maybe even make a website documenting things I'm making to assist others (and show off a little).

83on Air quality monitors: paying more does not get you more accuracy

https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/pr_class_display.php

83on Nanoplastic Ingestion Causes Neurological Deficits

PFAS is used in the coolant for semiconductor production.

83on Google quietly ends support for decade-old Chromecast

10 years is a good run, I'm actually pretty surprised considering this is Google we're talking about.

83on How The Pixel Fold's hinge was designed and built

If you are looking for any sort of engineering or technical information don't bother clicking the link.

tldr: We wanted it to be durable so used stainless, and liked the size of a passport so modeled it after that.

83on Niche Museums

House on the Rock is cool, but it's a little bit of a stretch to call it a museum. The mustard museum on the other hand...

83on Finland's average electricity price slips into negative territory

They're still risking getting a huge bill. Hoping your risk gets mitigated by a company trying to avoid bad PR isn't a gamble I would take.