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sgnelson

1,454 karma · joined July 17, 2014

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sgnelson··on Discord will soon let anyone find public server messages through Google
Not to be mean? But are you serious? It's supposed to be a simple chat app, but it's so grossly bloated it's insane.
sgnelson··on AI-assisted PCB design for KiCad 10
I've had good luck doing this recently with my own set of similar tools for a high altitude balloon tracker. The PCB has a transmitter module, pico, gps, barometer, accelerometer, magnetometer and extra flash plus all the power and rf filtering needs. It also needs to withstand ~ -40C temps. I also had size constraints. It did a good job of making compromises while designing a 4 layer board for prototyping.

I had Fable work on it, and it made a good board, after some trial and error. I used mixtelas previous MCP tool, and even had it do ngspice runs on the filters. One of the tricks was to run a "tournament" style system for routing and lock in good routes. It also seemed to have and idea of what a "good" board should be.

  And it found all the components on jlcpcb, made sure they met specs, gave me options, etc.  and it outputs everything I need to upload the boards and get them produced.
Its not exactly a complex rf monster like some 5G board, but it's not just a simple board full of connectors for other dev boards either. I have to say I was quite impressed, for a first board. And it's been easy to iterate as well.

I've tried with Opus, and Opus doesn't quite get to what I would consider a "good" board, but it will get you close.

I haven't ordered the board yet (cost plus being cautious) but looking over it, I've yet to find any issues on it. I just ordered a simple connector board all done by AI last night with a few resistors and caps on it, all to be assembled by jlcpcb. Obviously, looking over it, I thought it was good enough to spend $60 on. We shall see.

But like so much in AI, it helps if you have some domain knowledge. I'm not sure how it'd go if I just had a newbie vibe code a board. I help with FabAcademy, and I fully expect to see this done many times there, over the next year.

sgnelson··on Hackers activate automatic defrosting accross European supermarket fridges
I came here for this very discussion. Shame more investigation was not done on this story.
sgnelson··on Rampart: Browser native on-device PII radaction
The skeptic in me really can't trust our current government to protect my information.
sgnelson··on Top Pentagon Official Contracted Personal Lawyer to Handle Minerals Deal
"Asked about the potential for conflicts of interest to arise due to his simultaneous role as attorney for Cerberus, Feinberg, and the DOD, he said “you’ve got to be kidding me” and insisted that the interests of the three clients have been kept separate."

Oof. This guy is a top lawyer, and this is how he responds to a journalist asking about conflict of interests?

Obviously a very smart man and very trustworthy. /s

We are truly living in a kleptocracy.

Edited: Two seconds of google: https://www.cerberus.com/media/cerberus-acquires-controlling... Yep, no possibility of conflicts of interest here.

I don't know what bothers me more, the corruption, or the fact that they're both so stupid and open about it.

sgnelson··on Waymo CEO explains why Tesla’s camera-only self-driving falls short
Will the Tesla handle getting stuck behind a double parked car without your intervention?
sgnelson··on Meta loses bid to dismiss US states' claims that FB, Instagram addict children
I was going to ask "at what point do people who work for Google and Meta ask themselves "Are we the baddies?"" But who am I kidding, as long as you're all making the big bucks for sitting at a computer, you'll continue to see this as harmless behavior that people are just upset about for no particular reason.

As someone who grew up as OG (original geek), it's now amazing to look around and see that technology seems to be having an ever more negative impact on my everyday life.

sgnelson··on Iran hit more U.S. military targets than has been reported, satellite images
I'm going to go with a "lol, Iran doesn't have access to Russian and Chinese state-based and public satellite imagery?"

Sure, "this is fine."

sgnelson··on Newly created Polymarket accounts win big on well-timed Iran ceasefire bets
I'm so tired of hearing this explanation. It completely ignores reality. As everyone has said, what's the point? You get information 2 minutes ahead of time? But how do you know that guy actually has the real info? Because he put a lot of money on it? Okay, then how am I supposed to make use of that information.

I'm so tired of people parroting this line as if it somehow explains everything. These new Prediction Markets are nothing but a new way of gambling. period.

sgnelson··on EFF is leaving X
I've got a book for you to read...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message

sgnelson··on U.S. science agency moves to restrict foreign scientists from its labs
Got to love the fact that a large amount of users of HN still refuse to see the truth before their very eyes.
sgnelson··on US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere
Why? Seriously, why do we care so much about this?

Do we not have better uses of our money. Also the irony considering recent moves by the US government in terms of control of the internet and free speech.

sgnelson··on America has a tungsten problem
What about cobalt? For the largest part of the market, tungsten carbide cutting tools, it's usually a composite of tungsten carbide and cobalt.

Thankfully, in most industries that use tungsten carbide, there is a lot of recycling of the material (though probably not enough.)

Like anything, it's a complex problem, with no easy answers.

sgnelson··on Celebrities say they are being censored by TikTok after speaking out against ICE
fascists are going to fascist. Dang et al will just look away and say. "we don't have any power over what our users do. Email us to let us know." Because apparently the mods don't visit their own website? They'll just keep their heads buried in the sand. Everything is fine as long as that sweet ycombinator check keeps getting cashed.
sgnelson··on 'This is sell America' – US dollar tumbles as globe flees US assets
Thanks everyone who voted for this! I really appreciate you!
sgnelson··on Why Is Greenland Part of the Kingdom of Denmark? A Short History
I would also expect that latitude plays a role in house sizes. Though I don't know. I think that'd be an interesting correlation.
sgnelson··on Why Is Greenland Part of the Kingdom of Denmark? A Short History
"My parents are on Medicare and they head down to the ER every time have a stomach ache and get a CAT scan"

Your parents are part of the problem. The ER isn't supposed to be used that way.

sgnelson··on Raspberry Pi and mini PC home lab prices hit parity as DRAM costs skyrocket
"Most of the history you are taught in school has a similar bar."

No, it does not.

sgnelson··on Texas A&M bans part of Plato's Symposium
Not that I really care, but I've got to ask the question:

Is telling people that they can't tell other people which words they use a form of language policing?

(In a thread concerning Plato, I thought this question needed to be asked.)

sgnelson··on Raspberry Pi and mini PC home lab prices hit parity as DRAM costs skyrocket
That Supermicro story was never confirmed/verified. All the companies involved denied that it happened (that doesn't mean much however) but no other reporters were able verify the story as far as I'm aware. With Bloomberg saying they had something like 12 anonymous sources, the likelihood that the NYT, Washington Post, Wired, etc. etc. etc. were not able to reach any of the same sources or corroboration says something.

Also, if these things were out there in such a large supply, I would have expected some hacker would have literally found an old board and found the chip and presented it to the world as evidence.

In terms of a coverup, this was during the first Trump term, and he's not exactly a fan of China, so I don't see any real reason the entire US business and intelligence community would keep it a secret (never mind the fact that if they can keep it a secret... and contact their traditional ways of leaking, not Bloomberg.)

I'm not saying it didn't happen, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and there has been effectively zero evidence presented.

And I'm not debating the fact that I'm sure it can happen and will happen. But let's stick with facts, not just some rumors.

(This post written without an AI summary.)

sgnelson··on US-based multinational companies will be exempt from global tax deal
I'm not an international trade lawyer/expert by any means, but this seems like an unfair government subsidy. I guess the WTO won't care though.

But since this does seem like a government subsidy, I predict over the longer term this will only hamper US companies, not help them. And when this exemption inevitably disappears, US companies will end up further behind because they did not have to compete to the same level as other international corporations.

America has always bent the international order for it's own ends, but it seems like the real innovation and competitiveness that we did have is slipping away and we're left with nothing but trade barriers and monopolies. It's not going to work out well long term I predict.

sgnelson··on Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts
I agree with the critique on the "socially constructed" part of this article.

I'd also add that since it was literally The Times newspaper which created the font, and it was considered one of the papers of record for the time (no pun intended), the font was probably designed to have a sense of accuracy, truth and authority. In other words, the institution that created the font is very much part of the socially constructed aspect of this font. In this case giving it that air of authority via it's relationship with a newspaper of record.

sgnelson··on Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts
Since TNR was designed for print and thus it seems they expected the ink to "bleed" and make the characters appear thicker than they would have been for the actual (leaded?) type face, was this taken into account when turning it into a digital type face?

From reading the article, it appears the answer is no. Has anyone made a TNR digital font that would account for how it would look if printed on 1900's newsprint?

sgnelson··on Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert
Did you interview Yuan Gongpu or was this part from another source?

I'm interested in the laborers who did the work, not just the scientists who designed everything.

Thanks for your story.

sgnelson··on OrangePi 6 Plus Review
We need an acronym for these types of boards: Yet Another SBC With Poor Longterm Support. YASBCWPLS. Really rolls off the tongue.

Or we should just have "STS" (Short Term Support) after the board names to let others know the board will be essentially obsolete (based on lack of software updates) in two months.

sgnelson··on [dead]
"re-industrializing the USA"

Call me when the party starts. Many of the decisions this administration has made are having the opposite impact. The re-industrialization of the US (what little bit of it there is) is in spite of the trump administration, not because of it.

sgnelson··on [dead]
The common "poltiical scientist" answer to this sort of conundrum/question would be to state: "They're called elections."

But, how's that's going for us recently...

sgnelson··on Inside CECOT – 60 Minutes [video]
A CYA letter full of illogical rationalization.
sgnelson··on America's monopoly crisis hits the military
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransDigm_Group#Accusations_of...
sgnelson··on NTP at NIST Boulder Has Lost Power
FYI, this was posted a month ago when discussing thermal effects of clock drift. I thought it was quite interesting view of what the WWVB location looks like:

https://jila.colorado.edu/news-events/articles/spare-time

Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46042946

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