Hacker News: aj7

New comment by aj7 in "The desperation of NYTimes"

aj7 — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:32:44 +0000

I like the system. Every single time I talked to the human, and explained that the Times wasn’t worth the “regular” price, back came a much lower one.

New comment by aj7 in "The desperation of NYTimes"

aj7 — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:31:01 +0000

“It made me feel powerless.”

Your problem. Read some of Michael Porter’s books on competition. In an economic interaction, all players compete with each other. The Times thinks it’s in its interest to try to brainwash you with some garbage.

And you look for Mommy.

New comment by aj7 in "MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production"

aj7 — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 21:50:13 +0000

It took Apple 42 years to kill the pc, but they did it.

New comment by aj7 in "EEVblog: The 555 Timer is 55 years old [video]"

aj7 — Tue, 05 May 2026 17:57:17 +0000

The late Harold DuBose use to use the 555 as a power inverter as it could sink 200ma at the laser companies he worked for. Convenient and cheap.

New comment by aj7 in "NIST scientists create 'any wavelength' lasers"

aj7 — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 18:40:22 +0000

I should add that analytical device applications of this technology look almost limitless, being able to simplify, shrink, and cheapen thousands of optical instrumentation types. This is a huge market, and will lead to better healthcare, pharmaceuticals and industrial monitoring. Displays are another area, and military, policing, criminology, another. Having a narrowband laser of your choice of wavelength is the holy grail here.

New comment by aj7 in "NIST scientists create 'any wavelength' lasers"

aj7 — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 18:33:06 +0000

Just want to remind people that the deBroglie wavelength of light IS its wavelength, here 0.5-1.5 um. This is gigantic compared to that of electrons in semiconductors. So there is no VLSI for optical computation. None. Zero. Bupkis. Lasers, except perhaps for some very esoteric applications, will be confined to the periphery where waveguides and fiber are rapidly supplanting copper. By the way, at least $1B has been wasted by VC’s who did not understand the no-VLSI physics barrier.

New comment by aj7 in "Observer Patch Holography (OPH)"

aj7 — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:49:33 +0000

The problem is right in the prologue. “Every piece of evidence we have for objective reality is itself a subjective experience.” But people do independent experiments. And the results agree. That’s a much stronger statement.

New comment by aj7 in "Iran Targets Datacenters"

aj7 — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 18:10:05 +0000

Iran recites a carefully curated list of American and Gulf States technology targets. 500,000 Nvidia GPU’s are one implicit bullseye.

Iran Targets Datacenters

aj7 — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 18:10:05 +0000

Article URL: https://substack.com/@shanakaanslemperera/note/c-238220142

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47641651

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

New comment by aj7 in "CERN uses tiny AI models burned into silicon for real-time LHC data filtering"

aj7 — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 17:35:21 +0000

I wonder if it is a PhD thesis to prove that the data prefiltering doesn’t bias the results.

New comment by aj7 in "Doin' It with a 555: One Chip to Rule Them All"

aj7 — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:58:24 +0000

The late Harold DuBose of Spectra-Physics, repeatedly used 555's as power inverters in the electronic design of a frequency stabilized ring dye laser. He liked the strength of the output transistor.

New comment by aj7 in "CSS Optical Illusions"

aj7 — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 05:26:12 +0000

What would be most interesting is using optical illusions to help decode how brain visual processing is done.

New comment by aj7 in "American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis"

aj7 — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 17:38:17 +0000

In Israel, virtually every Christian relic is fake. Some are hundreds of years old, but nevertheless fake. This is not a comment on Christianity as a religion. Religions need relics, and if they can’t find them, they are created. This is operating in modern times. I was working as a contractor for Intel Israel. They took everybody on a day trip. To an LDS temple to “see the organ” (what else?). An American LDS church. Needed a place in Israel to “represent.” Now wait 100 years. You wait. I have things to do.

New comment by aj7 in "I wanted a camera that doesn't exist, so I built it"

aj7 — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 17:06:22 +0000

All good advice above. I’ve tapped 1000’s of holes and haven’t broken a tap in 50 years, and I have nothing to add to the above. Berkeley Physics Dept. student machine shop training.

New comment by aj7 in "Some ecologists fear their field is losing touch with nature"

aj7 — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 17:01:19 +0000

And in a similar vein, you can’t learn much about investing without actually risking some capital.

New comment by aj7 in "Ford F-150 Lightning outsold the Cybertruck and was then canceled for poor sales"

aj7 — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 16:57:44 +0000

Try buying a compact Toyota pickup without the extra row of seats. The last one was made in 2015. They sell for more than the price of new for mileage < 100k.

New comment by aj7 in "The likely cheapest home-made Michelson interferometer"

aj7 — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 01:53:56 +0000

I’m an optomechanical engineer and I’m sorry. I’m not impressed. In a Michelson, the single most important requirement is that the optical path lengths of the two arms do not drift with respect to each other, either in length or angle. Having that path length determined by a fused deposition polymer is about the LAST choice I would make. I have a suggestion. Fused quartz rods are relatively cheap. Buy some 6mm rods and a thin diamond blade to cut them to size. Use the 3D printer to make plate-like parts, ‘replicating’ a cage structure. The polymer parts should be used only for components PERPENDICULAR to the optical path. You could even experiment with using embedded rods to stabilize the plates in various directions. So much of hobbyist activity amounts to a kind of adult coloring or copying. Rather, at your own level, try to be a scientist.

New comment by aj7 in "Cameras and Lenses (2020)"

aj7 — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 21:01:05 +0000

Look up “beam expanding telescope.”

New comment by aj7 in "Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design (2011) [pdf]"

aj7 — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 15:54:17 +0000

I have found that my best designs, few and far between, enter a period where they get simpler as they are completed. And my worst or failed designs keep getting more complex as I go on.

New comment by aj7 in "I program on the subway"

aj7 — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 02:12:04 +0000

I did my calculus homework on the subway.