Hacker News: armadsen

New comment by armadsen in "A new book on Steve Jobs at NeXT"

armadsen — Fri, 15 May 2026 21:10:31 +0000

It's a figure of speech.

New comment by armadsen in "New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges"

armadsen — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 23:11:12 +0000

That is indeed part of the charm. The people who like swing lens panoramic cameras like the Widelux like that look. The alternative is something like the Hasselblad Xpan, or even just a panoramic crop from a regular camera. A swing lens does something unique.

New comment by armadsen in "New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges"

armadsen — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 23:09:21 +0000

Right. The whole revival was his idea, according to the story told by the other founders. Also, presumably he has funded the whole effort so far.

New comment by armadsen in "New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges"

armadsen — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 17:49:21 +0000

Yeah, I've been waiting for it for years too. I thought it was going to be substantially more than $4400 (more like $6-7K). Under $1,000 is unfortunately simply impossible. Used Wideluxes go for a fair bit more than $1K.

That said, too much for me right now. Maybe someday.

New mechanical panoramic film camera from Jeff Bridges

armadsen — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:49:12 +0000

Article URL: https://wideluxx.com

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47937033

Points: 224

# Comments: 110

New comment by armadsen in "The Classic American Diner"

armadsen — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 22:22:00 +0000

Eddie Rocket's is an Irish chain of American diners. I've eaten there in Dublin. Although at least that location is downtown, and in a bigger building, not a classic diner style building. The inside is very much American Diner themed with vinyl seats, chrome, jukebox controls at the table, and of course the menu of burgers, fries, shakes, etc.

https://www.eddierockets.ie

New comment by armadsen in "A database of analog cameras that can be 3D printed"

armadsen — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 05:16:12 +0000

Many of the film cameras that people 3D print essentially outsource that stuff to off-the-shelf focusing helicoids which are readily available, along with medium or large format lenses which are traditionally mounted in a leaf shutter anyway. So the hard parts (lens, aperture, focusing mechanism, shutter) are not part of the 3D print itself. You're right that 3D printing a serious shutter mechanism for anything other than a pinhole camera isn't really feasible (yet?). It's the light tight box and the film transport that are completely reasonable to print.

New comment by armadsen in "Apple at 50"

armadsen — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 20:04:05 +0000

The animation was visible on Safari when I viewed it very early this morning (10 hours ago), and again about 3 hours ago.

New comment by armadsen in "Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder"

armadsen — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 20:51:56 +0000

Yeah, it’s really starting to depress me how much text published to the web is written using an LLM now. Things that seem interesting at first glance become much less appealing when they have that telltale LLM quality to them, and I also start questioning whether they’re full of factual errors (“hallucinations”). I don’t know why I should spend my time reading something the author couldn’t even be bothered to spend time writing.

New comment by armadsen in "First in-utero stem cell therapy for fetal spina bifida repair is safe: study"

armadsen — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 22:59:30 +0000

Spina Bifida is not primarily a genetic disease. It's caused by a failure of the neural tube in the developing embryo to close fully. No one knows the exact causes, but folic acid deficiency in the mother before and during pregnancy makes it more likely. It also seems to run in families a little, but only weakly, and we haven't identified any specific genetic cause. This treatment is very promising, but it's not a cure, just a (hopefully) even better treatment than the existing in-utero surgery that doesn't include stem cells.

New comment by armadsen in "First in-utero stem cell therapy for fetal spina bifida repair is safe: study"

armadsen — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 22:56:42 +0000

Thanks for sharing about your daughter. It's good to hear from other parents dealing with it. My daughter with spina bifida is only 18 months. It's early of course, but so far she's right on track cognitively and socially. I expect she'll be in a wheelchair full time, but don't know for sure yet. She's also just the most joyful, loving, social, happy toddler.

I know what you mean about elevating otherwise normal kid illness. She had her first shunt failure in January. It was pretty stressful going from "hmm, she's fussy" to surgery within less than 24 hours. But she was back to her happy self with hours of the surgery too, which was a pretty stark indicator of how much the shunt is doing for her.

New comment by armadsen in "First in-utero stem cell therapy for fetal spina bifida repair is safe: study"

armadsen — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 19:16:03 +0000

The main goal of physical repair of the defect in utero is actually to reduce the incidence of hydrocephalus and hindbrain herniation, which are very common in people with Spina Bifida. The existing fetal surgery reduces the incidence of hydrocephalus from about 80% to about 40%. The improvement in leg and bowel/bladder function is actually a secondary benefit.

My understanding is that the hindbrain herniation (aka Chiari Malformation Type II) is the main cause of cognitive trouble in people with SB. But it's worth noting that it's very far from universal in causing that. Most people with SB are basically normal cognitively assuming they get good early intervention (VP shunt, PT, OT, etc.). Some early cognitive development can be slower as a knock on effect of not being able to move around as much as a baby and toddler, and thus less able to explore the environment, etc.

Source: I'm the parent of a toddler with spina bifida. She's completely on track cognitively and with fine motor skills so far. She's way behind with gross motor skills due to her inability to move her legs very much.

New comment by armadsen in "First in-utero stem cell therapy for fetal spina bifida repair is safe: study"

armadsen — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 18:53:08 +0000

Not only is it possible, fetal surgery is more or less standard treatment for spina bifida at this point. The news here is about the stem cell patch being applied during the surgery. (I have a child with spina bifida. We tried to get her into this trial, but did not qualify.)

New comment by armadsen in "[dead]"

armadsen — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 03:55:51 +0000

Seriously. My son and I are about 3/4ths through Fellowship of the Ring after he loved The Hobbit. We’ve read all of Narnia, Wildwood, and many other (long!) books and book series together. Either his mom or I have read to him very nearly every single day of his life. I know he loves it, and it has made him love reading on his own too.

I have never once felt there weren’t enough good stories - written by humans - out there for us. Quite the opposite: there are more than we could ever get through in a hundred lifetimes. There’s no way an LLM can outdo Tolkien.

New comment by armadsen in "Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV"

armadsen — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 17:02:19 +0000

No. https://www.etymonline.com/word/chintzy

New comment by armadsen in "Exposure Simulator"

armadsen — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 15:51:01 +0000

To be a little more precise, f is not a camera-specific constant. It's the focal length of the lens. It's a formula that tells you the diameter of the entrance pupil. So at a focal length of 50mm, an aperture value of f/2 means an entrance pupil diameter of 25mm.

But photographers generally just say "f2", meaning an aperture value of two set on the dial of the camera/lens. It's one stop faster (twice as much light) as f/2.8. It'll give you a relatively shallow depth of field, but not as shallow as e.g. f/1.4.

New comment by armadsen in "Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV"

armadsen — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 06:06:04 +0000

My experience with my Prius PHEV is the same. I don’t even have a level 2 charger. I just plug it in in the garage overnight, and most days I don’t use any gas.

The only time the ICE turns on before my EV range is up is if I hit the windshield defrost button when it’s cold. That’s presumably to prioritize getting heat out through the vents quickly. I’ve never accelerated fast enough, nor gone fast enough to trigger the ICE engine taking over. It’s straight up an EV for my first ~40 miles every day.

New comment by armadsen in "Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV"

armadsen — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 06:01:13 +0000

Yeah, I didn’t realize we were calling hybrids “EV”s now.

Also, the BYDs I’ve been in were chintzy garbage as far as fit and finish goes. Can’t speak to their reliability, or other aspects of them, though.

New comment by armadsen in "Television is 100 years old today"

armadsen — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 17:27:17 +0000

For what it’s worth, Philo Farnsworth and John Logie Baird were friendly with each other. I was lucky to know Philo’s wife Pem very well in the last part of her life, and she spoke highly of Baird as a person.

David Sarnoff and RCA was an entirely different matter, of course…

New comment by armadsen in "Alzheimer’s disease can be reversed in animal models? Study"

armadsen — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 19:24:01 +0000

My understanding is that amyloid plaques can actually be seen with a specialized PET scan now, so it can be more definitively diagnosed in living people.