Hacker News: blacksmith_tb

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "Production Imminent: 40 Solar-Charging Aptera EVs Coming Soon"

blacksmith_tb — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 18:11:59 +0000

It also charges like any other EV, leve1 1 or 2 at home, and they say they intended to support faster DC charging in their FAQ[1]. I would be fairly skeptical of the 46mi / 74km a day from the built-in solar, that sounds optimistic given the small surface area.

For me the bigger problem is that it's classified as a motorcycle, which may mean wearing a helmet, and needing to have a class M license. Insurance may also be interesting. And of course sharing the road with giant heavy vehicles.

1: https://aptera.us/discovery-center/

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You"

blacksmith_tb — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 21:23:21 +0000

The cynic in me says that the visible presence of people dying on the street is very much intended to send a message, "work hard or this will be your fate".

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "Gemini Robotics 2 brings whole body intelligence to robots"

blacksmith_tb — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 17:17:36 +0000

Not to pull on the tinfoil hat, but I would assume most commercially available home cleaning robots will be covered with cameras, mics, and other sensors, and connected to their manufacturer's cloud... I don't pay for housecleaning, but I would vet humans quite differently.

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "Turning a dumb AC unit smart (without losing my security deposit)"

blacksmith_tb — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 20:40:44 +0000

Which of course means they should use heat pumps, since the copper lines don't need nearly as much room (I suppose you'd still have to put a drywall wall in front of one brick wall potentially). Even just putting a bunch of mini-splits on the roof (instead of individual window AC units) would be an improvement, seems like.

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "An AL mother killed herself to fulfill a ChatGPT prophecy, lawsuit alleges"

blacksmith_tb — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:11:17 +0000

When AI sycophancy kills - "We ride not into darkness – but into the brilliant unknown."

An AL mother killed herself to fulfill a ChatGPT prophecy, lawsuit alleges

blacksmith_tb — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:11:17 +0000

Article URL: https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/chatgpt-alabama-suicide-22356367.php

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49050605

Points: 8

# Comments: 2

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "Which streaming service was that on again?"

blacksmith_tb — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 22:24:15 +0000

But the sense that it had "almost everything" was more a halo effect of the old dvd-by-mail business, I'd say? I do agree with the general idea that streaming is less satisfying than ever, I probably get more mileage out of my completely free (thanks to my local library) Kanopy account than I do Netflix these days, just because it really does have a wider range of stuff to watch.

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "Notable Knot Index (2016)"

blacksmith_tb — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 14:45:55 +0000

NASA uses knots instead of cable ties, for example on the Mars rovers [1] so they remain with us (I use a half dozen regularly myself)

1: https://www.planetary.org/articles/20120905-knots-on-mars

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "Meta reuses old RAM in new servers with custom bridge chip"

blacksmith_tb — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 21:38:57 +0000

Give it a generation, and readers will ask "what was a TV?" and/or "what is a channel?"

For us though, it's an evocative phrase - right place, right time.

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "Medieval-style fortifications are back in the Sahel"

blacksmith_tb — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 18:10:23 +0000

That background is useful, though it seems more like "how" than "why" - my instinct is James C. Scott-style rebellious hinterlands[1] but I haven't gotten a sense if the bandits are the product of social dislocations, or just opportunists. My naive assumption would be all of the above, some conflicts along the edges of Sahel being ideological or about lack of resources or political participation, and others being just smash-and-grab (not that they're mutually exclusive).

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Scott#The_Art_of_Not_...

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "President pardons 9 for Clean Air violations for 'fixing their car'"

blacksmith_tb — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 17:43:59 +0000

Ah, sorry to have imputed sarcasm then - and I agree that helping hundreds of monster-truck owners to roll coal is more serious and polluting than the individual yahoos doing it, so more deserving of doing time (eventually, maybe).

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "President pardons 9 for Clean Air violations for 'fixing their car'"

blacksmith_tb — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 05:19:04 +0000

Sarcasm, presumably, but unless they're caught rolling coal[1] again, they can't be re-arrested as they've been pardoned for the previous cases. It's a tacky crime, hardly the most serious, but that makes a presidential pardon seem especially absurd here.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "Astrophysicists Puzzle over Webb’s New Universe"

blacksmith_tb — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 16:04:21 +0000

Sagittarius A* is "merely" 26 thousand light years away (but we probably won't be imaging it, since there's a lot more in the way)

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "Africans Are Turning to Starlink"

blacksmith_tb — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 23:57:50 +0000

Africa isn't a country? There are 54 countries in Africa, and it has almost twice the area of all of North America, not just the USA [1]

1: https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/continent-size-comparison/no...

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "Canyon HUD helmet for road riding"

blacksmith_tb — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 16:31:55 +0000

The idea would be more like the car, not the human behind the wheel, would realize that if it right-hooked me that would be bad (read insurance-increasing, citeable offense, etc.) and wait, where the driver would just keep flipping through their playlist and crush me.

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "Canyon HUD helmet for road riding"

blacksmith_tb — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 21:00:04 +0000

As someone who commutes in traffic daily, this is not what I need or want. First up, it looks heavy and badly-ventilated, and then there's the potential for distracting info blocking my view of the actual road in front of me. Even if it was really good info (which would take really good sensors, plus a lot of compute to cram onboard), I am skeptical it'd be better than, you know, paying attention to your surroundings. I like ADAS functionality in modern cars just fine, but it seems like a stretch to try and bring it to bikes. What we all could use is some kind of ad hoc network between all road users, so the car that was thinking about turning in front of me could ping my helmet / bike and understand that it should wait and turn behind me instead.

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "White House delays US voting-machine vulnerability report"

blacksmith_tb — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 04:57:40 +0000

I have never heard that suggestion... if you can document it, the wiki entry would need an update[1]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring#History

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "Show HN: 3D print Z reinforcement via injected loops"

blacksmith_tb — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 21:16:49 +0000

Hmm, I wonder if a simpler room-temp alternative would be to fill a low-infill print with 2-part resin. In a way that would be a bit like casting, except you wouldn't ever remove "the mold".

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "USB Power Delivery: Plugging into the Benefits"

blacksmith_tb — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 19:33:00 +0000

I'm hoping we'll see most e-bikes at least use 240W usb-c pd charging (I figure I have about a decade until I will wish I had some assist and buy one, so probably by then, they'll have gotten there...)

I also have assorted products that won't charge c-to-c (some from respectable manufacturers even, like Philips), but I see you can get little adapters with 5.1K resistor you plug into said crappy devices to cover that, I will have to try some out.

New comment by blacksmith_tb in "Raspberry Pi 5 – 16GB RAM"

blacksmith_tb — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 21:13:10 +0000

My personal fave RPi, the Zero W, is still $15 from Adafruit.