Hacker News: chem83

New comment by chem83 in "Nobody understands the point of hybrid cars [video]"

chem83 — Wed, 20 May 2026 13:10:49 +0000

I always thought the problem with hybrids was the complexity of the drive train, but this video is challenging that notion. It argues that the hybrid pack (minus the battery, perhaps?) is more compact and simpler than a manual gearbox, even. It consists of two electric motors and a planetary gear set, which is seemingly simpler than clutch packs, gear sets and belts of regular transmissions, including CVTs.

Time codes 3:06, 37:07, 43:57, 43:36 (note on the eCVT naming), and 44:17.

New comment by chem83 in "VitruvianOS – Desktop Linux Inspired by the BeOS"

chem83 — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 17:25:56 +0000

I learned recently that Hitachi actually shipped computers that would dual-boot into Windows 98 and BeOS R4, except that Microsoft's license didn't allow for dual-boot, so the option was removed from the bootloader (or, rather, the Microsoft bootloader was defaulted to, instead of the Be bootloader).

It wasn't that hard to boot into Be, but I suppose most users wouldn't bother because all games and applications were on Windows anyway. Ultimately, lack of apps was probably what held it back, although Microsoft's commercial practices definitely played a role in curbing OEMs and app developers.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitachi_Flora_Prius * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44217322

New comment by chem83 in "PicoPCMCIA – a PCMCIA development board for retro-computing enthusiasts"

chem83 — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 19:33:36 +0000

I love this project. It will bring great audio to a bunch of Pentium-era laptops and essentially expand this list: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpd2CM3_384.

Problem with them, for the most part, will be about rebuilding the batteries and dealing with the poor quality of old screens.

New comment by chem83 in "Show HN: I visualized the entire history of Citi Bike in the browser"

chem83 — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 23:11:23 +0000

Relevant callout from https://bikemap.nyc/about:

* Limitations *

The data only contains the start and end station for each trip, but does not contain the full path. Route geometries are computed for each (start station, end station) pair using the shortest path from OSRM.

This means that the computed routes are directionally correct but inexact. Trips that start and end at the same station are filtered out since the route geometry is ambiguous.

New comment by chem83 in "Spirograph style Lego drawing machine"

chem83 — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 15:10:11 +0000

Neat! This is a newer model, but i believe they’ve had one since the 80s: https://docs.fischertechnikclub.nl/info2/1987uk.pdf

Did Fischer ever make it outside of Germany? My father would bring us kits every time he would travel there for work in the late 80s/early 90s. The focus was more on Engineering themes, so not quite the same as a Lego or Playmobil set. More like Lego Technic for the most part.

New comment by chem83 in "Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop"

chem83 — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 16:21:31 +0000

The gaming laptops that have been made a bit less game-y without the RGBs and thick chassis turned out to be the sweet spot for me. Some compromises here and there, sure, but they mostly have the hardware I want. Asus has a good line up that works very well with Linux from 13 to 16 inches, all with dGPUs, AMD CPU (though Intel is also there), high-refresh rate OLEDs etc.

New comment by chem83 in "OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race"

chem83 — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 22:48:08 +0000

> fire mid-management and PMs to prevent the same thing from happening again

Firing PMs and mid-management would not prevent any of code reds you may have read about from Google or OAI lately. This is a very naive perspective of how decision making is done at the scale of those two companies. I'm sorry you had bad experiences working with people in those positions and I wish you have the opportunity to collab with great ones in the future.

New comment by chem83 in "Linux on the Fujitsu Lifebook U729"

chem83 — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 17:43:26 +0000

For something portable with a dGPU, I recommend the Asus ProArt px13. Works very well with Linux, including NixOS with the right config, with the community asusctl and supergfxctl. AMD, OLED screen, nVidia 4070 (4060 in the US, maybe we'll get 50xx next year). Downsides: the keyboard is not amazing, it comes with MediaTek WiFi, but is replaceable, and the SSD is 2230, which limits capacity. I haven't been able to fine-tune touchpad sensitivity in Wayland and I do get some screen flickering despite fiddling with some boot params and being on 6.17.x. Fewer constraints if you're willing to go 14-inch with the Zephyrus.

New comment by chem83 in "A modern 35mm film scanner for home"

chem83 — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 22:27:56 +0000

I tried some scanning on a Plustek 8300, which is supposed to be the fastest. The process is still extremely manual/slow and I don't think it's practical on a large scale. Many families who owned cameras in the 60s-70s-80s-90s will have potentially thousands of negatives to scan, but I don't see a solution that will automate that digitalization process.

Software could also use some improvement. Automating batch correction and clean up should be easier, IMO.

New comment by chem83 in "WinBoat: Windows apps on Linux with seamless integration"

chem83 — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 13:39:28 +0000

WinApps is the project to watch (https://github.com/Fmstrat/winapps), although they're still working on Wayland support (https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps/issues/779#issuecomme...). It can get by through xwayland for the time being, it seems.

New comment by chem83 in "The Epstein Files"

chem83 — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 18:48:09 +0000

OP on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/1nzcq31/epstei...

New comment by chem83 in "A new experimental Google app for Windows"

chem83 — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 05:12:35 +0000

The decency? Classless?

PowerToys is not installed by default and neither is this Google app, obviously. It's absolutely reasonable that Google picks the most intuitive and common shortcut for an app launcher and if the user wants to maintain two or more launchers, it's up to them to configure non-conflicting keyboard shortcuts that are the most intuitive to them.

New comment by chem83 in "John Carmack's arguments against building a custom XR OS at Meta"

chem83 — Sat, 30 Aug 2025 01:43:35 +0000

This is what got Lucovsky pushed out. He wanted to build OS from scratch and couldn't see past the technical argument and acknowledge the Product's team urgency to actually land something in the hands of customers. Meanwhile, he left a trail of toxicity that he doesn't even realize was there[0].

Interestingly, he was pulling the same bs at Google until reason prevailed and he got pushed out (but allowed to save face and claim he resigned willingly[1]).

[0] https://x.com/yewnyx/status/1793684535307284948 [1] https://x.com/marklucovsky/status/1678465552988381185

New comment by chem83 in "I run a full Linux desktop in Docker just because I can"

chem83 — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 14:30:26 +0000

Not trying to contradict anything you’re saying, which I agree is true for Microsoft and Dell machines, but to provide an anecdotal counter-example, the Asus Zephyrus, Flow and ProArt lines run pretty well on Linux provided you replace the Realtek WiFi.

One place to check is the nixos-hardware repo for machines with reasonable support.

New comment by chem83 in "Linus Torvalds calls RISC-V code from Google engineer 'garbage'"

chem83 — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 22:13:01 +0000

Not that it should matter, but Palmer hasn't worked for Google since 2021.

New comment by chem83 in "MacBook Pro Insomnia"

chem83 — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 03:42:13 +0000

Can confirm that Yubikey-like devices prevent the M1 MBP from fully sleeping, which eventually depletes the battery. My company's (big tech) IT department reached out to Apple's corp support and eventually got confirmation from Apple that they decided to close the issue w/o fix. Something to do with their USB controller's firmware, if memory serves.

Removing Yubikey before (or after) closing the lid completely prevents total battery drain for me.

New comment by chem83 in "Sony DTC-700 audio DAT player/recorder"

chem83 — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 21:19:23 +0000

There's an active community around MiniDisc these days. r/minidisc and Discord are the places to check. People have been building replacement gumstick Li ion batteries with reasonable quality and there are replacement OLED displays for RH1 and RH10 Sony players. Mechanisms will eventually fail, I suppose, but for now you can still enjoy the format.

On the software end, web.minidisc.wiki has come a long way and there are even projects to expand the functionality of player firmware. Cool hobby, if you're into that.

New comment by chem83 in "Backyard Coffee and Jazz in Kyoto"

chem83 — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 21:30:11 +0000

Nice, I was there last month! Found it completely by accident.

New comment by chem83 in "A practical guide to building agents [pdf]"

chem83 — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 11:56:04 +0000

Equivalent guides from —

Google: https://ia600601.us.archive.org/15/items/google-ai-agents-wh...

Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/building-effective-age...

New comment by chem83 in "Show HN: Driverless print server for legacy printers, profit goes to open-source"

chem83 — Mon, 05 May 2025 13:52:50 +0000

Will Framework make a printer? No.

https://youtu.be/os_fHy1mB_M?si=0U1ywoRLGXZB0j1T