Hacker News: groos

New comment by groos in "Florida's HOAs and condo associations are making the housing crisis worse"

groos — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 20:26:02 +0000

The way to deal with a bad HOA is to get on the board. Normally, HOA boards attract the most petty minded people because most of the normal people living in the community are too busy but if a bunch of like-minded people get on the board, they can bring sanity back.

New comment by groos in "Open MicroManipulator – A sub-micrometer 3D motion control plattform"

groos — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 20:14:45 +0000

They also have a manual, non motorized version. I am building this currently for eventual use, with modifications, in a point diffraction interferometer.

https://youtu.be/-mgqq0qdDRM?is=nFvtZprNsjMn3D_B

New comment by groos in "We’re forgetting what darkness feels like"

groos — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 03:35:47 +0000

Most of the US West of the Missisipi is still largely dark.

https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=3.68&lat=40.8496&lo...

New comment by groos in "We’re forgetting what darkness feels like"

groos — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 03:18:38 +0000

Having access to dark skies doesn't mean you automatically appreciate them. I suspect this may be one reason we lost them so easily. As I child, I grew up at 5000+ ft with dark skies and the Milky Way was often visible. Funnily, no one seemed to be aware of it. Once I learned what it was (from a magazine), I pointed it out to a grown up and they dismissed it immediately as a cloud. Much later I learned that clouds from dark sites look dark, not light.

I just came back from a trip to Yellowstone, staying at an RV Park in Idaho that had designated themselves as a dark sky RV park, which mean no external lights after 10pm. The night sky was glorious with the Milky Way visible almost from horizon to horizon. I wish more city dwellers could experience this so we could do something to tame the completely unncessary and wasteful light pollution.

New comment by groos in "How Delhi cut electricity loss from 50 to 5 percent"

groos — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 16:32:27 +0000

The effort to reduce electricity theft has had an interesting side effect. One of the ways to prevent theft is to insulate the power lines going into neighborhoods. This also makes them safe for monkeys to use as 'roads' with the result that roving gangs of monkeys move from neighborhood to neighborhood with ease and also have access to the upper floor of apartment buildings because of the proximity of the power lines. I saw this in person a few years ago.

New comment by groos in "“The Secret Life of Circuits” is here"

groos — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 15:12:49 +0000

The PDF no longer appears to be there or at least is well hidden.

New comment by groos in "Apple Introduces AirPods 5"

groos — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 17:51:38 +0000

Is that you, Shrek?

New comment by groos in "An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation"

groos — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 20:28:22 +0000

The Bambu Labs mobile app doesn't work with LAN mode. I found this app for Android, "LanBu" which does a decent enough job. It's still in beta and wants to display ads. So far my PiHole has blocked all its ads so it's tolerable. I wouldn't mind paying for it, if it's a one-time free and it allowed access from outside my LAN.

New comment by groos in "Civilians under siege by Mexican cartel fight back with AK-47s, grenades"

groos — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 18:37:37 +0000

This is a bad take. When the stste is either unable or unwilling to offer security, what is the alternative? The 'vigilantes' are doing the honorable thing, protecting their communities from criminals and oppressors. I wish them all good luck as it seem like they need it.

The danger always is that these militias can themselves become corrupt and oppress their own people.

New comment by groos in "The Dark Night of Mathematics"

groos — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 21:41:33 +0000

Have LLMs produced something novel like Cantor's diagonalization procedure once was? Come up with new concepts like set theory once was and axiomatized it? Is there any indication or evidence LLMs can do this? If not, I would wager mathematicians are still going to be a profession in the future. Maybe not as theorem provers in a particular axiomatized system where LLMs can be effective tools but the wider project of synthesis and unification, and the discovery of new modes of mathematical thought will still require mathematicians.

New comment by groos in "LEDs’ potential to save our night skies"

groos — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 00:57:06 +0000

I read through most of the article but didn't see motion sensors mentioned. A lot of suburban streetlights are lighting up empty streets at night. With a combination of motion sensing and LEDs, lighting could follow pedestrians. Cars really don't need street lights in most cases but even then, in higher risk areas, motion sensors could turn on streetlights just as long as needed.

New comment by groos in "The Zilog Z80 has turned 50"

groos — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 23:08:58 +0000

35 years ago I had to program a Z80 by "assembling" programs by hand and punching hexcodes into a board. This was made easier by writing an assembler for it. This was my way into tools which took me eventually to working on a major C++ compiler.

New comment by groos in "crustc: entirety of `rustc`, translated to C"

groos — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:29:05 +0000

As an ex C++ compiler developer, I heartily approve of this project. Kudos.

New comment by groos in "How does a pull-back car work? Illustrated teardown"

groos — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 21:09:30 +0000

Love this site! Well done!

New comment by groos in "A History of Menus Is a Menu of History"

groos — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 20:43:48 +0000

How many people visited the site expecting program UI menus?

New comment by groos in "What is a Lithium-ion capacitor?"

groos — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 22:03:28 +0000

Not really as large capacity capacitors (this one seems to be 4V) tend to be low voltage as well. You can touch the terminals without harm but attempting to short them is going to be, er, entertaining. I have accidentally touched a 200V capacitor and it was not fun.

New comment by groos in "Show HN: Monolisa v3 – a typeface for developers and creatives"

groos — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 18:38:45 +0000

Nice but pricey with a restrictive license.

New comment by groos in "Show HN: Monolisa v3 – a typeface for developers and creatives"

groos — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 16:58:31 +0000

I call all these new fonts monofonts, mono in the sense of monoculture. Aesthetics practically indistinguishable from each other. Give me one of the IBM Selectric fonts in a modern form and I'll be happy as a clam.

New comment by groos in "Migrating from GNU Stow to Chezmoi"

groos — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 19:04:24 +0000

~50 years of distributed systems research and this is a problem we still have to deal with today. Sad!

New comment by groos in "Swedish parliament abolishes permanent residence visas for migrants"

groos — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 23:16:29 +0000

Every country? No. Every European country? Yes.