Hacker News: johncalvinyoung

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "IP over Lasers"

johncalvinyoung — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 17:47:33 +0000

I was going to say, sounds like my college experience decades later. Still a very congested laser link, and I had a headless minitower instead of a rack (though I wasn't a CS student).

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "Avalanche Studios NYC Retrospective – An Ambitious Company Ruined"

johncalvinyoung — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 17:07:03 +0000

> I could write a lot about why you don’t want to use Catmull-Rom splines for roads.

I would read this essay, and share it with my friends.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max"

johncalvinyoung — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 20:05:37 +0000

The lack of a black iPhone 17 Pro... has me dumbfounded. I might skip this year.

I'm really happy with the camera features, but there's less differentiation between base iPhone 17 and 17 Pro this go-round. Probably enough for me to still get the Pro, but the iPhone 17 is looking like a pretty cool option this year.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "Ask HN: Why hasn't x86 caught up with Apple M series?"

johncalvinyoung — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 15:21:34 +0000

For those like me who wanted to hunt down the linkrotted article:

https://web.archive.org/web/20201108182313/http://atomicdeli...

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "It's a DE9, not a DB9 (but we know what you mean)"

johncalvinyoung — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 17:02:07 +0000

Whoa, I had that card (or one very much like it). I remember that cursed not-PS2 port especially.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "Show HN: Chili3d – A open-source, browser-based 3D CAD application"

johncalvinyoung — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 19:54:05 +0000

Ugh, I wish I could read it but as I'm working in this space professionally reading GPLv3 code is... risky.

Been working in 2D with bezier implementation for our in-house CAD kernel. 3D parametric is limited at the moment, though.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "Dominion Energy's NEM 2.0 Proposal: What It Means for Solar in Virginia"

johncalvinyoung — Mon, 19 May 2025 22:00:51 +0000

I wish this article recognized that there is a cost to maintaining the grid, both in transmission infrastructure, but also in maintaining the dispatchable generation capacity to smooth out solar's variability. As frustrating as this policy change sounds for consumers, I can see the case that the utility has variable && fixed costs related to net metering that warrants a sub-retail rate of exchange. In point of fact, roughly the rate that Dominion is willing to pay for solar energy in commercial PPAs.

The SREC situation is more complicated. I'm not familiar with Virginia's program, but I could see a case that Dominion doesn't deserve those credits... or one that says if they're building/operating their grid around accepting rooftop solar, some of those tax credits should accrue to their operations. I don't know. I wonder if commercial PPAs also transfer credits in exchange?

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "How much oranger do red orange bags make oranges look?"

johncalvinyoung — Sun, 13 Apr 2025 23:14:57 +0000

This was my immediate thought when I saw the ring light. Very very likely a CRI of 90 or below, which doesn’t even weight much in red shades. Not uncommon to see 92 CRI with a R9 (red) score below 50% of sunlight or tungsten illumination.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "How much oranger do red orange bags make oranges look?"

johncalvinyoung — Sun, 13 Apr 2025 23:12:16 +0000

Not a typical orange. “Sumo Citrus” / dekopon / shiranui is a hybrid tangor/tangerine cross. Very fragile, specialty fruit, only recently available at scale in the eastern US. This is on the high end per-fruit but I’ve seen higher. I usually buy in cases at ~$1.25 per fruit.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers"

johncalvinyoung — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 23:31:14 +0000

As I deployed Starlink in an extremely obstructed spot last year for a few weeks, where multi-second dropouts were quite common... it impressed me JUST HOW MANY satellites they have up there, and just how usable my dish was despite only having ~60% of its field of view clear. It's switching satellites much more often than every five minutes.

The built-in obstruction mapping tool quickly demonstrated that though each satellite represents a tiny slice of sky... over the course of the day you're seeing a vast number of satellites at a high variety of spatial angles and orbits.

I wouldn't recommend that obstructed situation to anyone (and it's going in a much clearer location this coming summer) but the users I was supporting reported it a far far better solution than the 4G LTE they'd been depending on prior. Not a patch on fiber, but a great solution for an awkwardly remote property.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "Show HN: Bayleaf – Building a low-profile wireless split keyboard"

johncalvinyoung — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 22:25:32 +0000

less specifically like OP's, but a really great product that I and a bunch of my coworkers use: the 'Ultimate Hacking Keyboard' 60 (typically referred to as a UHK). I have mine with the palmrest and the recent riser accessory, so I use it split and tented for less wrist/forearm tension.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "Show HN: Bayleaf – Building a low-profile wireless split keyboard"

johncalvinyoung — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 16:11:50 +0000

I have two UHKs, one at work and one in my home office, and I got my second one with blank keycaps. It's very satisfying.

At this point I'm very happy with UHK's layout and features, but every once in a while I wonder if a low-profile wireless 60% would be cool.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]"

johncalvinyoung — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 18:48:52 +0000

They haven't updated those predictions publicly in a little while. Definitely a huge setback from Rolls-Royce dropping out, and putting together the coalition that's developing the Symphony engine. Latest I've seen on Twitter is Blake Scholl stating the first full-size engine core should be making thrust by end of 2025.

I'm guessing rollout realistically is more like 2029-2030... but even that is a tall order. Unless, of course, they're a lot farther ahead on Overture development generally than they've revealed.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]"

johncalvinyoung — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 18:43:29 +0000

Probably optimism talking, but I'd put Boom's chances of bringing to market an airliner capable of supersonic travel at equal-to-first-class-ticket-prices at 60%.

Now I'd put their wilder hopes of eventually taking over the subsonic economy market at considerably below 1%.

But I'm hopeful for that $5-10k ticket to London within the next twenty years.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]"

johncalvinyoung — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:05:53 +0000

Their business model for a long time has theorized that they can deliver an operating cost that would allow airlines to offer tickets at roughly current business class ticket costs, which would be a fraction of Concorde ticket prices expressed in current dollars.

I don't know if those theorized efficiencies will be delivered (a lot depends on that engine) or if airlines will price tickets at that level. But it's the theory so far.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "Sonos CEO steps down after app update debacle"

johncalvinyoung — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 21:37:37 +0000

now if only I could find someone making a similarly bad decision. I've been looking to upgrade to a midrange KEF stereo pair. :)

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "Pi modder successfully adds M.2 slot to Pi 500"

johncalvinyoung — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 05:58:32 +0000

I assumed the OP was eliding that high-frequency circuits and interfaces are notorious for EM/RF noise.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "The lie of music discovery algorithms"

johncalvinyoung — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 16:40:57 +0000

This is my experience as well... I have a very broad music taste but with some main themes. I find Spotify's algorithm (11 years of Premium) to regularly surface things I'll like, whether new music from artists I already know, music correlating strongly with known tastes, or every once in a while something that seems out of distribution but I like it anyway!

It probably helps that the strongest areas of my taste are relatively small or niche genres, like Scottish trad and Celtic (folk) rock. In those niches, similar-but-different is often distinctively different in actual experience. Sure, there's covers of the same song from time to time, but I actually do like enough of those not to be bothered, if they bring something new.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?"

johncalvinyoung — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 22:07:52 +0000

Salisbury Cathedral (highest medieval spire surviving in the UK, at 404 feet!) was built on a floodplain close to the river, with shallow foundations only four feet deep. But the prior cathedral had been on a hilltop with much strife over access to water, and at least that would not be a problem at the new cathedral.

https://salisburycathedral.wordpress.com/the-spire/ is a glorious essay on the architecture of that spire.

New comment by johncalvinyoung in "OpenVoice: Versatile instant voice cloning"

johncalvinyoung — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 17:10:47 +0000

Utterly questionable.