Hacker News: letharion

New comment by letharion in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2026)"

letharion — Mon, 11 May 2026 12:29:30 +0000

Feel free drop me an e-mail on [nick] @ [the big G].com and we can discuss. :) Haven't seen ArduPilot before. Since I'm using ROS already, on of my goals is to lean as much as I can on that and avoid custom work where I can. Nav2 appears to be the most common "go from point A to B" framework in ROS-space.

New comment by letharion in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2026)"

letharion — Mon, 11 May 2026 10:55:44 +0000

Building a GNSS/RTK-based lawnmower.

The existing ones were quite expensive, especially when I started out. A friend had the idea to get a cheap/non-functioning lawnmower second hand, and tear out the circuit board. We're in the process of coding up a new ROS2 based stack that will roam the lawn on GPS with RTK in the charging station. My friend does most of the electronics stuff, and I focus on the software.

I'm at the point where I will start testing a simple bounding box soon and just have it drive around until it "hits the edge" and then randomly pick a new direction.

It's fun so see the software I build "in real life" instead of as a web-site, as is the case for my my daily job.

New comment by letharion in "A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder (1992)"

letharion — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 13:31:30 +0000

I'm assuming this is some kind of jab at the general propensity of psychiatry to classify most things as disorders, rather than a serious proposal. If anything, I think the problem has gotten worse since this was published. (Then again, maybe happiness has also gotten more rare since 1992?)

New comment by letharion in "The first sodium-ion battery EV is a winter range monster"

letharion — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 18:14:05 +0000

What I wanted to know from the article:

  The CATL Naxtra sodium-ion battery will debut in the Changan Nevo A06 sedan, delivering an estimated range of around 400 kilometers (249 miles) on the China Light-Duty Test Cycle.

and

   It delivers 175 watt-hours per kilogram of energy density, which is lower than nickel-rich chemistries but roughly on par with LFP

New comment by letharion in "Meta's Hack (HHVM) language appears to be no longer maintained"

letharion — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 12:53:04 +0000

I haven't looked much at it since it was called HHVM, but I see it also hasn't seen a release since 2016.

New comment by letharion in "2023 state of the climate Entering uncharted territory"

letharion — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 13:19:34 +0000

While there are many priorities to balance, having plenty of native species is absolutely one of them. There will probably be some kind of small wildflower meadow as well.

In this particular location, the ecosystem is currently in a reasonably good state, in contrast to say a heavily tilled farm soil, so I get a pretty decent start.

New comment by letharion in "2023 state of the climate Entering uncharted territory"

letharion — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 12:34:00 +0000

I for one have gotten a piece of land and have begun planting as many edible perennials as I can. Think nuts, fruits and berries. Hopefully it can be a small part in both food security for those near and dear, and also do a tiny tiny bit for the co2 footprint as well.

New comment by letharion in "Why it's hard to get hired despite glowing jobs reports"

letharion — Fri, 03 May 2024 19:09:05 +0000

I was looking at a big tech company recently. They list well over a 100 open positions. I reach out to a friend who works there. He says some very nice things about me to his manager, who asks for my CV. Been six weeks and I haven't heard a word. I might apply again through the regular formal channels, but I would have thought that a strong recommendation was worth more.

I'm not really complaining, I'm in a fairly good spot myself, but for others out there in this situation, you're not alone.

New comment by letharion in "Alcohol Use and Mortality Among Couples in US: Individual and Partner Effects"

letharion — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 07:24:53 +0000

Also it has been pointed out elsewhere, that previous alcoholics will likely show up as non-drinkers in a study like this, but will already have done significant damage to their health. The result being that not drinking looks worse than it is.

New comment by letharion in "Sucking carbon dioxide out of the sky is moving from science fiction to reality"

letharion — Sun, 10 Sep 2023 10:54:15 +0000

Direct air capture, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_air_capture In this context, DAC is the alternative to capturing carbon where you produce it, such as in a Coal power plants chimney.

New comment by letharion in "SMS traffic pumping fraud"

letharion — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 06:36:15 +0000

I didn't fully understand it either, but my take is this:

1. Twilio (or someone else) sends a text message for OTP.

2. This message needs to pass through my carrier (MNO, in the article) for delivery, and my carrier charges Twilio and/or their carrier, for the service. This is the revenue mentioned.

3. I have an agreement with my carrier, or simply form my own, that we split revenue.

New comment by letharion in "The War for Iron"

letharion — Sat, 04 Feb 2023 18:28:15 +0000

I tried finding the articles I learned this from originally, but he appears to have migrated to a new blog and I can no longer find the sources, but IIRC Fung claims that this is the bodies way of solving precisely the "no-nutrients-for-the-invader" problem. Just dial down hunger as low as possible, to avoid eating.

New comment by letharion in "The War for Iron"

letharion — Sat, 04 Feb 2023 14:50:51 +0000

This seems to go hand in hand with the idea, suggested by Jason Fung and others, that one should fast when sick.

If we stop eating, then there's less nutrients available for invaders, who have a large need to grow and replicate so they can spread to the next host. The human body doesn't need to rapidly grow though, so it can go without much food for a few days.

New comment by letharion in "A plea for culinary modernism (2001) [pdf]"

letharion — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 20:08:11 +0000

Have you read anything from SMTM? Their work has been on HN a few times and they dive deep into the rabbit hole of what causes obesity. Fascinating stuff. https://slimemoldtimemold.com/

New comment by letharion in "Ask HN: What game do you wish existed?"

letharion — Wed, 25 May 2022 14:25:59 +0000

Natural Selection is close to what you're after, my friends used to play it a lot.

One of the players is the RTS "Commander", the rest are soldiers on the ground. The commanders role is to distribute both resources and information as necessary to the soldiers.

New comment by letharion in "Ask HN: How do I develop skills to comfort people and offer compassion?"

letharion — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 07:42:11 +0000

I want to second this. All the answers to the OP that pop into my head can be learned from the How to talk so kids will listen series.

New comment by letharion in "Sailfish 4"

letharion — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 13:03:31 +0000

No experience, but the shop (https://shop.jolla.com/ ) claims "Android App Support" so I'd expect you can run most apps.

New comment by letharion in "Study: Low Carb Diet May Prevent, Reverse Age-Related Effects Within the Brain"

letharion — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 16:04:21 +0000

The article says in multiple places that in practice, little of the protein was converted to glucose.

New comment by letharion in "Study: Low Carb Diet May Prevent, Reverse Age-Related Effects Within the Brain"

letharion — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 15:55:01 +0000

While several people refer to gluconeogenesis, to the best of my knowledge we _can_ make glucose from protein, but rarely do in practice. I have yet to see anyone convincingly show that we do.

Also check out diet doctors take on it which refers to actual studies. "Does protein adversely affect blood sugar?" https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/protein

New comment by letharion in "Study: Low Carb Diet May Prevent, Reverse Age-Related Effects Within the Brain"

letharion — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 15:40:30 +0000

I think diet doctor makes it trivially simple, but of course, to someone who never cooks, it might still seem though. https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/get-started