Hacker News: mbajkowski

New comment by mbajkowski in "Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events"

mbajkowski — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:57:14 +0000

One interesting example of this is the UTR system for tennis. It is agnostic in gender as wells as age, and tournaments can be held purely based on the UTR range

New comment by mbajkowski in "Wired headphone sales are exploding"

mbajkowski — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 16:06:34 +0000

100% this. I have had the MDR-7506 since my DJ days about 30 years ago. These are by no means expensive headphones, but compared even to much more higher-end Bluetooth headphones they can easily hold their own. They have good depth and are well balanced. They are just about indestructible, only requiring the occasional pads replacement. Probably one of the best purchases I ever made

New comment by mbajkowski in "The past was not that cute"

mbajkowski — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 14:27:50 +0000

Yup. Also elementary school was often fewer grades than it is today. It was the norm to finish your education after elementary school to help the farm/household. Individuals, especially from the country side, were an exception to finish secondary education and go on to college.

New comment by mbajkowski in "The past was not that cute"

mbajkowski — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 15:42:00 +0000

Agreed, but I don't think you need to go as far back as the 19th century, even early 20th century it was the same in some places in eastern Europe. Out of 7 siblings in my Dad's family only one went to college. The spread between oldest and youngest was about 12 years. All went to school which was dismissed much earlier, after which children were expected to help in the fields with animals, house work, etc. before doing homework. The one pause, and really only time they wore nicer clothes, was on Sundays for church. The person who went to college would be back each summer to help with the grain and potato harvests. My life by comparison is a life of luxury.

New comment by mbajkowski in "Mapping Amazing: Bee Maps"

mbajkowski — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 16:55:15 +0000

Personally I don't mind running it and have been doing so for several years. Their app and camera/firmware have gotten a lot more stable since the early days. You can buy the camera out right and don't need to pay the monthly fee. Their tokens don't have much value but I have earned a sufficient amount when swapped to pay for the cameras over time. And if nothing more I contribute to a more uptodate map.

New comment by mbajkowski in "I ignore the spotlight as a staff engineer"

mbajkowski — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 19:16:52 +0000

Seems to me you have your Life Razor, per Sahil Bloom, pretty much in place for your current stage in life

New comment by mbajkowski in "Samsung makes ads on smart fridges official with upcoming software update"

mbajkowski — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 22:21:40 +0000

I can relate. Same for my parents. Washer and dryer still going strong after 30 years, same for the fridge which has been relegated to the basement since the paint has begun to chip. Microwave still works. And out of the three AC units they have, only one needed service. Maybe they are just exceptionally lucky compared to me. And these were not very expensive appliances for that time. I used to offer washers and dryers in rental properties for convenience, but their reliability has become so bad lately that it is not worth it.

New comment by mbajkowski in "Intel Foundry demonstrates first Arm-based chip on 18a node"

mbajkowski — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 19:31:32 +0000

This is already happening. The leading edge node wafers cost a fortune compared to older nodes. TSMC has limited capacity, as it takes years to bring new fabs online, and with competitors struggling they have great pricing power. Maybe why their revenue has roughly tripled over the last decade.

New comment by mbajkowski in "Riding high in Germany on the world's oldest suspended railway"

mbajkowski — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 12:28:20 +0000

Having lived there for several years I remember these to be quite loud. Maybe because the way they hang allows them to sway left to right a bit, and causes the metal wheels to make contact with the track at various angles. Quiet they were not, but fun to ride for sure, and a lot more punctual than busses.

New comment by mbajkowski in "Austin's Reign as a Tech Hub Might Be Coming to an End"

mbajkowski — Wed, 21 May 2025 20:53:59 +0000

Many of your comments are on point. But I'm a little curious about your negative view of CF. Care to explain why you think they take energy out of the system?

New comment by mbajkowski in "Austin's Reign as a Tech Hub Might Be Coming to an End"

mbajkowski — Tue, 20 May 2025 12:28:49 +0000

Agreed, a very shallow article with a few personal opinions. A little breather for Austin proper may be a good thing, housing prices and rents have come down significantly from a few years ago. The infrastructure is presently a mess and will be such for the next few years, along with the airport expansion. But the surrounding areas are still growing quickly, and there is no shortage of interesting startups in the area. The one obvious thing the article misse is the weather, which simply is not for everyone.

New comment by mbajkowski in "Australian Open resorts to animated caricatures to bypass broadcast restrictions"

mbajkowski — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 03:06:03 +0000

This is 100 percent the truth. Watching tennis in the US has become increasingly frustrating. I almost long for the old days where one could count on one of two channels to always have coverage. I wish Amazon, Netflix, YouTube or similar would step up and secure all the rights from college to Grand Slam tennis.

New comment by mbajkowski in "Parsing the C64 Bubble Bobble Wind Currents"

mbajkowski — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 15:03:27 +0000

Indeed, my kids who are 5 and 8 enjoy it about just as much as Mario Kart 8 - especially the earlier levels which require less of the balloon jumping.

New comment by mbajkowski in "Intel Reports Second Quarter 2024 Financial Results"

mbajkowski — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 14:31:43 +0000

To get high yields and a reliable process at these process nodes you need high throughout in the fabs, even with sophisticated models and simulations is my guess. At one point in time Intel had high throughput compared to the world via internal demand, which then translated into an advantage for their designs. Internal tools were build around this feedback loop, until that loop was no longer true. The throughput at external fabs far exceeded the throughput at Intel. While external fabs were designed to be used by all, Intel flows and fabs were not. Rather than adjusting to new reality quickly, and competing on design while exposing the fabs to customers, it seems Intel is now struggling mightely on both fronts.

New comment by mbajkowski in "Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions"

mbajkowski — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 02:49:32 +0000

Good question. Seems to suffer from same fate. Spot checking 2 years of order history across 2 common personal care products shows at least a 30% variation in price

New comment by mbajkowski in "Intel vs. Samsung vs. TSMC"

mbajkowski — Sun, 21 Jul 2024 15:21:44 +0000

The following in the article is pretty spot on ”Numerous industry sources say TSMC’s real strength is the ability to deliver process development kits for just about any process or package." There are countless flows and tools that need to get enabled, tested, etc. on the way to make a chip. TSMC has established a fairly good reputations delivering the required collateral. Just having a great process without proper PDKs will not get you anywhere fast

New comment by mbajkowski in "TSMC unveils 1.6nm process technology with backside power delivery"

mbajkowski — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 14:00:49 +0000

It is going to get even a bit more interesting when you consider power gaters and virtual power supplies. Now the real power will be on the back side and the virtual power will be on the front side. Fun time for power analysis.

New comment by mbajkowski in "6.2 GHz Intel Core I9-14900KS Review"

mbajkowski — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 13:10:14 +0000

Some of this is modeled over expected life-time / usage. In general, things such as electro migration, self-heating, bit-cell degradation, etc. are modeled either for 3y, 5y or 10y, depending on CPU, skew, and target market. Now, whether the process corner(s), voltage, frequency that was picked to perform this analysis is a good reflection of how the CPU is being actually used/pushed, is a different matter.

New comment by mbajkowski in "Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars"

mbajkowski — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 00:21:43 +0000

Thanks, I will give them a shot. My experience post pandemic with car rental companies, and Hertz in particular has been abysmal. Any sort of rental status with car rental companies ranks below VIP status with a rundown motel in the middle of nowhere. Credit card companies have been the only saving grace, as customer service for car rental companies is non existent.

New comment by mbajkowski in "The New Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen"

mbajkowski — Sun, 17 Dec 2023 00:15:23 +0000

Don't have any numbers myself, but per persons who recently attended KubeCon China earlier this year they have not seen Shanghai this empty of tourists in years. Also, supported by a friend of mine who was head of accounting for a cosumer goods firm over there until recently.