<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: nerdralph</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nerdralph</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:39:56 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=nerdralph" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "Electrical transformer manufacturing is throttling the electrified future"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>HVDC transmission over 100kV lines are common now.
<a href="https://www.emeranl.com/maritime-link/overview" rel="nofollow">https://www.emeranl.com/maritime-link/overview</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 04 Apr 2026 22:12:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47644050</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47644050</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47644050</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "Scientists crack a 20-year nuclear mystery behind the creation of gold"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Since you didn't show your math, I did a quick calculation.  .45J/g/C specific heat of iron means .45MJ/tonne.  1811K to melt iron means 815MJ/tonne.  3.6kWh/MJ, so 226.4 kWh should melt 1t of iron.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 23:40:35 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47608115</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47608115</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47608115</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "AI for American-produced cement and concrete"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Concrete mixes have become more complicated over time.  Flyash has been around for a while, GU/L is relatively new and seems to set faster, often requiring retarders.  Many different water-reducing additives are available.  Air entraining agents tend to reduce strength.  Fibers or steel pins added to the mix can improve crack resistance.<p>Batch plants will design mixes so some water can be added on site to improve workability.  If you don't add water, the concrete will likely exceed spec.<p>A slump test is only one factor if many that impact concrete strength.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:50:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47605669</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47605669</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47605669</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I know.  AIKO has been using copper in their BC cells, and LONGi is making the transition.  Many TOPCon cell manufacturers are using silver-coated copper pastes, but full copper metallization is unlikely to happen in the next year or two.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Feb 2026 23:58:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47159865</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47159865</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47159865</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Don't start with a 5MW project.  Start with a 10-20kW ground-mount project in your back yard.  Then build a 100-200kW project before trying MW.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Feb 2026 21:27:11 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47158118</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47158118</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47158118</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Panels prices bottomed about a year ago below many manufacturer's cash cost, and have gone mostly sideways since.
<a href="https://www.pvxchange.com/Price-Index" rel="nofollow">https://www.pvxchange.com/Price-Index</a><p>If silver stays above $70/oz, prices will likely go up by 5-10%.<p>Until Perovskite tandem technology matures, there's unlikely to be any significant reduction in PV module prices.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Feb 2026 21:23:08 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47158071</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47158071</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47158071</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "Show HN: A Unix environment in a single HTML file (420 KB)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The gcc stub surprised me:<p><pre><code>  user@shiro:/tmp/hn$ cat main.c
  #include <stdio.h>
  int main()
  {
    printf("Hello\n");
  }

  user@shiro:/tmp/hn$ cc main.c -o main; ./main
  Hello, World!

  user@shiro:/tmp/hn$ cat main
  #!/bin/sh
  echo 'Hello, World!'</code></pre></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 16:57:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47063154</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47063154</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47063154</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "Martial arts robots dazzle at 2026 Spring Festival Gala [video]"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm intrigued.  I'd like to see an analysis of how this was done.  My first guess is they record humans doing the moves, and then map that to the robot movements.  Then I'd like to see a teardown of one of the robots to understand their construction.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 13:13:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47060597</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47060597</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47060597</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "Claude Sonnet 4.6"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm using Sonnet with a free account.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 02:27:53 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47056405</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47056405</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47056405</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "Claude Sonnet 4.6"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The mouse is invisible on the splash screen, except for when I manage to move it over the play button.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 23:50:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47055160</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47055160</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47055160</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "Claude Sonnet 4.6"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Are you saying Haiku is better than Sonnet for some coding use?  I've used Sonnet 4.5 for python and basic web development (pure JS, CCS & HTML) and had assumed Haiku wouldn't be very good for coding.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 23:44:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47055113</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47055113</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47055113</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "GLM-5: Targeting complex systems engineering and long-horizon agentic tasks"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Maybe it is just the HN effect, but it is really slow.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:07:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46983049</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46983049</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46983049</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "The Legacy of Daniel Kahneman: A Personal View (2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Isn't "I know" just a subjective threshold for the probability of being true?  A layman may put that probability at 90%, while I scientist may put the probability at 99.999% before saying, "I know".</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 08 Feb 2026 17:33:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46936517</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46936517</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46936517</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "The Legacy of Daniel Kahneman: A Personal View (2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" and some of the other references in the article.  I found Kahneman's arguments persuasive, however the article makes me re-evaluate those conclusions.<p>When asked what is more probable, I think in terms of statistical probabilities.  However the article makes an interesting argument that most people don't define the term, "more probable" the same way.  I'm not convinced Kahneman was wrong, but I do see how simple changes in the wording of a question can lead to a material difference in answers.  I also see that my own interpretation regarding the "correct" meaning of words aligned with Kahneman, and contributed to my general agreement with his conclusions.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 08 Feb 2026 13:55:41 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46934211</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46934211</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46934211</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "Heritability of intrinsic human life span is about 50%"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>There's a lot of genes that impact lifespan, both good and bad.  For example my father has hereditary hemochromatosis due to 2 copies of the HFE C282Y mutation.  He was diagnosed in his 50's, so I'd expect the damage it did to his body to impact lifespan.<p>In my case I don't have it (I'm just a genetic carrier).  If I did have the genotype and took the necessary dietary measures to avoid the phenotype, then it likely wouldn't impact lifespan.<p>On one hand you can argue a heritable disease like HHC has an impact on lifespan, but with genetic testing and treatment you can argue it doesn't impact lifespan (or it's impact is significantly mitigated).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 03 Feb 2026 17:24:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46873953</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46873953</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46873953</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "The 'untouchable hacker god' behind Finland's biggest crime"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Julius Kivimäki was released pending the outcome of his appeal.
<a href="https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/finnish-vastaamo-hacker-freed-while-appealing-conviction-a-29442" rel="nofollow">https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/finnish-vastaamo-hacker-fre...</a><p>The article cites "Ryan" as one of his aliases, so the id ryanlol commenting in this thread could plausibly be Kivimäki.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 17 Jan 2026 17:34:39 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46659993</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46659993</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46659993</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "The 500k-ton typo: Why data center copper math doesn't add up"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Most residential 200A electrical panels use tin plated aluminum busbars.
<a href="https://www.eaton.com/cr/en-us/catalog/power-connections/busbars.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.eaton.com/cr/en-us/catalog/power-connections/bus...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 15 Jan 2026 16:55:38 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46635455</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46635455</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46635455</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image misuse"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>As a common-law legal system, I would expect Ireland to have something similar to Canada's Criminal Code identity fraud.<p><pre><code>    403 (1) Everyone commits an offence who fraudulently personates another person, living or dead,

        (a) with intent to gain advantage for themselves or another person;

        (b) with intent to obtain any property or an interest in any property;

        (c) with intent to cause disadvantage to the person being personated or another person; or

        (d) with intent to avoid arrest or prosecution or to obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice.

    Marginal note:Clarification

    (2) For the purposes of subsection (1), personating a person includes pretending to be the person or using the person’s identity information — whether by itself or in combination with identity information pertaining to any person — as if it pertains to the person using it.

    Marginal note:Punishment

    (3) Everyone who commits an offence under subsection (1)

        (a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than 10 years; or

        (b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.</code></pre></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 12 Jan 2026 18:30:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46592304</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46592304</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46592304</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "Autism should not be treated as a single condition"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I got my diagnosis shortly after the DSM-5 release but my psychologist also gave me the DSM-IV Asperger's diagnosis at my request.  I tell people I'm an Aspie, and that it is considered to be on the autism spectrum.  I prefer the Aspie label because it is more specific.  My interpretation was that the DSM-5 grouped it under autism spectrum distorders.  I've never met a psychologist or psychiatrist that considered the autism spectrum to be a single condition.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:40:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46155399</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46155399</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46155399</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by nerdralph in "Most Stable Raspberry Pi? Better NTP with Thermal Management"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>And TCXOs are surprisingly cheap.  Less than $2 when I looked at some of Abracon's offerings.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 26 Nov 2025 02:20:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46053488</link><dc:creator>nerdralph</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46053488</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46053488</guid></item></channel></rss>