Hacker News: nickmcc

New comment by nickmcc in "Show HN: Open-Source eInk Bike Computer"

nickmcc — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 18:57:39 +0000

Very cool! I made something similar recently with my Xteink X4 ereader - difference being it served as a UI for sensors connected to my phone. Getting the ESP32 to communicate directly to ANT sensors is pretty wild!

Heart Aerospace – X1 First Flight – Largest Electric Aircraft

nickmcc — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 20:24:05 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEudbAjschs

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49291367

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by nickmcc in "The Mighty Big Array of Finn Jensen LA8YB"

nickmcc — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 14:13:09 +0000

This antenna array is used for EME. For those not familiar with that acronym, it means using the moon as a radio reflector to send signals back to earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%E2%80%93Moon%E2%80%93Ear...

New comment by nickmcc in "World's biggest RC A380 [video]"

nickmcc — Mon, 04 May 2026 16:16:51 +0000

Fun fact: He builds these with / for the actor Tyler Perry, whom has a hanger and RC airstrip at his home.

New comment by nickmcc in "Show HN: I turned algae into a bio-altimeter and put it on a weather balloon"

nickmcc — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 04:39:41 +0000

As an alternative to Lora, check out https://github.com/projecthorus/wenet

New comment by nickmcc in "Weather Model based on ADS-B"

nickmcc — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 02:28:05 +0000

I think you could also infer storm tracks based on pilot deviations they often make following their on-board radar.

New comment by nickmcc in "NASA Whoosh Rocket"

nickmcc — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 03:52:18 +0000

For the latest in multi-stage high pressure, high altitude water powered rockets, this group is paving the way: https://youtu.be/xm-tGJxepUw?si=uGA--H1kPgBCVREd

Blue Ghost Mission 1 – Moon Landing [video]

nickmcc — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 20:14:50 +0000

Article URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflyspace/54365737995

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43259383

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by nickmcc in "Show HN: I built a CLI to automate depth tracking on underwater videos"

nickmcc — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 23:47:49 +0000

I wonder if you develop an ML model that uses brightness and color reduction cues in the video in order to estimate depth in lieu of a dive computer. I suspect cameras auto-exposure or underwater modes may nullify this.

New comment by nickmcc in "We Built the Saturn V (2017)"

nickmcc — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 00:49:24 +0000

> At more than $100 million each (equivalent to $750 million today), they departed Earth, then fell in pieces into the ocean.

Could you imagine the unit cost today, if we kept building Saturn V in an iteratively improving process? Even as an expendable rocket, the efficiencies from mass production and weight savings from miniaturizing avionics would have produced a very capable, affordable machine.

New comment by nickmcc in "We Built the Saturn V (2017)"

nickmcc — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 00:46:22 +0000

An individual F1 engine outperforms an individual Raptor 2/3.

New comment by nickmcc in "MIT largest open-source car design dataset, incl aerodynamics, to speed design"

nickmcc — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 18:05:18 +0000

Check out: https://ecalc.ch/wingdesigner.htm

New comment by nickmcc in "I built an ROV to solve missing person cases"

nickmcc — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 08:24:47 +0000

The team at CPSdrone (3D printed submersibles) made a very similar project to hunt for and identify a sunken plane: https://youtu.be/QnBfJzApJMg?si=vFGqMrqZOgFXMAoV

They also used an ArduRover powered catamaran and the same brand Sonar, but made a smaller deployable ROV.

New comment by nickmcc in "Stoke Space: 100% reusable rockets"

nickmcc — Sun, 19 May 2024 14:05:22 +0000

Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) has an overview and interview with Stoke from about a year ago: https://youtu.be/EY8nbSwjtEY?si=-kNtNUFpgiisgsUh

New comment by nickmcc in "Footage of World's First Drone Dogfight"

nickmcc — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 19:30:36 +0000

Yearly at FliteFest, an RC airplane festival put on by FliteTest, we hold a dogfight/combat with hundreds of airplanes. The only difference is no munitions (excluding pesky LiPo fires)

https://youtu.be/_NFBpoD6jcw?si=YwPuus0qeq8xgj4I

New comment by nickmcc in "Japan's first-ever soft lunar landing with SLIM spacecraft [video]"

nickmcc — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 21:46:45 +0000

Has anyone confirmed if LEV1 and LEV2 can continue to operate and communicate to earth independently from SLIM, if the SLIM batteries fail?

New comment by nickmcc in "WhisperSpeech – An open source text-to-speech system built by inverting Whisper"

nickmcc — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 02:32:56 +0000

I was looking at video on training a custom voice with Piper, following a tutorial at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_we_jma220, and noticed how the datasets required metadata of the text for the source audio files. This training method by Collabora seems to automate that process and only requires an audio file for training.

WhisperSpeech – An open source text-to-speech system built by inverting Whisper

nickmcc — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 02:29:58 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/collabora/WhisperSpeech

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39036796

Points: 464

# Comments: 114

New comment by nickmcc in "Toy Theater – Educational Games for Kids"

nickmcc — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 01:33:14 +0000

I stumbled across this surprisingly delightful source of games and educational tools while trying to explain analog clocks to my son. I'm impressed by the simplicity of the design and lack of login or advertising.

On the tech side, looks like the creator uses Javascript to create HTML5 canvas elements with: https://createjs.com/easeljs

Toy Theater – Educational Games for Kids

nickmcc — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 01:33:14 +0000

Article URL: https://toytheater.com/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38650005

Points: 3

# Comments: 1