Hacker News: ragebol

New comment by ragebol in "Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment"

ragebol — Wed, 20 May 2026 14:24:05 +0000

Never realized this, mind blown :-)

New comment by ragebol in "High-precision HDC reference instrument for the Sol Star System"

ragebol — Tue, 12 May 2026 07:33:47 +0000

I thought time zones were difficult & a PITA, but at least I understand the words used with those.

I can't imagine the amount of work, over generations/centuries(?) that this library is based on. And now available for free for anyone to use (if they understand what they are doing). Amazing.

New comment by ragebol in "Spain has become one of Europe’s cheapest power markets"

ragebol — Sun, 10 May 2026 19:30:58 +0000

Spain's neighbors could also have lower energy prices with more interconnection to Spain. The whole network diversifies, which would be more beneficial for Europe as a whole.

New comment by ragebol in "GeoJSON"

ragebol — Fri, 08 May 2026 12:53:14 +0000

Have been using GeoJSON, very handy and human-readable, but we recently switched to GeoPackage files, as it allows for different layers, each with a different schema for additional data.

GeoPackages also allow to set a proper CRS, which is not as easy in GeoJSON IIRC.

Getting your CRSes wrong is fun...

New comment by ragebol in "The brave souls who bought a used, 340k-mile rental camper van"

ragebol — Thu, 07 May 2026 14:51:22 +0000

But not while all inside a van right? Plz...

New comment by ragebol in "The brave souls who bought a used, 340k-mile rental camper van"

ragebol — Thu, 07 May 2026 14:20:16 +0000

> families

IDK about you, but traveling with a family would be an effective anti-conception for me (also Dutch)

And effective for my folks as well when they took my siblings to tour the west coast in an RV when we were teens, AFAICT.

Traveling with just my SO OTOH...

New comment by ragebol in "Germany Overtakes US in Ammunition Production Capacity"

ragebol — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 17:55:26 +0000

In a functioning democracy, this should not be possible. There should be check and balances.

Reading a bit about Wilhelm II: so many parallels indeed. "Dreamt of a great colonial power", had to deal with some form of democracy, making incoherent replies, ... And more.

New comment by ragebol in "Germany Overtakes US in Ammunition Production Capacity"

ragebol — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 09:01:06 +0000

All true, but that does not create a fossil fuel dependency, it just prolongs an already existing one.

New comment by ragebol in "Germany Overtakes US in Ammunition Production Capacity"

ragebol — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 08:58:29 +0000

I don't agree with those a lot. At some age, ones use of language stops/slows evolving I suppose.

New comment by ragebol in "Germany Overtakes US in Ammunition Production Capacity"

ragebol — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 08:57:21 +0000

Corrected

New comment by ragebol in "Germany Overtakes US in Ammunition Production Capacity"

ragebol — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 08:17:54 +0000

The more shocking thing might even be that this whole mess is allowed to continue and that there is no way to stop an out of hand situation. The whole US system can't be trusted even when this administration is gone, it's just broken.

New comment by ragebol in "Germany Overtakes US in Ammunition Production Capacity"

ragebol — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 08:15:41 +0000

How do renewables create a dependency on fossil fuels? This dependency already existed before renewables in the current sense were a thing.

If anything, renewables help existing stock of fossil fuels last longer as you don't burn as much when renewables are generating.

New comment by ragebol in "Germany Overtakes US in Ammunition Production Capacity"

ragebol — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 07:24:17 +0000

It's still baffling to see the US lose so much face in so short a time.

There is definitely truth that Europe has relied on US defense for too long, but what the US got in return is hard to put into words and economic terms. We bought your tech, culture, defense and so much other stuff.

This rift won't close anytime soon

New comment by ragebol in "Can You Find the Comet?"

ragebol — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 15:14:56 +0000

Have you heard of Kessler Syndrome?

More satellites means higher risk on that happening and not going to space until all the debris of a collision deorbits.

New comment by ragebol in "Can You Find the Comet?"

ragebol — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 08:21:08 +0000

Yeah, I kinda get why astronomers are not particularly happy with satellite constellations.

New comment by ragebol in "3.4M Solar Panels"

ragebol — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 18:34:39 +0000

Can fit more if you tilt them a little bit. Also easier for maintenance/access, although they don't need much if at all beyond some cleaning.

New comment by ragebol in "3.4M Solar Panels"

ragebol — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 15:01:36 +0000

Yep, sounds all too familiar.

I installed a east/west facing set myself on our flat roof. Looking at dynamic power prices of the preceding year, multiplied by expected power output. Even wrote a simple space optimizer for this one time. But messed up some measurements so had to change on the fly anyways. The old adagium still holds: measure once and curse twice.

New comment by ragebol in "3.4M Solar Panels"

ragebol — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 14:16:12 +0000

Thnx!

Seems to match my experience as well, I got a set of 12 south facing panels and a set of 12 split over east and west on my flat roof. The E/W start and end a bit before/after the south facing set.

New comment by ragebol in "3.4M Solar Panels"

ragebol — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 13:59:25 +0000

Thanks, interesting to see!

New comment by ragebol in "3.4M Solar Panels"

ragebol — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 13:57:54 +0000

Tilt should correlate to latitude for panels with an azimuth due South.

For panels with east/west azimuth, the tilt should correlate with where the sun is at 7-8AM and 17-18PM, at least in my area.

((I think you have your concept of azimuth and tilt mixed up; I know I have when I was originally typing a different parent comment)