Hacker News: sephamorr

New comment by sephamorr in "Why Texas Is Making Data Centers Wait"

sephamorr — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 23:07:30 +0000

Most flaring happens where there isn't gathering infrastructure, for example byproduct gas at an oil (only) well.

New comment by sephamorr in "I would like the value of my home to rise, while my property taxes fall"

sephamorr — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 18:08:15 +0000

It isn't because the comment had a second sentence suggesting tax deferrals were fair.

New comment by sephamorr in "I would like the value of my home to rise, while my property taxes fall"

sephamorr — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 16:31:22 +0000

What poverty--she owns a house worth $500k. I think deferral schemes where certain individuals can pay taxes upon sale of the home (with fair interest) should be fine to avoid forcing anyone into a reverse mortgage.

New comment by sephamorr in "Google’s Project Suncatcher to put ML infrastructure in space"

sephamorr — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 03:04:00 +0000

The earth isn't exactly round, you can use this to process your orbit exactly 360deg/year so you can always stay in the sun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-synchronous_orbit

New comment by sephamorr in "Photon-Emission-Guided Laser Fault Injection Enables RP2350 Secure Debug"

sephamorr — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 18:52:34 +0000

"Important" and "tamper proof against a determined adversary" are very different goals.

New comment by sephamorr in "'Offensively cheap': solar power is looking up"

sephamorr — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 14:24:05 +0000

For a residential setting, installation quality probably dominates, and I doubt country of origin is statistically significant. Otherwise look at warranties which specify a performance curve over lifetime (generally 25y, also some are independently guaranteed by an insurance company that might actually survive that long). There are public performance datasets from NREL, TUV, but be careful about choosing representative examples (e.g. utility scale reliability is different from rooftop)

New comment by sephamorr in "So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂"

sephamorr — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 22:52:44 +0000

I haven't installed one yet, but plan to in my house. I'll probably end up buying an assembly, but they seem pretty spendy for what is really a very cheap BOM.

New comment by sephamorr in "So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂"

sephamorr — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 20:52:04 +0000

I think what you really want is an Energy Recovery Ventilator. It cycles in fresh air and uses an intercooler to limit the heat and humidity loss.

New comment by sephamorr in "An ESP32 based plane radar for my desk"

sephamorr — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 03:24:10 +0000

I would actually expect the math to decode ads-b traffic is substantially less complex than, for example, a TLS connection.

New comment by sephamorr in "Africans Are Turning to Starlink"

sephamorr — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 01:34:58 +0000

The max steering angles of the phased arrays are much higher, the diameter is at least 10x what you say. And for the last few years, lasercoms can route traffic inside the constellation so a given sat doesn't need to be within sight of a ground station.

New comment by sephamorr in "CT scans of BYD car parts"

sephamorr — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 22:16:55 +0000

On the platforms I've worked with, the weight isn't the issue so much as the quantity of expensive and vibe sensitive parts that are unsprung.

New comment by sephamorr in "Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test"

sephamorr — Fri, 29 May 2026 06:38:40 +0000

The doubt is supposed to stay with you! You need to make sure there aren't other causes or contributing factors hiding behind 'the obvious'. There have been notorious cases in spaceflight where the issue was 'identified' and 'fixed', only for the same thing issue to happen in the next mission.

New comment by sephamorr in "Southwest Headquarters Tour"

sephamorr — Tue, 05 May 2026 05:12:53 +0000

This is correct. If you don't like heights, that's definitely not a reason to skip the tour, but you'll miss out on one piece (that I enjoyed).

New comment by sephamorr in "Southwest Headquarters Tour"

sephamorr — Mon, 04 May 2026 07:16:54 +0000

Seconding this! Make sure you get the "special tour". It was an absolute highlight of my trip. If you are interested in power infrasture it's a must see. If you're afraid of heights, perhaps not so much.

New comment by sephamorr in "Let's Buy Spirit Air"

sephamorr — Mon, 04 May 2026 03:32:24 +0000

JetBlue is a small rival (JetBlue at ~5% of US traffic, Spirit at ~3%) to the big 4 United/American/Southwest/Delta (each with ~17%). At least on the surface, a larger JetBlue might be more competitive rather than forcing them into the unequal partnerships like they have with United at the moment. Certainly, some jobs would be lost, but I do think that Spirit dying is a worse outcome than joining another small airline.

New comment by sephamorr in "Artemis II is not safe to fly"

sephamorr — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 05:19:49 +0000

This is actually what is thought to partially have caused the damage seen previously. The new trajectory is supposed to just have a single heating pulse instead of two.

New comment by sephamorr in "China is mass-producing hypersonic missiles for $99,000"

sephamorr — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 21:51:47 +0000

Well, the IRGC folks actually fighting probably don't have a luxurious future in a reformed Iran, so they might not be far off fighting for their lives.

New comment by sephamorr in "iPhone 17e"

sephamorr — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 02:36:47 +0000

The phones get larger and the UI gets less information dense every release. More padding, more offsets, more dead space.

New comment by sephamorr in "FDA declines to review Moderna's mRNA flu shot"

sephamorr — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 08:55:32 +0000

The document describes proof of effectiveness as supported by demonstrating "non inferiority to... a US licensed product". So yes, a (licensed) benchmark, but I see no references to a requirement for only testing against the best standard of care. It's a separate question about whether it should be though, and the cfr is quite vague throughout, so I would probably expect this isn't an illegal move (assuming arbitrary and capricious isn't held by a court), but I don't see it supported by precedent.

New comment by sephamorr in "FDA declines to review Moderna's mRNA flu shot"

sephamorr — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 05:11:14 +0000

Except this is not how medical regulation has worked in the US. This particularly is a new and stricter standard required for this particular vaccine. Even the new Trump policies for COVID vaccines now specifically requires a placebo -- comparison against standard-of-care would not be accepted.