Hacker News: sunshinesnacks

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'"

sunshinesnacks — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:28:10 +0000

Capacity shortfalls and needs to conserve (i.e., asking customers to reduce usage) are not necessarily 1:1 with rate increases and overall electricity costs. Especially in the short term.

In other words, large “base loads” like data centers could both reduce the average power bill AND contribute to capacity shortages and load shedding.

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "A 1976 university experiment spun up the U.S. wind industry"

sunshinesnacks — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 02:22:15 +0000

Great article! Paul Gipe’s website is also a great resource for anyone interested in the history of wind energy.

https://wind-works.org/wind/history-of-wind-power/

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "Childhood Computing"

sunshinesnacks — Tue, 26 May 2026 12:46:38 +0000

True. But in terms of kids being able to explore computers, I think it’s a pretty good platform. What’s a better alternative?

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "Childhood Computing"

sunshinesnacks — Sun, 24 May 2026 22:26:07 +0000

> What worries me now is that so much technology is so locked down

Raspberry Pi is a nice exception. I know there are other good examples, but it was the first thing I thought of…

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "Tesla is recalling its cheaper Cybertruck because the wheels might fall off"

sunshinesnacks — Fri, 08 May 2026 15:03:16 +0000

> AWD doesn't help you stop in bad weather

I frequently think about this when weather gets bad! I already have AWB (all wheel braking?). Seems like AWD could make it too easy to get in a situation where my AWB isn’t sufficient to stop

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "America's Geothermal Breakthrough"

sunshinesnacks — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 02:19:06 +0000

EGS has been around for at least 15 years. See AltaRock Energy as an example (I’m sure there are others). They started almost 20 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaRock_Energy

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair"

sunshinesnacks — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:26:58 +0000

Maybe. But the original context here is an article about removing lead from gasoline. Which I’m pretty sure that helped many people based on the “greater good”.

There’s no copper sulfate in canned green beans or borax in beef. Those seem all around good.

Let’s agree that impacts of regulations are nuanced, and not try to condense it down to something overly simplistic like, “regulations hurt poor people”.

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair"

sunshinesnacks — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 14:56:12 +0000

> They constantly affect the poor more than the middle class.

That’s a very broad statement. I expect there are many cases where that is not true.

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction"

sunshinesnacks — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 02:22:42 +0000

None of the points you were responding to are “in theory”.

You are proposing something that sounds like killing the US wind industry and then simply bringing it back later. That probably would work well, especially when projects have development lead times of several to many years.

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction"

sunshinesnacks — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 02:19:08 +0000

That’s only because of the thermal storage. The output of the solar collectors is massively impacted by clouds, also just by haze and aerosols, much more than PV, which is happy with diffuse and direct sunlight.

Then there’s the cost, which has not been good for CSP’s market share.

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "Coffee linked to slower biological ageing among those with severe mental illness"

sunshinesnacks — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 02:42:46 +0000

Good point. It was all locally roasted beans at that point, so maybe that was what made the difference. Or at least contributed a lot.

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "Coffee linked to slower biological ageing among those with severe mental illness"

sunshinesnacks — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 02:38:37 +0000

I cut coffee for a year or so 10 years ago due to stomach issues, then slowly added fancy espresso drinks back, figuring that if I was only having coffee once a week, it might as well be fancy. I don’t seem to have stomach issues now with 1-2 lattes/cappuccinos a day.

Maybe it’s unrelated, all in my head, better beans, or the 3-4 oz of whole milk, but maybe give espresso drinks a try if you haven’t?

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "WeatherNext 2: Our most advanced weather forecasting model"

sunshinesnacks — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 21:41:22 +0000

The goal of using CRPS is to produce an ensemble that is a good probabilistic forecast without needing calibration/post processing.

[edit: "without", not "with"]

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "Building the Future with Blockly at the Raspberry Pi Foundation"

sunshinesnacks — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 03:45:57 +0000

From the Raspberry Pi blog post on taking over Blockly:

> Platforms like Scratch, MakeCode, and MIT’s App Inventor are all built with Blockly. It’s no exaggeration to say that hundreds of millions of young people have learnt the fundamentals of computer science using software that is built with Blockly.

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "Building the Future with Blockly at the Raspberry Pi Foundation"

sunshinesnacks — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 02:14:00 +0000

Building the Future with Blockly at the Raspberry Pi Foundation

sunshinesnacks — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 02:14:00 +0000

Article URL: https://opensource.googleblog.com/2025/10/blockly-graduates-from-google.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45871556

Points: 2

# Comments: 3

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "Solar panels + cold = A potential problem"

sunshinesnacks — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 13:57:53 +0000

Voc is just the open circuit voltage measured at the terminals (plugs). “Nameplate” Voc is at standard test conditions (STC) of 1000 W/m^2, 25 deg C cell temperature, and a standard are mass/spectrum. The combo of 1000 W/m^2 and 25 C cell temp is not common in the real world in most climates, but still happens. Even relatively hot climates can have times in winter that exceed nameplate Voc if inverters turn off (making the panels go to open circuit).

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "World Wide Lightning Location Network"

sunshinesnacks — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 15:01:35 +0000

Hey! That’s exciting! Open-meteo is great.

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "World Wide Lightning Location Network"

sunshinesnacks — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 14:09:16 +0000

Open-meteo does have ECMWF data and forecasts. Free for non-commercial use. I think the person behind open-meteo is on HN.

New comment by sunshinesnacks in "World Wide Lightning Location Network"

sunshinesnacks — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 13:37:42 +0000

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but ECMWF provides a lot of data and forecasts for free [1]. And they are increasing the amount of data that is free [2].

[1] https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/open-data

[2] https://www.ecmwf.int/en/about/media-centre/news/2025/ecmwf-...