Hacker News: triactual

New comment by triactual in "Ultrathin business card runs a fluid simulation"

triactual — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 14:59:48 +0000

The surface tension of the solder will pull them into alignment if the pad shape and solder volume are correct.

New comment by triactual in "Cadence Guilty, Pays $140M for Exporting Semi Design Tools to PRC Military Uni"

triactual — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 15:07:49 +0000

If you read the article, you will see that the technology is specifically semiconductor design tools required for developing high performance computing that the PRC would use for nuclear weapons development. Can you do that with KiCAD? No.

New comment by triactual in "Apple will soon receive 'made in America' chips from TSMC's Arizona fab"

triactual — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 18:51:36 +0000

Weren’t the Intel CPUs made in the US?

New comment by triactual in "In a rare disclosure, The Pentagon provides an update on the X-37B spaceplane"

triactual — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 14:29:22 +0000

It would be for indefensible decapitation strikes. A world leader who would launch a surprise first strike is almost certainly narcissistic enough to be susceptible to blackmail by a threat on their own life. A world leader who is not concerned with their own life but that of their countrymen will likely not launch a surprise first strike and so MAD still works.

New comment by triactual in "Why is a second equal to the duration of 9,192,631,770 of radiations? (2016)"

triactual — Sun, 29 Oct 2023 03:35:54 +0000

The isotopic content of the water matters too. Boiling point are not used to calibrate thermometers though. Freeze points and triple points are used for temperature calibration. And outside of a primary standards lab, it’s usually just a transfer standard (another, more accurate thermometer).

New comment by triactual in "The threat on your desk: Building an evil USB-C dock"

triactual — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 01:05:29 +0000

Sorry, I think I misunderstood your original comment - we’re having the same thought with MITM. Definitely more technically challenging but much harder to detect.

New comment by triactual in "The threat on your desk: Building an evil USB-C dock"

triactual — Sun, 12 Mar 2023 14:20:36 +0000

My point is that no matter what you tell the OS, there will still be one more device connected than expected. If you plug in a keyboard and two are suddenly connected, it’s still very noticeable. This counting problem is occurring at the hardware level in the USB hubs and host. The attacker needs to compromise an external hub to behave like a USB protocol analyzer capable of intercepting and modifying data seamlessly in order for an attack like this to be anything other than trivially detectable. Fitting something like that into an existing enclosure means writing lots of low level code and embedded hardware design which is a different level of difficulty.

New comment by triactual in "The threat on your desk: Building an evil USB-C dock"

triactual — Sun, 12 Mar 2023 05:15:55 +0000

Yeah, this is more of a UI problem that could be solved with a little effort. I would be concerned about a device that replaced the hub itself rather than simply adding a function. The core issue is that a system can always notify the user of newly connected devices (Windows seems to about half the time). But a malicious MCU emulating a hub and compromising or stealing data at the USB protocol level could appear exactly as expected. It could key log, inject, etc., undetected because it doesn’t have to interact with kernel drivers as anything other than the expected hub.

New comment by triactual in "The threat on your desk: Building an evil USB-C dock"

triactual — Sun, 12 Mar 2023 02:43:28 +0000

Maybe I’m missing something but these USB attacks require interaction with kernel drivers so if you plug in a dock that then presents mysterious storage or HID functions, you’re going to know.

New comment by triactual in "Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook"

triactual — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 02:23:03 +0000

They all leverage the masses. That’s the whole point. Otherwise it’s just a coup.

New comment by triactual in "Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook"

triactual — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 00:29:37 +0000

No, you are exactly backwards. Did the People’s Revolution win or did the students win? I seem to remember that the students were run over by tanks. Probably not being driven by highly educated PLA commanders.

New comment by triactual in "Scarcity and precarity in small manufacturing"

triactual — Sun, 05 Jun 2022 17:47:57 +0000

With ST, specifically, I'm not seeing a lack of Silicon but a lack of lead frames. The recent shutdowns in China caused several batches of lead frames to expire unused, creating a big gap moving through the supply chain. Chip-scale packages have better availability.

New comment by triactual in "Framework laptop water damage repair attempt using partial schematic [video]"

triactual — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 03:53:13 +0000

What really kills me is that none of the complainers have any experience designing consumer hardware let alone running a business that sells those designs. Owning lots of hardware whose design is beyond your ken is not the same thing as designing hardware and running a profitable hardware business. Everyone will be sad when Framework doesn’t make it and no one will reflect on these BS comments and the unnecessary ill will they sow.

Sometimes there is no conspiracy to rip off all ten people off who want to repair their board. Like they’re going to spend any time figuring out how to make an extra $3k. They might just be trying to keep their IP and stay around long enough to make good on the things they did promise: modular hardware.

New comment by triactual in "Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize"

triactual — Sat, 02 Apr 2022 04:19:09 +0000

It’s genuinely terrifying. There seems to be no recognition that you cannot have labor unions and environmental protections with out tariffs to even the playing field with less scrupulous countries. We are rapidly approaching a time where only the military industrial complex retains any manufacturing expertise.

New comment by triactual in "Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize"

triactual — Sat, 02 Apr 2022 01:51:55 +0000

This is pure fantasy. Minimum wage in the US is 2-10x what it is in low cost regions. Not even touching regulations. US experts travel to those regions to hand-hold every step necessary in order to make any product not forced to be built in the US by taxes or regulation. I did this for years and I hate it. I have worked for years in both American and foreign factories and I can assure you that they can automate just as well so there is no hope without government intervention in the form of tariffs. US labor currently competes on a global market.

New comment by triactual in "Piece of paper quiets Intel Alder Lake stock coolers"

triactual — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 19:33:22 +0000

Not flame proof though. You don’t want to put flammable things in something like a computer case that will be running unattended. I get that people do this stuff all the time with no issue. Just know the risks before taking them.

New comment by triactual in "Piece of paper quiets Intel Alder Lake stock coolers"

triactual — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 14:38:09 +0000

UL94-V0 polycarbonate sheet or fish paper. Heatsink could easily get over the glass temp of common 3D printing materials like PLA or PETG.

New comment by triactual in "The hunt for Nigerians who can change into cats"

triactual — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 16:54:28 +0000

Previous comment means materialism as defined in philosophy. Not materialistic.

New comment by triactual in "Heat people, not spaces (2015)"

triactual — Sun, 27 Feb 2022 05:26:53 +0000

If it’s an IC engine, the convection heating is waste heat from the engine. So the electric heaters in the wheel and seats are massively less efficient.

New comment by triactual in "Find You: Building a stealth AirTag clone"

triactual — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 02:57:41 +0000

If Apple doesn’t know, how does the user know? I thought Apple was just anonymizing but still centralizing the data. Genuine question.