Hacker News: womble2

New comment by womble2 in "Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?"

womble2 — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 16:06:12 +0000

A month is probably excessive, but there are large regions of the world where its not uncommon for both solar and wind power to be running at <5% for multiple weeks in a row.

New comment by womble2 in "Show HN: Orate – On-device neural text-to-speech queue for Mac"

womble2 — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 22:40:49 +0000

Seems great, a keyboard shortcut for reading any text is nice and frictionless. I'd love to see a Linux version.

New comment by womble2 in "Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming"

womble2 — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 11:05:29 +0000

Of what use is an encyclopedia with "trash quality"?

New comment by womble2 in "The Radiation Exposure Lie"

womble2 — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 13:14:57 +0000

No it isn't. Storage capacity for energy is expensive, if you want to have a grid that is largely dependent on intermittent sources and still have a stable grid providing power at all times you need large amounts of storage as well as generating capacity.

For example if nuclear costs 1bn for a GW and solar+wind costs 0.6bn but you need to also install 0.5bn of storage to make the grid reliable to the safety margin you deem acceptable then it is no longer a cheaper system.

Amount of storage needed scales up rapidly as you get towards an grid with entirely intermittent generation.

New comment by womble2 in "Boffin claims Microsoft's "quantum leap" is invalid due to "basic Python errors""

womble2 — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 19:16:11 +0000

It is British, but actually using it dates you as still being stuck in the 90s (at the latest)

New comment by womble2 in "The UK's new under-16 social media ban will cause more harm than it prevents"

womble2 — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 09:21:41 +0000

Doesn't matter, if this goes through as is you will have to submit photo-id and/or facial scans linking you to a google account in order to watch any youtube other than the kids section.

New comment by womble2 in "Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore"

womble2 — Thu, 28 May 2026 06:43:10 +0000

They were made into social media, but when they were aquired they were just video hosting and sms replacements with little (no?) social engagement aspect.

New comment by womble2 in "Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels"

womble2 — Mon, 18 May 2026 13:55:46 +0000

OTOH solar is a lot less useful in the UK than in the US. The southern tip of the UK is north of all the major Canadian cities, in the depths of winter we get about 6 hours of daylight with the sun barely reaching 20 degrees above the horizon. The winter is also where most electricity usage is too, doubly so when you want to replace gas heating with a heat pump. No AC and summer daylight past 10pm means that residential electricy usage in the summer, when solar does make sense, is very low.

New comment by womble2 in "ARC-AGI-3"

womble2 — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 08:31:26 +0000

They assert that they dont have them, in the same way you (presumably) assert that you do have them. Neither have any further evidence and one is not a prioi more likely than the other.

New comment by womble2 in "Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)"

womble2 — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 11:35:12 +0000

Not only has the UK not stopped building wind, they have over 30GW of installed wind capacity and sell electricity to Ireland for most of the year.