Liftyee

I love reading about the exploits of radio amateurs. This is some seriously impressive engineering too. It's surprising what one can do with off the shelf components assembled on a human scale (instead of microwave frequencies which need much smaller circuits).

Also, there's a certain beauty in staying close to the physical layer and working the airwaves yourself.

While this is neat, it strikes me as the software developer's idea of a "smart fan". The engineer in me says that an actual "smart fan" would be one whose blades are designed to produce maximum airflow with minimum noise (variable pitch? avoiding turbulence?)

This is an odd and interesting effect. I experienced it and English is my first language.

Couldn't figure out "binding" because in the process of permuting the letters it got sounded out as "bin ding" which I immediately rejected as "not a word". It seems like it's intuitive to permute letters but I forget that you have to permute the sound too, otherwise it won't parse as a word.

Though, the new data centers are not entirely the same. Increasing use of onsite gas turbines to generate power instead of using grid power changes their noise+air pollution profile.

I would hesitate to say the IKEA is worse. Inside the IKEA is a reputable Sensirion all in one sensor module. It's much cheaper and smaller because the CO2 sensor in it is using different (newer) technology that only released a few years ago from Sensirion.

(Upd: the IKEA does have lower accuracy, with ±100 ppm instead of ±30 ppm. From the SEN63C datasheet)

Smarter device would just require a little more cost. Current devices can work with no code, just analog electronics.

Far too slow to complete and too many clicks. I'm surprised it's not using a binary search method easy-hard-easy ... Then it could show an in progress metric.

A factor not mentioned is Japan's cultural sense of duty and honour. I don't think employees in the West generally feel such dedication or perfectionism towards their company but in Japan it helped make all these efficient and meticulous changes possible, and avoids issues of privatisation like neglecting maintenance / short term profit maximisation.

I read about the clandestine midnight destruction of Meigs Field, Chicago - somehow the first one I happened upon. The mayor had the runway bulldozed in the night so that no one could have time to object. Unbelievable and mildly infuriating story.

Apparently the main motivation was to have a legacy...

Regardless of whether this is legal or not, I think this move is subjectively scummy. I know that profit maximisation means going against common ideas of what is "a nice thing to do", but there's a line that's been crossed here between "the business has to support itself" and "trying to exploit and milk our customers".

Honestly, if storage costs were an issue, I would have preferred they delete it with notification than sell hope at a ransom.

Wonder if there any startups that have grown without resorting to these low blow tactics - just the idealised free market of "we provide such a good service that you're willing to pay us our fair price".

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of the economy is that money is earned when someone creates value. Just "giving people money" without having the corresponding value be created increases demand for valuable things without increasing supply, leading to inflation and the costs of said things going up.

I see Kiro's guess and raise you an anecdote. I just turned animations off on my Android device, and instantly it feels faster and more responsive.

Maybe software programs got faster with our faster CPUs but all the animations just made everything feel slow.

I wonder if there's a tragedy of the commons effect with hiring. No individual company wants to spend to train employees when they can just use the pool of trained employees from other companies.

Very intriguing. This might be the use for my e5-2430 V2 X2 server that's been lying around. DDR3 is (relatively) cheap now too. Could fit 192GB of RAM in it and play around for much cheaper than a new GPU.

I haven't used local agentic AI yet for programming projects. Hence, -187 score

The filter for "commands I would run myself" and "commands I would let an agent run" are very different it seems.

It would be a shame to see Dropbox decline. They're the last big player to maintain a Linux sync client that just works reliably. I've tried to host Nextcloud and tried Syncthing as well, but Dropbox has always worked for when I just want the problem solved without worrying about something going down.

Open to recommendations...

Interesting finding, but hardly fundamental. My fluids lectures taught that there's form drag ("pressure drag" in the article) and skin friction drag. The two trade off with each other depending on Reynolds number. Keeping the flow laminar reduces skin friction drag (suggesting smooth skin), but keeping the flow attached for longer (e.g. by inducing turbulence, or injecting air...) reduces form drag (at a cost of increased skin friction due to turbulence).

Reads like they've discovered a neat way to delay flow separation while maintaining laminar flow, but the underlying principles have not changed. "Smooth thing low drag" was never a rule and only works at certain scales.

I suspect those people lack the practical skills needed to construct such a table, and the time/motivation to create with their own hands instead of purchasing.

I also suspect the modern digital news cycle and potential lawsuits have impacted the levels of risk acceptable. In China, with devastation in living memory, the population are generally willing to take more risks, and there's less of a culture of litigation. Plus, there's always the government who can dampen any viral social media outburst.

Of course, some standards (fire safety) are important. Looser standards are allowable where the customer can make a reasoned judgement of risk.

It's counterintuitive, but I've heard an explanation that the alternative - they decide to dispose their cigarette into the bin full of flammable paper waste - is much worse.

I would like this feature to save screen space, but what happens when a window isn't maximised? The menu bar items get orphaned? Or you have differing behaviour?

Hard to justify for a beginner? Sure.

"Can't tell the difference?" is not true, once you're dealing with small enough parts.

Can I use a magnifier to solder 0.4mm pitch parts? Sure. Would I prefer a binocular microscope? 100%, every time. Both usable, not the same.

This sounds like an opinion written by a "clean hands" computer scientist. Electronic engineers have it easy with their soldering - mechanical engineers deal with much more stubborn oils, greases, metal swarf...

Isopropyl alcohol removes all the soldering residue. Personally, all it took is decent equipment and some practice to make soldering enjoyable. It can be frustrating at times, but usually the problem is (lack of) heat, flux or patience.

I'm curious - how often do you use the scrollbar? For me, almost never (or only as an indication of progress through a document). I'm scrolling only with wheel or arrows or PgUp etc.

Perhaps though this is learned behaviour from scrollbars being tiny. I'd rather have the extra screen space. The scrollbar is usually a nuisance when I accidentally touch it (touchscreen) and the page jumps away.

I'm amazed that engineers can make submerged tunnels work and that leaks don't (literally) sink the whole plan.

I was only punished like this once as a child. I don't remember what it was for, but I only remember the punishment. So anecdotally, it doesn't seem to work.

I should have upgraded my GTX 1060 6GB last year.

Last year I said I should have upgraded my 1060 last year.

I bought it second hand 7 years ago and it is still the same price.

I don't do much gaming, and it runs Immich / etc light inference just fine. One thing I don't regret is getting 32GB of DDR4 when I built the system around the time of the GPU upgrade.

Neat little example of what's possible even using a restricted and standardised language. One could imagine using this as an interface layer for humans to interact with robots or industrial systems today. Of course, it would still be slower than an old-fashioned control panel with tactile, individual controls - but there may be some niches in which this language-based contextual control method has advantages.

If ASML could do it, China will also do it. It's just a matter of development time and resources, both of which are plentiful in China.

Neat project. These popular "commodity" devboard designs have been remixed and copied so much that it was just missing an open-source design to slot into many existing projects. I can imagine designing a board using one of these designs as a "template" but adding whatever capabilities I need, then knowing it fits a standard footprint.