tjmc

This is why I'll never be a fire protection engineer

Thank you. A big omission from the original article.

Data center mech eng here - from our perspective it's higher rack densities typically due to GPUs. It's certainly possible to have high densities due to CPUs as well but I've seen a significant spike in rack densities in the last couple of years which has caused a switch from air cooling to liquid to chip.

One side effect of higher density is less footprint on the building to exhaust the heat, which is one reason (the main one being efficiency) that cooling towers and indirect evaporative cooling are favoured over air cooled condensers which leads to large amounts of water consumption.

Cooling towers are also much quieter than air cooled condensers which is a significant factor near any residential areas. It would be great to see more use of data center waste heat for process or district heating to save on water consumption.

Another issue with AI training in particular is huge (multi-MW) swings in power consumption at the start and end of each training run which must be a nightmare for the sparkies.

That's a reasonable take - Apple had a gun to their head regarding tarriffs and exposure to China, but I'd still love to know how Steve would have played the same hand.

54yo here. We (GenX) grew up with computers. It’s the Boomers and Silent Generation that have trouble.

You should see the price of noise cancelling aviation headsets. Bose are killing it.

The issue is maximum take off weight. Presumably the discharged battery weight would be the one you use in the pre-flight MTOW calculations, because the worse case scenario is one where you're landing an almost discharged battery and have to go around.

Looking forward to seeing solid state batteries for aviation, but the scary part is that they get heavier when they discharge as oxygen from the air turns into solid oxide.

And we're even happier if you keep it!

I can see a future for microreactors powering container ships. Outside nuclear subs and aircraft carriers there are already nuclear powered icebreakers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_icebreaker

I suspect this unawareness of language use is universal. When I lived in the UK in the early 90's, people would discuss the weather in celcius when it was cold and fahrenheit when it was warm with seemingly no idea that they'd switched.

Easy transfers between different people's iThings with Airdrop. I got my CompSci degree over 30 years ago and yet my 74yo aunt taught me this - the shame!

The white plastic toothpick found on most Swiss Army knives is perfect for cleaning USB-C ports.

"eKaren" is shorter

Apologies for a trivial question. I have an odd fascination about the edge cases of birthright citizenship.

If a non- citizen gave birth in an American embassy, would their child be entitled to US citizenship? What about US Antarctic Territory or aboard a boat within US coastal waters?

Congratulations YC! I remember prior to HN, pg used to post his essays to Slashdot under the username Bugbear and all the attendant sniping and lame memes that would come back in response. Hacker News was a breath of fresh air and continues to be my favourite online community.

I wonder how they start them. Park at the top of a hill?

It's a pity they didn't discuss 2-way charging

It's a great way to get started if you're already a developer. Here's some of the stuff my company is doing in the digital space: https://www.aurecongroup.com/expertise/digital-engineering-a...

They like to showcase the visualisation and AI stuff but there's also a lot of development doing stuff like parametric modelling plus everyday CRUD apps for internal systems etc.

Fair point. I did my mech eng degree in Australia where university is heavily subsidised for citizens. Total cost for the 4 year degree here was $32,000 (roughly $21,560USD at today’s exchange rate)

Absolutely. There was a student in his 50’s in my graduating year who was an aviation mechanic previously. There’s also a lot of opportunities at engineering firms for developers. Start that way and see if you like it maybe.

I was in your position with web development and went back to uni to get a mechanical engineering degree. Started at 38 and graduated at 42. I’ve been working at it for 10 years now and specialise in designing data centres funnily enough. There’s much less ageism in “physical” engineering work which is positive but I also took a very large hit in seniority and compensation to switch. In hindsight, moving sideways into non-web development may have been a good option too but in the end it all comes down to what you find fulfilling. I’m more proud that I’ve helped build things that last like children’s hospitals and geothermal heating for local swimming pools. Sounds like taking a break first may be a good idea. Good luck!

What's wrong with Wolfie?

No - I think the architects just weren't fans.

One of my earliest jobs as a mechanical engineer was checking the pneumatic tube shop drawings for Perth Children's Hospital. Basically looking for bends with too small a radius and appropriate collars through firewalls.

One of the engineers suggested adding a transparent loop the loop passing through the public atrium for a bit of fun but predictably this was denied.

It will be interesting to see if there's an Osborne Effect on iPhone 15 (non-pro) sales now that the model is effectively stuck with brain-dead Siri.

Nothing? If you're acting like the sea witch in "The Little Mermaid" you're probably doing something wrong.

Yoko would have made a great Wormtongue though

Agreed and you can use debt very safely if your net position is in credit. For one example I'm always amazed at how many people don't take advantage of the interest free period of credit cards. As long as you have enough savings put aside to cover the CC balance in full each month you're significantly better off doing all your spending on a credit card instead of a debit card.

That was my guess too. Apparently Starlink satellites go quiet over the area too but there is still some detectable EMF.