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BostonEnginerd

904 karma · joined October 4, 2013

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/bostonenginerd; my proof: https://keybase.io/bostonenginerd/sigs/KuXS2A-ecICr19dOmvupZ8wsxoPnI2Gg3XIVngvIoas ]
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BostonEnginerd··on Plug-In Solar Panels Starting to Sprout in U.S. Backyards
There are mixing valves which combine the too-hot water with cold tap water to produce hot water at a safe temperature.
BostonEnginerd··on A supersonic engine core makes the perfect power turbine
Jealous sitting here in MA, where we pay $0.35/kWh and burn a ton of methane to get that.
BostonEnginerd··on FireDucks: Pandas but Faster
I thought I saw on the documentation that it was released under the modified BSD license. I guess they could take future versions closed source, but the current version should be available for folks to use and further develop.
BostonEnginerd··on TSMC will stop making 7 nm chips for Chinese customers
Do you mean US soldiers? We didn’t have a presence in Iraq in 2000, the invasion occurred in 2003.
BostonEnginerd··on Launch HN: Modern Realty (YC S24) – AI Real Estate Agent for Home Buyers
Yes, most of the public uses the doctor which is assigned to them when they have something go wrong.

The trouble is that it’s hard to distinguish between “friendly and nice” and “competent”. This is how people end up paying a financial advisor almost 2% to buy index funds.

It would be nice if we could rely on certification by third parties as a mark of competence, but clearly that’s not enough.

BostonEnginerd··on A chemist explains the chemistry behind decaf coffee
I agree. SWP coffee usually has a very flat profile to my taste. EA is far and away the better processing method.
BostonEnginerd··on Modern-day spying: sometimes old technology is more secure
Just a minor nitpick. To my knowledge, Archive.today is not known to be related to the Internet Archive (archive.org).
BostonEnginerd··on Feedle: A search engine for blogs and podcasts
Every year or so someone will reach out to me based on something I wrote. It’s really gratifying to solve someone’s problem.
BostonEnginerd··on Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants
There's substantial wafer capacity in the US, from silane production, through polysilicon granule production and wafer making. There are several different wafer makers in the US with both 200mm and 300mm wafer capacity.

Some of the silane and polysilicon companies are US owned, but I don't think that any of the wafer makers are US headquartered anymore.

BostonEnginerd··on CVS, Walgreens Among Companies Flagged by FDA for Selling Sketchy Products
I was in a CVS a few years ago where they were selling a tincture which was supposed to help children stop wetting the bed. It contained mercury. I’m not sure how they could legally sell that.
BostonEnginerd··on Heat your house with a mechanical windmill (2019)
Heat pumps are somewhat limited in the heat they can provide. For example, it would be difficult for a heat pump to produce several hundred degrees C temperatures for an industrial process.

For applications in their wheelhouse, though, they are absolutely amazing.

BostonEnginerd··on Gandi.net – Pricing Update
I had exactly the same thing happen. Ended up moving all my domains to another registrar after that happened.
BostonEnginerd··on U.S. universities are building a new semiconductor workforce
A lot of what needs to be done definitely is not rocket science, and much of it can be trained -- at least when things are going well.

One thing I do appreciate is that there is a pretty good meritocracy at the second tier fabs working on legacy nodes. I know a fair number of folks who have worked their way up into upper management with only an associates or bachelors degree.

BostonEnginerd··on U.S. universities are building a new semiconductor workforce
There are still plenty of people in the fab. They're not usually running product around in a modern automated fab, but there are always equipment issues to work through. When you have fleets of multiple tens of tools, it's always an exercise to keep them matched and in-line with each other. The majority of modern cleanrooms are "ballroom" style, where the tools all sit out in the open. Each tool has a class 1 mini-environment inside which keeps the product clean. Outside the tools is a cleanroom, but it's not as clean as inside.

Remote access has helped out a lot, but the process engineering folks will still spend a bunch of time every week on the line. The equipment engineering folks will spend time every day on the line working on things.

BostonEnginerd··on Nontoxic powder uses sunlight to quickly disinfect contaminated drinking water
Aluminum is extremely reactive. It self-passivates with Aluminum oxide very quickly. The difference between rust and AlO3 is that the AlO3 adheres well to the base metal and doesn't flake off like rust does.
BostonEnginerd··on Why does a plastic-wrapped turkey sandwich cost $15 at the NYC airport?
I tend to agree. In the last ten years or so, the TSA operations have markedly improved. I’m saying this as someone who flew 80k-100kmi/yr for the last 15yr.

Once precheck became a thing, time to go through security is almost always less than 5m.

BostonEnginerd··on Why does a plastic-wrapped turkey sandwich cost $15 at the NYC airport?
There is no competition in a lot of airports. I believe that OTG manages all of the concessions at EWR. There are a lot of options, but there’s no price competition as they’re all run by the same company.
BostonEnginerd··on Why does a plastic-wrapped turkey sandwich cost $15 at the NYC airport?
You know that the system is screwed up when you can hold up the Whole Foods salad bar, as being the bargain option!

I’ve found the dine-in restaurant options at EWR to be of reasonable quality, at least pre-pandemic. The food court areas are very hit or miss, even with the price gouging.

BostonEnginerd··on EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)
Delta.chat (https://delta.chat/en/) has a decent enough UI for using email as an IM service actually.
BostonEnginerd··on A Docker footgun led to a vandal deleting NewsBlur's MongoDB database (2021)
I've been a subscriber for a long time now. Newsblur has been great. It's been pretty stable, and they haven't succumbed to frequent radical redesigns.

I could self-host an RSS reader, but Newsblur works well enough that I haven't bothered.

BostonEnginerd··on Ask HN: Self-hosting in 2023: Nextcloud on Linode, or...?
Tailscale works great for this application.
BostonEnginerd··on Apple HomePod 2nd Generation
How is it as a speakerphone? I've considered getting one for conference calls.
BostonEnginerd··on Heat pumps of the 1800s are becoming the technology of the future
The fins in the heat exchanger will get covered in dust and dandruff over time. This provides a reasonable media for the mold to grow on.
BostonEnginerd··on Software horror show: SAP Concur
I'm currently dealing with multiple customers moving to Ariba. What a pain -- it doesn't work in Safari reliably, finding out where anything is takes several minutes.
BostonEnginerd··on Private and Public Mastodon
I think the future of social actually looks more like Signal and Whatsapp groups (maybe Discord too?) than it does Twitter and Facebook. People seem to appreciate and value private discussion more than they used to.

I certainly spend more time interacting with people in small group chats than I do on Facebook now.

BostonEnginerd··on Ask HN: What tech advice are you giving to those around you for 2023?
Of course, I fully expect someone commenting on HN to understand the issues and to have made the trade off.

It took a lot of explaining to my parents why a VPN didn’t add any meaningful security for them.

BostonEnginerd··on Ask HN: What are household items that can be repaired but people often replace?
In my case, it manifested as an over which would take forever to come to temperature. The gas valve won’t turn on until the hot surface igniter allows a certain amount of current through.

It’s about a one hour repair on most ovens if you haven’t done it before. A ten minute job if you have.

BostonEnginerd··on Ask HN: What tech advice are you giving to those around you for 2023?
I think the problem is you’re trading one set of untrustworthy actors for another set of lesser known untrustworthy actors.
BostonEnginerd··on Ask HN: What are household items that can be repaired but people often replace?
I find that you generally get a better shave with a safety razor as well. The multi-blade razors which are commonly sold today get clogged up with beard hair and scratch my face.

I purchased my razor about 15yr ago now, and am still working through the first $25 worth of razor blades.

BostonEnginerd··on Ask HN: What are household items that can be repaired but people often replace?
I've repaired multiple gas stoves for people. The SiC element which heats up to ignite the gas fails over time. My neighbors were just replacing their stove every time this happened until I showed them how to do it.
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