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MochaDen

46 karma · joined January 3, 2022

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MochaDen··on Centcom Status Update on Missing Navy SEALs
Finding someone lost in the ocean is a huge challenge but wouldn't we expect a boarding team to be well prepared for this sort of thing? Don't they carry locator beacons, radios, flares or super-bright strobes, etc...? It seems strange that they could not find them doesn't it?
MochaDen··on EV drivers discover fundamental flaw in battery tech as -30F temps hit the US
Hopefully this will just get better and better as charging networks improve, as batteries improve, and charging technology improves. We're already seeing some good steps in all these areas.
MochaDen··on Many AI safety orgs have tried to criminalize currently-existing open-source AI
This is such a really important comment. I feel like so much of our discourse as a society suffers terribly from overloaded and oversimplified terminology. It's impossible to have a useful discussion when we aren't even in sync about what we're discussing.
MochaDen··on Test UFO
That's kind of handy as a simple display/browser sanity test. It's very easy to see little processor hiccups on a busy machine.
MochaDen··on 7 watts idle – building a low powered server/NAS on Intel 12th/13th gen
Low-power is great but running a big RAID long-term without ECC gives me the heebee jeebies! Any good solutions for a similar system but more robust over 5+ years?
MochaDen··on Heat pumps of the 1800s are becoming the technology of the future
This is where I need to be eventually. I'm hesitant because I'm worried that I won't find any competent installers in my area and I'll end up with leaks, polluted well water, etc... Any troubles with the ground loop so far?
MochaDen··on Rising costs mean food companies are making snacks, sodas taste worse
PGPR is polyglycerol polyricinoleate -- an emulsifier made from glycerol and fatty acids. It's used to modify the flowability of molten chocolate and is typically less than 1/2 percent of the chocolate mix. If a company is using more than that the chocolate probably isn't going to harden... It's one of the hundreds of "mostly harmless" additives you see everywhere these days not a filler. Whether all these additives are really ok once you put them in every single thing has yet to be seen.
MochaDen··on Why America’s Largest Tool Company Couldn’t Make a Wrench in America
From the article it looks like there were 5 different executives overseeing the project during an approximately 4-year time frame. This sounds like a management failure to me rather than some failure of the American workforce or ingenuity.

Interestingly, the main executive involved got in some trouble with the SEC: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-111

"Ansell received undisclosed compensation that consisted, in part, of $280,000 in personal expenses he charged to the company."

So there may be more going on than just poor oversight...

MochaDen··on Sudden Tesla acceleration attributed to voltage spikes
The theory seems to be that a voltage spike can mangle an ADC re-calibration which results in large "corrections" to the acceleration position sensor resulting in unintended accelerations which "look" just like someone pushed down hard on the gas pedal.

Perhaps a better article here: https://www.carscoops.com/2023/07/feds-assess-allegations-th...

A very detailed paper by the fellow mentioned in that article here: https://www.autoevolution.com/pdf/news_attachements/breaking...

MochaDen··on Restoring the Apollo Guidance Computer [video]
So cool I'm going to have to go play with the PDP-11/15 in my basement to get my old hardware jones on.

This video of building a custom Apollo electroluminescent glass panel DSKY display is also fantastic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2o_Sp2-aBo

MochaDen··on Algae powers computer for a year using only light and water (2022)
I think the algae is great but this also shows how very, very little power you need for small embedded devices these days. You could probably run this CPU off of almost anything. Moldy old pop tart? Go for it!
MochaDen··on Algae powers computer for a year using only light and water (2022)
From the paper:

"Throughout the test, the Arm Cortex-M0+ processor drew an average current from the compact Al-BPV of 1.4±0.4 μA with a voltage of 0.72±0.14 V. ... As the average power drawn from the compact Al-BPV during the 27 weeks of experimental run (1.05 μW) was larger than the minimum power required to run the CPU (i.e., 0.3 μW), it is likely that a smaller power-generating system could be used, or that more computationally intensive algorithms could be performed."

and:

"We programmed the Cortex-M0+ CPU to calculate a sum of consecutive integers as an example compute workload, and assess the correctness of the computation by verifying the sum against a precomputed value."

Pretty neat -- although it looks like they were clocking the chip at only 10 KHz.

MochaDen··on The ants go marching methodically
Here's the PDF of the paper: https://www.cell.com/iscience/pdf/S2589-0042(22)02189-7.pdf

Lot's of interesting stuff -- especially how they coordinate their searches (perhaps with the use of chemical trails). It would be nice to expand the data set and try to do some analysis to see how close to optimal the strategy is...

MochaDen··on Charger outages leave northern Ontario EV drivers stranded
Marketing says we'll make a fortune with ads on a big screen! Plus we can upsell related products and charging packages!
MochaDen··on Ask HN: How much extra work does intellectual curiosity cost the tech industry?
A huge amount of the work that all of us do is, in fact, duplicating stuff that's already been done by someone at some point. This isn't just curiosity, it's also a big part of learning a field and of, ultimately, creating new things.
MochaDen··on Ask HN: Is buying an expensive standing desk worth it?
Have you tried working standing for a few weeks? It's not for everyone. Prop your desk up on some milk crates or something and give it a go before you consider an expensive buy.
MochaDen··on Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment
Another take from wikipedia: "In 1999, the Nobel prize winning physicist Philip Warren Anderson said he is "sure that it's a fraud",[12] and in the same year another Nobel prize winning physicist, Steven Chu, called it "extremely unlikely".[23] The following year, a 2000 patent based on its hydrino-related technology[24][25] was later withdrawn by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) due to contradictions with known physics laws and other concerns about the viability of the described processes, citing Park and others.[26]"
MochaDen··on Denver Airport Baggage Handling System - system software fiasco of 1993
Case study here: http://calleam.com/WTPF/wp-content/uploads/articles/DIABagga...