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auxym

2,296 karma · joined May 2, 2014

I'm mechanical engineer with a long-lived interest in programming and computers.

Get in touch:

frtherien@gmail.com github.com/auxym

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auxym··on Whirlpool Washer Transmission Repair (2007)
I had a very similar washer I think, from the 90s, and it eventually started exhibiting the exact same symptom (sometime in 2020 during the COVID crisis). I followed the same process and the blog author, but when I opened the transmission, the problem was immediately apparent: the large "spin gear" was plastic and was completely worn down, the teeth did not engage at all anymore with its driving gear.

Unfortunately, I found Maytag did not sell any separate parts for the transmission, only the whole transmission, for somewhere around 300$, which was more than the 25-ish years old washer was worth to me. People frequently bash manufacturers for using plastic parts like, as a mechanical engineer, I think there may be valid reasons for the design choice, but knowing the part is subject to wear, it should absolutely be made available as a spare.

I ended buying a new washer, from a very limited selection of models that were available in the summer of 2020 shortage of just about everything. I gave away the old one for free, the guy who picked it up needed the motor to repair another machine, I hope he was able to use the parts to keep it running for a long time.

auxym··on Bad benchmarks and evals: Senior SWE-Bench, napkin math, and winter tires
Quebec, Canada mandates winter tires between December 1st and March 15th.

(But the winters are cold).

auxym··on Gpiozero Flow
I get the feeling that labview was very big in the 00s but has been losing a lot of steam in the last 10 years or so, maybe because of failure to modernize. Labview today feels and looks like a 90s app, contrary to eg. modern Simulink.

FWIW I work in Simulink quite a bit, and "code blocks" (matlab function / matlab system) tend be used quite liberally in my models. Having the visual presentation of data flow is quite nice though for the kinds of things Simulink is used for, mostly physical modeling of electrical or mechanical systems.

auxym··on NimConf 2026: Dates Announced, Registrations Open
There are ocasionally Nim talks at FOSDEM.
auxym··on PCB devboard the size of a USB-C plug
They had stopped for a while because they were transitioning away from using Paypal as a processor. A few weeks, maybe a month or so tops? I had to switch to JLC PCB for an order back in January, because they didn't support any viable payment method for me in Canada (tried to make a payoneer account, they don't do business in Canada).

But I just checked and it seems that they now accept CCs again.

auxym··on Poor Deming never stood a chance
In case anyone is interested, I enjoyed the book "Turn the Ship Around!" by L. David Marquet, about management lessons applied by the author who was a US Navy submarine captain. It does very much emphasize giving trust, responsibility and accountability to workers (or enlisted personnel, in this case).
auxym··on Prism
Agreed. Tex/Latex is very old tech. Error recovery and messages is very bad. Developing new macros in Tex is about as fun as you expect developing in a 70s-era language to be (ie probably similar to cobol and old fortran).

I haven't tried it yet but Typst seems like a promising replacement: https://typst.app/

auxym··on The C-Shaped Hole in Package Management
uv has mostly solved the python issue. IME it's dependency resolution is fast and just works. Packages are hard linked from a global cache, which also greatly reduces storage requirements when you work with multiple projects.
auxym··on "Anyone else out there vibe circuit-building?"
I mean, he absolutely knew it was going to burn up. But I have no trouble believing that such a circuit was designed by AI.
auxym··on The 500k-ton typo: Why data center copper math doesn't add up
It's because aluminium has a higher coefficient of thermal expansion. It expands and shrinks more as it heats, and as those cycles add up it tends to loosen electrical connections. Loose connections have higher resistance, heat up and can cause fires.

That said, there is no reason we can't design better connectors that can withstand the expansion and shrinkage cycles, like spring loaded or spring cage connectors.

auxym··on Developing a high level language over Zig
Just an idea but Nim seems to have the features you mentioned. Nim "transpiles" to C, and can even be compiled via `zig cc` (which is an interace to clang). If you really want to, maybe you could make a zig backend for Nim?
auxym··on Show HN: Free and local browser tool for designing gear models for 3D printing
As long as you keep the module and pressure angle the same, the gears should be compatible.
auxym··on Show HN: Free and local browser tool for designing gear models for 3D printing
This is great! Any chance you could add STEP export also? It would facilitate importing into CAD software to customize the gear, eg to add a custom hub.
auxym··on A Guide to Magnetizing N48 Magnets in Ansys Maxwell
Typically, company would pay for a week or so of training if you don't have previous experience with the software.

Once again, this isn't a huge expense compared to the license cost + the engineer's salary.

Then for ongoing support/questions you get the support I mentioned including the onsite support engineer.

auxym··on Go away Python
uv uses a global cache but hardlinks the dependencies for your script into a temp venv that is only for your script, so its still pretty fast.
auxym··on A Guide to Magnetizing N48 Magnets in Ansys Maxwell
Ansys also costs 5 digits per seat per year.

My experience working at large size company that paid those sort of sums for a different FEA software is that we got an "application engineer" assigned to us to answer any questions we had and provide needed documentation if anything was needed. He actually sat and worked from our own offices one day per week.

auxym··on Put a ring on it: a lock-free MPMC ring buffer
Also this Nim library: https://github.com/nim-works/loony

Which is based on: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9490347

auxym··on Why we built Lightpanda in Zig
Also wasn't the D compiler proprietary and a paid product for a long time after its initial release?

No judgement against trying to monetize valuable work, but in this day and nearly everyone expects free and OSS compilers/interpreters and core tooling.

auxym··on Thoughts on Go vs. Rust vs. Zig
> it is like C in that you can fit the whole language in your head.

Sure, you can fit all of C in your head, including all the obscure footguns that can lead to UB: https://gist.github.com/Earnestly/7c903f481ff9d29a3dd1

And other fun things like aliasing rules and type punning.

auxym··on Ask HN: What open source projects are you grateful for?
Scoop (https://scoop.sh/), a package manager for windows that is essential to make Windows usable for me.

Sourcegit is my new favorite git client. Git in general, of course.

Linux and also the people behind RT_PREEMPT, I am excited to see it merged into mainline this year.

KDE has been my favorite DE for years and I use many of their apps too, such as Kate. Thanks to everyone contributing to the KDE project.

The entire python "data science" stack, numpy/scipy/matplotlib/pandas/plotly/polars/pyarrow/jupyter, which is essential to my work. Tiny projects too, like nptdms.

The raspberry pi foundation, in particular for the pico, rp2040 and rp2350. Joy to work with, great documentation, super cheap and available, perfect for one-off projects, prototypes and hobby stuff, which is pretty much always neglected by the big silicon vendors.

I set up my own NAS this year, running many self-hosted apps. I am grateful for Truenas, Jellyfin and pihole.

So many cli apps that I use daily:

- starship prompt - fd - ripgrep - fzf - lazygit - yazi

Firefox gets sometimes deserved criticism, but I have been using it continuously since Firebird 0.7 and I believe it contributes to keeping the web open.

auxym··on What's Hiding Inside Haribo's Power Bank and Headphones?
Unless things have changed, Amazon is the official and only reseller for Anker products in Canada and probably many other countries.
auxym··on Advent of Code 2025
I've had a lot of fun using Nim for AOC for many years. Once you're familiar with the language and std lib, its almost as fast to write as python, but much faster (Nim compiles to C, which then gets compiled to your executable). This means that sometimes, if your solution isn't perfect in terms of algorithmic complexity, waiting a few minutes can still save you (waiting 5 mins for your slow Nim code is OK, waiting 5 hours for your slow Python isn't really, for me). Of course all problems have a solution that can run in seconds even in Python, but sometimes it's not the one I figure out first try.

Downsides: The debugging situation is pretty bad (hope you like printf debugging), smaller community means smaller package ecosystem and fewer reference solutions to look up if you're stuck or looking for interesting alternative ideas after solving a problem on your own, but there's still quality stuff out there.

Though personally I'm thinking of trying Go this year, just for fun and learning something new.

Edit: also a static type system can save you from a few stupid bugs that you then spend 15 minutes tracking down because you added a "15" to your list without converting it to an int first or something like that.

auxym··on The R47: A new physical RPN calculator
Just as a fun fact, some of the largest tractors made these days actually rival F1 cars in horsepower output. John Deere 9RX goes up to 913 HP for example.
auxym··on Nim 2.2.6
FWIW, I agree that Araq is an abrasive character and probably not a great community leader for an open source project.

But I disagree with your take on the moderation team. I don't know if you have specific names to call out, but PMunch, miran and the rest of the team have been nothing but welcoming, in my experience.

auxym··on Nim 2.2.6
@[] is syntax for a "seq", which is similar to a C++ vector, ArrayList in Java/C#, or a python list. It's a heap-allocated array that automatically resizes.

In contrast with [], which is mostly identical to a C array: fixed size and lives on the stack.

auxym··on Bach Cello Suites (2024)
The Netherlands Bach Society has actually started a huge project to produce high quality video recordings to all of Bach's catalogue. You can find the videos on their YT channel (https://www.youtube.com/bach) or www.allofbach.com.

I'm pretty sure I learned about this project from HN many, many years ago.

auxym··on Why your outdoorsy friend suddenly has a gummy bear power bank
Rechargeable headlamp is another one.
auxym··on Unsafe and Unpredictable: My Volvo EX90 Experience
Do you mean Hyundai Sonata, or another Kia model?
auxym··on We asked camera companies why their RAW formats are all different and confusing
It took a long time for Canon CR3 raw format to be supported by darktable because, although the format itself had been reverse engineered, there was a fear from the developers that it was covered by a patent and that they risked a lawsuit by integrating it in DT. IIRC, they had attempted to contact Cabon legal to obtain some sort of waiver, without success.

I'm fact I'm not sure how that saga ended and CR3 support was finally added a few years after the release of the Canon mirrorless cameras that output CR3.

auxym··on Self-Hosting like it's 2025
zfs/btrfs snapshot and then rclone that snapshot?
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