HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

mrexroad

2,229 karma · joined June 23, 2010

submissionscomments
mrexroad··on The Mafia may be keeping fentanyl out of Italy
What, specifically, do you find to be an early sign pointing in that direction?
mrexroad··on I Added a Non-Wi-Fi Mitsubishi AC to Home Assistant
Technically, they’re both part of the Mitsubishi Group, the former zaibatsu; there are number of other Mitsubishi companies in this conglomerate as well.

However, the Mitsubishi Pencil company is entirely unrelated to the Mitsubishi Group. Ironically, they share a very similar three diamond logo, which they registered and used years before Mitsubishi Group.

mrexroad··on iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max
I’ve been holding on to my 12 mini for a bit too long probably. I loved the thing before iOS 26, but sadly since then, even basic tasks cause it to overheat and just hang for several minutes until it cools off. The battery is a joke of course, but I was fine with that until the overheating. I’ve swapped it 2x over the years for a new unit, but shit software, shift web, and shit cell data coverage have made it nearly unusable.

I’ll finally, albeit reluctantly, upgrade this year. I really liked the mini form factor.

mrexroad··on iPhone Duo
Evasive? They literally discussed the layers of materials, with the outer being a polymer.
mrexroad··on How the Disaster of "Forever Chemicals" Was Kept Secret
And where does that end?

Public stonings, where you can bid on the rocks? Cut a thief’s hand off?

mrexroad··on Highest-ever ocean temperature measured as powerful El Niño forms
I read the comment as an overview of their utility costs—natural gas, not gasoline.
mrexroad··on The federal keyword lists that canceled billions in research funding
Citation?
mrexroad··on WhatCable: Know what your USB-C cable can do
Looks like the paid/pro version does this.

> Cable history

> Add a cable, give it a name, and WhatCable records how it performs over time, with a verdict per cable.

mrexroad··on Where did the old web go? We followed 657,607 links to find out
Yeah, I took a shortcut by just grabbing the copyright on page, but Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5 has a slightly more storied history than being a www site. It started on Usenet before the pilot even aired iirc. I assume the ‘92 date encompasses the early content that evolved into the site it became.

With that said, its domain has changed a few times iirc… so maybe not the best example given the nature of the article.

mrexroad··on Where did the old web go? We followed 657,607 links to find out
‘09-‘14 is hilariously not the “old web.” With that said, those of us who participated in what I consider the “old web” are likely “old” now, so… shrug?

Two of my favorite sites [0][1] still online—Lurkers Guide to Babylon 5 and ex-astris-scientia—were started in ‘92 and ‘98 respectively.

Elegant content for a more civilized age.

[0] http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/

[1] https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/

mrexroad··on Squeak 6.1
I was about to make the same comment. Squeak and Scheme were mind expanding points of curriculum for me.

I still remember writing a Ga Tech themed version of The Sims in Squeak. I felt omnipotent being able to inspect or modify any object while debugging the game mechanics engine I’d written; that was a fun project.

mrexroad··on A handful of cities have replaced Flock with Axon
My city has a contract with Flock, but the rest of their tech “stack” is Axon based. I’ll be surprised if they don’t change ALPR to Axon at first chance.
mrexroad··on The 11 Types of Washington, DC, Metro Station Architecture (2018)
Been a minute since I’ve commuted daily in DC, but I always found the waffle stations rather lovely as well as iconic; they’re among my favorites from my travels.
mrexroad··on The American Grilled Cheese Sandwich Essay (2024)
I always cut diagonal and lean the halves against each other, balanced on edge, with the diagonal facing up. No soggy side, center cools faster, and contents don’t leak as much before picking up.
mrexroad··on Gemini Robotics 2 brings whole body intelligence to robots
> folding laundry robot

This is my dream for a house chore robot. If I could dump hampers of clothes into a receptacle and get stacks of folded clothes out, I’d happily pay $1k. Household of 5; my kids each produce 3-4 sets of clothes a day (sleep, school, sports, after school). I run wash in AM so dryer finishes before 3pm (pg&e ToU) and then I’m focused on other things for rest of day. More often than not, I get to bed to find a near full hamper of clothes dumped where I sleep and then have to sort/fold/deliver. Bonus points if robot can sort different items to different stacks/bundles.

I don’t need AI/robotics to save me time from having to think, research, or code… I need AI/robotics to save me time so I can think, research, or code.

mrexroad··on SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]
… says a post from a 25min old bot account?

Snark aside, I’m curious: what about the comment you replied to is a “Reddit lie?” Pretty much everything act mentioned is well documented. Do you disagree with the assumptions made about motivations for the acts?

mrexroad··on Does creatine make you smarter?
I was visiting a friend’s lab at NASA Ames the other day. I smiled seeing this on the wall there. I sometimes daydream about what it’d be like if our primary education system devoted an hour a week to reading / discussing comics (well, XKCD specifically), or pages form What If…? Maybe it’d kill the magic of it, but I still feel plenty of seeds would get planted along the way for more critical thinking later in life.
mrexroad··on Codex starts encrypting sub-agent prompts
Better make sure the pizza gets delivered on time, else you’ll have to pull your sword.
mrexroad··on No Spanish reading crisis?
Re-reading it atm, for first time in ~25years, and I’m struck with how much of historical context my kids don’t have that I’d want them to before recommending it to them. I feel I had more of that context when I first read it, but maybe I’m rose tinting my initial reading.
mrexroad··on Healthy but sedentary people show early decline in cellular energy production
And the Bay Area as well :)
mrexroad··on Framework's 10G Ethernet module exposes USB-C's complexity
Fr. There was that small window back in the early ‘10s where data was slow and expensive in India and 4g wasn’t yet pervasive in China. Execs were still receptive to my pitches that we needed to spend some engineering cycles on rework to improve initial load times / weight after showing them simulations of absurdly slow first paint / first content over simulated 2g/3g from India / China data centers.

Once 5g became pervasive and data cheap, no one gaf about a cold load weight fitting on a floppy.

I’m still clutching my iphone mini, which after ios 26 just boggs down under the absurd weight of many pages and turns in to a space heater before reloading entire page b/c of error. No need for forced obsolescence when the enshittification of basic websites takes care of that for you. :-/

mrexroad··on Dostoyevsky isn't difficult
Similar, read Crime and Punishment earlier this year and it took me a few pages to realize two different names were the same character. Felt silly when I realized lol. Also just started Brothers Karamazov, but decided to switch translations and am waiting for new copy to arrive.
mrexroad··on The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader
Just picked up an x3 from prime day sale (yeah, Amazon, sigh, I know). Super stoked to see how it is in practice. I’ve always espoused to my kids to be mindful about what they do during the “between” moments, but I increasingly find myself defaulting to HN/reddit for those little 5-10min chunks of waiting and I dislike that reflex. Looking forward to trying to build a habit around a pocketable e-reader. If nothing else, looking forward to attaching to a pocket notebook when traveling.
mrexroad··on Tell HN: Happy Fathers Day
Sometimes more, sometimes less. Either way, those days are the most precious time you will have.

If you’re lucky, sometimes you get a few bonus days sprinkled in later on as well. My oldest just came back from college for summer. I got to spend an evening sorting/assembling the border of a massive puzzle, listening to their 90s music playlist, and sharing some fancy whiskies I like.

mrexroad··on U.S. science is in chaos
> Something has to give.

Just so I’m not misunderstanding, you felt that science funding should be the first thing to give? And that other recent controversial expenditures should take priority?

mrexroad··on FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs
Huh? DARPA created something to help retain communication and coordination capabilities for our government in event of nuclear attack.
mrexroad··on Apple WWDC 2026
> Curse of money

Sure, but I think it’s also b/c the target audience for these keynotes has shifted. Given their immense market cap, now there’s an increased fiduciary responsibility to control how presentation lands, such as earnings reports, which comes at the expense of the fun.

mrexroad··on Apple WWDC 2026
lol, I have a few other memories of Steve for when there were technical issues during the keynote. WiFi congestion and dead digital camera still pop up in my memory every now and then.
mrexroad··on If AI data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?
You don’t have to but in hotter climates, especially those with higher energy costs (ca), it’s a lot cheaper to cool evaporatively.
mrexroad··on If AI data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?
> Creating false narratives like they use huge amounts of water, when in fact the cooling is a closed loop system and use less water than a single busy restaurant

My understanding was that often multiple cooling methods are employed and the ratio of use shifts seasonally; however, that evaporative cooling was still primary method, especially in hotter climates like CA and AZ.

Can you help me understand what type of data center (size, location, etc) uses less water than a busy restaurant?

Page 1 of 22Next →