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smileysteve

4,003 karma · joined February 27, 2013

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smileysteve··on Vermont replacing power plants with home batteries
"Home" is an interesting caching location, because per transformer or per neighorhood (especially at a point of going under ground) would likely scale better and provide the same race condition coverage.

For Residential, the race condition is typically on the heat pump first stroke. Smart thermostats with dithered (5 minute wait) starts go a long way for this; home/away schedules reduce collisions more, and then rate based timing adjustments go distance.

But, the problem is still uptake, smart thermostats are only peak reliability as long as there aren't 2 units holding out; and assuming no 2 units have failing capacitors, compressors, or a refrigerant failure at the same time. Real life is more pareto, at least 20% of your neighbors will unmaintained systems.

(Resistive electric water heaters are the next biggest draws, that have a dithered cache based on loss of water temperature; getting all of these units to smaller spot units or heat pump will be a huge step in grid reliability)

smileysteve··on Reddit saves your keystrokes in text boxes
They provide automatic saving of comments drafts in case you return. Is it possibly abused by analysis, sure. Do they let you know that they're saving drafts, pretty clearly.

The standard html behavior of only an alert does not handle much of. the user desires.

smileysteve··on U.S. science is in chaos
It's especially interesting because prior to the time of the election, the administration approved food funding to states that GOP run states rejected.
smileysteve··on U.S. science is in chaos
This implies that the money saved by cutting research was fungible and not part of a still increasing deficit, that the government doesn't debt spend, and that there aren't positive externalities (including jobs, education, and supporting services in addition to outcomes from the research.

Indeed, not only did research programs get cut, but so did USDA funding which both balanced farming and put food on table. And this was a year after the previous administration reduced the deficit, sent food funding to states, of which ~13 rejected the funding.

Food funding, which, has been studied to increase economic output beyond it's costs, similar to research funding.

smileysteve··on Tracking Starbucks' 'widely recyclable' cups: none ended up at recycling
Glass is 30% cheaper to make from recycled glass.

But transport and sorting (glass is hard and sharp) eat into that margin, so presort

smileysteve··on Tracking Starbucks' 'widely recyclable' cups: none ended up at recycling
> it takes as much energy if not more than just making new.

It saves 30% of the energy inputs to reuse slightly contaminated glass, especially when done locally.

That's ignoring the energy inputs of mining and delivering the silica.

https://learn.sustainability-directory.com/learn/what-are-th...

smileysteve··on OurCar: What I learned making an app for my family
It's more hardware intense, but yes, add an rfid tag to each key, use a btle obd dongle, centralize computing in an arduino; phone home to a webserver the last logs.

Then at the end of the month debit each account that used negative gas.

The only thing this misses is encouraging fill-up before empty, but it could give notice when the tank is below ¼ before a trip

smileysteve··on Appearing productive in the workplace
This is definitely ¾ of what you pay a mechanic to do; 1 publisher writes a maintenance manual for a car; mechanics all around the globe can use that to work on that specific car.

It's the mechanics that don't reference Google or the Haynes manual that are more likely to get it incorrect.

As a kicker, mechanics also have a pricing book for the task, they know how many hours a task will take on a certain car (rounded up for the most part).

smileysteve··on Sauna effect on heart rate
Your comparison reads to suggest that Japan doesn't have Onsen culture or that sauna does not exist in Norway.

That's to say, many cultures from around the globe have developed similar activities that heat the body.

smileysteve··on Sauna effect on heart rate
40° internal body temperature is not the same as 40° weather.

Yucatan is not the same as Dubai in Summer.

Your body is under heat shock trying to keep up in a Sauna (that isn't considered warm until 60°). Versus a healthy body CAN keep up in 40°.

The Yucatan equivalent of a Sauna is more like doing hard labor on a roof on a sunny day with no breeze.

smileysteve··on US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire
And if Sadam did, then by proxy the US did.
smileysteve··on $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor
It's even worse when your goal is commercial viability of carrying a relatively flammable liquid.

Tankers moving at a slow speed, across a narrow strait.

They don't have to sink to not be commercially viable; a few deck fires negatively impact your days at sea without incident.

smileysteve··on Layoffs at Block
You and the poster above disagree about the state of Twitter.

Twitter had been a growth company, it was early/missed the market with Vine, but was showing ad growth.

Now, as a private company, backed by the world's richest man, sovreign wealth funds, and banks that have written down their stakes, it has different economics than a tech / growth company.

It's ad revenue is now, not in the ballpark of the fortune 500 or trendy Instagram ads, but somewhere between reddit and sin site markets.

smileysteve··on Will vibe coding end like the maker movement?
> Did the maker movement end? I dont think so

Bump.

Because we had our first high profile murder using a 3d printed weapon just last year.

smileysteve··on Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation
> But sure, let's not work on multiple paths.

The article is about a sign of failure of one of the multiple paths that was pursued by Japan and Ca State subsidies that was attempted over the last 20 years.

You can work on multiple paths, but to not measure and adjust defeats the purpose.

smileysteve··on Anthropic officially bans using subscription auth for third party use
I think you just described American cable boxes... Except they charge us a monthly fee and an additional monthly fee for the box.

Or any smart tv with free ip tv.

smileysteve··on Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools
It's metric chasing;

If the metric is everyone passes, then you either taught really well or lowered the standard.

smileysteve··on IBM tripling entry-level jobs after finding the limits of AI adoption
In context of the thread, that's because AI fixes the key problem with comments, because it maintains them when the code is updated.
smileysteve··on IBM tripling entry-level jobs after finding the limits of AI adoption
> engineer that submitted it

This is a poor metric as soon as you reach a scale where you've hired an additional engineer, where 10% annual employee turnover reflects > 1 employee, much less the scale where a layoff is possible.

It's also only a hope as soon as you have dependencies that you don't directly manage like community libraries.

smileysteve··on Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?
To put this in perspective, there are huge issues recyling lead acid batteries exposed this year.

I consider lead acid batteries relatively simple with all materials being large and not particularly binding.

But it's somehow easy to outsource this to a smelter with inappropriate smelting, and no controls on worker safety.

So anything smaller, more complex, or more interewined, with things like silica involved...

smileysteve··on The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
> when it was about differences in fiscal policy and taxation.

It was never only about that. But they weren't saying the quiet part out loud.

smileysteve··on Self Driving Car Insurance
Keeping a 1-2 car's length stopping distance is likely over a 50% reduction in at fault damages.
smileysteve··on Ross Stevens Donates $100M to Pay Every US Olympian and Paralympian $200k
Many companies provide a life insurance benefit equal to 50%-150% of annual salary.

If your sport has any mortality or long term risk (concussions, cardiac events) then this could be seen as a nice extra insurance policy.

smileysteve··on Tesla ending Models S and X production
S launched in 2012.

X launched in 2016.

Both launched with slow rollouts.

Meanwhile, the average car in use today is 13 years old and getting older. (I currently drive a 22 year old car)

It definitely turns me off buying a used model S to know it's being discontinued. And if I extrapolate that to the 3/Y, a new purchase.

Given my desire for a midsize family sedan, it makes it feel like BMW i4 or Porsche Taycan just won me over in the future.

smileysteve··on I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor
Alt; typical western coverage. Has completely ignored other journalists publishing of the plight fitness bands have caused in doctors "am I getting a cold, my watch/ring says I'm getting a cold, give me antibiotics now"

Or how vo2 max is hard to measure, or how not wearing a wearable or wearing it loose changes results, to, I gave an llm a range to rate without really giving it context of what I want the range to really represent or the methods of gathering data.

Tldr; author bought everything, read nothing, complained to an expensive professional, and now hopes that we read his article.

smileysteve··on Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance
Because corn fed beef isn't as flavorful as grass fed beef. (Or healthy for the cattle)
smileysteve··on Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy
Historically, this is called "fiber", and has already been regulated to be required in European breads
smileysteve··on US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes
Only on a local level.

And businesses can already expense that tax, so it's 20% off, while individuals have been subject to the SALT cap

smileysteve··on US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes
So close to realizing the issues with the 2018 tax bill.

- 20% maximum corporate tax

- Personal Salt cap

Made it less expensive for an llc to buy a home than for most individuals.

To make individual ownership on par with corporate, individuals need to be in a lower tax bracket, be able to deduct taxes , interest, and insurance. And the $10k cap really hurt the ability for local property taxes to make it better for the individual. The new $40k cap may put it slightly towards the individual in some jurisdictions.

But raising corporate rates or reducing corporate deductible expense re real estate is the most efficient policy to encourage individual ownership.

smileysteve··on Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)
Anecdotally, only the "health focused" people around me understand that the food pyramid was for a different time and based on other interests.

And I don't think adults on a grand scale question it, or process nutrition labels.

Boomers in particular (who engrained Gen x and millennial diets) are most likely to follow grains (and margarine) diets.

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