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asn007 commented on Electric Propulsion's Dirty Secret: Why Lithium Can't Fly (Or Float) Profitably   kumarletter.com/posts/ele... · Posted by u/kumarski
wkat4242 · a year ago
> but putting a reactor on each plane would probably have negative externalities.

Probably? It would be a disaster every time one crashes, would carry a huge proliferation and terrorism risk. Oof.

In the 50's some countries were that crazy and they even put reactors in space. Two of which crashed and one contaminated a huge area in Canada. Luckily common sense prevailed and these things don't happen anymore. Though nuclear ships still exist, there's only a few icebreakers in the civilian fleet AFAIK.

asn007 · a year ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought we still use RTGs in space on some satellites? Not counting extraterrestrial research, since those are definitely still powered by RTGs
asn007 commented on Schools reviving shop class   wsj.com/us-news/education... · Posted by u/bookofjoe
ljsocal · a year ago
I was very fortunate to be in middle school (ages 11 - 13) in the late 60s when shop classes were still going strong. Here's what I recall of our curriculum:

6th grade: industrial drawing, hand tools, shop safety, home maintenance: replacing windows, wiring bulbs, switches and outlets, faucet installations. Basic fabrication with plastic, hammered metal forming and band sawing wood.

7th & 8th grade: Metal: forge, lathe, welding (electric arc & acetylene), sheet metal (cutting, bending, punching, riveting, soldering) Wood: turning on lathe, table sawing, planing, routing, laminating, veneering, clamping, etc

In high school, all of the above plus architectural drawing, project management, metal machining, and fiberglass (mold design, making and part-making). Student projects included dune buggy car bodies, boats, water skis, furniture and all the usual (cutting boards, knife blocks, spice racks, etc.)

In today's world, parents (and lawyers) might find it unsafe for boys (very few girls elected to take these classes) but in seven years of shop, I only recall one serious accident involving the loss of a finger tip.

I went on to college major in Industrial Design and business then spent a career designing and producing projects for major consumer product company clients.

asn007 · a year ago
While I was lucky to have shop classes in my school, this curriculum makes me extremely jealous, to be honest. We didn't have neither welding, nor forging, nor working with fiberglass composites nor "big" projects, had to learn it all by myself. Still, those classes taught me the basics of actually doing something with my own hands, which is pretty important.

I also remember that we were trusted to behave like adults in front of heavy machinery like routers, circular saws and lathes. No incidents whatsoever aside from minor cuts, which is normal. We were genuinely interested and behaved accordingly, nobody wanted to get hurt and / or get kicked out of the class

P.S. Not sure of how it works in the US, but we also had "shop classes for girls". The curriculum for those consisted of the basics of cooking, baking and working with fabrics (starting from sewing two pieces together in grade 5 and gradually evolving to designing and sewing clothing for yourself by grade 9). Though, in my opinion, those things shall be taught to everyone, not just girls

asn007 commented on Show HN: I built a(nother) house optimized for LAN parties   lanparty.house/... · Posted by u/kentonv
UniverseHacker · a year ago
Why would you use headsets to play with friends in person? The whole point is that you can talk directly, usually with the sound completely off on everyone’s computers, and not too loud music playing in the background

For one, if you get a bunch of nerds together a sizable fraction are likely to have sensory issues- and won’t come again if you don’t make it welcoming for them

Some video games require some sound as it shares information, but can usually be configured to only have those sounds, or to turn on an accessible visual indicator

asn007 · a year ago
Honestly it's just that how I've always done this, other ways seemed too noisy for me and breaking the flow of the game :)

That might or might not be due to the games we've mostly been playing on our LAN parties are coming from a bit different profile than "chill co-op" — more MOBAs or tactical / arena shooters. In those styles of games visual cues don't really help and not having the clear audio puts you at a disadvantage

The music is still playing in the background, though — the headsets are not 100% soundproof and you may still easily communicate via VoIP

Yeah, the "live talking" aspect without headsets isn't there, but I've found it doesn't bother me in the slightest. You still are in the same room, you get the "shoulder sense" of your team there, you still celebrate and have fun as one and lose as one singular organism, and that's the feeling I've kinda been chasing on my LAN parties and in my LAN centre

asn007 commented on Show HN: I built a(nother) house optimized for LAN parties   lanparty.house/... · Posted by u/kentonv
kentonv · a year ago
I'm curious, what are the popular products/solutions that LAN centers use for this?

I ended up putting together my own thing. I saw various products that seemed like they might be what I wanted but they always seemed... sketchy.

asn007 · a year ago
There are a few, actually :)

CCBoot is a Windows Server-based diskless solution I mentioned, and they also provide CCDisk, which can do "hybrid" mode — where there is a small SSD in every PC with base OS pre-installed and pre-configured, which then mounts an iSCSI game drive

GGRock is a fantastic product, in my opinion. It is pricy, but where as CCBoot relies heavily on knowing it's inner workings, GGRock is pretty much turnkey solution

There is also CCu Cloud Update, which I have heard of, but didn't try myself, since they sell licenses only in Asia, from what I remember

LANGAME Premium is an addon for LAN centre ERP system, which is basically an ITAAS solution based on TrueNAS. Of all paid offerings that one is my favourite so far — but you have to use their ERP and actually run a business for it to be cost-effective

NetX provides an all-in-one (router, traffic filter and iSCSI target) NUC-like server with pre-configured software on a subscription basis. I am most skeptical of that just on the basis that, from my research, two NVMe drives can't really handle the load from a fully occupied 40+ machines LAN centre. Not for a long time, at least

...and homebrew, of course. I myself am running a homebrew ZFS-based system which I'm extremely happy with

In your case, I'd go with building my own thing too. Does not take a lot of time if you know the inner workings and you have no additional OPEX for your room :)

asn007 commented on Show HN: I built a(nother) house optimized for LAN parties   lanparty.house/... · Posted by u/kentonv
asn007 · a year ago
That's a sweet LAN setup you've got! The only few things that rub me the wrong way is the choice of peripherals and the lack of headsets. Must be pretty noisy in here!

The tabletops also seems a bit too thin and wiggly for my taste, but, honestly, for LAN parties with chill people you personally know — it's ok

As for the actual host setup with a singular disk image — great job! LAN gaming centres do something similar with their setups, with some differences (a lot of centres either use Windows-based diskless solutions that mount vhdx files as drives remotely over iSCSI, or use ZFS-based snapshotting, which is my personal favourite)

But all in all, seems like my dream house :)

I own a chain of LAN gaming centres, so the feedback is definitely skewered into the business perspective quite a bit

asn007 commented on Show HN: Mielo UI – flexible components framework based react/sass/CSS   github.com/mielo-ui/mielo... · Posted by u/friktor
asn007 · a year ago
Loving it. It looks a bit different from libadwaita's components, but different in a good way

What I would enjoy, though, is having a set of pre-built example pages (a sample dashboard, for example) that I can navigate to right from the docs page

asn007 commented on Chipotle's testing an avocado-peeling robot and an automated bowl assembly line   theverge.com/2024/9/16/24... · Posted by u/thunderbong
asn007 · a year ago
While this particular flavour of kitchen automation looks simple enough, sadly, the best automation there is for such tasks are still humans, due to cost reasons
asn007 commented on RIP to my 8-port Unifi switch after years and years of Texas outdoor temps   arstechnica.com/gadgets/2... · Posted by u/striking
markus92 · 2 years ago
So what's the go to brand for decent networking gear nowadays?
asn007 · 2 years ago
Mikrotik is decent! While there is some lackluster hardware (and, to be honest, most of their wireless AP solutions kinda suck), I've ran Mikrotik on two small-scale networks (~60 devices each, not including WiFi) + my home network, and had no issues whatsoever. Love them
asn007 commented on NPM package compromised by author: erases files on RU / BY computers on install   snyk.io/blog/peacenotwar-... · Posted by u/asn007
asn007 · 4 years ago
I rarely visit HN and mostly lurk here, not sure what you're trying to point out.

I was myself hit by the issue, unfortunately, and I strongly believe that weaponising open-source is not how things should be done, so I decided to post. An attempt to bring this into limelight, if you wish

This incident sets a dangerous precedent in breaking a chain of trust that today's software development heavily relies on

u/asn007

KarmaCake day281April 13, 2018View Original