nicholassmith (u/nicholassmith)

nicholassmith commented on BMW PHEV: Safety fuse replacement is extremely expensive evclinic.eu/2025/12/04/20... · Posted by u/mikelabatt

tw04 · 2 months ago

> The moment you have any issue at all with it, the car will be considered totaled.

Huh? The taycan has an 8-year/100k mile battery warranty. How many 100k+ mile carreras do you see for sale on eBay?

nicholassmith · 2 months ago

Quite a few actually, regular 911s often end up being daily drivers and given Porsche build them to last there's plenty of high milers out there.

nicholassmith commented on The differences between an IndyCar and a F1 car openwheelworld.net/en/ind... · Posted by u/1659447091

monkeydust · 2 months ago

What's happening with synthetic fuels? I read while back Porsche investing in factories to produce but that was a few years ago, is it a bit of snake oil wrt to it's alleged green credentials or simply can't scale at an acceptable cost?

nicholassmith · 2 months ago

The World Endurance Championship has been using synthetic fuels since 2022 from TotalEnergies (https://competition.totalenergies.com/en/auto/endurance/wec/...), there's also Sustain (https://sustain-fuels.com/) in the UK as well who seem to be growing reasonably well but are a mix of sustainable & fossil fuels. There's some variability of how green they are, you still need to burn something so there's going to be emissions as well but they've been validated in the motorsport labs as being viable and they're starting to make their way to consumers.

nicholassmith commented on I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone (2022) smallandroidphone.com/... · Posted by u/asimops

ginko · 7 months ago

>manufacturers also charge more for bigger devices and most of that is margin.

Why do they do that though? Usually more compact, high end devices would be more expensive than bulkier one. When has this trend reversed?

nicholassmith · 7 months ago

Bigger equals better consumer perception, I imagine driven in part by the top-tier phones being larger to fit additional battery capacity in for the higher performance processors making all larger devices carry some premium cachet.

nicholassmith commented on The $25k car is going extinct? media.hubspot.com/why-the... · Posted by u/pseudolus

troupo · 8 months ago

Small cars are disappearing in the EU as well. E.g. Audi will discontinue (or have already discontinued) their A1 model (and it was the perfect little car).

nicholassmith · 8 months ago

Renault at least are keeping the small car flame alive with the 5 and a new version of the Twingo. Audi's product strategy at the moment seems to be "try everything and pivot" so they might even end up relauching the A2 by accident.

nicholassmith commented on The Rise and Fall of Toys 'R' Us (2018) history.com/articles/toys... · Posted by u/indigodaddy

gosub100 · 10 months ago

if the market existed, then a new toy store would appear. I'm saying the market for what TRU provided had disappeared.

nicholassmith · 10 months ago

In the UK the toy chains The Entertainer and Smyths both expanded to fill the market, both usually seem to have a decent amount of footfall. Toys are an interesting product as the target market is, for the most part, not an online shopper.

nicholassmith commented on Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf (2022) ericdraken.com/pfsense-de... · Posted by u/udev4096

timcobb · a year ago

> Spotify laughs all the way to the bank

FWIW, I don't think Spotify makes much, if any, money lol

nicholassmith · a year ago

Net profit was €1.14bn for 2024, which feels like a reasonable amount of money.

nicholassmith commented on Show HN: Bayleaf – Building a low-profile wireless split keyboard graz.io/articles/bayleaf-... · Posted by u/sgraz

voidUpdate · a year ago

Why do no split keyboards have symbols on the keycaps? What happens when you forget where a key is that you don't use often, do you just have to press keys until you find it again?

nicholassmith · a year ago

When I forget where I've stashed a specific symbol or similar I just check the Via QMK configuration tool, similar to when you're trying to learn the shortcut keys for a piece of software. Eventually it's muscle-memory, but it's nice to have a reference guide whilst you're building it.

nicholassmith commented on WristPC Keyboard l3sys.com/wristpc/wristpc... · Posted by u/yamrzou

gkhartman · a year ago

It looks like a well built mini keyboard, but I was not expecting the price tag exceeding $200.

nicholassmith · a year ago

That probably wasn't such a bad price when it was released: "In the fall of 1998 the WristPC wearable keyboard was introduced."

nicholassmith commented on My Struggle with Doom Scrolling allthatjazz.me/posts/doom... · Posted by u/saeedesmaili

boomskats · a year ago

A little over a year ago I gave away my flagship samsung phablet and bought one of their flip phones, in an attempt to change my habits by consciously making myself doubtful/anxious about the longevity of the flip phone's infamous hinge. The idea was that the little front screen would do everything that a semi-dumb phone replacement could (notifications, camera, calls, timers, calculator, calendar), but I'd also have a 'real smartphone' whenever I needed one - it's just that with this one, using it came at a cost. Every time I'd go to use the big screen I'd remember there was an anxious moment that stood in the way, and the paranoia would make me just anxious enough to question whether I really needed to do what I was about to do.

It's been about 15 months, and I haven't really had to compromise or sacrifice anything: I haven't uninstalled any social media apps, my banking apps are all still there, I have contactless payments on hand, etc.. However, I can say with absolute certainty that my habits have changed _drastically_. Interestingly, I'm not even hesitant to use the phone when I need to, I use it all the time - but when I use it I now use it intentionally, and very briefly; gone are the days of catching myself somehow scrolling through instagram just because 5 minutes ago I opened a whatsapp notification from my mum. It's like night and day, and what's more I feel like I barely had to try.

This is obviously sample of one anecdata, but I'm genuinely surprised at how successful it's been. A real 'life hack'.

(And no I don't have any samsung coupon codes nor do I particularly care for them as a company. Worth mentioning though - the hinge on the zf5 is still really solid 15 months in)

nicholassmith · a year ago

I do the same thing (Motorola Razr rather than Samsung), and I've found that working on the smaller screen means I don't get sucked into things as it's useful for quickly checking on a limited set of apps but doesn't lend itself to a "open app => consume => next app" cycle.

nicholassmith commented on Virtual Vette – Racing Simulator Built from Wrecked Corvette instructables.com/Virtual... · Posted by u/starkparker

p1necone · a year ago

I'm surprised they built something this involved and went with a belt drive wheel. Direct drive options are very affordable these days and the difference is night and day.

nicholassmith · a year ago

I actually see quite a lot of elaborate rigs that go for the trusty Logitech/Thrustmaster belt drive wheels, I guess if you've got it and it's working fine for you then build around what you've got. I on the other hand am terrible for gear acquisition syndrome so I'll skip the impressive car-in-house rig to chase the next upgrade.