ourlordcaffeine (u/ourlordcaffeine)

ourlordcaffeine commented on Brightline Orlando's first train: 125 mph from MCO to MIA [video] youtube.com/watch?v=Yu18Z... · Posted by u/ipnon

zpeti · 2 years ago

This seems like a very similar (and big) problem to Europe. Trains are just so expensive. UK it is unreal, I'm pretty sure some days you can fly from London to edinburgh for 1/10th, on a bad day 1/5th of the cost of trains. It just doesn't seem worth it. Clearly something about the economics of trains just doesn't work, especially when compared to mid-distance trips where cheap airlines also exist.

I came here expecting to see that the "free market zero regulation" of the US, and business sense would mean quite a cheap fare for this train, but no, it's just as bad as europe.

Even though they are supposedly the ultimate green mass public transportation, trains really need to get cheaper to be a serious alternative for cars and cheap airlines, as you also point out.

ourlordcaffeine · 2 years ago

>Trains are just so expensive. UK it is unreal

Yet still jam packed with people

ourlordcaffeine commented on FM radio wave-based early earthquake detection (2021) semanticscholar.org/paper... · Posted by u/1970-01-01

amatecha · 2 years ago

There is something along those lines, but accessible to anyone: Raspberry Shake[0]. I follow a ton of amateurs on mastodon and occasionally notice them posting their screenshots of detected seismic activity as such events occur. Pretty cool! It uses seismic and infrasound sensors rather than RF, though -- pretty different from what the HN story is discussing.

[0] https://raspberryshake.org/

ourlordcaffeine · 2 years ago

Raspberry shake is ok for seeing if there was a quake, but there are in fact several improvements I've wanted to make if I had the time.

Starting with adding a long range wireless or cellular connection so it can be away from human activity, also I've wanted to improve the timestamp accuracy to well beyond +-10ms and I'm pretty sure it can be done with a tcxo and a GPS receiver.

I also think an actual raspberry pi isn't strictly needed and so the power consumption can be reduced a bit by sticking to microcontrollers

ourlordcaffeine commented on Arduino raises $22M Series B round blog.arduino.cc/2023/09/0... · Posted by u/marc__1

_spduchamp · 2 years ago

Yup. I switched to ESPs for projects and won't go back to Arduino. I had to fix someone else's Arduino based art installation a couple weeks ago and it seemed weird and very retro going back to work with that Arduino form factor.

That said, maybe they have a future being a standard component in industrial settings. I would tend to trust an Arduino more than an ESP in critical infrastructure.

ourlordcaffeine · 2 years ago

> I would tend to trust an Arduino more than an ESP in critical infrastructure.

Arduino has always come across to me as being for hobbyist/beginner/learning, and critical infra would use things more like, for example, STMicro or Texas Instruments microcontrollers

ourlordcaffeine commented on Why does the USA use 110V and UK use 230-240V? (2014) electronics.stackexchange... · Posted by u/dilawar

jraph · 2 years ago

(edit: this comment is quite useless, I need to leave it to keep the discussion understandable)

Interested in the answer which I don't have.

That said, UK is wired to the continent, which runs at 230V, 50 Hz.

Everyone runs at the exact same frequency (same fluctuations) at any moment across the whole continent for technical reasons. (edit: UK is actually not synchronized with the continent, I didn't know that either).

I guess having the about the same voltage as the rest of the continent is at least convenient (edit: apparently it's not exactly the same?).

So I guess the question is US vs the European continent.

Curious about the rest of America (North and South).

ourlordcaffeine · 2 years ago

The uk grid is not synchronized with the european grid, it is just HVDC interconnected.

You are right about the european grid, it is synchronized

ourlordcaffeine commented on The modern sea spider had started to diversify by the Jurassic, study finds bristol.ac.uk/news/2023/a... · Posted by u/conse_lad

ourlordcaffeine · 2 years ago

I always enjoy seeing the university I went to pop up on hackernews

ourlordcaffeine commented on California allows robo-taxis to expand and emergency responders aren't happy npr.org/2023/08/10/119327... · Posted by u/cebert

lolinder · 2 years ago

The economy is not the highest good.

The fastest way to speed up new construction is to drop all safety protocols whatsoever—that's how you get rapid build up in developing countries, but that's also how you lose thousands of people to an earthquake or to a citywide fire. One of the characteristics of a developed nation is that we place a higher priority on not losing the development we already have than we do on developing further. Stability over growth. The rewards are lower, but so is the risk of a disaster.

ourlordcaffeine · 2 years ago

Complaining that fire safety is bad for the economy. Wow, now that's a take I don't think you'll see in many places other than hackernews

ourlordcaffeine commented on National Geographic lays off its last remaining staff writers washingtonpost.com/media/... · Posted by u/supportengineer

bmitc · 2 years ago

It is really sad that actual journalism has no place in today's world because the Internet has made everyone want everything for free. So everyone ends up getting "free" information and articles that consist of drivel and superficial research all the while paying for it via their data being collected and sold.

The Internet and capitalism don't make a good cocktail.

Then I see this:

> The cutback — the latest in a series under owner Walt Disney Co.

It's sad that National Geographic is effectively closing its doors when it's owned by Walt Disney Co., which has yearly revenue of nearly $100 billion. They seriously can't find the miniscule amount of cash in there to support National Geographic's journalism? Walt Disney is one of the most evil and exploitative companies ever, so I suppose I'm not surprised by their actions here.

> National Geographic spokesperson Chris Albert said staffing changes will not affect the company’s plans to continue publishing a monthly magazine

If they don't employ writers, then who is going to be writing the magazine?

ourlordcaffeine · 2 years ago

>If they don't employ writers, then who is going to be writing the magazine?

Well there is always chatGPT

ourlordcaffeine commented on Building the Pocket CO2 Project bitbanksoftware.blogspot.... · Posted by u/_Microft

voxelghost · 2 years ago

So some perspective;

    * 10,000 years ago, the average atmospheric CO2 was about 280ppm.
    * In 2022, the average atmospheric CO2 was about 420ppm.
    * OPs baseline indoor CO2 is 700-800ppm.
    * For a brief time when cooking, OPs indoor CO2 is 3000ppm

700-3000ppm CO2 would be catastrophic for the climate if it was the average atmospheric level (but fortunately we haven't messed up this bad yet)

But when it comes to the effect on the body, and I am not a medical professional of any kind, but normally exhaled air contains about 4.5 percent CO2 ( or 45,000ppm), so while breathing in air with 3,000ppm or 0.3% CO2 probably isn't optimal for us - our lungs are constantly dealing with much higher concentrations. So nervous shallow-breathing worrying about CO2 levels of your home probably has a similar effect to OPs cooking. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ourlordcaffeine · 2 years ago

Levels above 1000ppm are shown to cause cognitive impairment. 3000ppm is absolutely harmful.

>our lungs are constantly dealing with much higher concentrations

After gas exchange. Not with inhaled air.

ourlordcaffeine commented on Show HN: An interactive map showing live wind farm generation in Great Britain renewables-map.robinhawke... · Posted by u/robhawkes

ourlordcaffeine · 2 years ago

Just wanted to say, as someone who works in the industry, wind FPNs are sometimes incorrect.

Grid have access to "power available" signals, but this is not public data.

ourlordcaffeine commented on Show HN: An interactive map showing live wind farm generation in Great Britain renewables-map.robinhawke... · Posted by u/robhawkes

jeffwass · 2 years ago

This is cool Robin!

Do you also have access to solar data? Eg, I am a UK homeowner w/ a recent solar installation on my roof, would be curious to see how that looks too.

ourlordcaffeine · 2 years ago

Sheffield solar are your guys. Maybe the best publicly available one.