unfoldedCravat (u/unfoldedCravat)

unfoldedCravat commented on Mazda’s rotary engine in the age of the electric car nippon.com/en/in-depth/d0... · Posted by u/gascoigne

hatsunearu · 2 years ago

No, rotary engines are terrible. For one, the equivalent of variable valve timing doesn't exist/cannot exist for rotary engines, unless Mazda creates a miracle. VVT and VVL lets you do some insane things in terms of efficiency and good engine behavior, so the rotary falls behind a lot.

The rotor is pretty much unable to be cooled too.

unfoldedCravat · 2 years ago

Mazda has a super interesting way of doing this. When paired with an electric motor/generator, they can speed up/slow down specific parts of the combustion cycle to essentially get vvt. I think they can only really do this as a range extender due to the fact it makes power delivery a little bit weird.

https://carbuzz.com/news/mazdas-new-rotary-engine-variable-v...

unfoldedCravat commented on Show HN: ReadToMe (iOS) turns paper books into audio readtome-app.com... · Posted by u/kolchinski

gnicholas · 2 years ago

The native TTS is not great. It doesn't sound like Siri — it's much robotic.

unfoldedCravat · 2 years ago

It can sound significantly better but there’s a couple hoops you have to jump through - and even then it’s decent, but not the same as Siri.

You need the user to download ‘enhanced’ or ‘premium’ voices in the settings app. (Settings -> Accessibility-> Spoken Content -> Voices -> [Language of choice] -> [Voice of choice] -> Enhanced or Premium)

In the app you have to search for the enhanced or premium voices when doing TTS.

Heres an Objective C example, I’m sure there’s an easier way to write it in Swift. https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd-iOS/pull/1156/commits/0b...

I’m not sure if you’ll find this acceptable from a UX point of view but there’s an option to play with if you’d like.

unfoldedCravat commented on Fastmail is down fastmailstatus.com/... · Posted by u/lrae

systemvoltage · 3 years ago

Hope to see a detailed breakdown of the issue and a good retrospective.

Downtime with email services has large disproportionate impact than other services (I am right now waiting on a magic link to login into Slack).

Curious, has GMail or iCloud mail ever had a downtime? I can't remember GMail ever having issues.

unfoldedCravat · 3 years ago

iCloud was down a couple weeks ago for most of a day. https://www.macrumors.com/2022/11/01/icloud-mail-down/

It definitely happens to other providers.

unfoldedCravat commented on Ask HN: Have you stopped reading most news? · Posted by u/x86hacker1010

gernb · 3 years ago

> > I tend to feel disturbed by how little it presents as reporting, and instead, how much it appears to have an agenda.

> If you don't read the news, then you're at risk of lacking important contextual knowledge about society and social norms.

Unfortunately there's very little news that doesn't have an agenda. So I'm not getting the news. I'm getting someone's opinions with various facts spun in a way so as to try to get me to vote one way or another. Is that a better way to be informed on how to vote?

unfoldedCravat · 3 years ago

As Mark Twain once said "If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed."

I guess it's up to the individual to choose what they prefer.

unfoldedCravat commented on Eight million Australians urged to turn off lights bbc.co.uk/news/business-6... · Posted by u/zeristor

unfoldedCravat · 4 years ago

And yet there's a large light festival that was allowed to run whilst telling people to turn off their lights. Granted lights are not the highest usage items, the sheer volume of bright outdoor projectors probably uses a fair amount more than people's house lighting. https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/sydneysiders-sla...

unfoldedCravat commented on This is a valid domain name (remove www) ai... · Posted by u/theseobosscom

unfoldedCravat · 4 years ago

And just like that, all the www.* domain names have been bought.

unfoldedCravat commented on Apple’s hidden flight tracker app medium.com/macoclock/appl... · Posted by u/rammy1234

pvinis · 4 years ago

Huh. is that a US thing only? Doesn't seem to show up for me. Currently in Cyprus, normally based in UK.

unfoldedCravat · 4 years ago

I've found that prepending "Flight" i.e. "Flight LH173" works when it doesn't detect the flight number by itself

unfoldedCravat commented on Unofficial firmware upgrade for Dyson V6/V7 vacuum battery management system github.com/tinfever/FU-Dy... · Posted by u/pabs3

Xcelerate · 4 years ago

Are they that bad? I’ve been interested in buying a cordless vacuum, and the Dyson ones seem to top all the review lists (e.g. Wirecutter). What are some good alternatives?

unfoldedCravat · 4 years ago

Not really relevant to cordless ones but I know Dyson removed their pre-motor filter on their latest corded vacuums. If the dust chamber is too full excess dust is blown through the motor and then stopped from coming out into the air by a post motor filter. This will lead to premature motor failure over time.

The Dyson 'bagless' idea is a bit of a sham. Yes they work, but they don't work that well. They don't make as much suction as their bagged competitors so they cheat and use smaller orifices to increase suction instead of by having a larger motor or alternative design. Then in order to have 'like new' performance all the time you have to continually wash (which doesn't really clean well enough) or replace filters.

Some people love them but they don't make sense to me. If I'm emptying my vacuum I'm going to empty it into a bag anyway so I may as well use a bagged vacuum that works more consistently and doesn't throw dust everywhere.