Top all-time · #1233
blog.x.company
Company blog · blog.x.companysciencestartups
blog.x.company is the company blog at blog.x.company, writing about science and startups. Since 2017, 57 different Hacker News readers have linked it 65 times, most often “Google X's Dandelion: Home heating and cooling with geothermal energy”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (19) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link X's blog for announcements and retrospectives on its moonshot projects, such as Loon, Makani, Malta, Dandelion and Chronicle, and for its principles such as "tackle the monkey first".
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 19 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Google X's Dandelion: Home heating and cooling with geothermal energy5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2017-07-10
- Alphabet Winds Down Loon5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-01-22
- Sharing Makani with the World: The Energy Kite Collection4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-09-10
- Balloon-powered Internet takes a step closer to reality3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-02-17
- Tackle the Monkey First3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-05-02
- Alphabet’s X lab spins out molten-salt energy storage project Malta2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-12-19
- Graduation Day: Introducing Chronicle2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-01-24
- Google X: track and monitor thousands of individual fish2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-03-02
- /helping-out-in-peru-9e5a84839fd22 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-08-29
- /a-long-and-windy-road-f8e09d02c9e12 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-09-13
What Hacker News says?
Loon shut down last year: https://blog.x.company/loons-final-flight-e9d699123a96 (Disclosure: I work at Google, speaking only for myself)
Comment linking /loons-final-flight-e9d699123a96
on “Today Google is turning on tracking for many users that previously turned it off”Submitted Google relaunches Glass for businesses as a story · 484 points
HN discussionFrom https://x.company/projects/makani/ : > In 2020 Makani’s journey as a company came to an end [0]. To share the lessons and insights the Makani team gained from their 13 year journey developing an entirely new kind of wind energy technology, the team created The Energy Kite Collection, a portfolio of resources including a technical report, Makani’s entire avionics, flight controls and simulation code repositories…
Comment linking /a-long-and-windy-road-f8e09d02c9e1
on “Makani source code released”Submitted Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company as a story · 385 points
HN discussionBlog post from February when Alphabet withdrew funding: https://blog.x.company/a-long-and-windy-road-f8e09d02c9e1 (Disclosure: I work for Google)
Comment linking /a-long-and-windy-road-f8e09d02c9e1
on “Makani source code released”Submitted Loon’s final flight as a story · 285 points
HN discussionTo Loon's defense, it actually worked well in the recent flooding on Peru[0]. [0] https://blog.x.company/helping-out-in-peru-9e5a84839fd2
Comment linking /helping-out-in-peru-9e5a84839fd2
on “Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close””Submitted Turning on Project Loon in Puerto Rico as a story · 231 points
HN discussionhttps://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4994054 This is the paper the Malta team uses in their blog ( https://blog.x.company/introducing-malta-81bceb559061 ) on explaining how the system works at large. It’s a pretty good summary.
Comment linking /introducing-malta-81bceb559061
on “Alphabet spinoff Malta raises $26M for technology to store power in molten salt”Submitted Gcam, the computational photography project that powers the Google Pixel camera as a story · 196 points
HN discussionBlog post from the Malta team on their graduation from X with their molten salt battery grid energy storage play. https://blog.x.company/introducing-malta-81bceb559061
Comment linking /introducing-malta-81bceb559061
on “Alphabet spinoff Malta raises $26M for technology to store power in molten salt”Submitted Alphabet’s X lab spins out molten-salt energy storage project Malta as a story · 31 points
HN discussionAFAIK, many other big-name companies have been donating manpower and resources to help get PR back on its feet. What makes this announcement any more noteworthy? I'd get it if it included a bit more information, but the blog post reads as marketing fluff. Does anyone know of any reliable sources showing in-depth sample numbers from previous deployments? I'd be really interested in getting an idea of what area size t…
Comment linking /helping-out-in-peru-9e5a84839fd2
on “Turning on Project Loon in Puerto Rico”Submitted Unleashing Radical Creativity (2020) as a story · 29 points
HN discussionDefinitely the most interesting part of this project in my opinion. > This is the first time we have used our new machine learning powered algorithms to keep balloons clustered over Puerto Rico, so we’re still learning how best to do this. As we get more familiar with the constantly shifting winds in this region, we hope to keep the balloons over areas where connectivity is needed for as long as possible. https://bl…
Comment linking /how-project-loons-smart-software-learned-to-sail-the-winds-ec904e6d08c
on “Turning on Project Loon in Puerto Rico”Submitted Google X: track and monitor thousands of individual fish as a story · 15 points
HN discussionHow does it break them? As far as I can see, the only bit that matters is what appears to be a hash at the end. In this case: 3ee86657d6c9. That is, https://blog.x.company/3ee86657d6c9 is the same post. I don't know how this is substantially+notably different to how other blog platforms do urls.
Comment linking /3ee86657d6c9
on “Gcam, the computational photography project that powers the Google Pixel camera”Submitted Bringing light-speed internet to Sub-Saharan Africa as a story · 9 points
HN discussionThe blog post from Astro Teller (of X) subtitled "Cybersecurity needs a moonshot": https://blog.x.company/graduation-day-introducing-chronicle-...
Comment linking /graduation-day-introducing-chronicle-318d34b80cce
on “Introducing Chronicle, a new Alphabet business dedicated to cybersecurity”Submitted New chapter for Google Glass as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSo far I’ve listed Waymo and Verily. What about, Loon - https://loon.co/ Dandelion - https://dandelionenergy.com/ Wing - https://x.company/wing/ Chronicle - https://chronicle.security/ Malta - https://blog.x.company/introducing-malta-81bceb559061 Apple is almost 100% definitively not working on a molten salt energy storage solution I can promise you. And the reason is because it’s just not in it’s corporate structur…
Comment linking /introducing-malta-81bceb559061
on “Capitalism the Apple Way vs. Capitalism the Google Way (2017)”Submitted Alphabet Winds Down Loon as a story · 5 points
HN discussionIt appears they are using a better drilling method https://blog.x.company/introducing-dandelion-2706eded169a I was being cynical as we have a nest that underperforms and sometimes behaves erratically. The website focuses on exploiting subsidies to install. I'd like to know more about Dandelion in case I missed something, will be interesting to get feedback on effectiveness, performance and noise levels
Comment linking /introducing-dandelion-2706eded169a
on “Google spinoff Dandelion uses ground energy to heat and cool homes”Submitted Sharing Makani with the World: The Energy Kite Collection as a story · 5 points
HN discussionMy local well drilling guy has offered "geothermal" for years (decades?) Despite a large inventory of wealthy second home owners, he didn't get and still doesn't get many takers. Meanwhile, rooftop solar is everywhere. My parents almost bought their "retirement home" with an existing geothermal system - it remains the only "real world" home instance of this technology that I have encountered. $20K also seems very cl…
Comment linking /introducing-dandelion-2706eded169a
on “Google spinoff Dandelion uses ground energy to heat and cool homes”Submitted Loon and Wing graduate from X as a story · 5 points
HN discussionDandelion uses a cheaper drilling method to reduce up-front costs. https://blog.x.company/introducing-dandelion-2706eded169a
Comment linking /introducing-dandelion-2706eded169a
on “Google spinoff Dandelion uses ground energy to heat and cool homes”Submitted How to think in questions, not answers as a story · 4 points
HN discussionIt was interesting to me that in the X blog post about Loon, they elevated Wing to the same level as Waymo: https://blog.x.company/loons-final-flight-e9d699123a96
Comment linking /loons-final-flight-e9d699123a96
on “Alphabet shutting Loon, which used balloon alternative to cell towers”Submitted A new chapter for Glass as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
