Top all-time · #16327
Nick Touran
Personal blog · partofthething.com/thoughts · on HN as acidburnNSAsciencehardwaresystems
Nick Touran's personal blog at partofthething.com covers science, hardware and systems. Since 2015, 4 different Hacker News readers have linked it 51 times, most often “Making true random numbers with radioactive decay (2021)”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
partofthething.com -- Nick Touran’s homepage
Most-linked posts?
- Making true random numbers with radioactive decay (2021)2 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-12-10
- Measuring the Tonga eruption pressure wave with a home weather station2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-01-19
- A cheap and simple barn-door star tracker with software tangent correction2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-06-15
What Hacker News says?
I wrote up my solution to this a few years ago here [1] and it ended up giving me my first ever top of HN post [2]. Radicale + Thunderbird + OpenTasks + DAVx5 works great for me. [1] https://partofthething.com/thoughts/host-your-own-contacts-a... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14836265
Comment linking /thoughts/host-your-own-contacts-and-calendars-and-share-them-across-devices/
on “The open calendar, task and note space is a mess”Submitted Host your own contacts and calendars and share them across devices as a story · 227 points
HN discussionI built one with lots of sensors along these lines. Very useful during smoke season to try to balance co2 and pm. https://partofthething.com/thoughts/weather-and-air-quality-...
Comment linking /thoughts/weather-and-air-quality-monitoring-station-with-esp8266-and-home-assistant/
on “Monitoring my home's air quality with AirGradient's DIY sensor”Submitted The Hero Jr. personal robot from HeathKit: a 1984 product way ahead of its time as a story · 30 points
HN discussionSeriously. I plotted these data in Dec. 2017 of the entire Pacific Northwest's wind resources drop to zero for ten full days. Not overly uncommon. https://partofthething.com/thoughts/wp-content/uploads/decem...
Comment linking /thoughts/wp-content/uploads/december_generation-1.png
on “The Third Phase of Clean Energy Will Be Most Disruptive Yet”Submitted Making true random numbers with radioactive decay (2021) as a story · 18 points
HN discussionAnswered here: https://partofthething.com/thoughts/weather-and-air-quality-...
Comment linking /thoughts/weather-and-air-quality-monitoring-station-with-esp8266-and-home-assistant/
on “Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi”Submitted The modern era passed through a cathode ray tube as a story · 9 points
HN discussionI have done a bunch of writeups, in this category [1] The weather station post in particular with the sensors is here [2] [1] https://partofthething.com/thoughts/category/electronics-and... [2] https://partofthething.com/thoughts/weather-and-air-quality-...
Comment linking /thoughts/weather-and-air-quality-monitoring-station-with-esp8266-and-home-assistant/
on “Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi”Submitted A (medium-length) primer on energy, greenhouse gas, intermittency, and nuclear as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThose are all considered in the lifecycle emissions calculations done by folks like the IPCC, who released these data [1]. It considers mining, construction, transportation, waste, etc. of all energy sources so they can be compared for energy policy purposes. E=MC 2 is an amazing thing. [1] https://partofthething.com/thoughts/wp-content/uploads/ipcc-... Source: Schlomer S., et.al., 2014: Annex III: Technology-specif…
Comment linking /thoughts/wp-content/uploads/ipcc-co2-of-fuels.png
on “First contact made with melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima plant”Submitted A cheap and simple barn-door star tracker with software tangent correction as a story · 2 points
HN discussionAs a matter of fact I do! https://partofthething.com/thoughts/?p=1327 Thanks for asking!
Comment linking /thoughts/?p=1327
on “Is Arduino no longer open-source?”Submitted Measuring the Tonga eruption pressure wave with a home weather station as a story · 1 points
HN discussionNice. I love weather station builds. Here is mine. I added a pm air quality sensor, a infrared rain sensor, some light sensors, a CO2 sensor, an accelerometer, and a loudness sensor. There's a spot for my Geiger counter too but that installation is not done yet. https://partofthething.com/thoughts/weather-and-air-quality-...
Comment linking /thoughts/weather-and-air-quality-monitoring-station-with-esp8266-and-home-assistant/
on “Build yourself a weather station”Submitted The modern era passed through a cathode ray tube as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI made a set of DIY weather station/air quality monitors at the beginning of COVID. I have lots of little noises for various things that trigger via Home Assistant. Like when outdoor air quality spikes, I get one noise (usually neighbor having a cigar, leaf blower nearby, someone with a wood stove, etc.) If indoor air quality spikes I get another one (dry shampoo, burned pancakes, etc really set it off). During fire…
Comment linking /thoughts/weather-and-air-quality-monitoring-station-with-esp8266-and-home-assistant/
on “AirGradient: DIY Air Quality Monitoring with Open-Source Hardware & Firmware”Here's a blog post where the original LIRC component in Home Assistant was developed along with some info about how to use it [1]. In here an A/C unit, a TV, and a stereo are all controlled with one little IR LED. With a little z-wave door sensor (just a magnetic reed switch), you could have Home Assistant run an automation that says "If gate is open at 9:30am, close it." so then you don't even have to log in to cli…
Comment linking /thoughts/adding-a-ir-send-and-receive-capabilities-to-my-home-assistant-based-smart-home/
on “Facebook Delays Home-Speaker Unveil Amid Data Crisis”An initial setup (on an older version of HASS) is shown here [1]. That has the basics. I've had good luck with Amcrest cameras actually, which even have a component in HASS [2]. They never phone home (check default settings though, I think they want to at first) and I access the whole thing through a OpenWRT-hosted OpenVPN server hosted on my router(s). I also really want to make sure nothing phones home ever. You c…
Comment linking /thoughts/raspberry-pi-home-assistant-diy-burglar-alarm/
on “Facebook Delays Home-Speaker Unveil Amid Data Crisis”Yup we here. Shared family calendar across Thunderbird and all family phones with CalDAV hosted on a radicale server set up like this: https://partofthething.com/thoughts/host-your-own-contacts-a...
Comment linking /thoughts/host-your-own-contacts-and-calendars-and-share-them-across-devices/
on “Thunderbird’s New Home”In 2009, I could send and receive text messages though SMS gateways that would control my arduino-controlled hot tub that my friends and I got for $100 on Craigslist. I could adjust the temperature and it would acknowledge and tell me when the programmed temperature would be reached based on the time derivative. This was useful as a grad student in Ann Arbor winters. I had a python script running on a handmedown com…
Comment linking /thoughts/hot-tub-controller/
on “Send text messages for free using Python”Almost definitely. I immediately got one for my mom and she just loves it when the house warms up before she wakes up, when the birds chirp (over the stereo) over the stereo as she comes downstairs in the morning, as the northern loon calls exactly at sunset (over the stereo), and a bunch of other goofy stuff. Not to mention the full-on security system that sends email pictures of intruders when it's set off. If you…
Comment linking /thoughts/enlighten-your-old-furnace-with-a-raspberry-pi-home-assistant-an-esp8266-and-some-relays/
on “Harmony Link will no longer work after March 2018”Well if this isn't the most validating and ringing endorsement of privately-hosted, open source home automation stuff like Home Assistant [1], I don't know what is. I rigged it with $2 of infrared LED transmitters and receivers hooked to my raspberry pi and automated my TV, stereo, and air conditioner [2]. I am so glad I did this now. I think there is big business, on the order of a full-on electrician, in going aro…
Comment linking /thoughts/adding-a-ir-send-and-receive-capabilities-to-my-home-assistant-based-smart-home/
on “Harmony Link will no longer work after March 2018”It's still a maker/hobby space thing as far as I can tell. Using Home Assistant with a few relays and an Esp8266 gives you a powerful smart thermostat for a few bucks but isn't the most trivial thing in the world to get going. https://partofthething.com/thoughts/enlighten-your-old-furna...
Comment linking /thoughts/enlighten-your-old-furnace-with-a-raspberry-pi-home-assistant-an-esp8266-and-some-relays/
on “Harmony Link will no longer work after March 2018”I hosted Home Assistant on a Pi2+ at first, and then Pi3 for a long time. Eventually I wanted to use the Pi3 for something slightly different and had a low-powered home server at that point so I migrated to that. It's basically just running on a Ubuntu box that I use for NAS and workstation stuff now. As for Doorbell, it's pretty much like this: https://partofthething.com/thoughts/making-my-analog-doorbel...
Comment linking /thoughts/making-my-analog-doorbell-smart-by-simply-attaching-a-7-sensor-to-it/
on “Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?”Ninja edit: I blogged about it here if you want to see the script, predictions, and measurements: https://partofthething.com/thoughts/measuring-the-tonga-erup...
Comment linking /thoughts/measuring-the-tonga-eruption-pressure-wave-with-a-home-weather-station/
on “NASA: Tonga blast was 10 megatons, more powerful than a nuclear bomb”Sure. Here's a write-up on it: https://partofthething.com/thoughts/weather-and-air-quality-...
Comment linking /thoughts/weather-and-air-quality-monitoring-station-with-esp8266-and-home-assistant/
on “Show HN: Multi-room audio with Snapcast and Raspberry Pi”Definitely a star-tracking camera mount for astrophotography. https://partofthething.com/thoughts/making-a-cheap-and-simpl...
Comment linking /thoughts/making-a-cheap-and-simple-barn-door-star-tracker-with-software-tangent-correction-for-astrophotography/
on “Tinkering with electronics”But then you have to account for methane leaks from pipelines and account for the fact that methane has 60x more warming power than co2 and they end up being basically a wash. Consider the error bars in, i.e. https://partofthething.com/thoughts/wp-content/uploads/ipcc-... Data from https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_a...
Comment linking /thoughts/wp-content/uploads/ipcc-co2-of-fuels.png
on “Nuclear Commission Approves a Safety Aspect of NuScale Power’s Advanced Reactor”> cleaner than coal It's also cleaner and less carbon intensive (12 gCO2/kWh) than pretty much everything else out there. Wind beats it as the least carbon intensive (11 gCO2/kWh). Original reference: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_a... Writeup with plots: https://partofthething.com/thoughts/a-medium-length-primer-o...
Comment linking /thoughts/a-medium-length-primer-on-energy-greenhouse-gas-intermittency-and-nuclear/
on “Nuclear Commission Approves a Safety Aspect of NuScale Power’s Advanced Reactor”
