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Simanaitis Says
Personal blog · simanaitissays.comculturehistoryhardware
Simanaitis Says is a personal blog at simanaitissays.com about culture, history and hardware. Since 2017, 4 different Hacker News readers have linked it 5 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link this blog for its historical posts on aviation, such as the Wright brothers' 1908 flyer and catapult launches, and on Alfred Nobel and prize history. Comments mostly cite it as a reference.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
On cars, old, new and future; science & technology; vintage airplanes, computer flight simulation of them; Sherlockiana; our English language; travel; and other stuff
What Hacker News says?
This is addressed in the article: "We designed and built a pneumatic rail launcher so that the plane does not have to take off under its own power." In the spirit of everything old being new again, the Wright Brothers' original 1908 flyer also used a catapult to launch the planes. https://simanaitissays.com/2012/08/13/vintage-aero-wilber-wo...
Comment linking /2012/08/13/vintage-aero-wilber-wows-em-at-le-mans/
on “Sun Flyer, an Electric Trainer Aircraft”Submitted Marille: The Case of the Overengineered Pasta as a story · 20 points
HN discussionThe atrocities are remembered in Ireland as atrocities all the same. > James Joyce wrote in Ulysses, 1922, “What about sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women and children of Drogheda to the sword with the bible text God is love pasted round the mouth of his cannon?” > Winston Churchill’s view in The History of the English Speaking Peoples: The Age of Revolution, 1957, is perhaps less artful, but…
Comment linking /2018/11/28/oliver-cromwell-puritan-lord-protector-and-a-real-piece-of-work-part-1/
on “Opponents of Oliver Cromwell published his family recipes”https://simanaitissays.com/2018/08/23/on-alfred-nobel-and-go... and https://simanaitissays.com/2018/08/24/on-alfred-nobel-and-go... is possibly a better reference here.
Comment linking /2018/08/24/on-alfred-nobel-and-gosta-mittag-leffler-a-rumor-squelched-part-2/
on “Is There a Curse of the Fields Medal? [pdf]”