Live data from Hacker News

Internal Combustion Engine

ciechanow.ski

391–400 of 415 posts

Re: Internal Combustion Engine

#391

One of those web pages which deserves an award. Some place in some kind of Internet Hall of Fame, an historical archive which shows the only best highlights of what websites were actually capable of presenting. Milestones of web development. This page summarizes pretty good what web technology is capable of, when in the hands of a real professional. --- Ok, I just realized this is from Bartosz Ciechanowski, and this…

>One of those web pages which deserves an award.

Yes. This is what Web Pages should have been. Simple, Clear, with Animation to help with certain demonstration. He could have been add an ad at the bottom if it needs to be. A Web page with added on interactivity.

Instead we got Web Apps.

Re: Internal Combustion Engine

#392

In a few decades the internal combustion engine will be to transportation what the typewriter is to typing today. It’s kind of mind boggling, but there is really no alternative if we want to stop increasing the CO2 concentration in our atmosphere.

Hydrogen works fine in ICEs with modest modifications. Hydrogen can be created with nearly any energy source: renewable, natural gas, etc. There is a large infrastructure for moving fuels.

>Hydrogen works fine in ICEs with modest modifications.

Just that they get lower efficiency than a fuel cell version, and apparently are sensitive to load, so mostly suited to constant-load applications, which a car typically isn't. Otherwise it'd have been interesting as fuel cells also have some serious drawbacks and seem to develop very slowly.

> Hydrogen can be created with nearly any energy source: renewable, natural gas, etc.

Yes. Although efficiency is kind of bad, so it doesn't make sense to use fossil fuels to make H2 for cars - we'd just be increasing emissions as opposed to generating electricity for use in BEVs. H2 has its place as intermediate term (before batteries get cheap enough) energy storage of surplus wind and solar power. It makes more sense to use the H2 for other things than cars though - ships, trains, long-haul trucks, possibly planes.

>There is a large infrastructure for moving fuels.

Which I bet has to be seriously adapted to handle hydrogen. You wouldn't be able to move syrup with the existing infrastructure, because it's very different to gasoline. H2 is probably a lot more different - it needs much tighter seals, it embrittles materials such as steel, which is used everywhere for e.g. gasoline storage. It is cryogenic and under high pressure. Finally, it'd be stupid to lock ourselves into an energy storage tech that relies on a physical fuel that has to be transported around, when electricity is right there, partly built out already and requiring no physical trucks, trains, boats etc to get to the consumer. It's just stone age and the only reasons people think it sounds like a good idea is that they're so used to it working that way.

Re: Internal Combustion Engine

#393

When I was a boy, my dad decided that our '66 Mustang with a straight 4-cylinder engine needed new piston rings. I helped a bit but mostly watched as he tore down the engine to the barest elements, only the engine mounts keeping the block held up in the compartment. The crankshaft, connecting rods, tappers valves, piston heads, piston rods, all laid out neatly on the garage floor along with all the nuts, bolts, washe…

Plus it doesn't help when vechicle manufacturers will not share repair information with the customer, or independant repair shops. It doesn't help when they refuse to sell scanners to independant shops, or customers. Yes---vechicles are much more complicated, but every vechicle sold in America should be required to tell customers up front about the ease, and accessibility of required repair information. My point is i…

Well spoken, Right to Repair, Right to be Healthy, we keep on dreaming

Re: Internal Combustion Engine

#394
post #271

One of those web pages which deserves an award. Some place in some kind of Internet Hall of Fame, an historical archive which shows the only best highlights of what websites were actually capable of presenting. Milestones of web development. This page summarizes pretty good what web technology is capable of, when in the hands of a real professional. --- Ok, I just realized this is from Bartosz Ciechanowski, and this…

I'm assuming he used something like SolidWorks to CAD up the parts, but then it looks like he custom made all the animation stepping widgets and camera rotation logic and various shaders for the different effects in pure JS[0]? Surely he didn't write this JS by hand (i.e. it was generated from blender3d or solidworks files or something?). I would like an article on how he made the interactive animations in the articl…

"I did the 3D models in @Shapr3D with small post processing in Blender, animations are just done by hand" https://twitter.com/BCiechanowski/status/1387827101294686210...

"Just bare webGL, it’s not that many lines of code to setup and it gives me complete control over what I want to render" https://twitter.com/BCiechanowski/status/1388504529646211076...

Re: Internal Combustion Engine

#396
I wish entire wikipedia was as informative as this one page.

Would be happy to pay for some commercial encyclopedia of that kind and quality.

When I was a child I absolutely loved Encarta 96. It fit on a single CD and had enough interactive material. With today’s computing, network and disk possibilities I don’t see any reasons why nowadays there is no single curated source of truth about the world around us.

Instead, all the information is spread around the vast amount of resources around World Wide Web and in order to find something meaningful you sometimes have to trudge through hordes of bullshit.

Re: Internal Combustion Engine

#397
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also I would trade you mech eng tutoring for JS tutoring, if you've got the time.

What’s this time you speak of?

I guess the person you replied to is saying that they are interested in teaching you JS, in exchange for you teaching them mechanical engineering fundamentals, assuming your schedule can allow that.

Re: Internal Combustion Engine

#398
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> makes me a little ashamed to use the word "engineer" in my title of "software engineer". There is no real comparison of the quality of the result. I think that's because the barrier to entry is too low and anybody is being called a "software engineer" these days. But think about a system which makes proper use of synchronization primitives, like an OS kernel or a robotic control, or a CPU design like the other guy…

When I took "Software Engineering" in University, the prof was very careful to explain in great detail, and frequently, that the field was not mature enough to really be called engineering. Then he would talk at length about things like software for airplanes and spacecraft. It is impossible to call yourself an engineer while looking someone in the eye after taking his class. I am a software developer. Maybe an analy…

The word engineer is used by anyone who 1) has an engineering degree or 2) works a field where most new practitioners have such a degree. Most of these people don't know shit, and design terrible systems that barely work (or don't work at all). Trying to elevate the word to a non-existent Plutonic ideal where it means "great engineering" is just ... pointless and faux-humble.

Re: Internal Combustion Engine

#400
post #398
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I took "Software Engineering" in University, the prof was very careful to explain in great detail, and frequently, that the field was not mature enough to really be called engineering. Then he would talk at length about things like software for airplanes and spacecraft. It is impossible to call yourself an engineer while looking someone in the eye after taking his class. I am a software developer. Maybe an analy…

The word engineer is used by anyone who 1) has an engineering degree or 2) works a field where most new practitioners have such a degree. Most of these people don't know shit, and design terrible systems that barely work (or don't work at all). Trying to elevate the word to a non-existent Plutonic ideal where it means "great engineering" is just ... pointless and faux-humble.

Real engineers are like doctors, lawyers, LMFTs... even licensed electricians have some similarity here:

The point is, the “field” , has taken in a number of disasters, established a professional association, set standards for what you need to know to not be putting people at risk of dying, and created tests that new entrants have to pass in order to be certified with a title.

Now, you can say that is pointless bullshit—fine. That’s an opinion. But then you are just saying you think the title of “Engineer” is bullshit, we could still at least try to use the word properly.

The point is, people used to be able to use the word “Engineer” to mean something like, your house isn’t going to slide off the cliff, and your bridge you bought isn’t going to fall down, and due to “software engineers” who never bothered to set any professional standards for themselves, that word is less and less meaningful.

Words come and go, it’s not the first time. But it’s still a little bit of a bummer when it happens.

Post reply on HN