It's like reading dispatches from an alternate post-truth universe.
> You can never return back to the claims to inform your readership whether they were actually true (this is especially true of CEO promises made before giant, pointless, disastrous mergers).
That's the worst. It's like it's now wrong to call CEOs on their bullshit.
Yesterday I noted that Donut Labs, with their heavily promoted solid state battery, had previously announced they would be shipping in volume in Q1 2026. I wrote on HN "They have until Tuesday." That was voted down.
From the article: "The main theme in the Spanish Golden Age playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s La Vida es Sueño (Life is a Dream) from 1635 is the contrast between subjective and objective perceptions of reality."
Huh? Is this AI slop?
The basic problems with VR are well known. First, the headgear is too bulky. Carmack, who headed Oculus for a while, says that it won't get traction until the headgear is down to swim-goggles size, and won't go mainstream until it's down to eyeglass size.[1] "AR glasses", with just an overlay, achieve that, but it's not a full virtual environment.
Second, a sizable fraction of the population experiences some nausea, and a smaller fraction will barf.[2] That's worse than roller coasters. When visual and vestibular data disagree, the brain doesn't like it. The most successful VR games, such as Beat Saber, keep them locked together, but then you're stuck in one spot. There's a really good discussion of this by Phia, a VR influencer who started using VR as a teenager and spends a lot of time in VR.[3] She has practical advice on tuning VR systems to minimize nausea (interocular distance matters!) and how to introduce new people to VR (it takes repeated exposures of increasing length.)
VR Chat continues to grow, driven by young people who worked through the problems. VR Chat used to prevent free movement - you had to teleport from one seat to another. But experienced users wanted more freedom, and VR chat now allows it if you opt in. Really good users can do gymnastics with full body tracking while in VR.
It's not just put on the goggles and have fun. You have to acclimate. Learn the gestures that drive the system. Practice. If you go for full body and face tracking, your avatar has to be calibrated to match your joint lengths and you have to strap on sensors. (Which are now good, small, and wireless.) You need a safe open space where you can move, where there are no dangerous objects nearby, and the VR system knows the real world safe boundaries. VR is a sport, and takes the preparation of a sport.
Just a quick note to say that it is not AI slop. That particular line is out of my PhD dissertation about the legal implications of VR, submitted over a decade ago. I'll take it as a compliment though, assuming you meant the piece is well researched.
Most of the solid state batteries have far less thermal runaway problem than lithium-ion batteries. At this point, several companies have working demo solid state batteries, but the price is far too high. Mercedes has one demo car with a solid state battery. Ducati has one motorcycle.
Donut Labs just has one demo cell, not even enough for their motorcycle. The technology works but is so expensive there aren't even multiple prototypes.
Samsung says they will ship some solid state batteries in watches and earbuds this year, where the batteries are so tiny they're affordable. Even solid state batteries for phones are still too costly.
Everybody in the industry is trying to solve the production price problem.
Consensus is that the price starts to come down around 2028 or so.
Lithium iron phosphate batteries don't have a thermal runaway problem, either, but they have about half the Wh/Kg of lithium-ion, so they're not popular for portable devices.
Ten years out, lithium-ion batteries will probably be obsolete technology and totally prohibited on aircraft.
Donut Labs: "The Future of Powering Electric Vehicles Is Here Today with Donut Lab Introducing New High-Performance Solid State Donut Batteries Ready for OEM Use Now and Powering All 2026 Model Verge Motorcycles On the Road in Q1 2026."[1]
So wait if solid state is too expensive? What replaces lithium ion batteries? What breakthrough do you expect in solid state to make it cheaper in 2028?
Not the original poster, but I’m a fan, in appropriate applications. Robust, fast discharge, long cycle life, and can charge and discharge at lower temperatures than most other chemistries (-20C and -40C, for what I’m using). Downsides are limited availability and sizing, and absolute crap energy density even compared to LFP.
I have the 2.9 Ah SCiBs for form factor testing, and the 10 Ah Shenquans for some functional testing. I’m eagerly awaiting the 5.5 Ah SCiB — the application is designed around a 20S1P 5.5 Ah SCiB string.
Thank you. The moment these have reasonable pricing I'm ordering up enough to put together a 200 KWh home battery. It isn't quite economical yet but there is no way I'm putting such a quantity of Lithium-Ion in anything near or in a dwelling.
Most LTO cells are focused on bigger cells than what I need — 20 Ah to 100 Ah is much better covered than 5 to 10 Ah. Unfortunately aircraft are weight-critical.
app.tryalma.com doesn't work on safari either.. says its chrome only.
So the story isn't really about firefox.. it's about Chrome's marketshare being high enough that some companies are happy to ignore every other browser.
Not always. Try to buy a reasonably priced car or truck, with a price no higher than the last 20 years of inflation applied to a vehicle price from 20 years ago.
A 2006 Miata started at $21k. A 2026 starts at $30.4K. This is an increase of 45%, less than the 61%-ish official inflation numbers over that time period. This is not unique.
Well, here's a video which ends with a hand holding a sample.[1] It's a sand-making plant. Big rocks go in, and repeated crushing makes them into sand-sized rocks.
What, a government agency doesn't have incoming fax servers that create PDF files?
I had a service for that twenty years ago, for both incoming and outgoing faxes. Cost a few dollars a month, flat rate.
(Now if LibreOffice could edit PDFs decently... My tax accountant sent me a PDF to fill in, but LibreOffice can't get the text and the lines to line up.)
> A CEO trying to reindustrialize America says blue-collar pay is headed for ‘massive hyperinflation’ and kids should skip college to become welders
> Trump said the Iran war was ‘very complete’ three weeks ago.
> Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says ‘We’ve achieved AGI.’
It's like reading dispatches from an alternate post-truth universe.
> You can never return back to the claims to inform your readership whether they were actually true (this is especially true of CEO promises made before giant, pointless, disastrous mergers).
That's the worst. It's like it's now wrong to call CEOs on their bullshit.
Yesterday I noted that Donut Labs, with their heavily promoted solid state battery, had previously announced they would be shipping in volume in Q1 2026. I wrote on HN "They have until Tuesday." That was voted down.
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