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maho

Re:Physicists trap a single antimatter particle for a month on Saturday October 24, 2026 @05:25PM (#50225490)
The simple explanation: The positrons fly around the trap center. In the z-direction, this is a simple "up and down" oscillation. There are electrodes in the top and bottom of the trap called the "end-caps". The end-caps are connected to each other with a large resistor (technically, a coil forming an LC resonator with the parasitic capacitance, but on resonance it looks like a large resistor).

When the positrons are at the top, they attract negative charges into the top end-cap. This is called an "image charge". When the positrons are close to the bottom end-cap, the image charge into bottom end-cap. This forms a current, the "image current". The more positrons you have, the larger the image current.

Since the image current (on the order of femtoamperes) has to flow through the large resistor, it is turned into a voltage that can be amplified and measured by cryogenic amplifiers. But it has a second effect: The voltage "back-acts" on the positrons, damping their motion. If you have more positrons in the trap, this damping gets stronger, because each positron experiences the back-action of all other positrons.

In the paper, you can see pictures of the driven axial motion, where you take an RF excitation and sweep the frequency over the resonance, recording the positrons' amplitude as a response. The more positrons you have, the "wider" this resonance, because of the damping effect.

As you reduce the number of positrons by doing a "dip" (making the trap really shallow, hoping that some, but not all, positrons escape), you can see the width getting smaller and smaller in discrete steps. That's how you know you are dealing with individual particles.

I haven't worked on Gabrielse's setup, but I have worked on other, very similar (better, ha!) experiments 10 years ago. I don't see what's so special about this trap, but putting antimatter into it always makes for a nice headline.

I had a look under the hood of browser-use. I wanted to to run some tests with a local browser and a trusted LLM provider of my choice, but the (enabled by default) telemetry they send to PostHog is CRAZY. Especially the browser-harness component can leak credentials to PostHog left and right.

This is absolutely not cool.

Re:Launch HN: Speko (YC S26) – OpenRouter for Voice AI on Monday August 17, 2026 @01:55PM (#49335012)
Which model best allows me to transcribe speech that uses a lot of domain-specific terms? For example, when I say "Claude Code", it often gets transcribed as "Cloud Code", and I have to go back and edit or do a second pass with a traditional LLM (which can introduce additional errors).
Re:Advertise in ChatGPT on Wednesday July 22, 2026 @04:07AM (#49003304)
If a majority of users switch to ad-powered free tiers, a majority of users will see well-written, targeted advice that is ads (lies!) in disguise.

This is a horrible future to consider.

The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that a society that bans ads is a healthier, more robust society, and I am not alone.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269

Re:Apple Silicon costs more than OpenRouter on Sunday May 17, 2026 @08:40AM (#48168395)
The author only compared output token costs -- but for typical agentic workloads, input tokens dominate the costs by a large margin. Running inference locally, input tokens are, to first order, free. (They only generate implicit costs through higher time-to-first-token, higher power use, and lower token output speed).
+1 for introducing them as real-valued functions over cartesian coordinates!

Typically, spherical harmonics are introduced as a complex function over spherical coordinates, which makes them much easier to derive, but imo hides their beauty.

The real-valued, cartesian form of regular spherical harmonics is also called "solid harmonics" or "harmonic polynomials", in case you want to dig deeper.

Re:The 49MB Web Page on Monday March 16, 2026 @02:56AM (#47395852)
Relevant and fun read: The Website Obesity Crisis (2015)

https://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm

Re:How often do full-body MRIs find cancer? on Sunday February 15, 2026 @02:34AM (#47021764)
> At a pragmatic level, can't you say, hey here's something thats probably nothing, let's scan it again in 6 months

If a doctor even _hints_ there might be cancer, the patient will have a terrible 6 months (with actual, measurable negative health impacts of the added stress). Also, at some uncertainy-level (say, 10% chance of cancer) the doctor _has_ to say something and has to schedule expensive followups to not risk liability, even though in 90% of the cases it is not only unnecessary, but actively harmful to the patients.

When, on average, the cost of the screening + the harm done by a false positive outweighs the benefits of an early detection, you shouldn't do the screening in the first place.

Re:Vibe Engineering on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @01:23AM (#45512369)
At $enterprise, we were just looking for a proper term that sets "responsible vibing" apart from "YOLO vibe coding". We landed on "agent assisted coding".

It's a bit more technical. And it has a three-letter acronym. Gotta have a three letter acronym.

Re:Show HN: GUI for Editing Mermaid Class Diagrams on Friday January 17, 2025 @11:18AM (#42739512)
Nice! I love how mermaid keeps getting better!

For sequence-diagrams, nothing beats https://sequencediagram.org/ (I am not connected with them in any way, just a happy user)

Re:WebGPU-Based WiFi Simulator on Monday October 21, 2024 @03:52AM (#41901717)
I need this, but for heatpump noise.

It's mostly broadband noise that can be simulated by simpler methods, but visualizing possible resonance patterns for the low-frequency emissions from the compressor (which typically runs at 20Hz, 40Hz, ..., 120 Hz) would be good to know.

Although I am not sure how the 2d simulation result carries over to the 3d world...

Re:Show HN: A fast OSS voice assistant on Monday July 08, 2024 @03:45PM (#40908807)
The pronounciation of math symbols is hilarious, but not super useful. Prompt: "Give me Maxwell's equations".
Re:Rete Algorithm on Monday May 27, 2024 @09:49AM (#40490681)
I really like nools, which is a drools clone, but for JavaScript. It's fantastic for quick hacks and for getting to know how to write code for rule engines.

Sadly, it is no longer maintained.

Re:Show HN: Darwin – Automate Your GitHub Project with AI on Monday February 26, 2024 @02:44PM (#39515964)
Let's say I want to have a somewhat genereric CRUD-app: A database, some application logic, a login system, logging/telemetry and a UI.

What kind of stack should I use so that tools like Darwin (or just plain old copilot) can be most effective?

Re:100kHz to 6GHz 2 port USB based VNA on Wednesday February 21, 2024 @04:09AM (#39451666)
This is insane. The project includes the hardware (GHz-capable RF-generation and measurement), firmware (FPGA) and Software (a cpp GUI). Surely that can't be all from one person?
Re:Launch HN: Talc AI (YC S23) – Test Sets for AI on Friday January 19, 2024 @03:45AM (#39053125)
Is there a way I can give feedback on wrong labels? The easy questions seem to be correct most (all?) of the time, but I noticed a few errors in the labelling of the complex question/answers. I would love to see this improve even further!
Re:Aldi: Culture and Operations of a Hard Discounter on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @12:11PM (#38928669)
If memory serves correctly, Aldi Nord was one of the last big supermarket chains in Germany to introduce scanners at the registers (2003?), because their existing system was simply faster: Each item had a three-digit code, and all cashiers knew all codes by heart.

It was a race between me placing items on the conveyor belt and them ringing the items up. Oh the embarrassment when they told me the total as I was placing the last item on the conveyor belt.

After skimming the second paper, I still don't understand how precision mass measurements come into play here. They mention Cavendish-type measurements, but they are used for measuring the gravitational constant. Of course, you can turn the formula around, plug an unknown mass into the apparatus and then call it a mass measurement, but it's going to be a very imprecise measurement. A Penning trap can give you 11 to 12 significant digits -- a Canvendish-type measurement could give you maybe 5 or so, I think.

Or is it because the Penning trap measures "inertial mass" but they really want a measurement of "gravitational mass"? But wouldn't inertial mass fluctuate the same way?

I really like https://sequencediagram.org/

- syntax is really close to PlantUML

- it's rendered in the browser -> immediate feedback

- great autocomplete and syntax-check in the code editor

- great connection between graphic and text (click on element -> jump to relevant line)

- graphical drawing and reordering

- presentation view (fullscreen + keeps actors "sticky" on top)

Especially dragging/dropping actors around is a lot of fun when you try to find the most suitable presentation format for complex diagrams. I'm not aware of any other editor that has this good integration between the code-editor and the visual editor.

It's not open source, but it's been around for free for a long time.

Note that the resistance of superconductors is 0 only for DC currents. The AC resistance is not 0 and typically gets larger for higher frequencies!
Re:Python GUIs on Wednesday June 14, 2023 @04:16PM (#36331942)
Making a GUI that is based on HTML and CSS and JS is also an... experience.

I have some (ancient) experience in RAD. Once per year I try picking up React/Vue/Angular or whatever is the current fashion, but I get stuck. It's just so _insane_.

Re:Python GUIs on Wednesday June 14, 2023 @04:10PM (#36331863)
I love gooey: https://github.com/chriskiehl/Gooey

It allows me to quickly slap a GUI on an existing script that accepts command-line-arguments. In the end, I get the best of both world: Discoverability from the GUI, automation through the script, and automatic feature parity between the two.

Downside: Control over the GUI layout is basic, and only "standard" GUI features work, but I never felt limited when using it.

Re:Ask HN: Where Are All the Parties? on Friday January 20, 2023 @10:04AM (#34454035)
For me it is a combination of age, having kids, having moved around, and general deterioration of the social fabric. Especially church-related events are mostly absent in my social circle.

But boy am I glad that I took the decision to join a "Studentenverbindung" (fraternity) in my university days! Three times per semester we put on suits, sit around a long table, drink beer, and sing nonsensical songs. This has been going on without fail for 140 years -- well, almost without fail, there were gaps during ww1, ww2, and covid. I go to about 1/3 of these events. I meet my old university friends, their families, and a bunch of young students. I expect to continue doing this for many years to come.

If the blue dots represent the data and if the yellow line represents the model -- doesn't the picture show an obviously bad fit?
Re:For mathematicians, = does not mean equality on Friday April 13, 2018 @05:28PM (#16834043)
I disagree: "Ax = b" is a statement. It does not need to be true. This is quite useful and often used for "proofs by contradiction".
Re:Defeat your 99th percentile with speculative task on Friday April 13, 2018 @03:58PM (#16833419)
But wouldn't this solution mean that once there is a small glitch in the system, say due to higher load than normal, there are 2x the requests and the system goes down completely?

I don't mean to be negative of the solution, I am just curious.

There was another interesting publication about Alzheimer's Desease last week: It appears to be possible to detect the misfolded amyloid‐β protein in a blood sample many years before symptoms develop:

http://embomolmed.embopress.org/content/early/2018/04/04/emm...

Re:I Am Worried About My Ears on Sunday February 11, 2018 @09:00AM (#16352693)
Worry not, dear author! Being mindful of your inner-ear health is certainly a good habit, but (moderate) hearing loss is not as scary as you might think.

I have oteosclerosis with accompanying inner-ear damage after stapedectomy or -dotomy, I forgot. I lost 10-20dB on one ear, 20-40dB on the other. I am amazed how much psychoacoustics save the day. Music does feel a little different, but it is no less beatiful to listen to. In some pieces I discovered brass sections I never truly appreciated, but most songs did not change by much. More importantly, my kids and I are still able to sing together as before.

The bothersome bits about hearing loss are having to ask "could you repeat that?" a lot, not hearing quiet sounds (kid's breathing at night, oncoming cars at a distance), and being more sensitive to loud noises. But so far, music stayed beatiful.

ps: If anyone from Netflix is reading this, it would be amazing if I could set a N-second delay for subtitles so that they don't spoil the jokes for me and everyone else. Even better would be if I could view them on my cell phone while we all watch on the big screen. I don't need subtitles all the time, just occasionally, for the bits I didn't understand.

Re:Study produces 3D images that float on Friday January 26, 2018 @11:10PM (#16244821)
As indicated by your definition, the 3d-effect of a hologram arises from interference of a coherent light source. In the display that is shown in the video, the 3d-effect arises from light-emission (scattering) of a point source that moves around. The light from the point source need not be coherent for this display to work! Therefore, the term "hologram" seems inappropriate.

I have never seen a hologram that is also a volumetric display. To me, this would be the holy grail of hologramming, since you could use interference for occlusion effects.

Re:Norwegian Student Takes Secret Street Photos In The 1890s on Tuesday January 02, 2018 @12:01PM (#16053215)
Whenever I see pictures from the pre-WW1-era I marvel at the shoes people wore back then. From the outside they appear comfortable, sturdy, and elegant. I wonder which would be more comfortable to wear -- hand-made, customized shoes from a 1900's-inspired, experienced shoemaker, or modern, mass-produced sneakers (which are pretty comfortable to begin with).

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