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They Thought They Were Free (1955)

https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
458•nataliste•5h ago•265 comments

Disk Utility still can't check and repair APFS volumes and containers

https://eclecticlight.co/2021/11/19/disk-utility-still-cant-check-and-repair-apfs-volumes-and-con...
30•rahimnathwani•2h ago•11 comments

Meta exposé author faces bankruptcy after ban on criticising company

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/21/meta-expose-author-sarah-wynn-williams-faces-b...
273•mindracer•3h ago•170 comments

Spectral Labs releases SGS-1: the first generative model for structured CAD

https://www.spectrallabs.ai/research/SGS-1
242•JumpCrisscross•12h ago•35 comments

New thermoelectric cooling breakthrough nearly doubles efficiency

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/09/250919085242.htm
28•westurner•1h ago•11 comments

iFixit iPhone Air teardown

https://www.ifixit.com/News/113171/iphone-air-teardown
240•zdw•12h ago•130 comments

How to Stop Functional Programming

https://brianmckenna.org/blog/howtostopfp
24•thunderbong•1h ago•10 comments

AI was supposed to help juniors shine. why does it mostly make seniors stronger?

https://elma.dev/notes/ai-makes-seniors-stronger/
211•elmsec•15h ago•212 comments

$2 WeAct Display FS adds a 0.96-inch USB information display to your computer

https://www.cnx-software.com/2025/09/18/2-weact-display-fs-adds-a-0-96-inch-usb-information-displ...
344•smartmic•18h ago•144 comments

Ultrasonic Chef's Knife

https://seattleultrasonics.com/
702•hemloc_io•23h ago•563 comments

Writing a competitive BZip2 encoder in Ada from scratch in a few days – part 3

https://gautiersblog.blogspot.com/2025/09/writing-competitive-bzip2-encoder-in.html
74•etrez•1d ago•5 comments

UUIDv7 in Postgres 18. With time extraction

https://www.thenile.dev/blog/uuidv7
30•sierikov•1h ago•2 comments

Sequoia: Rust OpenPGP Implementation

https://gitlab.com/sequoia-pgp/sequoia
9•Bogdanp•2h ago•1 comments

Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max

https://www.chargerlab.com/teardown-of-apple-40w-dynamic-power-adapter-with-60w-max-a3365/
188•givinguflac•3d ago•154 comments

The bloat of edge-case first libraries

https://43081j.com/2025/09/bloat-of-edge-case-libraries
101•PaulHoule•13h ago•121 comments

Gluco data handler: Receive and visualize glucose data on Android

https://github.com/pachi81/GlucoDataHandler
18•croemer•3d ago•1 comments

Why, as a responsible adult, SimCity 2000 hits differently

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/09/thirty-years-later-simcity-2000-hasnt-changed-but-i-have/
129•doppp•3d ago•139 comments

Vibe coding cleanup as a service

https://donado.co/en/articles/2025-09-16-vibe-coding-cleanup-as-a-service/
188•sjdonado•9h ago•112 comments

Hi No Youjin

https://aethermug.com/posts/hi-no-youjin
5•mrcgnc•3d ago•0 comments

Bluefin LTS Is Released

https://docs.projectbluefin.io/blog/bluefin-lts-ga/
53•nikodunk•2d ago•22 comments

Designing NotebookLM

https://jasonspielman.com/notebooklm
267•vinhnx•22h ago•84 comments

FLX1s phone is launched

https://furilabs.com/flx1s-is-launched/
304•slau•1d ago•211 comments

Learning Languages with the Help of Algorithms

https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2025/09/17/learning-languages-with-the-help-of-algorithms/
56•ibobev•3d ago•27 comments

Lidar, optical distance and time of flight sensors

https://ams-osram.com/innovation/technology/depth-and-3d-sensing/lidar-optical-distance-and-time-...
44•mahirsaid•2d ago•15 comments

In defence of swap: common misconceptions (2018)

https://chrisdown.name/2018/01/02/in-defence-of-swap.html
95•jitl•15h ago•91 comments

Scream cipher

https://sethmlarson.dev/scream-cipher
285•alexmolas•3d ago•97 comments

Newton for Ladies (1737) – Newtonianism vs. Cartesianism

https://www.whipplelib.hps.cam.ac.uk/special/exhibitions-and-displays/exhibitions-archive/newton-...
16•bgilroy26•2d ago•6 comments

Knitted Anatomy

https://www.knitted-anatomy.at/cardiovascular-system/
107•blikstiender•4d ago•7 comments

Escapee pregnancy test frogs colonised Wales for 50 years (2019)

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-44886585
133•Luc•4d ago•56 comments

That DEA agent's 'credit card' could be eavesdropping on you

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dea-surveillance-hidden-cameras-federal-law-enf...
35•toss1•3h ago•12 comments
Open in hackernews

Why your outdoorsy friend suddenly has a gummy bear power bank

https://www.theverge.com/tech/781387/backpacking-ultralight-haribo-power-bank
67•arnon•3h ago

Comments

Zanni•3h ago
Why your [ultra-light hiker] friend suddenly has [the world's lightest] power bank.

I remember Colin Fletcher, years ago, writing in The Complete Walker about trimming the borders off his paper maps to save weight, which seemed like an insane over-optimization to me. But then, I'm not an ultralight hiker.

I am impressed folks are getting their loads down to 10 pounds though.

JohnFen•2h ago
That insane over-optimization is how folks are getting down to (and below) 10 pounds.

I'm not even remotely an ultralight backpacker, but I do count ounces (no matter what your weight limit is, you can't escape making tradeoffs to stay within it). Your hiking load is a great example of how quickly apparently insignificant quantities can add up. Saving fractions of an ounce multiple times gets you large savings far more quickly than you'd think.

anonymars•1h ago
The topic reminds me of the .NET core peanut butter improvements:

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance-improvemen...

2OEH8eoCRo0•2h ago
Ounces equal pounds and pounds equal pain.
heelix•1h ago
The trick to lighter packs for many was weighing everything. Not uncommon to break everything down by grams - which tells you what could be improved. No point in spending $50 on a .5oz spoon, if your pack is coming in at 4lbs. Does help optimize where things could be cut and where the faf is. Lets you focus on what you really want to bring in when you have a breakdown of everything you bring. I really like lighterpack.com for my trip planning.

Very easy to bring crap you don't need as well. Always surprised me how much an extra hoodie or something would add to what was on my back. Also there is a 'stupid' light, where shaving grams is silly. Was shrinking down my hammock tarp and discovered my setup was not great when the wind shifted direction.

When it comes to power bricks, smaller things like this is great for the normal laptop bag or purse. This is cheap enough that I'd send it off to be black holed with all the other bricks I lend my kid.

JohnFen•40m ago
> Very easy to bring crap you don't need as well.

This is so true it's not even funny. I keep a spreadsheet for each trip, and among other things, I record which of the items I actually used on the trips. It was very surprising to me how many things I thought I used and therefore needed, but when reviewing the records, I never (or very rarely) actually used.

Those items get cut from future loads.

matwood•1h ago
A guy I knew biked across part of Europe and borrowed a travel book of mine. He bought me a new one when he got back because he would tear out the pages of places he visited in order to lighten his load.
binary132•53m ago
I mean, maybe that makes sense if you carry 50+ pages of maps, but carrying a whole book of maps on a single expedition doesn’t.
JohnFen•36m ago
Paper is very heavy. Even if you just carry a single map, you could likely save much of an ounce by trimming the borders.
dole•3h ago
https://archive.is/1G2Ut
pvsukale3•1h ago
Thanks!
NoiseBert69•3h ago
You can learn a lot from the ultra light dudes.

I replaced all my travel electronics to be powerable from USB-C. This saved me from a lot cables and adapters.

Even re-soldered the cable of my electric shaver to use a USB-C PD adapter PCB. As long it's somehow close to the standardized voltages (5/9/12/18/etc.) there will be no problems.

JohnFen•2h ago
If you're taking a shaving device of any sort on your backpacking trip, you've missed a core lesson of the ultra light dudes.
wpm•2h ago
They never said they were packing for a backpacking trip.
JohnFen•2h ago
Ah, true. I made an assumption.
giantg2•2h ago
Should be one safety razor - just the blade. Just need a steady hand...
Lio•1h ago
You're budgeting for the weight of a safety razor?

Surely the hunting knife you use to kill your dinner when combined with the mirror you use for starting your forraged twig fires, that would be the ultimate solution.

...or just not shave for a few days. I guess you could do that too.

Nexxxeh•1h ago
Think of the weight of all the extra hairs though.
Lio•1h ago
That's a good point. Personally, I compensate for that by drinking slighly less water each day.

It's a trade off but I think it makes perfect sense after a few nights of not-sleeping directly on the ground under a miniture dyneema tarp.

delichon•1h ago
About 12 days per gram.
Ekaros•2h ago
Wouldn't it be logical that ultra light people have no body hair left? And want to keep it so? After all that is lot of grams...
binary132•48m ago
just think of all the excess weight of dead skin cells covering your body!
usrusr•1h ago
And if soldering is beyond your optimization ambition, there's aliexpress where you can find small USB-PD adapters for most electric shavers. It's little niche innovations like this that drive my ordering flow, not saving a few cents.
cenamus•2h ago
20Ah for 23 bucks? Seems like it's almost too good to be true. Wouldn't surprise me if it was just half that, would explain the price and weight.
heelix•2h ago
I'll find out if this is true. Hiking buddy of mine pointed it out on Friday, so got one on the way. Was $18 when he called it out, $23 by the time I ordered. Apparently they have a bunch of random stuff like this. They must have some outdoorsy folks in marketing.
etempleton•2h ago
Thru hikers just kind of find this stuff. They are obsessed with weight and recommendations spread quickly through word of mouth on the trail and on forums.
nunez•57m ago
Us one-baggers also find the weirdest things, for the same reason.
slipperybeluga•2h ago
The picture on Amazon says 10Ah. Not interested until there is independent verification. The Haribo licensing lends some legitimacy, but way too many fly by night companies selling a fraction of what they advertise.
Kwpolska•2h ago
Haribo specializes in making candy, not electronics. Branded swag tends to be bottom-of-the-barrel.
tzs•7m ago
There are two models, one listed at 10Ah and one at 20Ah:

https://www.amazon.com/DCHK-10000mAh-Charging-Portable-Motor...

https://www.amazon.com/DCHK-20000mAh-Charging-Portable-Motor...

Ekaros•2h ago
It is there somewhat for no-name brand. For product that is actually supposed to pay something for a brand it feels low. Unless these are promotional items that fall from back of the truck...
phito•1h ago
Also I doubt that Haribo has special light battery technology. Seems more likely that they lied on the capacity... Article doesn't test the capacity
Timshel•1h ago
Capacity appears to be inline with others: https://old.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/comments/1li5rxw/20000ma...
thegrim33•1h ago
Man it drives me crazy when people/products use Ah instead of Wh as a way to specify battery "capability".

Without knowing more details about the battery, "20Ah" alone does not convey enough information to determine how long the battery could power a given load for. If I need to power a 100 watt lightbulb, will a 20Ah battery power it for an hour? 10 hours? 10 days? No way to know.

Wh is the unit of stored energy, Wh is what I want to see. Even the official Amazon product page for it doesn't list a Wh figure.

Retr0id•2h ago
Has anyone actually measured the true capacity?
Mistletoe•2h ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/comments/1li5rxw/20000ma...

Looks like a guy there measured it and it is 14.7 which is more than I thought it would be.

> So at a nominal 3.7 volts that’s around 14700mAh, which is around 73-74% efficiency. That’s fairly standard. If you perform the same tests with other batteries rated at 20k mAh, you’ll generally see a similar usable capacity.

I was thinking of getting the Haribo one because I like to camp and climb mountains, but I found an old Ravpower battery bank (RP-P819) my Mom got all of us maybe a decade ago and it is 16,750 mAh on the label and weighs 308.5g. I'm not worried about ultralight enough to make that into e-waste and get the Haribo. I guess technology hasn't changed that much with regard to battery packs. The age of the plateau continues.

madaxe_again•2h ago
This is great and all, but for me it feels like much more of an achievement when I reach the summit with 30kg+ of mixed gear and child on my back - and there’s nothing quite like the feeling of putting it all down and feeling like you might just float away.

Then again I am the kind of masochist who used to run ultramarathons with a backpack full of rocks just for the jollies.

dylan604•1h ago
What does it feel like to put it all on again to go down? That is the absolute worst for me. I’ve had lug all sorts of heavy gear to some crazy uphill locations for photo/video shoots, and none of that is designed to wear comforatably on your back. Downhill back to the truck after going up hill and then doing the shoot has on more than one occasion made me think “I’m too old for this”
madaxe_again•1h ago
Just “here we go again”, with a few squeaks and pops from various body parts, as I’m not quite the unblemished young thing I once was. These days the luggage also likes to yank my hair and kick my kidneys, and occasionally violently lurch to one side or the other without warning, which definitely makes matters exciting.

Empathise on the gear-lugging - I have Sherpa’d full size solar panels up a pathless and sheer mountainside, and it was not fun - although again standing up there with two tonnes of hardware going “heh, I hand lugged all this here” was gratifying.

At least I didn’t have to carry them back down.

rattlesnakedave•2h ago
Is the manufacturer of these things trustworthy? I am especially skeptical of any battery pack manufacturers because of the inherent risk of these things.
codedokode•2h ago
Sorry for being off-topic, but why with all the advanced technology today I have to manually copy ounces and pounds into Google to learn how much it is? Instead of adding dark themes and material design, it would be better to add a unit converter.

Also do you really need a power bank for a 2-day trip? In airplane mode a phone can live like 2 weeks.

happytoexplain•2h ago
Under normal usage, even in airplane mode, some phones last only 12-48 hours after just three to five years.
jdblair•2h ago
1 oz =~ 28 grams is a really useful conversion to remember

(signed, an American living in Europe)

dylan604•1h ago
28.4 grams. The rounding adds up quickly, and there’s comments here about people trimming borders off of paper maps. That .4 matters. Also, 16oz to 1lb.

Also matters when your buying things for recreational purposes. Especially when only buying points.

binary132•45m ago
Grams are ounces. Ounces are pounds. Milligrams are grams. Micrograms are milligrams. Picograms are micrograms.
tedggh•2h ago
I traveled ultralight until I got into landscape photography. Those tele zooms are heavy AF. I got bigger quads and biceps.
pier25•1h ago
Are you shooting full frame?
AdmiralAsshat•2h ago
Are these actually designed by Haribo? Or is it just a branding on top of a Chinese generic?
nickthegreek•2h ago
I feel comfortable in stating that they are not designed by Haribo, a candy company.
AdmiralAsshat•1h ago
Well, yes, that was my thought. I mean my own employer had some company branded power banks that they gave out to employees. They're crap! But they were requested by the Sales team to hand out as swag at trade shows and whatnot, so they probably didn't put much more thought into it than "Find supplier that can create small power banks, slap company logo on them. Do it cheaply."

I have to think the Haribo power banks were on the same lines, although it's a bit strange that they're actually being sold on the company's Amazon storefront.

Nexxxeh•53m ago
Perhaps it was a rushed tradeshow/employee perk gone awry. Something like:

Tradeshow coming up very quickly, previous merch supplier has let the sales team down.

Mid-level Haribo employee responsible for merch finds a supplier willing to rush through everything, because let's face it, Haribo are probably going to pay their bills.

MoQ is 100 units, which is 1 lot.

Sales person intends to order 2000 units, better to be safe than sorry and run out. Accidentally orders 2000 lots of units with 100 units per lot. This isn't noticed until they're already printed and then it's, as they say in the legal profession, no takesie backsies.

Haribo suddenly have a lot more power banks than they have booth visitors, and employees combined.

Rather than store them indefinitely, they sell them off at cost and shift them quickly though Amazon. This drastically cuts down on warehousing space of small lithium (explosive) packs that the candy people have to store.

And kids and grown-ups love it so, with 20,000mAh wherever they go.

tshaddox•1h ago
Indeed, but it is odd that it’s apparently only these Haribo batteries with this design. I’d expect them to be white-label products that many companies resell with their own branding.
jasonsb•1h ago
This is advertising done right. Wish more companies would do this. Instead of spamming me with your brand on every platform, sell a dirt cheap product with your branding. This way the middle man gets nothing, everyone else is happy.
XiphiasX•1h ago
Better question - why do you keep linking to websites that block visitor from reading the article?
jauntywundrkind•1h ago
Nitecore is somewhat accepted as the best lightweight battery, but they aren't cheap.

10Ah battery is $60, 5.9oz. the 20Ah is 10.2oz and $100. Unlike the Hasbro, it comes close to its rated specification.

My backpacking trips have definitely not needed 20Ah. For two or three nights I can usually get by with a 5000mah, if I shutdown at night and frequently use airplane mode. And my phones are usually getting on, don't have Greta battery life.