The article acknowledges this, and says they chose clay over ceramics for electr...

balamatom · 2026-04-26T16:29:02 1777220942

>Although I am not sure why they then chose an open wood fire, which is likely far more polluting than even non-renewable grid power

Likely not if you factor in the energy expenditure of gathering some firewood vs. energy expenditure of putting up a power grid.

inb4 "but it's already there" lmao

kube-system · 2026-04-26T16:34:38 1777221278

Well, the atmega fab was already there and that isn’t quite clean either :)

But there are many clean ways to generate electricity and electric kilns are quite efficient compared to heating over an open flame.

I like the artistic element of this exercise, just thought that line of reasoning was a bit off.

kennywinker · 2026-04-26T17:17:44 1777223864

The chips were pulled from dead arduinos, not bought fresh off the production line

kube-system · 2026-04-26T17:48:19 1777225699

I know. We live in a society where both the power grid and atmegas already exist, and our individual actions are marginal in impact.

balamatom · 2026-04-26T18:43:15 1777228995

[flagged]

kube-system · 2026-04-26T18:50:03 1777229403

I’m just providing my perspective on an article written from a different perspective that I found interesting. I’m not looking for a fight.

balamatom · 2026-04-26T19:06:41 1777230401

Well, you're providing a bullshit perspective. And your notion that responses like "I'm not looking for a fight" are appropriate when someone calls out your bullshit, is also a bullshit notion. Let's not get into how spreading bullshit has a meaningful detrimental impact not only on yourself but also on others, how about it?

dang · 2026-04-26T22:05:34 1777241134

Could you please stop breaking the site guidelines, such as by posting unsubstantive and/or flamewar comments and/or crossing (as here) into personal attack?

Your account has unfortunately been doing these things repeatedly. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

rcxdude · 2026-04-26T23:10:31 1777245031

The reason the power grid exists is because enough people want to do enough of this kind of activity that if we were still burning wood to do it there would be no trees left. Scale does matter, and this kind of 'sustainability' can't sustain a fraction of the people on the planet.

poulpy123 · 2026-04-26T16:38:18 1777221498

You need a grid infrastructure to build and ship the rest of the electronics as well as to use the board.

It's a fun dit/artistic project but the political discourse used to describe it is absurd

balamatom · 2026-04-26T17:41:49 1777225309

Most political discourse you consider normal today (e.g. "fun") was considered absurd some years ago. Fewer than you imagine.