Hacker News Reader

24gttghhon EPA Takes Action to Protect Scientific Integrity

No. One particular flavor of politician wants you to believe science is just "opinions". You're simply highlighting that those people are liars. That has nothing to do with the scientific method.

24gttghhon What’s interesting about the Florida water system hack is that we heard about it

Yeah, I hate to agree with throwing DHS at something, but this is exactly the kind of thing they should be doing.

24gttghhon EPA Takes Action to Protect Scientific Integrity

That's the thing... science is a method. If you have actual evidence, and reproducible results, then they speak for themselves. The problem is the wholesale, willful ignorance of this method.

24gttghhon Internet disrupted in Myanmar amid military coup

I'm going to guess they are talking about different leadership from the one which started the Iraq war.

24gttghhon Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the sea (2020)

I still lean towards something along the lines of The Miller-Urey experiment[0]. There are many very interesting theories[1].

But who is to say it isn't a combination of both? The question would be, from whence did the life on comets/extra-terrestrial bodies originate?

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

24gttghhon U.S. to require negative Covid-19 tests for international air passengers

Nah they weren't asleep, but they were standing on the wrong ship, looking backwards.

24gttghhon The Lies that can Undermine Democracy

It's funny that your lies about the left are lies themselves. Actually, it's not funny and it's how trump whipped up thousands of people to attempt a coup last week.

24gttghhon Parler CEO Says Service Dropped by “Every Vendor” and Could End His Business

Come on. Anyone who supported the insurrection on Jan 6th should be expelled from Congress and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for supporting a rebellion against the US. The fact you make me spell that out that to dance around the issue is disturbing.

This is pretty straight forward. If you:

Support violence against other groups because they look different

Seek to restrict someone's rights/voting because of the above

Then you should not be tolerated in our society and you should be punished.

24gttghhon Parler CEO Says Service Dropped by “Every Vendor” and Could End His Business

Indeed, and time should not be wasted on those who argue in bad faith.

24gttghhon Parler CEO Says Service Dropped by “Every Vendor” and Could End His Business

https://medium.com/thoughts-economics-politics-sustainabilit...

https://images.app.goo.gl/nCWYshqYeZcN94kf7

Tolerating the intolerant gives the intolerant the foothold they need to get enough legitimacy to seize power and destroy the society which was tolerant of them.

24gttghhon Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”

Everyone, please stop engaging this person who is arguing in bad faith, and only seeks to waste your time.

24gttghhon Infosec implications of the US Capitol physical breach

Each state makes 6-9 copies of the certifications that get sent to Congress. And each house of Congress gets their own stamped/sealed and certified "originals". So I would say there was next to zero chance of the ballots being destroyed having any lasting impact, other than the sheer horror of it occurring, of course.

24gttghhon FATCA Pushes “Accidental” Americans to Give Up US Citizenship

You could have shared a more neutral article title like this[0] instead of that charged phrase: '"Anchor baby" is a term (regarded by some as a pejorative'

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_citizenship_in_the_...

24gttghhon California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE

The article seems bogus. The state is in the process of getting masks out to people:

""" As of Dec. 7, the state's PPE stockpile included:

    178.7 million N95 respirators
    339 million surgical masks
    63.8 million procedure gowns
    19.5 million face shields
    152.2 million sets of protective gloves

https://www.desertsun.com/story/money/business/2020/12/09/fr... """

That ain't half a billion N95 masks.

24gttghhon California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE

Citation please? I find this incredibly hard to believe.

24gttghhon Moderna Covid vaccine candidate almost 95% effective, trials show

What are you talking about? This isn't trolling. The president is a negligent menace, who, had he had any interest or capability to lead, would have done his job and enabled earlier prevention measures...

24gttghhon Moderna Covid vaccine candidate almost 95% effective, trials show

true, in that we may not have needed one if he wasn't so incompetent to let it get this bad.

24gttghhon U.S. sues Visa to block its acquisition of Plaid

Do you consider Visa west coast tech money? They started in Fresno, but by BoA which is old school. Plaid then would also be west coast tech money...

24gttghhon I’m deaf, and this is what happens when I get on a Zoom call

That's 656,400 people you are talking about not bothering to accommodate.

24gttghhon Maine Becomes First State to Use Ranked-Choice Voting in a Presidential Election

It's simply the one we had a referendum for lol.

I would guess that changing plurality to "most approved" would have brought up other constitutional questions too.

24gttghhon Maine Becomes First State to Use Ranked-Choice Voting in a Presidential Election

We can use RCV in primaries also, but not for State-level offices. There's pesky wording in the state constitution stating whoever wins a "plurality" is elected, while RCV requires a "majority". There is not this distinction for how Maine elects federal officials, hence it's use for those offices.

24gttghhon Maine Becomes First State to Use Ranked-Choice Voting in a Presidential Election

They are counted by machine, but there are provisions for counting by hand in cases of discrepancies. Maine towns (usually small ones) can still count the ballots by hand if they choose.

24gttghhon Maine Becomes First State to Use Ranked-Choice Voting in a Presidential Election

This is false for Maine. It is a valid way to vote for a single candidate and not rank the rest. The ballot advises you not to do this, but it doesn't explicitly invalidate your ballot. See slide #6:

https://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/upcoming/pdf/RCVMarkedBal...

You can vote for a single candidate across all your choices/rounds (across a single row), but voting for multiple candidates in the same choice will invalidate your ballot (down a single column). Multiples down a column would be like filling in all the circles for all candidates on a normal ballot, or even not filling any in. Same difference.

24gttghhon Maine Becomes First State to Use Ranked-Choice Voting in a Presidential Election

It keeps the process consistent with filling out the rest of a ballot. Just fill in the little oval with your preference. It lets us use the same tabulation machines also, I presume.

24gttghhon Maine Becomes First State to Use Ranked-Choice Voting in a Presidential Election

RCV is simple and you should support it or something like it if you are a proponent of Democracy:

Did a candidate get a majority (>50%)?

Yes: They win, the election is over.

No: The candidate who got the least 1st round votes has their supporters 2nd choice votes added on to their supporter's second choice candidate.

Does a candidate have a majority now?

Yes: They win, the election is over.

No: Repeat with those who had the least votes in subsequent 'rounds' until there is someone who has a majority.

24gttghhon Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

It was just a wikipedia table, and the citations actually referred to SARS, not COVID... Hence my skepticism.

24gttghhon Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity#Mechanics

It varies by disease. Can anyone really say what the % is/would be for covid-19?

24gttghhon KeePassXC 2.6.2 Released

That seems pretty convincing if you want to easily open your KeePass file on Linux without dealing with Mono. I do that quite often.

24gttghhon “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

That's one way to kill the ad industry, and I'm all for it!