7402

It's annoying that the title and summary alone tell me nothing, without additional information about 1) how sensitive are these tests, and 2) what concentration is medically significant.

The missing sentence could be, "That's because modern detection methods are now so amazingly accurate that they can detect insignificant quantities of chemicals."

Or it could be, "Therefore, if you drink beer you will be poisoned and die a horrible death."

Or maybe it's just, "Start worrying, and we'll figure out if it means anything later."

I posted this article about political violence from Politico 3 months ago. It got 3 votes and sank. But it resurfaced on their website today because of this event (they revised the title of the front page link to make the subject more clear) so I'll bring it up again:

How Does the Cycle of Political Violence End? Here's What an Expert Says. (Was: The Kindling Is a Lot Drier Than It Used to Be) https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/06/02/political-...

The author's point is that political violence does occur in cycles, and one thing that makes a cycle run down is when it gets gets so awful that universal revulsion overtakes the political advantages of increasing radicaloric and action.

He gives examples, which may be within the living memory of older HN readers (like me):

"I can remember back in the ’60s, early ’70s, it felt like the political violence was never going to end. I mean, if you were an Italian in the ’60s or the ’70s, major political and judicial figures, including prime ministers, were getting bumped off on a regular basis. And it seemed like it was never going to end, but it did. It seemed like the anarchist violence of the early 20th century — it lasted for a couple of decades, killed the U.S. president — it seemed that was never going to end either, but it does. These things burn themselves out."

and:

"You had the assassination of the U.S. president, of Martin Luther King, of Bobby Kennedy. And then it stopped. People shied away from political violence. Exactly why it stopped, I don’t know, but it did. It wasn’t just assassinations, it was also street violence. And then things calmed down."

This is not particularly optimistic, but it it's an interesting analysis.

I took an intensive first-year Latin class last summer (The Latin Workshop at Berkeley).

Very early on, we were given a sample of a translation into Latin by Google, with the assignment to list dumb grammatical mistakes that Google had made.

I think this was to cause anyone who had the idea of using Google to help with homework to abandon THAT idea pretty quickly!

It's not a good idea to use Google to translate into Latin.

Well this one isn't.

People flag articles because they disagree with them, but also because they just think the discussion may descend into uninformative yelling. My point concerned the discussions that do appear, rather than which articles make it through unflagged, but even there it appears they don't support the narrative of "only good things about Israel appear in the media."

There's a relevant discussion in this recent post from a couple weeks ago:

Ask HN: Are we allowed to discuss Israel on HN? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44947788

"We want to give the topic of Israel and Gaza fair exposure, as it's obviously an important story and it would feel wrong to pretend it's not happening. At the same time, every time we have one of these stories on the front page, it turns in to a hellish flamewar, we have to spend all day moderating it..."

I don't know what you're reading, but on HN, almost nothing Israel says is taken at face value, everything Israel says is scrutinized and cast doubt upon. I don't see a lot of questioning of statements derived from Palestinians, Hamas, or Al Jazeera.

>not all ham radios that can transmit on GMRS bands are legal to do so.

Actually, no ham radios that can transmit on GMRS bands are legal (in the US).

See 47 CFR 95.1761:

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D...

>I don't understand where they think this is going ...

This statement could be taken two ways: 1) it's purely rhetorical, i.e., there is no possible explanation for what Israel is doing and there literally is no possible way to do any analysis of it, or 2) it's a statement of lack of knowledge, i.e., I don't understand this; maybe someone else can explain it to me.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume #2.

The way to understand the Israeli point of view is to read the Israeli press and listen to Israeli political analysts, of which there are many. That shouldn't be a controversial statement.

For English-language news and commentary from the Israeli point of view, you can read the Jerusalem Post https://www.jpost.com and the Times of Israel https://www.timesofisrael.com . No firewalls.

I found this recent podcast particularly informative. You don't have to listen to it; if you open it in an appropriate podcast app you can get the transcript:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-victory-with-...

Paul Graham (remember him?) had an essay about 20 years ago that may be relevant to this: https://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html "What You'll Wish You'd Known"

It says when trying to figure out what to study, think about what might give you most options for the future, a future that you might have almost NO way of predicting now. He calls this "staying upwind." He gives an example:

Suppose you're a college freshman deciding whether to major in math or economics. Well, math will give you more options: you can go into almost any field from math. If you major in math it will be easy to get into grad school in economics, but if you major in economics it will be hard to get into grad school in math.

And given a choice between studying two subjects that interest you, but one is easier for you and one is a bit harder (but still within your abilities), opt for the harder one:

The best protection is always to be working on hard problems. Writing novels is hard. Reading novels isn't. Hard means worry: if you're not worrying that something you're making will come out badly, or that you won't be able to understand something you're studying, then it isn't hard enough. There has to be suspense.

You don't have to automatically agree with everything in his essays as Great Truths, but it's worth considering his ideas.

It's a pun. I think? The article references squirrel bait as the cause. "Bait" combined with an article that you click on. So ... "click" "bait." Get it?

The tipoff is that people usually write it as one word, "clickbait," when talking about a sensationalistic title designed to simulates clicks generating ad revenue.

OK, so maybe that person's joke wasn't so successful, but it seems like a fairly gentle attempt, which shouldn't be punished.

When I learned to ride, I was to taught to assume that I was invisible, particularly when at a stop light and an oncoming car was turning left. And proper following distance - for both cars and motorcycles - is to leave enough room to stop if the person in front slams on the brakes.

> they could do this unilaterally and just withdraw

Which they tried in 2005 in Gaza. They evicted the remaining settlers in Gaza and unilaterally withdrew from Gaza.

Hamas won the first and only election thereafter and ruled in Gaza from that point on.

In the years during and after the pandemic, Hamas deceived Israel in the way it presented itself. An IDF report assessing the massive intelligence failure on Oct 7 reported [0], "Israel saw Hamas as a pragmatic movement with whom it could do business." That was a tragic mistake.

The opinion of the Israeli public towards the desirability (and feasibility) of a two-state solution has tended to vary over the decades depending on the actions of external Palestinian and Arab actors. After the wave of Palestinian suicide bombings of buses and restaurants starting around the year 2000 it went down. Two years after the Gaza withdrawal it was back up, with 70% support for the two-state solution in 2007, when there were peace talks. [1]

The mass killings and kidnappings that Hamas did in 2023 pretty much eliminated any enthusiasm for two states at present. A recent poll put Israeli opinion at 70% opposition to a Palestinian state.

That could change again. Israel is a democracy, and people vote depending on what they see. The idea that a Palestinian nation will ever encompass "the river to the sea," is a complete delusion. The idea that Israel will ever see peace and security by annexing the entire area of the former British Mandate is likewise a complete delusion. If Hamas can be defeated, if the Palestinian Authority can get more effective, less corrupt leadership, if Israel can get a parliamentary majority that is no longer dependent on right-wing parties, if ordinary Israelis can get a hint that Oct 7 is not something that will happen again, then there might be hope for peace.

Y'all do want peace, don't you?

[0] https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bkd8rnrqkl

[1] https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/with-only-40-per...

Um. The UN approved the original 1947 Partition Plan, which called for a Jewish State and an Arab state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_...

If a dependency is paid and it is bad, then maybe you just aren't paying enough for it.

If my code has a dependency then I want there to be people whose feel it is their job to support it.

Either there have to be enough people who are paid to support it, or there have to be enough people whose self-worth and identity is so wrapped up in the code that they take it as a point of honor to support it.

I don't need a company that's likely to abandon a code product and leave me hanging. I also don't need a free software author who says "bugs are not my problem - you have the source, go fix it yourself." If those are my choices, I'd rather write it myself.

Classic text that discusses some of this: The Strategy of Conflict by Thomas Schelling.

He has, for example, an interesting discussion showing how having less information about one's opponent or less freedom of decision can actually put that party in a stronger position.

In Northern California it's also just "5" "880" etc. We can pick out Southern Californians by their use of the pronoun.

If you want to show your geographical sophistication within California, you can safely refer to "80" (I-80 passes through only the northern part of the state) and "the 10" (which passes only through the southern part). As for "5" vs. "the 5" just make sure that if you're heading south you've switched by the time you reach the Grapevine (q.v.).

I'm not sure where the N/S dividing line is, though. Any HN readers from Bakersfield or Coalinga?

It's entirely appropriate to blame a technology if the answer to the question, "Does this technology make a longstanding social problem worse or better?" is "It makes it worse."

There can be a follow-on discussion about what, if any, benefits are also provided by aforesaid technology

The necessary and sufficient conditions for game theory to apply to a situation, any situation whatsoever, anywhere in the world, is two or more human beings in communication. That's all.

Sometimes the "game theory bullshit," as you put it, is more evident and sometimes less so. But it's always there.

I'll add one thing to this. If you do follow this route, find a new job and give notice to your company, be prepared for them to suddenly wake up, tell you they'll fix everything, make a counter-offer, and urge you to stay.

This doesn't always happen, but it has happened often enough to me, so you might think about the possibility in advance and what you would do.

For myself, I have NEVER taken the counter-offer and stayed. When I have had a bad manager, I regarded that as a failure of my manager's manager as well. I didn't think the situation would instantly be fixed, miraculously, if they did fire my boss or move me to a new position in the same company. But that is just my experience. It would be good if others who have had a different and successful experience staying would speak up too, so you can get the full picture of possible outcomes.

A long time ago, I went to my first (and only) Defcon conference. There was a speaker who had worked in the US government talking about state use of hacking tools.

After the talk I went up to him and asked, "What are the countries that are using these tools?" He looked at me with a certain amount of scorn and said, "All of them."

See article in today's New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/business/gas-station-expa...

Gas Stations Are Adding E.V. Chargers and Reasons to Wait Around

As gas stations prepare for more electric vehicles to be on the road, they’re getting bigger. That has created tension in some communities.

Screaming. I'm against it.

When I see someone on the other side of a political divide screaming, I think they're dangerous and evil. When I seem someone on my side of a political divide screaming, I think they are ALSO those things, plus ignorant, useless, and counterproductive.

If you're going to repair electronics, it would be helpful to understand theory as well; it's not just a matter of using tools, but knowing what's going on, too. The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz is a book many recommend.

Gosh, you don't need to start with dangerous high voltage tube stuff! There are old transistor electronic devices that was built on circuit boards with nice discrete components. You can practice soldering and unsoldering on an old transistor radio.

Indeed: "Mr. Biden’s last-known prostate-specific antigen test, the most common way to screen for prostate cancer, was in 2014. Mr. Biden would have been 71 or 72 years old at the time." https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/us/politics/biden-prostat...

Not routine at age 82: "most organizations recommend stopping the screening around age 70" https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/psa-test/in-dept...

Well, they weren't just making things up; there clearly was information that they had, that I wanted, but that they were initially reluctant to give me. At that point ultimate survival did not seem to be the issue, but I had no idea whether the answer to "how long" was going to be hours or months! Even if the statistics they had was something like N=5, that was still (mathematically) infinitely more than the N=0 that I had.

I think a lot of people don't understand statistics, which may make it hard for doctors to choose how to communicate things, even if they do have important knowledge that could be helpful.

I once asked a doctor how long a relative might have to stay in intensive care:

A: Oh, I couldn't possibly say.

Q: Do you think he might be home in 3 or 4 days?

A: Oh, no, not that soon.

Q: So it might even be as long at 3 weeks?

A: I highly doubt it would be that long.

Q: So a reasonable estimate might be 1-2 weeks?

A: Oh, I couldn't possibly say.

I started the conversation having no idea whatsoever how long it would be, but I ended up with a good feel for a time estimate along with error bars.

> Now I stop to help anyone who's broken down on the side of the road

I have a certain amount of fear about doing this sort of thing. I am ashamed of that, too.

When I was in college (this was in a small city), I was walking at night by the library and I saw someone trip and fall in front of me. I asked if they were hurt and if I could help. He hobbled up and said yes, one leg was injured, but he just needed some help to get back to his car. I helped walk him four or five blocks, supporting his shoulder. In a darker bit of street, his friend tackled me to the ground and threatened to kill me with his gun. He took my wallet, ordered me not to stir from where he pushed me under a car, and they ran off. To be explicit here, the tripping and falling was fake.

The campus police took me to the student health services; my knee was banged and slightly scraped from the tackle. I related the story to the doctor and he said, "Well, you can't stop helping people." On the other hand, the cop just said, if anything like that ever happens, I didn't have to handle it myself, just call them, they were happy to come and assist anyone who might need help on campus.

I still help others when I can, but I am always cautious about my environment and assessing the circumstances

It depends where you are and the circumstances. You certainly need a Parade Permit if you will be marching down a city street blocking traffic, e.g, for New York City: https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/services/law-enforcement/permi...

They show up on eBay. A search this minute revealed two:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/205220626817 https://www.ebay.com/itm/156686655356

They go for a bit more than the original price, according to this:

"Pricing varied by retailer, however Pickett did offer demonstration slide rules in 4 foot and 7 foot lengths: a 4 foot rule sold for $15 and the 7 foot rule was $25 in 1960. These were available with scales to match models N4, N803, and N1010 with the Ln scale added. These large rules were available free to schools which ordered 24 or more slide rules!"

[0] https://www.sphere.bc.ca/oldsite/test/pickett.html