Hacker News Reader

Duwensatzajon Google Maps renames "Lake Ontario" to "Lake America" faster than US Government

Not really. Metric Conversion Act Of 1975 would be a better reference, but it didn’t go that far, only saying that Metric is preferred, and the choice is voluntary.

The EO you referenced is about what units the federal government uses, not setting an official system of measurement for the entire US.

Duwensatzajon CIA funding helped keep NeXT afloat in the 80s

> Although there is — yet — no evidence

That’s a far cry from “probably definitely”.

Duwensatzajon FDA rejects petition to set PFAS limits in food

0.4% of the US population has HIV.

12-15% of gay men in the US have HIV.

The rules exist for a very real reason.

Duwensatzajon U.S. pulling ocean sensors a 'shock' for Canadian research as El Niño nears

Agreed on the second part, it's pretty terrible. Just absolutely wasteful, and the proposed centralization of research funding is the wrong direction.

Disagree on the first. It wasn't as crude, but the politicization was absolutely there.

Duwensatzajon U.S. pulling ocean sensors a 'shock' for Canadian research as El Niño nears

>Science has flourished in the US precisely because it could proceed without whimsical political picking and choosing

Please don't take this as a defense of the Trump administration pulling these ocean sensors, but the previous administration also had political demands on grants. One of the better articles about this I've found is "Politicizing science funding undermines public trust in science, academic freedom, and the unbiased generation of knowledge" - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/research-metrics-and-an...

This ended up getting grants cancelled because they'd throw in a line so the DEI checkbox would get checked, and then Cruz went through with a hacksaw and cancelled the grant for it, as Scott Alexander found - https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/only-about-40-of-the-cruz-w...

Duwensatzajon Google employee charged with $1M Polymarket insider trading bet on search term

Yes, what did you expect? That’s amazingly fast for federal prosecutors.

Duwensatzajon When (if ever) it's appropriate to make jokes before the US Supreme Court

https://playbill.com/article/watch-supreme-court-justice-ket...

Duwensatzajon Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

Is this from 2024? The news article mentioned a threatening note. Curious what it said.

Duwensatzajon We need a federation of forges

From gitea:

GIT is a trademark of Software Freedom Conservancy and our use of “gitea” is under license.

Duwensatzajon We need a federation of forges

> Anyone can build an app that aggregates from everyone's data.

Unless they gut or disable their API, and then ban scrapers, although I understand why after seeing bots crush sites.

Duwensatzajon Tell HN: docker pull fails in spain due to football cloudflare block

It won’t. Some people are perfectly happy to destroy and destroy as long as they get some small portion as profit for themselves.

Duwensatzajon Mistral AI Releases Forge

What lies have you seen? ChatGPT is the most censored one, but I’ve only seen rejections, not lies.

My other complaint is that ChatGPT ends every response with a teaser to ask more questions.

Duwensatzajon Italian prosecutors seek trial for Amazon, 4 execs in alleged $1.4B tax evasion

The IRS used to have a much worse reputation. Congress passed the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 and improved their customer service.

Duwensatzajon I ported Linux to the PS5 and turned it into a Steam Machine

> 3D printers are about to get pushed over the edge via legislation.

That’s specific to Democrat controlled states, unlike age verification requirements. They’ve decided to treat everyone like prisoners rather than imprison criminals.

Duwensatzajon Discord Rival Gets Overwhelmed by Exodus of Players Fleeing Age-Verification

>the waves of people leaving anything are always overblown

Digg, MySpace and Vine?

Duwensatzajon New York’s budget bill would require “blocking technology” on all 3D printers

Lower receiver being the serialized part isn’t universal. Many firearms have only a single receiver or only the upper receiver is serialized.

Duwensatzajon Archive.today is directing a DDoS attack against my blog

Internet Archive's trustworthiness took a hit when they waded into fact checking - https://blog.archive.org/2020/10/30/fact-checks-and-context-... and wiping content they disapproved of - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32743325

Duwensatzajon Grok and the Naked King: The Ultimate Argument Against AI Alignment

> All the other players" aren't deliberately tuning their AI to reflect specific political ideology

Google did something similar if not quite as offensive.

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/18/1239107313/google-races-to-fi...

Duwensatzajon UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

You already gave up your arms. Why are you surprised they’re coming for anything else they want?

Duwensatzajon Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, X, YouTube, Reddit, Twitch and Kick.

GitHub is not included, nor is Discord.

Duwensatzajon A new documentary about the history of forced psychiatric treatment in Spain

Free Range Kids organization has been fighting against this, and a number of states have passed laws around it.

Duwensatzajon NIST's DeepSeek "evaluation" is a hit piece

> There is a history of important Chinese personnel being kidnapped by e.g. the US when abroad.

Like who? Meng Wanzhou?

Duwensatzajon The ex-CIA agents deciding Facebook's content policy (2022)

Same as it ever was.

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

GameJournoPros during GamerGate.

Not sure what the "Trust and Safety" people use to coordinate. My guess is Discord.

Duwensatzajon Death of Michael Ledeen, maker of the phony case for the invasion of Iraq

Sorry, I don't have Gell-Mann amnesia - Wikipedia is not a trustworthy source on controversial claims like this based on the outright lies I've seen on things I know.

Duwensatzajon Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube

>provocative

So what?

>make people feel in fear for their own safety.

Private chats and bad taste Halloween costumes are designed to make people fear for their own safety?

At least you're honest about your censorship and oppression of anything anyone dislikes.

Duwensatzajon Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube

I agree that comparing the UK to the PRC is ridiculous, but you seem to have missed that UK policing goes far beyond your example.

Hamit Coskun was arrested and convicted for burning a Quran, reintroducing blasphemy laws but only for Islam.

Multiple cases of people being arrested for silently praying around abortion clinics.

Arrest and conviction for dressing up as the Manchester Arena bomber for a private Halloween party.

Arrest and jailtime for sharing offensive memes publicly -https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/24513379.sellafield-worke...

Arrest and jailtime for sharing offensive memes between a group on WhatsApp - https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/former-uk-police-officers-s...

It goes on and on.

Duwensatzajon Death of Michael Ledeen, maker of the phony case for the invasion of Iraq

What’s hilarious is how the “40 beheaded babies” claim is indeed propaganda - from Hamas apologists.

The original statement is that 40 infants were murdered during the Oct 7th massacre and infants were beheaded, no number given. This somehow mutated into the claim that all 40 murdered infants were beheaded so the claim could be ridiculed.

Duwensatzajon As US vuln-tracking falters, EU enters with its own security bug database

I’m very torn. Obviously USAID, NSF and academia in general do valuable things. But when organizations get hijacked and used as a slush fund to fund naked ideological activities and organizations barely related to the original purpose, I’m not surprised when the eventual response is to just hack and slash. I wish it was done more thoughtfully and carefully, but that doesn’t appear to be a choice. Just a choice of funding hostile NGOs and academics who endorse discrimination in education, employment, health care and even law nowadays or the current mess. It all sucks and I don’t have any solutions other than focusing on my career and family.