Hacker News Reader

Judgmentalityon The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

I'm not saying it wouldn't be scary, but I don't think we should be willfully ignorant. I want to know what happened. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

Judgmentalityon The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

> And let's not even begin to think what will happen if there were to be evidence that this was an intentional release.

But don't you think it's important to know this?

Judgmentalityon Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

Are you in the US? Also, are you in engineering/tech? Tech internships tend to pay surprisingly well, but many other fields in the US don't pay anything for internships and it's a notable exception when they do.

Judgmentalityon Peloton recalling all treadmills after reports of injuries, one death

Honest question, how much did they make in profits from illegal activities that led to the fine of $10 billion? I have no idea if it was millions or trillions. My hunch is they paid much less than they made, although I hope to be wrong on this.

Judgmentalityon A CBP contract shows the risks in connecting your vehicle and your smartphone

This also makes it impossible for other mechanics to diagnose and fix your vehicle. It also makes it much harder for you to use that port to diagnose and fix the vehicle yourself with readily available tools you can buy. The OBDII port is a blessing, not a curse. There are things you can do to limit the telemetry (this will be on a case-by-case basis for the vehicle and manufacturer, so I'm not going to detail specifics) but that is one of the sillier things you can do.

Judgmentalityon Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

I truly mean this to be thoughtful and not antagonistic, and your notion of value being subjective is accurate. But I think I can somewhat snarkily summarize a lot of the doubt some HNers are feeling (I'm not saying I agree or disagree): it's basically saying diamonds are like NFTs.

EDIT: Just did a ctrl-f for NFT and I guess I wasn't the first to say that, although those comments are much lower on the page.

Judgmentalityon Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

> I try to tell people I don't have a birthday anymore.

Never thought of that. I'd imagine the ensuing conversation is even more problematic though? "What do you mean you don't have a birthday? That makes no sense!"

Judgmentalityon A Lock Picking Game Changer [video]

> When EVERY random teenager can easily access these tools and learn these tricks, it's liable to start causing some larger scale problems that could indeed force change in the industry.

This stuff has been publicly available for decades. I learned using the MIT Guide to Lock Picking from 1991, and bought a lockpicking set online, and off I went. Nowadays it's just easier and more accessible (like most things).

https://www.lysator.liu.se/mit-guide/MITLockGuide.pdf

Judgmentalityon Turmoil shakes California National Guard with firing, suspension of top generals

Well my wife used to be in the Air Force and would constantly make fun of how awful it was. And I really don't feel bad if you're offended by something that's true.

Judgmentalityon Turmoil shakes California National Guard with firing, suspension of top generals

The Air Force, or the Chair Force as it's so affectionately dubbed (by their own members as an inside joke), has the unofficial motto "hurry up and wait!"

Judgmentalityon Clubhouse doesn’t value privacy, security or accessibility

I mean I already talk to scientists, engineers, artists and assorted people from across the world without Clubhouse. This has nothing to do with the people and everything to do with the platform. It sounds like fun to me.

Personally, your description of how you use Clubhouse sounds sad to me. Different strokes for different folks, my man.

Judgmentalityon Clubhouse doesn’t value privacy, security or accessibility

You're telling me right now Clubhouse has no trolls, and you believe the reason for this is because it's hard to troll with voice? I'm pretty sure it's because trolls have simply never discovered it. Honestly, I would vastly prefer to be snarky to people in real-time with my voice and hear their immediate, unedited reactions.

For the first time I actually want to try Clubhouse.

Judgmentalityon Thoughts on a “HDD shortage” from an industry insider

> People kill other people for profit. That's a fact of life, independent of the way money is represented. That they don't kill each other over crypto says only one thing: that right now, cryptocurrencies are completely irrelevant to the economy. If crypto ever sees any serious adoption, a proportional body count will follow.

This is a fascinating insight I had not considered.

Judgmentalityon Police Kill Too Many People–White and Black (2016)

As someone who actually likes and owns guns, I really think most (it's obviously complicated and multi-faceted) of this can be explained simply by saying "guns"

Judgmentalityon John Tiller has died

Amateurs study tactics, armchair generals study strategy, but professionals study logistics.

How you feed an army matters more than how you lead an army.

Judgmentalityon I need to explain to you just how dire America's Pokémon card crisis is

> One big risk here, or with any cyclically referenced benchmark, is runaway positive feedback. This can be exponential growth, oscillation, or exponentially growing oscillation.

Have we ever witnessed an exponentially growing oscillation in a large scale economic feedback loop like this before? I'd never really considered that concept for macroeconomics.

Judgmentalityon I need to explain to you just how dire America's Pokémon card crisis is

> Per the US government, which tracks what people in different deciles actually spend on various things in surprising detail, the median US household has ~$1,000 in cash left over every month after all ordinary expenditures.

I'm really not trying to be the "citation needed" dick, but I would genuinely love to look at the source for this. What I found from googling was a hodgepodge of unreliable information, or studies that are decades old.

EDIT - just went straight to the source, since articles linking the source couldn't find it.

https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables/calendar-year/mean-item-share...

It roughly lines up, although it seems to be trending down recently.

Judgmentalityon Plain of Jars, one of the most mysterious archaeological sites, reveals its age

> This included 262 million anti-personnel cluster bombs.

This is orders of magnitude more than I would have expected.

Judgmentalityon Alphabet reports Q1 earnings

Google search results have been gradually getting worse for me as well.

Judgmentalityon U.S. military starts Afghanistan withdrawal

The sitting president tends to get recognition for things happening now, regardless of whether or not they had anything to do with it. Likewise, if the economy crashed tomorrow, Biden would get the blame.

Judgmentalityon Charm delivers Stripe's carbon removal purchase ahead of schedule

It's the corporate website, so yes.

Judgmentalityon Show HN: I made a Hacker News for the automotive industry

For the same reasons being a coder isn't necessary to criticize code. Anybody can do it, but chances are your opinions are a lot less informed than you realize.

Judgmentalityon Proposed acquisition of ARM Limited by NVIDIA: public interest intervention

> They absolutely have people signing up, none of it has been publicly announced

I can't tell if you're saying you have insider information or you're just assuming they're getting customers with no evidence.

Judgmentalityon Coinbase from YC to DPO

What problem does crypto solve apart from being a digital alternative to gold? It's not anonymous (except Monero which is centralized), transaction fees and times tend to be high (depends on which currency and exchange you're using), there's zero recourse for stolen funds currently (which makes it ripe for fraud). And in addition to that, at least for Bitcoin, it's an environmental disaster.

What do you think makes crypto useful?

Judgmentalityon Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

The problem with this math is you're assuming a roughly even distribution for paying out to artists, when in fact the Spotify pay model wildly favors the popular artists in terms of paying out money. Basically if you aren't already famous, Spotify isn't going to pay you any meaningful money.

https://qz.com/1660465/the-way-spotify-and-apple-music-pays-...

I should probably mention I haven't really looked into Spotify's business model in about a year, so if something has changed and my information is outdated someone please let me know.

Judgmentalityon Japan decides to release water from Fukushima plant into sea

https://www.waterworld.com/home/article/16205804/caffeine-in...

This doesn't talk about the health problems because in this case that wouldn't quite make sense, but it does show that minerals/substances/chemicals/whatever can locally concentrate around an area even when it's connected to the ocean.

Judgmentalityon Google is exploring a health record tool for patients

I am admittedly not an expert on blockchain. So without mining, what makes this different from just having a voting mechanism where you need a majority?

Judgmentalityon Google is exploring a health record tool for patients

Wouldn't a blockchain make you vulnerable to a 51% attack? Imagine someone now has access to most people's health data - I'd imagine that's worth billions even on the black market.

Judgmentalityon Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you

I can't tell if this is a serious comment or not, but if you're being serious this is horrible advice. Some dogs bites are strong enough to crush bones, and they aren't even 100 pounds. You want to willingly give them a limb so they can actually snap it in half?

Sure, if you're fighting a 50 pound Australian Shepherd, have at it. If you're fighting a 150 pound German Shepherd, you're going to die.

Judgmentalityon Donation page "not compliant with Google Play Policies"

> But two wrongs don't make a right. Yes, they take advantage of their position in pricing and yes, they have benefited a lot from offering their infrastructure for free. But that does not make it okay to use the infrastructure they provide for your personal gain just because they are "bad".

Theoretically, no. Pragmatically, yes.

Pretending Google is just like everybody else is like pretending racism doesn't exist. It's not helpful. Google doesn't play by the same rules as others and we shouldn't pretend that they do. At this point, anything that harms Google is probably good for the consumer.