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SkipperCat

2,764 karma · joined March 2, 2021

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SkipperCat··on I'm done with social media – Or: why I have a blog now
What you describe is the best of what social media can be. Real people connecting, interacting with each other and helping folks. Sadly, a lot of social media is not this. Its people and bots posting content designed to inflame, generate hate and make people feel bad about themselves by comparing their own lives to unattainable goals (eg: Instagram).

Add to this the addictive way Social Media engineers their sites to keep people swiping rather than interacting with real people and you have a product which may be more net negative than positive.

I wish there were more instances of Social Media operating in the way you describe. That was the dream...

SkipperCat··on Why We Should Care About This War over the Future of Money
Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast just interviewed Jim Chanos about this topic.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2025-06-30/odd-lots-jim...

If you like a digestible discussion of markets and economics, I highly recommend this episode and all their podcasts.

SkipperCat··on Authors hit by bad reviews on Goodreads before review copies are even circulated
You ask a very fair question. I don't show my real name on HN because nobody else does. Just like taxation, it only works if everyone follows the rules. If only some users provide their real names, there is still the opportunity for trolling, etc.

Secondly, I don't try to use my account to spew FUD. I'm not claiming to be anyone I am not. I don't say "I'm an expert on privacy with 20+ years experience" or falsely claim to be a well know industry leader in this field.

Lastly, I really try (especially on HN) to be nice. I'll state ideas and some facts I know, but I really try to stay clear of being mean. I do this because the rage/hate I see spewed on the interwebs is just sad and I really believe its a product of people being able to hide behind anonymity.

I dont know any social media sites with real name policies, but I do know from personal experience that people are much more civil when they cant hide behind a mask.

I would like to live in a world where everyone thinks about the repercussions of their actions, on and off line. IMHO, if everyone was their true self, it would be better - case and point, the fake book reviewer would probably not have posted their fake review.

SkipperCat··on Authors hit by bad reviews on Goodreads before review copies are even circulated
I'm probably going to get downvoted for this, but most if the Internet should not be anonymous. Anonymity has led to bots, awful cases of trolling and abuse. There should definitely be ways to communicated peer-to-peer anonymously, but posting on Social Media should not be one of them.
SkipperCat··on US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal
Sadly, DOGE probably fired all the people in the SEC and other agencies that would have gone after corporate price fixing from this current debacle. Hard to believe that this administration may have made prices worse than the Biden administration.

Actually, its not hard to believe, its totally Trumpian.

SkipperCat··on US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal
They voted against inflation. Most people don't care about politics, they only care about their pocketbook. And to your point, Trump hasn't solved inflation, so he's left with only his core supporters now.
SkipperCat··on Doge software engineer's computer infected by info-stealing malware
This isn't an example of incompetence. DOGE staff broke laws when they connected their personal computers to classified system. They knew better, plenty of people told them not to do this and they still did it.

They could have followed OpSec rules and still done their work. They chose not to do so. Their willful disobedience of the laws and OpSec might stem from multiple rationals, but it doesn't matter, because their actions are criminal and their negligence is beyond incompetence.

SkipperCat··on Doge software engineer's computer infected by info-stealing malware
I worked in Federal government on classified systems. There were many safeguards in place, most importantly networks that were 100% disconnected from the Internet and locked down workstations. That made sure that even the most inept user could not cause a problem like this.

Everyone I worked with respected OpSec and would never do something as risky as bring in an outside laptop and connect it to the network. DOGE has been so reckless that I believe they wanted to have the system hacked, because seeing our government destroyed is their real objective.

SkipperCat··on What If We Could Rebuild Kafka from Scratch?
I've used Redpanda and I like it. Its Kafka compliant so all the tools that work with Apache Kafka also work with Redpanda. Plus, no JVM and no zookeeper.

Redpanda most importantly is faster that Apache Kafka. We were able to get a lot more throughput. Its also stable, especially compared to dealing with anything that requires a JVM.

SkipperCat··on What If We Could Rebuild Kafka from Scratch?
I've been using Redpanda for a few years now and here's what I've noticed.

Its a compiled binary - no JVM to manage. Java apps have always been a headache for me. Plus, no zookeeper - one less thing to break.

The biggest benefit I've seen is the performance. Redpanda just outperforms Apache Kakfa on similar hardware. Its also Kafka compliant in every way I've noticed, so all my favorite tools that interact with Kafka work the same with Redpanda.

Redpanda, like Kafka, writes to disk, so you'll always be limited by your hardware no matter what you use (but NVMe's are fast and affordable).

YMMV, but its been a good experience for me.

SkipperCat··on What If We Could Rebuild Kafka from Scratch?
Redpanda community edition operates under the BSL license - https://www.redpanda.com/blog/open-source

IANAL, but it looks pretty open source to me.

SkipperCat··on Social Security Administration Moving Public Communications to X
Biden quitting was a big change. Not enough to win the 2024 election for Harris, but still a change. I think failure is the biggest motivation for change, and the Dems have failed bigly. I think there's a decent sized chance they run a more populist candidate in 2028 and maybe the mid-terms too.
SkipperCat··on Social Security Administration Moving Public Communications to X
The Republican Party changed dramatically in 2016. They became something they never were before and due to the populist trends in the county, they won the election. There is a very high chance that the next democrat contenders will be very different from what we saw in 2016 and 2024.

We can’t judge how same or different the DNC will be in 2028 much like you could not see Trump as a contender when Romney faced off Obama in 2012.

So, I’d say your estimate of “zero chance” is too early. Let’s see who the dems field in the midterms first.

SkipperCat··on Social Security Administration Moving Public Communications to X
The only good thing about this is that it will be reversed by the next administration. Of course, that's only if we have another election...
SkipperCat··on Dow Slides Another 1k Points. Nasdaq on Pace to Enter Bear Market
I've come to liquidate your positions again...
SkipperCat··on US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU
Fair point, but America is getting rid of the parts of government that provide stability across the country and world. I don't see any major changes to the US war machine.

Shutting down USAID, cutting education, health benefits and dismantling the checks on executive power do nothing to curb what criticize. These actions actually destabilize and only give greater chance that what you dislike becomes more prevalent.

SkipperCat··on How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack
Where’s the due process? Executive orders for this stuff are not the way forward for a democracy to exist. We have laws, we should use them and let the judicial system work. You’d want the same for yourself if the roles were reversed.
SkipperCat··on How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack
And this is fine because hacker news is just a web site and getting flagged may damage one’s ego but it doesn’t impact your freedom. Law firms being attacked by POTUS for their lawful actions, networks being frivolously sued and people being arrested without due process are the issue here.
SkipperCat··on Has the decline of knowledge work begun?
True, but what you mentioned involves active participation, creation and social interaction. Sitting around scrolling on TikTok feels more like empty calories.
SkipperCat··on Has the decline of knowledge work begun?
I feel that the West is backsliding because for the past decade, we've addicted ourselves to social media dopamine hits and we stopped observing the outside world because we've glued our attention to our phones. Seems like this has hit the under 30 group the hardest.

I remember being bored and having to create my own fun. I remember being aware of my surroundings and being curious about it because I didn't have my favorite entertainment media attached to my palm. I remember learning about thing such as what was in my Cheerios because the box was the only thing in front of me when I ate my breakfast.

It would be a joke to say that AI exists to fill the void from what I mentioned above, but it does kinda sorta feel correct in a weird sci-fi conspiracy way.

SkipperCat··on Telescope – an open-source web-based log viewer for logs stored in ClickHouse
We've found that ClickHouse is extremely fast for write-once/read-many. So its great for recording logs. If Telescope provides the search/index features that Elastic provides, this could be a nice performance bump. FWIW, I haven't tested Telescope, so this is all just my musing.
SkipperCat··on What's happening inside the NIH and NSF
Honestly, this is exactly how Silicon Valley operates. Uber broke the laws until they could fix the laws (in their favor). AirBnB did the exact same thing. Meta knew their platform was causing damage to children and teenagers, and they gave zero fucks.

Move fast and break things...

SkipperCat··on What's happening inside the NIH and NSF
Yes, but this is not the way to go about enacting change. This is just carnage to prepare for tax cuts.
SkipperCat··on What's happening inside the NIH and NSF
You have no evidence to back any of this up. You're just trying to flood the zone with bullshit in order to smoke screen the destruction of our liberal society. And I mean liberal in the classic sense of holding the truth paramount in science, law and society.
SkipperCat··on NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker
I’m a wall st bro and I work with a lot of other wall st bros. We all use the subway to get to our job in manhattan.
SkipperCat··on More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market
You are omitting that each of those events happened after the neighboring Arab states declared war on Israel. Israel won those wars. If they didn't, Israel would not exist.

Israel should get out of the West Bank, just like the way Israel exited Gaza. And I would like to see Palestinians flourish in both those areas. I'd even be happy to see Israel go back to pre-67 boundaries. But this will only happen when both sides desire to have peace and acknowledge their rights to exist. Sadly neither do.

SkipperCat··on More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market
"I take issue with that the land provided for this project was taken without the consent of any of the nations from which it was taken, which is colonialism and why it's impossible to separate Israel from the colonialist roots that helped create it"

Who was the land taken from? It was owned by the British from WWI to '48. Before that, it was owned by the Ottoman empire, before that it was an Egyptian kingdom and going further back it was the Roman empire. And at some point before that, it was Judea which was the land of the Jews. The Romans renamed Judea to "Palestine" to remove the connection of Jews to that land.

"Like, there's no reason at all (apart from latent, extremely quiet antisemitism on the part of the Allied powers post WWII that they didn't want to discuss) that all those refugees couldn't have been subsumed into any of these countries, especially America, who at the time was boasting not only the only economy not obliterated by WWII, but also shit tons of open land."

Israel was pretty empty too in 1948. There was enough room for the European refugees and the Palestinians. The 1948 partition was not the best for everyone, but it did give both Jews and Palestinians a new homeland, something neither had post Judea or anytime for the Palestinians.

A big reason for wanting their own land, was to provide a safe haven. Jews were doing very well in pre-Nazi Germany, and that changed quickly. The same could happen in the US too. There's historically been very few safe havens for Jews in Europe (And America is pretty much an extension of Europe).

I don't agree with your premise about colonialism or that Israel was created to be a bridgehead for western powers. But I do appreciate your writing and dialog on the matter.

SkipperCat··on More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market
Yes, there was a lot of factors, going back years before WWII, but I still believe that the aftermath of the Holocaust was major contributing factor to the creation of the State of Israel.

https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/academic/holocaust-factor...

The Holocaust created hundreds of thousands of European Jewish refugees and international sympathy which had an effect on the UN vote for statehood.

SkipperCat··on More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market
Israel is not the product of "the latter end of colonialism". It was the product of the Holocaust, which occurred just three years before its founding.

Should Europe have used Palestine for this purpose, that is debatable. But to lump it into the same colonial endeavors such as England's occupation of India or Belgium's occupation of the Congo just doesn't add up.

SkipperCat··on Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
Democracy dies in darkness was a promise, not a warning.
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