HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

SkipperCat

2,764 karma · joined March 2, 2021

submissionscomments
SkipperCat··on OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining
But what happens when one of those businesses in your village strikes it big and becomes a multi-national baking good company. They hire a lot of MBAs, take investor money and then need to stay profitable to meet those obligations. Add to the fact that the people now running the business live nowhere near the village. Will they still make the most ethical decisions about keeping employees past their prime?, paying them a fair wage?

History shows this is not the case.

I'm happy for you to live in a place where the local economy is so vibrant. This is what capitalism should have been. Instead we got WallMart.

SkipperCat··on New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health
There's a lot of benefit, but its all to META shareholders...
SkipperCat··on LARP – Revenue infrastructure for serious founders
But they did increase the GDP by $200.
SkipperCat··on New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
Good question.

Government should represents and advocate for the best interests of the entire population. It should legislate for both people and companies to behave fairly towards each other.

Consider the gym membership. You join and sign a one year contract. The terms are that you can cancel after that period, but if the gym hides or dark-patterns the cancel procedure, are they really offering you the contractually agreed upon ability to cancel? They are not.

We all know what fair is. Just because companies (and sometimes individual people) have outsized power against their customers, it does not give them the moral right to abuse that power.

So, I believe in this case Mamdani is engaging in both good and well-functioning governance. And that to me is morally legitimate.

SkipperCat··on New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
This is what legitimate government looks like. Leaders actually advocating for the people who are being deceived by those in power instead of helping those in power.

While this may be a trivial issue, being able to cancel a gym or newspaper subscription, it sends a signal. Companies need to view customers as partners in a business transaction and not objects to be exploited.

SkipperCat··on Ditching Vagrant: VMs with KVM and Virsh on Debian
Thanks for the clarification and another example of my ignorance about it. The only time I've ever seen it is when I was trying to build a "slender" kernel and I was removing all the stuff I've never used(eg: 9P ).

The only thing I did know about it was that it was named after the movie "Plan 9 from Outer Space". Kinda cool reference.

SkipperCat··on Ditching Vagrant: VMs with KVM and Virsh on Debian
This is the first time in my entire life I've ever seen someone use a Plan 9 formatted disk. Deep respect.
SkipperCat··on Cleaning up after AI rockstar developers
This isn't a problem with "rockstar" AI devs. This is a problem of management. Who would let someone come in and rebuild the core infra of their business without any planning or review?
SkipperCat··on Sam Altman's Business Dealings Under GOP Scrutiny Ahead of OpenAI's IPO
I can't help but think that this is due to Musk putting pressure on the current administration to help him win his lawsuit and punish Altman.
SkipperCat··on Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense
The Rothschilds getting news faster because they build an information network is not inside trading. Inside trading is when you have a legal and fiduciary duty not to trade and not to disclose information. The people working in the US government have that obligation and are not abiding by those rules.
SkipperCat··on I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to
I hiked and camped for three days in the Grand Canyon about 10 years ago and it was one of the high points of my life. The sheer beauty of the massive space was transformative in the way I see the world. How small we are, how big it was. I know statements like this seem overly dramatic but my time there is still something I replay in my head.

So when people dunk on the GC, I always just tell myself how lucky I was that my experience was so wonderful.

SkipperCat··on $3T flows through U.S. nonprofits every year
It looks like a lot of the monies in that chart are for wages and admin. That's not the worst thing. Many charities spend their money on doing things for the betterment of society and those people need to be paid a salary for their work. If there's a charity that cleans up parks, I would assume their wage expenses would be high to pay for the people doing the cleanup work.

Not saying that there's not grift in the nonprofit world, but my experience with a lot of people who work in this space is that they're good stewards of the funds and very dedicated to trying to help the world be a better place.

SkipperCat··on US economy sheds 92,000 jobs in February in sharp slide
I'd call it dummerspeak...
SkipperCat··on I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams
I only share articles between my wife and myself. The shared articles show up in our respective Apple News apps. Never really shared an article outside of the ecosystem. Sorry that's not more helpful.
SkipperCat··on I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams
When I click on links in Apple News, it stays in the Apple News app. That's the same on my phone, iPad and MacBook.
SkipperCat··on I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams
Agreed. I used to subscribe to the WSJ and WashPo and I cancelled both because I get both in Apple News. Plus I get the Atlantic, New Yorker, Wired and so many other magazines.

The user interface sucks. Sometimes I go to the actual websites to find articles and then search for them on Apple News. But for $13 USD a month, its a huge bargain and worth the crappy interface.

Another thing that kinda helped me was that Apple News doesn't give you access to the comments sections in these publications. Reading comments in the WSJ was just a huge rage-bait time suck and my life is probably better off not seeing that stuff.

SkipperCat··on Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media
Social media is not designed to keep you informed. Its designed to keep you engaged because that helps them sell ads. And the best way to keep you engaged is to keep you enraged. I've seen in the US how social media has been used push false narratives, hate and other falsehoods. Its toxic.

If you really want to stay informed, there are plenty of newspapers, NGOs and other organizations out there reporting the truth.

SkipperCat··on Around 1,500 soldiers on standby for deployment to Minneapolis
They all joined ICE.
SkipperCat··on "If Starmer is successful in banning X in Britain, I will move forward in . . ."
This is why we need to bust up monopolies.
SkipperCat··on Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?
Has anyone had and experience using hearing aids to deal with tinnitus? I've got some small hearing loss in the high frequencies and I'm looking at getting fitted for hearing aids to help boost those frequencies. The hope is to train my brain to stop replacing the deficit of sound with the monotone tinnitus noise.

I've tried some OTC hearing aids (Sony & Sennheiser) but its been hit or miss. I'm going to try whatever the hearing aid tech at my ENT proscribes.

SkipperCat··on SEC approves Texas Stock Exchange, first new US integrated exchange in decades
The Miami stock exchange (MIAX) has their matching engines colocated in Equinix's NY4 data center in Secaucus NJ, much like many other exchanges. I would not be surprised if TXSE does the same.

Many trading firms already have their trading engines in that data center and I would assume TXSE would want quick access to that order flow and this might be easier if they are in NY4.

Of course, they may want to have their colo facilities in TX in their own data center, that way they can rent out space and make some extra revenue, but then they'd have to build that out.

SkipperCat··on State Terror, American Style
Private security is not police. Private security will not give you a ticket for speeding. They wont write you a citation for not having a working turn signal. Their only mission is to protect the people who employ them. Very different from actual police work.
SkipperCat··on State Terror, American Style
> But I've never talked to a person in a rich neighborhood that would turn down more police

Rich people in safe neighborhoods very commonly turn down police because they don't want their local taxes to go up. It's as simple as that. You can also add to the fact that they don't want their children slammed into the pavement for minor infractions such as having an open container beverage or doing 35 in a 25 mph zone.

Its always been rules for thee but not for me.

SkipperCat··on State Terror, American Style
100% yes.
SkipperCat··on Larry Ellison – 'citizens will be on their best behavior' amid nonstop recording
I always felt the movie "Brazil" was the satire. 1984 was the horror film.
SkipperCat··on Eternal Struggle
An excellent piece of artwork! Really captures the meaning of Yin Yang, at least to me.
SkipperCat··on Funding Open Source like public infrastructure
Isn't this what the "Freemium" model is supposed to resolve? If a open source package is popular, people will build businesses around it and people who use it can then purchase support and get bonus features.

This allows the marketplace to determine which project get supported rather than bureaucratic decree.

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.

Page 1 of 16Next →