Hacker News Reader

cmurfon Trump's Tariffs Wipe Out over $6T on Wall Street in Epic Two-Day Rout

We don't actually know if Trump's tariff strategy is Stephen Miran's strategy, nor do we know what Stephen Miran thinks of the strategy.

What we do know is that Trump disproportionately attacks people who criticize him, withholds security protection from them, and sometimes even sends mobs to have them assassinated.

It also took some time before Mark Esper told the public that Trump ordered that protesters be shot.

Therefore, I think it's possible we won't get Stephen Miran's honest assessment in the near future. We'll just have to wait and see.

cmurfon Trump's Tariffs Wipe Out over $6T on Wall Street in Epic Two-Day Rout

Supposedly they have a seasoned economic expert on staff, Stephen Miran. Is this guy a kook? It wouldn't surprise me, Trump had Laura Loomer at the White House and 1/2 an hour later three members of the National Secure Council had been fired.

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-money/2025/01/0...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/us/politics/trump-nsc-fir...

A central problem with this administration is it's headed by a psychopath, who has a long track record of being an untrustworthy liar. Could he pick an economics team that can actually make hard choices that are generally better for America? It's possible. But it's also possible these are just more kooks, or corrupt people looking to grift, or people who think like Peter Thiel, that democracy is over and needs to be replaced by a monarch.

My take? Impeach and remove Trump from office. Do it now. If the country wants these kinds of policies, they need to do it through the Congress. Not through a president, sane or insane.

cmurfon Microsoft reports several bootloader vulnerabilities

>end up with UEFI > NT6 bootloader > Windows or Linux

I don't see any advantage to involving Microsoft in the boot process.

>paying attention to the built-in NT6 bootmenu

UEFI firmware vendors provide a boot manager (the UI) for choosing what installed OS to boot. Apple has offered a graphical boot manager (option key at the boot chime) since forever.

NT6 isn't free or open source software so I don't see the various Linux projects wanting NT6 involved at all, in either the single or dual boot use case.

But in effect you're proposing different boot paths, and different UI/UX depending on whether the system is Linux-only or dual boot Windows Linux.

>This deficiency was not a factor before UEFI struck

I can't tell what deficiency you think UEFI has that BIOS didn't have. But maybe you don't like specs? Or are you referring to the much latter added UEFI Secure Boot?

>No matter what, there's not supposed to be any need for a shim.

You seem to think Microsoft wants to be in the business of executing arbitrary and unsigned code, despite all efforts proving the opposite.

cmurfon Microsoft reports several bootloader vulnerabilities

I don't understand why you think GRUB is required. Or what boot sequence (or use case) involves UEFI > NT6 > GRUB > linux.

Are you wanting bootmgr.efi to learn how to read arbitrary Linux filesystems, bootloader configurations, and EFISTUB? Why?

Windows supports setting a one time boot using a UEFI BootNext NVRAM variable, directly boots shim.efi, doesn't involve bootmgr.efi

cmurfon US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

He's a psychopath. But I'm willing to compromise.

He's a mentally ill Russian agent.

cmurfon Hackers stole billions in crypto to keep North Korea’s regime afloat

Don't crypto advocates claim it needs nothing at all from government?

What's the basis of unlawful? What contract is controlling these concepts and their adjudication?

cmurfon US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

Kill people's savings, might happen. Discretionary spending is about to get clobbered. Restaurants may be at the top of that list, and travel.

I rather doubt Walmart is going to increase the price of only Chinese made goods 25%. I think everything goes up 25% and they pocket the margin as long as they can get away with it.

cmurfon US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

Tariffs may not even last 4 months. Trump demanded Powell reduce interest rates, the FRB declined. The might be Trump's way of forcing the Fed to reduce interest rates, by inducing a recession with massive inflation. And then Trump takes the tariffs away once the Fed gives him what he wants.

FRB won't reduce interest rates if there's inflation alone. They'd only reduce interest rates if the economy also slows down into recession territory.

That's the short term view.

In the long term view, they are the biggest tax increase in the history of the country, therefore they are potentially the biggest tax decrease in the history of the country. Political fodder, even for a corpse.

cmurfon US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

Uhh... Whether you're a citizen isn't a factor. There's no federal sales tax, although these tariffs act as an import tax that will increase the wholesale costs. And state sales taxes don't apply to imports or wholesale transactions, they are retail tax (or also often a use tax if a sales tax wasn't previously imposed).

VAT is not only a retail sales tax, it'll apply anytime the widget is somehow modified (value is added).

cmurfon US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

The cost to move these industries to the U.S. exceeds the cost of these tariffs. The market will pass the cost of what are import taxes to the American consumer, resulting in inflation.

True, the shareholders will take a pay cut too, because something less than 100% of American consumers will just suck it up without changing their behavior. But in aggregate, we will all save less.

If inflation takes off again, maybe eventually there's some monestizing of debt. But in less than 4 years these tariffs will go away, which is why companies won't spent billions of dollars investing in state side manufacturing that'll take maybe 5 years to plan and build. Therefore I'm not sold on the montizing debt motivation yet.

cmurfon US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

These guys are untrustworthy liars. I assume there are thousands, possibly tens of thousands of carve outs for the tariffs, based on bribing the POTUS or approved affiliates.

cmurfon After Crash FAA Change Requires All Aircraft at Reagan to Broadcast Positions

All aircraft broadcast positions (ADS-B) in the Washington Tri-Area, but military aircraft get an exemption. It's crazytown to me that they are exempt in some of the busiest airspace in the country.

If they need to do this for some sort of operation or VIP movement, then a much larger area of airspace needs to be cleared around them rather than mixing flights that don't broadcast position.

And the idea FAA was hiding anything from Congress is silly. NTSB is not submitting its reports of near misses to the FAA under the table. They're as public as any other report. FAA not crowing about every one of these near misses has everything to do with being chronically underfunded, being given a hard time by the military whenever their flights are curtailed, while Congresscritters will complain to FAA if DCA flights are constrained because they don't want to hoof it all the way out to IAD.

cmurfon Trump says he is not joking about third presidential term

The Congress providing mere veneer of a republic isn't convincing. It's called Principate, and it's dictatorship.

A republic is an empire of laws, not men.

This executive is insisting he doesn't have to follow laws he doesn't personally like. A retroactive veto. It's contrary to the oath of office, and the duty to uphold the law. It's stated in the text.

This Congress is already merely decoration, serving an emperor, not their state's interests.

We have many examples of dictatorships with functioning courts.

cmurfon Trump aide says tariffs will raise $6T, would be largest tax hike in US history

The power to tariff is legislative. Congress has delegated it. And Congress can revoke it.

cmurfon Show HN: Generating Funky Animated QR Codes That Scan

Doesn't scan on Android 15 using with Camera, Lens, or Firefox apps.

Works OK with Camera app on an iPad Mini with iPadOS 18. Firefox hesitates. iPad straight on (camera at a harder angle) it doesn't want to work, if I make the camera straight on it works.

cmurfon Early oceans were green, not blue: study

Planets with green oceans may also have life.

And therefore planet searches should widen their search parameters to look for planets with green oceans.

cmurfon Marine Le Pen banned from running in 2027 and given four-year sentence

https://bsky.app/profile/kfile.bsky.social/post/3llodejyyl22...

Not a fan of screenshots as sources though.

cmurfon Marine Le Pen banned from running in 2027 and given four-year sentence

The exchange of power, including consolidation and fragmentation of power, is politics.

Courts give orders, but the coercive powers of fines and incarceration are administrative. At the federal level, and the few states I'm familiar with, these are executive branch powers.

To whatever degree the founders were deeply flawed people, they understood power quite well. They didn't create a democracy as much as they created a polyarchy. Their interest was to make ambitions compete. Ambition to counter ambition.

They were most concerned by consolidated power. Monarchy. For obvious reasons.

cmurfon Marine Le Pen banned from running in 2027 and given four-year sentence

What's ex- about it? Presently still convicted, unless I missed an appeal?

Anyway POTUS is likely the only job a convicted felon can get.

cmurfon Marine Le Pen banned from running in 2027 and given four-year sentence

Republicans stopped the ice cream bribes.

Edit: https://bsky.app/profile/kfile.bsky.social/post/3llodejyyl22...

cmurfon How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

They could pull a Trump v. Anderson, and say neither courts nor states can't keep him off the ballot - only the people, the College, or the Congress can stop it.

cmurfon How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

If that piece of paper isn't being followed, what are the rules of the game? And are you agreeing that force does settle it? Should it?

John Adams might agree with you though. He said the constitution was intended for a moral (and religious) people. Maybe Americans are simply out of virtue, and don't deserve the Constitution anymore?

Sounds pretty expensive.

cmurfon Trump says he is not joking about third presidential term

There's a few kooks pointing guns at people, and should be arrested for doing so. The idea it's a movement or supported by liberals is delusional nonsense promoted by the disinformation of whatever your news source is.

How do you explain the vast majority of Republicans supporting Ukraine over Russia, and in just a few weeks of Trump revealing his full throated support for Russia, most Republicans now support Russia?

You think that's normal?

Who is the Trump equivalent cult leader of the left who has flipped people around that quickly?

cmurfon Trump says U.S. will 'get Greenland,' military force not ruled out

Russia violated Article 1 of the Charter, by twice invading Ukraine.

The unwinding of international law is already in-progress.

The USSR was expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland. The UN can't, or at least hasn't.

https://academic.oup.com/jcsl/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jc...

The U.S. invading any nation's territory surely leaves the Charter in tatters.

cmurfon [dead]

Refuse the premise. Every single time. Point to the text. The ability to point to the text is a foundational reason why it was made a written constitution, the world’s first.

The idea a political party owns the Constitution, gets to define what it means contrary to the text, is as untruthful as 2+2≠4

It’s that basic.

Make them reject the Constitution outright. Some people associated with the regime have done exactly that. If it’s not wrong, why hide it? They admit their opposition to the Constitution.

If suspected criminal non-citizens are persons, the law says persons get due process. If the simplest reading of text can be set aside by mere opinion, on what basis can’t it be set aside for anybody at anytime based on an updated opinion, equally contrary to the law?

No one is safe at all.

cmurfon [dead]

Defending and supporting the Constitution is the U.S. isn't partisan. 5 USC 3331

Defenders aren't required to resort to any sort of force. Merely a commitment to truth, and tirelessly repeating it is useful.

All persons have a right to due process.

cmurfon Decline of cash credited for drop in surgery for children swallowing objects

Typically it's a one day per year household hazardous waste drop off. Bigger cities may have more frequency.

Any other day and it's usually a volunteer business somewhere in the town. It may have a fee.

cmurfon RFK Jr. forces out FDA's top vaccine scientist, Peter Marks

Schadenfreude.

cmurfon US no longer a reliable partner, old relationship is over: Canadian PM Carney

This is nonsense. The bureaucracy is created by Congressional statute. The Constitutional order obligates the president to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed and the president takes an oath to that effect. This president is acting deliberately contrary to these statutes, a violation of the oath of office, and reasonably makes the president's motives questionable if not illegitimate.

A president can veto a bill passed by Congress. It doesn't become law. The Congress can override the veto and it does become law, that any law obligates the president. Not even in the most extreme case of the unitary executive hypothesis can a president legitimately ignore the law.

The bureaucracy is a creation of Congress. The president can veto budgets passed by Congress until there is a compromise.

It's not legitimate to call only the president elected government as if the Congress has no say.

cmurfon US no longer a reliable partner, old relationship is over: Canadian PM Carney

The stupidity argument [1] is a possible trap. The technofascists are making the same argument: The masses are morons. But they extrapolate to claiming the masses therefore cannot self-govern, as evidenced by what has happened and is now happening. Democracy must be swept aside for the superior people, the oligarchy, to run the show.

I don't even know what the question is. Is there a threshold function? Is there a critical mass of stupidity beyond which all hope is lost and we just have to go through the ugly process of tyranny and its eventual collapse? But what if technology can provide a superior tyranny, in effect flawless totalitarianism? The hope part of the puzzle seems unpredictable.

[1] Bonhöffer seems apt here, a Lutheran pastor killed by the Nazis, who consider stupidity a greater threat to good than evil.