Hacker News Reader

evancox100on You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

The ruling expressly states that they are free to pursue whatever tort claims they want. This ruling is about violations of constitutional rights and standing to sue under 42 U.S. Code § 1983 - Civil action for deprivation of rights.

evancox100on Apple, Intel have reached preliminary chip-making deal

You can buy an ARM Windows license for parallels on Mac now. It works quite well.

I think WoA used to be exclusive to Qualcomm, but that hasn’t been true for at least a couple years, maybe longer.

evancox100on U.S. imposes first-ever national drinking water limits on PFAS

... you’ve never used hot water to fill up, say, a pot of water for cooking?

evancox100on Chlormequat in food and urine from adults in the United States from 2017 to 2023

But as the article states, the EPA allows you to import food crops treated with Chlormequat. Don’t ask me how that makes any sense

evancox100on Appeals Court: FBI's Safe-Deposit Box Seizures Violated Fourth Amendment

Not for long, likely.

evancox100on Study: Field Drug Tests Generate Nearly 30k Bogus Arrests a Year

Protein powder supplements come to mind.

evancox100on Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy to Boost Capital

And yet they often do default. Look up sovereign defaults. Possible reasons why include things like “inflation is out of control because we’re printing money to cover the debt, and we’ll get voted out if we don’t do something”.

evancox100on We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

Yes, author doesn't seem to know what tragedy of the commons is either.

evancox100on The Richest Countries in 2023

As a US worker that regularly interfaces with colleagues in various EU/UK sites, I am not at all surprised by the discrepancy.

Edit: Elaborating… in my experience entire countries will be on holiday for up to a month at a time, while the US offices are chugging along. (And this by and large isn’t true the opposite direction, except for Thanksgiving week.)

I’m not saying it is good or bad either way, but the US prioritizes work far more than other OECD / developed countries.

evancox100on 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

I mean, the actual material living conditions in the West Bank might be better, but don’t the Gazans at least have some form of sovereignty over their land? My understanding is that there is no real independent West Bank Palestinian government that exercises security over the land and the people on it. At least not in favor of the Palestinians.

evancox100on Greedflation: Corporate profiteering 'significantly' boosted global prices,study

whoosh

The sarcasm went right over your head.

Of course the inherent greediness of companies & executives did not undergo wild swings during/after COVID, the idea is absurd on its face.

evancox100on Greedflation: Corporate profiteering 'significantly' boosted global prices,study

It’s fundamentally inflationary.

evancox100on Greedflation: Corporate profiteering 'significantly' boosted global prices,study

If Heinz is the only supplier of baked beans, that is literally just a monopoly. In that case you have a monopoly problem, not an inflation problem.

Do you all not have private label brands? I’ve never been in a UK grocery store but it is hard for me to fathom that you would only have one brand of baked beans, given it is a food regularly consumed in the UK (or so I’m led to understand by the abomination that is beans and toast).

evancox100on Swedish dockworkers are refusing to unload Teslas at ports in broad boycott move

It's likely that not every union member is striking, it is probably a sectoral union, e.g. the Swedish Dockworkers Union. There is still a lot of other dock-work to do besides unload Teslas, one would assume. So the union has 500 years of funds but that's for some small fraction of the workers.

evancox100on Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

Also, not only is it possible, but many countries have in fact chosen to default on debt denominated in their own currency, rather than subject their citizens to wild inflation and/or break norms around reserve bank independence. So, it could happen even if US is not forced to, I agree.

For a starting point, see https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/BoC-B...

evancox100on After a $1.8B verdict, the clock is ticking on the 6% realtor commission

It became this way because the industry intentionally rigged it this way through out-in-the-open collusion, via NAR and MLS rules.

evancox100on After a $1.8B verdict, the clock is ticking on the 6% realtor commission

Fundamentally you’re correct, but the much bigger incentive on BOTH sides is to close the deal quickly. If they spend twice the amount of time on the transaction, their earnings per hour get cut in half. That’s a much bigger impact then a few percentage points in price swings.

evancox100on After a $1.8B verdict, the clock is ticking on the 6% realtor commission

No, and this was evidence used in the trial I believe. Commissions in peer countries have gone way down since the introduction of the internet to the process. Not so in the US.

evancox100on Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

Why would they have offered him ANY deal? (Do we know they did?) All the co-conspirators agreed to testify, and it was a slam dunk case. He could have plead guilty of his own conscience, of course, but no reason for the prosecution to offer any incentives in this case.

evancox100on Positive association between altitude and suicide in U.S. counties

The appearance of figure 1 is due to the majority of counties being at / near sea level. Suppose we take as true that there is a direct link between altitude and some other phenomenon, for example rates of altitude sickness. If 90% of the counties are near sea level, with some variation, you would only see increased altitude sickness in the 10% highest counties. The graph would look similar to what you see here.

evancox100on Harvard University encourages grad students to go on food stamps

I certainly agree that Boston and Massachusetts should reduce, or ideally eliminate, their restrictions on what housing can be built and where.

The benefit of doing that instead is it would help approximately 1000 times the number of people than raising Harvard grad student pay would.

It's worth noting that Harvard grad students are the ones getting attention here, and not the average person getting squeezed by rent. Are you going to whack-a-mole every single employer in the Boston MSA to pay at least $60k? Even if you did this, the increased pay would just go to inflated housing costs.

The underlying problem is a scarcity of housing, you can't fix that by giving people (in aggregate) more money. It will just bid up the cost of the scarce good.

And none of this really affects whether or not grad students should be encouraged to apply for whatever government benefits they are eligible for. Harvard doesn't control where the federal government sets the income cutoffs for benefits.

Nevertheless I'm sure highlighting this is a good way to grab attention.

evancox100on Harvard University encourages grad students to go on food stamps

Family formation is delayed across the whole population, but I do think it's worth asking what can be done to support earlier family formation. (Given that many people are saying they are not having the number of kids they would like to have.)

evancox100on Harvard University encourages grad students to go on food stamps

There are a lot of comparisons to Walmart having employees on food stamps, but I think it's worth pointing out that if you are paying federal minimum wage $7.25/hour, that is just $15,080 annually at 40 hours / week * 52 weeks. It is quite shockingly low.

Harvard's minimum pay is almost 3x that amount. If we assume a 40 hour work week, it comes out to $19.23/hour. That is well within the range for what most advocacy groups are calling a living wage. For example, this site pegs it at $18/hour for Suffolk county in Massachusetts: https://livingwageforus.org/tier-i-certification/

evancox100on Harvard University encourages grad students to go on food stamps

Why is it disgusting? Do you think Harvard should tell them NOT to apply for food stamps?

At the current minimum annual salary of $40k, a single student wouldn't be eligible for SNAP amyways, the income threshold for a household size of 1 is $29,160.

You'd need a household size of at least 3 to be eligible, with total household income under $49k. So you, a spouse and 1 child, or you and two children, etc.

evancox100on Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

That may be the case, but just as an example, elite progressive opinion seems to have shifted to a nonsensical "pro-gun control, anti-arresting people for gun crimes".

evancox100on Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

? I was just responding to the immediate reply that I wouldn't feel the same if the government had done something traumatic to me, when actually they have and I do. My past trauma is not justifying anything, but it does inform my thinking.

evancox100on Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

I am anti-cruelty and suffering, but it is not always cruel to force someone to do something they don't want to do, and it is not always kind to give them what they want.

If the choice is between them getting back on their feet but having to put the dog up for adoption (which is what I meant, not executing the dog on the spot), vs being stuck indefinitely homeless, I know which one I'm picking.

And again, I don't think "dogs" are the main impediment to homeless rehabilitation, the whole discussion is a sideshow. It was an illustrative example about well meaning intentions gone awry.

evancox100on Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

Yes, someone should do it and be a legend.

evancox100on Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

You're making a lot of assumptions about what traumatic situations I may or may not have been in. Maybe it is because I have been through some shit that I realize sometimes we have to do "mean" things to people, sometimes for their own good but often for the good of those around them.

evancox100on Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

> > application of coercive force (which is what makes a government a government) must be avoided at any and all cost

> I think this statement is eminently reasonable. Although a monopoly on coercive force is one important defining feature of government, I think it's desirable to have its minimization as the highest priority. Moreover, I think in the US our baseline for appropriate levels of coercive force is far too high.

Agree to disagree. I think coercive force should applied where appropriate, not avoided at any and all cost (a very strong qualifier). For instance, releasing defendants with GPS monitors prior to trial, and then arresting them and holding them in jail if they violate the terms of the release.

Meanwhile, coercive force in the form of escalating fines and, eventually, imprisonment, is applied to people who would dare to build apartments on their own land and then rent them to others. Where is the outcry over that? It is truly a tragedy of our own making.