Hacker News Reader

insert_coinon “No Defense of the Indefensible”: L.A. Judge Makes Landmark Homelessness Ruling

The main thing we'll learn? homelessness is not a money problem and 1 billion can't solve it.

insert_coinon “No Defense of the Indefensible”: L.A. Judge Makes Landmark Homelessness Ruling

The US was a common law country, then created the constitution based on that common law and now it is a constitutional republic. The constitution is the pillar now not "common law".

insert_coinon “No Defense of the Indefensible”: L.A. Judge Makes Landmark Homelessness Ruling

Doesn't that also apply to every problem in society?

insert_coinon Solar and wind can meet world energy demand 100 times over

It's a funny joke, don't get me wrong. But I'll take the 15 men sitting behind a computer operating remotely a digger inside a mine instead of 10 men breaking their backs and probably risking their lives with a shovel.

insert_coinon Solar and wind can meet world energy demand 100 times over

The world can theoretically meet it, in practice, it is the same situation as the "food" shortage.

Solar and food have a distribution problem, not only a generation problem, but since the world decided nationalism, protectionism and populism is more important than cooperation it is not going to get solved and we'll have to generate our needs and store it many times over in order for the biggest consumers of energy to be satisfied.

Just in time production and energy sharing will remain a dream and we'll keep wasting resources and the planet again and again just for our petty grievances.

insert_coinon Jaguar Land Rover to suspend output due to chip shortage

Inflation means some things become economically impossible to produce, that is why the rest of the stuff becomes more expensive.

Prices always lag behind because they are the result of all the economic processes that take place, not the cause, and this is just the beginning of the process.

insert_coinon Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with Foxconn

It looks that way in the end, with no other alternative but to yield, but at some point there were many options, that is how the town, city, county or state came to be in the first place. The problem is that they gave so many concessions just to get a short term political advantage, that real productive and sustainable jobs couldn't compete with corruption.

Now because of the giant snowball made from all the little policy mistakes that sounded insignificant at first, or ever worse, sounded sound! I mean who wouldn't want high paying jobs that barely require any training? the only option in many places is to keep the charade, but at some point politics need to give way to real production, and that only means real competition.

insert_coinon Making sense of what’s going on in the housing market

“Any man who must say 'I am king' is no true king at all.”

-GRRM

insert_coinon All-new iMac features the M1 chip

Again, current iMacs don't seem bother by that.

insert_coinon All-new iMac features the M1 chip

Funny the current iMac has none of those problems.

And wasn’t the M1 supposed to be so efficient minimal cooling and power were required?

insert_coinon All-new iMac features the M1 chip

And the labels are on the back.

insert_coinon All-new iMac features the M1 chip

If only there was a way for the socket to reach a different place and not be condemned to have every device 2 inches from it...

insert_coinon All-new iMac features the M1 chip

But you have a “charger” on a device without a battery.

Power bricks are the most inelegant solution to a problem ever. Can’t think of a clever design to accommodate the features we want? shove it on a box and put it to the side. Lazy.

insert_coinon All-new iMac features the M1 chip

External power brick on an iMac? what year is this? An with a proprietary connector too?

It looks hideous, has no ports, no memory. Such a letdown.

Not one feature is a step up from the current iMac. The M1 is so limiting on a desktop.

I guess they are really trying to push people into the iPad.

insert_coinon Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

Yes, instead let's have a government payment system with funds expiration date.

insert_coinon First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

Relax a little, it literally just happened, better things are coming. And don't watch the live feed if what you want is a Hollywood production.

insert_coinon First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

Freedom means not caring what others think or do. Maybe it is you the one trapped in a confrontation prison.

insert_coinon Edward Snowden NFT Sells for $5.4M in Ethereum

Perfect for the rolling-eyes-bot I'm about to release on the chain

insert_coinon $7.6B in crypto long positions liquidated in 1 hour as Bitcoin plunges to $52k

And that "value" can also go to 0.

insert_coinon Google used ‘double-Irish’ to shift $75.4B in profits out of Ireland

Most countries finance themselves with the always convenient "future-taxes" excuse, in other words, debt. It is the reason congress has to keep raising the debt ceiling, so they can keep borrowing money.

Last year, the US collected $3.42 trillion in taxes, but spent $6.55 trillion for a record deficit of $3.13 trillion. This year is projected to break that record.

https://www.thebalance.com/fy-2020-federal-budget-summary-of...

insert_coinon Google used ‘double-Irish’ to shift $75.4B in profits out of Ireland

And yet it hasn't been that. Plenty of countries with 0 corporate tax, Why aren't all the companies incorporated there? Plenty of places with 0 income tax too, why isn't everyone moving there? The truth is balanced and properly planed taxes with a stable economy are only a minor part of doing business.

insert_coinon Google used ‘double-Irish’ to shift $75.4B in profits out of Ireland

Taxes long ago stopped being the main way governments fund themselves.

If taxes were about financing the government there would just be one tax called the-cost-of-government-tax and that's it. There would be no need to tax everything you do, and at different rates and on some days but not others, but when the moon is full on tuesday you pay double except if you lived on 72nd street during 2008...

Taxes are about control, about influence, and about corruption. The loopholes are there becasue someone put them there, they are not hidden. The tax-code is so complex because someone made it that complex, someone doesn't want it to be easy.

insert_coinon Google used ‘double-Irish’ to shift $75.4B in profits out of Ireland

Everyone, almost, advocates to spend other's people money, the tax the rich movement is literally that. Now, this is obviously a couple of degrees more obscene but only because of the magnitude of the numbers not because of the conduct. The conduct is sadly the norm.

insert_coinon U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

And they would be wrong. The fact that everyone does it is the reason no one truly succeeds, not in the long run. A MAD strategy not only with two players but with millions.

That is why every free market monopoly that has ever existed has passed and we are not living under the thumb of a single all encompassing mega-corporation and the only pseudo-monopolies possible are the ones guaranteed by law in regulations.

insert_coinon Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

This is how it's supposed to work.

Basketball teams do not pick the shortest, weakest players just so they can prove random internet commenters they are the best at turning regular unfit humans into Michael Jordan. They can just pick Michael Jordan.

insert_coinon Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

> This is a failure of the markets...

The failure is governments subsidize so much energy production they effectively take the market out of the equation. Remove government incentives for cheap power at all costs and then you'll see the action of the market.

insert_coinon U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

The same things were said against Walmart, the exact same arguments word for word.

And yet we saw the rise of independent stores, gentrification, Whole Foods, the rise of e-commerce, the rise of etsy, amazon, ali, ebay, the rise of the Apple Store, the rise of...

And then we saw an explosion of "third party" brands. Millions and millions of alternatives flooded the market despite Walmart "undercutting everyone of their suppliers". From soda to nailclippers, to phone cases to chairs, to spoons, to...everything. Despite all the fear mongering, today there is not a single product category where only one brand exists, there is not a single product category where only the Walmart brand exists.

Competition cannot be stopped, the business cycle cannot be stopped. Birth, growth, death, repeat. Amazon is huge today because Walmart was so huge before it; people actively went out of their way to avoid it just out of spite.

Competition cannot be stopped, except by regulations. Give amazon by law a pen to play in and you are making sure they'll never let anyone else in.

Things never stay as they are, and retail has never been so competitive. Amazon won't be top dog forever, just as Sears wasn't, just as Walmart wasn't. Just as the mighty GE wasn't, or the even mightier East India Co. wasn't.

insert_coinon U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

> They are using their power to force competitors out of the market.

Everyone does this, it is called competition.

insert_coinon Turkey bans use of cryptocurrencies for payments

> Yeah, let's destroy financial systems of governments...

Governments do that on their own they don't need any help from crypto.

insert_coinon The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

Money is very useful now, very very useful. Things do not need to last forever to have value.