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ixacto

441 karma · joined April 29, 2012

Harlow London -- Hacker and Coder.

harlow.london@fastmail.fm

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ixacto··on HHS announces rule to protect consumers from surprise medical bills
This needs to happen. The medical billing industry is literal cancer.

They sent me a bill for $350 then I called up to complain and suddenly the bill goes away because it’s billed to my other insurance that I didn’t even think I had anymore.

If I sent a client a random bill for $$$ things would not go nearly as nicely, but they have so captured the regulators and politicians that this is the world we live in now.

I want nothing to do with many of the policies of the left, but this would make things so much easier for small businesses and people Changing jobs in the labor market.

ixacto··on Ohio GOP ends attempt to ban municipal broadband after protest from residents
We should have full starlink coverage of the USA by end of next year, not the greatest but it will beat Hughesnet and DSL.
ixacto··on Ohio GOP ends attempt to ban municipal broadband after protest from residents
The innovation is realizing that consumers are tired of your tiered upsell bs (looking at you Xfinity/comcast) and just offering everyone 1000/1000 and being done with it. That is literally what some of the reseller ISP are doing now.

Real innovation would be going the EPB route and offering 10-gigabit for $300/month. https://epb.com/fi-speed-internet/

ixacto··on MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U
EdX really got to me with their removal of past class materials and the "class starts today" dark pattern, and the constant certificate upsell attempts. Something like freecodecamp and Udemy is much more usable IMO.
ixacto··on Ask HN: Do you recommend anti-malware to your family?
Macs and chromebooks are the way to go for nontechnical family members. Of course we now have scam apps that are trying to spoof iOS native applications to try and get one to download something from the App Store.
ixacto··on Facebook keeps recommending political groups
Got rid of all social media after COVID and political chaos of the last year. Just too much now and a waste of time.
ixacto··on A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities
Yes they should offend their students because history is offensive.

We should also teach about the Holocaust and read the uncensored version of huckleberry Finn, even though it may be offensive.

People (students) will be offended but they will learn how history has changed, be able to think for themselves, and not fall into ideological line. If this scares the left/right establishments that is a great thing.

Living in a 1-party state would suck.

ixacto··on A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities
What exactly is extreme speech? I don’t recall for advocating for illegal speech.

Everything up to imminently calling for violence in the US is protected so if that is what you are saying then I’d agree with you.

However what is “hate” or “intolerant” depends on the person and identity group. E.g. “All lives matter, marriage is between a man and a woman, men can’t get pregnant, Muhammad was a pedophole, flipping the bird to a police officer” all would offend different groups of people but are protected speech.

ixacto··on A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities
Yeah I’m not on the left any more and now an independent due to the left trying to use identity politics for political engagement. Still support what Bernie/Yang are doing though with trying to universalize healthcare and income though.
ixacto··on A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities
Freedom of expression/free speech doesn’t mean freedom not to be offended or that you have to agree with the views.

If we do not support even the most offensive speech then we risk a very slippery slope leading to censorship and 1984.

ixacto··on Ask HN: Have you found a good desk chair?
Costco $99 office chair is just fine. This is after getting physical therapy for back problems though.
ixacto··on Boston startups merge to create driver-tracking giant for insurance industry
New Hampshire doesn’t require car insurance. https://www.thehartford.com/aarp/car-insurance/new-hampshire...
ixacto··on No one likes ads. So let’s do something about it
Lol just install unlock origin or AdGuard on iOS. That’s what I’m doing about it.
ixacto··on Google Workspace for everyone
They need to actually diversify from search and advertising. Gcp was a good go, but isn’t here there. IMO selling tensor compute could really compete, but they are not too into that and pushing this with the cringe execution. Almost as bad as their hardware announcement for pixel devices a couple years ago. You look at goog versus aapl hardware event and the execution is kinda night and day in apple’s favor.
ixacto··on Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers
We also pretend the law doesn’t say what it says. Look at the sanctuary states for illegal immigration and marijuana. Then the red states started doing the same thing with second amendment sanctuary states.

Looks like if there’s no political will to enforce the law it doesn’t get enforced.

ixacto··on Ask HN: Is Apple really phoning home every time I start an application on macOS?
Yes they do. Also for account changes.
ixacto··on Machine learning is booming in medicine, but also facing a credibility crisis
Sure but why not take the best of both worlds? Make a ai analyze your wrist fracture and also a radiologist analyze it. If the results don’t agree then you need to re-analyze.

That would even drive down the possibility of malpractice.

ixacto··on Ask HN: Is it allowed to discuss ivermectin on HN?
Yes we should discuss it. Nothing should be off limits to discussion, and additionally nothing should be above criticism or questioning.
ixacto··on Medium sees employee exits after CEO publishes ‘culture memo’
Lol time to leave before that wokester destroys the company.
ixacto··on Spanish politician suspended by Twitter for saying 'a man cannot get pregnant'
Why doesn't Spain just block twitter if they don't like an American company messing about in their politics?

If anything it shows just how reliant these politicians have become on a foreign company for their political ranting/culture waring.

ixacto··on Using a magnetic string to fish for a lost iPhone 12 in a Berlin canal
They do but what happens when life happens and you have to quit or you get divorced and you’re a stay at home parent. Lots of edge cases, although of course there are a lot more jobs paying >=$100,000USD in CA than BC or much of Canada.
ixacto··on Using a magnetic string to fish for a lost iPhone 12 in a Berlin canal
The tax rate for $100,000USD/yr is roughly the same between California and British Columbia. But you only get healthcare in one of those.
ixacto··on LOL just got kicked out of @ycombinator
Just donate to the hospital or be on the board to get your COVID shot back in January. $$$ talks.
ixacto··on LOL just got kicked out of @ycombinator
The only problem with the three points you list is that the first and third are contradictory. We were literally throwing away vaccines here in the United States if they could not find anyone eligible to vaccinate.
ixacto··on LOL just got kicked out of @ycombinator
The government, well in this case multiple levels of state/federal/city/tribal governments all made up their own decisions on what defined one as eligible for the vaccine, and then randomly changed them. The government should not be the arbiter of one’s morality.

It was a mess and IMO difficult to assign anyone in the moral right in the distribution of vaccines.

For example, looking at the vaccine distribution from a utilitarian perspective and not a political-agenda perspective it would have made sense to give the vaccine to healthcare workers first and then grocery workers next, as society in general will collapse if people are not able to get groceries. In a strictly calculative sense society doesn’t care if a few more old people in a nursing home die, but if grocery stores are closed there will be food riots/massive problems in a few days.

But politicians know that old people vote. So we had the age-tiered system.

IMO both if these perspectives were misguided and the optimal way to handle it would have been to had over vaccine logistics to Amazon who could actually make a web app that doesn’t crash to register for vaccines and just go first-come first-served.

Instead we had to try to register via Kroger (I think) who was using a chatbot to register people which was not very effective or high throughput. Costco had spaghetti code and had embedded way too much information in the page source, no idea who designed their signup page either.

This incompetence and unneeded beauracracy by the government literally cost lives.

ixacto··on U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says
It is just pointing out the obvious that there exist ways to transfer money obtained via criminal actions that may not be in compliance with various nations tax laws. Talking about activities that are illegal in one's own jurisdiction without intent to break the law is not illegal...

Would posting a paper by the german federal police on a practical home heroin manufacture be doing the criminals job? https://www.unodc.org/pdf/research/Bulletin07/bulletin_on_na...

Irregardless the groups that pulled this off already know this and have machinery like that which was revealed in the panama papers and crypto mixers ready to launder the money.

What is now needed is to give real consequences to US-based companies and institutions that pay any sort of ransom to the state/non-state actors that are perpetrating these hacking events. This will remove the profit motive, and I don't care if it's Colonial Pipeline or UCSF, this behavior needs to stop and the criminals behind it need to know that there is not any money to be made.

ixacto··on U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says
Yes they can just pay in monero.
ixacto··on U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says
The feds can’t even secure all their own systems. We had the OPM hack which resulted in the personal information of federal employees exfultrated who knows where. Also the federal government were still using passwords that were exposed in the breach 3 years after https://www.forbes.com/sites/leemathews/2018/11/15/office-of....

Tbh I trust the FAANG companies to run better security. Government is incompetent in this area.

ixacto··on U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says
“Colonial Pipeline decided to pay the hackers who invaded their systems nearly $5 million to regain access, the company said.”

That is the problem right there. Someone just made 5MM tax free. Time to make paying ransomware illegal and that will stop the potential criminal market for ransomware attacks apart from political motivations.

ixacto··on Ask HN: How do I come up with monetizable SaaS side project ideas?
How do you get customers? Also how much do you spend on advertising to get the customers?
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