Hacker News Reader

j0baon J&J tried to get federal judge to block publication of Reuters story

Absolutely deplorable they would do this. But I am still extremely confident the vaccines are 100% and effective.

j0baon Spotify is removing Neil Young’s music after falling out over Joe Rogan

I take it you were watching a lot of fox news back then? Or is that just what you "heard"? Because I was watching Fox news back then, and you are absolutely incorrect.

j0baon Google Is Forcing Me to Dump a Perfectly Good Phone

Honestly I doubt congresspeople worry too much about the price of buying a new phone.

j0baon Google Drive flags file only containing “1” for copyright infringement

Because they're doing God's work, and how dare you question their motives?

j0baon Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

Would you prefer society just ignores this inconvenient fact?

The risk of developmental issues was obvious to many people at the beginning of the lockdowns. Now we have some data. It will help us make better decisions in the future.

Every choice has consequences.

j0baon Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the literature

Consensus is the currency of politics, not science. Before Einstein there was > 99% consensus that Newtonian gravity was ultimate description of gravitational force.

j0baon 88-year-old prof resigns mid-class when student refuses to wear mask

Too bad there were no postdocs who could've taken the place of this far-beyond-retirement-age professor sooner.

j0baon Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content”

> Jailbait or non-nude pics of someone's teenage daughter, hosted in the thousands

Even worse, imagine there was a technology that allowed you to print those jailbait photos by the thousands and drop them in Times Square. That would be far too dangerous.

Imagine if that technology was used to spread misinformation about the Catholic church.

Ban the printing press! It's too dangerous. It should be controlled by the church and the state!

Even better, get rid of religion and intertwine religious righteousness with politics. Then the state can control it all!

j0baon America’s government comes clean on UFOs

Totally speculative, but what if the propulsion system is something like an Alcubierre drive? Then the object isn't moving, just moving the spacetime around itself.

j0baon Google made it nearly impossible for users to keep their location private

https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

Maybe they are more than just an ad company?

j0baon Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

Because people like you wouldn't understand if I said, "I'm just giving my two sats."

j0baon U.S. adds just 266,000 jobs in April, far below expectations

We're talking about unemployment benefits, not stimulus money.

j0baon Launch Your App: Why We Don’t Use Docker (We Don’t Need It)

Lol no. Docker is only slow on Mac. It works great on all other platforms.

j0baon Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme

Then it would be a fork of bitcoin (and therefore not bitcoin). Everybody who already owned a bitcoin would also own the equivalent amount in the forked coin. This already happened in 2016 with bitcoin cash.

j0baon Companies must stop requiring people to link their phone numbers

OTPs are great, until someone calls up your phone company and social engineers their underpaid support staff into giving them control of your phone number.

This is not speculative. I've literally had to help relatives with this exact security breach.

Using phone numbers for 2FA is insecure for that very reason. You are entrusting all your personal security with the phone company. Using a OTP by phone number as your only authentication factor is much less secure than a password + 2FA.

An authenticator app, such as Authy, faces none of those security issues.

j0baon US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

In science, a single test of a single sample is a galaxy away from "well established."

j0baon Yellen Summons Regulators to Discuss Financial Market Volatility

You guys don't get it. Biden is restoring the soul of America - exactly how he sees it.

j0baon A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

That's fine. They can just take a salary cut if they need their employer to provide them an officespace.

j0baon Fitbit is now officially part of Google

> Fitbit was getting killed and would likely have gone out of business

If this is a reason for acquisition, then why wouldn't G*gle wait until they were "killed" so they could come in and buy their business for pennies on the dollar?

We're fast approaching a dystopian Snow Crash world of all-powerful corporations, and you people are cheering it along.

How can these both be true?

- it's bad all US legacy media is owned by 5 corporations. - it's good for FB, Apple, Amazon and to buy up all adjacent business.

I don't see how sharing data is a good argument for unchecked consolidation of power. I'm pretty sure Fitbit could export an open standard data format, and Google could consume one. But I guess rich people wouldn't be able to get even richer if they did that.

j0baon Huawei patent mentions use of Uighur-spotting tech

They are not at all mutually exclusive.

Unless you believe the recent edits on wikipedia.

j0baon What Is Social Cooling?

I want to read that link, but not sure if I should...

I'll ddg "snowden wikipedia" instead.

j0baon Huawei patent mentions use of Uighur-spotting tech

With all the moral outrage recently, I assume Amazon will stop carrying Huawei phones until the CCP stops putting Uyghurs in concentration camps, amirite?

j0baon Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

So they just don't have to operate in Poland if they don't like the laws. Block polish IPS, prohibit poles from using. If the removals are so important to them.

j0baon Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

If Facebook/Twitter doesn't agree to the law, they don't have to operate in Poland. Nobody is forcing them.

j0baon Will the US experience a violent upheaval in 2020? (2012)

> Good education system does not neatly translate to, say, economic success.

If you think anyone said that, you should probably talk less and read more. Because it doesn't appear you're competent in either.

Education is necessary but not sufficient.

j0baon Tether price manipulation

Meh, USD is much better for that. Lots more drug dealers accept it.

j0baon Bitcoin breaks above $20k

True. Unfortunately many still think a centrally planned system of picking winners and losers is superior to the free market, but luckily the past 4 years was enough to send capable entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk into the stratosphere (and beyond).

j0baon U.S. Treasury, Commerce Depts. Hacked Through SolarWinds Compromise

Don't worry, you'll get your war.

j0baon U.S. Treasury, Commerce Depts. Hacked Through SolarWinds Compromise

Right. If you don't accept it was the Russians, you're a fucking Trump supporter!

j0baon How Pfizer delivered a Covid vaccine in record time

Random question: why are we saying, "the economic toll of covid," rather than, "the economic toll of the response to covid?" If the lockdowns hadn't happened, more would have died, but presumably the economy would be fine.