Hacker News Reader

justinzollarson Apple announces changes to iOS, Safari, and the App Store in the European Union

There is no topic more popular on HN than European regulations. Thats a pretty sad state of affairs if you think about it. Personally I'd be interested in blocking every thread like this. Though I don't think these regulations will survive because the EU won't survive. Its like discussing Soviet law. Its totally pointless on a tech blog.

justinzollarson Sports Illustrated implosion shows the ugly, ongoing collapse of U.S. journalism

> Except by a firehose of falsehoods

The media is largely owned by a few conglomerates and rich families. When we turn on MSNBC we are watching Comcast. Read the Atlantic we are reading the opinions of Laurene Powell Jobs. I haven't found a lot of truth on any topic in the last 20 years.

justinzollarson Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)

I think I would include <iframe>

justinzollarson Sports Illustrated implosion shows the ugly, ongoing collapse of U.S. journalism

> Increasingly difficult to find anybody with the ethics and resources interested in reversing — or even combating — the trajectory.

This is a pessimistic view. Media has never been richer. Facts can no longer be hidden.

justinzollarson Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study finds

What is the cost of a $50,000 at 10% interest vs the cost of $50,000 at 2.5% interest over 10 years?

Money is not free. Solar is now expensive:

[1] https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/high-interest...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-11-03/invest...

[3] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/solar-stocks-get-hit-as-risin...

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/climate/renewable-energy-...

[5] https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/high-interest-rates-imp...

[6] https://www.ft.com/content/07443afb-b935-492d-8711-8c47e4353...

[7] https://time.com/6281021/renewable-energy-interest-rates/

[8] https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/01/13/why-solar-energy-s...

[9] https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2024/01/high-interest-...

[10] https://www.newsweek.com/high-interest-rates-impact-solar-en...

justinzollarson Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study finds

People are downvoting this, but from Tesla earnings today

"Solar deployments declined on a sequential and YoY basis to 41 MW. Downward pressure on solar demand continued into Q4 as interest rates have remained high."

This isn't an opinion, this is a fact. You could also compare the cost of capital between 3% and 10% and derive a cost per kwh.

justinzollarson Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study finds

> solar energy prices plummeting

Shopping for solar in California, prices aren't plummeting. With high interest rates, solar no longer makes economic sense. Its more expensive than ever. Many solar installers are facing bankruptcy because the market has collapsed.

justinzollarson Notion Calendar

I'm not sure I need this. I'm pretty satisfied with google calendar.

justinzollarson eBay agrees to $3M fine over couple's harassment case, civil suit continues

eBay cheated me out of over $5,000 because of fraud, they failed to honor any seller protections, and charged me $250 for the fraudulent transaction. I charged the money back, and they made several unauthorized withdraws from my bank account in an attempt to take that 250 back from me. They ignored repeated requests to delete my personal banking information on file. I worked with my bank, charged the money back (a second time) and followed up by closing my bank account (an merchant block wasn't sufficient because they only last 6 months).

eBay is a deeply unethical company. This story doesn't surprise me

justinzollarson Drawing.garden

I love it.

justinzollarson IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

This was a good position to get me through the tech recession. I was able to continue working on Go, and the system was interesting. But it wasn't an easy job by any means. I ended up going back to startups where I have more ownership.

justinzollarson IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

I was on a 24 hour on call for months, a two man team, managing Chick-fil-A's Doordash, UberEats and GH Go integrations for thousands of stores. It was literally insane. I survived this recession - but I was way way way overworked. The balance has definitely tipped towards the employer.

justinzollarson 95% of container ships are now going around the Southern Tip of Africa

Conspiracy corner: Egypt is joining BRICS. Maybe this is deliberate pressure and this is a convenient excuse?

justinzollarson Ask HN: Small-batch builds of smaller phyiscal objects

Generally what does this cost - whats the ballpark?

justinzollarson Ask HN: How are you using ChatGPT for yourself?

  - board game rule clarifications
  - bash scripting
  - home improvement questions
  - cooking questions
  - third rail issues and opinion questions

justinzollarson Earthquakes make gold veins in an instant (2013)

Lots of reasons to not be a producer of metals. If you find any material in California good luck - its more than a 25 year process to open a new mine, including payoffs to various politicians and an endless environmental review process.

justinzollarson Is Twitter/X Down

The moneyed interests are boycotting X and deploying their EU and American regulators to tangle the platform up in regulation enforcements.

justinzollarson Is Twitter/X Down

The three (very very bitter) Threads users are downvoting you.

justinzollarson Is Twitter/X Down

When I was a kid (Nat Nanny)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Nanny] was totally and completely lame, but the whole millennial generation grew up to adore content moderation. A strange authoritarian impulse.

justinzollarson Is Twitter/X Down

Yeah, they need to bring the fail whale back!

justinzollarson Colorado Supreme Court disqualifies Trump from holding office

Electing Democrats had a huge effect on Figma employees. US bowing to EU regulators? No pressure or response from the US?

justinzollarson The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]

This is pretty awesome (page 75):

  % rm meese-ethics
  rm: meese-ethics nonexistent

  % ar m God
  ar: God does not exist

  % "How would you rate Dan Quayle's incompetence?
  Unmatched ".

  % ^How did the sex change^ operation go?
  Modifier failed.

  % If I had a ( for every $ the Congress spent,
  what would I have?
  Too many ('s.

  % make love
  Make: Don't know how to make love. Stop.

  % sleep with me
  bad character

  % got a light?
  No match.

  % man: why did you get a divorce?
  man:: Too many arguments.

  % ^What is saccharine?
  Bad substitute.

  %blow
  %blow: No such job.

justinzollarson Writing documentation for your house

This is great advice. I have a ton of documents with the home I bought, but I can't seem to find when the roof was replaced. It took me months to discover I had a sprinkler system and I was amazed when I figured out how to use it. Something like this would be very convenient.

justinzollarson Charlie Munger has died

justinzollarson After 151 years, Popular Science will no longer offer a magazine

Maybe some rich VCs should buy this thing, and convert it into a tech publication that is pro tech.

justinzollarson Apple might have to pay that €13B EU tax bill after all

You don't have a safety net. You have interest payments on the Iraq War, Gulf War, Afghanistan War, GFC bailouts, HN bank bailout (SVC), and mountains and mountains of past spending. It will be 100% of the budget in not too long.

justinzollarson Apple might have to pay that €13B EU tax bill after all

Simply one election away, from any sovereign country on earth, from disappearing.

justinzollarson Apple might have to pay that €13B EU tax bill after all

I upvoted you because you are right. I will never understand the excitement of the Hacker News community to pay a 50% penalty to the worst type of people on earth, those that do not produce.

justinzollarson New Requirements to Travel to Europe

> ETIAS travel authorisation is an entry requirement for visa-exempt nationals travelling to any of these 30 European countries. It is linked to a traveller’s passport. It is valid for up to three years or until the passport expires

justinzollarson 13 States join the IRS direct-file test after tax prep firms dropped the ball

Government size as a proportion of GDP is at 42.36% [1]. How much bigger should it get?

1. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/FRA/JPN/...