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m4ck_

308 karma · joined December 9, 2025

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m4ck_··on US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects
We are indeed the largest producer of oil and natural gas. In this case, "some" is like 70%. Maybe that's not "entirely reliant", but it's far from independence. If other countries stopped selling us oil, our car-centric society would be FUBAR for some time.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_d_nus_Z00_mbblp...

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_exp_dc_NUS-Z00_mbblpd_...

m4ck_··on US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects
>It’s good to reduce dependence on foreign supply chains

The fact that we're still basically entirely reliant on the middle east and other foreign producers for our domestic fuel supply suggests this isn't really that big of a deal. Even in the middle of a war that is generating massive profits for the oil industry, no one is suggesting they should add refinery capacity or convert existing ones to use domestic oil.

This move is about the president's personal vendetta against offshore wind and satisfying his financial backers in the fossil fuel industry.

m4ck_··on I’m leaving OpenAI to build telepathy
Maybe I’m just demented but i feel like the first time I interface with chatgpt via telepathy it’s going to see my thoughts when the guy in the cube behind me farts or chews loudly, and send the FBI.

What a terrible idea.

m4ck_··on Three Six Mafia – Data about "6/6/6 dating" (2024)
The only three 6 mafia rule i follow is "What is her favorite three 6 album"? Anything after "Da Unbreakables" is a red flag IMO. If "Chapter 2" or "Live By Yo Rep" come up, I might be in love.
m4ck_··on San Francisco: Don't Fall for Industry Defense of Surveillance Pricing
I'm sure that's the econ 101 answer for healthy, theoretical free markets. In reality, we have market consolidation leading to near monopolies, collusion/price fixing between what few companies remain, etc. Refusing to purchase works for some things maybe, not so much for basic household goods and groceries, an area where a small handful of companies control the overwhelming majority of the market. Allowing survellience pricing just gives these conglomerates more leverage over consumers.
m4ck_··on San Francisco: Don't Fall for Industry Defense of Surveillance Pricing
How do I negotiate with a minimum wage cashier, self-checkout, or a checkout page? Have you ever been in a Kroger property, or Walmart, or any other multi-billion dollar retailer and negotiated on something? Maybe they'll price match and I guess that counts, but it's not as if we have access to data to do that in a meaningful way to compete with the data that they have to act on.

In lieu of suppressing surveillance pricing, I could live with retailers being forced to open source, in real time, all product and sales related data, including historical as far back as they have.

m4ck_··on California bans 'sell by' labels, hoping to cut food waste
Well despite all that regulation, they're an economic powerhouse, they must be doing something right. CA is far from perfect but at least they occasionally aspire to do something for the benefit of their citizens - not something I can say for my 'least regulated' state that mostly just saps money from the federal government.
m4ck_··on California bans 'sell by' labels, hoping to cut food waste
I'm pretty sure food producers are the ones putting the "sell by" labels on stuff, with the hope that people will needlessly throw away food and buy more because of that label.
m4ck_··on Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct
To the business? logistics, facilities (think power, HVAC, refrigeration systems), security, HR, finance, accounting, legal, purchasing, sales, marketing, etc. Probably with multiple environments (dev/qa/prod/DR) for anything important.
m4ck_··on Wages in America Are Too Low for the 30% Rule to Work for Renters Anymore
If companies would allow people to spread out more we could probably improve that situation some, but they want us all concentrated in 10-20 major metro areas. There's cheap housing in this country, its just in places where the job market is extremely limited.
m4ck_··on FBI Arrests CIA Official with $40M in Gold Bars in His Home
You can definitely get a decent jet in that budget, there's a popular tech youtuber who recently bought one for considerably less. I'm pretty sure you could get like 6 houses in mountain view and still have money left over for a jet.
m4ck_··on A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking
If i run that (or similar sites) multiple times, shouldn't I like.. not be unique each time?
m4ck_··on I want to live like Costco people
In my experience, get there as early as possible and it's not bad. But that's the standard for these membership stores, although Sam's Club has the edge being able to use their app to scan your items and pay without having to stop anywhere (other than the line to get out.)

Publix' pricing is obscene though.

m4ck_··on UK: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds strongly
Ram 1500 eTorque is one.
m4ck_··on Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%
But the claude/cursor/kiro/codex said my code was production ready, enterprise grade, and PCI/alphabet soup compliant.
m4ck_··on The Car That Watches You Back: The Advertising Infrastructure of Modern Cars
What Edison motors is trying to do with their conversion kits is the solution for us privacy-aware folks, I think. If they, or someone, manage to bring hybrid/electric conversion kits to the market, we'll have an option that's slightly better than hoping parts stay available for older cars.
m4ck_··on Aspartame is not that bad? (2022)
I felt the same way, they used to taste awful to me, now I only notice a slight difference between Dr Pepper zero and regular. Maybe I just got older and my taste buds degraded?
m4ck_··on Aspartame is not that bad? (2022)
It's probably not great if you're drinking dozens of cans of sugar free soda every day.

All I really know is don't take health advice from influencers, especially if they're selling something, and don't take health advice from people who support deregulation (less industry transparency, oversight, and consequences won't make food or anything safer.)

m4ck_··on I am building a cloud
And if you need a cluster, Hashicorp Nomad seems like a more reasonable option than full blown kubernetes. I've never actually used it in prod, only a lab, but I enjoyed it.
m4ck_··on US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification
I agree, but the law is pretty vague. Root is a user on an operating system on a general purpose computer after all.
m4ck_··on US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification
I look forward to having to age verify the dbus and chrony and root accounts on every linux-based "smart" device in the future. That should be fun.

Will my children be able to use my smart oven/thermostat after I verify I'm 18+ on those devices?

I also wonder what verification will look like for containers and and VMs that might have a short life. Maybe that's how we keep IT jobs for a little while longer? Human age verification on every local account every time a container or VM is spun up.

m4ck_··on YouTube now world's largest media company, topping Disney
And it's seemingly the only large platform where you have some control over the 'algorithm' - meaning if I tell it I'm not interested in something, or not to show me content from a creator, it actually works. On Facebook or Instagram the "not interested" button doesn't seem to do anything and it takes several clicks and a wait to block an account.
m4ck_··on The Windows equivalents of the most used Linux commands
It's 2026, you should not be using command prompt (or batch.) In powershell ls is a built in alias to get-childitem and has been for years, and in recent versions of windows you'd have to go out of your way to get a command prompt (you would have to open a powershell terminal and then run cmd.)
m4ck_··on The Windows equivalents of the most used Linux commands
You could just one line it too:

  Get-Item "C:\some path\having spaces.txt" | select DirectoryName, Name, Basename
m4ck_··on The Windows equivalents of the most used Linux commands
rm only removes files and directories right? Remove-Item can be used for any powershell provider, such as environment variables, active directory, certificates, and registry. And of course you can implement your own providers that utilize *-item cmdlets. I don't know that i'd call either superior, or that i'd even say that they're equivalent. rm is a utility for removing files, remove-item is a little more than that.
m4ck_··on The Windows equivalents of the most used Linux commands
The verbosity especially in cmdlet names kind of sucks but having everything be an object with properties and methods, vs having to chop up and parse and pipe text is quite nice. I haven't had the pleasure of being a linux admin professionally so I don't have much experience on the linux side.. but just like a really simple example of getting in interface's IP address.. Grabbing a property from get-netipaddress is easier/faster/simpler to me than chopping up text output from ifconfig.

This applies to errors of course, there are a number of properties for an error that you can look at (and use in scripts to handle errors) if the full output is too much or unclear.

m4ck_··on Online age-verification tools for child safety are surveilling adults
Pre-trump's attempts to eliminate the department, almost $20 billion.

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/enforcement/enforcement-by-t...

m4ck_··on Palantir and other tech companies are stocking offices with tobacco products
If companies are going to start giving us free drugs to boost productivity, they should at least give out the good stuff. Give me a modafinil (/provigil) vending machine, forget nicotine.
m4ck_··on Could Canada and Australia form a critical minerals supergroup?
The question should be is Canada willing to extract or ship those minerals? In the case of oil, they're mostly only willing to do that if the US absorbs all of the risk - such as piping it across US farmland and aquifers to ship from ports in the Gulf of Mexico. I don't think they really have the appetite for any heavy industry.
m4ck_··on Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston
It's not just loans and banking. Bad credit severely limits your housing options, even rooms for rent are running credit checks these days. Some employers too, even in roles where you aren't directly handling money or anything close to it.
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