Hacker News Reader

rnernentoon If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

It seems to me that since AI is built on the collective works of the workers it's replacing any profits should probably be taxed at 100%

rnernentoon Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

In 2021, Ulbricht's prosecutors and defense agreed that Ulbricht would relinquish any ownership of a newly discovered fund of 50,676 Bitcoin (worth nearly $5.35 billion in 2025) seized from a hacker in November 2021.[78] The Bitcoin had been stolen from Silk Road in 2013 and Ulbricht had been unsuccessful in getting them back. The U.S. government traced and seized the stolen Bitcoin. Ulbricht and the government agreed the fund would be used to pay off Ulbricht's $183 million debt in his criminal case, while the Department of Justice would take custody of the Bitcoin.[79][80]

rnernentoon NASA unveils new moon suit

It doesn't look evil enough for this timeline...

rnernentoon Roald Dahl ebooks remotely updated to censored versions after purchase

Can we leverage blockchain to fight back against this kind of stuff?

rnernentoon Ask HN: What are some of the best books you have read in 2022?

I think Gene Wolfe is the one of the greatest authors of all time across any genre. I highly highly recommend the Fifth Head of Cerberus which is 3 short interconnected novellas and Peace, which isn't traditional Sci-Fi but is absolutely worth a read.

He's not just writing, he's constructing beautifully crafted puzzle-boxes that take a lot of time and thought to unpack.

rnernentoon Ask HN: Any legal place to buy offline TV movie downloads?

I think the problem here is what you're really asking for is DRM free content. None of the content producers themselves are willing to license their content that way so it would be very difficult to build the service.

rnernentoon Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?

I mean it's pretty straightforward right? There are now more dollars in play all after the same amount of goods, each dollar has less purchasing power. Why are you so quick to throw out the simplest explanation?

rnernentoon Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?

I don't think you realize just how much of the money has been printed in the last 2 years.

See fed balance sheet over time: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...

See M2 over time: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

rnernentoon An update to paid sharing

I predict a massive backfire on this one.. I know Netflix is struggling but as competitors (see HBOMax) get better and better now is not the time to both raise prices and give people a reason to revisit their active subscription. I know plenty of people who only continue to pay for Netflix because they share it with a bunch of people. They don’t really have any killer content right now and as far as I can tell no streaming service has figured out how to deal with people who just cycle between services… This is not the right problem to focus on right now.

rnernentoon Cryptocurrency scam: Man swindled out of pension and life savings

And what value has been created?

rnernentoon Cryptocurrency scam: Man swindled out of pension and life savings

Pretty soon you're going to be able to replace "Man" with "Everyone who bought crypto."

rnernentoon Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

Why does my $500 Samsung Galaxy Book Flex have the webcam in a tiny little bezel and this thing has a giant notch?

rnernentoon Show HN: A Reddit style site to discuss podcast episodes

I think if you ever want there to actually be content you need a way to grab users and make it easy for them to start generating it.

When you say "it's a chicken and an egg problem" you're spot on. That's the problem for every new social network or user based platform trying to launch. Until you have a ton of users and content I would argue it's the only problem worth worrying about.

rnernentoon Show HN: A Reddit style site to discuss podcast episodes

I'm not criticizing your business model, I'm just saying as a user who doesn't care about your business model and is just curious about podcast discussions your homepage isn't optimized for me.

If you focus on building a userbase first it will be easier to sell the service later.

As a user I have a billion things competing for my attention, if you don't make it super easy for me to get to useful or interesting content I'm going to move on and that's going to hurt you overall.

rnernentoon Show HN: A Reddit style site to discuss podcast episodes

Reddit never started by taking me to a giant signup page for a paid subscription. As someone who was mildly curious and might have checked it out of you presented something interesting I immediately left, maybe think about making the base landing page more interesting in hopes of gaining traction with users and then make another landing page for people you want to sell the service to.

rnernentoon Low-cost, battery-like device absorbs CO2 emissions while it charges

Imagine if there was basically 0 cost carbon capture device that ran completely off of solar power and didn't just store CO2 but also expelled oxygen and miraculously created useful usable materials...

rnernentoon Everything with a battery should have an off switch

Forget about "with a battery" - everything should have an off switch. Rebooting hardware like the Amazon Fire TV is so annoying, and it's not like it doesn't like up or crash...

rnernentoon Why is every consumer startup selling me what I already own for 10x the price?

I don't know that they ever realize it's exactly the same as the product that costs 1/10th the price but that doesn't mean it isn't.

rnernentoon Why is every consumer startup selling me what I already own for 10x the price?

They do it because advertising works.

rnernentoon Why is every consumer startup selling me what I already own for 10x the price?

It's almost like we're operating in an economy where it's easier and more lucrative to be a huckster than it is to innovate and create something useful. Maybe part of this is just that we've already optimized so many things - what's left to do with the products in question other than up the price and market the heck out of them?

As they say, "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people"...

rnernentoon Ask HN: Have you ever experienced any paranormal or unexplained phenomena?

This is Hacker News, at least build an app to track these or something...

rnernentoon Lego has changed since we were kids (2014)

Sorry to be clear, when I say competition I mean non-lego or knockoff toys, things like LOL Surprise or Shopkins, or Paw Patrol figures.

rnernentoon Lego has changed since we were kids (2014)

I can speak to this a little, the issue is that the sets are designed to not be as friendly to rebuilding. The walls and floors to buildings are made out of very specific pieces that aren't easily reconfigured into new structures.

Honestly some of it is so weird that I think they do it on purpose specifically to discourage re-use.

rnernentoon Lego has changed since we were kids (2014)

Legos are still one of the most satisfying toys to buy your children. Yes they are expensive, yes it's annoying that a lot of them are built just once. That being said when you look out at the competition the bar is low.

I have a 5 and 3 year old and watching them patiently page through the instructions and put together something complex that they really care about is incredibly satisfying. Some of the sets have relatively complex mechanisms in them as well (I'm thinking specifically of the Lego Friends Shopping Mall and the Minecraft sets) and the kids are forced to understand them at least on some level.

I don't know that my daughter would be interested in classic Legos, it's Lego Friends that caught her and will keep her in front of a 200 page instruction manual for 4 hours and in my mind there's nothing wrong with that.

rnernentoon Show HN: A daily math puzzle inspired by Wordle

I'm not sure how much mental math you're expecting but you might consider building in a side calculator.

rnernentoon Eliminating gifted programs won’t make education fair

Sorry but I feel like I'm missing something here, how are IQs themselves systemically racist?

rnernentoon Pitch: Collaborative presentation software for teams

As someone who regularly uses Powerpoint but isn't completely in love with it I don't see anything compelling on your home screen that makes me care about Pitch.

If there is some killer feature I don't know about it should be made more prominent. What I'm seeing is real time collaboration - which is already possible with Office 365 and some supposedly great templates. Switching software is a pain, so you better give me a good reason to.

It seems like you're squandering an opportunity to use Pitch to pitch me Pitch.

rnernentoon The Pandemic Could Get Much, Much Worse. We Must Act Now

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/us-coronavirus-update-05-27...

“I still think that we have a good chance, if all the things fall in the right place, that we might have a vaccine that would be deployable by the end of the year, by December and November,” said Fauci, a key member of the White House coronavirus task force.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/07/15/mo...

rnernentoon The Pandemic Could Get Much, Much Worse. We Must Act Now

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/us-coronavirus-update-05-27...

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/07/15/mo...

rnernentoon The Pandemic Could Get Much, Much Worse. We Must Act Now

While I agree with most of this (and the part about insufficient testing materials is especially troubling), it's starting to seem reasonable that we'll have a vaccine available for Fall/Winter. There is an argument to be made that as long as we keep the hospitals from being overrun we should limit restrictions that are infringing on people's freedoms and damaging the economy.

That being said there are also very reasonable measures we can take - how we aren't mandating masks nationwide at this point is beyond me.