HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

theplague42

404 karma · joined February 26, 2018

submissionscomments
theplague42··on The necessity of Nussbaum
Libertarians and mentally speed-running the invention of the nation-state: an iconic duo.
theplague42··on Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]
The individuals will get taxed on capital gains afaik. We could also tax unrealized gains (just like we do gains on property)!
theplague42··on Prices and wages in Medieval England (2014)
IIRC these concepts are more relevant in a service-based economy.

In the Middle Ages, _land_ was the primary source of economic value. Fewer people means more land per person, therefore more wealth per person.

theplague42··on What Is Dbt and Why Are Companies Using It?
What makes left joins perform poorly in Snowflake?
theplague42··on What Is Dbt and Why Are Companies Using It?
Well part of the benefit is rapid development; it's mind-boggling how quickly someone can stand up a dbt project and begin to iterate on transforms. Using Python/SQL/JSON (at small/medium) scales keeps the data stack consistent and lowers the barrier to entry. No reason to prematurely optimize when your bottleneck is the modeling and not the actual data volume.
theplague42··on What Is Dbt and Why Are Companies Using It?
dbt and ELT in general are such a game-changer for allowing rapid iteration on business logic by data analysts; the feedback loop feels much more like "normal" software engineering compared to legacy systems.
theplague42··on Cloud Infrastructure as SQL
When will an ORM be available?

Still not sure whether this is serious or not, but it's not really infrastructure as SQL, it's infrastructure as database records which is stateful and defeats the point.

theplague42··on Cloud Infrastructure as SQL
It's using an implied cross join so each image is deployed onto a t2.micro
theplague42··on GoDaddy is cutting off Texas Right to Life’s abortion ‘whistleblowing’ website
IMO if you have to lie, you've already ceded the moral high ground.
theplague42··on Warning Signals for Collapse of The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation
tl;dr just ignore it?
theplague42··on OpenAI Announces Funding for Startups
Nobody uses HN because it's an amazing piece of software.
theplague42··on Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?
I think that's his point; that 5% returns aren't actually that great.
theplague42··on Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?
The rate of return on investments is proportional to the risk and/or effort necessary to make it work. Contracting out the management of things like condos, vending machines, etc. destroy the vast majority of any gross profit. Investing in a large-cap, high-dividend mutual fund (Vanguard, etc.) will generate reasonable returns with 0 effort on your part. Just cash out your dividends rather than re-invest.
theplague42··on Building a full-text search engine in 150 lines of Python code
Because it's easier for the average developer to follow Python code? This is a tutorial/demo, not a library.
theplague42··on “User engagement” is code for “addiction”
Literally any analyst or data science job related to growth or user engagement on social media.

https://research.fb.com/category/data-science/

theplague42··on Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients, insurance companies
It's probably bad data. 7k vs 13k is reasonable, but nobody is removing tonsils for $300.
theplague42··on The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy
Was the editor fired because of a "dissenting opinion" or because Cotton was effectively calling for martial law against protestors?

The NYTimes op-ed section has plenty of dissenting opinions and/or conservatives... just not ones calling for violence.

theplague42··on Why are boys academically underperforming? [audio]
Sure, here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37254851

Not really sure what you're implying

theplague42··on I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months
I do not think that "240k in debt" (he clarifies it was 140k in another comment) actually means owing 240k more than your total assets.

As far as the median net worth, that's just someone most of the way through paying off their mortgage...

theplague42··on I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months
Or student debt; a doctor going 200k into debt for med school probably isn't exactly in dire financial straits.
theplague42··on I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months
So it was really around 100k over four years with the last 40k covered by your acquisition earnings. So 25k a year on a 100k salary (pre/post-tax?). Which is a lot less than 80k a year. Still impressive, and kudos, but let's not pretend that it's anywhere the same. That's a difference of two whole median incomes per year.
theplague42··on Olbers' Paradox
The point is that any decrease is offset by the increase in the number of stars. Also your distinction between >1 photon per second and <1 photon per second is meaningless.
theplague42··on How I got to $9.99 MRR after 7 years
I think this is satirizing things like Failory rather than unicorns.
theplague42··on The Airbnbs
Maybe people working in those industries _do_ share some blame. However, the linked article is not about any of those industries.
theplague42··on The Airbnbs
What wisdom, exactly? This is neither an original thought nor a particularly good phrasing.
theplague42··on Show HN: Hystoria – a Reddit-like site where all posts must be 5+ years old
r/pcm uses irony to defend racism and anti-semitism... it's a garbage subreddit
theplague42··on Show HN: Hystoria – a Reddit-like site where all posts must be 5+ years old
I'm not really sure what problem this is supposed to solve. Hysteria is not a new phenomenon (Satanic Panic, witch trials). Disagreements and politics are not new; what if someone posts about the start of the Iraq War? Ignoring the present doesn't do anyone any good.
theplague42··on To do politics or not do politics? Tech startups are divided
There's a reason progressives don't like him.
theplague42··on To do politics or not do politics? Tech startups are divided
Conservatives burned their Nikes because Colin Kaepernick was in an ad.

Not to mention the months-long propaganda campaign claiming that Big Tech was silencing conservatives on social media.

Also, conservatism is basically supporting the status quo. Why would conservatives have labor protests against the status quo?

theplague42··on To do politics or not do politics? Tech startups are divided
Both of your "scientific" issues are fantastic examples of science having been politicized. Or at least trust in or acceptance of science.
Page 1 of 5Next →