Hacker News: CelestialTeapot

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "World Population Estimated at 8 Billion"

CelestialTeapot — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 20:20:27 +0000

>Which, if you think about it, makes the "you're selfish to have kids" a sort of species-wide suicidal ideation. But then, non-suicidal people are sort of selfish, wanting to continue to keep living.

You do know that you will continue living if you don't have kids, right?

I'm glad to hear you're not selfish, however you do seem inappropriately judgy.

What have you done to ensure "humans exist 200 years from now?" Have you done anything to minimize your carbon footprint? Do you walk/bike/take the bus to work instead of drive a petrol/diesel vehicle? Have you petitioned your government to stop using fossil fuels and demand they spend money on green infrastructure and science to improve current technology?

What have you done to stop senseless wars? Do you help out at food banks? Do you support government programs to ensure that children get adequate nutrition, you know, programs like SNAP, WIC, or free school lunches/breakfasts? Since you are so invested in the species, I'm sure you're also in favor of national health service to ensure every person, documented or not, receives adequate health care.

I applaud your efforts supporting these things and am curious what other things you think will ensure the human species is not endangered by climate change, natural disasters, wars, infertility, and so forth.

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "Nightshade, a tool allowing artists to 'poison' AI models"

CelestialTeapot — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 15:44:45 +0000

Yeah, but those guys want to get rid of those greedy artists, so they're all for AI they can leverage. https://arstechnica.com/ai/2023/08/google-record-labels-work...

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "EBCDIC Is Incompatible with GDPR"

CelestialTeapot — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 14:39:50 +0000

Like normal...

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "“Judas goats” were once key players in meatpacking plants"

CelestialTeapot — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 17:04:38 +0000

More than 50 billion animals (land and sea) are killed each year for food in the United States, alone. Farmed animals must be fed to bring them to slaughter. If there was a reduction in farmed animals being eaten for food, far less agricultural land would be needed to feed people directly. Yes, wild animals in farmed land still would be killed, but far fewer. Not having or understanding compassion for living creatures is not something I can help you with. Cheers.

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "“Judas goats” were once key players in meatpacking plants"

CelestialTeapot — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 16:48:45 +0000

Well, nobody designed us. We're a product of evolution. Had we been designed, and the designer was not a cruel monster, I'm sure they could have thought of a way for all beings to feed themselves without the monumental suffering that exists in the world.

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "“Judas goats” were once key players in meatpacking plants"

CelestialTeapot — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 16:34:24 +0000

Not to mention the terrible conditions that animals are forced to live in and injuries caused by processing (from birth to death) [1] as well as abuse by low-paid workers who are, themselves, working in poor conditions. [2] Factory farming is not clean and free of animal suffering by any means, but most people's experience with animals as food comes in neat, little, clean plastic-wrapped chunks of meat.

1. https://www.ciwf.org.uk/factory-farming/animal-cruelty/ 2. https://ffacoalition.org/articles/dangerous-conditions-facto...

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "“Judas goats” were once key players in meatpacking plants"

CelestialTeapot — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 16:20:30 +0000

There would be far less suffering if we all lived on a plant-based diet. As well it would help in the fight against climate change, reducing environmental impacts.

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed"

CelestialTeapot — Tue, 02 Nov 2021 19:30:30 +0000

Sorry, what? Citation please. The speed lost moving a DIMM from a 3cm path-to-CPU to a removable DIMM slot 6cm away is infinitesimal. You would not notice it.

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed"

CelestialTeapot — Tue, 02 Nov 2021 19:22:50 +0000

>> soldered-to-the-motherboard, everything-utterly-encrypted approach is that it's almost impossible to do data recovery

>Well, that's kind of the point.

Not that I don't appreciate a security-minded platform, it just seems overkill for 99% of the people who'll purchase them, and do nothing but cause heartache when the internal SSD fails. And fail they do. it's rare, but I've had several SSDs (Toshiba and Crucial, if it matters) fail within 1-2 years of moderate usage. No warning there was an issue, the drives just disappeared one day and I was left looking for backups.

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "Livermore's centennial light, the world's longest-burning light bulb"

CelestialTeapot — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 18:17:31 +0000

The same game is still played today with LED bulbs (whether there's a cartel behind it or not, I do not pretend to know). See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klaJqofCsu4

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary"

CelestialTeapot — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 13:57:21 +0000

As there has been community transmission and aren't actively testing symptomatic people (unless in known direct contact with someone who has traveled to an affected area, or traveled there themselves), it's questionable if they have a sufficient grasp on "what is happening now".

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019"

CelestialTeapot — Thu, 02 Jan 2020 16:39:43 +0000

I do the same when I am on my bicycle as long as there are no cars approaching. Particularly if I'm crossing a moderate speed highway. It's safer for me to clear the intersection when there are no cars moving in the same direction (or worse, wanting to make a right turn as I start moving). Unfortunately, I'm in America, where that is a moving violation in my state.

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "If Logged into Facebook, Oculus VR Data Will Now Be Used for Ads"

CelestialTeapot — Thu, 12 Dec 2019 14:18:06 +0000

Sure, after spending hundreds of dollars on a device, it only seems fair that the vendor exploit your personal information so that credit companies and anyone willing and able to buy the data can compile a dossier on you.

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "How “randomizers” are breathing new life into old games"

CelestialTeapot — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 19:01:55 +0000

When I was 8 and all I had were half a dozen cartridges for my Atari, I would have loved this. Now, this might be interesting to try on a game or two, but I can afford any game I want and there are so many good games to play out there.

I can see the novelty, but I'd rather spend my free time on a well-designed game than a scrambled rehash of something I've already experienced.

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "I'm not burned out, I'm pissed off"

CelestialTeapot — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 13:36:50 +0000

That is indeed fictional, but the real world Ford Pinto that was based on is real [1].

1. https://www.tortmuseum.org/ford-pinto/

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "Tesla Cybertruck"

CelestialTeapot — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 17:40:41 +0000

Yes, people foolishly gravitate toward trucks and SUVs, fattening the wallets of the car manufacturers and fueling the insanely stupid 7 year auto loan industry [1]. Of course, this is also disastrous for mitigating carbon emissions [2]. Additionally, they are a menace on the roadway through increasing pedestrian accidents and death [3] and likely increasing cyclist deaths [4]. They should be much more heavily regulated, for commercial use only, and require special licensing requiring regular accident avoidance training/testing.

1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-20/america-s...

2. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/...

3. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/05/09/study-links-rise-of-s...

4. https://nypost.com/2019/10/24/transportation-chief-says-suv-...

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "Tesla Cybertruck"

CelestialTeapot — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 17:19:07 +0000

One part Nova Sterling [1], 9 parts hideous. They should have used a CAD system that supported more than straight lines.

1. https://www.google.com/search?q=nova+sterling&tbm=isch

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "Valve confirm Half-Life: Alyx, a VR game being revealed on Thursday"

CelestialTeapot — Tue, 19 Nov 2019 18:27:48 +0000

It should have been a free launch title with the Index to spur sales. This is not going to do that now as a separate sale. The buzz (what little there was for an expensive VR rig) is over. It may well be good for VR overall, however.

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "The cognitive costs of air pollution"

CelestialTeapot — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 17:08:29 +0000

That would be a much better link than the one provided. Wasting energy on the "IQ" issue is not productive to the problem presented: that air pollution does, indeed, cause (hopefully only temporary) cognitive decline. It can be measured on a small scale, for example, see the Allen et al. [1] article showing cognitive decline in an office environment (conventional building vs Green+ building).

1. https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/27662232/4892924...

New comment by CelestialTeapot in "FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019"

CelestialTeapot — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 16:48:29 +0000

>as you pointed out Fedex is just following fed tax policy that it doesn't control.

That is incorrect. According to the article FedEx is referencing [1], the NY Times wrote that FedEx (along with UPS) met regularly with Congressional committee staff who were writing the tax policy and pushed hard for their own agenda.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/17/business/how-fedex-cut-it...

FedEx spent $10 million on lobbying in 2017, in line with previous spending, with much of it focused on tax issues, according to federal records. Its team pushed hard to shape the bill behind the scenes, meeting regularly with House and Senate committee staff who were writing the provisions.

Mr. Smith met with Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in February 2017, and on May 26 he spoke on the phone with Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, according to Mr. Mnuchin’s public calendar.

EDIT: correcting formatting issues.