Hacker News: DeRock

New comment by DeRock in "U.S. Navy turns down Hormuz escort requests because of high risk"

DeRock — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 18:42:39 +0000

And right in line with the OP you responded to, that was 40 years ago

New comment by DeRock in "US businesses and consumers pay 90% of tariff costs, New York Fed says"

DeRock — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 21:16:42 +0000

Where are these quotes from? They appear to be made up by you.

New comment by DeRock in "A4 Paper Stories"

DeRock — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 16:42:33 +0000

Here’s a better tip to measure things without a proper measuring device: spread out your hand on a table and measure the distance between your pinky and thumb. Remember that. Now when you need to measure something just measure it in number of pinky-thumb-stretches. I can quickly get the dimensions to +/- an inch by doing a few quick walks with my hand.

New comment by DeRock in "TurboTax’s 20-year fight to stop Americans from filing taxes for free (2019)"

DeRock — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 16:32:10 +0000

Its half that, $15.

New comment by DeRock in "Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says"

DeRock — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 21:09:47 +0000

The odds are now per candidate, not per application. If they submit multiple applications, it does not up chances for that candidate in any way.

And yes, it does work, because we have data from the year before this change, to the year after to compare against. The "Eligible Registrations for Beneficiaries with Multiple Eligible Registrations" dropped from 47,314 for FY 2025 to 7,828 for FY 2026. Source: https://www.uscis.gov/archive/uscis-announces-strengthened-i...

New comment by DeRock in "Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says"

DeRock — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 20:40:20 +0000

> the companies that try to boost their chances with the lottery by creating multiple applications for the same person

This was already addressed by changing the odds to be per unique candidate, not application, thereby reducing the incentive to game it. More context here: https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/uscis-announces...

New comment by DeRock in "ABC yanks Jimmy Kimmel’s show ‘indefinitely’ after threat from FCC chair"

DeRock — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 00:42:38 +0000

Actually not relevant, the pulling came after threats from the FCC: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/fcc-jimmy-kimme...

New comment by DeRock in "14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal"

DeRock — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 14:27:04 +0000

Here is the most detailed analysis so far: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/08/18/the-number

New comment by DeRock in "CEO pay and stock buybacks have soared at the largest low-wage corporations"

DeRock — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 23:28:13 +0000

Another way to look at it is every single person, including children, are paying $75 a month for executives of 5000 public companies. Or $190 per month per household. That is significantly more than the average electricity bill ($130/month). Downplaying that shows you are out of touch with the average American.

New comment by DeRock in ""Privacy preserving age verification" is bullshit"

DeRock — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 22:51:21 +0000

Adultery not being a crime goes far beyond its enforcement mechanism.

New comment by DeRock in "How Much Is Trump Profiting Off the Presidency?"

DeRock — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 23:54:18 +0000

Did you read the article? The whole thing is about how to actually calculate it, while being conservative through uncertainties. The answer: $3.4 billion.

New comment by DeRock in "What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another?"

DeRock — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 22:03:04 +0000

Paying someone to watch your children full time so that you can do your full time job is inherently classist. Who takes care of the nannies kids?

The solution to "kids are expensive" being to just pay someone lower class to do it is absurd.

> You can also have the nanny watch other kids in the neighborhood if you only have 1 kid.

You're re-inventing daycare here.

New comment by DeRock in "US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU"

DeRock — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 05:16:19 +0000

This is, as they say, “sanewashing”. Trump is doing this out of a mix of spite and a view of trade as a zero sum game. He may be advised into a path to try to pivot this into a “win” by large scale debt restructuring, but that is not the overarching motive.

New comment by DeRock in "Using Gorilla glass for home building"

DeRock — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 20:13:39 +0000

> Large panes will also bow under that kind of pressure.

They typically have support pillars arrayed throughout the panel to prevent any bowing or flexing.

New comment by DeRock in "Launch HN: Double (YC W24) – Index Investing with 0% Expense Ratios"

DeRock — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 21:28:19 +0000

This is the question I have too. The ability to create a "custom" ETF is highly desirable to me. I don't want to trade individual stocks, but instead would rather input some weightings on top of existing indexes (i.e buy less of stock A, more of stock B, etc.). However, my understanding of ETFs is that they are able to rebalance through "in-kind" creation/redemption in order to avoid creating a taxable event. I'm not sure how this is possible to scale to a custom one-off fund...

New comment by DeRock in "Metal thieves in America's cities"

DeRock — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 21:38:47 +0000

I don't know where you got the argument for "more police", but the direct quote from the GP:

> police don't want to police anymore

Seems to contradict that being an argument.

New comment by DeRock in "Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts"

DeRock — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 18:05:38 +0000

From the official ruling on https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf:

> (3) Presidents cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution. On remand, the District Court must carefully analyze the indictment’s remaining allegations to determine whether they too involve conduct for which a President must be im- mune from prosecution. And the parties and the District Court must ensure that sufficient allegations support the indictment’s charges without such conduct. Testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial.

New comment by DeRock in "Nvidia hits $3T market cap on back of AI boom"

DeRock — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 23:45:35 +0000

Terrible analysis.

He claims that Cisco lost all its value because their HW was commoditized. I mean in some ways, sure, but the fall in value was almost entirely driven by the DOTCOM bubble bursting.

There is also a claim that networking equipment is easy, "it's just moving data around". Moving data around is what a computer does. LLM's and GPU's are just moving data around.

New comment by DeRock in ""My Bike Is Everything to Me""

DeRock — Thu, 30 May 2024 23:14:52 +0000

Do you know what's about 5 times worse energy wise than electric cars? Gas cars.

New comment by DeRock in "I'm a Former Surgeon General and I Couldn't Believe My $10k Medical Bill"

DeRock — Mon, 20 May 2024 00:27:24 +0000

> CVS insists on calling me to confirm they can ship it to my house. F no!

You joke, but this is what my wife does for her infusion. Drugs get shipped to our house, and nurse comes to the house to administer the infusion. She gets to spend the time on the couch watching TV instead of in a hospital. And as a another indictment to the broken health care system, this is actually cheaper to the insurer!