Hacker News: Empact

New comment by Empact in "What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves"

Empact — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 17:33:51 +0000

Affordability is a combination of individual productivity and the economy’s productivity. A substantial increase in the economy’s productivity through AI and robotics should result in greater overall production, which should tend to result in abundance, and thus a lower cost of living, which can even overwhelm a decline in your individual productivity.

New comment by Empact in "Banned in California"

Empact — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 16:51:43 +0000

This website is about what is banned in California, ostensibly for environmental reasons. So pigouvian taxes would enable them to unban those practices while mitigating their harms.

If you’re worried about people evading the tax, you can make a border adjustment for imports across national borders. Note California is simply forcing things to be done elsewhere.

New comment by Empact in "Banned in California"

Empact — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 15:39:32 +0000

You can also use pigouvian taxation to make polluting expensive. Cost savings is generally the motivation for allowing negative externalities like pollution, so a natural way to reverse it in many cases while allowing flexibility when there is no practical alternative.

New comment by Empact in "Ex-Tech –> Homeless in SF"

Empact — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 10:00:11 +0000

I can attest that the Quaker Meeting on 9th street is an earnest reverent bunch. I attended regularly for some time around 2020.

New comment by Empact in "An interactive version of Byrne's The Elements of Euclid (1847)"

Empact — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 14:35:55 +0000

The Old English representation, inclusive of the long S, is consistent with the 1847 source material, as you can see here: https://archive.org/details/firstsixbooksofe00byrn/page/n21/...

The first printed copy, of 1482, was in Latin: https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667076/

The Greek (Ελληνικά) representation is presumably consistent with Euclid's original manuscript, e.g. as represented in this copy, of 888: https://historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=208

New comment by Empact in "Voxtral Transcribe 2"

Empact — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 16:18:12 +0000

Many people speak Russian, including many who do not live in Russia, e.g. about 30% of Ukranians.

Beyond that, I don't see how we stand to durably reduce military action by making languages mutually unintelligible.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language#/media/Fi...

New comment by Empact in "FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE"

Empact — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 08:18:22 +0000

This is an inaccurate description of what they are doing. For example Renee Good was actively blockading a street, by placing her car perpendicularly across it. Some may be engaged in observation, but that is not broadly the case, and organizationally, their apparent goal is to obstruct.

New comment by Empact in "FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE"

Empact — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 08:04:00 +0000

Is any law enforcement guaranteed to be exactly correct? No, because every person is fallible, and every system is made up of fallible people. This is why we separate arrest (police) from trial (judge) and judgment (jury), to mitigate those risks.

To malign a system because it is imperfect is to be unrealistic. Surely, we should minimize those harms, but they are not a reason to abdicate our laws.

New comment by Empact in "FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE"

Empact — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 07:59:17 +0000

So you claim that all 12,000 arrests in the UK and all 3,500 arrests in Germany for online speech are justifiable? https://x.com/croucher_miles/status/2010716875190161614?s=46

New comment by Empact in "FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE"

Empact — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 05:46:38 +0000

Their stated purpose and their actual function can be different, and speech that would otherwise be free can be illegal if involved in incitement, bribery, collusion, etc.

If I’m having a conversation with my friend, it’s free speech. If we’re plotting the overthrow of the government, it’s insurrection.

New comment by Empact in "High school student discovers 1.5M potential new astronomical objects"

Empact — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 10:02:58 +0000

Opportunity is everywhere.

New comment by Empact in "High school student discovers 1.5M potential new astronomical objects"

Empact — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 10:02:05 +0000

I read it was in the phone book. If you’re too young to have experienced this, it may surprise you that phone numbers were typically publicly listed in books that were mailed out annually, in those times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_directory

New comment by Empact in "High school student discovers 1.5M potential new astronomical objects"

Empact — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 09:58:36 +0000

His phone call could have been placed by anyone. The question is, was his success mythological, or was it because he was the sort of a man who was willing and motivated to place such phone calls?

New comment by Empact in "High school student discovers 1.5M potential new astronomical objects"

Empact — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 16:16:37 +0000

If you want to believe those things are unattainable, you can, but just remember that Steve Jobs got an internship at HP at the age of 12 by calling the founder on the telephone. Literally anyone could have done that.

These opportunities come to those who seek them.

New comment by Empact in "AI Bathroom Monitors? Welcome to America's New Surveillance High Schools"

Empact — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 03:20:16 +0000

I would argue the prospect of people waiting to stop them is a good deterrent, a beneficial complement to any effective justice system. When seconds count, the police are at best minutes away. For example, concealed carry is demonstrably effective in mass shooting attempts in churches, ending the threat in 6 seconds: https://youtu.be/LflruqEMlVU?si=Q4VeYnClxPGtrI88

Consider too that there are many documented cases of the authorities being incompetent to or unwilling to stop a threat, most recently in Bondi Beach, but also in Uvalde. Maybe they’re just not coming to save you?

New comment by Empact in "AI Bathroom Monitors? Welcome to America's New Surveillance High Schools"

Empact — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 16:08:51 +0000

In my world, a civilized person is one who upholds peaceable society, and a barbarian is one who uses force to upend that society. They're not hordes, but they are barbarians.

New comment by Empact in "AI Bathroom Monitors? Welcome to America's New Surveillance High Schools"

Empact — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 19:53:15 +0000

You act like guns some weird anachronism, but from my perch, it seems that the need for civilized people to maintain firearms is increasing, not decreasing.

Consider that we have a documented justice system in many places that is repeatedly releasing violent criminals onto the streets, such that they are going on to set people on fire on the train, knife innocents on the subway, swinging and hitting elderly women with nail-embedded boards on the sidewalk. Note these crimes happened despite their lack of firearms. Should we not have guns to defend ourselves from these barbarians?

If the justice system were perfect, and crime rates far lower, then firearms would be less necessary, but never unnecessary, because civilization in a local phenomenon, and it only takes one barbarian to disrupt civilized order for the peaceful people of the world. It takes one civilized person with a gun to restore order.

In many places in the west, immigration policy has given rise to rape gangs in England, gangs that bomb in Sweden, etc. Should these peaceful people not have guns to defend themselves from these barbarians?

New comment by Empact in "Meta shuts down global accounts linked to abortion advice and queer content"

Empact — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 08:38:19 +0000

This is about trans identification, so not to do with attraction to a particular sex.

New comment by Empact in "Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower"

Empact — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 13:00:25 +0000

In many states there’s a carve out for mopeds, for example which have less than 50 ccs of displacement. In Texas you can ride them with just a regular drivers license, but ccs have no meaning in the electric world. Should be straightforward to make the case for equivalent regulation, but would require a new advocacy campaign/org.

New comment by Empact in "Tiny electric motor can produce more than 1,000 horsepower"

Empact — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 18:27:21 +0000

This, or a miniaturized version thereof could change the game for light electric vehicles - imagine an electric motorcycle that weighs substantially more like an electric bicycle.

Right now it takes about 10-15lbs of motor to produce a 3KW motor for an electric bike, this motor is about 10 times that in power density afaict.

The Livewire electric motorcycles use something like 100-200 lbs of motor to produce 1/4 as much power, 75kw, so that’s an improvement of 8-16x.