Hacker News: JohnGB

New comment by JohnGB in "A web developer posted a payment shaming message on their client's site"

JohnGB — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 18:16:10 +0000

You say that as if the courts are a reasonable solution for most people. In many cases the cost and time render them useless and often cost more than the invoice that is due. In some jurisdictions you may recover this, but in many you can't.

New comment by JohnGB in "Loophole allows foreign money to flow into super PACs through shell companies"

JohnGB — Mon, 14 Aug 2023 19:41:42 +0000

This is reported on as if the loopholes allowing foreign money into US politics was not intentional in the first place. It would be quite simple to close these sorts of holes, but those in charge have generally made use of loopholes, and so are not about to close off their funding sources.

New comment by JohnGB in "Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning most direct-to-consumer auto sales"

JohnGB — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 14:24:46 +0000

What happened to Republicans and small government?

New comment by JohnGB in "Google un-bans Downloader app, but developer still mad about “broken” DMCA"

JohnGB — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 14:51:35 +0000

Google's entire process is opaque and open to dodgy behaviour. I had an app which was growing really well with about 5-10k downloads a day growing at about 20% a week and an average rating of 4.8 stars over a few thousand reviews. Suddenly this is tanking overnight and when we look into the data, we have twice as many new uninstalls per day as we do downloads a day. Next to no uninstalls from existing users, no change in the ratings, and no technical outages. It looked like a bot farm was just installing and immediately (as in less than a minute later) uninstalling the app over and over again. Google decided that this meant the app was bad, and we went from position 2-5 for our main keywords to not even in the top 50 overnight. I tried appealing, and tried getting information, but Google did absolutely nothing about it.

New comment by JohnGB in "Apple fined $8.5M for illegally collecting iPhone owners' data for ads"

JohnGB — Sun, 08 Jan 2023 17:55:50 +0000

Wow, that's going to teach them a lesson! A whole $8.5M - That's literally only 23 minutes of 2022 revenue lost (I did the maths). I'm sure they will never do it again, despite the fact that they likely made way more than $8.5M from doing it.

If we want companies to stop doing illegal things, then the punitive consequences need to be so high that they prioritise not doing it. If a person steals $100, they could spend a decent amount of time in jail for it. Time that is worth a lot more than then $100 benefit they received. Companies want all the benefits of being a "person", so let's apply the same principles to them.

New comment by JohnGB in "Mandatory helmet laws make cyclists less safe"

JohnGB — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 10:41:59 +0000

The Netherlands did a study on bike helmets and found that cars tend to be more dangerous with cyclists if the cyclists are wearing a helmet, which is why there are no mandatory bicycle helmet laws in the Netherlands. However, it's worth noting that the cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands also for the most part separates bikes and cars with more than just a line of paint, so their experience may not translate well to other countries with poor cycling infrastructure.

New comment by JohnGB in "Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used"

JohnGB — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 08:47:14 +0000

Oh how I wish Mcmaster would open an EU branch... I don't even mind if they charge us more, but PLEASE for the love of all engineers in Europe, just open a branch here.

New comment by JohnGB in "Apple expands Self Service Repair to Mac notebooks"

JohnGB — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 18:26:22 +0000

That's because those laptops were specifically designed to not be easily repairable. The new ones are complying with EU regulations, and so are easier to repair.

New comment by JohnGB in "Apple expands Self Service Repair to Mac notebooks"

JohnGB — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 18:25:03 +0000

It's not as if Apple didn't do everything they could to not do this. They were forced kicking and screaming by the EU to do this, and now they are trying to take credit for doing it.

New comment by JohnGB in "Hertz paid Accenture $32M for a website that never went live (2019)"

JohnGB — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 22:41:20 +0000

I have a background in electricity regulation and policy analysis. A good friend (who knows nothing about energy regulation or science got assigned as a senior consultant in one of the big 5 consulting firms to advise a national energy producer on their technical and economic strategy for a new plant.

So, she asked me if I could spare a few hours to sit with her and get her up to speed on electricity regulation and policy so that she would "know all about it" for the kickoff meeting in two days time...

New comment by JohnGB in "EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved"

JohnGB — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 15:19:40 +0000

That's an ironic take given that these rules are there to take away monopoly power and have an actual open market.

New comment by JohnGB in "Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions"

JohnGB — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 16:09:11 +0000

I'm just dumbfounded by the fact that the US Supreme Court has no term limits, age limits, or reasonable impeachment mechanism for justices that have unethical behaviour or outright lie on their job interview.

The USA is the most "at will employment" country in the world until it comes to the most critical functions of a government. It's absolutely crazy to me.

New comment by JohnGB in "Turkey’s inflation soars to 73%, a 23-year high, as food and energy costs rise"

JohnGB — Sat, 04 Jun 2022 14:24:34 +0000

I see you follow the Chamberlain method of giving Russia whatever it wants because it won't possibly ever come back to affect you...

New comment by JohnGB in "Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense"

JohnGB — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 09:19:24 +0000

> Normally, cases of fraud or mistakes could be rectified or reverted by the bank or similar institutions after a review of the situation by humans.

This "could" happen, but in practice it rarely happens because the money has moved on as soon as it hits the account. Additionally, for many types of fraud, there has to be an actual court order to get a bank to take action. So the argument is predicated on a false assumption.

New comment by JohnGB in "Nuclear war probabilities are useless - counter to the nuclear gambler’s ruin"

JohnGB — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 20:05:54 +0000

What did the USA have to do with blocking Nordstream 2? Germany stopped certification, no the USA.

New comment by JohnGB in "On the removal of Come Back Alive"

JohnGB — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 12:39:43 +0000

Which is why I put through a request to have my Patreon account deleted today. Sorry to the channels that I supported, I'll try find a way to support you without using Patreon.

New comment by JohnGB in "The Dubai Debt Trap"

JohnGB — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 17:09:41 +0000

To me at least, the issue is less about his guilt, and more about the lack of due process. In this case he was guilty, but in many others the lack of due process provides a way of punishing someone without any oversight or fair treatment and trial.

New comment by JohnGB in "The Dubai Debt Trap"

JohnGB — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 13:16:08 +0000

One of many reasons that I will never enter the UAE. There is no rule of law, and so no protection if anyone decides to charge you for anything. I've read of women being raped and then being charged for reporting it which essentially admits sex outside of marriage, or of foreigners who get driven into by a local and then charged as if they were the ones being reckless.

That's not even going into their de facto slavery with foreign construction workers, environmental damage, and sexism.

New comment by JohnGB in "Texas lawmaker wants to know what books on race, sexuality are in schools"

JohnGB — Fri, 28 Jan 2022 11:25:51 +0000

Remember that the Texas GOP had (has?) the following official policy:

"We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills, critical thinking skills and similar programs..."

So I'm not surprised that they oppose anything to do with a decent education, like a different point of view, but have no problem promoting a book that encourages slavery, rape, genocide, and misogyny.

Reference: http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2012Pla...

New comment by JohnGB in "Texas lawmaker wants to know what books on race, sexuality are in schools"

JohnGB — Fri, 28 Jan 2022 11:20:19 +0000

It's too educational about the true state of the American system and encourages people to do something bad for the US oligarchs, which in the USA is the ultimate evil.