Hacker News: PearlRiver

New comment by PearlRiver in "Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence"

PearlRiver — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 22:34:51 +0000

Is that not how it always goes? Robbing a bank got you in jail a lot longer than assaulting a woman.

New comment by PearlRiver in "CIA funding helped keep NeXT afloat in the 80s"

PearlRiver — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 17:04:06 +0000

The USSR was selling art to fund the KGB. Stone glass houses.

New comment by PearlRiver in "Stop Turning every purchase into a tip request"

PearlRiver — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 23:03:02 +0000

A tip at McDonald's. Hello I ordered at the kiosk and just spoke literally one word to the young lady over there why am I tipping...

New comment by PearlRiver in "Brazilian election filter in X For You timeline"

PearlRiver — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 15:05:50 +0000

Ultimately the only antidote to US propaganda is nationalism. Anyone in my country who is caught funded with US money may as well hang themselves they are electorally dead as a dodo.

This to be fair is why the CIA had to move suitcases with money instead of bragging about it on Fox News...

New comment by PearlRiver in "AI bet goes awry: Oracle fires 21,000 employees"

PearlRiver — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 23:06:56 +0000

To be fair some of those CEOs will have trouble finding golf buddies for a few months.

New comment by PearlRiver in "Couple pay >$800k for a gene-editing therapy for their daughter. She died."

PearlRiver — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 22:46:05 +0000

Also if you have a few hundred million bucks you will still have your mansion if you get it wrong.

New comment by PearlRiver in "So Reddit has decided that plain HTML is unsafe"

PearlRiver — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:42:58 +0000

The world has gotten more political. Everything is going to shit and we have not even really started the climate change.

New comment by PearlRiver in "Why American ambulance rides are so expensive"

PearlRiver — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 02:31:00 +0000

I read a book once about doctors who went into the slums to treat cholera in the 19th century- noblesse oblige. We are now WORSE than the Victorians.

New comment by PearlRiver in "Why American ambulance rides are so expensive"

PearlRiver — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 02:18:15 +0000

I remember this came up during COVID. The government was worried that homeless people and illegals would be afraid to report symptoms. GPs are specifically free and don't have to ask for papers or insurance to combat these health crises.

New comment by PearlRiver in "Has America Crossed the Asshole Threshold?"

PearlRiver — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 03:44:42 +0000

Tammany Hall did not happen because they were immigrants it happened because someone thought it was a good idea to have people who could not even write their own name vote. Democracy hinges on a well educated populace who actually gives a shit- which as we all know has not and never will happen.

The worst form of government- except for all the others so far tried.

New comment by PearlRiver in "BitTorrent's disastrous, legendary, and controversial story"

PearlRiver — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 03:30:34 +0000

Yes I too was downloading anime in the early 2000s. As someone living in a small provincial town there was effectively no real way to watch Naruto or GitS.

Piracy made the world a digital village.

New comment by PearlRiver in "Reframing smart glasses as 'pervert glasses'"

PearlRiver — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 03:14:04 +0000

If everyone wears a smartglass it becomes easier for the creeps to hide. A tree in the forest.

New comment by PearlRiver in "What Does a 13-Year-Old See on Snapchat in a Normal Week?"

PearlRiver — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 03:08:05 +0000

When a minor gets online it is only a matter of when not if before they get questions about their underwear.

New comment by PearlRiver in "Polymarket's viral videos showed people winning big, but the bets were fake"

PearlRiver — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 01:57:05 +0000

[flagged]

New comment by PearlRiver in "US-Canada border library gets new Quebec-only entrance"

PearlRiver — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 16:09:59 +0000

America does not want friends only vassals. Which arguably is what Canada became after the British left.

New comment by PearlRiver in "A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center"

PearlRiver — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 02:57:50 +0000

I am starting to notice a pattern here: all these datacenters are located in places with cheap land and lots of poor people.

Odd for something that I am assured is the bright future for mankind.

New comment by PearlRiver in "US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%"

PearlRiver — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 22:38:00 +0000

Most people do not have money to invest. There should be a law that forces the rich to go on an annual safari to see how poor people live because we are literally entering "let them eat cake" levels and it will not end well.

New comment by PearlRiver in "Albania Is Not for Sale: Kushner's $4B Resort Triggers'Flamingo Revolution'"

PearlRiver — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:44:59 +0000

The Netherlands prides itself on its coastline and dunes but by the time mass tourism arrived the country was already rich.

The secret ingredient is always money. Spain looks the way it does because that country was desperate for foreign currency and jobs in the 60s and 70s. Economic development is hard and Albania does not have much going for it unfortunately.

New comment by PearlRiver in "If LLMs Have Human-Like Attributes, Then So Does Age of Empires II"

PearlRiver — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:22:39 +0000

LLM is just math. Which is why I do not like AI- it is nothing like in Deus Ex or those Japanese anime were computers are cute little girls who want to blow up the planet. Reality is as always sorely disappointing.

Now of course as an atheist I do not believe in soul and humans are just following evolutionary programming but we will never see chatGPT do standup comedy.

New comment by PearlRiver in "Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?"

PearlRiver — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:00:38 +0000

Most soccer players tend to retire in their late 30s so they are better off pursuing an education after their pro athlete career. Of course the best are multi millionaires who never have to work and can live from passive income.