Hacker News: abduhl

New comment by abduhl in "U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications"

abduhl — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 03:03:37 +0000

Are we reading different articles? The headline says immigrant visas. The first paragraph says immigrant visas.

“The Trump administration has paused processing of immigrant visas, which allow recipients to move permanently to the U.S., to train visa officers on new guidance ensuring that applicants have enough financial means to support themselves after they arrive.”

New comment by abduhl in "Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border"

abduhl — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 15:05:59 +0000

First they came for those that were far away from me and I did not speak out because… I didn’t know them?

New comment by abduhl in "GrapheneOS Defends Data-Wiping Function That Blocked US Border Search"

abduhl — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 21:04:28 +0000

Whoever explained this to you has done you a terrible disservice. The border is the border - on one side you are in the USA and on the other side you are outside it.

If there was a strip of land where you are not in a country then how can CBP assert any authority? No, you must be in America. There is no "no man's land," and there is no such thing as "international land" at America's borders where no law exists.

SpaceX stock sinks below $135 IPO price for the first time

abduhl — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 16:30:41 +0000

Article URL: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/15/spacex-spcx-stock-ipo-price.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48923343

Points: 39

# Comments: 7

New comment by abduhl in "Data centers have hiked electricity prices on the public by $23B"

abduhl — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:01:19 +0000

I’m saying local officials are the ones where your vote counts the most.

New comment by abduhl in "Data centers have hiked electricity prices on the public by $23B"

abduhl — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 02:36:58 +0000

Comments like this are even more tiring. Everyone knows that there are moneyed interests in politics. But decisions on these issues are made at a local level and so are the most addressable by local political actions.

New comment by abduhl in "Data centers have hiked electricity prices on the public by $23B"

abduhl — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 02:32:50 +0000

Do you need apples to turn on your lights? Was there a sudden new influx of pie makers? Is growing apples a government granted monopoly business?

If the answer to these questions was yes, yes, and yes then I think you would grumble.

New comment by abduhl in "Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship"

abduhl — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 02:38:43 +0000

Is the child of a diplomat a US citizen if they are born during a diplomat’s commercial activities?

New comment by abduhl in "The bottleneck was never the code"

abduhl — Wed, 13 May 2026 18:09:01 +0000

I think our disagreement is with respect to what it means to "claim" to be following a principle. Most people do not say "my principle is X," they just make statements that hint at a core principle. In many cases this is willful, as you aptly point out for corporations, and it is specifically for the reason you are articulating now: if you never state a core principle you can always back into one later that is not hypocritical. I reject your framework where a principle must be explicitly articulated and cannot be inferred by statements/actions.

New comment by abduhl in "New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater"

abduhl — Wed, 13 May 2026 13:06:27 +0000

>> Mn-based passivation is a counter-intuitive discovery, which cannot be explained by current knowledge in corrosion science.

This statement sounds like the type of language one uses when trying to get a patent.

New comment by abduhl in "The bottleneck was never the code"

abduhl — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:22:17 +0000

This is shifting the principle/value discussion up to a level where it's meaningless. Let's use a different example.

Old value: Returning value to shareholders.

How to do it? Treat your employees like family and don't be evil.

New value: Returning value to shareholders.

How to do it? Treat your employees like human resources and get away with what you can get away with.

Is this hypocritical? Most people would say yes, but in your framing it's not because we've backed up to the least specific articulation of an underlying principle. It's a species of the motte and bailey fallacy.

Agents may be changing the game for how software gets produced, but all it's really done is switch software developers from being managed to being managers. And software developers trying to square their historic value/principle that management tasks are useless, easy, and ceremonial (to borrow GP's word) tasks that should take a back seat to ~flow state coding~ with their new view that management is an integral, difficult, and requisite part of writing code reeks of hypocrisy.

New comment by abduhl in "The bottleneck was never the code"

abduhl — Wed, 06 May 2026 12:52:14 +0000

Well it is hypocritical. Hypocrisy is an action or statement that is contrary to a stated value or principle. Just because your values or principles changed doesn’t make you a suddenly no longer a hypocrite, it just admits that your former opinions are no longer tenable.

I’ve noticed this push to try to clothe hypocrisy in made up virtues like intellectual curiosity and mental plasticity a lot lately. All I can think is that it’s some kind of ego satisfaction play people make when their place in the world is threatened.

New comment by abduhl in "Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition"

abduhl — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:05:31 +0000

Civil contempt isn't some roving criminal charge that jumps out of the jury box randomly. It's meant to make somebody comply with a court order. Anybody in civil contempt holds the keys to the jailhouse door in their own hands, all they have to do is comply.

This statement should make you uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable because it is a pure expression of the power of the state. But it's still due process.

New comment by abduhl in "Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition"

abduhl — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 21:50:31 +0000

This is a bit hyperbolic and the exaggerations really undermine what I think is your broader point (that there is rarely recourse when you're held for short to moderate amounts of time). It is hard for me to believe that someone was held for 16 years on civil contempt without due process or that someone was held for half a year without due process after being deemed dangerous. The reason that is hard for me to believe is that the due process is implicit in the action you describe. Civil contempt is from a judge which implies that you're already in court - that's due process. Someone being labeled "dangerous" implies that a finding was made by a neutral party - that's due process.

Just because you disagree with the outcome doesn't mean that due process wasn't given.

New comment by abduhl in "The Government Told Courts It Could Easily Refund Tariffs. Now It Says It Can't"

abduhl — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 19:16:22 +0000

In its court filing, the US government admits that "In addition to refunding the IEEPA duties, CBP must also pay importers interest, as required by law." So one silver lining here is that we (because it is the taxpayers who ultimately pay) will actually pay more than was collected on tariffs once interest is considered.

The second silver lining is that, even if CBP does its job, there is another step where the Trump administration will certainly drag its feet again: "If it is determined upon liquidation or reliquidation that excess moneys have been deposited, such that a refund with interest is due to the importer, CBP certifies the refund and interest amounts to the Department of the Treasury, which then employs its own processes to disburse the certified amounts to the importers of record."

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cit.193...

New comment by abduhl in "Y Combinator will let founders receive funds in stablecoins"

abduhl — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 02:44:27 +0000

Trump v Cook is not upcoming it has been argued already

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2025/25A312

New comment by abduhl in "'No One Lives Forever' turns 25 and you still can't buy it legitimately"

abduhl — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 12:11:35 +0000

You already can do this. It’s called a declaratory judgment.

New comment by abduhl in "FDA described as a "clown show" amid latest scandal; top drug regulator is out"

abduhl — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 14:18:16 +0000

>> Instead of just reporting the facts of the case (as was done by the Stat piece, which they're ripping off) they spend multiple paragraphs making ad hominem attacks about the CDC, Prasad, etc. Almost unbelievably, they put those things first.

New comment by abduhl in "FDA described as a "clown show" amid latest scandal; top drug regulator is out"

abduhl — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 13:11:15 +0000

So, again, you’re not showing how it’s an ad hominem, you’re just disagreeing with the biased reporting.

New comment by abduhl in "FDA described as a "clown show" amid latest scandal; top drug regulator is out"

abduhl — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 03:59:23 +0000

I don’t think these are ad hominem attacks. The article seems to just state the (perhaps biased) facts: people are calling it a clown show, Prasad was ousted, Prasad did gain popularity on social media as a COVID-skeptic. It doesn’t become an ad hominem just because you don’t like the way the facts are stated or the inferences your own brain makes.