Hacker News: adamc

New comment by adamc in "De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)"

adamc — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 17:57:14 +0000

Ignores the totally exceptional nature of some of the US changes/instabilities of this administration. I say "not true" because that is my read of where things are going, regardless of preferences.

New comment by adamc in "De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)"

adamc — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 17:54:26 +0000

Not really relevant to why there is de-dollarization. And I am not a Trump fan.

New comment by adamc in "De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)"

adamc — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 17:25:14 +0000

Suffers from no government having a stake in it. If it causes them problems, it can easily become illegal.

New comment by adamc in "De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)"

adamc — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 17:24:21 +0000

Probably a mix of things, including commodities like gold.

New comment by adamc in "De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)"

adamc — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 17:16:46 +0000

Not true. Some, like myself, love the idea of the shining city on the hill, although we often find the behavior of the actual city less than shining.

I would like for the US to continue being a beacon of freedom where people can come and build great lives.

But that is not the direction we are going, and one might reasonably forecast that no country can maintain indefinite dominance. Paul Kennedy wrote "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" almost 40 years ago. Regression to the mean and all that, but also, great powers tend to overstep.

New comment by adamc in "De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)"

adamc — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 16:59:38 +0000

In many ways, this is the real problem.

New comment by adamc in "De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)"

adamc — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 16:54:48 +0000

I read it as side-stepping Hacker News' tendency to kill comments that get into politics.

New comment by adamc in "Texas A&M bans part of Plato's Symposium"

adamc — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 16:21:18 +0000

The shutdown goes far beyond TV news-style topics. But whether by design or by fiat, Hacker News is no longer a place for intelligent discussion.

New comment by adamc in "Texas A&M bans part of Plato's Symposium"

adamc — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 19:37:03 +0000

This is where MAGA leads.

I'm gradually tuning out Hacker News, because it persistently tries to ignore the politics that are destroying the United States and freedom of enquiry.

There is a dead comment below that tries to raise an argument but was killed instead. This is no longer a place to go to discuss ideas.

New comment by adamc in "Why Big Companies Keep Failing: The Stack Fallacy (2016)"

adamc — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 22:16:43 +0000

I think you are criticizing an idea for not being a study. I think it's a reasonable and interesting idea, but at most it is something to consider, not some infallible axiom. More akin to "the Peter Principle" than a theorem.

Point 2 is... neither important nor really germane. (I don't care what engineers say, and Musk isn't an engineer anyway.) The point is that people understand their customer bases, and sell to them, and then imagine that means they understand how to succeed in the business their customers are in, and... not so.

It's basically a reminder that understanding the customer is everything. No matter how good the tech is, if you don't solve the customer's problem... they aren't buying.

New comment by adamc in "Why Big Companies Keep Failing: The Stack Fallacy (2016)"

adamc — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 22:03:30 +0000

Sure, in all cases, acquiring knowledge of what the (potential) customers want is difficult. The point of the article is that vendors of layer N tend to think they know what it takes to succeed at layer N+1, but they don't, because that customer base (N+2) is different.

The other (more important, maybe) thing the article points out is that building layer N-1 turns out to be easier, because layer N is the customer and understands those needs already.

New comment by adamc in "Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far"

adamc — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 18:28:07 +0000

This. Actually, I would buy a cheap guitar (but not from Amazon), say $400-500, for a purpose like having one to place when visiting relatives at Christmas. But I wouldn't buy a nice guitar without inspecting and playing it.

New comment by adamc in "Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far"

adamc — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:53:42 +0000

I would think the sensitivity to this would depend a lot on family size. Shopping for just myself... it doesn't matter much. Shopping for a family of 4 would be very different.

New comment by adamc in "Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far"

adamc — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:52:12 +0000

In my experience, it varies. Amazon is competitive (usually) on high-volume stuff, but can be wildly overpriced in other cases.

New comment by adamc in "Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far"

adamc — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:48:10 +0000

I buy from Amazon:

  1) When I really need it within a couple of days and can't quickly find it locally
  2) When it isn't carried locally (the local retail stock is a lot thinner than 20 years ago)
  3) If there is a BIG price difference -- used to be common but now much rarer. As you say, Amazon's prices are often worse than buying locally.
  4) When I need it shipped somewhere else. I usually spend Christmas, for example in another city, and it is impractical to bring a bunch of presents. Amazon is good for situations like that.

I dislike Amazon, but they are now so dominant it is hard to avoid them.

New comment by adamc in "Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far"

adamc — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:44:56 +0000

I dislike Home Depot's politics so much that I make a point of never going there.

In general, I prefer buying local, because it makes my community healthier -- more jobs, directly and indirectly, more options to buy something this afternoon if I really need it. But the reality is that many items are already very difficult to buy. Some of that was true 20 years ago, but it's gotten much worse.

New comment by adamc in "Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far"

adamc — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:38:47 +0000

Many of us enjoy shopping, at least enough that what we would pay for it isn't much of a deal.

New comment by adamc in "Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far"

adamc — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:33:02 +0000

I don't think that works either. I'm not a meal planner, but I will usually just make do with food I've already bought. Nothing appeals? I might eat cheese toast or yogurt.

New comment by adamc in "Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far"

adamc — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:12:32 +0000

Not a European, but this rings true for me in the US. I'll go out and get something, in part, because it is less lonely and feels more attached to life, to the world. Endless deliveries actually make that worse. I started buying more things locally in part because of that.

It's also one of the reasons I don't really like working from home.

New comment by adamc in "Firefox expands fingerprint protections"

adamc — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 19:01:29 +0000

Thanks to both of you. That seems valuable.