Hacker News: alborzb

New comment by alborzb in "We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science"

alborzb — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 09:33:47 +0000

Incase anyone else is a wikipedia searcher like me, want to point out there's no 'R' in the historic colony.

Acadia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acadia

Wanted to save other people time searching it up too

New comment by alborzb in "Tell HN: Azure outage"

alborzb — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 22:06:02 +0000

That's not true (as somebody who had to do this last year in 2024 because I was traveling in another country for work on election day)

Here is the form to register for postal voting in the Republic of Ireland - https://www.dublincity.ie/sites/default/files/2024-01/pv4-wo...

Instructions on how to submit the form / register for mail-in votes is on page 4.

Hope that helps anyone else out who needs in Ireland

New comment by alborzb in "How Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza, visualized"

alborzb — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 21:53:11 +0000

I'm not sure why you're being down-voted... But here's two credible sources:

Reuters estimates the deaths at 60,000 [ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-many-palestini... ]

The UN estimates it to be at about 65,000 [ https://www.ochaopt.org/content/reported-impact-snapshot-gaz... ]

Neither of which are around 600 thousand as the previous commenter posted. The French News Channel called France24 did a quick video explaining the current fake news that certain NGOs are spreading with misleading death counts -- https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20250624-...

New comment by alborzb in "Eye drops could replace glasses or surgery for longsightedness, study says"

alborzb — Sun, 14 Sep 2025 20:34:22 +0000

Vuity is just Pilocarpine -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilocarpine

Not something that is recommended for ordinary bad vision - as it mostly works to treat eye pressure (one particular type of age related vision correction).

New comment by alborzb in "Ireland will not participate in Eurovision if Israel takes part"

alborzb — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 13:09:45 +0000

It's interesting as it causes a divide amongst EBU members for Eurovision - besides Ireland (in OP), Iceland ( https://www.ruv.is/english/2025-09-09-iceland-may-not-take-p... ) and Spain ( https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2025/09/11/spain-thr... ) have also stated their intention to boycott if Israel participates.

New comment by alborzb in "Ireland will not participate in Eurovision if Israel takes part"

alborzb — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 13:08:12 +0000

>>hope more countries join in

By the looks of it, besides Ireland (in OP), Iceland ( https://www.ruv.is/english/2025-09-09-iceland-may-not-take-p... ) and Spain ( https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2025/09/11/spain-thr... ) have also stated their intention to boycott.

New comment by alborzb in "Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups"

alborzb — Fri, 30 May 2025 10:29:20 +0000

>> In all honesty all this thread is people complaining about something they don't have a clue about.

Considering that I saw the same uproar on 4 major travel blogs: Thrifty Traveller (who originally reported this), One Mile at a time, Enilria and View from the Wing.

I'd hardly call it people complaining about something they don't have a clue about.

This pricing practice of charging more for solo travellers is new, deceptive and even travel bloggers who are thought leaders are upset by this.

New comment by alborzb in "The great displacement is already well underway?"

alborzb — Tue, 13 May 2025 19:39:33 +0000

Are you in Firefox? I just had the same loop of click allow all cookies over and over again until only necessary made it disappear!

New comment by alborzb in "ICE Revoking Students' Immigration Statuses Without Their or the Uni's Knowledge"

alborzb — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 22:49:37 +0000

Some would say that the difference is the USA (for now at least) has a free press?

New comment by alborzb in "The Wright brothers invented the airplane, right? Not if you're in Brazil"

alborzb — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 03:49:16 +0000

>> He is credited with a powered hop of 11 m (36 ft) made on 18 March 1906

Revisionist History like this fascinates me.

It is very well documented, with written texts, witnesses and even a handful of photographs that the Wright brothers had functional manned aircraft 3 years prior in 1903...

Yet I've personally seen Romanian postal stamps that credit Vuia with "the first flight" for him managing to jump just 11m (36 ft) in a plane.

New comment by alborzb in "Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia"

alborzb — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 21:46:54 +0000

NYPD -- https://gothamist.com/news/city-settles-lawsuit-protesters-w...

New comment by alborzb in "Biden Blocks Sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel"

alborzb — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 16:55:34 +0000

This isn't a partizan issue despite your comment being a poor attempt at humor.

Even Trump has repeatedly said he would block this deal -- https://apnews.com/article/us-steel-nippon-trump-biden-steel...

New comment by alborzb in "U.S. math scores drop on major international test"

alborzb — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 13:43:47 +0000

Just to add to this point, in fact Chicago has increased spending by 50% yet test scores have kept decreasing -- https://www.illinoispolicy.org/chicago-public-schools-is-spe...

New comment by alborzb in "McKinsey unit will pay $123M to settle claims it bribed South African officials"

alborzb — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 07:08:50 +0000

>> US oil companies like ExxonMobile

Is that the same ExxonMobile that was caught in a bribery corruption scandal in Liberia in Africa? [1]

Or perhaps you're talking about the same ExxonMobile that was caught bribing government officials in Kazakhstan in Asia? [2]

[1] https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/full-rep...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/2003/04/23/cz_df_0423xom.html

New comment by alborzb in "Text-Only NPR"

alborzb — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 04:55:31 +0000

This reminds me of the CNN Lite website -- https://lite.cnn.com/

New comment by alborzb in "What commercial flight route needs the most (min poss.) stops from A to B?"

alborzb — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 04:06:28 +0000

Yes, it's a popular 'mileage-run' route. Aka a flight routing that frequent flyers take solely for the purposes of gaining more miles/status

New comment by alborzb in "Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them"

alborzb — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 19:07:31 +0000

>>Ford has no compact hatchback or sedan in the U.S., only the Brazilian built EcoSport. They killed all their cars in favour of CUVs and SUVs.

Have I got some bad news for you... It seems the EcoSport is also dead ( https://www.ford.com/suvs-crossovers/ecosport/ )

New comment by alborzb in "US hospital told family their daughter had checked out when in fact she'd died"

alborzb — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 14:32:22 +0000

I'm not OP but John Oliver had a pretty good episode about hospitals, organ donation organisations and even non-profits, all benefit from a opaque system intentionally designed to hide where bodies go when "disposed" -- Here's a youtube link to the episode (may be blocked in certain regions due to copyright) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn7egDQ9lPg

New comment by alborzb in "Over 90% of US Population Growth Since 2020 Came from Hispanics"

alborzb — Sat, 10 Aug 2024 09:58:12 +0000

Let's set the record straight. Here's an article that is well cited, with sources all linked within, from the Economic Policy Institute.

https://www.epi.org/blog/immigrants-are-not-hurting-u-s-born...

>>1) The unemployment rate for U.S.-born workers is the lowest rate on record ( 3.6% )

>>2) The rate of U.S.-born individuals aged 25–54 with a job is at its highest rate in more than two decades

>>3) Immigrants only make up 18.6% of the labor force.

By any metric you look at , it become obviously clear that immigration is not causing high unemployment among U.S.-born workers.

New comment by alborzb in "Spyware found on US hotel check-in computers"

alborzb — Fri, 24 May 2024 13:01:27 +0000

Am I the only one who thought this article reads like an ad for the spyware software? It name drops them, advertises them (see quotes below) and even includes screenshots of their website (with the product for sale) in the article...

>> pcTattletale develops spyware apps for Android and Windows and both apps require physical access to a target’s device to install. pcTattletale provides its Windows spyware app as a one-click download that can be installed in a few seconds, according to TechCrunch’s own tests and analysis of the spyware.

>> pcTattletale also offers a service called “We Do It For You,” which the company says will help install the spyware on the target’s computer on the customer’s behalf.