Hacker News: asta123

New comment by asta123 in "Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%"

asta123 — Wed, 06 May 2026 04:07:24 +0000

> I would really like to see professional, established coach running around with young prodigies on a peak of their biology.

Experienced high IQ player in a team sport could also be considered player-coach. Players like Lebron James or Nikola Jokic come to mind.

New comment by asta123 in "Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes"

asta123 — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 08:16:53 +0000

"This is more about oil and deposing Maduro." Scary how overt these 'operations' are these days. 50 years ago governments would try hide stuff like this. Someone said 'lack of shame' is very concerning with governments of today. Wonder if this is a reflection of where we as a humanity are heading.

New comment by asta123 in "The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong"

asta123 — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 03:58:37 +0000

In Australia most of the narrative on the housing affordability crisis is around lack of supply and nimbyism. In the meantime Melbourne has dropped to 4th most expensive city in the country and becoming more affordable. Most likely reason - land tax change in that state which is turning off accumulating multiple properties through investment and investors turning to other states where prices are still going up. So, while supply is relevant, I would say it is investor demand that is driving prices up.

New comment by asta123 in "Trump wins presidency for second time"

asta123 — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 05:31:25 +0000

Peak free-market unregulated capitalism failed when GFC happened. We have been bailing it out ever since. US has not had a surplus since 2001. I don't know what this 'socialize losses, private profits' is but it does not look like capitalism. GFC showed that capitalism has to be regulated IMO. And tariffs could be part of this regulation.

New comment by asta123 in "Bill Atkinson doxxed Douglas Adams in 1987"

asta123 — Sun, 03 Nov 2024 23:40:17 +0000

My mate was good at extending a conversation when someone dialled a wrong number, pretending he is the kid of whoever they called :)

New comment by asta123 in "American WWII bomb explodes at Japanese airport, causing large crater in taxiway"

asta123 — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 05:51:17 +0000

In WW1 they had the ability to bomb civilians but it wasn't done.

New comment by asta123 in "1913: When Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all lived in the same place"

asta123 — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 01:19:03 +0000

You should read a bit of Dostoevsky for his analysis how 'rational' people are. Not to mention what decades of absolute power do to your ability to reason. I am also not sure what the end game is here and what 'defeating' a country with nuclear arsenal looks like. And why there is no more calls for negotiation (like there is in the case of Gaza).

New comment by asta123 in "How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program"

asta123 — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 00:34:46 +0000

In Australia few years back the highest paid CEO was not from industries you might expect like mining, banking... but a company doing international student placements, whatever that is -

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-07/idp-education-ceo-and...

New comment by asta123 in "Stop Acting Like You're Famous"

asta123 — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 07:11:41 +0000

My son put effort into dressing up for his Year 10 formal as that is what you do. But during the event he observed that most kids focused on how they looked rather than noticing others, and thought he should have spent a lot less effort into his outfit :)

New comment by asta123 in "Boeing whistleblower found dead in US"

asta123 — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 01:43:56 +0000

'wound' singular

New comment by asta123 in "Boeing whistleblower found dead in US"

asta123 — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 01:40:44 +0000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company

New comment by asta123 in "A 'cowboy ski town' where high earners can't afford a home faces housing battle"

asta123 — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 01:45:31 +0000

I see a lot of talk of this 'increase supply' in Australia where house prices are out of control. Personally I think insatiable demand is a bigger problem and no increase in supply will fix it. Over last couple of decades we have had financial deregulation and cheap money - 30 year mortgages are a norm (used to be 20 years), tax system favoring property investment (losses claimed as tax return), global economy where anyone in the world can bid for local housing (e.g. rules change so foreign students can buy property), huge liquidity in pension funds (superannuation) allowed to do leverage/borrow so investment property can be purchased - again policy change in last decade or so. This is without even talking about stock reduction due to temporary rentals. I see big part of the problem interest groups driving policy change, rather then people wanting to live in desirable places. (edited - typo)

New comment by asta123 in "Milwaukee reporter investigates cousin's 1978 car bombing death"

asta123 — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 03:42:31 +0000

Interesting. Lotharius encounter with Palmisano shows him as a mafia guy and not just a 'hustler'.

New comment by asta123 in "Milwaukee reporter investigates cousin's 1978 car bombing death"

asta123 — Sun, 28 Jan 2024 23:18:00 +0000

Mafia was a very secretive organization. This was one of their core principles and their survival depended on being good at this. So if you lived in the 70s I wonder how many people would say mafia was a 1930s Al Capone thing and didn't exist as much any more.

(typo edited)

New comment by asta123 in "Spomenik Database"

asta123 — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 10:22:38 +0000

Agree about Slovenia. Very different story. But the rest of the region has been dominated by nationalist politics for couple of decades whose survival depends on amplifying those national differences. And as a result cultures are now different. But don't think this was the case in former Yu (80s and earlier). As an extreme example North and South Korea are very different cultures now as a result of politics, don't think this was the case before 1950s.

New comment by asta123 in "Spomenik Database"

asta123 — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 09:14:44 +0000

"that were culturally or ethnically distinct, like much of Europe" Other than religion I'd like to know what these cultural differences are? Serbs, Bosnians and Croats speak the same language which is very much unlike, say, French and Germans. Or even Slovak and Czechs. People of the UK are more ethnically distinct than people of former Yugoslavia.

New comment by asta123 in "Spomenik Database"

asta123 — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 03:51:32 +0000

Yugoslav communist party was trying to build 'Yugoslav' (South Slavic) identity and trying to suppress nationalist differences. It was more multi-cultural than today's countries in the region which were formed on these ethnic lines.

New comment by asta123 in "The Two Milan Kunderas"

asta123 — Sun, 10 Dec 2023 20:58:12 +0000

So there is assumption that 20 something year old, living with information propaganda portraying West as class-divided, colonial enemy, should somehow know the 'enemy' spy was a good guy? Especially considering this Dvoracek case was in the 50s with communists just emerging victorious against horrors of fascism making it quite easy to sell the story of social unity and equality. I imagine many young Czeck people would have bought into this way of life during the early communist rule before oppression became more obvious. Can we judge them for it?

New comment by asta123 in "Yugoslavia's Digital Twin – When a country's internet domain outlives the nation"

asta123 — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 09:26:34 +0000

Know someone who fled Bosnia during 90s to Germany. No more Yugoslavia so this person had a Bosnian passport in Germany. He had a kid in Germany, so his kid had a German passport. His parents fled to Serbia, his dad had a Serbian passport and mum - because of her 'nationality' - Croatian passport. Four members of the same family, same surname, four passports. Made for some interesting border crossings when they travelled together.

New comment by asta123 in "Yugoslavia's Digital Twin – When a country's internet domain outlives the nation"

asta123 — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 09:06:27 +0000

"Yugoslavia is viewed as anti-Serb mistake"

It is fascinating that nationalist Serbs and nationalist Croats think that Yugoslavia was a mistake and benefited the other side?? Someone must be wrong I guess.