<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: bargl</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bargl</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Sat, 20 Jun 2026 18:33:00 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=bargl" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "DOGE employees don't understand the basics of SQL"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yeah this is the part I find hard to suss out. If they said we have people who are 104 and the next oldest is 150 holy shit. That's case closed, but the link you sent makes me suspicious of the bias on the other side...<p>I agree with original comment. I just don't know who to trust to do a deep enough dive to give me good information.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 21 Feb 2025 03:21:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43123650</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43123650</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43123650</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "Twitter expands downvote test worldwide"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I think both upvoting and downvoting are... a poor form of signal on content, but maybe the best one we have. There can be some pretty good indicators that come out of the combination of up and down votes that you can't get from just up.<p>Purely upvoted content is (generally) less offensive to the readers.  Purely downvoted content is (generally) more offensive to the readers. Mixed content 50/50 up/down is typically more controversial and so isn't purely offensive, but instead depends on who the reader is.  Assuming a wide spread of audience (not a pre-silo'd audience).<p>I'm speculating here but I guess this is a tool twitter plans to use to reinforce silos, find content that's only "mildly offensive (I.E. Pimple Popping threads) and let people who want that to get it. Alternatively, they could find content that's downvoted by people who have a good "donwvoting trend" and upscale those downvotes.  It's just more signal in their learning algorithms toolboxes.<p>IMO it neither helps nor hurts twitter's users to have downvotes it really depends on how they use it. I suspect people who are opposed to downvotes don't trust that Twitter will use the signal well.  For example, the fact that YouTube took away "displaying" downvotes but not actually downvoting takes away power from users.  They still get the signal but users don't.  You no longer get signal on what YouTube is recommending to you.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 04 Feb 2022 18:33:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30210960</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30210960</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30210960</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "YouTube deleting comments who criticize their hiding of the dislike count"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The metric I use in hn is votes to comments. When I want a good non controversial read I go for a low ratio of comments to votes. When I want a more controversial topic I find the things with more comments to votes.<p>It's just additional signal on the content in a world where I just can't read it all.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 04 Dec 2021 05:25:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29438915</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29438915</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29438915</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "Poll: Covid Vaccine Mandate in Tech"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>When I went overseas from the USA to another country I had to get vaccinated as well.  It's required.  That's different.  I'm neither agreeing or disagreeing with either point here, I'd just like to point out that it is different.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 12 Sep 2021 23:11:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28505976</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28505976</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28505976</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "Perseverance rover uses same PowerPC chipset found in 1998 G3 iMac"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>They probably also expect to learn something from the failure.  If this is a more modern chip that is testing it's radiation hardening, this is a good place to put it in trial run.  If it fails, they get new information, if it succeeds they now have a successful flight with it to Mars and some data.<p>It's a great 2 for 1 thing that NASA typically does.  They'll win even when they fail because they learned something and they won't fail that way again.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 02 Mar 2021 17:45:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26317998</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26317998</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26317998</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "Anime is booming, so why are animators living in poverty?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That's IT!<p>Thank you for reminding me.<p>I totally agree, we hear so much negativity his approach to showing how humanity in general is better off today than any time in the past is encouraging.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 26 Feb 2021 20:08:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26279275</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26279275</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26279275</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "Anime is booming, so why are animators living in poverty?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Gah.  I can't remember the book but it classifies the different levels of poverty.  There were 4 levels.<p>I'm going from memory but level 1 was what you describe.<p>Level 2 is being able to meet your needs but all your time goes into meeting those needs.<p>Level 3 is having enough extra money to pay for things you don't need.<p>Level 4 was IIRC basically not having to work.<p>Most countries have a range of 1-3 or 2-3 or 3-4 or some distribution of that.<p>Anyway long story short,  western countries mostly have 2-4 and don't know what 1 even looks like (on a lived experience level).  They've seen pictures of it and there are people living in Level 1 in western countries, they just aren't as front and center.  If you've lived near Level 1 you know what real poverty looks like.  If you haven't you think that Level 2 is real poverty.  Both need to be addressed, but I agree that Level 1 poverty is so much worse for people living there.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 26 Feb 2021 17:55:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26277652</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26277652</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26277652</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>>% Short float is public information. And based on the discussions I've had online, it seems people are confused between %short float and %short outstanding.<p>My understanding of this is that it's released on a bi-monthly basis.  So the active count is not reported.  There are people who try to track it based on the outstanding shorts by watching the stock market and predicting what the current daily short percentage is, but I don't think they have verifiable data until the publication comes out. <a href="https://nasdaqtrader.com/Trader.aspx?id=ShortIntPubSch" rel="nofollow">https://nasdaqtrader.com/Trader.aspx?id=ShortIntPubSch</a><p>Any short before the surge was probably shorting the price below 20/share.  Say there are 100% shorts at 20/share.  Then it goes up to 50/share and now it's 80% at 20/share (because 20% of those closed out) and 20% at 50/share.<p>When it was at 400/share, no one knows if those were shorts at 20/share, 50/share, or 400/share or when they expired.  If I was a savvy investor who was being squeezed, I'd have cleared all my shorts at 20/share at a loss and then shorted the stock again at 400/share keeping the percentage around 100% of the market.  I have no way of showing this and unfortunately very few people do (to my knowledge).  If I'm wrong please show me I'd love to learn more, I find this incredibly interesting.<p>That's what I mean is not public information, no one knows what the breakdown of the short value is.<p>>Clearly not. My friend was buying in at that time, despite me arguing with him that he shouldn't. There's also plenty of retail-buys that occurred at $300 to $400: millions and millions of shares bought.<p>They thought it would go up to 1000.  Which it might have, but they thought it would surge up and they could sell off at 1000.<p>That doesn't mean the price is maintainable.  Everyone was passing around the last Short chart and it wasn't a maintainable boost.  You can't even see the jump on a 5 year timeline of the market.<p>EDIT: Sorry I keep saying everyone.  Everyone who was on WSB during the mania.  I am sure there were individuals who didn't fit this.  But I assume your friend thought the price would hit 1000/share and then they'd sell there.  Or they were sold on buying the dip.  Either way, they had an exit strategy (I assume) and it wasn't 10 years from now it was in a few days or weeks.  Which is why I said isn't maintainable.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 24 Feb 2021 01:39:19 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26245565</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26245565</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26245565</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>No one knows.  That's not public information.<p>It doesn't take into account that at 400 shorting GME became a much more appealing idea than even at 20/share.  Everyone knew 400/share was unmaintainable.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 24 Feb 2021 01:00:30 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26245262</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26245262</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26245262</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That's a valid argument, but they showed a ton of revenue lately and shouldn't be valued at 2/share.<p>I think the stock is between a 10/share and 30/share stock but I'm not a professional. Honestly the professionals aren't professionals and that's backed by some studies but I won't get into that right now.<p>The idea that you can cover this story without mentioning the short squeeze is lazy or dishonest.  While it's an artificial boost to a stocks price it's a completely valid boost to that price too.<p>I use the PS5 as an example.  How expensive is it?  500?  Wrong.  It's 500 if you put in time and energy, but if you value your time and energy over that of the retail price you can get one on ebay for 1000.  Is it worth 1000?  Only if you are impatient.<p>What's GME price?  2/share 15/share doesn't matter.  If I have 1000 of something and I know that 1400 people MUST buy it by the end of the month, I can be sure that I'll make some money there.  Was 400/share reasonable?  I don't think so, that was mania and the fact that this short squeeze got mainstream and people had FOMO.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 24 Feb 2021 00:57:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26245237</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26245237</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26245237</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This.  The stock was at around 20/share before the spike and was considered a WIN at that.  It's now sitting at 40/share and is probably priced high.<p>It was shorted to below 2/share at some point which is imo insane given what we've seen EVERY SINGLE CONSOLE RELEASE EVER.<p>The media saw an opportunity to make this about populist rage, and we all bit it.  But this was started as a short squeeze and a very effective one at that.<p>EDIT: Just to clarify.  There was obviously a short squeeze.  That short squeeze could have stopped at 20/share and been a GREAT short squeeze.  I have friends who got off the ride at that point thinking the squeeze was over.  The frenzy that happened that pushed the stock to 400 was insane, and wouldn't have happened if this stock didn't start trending.  You don't have a subreddit go from 2m to 8m in 2 weeks unless there's some serious frenzy.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 24 Feb 2021 00:35:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26245032</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26245032</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26245032</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "68% of the top links on Facebook since September are in support of Donald Trump"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'd argue you could have said this in a more constructive way.<p>If this were a sports game there would be yellow and red flags all over this incident.<p>-No talking politics<p>-No overuse of anonymous accounts<p>-Be Kind,<p>-Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive<p>I really like that last one.<p>As I'm not a moderator please just consider this a friendly reminder that there is always a human on the other side of the keyboard, even the anonymous ones.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 18 Feb 2021 01:03:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26174122</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26174122</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26174122</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "68% of the top links on Facebook since September are in support of Donald Trump"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>>If the left orthodoxy means treating people equally, sign me up.<p>If we all understand that this is actually (under the law) what MOST people want we'll be able to get along.<p>>What’s valuable about homophobia? What’s intellectually honest about hating people for their sexual orientation and advocating for discrimination against them?<p>I just started looking this up to write this comment.  I was curious about it and I wanted to be as correct as I can.  Ben Shapiro believes that contractually, under the law, homosexuality should be allowed.  Full Stop.  This is a very libertarian perspective.  It's the idea that no matter what I personally believe due to my religion, you can and should be able to legally do what you want as long as it doesn't affect others (throwing that in for the abortion argument).<p>Personally, Ben Shapiro is a homophobe.  Politically, he is not.  He's pro-equality of opportunity and recognition under the law.<p>As someone who grew up really religious, I can understand how he justifies this idea.  You are indoctrinated to hate the sin and love the sinner.  This does not always come out the way it's supposed to, and leads to homophobia which I believe is evil and a reason I left religion.  However, this dualism allows for one to strive for political equality, while still spouting homophobic ideas.<p>This is a very fine line to draw on a topic like this, but I think it's important for us to recognize if we're ever going to get less divided hateful towards each other.  Most people, even bigots, racists, homophobes, etc. want equality.  They want the government to give them the same rights as anyone else and to be left alone.  They want their rallies, protests, sermons, etc.  In order to get that they recognize (at least people like Shapiro do) that they need to fight a cultural war instead of a political one on this stuff.<p>It doesn't mean that those ideas are ok for people to personally have, but it does mean that we can work together to agree on a lot of shit, make progress.<p>tl;dr; Don't hate people on the other side of politics, talk to them.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 18 Feb 2021 00:50:18 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26174006</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26174006</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26174006</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "NASA's Perseverance rover will attempt to land on Mars this week"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Mark Rober has an awesome video on this which outlines a lot and gives a very high level bit of info on it.  I can't imagine the amount of stress these engineers are feeling watching this delayed feed.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH2tKigOPBU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH2tKigOPBU</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 16 Feb 2021 23:00:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26159911</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26159911</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26159911</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>>But I am also certain that it would have made no difference in our current predicament with a third of the country thinking the election was stolen.<p>It would have changed some peoples minds I don't know if the change would have been a few thousand or 10s of millions.  I can't say if it would have a dent in the 1/3 of people or not.  I can't predict that. It would have helped me with my own peace of mind.  And frank I think it's overall the right thing for us to do.<p>>And the more technical the evidence (i.e. source code), the less helpful.<p>Disinformation is powerful, I'm not suggesting this alone would fix that.  I disagree that more technical evidence is harmful.  Global warming is benefiting from transparency and evidence.  It takes generations to change political will not years.  The evidence there has shifted our whole economy, just maybe not fast enough.<p>There will always, always be deniers.  Global warming, flat earth, vaccinations, etc.  Evidence _helps_ battle deniers in these areas, but it takes generations for these ideas to become mainstream and the deniers to go from 99% of people to 2% of people.<p>Also, 2% of people think the earth is flat?  Holy crap. <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/one-third-millennials-believe-flat-earth-conspiracy-statistics-yougov-debunk" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencealert.com/one-third-millennials-believe-f...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 2021 22:50:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26071370</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26071370</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26071370</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Without jumping on the conspiracy bandwagon, I'd also like to see this applied to voting software.  I know it's a hot topic, and I'm honestly not trying to get political.<p>Software that is critical to our fundamental human rights, and is being used by our government should be open source, or at least audited by a group of people who sign Non-competes/NDA and can't go work for competitors, or with some other mechanism to protect IP that I can't think of.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 2021 22:10:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26070909</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26070909</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26070909</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>As you alluded to in the other comment, these would be safety factors not regarding the structure of the car (which should be focused on decelerating the car) but instead on mechanisms that alert the driver / automatically stop the car when it is going to hit a pedestrian.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 2021 21:47:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26070627</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26070627</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26070627</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I was being brief, I completely agree this needs to be a data driven approach.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 2021 21:45:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26070598</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26070598</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26070598</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>And yet, we're static in that most of our crash tests are done the same way they have for years.  They haven't started testing cars crashing at 60+ miles per hour.  So while these regulations are great, it's also competition that's caused us to get better safety in some ways.<p>Long story short, we need both, but we also need to figure out how to keep regulations moving forward instead of stagnating.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 2021 19:33:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26069020</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26069020</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26069020</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bargl in "I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I switched careers 4 years after I graduated college.  It wasn't as much a demotion and more of a lateral move, but it is never too late to change careers.<p>That isn't to say there is no risk involved.  Taking a new position has risks, and just like investing (which we've all heard too much about lately), you want to hedge your risks.<p>Make sure you've got a good buffer in the bank, potentially a fall back position if it's a pay-cut, talk to your partner (if you have one), check out how to decrease your budget if needed, or supplement for a while if possible.<p>I love these stories, I love seeing streamers make it, people move from a corporate job to starting their own thing, it's awesome.  Most people who were successful had a safety net.  They didn't jump without knowing the risks and being able to take the lower pay for a while.  They also had a plan to make money.  This is really important because I've also seen a ton of people who have been forced to switch careers due to not having a plan to make money.<p>I'm not a researcher/etc.  This is all anecdotal evidence I've seen, just sharing my thoughts and opinions.<p>Anyway, congrats to anyone who does makes this kind of quality of life change!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 2021 19:02:22 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26068600</link><dc:creator>bargl</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26068600</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26068600</guid></item></channel></rss>