<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: bilbo0s</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bilbo0s</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Sun, 14 Jun 2026 04:08:22 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=bilbo0s" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "US bans differential privacy in Census data"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm pretty sure they didn't think this through in a comprehensive fashion.<p>Because making it esy to find all the rich people just seems like a very bad idea given the direction things are going.<p>When it was broad, the only thing you could do was locate, say, large minority groups. Blacks and latinos for instance. And even that led to problems. I can't imagine what will happen when we can drill down and tease out immigrants from citizens. Gay from straight. Rich from well to do. And so on.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 13 Jun 2026 16:28:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48518788</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48518788</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48518788</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "Why SpaceX 2040 Revenue FCST $4.3T in highly unlikely"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Well, SpaceX is supposed to be more about AI than low cost orbital launches. At least that’s what their roadshow is claiming.<p>But either way, yeah, I’m not willing to bet much money on USD4.3T unless we can get some serious financial engineering, (read “circular deals”), going.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 10 Jun 2026 18:37:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48480740</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48480740</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48480740</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>><i>A sturdy stick makes a decent enough baseball bat</i><p>Right around the 80’s and 90’s the idea of zero-tolerance youth crime policies swept the US. Right around the same time the popularity of baseball began a decline in the US. It went from being a universally played ‘pickup culture’ sport, to a sparsely played ‘pay to play’ sport.<p>Now I’m not gonna say the need for 8 or 9 boys to roam around a neighborhood with a giant stick looking for a place to play was the reason the ‘pickup culture’ games died. But I will say that it was probably a lot safer for those boys to just go to a basketball court and wait their turn in a ‘pickup culture’ game that did <i>not</i> require a giant stick or bat.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:56:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48440236</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48440236</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48440236</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>><i>Don't have kids huh...</i><p>I'm a grandparent.<p>><i>people like you who don't have kids and know nothing about the education system</i><p>You know when I did my student teaching stint to certify? 1993.<p>PS: You know why they say tracking works? Because we throw out data from after high school graduation. Ever wonder how those, uh, "gifted", kids who got "A"s in high school Calc typically do in Calculus streams at the University level? I can assure you there are many many professors out there dealing with the results of our tracking system, (that being where the proliferation of "gifted" programs came from), who would not say that it is "working".</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 09:42:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48410192</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48410192</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48410192</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I think I should also gently suggest here that the issue could also be expectations. The idea that you put 30 random children in a class and that therefore there <i>must</i> be some who are "gifted", and there <i>must</i> be some who are "slow".<p>I don't know man? I'm just saying that sometimes sure, all the kids in your neighborhood could be above average. But most of the time, all the kids in a class are just average. And now the poor teacher has to explain to irate parents that their kid's not any more special than the other kids in the class. (Only we don't. We acquiesce to their insanity and label average at best kids as "gifted" and then have everyone be shocked when those kids don't gain admission to Ivies. Ma'am, that kid was lucky to get into his/her state flagship. And even at that state flagship, s/he probably ain't gonna be majoring in ChemE or anything if you want my honest opinion.)<p>Sure, you can have slow kids in a class. But, really? 30 random kids? Is it statistically likely that any are "slow"? Or is it more likely you're dealing with no good parents who don't work with their children at home? Then those same parents come to berate the teachers for not doing enough to teach a fourth grader addition and subtraction. With absolutely no reflection on why a fourth grader, with no learning disability, doesn't understand addition and subtraction.)<p>I don't envy teachers because these are the attitudes they have to deal with.<p>Public Service Announcement: No people, your children aren't "gifted". And it's very unlikely that your kids are "slow". Your kids are very likely, (horror of horrors), just average. Every one of them.<p>If we can just get past those things we can start looking at some of the real issues.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 04 Jun 2026 23:48:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48406224</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48406224</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48406224</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This.<p>A math test is a math test is a math test.<p>What's the math teacher supposed to do?<p>I hate to be that guy, but I think it should be pointed out that asian boys don't seem to have much of a problem. If there's a gender bias, why do they succeed?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 04 Jun 2026 23:30:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48406086</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48406086</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48406086</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "4K years ago, Mohenjo-daro grew more equal over time"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is exactly what I was saying.<p>It doesn't matter if you measure LNG in litres, gallons, or cubic inches. The market is going to pay you the precise amount for whatever you delivered measured in cubic meters. So what you measure in is irrelevant. Or more precisely, only relevant insofar as you want to have some idea how much you are going to be paid when you reach the market. And even then, it's only relevant to you. The market doesn't care what you measure in, because the market measures what you deliver in cubic meters. And the market has its own definition of "cubic meter".<p>So market participants, no matter where they may be, are incentivized to ensure whatever unit they're measuring out for delivery in will relate to the "cubic meter" as defined by the customer in a precise and verifiable way. If not, they could lose money. Thus, every freight measurement standard, would, again, effectively be set by the customer. Because no matter what units you deliver in, s/he is only paying you for the amount measured in his/her own measurement standard. So your standard has to conform to that standard in a fashion that is well defined, consistent, and well understood by you.<p>In ancient terms, this means the trader in Mohenjo-daro would have calculated that conversion factor out in a precise fashion. So they would walk around Mohendro-daro with a standard weight for measurement that was based on what they would expect to happen in Sumer. All the other traders in Mohendro-daro would eventually discover the same conversion factor. So everyone lands on the same weight for measurement, but no one collaborated. Because everyone, (every trader anyway), only cares what they can get for that weight in Sumer. It's not that everyone <i>uses</i> Sumer's units. It's that Sumer's units define what everyone's understanding of their own unit is through trade.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 03 Jun 2026 09:41:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48381891</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48381891</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48381891</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "4K years ago, Mohenjo-daro grew more equal over time"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I did some work for Halliburton in a past life.<p>Most of the people selling LNG for instance, do not have any control over the definition of a "cubic meter". Even so, none of them cheat, because the US for example, very much does have its own definition of a cubic meter and it isn't going to pay you a penny more, nor a penny less, than what that cubic meter is worth.<p>All that to say, you could probably try to cheat the system, but I'd imagine the people in Sumer and Akkad had what they considered to be a precise unit of weight with which to measure your delivery. It doesn't matter what someone in Mohenjo-daro said, you were only going to get a certain amount in trade for your freight in Sumer. So I could see a centralized authority for weights, (the customer), at the same time as having no one in charge of that unit of weight in Mohenjo-daro.<p>I could see people agreeing to it essentially because that's all you're getting paid for. Because I saw the same behavior long ago at work with Halliburton.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 03 Jun 2026 02:30:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48379184</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48379184</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48379184</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "Larry Ellison: "Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re recording""]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>In this case though, the nerds <i>are</i> in charge of it. They created and own it.<p>I mean even the lawyers are subordinate to them at this point.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2026 18:26:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48374186</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48374186</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48374186</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "Can You Stop a Hypersonic Missile?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>><i>nor evidence that Russia or China have solved the engineering problems related to it.</i><p>Absence of evidence, <i>especially</i> when dealing with China, is not evidence of absence.<p>I would rather our planners take China having that nut cracked as a base operational assumption at this point.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 01 Jun 2026 23:03:30 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48363744</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48363744</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48363744</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "Iowa to mandate students take Intellectual Freedom classes amid low enrollment"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Not to be that guy, but you know this is gonna hit Iowa and Iowa State in the recruiting department. Athletics was part of the way some of these schools thought they’d make up for cuts in research and declining revenue elsewhere given increasing costs. “We’ll just get rich off football and basketball!!!”<p>realistically though, the rest of the B1G is definitely going to negatively recruit against this. Just like they are being told to negatively recruit southern states around the voting rights act stuff. Not that Iowa State cares about the B1G but they are generally going after the same guys. Now the B1G schools have wayyy more money, <i>and</i> the recruiting high ground.<p>It’s gonna get ugly in college sports.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 23 May 2026 22:44:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48252332</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48252332</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48252332</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This.<p>The question is what serves their interests at the time? Whatever serves their interests at a given time, well, that’s what they believe at that time. That will have no bearing on what they believe in the future.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2026 18:22:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239470</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239470</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239470</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "Apple unveils new accessibility features"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Again, it's absolutely great that Apple does these things!<p>I was just answering the question of why other corporations don't.<p>Money.<p>There's relatively little money in helping the visually impaired. You have to do it because you <i>want</i> to do it. Not because you're going to get rich.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 19 May 2026 13:24:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48193034</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48193034</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48193034</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "Apple unveils new accessibility features"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Let's be honest, compare the amount of money a corporation can make helping visually impaired people to the amount of money they can make replacing software developers and financial analysts.<p>Don't get me wrong, Apple using these technologies to help humans who are in need of help is laudable. But let's not pretend we don't know why most corporations don't look into this kind of thing. I think if we're being honest, we all very much know why they leave this sort of thing to the always nebulous "<i>others</i>".</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 19 May 2026 12:55:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48192673</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48192673</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48192673</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Well there's absolutely the <i>value</i> in a lot of what those PI's teams are doing, what there is no longer is the political will to invest in those endeavors.<p>I think longer term this will mean we start to see a kind of "rise" of places like TUM and Tsinghua. (If that could even be seen as a "rise" at this point? Pretty sure most people already acknowledge their primacy.) At root, MIT was only MIT because of the teams it could collect together. If it can't do that anymore, I don't think people stop putting those teams together, those teams just stop being put together at MIT.<p>The search for fundamental clarity in humanity's great aporias will continue. Just a speedbump.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2026 16:30:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48137705</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48137705</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48137705</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>><i>It's not clear to me how that's sustainable</i><p>If it makes you feel better, I'm pretty sure it isn't sustainable. (But I'm not an economist so take that with a block of salt.)<p>I don't think anyone has the answers. It's just some of us are honest enough to concede we have no answers, while others promote an answer that aligns best with their belief system.<p>"It'll all work out."<p>"It's the immigrants/blacks/jews/whatever dragging us down."<p>"Nothing's going to happen and we can all continue doing the work we always have."<p>"Burn the rich."<p>Etc etc.<p>Not a lot of serious attempts out there at even getting a hand on the issues, let alone fixing the issues.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 11 May 2026 17:46:00 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48098153</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48098153</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48098153</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "Software engineering may no longer be a lifetime career"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm a software dev in the US and I never call myself "engineer" in that capacity. Always "programmer" or "developer".<p>I agree. Engineers have to clear a much higher bar. Even though my career was spent in medical diagnostic software where we had to get 510k clearance, I was still keenly aware that this was a fundamentally different activity from actual engineering.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 11 May 2026 17:36:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48098031</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48098031</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48098031</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "Driver accused of DUI tracks missing laptop to Illinois State trooper's house"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>People don't like to admit that there are problems that the market is absolutely able to solve.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 11 May 2026 16:00:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096761</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096761</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096761</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "Driver accused of DUI tracks missing laptop to Illinois State trooper's house"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Ironically, gait analysis is considered iron clad scientific evidence when used against impoverished black guys like in the Taylor trial.<p>Just kind of displays the. corruption and duplicity of the US legal system.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 11 May 2026 15:50:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096631</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096631</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096631</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by bilbo0s in "Driver accused of DUI tracks missing laptop to Illinois State trooper's house"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>><i>took an act of congress to get released.</i><p>I guess?<p>I mean you go ahead and call that a release.<p>If it brings you comfort.<p>The US government is just corrupt from tip to tail. Why everyone continuously acts surprised about these things is genuinely a mystery?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 11 May 2026 15:03:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48095956</link><dc:creator>bilbo0s</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48095956</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48095956</guid></item></channel></rss>