Hacker News: brocklobsta

New comment by brocklobsta in "What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks"

brocklobsta — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 22:38:02 +0000

Many businesses, including restaurants, in California are going cashless and it makes my weekly budgeting harder (cash in wallet is my budget).

New comment by brocklobsta in "Kimi K3 (2.8T) at 1 token/s on a MacBook Pro, streamed from four SSDs"

brocklobsta — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 20:09:23 +0000

Typically system on a chip does not include DDR. There are differences in the fab process between DRAM and SoC/SRAM.

New comment by brocklobsta in "Show HN: Posthorn, self-hosted mail gateway"

brocklobsta — Wed, 27 May 2026 21:34:23 +0000

How does this differ from using protonmail-bridge? Seems like a similar concept.

New comment by brocklobsta in "Social media use increases depression in preteens, not vice versa"

brocklobsta — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 23:07:41 +0000

Yeah agreed. One of the first things I do when I start feeling blue is to stop using social media and go camping.

New comment by brocklobsta in "Orion O6 ITX Arm V9 board – temper your expectations"

brocklobsta — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 23:30:07 +0000

100%. Vendor drop BSP releases with no upstream plans are so annoying. Getting proper usage of IPs on the SoC is hard, if not impossible, when not using the "blessed" kernel by the vendor. Even when using what's blessed it can be a pain. depending on what kind of integration you are doing.

New comment by brocklobsta in "One of largest lithium battery plants ignites in Moss Landing"

brocklobsta — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 23:12:07 +0000

That seems like a high rate of fires given that plant opened at the end of 2020. I wonder what to total cost.

New comment by brocklobsta in "One of largest lithium battery plants ignites in Moss Landing"

brocklobsta — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 20:30:05 +0000

I was on a run last night and noticed the glow. How many times has that battery plant caught fire? Seems like grid scale battery technology is not ready for the lime light. AB 2514 forced utilities to build out this dumpster fire. It's ironic that California's climate solution is burning while the state blames climate change for the LA fire.

New comment by brocklobsta in "California exceeds 100% of energy demand with renewables over a record 30 days"

brocklobsta — Wed, 22 May 2024 16:13:30 +0000

I didn’t assert causation.

Does Iowa have the same heavy handed government regulations to strictly build out renewables and take non renewable power plants offline?

I agree with you, Texas has the most renewables, and power is relatively cheap. The problem is the strict regulations prevent utilities from make better economical decisions.

New comment by brocklobsta in "California exceeds 100% of energy demand with renewables over a record 30 days"

brocklobsta — Tue, 21 May 2024 23:56:52 +0000

I guess this is what paying $0.72/KWh during peak gets you.

New comment by brocklobsta in "Meta Calls for Industry Effort to Label A.I.-Generated Content"

brocklobsta — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 03:07:06 +0000

What even IS ai generated content? Does the MS paint color fill feature count? Why not? Does source code need to be audited? This won’t scale.

New comment by brocklobsta in "Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16"

brocklobsta — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 19:05:03 +0000

Agreed, some are easy to classify like nude content, but what about a website about war history, that content is simultaneously factual and explicit. This is why I say its up to the website owner to register for the blacklist. That in itself has an incentive to reduce the surface of liability of the website.

Social media is a hard problem. What is exactly the issue? Is it creating a larger social hierarchy than children can cope with? Is it meeting and interacting with strangers? Is it reinforcing dopaminergic pathways from superficial digital content and approvals?

New comment by brocklobsta in "Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16"

brocklobsta — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 18:43:16 +0000

This is a very complex problem. Its not just social media, but porn and other content that is not intended for young eyes.

One issue I have is with the age verification system. This will either be totally ineffective or overly effective and invasive. I feel legislation is drifting towards the latter with the requirement of ID.

One idea I had is a managed dns blacklist of inappropriate content. The government can have a requirement that a website register their site in this list to operate, otherwise they are subject to litigation for their content. At the same time have isps and network gear support this list in a 1 click type fashion. I have multiple dns blacklists I use at home. I know this may be a little more technical for the parents and guardians, but that is the world we are living in.

Limitations being:

Section 230 - user posts explicit content and the site isn't in the blacklist.

Network scope - This blacklist will have to be added to all networks accessed by children. What about public wifi? coffee shops?

IDK, I love being able to be anonymous online, but I do see the negative effects of social media, porn, and explicit content on our youth. I don't really trust the government to solve this effectively.

New comment by brocklobsta in "American society wasn't always so car-centric. Our future doesn't have to be"

brocklobsta — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 20:28:33 +0000

Outcomes change as the needs of the municipality change. Members get voted in and out. Do you think there is a misalignment between the city council and the constituents? Or is this what the residents want?

New comment by brocklobsta in "American society wasn't always so car-centric. Our future doesn't have to be"

brocklobsta — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 20:23:00 +0000

I think most municipalities see growth as a general good. The issue starts when the cost of growth starts to outweigh the benefits. Roads/water/utilities/waste management are all municipal services that need to be able to handle the growth.

Local democratic governments is the American way.

New comment by brocklobsta in "American society wasn't always so car-centric. Our future doesn't have to be"

brocklobsta — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 20:18:34 +0000

That’s an interesting and hostile take given we are all coerced into paying state taxes.

New comment by brocklobsta in "American society wasn't always so car-centric. Our future doesn't have to be"

brocklobsta — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 19:33:23 +0000

I don’t understand how more state control is preferable. I live in California and the state government is not very in tune to the needs of my locality and seems very corrupt.

Some cities do not want housing/population growth. Why is that not okay?

New comment by brocklobsta in "Americans Are Pulling Cash from Their Retirement Savings to Pay Bills"

brocklobsta — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 06:28:29 +0000

I feel like class status trends with age in the US. The younger folks have had less time to acquire assets. The older folk who worked hard and invested wisely are benefiting from said decisions. I think the income and wealth inequality is a type of motivation, I can see what I can attain with an opportunistic and hard working mindset. This kind of economic mobility is the beauty of the US system.

New comment by brocklobsta in "Show HN: Encrypt and upload files to IPFS from browser"

brocklobsta — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 17:33:23 +0000

Neato! My main concern is reliability of this type of service. Given the boom/bust cycle of crypto I have my hesitations.

Anyway to download a file via curl? I wouldn't mind setting up a cronjob to periodically download a testfile to track the reliability over time.

New comment by brocklobsta in "It's Time to Tax Billionaires"

brocklobsta — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 18:32:45 +0000

I think the better question is, Which entity can better allocate the capital? The government or the billionaire? Given the historic track record of government spending I would argue the we are much better with the capital staying in the private sector. As a bonus, if capital is grossly misallocated in the private sector, the company may go out of business, and those resources are freed up the the highest bidder. When the government grossly misallocates resources, the burden falls on the tax payer and rarely gets fixed in any reasonable time horizon.

New comment by brocklobsta in "California mandates VC firms to release investments' diversity information"

brocklobsta — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 22:01:23 +0000

I don't like how diversity seems to default to racial diversity. The diversity I like is more perspective based. Someone willing to challenge my assumptions, constraints, and train of thought, not just a different color of skin.