Hacker News: contemporary343

New comment by contemporary343 in "How the U.S. became a science superpower"

contemporary343 — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 18:33:29 +0000

Actually overheads for many universities were sometimes higher in the late 1990s (and there were some minor scandals associated with this). And remind me again, what fraction of our GDP is indirect costs to universities? (< 0.1%). And what are the benefits? Well, indirect costs are how the U.S. government builds up a distributed network of scientific and technical infrastructure and capacity. This capacity serves the national interest.

If you think you're going to help debt by cutting indirect costs and crippling university research permanently, may I introduce you to the foundational notions of a knowledge economy and how fundamental advances feed into technology developments that increase productivity and thus GDP. Permanently reducing growth is another way of making debt servicing worse.

New comment by contemporary343 in "Pentagon's 'SWAT team of nerds' resigns en masse"

contemporary343 — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 18:28:22 +0000

In light of all of their actions, I really, genuinely do not understand what DOGE team members' mental model of the world is and what they view their purpose as. None of these actions align with any publicly stated goals, or even the privately reported ones. All I see is a destruction of state capacity that has already left America significantly weakened and less capable of responding to threats.

Trump appointee details DOGE's haphazard dismantling of USAID

contemporary343 — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 23:39:02 +0000

Article URL: https://www.lubbockonline.com/story/opinion/columns/2025/04/10/ambassador-tibor-nagy-talks-doge-usaid-takeaways-from-2nd-trump-term/83020864007/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648961

Points: 19

# Comments: 0

Doge seeks to cancel lease on nuclear waste storage facility

contemporary343 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 17:41:11 +0000

Article URL: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/doge-doh-nuclear-waste-facility-edition

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43269727

Points: 58

# Comments: 23

Q1 GDP Forecast -1.5%

contemporary343 — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 16:58:38 +0000

Article URL: https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43207794

Points: 8

# Comments: 1

Abrupt USAID contract terminations costing lives

contemporary343 — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 01:45:31 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/health/usaid-contract-terminations.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43200705

Points: 15

# Comments: 1

New comment by contemporary343 in "Carlos Slim cancels his collaboration with Elon Musk's Starlink"

contemporary343 — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 23:25:02 +0000

Definitely seems like a drug problem to me. He seems strung out of his mind if this article's sourcing is correct: https://www.wired.com/story/katie-stephen-miller-elon-musk-t...

New comment by contemporary343 in "Federal technology staffers resign rather than help Musk and DOGE"

contemporary343 — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 16:41:53 +0000

“We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services,” they wrote. “We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.”

“‘Move fast and break things’ may be acceptable to someone who owns a business and owns the risk. And if things don’t go well, the damage is compartmentalized. But when you break things in government, you’re breaking things that belong to people who didn’t sign up for that,” said Cordell Schachter, who until last month was the chief information officer at the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Trump 2.0 Brings Cuts to Cyber, Consumer Protections

contemporary343 — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 23:17:44 +0000

Article URL: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/02/trump-2-0-brings-cuts-to-cyber-consumer-protections/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43166108

Points: 18

# Comments: 2

Musk's DOGE seeks access to personal taxpayer data, raising alarm at IRS

contemporary343 — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 00:38:13 +0000

Article URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/16/doge-irs-access-taxpayer-data/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43073471

Points: 122

# Comments: 39

Mass federal layoffs hit veterans particularly hard

contemporary343 — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:46:22 +0000

Article URL: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-musk-lay-off-veterans-affaris-staffers-1235268532/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43068901

Points: 17

# Comments: 1

New comment by contemporary343 in "National Institutes of Health cuts support to universities"

contemporary343 — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:38:23 +0000

Are you familiar with how organizations have annual budgets? Doing it with zero notice in the middle of a fiscal year will be chaos. This is purely an attack.

Notice how no one is going after the F&A (indirect) rates for DOD R&D contractors…

New comment by contemporary343 in "National Institutes of Health cuts support to universities"

contemporary343 — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 04:42:03 +0000

The worst part is that it is immediate and retroactive to ongoing grants. This will immediately cause every single academic and medical research center to have an unsustainable deficit. It will simply cost too much to actually have researchers do the grants. They might return money to NIH and lay off faculty annd grad students.

I anm almost certain this will get a TRO from a federal judge while it’s litigated given how insane this is.

DOGE staffer resigns over racist posts

contemporary343 — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 20:55:06 +0000

Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/tech/doge-staffer-resigns-over-racist-posts-d9f11a93

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42966412

Points: 145

# Comments: 105

New comment by contemporary343 in "[dead]"

contemporary343 — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 20:27:37 +0000

This is truly unconscionable and completely indefensible. All the Musk defenders have to realize that mass firing and zero base budgeting is fine and well for a private company like Twitter. But not for governments. Even if you don't believe in foreign aid, it is completely immoral and unethical to abandon all these people who are participating in clinical trials. You do it in an orderly way, allowing ongoing trials to finish the phase they are in.

The cool technologies that could protect cities from dangerous heat

contemporary343 — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 15:21:57 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02760-4

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41368567

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

New comment by contemporary343 in "Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production"

contemporary343 — Fri, 03 May 2024 19:24:15 +0000

This is a great entrepreneurial story too. Colin began this company out of his PhD research at Stanford a decade ago. A long, steady grind and finally out to production. Kudos to him and his team - a very rare accomplishment, and inspiring to see.

David Sacks, Chamath all in for Trump in 2024

contemporary343 — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 16:14:39 +0000

Article URL: https://puck.news/david-sacks-all-in-for-trump-2024/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40146160

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by contemporary343 in "Some colleges will soon charge $100k a year – how did this happen?"

contemporary343 — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 22:48:33 +0000

Worth remembering that ~2/3 of U.S. students in college are in public colleges and universities, not private ones like Vanderbilt. Prices have gone up there too (especially since state governments subsidize their public universities significantly less than they used to), but they are still pretty good deals given U.S. GDP per capita. In many states they can also be practically free depending on income level and typically provide excellent educations and career opportunities for most students.

New comment by contemporary343 in "'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing in Gaza"

contemporary343 — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 17:33:55 +0000

I’m really not sure why this got flagged. It seemed like a well sourced and technology-focused article. Independent of this particular conflict, such automated decision making has long been viewed as inevitable. If even a small fraction of what is being reported is accurate it is extraordinarily disturbing.