Your last link has the officer claiming it doesn't give off heat like regular drones, but just like the OP story where a police officer claimed the "mystery residue" reacted "violently" to a lead pencil, what does that even mean? Can we get an A/B test of what this officer calls a "regular" drone on heat vision versus one of these mystery drones?

And oh yeah, at about 4:30 into that link, the reporter puts up his own "authentic drone footage" that I am absolutely certain is a perfectly normal airplane.

The airport shutdown was real, sure, but that was dumb wannabe sleuths who were going to "solve the problem" using their own drones, thereby becoming the problem, or smart trolls who knew exactly how best to get a laugh out of the gullible public.

Look at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CCSA, set the units to "percent change from year ago," and zoom out to "Max". The pandemic effect dwarfs anything else in the entire history of the unemployment program. I think future economic research may well have to discard the years 2020-2024 because the circumstances were so unique and the distortions were so severe.

In a private company, you can just say "I don't care if we lose 1-cent screws, just order more when we open the last big box of them." You don't ever have to count them, unless you notice that you're spending an awful lot of money on replacing them.

In a public company that is legally required to keep track of its assets, you have to keep track of stuff that is really not worth keeping track of. Even if that's only on a periodic basis, there are literally dozens, probably hundreds of new "just one more things" you have to spend time on in a public company.

Yes, all those "one more things" keep you honest and accountable, but it has real, and rising, costs that can distort rational economic decision-making.

There are definitely companies that are winning from the tech you pointed out, sure. The companies that make robotaxis and the companies that sell AI subscriptions are going to make bank.

But at an aggregate level, that robotaxi means a human tax driver is no longer working, and if every sales person has their own personal robot translator for talking to foreign clients, then none of them has a competitive edge over the others, they've just had to invest that money in order to avoid giving up a competitive edge.

That OP paper's argument is basically that the only rising tide that truly lifts all economic boats is being able to keep more of the money you make instead of having to spend it on interest or taxes. So the age-old wisdom of "just buy an index fund" may have run its course, and you will actually have to pay attention to valuations instead of just blindly buying the market going forward.

Zoom out to "Max" to get the full 60 year history. You can clearly see a full four decades of declining interest rates running from 1981-2020. That very neatly corresponds with the amazing stock market growth most HN readers, myself included, have grown up with.

The stock market growth is neatly correlated with declining interest rates, not with the actual value of the interest rates currently. That is, until the interest rates can't go any lower. The 10-year yield got as close as I hope it will ever get to zero back in 2020. There's nowhere to go but up from there.

For myself, I'm dusting off the old magic - a 60/40 stock/bond portfolio, with the stocks focused on value funds, plus a relatively small amount in "breakout" funds that could multiply a few times if technology goes the way I think it will. Maybe if interest fall a little bit I'll dial it to a 70/30 mix, but bonds are definitely part of the equation now.

Whether or not you think any of the companies funded by YCombinator[0] are actually worth their valuation, you have to realize that there will be fewer such startups if a tax on unrealized capital gains is passed, and that VC activity, along with the future startups chasing their money, absolutely will move to countries without such a tax.

Again, maybe you actually believe the startup scene in the US is worthless, in which case, go ahead and advocate for an unrealized gains tax Just be honest with yourself that it will entirely shut down sectors that others view as critical to the country's future dominance.

[0] https://www.ycombinator.com/companies

One problem with metamoderation is that once a particular forum becomes an echo chamber, even metamoderation will unconsciously but repeatably ignore "valid" information from the other side and amplify misinformation from their own side. But if the site owners specifically searched for good-faith users from multiple viewpoints to serve as the jury pool for metamoderation, this could be workable.

From the article:

> The machine's first specialty: preparing a tooth for a dental crown. Perceptive claims this is generally a two-hour procedure that dentists will normally split into two visits. The robo-dentist knocks it off in closer to 15 minutes.

So this robot is actually improving the dental experience for the patient, which will hopefully reduce anxiety as well as reducing costs.

When you borrow money from the bank, i.e. to fund the operations of a money-losing site like Reddit, ultimately the interest rate you pay on that loan is affected by the interest rates set by the Federal Reserve.

While interest rates were near zero, investors in money-losing companies like Reddit could justify just borrowing more money to keep the companies going, as the money was cheap.

But now with higher interest rates, the investors in Reddit, and other money-losing ventures, can no longer afford to just borrow more money to make up for the money they lost last year, they actually have to show a return or at least cut the losses to a level that the investor will tolerate. That means monetizing everything they can.

As to why use balloons instead of satellites, the most reasonable speculation I’ve seen is that they’re collecting signals intelligence (radio traffic, etc.) which is not accessible from orbital distances.

I, personally, would argue that enforcing overly harsh rules results in a net cost for society, due to the costs of enforcement, loss of productivity to society by those you put in jail, etc. But the motive behind these laws is not always just "muh morality," and it's not a sure bet that allowing people unfettered freedom in their personal life is a good thing for society.

Many Hacker News readers are in the same demographic that would be in contention for National Merit honors, so it seems pretty “on brand” for HN.

Yes, now, the National Merit organization will probably come up with a direct notification procedure, but it was not a failure on their part to assume that schools would act in their own self-interest.