Hacker News: dreambuffer

New comment by dreambuffer in "Was modern art a CIA psy-op? (2020)"

dreambuffer — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 05:34:56 +0000

The CIA hires "actual" artists, all the time and in great numbers. They have a creative writing division.

New comment by dreambuffer in "Why does the U.S. military seem stymied in the war with Iran?"

dreambuffer — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 18:45:03 +0000

The logistics required to win intercontinental wars against a reasonably large and well-defended country are simply beyond human organisational capabilities and it's only getting harder as defence gets better and easier, and the world becomes more interconnected.

Israel have Monkey's Pawed themselves. They wanted Trump to win because they knew he would be malleable to start a war in Iran. But he's also Trump, which means every decision he makes comes with a big asterisk.

New comment by dreambuffer in "That post never existed. Stop listening to that thing"

dreambuffer — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 19:01:31 +0000

She's not wrong at all about her rhetorical implication (being, some information requires more than simple systems can provide), but she has concluded incorrectly that a car which does not know how to avoid a busy route is useless technology, or that the problem can only be solved by inventing life.

New comment by dreambuffer in "China’s open-weights AI strategy is winning"

dreambuffer — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:32:07 +0000

Well, yes, because the US government has staked the future of the country's GDP on AI. They're even divesting from science as a whole and putting it into data centers.

New comment by dreambuffer in "John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment under FTC settlement"

dreambuffer — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:19:29 +0000

There's a cognitive dissonance on this site where everyone claims to hate this attempt at regulatory capture, yet they would do it too if it was their tech company and call it a "moat", and many are actively working towards that.

New comment by dreambuffer in "Is The Economist Always Wrong?"

dreambuffer — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 03:40:56 +0000

You don't have to be self-employed to have skin in the game, that's ridiculous.

How many op ed writers have tried to have skin in the game at all? How many of them produce writing which is actually high quality and not just concern trolling about China or what have you?

New comment by dreambuffer in "Is The Economist Always Wrong?"

dreambuffer — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 03:04:14 +0000

Taleb made a lot of money trading, his firm failed but running a successful business is not trivial and his ideas ended up working when he took up an advisory role rather than an executive role. Unlike other financial "influencers", he actually seems to understand mathematics to a high degree.

Hardly your typical economist op ed writer.

New comment by dreambuffer in "We charge $10k a week to delete AI-generated code"

dreambuffer — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:45:30 +0000

I will do this work for substantially less money, $200 per week.

Contact me agngel@proton.me

New comment by dreambuffer in "Building relationships with customers through support didn't turn out as hoped"

dreambuffer — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 05:28:19 +0000

Porkbun is an interesting case study for this support model. They reply to everything personally, and for me the important thing is not that I'm talking to a human, but that I'm not hearing corporatespeak.

I would even be happy to talk to a bot if it was fine-tuned to speak like a regular person instead of a corporate drone.

New comment by dreambuffer in "Al Vigier: Canada's AI strategy shouldn't include secret Palantir bills"

dreambuffer — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 04:07:39 +0000

You know Palantir is not an LLM company, right? Their core product is just data integration systems.

New comment by dreambuffer in "Al Vigier: Canada's AI strategy shouldn't include secret Palantir bills"

dreambuffer — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 03:52:37 +0000

There likely isn't a Canadian Alex Karp. Karp is a unique byproduct of American culture. The specific brand of arrogance, hunger for war, and callous disregard for human life, all in service of a right wing ideological project, is simply not as present in Canada because Canada is a middle power with more liberal values who prefer diplomacy over war.

New comment by dreambuffer in "Africans Are Turning to Starlink"

dreambuffer — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 18:51:32 +0000

We barely have a space industry, how are we meant to compete with starlink? We need foreign investment. We also need protections against foreign investment. We also need to uplift south africans left behind by apartheid. That is the purpose of the law.

You are just wrong, the law says the local partner must be economically productive, and starlink is allowed to choose them, so if they don't contribute to starlink's business, that is starlink's fault. This is now the second time I have told you this, so you are wilfully misunderstanding me. Conversation over.

New comment by dreambuffer in "Africans Are Turning to Starlink"

dreambuffer — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 19:40:56 +0000

Although your claim is literally untrue as the grid has been upgraded, the answer is: mostly the apartheid government. They left the ANC with a grid that served only 10% of the population, which makes it very difficult to upgrade, especially in a country with rampant poverty leading to cable theft, corruption, and general lack of infrastructure.

New comment by dreambuffer in "Africans Are Turning to Starlink"

dreambuffer — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 19:35:03 +0000

You can easily look up the lies he has made about white genocide, which even white south africans have debunked.

You accuse me of deception for arguing that, in a democracy, the law must be written by averages and not by a few individuals who want starlink. Ok.

I'm only addressing those points because you're showing some signals of bad faith conversation and general meanness so I don't want to respond to anything until I know you are good faith.

New comment by dreambuffer in "Africans Are Turning to Starlink"

dreambuffer — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 18:16:20 +0000

You are at this point purposefully trying to misunderstand me so you can let out your anger. Conversation is over, sorry.

New comment by dreambuffer in "Africans Are Turning to Starlink"

dreambuffer — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 16:44:21 +0000

No you misunderstand severely, some risks are unavoidable and unknowable. You need a telecommunications industry, you can't just eliminate all risks associated with it. So instead you make them pay a kind of insurance to operate in it, just in case the leader of the country you're allowing in one day decides to target your country (sound familiar?).

Of course, another goal is just to empower previously disenfranchised groups and contribute to the economy of South Africa.

New comment by dreambuffer in "Africans Are Turning to Starlink"

dreambuffer — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 14:37:17 +0000

Black people decide every few years by voting for representatives who uphold these policies. There has never been a motion supported by the majority of black south africans to get rid of B-BBEE, only foreign people like you seem to have a problem with it and that is because you don't understand what it is trying to do and you (probably) hate the idea of reparations for apartheid. Or at the very least you support aggressive pro-market policies that south africans do not want.

Additionally, the owner of Starlink hates South Africa (I never said black south africans, but you know), because he has spread lies about genocide occurring here.

New comment by dreambuffer in "Africans Are Turning to Starlink"

dreambuffer — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 12:32:58 +0000

Again, I never said it was zero sum, but thanks for being condescending. I said it was close to zero sum. Black south africans may get some jobs, maybe some internet, but the profit entirely goes to foreign entities and white south africans (in a theoretical model).

The law's intent was never to be racist, and while outcomes vary, the effect does not actually harm white south africans on average. So both the intent and the effect is non-racist.

New comment by dreambuffer in "Africans Are Turning to Starlink"

dreambuffer — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 12:12:18 +0000

Economic opportunity for black south africans is close to zero sum when all the profit goes to a foreign entity and white south africans.

Separately, kneecapping starlink does a lot for our country by preventing a man who hates us from abusing our laws and spying on our citizens.

New comment by dreambuffer in "Africans Are Turning to Starlink"

dreambuffer — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 12:00:58 +0000

It hedges national security risk by having 30% of the profits stay within South Africa, so that if the foreign company decides to use their company to, say, spy on South Africans, they at least have to fund our key industries to do so. That is why B-BBEE applies to Telecomms and other key industries.