Hacker News: drweevil

New comment by drweevil in "Why does America hate AI?"

drweevil — Sat, 07 Nov 2026 19:01:15 +0000

People in the US have a sense that the economy is rigged against them. (Just try to obtain health insurance, for example. Go ahead, it's open-enrollment season right now!) AI has become the poster child of this inequity. From the perspective of the average person, AI is all downsides, with no upsides:

AI will replace you in the workplace. So say the AI bros themselves!

AI will transfer wealth from the poor to the wealthy. See above.

AI will bring on the apocalypse! Again, according to the AI bros.

AI infrastructure takes land and other resources away from other uses (food, e.g.), pollutes the environment non-AI beneficiaries live in, raises our energy costs. Worse, the data center issue has demonstrated the undemocratic nature of our AI "policy", such as it is. People being arrested at public hearings for expressing dissenting views, and even body-slammed, is not a good look. In WV, where I live, the ability to regulate data center siting has been taken away from local communities altogether. Again, not a good look for democracy.

So, what makes all this worthwhile and worthy of support? Anything? Winning the "AI war" with China? Why is this important?

Taking the human out of human experience simply is not appealing nor is it worth the huge societal cost Sam Altman says we should pay for this technology.

New comment by drweevil in "Meta Warns Midterm Backlash Threatens AI Data Centers"

drweevil — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 15:35:56 +0000

>"No source establishes that data center opposition produced a specific share of any winning margin."

That may be the case with respect to candidate winning margins. However, there were 41 data center related ballot initiatives in 10 states, and, according to CNBC, "Voters backed restrictions or rejected pro-development measures in nearly every contest with results available Wednesday, with Harwood, North Dakota, the exception." This provides a clear picture of how voters feel about this issue.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/04/data-center-ballot-measures-...

New comment by drweevil in "Meta Warns Midterm Backlash Threatens AI Data Centers"

drweevil — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 15:19:28 +0000

Agree. I wonder what the frontier AI companies are doing about this. Are they researching how to make these models more efficient? Or are they all in on more data, more power?

New comment by drweevil in "Tech leaders need an urgent rethink of their political strategy"

drweevil — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 14:07:20 +0000

The tech industry's approach to siting data centers has been arrogant, high-handed and dismissive of the concerns of local communities. Local governments have been suborned, with industry even going so far as imposing NDAs, which have no place in democratic governance. In some states the state government has been lobbied to pass laws removing control of the issue from local governments.

The article's assessment that this "political strategy [...] has left them closely allied, in the public’s imagination, to a failing Republican administration" misses the mark. It is rather this demonstrated lack of respect for local communities that has prompted a nearly universal non-partisan backlash.

New comment by drweevil in "Kemi Badenoch says Africans should apologise for slavery"

drweevil — Wed, 04 Nov 2026 23:40:59 +0000

The article was on reparations to Caribbean nations from the Atlantic slave trade, not current day slavery.

New comment by drweevil in "Which hobby do you think is most diverting and pleasurable?"

drweevil — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 14:12:31 +0000

I was a beekeeper for 10 years, loved it. I learned a lot about life and living, and how other creatures do it. (I also learned a lot about agricultural chemicals, unfortunately). The bee yard was a great place for meditation. I would sit near the hives for hours, watching them go about their business, lulled into peace by the background drone of activity. There is also scope for using woodworking skills, for those who like that.

New comment by drweevil in "Inverse Zitron: An Investment Strategy"

drweevil — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 00:43:52 +0000

>"The Soviets also spent seventy years predicting that capitalism would collapse any day now."

If anything has the chops to prove both Zitron AND the Soviets right, it's AI.

New comment by drweevil in "How a simple UTI turns into a $1,756 bill"

drweevil — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 14:34:51 +0000

"Intuitive Health,the private equity-backed company..."

Well there's your problem.

New comment by drweevil in "Meta launched a new AI optimism ad set to a song about human extinction"

drweevil — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 13:33:27 +0000

Yup. Look at Palantir. What government wouldn't want an All Seeing Eye of Sauron? Their client list is telling.

New comment by drweevil in "US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search"

drweevil — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 01:04:57 +0000

While I like the idea behind GrapheneOS, I'd rather not place myself in jeopardy of some ridiculous charge like this one. I prefer to travel with a travel device, some inexpensive phone and/or laptop that contains nothing interesting. If they then wish to take it from me because I won't unlock it, then have at it! That said, the situation with respect to our Bill of Rights at the border has gotten ridiculous.

New comment by drweevil in "ASK HN: Why has technology become so unreliable?"

drweevil — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 13:41:25 +0000

> Forget the ridiculous AI hype, forget about the lack of ethics and a moral compass;

I’m afraid these things are related. Time-to-market and short-term profitability are paramount, trumping good customer relations.

My sister has an old Macbook Pro. I asked her to save it for me when she’s done with it, it’s such a solid machine. I still don’t have it. So, do you build something excellent that your customers love, that lasts a decade or more? Or do you build something that breaks in 3 years and allows you to sell a replacement? This is where the ethics and moral compass come in.

New comment by drweevil in "Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight"

drweevil — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 13:04:55 +0000

In 2004 I visited my family in Valencia, Spain. There was a local construction boom. There were family owned shops everywhere. Bakeries, fruit stands, etc. When I went back in 2014, it seems everything had changed. The shops were gone. The construction had slacked off. Instead there were now giant supermarkets and superstores. They were on the Euro now. My cousins blamed the EU for this. I'm assuming something similar happened in Italy, tho it is not mentioned in the article, which instead tends to blame the victims. When you replace the local food supply chain with prepared branded foods (Nutella, etc.), you get this. The EU has been great for European capitalists, but a detriment to the people in Europe.

PS This was one of the major complaints of the long forgotten yellow-vests protests in France.

New comment by drweevil in "Government orders GitHub to remove Bluetooth-based chat app Bitchat: Jack Dorsey"

drweevil — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 13:26:34 +0000

> “The application enables anonymous communication without mandatory user registration, phone number verification, or centralised logging of communications.“

Those are features, not bugs ;) Seriously tho, the I4C is describing face-to-face communication. Is that illegal too? Perhaps the problem here is not the protesters, but an overreaching government.

New comment by drweevil in "Pixar lays off over 100 Bay Area workers using ElastiGirl letterhead"

drweevil — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 21:48:48 +0000

> “When our teams are aligned and working in a connected way, we can build on our strengths, reach people wherever they are, and deepen their relationship with Disney.”

God I hate these people. The irony is that any half-decent AI can say stuff like that.

New comment by drweevil in "The Collapse at Netflix Signals the End of Audience Capture"

drweevil — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:32:17 +0000

This is a death-spiral. If a company instead adopts a sustainable, customer-centered business strategy they will be punished in the stock market for "stagnant growth," the CEO gets replaced and or a hostile takeover occurs, and there we go again.

New comment by drweevil in "Jeff Bezos Is Funding a Wild Hunt for the Brain's 'Core Algorithm'"

drweevil — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 13:55:26 +0000

This is the right idea. But this is not a problem amenable to le startupism and the VC culture, which are susceptible to jumping up a local maxima faster than a flea jumps. There is likely not a “core algorithm”. Unlocking how the brain works will require sustained, patient research work with committed long-term funding. Something China is capable of doing.

New comment by drweevil in "On reading Iain M. Banks"

drweevil — Mon, 18 May 2026 15:32:46 +0000

>"Among readers who quote Player of Games and Consider Phlebas, Surface Detail tends to be the Banks novel they haven’t quite gotten around to. They’ve not noticed who it is about."

Exactly.

New comment by drweevil in "Hotels are slashing World Cup rates as FIFA cancels rooms"

drweevil — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 12:57:23 +0000

Those very rates are a big turn off. We’ve heard of the expensive tickets, and mass transit rates have skyrocketed. Even locals will be priced out. FIFA has forgotten what this is all about. 48 teams, 3 host countries, premium pricing, it’s all a bit much.

New comment by drweevil in "Why the Washington Post Lost in Virginia"

drweevil — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 12:20:04 +0000

You can argue whether a billionaire owner of big media is a “MAGA billionaire”. But you cannot argue whether they’re billionaires. Most of the Post’s readers understand which of those descriptors is truly relevant.

New comment by drweevil in "Theft Is Now Progressive Chic"

drweevil — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 02:42:45 +0000

It’s not theft if it’s done at scale, I guess.