Hacker News: esja

New comment by esja in "10th Rule of Programming (2003)"

esja — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 09:51:17 +0000

Worth noting Robert Morris's addendum: "Including Common Lisp".

New comment by esja in "Critical theory is radicalizing high school debate"

esja — Sun, 30 Jul 2023 09:47:43 +0000

It was Muhammad Ali, after the Rumble in the Jungle against George Foreman in Zaire in 1974.

On his return he was asked what he thought of Africa and said “Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat!”

New comment by esja in "Layoffs push down scores on Glassdoor – how companies respond"

esja — Fri, 26 May 2023 11:54:28 +0000

You're right, and it's getting worse, but even in 1962 there were problems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Image:_A_Guide_to_Pseudo-e...

The internet accelerated the decline by 1) destroying media business models, leading to seasoned editors and fact checkers being replaced by cheaper twenty-something Twitter addicts, and 2) driving consumers into filter bubbles and feeding their confirmation bias.

Even NPR are deteriorating. For example, this aged extremely poorly: https://twitter.com/NPRpubliceditor/status/13192811012239400...

New comment by esja in "Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco"

esja — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 13:58:20 +0000

Zurich

New comment by esja in "Salesforce is shuttering Slack’s remote work research group Future Forum"

esja — Sat, 01 Apr 2023 17:37:00 +0000

In my experience the women who make it to these levels are no less domineering than the men, and often more so.

New comment by esja in "Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump"

esja — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 17:52:30 +0000

Yes, that’s the big unknown. It’s hard for any sort of anti-establishment populist to emerge. Trump is an example of this: he basically ran against both parties, was rendered ineffective, and they haven’t stopped trying to bury him. Ross Perot, Ron Paul & Bernie Sanders covered similar ground (albeit from different angles) and hit the same wall.

New comment by esja in "Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump"

esja — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 15:44:38 +0000

You’re right, it’s not obvious. And perhaps to strengthen your point, countries with compulsory voting (e.g. Australia) don’t seem to show any particular skew.

Regarding the original point, Pew published some interesting stats on voter preferences:

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/beyond-red-v...

According to this, progressives are a very small slice of the population, and nowhere near a majority even if you include adjacent groups.

New comment by esja in "Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump"

esja — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 12:24:47 +0000

It didn't happen that way either: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jul/11/joe-biden/...

He initially referred to UV light as a disinfection agent, and then to the "bleach". He was rambling about use inside the body and did mention "injection", but he wasn't specifically advocating something, and when asked to clarify a few moments later he explicitly said he didn't think it should be injected.

Was it loose talk and pretty dumb? Absolutely. Did the media exaggerate and lie about it for years as a political talking point? Of course! Such is life in modern America.

New comment by esja in "Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump"

esja — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 11:14:13 +0000

He never advocated injecting hydrochloric acid.

New comment by esja in "Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump"

esja — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 10:36:10 +0000

Those facts don't support your conclusion. The popular vote is not even close to "a majority of Americans". Something like 120 million American adults didn't even vote in 2016, versus around 66 and 63 million who voted for Clinton and Trump respectively. Clinton winning would still have been "minority rule" by this measure.

Also, broadly speaking, being progressive means wanting change and being conservative means being more comfortable with the status quo. It seems obvious that of the 120 million people who weren’t motivated to vote, more of those would be latent conservatives. Or at least, it’s very hard to see a progressive majority in there.

New comment by esja in "Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump"

esja — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 10:27:39 +0000

It's not wild. It's precisely what they did in 2015, as revealed by WikiLeaks: https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaig...

New comment by esja in "Credit Suisse sheds nearly 25%, key backer says no more money"

esja — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 05:53:50 +0000

There are a lot of cases where a small minority is heavily invested in a topic at the individual level, while the majority (who have an opposing view) are not. The small minority has the incentive, the energy, and the time to keep fighting for their narrative, while nobody in the majority makes the same effort as none of them individually have as much skin in the game. This dynamic plays out all the time on Wikipedia.

New comment by esja in "Credit Suisse sheds nearly 25%, key backer says no more money"

esja — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 20:02:53 +0000

Yes, but the SNB and FINMA (and the Federal government) will try many other things before it comes to that.

New comment by esja in "Credit Suisse sheds nearly 25%, key backer says no more money"

esja — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 16:16:59 +0000

You could always ask the Financial Stability Board:

https://www.fsb.org/2022/11/2022-list-of-global-systemically...

New comment by esja in "Credit Suisse sheds nearly 25%, key backer says no more money"

esja — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 14:05:21 +0000

How is that relevant? You said: "It does not have a significant retail presence." Meanwhile, CS does have a massive retail presence, in Switzerland, and has done for 150+ years.

New comment by esja in "Credit Suisse sheds nearly 25%, key backer says no more money"

esja — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 13:27:15 +0000

What? CS has a massive retail bank. It’s their most profitable division and has existed for 150+ years.

New comment by esja in "Credit Suisse sheds nearly 25%, key backer says no more money"

esja — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 13:25:46 +0000

CS operates in 50+ countries. All the largest entities have resolution/winddown plans agreed with their regulators. In reality they probably won’t be used because the SNB and Fed will fear contagion.

New comment by esja in "Credit Suisse sheds nearly 25%, key backer says no more money"

esja — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 13:21:51 +0000

They are a bit less important than they once were in terms of volume, but they are still massively interconnected with the rest of the system. There is zero chance they‘re just left to implode without governments and central banks stepping in.

New comment by esja in "Credit Suisse sheds nearly 25%, key backer says no more money"

esja — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 12:36:29 +0000

Not a chance of a natural implosion. CS is one of a very small number of globally systemically important banks.

New comment by esja in "The End of Silicon Valley (Bank)"

esja — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 13:11:43 +0000

"depositors lend their money to a bank, for which they are paid interest, and banks lend that money out"

... isn't how banking actually works.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/m...