Hacker News: hammock

New comment by hammock in "How to earn a billion dollars"

hammock — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 23:18:13 +0000

> It's clear to me that in order to get a billion, you have to swidle a lot of people out of their fair share of the billion.

For those who are sympathetic to this idea, look no further than China. They have a very good system (superior to US-style taxes) for ensuring that no one gets “too rich” and that excess returns are captured and redistributed “fairly”

New comment by hammock in "How to earn a billion dollars"

hammock — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 23:15:36 +0000

Markets have growth rates the same way that products do.

New comment by hammock in "How to earn a billion dollars"

hammock — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 23:06:13 +0000

Having been on HN for 15+ years I have found it fascinating to witness the fawning and adulation over pg blog posts completely reverse and everyone has turned on him now.

It used to be if you criticized anything in his blogs you’d get downvoted to oblivion. Now criticism is the norm.

As far as I can tell it’s less a change in pg’s viewpoints (though the topics have evolved, and he has gotten more transparent perhaps), but a change in the public reaction to them.

I’m not sure if it’s the same people though, might just be the new generation.

New comment by hammock in "How to earn a billion dollars"

hammock — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 22:59:15 +0000

Halfway through your second paragraph you started conflating income with wealth/capital.

The wealth controlled by a startup investor becomes earned income, in your words, when the founder receives pay for their work, in the form of cash or exercised options or whatever else.

To get that earned income, which is derived from wealth but is not the wealth, they have to earn it in the same way the wagies in your first paragraph earned it. The investor (on the board, presumably) has to vote him in as CEO and approve his pay package.

And just as retail customers don’t give their money away for no good reason, neither do investors.

New comment by hammock in "Woman Gets on Route 66. Then She Starts Hearing Music Coming from Her Tires"

hammock — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 14:42:10 +0000

And Mumbai. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=924979063386109

New comment by hammock in "Albania Is Not for Sale: Kushner's $4B Resort Triggers'Flamingo Revolution'"

hammock — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 23:44:26 +0000

Imagine thinking you can build an all inclusive resort or other 8fig+ development in a foreign backwater and NOT kick back revenues to the local mafia. Couldn’t be me. Good luck with that

Even Zuckerberg paid in an extra 10% ($20 million)over and above his land costs to fund affordable housing, conservation and a jobs program in Kauai to get the deal done

New comment by hammock in "Albania Is Not for Sale: Kushner's $4B Resort Triggers'Flamingo Revolution'"

hammock — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:47:39 +0000

> Don't forget that resorts et al typically belong to international capital. What does the local economy get out of it?

Same goes for any natural resource. Oil, precious metals, water, etc. Globalization feeds this behavior, but that’s a conversation people don’t usually want to have

New comment by hammock in "Albania Is Not for Sale: Kushner's $4B Resort Triggers'Flamingo Revolution'"

hammock — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:41:02 +0000

Is this meant to be an anti-Jewish remark? Or just eugenicist more generally

New comment by hammock in "Dopamine Fracking"

hammock — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 12:55:35 +0000

At a restaurant it’s hard because people use way too much and it’s expensive stuff. A solution could be tiny packaged packets of it, the way they do with butter (in part for much the same reason)

New comment by hammock in "Ask HN: What was your "oh shit" moment with GenAI?"

hammock — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 19:34:27 +0000

Sounds like a blown capacitor

New comment by hammock in "LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do"

hammock — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 14:56:33 +0000

AI review is never going to beat a fully resourced human review.

It might beat an underresourced human review, on time, efficiency, cost metrics. But on the metric of accuracy, throwing unlimited humans at a problem will still beat throwing unlimited AI at it

New comment by hammock in "Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say"

hammock — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:05:54 +0000

You seem to have forgotten to answer the question of an example.

Or when you said “they sure do” did you mean “they possibly do,” since no example is available but you can’t rule it out?

New comment by hammock in "Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say"

hammock — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:03:41 +0000

By all reports, the USA only has agreements not to spy on Five Eyes (plus secretly, Israel). Germany is not in that group. Ally has nothing to do with it.

And it sounds like you are setting up an untestable claim. Can’t help you there. Believe what you want.

New comment by hammock in "Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say"

hammock — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 20:08:17 +0000

That speaks to my comment (which was not sufficiently specified I guess) but it does not speak to “the USA spies on Israel” which is what I was replying to

New comment by hammock in "Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say"

hammock — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 19:50:00 +0000

> They sure do

Do you have an example?

New comment by hammock in "Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say"

hammock — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 19:40:00 +0000

Ah I forgot writing has magic powers. Especially between nation states. /s

In this case the writing part is not important.

New comment by hammock in "Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say"

hammock — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 19:36:48 +0000

Since the 1951 Angleton-Harel Secret Pact, there has been an unwritten agreement that CIA and Mossad will not spy on each others countries. Kiriakou (who is a wonk) confirmed as much in recent remarks.

But no one without at least a TS really knows

New comment by hammock in "Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say"

hammock — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 19:31:44 +0000

Same reason that FISA Amendments Act (2008) was passed less than two years after Mark Klein revealed Room 641A.

Same reason that CISA (2015) was passed less than two years after the Snowden revelations.

Once the secrets are open, the feds can codify them into law. They were never going to change their behavior.

New comment by hammock in "Astronauts told to return to ISS after sheltering over air leak repairs"

hammock — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:41:14 +0000

Air was no longer escaping at the local point of repair.

New comment by hammock in "Astronauts told to return to ISS after sheltering over air leak repairs"

hammock — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:38:09 +0000

I’m imagining a pool snail