Hacker News: jaybrendansmith

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit"

jaybrendansmith — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 18:58:34 +0000

I think this is spot on. Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be King, king ain't satisfied till he rules everything.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "Molotov cocktail is hurled at home of Sam Altman"

jaybrendansmith — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 14:57:04 +0000

One of most important things I've learned as I have gotten older is that optimization is all about degree. Is it good that housing prices are higher? No, clearly not. Is it good that I can get a 30-year mortgage when I am 25 and live in a house and eventually pay it off? Yes, it is good (I just paid it off last year.) Does the existence of that 30-year mortgage inflate the housing market? It definitely does if there is not enough housing. And yes I gladly paid 2x the cost of the house in interest, because I got to live in it the entire time vs. paying rent on someone else's asset. Good public policy must have specific aims in mind or there are many unintended consequences.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "SpaceX Pushes Back Crucial Starship Test Launch"

jaybrendansmith — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 14:38:00 +0000

Doing something 10x as big is 100x as difficult. And the last 10% takes 50% of the work. With that in mind, Starship is right on schedule. Something will be operational by 2030.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "Marc Andreessen's dangerously unexamined life"

jaybrendansmith — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 03:56:22 +0000

Marc is a poster boy for why a liberal arts education is essential.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms"

jaybrendansmith — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 23:00:13 +0000

But you cannot block them.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "US blindsides states with surprise settlement in Live Nation/Ticketmaster trial"

jaybrendansmith — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 04:58:58 +0000

Rock is truly dead. Regulatory capture disguised as antitrust enforcement.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "$800 Monthly Car Payments Are Hurting Car Sales"

jaybrendansmith — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 15:53:22 +0000

That too. I did a comparison with my brother recently, who lives in France. His effective net tax rate in France was 39%, my effective net tax rate in the US was 43%. That includes all taxes, what he gets from healthcare, etc. We really don't get a good deal here in the US, what we save in taxes gets eaten up by corporations.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep"

jaybrendansmith — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 15:47:06 +0000

Don't think of an elephant.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?"

jaybrendansmith — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 15:46:21 +0000

I gotta agree. All we need is corporate-run militaries and we're living in Heinlein's Friday. All the other dystopian predictions seem to be happening at once.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "What if the Hormuz closure will not be brief?"

jaybrendansmith — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 15:32:27 +0000

This is all a double bluff to solve Global Warming. Make it impossible to trade oil, everyone will be forced to switch to solar and wind.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep"

jaybrendansmith — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 17:28:48 +0000

This is my experience. It normally doesn't bother me, and I didn't think about it until I read this article, so now it is driving me crazy. Please let's stop posting articles about Tinnitus unless the article describes a CURE. Thanks.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "$800 Monthly Car Payments Are Hurting Car Sales"

jaybrendansmith — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:38:20 +0000

Cars are not expensive. A $60,000 car, when calculated for inflation, costs the same as a $30,000 care did in 2000. What's not kept up is wages, including the minimum wage, for most of America. Had the Epstein class allowed wages to grow alongside inflation, as had been done since 1950, nobody would be complaining about affordability.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "OpenAI agrees with Dept. of War to deploy models in their classified network"

jaybrendansmith — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 18:29:05 +0000

What part of "These people are fascists, and need to be stopped" are people failing to understand?

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "Ask HN: Is HN becoming more toxic?"

jaybrendansmith — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 15:28:17 +0000

Ironic that this post is flagged. But honestly, I probably sound like an extreme leftist in my comments. I can assure you that I am a political moderate, and would be considered a conservative in Europe because I am very pro-capitalist and pro-entrepreneur. But the political situation in the USA has swung so far to the right as to make it seem like I am a social democrat. And yes, those of us who are utterly horrified by what we are seeing and reading about are making some completely understandable noise on HN. I'm kinda horrified that more people are not, to be honest. The American experiment is a fragile thing, and as we teeter on the brink of losing it, I would hope most of us hackers would look at the world we've been able to build and understand better the foundations of freedom and democracy that keep it healthy.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "U.S. Cannot Legally Impose Tariffs Using Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974"

jaybrendansmith — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 15:20:00 +0000

Good to know. What I want to know is, who will stop him? If Congress impeaches, will the Senate ever move to convict him? His MO is to push everything to the limit and beyond, so even if they do, what's to stop him from ordering the military to attack Congress?

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "The Pentagon just threatened to blacklist Anthropic"

jaybrendansmith — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 02:16:45 +0000

Ironic that it is Anthropic that is actually focused on the thing that OpenAI was founded on ... safety.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "Robert Duvall has died"

jaybrendansmith — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 02:51:18 +0000

Agree. That film really stuck with me.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "FDA declines to review Moderna's mRNA flu shot"

jaybrendansmith — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 15:37:41 +0000

So we should feel better about this? And watch as Europe gets better vaccines? Apparently COVID and Flu vaccines have many health benefits. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-analysis-links-flu-va...

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "The three year myth"

jaybrendansmith — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 15:33:11 +0000

Disagree. I lost my job once from a toxic workplace. I did not realize at the time, but it really was, because of poor leadership. I immediately got a job at an excellent place that set up my future career. Had I not been laid off, I would have missed this opportunity. Every change is an opportunity, whether instigated by you or not. My advice now to my young self: Don't stay anywhere if you don't get promoted within 2-3 years UNLESS the place has an excellent culture.

New comment by jaybrendansmith in "US repeals EPA endangerment finding for greenhouse gases"

jaybrendansmith — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 00:45:59 +0000

Here to remind you that Obama deported more people than Trump, and did it peacefully.