Hacker News: jonathankoren

New comment by jonathankoren in "California approves final high-speed rail link connecting San Francisco to LA"

jonathankoren — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 23:36:53 +0000

There’s no single answer to why infrastructure is ludicrously expensive in the United States. It’s too easy to delay, so the costs go up. (Especially in California with its multiple rounds of public feedback.) Laws requiring American contractors, mean no one has experience building large complex projects, so things get delayed. Add in contractors along every link in the chain charging a government job premium, and the fact that government agencies have been gutted so whose left is easily bamboozled by the private grifters, or forced to hire expensive consultants to do jobs that used be done more cheaply in house, it’s no wonder everything is expensive.

It’s simultaneously too much regulation, and too little government oversight.

https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs...

New comment by jonathankoren in "Fast Crimes at Lambda School"

jonathankoren — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 03:43:57 +0000

I do not care. People fuck up all the time. It’s not anyone’s job to bail them out from their actions.

New comment by jonathankoren in "Fast Crimes at Lambda School"

jonathankoren — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 03:30:41 +0000

It’s not about picking. It’s about doing it at all.

Now you’re active participant in a cover up. They want to delete something, edit something? Fine. The controls are there. Everyone knows that. But that’s not what this is. This is taking extraordinary action to gaslight and coverup. That’s what’s trash. It’s the secrecy. It’s changing of the archive. That’s what trash.

In all my decades of dealing with public forums, I have never seen this as something done in a reputable forum, outside of a court order.

It’s a betrayal of trust. The fact that you’re not defending it on the merits, but rather that it’s supposedly open to all that knew about the secret door is just the chef’s kiss of abuse of power. If I was asked to do this, I would quit.

Dang, every time you do this, it shows contempt to everyone on this forum. It’s absolute trash. It is bad, and you should feel bad. But of course, you don’t feel bad about doing it. You feel good about it.

New comment by jonathankoren in "Fast Crimes at Lambda School"

jonathankoren — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 01:35:13 +0000

This is a trash policy. It's reputation laundering as a service.

New comment by jonathankoren in "Lists"

jonathankoren — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 01:18:56 +0000

Nah. You just set the prize at top 10.

New comment by jonathankoren in "Fast Crimes at Lambda School"

jonathankoren — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 01:17:34 +0000

yOu cAn'T tRulLy bE fReE iF yOu cAn'T sELL yOuRsELf iNtO sLaVeRy.

I remember this take. It's the kind of thing that only makes sense in a dorm room full of financially secure people that ignore that this is simply creates a slave class of economically disadvantaged.

New comment by jonathankoren in "Fast Crimes at Lambda School"

jonathankoren — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 22:19:05 +0000

Equity in what property?

honk honk honk

New comment by jonathankoren in "Fast Crimes at Lambda School"

jonathankoren — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 19:14:20 +0000

Loans are a payment. These were a percentage of earnings. They are very different.

New comment by jonathankoren in "Fast Crimes at Lambda School"

jonathankoren — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 17:56:09 +0000

ISAs were indentured servitude. That's literally what they were. It was the single most scummy concept that Austin came up with and PaulG endorsed.

New comment by jonathankoren in "Lists"

jonathankoren — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 18:53:23 +0000

Can’t help but think making a list of people by karma just encourages karma farming

New comment by jonathankoren in "FTC sues Adobe for hiding fees and inhibiting cancellations"

jonathankoren — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 19:10:19 +0000

Are you sure you read the article? The very first sentence of the article is, "Enshittification is the pattern of decreasing quality observed in online services and products[.]" (Emphasis added.) If the quality remains the same, or improves, it's by definition not decreasing, and therefore not enshitification. Furthermore, as other people pointed out, this is a reference to two sided marketplaces.

Just because there's a new buzzword, doesn't mean it applies. In fact, it usually doesn't.

New comment by jonathankoren in "Trading cards with e-ink displays (2023)"

jonathankoren — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 18:28:20 +0000

It reminds me of the old West End Games / Legends description of the game sabacc in Star Wars. Instead of being played with normal paper cards as seen in Solo, the players received cards with screens on them At certain parts in the game, the cards would randomize. '

A completely baroque way of playing, but fits with a world where actively powered antigravity technology has replaced wheels.

New comment by jonathankoren in "FTC sues Adobe for hiding fees and inhibiting cancellations"

jonathankoren — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 18:18:39 +0000

It's not. The quality stayed the same, even improved. It's run of the mill monopoly pricing.

New comment by jonathankoren in "DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate"

jonathankoren — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 15:46:16 +0000

Your questions are right, but the conspiracy theory is dreadfully wrong. If you want a motivating force for banning, but not actually competing by leveling the field, it’s ideology. The US government doesn’t do subsidies (except when they do).

The saddest thing about these decline of American manufacturing, and the fragility of supply chains is that all of this was predicted 30 years ago, but Wall Street and the billionaire management class did their typical shortsighted profits taking instead of sustainability, soured on by ideological capture of both parties.

I often think about how the world would be different if the people actual won the Battle of Seattle.

New comment by jonathankoren in "U.S.-Saudi petrodollar pact ends after 50 years"

jonathankoren — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 21:05:44 +0000

You’re going to have to eliminate first past the post for that to work. Both parties are essentially coallitions. Christian nationalists and big business, and their apologists on one side, and everyone else on the other.

New comment by jonathankoren in "UFO civilization could be on Earth: Harvard researchers"

jonathankoren — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 19:32:48 +0000

I’m honestly surprised it wasn’t Avi Loeb when I saw, “Harvard researcher”

New comment by jonathankoren in "Silicon Valley's best kept secret: Founder liquidity"

jonathankoren — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 14:48:38 +0000

It is that easy. Employee 1 is getting paid below market. That’s why they offer 0.9% equity. Meanwhile, the founders are also getting paid. No one is working for free. One of the first things VCs tell you is to make yourself comfortable so you can concentrate on the company. That’s literally one of the reasons why VCs tell founders to sell equity early, to make up for lost income, while Employees 1+ has to ride the rocket into the ground.

It’s Baby’s First Labor Exploitation.

New comment by jonathankoren in "Silicon Valley's best kept secret: Founder liquidity"

jonathankoren — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 06:32:43 +0000

Yes. Because you’re literally the same as the founder, but getting waaaay less equity.

First employee is always a sucker

New comment by jonathankoren in "Elon Musk drops suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman"

jonathankoren — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 22:55:11 +0000

I'm sure Elon does get involved. The question is, does he get involved in a constructive way.

All signs point to "no". We know this, because of what the Tesla and SpaceX people he brought on to Twitter in early days after the acquission said. I believe the words were, "babysit", "distract", and "manage".

I'm sure some fanboy will mark me down, but this was discussed on this very forum when it happened.

New comment by jonathankoren in "Elon Musk drops suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman"

jonathankoren — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 22:50:43 +0000

Yeah but the emails with Elon show that the "open" and "nonprofit" part was always a fucking a scam.