Hacker News: justin66

New comment by justin66 in "Credit card debt rises to $1.26T, nearing all-time record"

justin66 — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 18:04:47 +0000

> As someone who's very well informed on that corner of financial markets, you probably realize that China controls much more than $660 billion of US Treasury securities.

How much do they control? Please cite your sources.

I can find some information about "shadow holdings" (exciting!) held in Luxembourg and Belgium [0] but I cannot imagine those treasuries would add up to a multiple of what's officially on the books and held by the Chinese government and Chinese companies. Interesting thought, though.

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/19/central-banks-offload-us-tre...

New comment by justin66 in "A U.S. Strategy to Prevent the Creation of Mirror Life"

justin66 — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 15:49:37 +0000

I’m sure smart and well intentioned American leaders will act for the global collective good, since that’s totally the way things work now.

New comment by justin66 in "Credit card debt rises to $1.26T, nearing all-time record"

justin66 — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 01:22:54 +0000

Just Googling here: 10% of China's holdings would be $66B. Daily trading volume for US Treasuries is $1.2T.

The most the Fed has ever held on its balance sheet is $5.8T.

Maybe I missed a zero somewhere but China's sale of 10% of their holdings seems in isolation like an awfully manageable problem. A different discussion if there were a ton of other crazy stuff going on in the world economy and they just piled on, perhaps.

New comment by justin66 in "An image can overflow"

justin66 — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 01:07:22 +0000

It's a schooner!

New comment by justin66 in "Count Binface receives over a quarter of votes in Clacton by-election"

justin66 — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 17:57:50 +0000

You're totally right, at this moment he must be seriously reconsidering his career as a politician.

New comment by justin66 in "Delphi 13 Community Edition Is Now Available"

justin66 — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 23:54:52 +0000

I played with the first, somewhat buggy version and what I remember very vividly was that they introduced a second version (and charged for it) without fixing the first one.

New comment by justin66 in "Thanks to social media, canned sardines are a scarcity on the supermarket shelf"

justin66 — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 14:02:17 +0000

> They're in stock on Amazon.ca for goodness sake.

I'd expect extremely high prices buying them this way.

New comment by justin66 in "5th Heat Dome Expands Across Europe: 40°C+ Target Western and Central Europe"

justin66 — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 15:31:22 +0000

Characterizing technology whose presence or absence will affect the survival of a lot of people as a “bandaid” is not going to advance the dialog in the way you seem to want.

New comment by justin66 in "5th Heat Dome Expands Across Europe: 40°C+ Target Western and Central Europe"

justin66 — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 15:24:24 +0000

I think we can all agree that if we just stop talking about climate change, maybe it will go away.

Taxpayers Funded a $533M Artillery Plant That Made Nothing

justin66 — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 12:47:41 +0000

Article URL: https://www.propublica.org/article/general-dynamics-artillery-factory-failed

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49271584

Points: 11

# Comments: 3

New comment by justin66 in "2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out"

justin66 — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 14:52:12 +0000

> they're going to have to start selling future chips that cannot possibly be physically produced.

…but that would be unethical.

cue the laugh track

New comment by justin66 in "Quake – 30th Anniversary Update"

justin66 — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 16:40:09 +0000

> Quake Live has held it down since 2012-ish, and was always a free-to-play game.

They had subscriptions for a while.

New comment by justin66 in "Amiga clarifies Commodore rights and the future of AmigaOS"

justin66 — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 12:42:04 +0000

> a C64 with "the commodore name" printed on it

It's really not mysterious why something like that would find an audience, even if it's not everyone's cup of tea. Their beige C64 Ultimate is a well-executed clone of the legendarily popular original. Compare and contrast with some of the really bad stuff that has had the "Atari" name slapped on it in the 21st century.

Of course the phone is stupid. Regarding the Amiga:

Amiga is now in a position to restore the iconic SoftVoice speech synthesis to AmigaOS. Several versions of the historic Boing Ball demo are also being prepared for release.

Come on. The boing ball demo. I don't know what that is but doesn't it sound awesome?

New comment by justin66 in "U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war"

justin66 — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 19:39:01 +0000

> For the most-dominant military power in the world to "whoopsy" run out of weapons because of a low-stakes engagement isn't readily believable.

Wow, yeah, you'd need to have morons at the top of the chain of command and subordinates afraid to speak out in order for something like that to happen. Nothing like the US government today at all.

New comment by justin66 in "U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war"

justin66 — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 12:21:33 +0000

And when an F-15E was shot down they got spooked. They're relying heavily on missiles because it doesn't cause a multiday story in the news when one is shot down on its way to the target (and because they're incapable of thinking more than one move ahead, and because it's not their money...).

Netflix Sued for $105M After Hard Drive of Nicolas Cage Movie Stolen from Office

justin66 — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:21:22 +0000

Article URL: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/netflix-lawsuit-unreleased-nicolas-cage-movie-1236660288/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49122801

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by justin66 in "Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory"

justin66 — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 13:40:33 +0000

> I see it more like a couple of misbehaving misfits.

Those zany kids!

New comment by justin66 in "John C. Dvorak has died"

justin66 — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 23:50:08 +0000

I cannot imagine why you find the statements above odd but compare and contrast:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_C._Dvorak&ol...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Dvorak

Enough scrolling through the edit history and you could determine when wikipedia finally got their shit together on his birthdate.

New comment by justin66 in "How Has Roman Concrete Lasted for Millennia? 1,900-Year-Old Latrine Offers Clues"

justin66 — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 13:52:23 +0000

This is a good link and the Practical Engineering guy doesn’t appear to reference a “myth.” Which is a good thing, because there’s nothing mythological about the high performance of Roman concrete.

New comment by justin66 in "The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes"

justin66 — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 13:14:38 +0000

Sometimes the jokes just don't land.