Hacker News: laughing_man

New comment by laughing_man in "Job: Head of Stonehenge"

laughing_man — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 01:51:41 +0000

I would definitely take that job no matter how little it paid or how unpleasant it was. For awhile, just so I could put it on my resume.

New comment by laughing_man in "Starlink shifts hardware from one-time purchase to $10/month rental"

laughing_man — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 01:25:31 +0000

That's what my ISP does with the cable modem. Why not?

New comment by laughing_man in "Ultrafast machine learning on FPGAs via Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks"

laughing_man — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 01:14:11 +0000

Drone target recognition?

New comment by laughing_man in "We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued"

laughing_man — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 01:09:38 +0000

I'm pretty sick of everyone labeling points they don't like "whataboutism". The reason I brought it up is if you're going use that as a reason to get the SEC or Congress or whomever more involved you're going to have to come up with a reason beyond "I don't like Elon Musk".

New comment by laughing_man in "FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs"

laughing_man — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:58:56 +0000

Realistically, in this case, you're moving decision-making from unelected bureaucrats to unelected Congressional staff. It's an invitation for corruption without really improving the process.

New comment by laughing_man in "FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs"

laughing_man — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 19:50:12 +0000

Seems pointless to do this without also doing something about phone number spoofing.

New comment by laughing_man in "FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs"

laughing_man — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 19:48:04 +0000

There is a level of detail that isn't practical to include in law. It's pretty normal for Congress to sketch the general outline of regulation and require the relevant bureaucracy to fill in the details.

Though in this particular case, unless this is based on a change to the law it seems like an overreach by the FCC.

New comment by laughing_man in "We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued"

laughing_man — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 14:45:59 +0000

The structure isn't all that unusual, but I agree on the valuation.

New comment by laughing_man in "We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued"

laughing_man — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 14:43:08 +0000

This is not a new thing. Off the top of my head, I can think of similar arrangements at Meta, Alphabet, and the New York Times Company.

New comment by laughing_man in "Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M"

laughing_man — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:45:00 +0000

Seriously? This keeps happening over and over.

New comment by laughing_man in "New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker"

laughing_man — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 20:19:08 +0000

That's not how it works in my experience. And I'm old.

New comment by laughing_man in "New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker"

laughing_man — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 19:35:09 +0000

That's not the way it works. The "increase in area pricing" is just the result of adding new units. The older ones don't go up in value, so there's no increase in value to capture.

New comment by laughing_man in "New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker"

laughing_man — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 19:32:08 +0000

Nope. It's a lot of stuff like insulation regulations that require exterior walls that use 2x6s instead of 2x4s. That's not NIMBYism. Nor are all the taxes and fees.

New comment by laughing_man in "New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker"

laughing_man — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 12:17:56 +0000

Sure. Because people who can't find jobs go on disability. That's why we have record low labor force participation rate.

New comment by laughing_man in "New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker"

laughing_man — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 05:52:05 +0000

It's not bonkers if they refuse to work a job that isn't in their arbitrarily chosen field.

New comment by laughing_man in "New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker"

laughing_man — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 05:49:52 +0000

I'm childless, but I go through that with nieces and nephews. I decided to give them a lump sum as a high school graduation gift to do with as they please.

IMO you could learn a lot more, as a young person, starting a small business than you'll ever learn at college, and it'll cost less even if you fail. So I don't want to make it a "college fund" or anything like that.

New comment by laughing_man in "New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker"

laughing_man — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 05:46:19 +0000

It seemed like good advice as the manufacturing sector shrank.

New comment by laughing_man in "New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker"

laughing_man — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 05:43:51 +0000

Medicine, if you consider that a white collar job.

New comment by laughing_man in "New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker"

laughing_man — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 05:41:23 +0000

Big tech companies use their influence to push the "shortage" narrative in the media, because it gives Congress political cover to increase the H-1(b) cap.

I had a tech career spanning from the late '80s until the 2020s, and I read articles in major media outlets about a shortage every single year. In all that time we had a actual, bona fide shortage for about two years in the late '90s.

New comment by laughing_man in "New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker"

laughing_man — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 05:38:02 +0000

Yes. A lot of this is down to environmental restrictions and building codes. Every rule a good idea in isolation, but taken together they mean you can no longer build an inexpensive house.

I have a builder friend who told me in the SF East Bay he can't make money building houses except for 4000 sq ft luxury homes on tiny lots.