Hacker News: litoE

New comment by litoE in "A 28-Year-Old DOGE Operative Gutted USAID. HR Had No Record of Him Working There"

litoE — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 21:25:58 +0000

And Pete Hegseth, our Secretary of War, wants to put all the US military on testosterone injections. That's really gender-affirming care.

New comment by litoE in "Elon Musk Just Gave Europe a Reason to Replace American Technology"

litoE — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 18:23:24 +0000

There's also the revised version of that poem that explains that while Casey was at the bat, his uncle Arnold was in the stands taking bets ...

New comment by litoE in "Why do we have so many meetings?"

litoE — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 16:29:58 +0000

https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediu...

New comment by litoE in "Every US Electrical Outlet Explained [video]"

litoE — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 15:43:43 +0000

The most common way to install the NEMA 5-15 outlets is vertically, with the two slots above and the round ground pin below. However, in the building where I live, while most outlets are installed that way, the outlets that are controlled by a wall switch are installed "upside-down", with the ground pin at the top which makes it easier to tell which are switched and which are not.

Also, I have noticed that at the (very large) medical center where all my doctors are, all outlets are installed "upside-down". These are the regular outlets where things like PCs are plugged in, and is true both in new and in very old buildings. Anyone have any idea why they would do that?

New comment by litoE in "Trump administration is suspending Microsoft from a green card program"

litoE — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 16:59:03 +0000

The more rational distinction between a dictator and a non-dictator is not how they came to power but how they can be removed from power.

New comment by litoE in "Updated Google Maps shows destruction of the city of Rafah"

litoE — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 03:58:32 +0000

The only requirement to join the world's leading association of genocide scholars is paying a $30 membership fee. No expertise required. This makes it trivial to manipulate the association for propaganda purposes. Its declaration that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza was approved by less than 20% of its members. The remaining 80% were never even asked or never voted on it. An acquaintance of mine has been a member since 2013 and is a real scholar with genuine expertise on the Rwandan Genocide. She was not made aware that this resolution was being proposed and learned of its adoption in the press.

New comment by litoE in "English: A vs. An"

litoE — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 05:01:13 +0000

But I bet she drives a Recreational Vehicle instead of an Recreational Vehicle.

New comment by litoE in "Show HN: Dictámelo, MIT-licensed voice dictation with local and cloud models"

litoE — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 18:39:28 +0000

Dictámelo? Does it take dictation only if you have an Argentinian accent? :-)

New comment by litoE in "GOP carpetbagger claims she's not charged with fraud – records say otherwise"

litoE — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 02:42:17 +0000

> Because she stood little chance of winning even the state party didn't investigate her background either.

I guess they never heard of a certain George Santos either.

New comment by litoE in "Internet centralization and the original sin of NAT"

litoE — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 18:01:59 +0000

Yes. My ISP will rent me a single IPv4 address for $10 per month. Or I can use DHCP, where my IPv4 address can change at their whim.

New comment by litoE in "Trump Signs Order Renaming Lake Ontario as 'Lake America' in the US"

litoE — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 18:51:36 +0000

A move that will draw gasps of admiration in every kindergarten in America.

New comment by litoE in "Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America"

litoE — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 18:46:23 +0000

A move that will draw gasps of admiration in every kindergarten in America.

New comment by litoE in "The Tariff Cost: analysis of the costs to Americans from new tariffs on Canada"

litoE — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 22:00:16 +0000

It's not the foreign producer who must raise her prices to pay for the tax. It's the local importer. The net effect on the consumer is that the price of imported goods goes up so then, as you say, the local producers can raise their prices and increase their profits.

New comment by litoE in "Self hosted email continues to steeply decline"

litoE — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 16:49:56 +0000

I don't understand how independent health professionals can avoid using self-hosted email. Think of your neighborhood psychologist: any email she sends to or receives from a patient or potential patient should be completely confidential, down to the email address of the correspondents. It's no secret that Google and Microsoft "read" the emails they send and receive and mine them for information.

And yet, a quick search of "psychologists near me" in Google Maps gives me a list of professionals most of whose email addresses have MX records pointing to Google servers.

New comment by litoE in "White House drafting executive order linking vaccines and autism"

litoE — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 00:47:36 +0000

If you are going to change pi, make it 3. That way maybe some people in the Government can also understand it.

New comment by litoE in "U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a sudden reversal"

litoE — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 00:17:13 +0000

> teachers usually remain on payroll throughout the summer.

That is not exactly accurate. When I was teaching, my salary was for 9 months only. I was paid in 12 monthly installments to smooth out my income, but technically I was not on the University's payroll during the summer months. That allowed me to seek full-time employment elsewhere (e.g. consulting) during the summer which was not allowed during the other 9 months.

New comment by litoE in "Obviously, DOGE Did Not Save Money"

litoE — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 05:50:02 +0000

I'm not rich, but I give a lot of money every year to charity, to try to help those who need help. The United States is the richest country in the world. It was also giving to charity to help those who badly needed help. It was a small amount compared to its budget, and we called it USAID. To protect the money from being scammed by those running the countries we were helping, the US itself administered those programs as much as possible. We know how much Trump donates to charity: bupkis (read about the Donald J. Trump Foundation) and I have a pretty good inkling that Musk donates even less.

New comment by litoE in "Obviously, DOGE Did Not Save Money"

litoE — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 04:32:46 +0000

National Review has been a critic of Trump since before he was elected for his first term in 2016.

New comment by litoE in "Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak"

litoE — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 22:47:51 +0000

There's also the wifely we, meaning "you", as in "we need to take out the trash."

New comment by litoE in "Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard"

litoE — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 19:59:59 +0000

In the 1980s a company called Quotron developed a contactless keyboard. The main circuit board contained a bunch of LEDs and some sort of photo diodes or photo cells, all arranged in a grid. The keys were simply plungers that when pressed down interrupted the light beams shining into some of the receivers. The firmware then decided which key had been pressed and generated the appropriate code. The keyboard itself was huge. Us software people used to joke that, in a pinch, it could be used as a surfboard.

One of the advantages was that you could pour a cup of coffee into the keyboard and it would just keep working.