Hacker News: michtzik

New comment by michtzik in "EFF is leaving X"

michtzik — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 23:10:54 +0000

TFA mentions that EFF continues to post on Facebook and Instagram.

New comment by michtzik in "Nasdaq's Shame"

michtzik — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 02:34:51 +0000

Who is contractually obligated to buy?

New comment by michtzik in "If you tax them, will they leave?"

michtzik — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 22:02:13 +0000

> I explained that anything less than a progressive tax was going to make the poor pay more and the wealthy pay less.

Here's a formally-verified proof in Lean that with a flat tax, if you have more income, then you pay more tax: https://live.lean-lang.org/#codez=JYWwDg9gTgLgBAWQIYwBYBtgCM...

The theorem uses one important assumption: that the flat tax rate is positive.

New comment by michtzik in "U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office"

michtzik — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 02:40:29 +0000

Yup, this inspires great confidence in the source.

> 10,109 ... left their jobs

> departures outnumbered new hires last year by a ratio of 11 to one

That means that there were ~919 new hires, and thus it seems that 10,109 minus 919 equals

> a net loss of 4224

It appears that the "11 to one" ratio is the average, across agencies, of each individual ratio. It's left as an exercise to the reader to determine whether that average has any meaning at all.

New comment by michtzik in "Recovering Anthony Bourdain's Li.st's"

michtzik — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 19:40:21 +0000

If you only eat it when you have a grandma that remembers how to make it, I would consider that the very definition of "traditional". And also interesting to hear about!

(But yea, perhaps not "everyone here eats" in that case. And yet, if everyone knew what it was -- even if it's "what grandma used to eat" -- I'd even let that slide. I don't eat what my grandparents ate, but I know more about it than a foreigner.)

New comment by michtzik in "Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads"

michtzik — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 23:14:49 +0000

Previously in the United States, schools taught "all men are created equal" to people that could see that they weren't being treated that way.

Similarly, today we teach the importance of "universal suffrage" to kids, an entirely disenfranchised class.

Apparently you think there are some characteristics of children that should disqualify them from voting. Others think similarly of other groups.

New comment by michtzik in "Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads"

michtzik — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 20:04:32 +0000

Of course this is just a snide remark that doesn't contribute to the conversation, but it can be interesting to dive deeper:

For example, why don't the kids themselves have the right to vote?

New comment by michtzik in "YouTube says it'll bring back creators banned for Covid and election content"

michtzik — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 15:04:27 +0000

Looking at the flagged comments throughout this thread, perhaps https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45354759 is the closest to being flag-killed for a different opinion.

New comment by michtzik in "Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';"

michtzik — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 13:18:32 +0000

The Caspian pipeline you mention (CPC) goes through ... Russia. And CPC Blend again blends in Russian oil.

So we find that, once again, Germany is buying "Kazakh" oil that is transported by Russia and mixed with Russian oil.

New comment by michtzik in "Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';"

michtzik — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 18:12:44 +0000

Here's a news story about how Druzhba supplies to Germany weren't particularly interrupted by recent attacks you may be alluding to: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germanys-kazakh-oil-...

And here's KazTransoil themselves reporting how much they supplied through Druzhba recently: https://www.interfax.kz/?int_id=21&lang=eng&news_id=75303

> ASTANA. Sept 4 (Interfax-Kazakhstan) - The volume of Kazakh oil transportation to Germany via the Druzhba pipeline system in August of this year amounted to 190,000 tonnes, which is 18.7% higher than the level of July 2025, Interfax-Kazakhstan was informed by the national company KazTransOil (KTO).

New comment by michtzik in "Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';"

michtzik — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 10:49:28 +0000

Your parent comment is correct. Germany buys millions of tons of "Kazakh" oil via the Druzhba pipeline, arriving at the PCK refinery in Schwedt. This oil is "blended" with Russian oil, and in any case is transported by Russia.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/kazakhstans-january-...

New comment by michtzik in "Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah"

michtzik — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 01:47:21 +0000

> I've never seen 2k+ comments nor posts about other shootings on HN

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42370622

(also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448899 was even more discussed, but it was a stabbing)

New comment by michtzik in "Calling your boss a dickhead is not a sackable offence, UK tribunal rules"

michtzik — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 03:18:58 +0000

What did she say?

New comment by michtzik in "New treatment eliminates bladder cancer in 82% of patients"

michtzik — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 23:49:34 +0000

B-29s dropped the atomic bombs. The B-29 project was also more expensive than the Manhattan project: > The $3 billion cost of design and production (equivalent to $52 billion in 2024), far exceeding the $1.9 billion cost of the Manhattan Project, made the B-29 program the most expensive of the war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-29_Superfortress

New comment by michtzik in "Trump Orders National Guard to Washington and Takeover of Capital’s Police"

michtzik — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 01:51:31 +0000

I did some minimal searching for Seattle and explosions in 2020 and I found plenty of sources reporting on different supposed explosions, at different times and places (within Seattle). Seems perfectly plausible to me.

https://mynorthwest.com/local/peaceful-protests-planned-in-s...

https://projects.seattletimes.com/2020/local/protest-timelin...

https://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2020/09/24/police-arrest-13-d... https://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2020/07/26/officer-injuries-p...

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/07/28/44178586/so-what...

New comment by michtzik in "NSF has suspended Terry Tao's grant"

michtzik — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 02:27:39 +0000

From Wikipedia right now:

2024: Trump 77,302,580

2020: Trump 74,223,975

New comment by michtzik in "The fish kick may be the fastest subsurface swim stroke yet (2015)"

michtzik — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 17:42:10 +0000

I'm intrigued as to which comment this was supposed to be a reply to, and how it got here.

New comment by michtzik in "ICEBlock, an app for anonymously reporting ICE sightings, goes viral"

michtzik — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 00:41:47 +0000

For the reader curious why the woman in [0] didn't get permanent residency via marriage:

> Milne was divorced from the nonimmigrant student she married prior to 1983. She then married a U.S. citizen but we found, in our above-said unpublished opinion, that she had admitted that it was a marriage of convenience. After another divorce, she married her current husband, a marriage that is uncontested as "bona fide." Her request for legal permanent resident status based on this marriage was denied under INA § 204(c) which precludes approval based on even an admittedly good-faith union if the petitioner had previously contracted an improper marriage.

New comment by michtzik in "Estrogen: A Trip Report"

michtzik — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 11:52:49 +0000

The study also doesn't include the successful suicides.

New comment by michtzik in "The first big AI disaster is yet to happen"

michtzik — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 12:30:23 +0000

https://www.cpsc.gov/About-CPSC/Commissioner/Richard-Trumka/...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/09/business/gas-stove-ban-federa...

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/13/nx-s1-5003074/climate-gas-sto...

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-01-15/gas-stoves-...