Hacker News: moate

New comment by moate in "Mars Bar from 1991 found – and it's 20g bigger than today's"

moate — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:46:40 +0000

As someone who hates the government and the megacorps, I loathe statements like the OPs because there are so many legit and real reasons to hate shit before we come up with "KFC doesn't call themselves Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore because there isn't enough chicken in their product" type of conspiracy nonsense.

Also, based on the statement, you're buying shit pizza from trash restaurants/frozen garbage. That's why the crust is bad. Pizza is one of the cheapest things you can make, that's why when I worked in restaurants I always said if you can't make money selling pizza you need to get out of the industry.

New comment by moate in "All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen"

moate — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 19:06:59 +0000

So you know how like, "the government" and "private citizens" aren't the same thing, right? Like there are different obligations for both? You do know and understand this, correct? The government has a constitutional requirement not to perform undue/unnecessary search or seizure.

Pretty sure "search" includes "building a panopticon from which all citizens can be viewed at all times", but explain why you disagree.

New comment by moate in "All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen"

moate — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 19:01:51 +0000

Since people seem to be disagreeing with a fact:

https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/1862/

https://academic.oup.com/policing/article-abstract/6/4/418/1...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13591...

New comment by moate in "How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood"

moate — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:48:22 +0000

You, uh, you're not from New Jersey are you? I promise you, we're not giving away land around here.

New comment by moate in "How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood"

moate — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:47:27 +0000

so I hedged with "anytime soon" (we'll call it 5 years?) and also robot food production is not "AI" as "AI" is generally considered to be software (and the hardware that runs it I guess like the chips/data centers) and robots are hardware.

Also, how old is your cute youtube video? Isn't the fact that 99% of restaurants are still some dudes working on stoves and friers all these decades later proof that the technology isn't there (and can you prove it's price and not something else limiting uptake? Aside point, if I said "we can't go to Mars anytime soon" would a video of the moon landing disprove my statement in your mind/elicit "that's a cost not a technology problem"?)

Furthermore, if we're trying to extrapolate my statement out far enough to make it bad, wouldn't like Swanson's TV dinners be enough to show that I'm "wrong" that the food industry is largely automated/human free production? It sorta falls apart when we talk about food SERVICE which is the specific industry I was talking about (and which will never be killed by AI, because it's based in community and culture, things that you can't get a clanker to do).

New comment by moate in "How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood"

moate — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:38:41 +0000

McDonald's is perfectly fine food, depending on the problem you're solving for. If it's nutrition, you can do that. If it's affordability, you can probably do that. If it's availability, you can usually do that. If it's preferred flavor profiles, you may be able to do that. If it's moral issues, probably can't do that.

I worked in James Beard nominated restaurants and have eaten at 3 star restaurants, I have no qualms with fast food as food that couldn't be expanded to most of the industry.

New comment by moate in "Leaked Flock Guide Shows How It Teaches Cops to Promote Its Tech"

moate — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:31:13 +0000

...that doesn't solve the actual problem, as all that guarantees is new officials. You need another step which is electing officials that are willing/able to enact policy change on this issue and who then do it. There's countless examples of "we need to get the bad man out of office, oh shit, the new man is also bad in the exact same way!"

All this is to say: voting is a process, not a solution.

New comment by moate in "Leaked Flock Guide Shows How It Teaches Cops to Promote Its Tech"

moate — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:28:44 +0000

"defend itself from tyranny". Burner, the tyranny is in the room and the 2A bootlickers all signed up to enforce it. Please show me the country higher on the global freedom index with more guns per-capita than the US. The "immense benefit" to the guns is "the poors keep killing each other and distracting themselves from building a guillotine".

This is jingoistic hogwash and not an actually moral point.

New comment by moate in "Leaked Flock Guide Shows How It Teaches Cops to Promote Its Tech"

moate — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 18:40:40 +0000

Finding out the battle plan for your opponent and finding ways to attack their strongest points is absolutely valuable in public policy debate.

I'd rather have this information available vs not if I found out my city council was about to lay out money for this trash service. Of course I understand the cops are driving the issue, but knowing how to cut their legs out from under them is helpful.

New comment by moate in "How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood"

moate — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 18:25:02 +0000

As someone who originally comes from a field that cannot be consumed by AI anytime soon (food service. AI can't actually be eaten) it's insane watching tech-dorks think "nobody actually cares about what they buy, which is why they will suck down all this slop because ultimately they just want output".

Some of us remember the story of the Luddites and hope that this time might be different with 200 years of social progress.

New comment by moate in "How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood"

moate — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 18:16:48 +0000

The irony here being that Netflix is currently in a massive layout to build a studio in NJ (like, 20 minutes from the old Bell Labs). Almost feels like giving that troll the finger!

New comment by moate in "How Hollywood stopped making movies in Hollywood"

moate — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 18:15:27 +0000

https://discoveratlanta.com/stories/things-to-do/atlantas-ma...

Atlanta did a lot of the big ones.

New comment by moate in "ICE to Pay Thomson Reuters $125M to Find Voter Fraud"

moate — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:00:54 +0000

Whatever the conclusion of "is ICE the correct agency for..." the answer is no. But you use the brownshirts for things regular civil servants would gum up with protests and procedure adhering to the actual law.

New comment by moate in "ICE to Pay Thomson Reuters $125M to Find Voter Fraud"

moate — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:59:17 +0000

Why would you wonder that: https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-2026-midterm-elections...

Of course they are.

New comment by moate in "New US homeownership measure puts people first"

moate — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:55:07 +0000

Okay, if you just want to have a conversation with yourself I can see myself out as you addressed literally none of what I said and went off on some affordability tangent about housing in general.

Housing prices are too high for most people to afford. That wasn't what the sentence I responded to was asking about.

New comment by moate in "Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public"

moate — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:50:39 +0000

We created an extrajudicial prison outside of our borders to house "prisoners too dangerous for the normal court system", created an entirely new surveillance police force, and expanded FISA in response to 9/11.

So if that's not asking authoritarianism if they'd like to go out for drinks, we have very VERY different views on freedom.

Also, I really don't care about other "advanced democracies", we're talking about America and it's not really relevant to my points.

New comment by moate in "New US homeownership measure puts people first"

moate — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:16:42 +0000

1- Costs of operating an larger house are higher than a smaller house 2- Yearly maintenance of a new house is cheaper than an older house (older the house, the greater this gets) 3- Easier to keep a smaller house tidy 4- Mobility/lifestyle issues. 5- Indifference towards resale value

Not everyone wants a giant house, and plenty of people like a small one. It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it.

New comment by moate in "Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public"

moate — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 05:23:46 +0000

Sadly, many people just want to be highly trusted in society (whilst themselves fearing most of the rest of it). It's why we flirt with/fall face first into authoritarianism every few decades.

New comment by moate in "Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public"

moate — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 05:21:24 +0000

I can, we're living in it.

Now imagine a world in which cops served the masses.

New comment by moate in "Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public"

moate — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 05:19:51 +0000

Seriously. I'm as left wing as you can go and I still think that voting is useful to influence the system while building a critical mass of people willing to break the wheel. Saying "we'll never get class solidarity" is the most annoying and pointless thing someone can say so you have to assume they're working to ensure it is the case.