<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: mothballed</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mothballed</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Fri, 29 May 2026 17:40:33 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=mothballed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "Tulip mania: when a single flower was worth more than a house (2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yeah this has happened, where someone went into the easement.  Though with fences instead of houses.  People just drive around.  Realistically no one has decided to die over a fence or house being in the way and no one has decided to die over blocking a car from going around.  It's one of those thought exercises that sounds interesting but isn't actually an issue.<p>Now I suppose at this point you'll move on to the next goal  posts.  We've been deregulated for 20+ years and we got this long list of gotchas by the statists when we did it but none of the hysterical hypothetical happened and largely because anyone capable of feeding themselves soon realizes acting in extreme bad faith in a place without police is worse for them than it is the people around them.  You can add all the 'but but' whatubaut this and that but it simply isn't any more a problem than the fact we also haven't installed anti-aircraft lasers in case aliens arrive.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2026 17:08:00 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48326090</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48326090</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48326090</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "Tulip mania: when a single flower was worth more than a house (2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>~Most of rural AZ and probably rural AK is like this.  There are some 'cities' that never incorporated and have street grids without any sort of government administering them nor any organized system of maintenance.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2026 16:33:35 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48325527</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48325527</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48325527</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "Tulip mania: when a single flower was worth more than a house (2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm not claiming there is literally no government, I'm claiming they are not acting in planning or maintenance ('civil management') capacity.  If you have an easement contract to travel on a 'street' and someone violates it by building a house on it you can still sue them but the government has nothing to do with planning that.  The population is not quite 100k but also not an order of magnitude lower either.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2026 16:19:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48325302</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48325302</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48325302</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "Tulip mania: when a single flower was worth more than a house (2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Not sure you need any of that.  My entire 'city' is private property including the streets.  There is absolutely no one to manage them, no HOA, absolutely nothing.  If you can't drive on them you literally have to bust out a tractor and fix it.  There is no public water or sewer, no public utilities, so you build them yourself and the amortized cost is easily half of paying some asshole working for the state to administer it.  No building inspection, no code inspections.  No policeman and no fire; you defend your own life and property rather than some crazed man "protecting and serving" the fuck out of you.  Taxes are ~$0.  Absolutely glorious.  I'd be happy if everywhere was like that.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2026 15:55:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48324876</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48324876</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48324876</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "Tulip mania: when a single flower was worth more than a house (2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That's some similarities to the Salem Witch Trials.  They were largely about going after whoever had a vendetta and pull with the courts and the bewitchery was the plausible mechanism under which that happens.  The 'mania' was largely a veneer under which hid raw projection of judicial-political power to rid political and personal undesirables.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2026 15:41:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48324629</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48324629</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48324629</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "Cars collect a startling amount of data about you"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>One thing I learned when I was homeless and 'stealth' camping is that if a place isn't accessible by car, and you haven't parked a car somewhere that would indicate to someone that a person had left a car and went somewhere, you are basically completely off the map and ~no one will discover you exist.  Came in quite handy when finding locations to sleep without being bothered.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2026 03:35:11 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48318692</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48318692</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48318692</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>We ended up with locked cockpits that the pilots won't open for anybody, plus passengers willing to fight back due to the tragedy of the terrorists.  We ended up with the TSA because Karen needed security theatre and the government was all too happy to increase the funding and scope of DHS with the nod of the useful idiots.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 26 May 2026 22:37:18 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48286951</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48286951</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48286951</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "The real cost of owning a home"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>At least where I'm from, the cost of a property with a burned-out unusable house on it is always a shit-ton more than land value, since running utilities to a house site, dealing with the paperwork, etc. is way more expensive and precarious than the cost to bulldoze.  If there was a house there you can just raze to foundation and rebuild it without having to trigger a clusterfuck with the utility company or septic re-evaluation.<p>Also if the house is at least mortgagable by <i>someone</i> then buyers will still bid the price up to infinity on debt even if the house is only usable for bulldozing.  The land value <i>itself</i> is also way lower for places without a house since the land value is loanable in one case and not the other.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 26 May 2026 21:15:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48286064</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48286064</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48286064</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I've seen hood rats specifically camp out near the bar to find marks to steal from, though.  In that sense the bar can congregate crime.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 26 May 2026 18:01:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48283353</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48283353</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48283353</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "The real cost of owning a home"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>And then hope you're not one of the ~1/3 that end in a divorce at which point your house gets firesold to first low-balling flipper.  House can be really bad anytime it's multiple people liquidating it -- I watched some other family members inherit a house and it sold for about half it's value because some family members weren't willing to wait more than a millisecond for the inheritance payout.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 26 May 2026 16:59:37 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48282462</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48282462</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48282462</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "The real cost of owning a home"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I zero'd out almost all these costs by building a shack myself and leaving it uninsured.  Maintenance cost almost zero because I own all the tools and much the spare materials already form building the house.  Cost of house $60,000 post COVID, there is a similar ready-built house next to me for sale almost $300,000.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 26 May 2026 16:54:22 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48282376</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48282376</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48282376</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>People aren't statistical machine, they make judgements based on their life experiences.  I've lived in at least half a dozen inner Midwest cities in the ghetto poor cores and I would describe the experience as basically "stay strapped or get clapped hellscape."  People trying to rob me at gunpoint (yes happened), stealing my bikes and whatever they can find outside, testing you and sizing you up to see if you're a good mark, etc etc.  On one occasion I got a flat tire and the gats immediately came out once they saw my white face; I guess they respected the fact I decided to fight back with my hands because for whatever reason they decided not to shoot me.<p>So yeah maybe the statistics say something else (I wonder how many people like me just don't report crime -- the police do nothing in such places) but I'm not eager to relive that experience.<p>That said your <i>immediate neighbors</i> in these areas can be incredibly nice and protective of each other as a survival mechanism, because everyone else is quite literally out to get you.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 26 May 2026 14:41:08 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48280520</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48280520</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48280520</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I started trying doing for my kids what was done to me and quickly ran into a brick wall.  Had school refuse to release child when I wasn't physically present at bus stop, had cops called at the park, and have had Karens roll up and interrogate my kid for walking "alone" on our property.<p>Only solution I found was to move in the middle of nowhere and buy acreage.  No other kids but at least the Karens can be trespassed and the child snatchers are too underfunded / too far of a drive away for them to bother us over a sad faced Karen calling.<p>The other option that's really going to piss some people off when I say, but matches my reality, is living in a few ghetto neighborhoods when I was broke there were literally so many single moms that the child snatchers could not possibly punish all of them and the kids roamed because momma was at work and they were protected from the Karens/CPS by having critical mass.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 26 May 2026 14:14:55 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48280178</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48280178</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48280178</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>A crazy number of people adjusting status, most notably DACA recipients, are adjusting in the USA (despite the much longer wait) because leaving the country may trigger a very long re-entry ban.  This can be avoided through advance parole, but turns out, there are a limited number of things for which that's granted like employment and education and US consular visits don't appear to be on the list.  So "just leaving the country" is a guarantee of your own banishment.  In fact that's probably part of the reason why they picked this policy in the first place.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2026 20:58:55 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48241588</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48241588</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48241588</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If they were here on a non-immigrant visa then they were already found admissible to the US.  Some of them were just straight up illegals (like dreamers).  I've met dreamers from time to time and all of them regularized their status after marrying (I assume the ones that didn't though weren't eager to tell me about their status so I simply never found out).<p>One interesting note here is the case of DACA recipients.  If they leave the country to adjust status it should triggers a re-entry ban unless they're granted parole (DACA are quasi-illegal but granted a form of amnesty as long as they remain in US).  AFAIK parole isn't granted for US consular visits, so it's effectively banishment as punishment for trying to adjust their status to reflect their marriage.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2026 20:14:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48241019</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48241019</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48241019</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The reason why you allow married people to adjust status is because it's absurd to actually expect a spouse not to just break the law and harbor their illegal immigrant spouse.  They are going to choose to break the law rather than kick their spouse out and have them apply from overseas.  Maybe they deserve to be punished when inevitably that happens <i>en masse</i>, but one has to consider the societal effects of creating a bunch of criminals over what amounts to an administrative fuck-fuck game over a spouse who was already determined to be admissible to the US.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2026 20:07:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48240916</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48240916</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48240916</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This appears to close off the method by which all the "dreamers" I'm familiar with got GC/citizenship, which is by marriage.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2026 19:48:27 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48240655</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48240655</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48240655</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Don't worry, we're going to enjoy the fruits of your thought process real well and good -- the very last guy left in the House with any constitutional focus just got blasted out with the most expensive outside funding campaign against a rep in the entire history of the USA.  It looks like the bureaucratic state is just getting on its next level roll, so enjoy the ride.  A few of you may even realize in the coming years why the 10th amendment wasn't meant to just be an inconvenience to ignore.<p>But I'm not dumb enough to think you'll believe my words, you'll only learn by experience.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2026 18:07:41 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239287</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239287</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239287</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>NCI and NSF recipients getting a taste of what EPA, DEA and ATF was doing to the plebs all along with random "interpretations" and bad-faith presentations of them to judge and jury.  Maybe that whole "the academics and bureaucrats are so smart we totally need to cede power from congress to the executive" wasn't such a bright idea after all.<p>Of course, it's totally lost on the academic-bureaucratic class that the anti-intellectuals wouldn't hesitate to cut off their nose to spite their face by electing a president that would turn around and surprise pikachu the academics with the very machine they had helped build.  Now that academics are losing their grips within the bureaucratic apparatus, suddenly they are deciding to rethink their strategy -- but it's not a coming to Jesus moment, but rather just a reactionary response.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2026 17:58:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239176</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239176</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48239176</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mothballed in "US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You can't just decide you don't like the conclusion therefore the first principles have to be abandoned.  If it's a free country the union workers at the shop are free to compete with the non-union workers at the shop.  If they are really that much better value of workers it will end up being a 100% union shop due to the economic advantage for the company and workers.  But they have no right to block me and my employer from working together without their "assistance."</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2026 15:53:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48237552</link><dc:creator>mothballed</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48237552</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48237552</guid></item></channel></rss>