Hacker News: oatmeal1

New comment by oatmeal1 in "The UK's war on anonymity has come to America"

oatmeal1 — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 02:27:35 +0000

I haven't seen any claim that it was isolated to one ethnic group. I have only seen the claim that it was disproportionately immigrants of Pakistani background.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "São Paulo resident transforms degraded area into urban forest"

oatmeal1 — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 04:42:28 +0000

I find the idea of planting trees ironic. It would seem to me the better aim would be identifying the issue as to why native plants are not already reproducing successfully, and then fix it. Plants are quite good at reproducing themselves, even if not in the immediate area.

Why America Won't Copy Sweden's Cheap Highway Fix That Saves Lives [video]

oatmeal1 — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 23:58:38 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyNEnYaBszk

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49204299

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by oatmeal1 in "Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo"

oatmeal1 — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 05:54:14 +0000

> There's still a need for growth in just traditional datacenters hosting things like your email and Netflix, not just AI, and those projects are going to get swallowed up in the AI hubbub

Growth in almost any datacenters is not worth the environmental cost, and even the benefits are dubious (e.g. more datacenters to host Netflix content is a net negative if it means people spend more time sedentary indoors).

New comment by oatmeal1 in "New cars are getting 1.2cm longer and 0.5cm taller each year"

oatmeal1 — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 22:27:37 +0000

> But people who hate on cars don't want to hear the truth

A tad heavy on the rhetoric, wouldn't you say?

New comment by oatmeal1 in "New cars are getting 1.2cm longer and 0.5cm taller each year"

oatmeal1 — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 22:19:24 +0000

Subsidies for using non-car transit would make more sense (health benefits in addition to safety and savings).

>I assume the 18-tonne lorries that move most of the world’s goods would be exempt, too, or would you pass that cost on to consumers? Just make everything a bit more expensive for everyone.

The demand for large vehicles is inelastic in the short term, but over the long term, more alternatives would be found and the share of the burden to consumers would reduce. Remember also the savings on road maintenance that consumers that pay taxes must pay for.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "New cars are getting 1.2cm longer and 0.5cm taller each year"

oatmeal1 — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 21:44:49 +0000

We need a pigouvian tax based on vehicle weight to address the increased deaths due to noise pollution, collisions, and increased wear to roads.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "YC founder asks desperate job seekers to tattoo themselves for an interview"

oatmeal1 — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 22:44:04 +0000

They didn't think it was a bad idea because they don't have a sense of right and wrong. If something is potentially profitable and technically legal they will do it. This is what YC screens for.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "Clinical failure rates over the decades: yikes"

oatmeal1 — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 04:58:41 +0000

Curing all cancer would be bad for the world, because 90% of those cancer kills are old people.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "Zero roadkill as Amazon canopy bridges secure 15,000 crossings"

oatmeal1 — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 23:54:21 +0000

Dunning Kruger effect at work.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)"

oatmeal1 — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 21:32:27 +0000

Not quite, but big pharma promotes preventive screening in excess of what is justified. They don't care if false positives create stress and unnecessary, dangerous procedures that eliminate the benefit of screening. They just want to make sure before you die they get a chance to sell their most expensive drugs.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "StubHub, CEO hit with ‘deceptive practices’ class action over mass scalping"

oatmeal1 — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 22:15:11 +0000

Live Nation needs to get the guillotine. The monopoly will find other ways of extracting value if you try to fix one problem created by it at a time.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii"

oatmeal1 — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 17:48:16 +0000

Yeah, it is cool, but this article is not HN appropriate.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth"

oatmeal1 — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 03:45:57 +0000

If they pay an appropriate tax for light pollution affecting telescopes on earth, I'm all for it.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war"

oatmeal1 — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 04:12:24 +0000

We pulled out of the JCPOA. It worked but we quit.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "Costco is the anti-Amazon"

oatmeal1 — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 01:50:46 +0000

The next revolution is zoning reform so it's legal to build shopping people want to do within walking distance of where they live.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers"

oatmeal1 — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 19:11:35 +0000

> But in general, should this bill become law in Michigan, an employer could not require an employee to access or respond to work-related matters outside of their assigned hours... Violations could be reported to the state's Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, with fines to the company and/or overtime pay to the employee among the possible results.

It will be too easy for employers to say to the DOL the employee was not actually required to respond to the work-related matter when they told the employee they are expected to. Laws like these don't solve problems (bargaining power disparity caused by a variety of factors), they solve symptoms. It may not have a significant effect.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "Data centers trigger voter backlash"

oatmeal1 — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 03:15:06 +0000

In general yes, but a datacenter is to many people a categorically different kind of development because they oppose AI companies. The first datacenter should trigger a lengthy discussion and create rules that apply to all further datacenters.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "Extreme Heat conference cancelled due to extreme heat warning"

oatmeal1 — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 05:36:50 +0000

Heat related deaths predominantly kill the elderly. That may save lives overall because of their voting behavior leading to more deaths.

New comment by oatmeal1 in "FDA advisors unanimously vote to approve Moderna's mRNA after agency drama"

oatmeal1 — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 05:32:23 +0000

More histrionics.