Hacker News: omnee

New comment by omnee in "Israel escalates attacks on medics in Lebanon with deadly 'quadruple tap'"

omnee — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 08:47:26 +0000

Israel's actions can only be described as inhumane and sadistic. In fact, it's similar to actual terrorism that they claim to be against.

New comment by omnee in "Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is killed in Israeli strike, ending 36-year rule"

omnee — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 22:38:04 +0000

In isolation the death of this brutal dictator is great news, but we have seen how previous decapitation strikes have not had the intended effect. And I can only hope the Iranian people somehow end up better for this entirely illegal war that the Trump administration has initiated, instead of facing up to a fractured leadership and a potential civil war.

New comment by omnee in "Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War"

omnee — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 12:00:29 +0000

Agree fully with the main points of this statement. Mass domestic surveillance is the hallmark of an authoritarian and undemocratic state. That such a state holds 'votes' regularly does not detract from the chilling effect on public discourse and politics caused by mass surveillance.

The guardrail on fully automated weapons makes perfect sense, and hopefully becomes standardised globally.

New comment by omnee in "Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai gets 20 years' jail"

omnee — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 16:23:08 +0000

Indeed. People very easily conflate laws which every state since antiquity has had, with the rule of law, that exists only in a minority of countries even today.

New comment by omnee in "Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy"

omnee — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 11:34:07 +0000

My experience is closer to yours, and I've had to learn to enjoy without alcohol, which has been a positive transformation. I still drink, but now I know when to stop. Some of my friends still drink too much and would probably benefit from GLP drugs even when they are not obese.

New comment by omnee in "Tell HN: Merry Christmas"

omnee — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 10:32:42 +0000

Merry Christmas everyone!

New comment by omnee in "Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright"

omnee — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 20:00:48 +0000

I have an older car with the low light gauges, and so my eyes are more adjusted the darkness. Which makes the poorly calibrated bright lights of newer cars the bane of my life at night.

New comment by omnee in "Apple reports fourth quarter results"

omnee — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 09:57:37 +0000

That's an exceptionally high bar of talent and creativity. For the 99.999+% of us, the computer and the mobile has made completion of many tasks highly efficient. Like surfing HN on a lazy Saturday morning...

New comment by omnee in "Carlo Rovelli’s radical perspective on reality"

omnee — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 11:36:18 +0000

Your conclusion rests on the assumption that QM's description of reality represents the ontological truth. And such a 'truth' is not provable. However, as you already mentioned, it doesn't matter as QM provides the strongest epistemological claims, and this is what matters in the end.

New comment by omnee in "A Clausewitzian lens on modern urban warfare"

omnee — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 21:14:09 +0000

The amount of total financial support provided to Ukraine is lower than that which Russia has earned from the same bloc. And military support is the smaller fraction of this total. So, the support has been important but without Ukraine deciding to resist Russia vehemently, the Donbass would have long been conquered.

I do agree with your criticism that in certain places, such as Bakhmut or Avdiivka, Ukraine has lost many men needlessly when in an indefensible position. Saying that, Russia is making at best incremental gains for huge casualties. They certainly aren't going to conquer the rest of Donbass by this year or even by the 4th anniversary.

New comment by omnee in "Gold Prices Top $4k for First Time"

omnee — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 08:57:05 +0000

Some notable examples, and likely many others exist throughout history.

Retail does not have the financial power to move any large market. The responsible parties, in either direction are institutional buyers. So your final point is worth consideration. Could it simply be diversification from US Treasuries? Or are there other geopolitical factors?

New comment by omnee in "Slack has raised our charges by $195k per year"

omnee — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 09:14:31 +0000

I find it hard to believe such an underhanded policy was not approved by senior staff members. Clearly, the negative feedback has forced Slack to change course, but that such a policy was allowed in the first place will be held against Slack by any reasonable person for the foreseeable future.

New comment by omnee in "GPT-5: "How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry?""

omnee — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 09:46:09 +0000

Indeed, we are able to ask counterfactuals in order to identify it as an illusion, even for novel cases. LLMs are a superb imitation of our combined knowledge, which is additionally curated by experts. It's a very useful tool, but isn't thinking or reasoning in the sense that humans do.

New comment by omnee in "A.I. researchers are negotiating $250M pay packages"

omnee — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 22:45:19 +0000

Zuck made him and offer that couldn't be refused. But neither salaries or hype or hope are what AI should be measured against. LLM based AI should be measured against previous technological revolutions, in terms of sustained real income growth and ideally real income growth per person.

Right now capital expenses are responsible for most of AI's economic impacts, as seen by the infrastructure spend contributing more to GDP than consumer spending this year.

New comment by omnee in "Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants"

omnee — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 11:03:05 +0000

One of the worst excesses of this admin has been the attack on science and mathematics, stemming from their deliberate ignorance of evidence. A setback for the researchers and a tragedy for the people that might benefit from their work, the nation and the world as a whole.

New comment by omnee in "‘No Other Land’ consultant Awdah Hathaleen killed by Israeli settler"

omnee — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 13:12:56 +0000

The banality of evil on full display. These very same people will claim in the future that they were misled or did not understand the gravity of crimes being committed in Gaza and the West Bank.

New comment by omnee in "Fintech dystopia"

omnee — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 10:35:54 +0000

Gold was also inversely correlated to long term US interest rates, which no longer holds true. So, nations and large institutions already hold the opinion that inflation will be higher (>2%) for longer in the future. Maybe the target should be moved to ~3%, which is defacto the case.

New comment by omnee in "Is Australia's bloated property market destroying the middle class?"

omnee — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 07:35:32 +0000

This is the outcome of neoliberalism taken to its logical extreme, where capitals interests are prioritised over everything else.

Technology was expected by some to empower the citizens, enabling them to counteract negative outcomes - but in fact has allowed the powerful to shape opinions and politics to their perspective even more easily.

New comment by omnee in "EU commissioner shocked by dangers of some goods sold by Shein and Temu"

omnee — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 10:33:19 +0000

I want to emphasise your latter point - I have a Lenovo work laptop, Fenix head torches and various other high quality Chinese products. Any company selling into the EU needs to meet the QC and regulatory requirements, and many well known Chinese brands already do so, and so their products naturally sell at a premium to the cheapest options. A little more thought in purchasing by buyers would go a long way in helping the commissions efforts to reduce harmful goods.

New comment by omnee in "Preliminary report into Air India crash released"

omnee — Sat, 12 Jul 2025 13:16:32 +0000

This report is outlining the known facts of the flight at present. The main one being the movement of the fuel switches to the off position did occur a few seconds after take-off, almost certainly by one of the pilots. And this was the primary cause of the crash. However, blame has not been apportioned and the reason for why is not known.

blancolrio puts its well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA_UZeHZwSw