Hacker News: partiallypro

New comment by partiallypro in "NASA Force"

partiallypro — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 18:46:40 +0000

I read enough HN to know what it is -absolutely- true. HN comments, including this thread, often just read like BlueSky screeds half the time the US, US government or Sam Altman/Elon Musk/etc are mentioned.

They all deserve criticism, but when that's all a thread turns into when these items come up, well the discussion becomes very hollow and partisan really quickly.

New comment by partiallypro in "Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident"

partiallypro — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 03:21:19 +0000

It seems you or the team have culled many of them. There was one in particular that stood out but it seems to have been removed or they are heavily buried now. I just saw your post further down the thread, so you have seen them and I assume action was taken, thanks. There are still some that I find distasteful, but not as bad as what I was originally seeing towards the top.

New comment by partiallypro in "Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident"

partiallypro — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 05:03:37 +0000

There are people actively insinuating in this thread that Sam should be...killed, and they are still up. Very odd moderation, surely there is a better way to flag these things.

New comment by partiallypro in "Artemis II Launch Day Updates"

partiallypro — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:05:46 +0000

Even assuming what you're saying is correct and government spending doesn't matter (odd thing to say when you're arguing that the government has been "gutted,") your own chart is only flat over time because of USPS workers being less due to automation/retirement and there being less military recruitment (both account for about ~1.5M employees lost,) and doesn't include offloading to contractors. Underlying agencies and government is bigger than ever before. The government (federal AND state levels) itself is much larger, with more regulations, than it was even 20 years ago.

Every company has bureaucracy, but it's nothing compared to government work. Also, government has no competition, bureaucracy in big companies will eventually be punished (even if it takes a long time.) In government it is often rewarded, both internally and externally (via regulatory capture, etc.)

In any case, saying the federal government has been "gutted" is a flat lie. I don't see how people can argue otherwise. I want more money going to NASA, and more money going to civil projects like HSR, but would that magically remove 15 years of bureaucratic mess? No. More money to these projects can only happen on a large political scale if/when the bureaucratic red tape is cut to lower the costs. Adding an additional layer of bureaucrats and middle managers and pot of gold everyone can dip their hands in before it reaches the final project doesn't fix the issue.

New comment by partiallypro in "Live: Artemis II Launch Day Updates"

partiallypro — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:02:56 +0000

That's per 100k (which just says it's mostly flat per 100k), net spending of the federal government is more than ever, and actual workforce is bigger than ever. Federal spending as a percentage of GDP is stubbornly high despite us being in "peace time," and not recession spending.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W068RCQ027SBEA

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USGOVT

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S

If you all don't think bureaucracy is the main driver of government delays...well you clearly have never worked with or in and around government. I try to live in reality.

New comment by partiallypro in "Artemis II Launch Day Updates"

partiallypro — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 23:28:32 +0000

The politicization of everything and constant doomerish on here sure has echoes of early 2000s Slashdot. That's not a compliment. Reading the comments here is actually depressing. Human progress is never all at once, we can't even celebrate this triumph? Life is almost never "one or the other," the program could be scrapped to a junk yard and that wouldn't solve global hunger or global conflicts. Setting human eyes forward is good.

New comment by partiallypro in "Artemis II Launch Day Updates"

partiallypro — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 23:25:56 +0000

Don't confuse bureaucracy with "gutted." The federal government is bigger than at most any point in US history. Arguably that fact is -why- it's 15 years behind schedule.

New comment by partiallypro in "America Is Now a Rogue Superpower"

partiallypro — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 21:28:31 +0000

The US attacking one of Russia's only remaining allies, and one of their biggest arms dealers, is a backdoor effort to help Russia? How does that even make sense? I really think people should log off for a while and actual evaluate what they are saying instead of listening to totally online grifters.

Could this help Russia in the very short term? Sure, does it mostly hurt them in the long run? Probably a lot more so, assuming the regime were to actually fall especially (feels like it's not going to at this point.)

The US not being able to control their strait also shows China just how difficult controlling the "South China Sea" would be in the event of an invasion of Taiwan. Which is just a stupid coincidence.

New comment by partiallypro in "Netflix raises prices for every subscription tier by up to 12.5 percent"

partiallypro — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 17:51:17 +0000

I cancelled Netflix long ago, they started cancelling their best shows (like 1899, etc) and producing absolute garbage. I mean just look at the quality of early/peak Netflix to now. Stranger Things is a great example, the decline is visible not just in the story but in the visuals. The documentaries are also bad now, I watched the "Manosphere" at someone's house, and while you can agree with the premise that these people are deranged, it was clearly a cash grab and didn't really move the needle. Then the catalogue has been gutted, and it's just mostly garbage now. Just awful stuff.

The last truly remarkable series they had was Dark. Everything since has slid into being for low attention span people on their phones, and for that reason I no longer give it my attention, or money. I guess it's working out for them, since they keep printing money...but I think it won't last forever. Look at Disney, the decline can come quick once the cracks turn into fault lines.

New comment by partiallypro in "Honda is killing its EVs"

partiallypro — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 01:21:01 +0000

Isn't Toyota betting big on the Hybrid EV? To me, at least in the US, this seems like the best medium-term bet. The EV infrastructure just isn't there yet, despite there being a lot of Tesla chargers. Even with that, the charge time, etc are too long to get going again. Hybrid EV seems to resolve this, and eases the customer into an EV future. Current EVs are great for being around town, but a lot of people in the US live 45min to an hour each way just to work, have to get their kids to school or practice in the meantime. It's just added stress thinking about finding a charging station or having time constraints.

The biggest issue I think every auto maker needs to solve is cost. The average car payment is insane, with dealership markups it's even worst than it would be otherwise. I'm not sure how we got here on that, to me car interiors are no nicer than they were from 2005ish on. I don't even know what the cost is going into.

New comment by partiallypro in "Germany's Solar Boom Eases Power Costs as Gas Price Jumps"

partiallypro — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 20:42:16 +0000

Considering the German economy has been faltering, energy prices have soared, they buy nuclear power from a neighbor, and their shortsightedness emboldened a regional enemy (Russia)... probably until I'm dead.

Maybe it will help stop other countries from making the same mistake if people don't let everyone forget.

New comment by partiallypro in "Germany's Solar Boom Eases Power Costs as Gas Price Jumps"

partiallypro — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 02:51:51 +0000

and yet the point is still correct

New comment by partiallypro in "Germany's Solar Boom Eases Power Costs as Gas Price Jumps"

partiallypro — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 02:48:39 +0000

It's 2026 and Germany's rich neighbor is so good at nuclear power, and logistics and storage of said waste, that it sells Germany power from their nuclear power plants.

Why is it, some always repeat the same argument without giving a single thought to the follow-up challenges and costs?

I've lived in Germany, it's always so funny seeing Germans always complaining but never taking action, or a lot of "too late for that" nonsense. Always tons of excuses for bad policy.

New comment by partiallypro in "U.S. Navy turns down Hormuz escort requests because of high risk"

partiallypro — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:27:01 +0000

Maybe a short financial shot in the arm, but destroying their ability to get Shahed drones is substantial.

New comment by partiallypro in "Germany's Solar Boom Eases Power Costs as Gas Price Jumps"

partiallypro — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 14:24:48 +0000

Now just imagine if they hadn't killed their nuclear power plants.

New comment by partiallypro in "Bluesky CEO Jay Graber is stepping down"

partiallypro — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:02:51 +0000

BlueSky is vastly worse than Twitter/X now or ever was. It was a good idea, but it ruins the "community square" aspect when BlueSky has just become a total echo chamber. Twitter is still diverse, even if voices that were once banned now have bigger platforms. Now I'd rank BlueSky has a net negative for society. It's basically a DailyKos leaning miniblog with a small userbase. Things you would just used to find in comment sections of left leaning sites.

New comment by partiallypro in "Claude struggles to cope with ChatGPT exodus"

partiallypro — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 18:18:36 +0000

If anyone thinks Anthropic or OpenAI are the "good guys," they've already lost the plot. If you look at additional reporting on the topic, not just the Anthropic PR spin, the disagreements were much more nuanced than it was portrayed by Anthropic. They aren't exactly a reliable narrator on the topic either. In fact it actually just seems like Amodei fumbled the deal and crashed out a bit. He's already walked back his internal memo, and is reportedly still seeking a deal with the Pentagon. I don't trust either CEO, I use their products, but if you're even leaning 51-49 on who is "less evil," I think you're giving too much slack.

New comment by partiallypro in "GPT-5.4"

partiallypro — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 19:16:02 +0000

I've done the same, and I tested the same prompts with Claude and Google, and they both started hallucinating my blood results and supplement stack ingredients. Hopefully this new model doesn't fall on this. Claude and Google are dangerously unusable on the subject of health, from my experience.

New comment by partiallypro in "MacBook Neo"

partiallypro — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 22:49:11 +0000

Just from a pure investment standpoint, while people seem to think this will take on Microsoft PCs and Google's Chromebook, to me the bigger risk is that it is going to cannibalize Air sales. Just read the comments here and elsewhere online. Sure, some people say they need more RAM, etc...but the average consumer just uses their device as a browser.

Anyhow, I do hope this wakes Microsoft up. They seem to have abandoned their consumer base, which is quite annoying. I do enjoy Windows 11, despite the hate here, but Windows PCs have a lot of catching up to do.

New comment by partiallypro in "Danish government agency to ditch Microsoft software (2025)"

partiallypro — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 22:52:29 +0000

Nothing to do with Trump.

https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-has-the-economic-...

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2023/09/04/the-gdp...

https://www.euronews.com/business/2025/01/03/the-poorest-us-...