<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: powertower</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=powertower</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Sun, 13 Sep 2026 08:35:19 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=powertower" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "On Being Jewish in State Prison (2009)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>When I read these types of articles, there is always an underlining irony present there...<p>Out of all the diverse groups of people in the prison, only the racist whites (Nazis) would tolerate and give protection to this person - yet this person's entire write-up is predominantly against this same group of people.<p>A further explanation is provided to the reader that picks up on this: while these Natzi-people must truly hate him, they only truly protect him because there exists an even deeper more-menacing underlining racism within them.<p>All the other groups, are just fine, nothing more than a structured response to the racism.<p>While low on details, the story ends with the realization that while white discrimination is an evil unlike any other discrimination, it does allow the strong to find their true roots.<p>This story would be told quite differently if this person went to prison in a Muslim country.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 16 Nov 2017 20:41:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15716408</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15716408</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15716408</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "Scientists have signed the largest-ever warning about Earth’s destruction"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If you want to be correct, its more like <i>"we've looked at your model and talked to the people that created it, and everyone that worked on it agrees that the debate is being driven by politics rather than science. We've found that emissions of the sun are responsible for 98% of the current climate change, that carbon is the smallest factor in the other 2%, and you are being set up for a global taxation system that is designed to establish control over everyone under a false premise."</i></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 14 Nov 2017 22:16:47 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15699711</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15699711</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15699711</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "Germany Is Burning Too Much Coal"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The last time this was suggested on the news (CNN, etc), I did some quick math.<p>To ship gas to Europe, the US will need to spend about 50B-100B+ (minimum) building LNG facilities on both port sides, and then build something like 10,000 LNG Carriers (oceanic ships) to meet demand. Which would cost another 100B+ (maybe even 1T).<p>After all the infrastructure is set up, the prices will be at least 2-3 what they pay now (as they have to do things to and with the LNG that Russia does not in the process of delivery).<p>Its not feasible, unless you want the US taxpayers to pick up the bill and then subsidize it.<p><i>These were back of the envelope calculations. It could be a factor of 10 off in either direction.</i></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 14 Nov 2017 18:35:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15697832</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15697832</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15697832</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "Bitcoin Cash Skyrockets, Bitcoin Price Drops As Civil War Continues"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The speculation driven movement of the BTC cannot be compared to the speculation on the USD or any other currency. 0.01% and 50000% are all percentages, but the number is so different as to completely change what we are talking about.<p>> Speculation is unquestionably a good thing.<p>Maybe, but usual only if the resulting volatility results in lower price for the consumer, or makes a market.<p>But then again, BTC has no market for goods nor services <i>compared to the currency it is bought and sold with</i> (its legitimate non-fictional market is so low as to be non-existent).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 12 Nov 2017 15:24:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15681139</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15681139</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15681139</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "IBM Q system in development with working 50 qubit processor"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>But they have already solved the engineering problems (at least 10 years ago).<p>They already have "qbits".<p>The interface issues look to be 98% solved.<p>And the temperature cooling, the EM shielding, and everything else (that is outside the circuitry design and the physical chipset), a person with a budget of 80,000 USD can recreated in his garage.<p>Its the results I can't understand.<p>Why can't X qbits, in the time they stay coherent, produce results that agree with the mathematical analysis of the setup? Why is it always off by a factor so large that its not even productive for any task.<p>My understanding of it is not complete, this is why I ask. Is the interface issue only 2% solved (and not 98%), etc.?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 10 Nov 2017 21:10:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15673065</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15673065</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15673065</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "IBM Q system in development with working 50 qubit processor"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I've been following quantum computing since D-Wave made its press release some years back. Now I'm a complete skeptic.<p>The huge red flag I can't get over is if it is as so, why can no one validate it after all this time?<p>Why is there the proverbial "it works but not in the way you think it works" (i.e., quantum annealing) or "it works but we can use non-QM systems to simulate it faster, better, cheaper by a factor of a trillion"?<p>If QM computing was truly feasible (assuming that QM does have an underlining phenomena that is physically real), why are the results after all this time so fuzzy?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 10 Nov 2017 20:06:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15672531</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15672531</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15672531</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "Google promoted Texas gunman fake tweets"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That makes sense.<p>Ironically though, just as another anecdote (and to the best of my knowledge), the very first "fake news" right-wing site who's operator was confronted, ended up being a left-voting liberal who [paraphrasing] "hated conservatives and people on the right, and wanted to spread disinformation to them to pollute their arguments".<p>But I guess we'll never know, so the best solution is still non-censorship.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 09 Nov 2017 18:10:40 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15664477</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15664477</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15664477</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "Google promoted Texas gunman fake tweets"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> A fake news site owner said conservatives are more likely than liberals to believe and spread fake news. In fact...<p>Why would you believe what a "fake news" site operator tells you?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 09 Nov 2017 16:50:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15663875</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15663875</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15663875</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "Google promoted Texas gunman fake tweets"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>When someone says that I cannot discern fake from real, and for my own well being I should be protected from "fake news" (otherwise I'll start to believe that global worming is real / not-real), than I'm being treated like I'm some type of an "idiot", so why hide that word.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 09 Nov 2017 16:12:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15663550</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15663550</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15663550</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "Google promoted Texas gunman fake tweets"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Facebook tried doing this to combat actual fake news (the one that ironically comes from the political segment in the U.S. most likely to cry wolf about it). This process was then characterized as facebook policing political content in a biased manner -- despite the fact that blatantly false content happened to continually come from sources with a conservative bent more often than not, which isn't Facebook's problem to deal with.<p>Assuming we followed the same Facebook story (that intentionally set up boards of people - that were biased - to curtail the news in various ways), it seems like what you are trying to say is that alternative and conservative news is "fakes news", and they should receive algorithmic censorship.<p>Personally, for myself, the last 10 stories I've seen on "neutral" outlets like CNN and to the left outlets like Washington Post / New York / MSNBC - have been 100 percent driven by agenda rather than facts.<p>And the only time I'm able to get anything real is when I go to the other side, in which case all I have to do is tone it down 50%, yet on the left I have to literally invert what they are saying to get at the truth.<p>So how would you categorize which one of us is the idiot whose sources of news should be curtailed? Because I'm actually fine with you listening to CNN.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 09 Nov 2017 15:56:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15663420</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15663420</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15663420</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Also the giant monolith/megalith structures in Russia are out of this world.<p>Personally I think some of the footage and pictures of them are more impressive than the pyramids. The size of the blocks compared to a human is just incredible.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 02 Nov 2017 18:39:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15613061</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15613061</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15613061</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "Why the Soviet Union did not build a nationwide computer  network (2008) [pdf]"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You've named all people who could be removed just as easily as they where placed into power.<p>That is not a dictatorship. I'll provide an example -<p>Saddam Hussein was a dictator... He had the power/authority, ability, and the will, to kill half the country's population to control the other half. Not that he did it.<p>Thats a real dictatorship.<p>Another way to think about this -<p>Within the Soviet Union, Russia spans 11 time-zones. Just by size alone (and the diversity it provides), the country was too large to have any <i>effective</i> dictatorship over because of all the different regional alliances. And they had constant problems that would never end, to prove it.<p>Even today, Putin himself has admitted that one of the biggest problems in Russia is that both state organizations and regional authorities will not do what they are told.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 01 Nov 2017 18:52:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15604368</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15604368</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15604368</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "Why the Soviet Union did not build a nationwide computer  network (2008) [pdf]"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> The office of President wasn't created until 1990, and there was only one person to hold that office.<p>I was being general (and going throughout USSR's history, not just after 1990). There were all kinds of titles and offices and committees, with a central official that the public could see: Chairman, General Secretary, First Secretary, etc.<p>"President", from the outside perspective [we are not in the Soviet Union], is good enough for the description against the argument that was being made (of a Stalin type "dictatorship").<p>If you have to nitpick on the word, your argument will never end...<p>> The dictators (such as they were) were usually the General Secretaries of the Communist Party (including the three that were Premiers). Like most real dictatorships, rather than theoretical ones, there was a lot of power within the upper bureaucracy and shifting practical, if not consistent legal, checks on the power of the leader (particularly, the Politburo was powerful), and like most 20th century and later dictatorshios there was also a lot of political theater behind which the actions of the dictatorship were cloaked to give a veneer of legitimacy.<p>And after all that said, no one can still name just 1 / like they name Stalin?<p>The answer is "its an etheric dictatorship that could be this or that or anything I want it to be to for the arguments sake"?<p>> Communism is broader than Marxism; as well as things like anarchocommunism, it also includes Leninism, which while it claims to be Marxism rejects several key components of Marxism.<p>Which is all similar to the various radioactive Plutonium isotopes. None of which you are going to want to ingest. Because if you do, its only a matter of time before you die.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 01 Nov 2017 17:53:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15603749</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15603749</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15603749</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "Why the Soviet Union did not build a nationwide computer  network (2008) [pdf]"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Name 1 dictator after the Stalin?<p>I lived there before the collapse. It was a communist state. With centralized planning. And all the waste that goes with it.<p>After Stalin, the Soviet Union had several levels of "above president" parliaments (with an elect and/or rotating boards), such as the "Supreme Soviet", that had enormous power. Presidents where forced to resign, some where placed under house arrest.<p>A dictatorship did not exist there in the form of a president.<p>Communism is Marxism. You will never be able to separate them. Nor change the fact that they don't cure human suffering, they produce it.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 01 Nov 2017 17:27:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15603500</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15603500</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15603500</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "Why the Soviet Union did not build a nationwide computer  network (2008) [pdf]"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Oddly enough almost all of the people that spent time in the Soviet Union never saw it as a "dictatorship", but as the communist "CCCP".<p>Also oddly enough, all the students from grade school and on where indoctrinated into the communist mindset using communist texts and rhetoric.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 01 Nov 2017 16:29:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15602869</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15602869</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15602869</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "How Twitter pushed RT to spend big on 2016 US election"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That is more or less the main way the media in the US, the EU, and some other world regions, is operating right now.<p>For each major story, they remove all the real details, even the context, and just present you with a well crafted narrative which itself is mostly supported only by promises of inside-knowledge, secret/anon sources, and "proofs" that are never released.<p>Then after some time passes the details are re-introduced by the non-liars and the narrative collapses.<p>Except nothing changes because the general public has already been conditioned to want to be lied to daily and just moves on to the next fake-news story.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 28 Oct 2017 16:22:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15575611</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15575611</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15575611</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "New periodic orbits of the three-body problem"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Is there an upper limit on how many different periodic orbitals a 3-body system may have?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 12 Oct 2017 20:50:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15461207</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15461207</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15461207</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "The Corrosion of High School Debate"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't know how bad it is at the high school level, but it does get worse as you go up to the University level...<p>For an example, take the 2014 CEDA Championship Debate held at Indiana University -<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmO-ziHU_D8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmO-ziHU_D8</a><p>* It seems that all the original videos from the above have been removed (from youtube), only clips are available.<p>For those that are interested, a response to the criticism of the above "debate" was made that is itself cringe-worthy and difficult to watch - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pij5Sg4_DY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pij5Sg4_DY</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 10 Oct 2017 17:08:08 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15443459</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15443459</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15443459</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "Cloudflare Stream – Combines video encoding, global delivery, and player"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Mankind has never had a tool as powerful as the internet. The advent of the printing press played a key role in the lead up to the Salem Witch Trials.<p>Name one person harmed by the site?<p>If you have ever seen a page of DailyStormer, you'd either laugh or go away.<p>No one has ever killed anyone after reading a few paragraphs on that site.<p>Putting in the argument of "Is loss of human life an acceptable cost for free speech" is not an honest way of describing censorship of content that is silly at its worst and dumb at its best.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 27 Sep 2017 19:35:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15351473</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15351473</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15351473</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by powertower in "A Swedish farmer using oats to make milk"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>These types of drinks have <i>nothing</i> in common with milk...<p>The manufacturing process involves grinding almonds, oats, etc, into a very fine particulate powder, mixing it into water.<p>Then adding in all things necessary to keep it in suspension, and making it drinkable (try "almond milk" without the sugar and see how long it takes you to regurgitate it back out).<p>Almond-milk wasn't even selling until they placed it into the refrigerated section of the store next to real milk - to confuse the buyers with what it actually was-not.<p>It is likely that most consumers think the manufacturers press or squeeze the almonds to get at its "milk", and have no idea they are just drinking a few grams of powdered almonds.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 27 Aug 2017 21:06:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15112715</link><dc:creator>powertower</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15112715</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15112715</guid></item></channel></rss>