Hacker News: rnernento

New comment by rnernento in "If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?"

rnernento — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 13:09:10 +0000

It seems to me that since AI is built on the collective works of the workers it's replacing any profits should probably be taxed at 100%

New comment by rnernento in "Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon"

rnernento — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 12:16:04 +0000

In 2021, Ulbricht's prosecutors and defense agreed that Ulbricht would relinquish any ownership of a newly discovered fund of 50,676 Bitcoin (worth nearly $5.35 billion in 2025) seized from a hacker in November 2021.[78] The Bitcoin had been stolen from Silk Road in 2013 and Ulbricht had been unsuccessful in getting them back. The U.S. government traced and seized the stolen Bitcoin. Ulbricht and the government agreed the fund would be used to pay off Ulbricht's $183 million debt in his criminal case, while the Department of Justice would take custody of the Bitcoin.[79][80]

New comment by rnernento in "NASA unveils new moon suit"

rnernento — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 18:22:13 +0000

It doesn't look evil enough for this timeline...

New comment by rnernento in "Roald Dahl ebooks remotely updated to censored versions after purchase"

rnernento — Sun, 05 Mar 2023 23:38:34 +0000

Can we leverage blockchain to fight back against this kind of stuff?

New comment by rnernento in "Ask HN: What are some of the best books you have read in 2022?"

rnernento — Sat, 29 Oct 2022 12:37:17 +0000

I think Gene Wolfe is the one of the greatest authors of all time across any genre. I highly highly recommend the Fifth Head of Cerberus which is 3 short interconnected novellas and Peace, which isn't traditional Sci-Fi but is absolutely worth a read.

He's not just writing, he's constructing beautifully crafted puzzle-boxes that take a lot of time and thought to unpack.

New comment by rnernento in "Ask HN: Any legal place to buy offline TV movie downloads?"

rnernento — Sun, 09 Oct 2022 12:43:39 +0000

I think the problem here is what you're really asking for is DRM free content. None of the content producers themselves are willing to license their content that way so it would be very difficult to build the service.

New comment by rnernento in "Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?"

rnernento — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 20:54:00 +0000

I mean it's pretty straightforward right? There are now more dollars in play all after the same amount of goods, each dollar has less purchasing power. Why are you so quick to throw out the simplest explanation?

New comment by rnernento in "Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?"

rnernento — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 20:50:48 +0000

I don't think you realize just how much of the money has been printed in the last 2 years.

See fed balance sheet over time: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...

See M2 over time: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

New comment by rnernento in "An update to paid sharing"

rnernento — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 02:46:51 +0000

I predict a massive backfire on this one.. I know Netflix is struggling but as competitors (see HBOMax) get better and better now is not the time to both raise prices and give people a reason to revisit their active subscription. I know plenty of people who only continue to pay for Netflix because they share it with a bunch of people. They don’t really have any killer content right now and as far as I can tell no streaming service has figured out how to deal with people who just cycle between services… This is not the right problem to focus on right now.

New comment by rnernento in "Cryptocurrency scam: Man swindled out of pension and life savings"

rnernento — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 11:52:07 +0000

And what value has been created?

New comment by rnernento in "Cryptocurrency scam: Man swindled out of pension and life savings"

rnernento — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 11:51:22 +0000

Pretty soon you're going to be able to replace "Man" with "Everyone who bought crypto."

New comment by rnernento in "Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip"

rnernento — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 18:50:22 +0000

Why does my $500 Samsung Galaxy Book Flex have the webcam in a tiny little bezel and this thing has a giant notch?

New comment by rnernento in "Show HN: A Reddit style site to discuss podcast episodes"

rnernento — Fri, 27 May 2022 13:19:18 +0000

I think if you ever want there to actually be content you need a way to grab users and make it easy for them to start generating it.

When you say "it's a chicken and an egg problem" you're spot on. That's the problem for every new social network or user based platform trying to launch. Until you have a ton of users and content I would argue it's the only problem worth worrying about.

New comment by rnernento in "Show HN: A Reddit style site to discuss podcast episodes"

rnernento — Fri, 27 May 2022 13:10:43 +0000

I'm not criticizing your business model, I'm just saying as a user who doesn't care about your business model and is just curious about podcast discussions your homepage isn't optimized for me.

If you focus on building a userbase first it will be easier to sell the service later.

As a user I have a billion things competing for my attention, if you don't make it super easy for me to get to useful or interesting content I'm going to move on and that's going to hurt you overall.

New comment by rnernento in "Show HN: A Reddit style site to discuss podcast episodes"

rnernento — Fri, 27 May 2022 11:05:40 +0000

Reddit never started by taking me to a giant signup page for a paid subscription. As someone who was mildly curious and might have checked it out of you presented something interesting I immediately left, maybe think about making the base landing page more interesting in hopes of gaining traction with users and then make another landing page for people you want to sell the service to.

New comment by rnernento in "Low-cost, battery-like device absorbs CO2 emissions while it charges"

rnernento — Sun, 22 May 2022 11:15:01 +0000

Imagine if there was basically 0 cost carbon capture device that ran completely off of solar power and didn't just store CO2 but also expelled oxygen and miraculously created useful usable materials...

New comment by rnernento in "Everything with a battery should have an off switch"

rnernento — Mon, 09 May 2022 10:54:04 +0000

Forget about "with a battery" - everything should have an off switch. Rebooting hardware like the Amazon Fire TV is so annoying, and it's not like it doesn't like up or crash...

New comment by rnernento in "Why is every consumer startup selling me what I already own for 10x the price?"

rnernento — Thu, 05 May 2022 13:50:53 +0000

I don't know that they ever realize it's exactly the same as the product that costs 1/10th the price but that doesn't mean it isn't.

New comment by rnernento in "Why is every consumer startup selling me what I already own for 10x the price?"

rnernento — Wed, 04 May 2022 16:54:00 +0000

They do it because advertising works.

New comment by rnernento in "Why is every consumer startup selling me what I already own for 10x the price?"

rnernento — Wed, 04 May 2022 14:17:37 +0000

It's almost like we're operating in an economy where it's easier and more lucrative to be a huckster than it is to innovate and create something useful. Maybe part of this is just that we've already optimized so many things - what's left to do with the products in question other than up the price and market the heck out of them?

As they say, "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people"...