<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: rootusrootus</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rootusrootus</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2026 06:58:32 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=rootusrootus" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Scientists discover Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability on the surface of the Sun"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><a href="https://archive.is/YDn6S" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/YDn6S</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 05 Aug 2026 20:59:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49188922</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49188922</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49188922</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'd like to see that overwhelming evidence.  Everything I've been able to find suggests that renewables, since they have a ~zero marginal energy cost, displace the most expensive dispatchable alternatives.  But wholesale pricing seems to be heavily influenced more by the highest priced energy source in the mix than the lowest, so at this point the wholesale price drop is modest (but still a drop).  Retail pricing has to include all sorts of extra stuff, like paying for the local grid infrastructure, subsidies, etc, and this makes what the consumer sees on their bill have only a passing relationship to the wholesale cost.<p>If you have a good source for something that says otherwise, I'd be genuinely interested to see it.  Not that I would probably change my opinion on renewables, since I personally think cutting pollution of the air I breathe is worth paying a little extra for, but I like to be informed nonetheless.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 04 Aug 2026 14:23:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49169442</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49169442</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49169442</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "The Dunning-Kruger effect may just be a data artefact (2020)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Maybe the problem is that DK isn't about individuals, but about topics?  I.e. perhaps everyone exhibits the phenomenon about topics they are most ignorant about.<p>(and I am ignorant about DK, so...)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 04 Aug 2026 01:41:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49163488</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49163488</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49163488</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That doesn't seem like a problem as long as the metrics chosen are trending towards greater achievements and are not just attempts at moving the goalposts.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 03 Aug 2026 20:47:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49161198</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49161198</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49161198</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Decades-old fish sauce at abandoned factory in Canada finally being removed"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Why not?  That's only one big truckload.  Oceangoing ships capable of hauling such a small load are easy to come by.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 03 Aug 2026 19:47:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49160532</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49160532</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49160532</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Decades-old fish sauce at abandoned factory in Canada finally being removed"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Even in 1970 that could not have made sense to anybody with a brain.  They certainly knew enough about explosives to know that the kind of blast required to reliably vaporize an entire whale carcass would be considerably larger than anything they were going to do on a public beach.  That whole event was just a couple dudes who thought it would be hilarious and insufficient supervision by adults.<p>Diluting salty rotting fish sauce in seawater is a lot more defensible.  It's not like they'd have to just dump it all in one spot.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 03 Aug 2026 15:36:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49157189</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49157189</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49157189</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Big Food vs. the People"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> It is literally illegal to sell McDonalds foods the way Americans make it.<p>You should see what they do in the UK.  Looks tasty, but healthy it certainly is not.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 19:24:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49127490</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49127490</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49127490</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Puberty blockers trial can start recruiting children"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> culture war issue<p>I'm 100% with Sarah McBride on this.  The blame for this culture war is arguably as much because of how pro-trans folks handled it as it is resistance from conservatives.  It did not need to happen this way.  There will be progress in the future but it definitely got set back a ways over the last few years.  Unfortunately with collateral damage for the rest of the LGBT community.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 18:18:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126771</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126771</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126771</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Puberty blockers trial can start recruiting children"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Puberty blockers have long been used to treat precocious puberty<p>That seems orthogonal, yes?  Delaying puberty until the body gets into the usual range of growth is arguably improving something that was otherwise going off the rails.  Delaying puberty from normal onset until after the body has otherwise stopped growing is a different use case, different intended goal.  It does not seem unreasonable to have different expectations.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 18:15:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126726</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126726</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126726</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> 10-kilo swappable battery packs<p>I like the way you think.  Putting a meaningful amount of capacity in something luggable by an average human would open up a lot of possibilities.  Not just for cars, but <i>everything</i>.  Our battery powered future looks bright already, but this would be incredible.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 18:03:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126581</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126581</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126581</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Puberty blockers trial can start recruiting children"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>We should let them, if they are of sound mind and capable of consenting.  Part of that means they are not a minor.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 17:35:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126231</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126231</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126231</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Big Food vs. the People"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Indeed if we could solve one thing with our gov't, I'd want it to be antitrust enforcement.  For an ostensibly free market society we seem awfully willing to accept it being anything but.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 17:12:19 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49125934</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49125934</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49125934</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "The End of an Era"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I am skeptical of those numbers.  Like, decades ago 1% needed IVF?  I assume that's what you are referring to.  Is that not partly a result of it being fairly new technology, quite expensive and not readily available to most people?  And the 17% number, while it does seem to be about right, how much of that is just that the average age of parenthood keeps going up and up?  It does not seem surprising that the older you get the more problems you have with fertility.<p>I would be interested to know what the actual rate of sperm count decline is, controlling for age and such.<p>Edit: This is good reading, I think, though dense: <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6455044/" rel="nofollow">https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6455044/</a><p>Rates are down quite a bit in the last 50 years, about half.  But extrapolating to zero in 50 more years is a stretch.  Average is something like 40-50 million/mL, which is above the 15 million threshold considered normal, but does mean an increasing number of people are falling below that threshold.  So yes there is going to be an impact, extinction seems highly unlikely however.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 16:25:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49125214</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49125214</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49125214</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "The End of an Era"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I wonder how that algorithm works.  At the risk of discussing a bit of a taboo topic (are there rules against this? there might be...), I've never vouched for a comment and had it come alive.  I have many times been the final nail in a comment where my flag caused it to die, but I have never seen the opposite with vouch.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 16:18:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49125092</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49125092</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49125092</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Google fixed more Chrome bugs in June than over the past two years, thanks to AI"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>As much as I don't truly <i>love</i> the shop I'm at now, stories like this keep me from looking for anything new.  At least until the AI psychosis [hopefully] passes.  I can't even get my management to approve a $100 Claude Max subscription, which is kind of annoying but also means they have not changed their expectations on what the team produces.  None of my coworkers is going to be shoveling AI slop my direction because then they'd have to explain to management why they are using an unapproved tool to look at internal company code.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 15:19:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49124233</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49124233</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49124233</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I understand the paranoia, but it is definitely emotional reasoning overriding facts.  Gasoline powered vehicles are vastly more likely to go up in flames.  Even when you adjust for age and mileage.  Even if you only look at cars that spontaneously ignited when parked.  The wiring in a gas car is exposed to a tremendous amount of heat and vibration.<p>EVs spontaneously igniting are newsworthy partly because politics, but also because it is novel.  Gas vehicles burn daily, the odds are pretty good that a couple are burning somewhere right now.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 15:12:57 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49124158</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49124158</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49124158</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> juicing 10 cars in 5 minutes has to require significant electrical infrastructure!<p>I believe it is becoming fairly common to use batteries as a buffer at fast chargers.  The demand charges for bursting megawatts of power from the grid are apparently really steep, so it makes sense to put in a big battery and steadily draw a lower amount of power and then just charge cars from the battery.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:45:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49123860</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49123860</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49123860</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> With a 130Lb/60kg battery instead, and saving the weight of the ICE engine and fuel system, the overall car design could go much more lightweight, regaining a lot of performance and range, all while gaining the huge torque of electric motors.<p>I think you're <i>underselling</i> it, even.  A typical like-for-like modern EV is only marginally heavier than the ICE equivalent.  If we were able to drop the weight of the battery by a thousand pounds, cars would be lighter than they have been in decades while retaining all the modern safety and convenience features we've come to expect.  And if density improved along with weight, we could make EVs with the same form factor as today but with over a thousand miles of range.  Not that we need that, but it is just as a tiny example of how mind boggling the game change would be.<p>As it is I've only recently internalized the notion that the most powerful electric tools are battery powered (what can I say, I grew up when rechargeable batteries were NiCad and they basically sucked).  And it will just get better and better as time goes on.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2026 14:53:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49110940</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49110940</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49110940</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Schools are adding pepper-spraying drones to help combat active shooters"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Quite an assertion.<p>You must have misunderstood the assertion, then.  I will attempt to clarify.<p>- Australia tried to get rid of guns, still has millions.  Several hundred thousand of them illegal.<p>- Australia has a much lower firearms homicide rate, despite still having quite a lot of guns.  Not the same ratio as the US, sure, but 4.5M guns for 28M people is still fairly prevalent and available.<p>- So the rate 1:50 ratio is not easily explained by simply reducing the number of guns in circulation.  Something else is going on.  Something harder to solve, even, than the second amendment.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 29 Jul 2026 01:49:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092496</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092496</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092496</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rootusrootus in "Schools are adding pepper-spraying drones to help combat active shooters"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The founders didn't think we ought to have a standing army, either, and a militia of ordinary citizens was their answer.  So I guess first we will need to bring back militias made from ordinary citizens, first, and then we can debate how that changes the applicability of the amendment.  Not to mention the definition of well-regulated, which I think (hope) most people interested in this issue understand.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 29 Jul 2026 01:28:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092319</link><dc:creator>rootusrootus</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092319</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092319</guid></item></channel></rss>