Hacker News: shoxidizer

New comment by shoxidizer in "US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed"

shoxidizer — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 18:03:42 +0000

Showing adult content to minors is also probably not an insignificant part of their business (certaintly a major part if the classification of social media as adult becomes more widespread), and having age be an os-user property might give children more opportunity to subvert the verification. And if enough applications end up behind the maturity wall, they can count on children to badger their parents into setting their account to adult, and the industry will absolve itself of all responsibility once more.

New comment by shoxidizer in "Let's talk space toilets"

shoxidizer — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 19:58:48 +0000

This does sound absurd at first, but how much gravity is really needed for collection? Is there any value in just a few hundredths of earth gravity?

New comment by shoxidizer in "Missouri town fires half its city council over data center deal"

shoxidizer — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 18:19:31 +0000

Municipalities, at least in some states, can be sued for refusing development that meets existing regulation and zoning

New comment by shoxidizer in "Afrika Bambaataa has died"

shoxidizer — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 15:27:37 +0000

This is more of my personal axe to grind, but it's important to view this as a result of monetized content and highly algorithmic feeds. It is my understanding that these platforms don't even really remove this language, just demote it, but that the culture on these networks is entwined with people who post for money, so anything that reduces exposure or payout is shunned. This is true for TikTok, Instagram, YouTube (shorts).

That said I wouldn't even assume "s3xual" is a result of this. It smells of older censorship to me, all the new stuff is video-first, so phonetic substitutes are more characteristic.

New comment by shoxidizer in "Are We Idiocracy Yet?"

shoxidizer — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 12:40:31 +0000

> hard to imagine someone identifying with the over-the-top stupid people in Idiocracy.

Presumably they identify with cultural elements (e.g. amateur football, professional wrestling) and then interpret the rest as "this is how dumb I think you are" and "you are not fit to rule yourselves".

New comment by shoxidizer in "Artemis computer running two instances of MS outlook; they can't figure out why"

shoxidizer — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 18:01:36 +0000

They're officers and researchers strapped into their seats for 10 days, what could they be doing that doesn't involve email

New comment by shoxidizer in "The road signs that teach travellers about France"

shoxidizer — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:33:41 +0000

Parking minimums are implemented during building permitting. Natural lakes don't have building permits, and the parking is often constructed by the state.

New comment by shoxidizer in "Games with loot boxes to get minimum 16 age rating across Europe"

shoxidizer — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 05:41:29 +0000

The purchases are purposely similar to previous examples of gameplay in design and language.

New comment by shoxidizer in "How important was the Battle of Hastings?"

shoxidizer — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 03:21:19 +0000

> Germany after they lost WW2; they still speak German

This is a trick of definition. There were a few places that spoke German before the war and don't now, but they aren't part of Germany today.

New comment by shoxidizer in "There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)"

shoxidizer — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 21:49:23 +0000

Both these trends have reversed in 2025.

US emissions icreased by 2.5% https://rhg.com/research/us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-2025/

China's emmisions have decreased by <1% https://e360.yale.edu/digest/china-emissions-decline

New comment by shoxidizer in "There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming (2024)"

shoxidizer — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 21:41:51 +0000

If country B splits into countries C, D, E and F, all of which emit less than country A, has it found an effective way to reduce emissions? Should all countries adopt the Monaco lifestyle to defeat global warming? I guess if you want to find a fair way to measure administration of land you could emmisions per hectare or rainfall.

New comment by shoxidizer in "The Economics of a Super Bowl Ad"

shoxidizer — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 05:12:15 +0000

And of course the influencing on media networks doesn't stop at the 30 second slot when the money is spent by the million ;)

New comment by shoxidizer in "NIMBYs aren't just shutting down housing"

shoxidizer — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 16:38:23 +0000

The use of "back yard" refers to the local area, not the literal extent of one's property. This usage is not unique to NIMBY and it's derivatives. YIMBY sentiment also clearly extends beyond developers themselves and simple libertine principles. Many people want development to occur around them, in their back-yard so to speak, because they prefer it occurs. The semantic change you're arguing for erases this concept just to sidestep the notion of local community. It's a needlessly aggravating approach when the simple answer is just that both NIMBY and YIMBY advocates can support their cause beyond their own area because they believe their cohort is right and deserves it.

New comment by shoxidizer in "Pharos: The Lighthouse at Alexandria"

shoxidizer — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 16:41:35 +0000

That's a Dreamworks movie actually

New comment by shoxidizer in "Water 'Bankruptcy' Era Has Begun for Billions, Scientists Say"

shoxidizer — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 14:28:12 +0000

Perhaps it isn't possible because of economics. If you build an aquaduct to a somewhere sunny so that water is plentiful there, then farms, cities, parks, and so on will grow as long as the water is cheap, reaching the capacity of your infrastructure, and the causing a crisis whenever there's a droubt.

New comment by shoxidizer in "Why medieval city-builder video games are historically inaccurate (2020)"

shoxidizer — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 14:16:01 +0000

And then later they realize the tar that comes out of making coal coke can be used to treat railroad ties to prevent rot, letting you lay larger networks of rail.

New comment by shoxidizer in "The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)"

shoxidizer — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:25:06 +0000

It's certainly better in person, but if you hate the photos you probably won't love it. In particular, the interior: is cozier (smaller) than it looks, as the ceilings are a bit low; has better views of the outside when not stuck to a single exposure & focus of a camera.

New comment by shoxidizer in "The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)"

shoxidizer — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 13:49:43 +0000

Frank Llyod Wright lacking warmth and humanity? Never been to Falling Water?

New comment by shoxidizer in "The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)"

shoxidizer — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 13:47:01 +0000

> Metric lacks a good "foot", but I guess people would get used to eyeballing things in ~50cm increments instead.

Perhaps as a compromise we could adopt the meter but divide it by halves, quarters, and so on. Binary fractions are so much more universal than arbitrary base ten ;)

New comment by shoxidizer in "Who owns Rudolph's nose?"

shoxidizer — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 05:28:18 +0000

Another point for the copyright term being a fixed 5~10 years. The current system already incentivizes such agressive tactics to anyone with sufficient patience. If a teenager's favorite book has just been written by a young adult, they only have one course of action if they want to live to see it in the public domain for a few years.