Hacker News: slavik81

New comment by slavik81 in "Good ideas do not need lots of lies in order to gain public acceptance (2008)"

slavik81 — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:31:44 +0000

Options are a bit riskier than RSUs. If you have RSUs issued at $100 and the stock goes down to $50, then your RSUs are worth half. If you have the option to buy stock at $100 and the stock goes down to $50, then that option is worthless.

New comment by slavik81 in "Why Doesn't Anybody Realize We're Going Back to the Moon?"

slavik81 — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 07:46:47 +0000

Not everyone was so optimistic. Many people argued that the money spent going to the moon would be better spent on problems here on Earth.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Tom_Lehrer_song_lyrics_(...

New comment by slavik81 in "Axios compromised on NPM – Malicious versions drop remote access trojan"

slavik81 — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 12:01:06 +0000

That had more or less been the explanation in the books for decades, and even in George Lucas' notes from 1977:

> It's a very simple ship, very economical ship, although the modifications he made to it are rather extensive – mostly to the navigation system to get through hyperspace in the shortest possible distance (parsecs).

New comment by slavik81 in "A Journey Through Infertility"

slavik81 — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 09:50:33 +0000

In our case, it was suggested that the first transfer of the first cycle had a 15% chance of success. Whether that's "very rare" is perhaps a matter of perspective. It was low enough we assumed it would be a failure and we were surprised when it succeeded, but to a doctor it's a frequent occurrence.

New comment by slavik81 in "A Journey Through Infertility"

slavik81 — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 08:15:38 +0000

The total number might be a little out there due to her non-medical treatments, but the general sentiment is accurate for IVF. My wife filled up an entire sharps box with the injections she needed to take and that was with success on the first try of the first round (which is very rare).

As someone who is a bit squeamish around needles, I don't know if I could have done what she did.

New comment by slavik81 in "4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches"

slavik81 — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 06:57:49 +0000

Taiwan's biggest problem is that the average age is currently ~45 and in 15 years it will be ~55. It's going to be hard to keep the economy going once half the country's retired.

New comment by slavik81 in "Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age"

slavik81 — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 06:30:19 +0000

It's understandable that parents are upset, but tech companies are not the ones harmed by these laws. When we've outlawed privacy, it will be the public who suffers.

New comment by slavik81 in "The changing goalposts of AGI and timelines"

slavik81 — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 19:02:37 +0000

Do you mean Dory, the fish from Finding Nemo?

New comment by slavik81 in "System76 on Age Verification Laws"

slavik81 — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 13:16:31 +0000

> instagram and the like are uniquely and disastrously harmful

Could we perhaps regulate them to require that they be made less harmful for everyone?

> anything the reduces the power those companies have over our lives (and our politics)

If we're concerned about politics, I presume we're talking about the impact on adults, but these age-based restrictions are not intended to change anything for adults.

New comment by slavik81 in "A Pokémon of a Different Color"

slavik81 — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 12:32:18 +0000

It was in the manual and the Player's Guide. You can find ditto on page 47 of the latter.

https://www.scribd.com/document/586237858/Pokemon-Red-Versio...

https://archive.org/details/NintendoPower1998PokemonRedBlue/...

New comment by slavik81 in "Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair"

slavik81 — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 22:32:06 +0000

The £700M (960M USD) spent on fish protection measures at Hinkley Point C would be a topical example [1]. It's expected to save an average of a few hundred twaite shad, six river lamprey, and eighteen allis shad per year, plus one salmon every twelve years, and a trout every thirty-six years.

https://www.salmonbusiness.com/nuclear-plants-new-700-millio...

New comment by slavik81 in "Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media"

slavik81 — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 19:08:03 +0000

If manipulative algorithm are the problem, then perhaps we should consider regulations that would protect everyone.

New comment by slavik81 in "In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels"

slavik81 — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 02:44:17 +0000

The comments on Reddit from folks who claim to have worked for Northvolt are pretty wild. I would take them with a grain of salt, but they're interesting to read. https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1fl8d4y/c...

New comment by slavik81 in "In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels"

slavik81 — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 16:25:49 +0000

Shade on older solar systems would impact energy production disproportionally. You would typically see dramatic reductions like 50%-80% reduced output due to 10-20% shade. New shade-tolerant solar systems are closer to being proportional.

New comment by slavik81 in "In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels"

slavik81 — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:53:34 +0000

The Greener Homes Grant and Greener Homes Loan you describe have ended, but the 160% tarrif on imported solar panels remains. Solar prices in Canada are still quite expensive, and regulations are needlessly strict. Solar fencing is illegal in many jurisdictions, balcony solar is illegal everywhere, and utility-scale solar is effectively prohibited in the regions with the most sunlight.

Solar production in Canada will continue to grow, but we're not doing nearly as much as Europe to encourage it.

New comment by slavik81 in "Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance"

slavik81 — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:43:39 +0000

The proposed bans on open source 3D printers in Washington and New York would be examples of bad laws proposed by Democrats in the name of gun control. https://hackaday.com/2026/01/19/washington-state-bill-seeks-...

New comment by slavik81 in "Canada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%"

slavik81 — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 21:12:28 +0000

> The next salvo is going to be US statehood for Alberta and Saskatchewan. There is already partisan support within those provinces, and Trump is going to offer money to push it.

The polling puts it at 20% support and 80% opposed. This is not going to happen. As a Canadian who was born in Alberta and has lived in Alberta all my life, I will be remaining in Canada.

New comment by slavik81 in "AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention"

slavik81 — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 16:23:09 +0000

Corsair Vengeance 128 GB (2 x 64 GB) DDR5-6400. $339 in Sept 2025. $1599 in Jan 3026. 4.7x increase. https://pcpartpicker.com/product/LPvscf/corsair-vengeance-12...

I cancelled my plans to upgrade my workstation, as the price of 256 GB of RAM became ridiculous.

New comment by slavik81 in "Donut Lab’s all-solid-state battery delivers 400 Wh/kg of energy density"

slavik81 — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 06:24:46 +0000

> the Mazda CX90 is a real car

A Mazda 3 has been my daily driver for the past decade and I really wanted to like the Mazda CX90 PHEV when I was buying a larger vehicle last year. It was pretty difficult to justify the CX90 PHEV, though. It gets 42 km of range on an 18 kWh battery (2.4 km/kWh). For comparison, the EV9 I ended up purchasing gets 450 km of range on a 100 kWh battery (4.5 km/kWh).

Don't get me wrong. The CX90 PHEV is still the most efficient CX90 by a wide margin. I had seriously considered buying one, but the efficiency was a deal-breaker. I don't love the giant touch screen on the EV9, but I can live with it. If I couldn't, I would have gone with the Ioniq 9 for more physical controls.

New comment by slavik81 in "GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder"

slavik81 — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 19:21:59 +0000

My copy of Mirror's Edge from EA is unusable due to DRM. It's still listed on my EA account as belonging to me and I can download the game from them, but it can only be installed five times and I have reached that limit.