Hacker News: speakfreely

New comment by speakfreely in "F-15E jet shot down over Iran"

speakfreely — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 20:08:54 +0000

The post-1945 rules-based order was already a slow motion train crash that most of the West remained in denial about until Putin wiped his behind with it in the 2014 invasion of Crimea. To pretend that Trump is somehow breaking an otherwise intact system at this point is fanciful.

New comment by speakfreely in "American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis"

speakfreely — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 16:08:35 +0000

It certainly was to anyone who has been paying attention. I would highly recommend that anyone who thinks the tariff strategy is irrational to read through Michael Kao's substack and his analysis of the administration's 2.0 playbook [1]. There's good news and bad news, but overall there's glimmers of hope.

[1] https://archive.ph/kLxw3

New comment by speakfreely in "Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes"

speakfreely — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 18:04:26 +0000

If you have a source for that I'll be more than happy to go edit my original post to acknowledge being completely wrong on this. But my instinct is that if there was an even mildly credible report of an underage girl performing oral sex on him, we'd all have heard about it by now.

New comment by speakfreely in "Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes"

speakfreely — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 16:14:40 +0000

> Is this really worth it? For some crude which is really high in sulfur and not even that important given fracking?

The US doesn't need their oil. It's about stopping China from getting it.

New comment by speakfreely in "Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes"

speakfreely — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 16:02:07 +0000

> which is what Trump wants after it was pretty much confirmed that he's a pedophile.

While there's no shortage of creepy anecdotes about Trump in what's been released, there's been nothing that comes close to showing he had sex with any underage girls, nor have any come forward to claim that.

> Bonus: honors the practice of a republican president invading a country under bullshit premises to capture oil. Bush I and II both did so.

People are missing the point here. This wasn't a regime change, this is psychological warfare against the ruling party to get them to be more compliant. And yes, of course it's all about oil. While this could potentially deny China access to Venezuelan oil in the long term, it also removes the threat to Guyana's production, which is skyrocketing.

New comment by speakfreely in "Ask HN: What would you do if you didn't work in tech?"

speakfreely — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 19:59:30 +0000

The problem is that the mechanics are paid fixed hours for a given type of job (according to the dealership's standard for how long a given job should take). They are not truly being paid per hour. While it's supposed to encourage efficiency, you can imagine how this negatively affects the mechanics as well as the work quality outcomes.

New comment by speakfreely in "Ask HN: What would you do if you didn't work in tech?"

speakfreely — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 16:53:55 +0000

"Up to" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

New comment by speakfreely in "LAPD helicopter tracker with real-time operating costs"

speakfreely — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 13:52:03 +0000

> you shouldn't be starting a high speed pursuit over a seat belt violation, or for someone going 5 over the speed limit.

That's the thing: normal people don't. Violent criminals, people with active arrest warrants, and people carrying highly illegal/dangerous things in their vehicles are the types that run from traffic stops.

New comment by speakfreely in "Being poor vs. being broke"

speakfreely — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 02:54:52 +0000

Happiness = reality - expectations

New comment by speakfreely in "Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet"

speakfreely — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 02:38:24 +0000

The "among our colleagues' households" is the key part. It's not generalizable to the whole of Gaza.

New comment by speakfreely in "Tell HN: Azure outage"

speakfreely — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 23:49:34 +0000

Voting seems like one of the few problems that blockchain is actually the solution for.

New comment by speakfreely in "PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program"

speakfreely — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 20:32:44 +0000

Their position is logically inconsistent. If they are worried about being eventually targeted by the Trump administration, they have done more to paint a target on their back now then they ever could've done by quietly accepting the money.

I don't believe they intended for their motive to be secret at all. This was an opportunity to bring attention to their political position.

New comment by speakfreely in "PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program"

speakfreely — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 02:46:56 +0000

There's nothing mutually exclusive about non-discimination and diversity. They won't take the grant money because they want to drive a politicized agenda, to the detriment of the Python community as a whole.

New comment by speakfreely in "PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program"

speakfreely — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 21:43:35 +0000

Choosing to advocate your personal political beliefs over the interests of your organization should be grounds for dismissal.

New comment by speakfreely in "PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program"

speakfreely — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 21:21:17 +0000

No one has a problem with diversity as a competitive advantage. People dislike forced diversity in lieu of meritocracy.

New comment by speakfreely in "US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces"

speakfreely — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 15:22:56 +0000

> Trump truly has no vision for anything we do on the world stage

It confuses me how anyone could look at what's happening in the world and see a lack of a plan. Trump administration seems to actually be unusually focused on foreign policy in this term and using geopolitical statecraft to upend the arrangements that were not working in favor of the US. The tariffs to force countries to choose US or China, putting the fear of Russia in Europe to pump up their defense spending, and the peacemaker strategy in the Middle East to force oil prices down to reduce inflation. It seems to be a very comprehensive strategy.

New comment by speakfreely in "Demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high"

speakfreely — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 00:08:52 +0000

But the equipment is operated by a person, and the diagnostic report has to be signed off by a person, who has a malpractice insurance policy for personal injury attorneys to go after.

The system is designed a nanny-state fashion: there's no way to release practitioners from liability in exchange for less expensive treatments. I doubt this will change until healthcare pricing hits an extremely expensive breaking point.

New comment by speakfreely in "Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza"

speakfreely — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 22:54:13 +0000

I generally find HN discussions pretty interesting, but this particular topic seems to just be two groups who have zero chance of changing their minds hurling misinformation and propaganda at each other.

New comment by speakfreely in "US High school students' scores fall in reading and math"

speakfreely — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 04:01:34 +0000

New Jersey is probably the most socioeconomically segregated state in the country, mostly based on its school districts. It has crazy real estate prices precisely so parents can get their children into specific, high-performing school districts. These districts bring the state average up very high, but best of luck if your district is in the bottom 50%.

New comment by speakfreely in "Meta suppressed research on child safety, employees say"

speakfreely — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 15:48:25 +0000

I think his argument is more of the "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" variety. At some point complaining about ethics and morality of someone who has repeatedly shown no concern for either just makes you look like the unreasonable one.