Hacker News: squillion

New comment by squillion in "In Tehran"

squillion — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 18:51:56 +0000

The Iranian government is responsible of all sorts of human rights violations, and also for the drought (at least partly), but the economic collapse was triggered by the US.

Bessent said so at Davos:

"President Trump ordered our Treasury and our OFAC division (Office of Foreign Asset Control) to put maximum pressure on Iran. And it's worked, because in December, their economy collapsed. [...] So this is why people took to the street. This is economic statecraft". https://youtu.be/VQQXLnXlWqY?t=1722

Is this how America helps dissidents? Make them so miserable they can't bear it anymore? Anyways, it never works. It just makes civilians more miserable and the government more repressive. Look at Cuba or North Korea.

40% of Kids Can't Read and Teachers Are Quitting [video]

squillion — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:18:13 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTugyu2F0pc

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46677685

Points: 42

# Comments: 37

New comment by squillion in "I wasted years of my life in crypto"

squillion — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 13:38:15 +0000

I think we’re talking about bank reserves, which is a fraction (in the order of 1%) of the total amount of money held in the customers’ transaction accounts. Reserves are convertible into cash. Not that any bank would suddenly want to do that, unless there’s a bank run, in which case it’s the customers who want the entirety of their accounts (100x the reserves) converted into cash, which is impossible not because the fed refuses to convert the money, but because the bank doesn’t have enough reserves.

New comment by squillion in "Larry Summers resigns from OpenAI board"

squillion — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 18:40:18 +0000

I'd only entertain the possibility that it was tongue-in-cheek if it came from someone critical of the World Bank and laissez-faire economics in general, for instance Joseph Stiglitz, who has also been chief economist at the World Bank and was critical of it. But if you're fine with structural adjustment – which many see as basically tear-down-orphanage-to-build-mall – you don't get to make that kind of jokes. It's too close to home.

New comment by squillion in "Larry Summers resigns from OpenAI board"

squillion — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 14:00:04 +0000

Let's not forget that time he advocated for dumping toxic waste in poor countries.

"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summers_memo

New comment by squillion in "The Uselessness of "Fast" and "Slow" in Programming"

squillion — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 10:48:56 +0000

I lost him when he rounded the orders of magnitude.

New comment by squillion in "Nexperia – Update on Company Developments"

squillion — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 23:07:14 +0000

I think your assumption that Dutch politicians defend the interests of Dutch citizens, if only for winning votes, is wrong. European politician respond first (or only?) to the US. As a EU citizen, I take no pleasure in saying this.

New comment by squillion in "I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected"

squillion — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 20:56:09 +0000

Well, I simplified.

I said "no calorie counting", not "eat as much as you please". And by "right proportions" in those books they mean something specific: roughly 50% fat, 25% proteins, 25% carbs, plus a balanced mix of different fats, slow carbs, etc.

The laws of thermodynamics obviously hold for nutrition as for any other phenomena. In order to lose wait you have to eat less, no question about that. But the idea is that it's much easier to directly control what you eat than how much you eat. And by following those diets it's allegedly easier to eat the right amount.

I absolutely believe your method works. As for me, I've experienced that since I changed my diet as per the above recommendations, I'm not hungry two hours after each meal anymore.

tayo42 asked for something less tedious than counting calories, so I suggested they take a look at an alternative approach which has benefited me, and in my opinion is well argued.

New comment by squillion in "I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected"

squillion — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 06:50:31 +0000

Take a look at these books:

- David Ludwig, Always Hungry?

- Mark Hyman, The Blood Sugar Solution

The first one is very accessible, the second one very posh. But the underlying approach is the same: no calorie counting, just good food in the right proportions.

New comment by squillion in "I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected"

squillion — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 06:37:34 +0000

I also read that counting calories is so inaccurate that you may die of starvation or become obese, on the same diet. That is, if you exclusively ate what you measured, and all of it.

Counting calories presumably works (when it does) because it’s combined with more nutritious, regular meals, better awareness, etc. It’s also possible that the measurement errors even out over time, but I suspect the timescale is too long (if you’ve undereaten for two days you’ll end up eating something out of the diet).

New comment by squillion in "I read all of Cloudflare's Claude-generated commits"

squillion — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 11:46:49 +0000

Exactly!

> this assumes models can achieve strict prompt adherence

What does strict adherence to an ambiguous prompt even mean? It’s like those people asking Babbage if his machine would give the right answer when given the wrong figures. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a proposition.

New comment by squillion in "A manager is not your best friend"

squillion — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 03:12:24 +0000

I’m not a native English speaker, can someone point me to a definition of “commiserate” that matches the usage in this article? It seems to have a different meaning according to the dictionaries.

New comment by squillion in "Is-even-ai – Check if a number is even using the power of AI"

squillion — Tue, 20 May 2025 05:18:36 +0000

I can’t even.

New comment by squillion in "Capitalists Only Respond to Threats"

squillion — Mon, 19 May 2025 19:40:24 +0000

Sources for the charts, via reverse image search:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Average-working-hours-ac...

https://www.epi.org/publication/as-union-membership-has-fall...

https://www.bls.gov/wsp/factsheets/summary-of-work-stoppages...

https://justicepolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/justicepolicy/d...

Capitalists Only Respond to Threats

squillion — Mon, 19 May 2025 19:18:14 +0000

Article URL: https://www.ianwelsh.net/capitalists-only-respond-to-threats/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44033708

Points: 15

# Comments: 4

New comment by squillion in "Absolute Zero: Reinforced Self-Play Reasoning with Zero Data"

squillion — Sun, 11 May 2025 11:17:20 +0000

Warning: abuse of this technique may cause the model to go blind.

New comment by squillion in "I tried making artificial sunlight at home"

squillion — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 08:51:46 +0000

Have you tried an air filter? A friend of mine has a bad hay fever but since he's put an air filter in his bedroom he can sleep soundly again.

New comment by squillion in "Show HN: Mastra – Open-source JS agent framework, by the developers of Gatsby"

squillion — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 19:30:09 +0000

Gatsby never made sense to me. Weird design decisions I couldn’t find any plausible reason for. As soon as Next.js became capable of doing SSG I convinced my team to abandon Gatsby. Definitely a minus, sorry.

New comment by squillion in "TSMC's Arizona Plant to Start Making Advanced Chips"

squillion — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 07:14:38 +0000

What you say is true, and I agree on self-determination in the abstract. But I simply can't believe the U.S. is in Taiwan to defend its people, rather than contain and weaken mainland China. The U.S. has demonstrated time and again it will gladly throw an ally under the bus in order to weaken an adversary ("it may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal"). To go back to the OP, moving TSMC to the U.S. looks a lot like preparation for scorched earth in Taiwan. [1]

[1] https://asiatimes.com/2022/12/us-mulls-scorched-earth-strate...

New comment by squillion in "TSMC's Arizona Plant to Start Making Advanced Chips"

squillion — Sat, 28 Dec 2024 21:06:44 +0000

> Taiwan is not China

Taiwan might be considered a de facto independent country, but according to most institutions it's officially part of China.

1. Taiwan's official name is Republic of China (ROC): it regards itself as part of China, and the sole legitimate seat of China's government. It's true however that "it has not formally renounced its claim to the mainland, but ROC government publications have increasingly downplayed this historical claim". [1]

2. In 1971, the UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 "recognized the People's Republic of China (PRC) as 'the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations'". [2]

3. Only 11 (tiny) countries officially recognize Taiwan as an independent country, i.e. maintain full diplomatic relations. [3]

4. The U.S. official position is that "The United States has a longstanding one China policy", and "we not support Taiwan independence". [4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan#Foreign_relations_and_i... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembl... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Taiwan#Fu... [4] https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-taiwan/