Hacker News: textech

New comment by textech in "GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing"

textech — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:51:13 +0000

I'd be fine with it if they can make Sonnet 4.5 unlimited. I haven't personally seen any major differences between 4.6 or any of the other newer models. Claude 4.5 seems to be the right balance and works great for me.

New comment by textech in "Iran War Cost Tracker"

textech — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 20:16:50 +0000

The cost doesn't really matter. The US led financial system (which is a glorified Ponzi scheme) is on an unsustainable path. The war in Iran is about resources (force Iran to use US dollars to trade oil, give US more leverage in dealing with China...etc.) and to delay the collapse. You build "digital pyramids" like AI data centers and consolidate power/resources while you still can. Financial cost of the war is largely irrelevant. Whether the outcome will be to your advantage is a different issue but pattern is predictable with historical precedence (Romans...etc.). Unfortunately innocent people pay the price.

New comment by textech in "Google banned me from Google Voice"

textech — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 17:53:58 +0000

Welcome to the club! My Adsense account was banned years ago with no explanation or anything. They even stole my balance. I've heard of similar horror stories of people losing years worth of email and other data with no recourse. As machine learning algorithms become more widespread, expect this to become even more common with a lot of services. Whether paid or free, you're just a number and can be disabled at anytime whenever their flawed algorithms flag you for any reason. I've been actively switching away from Google as much as possible and encourage others to do the same. For email, I use custom domain (still hosted on old Google Apps) so I can switch whenever needed.

New comment by textech in "Tech CEOs Should Be Held Accountable, or Even Fired, Amid Layoffs"

textech — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 16:42:20 +0000

I'm always surprised to see how many CEOs walk away with millions while running their companies to the ground. The vast majority of the S&P 500 corps are mostly monopolies (Telecommunication, Airlines, Insurance...etc.) and for the most part run themselves yet the CEOs are paid exorbitantly.

How much did the CEOs of Circuit City, Blockbuster and so many others made while being completely oblivious to what was happening around them? Even low-level employees probably saw the shift to online/Amazon yet CEOs still walked away with millions. The Corp structure/model seems to be completely broken and most of them can only survive as monopolies.

New comment by textech in "Association between influenza vaccination and risk of stroke in Alberta, Canada"

textech — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 15:17:11 +0000

Perhaps people who get the flu shot are generally in better health or exercise more?

New comment by textech in "Sam Bankman-Fried vs. the Match King"

textech — Sun, 13 Nov 2022 17:29:21 +0000

So-called smart money strikes again. Thernaos, Nikola, WeWork and now FTX (I'm sure I'm missing many and there are some other less obvious ones like Carvana and Opendoor). Billions and billions of dollars were funneled into these obvious scams all while being cheered on by celebrity hedge funders (likes of Cramer, Mr. Clown...etc.) and yet there are zero consequences for anyone involved.

New comment by textech in "Made in America is back, leaving US factories scrambling to find workers"

textech — Sun, 09 Oct 2022 22:30:21 +0000

Are they assembling or manufacturing? If you need to import all your raw materials then you're not really manufacturing anything and I seriously doubt that anyone in this country is willing to do the dirty bad breaking work for low wages with no prospect of ever owning your home.

New comment by textech in "MasterCard suspends all services in Russia"

textech — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 23:14:44 +0000

I guess this will just accelerate adoption of China's UnionPay or their homegrown MIR.

New comment by textech in "Why are used cars so expensive right now?"

textech — Sun, 25 Jul 2021 22:32:10 +0000

How were rental car companies able to sell 770k+ cars last year? Where did that demand come from and who bought those cars?

New comment by textech in "Carbon dioxide peaks near 420 parts per million at Mauna Loa observatory"

textech — Tue, 08 Jun 2021 20:53:23 +0000

This is serious. I'm sure that this will have and is likely already having some serious impact on humans that we don't know much about despite what the studies claim.

New comment by textech in "A former CIA chief of disguise shows off a five-second mask (2020) [video]"

textech — Mon, 17 May 2021 02:26:47 +0000

Reminded me of the line from one of the MI movies. "CIA is like Halloween, a bunch of grown men in rubber masks playing trick or treat".

New comment by textech in "Violence in the Capitol, Dangers in the Aftermath"

textech — Fri, 08 Jan 2021 16:58:05 +0000

Greenwald is absolutely spot on here. Also, I didn't know about Rep. Barbara Lee before, what an incredibly smart lady.

Violence in the Capitol, Dangers in the Aftermath

textech — Fri, 08 Jan 2021 16:47:12 +0000

Article URL: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/violence-in-the-capitol-dangers-in-67f

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25686567

Points: 12

# Comments: 1

New comment by textech in "Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump"

textech — Thu, 07 Jan 2021 20:15:17 +0000

Network effect is pretty strong and although these platforms can easily be replicated, it's just not easy to get masses to adopt a new platform. I'm afraid that just like the traditional news media this could lead to a society where these companies could decide what people get to see and read.

New comment by textech in "Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump"

textech — Thu, 07 Jan 2021 20:05:13 +0000

not just "don't have to" but I'd say that they have a responsibility to make sure that their platforms aren't used to incite violence against anyone but there are better ways to handle an outgoing but still an elected President and it's not clear if that's what really happened. I thought people had the right to protest in this country?

If an elected President of the country is acting deranged then that's the responsibility of congress to do something about and not of glorified CRUD app creators.

New comment by textech in "Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump"

textech — Thu, 07 Jan 2021 17:13:49 +0000

Facebook, Twitter and the rest shouldn't act like arbiters of truth. I think this is just plain wrong and a slippery slope for the entire industry.

New comment by textech in "Microsoft says it found malicious software in its systems"

textech — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 21:13:34 +0000

If they really had access to everything for the past several months then that doesn't say much for their competency.

New comment by textech in "Microsoft says it found malicious software in its systems"

textech — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 20:52:25 +0000

This is precisely the reason why I'm against moving everything to the cloud. Find your way into AWS or Azure and you will have everything on a silver platter.

New comment by textech in "Experiments on a $50 DIY air purifier that takes 30s to assemble"

textech — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 15:04:32 +0000

Without an activated carbon filter on the outside to collect dust and other bigger particles your HEPA filters will be utterly useless in only a few weeks. If you keep your windows closed then I guess it could last longer but then you may have CO2 issues.

New comment by textech in "Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020"

textech — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 19:49:11 +0000

Apparently surgical masks are better than the cloth masks. https://healthnewshub.org/cloth-mask-vs-surgical-mask-vs-n95...