Hacker News: thinkcontext

New comment by thinkcontext in "Israel creates fake think tank in likely attempt to dupe AI chatbots"

thinkcontext — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 12:50:04 +0000

Isn't this what Elon Musk has unironically claimed he is doing with grokipedia?

New comment by thinkcontext in "St Lucie Nuclear Reactor Unit 1 manually shutdown, 3 control rods drop into core"

thinkcontext — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 18:56:28 +0000

Maybe a non-event for safety but what about getting the plant operating again?

New comment by thinkcontext in "The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses"

thinkcontext — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 15:52:50 +0000

Its a particularly galling policy for disproportionately hurting small businesses given the number of money laundering, sanctions avoidance, etc big fish Trump has pardoned, ended investigations and enforcement generally.

New comment by thinkcontext in "The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses"

thinkcontext — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 15:49:48 +0000

I wonder how much this will drive adoption of crypto for remittances.

New comment by thinkcontext in "SpaceX wins $1.6B Space Force contract for 18 Falcon 9 launches"

thinkcontext — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 22:19:19 +0000

Even more significant is the timing, it's 18 launches by the end of 2027. Even before New Glenn and Vulcan broke they couldn't have scheduled a single launch before the end of 2027. Their manifests were full because they were years late.

SpaceX could easily charge more for timeliness. Its way more important than price per kg for a military customer.

New comment by thinkcontext in "Europe EV Sales BEVs Jump 50% & Reach 26% Market Share"

thinkcontext — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 19:55:59 +0000

You brought up the working class as sensitive to price and now you say they aren't. That doesn't seem like a logically consistent position but maybe I'm not understanding what you are saying.

New comment by thinkcontext in "Europe EV Sales BEVs Jump 50% & Reach 26% Market Share"

thinkcontext — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 23:37:09 +0000

We're talking about new cars, which in the US the average price of is $50K. The working class tends to buy used cars, of which 3 times more than new cars are sold each year.

New comment by thinkcontext in "New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study"

thinkcontext — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:11:56 +0000

> Perhaps the money being used to fund a superfluous vaccine should be used to fund access to PrEP in the Third World

An astounding statement. Is it not possible that a vaccine giving decades of protection would give better health outcomes than doing PrEP every 6 months?

The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border

thinkcontext — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:35:36 +0000

Article URL: https://gizmodo.com/a-feature-that-makes-your-phone-data-self-destruct-in-authorities-hands-may-soon-have-its-day-in-court-2000790831

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49063853

Points: 69

# Comments: 49

New comment by thinkcontext in "Does creatine make you smarter?"

thinkcontext — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 12:39:46 +0000

Not likely. There's a saturation point where excess just gets filtered out by your kidneys.

New comment by thinkcontext in "Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity"

thinkcontext — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 14:38:00 +0000

That's the point, the grid operator does not want more solar. They have an excess of solar available during those 3 hours that would otherwise go to waste and not enough later in the day.

New comment by thinkcontext in "Australian energy retailers must provide three hours of free daytime electricity"

thinkcontext — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 14:09:44 +0000

"Free" electricity is an indication that the economics are out of balance. If the power provider isn't getting paid for those 3 hours, it means they'll need to be paid more at other times. It also means the grid needs to spend more on storage and less on new solar. Its cool if you have the ability to load shift but in general it means costs go up.

New comment by thinkcontext in "EFF letter to FTC on X consent order [pdf]"

thinkcontext — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 21:41:22 +0000

But they did resist locking it down, recall Musk making fun of concerns? They clearly don't take governance seriously, its whatever Musk is gravitating to in his filter bubble.

A Niche Technology Became a Choke Point for A.I

thinkcontext — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 10:29:45 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/technology/ai-advanced-chip-packaging-tsmc.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48684889

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

New comment by thinkcontext in "Making 'food out of thin air' (2024)"

thinkcontext — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 18:09:12 +0000

I believe that they made the "butter" out of the leftovers (paraffin) from making liquid fuel out of the coal. So, its not a straight 60:1 ratio, you'd need to add some more products to the equation.

New comment by thinkcontext in "TerraPower in Deal with Meta for Eight Natrium 345 MW Advanced Nuclear Plants"

thinkcontext — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:36:23 +0000

Is it not possible that they build the first one and things don't go smoothly and they need to make some adjustments for subsequent builds?

New comment by thinkcontext in "TerraPower in deal with Meta for eight Natrium 345 MW nuclear plants"

thinkcontext — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:22:39 +0000

This is a brand new type, there's no way that equivalent operation to a decades old design with centuries of operational experience can be assumed. Presumably its been designed for high uptime but it would not be unusual for new technology like this to require some refinement.

New comment by thinkcontext in "Making 'food out of thin air' (2024)"

thinkcontext — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 12:01:39 +0000

There already is a multi $B market for the amino acid methionine, made both through a synthetic process and a fermented process. It's used to supplement animal feed. So it's possible to synthesize nutrition economically. And it's a good idea to focus on animal feed since there's not the ick reaction to humans eating science project food.

I've read lately about another startup Savor that aims to make synthetic fats. They can make it in a variety of forms of it, from cooking oil to something like butter. They claim they can make it both much cheaper and with a much smaller carbon footprint than through conventional agriculture.

https://www.hertzfoundation.org/news/hertz-fellows-tech-comp...

New comment by thinkcontext in "Total Iran Economic Damage Estimate"

thinkcontext — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 22:34:22 +0000

I'm confused about this investment vehicle. China, their largest external trading partner, is notably absent from the list. I'm assuming they would be willing to extend Iran credit and Iran would probably prefer to deal with a Chinese company over a US company. Are US companies going to offer lower loan rates than Chinese companies? Or is the US going to use financial controls to only allow Iran to conduct international business through approved banks?

New comment by thinkcontext in "Amazon CEO's talks with U.S. officials triggered crackdown on Anthropic models"

thinkcontext — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:08:57 +0000

> And Biden ran a secret covert war using the banking system which is also questionably legal.

The industry is infested with scammers, what a great idea to tie the stability of the banking system to it.

> At least with the current you know what is happening and what is allowed.

So you would categorize bribes and North Korean style displays of fealty as a normal part of doing business?