<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: tomkarlo</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tomkarlo</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 08 Apr 2026 14:18:02 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=tomkarlo" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "AirPods Max and AirPods Pro Don't Support Apple Music Lossless, Apple Confirms"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>That depends if you believe Spotify users will switch to Apple just for that feature... if they won't, Spotify can likely still charge extra for it. Folks are pretty tied in to ecosystems at this point: if you've bought audio hardware that supports Spotify but not Apple, you're not going to switch.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 19 May 2021 12:43:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27207767</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27207767</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27207767</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "AirPods Max and AirPods Pro Don't Support Apple Music Lossless, Apple Confirms"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Spotify hi-fi was announced a few months ago and is launching soon.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 18 May 2021 16:01:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27196506</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27196506</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27196506</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Tesla's new Cybertruck smashed during demo"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The EU (and Japan and Australia) has a range of rules now for increasing pedestrian safety, including softer materials on the front bumper, hoods that give so that they cushion the impact if a pedestrian is hit, and limiteing sharp protrusions / edges on the front of the vehicle. The new G-wagon, for example, has turn signals that flex down into the vehicle on an impact.
<a href="https://www.autonews.com/article/20120423/OEM03/304239967/european-safety-styled-cars-due-in-u-s" rel="nofollow">https://www.autonews.com/article/20120423/OEM03/304239967/eu...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 25 Nov 2019 16:00:22 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21629292</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21629292</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21629292</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Here are 588 women in the UK who could speak at your tech event"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yes, I completly disagree with your sweeping characterizations of entire genders, on both sides of that discussion.<p>A key part of the problem is that society often propogates such sweeping generalizations to children, reinforcing existing biases based on stereotypes rather than individual merit. This is part of what diversity policies are intended to address.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2019 17:36:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19028191</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19028191</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19028191</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Here are 588 women in the UK who could speak at your tech event"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>" It is a very feminine point of view to believe that one has intrinsic, objective value."<p>I think you need to take a while and consider why you believe that statement is true, and how it might be impacting the rest of your view on this topic.<p>Have you contemplated that you might be in the wrong here, and that your approach on this topic is very, very heavily based on your first person view?<p>It's extremely hard to control for the success of corporations vs. <i>any</i> single factor, much less "gender balance". For example, more male-founded startups get funded - but it's been shown that's in large part <i>because they're male</i> (not to mention their investors usually are), not because of any inherent merit of their business. Similarly, consumer startups often have an easier time getting funded because they're easier for partners to explain the rest of their firm, but it doesn't actually mean they're better investments than an niche enterprise play that's harder to explain to a layman.<p>More starts = more exits, more role models => more male founders and more all-male startups. Nothing in that cycle actually proves that that men are better at founding or running tech startups, and say "show me the data" is a poor response, given that we don't have an alternate universe where there's no gender bias feeding into those patterns.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2019 14:58:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19026783</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19026783</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19026783</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Medical bills are (according to some studies [0]) the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US. So not only do you have to recover from a serious accident or illness, and maybe the loss of work time associated with it, you also are left with either a crippling level of debt or the total loss of your assets, plus a lien on future income.<p>Additionally, the less money you make, the worse coverage you probably can afford, leaving you even more exposed.<p>You're absolutely right that it's insane that Americans talk about this as if it's just the only way things could work.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/id/100840148" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnbc.com/id/100840148</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 19 Jul 2018 13:58:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17566291</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17566291</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17566291</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You don't need to fork it, or mine it. You just use a smaller amount.<p>My point was that other traditional "store of values" have inherent value based on their utility per amount, which means that the finite supply has implications for people who want to use it. Bitcoin doesn't have that - it's purely useful in terms of what you can trade it for (much like a dollar.) Hence the fact that there's only so many "units" is kind of uninteresting, because a fractional unit is no less useful.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jun 2018 18:04:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17322024</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17322024</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17322024</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yes, but people argue that the finite supply of Bitcoin is a fundamental advantage vs. currencies. The supply of a currency isn't really infinite, but it's quite flexible when you consider that giving credit effectively "creates" more currency and expands the monetary supply. (I'm not clear why BTC won't eventually have this issue as well if folks start lending / borrowing it.) All the BTC really avoid is increases in the monetary supply via the printing of additional currency, which is arguably a <i>feature</i> of traditional money, in that the central government can intentionally tighten or ease the monetary supply to help manage economic volatility.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 15 Jun 2018 18:02:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17322002</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17322002</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17322002</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>What he said above: unless you have a long or short position, you don't care whether you get a full unit or some fraction thereof.<p>There are some elements of behavior economics that counter this - people like to buy lower-priced coins and stocks because they get "more" of them, from a unit perspective. But rationally, there's no reason to consider 1 BTC @ $10 any different from 0.1 BTC @ $100, hence the number of "units" seems potentially irrelevant.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 13 Jun 2018 21:34:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17307166</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17307166</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17307166</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>There's an infinite supply, but there's non-zero cost associated with accessing incremental units in that supply. (And some would say diamonds are an artificially constrained market anyway.) With crypto, there's arguably an unlimited supply at zero cost.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 13 Jun 2018 21:24:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17307078</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17307078</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17307078</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Obviously, nobody can predict the future, but the whole point of talking about what's likely to happen is to make reasoned guesses based on the best available data and economic models.<p>The nature of a hedge, in particular, is that you do it <i>before</i> a market downturn, not after. Once the market has dropped, you want to unwind that hedge, which in the case of gold or Bitcoin means <i>selling.</i> If you look at gold's performance during recessions since we unlinked it from the dollar, it's as likely to decline as rise. That makes it a poor hedge against recession.<p>In terms of supply and demand, it's true that supply is constrained, but that's only half the equation. Demand is <i>extremely</i> volatile, as there's no inherent "consumption" of crypto currencies (aside from lost wallets and other breakage), not is there any production occuring that requires btc to continue. The demand is entirely composed of people buying it with the expectation of a future sale at a higher price... that's speculative demand, and it's not a stable or dependable type of demand.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 13 Jun 2018 21:19:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17307038</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17307038</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17307038</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The problem isn't that it's unpopular, it doesn't seem (from the post) like you have some kind of underlying economic or financial principle supporting your argument.<p>* why would it have an inverse relationship with other assets? It's not a short. It's still valued based on purchase price vs sale price, adjusted for risk. If risk has risen and nothing has changed about purchase or sale price, why would it rise?<p>* if Bitcoin was at a market-clearing price before a downturn, and other assets are now much cheaper, why would BTC then be comparatively more attractive in terms of expected investment returns?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 13 Jun 2018 20:01:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17306442</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17306442</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17306442</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It's an interesting question, but rationally it seems like BTC should decline during a market crash / recession. It's arguably a way to store value as other assets decline, but given that it has no yield, the rational thing to do after that decline is over would be to cash in your BTC and use it to purchase those other assets that have declined, such as real estate, bonds or stocks, and now have either attractive yield or a strong potential for future asset growth.<p>(And you see this kind of rebalancing effect in general when a major asset class declines - eventually it pulls down other, unrelated asset types because as it goes down in price, it becomes a relatively more attractive investment.)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 13 Jun 2018 17:50:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17305421</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17305421</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17305421</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Is the supply really "limited"? Sure, there's finite number of "coins" that can be generated. But unlike physical objects, there's not really any special property of that unit. Also, you can just generate a new currency of more units and similar utility (as has happened many times recently.)<p>Objects in the real world have utility that's directly linked to their unit value. That's not necessarily true for Bitcoin... if it goes up 10X, I can just use 1/10 as much and get the same exact transaction result. So why is it "limited" from a supply/demand perspective?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 13 Jun 2018 17:32:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17305246</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17305246</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17305246</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Wells Fargo Bans Cryptocurrency Purchases on Its Credit Cards"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Interchange rates on Visa are >2%, and there's definitely cards that offer 2% cash back on everything, with the exception they generally bar "cash-like" items like cash withdrawals and t-bill purchases, to avoid holders just churning purchases for the rewards. (There used to be a way to make tons of points for buying like $10K of t-bills on your Visa, then immediately reselling them for $10K, because the Treasury wasn't charging the interchange fee.)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 11 Jun 2018 23:23:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17289481</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17289481</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17289481</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Wells Fargo Bans Cryptocurrency Purchases on Its Credit Cards"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I suspect this is less about the credit risk of the cardholders than the risk of unrecoverable fraud, although there's also the theoretical risk of some kind of fraudulent conveyance by the card holder.<p>Fraud: I steal someone's credit card and use it to buy crypto, then move that currency somewhere unrecoverable. The card company is unable to recover anything. (This can be mitigated by recovering from the exchange in some cases.)<p>Fraudulent conveyance: Holder maxes out all their credit cards buying crypto, hides it, then claims bankruptcy. Card companies can't recover anything. (Yes, you could do this with something like gold, but it would be a lot harder to hide and sell later on.)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 11 Jun 2018 23:18:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17289452</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17289452</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17289452</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Unfortunately, the Electric Scooters Are Fantastic"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Fair enough, but honestly this seems like far less of a problem than the large fraction of drivers who don't know how to turn properly in the first place, and just make that right turn without having merged into the bike lane.<p>I commuted in SF for a year, and I'd guess 75% of cars don't know why the bike lane starts getting dashed before an intersection.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 04 Jun 2018 13:39:18 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227650</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227650</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227650</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Unfortunately, the Electric Scooters Are Fantastic"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I ride both ebikes and scooters, and while the ebikes are a better way to get somewhere fast (and I think, overall, safer) the scooters are generally a much more pleasant ride - you're standing up, you just kind of surf along, and you don't have a 30lb bike to deal with... they're magic-carpet-like.<p>The exercise benefits of both are... questionable. Even just cycling as a commuter on a regular bike isn't very intense exercise, and on an ebike it just seems like you're pretending to pedal. I can't imagine it has much health benefit aside from being better than sitting in a car.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 02 Jun 2018 05:00:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17212810</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17212810</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17212810</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Unfortunately, the Electric Scooters Are Fantastic"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>At least in SF, they protect the bike lanes sometimes - no right on red, at least, when there's a protected bike lane.<p>Re filtering, is that technically against the rules? It's a single lane at that point, but in CA it's legal to share the lane if there's room. Seems like a cyclist or motorbike has the right to lanesplit and move up.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 02 Jun 2018 04:53:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17212793</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17212793</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17212793</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by tomkarlo in "Google quits selling tablets"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is a bit of a stretch. There was a lot of work done on improving tablet support in K, L and M, including work to specifically support the Nexus 9 and Pixel C. There was also the addition of multi-window, etc.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 02 Jun 2018 04:35:00 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17212729</link><dc:creator>tomkarlo</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17212729</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17212729</guid></item></channel></rss>