<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: watertom</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=watertom</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Thu, 09 Apr 2026 08:25:14 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=watertom" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Remote sensing reveals Antarctic green snow algae as important carbon sink"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It was the rise of phytoplankton that created the atmosphere necessary for human life.<p>It will be the collapse of the phytoplankton that will eliminate the the atmosphere necessary for human life.<p>Humans won’t be around to see the planet warm.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 17 Oct 2021 16:00:40 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28897391</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28897391</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28897391</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Best Practices – Why I Hate Them"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>A more accurate way to say “best practices” is to say “minimally acceptable”.  This one trick is especially helpful when talking to management.<p>If everyone is doing it, then it means it’s the bare minimum that you should be doing, in order to be the “best”, you’ll need to go far above and beyond “minimally acceptable”.<p>When management hears, “best practices”, they think, “If we do that we’re done!”, which is not true, but they don’t understand that.   When you try to improve things management becomes an impediment, but they usually don’t explain themselves, because they think it’s obvious, we’re already doing the “best”, why do we need to do anything else?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 12 Oct 2021 13:13:41 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28839224</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28839224</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28839224</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Pandora Papers: is the world’s biggest leak the world’s biggest cover-up?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The concept of “capital gains” in the U.S. is a joke, unless you buy stock directly from the company, or buy when the company goes public, there is no capital investment.   Once the company sells stock to the public, further purchase or sale of stock is nothing more than buying/selling goods.   When I buy stock on the stock market the company doesn’t get the money, the person who sells me the stock gets the money, and that’s not capital investment.<p>Sale of stock should be taxed at each states tax rate, because it’s the buying and selling of a good, it’s not capital investment.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 09 Oct 2021 09:31:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28808301</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28808301</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28808301</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Investigators say they've finally identified the Zodiac Killer"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The Zodiac didn't inspire the song, the Hound of the Baskerville's inspired the song.<p>"So the Zodiac actually emerged some months after the song was finished"<p>Story behind the song "Dire Wolf"  
<a href="http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2012/10/dire-wolf-1969.html" rel="nofollow">http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2012/10/dire-wolf-1969.html</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 06 Oct 2021 19:58:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28777646</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28777646</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28777646</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Statement from Mark Zuckerberg"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Maximizing profit and shareholder value is the only thing that matters to the executives, and BOD of Facebook.<p>Just like tobacco companies, just like Exxon, just like every other company.<p>I’m baffled by the population’s belief that ANY company will act in any way but it’s own best interest.<p>Governments are supposed to protect their citizens, but instead have been co-opted by large companies over the threat of job loss, and the population agrees.<p>Every company will be as absolutely evil as the population allows, and it seems the population of most countries are completely OK with almost any behavior.<p>Facebook absolutely knows that hacking groups and nation states are using their platform as a mechanism to wage a disinformation war against targeted audiences.<p>You person standing on a box spewing nonsense amounts to nothing.   A person standing on a box spewing nonsense with a crowd garners some attention.   A person standing on a box spewing nonsense with a huge crowd garners more attention.<p>Facebook allows for the virtual creation of a person standing on a box with the appearance of millions and millions of people crowded around.   Most people don’t understand the abstract nature of technology and assuming the virtual person is real, and the virtual crowd is real, and since humans are pack animals they just fall in with the virtual pack.<p>Facebook knows all of this, and they know how to stop it, but stopping it would damage their revenue and profits, and expose them as frauds which would ultimately destroy the company.  Not wanting to destroy profits they hand wave, and release statements, but they know full well their platform is nothing but a profit and propaganda machine.  Nothing more, nothing less, and the population doesn’t understand, or care.   Apparently the masses need their opiates where they can find them.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 06 Oct 2021 10:27:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28771343</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28771343</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28771343</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Scientists test medieval gunpowder recipes with 15th-century cannon replica"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Ah chemistry class.<p>Our teacher would do a simple demonstration every year with a small piece of sodium and water.   The plan was to have the small piece of sodium fizz around in the bell jar of water.   He kept pulling off pieces of sodium that were too small, and they just went “pfft”.  After the 5th failed attempt, he was mad and pulled off a large chunk, and he tossed it in the water.  It didn’t dance around, it went <BOOM>, big <BOOM>, two feet from the students in the front row.  I was 12 feet away and got wet and  was hit with glass.  He barely kept his job.   It was awesome!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 02 Oct 2021 01:40:47 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28725256</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28725256</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28725256</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Ask HN: Improving health despite working in a screen-based job"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Dynamic body movement, dancing, running, jumping.   Desk jobs force us to be static, the longer we are static the more accustomed our muscles, tendons, ligaments and nervous system become to being static.   Stretching doesn’t overcome a lack of movement, movement overcomes a lack of movement.<p>Lifting heavy weights & body weight exercises, lifting and holding your own weight is very important.<p>A calorie maintained diet.  I personally believe in keto, mostly because it keeps people away from simple carbs which the body treats as sugar, and sugar is a toxic substance, IMHO.<p>Enough water to maintain hydration, even a little bit of dehydration will rob you of both physical and mental capabilities.<p>Adequate sleep, varies from person to person, but it’s more than you are currently getting.<p>Sunshine, if you live in the northern or Southern Hemispheres it means supplementing your diet with Vitamin D & vitamin K, at lunch time, 8,000 IU of D  is what most of the scientific community recommends, it’s easy enough to go Google.<p>Limit screen time outside of work, many geeks have hobbies that have us sit at in one place for long periods of time.  Mind and body need to be in harmony.<p>Get  air quality monitors for your work environment and for your home.   I did this recently and was shocked at what I was subjecting my body to breathe, it was really hard at home to fix the problem, but once I did a lot of things started changing for me mentally.<p>Don’t smoke anything, or drink alcohol, avoid caffeine, and sugar (simple carbs), avoid all processed foods.  Get checked for food sensitivities, many plants produce toxins to keep pests away, and those toxins can be problematic for some humans.  Eat animals that are free range naturally foraging for food, avoid grain feed animals.  You are what you eat, and drink.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 25 Sep 2021 13:28:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28653024</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28653024</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28653024</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Reasons to Quit Social Media"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I didn’t know there was a reason to be on social media.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 23 Sep 2021 01:09:11 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28624108</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28624108</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28624108</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate (2015)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>AIDS, (HIV) spent a long time in human the population before it became a serious problem.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 19 Sep 2021 13:39:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28584242</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28584242</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28584242</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "France recalls US and AU ambassadors over sub-deal"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Afghanistan was a live combat training exercise. It gave valuable experience to career officers who will lead the U. S. Military for the next 30 years.<p>Russia and China can’t deploy troops in their own country.  The U.S. military can land 10’s of thousands of troops, with a support supply line any where in the world on less than 24 hours notice, along with all the firepower that comes with those troops.<p>To “win” in Afghanistan would require slaughtering about half the population of the country, something the U.S. military could easily do, but it would make the U.S. into an international pariah, and that would be bad for business.<p>If the U.S. sovereignty was actually threatened all but the nuclear weapons would be unleashed, including all the top secret weapons that have been developed since the Gulf War, it would probably seem like Star Wars.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 18 Sep 2021 22:19:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28579868</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28579868</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28579868</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Renting a car will be a pain until at least 2022"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>My 2019 Honda Accord LX got totaled from the Ida flooding, it had 16k miles on it, I paid $22K.<p>Looking at cars now I’m seeing 2109 LX’s with 30K mikes selling for $26-28K it’s crazy.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 18 Sep 2021 06:48:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28574254</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28574254</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28574254</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Pay Transparency Is Coming"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It feels like the Government pay system.<p>Opening up salary information means that everything about salary needs to be equal, fair and objective.  Basically the review system will become pass fail.<p>Reviews will become bland and meaningless, raises will be standard based on the job classification, anything else wouldn’t be objective.  If everyone isn’t treated exactly the same there will lawsuits galore.<p>Bonuses will also go away, because it’s impossible to give each person unique goals and expectations and fairly assess each person and their custom goals, against everyone else at that same level.   Lawyers will have a field day.<p>Time in level determines promotions, not skill, not knowledge, time in level.  Time in level is used because it’s the only objective system that works, anything else is too subjective and will open employers to lawsuits<p>If you you can’t move up the ranks based on skills and effort why bother trying to exceed?<p>This salary transparency system will be used by corporate America to suppress wages even further.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 15 Sep 2021 07:28:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28536266</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28536266</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28536266</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Starbucks and TrustArc add fake cookie processing delay if you don't click agree"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don’t understand why you are shocked.<p>Ethics should follow the same standard normal distribution model as everything else.   Which means that 50% of the population has less than average ethics.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 12 Sep 2021 12:56:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500719</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500719</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500719</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Defense against the dark art of estimation bargaining (2014)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The trap isn't bargaining, the trap is allowing someone to shift the responsibility from demand to creation.<p>What I mean is that the role of demand hasn't fully defined exactly what they want, it's nebulous, once the demand role accepts the responsibility for developing a timeline for a non-defined project it also accepts the responsibility to develop the requirements.<p>I simply never accept shift in responsibility.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 18 Aug 2021 16:51:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28223888</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28223888</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28223888</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "As cargo shipments boom, ship strikes imperil whales worldwide"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>When you have 7x the number of humans the planet can support with natural resourse there is not "sustainable manner" in which to operation when consuming natural resources.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 15 Aug 2021 16:00:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28189817</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28189817</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28189817</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "An intro to Pen Plotters (2019)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I guess I'm trying to figure out why it costs more than some 3d printers</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 11 Aug 2021 21:00:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28147658</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28147658</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28147658</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Ancient fish traps in a Vancouver Island estuary"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Ancient native American stone eel traps still in place, the Susquehanna River near Danville, PA<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcbbKJ17_No" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcbbKJ17_No</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 08 Aug 2021 05:32:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28104431</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28104431</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28104431</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "To Stop a Pandemic in Its Tracks, Coordinate Across Borders"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>When China declared their emergency on 12/31/2019, the rest of the world should have closed their borders to travelers who had been in China for the previous 60 days.<p>If the U.S. had done this the rest of the world would have followed.  It could have been done in conjunction with providing supplies, and volunteers to assist China with their emergency, of course China would have rejected the help because they were still trying to craft the narrative.<p>I was calling for this on Jan 3, 2020 on reddit, I had my account, which I had since I got a friends and family early invitation, was wiped from the face of the earth.  Can't find a trace of it anywhere.  Don't believe it when say the Internet always remembers.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 05 Aug 2021 18:26:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28077583</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28077583</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28077583</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>hmmm, maybe it's just me but your tone seems thoughtfully heartless.<p>You are heartbroken that public spaces can't be used by all, but you aren't heartbroken that so many people have no other options other than to live in those spaces.<p>Your compassionate solution is to bring back slums, flop houses, and chicken wire hotels (I actually had to look that up), so that you can get back to using your precious public spaces free of those less fortunate.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 05 Aug 2021 00:08:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068082</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068082</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068082</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by watertom in "Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>A lot of people who are homeless have mental health issues and are homeless due to those issues, it's almost like they need to be cared for in a mental health environment because being homeless isn't actually their problem.<p>A lot of people who are homeless have substance abuse issues, and are homeless due the those issues, it's almost like they need to be cared for in a substance abuse program because being homeless isn't actually their problem.<p>Once we whittle away the people who have issues that cause their homelessness other than just being homeless we can get to the people, who are either unemployed, under employed, or so debt ridden that they can't find a place to live.<p>This may be a coarse filter, but IMHO it's better than just shoving people into a "living space" and being done.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 05 Aug 2021 00:03:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068043</link><dc:creator>watertom</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068043</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068043</guid></item></channel></rss>