Hacker News: willhslade

New comment by willhslade in "How to Train Your Robot"

willhslade — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 15:12:28 +0000

Well, it was invented by and for us, but your point still stands.

New comment by willhslade in "1 in 8 cancer cases worldwide are caused by infections, study finds"

willhslade — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 14:58:04 +0000

A few things. 1) Canada is not as wealthy, per capita, as the USA. Per Google: > The GDP per capita in the United States is roughly $94,400 USD, compared to Canada's roughly $60,300 USD (as of 2026 estimates), creating a significant and widening economic gap.

2) Canadian healthcare spends less per capita. Per Google: > The United States spends roughly double per capita on healthcare compared to Canada. Cost Comparison Per Capita • United States: Approximately $14,885 USD per person. • Canada: Approximately $7,301 USD per person (varies by estimates, with public-only spending around $5,000 USD). • Percentage of GDP: The U.S. spends about 17.2% of its GDP on healthcare, while Canada spends about 11.3%.

3) The USA believes in diagnostic testing at a higher level than Canada. Per Google: > Utilization and Intensity: The U.S. tends to utilize higher volumes of intensive diagnostic testing and specialized medical interventions.

4) Related: hospitals are private in the USA, and they buy MRI machines to bill for high-margin diagnostic tests. As you noted, the Boston CMA is a world leader in healthcare and education, and thus has a higher concentration of MRI machines.

5) Canadian healthcare simply is not as sophisticated as the health care in the USA. There have been multiple episodes of high profile / wealthier Canadians going to the US to skip waiting for treatment and getting procedures that are just not available in Canada at the present time.

So it's great, it's saved my life a couple times, but it's not a 1-1 drop in for American healthcare. Every system has trade offs, that's the lesson of engineering.

New comment by willhslade in "1 in 8 cancer cases worldwide are caused by infections, study finds"

willhslade — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 10:44:45 +0000

Massachusets has more MRIs than Canada.

New comment by willhslade in "FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs"

willhslade — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:18:24 +0000

I think this is where Airalo shines. I've used it while travelling and I think eSIMs, as annoying as they are, are the way.

New comment by willhslade in "Meta's embrace of A.I. is making its employees miserable"

willhslade — Sat, 09 May 2026 22:01:19 +0000

I mean, dentristy and vaccines but ok.

New comment by willhslade in "VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage"

willhslade — Sat, 02 May 2026 21:37:10 +0000

Indeed fellow traveller. I do.

New comment by willhslade in "The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code"

willhslade — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 23:35:34 +0000

The bronze age collapse? The end of Rome?

New comment by willhslade in "AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it"

willhslade — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 23:09:19 +0000

Are compilers deterministic?

New comment by willhslade in "What's Your Political Unconscious?"

willhslade — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 22:37:26 +0000

I would really like some links as to all of the above.

New comment by willhslade in "Global warming has accelerated significantly"

willhslade — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 22:22:25 +0000

Soil is generally garbage though. Just saying.

New comment by willhslade in "British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time"

willhslade — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 01:13:04 +0000

It's going to be hard for Toronto, home of our banking and stock exchange, to differ materially in operating hours from NYC.

New comment by willhslade in "Claude Code is being dumbed down?"

willhslade — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 20:29:45 +0000

What in Office has been a degradation? Just curious. I mostly agree about Windows.

New comment by willhslade in "Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month"

willhslade — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 16:05:33 +0000

Carney isn't a billionaire, right? He's been a bureaucrat, not a plutocrat.

New comment by willhslade in "Company as Code"

willhslade — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 19:06:20 +0000

Harvard Business Review's Office Politics. Or any intro Industrial Psychology textbook.

New comment by willhslade in "Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon"

willhslade — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 20:33:13 +0000

Greece? How did it go after the crisis?

New comment by willhslade in "Y Combinator website no longer lists Canada as a country it invests in"

willhslade — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 03:53:02 +0000

Just want to post my favourite business interview of all time: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wind-mobile-backer-regrets-...

New comment by willhslade in "France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc."

willhslade — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 03:28:08 +0000

Wasn't Carter a peanut farmer?

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

New comment by willhslade in "Canada"

willhslade — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 16:17:42 +0000

In 2023, the median Canadian income was roughly $44K CAD. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=111000...

Looks like the USA in 2024 was $51K USD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...

I know we need to adjust for health care, but I think the median income in the USA is higher.

New comment by willhslade in "Canada's deal with China signals it is serious about shift from US"

willhslade — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:47:16 +0000

We're wildly aware. Currently 80+% of our trade is with the good old USA. We're basically an economic colony. But when the ambassador to Canada and Trump himself note that they don't need Canada (both statements happened in the last 2 weeks) we don't really have a choice but to attempt to diversify. We don't want to do it, we were reasonably happy with the existing arrangement, but it's not up to us to decide what the US does. It's up to us to decide what we do.

New comment by willhslade in "Eight European countries face 10% tariff for opposing US control of Greenland"

willhslade — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:36:36 +0000

Careless People (the book about Facebook from a rogue insider) has literally a through line about all of this. Zuck is responsible and knew, both times.