<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: zefalt</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=zefalt</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2026 17:34:17 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=zefalt" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Sad that people can’t see past their ideological bubbles. Tech spaces used to be dominated by people who saw free speech as an imperative. Now their own political biases have them supporting censorship.<p><a href="https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for-offensive-online-messages-zbv886tqf" rel="nofollow">https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 01:32:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47082543</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47082543</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47082543</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "Brad Lander detained by masked federal agents inside immigration court"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Your choice of words reveals a lot. Don't manipulate words to serve your conclusion.<p>They are not "thugs". They are federal officers.<p>ICE did not behave "lawlessly". They are upholding federal law. In fact, it was Brad Lander who acted lawlessly.<p>This constant manipulation of words is tiring. I don't find what happened "horrifying" at all. Anyone impeding the law should face its consequences.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 18 Jun 2025 00:06:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44305334</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44305334</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44305334</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "Brad Lander detained by masked federal agents inside immigration court"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Obstructing a federal officer. Watch the video. Any average citizen would be arrested and detained.<p><a href="https://x.com/w_terrence/status/1935025940075266435" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/w_terrence/status/1935025940075266435</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 17 Jun 2025 23:42:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44305172</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44305172</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44305172</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "Brad Lander detained by masked federal agents inside immigration court"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I feel like hackernews has been getting astroturfed by the same people that ruined reddit. Over the past few months, there have been increasingly one sided political stories and comments. It's a shame.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 17 Jun 2025 23:36:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44305132</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44305132</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44305132</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Floorp may be what you're looking for. Pretty similar to native Firefox.<p><a href="https://floorp.app/" rel="nofollow">https://floorp.app/</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 27 Feb 2025 15:33:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43195291</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43195291</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43195291</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "Zuckerberg claims regret on caving to White House pressure on content"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>5. This has been brought up so many times by in the past few years and is very unlikely to pass scrutiny.<p>---<p>The federal government has the ability to tax "income." Unrealized gains are not income as gains have not been clearly realized.<p>The closest legal definition for "income" comes from:<p>The Glenshaw Glass case<p>In Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co., 348 U.S. 426 (1955), the Supreme Court laid out what has become the modern understanding of what constitutes "gross income" to which the Sixteenth Amendment applies, declaring that income taxes could be levied on "accessions to wealth, clearly realized, and over which the taxpayers have complete dominion". Under this definition, any increase in wealth—whether through wages, benefits, bonuses, sale of stock or other property at a profit, bets won, lucky finds, awards of punitive damages in a lawsuit, qui tam actions—are all within the definition of income, unless the Congress makes a specific exemption, as it has for items such as life insurance proceeds received by reason of the death of the insured party, gifts, bequests, devises and inheritances, and certain scholarships.<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteenth_Amendment_to_the_U...</a><p>See case law section</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 27 Aug 2024 20:44:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41372798</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41372798</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41372798</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in ""Outrageously" priced weight-loss drugs could bankrupt US health care"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It's not just choice but access. The access to see a specialist without waiting months. The access to see a different provider if you don't like your care. The access to pay cash for services. Choice is also underrated.<p>Those same people you say can't afford healthcare are the ones that are heavily subsidized by others through ACA, free community health plans, or Medicaid.<p>Healthcare is not a commodity despite your claim. It requires labor.<p>It seems most people are generally satisfied with their health insurance in the USA as opposed to the UK (see links below). In fact, the satisfaction from employer provided healthcare was much higher pre-ACA than it is currently. The middle class got shafted with increased premiums and deductibles to help subsidize those with low income. This has led to lower healthcare utilization rates in the middle class. The rich don't care since it's a marginal cost relative to their income/wealth. And, the biggest spenders (elderly) don't care since they are mostly on Medicare.<p>Most of the countries that report high satisfaction with their socialized medicine are both rich and have a low population count.<p>---<p><a href="https://www.kff.org/private-insurance/poll-finding/kff-survey-of-consumer-experiences-with-health-insurance/" rel="nofollow">https://www.kff.org/private-insurance/poll-finding/kff-surve...</a>
Most insured adults (81%) give their health insurance an overall rating of “excellent” or “good,” though ratings vary based on health status.<p><a href="https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/public-satisfaction-with-the-nhs-slumps-to-new-record-low" rel="nofollow">https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/public-satisfacti...</a>
Overall public satisfaction with how the NHS runs now stands at 24%</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 18 May 2024 06:10:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40396797</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40396797</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40396797</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in ""Outrageously" priced weight-loss drugs could bankrupt US health care"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I am a physician, and I am also entitled to my own opinions. You can take a moral highground if your want. But, I feel I know more about healthcare than most people on this public forum. I tend to deal in practicality.<p>And where do you see me praising mass death?<p>Further edit:
I would go far enough to say you lack any understanding of our current healthcare system besides meaningless feelings on how it should be in a utopian society. Resources are not limitless. There is a continual shortage of healthcare providers which there are no good solutions for currently. If you don't want to address this reality, there is really nothing to address at all.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 18 May 2024 03:19:40 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40396243</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40396243</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40396243</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in ""Outrageously" priced weight-loss drugs could bankrupt US health care"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Going to leave a link here to a reddit thread I ran across recently for the curious.<p><a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1cn8dy8/what_are_the_strongest_indicators_of_current_uk/" rel="nofollow">https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1cn8dy8/what...</a><p>Look at how many times NHS is referenced and how it is viewed by those utilizing the system. In my opinion, socialized medicine tends to fail as the overall demand for healthcare will usually exceed the available supply in most societies.<p>I'm sure there are counterexamples to be provided; however, I think the benefits of a capitalist healthcare system are underappreciated.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 18 May 2024 00:21:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40395449</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40395449</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40395449</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "Ask HN: Nitter officially declared "over" today – alternatives?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I agree. It's not hard to make an account to "lurk". I'm sure most of those complaining have accounts at various other social media websites. It may cost some privacy, but I find the content more than worthwhile.<p>There is content on Twitter that is not available anywhere else. It frequently breaks news faster than any other source, and there are many high profile posters who use it as their only broadcast source. Some memorable examples include the FTX and OpenAI fiascos.<p>The website isn't stellar, but it is functional. Lists are a great feature to separate content into custom feeds.<p>Maybe there will be something in the future that can serve as an alternative, but there is none currently.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 15 Feb 2024 21:49:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39389510</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39389510</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39389510</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "eBay Still (Secretly) Supports Dorking"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>"Search operators" as a term seems well established.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 21 Jan 2024 04:28:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39075568</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39075568</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39075568</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "The curious side effects of medical transparency"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is simply not true.<p>Healthcare still follows the basic supply/demand curve, and demand is at record levels. It's just as capitalist as much of the rest of the economy. State regulations regarding professional licensure do serve as a limiting factor for supply, but many fields also have similar licensing requirements before being able to practice.<p>Most doctors do not make more the sicker you are. The majority are salaried though some organizations do provide extra depending on volume seen or RVUs. They also have very little say on the volume as it is mostly decided by managers.<p>Some examples:<p><pre><code>  - patients with falls/trauma

  - millions of obese individuals seeking treatment with GLP-1 receptor agonists for weight loss

  - cancer
</code></pre>
Certainly, these individuals were not made sick just so the healthcare industry could make a profit. Also, I don't believe there will ever be a perfect system.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 30 Apr 2023 12:33:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35761966</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35761966</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35761966</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "The curious side effects of medical transparency"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> I welcome the day artificial intelligence makes most doctors obsolete.<p>Guess you deleted this part.<p>When this becomes reality, let me know. If a better system existed given the current set of parameters, I believe it would have come into existence. Give me any medical condition, and I would take my chances in the US healthcare system over any other option.<p>My argument is not that physicians are error proof or that they don't cause harm through errors. It is to refute your claim that "most doctors are terrible".<p>Your AI system would only be accurate at diagnosis if it has all the pertinent data and unlimited resources. Patients often provide an unclear history, their symptoms are not common for their underlying condition, and there are not enough resources to do a full workup for every complaint.<p>Regarding your second link regarding misdiagnosis in emergency rooms, you just need to look at the PERC rule or the HEART score that ED physicians use for evaluating for pulmonary embolus or acute coronary syndrome to get a somewhat clearer picture of the deviation. Even with scores of zero, there will be a substantial amount of missed diagnoses. Not everyone who goes to the emergency room is going get a full cardiac evaluation or a CT angiogram of the chest if their symptoms don't suggest the illness. There are not enough resources to do this.<p><a href="https://www.mdcalc.com/calc/347/perc-rule-pulmonary-embolism" rel="nofollow">https://www.mdcalc.com/calc/347/perc-rule-pulmonary-embolism</a><p><a href="https://www.mdcalc.com/calc/1752/heart-score-major-cardiac-events" rel="nofollow">https://www.mdcalc.com/calc/1752/heart-score-major-cardiac-e...</a><p>Of course other civilian professions don't have death rates this high. They don't deal with dying people every day. Again, I'm not claiming that the medical field is perfect as it is. I just believe you are mischaracterizing data for which there are many intricacies.<p>You are also throwing out a lot of strawmen regarding race and sex which bears little relevance to your initial claim.<p>Regarding your final piece of data about the amount of misdiagnosed heart attack cases, look at the following sentence in the same article<p>> It estimated that, if heart attack patients were correctly diagnosed initially then – over the decade of study – over 250 deaths per year might have been prevented.<p>250 * 9 = 2250 preventable deaths over a 9 year period.<p>Far less alarming than the data you present of 198,534 missed diagnoses.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 30 Apr 2023 04:05:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35759610</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35759610</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35759610</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "The curious side effects of medical transparency"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't know why some people on hackernews have such a bias for deriding physicians. If you don't like the care you get, go somewhere else and get another opinion. Of course the bell curve of probabilities exist in medicine...just like it exists in every other field or more broadly the universe.<p>This article is about the potential downsides of radical transparency...not just the default level of transparency. For many years/decades, records have always been available to patients upon request. This new immediate availability is something entirely different and brings about another set of problems.<p>Imagine having 15 minutes to see a patient, document on the chart, order labs/imaging, and provide disposition to a patient. Then, they have free reign to message you regarding some irrelevant piece of data in the chart or labwork that you need to respond to. Too much patient access does have problems, and I can provide you some mundane examples. I documented about an excoriation in one of my charts, and the patient calls back complaining that I called them a skin picker and wanted me to change my documentation. If you google excoriation, you do not get the medical definition or understanding of the word but a link to excoriation disorder. Another patient wonders why their eosinophil percentage is 0.1% above the upper limit of normal.<p>To me, the chart serves more as a note to colleagues who have the relevant understanding to piece together what happened during the visit. Giving patients immediate access to their charts will have very little benefit in my opinion given the high prevalence of EMRs and easy access to charts for anyone that actually cares.<p>To say that most doctors are terrible is one of the worst takes I've read. Most doctors are probably average, and their average medical knowledge is likely a standard deviation or two above the average patient.<p>The whole death by medical error thing is also of uncertain evidence. See: <a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-health/medical-error-not-third-leading-cause-death" rel="nofollow">https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-health/m...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 30 Apr 2023 01:15:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35758849</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35758849</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35758849</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "U.S. SEC sees decentralized crypto platforms as exchanges"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Pretty sure FTX was not a US corporation and catered to non-US customers. FTX.us, which was a minor branch that catered to US customers, was thought to be relatively solvent but ultimately collapsed like most things associated with FTX. Not saying that the SEC would have prevented anything in the fallout, but blaming them for failing to regulate seems somewhat incorrect.<p>Though, I am unclear why FTX filed bankruptcy in Delaware. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 14 Apr 2023 21:43:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35575176</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35575176</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35575176</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "Study reveals robotaxis causing surprisingly little disruption on streets"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOWDNBu9DkU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOWDNBu9DkU</a><p>Saw saw this video the other day. Check out the drone around 13:55 regarding noise and rotor design. The whole video is worth a watch though.<p>The company is zipline which is mentioned in a comment above.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 13 Apr 2023 11:20:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35553768</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35553768</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35553768</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "The day Windows died"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Just leaving some links here since not everyone is aware. You can restore the Windows 11 Taskbar to a more normal state. First, remove the Win11 changes with ExplorerPatcher. Then, install openshell. It's unfortunate how much the windows ui has degraded.<p><a href="https://pureinfotech.com/restore-taskbar-location-windows-11/" rel="nofollow">https://pureinfotech.com/restore-taskbar-location-windows-11...</a><p><a href="https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu">https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 03 Apr 2023 13:27:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35423165</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35423165</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35423165</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "How deep is the rot in America’s banking industry?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>They are choosing to place money in the bank. This is a risk in and of itself.<p>Companies with treasury departments already know this. They can put money in money market funds, CDARs, cash sweeps, or any other vehicle to protect their cash. There are multiple ways to hold cash with very low duration risk that does not involve putting it in a bank.<p>FDIC is not an outdated idea. It is just the reality of the current financial system because it would require an excess of $20 trillion dollars to insure every deposit in the banks.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 16 Mar 2023 21:52:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35189263</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35189263</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35189263</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "How deep is the rot in America’s banking industry?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>No, your money should not have zero risk. There is always risk in the system. The FDIC was created as an insurance for this specific risk hence the name (Federal DEPOSIT INSURANCE Corporation). This was mainly to help the common person when bank failures were more prevalent...not the wealthy who were the predominant beneficiaries of this bailout.<p>You should learn that you the moment you put a deposit in the bank, the funds become the property of the depository bank. As a depositor, you are a creditor of the bank.<p>People are mad because the rules were changed in the middle of the game to serve the interests of a select few (mainly VCs and the startup crowd).<p>Those supporting this bailout seem to have some of the least knowledge on how banks work.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 16 Mar 2023 20:56:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35188476</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35188476</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35188476</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by zefalt in "Silicon Valley Bank unmasks the hypocrisy of libertarian tech bros"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I understand most of your questions may be rhetorical, but I'll try to clarify some aspects.<p>The FDIC insurance coverage limit is an arbitrary number. It was enacted during the era of the Great Depression to protect the common people's money from bank failures. The limit was raised from $100k to $250k during the GFC. It was always meant as a deposit insurance to protect the common person...not the wealthy. To offer full insurance to all bank deposits would cost $18-20 trillion. This has never been the normal and is just not feasible.<p>You always have counterparty risk when you have someone else hold your money. Even if the fed starts CBDCs (central bank digital currencies) and gives everyone a fully 'insured' bank account, the fed is still your counterparty. These risks should always be managed.<p>You can avoid counterparty risk by holding your own money. You can transact in cash if you want to avoid banks. You would have to take care of your own security and safekeeping which makes it unfeasible in large amounts.<p>To think that companies or VCs would not be advised of standard corporate finance practices seem like a huge failure.<p>One of the axioms in finance I've run across is that you can never eliminate risk. You can only move it around.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 15 Mar 2023 18:08:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35172374</link><dc:creator>zefalt</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35172374</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35172374</guid></item></channel></rss>