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49531

1,365 karma · joined July 7, 2015

Software Engineer
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49531··on Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade
> My personal opinion is that polarization has pushed both sides to be completely antagonistic towards each other.

This opinion is about as uninformed as it can be. Currently the US is run by "moderate" Democrats, and extremist Republicans; the Right cries wolf every time the moderates do anything, and the moderates capitulate. If we look at American politics through your lens it makes zero sense.

We no longer live in a democracy and haven't really since 1978 with Buckley v. Valeo; increased by the recent supreme court decision in favor of Senator Cruz. There's a strong disconnect between what voters want and what happens in the halls of power, and it is increasing. The reality is that if you can donate to a senator enough you get "democracy".

Not to be too hyperbolic, but for the average person we really do live in a plutocracy.

49531··on The Grug Brained Developer
> frontend Complexity Demon having a grip on the entire industry

Is frontend web development more complex than it needs to be? If so, how?

49531··on Ask HN: Has anyone found a job from the monthly Who's hiring on HN?
I’ve never participated in the “Who wants to be hired” posts but I have found two jobs in the “Who’s hiring” posts, one of them being my current job.
49531··on Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers. Very thoughtful and short read.
49531··on Show HN: Imba – I have spent 7 years creating a programming language for the web
Most frontend frameworks are not created to solve performance of vanilla web applications, but rather to make engineering larger and complex applications easier.
49531··on Show HN: Imba – I have spent 7 years creating a programming language for the web
A couple reasons I can think of: - The less logic you do on the client means more data required to be sent over the wire. - Connections are getting faster but we aren't at the point where they're negligible.

For example, if I need to do complex form validation in real time I could send the form value to the backend, have it validate, and receive a response which introduces a lot potential of failure points. Alternatively I could write some logic on the frontend to validate, and this problem expands as the amount of fields in your form increases.

49531··on Time to sunburn
> • Known carcinogens commonly used in sunscreens, or present as contaminants, are actually causing increased rates of skin cancer.

I am curious to see a citation for this claim.

> Generally, large population studies show positive effects of moderate sun exposure on many health outcomes, including overall longevity, heart disease, and non-skin cancers. Meanwhile, Vitamin D supplementation studies have usually not found that such supplementation alone reverses the correlations of many diseases with low Vitamin D. Thus, Vitamin D may not be the only mechanism by which sun's benefits are achieved.

I am also curious to see these studies, and wonder if they control for other variables like physical activity.

I think it's an incorrect framework to say that you have to choose between skin cancer and heart disease, you can avoid both through different lifestyle choices.

49531··on Time to sunburn
Fortunately Vitamin D supplements are a safe and effective way to get the recommended amount. UV exposure is the most preventable cause of skin cancer[1] and not worth the risk.

EDIT Forgot my link: 1. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/call-to-action-preve...

49531··on Always Be Quitting
I hate to break it to you, but every economic scenario is a zero-sum game. In order for an economy to work you have to have a relatively fixed amount of resources.

This whole win-win ideology is mostly a tool to erase where the losers are, and to make losers feel better about losing. Every increase in my paycheck is a decrease in someone else's.

49531··on Always Be Quitting
> Turning yourself into a silo like this is practically blackmailing your employer into keeping you. They might keep you employed because they need to keep their systems online, but they will also not think twice about replacing you as soon as an opportunity is presented.

All employer / employee relationships have this dynamic. I get paid _n_ because my employer cannot figure out an effective way to do it cheaper, but as soon as they can I will no longer be paid _n_. While I think blackmail isn't an accurate description of this, what you're describing exists in all employment situations. Making yourself more disposable is only going to give the employer more power, which might work out better or worse depending on the employer.

49531··on The end of the pandemic is near
Ditto. Anecdotally winter 2020 was the healthiest I've had in years. It became a personal expectation for me that I would be vaguely sick from November to March which was not the case in 2020.
49531··on Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing
I would argue that this has always been the case, it has never been uncommon to be fired for political activities done outside of work. Perhaps you're only noticing it now that people who think and act like you are experiencing it?
49531··on Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales
> Does nationalisation stifle innovation?

I would argue that it does not. We have a lot of innovations from the last 100 years that have come from state-run projects / endeavors.

The more I think about it the more it looks as though private ownership stifles innovation if there isn't a direct profit motive for it.

49531··on Where does a candle go when it burns?
A good demonstration of this by Ruben Meerman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuIlsN32WaE
49531··on A campaign to make environmental destruction an international crime
The opposite of this _sort of_ exists in the ICSID[1] where investors or companies can sue governments for losses caused by those governments enforcement of their laws.

For example when tobacco major Philip Morris sued Uruguay for alleged breaches to the Uruguay-Swiss BIT for requiring cigarette packs to display graphic health warnings and sued Australia under the Australia-Hong Kong BITS for requiring plain packaging for its cigarettes. The company claimed that the packaging requirements in both countries violate its investment.[2]

1. https://icsid.worldbank.org/ 2. https://archive.globalpolicy.org/globalization/globalization...

49531··on Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
As someone who was raised in a religious home who no longer attends any church I think it's less to do with not answering questions and more to do with a hostile rejection of religion generally. It wasn't until I had children of my own that I realized I needed to distance myself from religion. I know there is a large variety of what is taught from religion to religion and sect to sect but I'd like to steer clear from any organization that takes a negative view on basic things like homosexuality. I cannot fathom exposing my (or any) kids to that kind of worldview.
49531··on Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub
I think the general discourse around high profile account banning raises some interesting questions. I've seen a lot of people in my (generally liberal) social bubble carry the line that Twitter, as a private corporation, has the right to ban accounts for whatever reason they see fit. While technically this is true, should it be? Is there a threshold where a service becomes more of a public good than a private enterprise? I think a lot of us would argue that making ISPs into publicly owned utilities would be beneficial for users.

I think perhaps a legislative approach to monopoly should be nationalizing rather than breaking up. Monopolies can be valuable for consumers if their claws are trimmed.

49531··on What Chinese looks, feels and sounds like when you're from Korea or Japan (2009)
That sounds similar to English and German. There are a few words that are still somewhat connected, like water / wasser, but knowing one gives little insight into the other.
49531··on The K-shaped recovery
Is that not the entire point of society? I sacrifice some of my independence so that I can enjoy the infrastructure of civilization? None of us are an island.
49531··on The K-shaped recovery
> Very different approaches can be reasonably proposed to solve the same issues by people with very different perspectives on the world. People who don't support - or even directly oppose - the actions you believe should be taken don't necessarily not care about the same things that you care about.

Sure, but we have a system where individual's earning potential is pitted against the general welfare of communities. When the state needs to generate tax revenue for social programs and infrastructure corporations will fight it. As a country the US has been hollowed out by this conflict. The issue isn't _how_ these problems get solved, but _if_.

Libertarianism as an ideology is born out of this dichotomy, sold as small-government means big individual. In reality small government just means big corporations.

49531··on China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet
The problem I am having is that articles like this make it to the front page of HN while not providing any sources of their own. We've seen a sharp uptick in anti-Chinese rhetoric over the last couple of years and most of it seems to be coming from the US State Dept. I have no special place in my heart for China, but this is too reminiscent of US propaganda tactics used to justify invasion in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.
49531··on TikTok and WeChat: Curating and controlling global information flows
Yea I really don't know how people can take this information seriously; it is just so on-the-nose.
49531··on TikTok and WeChat: Curating and controlling global information flows
On a similar note, as a US citizen I am more concerned with what data the US Government or US companies have on me than anything the CCP might have on me.

This might be naive but it seems like we have a much bigger privacy problem in the US.

49531··on Significant sex differences in Covid-19 immune response
Dangerous isn't always fatal: https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/anabolic-st...
49531··on Learn Vim (the Smart Way): a book to learn the good parts of Vim
I was using vim for years before discovering the dot operator. Truly a game changer.
49531··on Learn Vim (the Smart Way): a book to learn the good parts of Vim
I think they're referencing vim emulator plugins for VSCode: https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim
49531··on Learn Vim (the Smart Way): a book to learn the good parts of Vim
A couple good reasons I can think of off the top of my head is that vim is easy to get up and running in headless environments, even with all of the bells and whistles of a modern text editor or IDE.

Another reason is that I really enjoy that vim runs in my terminal. I can easily toggle in and out of vim while doing heavy terminal work, and if I want to rapidly open and close different files while looking around for things vim makes it simple.

There might be an aesthetic or comfort aspect to it, but most tools don't stay as relevant as vim has for mere style points.

49531··on Orthodox Privilege
Yes. Orthodox privilege is a thing, and it changes in different spheres, but having people on twitter "cancel" you for a hot take doesn't really add up against the real material orthodox privilege paulg receives from the system we live in.
49531··on U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation
This is a unique idea, that feels to be mostly semantic. Ok, you don't want to call it theft, but does that change the justice of the situation? America conquered a series of less developed nations of people through sometimes dubious means, and has spent the years after that conquering trying to erase or marginalize the conquered peoples. America won, so it's not theft, but whatever you call it it's unjust.
49531··on U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation
Proximity in time and space add important context to the issue. There are still many places in the world where injustices are happening due to this kind of problem, saying that it has always been this way doesn't add anything to the conversation.
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