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GetTheFacts

8 karma · joined February 3, 2026

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GetTheFacts··on Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
>I don't think anyone in 1776, or even in the Pilgrim days, was thinking a foreigner should have the right to vote for instance.

Nor does anyone in 2026. Your point?

GetTheFacts··on Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
>Policing is a dangerous job, just not for everyone all the time on the whole

Actually, it doesn't even make the top 25[0]. So no, not really all that dangerous. Being around police, especially with a high melanin content is definitely more dangerous than being police.

To channel George Carlin: "It's not that I don't like the police, I just feel better when they're not around."

[0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/03/02/most-dangero...

GetTheFacts··on Where did my taxes go?
>each taxpayer could adjust little sliders on each category to allocate where they personally would like their taxes to go.

If that were the case, I'd go all in on hookers and blow.

GetTheFacts··on DIY Soft Drinks
If you can get it where you are, have you considered trying malta[0][1]?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta_(soft_drink)

[1] https://www.findmeabrewery.com/blog/malta/

GetTheFacts··on Ask HN: Why have we not stepped back on the moon again?
See the (relatively short ~3 minutes) discussion here[0].

That should remove your confusion.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4J9uvhJQM0

GetTheFacts··on Help Keep Thunderbird Alive
>I have donated ... multiple times. I wish there was a way to keep the "Please Donate" from popping up if we have donated within the last N days, weeks, months, etc.

Just to be clear, you're asking for Thunderbird to track all of its users and link them to the dates of payment, payment amounts and payment methods of all of its donors on all of their platforms so that you don't see a pop up once or twice a year? Is that correct?

I'm not being snarky here, but AFAICT you really didn't think that through.

How about a local option being able to opt out of fundraising popups instead? No tracking required. Perhaps you might file a feature request for either of the above?

GetTheFacts··on I'm OK being left behind, thanks
>If these are really revolutionary tools that vastly optimize work, why bother forcing people to "try new models and best practices"?

"If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

GetTheFacts··on Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks
It's okay. I appreciate the cover, but it's important to let this oppressed, hunted, hated and endangered group have their say.

There is, after all, a war on Christmas, Christians and Christianity.

Christian enclaves are being attacked and Christians are being murdered in the thousands every week, just for being Christian.

Hundreds of decent, god-fearing Christian women are being raped daily by strong, manly Muslim men. Their strong muscles rippling under their tight clothes, stirring up strong, lustful feelings among the faithful Christian men.

It's no wonder that folks are kind of touchy. If you risked being shot, blown up, cuckolded or otherwise made dead or humiliated every time you went to a church, made the sign of the cross or put a "Jesus is my Co-pilot" bumper sticker on your vehicle, you'd be concerned wouldn't you?

And that happens every day because people hate them for their knowledge of the truth. It's all there in the literal word of god that's in the Holy Bible. Anything else is heresy. And we know what to do with heretics, don't we?

GetTheFacts··on Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks
>pray tell, where do we learn this simple truth?

Praying[0] is a good start! That, coupled with large amounts of suspension of disbelief[1] helps too.

I suggest drinking (or whatever your preferred brain-fogger might be) heavily. That helps you ignore the details -- because the "devil is in the details" and we mustn't have that, right?

[0] Also known as "begging an imaginary sky daddy for help"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief

GetTheFacts··on Trump fires Kristi Noem as DHS secretary
She was definitely the inspiration for this song[0] [NSFW]

Please note that the link below is NSFW.

[0] https://youtu.be/34q4ymt28dc

GetTheFacts··on Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
I'd also add that I said:

Colloquially, "Congress" usually refers to the House of Representatives.

Colloquial (adjective):[0]

1a: used in or characteristic of familiar and informal conversation

Did you just not know the meaning of that word or did you intentionally decide to ignore it?

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/colloquial

GetTheFacts··on Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
Who is your congressperson?

I needn't say any more, do I?

GetTheFacts··on The whole thing was a scam
>Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.[0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

GetTheFacts··on What does " 2>&1 " mean?
>It's muscle-memory for me. And so is it for LLMs.

LLMs have neither muscles nor memories. They're token combinators based on statistical correlation, no more, no less.

That's not to say LLMs can't be useful when they string together tokens. Quite the contrary, in fact. But let's not pretend LLMs are something they're not.

GetTheFacts··on DOGE Track
You brought it up, not me:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47081814

GetTheFacts··on DOGE Track
>okay? Why are you browsing my comment history lol

Why not? That's kind of the whole point of having accounts here on HN. To create an environment where folks can discuss stuff in good faith. Posting history is public because the posts were public in the first place and they represent who you are (or present yourself to be) on the site.

It allows each of us to be authentically 'us'. Do you not stand by the things you've posted in the past four plus years?

If you do, why do you care if people are looking at your posting history?

If you don't stand by what you've written here in the past, you're likely not posting in good faith.

Either way, why are you concerned about folks looking at the stuff you've publicly posted in the past?

GetTheFacts··on Skip the Tips: A game to select "No Tip" but dark patterns try to stop you
Is that you, Mr. Pink?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utksPm6KgjU [NSFW]

GetTheFacts··on Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
cf. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47004438
GetTheFacts··on Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
Sorry for the late reply. Reading comprehension not your strong suit?

GP said:

>> The legislature >Congress 53/45 R; House 219/215 R

I said:

>It's the Senate, not "Congress".

GetTheFacts··on A Federal Tool to Check Voter Citizenship Keeps Making Mistakes
>The intent of this tool is voter suppression, so it works as designed.

That may well be the intent but, at least according to the reporting, it's not all that effective in disenfranchising many people:

   Even counting people flagged in error, the first bulk searches using SAVE 
   haven’t validated the president’s claims that voting by noncitizens is 
   widespread. At least seven states with a total of about 35 million registered 
   voters have publicly reported the results of running their voter rolls through 
   the system. Those searches have identified roughly 4,200 people — about 0.01% 
   of registered voters — as noncitizens. This aligns with previous findings[0] 
   that noncitizens rarely register to vote[1].
The anecdotes in TFA make it clear that county clerks are seeing significant numbers of folks being flagged incorrectly and many are making efforts to verify these flags before disenfranchising anyone.

What's quite disturbing is that these folks have accessed Social Security Administration (SSA) databases to "cross-check" their information, but that data has come from (IIUC) copies of SSA data taken[2] without authorization by DOGE staffers.

All in all this is not only a huge overreach, but also validates what the experts have been saying all along: voting, or even attempting to register to vote by non-citizens is vanishingly rare.

[0] https://georgiarecorder.com/briefs/georgia-gop-secretary-of-...

[1] https://www.votebeat.org/michigan/2025/04/03/15-noncitizen-v...

[2] https://www.csoonline.com/article/4046997/whistleblower-doge...

GetTheFacts··on Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit: Tools for Thinking Critically (2025)
Your "argument" reminds me of this:

The Rabbit's Thesis

Scene: It's a fine sunny day in the forest; and a rabbit is sitting outside his burrow, tippy-tapping on his lap top. Along comes a fox, out for a walk.

Fox: "What are you working on?" Rabbit: "My thesis." Fox: "Hmmmmm. What is it about?" Rabbit: "Oh, I'm writing about how rabbits eat foxes."

(incredulous pause) Fox: "That's ridiculous! Any fool knows that rabbits don't eat foxes!" Rabbit: "Come with me and I'll show you!"

They both disappear into the rabbit's burrow. After a few minutes, gnawing on a fox bone, the rabbit returns to his lap top and resumes typing.

Soon a wolf comes along and stops to watch the hard working rabbit.

(Tippy-tap, tippy-tap, tippy-tippy-tap).

Wolf: "What's that you are writing?" Rabbit: "I'm doing a thesis on how rabbits eat wolves."

(loud guffaws). Wolf: "You don't expect to get such rubbish published, do you?" Rabbit: "No problem. Do you want to see why?"

The rabbit and the wolf go into the burrow, and again the rabbit returns by himself. This time he is patting his stomach. He goes back to his typing.

(Tippy-tap, tippy-tap, tippy-tippy-tap).

Finally a bear comes along and asks, "What are you doing?"

Rabbit: "I'm doing a thesis on how rabbits eat bears." Bear: "Well that's absurd!" Rabbit: "Come into my home and I'll show you."

SCENE: Inside the rabbit's burrow. In one corner, there is a pile of fox bones. In another corner is a pile of wolf bones. On the other side of the room a huge lion is belching and picking his teeth.

MORAL: It doesn't matter what you choose for a thesis topic. It doesn't matter what you use for your data. It doesn't even matter if your topic makes sense. What matters is who you have for a thesis advisor.

GetTheFacts··on Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
>> The legislature >Congress 53/45 R; House 219/215 R

It's the Senate, not "Congress". Colloquially, "Congress" usually refers to the House of Representatives.

>SCOTUS (5-4 R)

> interprets the laws.

Actually, it's 6-3, not 5-4.

I get that you're not from or live in the US. Please understand, I'm not trying to insult or demean you. But you're making statements that are not true.

I believe the term is "FTFY." And you're welcome.

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