Hacker News Reader

MilnerRouteon Musk says first mission to Mars will launch next year

I think the real question is, "Why is Musk saying this now? Why this particular moment in time?"

My guess is he wants people to focus on something besides Starship's recent explosion. (If not some other recent bad news...)

MilnerRouteon U.S. shifts to 'Muck-Around-and-Find-Out' policy, economist says

"I'm not turning bearish. I’m not even forecasting a recession," TS Lombard economist Dario Perkins wrote to clients on Friday. "But it is odd to see US policymakers talk as if they want to inflict damage on the economy, or at least do things that risk causing damage."

Perkins called the combination of tariff policy and the push to slash federal government spending "dangerous."

CNN adds that "Trump’s immigration crackdown threatens key industries, including agriculture, construction and health care, which have been struggling to hire."

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/10/economy/us-economy-trump/inde...

MilnerRouteon What We've Learned from 150 Years of Stock Market Crashes

Wait a minute... The S&P 500 just started spiking back up about 20 minutes ago. It's still down 2.46% for the day -- but that's a much smaller number than the drops reported this morning.

Maybe the real question is: What have we learned from the last 150 minutes?

MilnerRouteon What We've Learned from 150 Years of Stock Market Crashes

Since December the S&P 500 is down... 4.10%. It's a small loss, but I don't know if people who cashed out in December are really that much happier.

Especially since for the last 12 months the S&P 500 is still up nearly 10%.

MilnerRouteon Musk blames X outage on cyberattack

From the Reuters article:

A source in the internet infrastructure industry said X had been hit by several waves of denial of service beginning around 9:45 UTC.

Although CNN insisted on adding this skeptical note.

Musk has a history of attributing technical snafus to cyberattacks. When his conversation with Donald Trump on X started 42 minutes late in August 2024, he said there was a “probability” of an attack.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/10/tech/elon-musk-x-outages/inde...

The weird thing is the report says the outage is hitting "nearly 12,000 users". I've seen other numbers, but X.com has something like 240 million daily users. So that's an outage for just 0.0125% of all X users...

MilnerRouteon Tesla shares plunge 14%, head for worst day in five years

While today's 14% drop sounds bad, that's really just giving up part of the big spike they got after the election. Another way to say it?

"Tesla's shares haven't been this low since... October."

UPDATED COMMENT: On the other hand, that spike in November was so huge, CNBC is also correct when they say...

Since peaking at $479.86 on Dec. 17, Tesla shares have lost over 50% of their value, wiping out over $800 billion in market cap.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/10/tesla-shares-plunge-14percen...

Ironically, CNBC thinks Tesla's drop is actually tied to actions taken by the Trump administration:

The downdraft in Tesla’s stock on Monday was tied to uncertainty surrounding President Donald Trump’s plans on tariffs. Canada and Mexico are key markets for automotive suppliers, and increased tariffs, with the potential for a trade war, will likely impact production and lead to higher prices.

MilnerRouteon US 'to cease all future military exercises in Europe'

Here's a non-paywalled link to the same article...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-cease-future-military-exercise...

The U.S. would participate in military exercises in Europe, according to the article, for the rest of 2025. And (contrary to the headline) the article suggests the U.S. still plans military exercises with some countries.

"It has also been reported that the Trump administration is redrawing Nato engagement in a way that favours member countries with higher defence spending. The president is said to be considering prioritising military exercises with member countries that are spending the set percentage of GDP on their defence, officials told NBC."

The article also says the U.S. plans to deploy 35,000 troops in Eastern Europe (possibly Hungary).

MilnerRouteon Investors spy the dawn of a tectonic shift away from US markets

Or, buy U.S. stocks on the dip?

I don't know how many years until your daughter retires, but it only makes sense to move out of the U.S. market if you predict it will never, ever recover from, say, a bad four years...

MilnerRouteon Ask HN: What have you recently failed at?

I find this an oddly positive question. (As in, "Learn from your failures. Celebrate the bravery of your attempt.")

For me it's an hour-by-hour thing. "I'd hoped to get more done than I did. Maybe the next hour will be better..."

MilnerRouteon Zelensky's Approval Rating Surges After Heated Clash with Trump [video]

"...among Ukrainians."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/zelenskys-approval-rating-jumps-6...

MilnerRouteon The Explosive Meeting Where Trump Officials Clashed with Elon Musk

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy "said the young staff of DOGE was trying to lay off air traffic controllers. What am I supposed to do? Mr. Duffy said. I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now, and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers?"

Newsweek covered the meeting's aftermath.

"During an Oval Office press conference after the meeting, Trump expressed a preference for Musk to fire fewer federal workers..."

https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musks-short-reaction-after-mee...

From Politico:

"According to two administration officials, Trump told top members of his administration that Musk was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy..."

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/06/trump-cabinet-musk-...

MilnerRouteon Data show Tesla sales declined sharply in Europe

Tesla's stock dropped almost 30% in the 28 days of February...

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-just-wrapped-up-its-sec...

MilnerRouteon America faces a Trumpian economic slowdown

If you seriously believe the market is going to crater, save up some money to snatch up bargains in the aftermath.

MilnerRouteon Reddit became a hot mess of errors and account bans for no reason

I just want to say, I've experienced similar things too - with my posting privileges suddenly revoked to subreddits I've posted to for years. (I've had my Reddit account over a decade...)

I assume it's mistakes by the automated moderation that Reddit scrambled into place during the great moderators strike of 2023. When you try to ask what's going on, even the human moderators don't know. An algorithm decided X number of possible flags had been ticked -- not enough comment karma? infrequent poster? -- and auto-enacted a ban that the human moderators can't explain to you.

MilnerRouteon Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

Alternate feed for the video here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jqLtIrRqDg

https://apnews.com/live/donald-trump-latest-news-2-28-2025

Is it just me, or does it seem like the conversation swerves suddenly to "you're disrespecting..." It just seemed like a complete change of subject.

MilnerRouteon Ask HN: Finding a Programming Tutor

The best CS-for-beginners course is Harvard's CS50. (And you can take it for free online through EdX.) It's fun, but you learn a lot, and you get actual coding experience with coding tools.

There's a lot of free online support that comes with it - Reddit, plus virtual "section" videos, etc.

MilnerRouteon [dead]

Also from Politico: ‘Air traffic controllers cannot do their work without us’

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/20/faa-firings-aviatio...

MilnerRouteon The teeming life of dead trees

There's a great children's picture book that illustrates the whole ecosystem around a dead tree using watercolors...

https://www.review-land.com/the-gift-of-the-tree-by-alvin-r-...

MilnerRouteon Hank Azaria: Can Characters Come Alive Without People?

I saw Azaria interviewed on a sports channel, and they asked how Moe the bartender felt about the Yankees.

And he improvised a whole Moe-the-bartender monologue about hoity-toity upscale fans "with your fancy imported beers and your shelled peanuts and your barstools with backs on 'em..."

MilnerRouteon I'm Ready for You: On Balzac

I don't know if Rabelais counts as urban fantasy. (The labels for him that come to mind are "comic grotesque" and "satirist")

When I was in high school I read "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" thinking it would be another classic fanciful monster tale like Dracula. It wasn't, but it did capture all the different strata of Paris society. (So more "urban" than "fantasy"). Victor Hugo was excellent at that. And of course Paris was the other city in Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities". (Whereas Alexandre Dumas books always felt more like a paperback page-turner...)

I don't know how you'd feel about Francois Villon -- not a novelist, but a French criminal-poet. The night before he was sentenced to death, he wrote a poem giving away pieces of himself and his life. The next day his sentence was commuted. There's a great biography of his life by Wyndham Lewis.

MilnerRouteon Ask HN: Recommendations for a Linux Distro and Laptop?

There's dozens of distros of Linux, and they're all pretty good. (A handy skill to develop would be getting comfortable with installing and trying news ones -- because then you don't have to feel stuck.)

I've heard Linux Mint is an easy choice for beginners hoping to get comfortable and familiar with Linux.

MilnerRouteon End the Ukraine war? Neither side is ready

I'm not sure I see your point.

The article was written by Lieutenant Colonel ML Cavanaugh, an active duty U.S. Army Strategist with global experience and assignments ranging from the Pentagon to Korea and West Point to the Middle East.

MilnerRouteon NBA, NFL Subreddits Among Largest to Ban X After Elon Musk Controversial Salute

Several links about Reddit's X.com bans (at the subReddit level) have been shared (and upvoted) on Hacker News.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42802166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42798133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42793585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42784482

I personally don't think it's "political content." (Although some people are sensitive about "Musk-flogging" content.)

MilnerRouteon What's behind rising cancer in the under-50s?

I assumed it was just more diagnoses than before. And the last paragraphs seem to suggest that as well -- that melanoma skin cancer is being diagnosed more often.

The article also points out that the death rate (from skin cancer) isn't increasing along with the diagnoses. The article raises the possibility of false positives -- but it could also be that early detection is preventing more people dying from skin cancer.

MilnerRouteon CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

The Times also includes this unusual sentence. "There is no new intelligence behind the agency’s shift, officials said."

And right below the headline on the Wall Street Journal they even stressed that the CIA says it had 'low confidence' in its finding...

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/cia-now-favor...

MilnerRouteon CIA Now Favors Lab Leak Theory on Origins of Covid-19

I'm confused.

The very next thing on the page -- right below the headline -- is that the CIA says it had 'low confidence' in its finding.

Are we heading to one of those "glass half empty" moments, where both sides claim to be vindicated?

MilnerRouteon I got a heat pump and my energy bill went up

Thank you for making your article's text available. This seems to be the key quote people were looking for:

"Many homeowners with heat pumps are likely on the wrong rate plan and paying more than they should. The right plan can make the difference between saving money and spending more money with the exact same equipment."

MilnerRouteon RedNote Scrambles to Hire English-Speaking Content Moderators

The number of Americans doing this is only in the hundreds of thousands, according to the article, while RedNote has 300 million (Chinese) users.

It's odd that this happened - but I don't think it will have a big impact on anything.

MilnerRouteon Characters in Moby Dick according to Google ... I don't remember Yosemite Sam

Same here (for getting those results). I've now installed a browser extension that stops Google's AI-generated answers from appearing.

Google's results are like pushing a button that says "Lie to me." Except it's worse. It's "Lie to me sometimes" -- just to make it harder to spot.

MilnerRouteon Tech unemployment in the US drops to lowest level in more than two years

The article says IT unemployment is "its lowest since November 2023."

That's not two years. It's 14 months.