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statguy

329 karma · joined July 16, 2013

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statguy··on What Is the Karakoram Anomaly?
I think the parent comment was not referring to climbing related safety :)
statguy··on US Forces Exit Iraq
The question is what purpose do those bases serve. I am not sure what war planning you are referring to, but I am sure that it is being adapted in the light of the current situation and those bases will be rendered useless on day one in case a war breaks out (like with Iran to a lesser extent).
statguy··on US Forces Exit Iraq
How so? US could not protect its allies in the gulf, it has lost up to 15 of its bases in those countries. If Iran could do this, imagine what can China do to US bases around it. All parties (China, US, Japan/Korea/Taiwan) now know this. So the question is what purpose do US bases in those countries serve?
statguy··on US Forces Exit Iraq
they have lost their credibility that they can protect their allies and their bases are actually a liability for the host country
statguy··on Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait
It is reasonable for Iran to do things that hurt the US (and the world) when the US hurts them.
statguy··on Iran caused more extensive damage to U.S. military bases than publicly known
The down votes to this suggest that many in the west are in denial. China doesn’t need to fight a hot war with Taiwan, they can incrementally pressure Taiwan while their western allies issue impotent statements.
statguy··on Iran caused more extensive damage to U.S. military bases than publicly known
The casualties are low largely because US troops simply abandoned their bases and moved to hotels, treating the citizens of their gulf allies as human shields.
statguy··on Iran caused more extensive damage to U.S. military bases than publicly known
Exactly, Trump was high on the Venezuala “win” and Netanyahu managed to suck him into this war with disastrous consequences for US and the world.
statguy··on Iran caused more extensive damage to U.S. military bases than publicly known
The Taiwanese know they can't take on China directly, they now know that Western support is meaningless - in fact it pushes them more into conflict with China. Given a choice, I think the Taiwanese would prefer a Hong Kong like outcome to a Ukraine/UAE like outcome.

AFAIK Iran never directly attacked several countries (e.g. UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi, Bahrain) before this war.

statguy··on Iran caused more extensive damage to U.S. military bases than publicly known
This has massive strategic implications for the US. The US couldn't protect its bases in the middle east from a middle power like Iran and in fact its bases were the reason that its "allies" in the gulf were attacked. Iran would have no reason to attack those allies otherwise. The US has also shown that Israel is the only ally that it really cares about.

Japan, South Korea, Philippines and Australia are taking notes. Prediction: there is not going to be a war over Taiwan - Taiwan will gradually come to a Hong Kong like agreement with China.

statguy··on The Killing Fields of Tehran
I don't doubt that the Iranian regime has committed some atrocities during the recent protests. However, I would discount any person/source who - supported the Iraq war, cheered America/Israeli bombing of Iran in 2025 and has nothing to say about Israel's genocide in Gaza, as being a reliable source of information on Iran.
statguy··on ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk
does it matter if you are the one on the receiving end?
statguy··on Amazon Demands Perplexity Stop AI Agent from Making Purchases
https://archive.ph/nGmOJ
statguy··on I don't want AI agents controlling my laptop
It doesn't work that way. The dedicated machine for running agents will have very limited utility because it will not have access to anything it needs like your credit card to automatically purchase stuff on your behalf etc.
statguy··on A.I. researchers are negotiating $250M pay packages
Any idea roughly how many $100M offers have been made. I initially thought that there were maybe 1-2 such offers and the remaining were maybe around $10-25M. However, judging by this particular case and another report where a $1.5B offer was made to a someone at Thinking Machines, I think that the actual number of such offers is much higher.

Any idea if the Googles/Apples are offering similar retention grants to prevent key employees from leaving?

statguy··on AI chipmaker Cerebras files for IPO
Nvidia is also going to keep improving, so it will be a moving target.
statguy··on Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?
I was curious so I looked it up, it turns out that the men’s world record for a mile is 3 minutes and 43 seconds, the women’s is 4 minutes and 7 seconds. These are the very best in the world at their prime. I would conjecture that less than 50% of adults in an industrial society would be able to run a 7 min mile, which is less than twice the world record times.
statguy··on Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras
You knew this when making the booking? Why didn’t you book a hotel instead? Airbnb or the host have no incentive to change if people like you keep going back. They will change only when it starts to hurt their bottom line.
statguy··on Show HN: XRain – Explore rainfall statistics around the world
Cam here to say the same thing, the map appears to be overly smoothed and does not capture the sharp rainfall changes that often occur due to the local topography - e.g. when going from the windward side of a mountain to the leeward side.

For example, according to the map the rainfall at world's wettest place Mawsynram, is about 4300mm, which is about 35% of the the actual. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawsynram

statguy··on The sudden demise of Indian vultures killed thousands of people
I remember that during the early nineties, when I was kid, I often used to see over a dozen vultures perched on my maternal grandparents’ terrace in New Delhi on summer evenings (I visited them only in summer). A few years later I noticed that I didn’t see them anymore and occasionally wondered why. Then years later I started seeing articles about Diclofenac killing vultures and then it clicked. Just thought I’d share.
statguy··on Nvidia H100 GPUs: Supply and Demand
What is with this webpage, it appears to be blocked by pretty much every browser?
statguy··on Shingles vaccination may reduce dementia risk
Previous discussion on the same study from 2 weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36083620
statguy··on Zoho became a $1B company without external investment
RSS is a straight up fascist organization:

"India has the longest-running continuous fascist movement in the world – the RSS was founded in 1925. It’s nearly 100 years old. Their internal language hasn’t changed; they’re still using texts by Savarkar or Golwalkar for indoctrinating their members – and Golwalkar famously thought that the Nazi example of getting rid of Jews from Germany should be followed in India for Muslims." https://thewire.in/politics/benjamin-zachariah-fascism-sangh...

"In the 1930s Hindu nationalism borrowed from European fascism to transform 'different' people into 'enemies'. Leaders of militant Hinduism repeatedly expressed their admiration for authoritarian leaders such as Mussolini and Hitler and for the fascist model of society. This influence continues to the present day. This paper presents archival evidence on the would-be collaborators." https://www.jstor.org/stable/4408848#metadata_info_tab_conte...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/20/hindu-supremac...

Vembu's hobnobbing with such organizations, should make Zoho untouchable for any reasonable person.

statguy··on Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination
I am guessing that you are upper caste, which is why it didn't really come up. If you were lower caste it would have been a different story.
statguy··on Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination
In principle yes, but in practice no: https://theprint.in/theprint-essential/who-are-dalit-sikhs-n...
statguy··on Facebook Accused of ‘Whitewashing’ India Human Rights Report
The current Indian government has taken an increasingly fascist approach towards Indian Muslims. It has been jailing Muslim activists without due course and trials, demolishing homes of Muslims participating in peaceful protests and turning a blind eye to fireband Hindu leaders openly calling for genocide against Muslims.

https://m.thewire.in/article/communalism/beyond-blasphemy-in...

https://www.boomlive.in/news/hindu-rashtra-convention-bengal...

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/india...

https://article-14.com/post/jailed-or-punished-with-or-witho...

statguy··on Facebook Accused of ‘Whitewashing’ India Human Rights Report
For overall context, the current Indian government has taken an increasingly fascist approach towards Indian Muslims. It has been jailing Muslim activists without due course and trials, demolishing homes of Muslims participating in peaceful protests and turning a blind eye to fireband Hindu leaders openly calling for genocide against Muslims.

https://m.thewire.in/article/communalism/beyond-blasphemy-in...

https://www.boomlive.in/news/hindu-rashtra-convention-bengal...

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/india...

https://article-14.com/post/jailed-or-punished-with-or-witho...

statguy··on Indonesia: The most amazing development story on Earth?
I was once talking to a senior dev from country X, he explained to me how vaccines cause autism, or how the moon landing is fake or Bill Gates is implanting microchips in all of us, that sums up how I feel about the country X.
statguy··on New York’s Subway System Vows to Be 95 Percent Accessible by 2055
It won't matter anyway, New York will be submerged well before 2055.
statguy··on Roblox October Outage Postmortem
So the outage lasted 3 days and the postmortem took 3 months!
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