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throwworhtthrowon [dead]

Soon after the ceasefire was announced, The Washington Post front-page photo was of Hamas fighters driving through the street. The fighters were the first overweight Gazans I had seen in the media in at least a year.

It's understood by humanitarian providers as well as drafters of the Geneva Conventions that, when food is scarce, young men (especially men with guns) will obtain it ahead of everyone else. Women, children, and the elderly will divvy up whatever remains. This is why starvation of an enemy force within a civilian population is a war crime, because the fighters will be the last to feel the effects. The only way to starve Hamas is to starve everyone else in Gaza first.

throwworhtthrowon Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

The same week that WaPo announced their new editorial policy, I added a uBlock Origin rule to delete the opinion sidebar. It's basically ads run by Jeff Bezos now. There's no reason to expose oneself to it.

Their news reporting is, for now, still decent (and retains its familiar slant).

throwworhtthrowon California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

LLMs don't have rights. LLMs are tools, and the state can regulate tools. Humans acting on behalf of these companies can still, if they felt the bizarre desire to, publish assembly instructions for bioweapons on the company blog.

throwworhtthrowon My 2.5 year old laptop can write Space Invaders in JavaScript now (GLM-4.5 Air)

LLM's still give subpar results with ffmpeg. For example when I asked Sonnet to trim a long video with ffmpeg, it put the input file parameter before the start time parameter, which triggers an unnecessary decode of the video file. [1]

Sure, use the LLM to get over the initial hump. But ffmpeg's no exception to the rule that LLM's produce subpar code. It's worth spending a couple minutes reading the docs to understand what it did so you can do it better, and unassisted, next time.

[1] https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.html#:~:text=ss%20position

throwworhtthrowon NSF plans end to lone U.S. Antarctic research icebreaker

You'll find worse quotes from the House interview [1] of Fauci's advisor David Morens. Ever since I watched a recording of his testimony I've been more willing to give incompetence "passes" to bad behavior in Republican admins.

[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/house-panel-takes-fa...

throwworhtthrowon Congress might block state AI laws for a decade

AI companies already need to navigate multiple regulatory regimes. Chinese companies are not exempt.

If a few states adopt more stringent rules, US-based companies will likely have an easier time meeting them than foreign companies. Don't you think Facebook and Google helped shape the CCPA to make compliance easier for them, perhaps to the detriment of foreign competition?

throwworhtthrowon Backlash to artificial dye grows as Kraft ditches coloring for Kool-Aid, Jell-O

They'd have to scrap all the food currently in the production and distribution pipeline, plus there would be a gap in food delivery as producers switch over to a new process. It's less disruptive to transition gradually.

Similar to why the USAID closure was gradual and gave aid recipients plenty of time to find new donors, because we wouldn't want hundreds of thousands of women and children to die of starvation and disease just to save a few bucks or wring out more viral memes [1].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/us/politics/usaid-cuts-do... / https://archive.is/5BIAF

throwworhtthrowon U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites

I think our discussion hinges on the definition of "program". I agree that Iran was attempting to reduce its breakout time.

"doing the research and design required to build a nuclear weapon" ... "enriching uranium for the purpose of building a nuclear weapon"

Gabbard says "Iran's enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons," but if there was knowledge they were actually building a nuclear weapon, she would have said so.

I could believe, but haven't seen claimed, that Iran was doing R&D in order to shorten the time between deciding they want an atomic bomb and having one completed. Or perhaps to have a second-order deterrent ("we could make a bomb") not a first order deterrent ("we have a bomb"). I think it's a big difference from actually trying to make one. Maybe you disagree on that point.

throwworhtthrowon U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites

Gaining the knowledge to build a nuclear weapon is not the same thing as assembling one.

Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, March 2025:

"the IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003. The IC continues to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program." [1]

Please explain how "Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program" is grammar hacking the above quote.

[1] https://youtu.be/nOhOqjx1y18?t=701

throwworhtthrowon Colleges must give up federal funding to achieve true intellectual freedom

For most of the essay, the author pretends to care about Harvard's loss of funding. But at the end they awkwardly transition into their real argument, which is that every tax dollar spent on something they potentially don't 100% agree with is morally wrong.

Colleges' problem is that they weren't taking enough federal funding. If they had achieved TBTF status then Trump wouldn't be harassing them now.

throwworhtthrowon DOGE worker’s code supports NLRB whistleblower

> Setting aside legitimate (thats a matter of judgement)

By definition, a judge decides what's legitimate.

If DOGE expects their access to be blocked by a court judgement, and bum-rushes agencies to exfiltrate data ahead of the judgement, that's also criminal intent.

I am not sure what you are getting at. "Covert" isn't how I'd describe DOGE's actions. "Brazen" maybe?

throwworhtthrowon Whistleblower details how DOGE may have taken sensitive NLRB data

It's true that HN has shown itself _mostly_ incapable of having a useful discussion on topics that involve the current US president. (But sometimes a useful thread of conversation emerges!) Users that are frustrated by a flagged topic will retaliate by flagging comments they disagree with. And vice versa.

I think retaliating like this just makes HN worse. If you stop flagging perfectly good stories, HN will be a marginally nicer place for discussion. I'll say the same to anyone here who admits to blanket flagging of comments.

Please keep trying to discuss your views. Sometimes they'll get smacked down unfairly, but other times they'll stick around. The more you try, the more they'll stick, and hopefully it can shift the tone of discussion here.

throwworhtthrowon TSMC expected to announce $100B investment in U.S.

I'm hesitant to even say this because it sounds so callous and naive, so with apologies in advance: how would one maintain a superior military if that military isn't involved in any aspect of combat for long stretches of time? To use a sports analogy, could you build a Super Bowl capable (American) football team if none of the players or coaches have done more than watch football on TV and played lots of flag football scrimmages amongst themselves?

(I'm wondering about this after reading today's NYT article about the escalating use of drone warfare in Ukraine.)

throwworhtthrowon HIV/AIDS deaths likely to soar after USAID promises broken

The last paragraph of the article sums up why:

> Piot is similarly gloomy. “If it were not so abrupt, countries could explore alternative funding, but not in a few weeks,” he says. As to UNAIDS, he adds, “I don’t see how it can survive.”

throwworhtthrowon The U.S. Cannot Be Run Like a Business (2017)

I can't tell if you're speaking about presidential administrations in general or the current one in particular. Trump already had four years as president, and during that time he did not fight pork spending at all. Rather he personally siphoned many millions of American taxpayers' dollars by frequently bringing government staff to stay with him on his own resort properties.

throwworhtthrowon Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

After pondering this for a day I've come around, and agree with you now.

My subconscious worry (now conscious) was that the "political flaggers" would discover the effectiveness of flagging, and expand its use to here-on-out sink any politically unfavorable news topic.

But I then realized that you (HN mod(s)) have been IMO faultless for a decade at unflagging or boosting posts on contentious topics that add at least a smidgen of new information. Sometimes it takes a couple hours for moderation to kick in but that's reasonable.

So I'll continue to trust in HN's moderation, and cease worrying that my favorite discussion forum is in jeopardy!

throwworhtthrowon Analysis of 2024 election results in Clark County indicates manipulation

I looked at the source blog post and decided it was pretty shoddy. I kind of agree that a reasonable person would doubt the veracity of this post, not just for the reasons loeg mentioned, but because the presented "evidence" is a single cherry-pick from data with lots of inherent variance.

I think it's valid criticism to say that you should have taken a closer look before submitting, and concluded that it was too junky for HN. In which case the flagging is appropriate.

throwworhtthrowon Analysis of 2024 election results in Clark County indicates manipulation

I took a look at their data, then came back to HN to post a gentle debunk-of-sorts. But I couldn't submit my comment because the post had been flagged.

I think it would have been better if you'd left your follow-up comment [1] when flagging. (FWIW I agree with your reasoning.) Flagging without comment was counterproductive, as it spawned a second submission from folks suspicious of why the first one was flagged.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42995880

throwworhtthrowon Clark County Election Analysis

Here are drop-off counts and percentages by state and county: https://smartelections.us/dropoff#e0e8218a-4b28-4e0c-b854-7f...

It's clear that drop-off varies a lot: ±30% by state, and even more by county. I'm sure if you looked at the vote data from every tabulator in every county in every state, you'll find more than one "squint and you'll kind of see it" pattern.

I'll need more evidence before I suspect anything bad happened to the vote. (IMO voter suppression efforts are potentially election-impacting, but vote manipulation less likely.)

throwworhtthrowon Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

My daily interface with Hacker News for the last decade has been https://hckrnews.com/, so I've seen every item that's made it to the front page.

The number of dead posts in recent weeks is unprecedented. Some have upwards of 100 votes. I never saw a dead post in 2017 or 2021 that struck me as suspiciously flagged. But multiple times this week I've written a comment on a post only to have the comment blocked on submission because the post was flagged while I was writing. (or in the case of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42994293, flagged, unflagged, and flagged again.)

There is clearly something unusual happening with flags. There is an obvious correlation between the post topic and likelihood of flags, even when the post's comments are reasonable.

I think this motivated flagging is preventing productive discussion on HN, and it's healthier in the long term for Hacker News to allow perhaps excessive discussions on these currently popular topics. Otherwise HN risks developing a reputation that it systematically suppresses discussions critical of the current administration. I think that reputation would linger for far longer than the temporary irritation some might feel about the currently popular topic.

throwworhtthrowon [dead]

This is getting aggressively flagged (last attempt to discuss this article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42972899)

However I'd like discuss an aspect of it that I haven't seen mentioned before:

How unpleasant is it for a developer to write code for ancient systems day-to-day, systems like the ones DOGE is blitzing now? (I've never had the misfortune of working on a 50 year old codebase.) I imagine it takes quite a while to get familiar with it, and the DOGE team is probably only working with a surface understanding. Maybe they aren't even trying to work within the code codebase and deployments. Certainly not with an eye for future maintenance. Would future delveopers' productivity be made materially worse if someone had, say, hurriedly proxied some part of the system through nginx to crudely hack certain API calls?

Regardless of whether the DOGE work is legal or with honest intentions, won't this mad dash of changes potentially make all future development on these even more burdensome?

throwworhtthrowon Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

Trump disavowed Project 2025 during the campaign and his voters believed him. If democracy worked, he would be held accountable for this enormous bait-and-switch.

> root out corruption and waste, fraud, and abuse

That is not what they are doing by most accounts.

throwworhtthrowon CDC: Unpublished manuscripts mentioning certain topics must be pulled or revised

> Secondly, the electorate voted for this.

No, that's ridiculous. Not every person who voted for Trump wants the crazy. Many of them (edit: many of his swing voters) just want better pay and cheaper consumer goods and thought Trump was more likely to deliver than Harris. And they hoped his crazy talk during the campaign would remain mostly talk like in his first term.

The population does not support this. People are surprised.

throwworhtthrowon CDC data are disappearing

I guess the reason you're fine with the ideological purge that's happening now is because you mistakenly believe the bureaucracies were always operating in ideological lockstep with the current administration. I suddenly pity you for the fear and distrust you must carry at all times for things you don't understand.

throwworhtthrowon The American science funding catastrophe

FWIW I'm glad you're here politely making your case despite the downvotes. I'll keep trying to understand your perspective.

throwworhtthrowon The American science funding catastrophe

So far government doesn't seem to be shrinking at all, just being made less effective. If you believe the work state employees do is worse than useless then go ahead and cheer.

I have trouble taking someone seriously when they look at all the functions of government and say not just that they are an ineffective use of tax dollars (cliché and debatable), but that we'd be better off if their funds were simply set on fire than put to use. Because that's what's happening now.

I think what you actually want to happen is for Congress to reduce budgets. Until that happens, you may want to keep the cork in the bottle.

throwworhtthrowon Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck

According to Wikipedia:

> Passed the House on December 8, 2006 (voice vote)

> Passed the Senate on December 9, 2006 (unanimous consent)

Can't pin it all on Bush Jr.

throwworhtthrowon Reports of the death of dental cavities are greatly exaggerated

I watched all the patient videos and found them helpful. There's no substitute for seeing examples with a real mouth.

The interdental brush video is a bit more "intense" than the rest. Can't be helped: you need to show someone with teeth gaps. Perhaps move that one down in the list so newcomers start with a more gentle video?

throwworhtthrowon Panic at the Job Market

This is foolish. Anyone can have a bad day, including the clairvoyant HR. Don't build an interview panel around pleasing "that one gal"; that kind of situation happens enough by accident.