wpietri

44 ms·

691.
by wpietri 3y ago
It is avoidable, and the US has done a reasonably good job of avoiding it. It's notable how little current political and economic leaders are the grandchildren of previous major figures. We could do better, of course. And we should.
692.
by wpietri 3y ago
> I just can’t see the PRC and the CCP in its current form sticking around long enough. I took an upper-level course from a China expert in 1989. At the time, a big question was exactly how long China's government could maintain nat
693.
by wpietri 3y ago
For sure. My ancestors mostly came to the US well after slavery. The only one that I know didn't fought on the Union side in the civil war. But that doesn't matter, because in my life I've received the benefits of being white
694.
by wpietri 3y ago
Exactly. To me racism, like capitalism, is a societal system. As a white person in the US, people can be biased against me, but I don't think they can be racist to me. Except perhaps when they call me a "race traitor" for tal
695.
by wpietri 3y ago
It's possible, but based on current progress, I don't think it has to be eliminated. Certainly, 150 years after Reconstruction we are still struggling with many of the same issues. Or reading MLK 50 years later, his writing stil
696.
by wpietri 3y ago
It is both wild to me and totally predictable that a reasonable question like this would get downvoted on HN. If people are interested in this particular phenomenon, I really recommend Mills's "The Racial Contract". [1] A co
697.
by wpietri 3y ago
Consider two extremes: positions in the next generation's "elite" are randomly selected vs auctioned off. In the latter case, you quickly develop the problem of a parasitic elite who uses that elite power to extract wealth to
698.
by wpietri 3y ago
For sure. I'd call it an excellent bad markup language. I use LogSeq daily and as a practical matter I much prefer Markdown to, say, Evernote's WYSIWYG approach, which was more of a pain to use and left me with notes so broken tha
699.
by wpietri 3y ago
Maybe? I'd want to see a clear model of flows and selection biases before I concluded that. Another way to look at it: perhaps Tessier-Lavigne only got this scrutiny because he was president of the university. And the fact that they
700.
by wpietri 3y ago
Again, it's not a success. And it's hilarious that a cryptowhatever advocate is trying to complain about tired arguments.
701.
by wpietri 3y ago
It is clear what it means: a bunch of grifters are trying to pretend their magic beans are an actual investment like equities are. So they want a big and impressive sounding numbers, especially one that can be easily manipulated by wash tra
702.
by wpietri 3y ago
Wikipedia only asks for money from its users. I promise that if you had used WeWork, they would also have asked you for money eventually. They're bad at business, but not that bad.
703.
by wpietri 3y ago
It's not a committee, it's not arbitrary, and "arbitrary" and "subjective" mean two very different things. Reliability from a fact-checking perspective is a pretty specific thing, and a thing that is vital to W
704.
by wpietri 3y ago
Just to put it in perspective: Even if every dime given of the $150m raised by the Wikimedia Foundation this year were wasted, something am sure is not the case, the amount of money set on fire by WeWork is more than 100x larger.
705.
by wpietri 3y ago
Your entire TAM is composed of people you can observe on Twitter, Reddit, and Discord? That sounds like a pretty unusual business.
706.
by wpietri 3y ago
I think it depends on the kind of thief. The last one I had stolen was indeed a battered-looking thing with low resale value. But I'm pretty sure it was stolen by some low-end criminals who were not very bright or effective.
707.
by wpietri 3y ago
This was all before AirTags. But thieves are canny, so I'd expect them to be very good by now at finding and removing AirTags. Supposing I did have one, though, what do you imagine me doing? If I know where a criminal gang has taken my
708.
by wpietri 3y ago
Unfortunately, I'm not particularly money motivated. What went out of me wasn't a will to spend. It was will to deal relentlessly with all the nonsense.
709.
by wpietri 3y ago
Oh, I did. I figure it means you're the kind of person who knows he's going to be a dick but wants to do it under a disposable identity to as not to harm his score. So you're not just a jerk, but a calculated jerk.
710.
by wpietri 3y ago
I think doing a randomly distributed trial would be very challenging. How do you imagine funding it? How do you imagine getting PE to agree to buy random things rather than strategic things? Do you expect them to turn down 50% of almost-clo
711.
by wpietri 3y ago
It is frustrating to me when I respond in detail to somebody's querulous points and they just abandon everything discussed to hare off in some new direction. It certainly doesn't motivate me to write a quality reply.
712.
by wpietri 3y ago
I think it's hilarious that somebody who has been here for all of 11 days wants to tell somebody who is coming up on their 10-year HNiversary what "we generally prefer".
713.
by wpietri 3y ago
This is attacking the problem in the wrong place. There are a relatively small number of writers of update announcements but a large number of readers. The readers have relatively low motivation to deeply investigate any one announced produ
714.
by wpietri 3y ago
Very sorry to hear this, but I appreciate the tale as a warning.
715.
by wpietri 3y ago
That doesn't mean that. That is what one might infer if one believed the conclusion were true. But that's only persuasive to those predisposed to believe it. Which I am not. Regardless, running a business has always been more hass
716.
by wpietri 3y ago
If your standard for "conclusive" is "study must fork the universe to compare the same business with different timeline" then you may be waiting a while. Regardless, in this case, where the ongoing harm could be very lar
717.
by wpietri 3y ago
This would be a good argument if it were only medical practices where PE was active and having a malign effect. But that's most definitely not the case.
718.
by wpietri 3y ago
Very well put. And this has been going on for a while. A decade ago the NYT had a great article on how private equity destroyed Simmons Mattress: https://archive.is/uGYrT And you're right that the effects are obscured.
719.
by wpietri 3y ago
Wow! With a police attitude like that, the criminal will definitely "be back at it soon".
720.
by wpietri 3y ago
Yeah, if I had a commute, I'd think about a foldable, although I struggle with the look. But a big use case for a bike for me is recreational distance riding, which is sounds like they're not great at.

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