htek (u/htek) - Readit News

htek commented on What caused the 'baby boom'? What would it take to have another? derekthompson.org/p/what-... · Posted by u/mmcclure

the_real_cher · a month ago

People are acting confounded that the birthrate is goong down.

But if people cant afford kids they wont have them.

Its like super simple.

htek · a month ago

Exactly. I suspect the lack of understanding or overcomplicating the reason the birthrate is declining may have something to do with the much higher than average salary of the average HN commenter relative to the average worker's salary in the US. It's common for people who need to go to the doctor to avoid going to the doctor because they can't afford it. A baby is an order of magnitude more expensive than that and an ongoing expense of doctor visits and potential ER visits among other costs and logistical issues.

htek commented on Terpstra Keyboard terpstrakeyboard.com/web-... · Posted by u/xeonmc

beefman · 2 months ago

Now the Lumatone

https://www.lumatone.io/

Mike Battaglia plays Scarborough Fair in 31-tone equal temperament

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJKB1_gvhLE

htek · 2 months ago

I wish I had bought a few Axis-49 controllers when they were in production. They were a much more reasonable $500 at the time.

https://www.c-thru-music.com/cgi/?page=prod_axis-49

htek commented on How a $2k 'Made in the USA' Phone Is Manufactured 404media.co/how-a-2-000-m... · Posted by u/jaredwiener

threeseed · 5 months ago

> Creating domestic jobs this way doesn't have a great track record however

Especially when you gut the DoE and make zero effort to invest in either higher education or trades training.

If US wants a manufacturing revolution it needs to start with an education revolution.

htek · 5 months ago

I don't see how the US can compete with China on sheer production and access to manufacturers and suppliers of tech, compared to cities like Shanghai, Qingdao and Shenzhen, among others. It's like a candy store for engineers. Building a single plant just isn't economically feasible when you have so much uncertainty from the chaos at the WH. Not to mention, this will take a decade or much, much more.

A better way (IMO) to do it would have been tax incentives to build US plants to move manufacturing back in the US, have research university programs as feeders for tech innovation centers, and funding for technical colleges to expand their programs for skilled labor needed instead of gutting multiple agencies that would have overseen/guided this expansion. And oversight, of course. And attainable goals set in contracts to receive funding, not just, "here's a pile of money we'll forget about in 4 years."

htek commented on An Overwhelmingly Negative and Demoralizing Force aftermath.site/ai-video-g... · Posted by u/Doches

esafak · 5 months ago

Perhaps the OP completes the assigned task ahead of schedule and keeps the saved time.

htek · 5 months ago

Shhh! Do you want to kill AI? All the C-suite and middle management need to hear is that "My QoL has never been better since I could use AI at work! Now I can 'quiet quit' half the day away! I can see my family after hours! Or even have a second job!"

htek commented on 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself reuters.com/business/heal... · Posted by u/healsdata

Spacecosmonaut · 5 months ago

I'm a genetic engineer at a large pharma company. Genetic engineering of human model systems is my specialty. If I were a malicious actor, I could not do anything useful with the genome of any one person.

Most peoples genomes are boring and at best sway the predisposition for disease by a modest degree. Exposing infidelity is honestly the best I can come up with.

htek · 5 months ago

Once 23andMe gets sold, all of that data belongs to whoever owns it and they can sell it to whoever they want. Perhaps to the government where they can do a warrantless search to find a relative of someone who may have been at a crime scene. Or to other governments. Or to insurance companies who want to play deny, defend and depose. I get that a lot of genetic information isn't predictive, but not all of it is so questionable.

htek commented on Who's Afraid of Peter Thiel? A New Biography Suggests We All Should Be (2021) time.com/6092844/peter-th... · Posted by u/zfg

htek · 6 months ago

I'm really not. The government consists of many people with a range of ideologies and ethics. Are there problems? Of course. But, the government has checks and balances, well, HAD checks and balances, separation of powers, and a Constitution that limited those powers. I'm more afraid of the corruption of the SCOTUS with dark money and a religio-fascist movement of persuasion and influence toward members of the SCOTUS, Congress, Judiciary and the Executive. It is a handful of billionaires who are driving this race toward authoritarianism.

htek commented on ICE wants to know if you're posting negative things about it online theintercept.com/2025/02/... · Posted by u/belter

anal_reactor · 7 months ago

Not a surprise, if anyone has been following the development of American culture, it's just that the list of acceptable things to say is slowly stopping to include things that people on this website like to say, that's the only real change.

htek · 6 months ago

The difference is that there are culturally inappropriate things to say--that is, things that people who aren't completely toxic bigots generally agree you shouldn't yell in public, and then there are things ON THE LIST the right wing government fascists are going to kick your door down for uttering to two people online.

htek commented on ICE wants to know if you're posting negative things about it online theintercept.com/2025/02/... · Posted by u/belter

belter · 7 months ago

"You are not the President you need to go away": https://youtu.be/OjMFTagD7k0?t=39

htek · 6 months ago

I hate the age of deepfakes, has this been verified as unedited?

htek commented on How good are American roads? construction-physics.com/... · Posted by u/chmaynard

rwiggins · 9 months ago

Errr, not in the rural area I grew up in. Gravel driveways are super common, gravel roads not so much.

To give some specifics: I only remember driving down an actual gravel road (like, for public use) a single time. In 18 years. Even my friends who lived >30min from the nearest "city" (~10k population) had paved roads all the way.

But that is just my own experience. Areas with a different climate or geography might be a totally different story. My hometown area is relatively flat, lots of farmland, and rarely gets severe winter weather.

htek · 9 months ago

What most people mean by gravel road is macadamized road, which is a gravel/aggregate material bound in crowned layers from larger rocks to smaller on top often by a tar or asphalt binder or at least through compaction. There are true gravel roads in some rural areas, but, thankfully, I've rarely encountered them.