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orwin commented on US retail giants raise prices due to tariffs   english.elpais.com/econom... · Posted by u/geox
tastyfreeze · 14 hours ago
What a wonderful success the Federal Reserve redefinition of "inflation" has been. We will never get anywhere if everything that causes price increases is called inflation. Inflation is an increase in the money supply which also happens to increases prices.

Everything has trade offs. Diluting the dollar increases prices for nothing in return. Pretty much all downside for everybody but the top. Tariffs increase prices to the benefit of domestic producers and benefits everybody.

What we will see is if prices are more important than building skills and wealth of our fellow citizens.

orwin · 9 hours ago
> Inflation is an increase in the money supply

If the money supply increase slower than production, you get deflation (temporary, as deflation stop investments, which slow production), so hopefully no one important use your definition of inflation.

orwin commented on German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city proves global hit   theguardian.com/world/202... · Posted by u/c420
mhh__ · 2 days ago
I'm not in Brazil I'm in the capital city of the United Kingdom.

The staff in my local tesco and sainsburys do not primarily speak English to eachother, and have previously struggled to understand basic questions I've had.

Please tell me in what way I'm entitled by wondering if this is a good way to organise a society? No one wanted it.

The purpose of a nation should be to do great things. How can we do anything with huge cultural questions floating around unanswered?

"What does it mean to be British?" is now a thing, and is in turn completely unanswerable. What are British values? Being nice to people?

This is really only a recent western dalliance too, most of the world's largest cities are actually extremely homogenous because they're in Asia.

orwin · a day ago
When did your country started killing regionalism and local dialects? then mid 19th century? Because before that, i guarantee you Common english was not the primary language in London. Nationalism is very recent, and mostly pushed for militaristic reasons. Having multiple languages present in your seat of power used to be a source of pride and a proof of power for kings and emperors, so the change has to be recent.

> This is really only a recent western dalliance too

Historically, it's the opposite, homogenous populations are a very recent thing.

orwin commented on German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city proves global hit   theguardian.com/world/202... · Posted by u/c420
noduerme · 2 days ago
There are several very different types of anti-immigrant sentiment in the US. They differ by region and they also differ from the feelings in Europe.

1. Basic, racist, "this person is a different skin color".

2. "We're not racist, but they're willing to work cheaper and take our jobs".

3. "They want to keep their own culture and not integrate with ours."

The third one is far less prevalent in the US than it is in Europe. I think this is for several reasons, but chief among them is that immigrants to the US do actually want to integrate into their new society, whereas immigrants to Europe generally do not. Unlike Europe, the US offers the possibility for immigrants to become as "American" as anyone else, regardless of their race or religion. Whereas immigrants to France, for example, can never become "French". This is mutually reinforcing - the French won't let them become "French", and the immigrants naturally react by not wanting to. Even if they do support liberal French cultural values without excessive judgment, which many do not, that is rarely their main reason to move there except in some political cases. The aim of immigrants to the US is not just economic prosperity, but to join the society and to be American (speaking for my own mixed Latin, Arabic and Jewish immigrant family).

This leaves a situation in the US where only (1) and (2) are arguments that have any traction, and those only have traction with a backwards and racist part of the population, aka MAGA. (3) is a much more difficult question, and it would have more traction here if it were true that immigrants to the US were similar to immigrants to Europe, in only seeking economic gains and choosing to remain separate from the societal mainstream.

You seem to be conflating (3) with the previous two. And maybe for some right-wing European nationalists it is. But I'm not a European white man, and myself and my Filipina partner have heard from some of those right-wing Europeans that as long as we want to learn their culture, they have no problem with us.

When JD Vance goes to Europe and scorns their immigration policy, he is using #3 to their faces, but he is appealing to racist voters who claim #1 and #2 at home. Conversely, when a European tells Americans that all anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe falls into the 1 and 2 categories, you are not honestly telling them about #3.

It's the same in Saudi Arabia, isn't it? You can't go get a job in an oil field and go around waving a bible and drinking bourbon. The fact that the West tolerates a lot of different beliefs and ways of life is a good thing, it adds to our diversity and that is our strength. But that tolerance for others has to also be a foundational understanding for newer arrivals who come here. And if it's not, and if they enter into open hostilities with the country that received them, then I don't think all of that can be laid at the feet of ignorant skin-color-based racism.

orwin · a day ago
> Whereas immigrants to France, for example, can never become "French"

That's untrue. It really depends on where they arrived and their support system. If their support system isn't French, of course integration is extremely hard. I know a lot of people hosting political refugees (my mom and her friends basically), and met a lot of immigrants. I'd say the only couple that didn't integrate was hosted and worked through a Kazak support group before being contacted by cimade and moved far from Paris (tehy were white and christian, so racism and islamophobia are out). Other refugees i've met through the association integrated just fine. I must add that refugees who already have a support system in a big sity often refuse Cimade's help, so the refugees/immigrants i met had a specific profile (either single moms with child or highly educated middle-aged, most from a minority group in a violent country. Kurds and Druze, Kazaks, some russians, one Iraki from before the Irak war, some non-french speaking Africans).

I guarantee you most of them became French. I agree it's the minority, but it's the minority targeted by new laws and the far right (refugees, who can't have their papers in order until Cimade take care of that and teach them french).

I would agree we should do more for cultural integration for the rest of the immigrated crowd, through sport, through games, popular education in general (if you're an immigrant and your child go in youth camps with the Francas every summer, your child will end up French enough. Maybe a bit communist though, be carefull) and maybe through school, but we've dropped the ball in the 2000s, and killing the proximity police (which, while it didn't work as much as expected in big cities, worked extremely well in mid-size ones) didn't help. I understand the general sentiment, but i feel like current policies target the wrong crowd, and are ineffective in solving the actual issues.

orwin commented on Uncle Sam shouldn't own Intel stock   wsj.com/opinion/uncle-sam... · Posted by u/aspenmayer
orwin · 2 days ago
Pray that before 2026, you won't have had any DOJ approved FBI raids to Trump political enemies.

How I guess it will happen: first target 'close ennemies': same party, small public recognition, but opposite views on specific policies you want to denounce. No charge filed, just good old intimidation: raid the home, take the files an computer, then say "sorry we didn't find anything" after a few months.

My mother hosted political refugees from Russia and Kazakhstan, I've heard a lot of story, and that shit seems to always starts the same way.

orwin commented on US attack on renewables will lead to power crunch that spikes electricity prices   cnbc.com/2025/08/24/solar... · Posted by u/rntn
jimmydorry · 2 days ago
> Power usage spikes during the day. Well guess what? That's when solar power production happens. So adding significant solar power production to your electricity mix will decrease the baseline power needed from other sources

Wrong, actually. At least in Australia, peak energy is in the late afternoon when everyone comes home, around 6pm. The other peak is in the morning around 7am. These are times when solar is not producing significantly, meanwhile it makes baseload unviable during the day.

orwin · 2 days ago
I think you're confusing general power usage peak with residential usage peak. Or maybe you're talking about what you've learned 20 years ago (or Australia industry is 20 years late).

As AC use increased, industry switched from oil to electricity, coal to electric arc, and as power grid stabilized, peak usage shifted a lot in the last ~20 years. That's why summer/winter time do not make sense anymore and a lot of European countries are talking about not switching anymore.

orwin commented on US attack on renewables will lead to power crunch that spikes electricity prices   cnbc.com/2025/08/24/solar... · Posted by u/rntn
masklinn · 2 days ago
Mostly Germany, Belgium as well, possibly a few others.

France did shut down superphenix for completely ideological reasons tho.

Also stopped investing in nuclear but that was not really ideological (the nuclear buildup originated in something of a misprediction, and sadly the country didn’t really capitalise on it).

orwin · 2 days ago
Belgium did not. My code currently help deploying updates on 3 nuke plants in belgium, so hopefully I'd know.
orwin commented on Europe's Free-Speech Problem   theatlantic.com/ideas/arc... · Posted by u/whatisabcdefgh
mc32 · 3 days ago
It's, to borrow a locally inspired term of a local socialist, "Orwellian." It's a bit ironic.
orwin · 2 days ago
Are you saying that because Orwell was a socialist? Not so re he's local though.
orwin commented on RFK Jr.'s Wi-Fi and 5G conspiracies appear to make it into MAHA report draft   arstechnica.com/health/20... · Posted by u/duxup
hagbard_c · 6 days ago
Nope, what you wrote here is an example of heavy rewriting and is only more proof of the thesis that those who pushed the narrative against those who voiced now proven 'conspiracy theories' show no remorse for their actions and will just continue on their way, pushing whatever current desired narrative there happens to be. We have, after all, never been at war with Eurasia, right?
orwin · 3 days ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25640323

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26540458

Do you want more? Most of hackernews was at worst disagreeing, at best supporting it, and most people were 50/50. I'd love, really love, to see an article were 10% of the comments or more were aggressively dismissive of people believing in the lableak, instead of engaging with them. The only dismissed theory was that the COVID was manmade, like I wrote before. But please find proof if this is a rewrite?

People seem to really love seeing themselves as victims, I hate that.

orwin commented on French firm Gouach is pitching an Infinite Battery with replaceable cells   arstechnica.com/gadgets/2... · Posted by u/pabs3
oulipo2 · 5 days ago
(Gouach co-founder here) We're happy to be on the front-page, here to reply to any of your (many) questions!

We've been testing our batteries for 3+ years on an existing free-floating mobility fleet with our friends from Pony in France, they've been sustaining heat, cold, rain, snow, shocks, people throwing them in rivers, etc, and we've been able to improve them incrementally!

Today we're very proud of our product: it matches the performances of the best brands, it offers connectivity, and we plan to open-source the protocol and make it hackable, so you anyone can use it on any bike!

For now we've reverse-engineered and reimplemented major protocols (Bosch, Bafang, Brose, etc)

Happy to take any question you might have, and if you're interested, you can order a battery here :) https://gouach.com/products/infinite-battery-complete-kit?va...

(BTW: we've been trying to reach out to Louis Rossman to talk about what we do on his Right to Repair podcast, but couldn't reach him, perhaps he's here, or someone could ping him to know if he'd be interested? we love what he does and he was a source of inspiration for us!)

Oh: and of course, since this is HN, I have to mention that we coded our firmware in Rust!

orwin · 5 days ago
'Oulipo' nice username, you have a background in litterature?
orwin commented on Australia Post halts transit shipping to US as 'chaotic' tariff deadline looms   abc.net.au/news/2025-08-2... · Posted by u/breve
tene80i · 5 days ago
The comment above says “Friendly reminder to please not confuse the Trump administration with all U.S. citizens.”

Nobody is saying he doesn’t officially represent the USA. It’s about not assuming ALL Americans agree with what the administration is doing. A reasonable ask, no?

orwin · 5 days ago
Honestly, if you're not protesting, you're enabling. That's why I dont think all Israelis agree with their government, or all gazaoui agree with Hamas. Protests, regular ones, are happening, on both side. I don't see a lot of those in the US to be fair.

u/orwin

KarmaCake day3505August 17, 2017View Original