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bickfordb

Re:The SEC Should Block Anthropic's IPO to Protect the Public on Monday November 02, 2026 @09:57PM (#50347455)
I agree with this. In all the tech cases I've seen it just seems to create dynastic control, no obvious market, shareholder benefit.
Re:Electrification Could Cut Global Energy Use in Half on Sunday November 01, 2026 @10:41AM (#50326691)
One thing that wasn't clear to me until recently (and maybe isn't widely known) is that the battery degradation is just corrosion.
Re:The State of Context Engineering on Sunday October 25, 2026 @08:58PM (#50237666)
I can't tell if this engineering or just autocomplete that is mostly helpful, sometimes.
Excellent article, but it still seems like a dubious practice to me
Your description of the scenario does not seem to be accurate. He is being gifted a new class of stock so that he does not need to relinquish control of the company for no apparent good reason. I'm indirectly a shareholder of this company through the major stock index inclusion, and I have not been similarly been gifted the same. I hope he pays his CA taxes fairly and as shareholders we are made whole by this chicanery.
Re:Ukraine claims first drone evacuation of wounded soldier on Monday October 19, 2026 @08:54PM (#50159997)
I hope not. This looks like a nightmare world constrained only by basic manufacturing.
Re:Ask HN: CAD for wood working with LLM support? on Wednesday October 14, 2026 @11:16PM (#50098692)
I use metric as a default in the US =)
Re:Solar Panels That Plug into Your Wall on Monday October 12, 2026 @08:54PM (#50065176)
With the plugin solar I can imagine people in single family residential installing them on both sides of fences and gates to get an around the day benefit.

Also, with the price of solar panels decreasing below most (wood?) building materials with way higher durability, no paint required, why wouldn't it replace most sun facing siding applications aside from being "ugly".

Re:NYC's "Click to Cancel" rule is now in effect on Sunday October 11, 2026 @06:31PM (#50048619)
Additionally, French fries are already abundant in CA and NY
I haven't tried to the web app part but I've tried Toasty. The API seemed to be a little simpler and nicer to use than SeaORM for me. Here are a few things I liked in Toasty:

- In SQLite UUIDs are default stored as compact blobs instead of inefficient varchar/text (SeaORM)

- Timestamps were easier via jiff instead of chrono (SeaORM)

- Model structs use the actual name of the $table instead of being named like $tablemodule.(Model|ActiveModel) (SeaORM) they are just $Table. This makes writing libraries a little simpler that need to use entity struct's from two separate modules/crates otherwise you get a name collision on Model/ActiveModel and need to do alias imports.

- There's an API to fetch related data to a query similar to Django ORM. IIRC this is missing from SeaORM

- The query expression language doesn't cover as much of SQL as SeaORM but seems to be enough for most web apps.

- I didn't like how the migration system works. I would skip that part of the library

It's a distinct blue/red state issue. Blue states go out of their way to register as many of their residents as possible and allow same day registration.

The red states, Republicans use it as a tool to reduce participation of urban, non-white voters and reduce overall participation. They don't consider systematic, passive voter suppression techniques to be voter fraud.

Re:Uber arbitration award over Emily Normandin-Parker's death on Monday September 21, 2026 @10:52AM (#49788054)
Arbitration can be more efficient, but both parties should have an option to choose it, a direct settlement or public court. The average consumer is denied the choice by using these everyday services that have non-negotiable contracts.
It will be exhilarating when their robots are pointing guns at us
Re:Most people prefer traditional architecture on Tuesday September 15, 2026 @10:14PM (#49721367)
Everyone loves the SF painted ladies but no one seems to build new ones.
Re:New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore on Monday September 14, 2026 @04:00PM (#49703073)
I don't believe it is (someone who knows two languages isn't remarkable, someone who can teach others isn't remarkable), but there should probably be a visa for that if we need it. I personally don't believe even a lot of the software/IT industry jobs merit H1Bs.

They work abroad under the respective country's work visa. H1B is US specific, specific visa. The US has plenty of other work visas.

Re:New $100k H-1B visa fee pushes tech jobs offshore on Monday September 14, 2026 @11:12AM (#49698305)
The H1B was intended for highly specialized skills that where there is no local talent available.
Re:Taylor Farms: How One Company's Reach Became a National Risk on Wednesday August 26, 2026 @04:52PM (#49455740)
Consolidation seems to have lead to massive price leverage for the winners and fewer choices for consumers, huge barriers to entry for small grocers and manufacturers
Seems like a good case for unions if workers prefer remote, but can't get it through typical one on one negotiation.
And they fill up with silt and generate less power over time.
I think it's notable that Apple is vague about what was actually stolen and what OpenAI has actually received.

I read into these PR blasts, lawsuits that Apple is sour about losing employees to higher salary opportunities, and is likely using lawsuits instead of higher salaries to retain them.

Maybe this is a pipe dream, but wouldn't it be better to retire the legacy phone voice and messaging system altogether.

If 99.9% of us have internet phones, why aren't we using PKI, decentralized protocols, crowd sourced reputation to communicate instead of POTS phone numbers, SMS/iChat and relying on the carriers to police spam.

Re:GM Backs Sodium Ion Batteries for U.S. Grid Storage on Saturday July 25, 2026 @08:57PM (#49053518)
For something like a battery backup that last decades that doesn't need maintenance, maybe you could bury it out of the way (like under a deck or lawn?), maybe even under the frost line.
Results are fuzzy. He has a nice Malibu compound to go to after this lived experience
Re:Why is Meta destroying its engineering organization? on Tuesday June 16, 2026 @03:17PM (#48560490)
Then all the engineers will get to rejoin their outies.
I believe we have a competitive construction market, but anti-urbanization zoning regulations, overzealous bespoke building codes and inflation in construction material prices has made construction relatively more expensive than in previous eras in the US.

Aside from housing, every professional sector has been taken over and hollowed out by private equity or big tech. My grocery store, vet, plumber and doctors are all PE.

The only reason I can think of for the accelerated S&P 500 inclusion of SpaceX is a pump and dump
If it's expensive and in a for profit system, why aren't competitors on the supply side undercutting each other to increase sales?
One reform I would make would be to limit tax breaks to actual charitable activity within an organization, instead of a blanket tax break to the whole organization. For example if a Church/Hospital runs a soup kitchen and homeless shelter, those resources should be tax free, but maybe the rest of their activities shouldn't be by default.

Another reform I would make would be around independent governance and removing donor control of charities to reduce the number of sham Rich Guy foundations.

FWIW, a number of the panels I've looked at are rated for 50 years

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