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This seems circular.

It’s impossible to successfully restrain another more powerful than you, by definition, as an individual.

And to do so as a group introduces the whole mess of politiking and intra-group dynamics that generates any significant power concentration in the first place.


there are physical laws that cannot be broken, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. therefore attempting to restrain a higher power only ends in self restraint. have you considered that the best approach is to go on strike, depriving the higher power of something of yours, whether that be labour, or progeny.

No, billionaires should not be the countervailing power, that just turns into oligarchy. The innovation of America is that We the people, our laws and institutions are. The problem is ideological billionaires have been buying up all the propaganda outlets hobling "we the people"'s power.

How does this relate to my comment?

It seems like it’s responding to something else.


So then why haven’t the higher credibility people in each niche set up an alternative?

Why let reddit drag down the credibility of well everyone in their niche by association. Even if it’s only a tiny bit per year, that adds up over time.


Beyond my pay grade but I'll take a stab (meaning I'm talking out of my ass).

Some in fact have but the majority? Probably laziness, but laziness is just misaligned incentive-goals.

Communities have very little incentive to de-reddit. It's actually a huge amount of work and they gain almost nothing directly.

Separately, I was thinking you know HNews is pretty immune to this problem because we don't have a central theme or something, right?

But no, that just means I can't see how I'm being monetized is all. Blind leading the blind.


Stack Exchange Network has more niche networks that are higher quality than the subreddits now.

Anyone can pretend to have this and that ethics when its comfortable and easy, its only under extreme duress when all pretenders are revealed.

By definition if one department is given a hard veto, then there will always be a possibility that all the combined work of all other departments can amount to nothing, or even have a net negative impact.

The real question then is more fundamental.


Why would you mindlessly type away when you already know ahead of time, that they might be doing something tricky?

because the previous 30 times it didn't do it

Then it clearly it is an issue of overconfidence.

Since you can’t reliably catch 100% of tricks 100% of the time, continuing to do so is effectively guaranteering yourself to be tripped up in that 1 out of 100 times.


This seems like a pretty fair system, they do get to do it on unrealistic practically new vehicles, but they also can’t take any practical shortcuts whatsoever.

Is there any proposal for some alternate way determining it?


The impression I got from seeing the demonstration was that this was the result of years of negotiating and arguing to get to something fair. Ford doesn't love it, dealers don't love it, but no one can really come up with a major improvement.

Calvin and Hobbes: "A good compromise leaves everybody mad."

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9cGKql0Wk1A/TrAJTrDoxxI/AAAAAAAAA...


I say something like this to my kids when I'm tired of mediating and I want them to solve their own disagreements. "My definition of success is that you are both crying after I've made my decision."

(for the record, I did not have this policy when they were toddlers, only as tweens; I'm not a monster)


Such policies encourage bad behaviour - being reasonable makes it guaranteed you loose against unreasonable.

If the article is to be believed Ford has changed how book time is calculated considering they're paying 36 minutes for a job that requires removing the cab.

The fact that you need to take the cab off to do an oil pan gasket should set off some alarm bells for how maintainable these vehicles are.

> If the article is to be believed

I don't. Someone is lying.


I'm also skeptical. I suspect that book time for this varies wildly depending on drivetrain config.

HYou think it might be the CEO? No, couldn't be, surely someone paid 100s of times their employees would be honest about something he has no real experience doing.

I think it is either the journalist, or the guy she interviewed.

I know how Ford sets book time. Their methodology, while perhaps biased towards optimistic estimates, is not ever going to put cab R&R at under an hour.

Charitably, someone is mistaken. But given that these numbers are core to the argument being made, I find it odd that the claims were not vetted at all. It takes almost no effort to find example R&R times for various Ford pickups, and they're all measured in hours. It's not hard, typically 6-10 bolts depending on the model. But even with bulk electrical connectors, no rust, the right tools, and experience, the process takes more than an hour.


Smells like CEO in here.

A fair system? This is nothing more than theater, necessary to get cheap labor. What about giving mechanics an hourly rate, just like the rest of the world?

A person achieved that time to do the work. What is theatre about that?

An hourly rate punishes mechanics who work fast, don't you think?


The book time provides consistency within and across dealerships. Would you accept paying twice as much for a repair if they assigned a new mechanic to your job?

The one thing I've heard consistently from people in that business is "You won't last long if you can't beat the book," something experienced mechanics do on a regular basis.


This seems intuitively obvious, new car buyers overwhelmingly put design way down the list of priorities.

I think it was the same in the 50s and 60s, just that the then car manufacturers hadn’t figured out how to compete in the other more important aspects as effectively.


I don't believe that. The pre-CAFE cars had soul. The new ones are all boring jellybeans.

Proof: look at a 1970 'Cuda. Tell me you wouldn't buy it in an instant if you had the cash!

https://www.classicautomall.com/vehicles/264/1970-plymouth-a...

Have fun with your jellybean! (Sorry)


I do have the cash, but I'm happy with my Opel Corsa-E that I bought used for mostly money I had sitting in my checking account.

It has heated seats, heated steering wheel, AC, backing camera/sensors, uses electricity which means it costs practically nothing to drive, doesn't make noise, isn't hard to get going in an uphill, and probably about 100 other advantages.


True, but it's boring :-)

Funny, I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic or sincere because I can’t tell the difference between that car and a Mustang or a Charger from the same decade.

I am sad for you.

In any case, the '67 and '68 Mustangs are the best looking of the Mustang line, and the '68 Dodge Charger is to die for.

If you cannot tell the difference, may I suggest you spend a wonderful evening watching "Bullitt".

When I was in high school, a friend of mine bought a '67 Mustang for $200, so of course he offered me a ride. I had never ridden in one before. I barely had the door closed when he stomped on the gas. What can I say, it was a transformative experience! I soon acquired one for myself. Converted it to a 4-speed, hopped up the engine, and had a grand time with it for years until a garbage truck turned it into an accordion.

I still miss that car.

But I did wind up replacing it with a 72 Dodge Challenger, which is close to being a Cuda. I spent a lot of money on its engine in the machine shop. I enjoy every second driving it, and giving friends rides in it.

Like me before I got the ride in the Mustang, you gotta get a ride in one before you dis it.


My friend had a 72 Dodge Challenger, in beautiful primer gray, that he paid $500 for. Nice car for a senior in college at the time.

I'd still rather have my 20-year-old 350Z.


If you want the Z, go get it!

That’s hilariously ugly.

The prices they fetch today suggest otherwise.

Nostalgia accounts for that.

“ bending over backwards” seems to be just an opinion, or collection of opinions…?

I don’t have a dog in this fight, but clearly there has to be some credible argument why opinion X is better than opinion Y (held by company decision makers).

Assuming it’s just automatically better isn’t productive.


Indeed, an opinion held by legal experts, as the title of the submission quite clearly expresses. And on the other hand there is a history of Apple refusing other government requests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d...


It doesn’t matter if every expert concurred, arguments from authority can not lead to opinion X becoming superior to opinion Y.

At least not in a logically valid way.


A government agency can tell people whatever it wants, if it doesn't have a legal basis then it has no authority. Unless it doesn't respect the rule of law. It might and probably will follow up its orders with force, but that's still not lawful.

Did you reply to the wrong comment?

I don’t see how it relates to the prior comment.


What is an "argument from authority"?

Exactly what it sounds like?

An argument that pretends some authority can effect the logic of an argument?


What does that mean? A government agency can ask a company to do something. But unless there is legal force behind the order, it is nothing more than a request and can be ignored. In ambiguous cases the lawyers of each side will decide if they want to go to court over the matter. Eventually either the government will fold or the company will give in to the request. Until then it is a matter of opinion.

Of course the government could also exert other means to pressure the company or simply negotiate. But that's outside of the rule of law.


This doesn’t seem to make sense as a reply. I explained what it means in the second sentence of the prior comment.

You’ve also yet to explain how your comment 3 days ago relates to the comment before that… so there’s no reason for me to go on an unrelated discussion.


Oh, on re-reading your comment I find that I actually agree with you:

> It doesn’t matter if every expert concurred, arguments from authority can not lead to opinion X becoming superior to opinion Y.

> At least not in a logically valid way.

But that's not what happened. What happened is that Apple dropped their argument Y without much fighting, which they previously upheld in face of government pressure.


Indeed, an opinion held by legal experts, as the title of the submission quite clearly expresses.

That seems valid for customers expecting a warranty or support. But they should allow it if customers waive all such in writing.

Warranty and support specifically for that flag? Because I don't see how general warranty and support requires keeping any hint flags forever.

If you remove the hint flag peoples build will break

Doesn't need to, it can acknowledge and ignore the hints.

True, but there might be more problems — like if you drop support their run time will be slow because they rely on this flag and they are unhappy

The premise of removing the flag is that it's useless or a problem. If it's still causing a big speed boost somewhere then you need to figure something out, but the core scenario here is that it's obsolete.

There’s obviously can’t be enough space for every moderately above average person who works very hard… since that adds up to tens of millions to hundreds of millions of people across the world.

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