How to Enter a City Like a King • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Enter a City Like a King

#101

Post by spencerflem » Tue, Oct 21, 2025, 7:08 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #99

spencerflem wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I see an ostrich chasing a limo driver and a liberty mutual jingle plays, I’m not being given any useful information. I know about jarritos too and don’t recall having seen any ads for them. If ads were useful and benefited my life, I’d watch them on purpose instead of them being forced on me.

> When I see an ostrich chasing a limo driver and a liberty mutual jingle plays, I’m not being given any useful information. You remember Liberty Mutual. > them being forced on me That's the price you pay for "free" streaming.

That’s not useful to me & I know, it’s free because me internalizing their propaganda is useful for someone else.

your original pitch was that without ads I’d never know about new products that I might legitimately be interested in. The vast majority of ads are not that

i also see ads in digital billboards and there’s nothing I can do about that

Re: How to Enter a City Like a King

#102

Post by jncfhnb » Tue, Oct 21, 2025, 11:48 AM UTC

qingcharles wrote: post #100

jncfhnb wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People seem to like Medicaid just fine though

Literally in no way comparable to having a single brand of deodorant.

And yet modern socialists are very keen on public healthcare and not very keen on controlling the means of production to enforce a single brand of deodorant. So… perhaps your mental benchmark is wrong?

Re: How to Enter a City Like a King

#103

Post by IAmBroom » Tue, Oct 21, 2025, 3:46 PM UTC

FabHK wrote: post #98

IAmBroom wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me a reread to realize what you were saying. If 745 is one horsepower, is 25 W one personpower?

Yes, or you could say a human power is 75 W (but only 8h a day). And the point is that we use some 2000 W, so have the equivalent of 26.6 people working for us nonstop (requiring 80 people total on 7 day a week shift work).

Thanks for the correction. 75 W is indeed the pp equivalent to hp. (I chose "person" over human to avoid the initialism conflict.)

Re: How to Enter a City Like a King

#104

Post by IAmBroom » Tue, Oct 21, 2025, 3:49 PM UTC

churchill wrote: post #86

IAmBroom wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can't say for all monarchs through human history (nor is it even possible to) Since human history is by definition what has been recorded, a small subset of what has happened, it is roughly possible. Granted, there exist records of monarchs whose deaths were not recorded, but we can still make pretty good estimates I think.

>Since human history is by definition what has been recorded Isn't that just dabbling into semantics? There are numerous societies & cultures we can definitely prove existed, without having further info on specifics such as their monarchs, etc. Your statement on human history sounds like, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" It's still an instance in spacetime and our d…

No, it's fundamental to the meaning of the sentence I was replying to.

I never suggested history was reality.

Re: How to Enter a City Like a King

#105

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Oct 21, 2025, 7:41 PM UTC

spencerflem wrote: post #101

WalterBright wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I see an ostrich chasing a limo driver and a liberty mutual jingle plays, I’m not being given any useful information. You remember Liberty Mutual. > them being forced on me That's the price you pay for "free" streaming.

That’s not useful to me & I know, it’s free because me internalizing their propaganda is useful for someone else. your original pitch was that without ads I’d never know about new products that I might legitimately be interested in. The vast majority of ads are not that i also see ads in digital billboards and there’s nothing I can do about that

> your original pitch was that without ads I’d never know about new products that I might legitimately be interested in

And I stand by that.

For example, in the 80's I subscribed to computer magazines for the ads. The same for hot rod magazines.