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> reducing the number of needed engineers at my business

> code is getting less and less important in our team

> the engineers aren't complaining

lays off engineers for ai trained off of other engineer's code and says code is less important and engineers aren't complaining.


Um, yes?

They can focus on other things that are more impactful in the business rather than just slinging code all day, they can actually look at design and the product!

Maximum headcount for engineers is around 7, no more than that now. I used to have 20, but with AI we don't need that many for our size.


> Maximum headcount for engineers is around 7, no more than that now. I used to have 20,

If I survived having 65% of my colleagues laid off you'd better believe I wouldn't complain in public.


BigTTYGothGF is right

I'd also be looking for a new job that values the skills I've spent a decade building.

I wonder if the remaining engineers' salary increased by the salary of the laid off coworkers'


Yeah or start my own company since they're basically doing everything now it sounds like.

Someone barking orders at you to generate code because they are too stupid to be able to read it is not very fun.

These people hire developers because their own brains are inferior, and now they think they can replace them because they don't want to share the wages with them.


Yeah I'm sure they aren't complaining because you'll just lay them off like the others.

I don't see how you could think 7 engineers would love the workload of 20 engineers, extra tooling or not.

Have fun with the tech debt in a few years.


thats the trouble I see with AI and management.

Management may see a churn of a few years as acceptable. If management makes 1$M in that time.. they wont care. "Once I get mine, I don't care"

Like my old CEO who moved out of state to avoid a massive tax bill, got his payout, became hands off, and let the company slide to be almost worthless.

Or at my current company there is no care for quality since we're just going to launch a new generation of product in 3 years. We're doing things here that will CAUSE a ground up rewrite. We're writing code to rely on undocumented features of the mcu that the vendor have said 'we cannot guarantee it will always behave this way' But our management cycles out every 3-4 years. Just enough time to kill the old, champion the new, get their bonus, and move on. Bonuses are handed out every January. Like clockwork there's between 3-7 directors and above who either get promoted or leave in February.

I don't see how any business person would see any value in engineering that extends past their tenure. They see value in launching/delivering/selling, and are rolling the dice that we're JUST able to not cause a nation wide outage or brick every device.

So AI is great... as long as I've 'gotten mine' before it explodes


Yeah I mean, aren't most of the blackouts controlled?

Not the lack of supply but shutdown on purpose due to the risk of power lines causing fires?

Seems burying them would be a more effective use of money if you're trying to solve blackouts.


"kill them with kindness"

it's very effective in a lot of cases, with no downside.

best case scenario, they were unaware and re-adjust how they talk to you.

worst case scenario, you know they are just being an asshole and you can go back to hating them.

If it all fails, my go to is patronizing kindness to taunt. Much better than complaining or arguing.


Some toxic people can be good at provocation, victimization and distorting situations. An attempt to improve things over a cup of coffee can be distorted as rumors, slander, harassment, intimidation, threats, etc.

A person that reached adulthood while being toxic throughout their life is probably competent at it at this point. While you were focused in acquiring your skills, they were probably getting better at being toxic. So you are probably not prepared for a direct confrontation with a veteran sabotaging jerk. Do not play a game you have never practiced as the away team because you are probably not going to win.

The more you have advanced your career, the more you have to lose while engaging someone. And in this case you have not much to win, against a person that has less than you to lose. Just using up your time and distracting you from your job is a win for a saboteur.

Anything you say can be held against you, so unless you've talked to a workplace attorney better stay out of it. If the situation is affecting you psychologically then engaging the person can affect you even more. Seek therapy if that helps, or channel your frustration through physical activity.

The best you can do is to limit your interactions to the professional level, and limit the topics to what he is working on. Everything else is your business and not his and you can seek additional collaboration at your discretion.


Honestly, you come across as quite negative yourself.

There's a saying, "If everywhere you go smells like shit, maybe it’s time to check your shoes"


I try as much as possible to stay out of politics and believe in merit. If someone advances their career through merit, I will be the first to celebrate with them.

But at the same time, I do not believe in the power of "let's have a coffee" in a situation like this. There are core beliefs that a cup of coffee will not change.

If someone believes in playing dirty, believes in that basic respect is earned not given, and other rotten beliefs... that person was a bad hire, and needs to have an expedited firing.


Lots of assumptions you're making there.

Better to just have the cup of coffee and see.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to disarm people with kindness, you should try it.


It's not your responsibility to fix it.

Just like if someone showed up drunk at work, showing up with an unacceptable behavior should be seen in a similar lens.


Not about responsibility. Just makes your life easier.

Noone is saying it's acceptable, just offering advice on how to mitigate the situation.

Should is the keyword of your last sentence. In a perfect world sure, but the world is not that.

You never know, you may even become friends. Doesn't hurt to attempt once at least.


Seeking everyone's approval is not a good mindset.

You are not there to win a popularity contest but to articulate what is needed clearly, keep people focused, unblocked and to get things done.

If you worry too much about being liked by everyone your mental health will suffer. You just have to accept some people won't like you.

Also comes across as insecure and less fit for leadership roles.


Federal law supersedes state law.

ICE is simply enforcing federal immigration laws.


> Federal law supersedes state law

It does. That doesn’t mean federal agents supersede state law.

California restricted civil arrests at its courts [1]. The Congress can pass a law superseding this. What ICE can’t unilaterally do, legally, is ignore it. They have, the same as they’ve ignored federal court orders.

[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...


[flagged]


> I'd imagine the California arrest restriction at it's courts is not constitutional as it conflicts with enforcement of existing federal immigration laws

Preëmption is about conflicts of laws [1]. You’d need statute giving ICE the power to enforce its will in state courthouses to preëmpt California law.

> Even if it's for cheap labor, Democrats

I live in a red state. We started to see ICE enforcement and then our Senators told them to fuck off.

To the extent we have a safe zone from immigration enforcement, it's in Republican economic strongholds [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_preemption

[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ice-walks-back-limits-raids...


>You’d need statute giving ICE the power to enforce its will in state courthouses to preempt California law.

Legally, it's up for debate on how much power localities can regulate Federal Law Enforcement operations. Federal Government takes the view that it's restrictions on operations by states is almost zero. There is 9th Circuit Ruling that says states can if "a federal officer [must do] no more than is necessary and proper in the performance of his duty" but that's pretty untested ruling.

States are loath to attempt to regulate Federal Law Enforcement by running it up the courts since their worry is it hits SCOTUS and they come back with "States have no power, LOLZ"


> There is 9th Circuit Ruling that says states can if "a federal officer [must do] no more than is necessary and proper in the performance of his duty" but that's pretty untested ruling

What? States have been fighting over this since the 19th century [1].

> States are loath to attempt to regulate Federal Law Enforcement by running it up the courts since their worry is it hits SCOTUS and they come back with "States have no power, LOLZ"

Source for states being "loath to attempt to regulate federal law enforcment"?

We literally have multiple states--led by California--passing laws which "attempt to regulate" just that. (Exhibit A: the comment you responded to.)

[1] https://statedemocracy.law.wisc.edu/featured/2025/explainer-...


Sure, States have been fighting over this since US Government was formed, however, I'm some ruling from 1812 does not matter.

If you look at recent legal history, Federal Government has won in every case where Federal Law Enforcement was acting as Federal Law Enforcement Officers.

My point is California has passed laws attempting to regulate but as of yet, has not attempted to enforce their laws at all. So are they really attempting or just doing performance art with laws?


> If you look at recent legal history, Federal Government has won in every case where Federal Law Enforcement was acting as Federal Law Enforcement Officers

Not disputing, but do you have sources?

> My point is California has passed laws attempting to regulate but as of yet, has not attempted to enforce their laws at all. So are they really attempting or just doing performance art with laws?

This is fair. I think one of the smartest things a Democrat Governor could do right now is start arresting federal agents who are breaking state laws, e.g. around where they can be and how they must identify themselves.

As you say, it will probably be met sceptically by the courts, and almost certainly so by SCOTUS. But it will gum up the works and turn that person into a hero. If Trump fucks up and arrests them, their political ascendancy is assured.


From your source:

>Decades later, in 1992, another high-profile prosecution of a federal official involved the siege of anti-government separatist Randall Weaver’s cabin near Ruby Ridge, Idaho.[33] Amid a controversial series of events, an FBI sniper accidentally killed Weaver’s unarmed wife, Vicki Weaver.[34] The U.S. Attorney General decided not to prosecute the sniper under federal law, but Idaho prosecutors charged him with involuntary manslaughter under state law.[35] After some uncertainty in prior court decisions, a split federal appeals court concluded that the Idaho case could tentatively go ahead because disputed facts left it unclear whether the sniper “acted in an objectively reasonable manner in carrying out [his] duties.”[36] A week after that decision, however, the newly elected county prosecutor in Idaho chose to drop the charges.[37]

And in a case from 2006, Wyoming prosecutors charged federal wildlife officers with trespass and littering for entering private land while collaring wolves as part of a federal monitoring program.[38] The Tenth Circuit concluded that the officers were immune from prosecution because they had an “objectively reasonable and well-founded” belief that they were on public land when conducting the collaring.[39] The court also concluded that the prosecution “was not a bona fide effort to punish a violation of Wyoming trespass law, which requires knowledge on the part of a trespasser, but rather an attempt to hinder a locally unpopular federal program.”[40]

Other recent high-profile cases include a Virginia prosecution of U.S. Park Police officers who shot and killed a man in 2017,[41] a Boston municipal court judge finding a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in contempt of court and referring the matter to the district attorney for prosecution after the agent detained a man in the middle of a municipal court trial,[42] and an Oregon prosecution of a Drug Enforcement Administration officer who hit and killed a cyclist in 2023 while pursuing a suspected fentanyl trafficker.[43] The first two cases were dismissed,[44] and the Oregon case is still pending in a federal appeals court.[45]


I don't know why this was flagged. It may be wrong, but I think it worth discussing to correct.

Not all of Federal law supersedes state law. The Tenth Amendment clarifies:

> The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

If it's not given to the federal government to regulate, the federal government can't regulate it.


It hasn't been flagged.


Do you agree enforcing immigration laws in this way is good and/or important? If so, can I ask why? What is our end goal?


> can I ask why?

Simply put, Americans gave Republicans a popular mandate to reduce illegal immigration.

Much of this was economic: illegal immigrants dilute the labour force. Some, particularly among Latin Americans, rose from perceived injustice: it’s frustrating to go through the American immigration process only to see someone who skipped it live a similar life. Some, e.g. those focused on crime, were just racists.

If ICE were simply enforcing the law, I don’t think there would be a national outcry. The problem is they aren’t. All while blowing the military budget of Saudi Arabia [1][2] to accomplish what Obama did with a tenth as much.

[1] https://breakingdefense.com/2025/02/saudi-arabia-increases-d...

[2] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-budget-big-beautiful-b...


It was an extremely weak mandate, and in normal times (e.g., assuming the concept of limited government), a weak mandate would be a mandate to act with restraint. Thus a "mandate" doesn't justify what's happening.

The Republicans abandoned the economic debate, and shifted focus to social issues. This is what caught the Democrats, including myself, off guard. Rather than stealing our jobs, the immigrants were accused of stealing our cats.

Framing it as an economic issue in hindsight seems like a polite way of "steelmanning" the voting base, but I'm not sure it's really justifiable.


> Much of this was economic: illegal immigrants dilute the labour force.

Then why are the farmers complaining about it? https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-farm-groups-want-trump-s...


You’re asking why massive buyers of labour want cheaper labour?


> Americans gave Republicans a popular mandate

Trump's win wasn't even close to being a mandate. Also, people (now) hate his enforcement policies.

> illegal immigrants dilute the labour force

ICE is not simply going after illegal immigrants for one thing. Also, immigrants support the economy. They do jobs Americans won't for one thing. But I'd love to see data on the amount of labor force dilution immigrants are doing. We should really one looking at the ownership class sitting on trillions of dollars of wealth and not sharing.

> perceived injustice

Exactly. We should have solidarity, not be pulling up the drawbridge behind us. But the current arrangement suits Capital just fine.

> If ICE were simply enforcing the law, I don’t think there would be a national outcry. The problem is they aren’t.

Agree. They're doing fascism.


[flagged]


> much easier for Obama to do it because there were not throngs of protesters trying to stop his ICE officers

Yes there were [1][2]. New York City Council members were arrested [3].

Obama's ICE was simply more focussed on detaining and deterring illegal immigrants because immigration was a political liability for him. For Trump, efficiacy isn't as important as messaging.

[1] https://www.voanews.com/a/barack-obama-immigration-raids-pro...

[2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3793700

[3] https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/protest-arrests/211895...


Assumed political liability.


At the time, sure. With the benefit of hindsight, one of Democrats’ strategic fuckups over the last decade was forgetting that it is one.


I think the Democrat's strategic fuck up is not standing for up for US democracy, always.

Part of that is saying "immigration is good, actually", instead of conceding political positions to the right as they poison our politics.

The Dems should have created a counter-narrative. If you believe in liberal, multi-ethnic democracy, then you must say so. The lesson (that I suppose people have forgotten from history) is that our freedoms (as I am talking about it) must be defended, always, and not taken for granted.


What's the cause and what's the effect? Less protests because ICE under Obama wasn't taking such a heavy handed and legally gray approach perhaps?


Great question! It was pretty clear that people would be protesting Trump from the day he was re-elected. His methods undoubtedly haven't helped, but I'm pretty sure there would have been protesters regardless.


I don't have the links handy, but ISTR that both Obama and Biden counted turning folks away at the border as equivalent to a deportation. That juices the deportation metrics without being nearly so disruptive.


> ICE is simply enforcing federal immigration laws

“From January to June, the average number of detainees per day in ICE custody rose 43 percent, to more than 57,000. But since July, when the [OBBA] funding was approved, the detainee population has increased only about 5 percent, to roughly 60,000, the latest statistics show.

The stream of social-media clips showing masked federal agents kicking down doors, raiding Home Depot parking lots, and pulling people from their car have kept up the appearance of an ever-expanding campaign. ICE’s own data show that the agency’s buildup stalled over the summer” [1].

Meanwhile, with first-year deportations around 400,000 [2], they stand to match what Obama did in 2012 [3], despite spending $40 to 70bn, or 10 to 15x, more [4][5].

Instead of enforcing our immigration laws, ICE is involved in domestic policing, partisan intimidation and the illegal detention of American citizens.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/10/ice-imm...

[2] https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/09/23/new-milestone-over-2-mil...

[3] https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO00/20200109/110349/HHRG...

[4] https://www.ice.gov/factsheets/budget2012 $5.8bn, FY2012, $8.2bn CPI adjusted to ‘25

[5] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-budget-big-beautiful-b... $45 to 75 billion under OBBBA


Difference between deportations under Obama vs Trump is they aren't coming right back over.

Easy to inflate deportations when you catch the same fish and the river is flowing.

Much slower when you dam off the river and have to dig the remaining catfish out of the mud.


> Difference between deportations under Obama vs Trump is they aren't coming right back over

“U.S. Border Patrol agents recorded nearly 238,000 apprehensions of migrants crossing the southern border illegally in fiscal year 2025” [1]. For 2012 to 2015, the chart shows about 360k, 420k, 480k and 330k, respectively.

So ICE is spending $330 to 580 thousand dollars per additional Southwest border encounter in 2025 versus 2012. ($250 to 440 thousand if we average Obama’s second-term numbers.)

These numbers 10x even San Francisco’s circa 2016 homeless-industrial profligacy [2]. Unless ICE is a ball of wormy corruption, they’re clearly not focused on immigration enforcement.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/10/icymi-illegal-cr...

[2] https://www.hoover.org/research/despite-spending-11-billion-...


Interior enforcement is the focus currently.

Crossings are lower overall due to securing of the border.


> Interior enforcement is the focus currently

If it is, it's being pursued corruptly and incompetently.

From the top of the thread, ICE is spending boatloads more money to deport just about as many people as Obama did with a tenth of the budget [1]. Cross-border encounters are within 100,000, so the difference is not explained by recividism.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45506994


They're enforcing the law in profoundly illegal ways.


Ball room is privately funded btw.


Privately extorted funding, that is.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/youtube-agrees-pay-245-milli...

> YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump and other plaintiffs after he was suspended from the platform in 2021, according to a court filing.

> According to the filing, $22 million will be used to support Trump’s construction of a White House State Ballroom and will be held in a tax-exempt entity called the Trust for the National Mall.


[flagged]


You should actually read the letter instead of assuming what it says.


> Full letter from Google…

doesn't say anything of the sort. It, in fact, brags about their refusing to do so.


I'm not sure thats any better. A metaphor of corruption if I've ever seen one.


A president privately paying for a ball room that they will only use for 3 more years?

I don't think that's really peak corruption. He could have just kept the money.

It's simply a donation of a building. Not sure how you can spin that as corruption.


> A president privately paying…

There's zero evidence of this. (And plenty of evidence to the contrary, like the YouTube settlement.)

> He could have pocketed the money.

He effectively is. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2025/09/09/preside...


The Youtube settlement is his money. Youtube censored him, admitted it was the Biden admin directing it, and settled.

Trump can either donate the money or pocket it.

I'm not sure why you linked his net worth gain, has nothing to do with this conversation of donating this specific building.


> The Youtube settlement is his money…

… obtained via the power and threat of the public office. There's a good reason all these suits started getting settled only after he regained office.

> I'm not sure why you linked his net worth gain…

Because he's growing his wealth via the Presidency far greater than $20M he's "donating" out of someone else's pocket?


> There's a good reason all these suits started getting settled only after he regained office.

Yes, because as Google admitted, the Biden administration was the one instructing them to do so, of course the suits started after the Biden admin.

-- edit --

Source: https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/google-admi...

Full letter from Google: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-j...


Where are you getting that from?

https://deadline.com/2025/09/trumo-youtube-settlement-123656...

> According to the filing, the settlement “shall not constitute an admission of liability or fault on the part of the Defendants or their agents, servants, or employees, and is entered into by all Parties for the sole purpose of compromising disputed claims and avoiding the expenses and risks of further litigation.” Google/YouTube also did not agree to any product or policy changes.


I use mine for a plex server.

I don't need to transcode + I need something I can leave on that draws little power.

I have a powerful rig, but the one time I get to turn it off is when I'd need the media server lol.

There's a lot of scenarios where power usage comes into play.

These clusters don't make much sense to me though.


That’s insane, drawing very little power from an always on server is a solved problem.


What's your idea of very little power, though?

I know for many who run SBCs (RK3588, Pi, etc.), very little is 1-2W idle, which is almost nothing (and doesn't even need a heatsink if you can stand some throttling from time to time).

Most of the Intel Mini PCs (which are about the same price, with a little more performance) idle at 4-6W, or more.


Not to mention there's more cost, effort, and energy effective compute from old laptops.

Unless you have a robot body for your potential RPi, don't buy one.


how many can run on batteries?

it's nice to take it on road trips / into hotels.

can't really imagine hauling a server around.

we probably have different definitions of "very little power".


> it's nice to take it on road trips / into hotels.

> can't really imagine hauling a server around.

These two sentences contradict each other.


How?

I can fit a raspberry pi and external ssd in my pocket.

I cannot do that for a server.

I could use a laptop, but simply plugging in a firestick to the hotel tv or a projector when camping is nicer.


If Democrats win they could extend them


> If Democrats win they could extend them

And what happens to the debt/deficit then? You know, the thing that the GOP constantly complains about but always makes worse?

The GOP loves to cut revenues (taxes, especially for top percentiles):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast


They love to cut revenues and explode the debt. "The party of fiscal responsibility."


If Democrats win the presidency, they would still probably need cooperation from Republicans to get an extension through Congress, which means that there are no good options for the Dems.


Just in time for Republicans to blame them for making the debt worse. It's all so cynical.


Yes but this policy is absolutely terrible, so it seems unlikely they would


but it's a very stupid policy.


It's impossible for VLEO constellations to create space junk.

They naturally fall out of orbit after a few years.

And no they can't be "blown into" GEO orbit.


Big % of mega constellations will be be >500km where deorbit is decades to centuries. Unless regulatory changes, VLEO will be minority because orbit slots is limited.


Care to share where you're pulling that information?

1. The amount of "orbit slots" is vast. There is plenty of room.

2. I'm unaware of any mega constellations planned >500km. Latency would be worse and doesn't make sense for an aspiring Starlink competitor to do that.


1. UN/ITU regulates orbit slots/shells (really frequency assignments that effectively limits orbit slots), high decay V/LEO, as in ~500km was basically exhausted by starlink. Big reason PRC announced multiple 10-20k mega constellations a few years ago (without reusable for to put-up payload) was to sign up for next closes shell which is 500+. At those distances orbit decay is decades/centuries. So regulatorily, the fast decay orbit slots are legally mostly gone.

2. All mega constellations including starlink has layers from 500-1500km. Every 100km is like 0.3ms latency but trade off is cheaper station (longer life time) keeping and wider coverage per satellite, but cost more to get there.

Related to 1&2 is this is byproduct of UN/ITU regulations... they can open up more <500km slots, increase congestion, confliction and chance of recoverable Kessler... but that would mean SpaceX (read US military) would... have to share strategic orbits with PRC and whoever comes next.

E: extrapolate to future of cheap space launch, if multiple blocs or even countries want their own mega constellations, and no changes to regulations, then they would have to start occupying higher orbit shells (assuming they follow ITU). Also geometrically, the shell lowest/closest to earth has the least volume / capacity.


Starlink competitors don't have SpaceX rockets and will tend towards different kinds of solutions to compensate. It is indeed significantly worse (signal strength, beam overlap) to go up to higher LEO altitudes, but that's a tradeoff you might make if you're inconfident about your orbital launchers and want to minimize risk there. You would need fewer satellites for initial coverage—fewer launches.

China's Thousand Sails (Qianfan) is secretive but possibly targets 800 km shells; I'll just quote Mike Wall and Jonathan McDowell,

> "That number is growing all the time; SpaceX has already launched more than 50 dedicated Starlink missions this year, with many more on the docket. Elon Musk's company already has permission to deploy 12,000 Starlink spacecraft in LEO, and it has applied for approval for another 30,000 on top of that."

> "Qianfan won't be quite that big, but it's in the ballpark."

> ""The satellites are similar to the V1 Starlinks, with flat-panel morphology and a mass of 300 kg [660 pounds] each. This 'G60' constellation is planned to eventually have 14,000 satellites," astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, posted on X shortly after today's Qianfan launch."

> "The Qianfan satellites will apparently orbit at an altitude of about 500 miles (800 kilometers), he added in another post. That's higher than the Starlink constellation, which orbits at about 340 miles (550 km)."

https://www.space.com/china-first-launch-internet-satellite-...


Late update: and the other one, Guowang, goes up to 1,145 km—there was one launched a few hours ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guowang

https://bsky.app/profile/planet4589.bsky.social/post/3lwdf3c...


> a little more overhead (50% instead of 33%)

a little?


A 12.5% increase, or 1/8. Yes, a little. Compared to, say, hexadecimal, which would be a 50% increase. Or URL percent-encoding, which would be a 125% increase.


it doesn't matter? it's the average of multiple atomic clocks and that's the time we distribute.

it's a human construct so whatever is agreed upon is correct.


If this were true, then why even bother to make atomic clocks? Why would an article about the "most accurate clock" be interesting to smart people like HN readers if there's no objective measure of accuracy (or if it didn't matter)? The correct answer is in a sibling comment to yours: we base it on other things we know (or believe, anyway) to be constant.


I'm fully aware, but you seem to have misinterpreted what I was saying.

If "all the clocks are wrong" it doesn't matter as long as they are consistent. (in the case of atomic clocks, frequency of energy transitions within atoms)

All ntp servers get the average of atomic clocks, which is then distributed to all phones and computers.

If the constants from these atomic clocks "are a little bit wrong" it does not matter (for most human activities)

That's why we average them and distribute the average.

For physics related research, this new clock being more precise does have use, but for pretty much everything else, whatever constant we have is good enough as long as it's consistently used.

Back in the day it was someone just running around with a pocket watch giving everyone the time from the clock tower which was calibrated from a sundial and that was good enough.

Replace the sun's shadow with electron transitions and the timekeepers with ntp servers and that's what you have today.


I see. Thanks for the added context; that's much clearer.


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