Hacker News: Jtsummers

New comment by Jtsummers in "Trump deletes post depicting him as Jesus-like figure after backlash"

Jtsummers — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 18:52:39 +0000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council - Commonly referred to as Vatican II.

New comment by Jtsummers in "Trump deletes post depicting him as Jesus-like figure after backlash"

Jtsummers — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 18:43:50 +0000

The majority of US Christians don't care about the Pope. And Trump-supporting Catholics have a tenuous relationship with the Vatican and Pope already (for instance, many in that camp also want to roll back Vatican II and other "modern" trends).

New comment by Jtsummers in "Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident"

Jtsummers — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 05:40:01 +0000

> if we're going by your definition of "emulate" wouldn't it have been passed the instant the brain was "emulated?"

Yes, which also demonstrates the illogic of his timeline. I just thought it was too obvious to point out.

New comment by Jtsummers in "Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident"

Jtsummers — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 05:25:59 +0000

Fair, the term in the summary is "emulate". So to restate, still waiting for the $1000 machine that can emulate human intelligence and the brain scans to go with it. Computing power is nowhere near what he predicted, because unlike his predictions reality happened. Compute capabilities, like many other things, is a logistic curve, not an unbounded exponential or hyperbolic.

EDIT:

> LLMs seem capable of doing a decent amount of tasks that a human can do?

And computers could beat most humans for decades at chess. Cars can go faster than a human can run, and have been able to beat a human runner since essentially their invention. Machines doing human tasks or besting humans is not new. That doesn't mean we're approaching the singularity, you may as well believe that the Heaven's Gate folks were right, both are based on unreality.

New comment by Jtsummers in "Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident"

Jtsummers — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 04:57:25 +0000

The Turing test demonstrates human gullibility more than it demonstrates machine intelligence. Some people were convinced that ELIZA was a person.

But sure, a test that doesn't actually demonstrate intelligence has been passed. Now, where are the $1000 computers that can simulate a human mind and the brain scans to populate them with minds?

New comment by Jtsummers in "Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident"

Jtsummers — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 04:34:44 +0000

Per that summary, we were supposed to have $1000 computers that could simulate your mind by the start of this decade along with brain scanning by this point in the decade. I guess if it is truly an exponential or hyperbolic growth rate, the singularity could catch up to his predicted date.

New comment by Jtsummers in "A Crazy Expensive U.S. Drone Just Disappeared over Strait of Hormuz"

Jtsummers — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 03:51:54 +0000

The mods certainly aren't cheap, and it's still closer to a one-off production. But better to have a large chunk of it "off the shelf" than a totally custom aircraft.

New comment by Jtsummers in "Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident"

Jtsummers — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 01:54:13 +0000

It's an old idea, "the singularity". The machines become smart enough to improve themselves, and each improvement results in shorter (or more significant) improvement cycles. This leads to an exponential growth rate.

It's been promised to be around the corner for decades.

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

New comment by Jtsummers in "A Crazy Expensive U.S. Drone Just Disappeared over Strait of Hormuz"

Jtsummers — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 01:34:27 +0000

> The Navy’s P-8 Poseidon aircraft is its premier asset for anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare. Made by Boeing, the Poseidon is also 737-sized, with a flight crew of two plus a team of seven to manage the sensors and other mission equipment on ten-hour flights. [emphasis added]

That bit I emphasized made me chuckle. The P-8 Poseidon is 737-sized because it's derived from the 737. This is not unusual for US military aircraft. Boeing already has the ability to build 737s, modifying one to meet particular mission needs is much cheaper than doing a total redesign and custom build (it will still be heavily modified, of course).

New comment by Jtsummers in "A brief history of instant coffee"

Jtsummers — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 01:28:56 +0000

> A lot of 'premium' branded instant coffee is ~£42/kg. That's £3/kg more than my premium, locally-roasted, single-estate Colombian coffee beans.

That weight comparison doesn't make sense. How many cups of coffee do you get from your beans versus the instant? I just checked the jar I have here for my lazy weekends, it's ~2g per cup of coffee (rounding up, it's a bit under 200g and it makes about 100 cups). So a kg of instant would be around 500 cups of coffee. I don't think your 1kg of beans will produce that many cups.

New comment by Jtsummers in "[dead]"

Jtsummers — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 23:14:23 +0000

They're just trolling, no need to feed them.

New comment by Jtsummers in "Why are we still using Markdown?"

Jtsummers — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 13:32:58 +0000

Git wasn't even around.

New comment by Jtsummers in "CBP Facility Codes Sure Seem to Have Leaked via Online Flashcards"

Jtsummers — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 01:22:31 +0000

https://archive.is/7elBq

New comment by Jtsummers in "The FAA’s flight restriction for drones is an attempt to criminalize filming ICE"

Jtsummers — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:58:28 +0000

> How do you tell the difference between a drone with a camera and a drone with a grenade.

Today, it makes as much sense to worry about this as it does for me to worry about a tsunami hitting my home at 7200' above sea level. It's not happening, worry about it and implement policies when people start using grenade-drones.

New comment by Jtsummers in "Airfare Is Just the Beginning"

Jtsummers — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:15:38 +0000

Try archive.org.

New comment by Jtsummers in "US to deploy additional troops to the Middle East, officials say"

Jtsummers — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 18:44:16 +0000

> US casualties have been in the single digits; there's not much national pride lost in walking away.

Fatalities are in double digits (13) though 6 are from a plane crash with no one claiming the Iranians caused it. Casualties are in the triple-digits, since it includes injured, not just killed.

But yes, the numbers are still small enough we can pull out without that influencing the decision (from a public opinion perspective) substantially.

New comment by Jtsummers in "The Story of the Cartel Olympics"

Jtsummers — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 16:47:55 +0000

HN changed the title from the original:

  The Incredible Story of The Cartel Olympics

to just:

  The Cartel Olympics

I edited it to "The Story of the Cartel Olympics" because this article is about the story and the storyteller, but did remove "Incredible".

New comment by Jtsummers in "The Story of the Cartel Olympics"

Jtsummers — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 16:35:27 +0000

https://web.archive.org/web/20260320122404/https://www.theat...

The Story of the Cartel Olympics

Jtsummers — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 16:35:27 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/05/mexico-cartel-la-union-tepito/686453/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47457013

Points: 6

# Comments: 3

New comment by Jtsummers in "What if Python was natively distributable?"

Jtsummers — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 20:44:24 +0000

> You mean the cadence where everything is presented in threes? Yeah I hate it too, but beats paying some blogger to do it

You could also use your own words instead of an LLM. Would have been more interesting.