Hacker News: lambertsimnel

New comment by lambertsimnel in "Think of the children: How to force real ID for all internet traffic (2023)"

lambertsimnel — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 10:53:24 +0000

> Imagine we had a versioned database with all the laws from all countries where one could compare them side by side. We could begin to understand the mood or spirit of each effort.

It would be good. There have been some attempts at source code style revision management for statutes (such as https://www.lafabriquedelaloi.fr/ ). Are they a useful start? What should be the next step?

New comment by lambertsimnel in "I told them forced consent was unlawful. 5 years later it cost Elkjop €1.8M"

lambertsimnel — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 11:14:04 +0000

This is my understanding, too. Sorry if that wasn't clear in my earlier comment.

However, I also believe that unenforceable parts of a contract have no effect, except in the minds of the parties to that contract. My suspicion is that contracts are sometimes drafted with this in mind.

New comment by lambertsimnel in "I told them forced consent was unlawful. 5 years later it cost Elkjop €1.8M"

lambertsimnel — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 10:00:38 +0000

You can withdraw consent later, but I don't see how that would affect data processed before the withdrawal (except that storage is processing and the data would have to be deleted). I don't imagine a reputable employer would have any other use for the data, so the withdrawal of your consent might not bother them much. If your application were successful and you took the job, I expect that would establish contract, rather than consent, as a legal basis for them to process your data.

In general, I'm not sure a company processing my data on the basis of consent would stop all processing of my data just because I withdraw my consent. Some processing of some of my data might have a different legal basis. Judging by some websites' privacy options, there's a distinction between consent (opt-in), legitimate interest (opt-out) and other legal bases (maybe neither). I'm confused about website forms that have separate reject and object options for each category of data processing and a reject-all button that closes the form. Does clicking "reject all" mean I have or haven't objected?

New comment by lambertsimnel in "I told them forced consent was unlawful. 5 years later it cost Elkjop €1.8M"

lambertsimnel — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 09:29:06 +0000

But if laws can override contracts (which presumably they can), then contracts can appear to establish permissions/restrictions that are illegal. At least one contract I've signed includes something about the rest being enforceable if any part of it isn't enforceable. Perhaps that helps to contain actual mistakes, but I assume employers use it to persuade employees that they're bound by illegal non-compete clauses, for example.

If prime numbers are rare, then why do they keep showing up in pairs? [video]

lambertsimnel — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 13:31:50 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HBDE-msUjw

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48541020

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

The .at domain registry is threatening to send debt collectors (2013)

lambertsimnel — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 15:52:20 +0000

Article URL: https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1bnjus/the_austrian_at_domain_registry_is_threatening_to/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48478219

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by lambertsimnel in "The Smallest Brain You Can Build: A Perceptron in Python"

lambertsimnel — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:50:39 +0000

> But electronic 'equivalents' of neural nets is one area where analog might make sense.

That's an interesting idea, but could the weights be transferred to different hardware and still work? If not, that would be a significant limitation, even if it were preferable in some cases.

Comparing Objective Caml and Standard ML

lambertsimnel — Thu, 21 May 2026 07:07:56 +0000

Article URL: https://adam.chlipala.net/mlcomp/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48218949

Points: 14

# Comments: 2

Hyperpolyglot ML Dialects and Haskell: SML, OCaml, F#, Haskell

lambertsimnel — Tue, 19 May 2026 07:41:33 +0000

Article URL: https://hyperpolyglot.org/ml

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48190428

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by lambertsimnel in "How to make a fast dynamic language interpreter"

lambertsimnel — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 14:06:54 +0000

GluconScript looks cool, but this sounds too good to be true:

> as a bonus, since Rust takes care of all the ownership > and lifetimes, I don't need a garbage collector.

I can imagine GluconScript's memory handling comes at a cost, even if the tradeoff of using a borrow checker is well worth it. Was that your experience?

Relatedly, since you commented there has been submission about garbage collectors in Rust ("Garbage Collection Without Unsafe Code"):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47821853

New comment by lambertsimnel in "Bullshit About Bullshit Machines [pdf]"

lambertsimnel — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 09:04:44 +0000

Or the Internet Archive:

http://web.archive.org/web/20260421123054/https://aphyr.com/...

Computer Science Unplugged

lambertsimnel — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 10:15:20 +0000

Article URL: https://www.csunplugged.org/en/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47791012

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by lambertsimnel in "Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions"

lambertsimnel — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 07:41:19 +0000

It could have been that so much future growth was priced in that a reduction in the growth rate could have justified a reduction in the share price

New comment by lambertsimnel in "Spotlighting the World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell"

lambertsimnel — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 22:06:13 +0000

It would be cool if you did make a torrent of it

New comment by lambertsimnel in "Spotlighting the World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell"

lambertsimnel — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 21:54:03 +0000

The Anguilla summary has 2020 population data, but some of the data is indeed much older:

https://simonw.github.io/cia-world-factbook-2020/attachments...

New comment by lambertsimnel in "Spotlighting the World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell"

lambertsimnel — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 21:51:38 +0000

Maybe some can be found in the Wayback Machine. This page says "view 71 photos" under "photos of France":

https://web.archive.org/web/20260103000011/https://www.cia.g...

Clicking the link seems to show 114 photos:

https://web.archive.org/web/20260103000011/https://www.cia.g...

I didn't see a way to get high-resolution versions.

Edit: This photo from Afghanistan is called "AF_006_large.jpg", but it's only 600x450:

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/static/e926b79682b14c...

New comment by lambertsimnel in "Spotlighting the World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell"

lambertsimnel — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 21:36:29 +0000

There's also World Bank population data (but it seems only to go up to 2016): https://databank.worldbank.org/source/subnational-population...

New comment by lambertsimnel in "Data centers in space makes no sense"

lambertsimnel — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 07:45:12 +0000

I share your enthusiasm about heat pumps, but I wonder what the efficiency of using waste heat is. Couldn't it be competitive with heat pumps? As it's a waste product, isn't it reasonable to also expect it to be more than 100% efficient?

New comment by lambertsimnel in "The web runs on tolerance"

lambertsimnel — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 09:21:02 +0000

> It is an overly broad definition of political to the point of uselessness and absurdity

I don't think it's useless or absurd, just not usually applicable. After all, each action has a specific political significance.

> It's also just tedious

Fair enough, but couldn't we say the same about many other things? For example, Brownian motion might not usually warrant our attention, but it's there for when we decide it is of interest.

New comment by lambertsimnel in "The web runs on tolerance"

lambertsimnel — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 19:55:36 +0000

I see. I disagree with them if they think everything really is political propaganda, but I think in a sense everything is political (in the wider sense) in its causes and consequences, so perhaps it might as well be propaganda, even if those involved don't think of it that way.

To return to your previous comment that "everything is political" is a tedious worldview, maybe there's a possible compromise. We could accept the idea that "non-political" everyday things have a (small) political significance, while never (or rarely) engaging with that political significance in any specific instance.