Hacker News: sampo

New comment by sampo in "EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0"

sampo — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 21:25:48 +0000

You are correct that Czechia, Cyprus and Romania (and France, and Lithuania) send their president to the European Council. But Poland and Portugal, and all other countries, send their prime minister.

22 countries: Prime minister

5 countries: President

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Council#Members

New comment by sampo in "EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0"

sampo — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 12:04:17 +0000

> There are many countries in Europe with a president and a prime minister

In most of those countries, the role of the president is mostly ceremonial and/or has to do with foreign policy outside of EU.

New comment by sampo in "EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0"

sampo — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 15:58:27 +0000

(1) Replace US president with a Commission of Presidents. One from each state (well, EU only has 27 member states). Each Commissioner is appointed by state legislature, not elected. No more presidential elections. This is the EU Commission.

(2) Replace US senate with a meeting of secretaries, or heads of departments from each state. Only one relevant representative from each state. But the senate composition is not fixed. When the senate discusses e.g. agricultural policy, each state sends their secretary of agriculture, of head of their department of agriculture. No more senate elections. This is the EU Council of Ministers (a.k.a. Council of the European Union or just "The Council").

(3) The house is the EU Parliament.

Take the right of legislative initiative away from the congress, and give it to the Commission of Presidents. The Commission writes the bills, and the senate and the house can only approve or disapprove (with comments).

(4) Change the states to follow the European model: The governor is not elected, but appointed by the state legislature, and is called "prime minister". (Except France has a presidential model.)

(5) The president / Commission is like a CEO. To supervise the CEO, we need a board. The heads of states (governors) meet 4 times per year to discuss and set broad and long term goals. This is the European Council.

New comment by sampo in "EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0"

sampo — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:50:16 +0000

I think what you've typed is not representative of how EU works.

The Council [1], also known as the Council of the European Union and the Council of Ministers, does not consist of heads of state. The body that consists of heads of state is the European Council [2].

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

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Council

New comment by sampo in "EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0"

sampo — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 17:09:31 +0000

> What I don't understand, based on this: https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/195775 the votes are the other way around

They voted for "Proposition de rejet". It's written there, but it's in French.

New comment by sampo in "EU Council forces Chat Control via fast-track"

sampo — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 20:04:20 +0000

I mean, if the electoral college would have enough faithless electors to swing the result away from the president whom the majority of the electors had pledged to vote for.

There has been so far 5 elections where the electoral vote chose a different president than what the popular vote count would have chosen. But this is a different thing than what I was talking about.

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

New comment by sampo in "EU Council forces Chat Control via fast-track"

sampo — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 19:46:05 +0000

> So is the US president (Electoral College)

It has never happened, but if there once would be enough faithless electors to swing the election (choosing a different president than what people voted for) it would be a huge scandal and it would be widely condemned as undemocratic.

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

New comment by sampo in "Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines"

sampo — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 20:48:28 +0000

Seedless watermelons are my favorite!

New comment by sampo in "Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines"

sampo — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 20:47:00 +0000

This is what you wrote:

"The impact of their wild propagation should be studied first, not unleashed upon the local ecosystem."

So by "wild propagation" you meant farm-to-farm propagation? And by "local ecosystem" you meant "farmers' fields"? And you accuse others of redefining words.

New comment by sampo in "Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines"

sampo — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 20:42:25 +0000

Monsanto ceased to exist 8 years ago. It was acquired and absorbed by a bigger company.

New comment by sampo in "Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines"

sampo — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 20:34:26 +0000

If we understand "in the wild" to mean outside of farmers' fields, then rapeseed pollen flying from one rapeseed field to another nearby rapeseed field is not "in the wild".

New comment by sampo in "Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines"

sampo — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 20:27:33 +0000

Breeding new crop varieties is relatively scientific and sophisticated work, like any other advances in technology and products. If you couldn't parent your work, there wouldn't be much incentive to do the work. America has had plant patents since 1930, there is nothing new about this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Patent_Act_of_1930

New comment by sampo in "Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines"

sampo — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 20:15:25 +0000

> their wild propagation

In general, crop plants don't propagate well in the wild. The whole point of breeding a crop plant is to remove their chemical defenses (to make them edible) and to make them produce lots of edible parts. This is usually the direct opposite of what plants need to survive in the wild.

New comment by sampo in "Claude Science"

sampo — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:42:41 +0000

Biosciences mostly don't use arXiv, they have their own https://www.biorxiv.org/ but it's usage is not as common as arXiv is in e.g. physics.

How to Disable Blinking Cursors

sampo — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 12:50:35 +0000

Article URL: https://jurta.org/en/prog/noblink

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48697824

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by sampo in "Medical students are using popular research tool to pump out misleading studies"

sampo — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 01:05:25 +0000

> You get a 4 year degree in college

This is pretty uniquely a US-Canada specific system, that you first do a different 4-year BSc degree, before entering a 4-year medical school.

In most countries, you go a 6-year medical school right after high school.

New comment by sampo in "Anthropic says Alibaba illicitly extracted Claude AI model capabilities"

sampo — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:19:56 +0000

> Because Anthropic has terms of service

Not following terms of service doesn't necessarily constitute a fraud. It just means Anthropic can close an account that breaks the terms of service.

New comment by sampo in "Thomann takes legal action against Fender"

sampo — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 20:48:55 +0000

> You can probably

No need for "probably". That absolutely works.

New comment by sampo in "Why does paper fold so well?"

sampo — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 11:51:04 +0000

It was this paper folding video (and the guy's unapologetic Finnish accent) that launched Hydraulic Press Channel to fame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuG_CeEZV6w

New comment by sampo in "The Butlerian Jihad Has Begun"

sampo — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:15:32 +0000

"Nuclear holocaust" is a somewhat common expression both in and outside of fiction.