Hacker News: seanmcdirmid

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Statement on US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5"

seanmcdirmid — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 15:34:16 +0000

Yes. mind you this is just about the Swedish bookseller who was abducted from Thailand in 2018. There is not much defense for China here, even a what aboutism the USA doesn’t do much.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Statement on US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5"

seanmcdirmid — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 06:14:11 +0000

This is sort of true. China can forcibly reinstate Chinese citizenship at their own discretion.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Electric motors with no rare earths"

seanmcdirmid — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 04:17:20 +0000

The only way I would buy a BMW is if it were an EV. I’m just not brave (or rich) enough to buy their ICEs.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "EV demand up 50% in France and Germany since Iran war"

seanmcdirmid — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 22:37:14 +0000

It’s not a bad idea. I bought in 2022 and the range of newer EVs is already a lot more than mine. But I really enjoy my car and don’t have much pressure to take so many roadtrips.

What I can’t see doing is buying a new ICE now. If you just want something to hold you over a few years, buy used or lease.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows"

seanmcdirmid — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 05:59:13 +0000

Yes. The hardest part about telling my kid to get off his device is setting a good example by getting off mine.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Waymo Premier"

seanmcdirmid — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 04:56:43 +0000

Boycotting Waymo? Sure, it sends a message. Bashing in a car so someone else can’t ride it? It just makes the other side look like the good guys and their side look like the bad guys. Is that what they intended? No, obviously not, they just wanted an excuse to do property destruction.

This is why protests are hard. You have to somehow keep it peaceful by dissuading hooliganism who are ultimately attracted by the chaos to do carnage. Those hooligcans aren’t on your side and don’t care about your cause, they just want to bash things in and do some looting. They might as well be working for ICE with the bad rep they are giving to the anti-ICE protestors.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Waymo Premier"

seanmcdirmid — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 01:56:20 +0000

Property damage is just hooliganism, thugs make an excuse for it no matter if that’s what they feel like doing.

The eventual result of America falling into chaos will be countries like China having nice stuff like self driving cars (because they don’t tolerate thugs) while the us doesnt.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Waymo Premier"

seanmcdirmid — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 01:14:15 +0000

Protesters block human cars as well as the only difference is that the Waymo driver doesn’t get frustrated and are pretty patient. So protesters need to physically damage the car to make their point, which is a tricky proposition with all the cameras it has (but face masks are common on both sides these days).

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Waymo Premier"

seanmcdirmid — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 01:12:06 +0000

Portable booster seats are pretty small. I can’t see it working if you have a kid younger than the booster seat min though. Only a few states have strict rules here, Washington and California being a couple, although I think California has a taxi exemption.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Waymo Premier"

seanmcdirmid — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 01:10:16 +0000

In the USA where transit in most cities sucks? Seattle is supposedly one of the best but you can’t get to work downtown most days without being harassed by a fent zombie.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "A crime doesn't make a child an adult"

seanmcdirmid — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 16:25:41 +0000

Kids are incredibly malleable, although they are mostly a function of their environment. Childhood really the only time you have to form them. Teenager are just bigger kids.

But yes, young people are more likely to re-offend, especially if society has given up on them. Older people tend to get beaten down by lots of wisdom, either learnt the easy way or the hard way.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "A crime doesn't make a child an adult"

seanmcdirmid — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 05:05:29 +0000

Young people have a much higher chance of reforming if society puts some effort into it. Juveniles especially need to be put on the right track somehow. Ignoring the problem is definitely not the answer, but neither is focusing on punishment rather than rehabilitation.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption"

seanmcdirmid — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:00:49 +0000

China has 1.4 billion people and they are rapidly increasing their wealth. The only surprising factor is that Chinese cell phone producers haven't eaten up apple's marketshare yet.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption"

seanmcdirmid — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:01:21 +0000

I would venture that Apple is going to go with something fairly different in China with Chinese partners. This is different from 3rd party access because they aren't opening up their phones, it will just be a fixed 2nd party solution (like they do with Google, except Google -> Alibaba, Google Cloud -> Shanghai Water corporation or something like that).

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption"

seanmcdirmid — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:56:35 +0000

Why is everyone conflating GDPR with DMA? DMA is literally the anti-thesis of GDPR in that, by design, it makes the ecosystem less secure, not more.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Apple decided not to roll out Siri in EU after denied request for exemption"

seanmcdirmid — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:50:26 +0000

Yet. But they are probably working with Chinese partners (including the government) on releasing something (maybe with Alibaba models instead of Google models, on a Chinese-local cloud rather than google cloud).

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Ask HN: Why hasn't there been a real competitor to Ticketmaster yet?"

seanmcdirmid — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 06:49:10 +0000

> Ticketmaster avoided the two-sided market problem until they reached scale. They were just a website where you buy tickets, an IT appliance for promoters.

Ticketmaster had scale before the internet was really a thing. They had a box offices at record stores (Like Tower records) where you could book tickets.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M"

seanmcdirmid — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 02:52:30 +0000

Switzerland officially joined the Schengen Area on December 12, 2008

March 26, 1995 (The Implementation): The Schengen Area officially became effective on this date. Internal border controls were finally lifted among seven member states.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M"

seanmcdirmid — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 02:47:54 +0000

I’m pretty sure you just pissed off a bunch of Swiss citizens claiming they are voting to exit the EU. It’s just insulting and insensitive.

Incidentally, when brexit was being voted, the only person I knew who thought it was a good thing was Swiss. They are just fiercely independent.

New comment by seanmcdirmid in "Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M"

seanmcdirmid — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:34:58 +0000

This is not a vote for Switzerland to exit the EU...for obvious reasons. It is a vote to exit the Schengen.