Hacker News: simgt

New comment by simgt in "Starbase, LA"

simgt — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 20:29:39 +0000

I wish Musk had stuck to bullying his employees instead of going after everyone, because SpaceX is still building a more interesting future. Although that apparently involves pouring concrete in a wetland.

New comment by simgt in "New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra"

simgt — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 14:25:13 +0000

I've done that, but I chose a Framework Desktop instead. The latest Fedora is closer to Snow Leopard than anything Apple has to offer. Downside is that I still have my MBP because of the lock-in and occasionally pick it up to do computer stuff in weird places.

New comment by simgt in "How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs"

simgt — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 12:33:51 +0000

> US LLC by default has no corporate tax (unless you opt-in for some reason) while still having limited liability. It's why it's so unique.

> There's no other country in the world that has anything like that.

That's exactly what an EURL is in France. I'm pretty sure every country has a similar legal status.

New comment by simgt in "How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs"

simgt — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:49:05 +0000

I wasn't talking about income tax, this one is almost easy. The country you reside in can claim corporate taxes on your foreign business. You end up having to deal with bureaucracy in both places... Otherwise all freelancers would have their company in Estonia (for easiness) or the member state that has a lowest corporate tax, while living in the one that has the best social security.

New comment by simgt in "Why some US restaurants are banning tips"

simgt — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:34:36 +0000

No one looks at the details of the bill, the wages are included in the cost

New comment by simgt in "How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs"

simgt — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 08:57:13 +0000

> It's much easier to just register US LLC instead at this point. However if you want to do anything physical not digital you end up having to register and do taxes in your resident country anyway.

How does remaining digital help here? My understanding was that you'd still be operating a foreign company so the country you reside in is able to claim taxes, regardless of what kind of business you do.

New comment by simgt in "How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs"

simgt — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 07:10:07 +0000

Sadly you can't run them as a non-resident afaik. The member state in which you resides will come after you for taxes if you operate a foreign company.

In France the micro-entrepreneur status makes you partially liable, and running a SASU/EURL does require ~200€/m of accounting.

New comment by simgt in "Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)"

simgt — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 11:49:25 +0000

> you absolutely cannot know what it's like until you actually

Is probably true for all life changing event. Extreme poverty, wealth, loss of a parent, etc. There's nothing special in that regard about having children.

> if you have even a slight feeling like maybe you want to have kids, I would absolutely do it

Nah, that's just being egocentric. Have children if you're pretty sure you can raise them in the best conditions possible for them to end up being happy, if not, better keep on hesitating.

New comment by simgt in "On A.I. regulation and messaging"

simgt — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 09:59:13 +0000

Competition is only one of the ways to keep a corporation aligned. In the case of France, having a state monopoly on electricity even worked very well until we broke it for the sake of competition.

New comment by simgt in "Grok Bot"

simgt — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 09:33:35 +0000

> the only company showing a positive result from all this is NVidia

Everyone upstream of the AI labs should be showing a positive result, that includes all the companies needed to actually build the chips and the datacenters around it. If they aren't too incompetent, they should end up with a pile of cash regardless of where their stock goes when the bubble pops.

New comment by simgt in "Our position on open-weights models"

simgt — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 09:52:22 +0000

Until he advocates for an independent body akin to IAEA under the control of the UN, I'll call everything he says about AI safety and the greater good bullshit.

New comment by simgt in "Why is programming so captivating, yet so agonizing?"

simgt — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:16:53 +0000

> to push to main, not have a CI, not write tests, test in production, commit with one-liners like I'm asking someone if they want a beer

All the start-ups and SMEs I've worked at were about as rigorous as that. Maybe I've just been unlucky (or lucky, depending on where you come from).

New comment by simgt in "Datacentres drive up big tech's carbon emissions to a third of those of France"

simgt — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 10:59:42 +0000

No, wait! The increased productivity will lead to a decoupling of the economy from resources consumption and GHGs emission. Just one more data center.

New comment by simgt in "Interview with Mitchell Hashimoto about Ghostty and Zig"

simgt — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:06:43 +0000

ghostty has tabs and splits for instance, alacritty is deliberately minimalistic

New comment by simgt in "Ask HN: Do we need a support group for developers alienated by LLMs?"

simgt — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 10:58:01 +0000

I have also lost all sense of pride in my work. As well as all interest in learning anything new related to software, knowing it'll be of zero value to me personally. For many of us our job has always been a craft, being able to perfect our skills while delivering a product was part of the deal when working on a hard problem. All skilled workers who saw their job moved by the side of a conveyor belt in the past two centuries were alienated in the same way.

New comment by simgt in "How much? The hidden costs of restaurant dishes"

simgt — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 08:08:27 +0000

Maybe learn to read comments. Less than a third of the population had running water at home in countries like France before WW2. In 1960 a quarter had a fridge. But sure, commoners had access to the kind of place described in the article in 1926. Get a grip.

New comment by simgt in "How much? The hidden costs of restaurant dishes"

simgt — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 12:40:51 +0000

Yes

New comment by simgt in "How much? The hidden costs of restaurant dishes"

simgt — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 10:11:39 +0000

I'm in-between two minds. On one end £9 of labour cost for a plate of asparagus seems deeply inefficient and unrealistic, particularly when the cost of ingredients that also include (hard) labour is £2. On the other, just a century ago being served quality food in a nicely decorated place was exclusively the privilege of aristocrats.

New comment by simgt in "When AI Builds Itself: Our progress toward recursive self-improvement"

simgt — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 09:48:44 +0000

That's why we need and have diplomacy. Everyone is aware that violence is the ultimate option if an actor thinks there's an existential threat to deal with.

If the consensus becomes that a 50+TFlops datacenter in the wrong hands is as dangerous as a uranium enrichment plant, we'll likely move towards treaties and coercion.

"Wrong" is obviously subjective here...

New comment by simgt in "When AI Builds Itself: Our progress toward recursive self-improvement"

simgt — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 07:15:39 +0000

By threatening to nuke their datacenters and chip fabs, for instance.