Hacker News: smcl

New comment by smcl in "Python 3.15's JIT is now back on track"

smcl — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 09:00:27 +0000

I am saying that 2-to-3 has not affected Python becoming the most popular programming language whatsoever. So I guess in a way you're right to say the two things are "unrelated" but you're not exactly disagreeing with me - it'd be like if I said "water is a liquid" and you said "nuh-uh, it's wet"

New comment by smcl in "Python 3.15's JIT is now back on track"

smcl — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 08:59:04 +0000

> The switch had nothing to do with Python's rise in popularity though

You don't realise it but you have actually made my point. People are acting like was a suicidal, harmful move that fucked over Python and ... it didn't matter because Python went on to become insanely popular. Particularly hilarious is that some people have tried to argue that Perl somehow did it better.

In the end your Python 2 project was either worth porting and you did it, or it wasn't worth it and you didn't. Python has gone on to be an undeniable success and it is nearly unthinkable that anyone would use Python 2 for anything. It is absolutely fucking insane for people to still be whining about this in this day and age

New comment by smcl in "Python 3.15's JIT is now back on track"

smcl — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 02:16:40 +0000

I cannot believe people are still acting like Python 2->3 was a huge fuck-up and an enormous missed opportunity. When in reality Python is by most measures the most popular language and became so AFTER that switch.

Since the switch we have seen enormous companies being built from scratch. There is no reason for anyone to be complaining about it being too hard to upgrade in 2026

New comment by smcl in "Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition"

smcl — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:02:22 +0000

You’re on the right track here but I don’t think it should be hand-waved away as “the least of your problems” - it’s yet another weapon that police in the USA can use against the population with impunity. They’re going to have to reckon with all of this in the coming years - cops having guns and armored cars, “qualified immunity”, the “stop resisting” workaround for brutality and now this AI

New comment by smcl in "The United States and Israel have launched a major attack on Iran"

smcl — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 09:24:25 +0000

You realise you are doing the “Thanks Obama” thing

New comment by smcl in "WD and Seagate confirm: Hard drives sold out for 2026"

smcl — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 10:28:18 +0000

Come on man, you're a "founder" and you can't even write your own comments on a forum?

New comment by smcl in "The world heard JD Vance being booed at the Olympics. Except for viewers in USA"

smcl — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 10:00:24 +0000

Your argument is no clearer. Someone's claiming US is beginning to resemble China in that they hide criticism of the ruling parties - they have not mentioned Europe once and you're saying ... something about censorship in Europe?

This reminds me of my Dutch friend who is prone to exaggeration to make things sound dramatic and scary to outsiders, and frequently claims the Netherlands is a "narco state" - big "Nederlandse hiphop: Ik kom van de straat" energy going on here.

New comment by smcl in "The world heard JD Vance being booed at the Olympics. Except for viewers in USA"

smcl — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 07:59:14 +0000

Europe doesn’t bill itself as “the land of the free” and doesn’t proudly tout itself as having free speech above all else no matter the cost. So famously fascist symbols - like the swastika/hakenkreuz among other things - are banned a few places, it may be controversial but it’s not a dirty little secret or anything like that

New comment by smcl in "The Waymo World Model"

smcl — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 18:58:17 +0000

The Waymo driving model: hire some guys in Philippines: https://futurism.com/advanced-transport/waymos-controlled-wo...

New comment by smcl in "I stopped following the news"

smcl — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 09:45:31 +0000

I think if it's stressing you out then it's fair to step back from reading the news for a bit. It's still worth at least trying to form an understanding and an opinion on various issues - whether local, regional or international - if you're going to be voting or even just talking about them with friends and family.

New comment by smcl in "I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor"

smcl — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 23:27:17 +0000

Yeah so I know it's meant to be an estimate, but my experience of it is kinda fucky. I would really love to swap watches with an Olympic athlete (idk if they'd bother with an Apple Watch but bear with me!) and run 10k to see what the VO2 max reading for that exercise was. As I said, I think to me it's some estimate that heavily involves some "average of last N readings from the Apple VO2 max calc" function so even if you time travelled and gave it to Eilish McColgan or Mo Farah they'd be like "ehhh you had quite a good run, fatty - you jumped from 44.3 to 45"

I'm not that bothered of course. For me it's just a fun metric I can attempt to optimise when training.

New comment by smcl in "I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor"

smcl — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:48:11 +0000

Apple Watch is pretty poor at estimating VO2 max and it seems to be more correlated with how often you record exercises with said watch than with your actual health. For example I watched mine climb slowly as I prepared for my football season (beyond 50), then after the season started I I ended up playing and training just as frequently but without wearing the watch. After a few weeks (of me training and playing hard) during my next run it recorded me having a sharp decline in VO2 max (43-44ish iirc). When I started wearing it during training - you're not permitted during matches - it recorded me having a slow return to condition, without any changes to my routine.

That said if it's showing someone as having 30 I don't imagine they're going to be in spectacular condition

New comment by smcl in "Heathrow scraps liquid container limit"

smcl — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:37:22 +0000

This was my experience too - they're visibly angry at you for following the rules

New comment by smcl in "Heathrow scraps liquid container limit"

smcl — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:35:18 +0000

Heathrow is a fucking miserable place with spiteful staff and it would not surprise me one bit if someone decided to fuck with a traveller this way. I saw a girl running to catch a bus to another terminal for a connecting flight, and the guy controller her made an enormous stink about her "breathing on me". She was polite and apologetic but she got pulled aside and made to wait for everyone else to get through, got sternly chastised before being allowed to continue (whereupon she missed the connecting bus and presumably her flight). Same trip I saw them them shouting and swearing at disabled travellers who needed wheelchairs. Every other member of staff in the airport was stood around fucking with their phones and seemed furious whenever they had to do their job.

Horrible airport, avoid at all costs.

New comment by smcl in "Spanish track was fractured before high-speed train disaster, report finds"

smcl — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 08:24:12 +0000

The "fracture" being referred to is a weld that somehow failed. The gap you are seeing is because an enormous, heavy train travelling at 200km/h hit that fracture and the rear half of the train derailed, tearing up sleepers and kicking all manner of debris around including ballast and, in this case, parts of newly-fractured (and therefore weakened) track.

New comment by smcl in "Spanish track was fractured before high-speed train disaster, report finds"

smcl — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 08:17:52 +0000

The mention of FSB is downvoted is because it was near-immediately clear that this was not the cause. It's total amateurs doing wild speculation for who knows what reason - some stupid upvotes on a website or because it makes their life more exciting to feel like they're whistle-blowing some international conspiracy?

This is roughly on par with every celebrity death over the last 4-5 years being followed by idiots commenting "vaxxed?!"

New comment by smcl in "High-speed train collision in Spain kills at least 39"

smcl — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 08:52:20 +0000

Anyone serious about rail engineering or safety isn't excitedly dashing off comments pointing fingers before the dust has even settled. Those who are doing that - such as the comment I am replying to - should be ignored

New comment by smcl in "Don't fall into the anti-AI hype"

smcl — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 19:09:59 +0000

It sounds like you're really into this and I hope for all of our sakes that you are correct to be all hyped up about AI. Because if you're not and that this is a horrific bubble that is going to burst then we're all in big trouble

New comment by smcl in "Don't fall into the anti-AI hype"

smcl — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 12:49:56 +0000

I am not even clear how Whatsapp "paid off" for Facebook in any sense other than them being able to nip a potential competitor in the bud. I use Whatsapp but do not see a single advert there nor do I pay a single penny for it, and I suspect my situation is pretty typical. Presumably some people see ads or pay for some services but I've not, and I don't imagine there's that much money to be made in being the #1 platform for sharing "Good Morning" GIFs

New comment by smcl in "Don't fall into the anti-AI hype"

smcl — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 12:43:08 +0000

Uber are doing something entirely different though - they took a market which was proven to exist, created a product which worked then spent a decade being horribly unprofitable until they were the dominant player in that market. And even at their very worst they weren't losing as much money as OpenAI are. There's far too much hand-waving and dismissive "ah it'll be ok because Uber exist" going on among those who have bought into the AI hype cycle