Hacker News: smugma

Google ordered to open Android and Search to rivals in Europe

smugma — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 16:31:33 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theverge.com/policy/966438/eu-google-android-ai-interoperability-search-data-dma

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49009436

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

European Commission: Guidance to Google for AI Interoperability on Android

smugma — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 16:29:31 +0000

Article URL: https://daringfireball.net/2026/07/ec_google_guidance_android_ai_and_search_sharing

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49009400

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by smugma in "Apple has decided to compete for creativity app users"

smugma — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 22:37:45 +0000

https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/16/apple-acquires-video-editi...

"MotionVFX, a Warsaw-based company"

New comment by smugma in "Show HN: 18 Words"

smugma — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:54:27 +0000

I’d prefer a timer, but when it runs out of time, you just don’t get credit for the word.

You click next and it goes to the next word.

I don’t want hints but I can see how others might want that. But you still don’t get credit for hints. Or it shows “x hints used”

Final score can show that you got the first N words in <30s (as it is now), and you can have other stats:

* Total number of consecutive words (even if over time)

* Total number of words

* total words <30 seconds

* Plus whatever hint based metrics you want

New comment by smugma in "Mark Zuckerberg's biggest legal nightmare yet could cost Meta $1.4T"

smugma — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:07:58 +0000

2017-2019… it sounds like maybe he did quit.

New comment by smugma in "Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown"

smugma — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 22:35:01 +0000

“This semester, probably because of the new evaluation system, 86 students signed up for the class"

"Of the 89 students who did the midterm exam, only 59 showed up for the final one. And of the 27 who did not show up"

59+27=86

Maybe the article was written with AI that doesn't check its math.

New comment by smugma in "Historical memory prices 1960-2026"

smugma — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 20:34:47 +0000

Tim Cook recently likened memory prices to a "hundred year flood." Looking here, it looks like 1988 was at least as bad, with prices going up 3X+ from $160/MB to $500/MB.

New comment by smugma in "Apple is about to make Hide My Email useless"

smugma — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 14:04:45 +0000

My wife changed carriers and for a day had lost her phone number. She was texting our son (who is in middle school) and his response was “prove it’s you”.

So digital native kids have learned to not trust people on the internet, don’t use your real name in an alias, etc.

“They were trained not to value privacy” is not what they are being taught in school.

New comment by smugma in "CT scans of BYD car parts"

smugma — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 05:55:18 +0000

Apple in China is a great book and shows how good China is on focusing on quality when that is the given objective.

New comment by smugma in "Accenture to acquire Ookla"

smugma — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 05:48:37 +0000

> The players are not buying or selling the code.

Counter-point: many acquisitions are not for the code itself but for the engineers who designed and wrote the code. Acquihire is almost exclusively used to describe acquiring engineering talent that can… design systems and write code.

New comment by smugma in "Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M"

smugma — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 05:25:50 +0000

It was about the environment (response to wildfires). It’s just that shortly after it passed, the Supreme Court ruled that it applies to any project that needs government approval and subsequently became a NIMBY tool. CEQA + Prop 13 are the cocktail that are the center of almost all of California’s problems, which are fundamentally about housing.

New comment by smugma in "AI is a technology not a product"

smugma — Sun, 17 May 2026 17:36:39 +0000

Can you expand on this? Having used two different Newton models, even squinting, I don’t understand what you’re getting at.

New comment by smugma in "Cisco workforce reductions"

smugma — Thu, 14 May 2026 04:52:45 +0000

ET is frequently used to describe Apple’s Executive Team.

New comment by smugma in "Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons"

smugma — Sun, 03 May 2026 16:49:42 +0000

Forward and rear collision warnings have saved me several times in 3 different cars, including slamming on the brakes as I was backing up and then a MUNI bus that I didn’t see flew by.

I’ve also been in 4 accidents that were my fault (one on the same street, a MUNI bus blocked my view of another car that had the right of the way) and 2 that weren’t but I wasn’t able to avoid them.

I will always buy a new car with the latest tech because I acknowledge I’m a below average driver and those warnings (inc the subtle “someone is in your blind spot” light) are helpful to me.

PS I also prefer physical knobs (especially on the steering wheel) and don’t have cars with giant touchscreens.

New comment by smugma in "Claude.ai and API unavailable [fixed]"

smugma — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 02:05:15 +0000

We used to describe our startup as having 5 8’s of uptime

New comment by smugma in "Apple update looks like Czech mate for locked-out iPhone user"

smugma — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 19:37:31 +0000

It’s rare in the US and very common in London

New comment by smugma in "South Korea introduces universal basic mobile data access"

smugma — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 16:38:15 +0000

In SF, I commonly see homeless people with cell phones

New comment by smugma in "Is AI Making Us Stupid? Cal Newport Is Worried"

smugma — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 05:34:04 +0000

https://archive.is/QdPAy

Is AI Making Us Stupid? Cal Newport Is Worried