Hacker News: truculent

New comment by truculent in "Global warming has accelerated significantly"

truculent — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:22:29 +0000

Hypothetically speaking, if people in the last group were right, and that is the logical conclusion to be reached from careful evaluation of the evidence, wouldn’t the other positions indeed be ones of wilful denial of the state of the climate?

New comment by truculent in "The Jolla Phone Proved We've Been Using Smartphones Wrong All Along"

truculent — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 10:20:12 +0000

> This isn’t some hipster nostalgia trip or a flip phone for people who think the 90s were peak civilization. This is something way cooler. A phone that gives you back something we didn’t even realize we’d lost. The ability to actually, truly, shut the hell up.

New comment by truculent in "Researchers discover molecular difference in autistic brains"

truculent — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 12:57:27 +0000

> As an example: I'm autistic and I learn inside-out, building larger new concepts out of smaller existing ones; those with Asperger's on the other paw, learn outside-in instead, breaking down larger existing concepts into smaller new ones; both are part of the "autism spectrum", but differ very fundamentally.

This is a really interesting observation - can you expand on this a bit more, please? How did you first notice this distinction?

When, for example, learning a new concept in math or physics, what would outside-in look like vs inside out? Would you characterise neurotypical learning in one way or the other?

New comment by truculent in "Why I Disappeared – My week with minimal internet in a remote island chain"

truculent — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 01:34:39 +0000

Privilege isn't just about wealth. The point is that although anyone can ignore the news, the news won't necessarily ignore them!

New comment by truculent in "Blending SQL and Python with Sqlorm"

truculent — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 15:10:39 +0000

New comment by truculent in ""Our research is greatly sped up by AI but AI still needs us""

truculent — Sun, 09 Nov 2025 13:04:10 +0000

> For some reason

> _brief_ but enjoyable era

New comment by truculent in "We are building AI slaves. Alignment through control will fail"

truculent — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 05:29:04 +0000

> AGI will behave as if it were sentient but will not have consciousness

How could we possibly know that with any certainty?

New comment by truculent in "Gleam OTP – Fault Tolerant Multicore Programs with Actors"

truculent — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 10:09:20 +0000

I like all of the above but have no understanding of the BEAM or OTP. Can you recommend a good place to start learning about that?

New comment by truculent in "Eels are fish"

truculent — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 08:47:50 +0000

Was it Waterland by Graham Swift (fiction, but has some eel diversions IIRC)?

New comment by truculent in "Major reversal in ocean circulation detected in the Southern Ocean"

truculent — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 11:25:06 +0000

Isn't the issue that historical data is consistent with the overturning model, which adds weight to our assumption that it has previously been stable. These new measurements (and observations?) are consistent with the overturning circulation weakening.

I agree with you in principle - my impression (perhaps wrong - not an expert) was that there are additional data points supporting the idea of a consistent status quo.

New comment by truculent in "Fairphone 6 is switching to a new design that's even more sustainable"

truculent — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 12:17:12 +0000

I quite like the idea of ruling that device sellers have to either offer software support, or allow the hardware to be unlocked

New comment by truculent in "Writing documentation for AI: best practices"

truculent — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 11:02:49 +0000

Lovely idea - thanks

New comment by truculent in "Writing documentation for AI: best practices"

truculent — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 16:25:06 +0000

Is this you have implemented in practice? Sounds like a great idea, but I have no idea how you would make it work it a structured way (or am I missing the point…?)

New comment by truculent in "The magic of through running"

truculent — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 22:48:55 +0000

> I'm guessing even a busy/congested freeway has a greater throughput per lane than transit

Not even remotely close: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity

New comment by truculent in "Research suggests Big Bang may have taken place inside a black hole"

truculent — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 22:49:27 +0000

Are you suggesting that the authors’ “bounce” would only happen if the energy was not enough to put them into different states?

New comment by truculent in "Research suggests Big Bang may have taken place inside a black hole"

truculent — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 22:36:13 +0000

> The black hole universe also offers a new perspective on our place in the cosmos. In this framework, our entire observable universe lies inside the interior of a black hole formed in some larger “parent” universe.

What specifically is meant by interior? Does this mean “within the event horizon” or something else?

New comment by truculent in "Cursor 1.0"

truculent — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 08:34:51 +0000

I think their point is that that is a commit message. You can then review the set of changes as you would a PR.

New comment by truculent in "Ugly infrastructure: Why can't we have nice things?"

truculent — Mon, 19 May 2025 14:33:00 +0000

A favourite of mine is the London Underground having warnings about using the escalators, stating that last year there were 100 incidents from people not being sufficiently careful.

Given the number of people using the service, this is incredibly small and I hardly think a sign is going to help the few people at risk!

New comment by truculent in "Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated"

truculent — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 12:45:00 +0000

I think the argument is that the real issue is political will and not structural issues in government.

Personally, it seems fair to call that political dysfunction too, but it’s reasonable to try and make the distinction.

New comment by truculent in "Slouching towards San Francisco"

truculent — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 09:03:43 +0000

It is centrist because it fails to propose a different way of doing things or structuring society. Just because it’s a liberal vision, doesn’t mean it’s not centrist.

There is certainly overlap with right wing elements, too. Although UK focused, it’s hard not to see the right wing undercurrents in this Abundance-type manifesto: https://ukfoundations.co/