Ok is this actually real? Is truckinginfo.com a reputable site? That quote sounds so outlandishly crazy I'm hesitant to believe someone actually said that.
The journalist seems to be real [1], and that website has been around since 1999 [2], and they've published a magazine "Heavy Duty Trucking" [2] since that time too. I think it's a legitimate niche magazine/site, yeah. It's possible the journo misquoted him I guess? But that's so outlandishly incoherent they've have demanded a correction, no?
The author is just not an expert in this field. This is - for the most part - what Hacker News sounds like when there are discussions outside of computer science.
> The author is just not an expert in this field. This is - for the most part - what Hacker News sounds like when there are discussions outside of computer science.
If only it were just that. He appears to be a con-artist. It's always interesting how things can sound similar and have entirely different intent and reasoning behind them.
This guy knew he was spouting lies while talking about the HTML supercomputer (assuming it's a correct quote from the trucking site in question). He has now been caught doing it repeatedly and to a rather dramatic scale. His interviews are full of half truths and dodges. It appears to be the Theranos playbook: try to get to a certain line where some product finally becomes real, before the clock runs out on the con.
Intentions matter a lot. There's obviously a vast difference between someone quite innocently discussing / opining outside of their knowledge lanes on a hacker news forum, and someone intentionally spinning an epic scale multi-billion-dollar fraud in the name of the profit motive.
The point being, if someone is talking outside of their lane on HN, I have essentially zero inclination to think they're knowingly attempting to commit fraud (intellectual or financial) in the process, as on HN it's almost exclusively a common, innocent form of ignorance at play. As contrasted with the intentional deception of a con-artist.
Having talked to reporters before, there is a possibility that something more reasonable was said but then got garbled. Like, if during the interview someone said the UI is using HTML5, which is standard everywhere, so it will be easy for people to extend / we have lots of options; and also we're using ARM so we can build our own chips; ARM is in everything from smartphones to supercomputers. I can totally see a non-tech reporter getting confused and morphing that into the sentence above.
Obviously the other outlandish / false claims make it more likely that this is an example of BS as well.
altdatathrow|5 years ago
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/truckinjim/
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20000612021454/http://www.trucki...
throwaway5752|5 years ago
adventured|5 years ago
If only it were just that. He appears to be a con-artist. It's always interesting how things can sound similar and have entirely different intent and reasoning behind them.
This guy knew he was spouting lies while talking about the HTML supercomputer (assuming it's a correct quote from the trucking site in question). He has now been caught doing it repeatedly and to a rather dramatic scale. His interviews are full of half truths and dodges. It appears to be the Theranos playbook: try to get to a certain line where some product finally becomes real, before the clock runs out on the con.
Intentions matter a lot. There's obviously a vast difference between someone quite innocently discussing / opining outside of their knowledge lanes on a hacker news forum, and someone intentionally spinning an epic scale multi-billion-dollar fraud in the name of the profit motive.
The point being, if someone is talking outside of their lane on HN, I have essentially zero inclination to think they're knowingly attempting to commit fraud (intellectual or financial) in the process, as on HN it's almost exclusively a common, innocent form of ignorance at play. As contrasted with the intentional deception of a con-artist.
smabie|5 years ago
gwd|5 years ago
Having talked to reporters before, there is a possibility that something more reasonable was said but then got garbled. Like, if during the interview someone said the UI is using HTML5, which is standard everywhere, so it will be easy for people to extend / we have lots of options; and also we're using ARM so we can build our own chips; ARM is in everything from smartphones to supercomputers. I can totally see a non-tech reporter getting confused and morphing that into the sentence above.
Obviously the other outlandish / false claims make it more likely that this is an example of BS as well.
cultus|5 years ago
gruez|5 years ago
A cursory search on google shows that all the references link back to truckinginfo.com, so I wouldn't put too much weight on that.