smcl (u/smcl) - Readit News

smcl commented on The world heard JD Vance being booed at the Olympics. Except for viewers in USA theguardian.com/sport/202... · Posted by u/treetalker

huijzer · 3 days ago

Updated comment to make argument clearer

smcl · 3 days ago

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.

smcl commented on The world heard JD Vance being booed at the Olympics. Except for viewers in USA theguardian.com/sport/202... · Posted by u/treetalker

huijzer · 3 days ago

So North Korea, China, America, Russia and basically all other countries have propaganda, and Europe doesn’t? I live in Europe and think we do. Not everything that is in the news is true.

smcl · 3 days ago

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

smcl commented on The Waymo World Model waymo.com/blog/2026/02/th... · Posted by u/xnx

smcl · 5 days ago

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

smcl commented on I stopped following the news mertbulan.com/2026/01/28/... · Posted by u/mertbio

smcl · 14 days ago

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.

smcl commented on I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor msn.com/en-us/news/techno... · Posted by u/zdw

port11 · 15 days ago

I really don’t know whether to trust that specific measurement. When I was a very active runner and doing intervals to improve per-km time, my VO2max went from 38 to 42. I decided to do a professional VO2max test and got a 46.

Now, 2 years later, I don’t run due to injury and a kid, and it’s resting at 34. For reference, when I went to the gym almost everyday and ran once or twice a week, the value was 32.

I don’t get much utility out of it, even looking at the trends. Not sure what Apple is doing behind the scenes to get the score.

smcl · 14 days ago

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.

smcl commented on I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor msn.com/en-us/news/techno... · Posted by u/zdw

cameldrv · 15 days ago

I dunno, if the Apple Watch said he had a vo2max of 30, that probably means he can’t run a mile in less than 12 minutes or so. He’s probably not at all healthy…

smcl · 15 days ago

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

smcl commented on Heathrow scraps liquid container limit bbc.com/news/articles/c1e... · Posted by u/robotsliketea

hdgvhicv · 15 days ago

Flew through Heathrow a few months ago. Signs flashing on the screens specifically saying laptops must be removed, security guys yelling “don’t remove laptops”

smcl · 15 days ago

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

smcl commented on Heathrow scraps liquid container limit bbc.com/news/articles/c1e... · Posted by u/robotsliketea

lmm · 15 days ago

Anything a border official says is implicitly backed with the threat of, at a minimum, detention without trial and without basic humane treatment like access to drinking water. Heathrow has well publicised cases (and is not unusual in this).

smcl · 15 days ago

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.

smcl commented on Spanish track was fractured before high-speed train disaster, report finds bbc.com/news/articles/c1m... · Posted by u/Rygian

buildbot · 16 days ago

I suppose that counts/was caused by a fracture but almost a half meter of gap in the track is nuts. Like describing a limb that’s totally removed as a bone fracture.

Though conceivably the break was very small and a train impacting the slightly lifted rail just caused a good chunk of it to explode.

smcl · 16 days ago

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.

smcl commented on Spanish track was fractured before high-speed train disaster, report finds bbc.com/news/articles/c1m... · Posted by u/Rygian

smcl · 16 days ago

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?!"