This drama started in April 2025 and there were replies to my comments here on HN telling me WordPress is "dead" and that the community would soon jump ship. Neither happened (not even remotely), and instead of switching to a different CMS we're just using (on new projects) WordPress as a pure CMS with custom/detached front ends because WordPress is still the best/most mature CMS. 99% of my clients that had WordPress, still have WordPress because small businesses move slow, and most of the "AI WordPress killers" are just glorified chatbots which well, if you've ever tried to manage a large site with a nondeterministic "AI chatbot"... it's obvious why.
Sending -asScheme to a reference is just a shorthand that actually constructs a composition[2] of a "path relative" store with the underlying store of the original reference. So the following two are identical:
This composition mechanism can be carried further with post-processing, so for example an img-scheme can be constructed by composing an image-decoder store with the previous store
Have a look at Objective-Smalltalk[1][2], with polymorphic identifiers[3] (all identifiers are URIs), storage combinators[4] (virtual filesystems on steroids), and polymorphic write streams[5] (streams everywhere).
Objective-Smalltalk basically provides the sorts of things you write about locally at the language level. You could also move specific instances behind an operating system boundary.
Could you explain the connection you see a bit more?
Part of the appeal of the Plan 9 approach was that you could use any program in your distributed environment, written in any language, because the abstraction layer was the file system – the lingua Franca of IO.
Let's start with an example, the Objective-Smalltalk equivalent of Python's simple web-server for a directory.
Python:
python3 -m http.server 8000
This serves the current directory on port 8000. The invocation for the Objective-Smalltalk script doing the equivalent job looks as follow:
./simplefileserver.st ./ 8000
Here is the Objective-Smalltalk 'simplefileserver.st' script:
#!env st
#-server: <ref>dir port: <int>port
framework:ObjectiveHttpd load.
dir asScheme waitOnPort: port.
If you look carefully, you'll notice that this doesn't actually say anything about the filesystem. It just expects an argument 'dir' that is a 'ref' and then goes from there.
Here are some other example of what a "ref" can be:
The first will make this server act like an http proxy, the second will serve a remote directory, the third will serve our environment variables, the fourth will serve the contents of our process's defaults database (a macOS/iOS thing), the fifth our classes and the sixth the contents of the scheme registry where all the other schemes listed so far are registered.
"Ref" is anything referencable by a polymorphic identifier, a slightly adapted version of a URI. And any ref can be turned into a store (aka "scheme-handler"). And a store can be literally anything that can store and retrieve data by key/index/name/path, from local variables via filesystems, databases all the way to the World Wide Web.
So you can see that you can get the same location transparency that Plan 9 gives you without requiring operating system support. Which comes in handy when you can't switch to a new operating system. What's more, the support extends to a lot of things even Plan 9 probably wouldn't consider a filesystem (local variables?). Last not least, this does not require accessing everything via POSIX API and a byte-serialized representation. Definitely not "least"!
You can access via a byte-serialized representation (as via the http server above) if you want, and you can even access via POSIX API (there is a generic fileserver that serves any of these stores / scheme handlers) if you really, really want. I am not at all sure why you would want that.
And you can, of course, also access this via any language that can talk to C as the libraries that implement the functionality are written in portable Objective-C. Objective-Smalltalk just provides the proper linguistic support.
It's a new world. He who has the biggest guns makes the rules.
I don't like it, but in the Caribbean [probably throughout the world] these days, you really are dealing with the raw realities of power in a way you didn't have to previously.
I doubt the EU has the stomach to confront Trump. And French Guiana is not Africa, there will be no China coming to save them.
On the same day, more soldiers together with the Chief of the Royal Danish Army, General Peter Harling Boysen, started arriving in Greenland, and Denmark announced that a "substantial contribution" of its armed forces would be sent there
On 14 January 2026, Denmark started to send military reinforcements to Greenland[186] to strengthen its military presence.[187] Later that day, it became known that both Sweden[188] and Norway sent military forces to support the Danish Defence in protecting Greenland.[189] The Ministry of Defence on 14 January 2026 announced "an increased military presence in and around Greenland, comprising aircraft, vessels and soldiers, including from NATO allies".[190] After consultations between a group of European countries,[191] Germany announced it was sending a small contingent to Greenland on a reconnaissance mission with other European nations.[192] On 15 January 2026, a French military contingent arrived in Greenland.[26]
- ibid.
Several European leaders including France's Emmanuel Macron advocated using the EU's Anti-Coercion Instrument, a security and trade policy tool known as the "trade bazooka", to target the US in retaliation.[258][259][260][29][261] Under the not-previously-used instrument, the EU may adopt countermeasures, sometimes described as sanctions, including tariffs, restrictions on public procurement, and measures affecting trade and investment.[252][262] Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament Committee on International Trade, supported its activation.[263] By 21 January EU countries were described as being increasingly open to using the ACI against the US, with Germany stating it will ask the Commission to explore its use.[264]
1. Who is "they"? Isar Aerospace and Arianespace are distinct entities.
2. Isar Aerospace is the first fully private European company (a startup) to do this. Arianespace and the Ariane rockets have heavy state/ESA involvement.
3. It is the first launch to orbit from geographically European soil. French Guiana is politically part of France, but geographically obviously part of South America.
4. Why would everyone have to launch from the same place, in your esteemed opinion? Why are some US payloads launched from California, some from Florida, and soon some from Texas and Louisiana?
5. Are all launch locations equally suitable for all orbits? Are all orbits equally suitable for all missions?
6. Norway is a lot closer to the rest of Europe than French Guiana is.
7. Why was SpaceX newsworthy, particularly on a startup-centric site, when NASA already exists?
> 2. Isar Aerospace is the first fully private European company (a startup) to do this. Arianespace and the Ariane rockets have heavy state/ESA involvement.
To go even further: ~60% of Ariane Group revenue is from the french state, for their nuclear launch system. The whole ariane space rocket is their side show, a way to reduce cost for France by getting the market to pay some of the R&D.
> 2. Isar Aerospace is the first fully private European company (a startup) to do this.
Sure. But that's different from "Europe now has sovereign access to space." don't you think? If anything, a state-owned manufacturer is more "sovereign access" than a private company who can decide who they do business with. (Even though state regulates exports but they could decide where to manufacture things.)
> 3. It is the first launch to orbit from geographically European soil. French Guiana is politically part of France, but geographically obviously part of South America.
Sure. Though Norway has been part of Europe for a while and their space port isn't from yesterday either. A milestone? Sure. Never seen before sovereignity? Um...
I don't have answers to your other questions as I'd ask them too.
To me the "Europe now has sovereign access" line by the CEO is a bit of hype, though technically it is true if you view Europe geographically, as he seems to do.
Andøya Spaceport has been a place for suborbital/sounding rockets, this is the first time a rocket has been launched into orbit from there.
And that's with still quite a lot of coal and ever more gas in the grid, both for the plenty of times the intermittent don't deliver and for grid stability (see also: Spainout), which means we have the 3rd worst specific emissions in the EU (down from 4th worst last year), and the highest total CO₂ emissions in the EU.
After about €1 trillion spent on our "Energiewende", our "green" energy transition.
> In practice it is expensive to build, expensive to run, and really expensive to clean up.
That turns out not to be the case.
Nuclear power plants are expensive, but that's because they are big. For the amount of electricity they generate, they are cheap.
They are also quite cheap to run. As far as I know, there is no cheaper source of electricity than a nuclear power plant that has paid off its construction costs.
And they run for a long time, if you don't do stupid shit like ban nuclear power. The US has so far extended the operating license of every nuclear plant that has applied to 80 years, and they now thin 100 years is a realistic option.
> There's a reason they're mostly run by govts.
Most nuclear power plants in the US are privately run, last I checked. So were the nuclear power plants in Germany. In Germany, the Greens tried to force nuclear power to become uneconomical by ever stricter regulations. They failed. Nuclear power had to be outlawed.
Also, the hyperscalars, for example, have all invested in nuclear. The biggest risk to nuclear is governments, which is why private investors want assurances or the government on board.
> wait till you find out what fusion-on-earth costs...
> Nuclear power plants are expensive, but that's because they are big. For the amount of electricity they generate, they are cheap.
Not according to the standard statistic for electricity generation cost - LCOE which amortizes capital costs.
> They are also quite cheap to run. As far as I know, there is no cheaper source of electricity than a nuclear power plant that has paid off its construction costs.
The are not cheap to run. Indian Point closed ahead of end-of-life because it couldn't support its operational costs - about $31 per MWh - about $500m per annum. Average wholesale prices at the time were around $28/MWh.
> Not according to the standard statistic for electricity generation cost - LCOE
According to the IEA it is. If you think nuclear LCOE is high, then you probably looked at the Lazard data. But Lazard themselves say that their figures for nuclear are not representative and that they did not try to make them representative.
“We do not, in this study, try to cost out new nuclear” (2:35)
“We think nuclear will be a big part of the future” (2:47)
“the costs of nuclear should go down “ (12:54)
“next five to 10 years the nuclear bar the one that's most likely to change the most in in terms of cost reduction” (14:06)
If you look at other sources than Lazard, for example the IEA, you will find that even nuclear LCOE is low.
However, LCOE is actually not the correct metric, as it only covers the cost of producing electricity from that source. It doesn't capture the cost of intermittent sources, which have very high system costs due to their intermittency.
Levelized Full System of Electricity (LFSCOE) is what you need to look at that, and there nuclear does well and intermittent are generally horrible, and they get worse the more of them you have. So you need to balance intermittent with stable providers like nuclear. And no, batteries are not sufficient, except maybe in the Sahara.
Here is the Finnish environment minister:
""If we consider the [consumption] growth figures, the question isn't whether it's wind or nuclear power. We need both," Mykkänen said at a press conference on Tuesday morning.
He added that Finland's newest nuclear reactor, Olkiluoto 3, enabled the expansion of the country's wind power infrastructure. Nuclear power, he said, is needed to counterbalance output fluctuations of wind turbines."
I mean, not building yet, but a lot of new nuclear is in the pipeline.
"The Swedish government has presented a roadmap for new nuclear, stipulating that, by 2035, nuclear reactors with the capacity to produce 2500 MW should have been built, with further increases to 10 000 MW by the year 2045."
Legislation, permits and offers of loans/state aid can result in new plants if the private actors starts to invest, but there is a large difference between that and actually building new plants. With the election going on, it is also very questionable if anything will happen if the flips from right to left, as the new government can easily just withdraw those offers of state aid and change the legislation to make it unprofitable to invest into new nuclear power plants.
The proof is as always in what get actually get constructed, and right now what we do know is that new thermal power plants is currently being constructed in the south that is expected to finish and starting to burn fuel in 2028.
> can result in new plants if the private actors starts to invest
It is the private investors seeking approvals. Why would they do this if they didn't want to build? After all, these types of approvals and application processes also cost money. Are they doing this just for fun?
> but there is a large difference between that and actually building new plants.
Well yes: what is happening now are the required prerequisites to actually building. Can't really start building without having done these things first.
Not sure what you're trying to say here? They can only be taken seriously if they skip the necessary first steps?
> the new government can easily just withdraw those offers of state aid and change the legislation to make it unprofitable to invest into new nuclear power plants.
That was one of the changes: there is now an insurance mechanism that compensates investors if the state pulls the plug on them.
Which goes back to the point of the state being the biggest risk factor for nuclear projects.
> The proof is as always in what get actually get constructed
The proof for construction. The proof for intent and investor interests is now.
Next step happened just today:
Studsvik, GE Vernova Hitachi and Samsung C&T commit to advancing 1.2 GW nuclear power project in Sweden
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