Scott Locklin
scottlocklin.wordpress.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2009
Scott Locklin, a quantitative finance and machine learning practitioner, writes contrarian essays on tech, APL-family languages, trading and science.
What HN saysCommenters link him for algorithmic trading posts, his essay on the Lush language, and his piece on Burton Klein's economics of invention.
150HN people shared it
57linked it in comments
210stories submitted
5.9Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2009people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Quantum computing as a field is obvious bullshit11 people · 56 points · first shared 2019 · 38 comments on HN
- 2Ruins of forgotten empires: APL languages10 people · 245 points · first shared 2013 · 172 comments on HN
- 3Locklin on science – In which I explain things interesting, remarkable or silly9 people · 5 points · first shared 2010 · 2 comments on HN
- 4Michael Lewis: shilling for the buyside?6 people · 197 points · first shared 2014 · 212 comments on HN
- 5On Cultures That Build5 people · 11 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 6“AI” and the human informational centipede5 people · 9 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 7Spotting vaporware: three follies of would-be technologists5 people · 6 points · first shared 2010 · 1 comments on HN
- 8A look at the J language: the fine line between genius and insanity (2012)4 people · 415 points · first shared 2012 · 68 comments on HN
- 9There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it4 people · 275 points · first shared 2010 · 111 comments on HN
- 10Lush: My favorite small programming language4 people · 152 points · first shared 2024 · 28 comments on HN
- 11Cybersyn and Allende’s Semi-Automated Luxury Socialism4 people · 97 points · first shared 2019 · 105 comments on HN
- 12Open Problems in Robotics3 people · 455 points · first shared 2020 · 227 comments on HN
- 13Neglected machine learning ideas3 people · 328 points · first shared 2014 · 49 comments on HN
- 14The largest computer ever built3 people · 124 points · first shared 2013 · 30 comments on HN
- 15Conformal Prediction: Machine Learning with Confidence Intervals3 people · 98 points · first shared 2016 · 9 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
jeffreyrogers · 2021-05-27
A lot of the tech ones I follow have already been listed so I will try to list some that others may not be aware of.
1. Applied Divinity Studies. Rationalist adjacent. Obviously influenced by Scott Alexander, but less optimistic, a bit more cynical. - https://applieddivinitystudies.com/
2. Scott Locklin's blog. He used to post on HN. Mostly covers tech related things (but physical tech, not web stuff). Many HN readers will find him too abrasive and will miss the point. - https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/
3. Granola Shotgun. Hard to pin down what this blog is about exactly, but generally focused on tradeoffs between different configurations of the built environment. The author will baffle the ideologically prejudiced. He's a gay guy in SF who has nice things to say about Mormons and rednecks. - https://www.granolashotgun.com/
pw · 2010-06-22
I heard about Trading and Exchanges from http://scottlocklin.wordpress.com, which has since become my gateway to the world of trading. Along with some very good posts (like http://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/a-bestiary-of-algorithmic… there are also great links--like to the author's Amazon reviews, which are a gold-mine for reading suggestions and to the NuclearPhynance forum, which seems to be a gathering place for actual trading professionals.
srean · 2026-05-31
You might like having a go at Lush. It has fallen out of favor of late but is a very interesting language/system.
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2024/11/19/lush-my-favorite-small-p…
zem · 2026-02-20
I've always thought it sad that lush died; in many ways it was a spiritual predecessor to julia. here's a nice blog post about it: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2024/11/19/lush-my-favorite-small-p…
rektide · 2022-11-20
Found it! It's Burton Klein's classifications of the firm.
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2021/02/17/planning-of-invention-pa…
It is a bit absurd what a decay there is here, from obviously good to increasingly conservative & closed models. But this discussion on power struggles was excellent yet lacked some of the larger context of what mode the business at large operates in, & Klein here had some semi-interesting if pointed ideas to get us thinking about modes of thr firm.
Unfortunately Scott- who is covering this has been pretty highly insensitive & crude repeatedly.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6116063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29393152
pyinstallwoes · 2022-07-20
No we don't. There exists no physical working quantum computer today. There never has been a working physical quantum computer. There exists a "theoretical model that is simulated on classical computers" which is not a physical working quantum computer.
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/quantum-computing-as-a-f…
I wish it weren't vaporware, truly.
Pr0ject217 · 2022-02-07
EDIT:
Paste this hacky snippet into your browser's console to save all of the links into your clipboard:
(() =>
{
let result = [...document.querySelectorAll('td a')]
.map((link) =>
link &&
!link.href.includes('ycombinator') &&
!link.href.includes('javascript:void')
? link.href
: ''
)
.filter(Boolean);
result = [...new Set(result)];
result.sort();
copy(result.join('\n\n'));
})();
Just to help, here's a compiled-list of all of the links shared here so…
pixelgeek · 2021-11-30
I wandered through the rest of the blog. What an amazing asshat. He should be on display somewhere. His rant about US health issues[1] is breathtaking.
What sort of person begins a description of autism like this?
> Autism. I’m not sure this doesn’t fall into the category of “insanity.” It may also have something to do with hormonal disruption. Either way, the fact that some huge fraction of the population who thinks they don’t have to be kind and thoughtful to others because “muh disability.”
I don't want to read the biography he is referring to but I do want to read a psych profile of Scott Locklin. He is the platonic ideal of a cranky, covid-denying asshat.
[1]https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2021/11/20/us-public-health-problem…
haltingproblem · 2021-02-15
Locklin explains it best in "Quantum computing as a field is obvious bullshit" [1]:
"quantum computing” enthusiasts expect you to overlook the fact that they haven’t a clue as to how to build and manipulate quantum coherent forms of matter necessary to achieve quantum computation. A quantum computer capable of truly factoring the number 21 is missing in action. In fact, the factoring of the number 15 into 3 and 5 is a bit of a parlour trick, as they design the experiment while knowing the answer, thus leaving out the gates required if we didn’t know how to factor 15. The actual number of gates needed to factor a n-bit number is 72 * n^3; so for 15, it’s 4 bits, 4608 gates; not happening any time soon."
[1] https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/quantum-computing-as-a-f…
allencheng · 2020-07-31
Agreed - companies can compete by adding on services and focus on verticals. It might be a different type of company than the founder originally envisioned, though.
Here's a good take on this article:
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2020/02/21/andreessen-horowitz-crap…
praeconium · 2018-06-06
maybe subjective, but its pure gold.. https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/
bloaf · 2016-05-05
I love this article:
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2013/07/28/ruins-of-forgotten-empir…
bladecatcher · 2015-03-26
I don't have numbers handy. The real power of kdb+/q comes from the column oriented architecture and the extremely powerful vector functional language q. The language q is inspired by APL. I highly recommend you to check out this article to get a sense of the APL family of languages https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2013/07/28/ruins-of-forgotten-empir…
If you want a database for blazing fast data-storage and retrieval, there are many options available. You start seeing the real benefits of kdb+/q when you use q to simplify very complex operations that aren't easily done in SQL. Also, the high level operators that q makes your code extremely terse. I've written complex backtesting systems that perform data mining on massive datasets - all in one page of very tight q code!
asmithmd1 · 2012-12-16
a very smart physicist turned quant's take on many topics - always excited to see a new entry
http://scottlocklin.wordpress.com
sydthrowaway · 2022-02-07
varelse · 2014-09-05
Your point? IMO it's an intriguing but completely unproven technology. In contrast, GPUs (a newer technology than quantum computers) waltzed out of the gate with 100x to 1,000x speedups over Pentium IV CPUs barely a decade into their existence.
If D-Wave had shown anything like that, it would be a billion dollar company well on its way to disrupting NVIDIA and Intel in HPC. Instead, after nearly 30 years since the concept and 15 years after D-Wave's founding and ~$100M of VC, it's still just an expensive toy.
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/category/physics/page/4/
All that said, hiring its best loyal opposition to fix that is the smartest thing I've seen Google do in a long time.
And just to end on a positive note, here's a great book on the subject that explains the promise of the technology in great detail:
http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Computation-Information-Anniversary-Edit…
And here's another reason perhaps why Google is leaning so hard on this technology:
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~nando/papers/quantumrbm.pdf
Gualdrapo · 2026-03-01
Makes me remember of this, which was posted a few days ago here in HN:
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2023/05/31/djvu-and-its-connection-…
bjourne · 2025-10-22
These blog posts might interest you. Note the dates: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/spotting-vaporware-three… https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/quantum-computing-as-a-f…
d_silin · 2025-08-31
Obligatory reference: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/quantum-computing-as-a-f…
moderation · 2024-08-27
Interesting recent blog suggesting that salt consumption and blood pressure are uncorrelated [0].
0. https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2024/08/23/crazy-but-likely-health-…
ChrisMarshallNY · 2024-05-05
He states, in his about[0]: "...exposing this sort of nonsense to as much popular contempt as I can muster."
It's deliberate.
I sometimes enjoy folks that write like this, and this chap genuinely seems to be an interesting guy, after my own heart, but I don't really enjoy his writing.
[0] https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/about/
brcmthrowaway · 2023-12-23
Prescient article: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/quantum-computing-as-a-f…
financltravsty · 2023-12-05
It seems like you may be shadow-banned, so I've vouched for your comment.
But his observation isn't some theory or anything put-together; more of an aside while he was ranting about Alfred Lee Loomis.[0] See for yourself if it tracks.
[0] https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2023/10/30/some-more-books-mostly-o… p. 6
jack_squat · 2023-08-16
The author's site is primarily poorly-researched and hyperbolic BS, mostly to provide cover for his political hot takes.
Example: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2021/11/20/us-public-health-problem…
drpixie · 2023-06-14
Seems applicable - https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2023/06/13/chestertons-fence-applie…
A_D_E_P_T · 2023-02-25
Scott Locklin recently (last week) wrote an effortpost about this: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2023/02/19/anomalies-in-the-calcula…
jmeister · 2023-02-15
kgwgk · 2022-10-10
I just found this recent writeup on the subject, I didn’t have time to read it yet but looks interesting (he hasn’t been active on HN for almost two years, by the way).
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2022/06/06/poking-holes-in-bells-in…
snidane · 2022-09-05
"Quantum computing as a field is obvious bullshit"
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/quantum-computing-as-a-f…