Scala is cool and all, but I'd have thought HN only needs to know when there's an actual release, no?

I agree. I can't even easily find out the difference between rc3 and rc2 in terms of bug fixes, etc.

Agreed. Some significant releases are cool. Every kernel release is... bearable. But an RC without any explanation?

Damn... a lot of people went through agony to upgrade stuff to RC2 ;)