Hacker News Reader

Apfelon English speakers should learn math instead of a second language

Having lived in China for several years, it's very important to stress that the average English level of those "English speakers" is lower than that of your average American toddler.

Apfelon How do you value a drug?

I must take issue with the "$2.6 billion to create a new drug" statement.

This is an extremely controversial figure within the pharmacoeconomic literature.

It comes from a publication by the Tufts centre for drug development, who are heavily pharma-funded, and it is repeated verbatim by those with vested interests in the pharma industry.

More on this here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/11/18/does-...

Apfelon It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

The answer to basically any spaced repetition question is always going to end up being Anki.

https://apps.ankiweb.net/

Apfelon Modern China Is So Crazy It Needs a New Literary Genre (2016)

Agreed. The only thing that really jumped out at me as "translated from chinese" was the "As you all know" (I assumed translated directly from 众所周知)

Apfelon Amazon Atlas: The “Highly Confidential” locations of Amazon's data centers

You're assuming that anyone with these sorts of documents:

1) wants to leak them (most of the Chinese people who I've met in China, especially those who work in a government or military capacity, will bend over backwards to defend China from any level of perceived foreign criticism)

2) has the capability to leak them (most Chinese people are unlikely to know much about Wikileaks)

Apfelon Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China

I'm not saying that you're wrong, as it does feel like an incredibly safe country, but most statistics published by the Chinese government range from questionable to outright fabrications.

Apfelon Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017

I see your point, but most overdoses are likely due to imperfect dosage information (excluding suicide, obviously).

I think there may be some argument for legalisation but with medically-supervised consumption in pharmacies or specialised clinics.

Overdoses could (excepting human error) be removed entirely with improved dosage calculations from experienced healthcare staff.

Apfelon Baidu's CEO Declares He Can Beat Google Again

As I've said in another thread, anyone who's used Baidu for any length of time should laugh out loud at the suggestion that it's anywhere close to Google in quality.

Apfelon Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017)

https://www.greenwave.org/

There's some really cool stuff happening in this field. IIRC some farming designs have been open sourced, too.

All you really need is a few hundred metres of rope and some seed spools.

Apfelon Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

If they had leaks of Google's algorithm, they'd likely have a much more usable product...

Apfelon Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

My immediate reaction was "how can the CCP possibly cripple Google so much that Baidu can compete?". Anyone who's lived in China will have passionate views on how terrible Baidu's product is.

If there is any eastward leakage of Google's code, it's certainly not obvious in day-to-day usage of Baidu's search engine.

Apfelon Is Type 2 Diabetes Reversible at Scale?

Regarding point 1: From the site linked in the article, it appears to be basically classic keto + heavy supervision and dietary advice.

Apfelon Ask HN: What is your profession?

PhD student in health economics

Apfelon Nearly 1 in 3 drugs have a significant safety issue after FDA approval

For the record, the 2 billion dollars figure is from the notorious tufts centre for the study of drug development, which is heavily pharma-backed.

It's a very, VERY controversial figure in the pharmacoeconomic literature, but has been accepted as gospel due to continuous repetition in shitty reporting.

Fairly good article discussing this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/11/18/does-...

Apfelon China, Addicted to Bootleg Software, Reels from Ransomware Attack

I speak Chinese and I was with my Chinese wife. Thanks for the patronising attitude though :P

Apfelon China, Addicted to Bootleg Software, Reels from Ransomware Attack

I've said this in another comment, but here goes again:

Actually, the laptops I tried out were almost all Dell + Lenovo (I wanted a thinkpad or XPS). I think, as another commenter said, they were probably Linux + FreeDOS systems originally. What the store owners would do is use Norton Ghost to put whatever (illegal) OS I wanted on there.

I think maybe there are large regional differences in product availability or regulation. I know it was a lot harder to buy iPhones in certain tier 1 Chinese cities than others when I was there, for example.

Apfelon China, Addicted to Bootleg Software, Reels from Ransomware Attack

For the record, I also checked my local 大润发 and 国美电器, where they did the same shit.

Apfelon China, Addicted to Bootleg Software, Reels from Ransomware Attack

Actually, the laptops I tried out were almost all Dell + Lenovo (I wanted a thinkpad or XPS). I think, as another commenter said, they were probably Linux + FreeDOS systems originally.

What the store owners would do is use Norton Ghost to put whatever (illegal) OS I wanted on there.

Apfelon China, Addicted to Bootleg Software, Reels from Ransomware Attack

I'm not saying my experience is more correct or better than yours.

I have no idea where you were/are in China, but it was impossible to buy a genuine copy of Windows or a computer with it installed when I was in Guangzhou.

Apfelon China, Addicted to Bootleg Software, Reels from Ransomware Attack

I'm not sure how we can successfully argue about this when it's based on experience...

For the record, I was visiting Gangding in Guangzhou (the computer District) several times between 2012-14. Every vendor I found was baffled by my request and didn't know why I would ever want this.

I bought my laptop in 2014 in Hong Kong after my UK-bought one died.

Apfelon China, Addicted to Bootleg Software, Reels from Ransomware Attack

I don't think it's really fair to suggest that average Chinese people have a choice in the matter.

I lived in China (Guangzhou) for several years, and it was literally impossible to buy a computer with a legal copy of windows installed on it (or, failing that, a standalone windows disc) in the main computer district of the city.

I eventually had to hop the border to Hong Kong when I wanted to buy a laptop.

Apfelon Fake IDs in the age of the internet

I'm a 28 year old British man who is still regularly id'd. It's not all that relaxed in my experience...

Apfelon Why drug prices in America are so high (2016)

The cancer drugs fund is an absolute travesty, and a direct transfer of wealth from the UK taxpayer to the pharmaceutical industry.

The lobbyist who devised the value proposition to Cameron's government must be very proud of him/herself.

The only reason the public clamours for these drugs is because opportunity cost of treatment is very hard to distill into a newspaper headline.

The cancer drugs fund, at base principles, implies that cancer patients lives are more valuable than the rest of the public.

Apfelon Why drug prices in America are so high (2016)

Just for the record, although the acronym does technically spell out NIHCE since they changed the name, they've stuck with the "NICE" branding.

It allows for all sorts of pun titles for academic papers like the following:

[i] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1734179/pdf/v03...

[ii] http://www.nature.com/bdj/journal/v215/n5/full/sj.bdj.2013.8...

Apfelon Why drug prices in America are so high (2016)

If anyone's interested, England's system of health technology assessment (HTA) for the NHS is extremely transparent and world-leading.

It's one of the things that we Brits should be extremely proud of (although pharma-sponsored sob story campaigns in tabloid newspapers may suggest otherwise).

All new technologies are investigated in terms of incremental quality of life gain (vs current treatment norms) and changes in costs.

Furthermore, they consider everything in a wider context of opportunity cost of adopting a new treatment and budget constraints.

For a lot more detail, have a look at the NICE reference case here: https://www.nice.org.uk/process/pmg9/chapter/the-reference-c...

Apfelon The Data Science Process

Down for me, but the main springboard page is up.

Apfelon A Month of “Hello, World”

I actually did look through the github, in hope of not posting a stupid comment.

It's useful, but still not really substantial in terms of what generally-applicable knowledge gains he made from specific languages.

Apfelon A Month of “Hello, World”

I think this article would be more useful/interesting if it was extended to include language-specific things you found interesting, and specific pieces of expertise you gained in your usual working languages by exploring new ones rather than the rather generalised picture of the entire journey you've included.

Apfelon How Bullshitters Not Just Survive But Thrive (2016)

I am an S-W, 100%. This article basically describes exactly how I act. I know what I am and I hate it and desperately want to change.

He's absolutely bang on that when a bullshitter hits a performance-based situation they're screwed (I'm an early career academic in exactly this situation, it sucks).

S-Ws who don't want to change may well be criticising the article, but there are hopefully some other self-aware ones too!

Apfelon How Bullshitters Not Just Survive But Thrive (2016)

Just bought the GTD book. That's the planning brain part accomplished, right?

Here's hoping I can actually find the motivation to read it and then apply the lessons!