Hacker News Reader

Josh379on On the Weaknesses of the Mathematical Mind

This is a beautiful thought; however, it doesn’t prove that social problems are unsolvable. Despite the political bitterness so prevalent today, historically, we are on a good social trajectory with better understanding of our biases and prejudices.

Josh379on Schoolchildren in China work overnight to produce Amazon Alexa devices

Sure, they don’t sleep yet they are able to assemble complex electrical equipment. Perfect reasonable, no need to question. I’ve also always believed it when told there are people who work three full time jobs. What amazing people!

Josh379on Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

When you factor in the CO2 absorbing grass the rudiments eat, the contribution drops to about 0.5%.

Josh379on Man and man's best friend have both been experiencing declines in sperm quality

Hack it with a microscope and a lot of reading.

Josh379on A "cure" for baldness could be around the corner

This site is about finding solutions to hard problems, not just throwing your hands up in the air and accepting them. There are other sires for that.

Josh379on The Pentagon is battling the clock to fix serious, unreported F-35 problems

Of course the US has backdoors. What they are buying is the power to fight US enemies. Not US friends or the US itself.

Josh379on Claims that breakfast is a health panacea may be unsupported

Ensemble averaging has not worked well for me when it comes to dieting. I’m at a point where I’ve found what works well for me: high protein Mediterranean eat when I’m hungry. I tried skipping breakfast and wound up being skinny-fat. I tried keto and got fat and muscular. You might fit cleanly into a bin, like me, you might not.

Josh379on Ask HN: How to learn to play piano? (kids and adults)

I have had amazing results using the Simply Music course teaching my two children starting at 3 and 6 years of age. They have introduced a new free online program:

https://pianoonline.com/

Josh379on Ten years after the financial crisis, GSE securities have expanded $804B

It’s absolutely crazy bonds are being bought at negative real rates but large sums of money must be parked somewhere by huge funds. Plus they often have bond to equity to commodity to fixed asset mandates so they have to enter what they know to be money losing positions.

Josh379on Top cancer researcher fails to disclose corporate ties in major journals

We should take this with a grain of salt because your reputation is tied to his. This is the cascade effect that occurs when someone very powerful behaves inappropriately-the people below them must defend it to protect what they have.

Having come from acedemia, I disagree with just about everything in this post. People do care about conflicts of interest and when very powerful people are being reviewed, they get greater leeway because of the power of retribution.