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Mattasher

553 karma · joined September 20, 2015

Amsterdam based coder, writer and investor. Email is info@(my Hacker News username).com
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Mattasher··on When dying patients want unproven drugs
> if it's likely to cure, then that would be borne out by the trial? And then it would be rushed for approval.

I'm not sure you know how long these things take, even when they work well.

Also, the failure to show a positive clinical effect in a trial mean one doesn't exist, especially at the individual level.

Mattasher··on The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom
This hand sanitizer everywhere thing was just one of the many unproductive insanities of the Covid era.

Quick story: In 2021 I was shopping at an Office Max in Florida. At the counter, the checkout guy snuck two small bottles into my bag.

Me: Wait! I didn't buy that!

Him: Don't worry, it's free.

Me: Ok, but what is it?

Him: Hand sanitizer, we're giving them away.

Me: (Takes bottles out of bag, hands back to him)

Mattasher··on Security.txt file now mandatory for Dutch government websites
https://www.digid.nl/security.txt

redirects to:

https://www.ncsc.nl/.well-known/security.txt

    -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
    Hash: SHA512
    
    # Domeinen van de Rijksoverheid kunnen met een 302 redirect verwijzen naar
    # het centrale bestand op https://www.ncsc.nl/.well-known/security.txt
    # omdat het NCSC het centrale meldpunt is voor kwetsbaarheden en incidenten
    # voor de Rijksoverheid.
    #
    # Dutch central government domains can redirect to the central file located
    # at https://www.ncsc.nl/.well-known/security.txt with a 302 redirect,
    # because NCSC-NL is the central point of contact for vulnerabilities and
    # incidents for the Dutch central government.
    
    Expires: 2024-01-31T22:59:00.000Z
    Canonical: https://www.ncsc.nl/.well-known/security.txt
    
    Policy: https://www.ncsc.nl/contact/kwetsbaarheid-melden
    Policy: https://english.ncsc.nl/contact/reporting-a-vulnerability-cvd
    
    Contact: https://www.ncsc.nl/contact/kwetsbaarheid-melden
    Contact: https://english.ncsc.nl/contact/reporting-a-vulnerability-cvd
    Contact: mailto:security@ncsc.nl
    Encryption: https://www.ncsc.nl/contact/pgp-key
    Preferred-Languages: nl, en
    
    Acknowledgments: https://www.ncsc.nl/wall-of-fame
    Hiring: https://www.werkenvoornederland.nl
    
    -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
    Version: Encryption Desktop 10.4.2 (Build 1298)
    Charset: utf-8
    
    wsDVAwUBY+9c0P4Vd0fJc7lbAQpUmQwAwZ1vWyI1VKBChsciufRcvxy5zzMZMx6v
    YjD5CXuDV4GL+tRl7wClnQO023e3ZChTH69y7O3veS+5/zNVUvpyqJfS8pNzG0pA
    B4vea3fQ41t5UpCVYvPopIFiT1oeQJA9w4NqBD2+2jW5lS5L8k9xz192gWJvhxq8
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    lNVMWzOncidAWM0nXcuYTjZagRAagthF
    =yC4A
    -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
 Version: Encryption Desktop 10.4.2 (Build 1298)
 Charset: utf-8
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Mattasher··on How to set your domain as your handle
They aren't decentralized, they're federated. If you are on an "instance" of an alt-twitter (e.g. mastodon.social) you are 100% subject to the rules of that instance and your handle isn't portable, though you can generally share content across instances and interact with others.
Mattasher··on What Kind of Mind Does ChatGPT Have?
I like this question a lot. I'd say the answer is that submarines swim quite well, with good speed, amazing range of depth, and excellent directional stability. They are, however, poor swimmers when it comes to agility (quick changes in speed or direction).

The label "swimming" or "mind" is just a label, what matters is how things compare along any metric we can evaluate.

Mattasher··on On Chomsky and the Two Cultures of Statistical Learning
> There is a notion of success ... which I think is novel in the history of science. It interprets success as approximating unanalyzed data.

Yes! Yes! Yes! As I've been arguing for years, we've already plucked the low-hanging fruit of science. The vast majority of additional progress will have to be made by using what are essentially black box models, and the proof of a good model will be how well it approximates new data, not how nice the mathematical equation looks or how well it can be explained intuitively.

Mattasher··on Experts say humans could be wrestling AI for control by 2035
Based on the the Bing AI beta and its attempts to gaslight people using emotional manipulation, I'd move that timeline up to this year.

The rise of persuasive AI, either directed by a human or running its own paperclip maximizing function, has already begun.

Mattasher··on Planning for AGI and Beyond
IMO the thing we have to worry about the most is the rise of persuasive AI, which has already begun: https://mattasher.substack.com/p/ais-killer-app
Mattasher··on U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds
FWIW if you live in place with boating and you might be able to find REC-90 for sale, which is Ethanol free.
Mattasher··on Roald Dahl: Original books to be kept in print following criticism
Seems more like an attempt at woke-washing that backfired because of the negative public response.
Mattasher··on Airbnb nightly rates shot up 36% in 3 years
I once showed up at an AirBnB condo and it had NO curtains, even though another building looked right into the bedroom. That also meant no curtains on the shower. I called AirBnB to complain and was told, well, did you see the pictures? And sure enough, the pics didn't show evidence of curtains. So no refund.

I now avoid AirBnB as much as possible, and when it's the only choice the amount of research I have to do is rage inducing. This is why brands exist, so you trust that every Marriott you stay at will have towels and curtains and all those other things, even if you don't see them in the pics. Meanwhile, the AirBnB brand is looking more and more like a lemon market for short-term rentals.

Mattasher··on Gibson Research Corporation's Ultra-High Entropy Pseudo-Random Number Generator
Very well put and worth reinforcing by thinking of PRNGs as entropy reduction functions on the original seeds, that ideally loose as little entropy as possible per generation cycle.
Mattasher··on I Tried Ketamine to Treat My Depression. It Was Terrifying
It's also worth considering that this one person's experience may represent the reactions of many. Over two-decades ago the Chicago Reader published one of the most fascinating "drug memoirs" I've ever read, and the author also had a terrible reaction to Ketamine, albeit under very bad circumstances:

https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/me-and-my-monkey/

Mattasher··on Is AM radio dead?
That may be true, but as anecdota I had a show on one of those talk stations just a year ago. They broadcast on 2 frequencies on the FM dial, covering a wide geographic range.
Mattasher··on TikTok's Enshittification
Solid article by the always interesting Doctorow, but it's a bit much to say, "Useful idiots on the right were tricked into thinking that the risk of Twitter mismanagement was "woke shadowbanning," whereby the things you said wouldn't reach the people who asked to hear them because Twitter's deep state didn't like your opinions. The real risk..."

As of the date this was published we had confirmation that this is exactly what was happening, and might still be.

Mattasher··on Ask HN: Google spam filter getting worse?
I'm having the opposite problem. Sometimes even my replies to someone with a Gmail address go to their SPAM box. What kind of a filter decides you don't want to see a message from some you messaged first?

FWIW I have my own domain and switched to Google as backend long ago, and yet I still occasionally have this problem.

Mattasher··on DALL-E for Playlists
Grooveshark (RIP) had the best music recommendation engine I've ever used.
Mattasher··on Ask HN: Low-fuss app to virtually drive around a city with street view
Second link I toyed with. First link is to a very old project. Clicked on the "demo" link and went to a extremely NSFW site :(

Regardless, looking for a friendly UI experience for this. Not a gamer but at this point I'm wondering if I could find videogames with realistic enough urban spaces to cover most of the cities I'm looking at.

Mattasher··on Ask HN: Low-fuss app to virtually drive around a city with street view
To add some additional context. I'm scoping out places for us to live next and real estate. There's a lot on the line here. I'd gladly pay $100+ per month for a top notch tool that let me quickly explore neighborhoods as a first line of filtering.
Mattasher··on No more airplane mode? EU to allow calls on flights
I suspect it's more a function of cost and class. The people who pay $500 to fly aren't the same as the people who pay $2.50 to be on the subway, or jump the turnstile altogether.
Mattasher··on Blue subscribers should be the only ones that can vote in policy related polls
I'm not sure about that. He also had the "be careful what you wish for" tweet, which indicates he had something in mind if the vote was to step down. Also, I can't imagine he planned to put so much energy into this one part of his empire forever.
Mattasher··on Nigeria bans ATM cash withdrawals over $225 a week to force use of CBDC
I assume the person you are replying to is referring to the government freezing the bank accounts of people who contributed to the trucker protests. Though it should be noted that this was done through existing bank infrastructure. CBDC would give governments much more granularity in controlling how people use their money.
Mattasher··on Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers
This seems like a better analogy than "private companies", but then where does that lead you in terms of how they should be treated? No snark here, genuine question.
Mattasher··on Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers
At this point we need to recognize that these "private companies" are now de facto state actors. They take censorship advice from government agencies (like the CDC), ban certain people in response to political pressures, and hand over user's private data without a warrant.

That doesn't mean regulating them like common carries is good or workable, but we need to start by recognizing that there are first amendment claims on both sides now.

Mattasher··on Kiwi Farms has been breached; assume passwords and emails have been leaked
For those like me who had never heard of Kiwi Farms until recently, the podcast Blocked and Reported (https://www.blockedandreported.org/) has a couple recent episodes that do deep dives into the site and controversy around it.
Mattasher··on The tyranny of the supertweeter
This gets to the heart of the problem and is even understated. If your audience is partisan, going against what they want to hear by providing nuance, context, or even straight news, can provoke extreme outrage. Perhaps people will recall when the NYT had to change a factually correct headline because it wasn't sufficiently critical of the previous president.
Mattasher··on How parasites manipulate the behavior of their hosts
> How can you manipulate a neural network to suddenly fear water? How can you manipulate _different types of neural networks_ to suddenly fear water, in a generic way?

These kinds of reactions, and the many hyper-specific adaptations across the animal kingdom, make me think our current model of life lacks the entropy required to account for the behavior we see. It's like in a movie when they tell the geek to do some highly complex and customized task, and he clicks a couple keys and it's done.

Mattasher··on Roller Jet Printer
Lovely design. Worth noting that small, roll feed thermal printers exist:

https://brothermobilesolutions.com/products/printers/pocketj...

I've been looking for one that can print a single, very long (unpagenated) document recently.

Mattasher··on Covid “Fudge Factor” – A map of Covid data corruption and approach that worked
Evidence of all these impacts is easy to find. Here's just one link about the increased rate of childhood obesity:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037a3.htm

Mattasher··on Covid “Fudge Factor” – A map of Covid data corruption and approach that worked
Interesting analysis, though he mentions early on a huge issue with the analysis:

> It does come with one major caveat: Because it counts ALL deaths, it cannot on its own disentangle deaths caused by Covid itself, impacts from the lockdowns themselves, impacts from vaccines, or unrelated death trends.

Especially as time goes on, and we see the effects of missed cancer screenings, economic destruction, increased obesity, etc, excess mortality will be almost entirely a measure of side effects of the pandemic response.

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