Hacker News Reader

MrFantasticon Just Imagining a Workout Can Make You Stronger

I think it would be hard to imagine what a heavy lift feels like if you never done it. The pinky example might have helped just because it gave the test subjects an example of what muscle it works, firing the pinky and the ring finger at the same time would be a stronger pull because they share the flexor digitorum profundus. They also would have had to test it first to establish a baseline.

I think that one reason people have trouble with pullups is that they just don't understand how to tense up their entire body torso to pull themselves up.

MrFantasticon Investor-owned utilities charge 23% more for electricity than public providers

Short term thinking is because of incentives. Executives are given options so they want to juice the stock price while they are CEO.

MrFantasticon Investor-owned utilities charge 23% more for electricity than public providers

That works in theory. In practice each company has their own overhead which increases their service fees.

They regulated nat gas in my state and the service fee is more than the gas consumed.

MrFantasticon Investor-owned utilities charge 23% more for electricity than public providers

My state deregulated natural gas which meant that despite the city owning the delivery and turning on and off the gas each for profit company had to have their own HQ, marketing budget, customer service, sales team, and C-suite.

The fixed service fee cost $40/month which was more than the natural gas consumed every month but Jan/Feb. They also make cancelling difficult, I was put on hold for 40 minutes without an music so I didn't know if I had been disconnected or was just on hold.

Electric is run by one company and their service fee is $15/mo. Their customer service is also much better.

MrFantasticon CFTC Staff Were Told to Retract Analysis of Suspicious Oil Trades

Nixon was not aware of Watergate.

He was threatened with impeachment for lying about it after he found out it had happened.

MrFantasticon CFTC Staff Were Told to Retract Analysis of Suspicious Oil Trades

The House of Saud luckily isn't an employee of the state. They are the state.

MrFantasticon US federal budget deficit jumps 12% in one year to nearly $2 Trillion

The GOP only defines a deficit as bad when Democrats hold power.

MrFantasticon Americans' social activity has steeply declined in the past 30 years

People often don't socialize with their neighbors in a big city because it's nice to have a place where you aren't expected to socialize.

Sometimes I don't want to have a conversation with my neighbor who I really don't have anything in common with except they live next door.

In a big city you can find people that are exactly your tribe or explore a new one.

MrFantasticon Do dentists know what they're doing?

They know.

When I was 11, my 7 year old brother, 3 year old sister and I were all diagnosed with cavities at the same visit.

We had no symptoms and never had a cavity after.

I think he had a gambling debt he had to pay off.

MrFantasticon GPU World

I’m remodeling a room in my house and I’ve used Gemini help me troubleshoot problems and it works pretty well. It’s come up with a lot of ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of. Of course it’s contradicted itself a few times too so you have to think about what you’re doing as well.

MrFantasticon My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

What if I told that all fiction books were fantasy?

MrFantasticon Legalizing sports gambling was a mistake

I think sports gambling should be legal because otherwise the Bookies will kill you if you can't pay your debts. At least with legal gambling the worst that can happen is bankruptcy.

The gambling institutions have some regulation as well.

I do think that gambling ads should be banned just like cigarettes, and pharmaceuticals.

USA and New Zealand are the only places that allow pharma ads and the public is uninformed to make that decision but the Agency problem means MDs will prescribe those drugs.

MrFantasticon Apple's M4 has reportedly adopted the ARMv9 architecture

I've had several devices fail right before the new model was released.

So frustrating.

MrFantasticon Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

Velocidrone $20 is the most popular sim with the pros. It's designed to be the most accurate at as cost of graphic detail.

They have open races every week.

I can place in the top 300 sometimes.

You can see the FPV of any of the races. The fastest pilots fly so fast it's insane. It's hard for me to comprehend how they can even comprehend what they are seeing.

They will fly though a 3 gate ladder(aka corkscrew) in 1.5 seconds.

MrFantasticon The fishy death of Red Lobster

If I ever get rich, I would totally open a ghost pizza restaurant.

Margins are good. Spoilage is a non-issue.

Orders are pickup or delivery.

I can bring 10 pizzas to every party.

MrFantasticon The Ruby on Rails Podcast Episode 508: YJIT with Maxime Chevalier-Boisvert

The "flexibility" of Ruby and RoR made code much harder to maintain than Python.

Who cares if you can save 10 minutes coding a page if it takes you an hour to figure out what's happening on with that code.

MrFantasticon Wi-Fi jamming to knock out cameras suspected in nine Minnesota burglaries

The problem is that wiring standards change.

Ideally, you put conduits in the wall then upgrading cables is easier.

MrFantasticon The Apple Vision Pro

For a lot of people, $3500 is nothing especially if they are going to expense it to the company.

A lot of companies are going to buy it just to figure out what types of apps can be made for the platform.

MrFantasticon Crush Your Interviews with the Power of Storytelling

Being able to code well is more easily measured than "softer" skills.

If you can't code, it's immediately obvious.

Being a good HR person or Inclusivity Officer is much more subjective.

MrFantasticon 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

Most pre-industrial cities were limited by how far you could walk in 30 minutes to the center of town where the markets and government would be.

Most people walked everywhere, especially in a city.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-29/the-commu...

MrFantasticon 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

Those Amazon delivery trucks are pretty light weight.

It's not like they are hauling sand, the boxes are mostly empty.

MrFantasticon 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

I agree and live in an area where I only have to use my car a few times a week and walk/bike most of the time.

The problem is most people own homes in areas where it's not practical to create a 15 minute city.

Plus a lot of people are lazy. My neighbor drove his car 600 yards to pick up a pizza.

MrFantasticon Toyota’s advanced battery technology roadmap

A fully autonomous car charging robot would be a solution for that now.

Fall asleep in your van, car recharges every 300 miles via robot, 3 days later you are on the other coast.

MrFantasticon Live near your friends

My experience is that in a big city you can meet people that better fit into your "tribe", the downside is that they leave town for the higher pay job after about 4 years.

The only solution is to always be adding new friends, at least that the theory. The implementation is tougher.

MrFantasticon Container shipping has cratered, as ship owners try to avoid unprofitable trips

The Proud Boys started as a joke by a former Punk Singer. Punks ideology was based on anti-racist and anti-sexist beliefs, They didn't realize that there was a real audience for their satire and the group was Co-opted by actual racists.

A similar thing happened to the Tea Party which was anti-1%'res which is now controlled by their corporate donors. It's new name is the House Freedom Caucus and they want to default on US debt.

MrFantasticon Heavy marijuana use increases schizophrenia in men, study finds

Myopia is interesting. One theory I've heard is that it's because people aren't exposed to enough sunlight when their eyes are developed.

Myopia is almost non-existent in hunter gatherer societies.

MrFantasticon Heavy marijuana use increases schizophrenia in men, study finds

The concept of Demonic Possession has existed since antiquity.

They probably had some sort of mental health disorder. Schizophrenia seems to have similar symptoms.

MrFantasticon A bacterial culprit for rheumatoid arthritis?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5682732/

Both groups observed significant decrease in disease activity score (DAS) (p < 0.001). Significantly higher decrease in pain in fasting group on seventh day (p = 0.049). No significant difference was observed in total fatty acid profile, butyrate and propionate but acetate increased significantly (p = 0.044) in fasting group and decreased significantly in MD group.

MrFantasticon Even Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future, new report says

Since iOS 16, Siri has gotten dramatically less accurate for me on my Iphone 13 Pro.

WebGL has been screwed since 16.4

MrFantasticon The Disappearance of the Ashtray

Hindenberg got a bad rap. It just happened to look scary and was caught on film.

1/3 of the Hindenberg passengers survived the crash. Way better survival rate than plane crashes.