Hacker News Reader

arkadeson Electromagnetic coil gun seized in Japan

> the possession of such devices will generally be prohibited by March next year. The police are currently conducting a free collection campaign, urging individuals to turn in coilguns at their nearest police station."

arkadeson Braid: Anniversary Edition "sold like dog s***", says creator Jonathan Blow

It wasn’t a simple texture swap. They added 40 new levels.

arkadeson Nikon Z 28-400mm f/4-8 VR: The Best All-Purpose Lens I've Ever Used

https://electronics.sony.com/imaging/compact-cameras/all-vlo...

“ ZEISS® Vario-Sonnar® T* 24–600 mm F2.4–4 large-aperture high resolution high speed zoom lens”

arkadeson Whole-body magnetic resonance imaging at 0.05 Tesla

I have a hard time picturing the radiologist whose reputation and malpractice rely on catching small anomalies being comfortable using a machine predicated on inferring the image contents.

arkadeson What Happens When a Fifteen Year Old Pumps and Dumps with a Net Profit of $800k? (2002)

The SEC only found wrongdoing in eleven trades, whose profit netted approx $272K. They did not penalize him for trades not found in violation of the law.

Clearly, too long, didn’t read.

arkadeson One sleepless night can rapidly reverse depression for several days in mice

We have known about sleep deprivation causing a remission in suicidal ideation for a while - we have inferred a depression benefit as well, but it’s nice to have it quantified.

However, we also know resumption of sleep pretty quickly ends the effect. It’s not a sustainable intervention, so much as it an interesting finding for hypothesis generation.

We also see the reverse effect in mania; on balance, regular healthy sleep wins the day.

arkadeson Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

Physician here, and I cannot emphasize this enough. To the point where I actively avoid most medical/healthcare threads - it’s oppressive to contribute.

arkadeson Clinical trial of mRNA universal influenza vaccine candidate begins

This is incorrect.

Phase I is “is it immediately dangerous?”

Phase II is assessing side effects at various dosages, to dial in possible dose ranges. There is some measurement of clinical effect here, to assist in dialing in dosages.

Phase III is does it work / what is the effect size.

arkadeson Polio cases in Africa linked to new oral vaccine

In short:

A common adverse effect from oral polio vaccine, occurring at a far lower rate in the new vaccine than in the one it replaced.

Headline link makes it sound like -bad- news.

arkadeson Canada geese beat humans in longstanding territory battle: study

> “I thought using these Fitbit-like devices on the neck collar was a creative way to understand resting, flying, or foraging behaviors. And when Ryan was doing all this physical work to figure out what this accelerometry data would tell us, I was very eager to see what the results were,” Ward says. “But when it was all analyzed, I was like, ‘Wow, that's not too exciting.’ Basically, when you harass, they fly a little bit more because you're scaring them, or they might be alert a little more, but it wasn't a fundamental difference.”

Well, that’s one way for a PI to publicly skewer their former grad student.

arkadeson Twitter Blue for $8/Month

Stephen King’s tweet on that topic, to summarize:

“ $20 a month to keep my blue check? Fuck that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.”

https://twitter.com/stephenking/status/1587042605627490304?s...

arkadeson Physicians’ attitudes about caring for people with disabilities

You’re more literate than most patients. You’re right, it should list all of the above. I think your post reads (and per other poster, I’m not alone) that you had a $1300 normal outpatient visit, so I read that as you misreading your bill.

arkadeson Physicians’ attitudes about caring for people with disabilities

When working for a hospital, it’s an admin somewhere. When in private practice, the insurer generally has geographic monopoly, so I sign off on whatever they shove in my face if I intend to accept their patients. The only time I have a real say in price is in private practice for uninsured patients, which is where I set aside a piece of my time for charity care.

arkadeson Physicians’ attitudes about caring for people with disabilities

That’s not what the doc gets paid. That’s the pretend amount that the insurer and doc have agreed upon, before their agreed upon discount.

Source: doctor.

arkadeson Write a note to your spouse every day

My issue with my wife is not having 45 mins a day with her. If I had that, the note would be supernumerary.

arkadeson Apple and MLS to present all MLS matches for 10 years, beginning in 2023

They’re addressing a real pain point that real people actually have and regularly fork out money for. The fact that they didn’t do it out of altruism means diddly squat.

arkadeson MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations (2020)

Scihub seems to have stopped updating. I haven’t gotten a recent article out of them in a while.

arkadeson NY Senate Bill S5474 proposing a universal single payer health plan for NYers

Any chance whatsoever they’re going to actually reimburse doctors for their massive school loans, while forcing them (“no network restrictions”) to work for this insurance plan? Especially if it’s anything like Medicaid, and reimburses physicians and hospitals -below cost-.

arkadeson Show HN: I made Ankify that converts notes to Anki cards

Obsidian needs to acquire you guys asap

arkadeson I got a computer science degree in 3 months for less than $5000 (2020)

> Many WGU students HATE these types of articles, because they undermine the legitimacy of WGU.

> Their model is competency-based, so you must demonstrate you posses knowledge in any given domain.

The guy took courses at college, online, and worked in the field for over a decade before speedrunning WGU. It seems to me he’s the exact model of “demonstrating competence” that you mention - I don’t see how that makes WGU out to be a degree mill.

arkadeson TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

My understanding is that anker got started with standard white labed alibaba type goods, but differentiated themselves with good curation, meaning you actually got something decent at a low price

arkadeson How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

I had precisely the same thought. It follows the outline it set forth at the top, but vaguely and without actually communicating any real content. It’s all pseudo-profound Rorschach blot writing.

arkadeson Money Stuff is Linear-ish

This precise link is being submitted for the third time by the same user. When does it just become spam?

arkadeson Ask HN: Which iOS apps do you find essential?

Todoist PocketCast Purify Yoink 1Password Authy

arkadeson What is triald and why is it taking so much disk space?

You take a very extreme, all or nothing stance. The rest of us make trade offs.

arkadeson How to use weekends for mental health

Tl;dr don’t work on the weekends, do something that makes you happy

I have no idea how such shallow faff got on the front page.

arkadeson The Uselessness of Phenylephrine

Pseudoephedrine is still available -behind the counter-. You literally just have to ask the pharmacist for it.

Let’s not turn grad students having a laugh into an actual statement on public policy.

arkadeson Judge rejects Purdue Pharma's $4.5B opioid settlement

I keep hearing this, but there is no mechanism I am aware of for a doctor to see a cent related to prescription of outpatient medication. What’s the purported mechanism by which docs were making money on this?

arkadeson Ancient Spartans didn’t kill ‘weak’ babies, new study argues

No, if the evidence for the area points to X, the folks claiming a deviation from the general evidenced trend need to provide evidence for that.

arkadeson New Brain Maps Can Predict Behaviors

In worms. A neuron was identified as playing a role in turning and, by eliminating that neuron, a worm was prevented from turning.

The headline and intro to the article gives the intentionally misleading impression that this is a human finding. It is not.