Hacker News Reader

dumbmatteron A Virus That Could Cure Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and More

Also the mechanism by which it works (eliminating certain protein aggregates in the brain) might not actually be related to the cause of Alzheimer's. Many other drugs targeting these aggregates have failed.

It could be that it's like trying to cure the flu by taking tylenol - sure you get a fever when you get the flu, but it's not the root cause.

But I hope it works!

dumbmatteron Introducing Safari Technology Preview

I guess my years of complaining about Safari's IndexedDB support might finally be close to paying off...

dumbmatteron This Week in Servo 43 (submitted via Servo itself)

There's probably many reasons, but one is that native controls don't support everything in CSS.

dumbmatteron California's DOT Admits That More Roads Mean More Traffic

I still don't see why "Adding 10 percent more road capacity leads to 3-6 percent more vehicle miles in the near term and 6-10 percent more over many years" is being interpreted as "ending up with the same amount of congestion".

If public transit or bike lanes would provide a better benefit for the same cost, then I would support them. But that's a separate and complicated discussion. Instead, this article seems designed to mislead people into thinking that expanding roads has literally no benefit, when obviously it does even if congestion remained the same (which it doesn't).

Maybe I'm too cynical...

dumbmatteron California's DOT Admits That More Roads Mean More Traffic

Adding 10 percent more road capacity leads to 3-6 percent more vehicle miles in the near term and 6-10 percent more over many years.

So... sounds like less traffic. Wonder why the title says "more traffic".

Some of the cars on a new highway lane have simply relocated from a slower alternative route. But many are entirely new. They reflect leisure trips that often go unmade in bad traffic, or drivers who once used transit or carpooled, or shifting development patterns, and so on.

Those all sound like good things. The point of roads is to use them. So people use them to have a shorter commute, or live a bit further away from work to lower rent, etc etc etc.

What is the actual problem? Did anyone actually expect that building more roads would lead to no increase in road usage?

dumbmatteron What Open-Access Publishing Actually Costs

PLOS ONE is only one of many PLOS journals. The others do also review for importance. This is probably why PLOS ONE is cheaper than their other journals: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/publication-fees

So Eisen is correct, it's the same thing. A non-open access publisher could make a non-open access equivalent of PLOS ONE if they wanted to (and maybe somebody has). It's not a question of open access.

dumbmatteron Large analysis finds that low-fat diets have low impact

I eagerly await reading the next headline in 10 years:

"Even larger analysis finds that low-fat diets have low impact"

And then in 20 years:

"Large analysis finds that low-salt diets have low impact"

But I think I'll die before low-fat and low-salt foods stop being marketed, since there never really was any good evidence for them in the first place...

dumbmatteron Academics sharing paywalled papers with a codeword on Twitter

So why do open access online-only publishers like PLoS charge $3k/article? Is that just pure profit?

dumbmatteron Academics sharing paywalled papers with a codeword on Twitter

Where the money goes to?

Ask PLoS, they charge $3k/article for open access publications. How much cheaper do you think Elsevier can be than PLoS?

dumbmatteron Academics sharing paywalled papers with a codeword on Twitter

Really? I've published a bunch of papers and only ever got one hard copy - and that was one copy of the journal, no additional copies to share.

dumbmatteron The End of College Tuition Pricing as We Know It?

Tuition pricing should be based on demonstrated need and real merit, not just the desire of a college to steal a few smart students from a competitor down the street.

What does "real merit" mean? I can't think of any definition that doesn't include trying to bring in more smart students...