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p00dles

150 karma · joined January 18, 2021

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p00dles··on The Other Epidemic: Trying to get off benzodiazepines
^this
p00dles··on HelloAssembly The smallest possible complete Windows application
I hope that expression makes a comeback.
p00dles··on Company Offering '100% Human-Written, Never AI' Medical Research Is 100% AI
Not long ago companies claiming “100% AI-powered” services were secretly relying on humans because the tech wasn’t good enough.

Now, the opposite is true - AI has gotten so good, people are trying to pass AI work off as “100% human-powered.”

To me this remarkable inversion in a short period of time demonstrates how powerful these models can be; even if AI is overhyped and the financing/economics seem like a stack of cards, this example is driving home the point to me of just how far these models have come.

p00dles··on Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again
I don’t think that she means it as literally as you are interpreting her. It’s a _feeling_ of not belonging to or probably feeling welcomed to join the culture that surrounds her daily life, I don’t think she cares whether she belongs to the history-based definition that you outlined of modern “synthetic” unified Germany.

This experience is usually invisible to the people who are part of the in-group, in this case Germans, but if someone lives in a foreign country for an extended period of time and tries to make it their home, I think they understand what that woman was saying.

p00dles··on I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis
A big reason is clinical trials. They take time, they are expensive, and there isn’t another good way to determine an intervention’s safety and effectiveness.
p00dles··on Why is almost everyone right-handed? A new study connects it to bipedalism
There is also a category of people who are “mixed-handed”, who have a strong handedness preference for a given task, but which hand one prefers varies based on the task. I didn’t know about this category until recently, but it describes my personal experience.

Mildly informative Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dominance

p00dles··on Missile defense is NP-complete
who is our/us?
p00dles··on 99% of adults over 40 have shoulder "abnormalities" on an MRI, study finds
From walking around holding them with your left arm when they were babies, or from something else?
p00dles··on There's only one Woz, but we can all learn from him
They were both brilliant, but from everything that I've read, Jobs was an ass****, and Woz was the opposite, and that is a huge, huge difference.

The mythologizing of Jobs is the canonical example of people condoning terrible behavior because they think that a person is smart/valuable/talented/etc.

To me this is completely backwards and sets a terrible precedent - that you can act however you want if you get results - especially given how many people idolize and look up to Jobs.

p00dles··on Ask HN: What did you find out or explore today?
Today I took the subway at a different time than I normally do, and I saw a very different mix of people. Fascinating.
p00dles··on Why some clothes shrink in the wash and how to unshrink them
It probably means to air-dry (to not use a dryer)
p00dles··on Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
<the typical German philosophy of strictly following the process -- as absurd as it might be -- and refusing to take initiative for anything that is not explicitly defined as one's responsibility>

you summarized my 5+ year experience living in Germany with one sentence in a way that I have never found the words for - thank you, really, thank you

I feel that in Germany, the original intent of the many rules, processes, and procedures has been lost. Employees are trained to operate such that every situation is governed by a rule/process/procedure, and their job is to look up the situation in a massive leather-bound book of branching rules, see which rule applies in the given situation, and then… apply the rule. But, they will do this only if they assess that helping you falls under their job’s responsibilities. Sometimes your situation is neat and clean, and was what the rule-writers thought about when they wrote the rules. Sometimes, not.

TLDR: if you have an edge case in the German bureaucratic system (forms at the doctor’s office, Deutsche Bahn travel troubles, closing a bank account), you are f***

p00dles··on Scientists edited genes in a living person and saved his life
Firefox on iOS, I see strikethrough but the strikes are at varying heights.
p00dles··on GLP-1 drugs linked to lower death rates in colon cancer patients
Interesting that GLP-1s might have different effects on cancer _incidence_ vs. cancer _survival_.

A different study "GLP-1 Receptor Agonists and the Risk of Thyroid Cancer" was published in the Diabates Care journal in February 2023*

The conclusion of the 2023 study: "we found increased risk of all thyroid cancer and medullary thyroid cancer with use of GLP-1 RA, in particular after 1–3 years of treatment."

I wonder what the mechanistic hypothesis could be for GLP-1s increasing thyroid cancer _incidence_ (the probability of thyroid cancer occurring in patients taking GLP-1s) but increasing colon cancer _survival_ (the probability of surviving in patients taking GLP-1s who have colon cancer).

Of course there are numerous important differences across the studies (cancer type, France vs. USA data, etc.), I'm just curious about a why this might be the case.

*https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article-abstract/46/2/384/...

p00dles··on I analyzed the lineups at the most popular nightclubs
I think this analysis is cool, and the comments are too critical. The author put something out there, documented it, and I learned something by reading it. Thank you.

Maybe the title needs reframing to soften the reader’s expectations, and I definitely agree that RA as a data source has important limitations that should be mentioned.

p00dles··on Analysis indicates that the universe’s expansion is not accelerating
That guy should start a PR firm
p00dles··on NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again
Ugh this is so tragic but I think correct
p00dles··on Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste
novice -> informed -> asshole

I strive to be at the informed part of the spectrum.

Wine example:

- Novice: "I'd like any red wine" -> waiter brings you something you don't like

- Informed: "I'd like a red wine that is dry, not st" -> waiter brings you something you are quite likely to like

- Asshole: "Do you have an Argentinian malbec from 1998-2000, from the so and so valley?" -> you spend a lot of money and like the wine, or you are unhappy because they don't meet your asshole preferences

*edit formatting

p00dles··on Inflammation now predicts heart disease more strongly than cholesterol
https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2025.08.047
p00dles··on iPhone Air
I had the 13 mini and now the 12 mini and the 13 mini was noticeably better - battery life, camera, screen brightness (big difference when using phone on a bike for navigation)
p00dles··on Show HN: I was curious about spherical helix, ended up making this visualization
I applaud anybody who makes visualizations of difficult to grasp concepts - so, thank you very much.

As a visual (spatial) learner, I often wonder how my math/science education could have been improved with learning tools such as these.

p00dles··on Italy's pizza detectives
Some people think that American pizza has far too much cheese.
p00dles··on Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore
that is so cool - I mean the fact that this example stuck with you so long is a single of good teaching to me
p00dles··on I counted all of the yurts in Mongolia using machine learning
thank you for this

*edit (I mean this sincerely, it made me laugh and I did not see it at first)

p00dles··on The Awful German Language (1880)
I totally agree that learning German grammar as an adult is… demoralizing. Knowing, and accepting, that you will make a mistake every time that you open your mouth, hurts.

Also, the increase in possible permutations (and opportunities for mistakes) when you add adjective conjugations to the mix is daunting.

p00dles··on How to start a school with your friends
This thread is worth a read regarding Lambda school:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40067939

- the “dupe” post with a title that specifically refers BloomTech aka Lambda School CEO Austen Allred being banned from all consumer-lending activities: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40071694

*edit to add “dupe” link.

p00dles··on Big Book of R
Is this what tools like Nextflow or Snakemake aim to do? I don't know, and I'm genuinely curious, because I'm starting to work in bioinformatics and doing different parts of an analysis pipeline in R and Python seems common, and, necessary really if you want to use certain packages.

I'm wondering if I should devote time to learning Nextflow/Snakemake, or whether the solution that you outlined is "sufficient" (I say "sufficient" in quotes because of course, depends on the use case).

p00dles··on Genomic study: our capacity for language emerged at least 135k years ago
Does beginning a submission title with "Genomic study:" provide an air of credibility? As in, before any reference to what is being studied, genomic study is mentioned. I'm actually curious.
p00dles··on Watching nature scenes can reduce pain, new study shows
Do you have any recommendations?
p00dles··on MacBook Air M4
What apps do you use instead of Apple Notes for writing/keeping notes?
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