Hacker News Reader

raincomon MIT undergraduate admissions in the wake of the 2023 Supreme Court ruling

"As a baseline, in recent years around 25% of our enrolling undergraduate students have identified as Black, Hispanic, and/or Native American and Pacific Islander. For the incoming Class of 2028, that number is about 16%."

MIT admits 1275 students. So, 9% difference is about 115.

raincomon Scammers prey on young Chinese desperate for jobs in bleak economy

I have nothing against Cambodia. I posted these links because of the Chinese mafia connection. The latter will move to another country and lure people desperate for jobs (Indians to scam Indians, Chinese to scam fellow countrymen).

raincomon Scammers prey on young Chinese desperate for jobs in bleak economy

https://archive.is/8f34k

Even many Indians are trafficked to SE Asia in the name of employment, only to scam Indians. And these scam centers are run by Chinese.

[1] Cambodia: Hundreds of Indians rescued from cyber-scam factories: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-68705913

[2] Cambodia Job Scam Victims Beaten & Deprived Of Meals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5X5xVSiFHQ

[3] In Cambodia, reporting on illegal scam centers brings threats https://www.voanews.com/a/in-cambodia-reporting-on-illegal-s...

[4] They’re Forced to Run Online Scams. Their Captors Are Untouchable. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/world/asia/cambodia-cyber... https://archive.is/H7Vex

[5] Inside the 'living hell' of Cambodia's scam operations https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221109-inside-the-li...

[6] Chinese Mob Has 100K Slaves Working in Cambodian Cybercrime Mills https://www.darkreading.com/cyberattacks-data-breaches/chine...

raincomon Scammers prey on young Chinese desperate for jobs in bleak economy

Wherever one can get jobs, there the cost of living--mostly housing--is exorbitantly high. Whether one works 20 hours a week or 40 hours a week depends on the cost of housing.

raincomon Federal appeals court finds geofence warrants “categorically” unconstitutional

This precedent doesn't prevent parallel construction at all. In fact, it encourages parallel construction.

raincomon Robin Warren, pathologist who rewrote the science on ulcers, has died

Wow, carbonated water is not good overall.

raincomon Psilocybin desynchronizes the human brain

It is very interesting to note that the same depersonalization is experienced after a long, deep meditative practice. I realized that this meditative depersonalization was same as when I was really mad.

raincomon Judge dismisses classified documents case against Donald Trump

Five conservative justices were being 'conservative' in not joining Thomas' concurrence, as that issue was not before the court. The moment this issue comes before SCOTUS, you can expect more concurrences from these five conservative justices.

raincomon Why don't we know how antidepressants work yet?

Here is a wiki page on drugs whose mechanism of action is unknown: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Drugs_with_unknown_...

This tells us why many species have found herbal stuff to alleviate pain, cure ailments, etc.

raincomon You Want to Fix Boeing? Prosecute Its Executives

It is very hard to get guilty verdicts because prosecutors have to prove the culpability of any executive of any large corporation. In large organizations, executives are shielded by layers of bureaucracy along with legal counsel.

There is a way to get around this problem of proving culpability of individuals in large organizations. RICO was a way to go after mafia bosses. Thanks to the revolving door (of politicians, staffers of various committees, DOJ employees, prosecutors), it is impossible for the latter class to use RICO to go after any executive of any large company. Of course, one can say SBF was convicted; here, it was easy to find evidence to prosecute and convict SBF.

raincomon The cautionary tale of Huy Fong's hot sauce

Underwood Ranch's sriracha is expensive compared to Hug Fong's.

raincomon Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

"inner monologue" exists whenever people have hopes, dreams, plans, etc--thats what humans being intentional agents mean. Sure, there is a spectrum: those whose monologue is so active during the wakeful time to those whose daily brief monologue is about what to say in tomorrow's scrum standup.

raincomon Stallman Was Right

The government wants to use the data collected by these giant corporations. At least in the US, third-party doctrine allows for the govt to snoop on people--esp useful if they want to go after opponents.

raincomon Expedia Group fired their CTO, Rathi Murthy

Does Expedia have a lot of contract work force or offshoring presence? Maybe, kickbacks between these execs and such offshoring companies/staffing companies could be one reason.

raincomon A Mathematical Theory of Communication [pdf]

New theories come up with new concepts. Jargon is different from new technical terms. Best example of jargon is post modernism stuff in humanities.

Can you help find the page number where Kuhn talks about jargon?

raincomon Key Consciousness Connections Uncovered

You are correct. To me, consciousness and awareness are interchangeable.

raincomon Disinformation is on the rise. How does it work?

The issue is not about disinformation as such. Who controls the flow of disinformation? Media, of course. When media moans about the rise of disinformation, it says that they can't control the disinformation the way the-powers-that-be want to.

raincomon Key Consciousness Connections Uncovered

Self-awareness = awareness of oneself. The moment one thinks, feels in terms of "I think, I feel, I see, I hear, etc".

raincomon Organ transplant recipients' tastes for food, sex, and their personality change

This piece is based on this published article: https://www.mdpi.com/2673-3943/5/1/2

Two cases from this piece:

(1) 'The recipient shared: “I decided to name the boy. He is younger than me, so I call him Timmy. He had an accident when he fell down. It seems he really enjoys Power Rangers, just like I did in the past. However, I have lost interest in them now.” The recipient’s father clarified that neither his son nor the family were initially aware of the donor’s name or age. Eventually, they discovered that the donor was named Thomas, but his close family referred to him as Tim. The recipient’s mother mentioned that they later found out Tim died after falling from a window ledge while trying to reach for a Power Ranger toy.'

(2) 'The paper highlights this example: “A 56-year-old college professor received the heart of a 34-year-old police officer who tragically lost his life after he was fatally shot in the face. “Following the transplant, the recipient reported a peculiar experience, stating, ‘A few weeks after I got my heart, I began to have dreams. I would see a flash of light right in my face, and my face gets real, real hot. It actually burns.’”'

raincomon I now lack the juice to fuel the bluster to conceal that I am a simpleton

In Popper's philosophy of science, the concept of verisimilitude plays an important role, or is a technical term.

raincomon Empty S.F. office tower formerly valued at $62M sold for $6.5M

https://archive.is/bfgxC

raincomon Ex-Amazon exec claims she was asked to break copyright law

Actual lawsuit: https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/04/22/ghaderi_v_amazon_et_al.pdf

raincomon Our biggest ever river catch?

Well, lack of "garbage collection infrastructure" better explains what's going on in SE Asia, India. When there is no such infrastructure, where else people dump?

raincomon Americans' new TV habit: Subscribe, watch, cancel, repeat

https://archive.is/ScYur

raincomon Feathers are one of evolution's cleverest inventions

What happens when arm hair get implanted on head? Do they grow like arm hair?

raincomon SCOTUS Declines to Review First Amendment Mass Protest Rights Case

If another circuit court sets an opposite precedent in a similar case, SCOTUS will take the case.

raincomon An FDA approved device offers a new treatment for tinnitus

In a way, this is similar to many meditative techniques.

raincomon The Battle to Define Mental Illness (2010)

Even today, we don’t have a definition of “species”, a definition acceptable to biologists working in this domain. What is needed is a theory, and further development of that theory.

Those who quibble about definitions should develop theories and test them, amend them, replace them. All these activities help understand the phenomenon in the question. When people engage in definitional disputes, it shows that intuitions about the phenomenon conflict. That’s all. To settle these issues, one should do science: that is, develop theories, derive consequences, add back ground theories to test these consequences.

raincomon Multimillion-dollar L.A. heist was seamless, sophisticated, stealthy

https://archive.is/A4nST

raincomon Structuralism as a Philosophy of Mathematics

I think you are onto something. Study mathematical objects and relations among these objects, without bringing in Categoricity. That's what Structuralism in Philosophy of Sciences is: "In the philosophy of science, structuralism[α] (also known as scientific structuralism or as the structuralistic theory-concept) asserts that all aspects of reality are best understood in terms of empirical scientific constructs of entities and their relations, rather than in terms of concrete entities in themselves" [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism_(philosophy_of_s...