Hacker News Reader

shivenon Apple Autocorrects Names of Some Medications to Names of Different Medications

Why isn’t some abulance chaser on it already?

Seriously, proving loss due to something like this should be not too difficult. There is money to be made here - with the ancillary end result being Apple loses, what little position it has, in the point-of-care market.

shivenon MIT Media Lab's concerns about the cryptocurrency IOTA

Ramblings of a schizophrenic?

http://come-from-beyond.com/about-me/

Or, it is all a part of an elaborate MIT prank!

shivenon I don’t want to be the pink elephant in the room

Damn. This nails it. Ever since my first exposure to computing and “programming”, I always deeply felt it was a great equalizer and meritocracy filter. A field where instead of your skin, the only color that mattered was of the grey in your brain. Where gender was as meaningless as asking androids their sex. Where your “accent” didn’t matter, because code does not have any. Where what you smell of didn’t matter because all anyone smelt was factory-fresh PCBs, come to life with electrons. Where money was a result of smarts, hard work and imagination. It was, and will likely always be my utopia. It may or not exist in the world out there. Maybe it never did. But, it is real to me, somewhere within me and will always be, in some way small or large. DudeBros, CodeJocks and SoftDogs be damned along with PussyPasses and the GoldDiggers.

shivenon Female Congressional Candidate Ends Run After Being Accused of Sexual Harassment

>> Moms, eventhough all the facts suggest otherwise, assume men abuse children more often than women (even though its the opposite).

Do we have any solid, statistical evidence in support of these claims?

shivenon New Model Warns About Crispr Gene Drives in the Wild

Don’t forget that natural, random mutagenesis is a driving force in evolution. Genomes encode factors that are potentially mutagenic as well as genetic repair mechanisms. The complex interplay of such forces is a critical foundation of genetic diversity, hence adaptability and thus evolution.

shivenon Polygon Shredder

Flies on an iPhone 6S!

shivenon A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

Thanks for the pointers on where to start looking. This is helpful.

The modern “factory farming” is not something I care to defend for any intent or purpose. It may as well disappear tomorrow, as far as I am concerned.

However, I still see no argument against deeply caring domestication of a small number/herd of animals, providing them food, shelter and care in exchange for milk or unfertilized eggs. Can’t seem to find a convincing argument against that in my current ethics framework.

shivenon A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

There is more than one question I am asking -

(1). Is there any scientifically sound study proving that the quality of protein from plant sources is equivalent to or better than from dairy products?

(2). Is there any reproducible, quantitative data on leaving milk producing cows to fend for themselves vs caring for them in small -to- mid size "cow caring" setups (farms, one-cow ops etc.)? I ask this because both my maternal and paternal grandparents had 1 to 3 milk producing cows at any given point in time - from what I recall, they were well cared for (food, medicine, weather etc.)

(3). If we, as a species, were to stop consuming dairy products today, or cut consumption by, say 90% over the next year, what would become of the current cow population? How is that better than the current situation for the animals?

I am personally, utterly and deeply biased towards the survive-and-let-survive school of life --- so take what I say colored by my very, very, un-apologetically biased PoV.

shivenon China Busts a $3B Underground Bank

THIS. So much This.

If you don’t like the Chinese playbook, don’t play in China. Your company does not have a right to the Chinese market on your terms - only on their terms. If you disagree, I’ve got a generic HCV drug market you (and Gilead) are going to love.

shivenon A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

And what happens to cows, as a species, a few decades from now?

shivenon I bought a Switch from Nintendo and they threatened me with legal action

Worst seller experience ever. FTFY.

You are not the customer, just a seller. You don’t matter. The “Amazon smile” is for customers only.

shivenon How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

I flipped your and your roommates genders in my head, and was immediately incensed about the continued repression of women in our society - looks the program is working as intended. Um hmm.

shivenon Git git git git git

Why type the singular, "git", so many times? We all know that you mean the plural "gits"!

   alias gits='git status'

shivenon Netflix, Microsoft, and Google just quietly changed how the web works

Netflix would ship their own browser ...

They already do, it browses only Netflix, and they call it an app - at least on all non-general purpose computational devices e.g. smartphones, smart tvs etc.

shivenon Modi Takes a Leap With India’s Biggest-Ever Tax Overhaul

What pain? It's all achche din. Get on with the program bro, drink up the KoolAid now.

shivenon Ask HN: How to not bring emotion from work back home?

I found this book very helpful in approaching some of the things OP talks about.

https://www.amazon.com/Anger-Cooling-Thich-Nhat-Hanh/dp/1573...

Also, check your blood pressure regularly every morning and evening, for a few weeks. You could be non-symptomatically hypertensive (for all sorts of reasons); talk to your doctor if you find your blood pressure consistently on the higher side.

shivenon Show HN: Early-stage Yahoo Pipes spiritual successor

Pipeline Pilot (Biovia/Dassault) - Deeply entrenched, industry-grade visual (+textual(PLSQL)) programming system. Depending on who you ask, it is either the bees-knees or a f*ing cancer.

shivenon Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

you eat pizza, li'l brother. just don't play with my toys, or do anything you like but i don't. sooner or later, i may decide to come by and kick you butt for fun, just don't run. remember, i'm always watching.

shivenon Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

Where are you getting the 99% number? Any proof of that?

shivenon Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

Nationalism, not patriotism. The latter is fine, the former is a bloody cancer.

shivenon Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

WTF has Mozilla to do with any of this?

shivenon How Much Would You Put Up with to Avoid United Airlines?

I just booked a return flight for two and paid a $200 premium to avoid United.

shivenon The fading American dream: Trends in absolute income mobility since 1940

The biggest assumption here is the belief that taking from the rich and giving to the politicians+bureaucrats, i.e. the government, is actually going to help the needy in any meaningful way.

I am too skeptical to trust this assumption. And the current state of democracy in the U.S. does not make me feel too optimistic about the longer term either.

shivenon Building a simple e-ink display from scratch

Competition is good but I kind of prefer genuine competition.

Except in the industries and product areas where IP is being used for land-grabs, rent-collection, little-to-none innovation and roadblocking any and all competition. In those cases (as E-Ink), I am glad there are still places in this world where people can continue to push the envelope and innovate to create better products for our species. IP be damned.

shivenon How I legally got scammed for $250 by an upscale apartment complex

This has "class-action lawsuit" written all over it. Some smart lawyer just needs to double down and get it together.

shivenon A.I. vs. M.D.

A few decades from now, 30 - 50 years at most, doctors and patients, will look back at us and wonder, why we were not using algorithms to assist with diagnosis already.

shivenon German Space Center has constructed the world’s largest artificial Sun

Yes, Deepak Chopra is not an uncommon name.

Source: I'm from a part of India where that first name/last name are very common.

shivenon Launch HN: Sudden Coffee (YC W17) – Instant coffee that doesn't suck

Coffee paraphernalia I use semi-regularly:

- Electric percolator with pre-ground Starbucks light-roast coffee (used to be Intelligentsia Honey Badger, before they souled-out to shitty Peet's).

- IKEA steel french press

- Nespresso (Original - not the supersize American version)

- Hario coffee hand mill for coffee beans (much rarely than before for time-availablity issues)

But, my go-to coffee on many days is the Folgers/Nescafé instant coffee.

If your instant coffee is really better (and I mean really) than what's on the market, and you can maintain consistent quality over time, I am in your target demographic.

Sign me up with a sampler!

shivenon White House rolls back protections for people in default on student loans

I don't think that is true. You can temporarily avoid repaying the loan, but you can never be absolved of it via a bankruptcy declaration (whereas most other loans will effectively disappear). Student loans are repayable as long as you are alive, you can only get a temporary pause in repayment, at most. Hence, the lender is guaranteed repayment as long as the borrower or consigners are alive.

shivenon White House rolls back protections for people in default on student loans

If they don't suffer the consequences of buying a useless degree, why wouldn't they keep doing it?

Why shouldn't the lender also assume part of this risk?

Why is their recoupment guaranteed (student loans can't be dissolved in bankruptcy)?

Why are they always likely to be bailed out (prove me wrong by showing a student loan lender that went into bankruptcy)?

Lenders need to do more due diligence and stop lending to students that are more likely to have problems with payback. The entire liability should not be assumed by the borrowers and co-signers.