Hacker News Reader

80mphon The answer to California's housing crisis is more housing

Not too long ago during the Camp/Paradise fires, just about everyone in northern CA was breathing a toxic cloud of burnt drywall, cars, chemicals, etc. for over a week. Think of the millions of gallons of water wasted, flame retardants dumped, and carbon emissions created. Californians need to live in denser construction near jobs. No more sprawling, low-level construction where fires can easily spread and jump from one building to the next.

80mphon Amazon ‘flooded by fake five-star reviews’ – report

I've also heard many good things about Labdoor. I only use ConsumerLab because I've been a member for years.

80mphon Amazon ‘flooded by fake five-star reviews’ – report

I've switched to Vitacost for my supplements, and am very satisfied. I'm in CA, and they have a warehouse in NV, so I often get my stuff within 48 hours. They have a decent selection, and frequently offer promo codes. Currently, some promo codes can even be combined, although that might not last much longer.

I should add, I don't rely on Vitacost reviews either. I use ConsumerLab to narrow down my choices.

80mphon Dieter Rams designed products to last, is horrified how we throw things away

I'm very reluctant to give up my 2014 MacBook Pro Retina. I've used it every day for 5+ years, and it still has the original battery. The only reason why I've been checking out recent models is that I don't want to lose the headphone jack.

80mphon Women: Learn to Program This Summer

What are your thoughts on this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16465762

Posted by a user with a female name & received substantial feedback.

80mphon Melatonin's Effect on Skin and Hair

Fascinating, thanks for that link. I had never heard of the "anticholinergic cognitive burden scale".

http://www.miltonkeynesccg.nhs.uk/resources/uploads/ACB_scal...

80mphon Ask HN: Does the world need another RSS aggregator?

>one that gives me an alert if one of my selected keywords appears in one of my feeds

Inoreader does this, although it requires a paid subscription.

https://blog.inoreader.com/2015/03/inoreader-how-to-save-tim...

80mphon Munchery Shuts Down

Munchery provided nutritional and caloric info for all their dishes. Their portion sizes were decent, and the food was tasty. If you're counting calories and hate to cook, it was not a bad option.

80mphon Amazon Ruined Online Shopping

This is my 1st time trying it. I want the authentic Yorkshire Gold, made for UK flavor standards, not one re-formulated for American taste buds (as some of the reviews allege).

80mphon Amazon Ruined Online Shopping

I recently went down the rabbit hole of trying to buy Yorkshire Gold tea on Amazon (I am in the US). I encountered so many bad reviews of users complaining about the quality, and the flavor being weakened, or not the authentic YG flavor, that I gave up. It was impossible to tell to which seller each bad review was attributable.

I went on Ebay, found decent UK sellers in less than 5 minutes, and ordered my tea. Downside of course, is that it will take 2-3 weeks to get here, but at least I know what I'm getting.

80mphon Exploring San Jose's abandoned mental asylum

https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/aekw67/exploring_s...

80mphon Ranking Vegetables by How Healthy They Are

Cooking spinach degrades the antioxidant lutein.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181221123810.h...

80mphon Ask HN: Is moving to SV/SF Bay Area still worth it?

In the Bay area, "roommate" is generally used to refer to someone you share an apartment (flat) with.

80mphon Ask HN: Is moving to SV/SF Bay Area still worth it?

Stanford is in Palo Alto, where rent-controlled apartments are pretty much non-existent.

I wouldn't advise an SF->PA commute to a newcomer. You'd have to restrict your housing search to sites within a reasonable walking/biking distance to the Caltrain. Much easier to just focus on something that's within a reasonable walking/biking distance of Stanford.

80mphon Doctors Are Fed Up with Being Turned into Debt Collectors

The VA is seriously broken. Just look at how poorly they treat mental health care [1].

What's the point of having access to world class facilities during combat, if you're just left to fend for yourself when you return home?

[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5563010/

80mphon China can apparently now identify citizens based on the way they walk

Anyone who's heavily near-sighted knows this technique. In college, my dorm bathroom was quite a distance from my room. At night, I would remove my contact lenses, and upon returning I would always identify certain people by their style of walking, or their posture.

80mphon Ask HN: As a Software Engineer how can I help in colonizing mars?

>Why bother colonizing Mars at all? The place is worse than a dump.

Well, to play devil's advocate, if you know that there's likely to be a WWIII (or other catastrophe) that wipes out all life, establishing a sustaining base on Mars is the best way to ensure the return of human civilization.[1]

[1] The whole talk is worth a listen, but he talks specifically about this starting at 7:20: https://youtu.be/B-Osn1gMNtw

80mphon Help Wanted: America’s love affair with amateur advice

>I did therapy with a military chaplain. I had a really positive experience there. He wasn't being paid by me to deal with me. He was on salary. If I got better, that had no bearing on how much he made.

Actually, military chaplains do have a conflict of interest. They have to be endorsed by a religious organization, and said endorsement must be maintained throughout the chaplain's military service and can be withdrawn at any time for religious or disciplinary reasons. If they're not consistent with the teachings of their denomination, they stand to lose their military benefits and a pension.

80mphon A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

I would say no. Reading involves more use of one's imagination. Certainly, there are books that can easily put me to sleep after a few sentences. But when I'm reading my favorite genre (mysteries), my imagination is constantly at work. I cast the characters in my head using real-life actors and actresses, and a movie begins playing in my mind. That's the power of a good author.