Hacker News Reader

Malicianon Problems at Roblox

I found this a very interesting question to ponder. I think the answer is "no," without cheating by having my own memories of myself at 13. Too many things that could accidentally give me away by not matching the vibe properly. The only chance of success would be finding a way to prey on the threat of parental overreaction and being less scary as an actual predator than over-controlling parents.

Malicianon Texts, web searches about abortion have been used to prosecute women

In many parts of Europe she would have had the services and access available & this wouldn't have happened. The US is creating these cases.

Malicianon Parmigiano Reggiano makers embedding tiny trackers in rind to fight cheese fraud

I prize the rind for throwing in ragu to melt down

Malicianon Will the Chinese Civil War End with a Bang or with a Whimper?

I don't have a PhD in south-east asian history and it's not well taught but this doesn't comport with my understanding at all

Isn't fighting China off a core part of their culture/history?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_under_Chinese_rule

Malicianon New York City bans natural gas in new buildings

I didn't know what the big deal was and thought it was silly until I actually lived in a place with a gas stove. Definitely motivated me to cook more. Induction also excellent. I'm not saying I physically can't cook with electric but it's unpleasant

Malicianon YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

Experts should be allowed to weigh in, not office workers and bureaucrats. Where were the aerosol dispersion specialists when the CDC/WHO were preaching "droplet?"

Malicianon I was let go for refusing to deploy a dark pattern

I mean, the enabling principle behind scalping is that demand is more than supply but supply does not increase to match. More people want the tickets than there are tickets, scalping means it's based on cost instead of who you know or how much time you're willing to spend or how lucky you get.

This doesn't just solve scalping, this fixes the lack of supply of tickets which allows scalping to exist

edit: I'm not sure I completely stand by this. There are various good reasons to sell tickets for cheaper than the maximum price you could and still sell out. Still, it's a harder problem to solve than it looks

Malicianon Sugar-sweetened beverage intake and serum testosterone levels in adult males (2018)

I wonder, though, what happens if you investigate the important variables - "up to", "during the rainy season," - maybe the human body can tolerate this for short periods of time, but not 24/7; and pygmies makes me think lower growth hormone / IGF-1, so the impact of the sugar may not be near as bad

Malicianon Media trust hits new low

I enjoy https://crookedtimber.org/! It's indirect and all over the place, but it's opinion from people of a bit of a different political bent. Doesn't feel like the NYT / Daily show style propaganda, is in fact actually progressive made by people with minds and voices

Malicianon The true villain of Disney’s Frozen (2019)

I'm honestly baffled that anyone sees this any other way. It didn't even occur to me as a possibility. The whole betrayal was not just telegraphed, it was directly shown in every aspect of how Hans interacted with Anna.

Malicianon SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

it's a few hundred miles up instead of 22,300. this means that it's not geostationary and you gotta switch your dish between satellites often as they go overhead, but latency is far lower.

Malicianon Talent Is Largely a Myth

Maybe one person has more delicate finger dexterity, or better hearing. Maybe another person is more easily distractable. Of course the genes would not be "a golf gene" or "a harsichord gene" but all of the various factors which go in to being successful could have a genetic component (including practice and discipline.)

Malicianon The war on disinformation is a war on dissent

You are not wrong that there are many people on the Left / spat out by the university ecosystem who have little integrity. The Right is, in my experience, on average worse. In many cases figures on the Right are only amenable to discourse because they are on the losing end and find it personally valuable, not as a matter of principle.

Or, you could say that if the Right were on top, those in the Right who say opposing viewpoints are communism / a fifth column / danger to America / should be suppressed would have the advantage.

Malicianon The war on disinformation is a war on dissent

If you're motivated enough to believe something, you'll find a way to believe it regardless. If there are smart arguments in favor of what you want to believe, you'll go for them. If those don't exist, you'll seek the next best.

Malicianon Who wants to live for ever? Ageing can be cured–and, in part, it soon will be

Feels like this is a totally different topic.

What if: Neuroplasticity allows you to build new base cognitive tools from sensory information, or dump/change existing tools. If you build sufficiently numerous, broad, and adaptive tools when you are young, you will be able to do many, many things when you are older.

Still might have challenges learning new languages, or say to dance if you never learned how to dance at all, at the same rate as a toddler, tho.

Malicianon What if a pill can change your politics or religious beliefs?

Flip side, get fully comfortable with your own beliefs all the way through, and suddenly the pill is no threat at all

Malicianon What if a pill can change your politics or religious beliefs?

I had a really tough time taking MDMA for the first time, much tougher than the last times I took psychedelics. I think it came down to expectations, though.

Malicianon What if a pill can change your politics or religious beliefs?

I really like this answer, because it has a spark that isn't in the groupthink.

What if conditioning is designed to shape someone in a society or circumstances which no longer exist, or if someone realizes that they would like to be part of a different society than they were conditioned for?

There are quite a few ways conditioning can go very wrong, and leave someone frozen in an exceptionally painful state, wedged halfway through a door so to speak, which is good for nobody. It seems like a tool to get them unstuck could be pretty valuable.

Malicianon What if a pill can change your politics or religious beliefs?

I think the scariest thing about MDMA is that it's not really the pill that can do that, the pill is just a shortcut to the type of high-intensity scenario in your brain which can lead to that sort of change. There are plenty of both good and bad other scenarios that could lead to a similar result. Falling in love, meditation, near-death experiences. Where does your brain go when you take the bumpers off?

I think the biggest problem with how many people see MDMA and psychedelics is uncritically accepting the first things that come to mind after taking them, that feel oh-so-true, or that they "give" you insight. It's still you, you're not God, you just have a whole lot more feelings for a bit. (But, depending on what walls you have up intellectually or emotionally, having those feelings take them down for a bit can be very productive.)

Malicianon What if a pill can change your politics or religious beliefs?

I don't think you're likely to get blame shamed for suggesting that opioids (especially heroin!) or crack or meth are likely to lead to a bad time. There are, though, quite a few people who reduce a whole wide range of totally different substances down to the single term "drugs" and portray everybody involved using junkie stereotypes.

I don't mean to say that any substance is completely innocent: in fact, I believe that pretty much any action significant enough to have a positive result can be used in some way to create a negative one. Volatility is dangerous, and drugs often cause volatility. But total reductionism is going to get pushback.

Malicianon FinCEN Files show trillions in tainted dollars flow freely through major banks

This sort of regulatory response has already caused a problem: as a 100% legitimate business, you can already get totally cut off from all banking services if something about you feels potentially dangerous to back-office staff isolated from anyone you can talk to.

Malicianon Dating App Bumble Preparing for $6B-Plus IPO

OP's post says "It avoids turning dating into a second job."

Malicianon ‘Better Yield on 5nm Than 7nm’: TSMC Update on Defect Rates for N5

I love this modern Internet age and the fact I can google for a book and find the author throwing relevant ideas around from one hour ago

https://twitter.com/FuDaoge

Malicianon ‘Better Yield on 5nm Than 7nm’: TSMC Update on Defect Rates for N5

Building relationships with our allies in the area (TPP), State Department diplomacy, etc. to pressure China effectively. I think TPP was dead regardless of who won, but that State is impaired right now.

Malicianon ‘Better Yield on 5nm Than 7nm’: TSMC Update on Defect Rates for N5

https://semiwiki.com/ has a lot of cool stuff on the semiconductor side.

https://www.nextplatform.com/category/hyperscale/ has interesting stuff on uses and development you don't see from a consumer POV

Malicianon Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

They're not really doing much that isn't in the papers they're quoting. Their flaws, of which there are certainly many, stem from the flaws in those papers. That's a rather hard problem to fix, so I have trouble faulting them.

Malicianon Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

Selfhacked doesn't vet or validate very well. Tons of information that makes you feel like everything under the sun is going to solve your issues, but without the extreme evidence required to prove it.

Malicianon Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty

Dunleavy released a 15 page budget proposal which notes that UAF's spending is the sum of the problem: UAA and the community campuses are fine, UAF is way out there. This is actually true; the UAF campus has over 2x the spending per student of the rest of the system.

Unfortunately, his staff doesn't seem to have been educated enough to realize that that spending is on graduate & research programs. Since that's where the money you can effectively cut is, that's what will get cut.

Malicianon Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty

Note that only 9% of rural residents support Dunleavy right now, especially since he is cutting ferry service by 2/3, which will be catastrophic for the many towns which rely on it and are not accessible by road.

http://midnightsunak.com/2019/07/10/poll-dunleavys-approval-...

His reputation is utterly trashed across the whole state right now.

Malicianon Alaska’s Engineering Colleges Prepare to Slash Programs, Lay Off Faculty

http://midnightsunak.com/2019/07/08/dunleavys-already-low-ap...

Dunleavy promised a $6700 dividend without significantly cutting the University or major operations of the ferry system. Now we're talking about homeless shelters closing and old folks losing their monthly pittance. Believe me, people's minds have changed on this very rapidly.