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arrel

465 karma · joined February 5, 2011

Programmer of machines, reader of blogs, lover of math jokes.
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arrel··on Midjourney Medical
This is an ambitious idea, but it’s pretty misleading to lump MRI, CT, and ultrasound into a single “body scan” category. They do different things and explicitly do not serve as replacements for each other.

Inventing new, affordable early detection devices is incredible, but being so misleading in their positioning is going to kill long-term trust in this and other new scanning tech.

arrel··on Statement on US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5
AI 2027 remains annoyingly on schedule. Worth rereading the doc. If you think it’s too long, I listened to the audio version while I walked.

https://ai-2027.com/

arrel··on Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight
N of 1, but I’m stuck in phoenix overnight because our flight was delayed an hour and a half by airbus maintenance and we missed our connection.
arrel··on Show HN: Visualize rotating objects from the 4th, 5th, nth dimensions
Reminds me of 4dtoys, which does a great job introducing you to 4d interactions one step at a time. It’s great! https://4dtoys.com/
arrel··on Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
Here’s the vertical landing scene: https://youtu.be/JuhahPrF7gk
arrel··on YC’s $500k Standard Deal
Didn’t YC already try this with Yuri Milner ten or so years ago? From what I remember they canceled it because it was creating zombie companies, where the founders felt like they couldn’t give up on a bad idea because they still had so much runway.
arrel··on Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?
You could ask for them to make the service free for you until it’s resolved. You’re still locked in, but at least you’re not paying for it.
arrel··on What Working At Stripe Has Been Like
It seems like a lot of people are defending credit card pricing, but the idea that they’ve been charging the same % since before the internet and are still absorbing the same “cost” of fraud protection is absurd.

I would love Stripe to start advocating for lowering credit card fees, either through regulation or providing more avenues for competition.

arrel··on PG and Jessica
Here’s a nice takedown of Plomin’s theory. I’m not a geneticist, but there seem to be a lot of holes in it. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06784-5
arrel··on Why brilliant people lose their touch
To give some context, two to the 100th power is 1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376.

Interesting description here! http://www.freemars.org/jeff/2exp100/answer.htm

arrel··on How Zapier Reached $35M ARR
They mention that these pages were created for every combination of “connect service X to service Y”, which matches twhat people are actually looking for, so I would argue this is a great use of 25K landing pages that are adding value and being rewarded by google for doing so.
arrel··on Physical fighting in high school has dropped ~50% since 1991
Article doesn’t give any clear reasons why. Anyone have more info as to the drivers?
arrel··on Ask HN: What's your favorite way of getting a web app up quickly in 2018?
Guardian has worked great for us for JWT auth
arrel··on Supernova-propelled white dwarf found zooming through Milky Way at 5 million mph
When they say 5 million mph, is that relative to the center of the Milky Way?
arrel··on Launch HN: Necto (YC W18) – ISP Starter Kit
Amazing idea! I'd love it if the site could give some sense of how profitable the business could be, and over what timescale. I don't need specific numbers, just the fundamental expectations for a model: How do I calculate ongoing costs? How many customers does it take to get to breakeven? What's the marginal profit for a customer after that point?

It would be great to see a blog post about how joinnecto.com got off the ground. "Be the savior the Internet needs and start your own ISP" is a good slogan, but "Start a great business and save the Internet in the process" seems even better.

arrel··on Yarn Package Download is down
Which makes me wonder, why do they use their own domain instead of relying on npm?
arrel··on Agens Graph – PostgreSQL Based Graph Database
I would call that "interesting" instead of "pedantic"
arrel··on The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz
The difference is that the roll of a die is random, but the outcome of an election gets more deterministic as it approaches. Election prediction is figuring out what people have already decided they are going to do.
arrel··on Bitcoin Beat the Trough of Sorrow
I would argue that buying a single stock is gambling, but buying into a fund, or taking the time to research and invest in hundreds of stocks, is investing.
arrel··on Bitcoin Beat the Trough of Sorrow
The difference is in expectation of return. In retrospect, bitcoin is a great "investment," but looking at the hundreds of other failed cryptocurrencies it's clear that early buyers of bitcoin got extremely lucky.

It's the same as seed stage startup "investing," which is likewise really gambling, and you either have to diversify heavily, get very lucky, or have the ability to influence the outcome yourself to win in the long run.

arrel··on Bitcoin Beat the Trough of Sorrow
It's tempting to describe bitcoin as "investing", but it's really gambling. I could say I bought $30K in lottery tickets and ended up making a few million off it, but I wouldn't call it investing.

It might sound like semantics, but too many people mistake gambling for investing and end up losing their shirts.

arrel··on Young blood does not reverse aging in old mice, UC Berkeley study finds
> found evidence for tissue rejuvenation in older mice when they are surgically joined to younger mice

That's terrifying.

arrel··on 'Zeno effect' verified: Atoms won't move while you watch
A better title might be "Scientists pause the motion of atoms by blasting them with an imaging laser"
arrel··on Loophole-free Bell test ‘Spooky action at a distance’, no cheating
As a programmer who only vaguely understands QM, the lazy evaluation example is amazing. Any physicists want to confirm its right?
arrel··on YC Research
> We’re not doing this with the goal of helping YC’s startups succeed or adding to our bottom line.

Helping YC startups succeed might not be the primary goal, but it's silly to say the project isn't also aimed to help YC startups. Having access to a top quality research team can absolutely help startups succeed, so this is either disingenuous or surprisingly unimaginative.

arrel··on American Innovation Lies on Weak Foundation?
You're absolutely right. James Surowieki wrote a great (research-based) article on this recently. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/24/the-short-termi...
arrel··on St. Petersburg paradox
You're right! Turns out Wikipedia doesn't need me after all.
arrel··on St. Petersburg paradox
I believe the equation used on the page is wrong. It states projected winnings as 1/2 x $2 + 1/4 * $4 + ... But you only have a 1/4 chance of winning $2, since have the time you get a heads on first flip, you also get a heads on the second flip, meaning you'll win more than $2.

The equation should be: 1/4 x $2 + 1/8 x $4 ...

Still goes to infinity, but at half the pace.

arrel··on Meet the Apple Watch
To sum up: No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
arrel··on Ignoring the amount customers confirm is no security bug according to PayPal
This is the magic if market dynamics. If a business fraudulently takes advantage of this they will not build up a customer base, paypal will shut down their account, and money will be refunded. PayPal is taking most of the risk so that businesses can be flexible and provide a better experience.

It's not a bug, it's the way things should work with more services. PayPal's product may be outdated in many ways, but this is not one of them.

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