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bede

499 karma · joined April 17, 2012

Computational biologist. Oxford, UK https://bede.im b@bede.im
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bede··on Transcribing Piano Rolls, the Pythonic Way
My favourite blog post of 2014. Thank you for sharing.
bede··on Blackmail fail
Prevalence does not imply majority.
bede··on Meta unveils next version of augmented reality glasses for $3k
The site is remarkable, but undoes so much of its developers' hard work through its sluggishness. My maxed-out Haswell 15" hit 9fps during rapid scrolling in Chrome (FPS counted by dev tools).

Hopefully they're less tolerant of poor framerates in their actual product, which sounds very exciting.

bede··on Scientists discover second code hiding in DNA
Thank my university :) ...And perhaps my server, which definitely isn't accustomed to HN traffic.
bede··on Scientists discover second code hiding in DNA
Agreed. The finding is hardly surprising, but this paper appears to formalise things very nicely.
bede··on Dogecoin.org - P2P Cryptocurrency for doges
Doubtless, but my point stands given that most cryptocurrencies use bitcoin-qt forks with only fairly minor modifications.
bede··on Scientists discover second code hiding in DNA
TL;DR for biologists: synonymous codon variation is heavily constrained by the need to maintain transcription factor binding motifs.

While I found the article very interesting as a new postgraduate student, it seems like such a straightforward deduction that I find it difficult to believe no one has ever put it into words until now.

bede··on Scientists discover second code hiding in DNA
http://bede.im/Science-2013-Stergachis-1367-72.pdf
bede··on Dogecoin.org - P2P Cryptocurrency for doges
It's funny that they went to the trouble of releasing a Mac client when even most of the interesting altcoin currencies neglect to do so.
bede··on LiteCoin is Causing Shortages of AMD Radeon GPUs
From selling my 7950s earlier in the week on eBay UK, the going rate appears to be around 35% more than normal (Amazon) retail price. It's quite amusing, although I do feel for those caught in the CrossFire™ (sorry), who simply want a card to play video games.
bede··on Skype backdoor confirmation
Has anyone developed a user friendly encryption layer that works on top of Skype? PGP or otherwise. Skype is useful, and it would be nice to have the option to use it for private conversations.
bede··on Samsung Galaxy S4 – hardware from Samsung with Google’s latest software
Probably, and it would likely cannibalise sales of their pricey 4G tariffs. Although apparently their official line on the N4 is that it 'failed EE's internal testing'.
bede··on Samsung Galaxy S4 – hardware from Samsung with Google’s latest software
Fair, although this is not simply some geeky dev device. Apart from the poor camera, it is a remarkable phone for the money (in some contrast with this S4!) and I suspect that it is primarily Google's lack of marketing that has prevented it from going mainstream. LG has struggled to keep up with demand for these phones as it is.
bede··on Samsung Galaxy S4 – hardware from Samsung with Google’s latest software
This. I'm surprised that it's taken Google this long to get around to it.

I just hope the network operators actually bother to sell these devices... For reasons I fail to comprehend, EE, the largest network in the UK, still refuses to sell the flagship Nexus 4, or indeed any phone that ships with a non-mutilated version of (stock) Android.

Edit: I suppose it's because the device is such good value on the Play Store that EE wouldn't be able to make a worthwhile margin on their contracts while appearing vaguely competitive.

bede··on Show HN: we like to work from coffee shops, so we made this
Me too! I've had a few 'why's there a weird cat sticker on your laptop' comments but it's also generated a handful of double takes / knowing smiles at University, and has sparked several interesting conversations on trains between Manchester and London, in one of which I was offered a job.
bede··on Adobe is going to kill Fireworks
I don't think this comes as a huge surprise to many. There were big hopes for Fireworks after the buyout that never materialised, and while it has seen steady — albeit minor —iteration since, it never ended up inheriting the Photoshop features that I for one hoped it would.

In stark contrast to PS, FW is one of a select few pieces of Adobe creative software that always 'just worked' as I expected. It is a remarkably intuitive tool for many tasks, and it'll be a shame to see it go.

bede··on Show HN: A faster, minimal YouTube interface built on Angular.js and Foundation
I for one feel that YouTube is far better off without comments.
bede··on Facebook just removed the top bar?
I'm sitting in a packed university library and never in my life have I seen so many students look so worried.
bede··on CPanel To Add IPv6 Support in 2013
Oh, hi there! I would have been more gushing in my recommendation but I didn't want to sound like an advert. No the UI isn't brilliant, but at least it's lean and straightforward. I do wish the support forum wasn't so slow and clunky, but otherwise Virtualmin continues to amaze me. It's great to see features like S3 backup trickling down into the GPL version. I can't afford a Pro license (I'm at university), but were you to put up a donations page for GPL users, I'd certainly give a few £.
bede··on CPanel To Add IPv6 Support in 2013
If you're tired of cPanel and looking for a lighter weight alternative, Virtualmin has served me well for the last couple of years and it's had IPv6 support since 2010.

The website doesn't inspire confidence, but the project appears well maintained, and even the GPL version (which I use) is very capable and has so far been rock solid.

http://www.virtualmin.com/

bede··on Pay attention to power law distributions
While I have to agree, 1mg/kg seems to be by far the most commonly prescribed dose at present. Perhaps that will eventually change in light of the recent research you've mentioned.
bede··on Pay attention to power law distributions
You're right to mention the conflicting nature of much of the data available. I quite agree that there is noteworthy evidence both for and against the IBS link, but the fact that IBS lawsuits led Roche to pull the drug off the market in 2009 suggests that there must be some compelling evidence of a link.

It's anecdotally accepted that isotretinoin users have a tendency to avoid reporting depression so as to continue being prescribed the drug. It's common sense – of course there will be underreporting in cases where the reporting will prevent someone being prescribed a drug they wish to take.

bede··on Pay attention to power law distributions
Full 5 month treatment at slightly under 1mg/kg/day (60mg).

A second, unfinished, 10 month treatment aborted after around 7 months at 0.5mg/kg/day (40mg – I'd put on 10kg of muscle). The lower dose was to reduce the almost daily nosebleeds I was experiencing on 1mg/kg/day.

bede··on Pay attention to power law distributions
I'm genuinely happy for you. I know what it's like. When isotretinoin works — and it usually does — it has an amazingly powerful effect on one's self esteem.

Since you took the drug 12 years ago, Roche has been quite aggressive in its marketing of accutane for treating more mild acne – not necessarily as the last resort that you describe. I think it's reasonably well prescribed here in the UK, but I get the impression that it is handed out somewhat too readily in many nations, including even the USA.

bede··on Pay attention to power law distributions
I agree with the point of you are making, but feel the need to question your use of the term 'wonder drug' when describing accutane, also known as isotretinoin. HN readers should know that isotretinoin is a profoundly dangerous chemotherapy drug which was only by coincidence discovered to cure acne. The side effects of isotretinoin can be permanent [1] to the extent that the drug's inventor Hoffman-La Roche stopped selling it in 2009 because it was losing so many lawsuits. Yet the FDA (and all the rest) refuses to withdraw this drug from market. It is a modern pharmaceutical scandal which is still in progress.

If a woman becomes pregnant while taking isotretinoin, her children WILL have birth defects. The drug also causes depression in far more cases than Roche's data suggest. The side effects are as diverse as they are serious – there exist entire forums dedicated to sufferers of this drug's permanent adverse effects.

This drug cures acne like nothing else we know. However, the same poorly understood mechanism that enables it to dry out one's skin also systematically dries one's joints of the hyaluronic acid that is so necessary for their lubrication. Since ceasing my treatment four months ago after researching causes for the cartilage damage in my right kneecap, I have been transformed from a healthy and sport-playing science undergraduate to finding even typing this message uncomfortable because of pains in my fingers. So much that I have taken for granted as a 21 year old has been taken away from me by this drug, and I'm not alone in this. I don't like to overdramatise things, and my situation should improve to some extent given time, but taking this drug is the worst decision I have ever made, and the young, impressionable people who are all-too-readily prescribed this drug must be made more aware of its risks.

Remarkably effective acne cure, yes. Wonderdrug, absolutely not. Calling it one is just disrespectful to those who have killed themselves [2] and whose lives it has damaged [3].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotretinoin#Permanent_side_eff...

[2] http://rense.com/general32/scu.htm

[3] http://jacquelinefox.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/ibs-sufferers-...

bede··on Show HN: Hacking a Raspberry Pi into a wireless airplay speaker
Cool hack. There's real demand for a reasonably priced Airport Express alternative, but it's a shame that the RasPi's DAC isn't up to scratch for HiFi use.

You suggest we follow you on Twitter, yet protect your tweets...

bede··on Monitor mode for Broadcom WiFi Chipsets on rooted Android
A really interesting project – I do hope this makes the front page. Injection would be the icing on the cake.
bede··on Am I An Outlier, Or Are Apple Products No Longer Easy To Use?
Does anyone else feel that OS X has gone downhill since Snow Leopard?

I can sympathise with much if not all of what this guy is saying. My Aunt recently bought a new Mac, not really knowing how to use OS X. I'm pretty familiar with most versions of OS X, but found myself struggling to justify to her the usefulness of quite a lot of the UI mechanics of the OS. What annoyed me the most was that the parts of the OS she found most confusing seemed almost universally to have been introduced since 10.6.

The 10.7+ habit of remembering open windows seemed to flummox my Aunt and continues to irritate me on a daily basis. "But I closed that window, why has it come back?"

Take Mission Control. Exposé was incredibly simple conceptually and worked very well for most people. I don't hate Mission Control, but explaining its workings to my Aunt was somewhat difficult, and I'm still not convinced that it's better than Exposé.

I feel like a lot of the simplicity that originally attracted me to OS X has been convoluted recently. And don't get me started on stability, performance and skeuomorphism...

bede··on Apple Has Removed Airfoil Speakers Touch From The iOS App Store
I don't think anyone is complaining about the theft of the feature here. It's the fact that Apple is leveraging its power as the ecosystem owner to harm the competition.

Everyone expects Apple to call the shots on their own app store to some extent, but it becomes unacceptable when well intentioned and heavily invested developers get screwed over by Apple making anticompetitive exceptions to their own, already volatile, set of rules.

bede··on Microsoft launches so.cl
Next we'll see 'Login in with So.cl with Facebook'.
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