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blompa

64 karma · joined October 25, 2019

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blompa··on Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert
I came here to say exactly this. I found this article[0] here a few months ago on HN and it dramatically changed my life for the better. I had always thought I was just "easily distracted" and a "natural procrastinator", when in reality I actually had ADHD.

Now that I am medicated and it is mind-blowing how my life has changed. I can hold more than one thought in my head at a time, I can get back on track to what I was doing before without forgetting what I was doing, I don't sleep in until 10am anymore and I don't binge eat anymore. Consequently my self-esteem has improved dramatically too.

[0] https://gekk.info/articles/adhd.html

blompa··on Bosch develops rapid test for Covid-19
This article [0] suggests that false negative results will not be as problematic if we manage to start screening on a population level.

Inaccuracy of up to 15% could still keep the viral R0 under 1.0 (the critical value for eliminating an epidemic).

From the article:

> "False negative rates up to 15% could be tolerated if 80% comply with testing, and false positives can be almost arbitrarily high when a high fraction of the population is already effectively quarantined"

https://medium.com/@sten.linnarsson/to-stop-covid-19-test-ev...

blompa··on Bosch develops rapid test for Covid-19
The thing is though, the current PCR-based tests can be parallelised, with hundreds being run at the same time, taking just a couple of hours.

The biggest waiting time comes from logistics with transportation to the labs, which is where the Bosch test is advantageous.

blompa··on Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?
Interesting, thank you for the link.
blompa··on Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?
Although the rest of what you say is true, it's actually a myth[0] that all Tasmanian Aboriginals were killed off (something that Tasmanian Aboriginals find frustrating in itself).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tasmanians

blompa··on Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
Thank you for linking that report, very interesting.

I also read through the article[0] that the report linked. I think a significant factor in the difference in risk is how much contact tampons are making with the vaginal canal vs menstrual cups; the article mentions that the risk is higher if the cup is allowed to overflow (and the toxins from within the cup make contact with the vaginal canal).

So I suppose that even though the cup can be left inside for longer than a tampon can, that (as advised) it should definitely not be left inside for longer than necessary.

[0] https://aem.asm.org/content/84/12/e00351-18.full

blompa··on Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
As an alternative to "2nd/3rd" or "developing" countries, I really like the "Four Levels of Global Income" model[0] that Hans Rosling put forth in his book Factfulness[1] (a must-read IMO).

It gives a much clearer perspective on how people live (and as you mentioned, how similarly people live across the world amongst the same income levels)

[0]: https://www.gapminder.org/topics/four-income-levels/ [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Factfulness-Reasons-World-Things-Bett...

blompa··on Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
Menstrual cups are a step up from this!

They produce much less waste, are much less messy (almost never leak), and don't need to be changed as often (once every 6 - 12 hours and without the TSS risks that tampons have).

It's better to use running water to wash them out, but simply wiping them with tissue paper can work too (albeit a little messily), if water is scarce.

A downside that I've read about however is that just like with tampons, some cultures consider inserting anything into the vagina as losing your virginity so using them may be considered taboo.

blompa··on Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates
Here is a video of a sulphur-crested cockatoo, very determinedly pushing a brick off a rubbish bin in order to be able to access its contents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOpFZYVpezI

It's quite incredible to me, the way it seems to understand the physics of the brick quite well.

blompa··on The Swedish phoneme notorious for having a dedicated IPA symbol, /ɧ/ (2016)
I usually use the analogy that a Swede pronouncing "cheap" as "sheep" is equivalent to English speakers pronouncing "skjuta" as "tjuta".

As a native English speaker, it took me a while to hear the difference between Swedish "tj" and "sj" (at least the way it's pronounced in Northern Swedish, like "schhh").

blompa··on The Swedish phoneme notorious for having a dedicated IPA symbol, /ɧ/ (2016)
Masculine and feminine have merged into 'common'/'utrum', used mostly for animate objects as pointed out by a sibling comment, although not all animate objects (e.g. barn, lejon).

Neuter has stayed as is.

There are, however, remnants of the masculine/feminine distinction left: e.g. klockan is ofter referred to as feminine (hon), and the "-e" in "storebror" (as opposed to "-a" which is used for utrum today and feminine in the past).

blompa··on The Swedish phoneme notorious for having a dedicated IPA symbol, /ɧ/ (2016)
The 'wh' sound /ʍ/ isn't the same as the Swedish 'sj' sound /ɧ/, but depending on the realisation (like how it's pronounced Stockholm) it can sound fairly similar. The 'sj' sound is more fricative.

Also, some English dialects (such as those in Ireland and Scotland) definitely still pronounce 'wh' that way, I refer to the following article for an overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_%E2%9...

blompa··on First electric ute engineered in Australia for use in mining and agribusiness
Also ironically, the mining sector is also the driving factor behind a lot of renewable energy innovation projects in Australia. Since mining usually takes place in the middle of nowhere, utilising the sun/wind for energy makes things easier than having to transport fossil fuels long distances.

https://arena.gov.au/projects/agnew-renewable-energy-microgr...