Hacker News Reader

chiaroon What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

Another thing not mentioned, which I'd noticed recently after a couple of very poor nights, was feeling very dehydrated. Drinking a lot of water didn't seem to help, and it all went straight through. Some surface level research indicated that it could be a lack of vasopressin, so it makes me wonder if taking a small amount of desmopressin (with sufficient hydration electrolytes) would help take the unpleasant edge off the next day.

chiaroon Mistakes, we’ve drawn a few

Or the classic least norwegian squares method of regression in the WSJ

http://kieranhealy.org/files/misc/laffer.png

chiaroon Australia Wants to Take Government Surveillance to the Next Level

Common law rests heavily on stare decisis. The precedent set in Australian Communist Party v Commonwealth is not likely to be overturned, as far as free political speech and organisation goes.

chiaroon ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/interest-rate

they don't

chiaroon Do We Need Central Banks? (2017)

if ME&S represents the sum of Austrian economics, then it has little hope indeed.

chiaroon Do We Need Central Banks? (2017)

Central banking evolved as a series of hotfixes for various macroeconomic edge-cases. Bank runs is one. Wildly varying inflation rates is another.

chiaroon America’s Misguided War on Childhood Lead Exposures

Another similar epidemic to lead poisoning we've been sleeping on is lithium deficiency. Look at the quantum of improvement on suicide and all kinds of violent crime, including rape and murder per this study[1]. Image of results table:

https://imgur.com/p6p886e

It's hard not to conclude that it's immoral to not chuck lithium in the water supply, if the natural variance is associated with a doubling of murder. The study has been replicated on suicide in Japan[2] and on Dementia in Denmark[3].

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1699579

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19407280

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28832877

chiaroon Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

I've already seen that interview. How people behave behind closed doors is a more trustworthy guide to their sympathies.

chiaroon Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

The leaked emails documenting his correspondence with various alt-right figureheads paints a different picture.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart...

chiaroon [dead]

David Brooks has a good piece of commentary here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/29/opinion/east-germany-immi...

Every few years I try to write a column staking out a reasonable middle ground on immigration. After all, most big, important issues are clashes in which both sides have a piece of the truth.

The case for restricting immigration seems superficially plausible. Over the last several decades we’ve conducted a potentially reckless experiment. The number of foreign-born Americans is at record highs, straining national cohesion, raising distrust. Maybe America should take a pause, as we did in the 1920s. After all, that pause seemed to produce the cohesive America of the 1940s that won the war and rose to pre-eminence.

Every few years I try to write this moderate column. And every few years I fail. That’s because when you wade into the evidence you find that the case for restricting immigration is pathetically weak. The only people who have less actual data on their side are the people who deny climate change.

chiaroon The U.S. will impose duties on solar equipment and washing machines made abroad

It's a matter of proportion. Tariffs are some of the most destructive and distortionary taxes you could implement. The costs will be borne by many, and the benefits, a select few.

chiaroon The U.S. will impose duties on solar equipment and washing machines made abroad

Utterly stupid. Interesting to see if this realignment is a long term thing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open%E2%80%93closed_political_...

chiaroon California has the highest poverty rate in the USA

These groups are there because in California they can capture a larger portion of the effects of trickle-down than in North Carolina, Texas, or New York; and because the state-provided safety net, average people's compassion, and availability of human connections and capital allows them a small, but more meaningful chance of breaking out of the poverty trap.

This is correct. Warm winters is also a significant pull-factor.

chiaroon SAFE Network: a decentralized data storage and communications network

Sounds like the killer app for child pornography.

chiaroon Julian Assange's stay in London embassy untenable, says Ecuador

Since Russia's relevant interests are in destablising the Atlantic alliance and undermining the European Union, elevating the US- and EU-critical Corbyn over more reasonable elements in Labour is exactly what one would expect.

chiaroon Julian Assange's stay in London embassy untenable, says Ecuador

Nah, most substantial leaks in recent years have avoided wikileaks and gone straight to reputable publishers, such as the panama papers team, so as not to be tarnished by perceptions of bias or recklessness.

chiaroon Julian Assange's stay in London embassy untenable, says Ecuador

The reasons why Ecuador took Assange in in the first place no longer make much sense. Under Correa, there were a number of tensions with the US that were looming large in Ecuadorian political landscape following a default in 08. By taking in Assange, Correa could both shore up anti-US sentiments at home that were mounting in criticism over an oil export deal, and get a bargaining chip to boot if he needed it. With Correa out of the picture and China stepping in and propping up exports, this makes little sense, and Assange's value as a bargaining chip is dubious to a Trump admin.

Back when Wikileaks had a better reputation, it also helped affray Correa's attacks on free speech at home. Now that Assange's reputation is in the gutter, he's only a liability to Ecuador.

chiaroon The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

>Educators are completely failing the current generation and are stressed out about 'digital distractions' because they know they can't compete.

This is practically a conspiracy theory. There are definitely old teachers that frown on the value of technology, but this is because they're old, not because they're teachers and somehow have a financial incentive to believe otherwise.

chiaroon In interviews with rapists, student pursues not-so-simple question: why?

>Given that the WaPo article says that many of them had only a third or fourth grade education, this strikes me as possibly just making fun of people with disabilities.

When the topic is rape, you always go into these comments expecting some kind of reflexive criticism or minimisation but this is honestly one of the most bizarre manifestations of that yet.

chiaroon Why Aren’t Any Bankers in Prison for Causing the Financial Crisis? (2016)

None of the troubled firms were horizontally integrated in the way the gs would have prevented.

chiaroon Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion (1869)

As with many topics of dispute, there's a bit of a gap between the prescriptions of advocates and the fears of those who oppose circumscription of hate speech. Most proposed legislation falls in line with Mill's principle, and indeed, general legal precedent over inchoate offenses. For example, the genocide convention to which the US is a signatory takes a Millian perspective on calls to minority persecution that are not effectively legislated in US law.

chiaroon Starbucks’ Wi-Fi Found Using People’s Laptops to Mine Monero

It may at least affray the WiFi costs.

chiaroon Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

The first chapter of Marx' capital directly sets up this inherency by means of his labor theory of value, along these lines.

chiaroon F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

>That is not why this is shocking. This proceeding is shocking because the legal basis for this change is dependent on a false statements about the technology involved. It goes beyond just, "Republicans prefer deregulation," or, "Republicans favor market-based approaches." There is plenty of room and a general need for debates about what policy approaches are best, but there is no room for debate about the answer to technical questions.

Haha. Try working in education or, gasp, environmental science, if you think that the contestability of simple facts is shocking.

chiaroon YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

Without even considering the ethical concerns around directly funding that sort of thing.

chiaroon YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

They have a pretty clear set of guidelines for what counts as controversial. I think they do a good job of circumscribing the worst of what they've been funding up to this point, without being too overreaching.

chiaroon YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

Fantastic news. Though a conspicuous absence is lack of any classification that deranks videos in the search results or recommendations.

Even if it's largely financially motivated, it's still nice to see some kind of assessment of what kind of content they are willing to enable.

chiaroon YouTube monetization analysis

Private people appointed by the company in accordance to CSR principles established by the board of directors.

chiaroon Bitcoin ‘Ought to Be Outlawed,’ Nobel Prize Winner Stiglitz Says

Spot where inflation started to be managed by the central bank:

https://media.ycharts.com/charts/2dd4f9a7b087a1eb6f763d81a97...

chiaroon Bitcoin ‘Ought to Be Outlawed,’ Nobel Prize Winner Stiglitz Says

Intrinsic value has a seperate definition to market price. A bubble is, after all, characterised by a divergence between the two.