Hacker News Reader

et2oon My Bosses at McKinsey Made Us Get on 2 A.m. Zoom Calls

I was thinking exactly this. They get all kinds of perks at McKinsey, I just get dumped on by everyone. We don’t get retirement benefits, travel expenses, anything that is standard in corporate America and we have essentially no freedom to switch teams or move between specialties etc. like they do in the corporate world. Not to mention their salaries go up dramatically in 1-2 years of training. They would easily be making 5x what we make in a few years.

Not that they have it great, but I just have difficulty feeling too much empathy.

Ok, I’m going to go back to trying not to kill anyone today.

et2oon High-powered motorcycle vibrations might impact iPhone camera

This would destroy an already distressed and shrinking industry. EV motorcycles are comparatively very expensive and with limited range. None of the major manufacturers outside of Harley Davidson have commercialized an electric motorcycle yet. Furthermore, given the relative scarcity and lower miles traveled of motorcycles, banning ICE bikes would have limited environmental effect.

et2oon An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany

Plumbers in NYC can make >200k

et2oon Ask HN: Where can I live off 1k USD per month?

Off in one direction or just randomly?

et2oon Hash collision in Apple NeuralHash model

I don’t have much of an opinion here except that it is silly to write “I am aware of the details” when someone gives you a helpful explanation and you are obviously not aware of the details, as you had just asked a question betraying.

et2oon The bug which lost more than $600M in various cryptocurrencies a few hours ago

This is perhaps the most confusing element of it all, to me. I can hardly imagine a legitimate reason to do this. Defeats entirely the purpose of a hash.

et2oon The Era of Cheap Natural Gas Ends as Prices Surge by 1000%

https://www.fuelly.com/car/ford/f-350_super_duty/2021?engine...

Not sure about that

et2oon The Era of Cheap Natural Gas Ends as Prices Surge by 1000%

The EPA does not even produce fuel economy estimates for vehicles as large as the F-350, but data I can find gives about 13-14 mpg in real world use, perhaps about 20 mpg on the highway in ideal circumstances. Meanwhile the 2021 Outback (which is not particularly fuel efficient) is EPA rated at 26 city/33 highway, which is significantly better.

et2oon Some iOS versions refuse to show ‘69’ as the temperature in iPhone Weather app

If they are intentionally not displaying 69 to avoid a childish joke, that is dumb.

et2oon Temozolomide Is Explosive

Metastatic melanoma? I haven’t seen any data showing close to 50% survival rate, where are you looking? Just managed a young patient with metastatic melanoma and very poor prognosis.

et2oon Student designs device that stops blood loss from stab wounds

Totally, that’s an even better idea probably.

et2oon Student designs device that stops blood loss from stab wounds

Totally. We use hand pumps for angioplasty, similar idea (but much smaller and higher pressure balloon).

et2oon Student designs device that stops blood loss from stab wounds

This is a actually a pretty good idea. Later on the maybe can impregnate the balloon with helpful molecules… I’m struggling to think right now what would be most appropriate. Pro-thrombotic molecules might work but might also have negatives (eg clot adhesion).

One comment said charging is a big downside; I don’t really agree. It could just as easily be corded or hand-powered. We use hand powered balloons all the time (eg in angioplasty), admittedly not as large but also likely at far higher pressures than would be required for simple hemostasis.

The (potentially very big) problem is that wounds are not always circular or even ovoid like a balloon might be. With gauze you can pack down into whatever shape you are presented with and fill the space, causing hemostasis. With a ballon, you probably cannot. That difference could actually be very important. Think of it as the space-filling resolution of the technique. It also doesn’t take that long to pack a wound, so I don’t think that is a huge advantage with this device.

et2oon Peter Thiel turned a Roth IRA into a $5B tax-free piggy bank

Stock buybacks aren’t capital gains, until the stock is eventually sold to trigger the capital gains event. More recently, we have seen that wealthy people just never sell the stock and take out low interest loans against it, effectively paying a tax ratr of just a few %.

et2oon As Gun Ownership Rises in the United States, Black Imagery Shifts

Well, this certainly transcends traditional liberal vs. conservative dogmas.

et2oon Urine test can detect brain tumors with 100% accuracy

This is nearly certain to be oversold. The etiology and composition of brain tumors is highly diverse; they don’t all share the same biology and the study design here (100 “CNS tumors” vs. “normal” individuals) leaves a lot to be desired. It’s not clear to me if they also are basically using the same testing and training dataset or not.

Even the headline here (100% accuracy) is inaccurate; it had 100% sensitivity). The list of cancer bio markers which have turned out not to work for screening is quite extensive.

That said, the most interesting thing here is the microRNA capture technology. If it can be scaled, it might be interesting.

et2oon How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

This wasn’t “shady,” this was essentially a sting operation where they eventually seized 90 million dollars in cash and arrested over 100 people. Not bad. The bigger result was that it poisoned trust of banks by there kinds of criminals.

et2oon Study: Mammals Can 'Breathe' Through Their Butts

Interesting to think about how PFD might be used to deliver oxygen in humans, but not sure there is a use case when we have ECMO

et2oon Enigma: GPT-2 trained on 10K Nature Papers: Can you spot the difference?

I just got 10/10. This is not particularly difficult yet.

et2oon A new era of personalised medicine: or how I got myself sequenced for free

Not that serious

et2oon Tesla Model 3 Owners Are the Happiest Car Owners, According to Consumer Reports

A comparable Porsche to any of the Tesla models is a lot more though. Probably 2x as much, if you compare the Taycan to the Model S.

et2oon Berkshire Hathaway’s stock price is too high for Nasdaq computers

People were doing exactly that (well, mutual funds), which is why Buffet started selling BRK.B shares.

et2oon The EMA Covid-19 data leak, and what it tells us about mRNA instability

Don’t get the vaccine then, because you are getting small pieces of mRNA.

et2oon The EMA Covid-19 data leak, and what it tells us about mRNA instability

Encode smaller bits of the same protein? Who cares.

Otherwise, the mRNAs aren’t present in high enough quantities to do significant signaling or silencing things, and it’s going in the deltoid... not really a medically interesting place. You could inject 1mL of dilute HCl there and it wouldn’t be a big problem.

et2oon The Joy of Fuck-You Money (2018)

I’ll take your word for it. I can think of many fulfilling things I’d rather be doing if I didn’t have to work everyday.

et2oon A man who saves forgotten cats in Fukushima's nuclear zone

The biggest issue with nuclear power isn’t the acute risks of radiation from meltdown, in my opinion, but more the management of the waste which will remain radioactive and highly dangerous for millennia.

et2oon A man who saves forgotten cats in Fukushima's nuclear zone

This is like a Murakami story

et2oon Tesla is shifting from nickel to iron cathode on standard range car's batteries

It is obvious that "refuel times affect daily range." The question is whether slower "refuel" times on long trips are a net negative to ownership of an electric vehicle. Most people would say no.

It’s not exactly 1:1 equivalent because maybe long drive waits are more costly than frequent short gas stop visits and waits when you aren’t on a long road trip

As I said...

> It’s not exactly 1:1 equivalent because maybe long drive waits are more costly than frequent short gas stop visits and waits when you aren’t on a long road trip

Your comments have been quite low quality, I think kind of emblematic of how Hacker News has declined throughout the years. It's very easy to be contrarian if you can pick upon a thread, but as far as I remember HN guidelines discourage that.

I'm sure you have not formally crossed Amy HN guidelines, but it kind of sucks just seeing the current state of discourse (eg you) here compared to what it used to be.

Finally - I’d add that “refuel” times DO NOT affect daily range for an electric vehicle. You refuel at home, while you’re asleep. It’s irrelevant in those circumstances.

et2oon Tesla is shifting from nickel to iron cathode on standard range car's batteries

Did you read the rest of my comment? Quite an uncharitable response. I address exactly that...

I still think EVs are okay for a family that does a lot of road trips. You are describing... me. I routinely make a ~12 hour drive. We take a bit of a break every few hours to walk around and play with the dog. The rest of the time, car drives itself.

Hacker News is really getting worse. Taking me out of context by quoting the first line of my comment and ignoring the rest (where I specifically address your comment) is inappropriate. We are better than this.

et2oon Tesla is shifting from nickel to iron cathode on standard range car's batteries

Tesla has superchargers exactly for situations like this. Lots of people do this trip (or longer ones) all the time in Teslas.

Anticipating your next complaint (“It takes so much longer to recharge!”) - You also save a lot of time by charging at home and never having to stop at a gas station. Overall, I think you save time because of this. It’s not exactly 1:1 equivalent because maybe long drive waits are more costly than frequent short gas stop visits and waits when you aren’t on a long road trip , but it’s really not the end of the world. Gives you some time to stretch your legs.