Hacker News Reader

johnny313on Request for Startups: Climate Tech

This company is working on hydrogen powered ultra-class trucks: https://firstmode.com/

johnny313on Slab City reaches its boiling point

I visited Slab City and the Salton sea with my family on a day trip from LA. It was a memorable experience, and I would recommend to anyone who is interested. We were inspired by this travelog [0], the history of the area is a cautionary tale.

[0] http://www.wanderingboozebag.com/salton-sea-road-trip-itiner...

johnny313on Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

I found this discussion of unenumerated rights [0] to be helpful in explaining how a right to privacy was derived from the US constitution, and how difficult it is to establish a "test" for unenumerated rights.

[The Griswold case] says the penumbras around the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendment create a right to privacy. So what they're getting at — a penumbra is just a shadow, right? — is that these textual provisions cast these shadows. And those shadows, which all contain this notion of privacy overlap with each other such that they coalesce into a right in its own right, so that the right to privacy under which the right to contraception is protected is derived from the shadows of actual textual provisions.

Very disconcerting that the rights to contraception, same sex marriage, and consensual adult sexual relationships are up for debate because they are not explicitly enumerated in the constitution.

[0] https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/05/31/the-fragility-of-une...

johnny313on On leaving Mapbox after 12 years

> Here’s some advice as a jaded start-up veteran: business models and investment terms are kind of the only thing that matter. Even if you’re a lowly designer or engineer, you must understand what your company needs to do to be sustainable.

This is a key observation. Every incredible team and inspirational idea eventually has to make the unit economics work. The longer it takes for a leadership team to realize this and prioritize it, the more difficult it is for people (ICs and managers) to internalize the changes that need to be made. Worst of all is when the shift happens because runway is getting short, and "get rich quick" projects become the focus instead of building a good product.

> ...you must understand what your company needs to do to be sustainable. It very likely is different from what they’re doing now, and may come with unexpected ethical compromises.

This sounds like a difficult situation, but is certainly something people should think about. Things can get weird when a company is running out of money.

johnny313on Death Clock

This reminds me of momento mori, a philosophical / artistic practice of remembering your own death [0].

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

johnny313on 'We All Quit': How America’s Workers Are Taking Back Their Power

Looks like there was a broad investigation into this in 2018: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/07/09/11-st...

johnny313on Images of the the samples returned to earth from the asteroid Ryugu

Meteorite samples are far from perfect surrogates for asteroids, though. They experience extreme pressures and lose a great deal of their bulk when falling through Earth’s atmosphere. Once they land, they pick up contaminants from the terrestrial environment that are hard to distinguish from native substances. Pristine samples from an asteroid might not only answer questions about the origins of life’s chirality but also offer clues about how water ended up on Earth. One hypothesis suggests that asteroids, which contain some water, may have also seeded it onto our home planet during collisions (Science 2014, DOI: 10.1126/science.1261952). [0]

[0] https://cen.acs.org/physical-chemistry/astrochemistry/tale-2...

johnny313on Ask HN: Do kids drag your career down?

In my experience, you have to be more proactive in marketing yourself and your work. I have worked from home for seven years, picking up my three kids every day at 3pm.

It feels like you are always falling behind. But overall, I have found myself doing okay relative to my peers, while cultivating a solid family schedule and focus. Everyone is different, but the times I have lost out in office politics are far outweighed by the other things in my life.

johnny313on Ask HN: What were the best science fiction books that you read in 2019?

"The Black God's Drums" by P. Djeli Clark was a great novella.

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Gods-Drums-Dj%C3%A8l%C3%AD-Clar...

johnny313on Greyhound offers free bus tickets home to runaway kids

I worked under the table at a tannery from 15-18. Did not realize at the time that my employer was not providing me with proper protective gear, breaks, or training. In retrospect, $12/hr was not worth the exposure to toxic chemicals and unsafe working conditions.

johnny313on Paul Graham: don’t hire anyone with children

Is the willingness to make work the most important thing in one's life really this important?

johnny313on Two standard alcoholic drinks a day no longer safe, health officials say

Same. I struggle to imagine the "good" version of meth.

johnny313on New approaches shed light on the magnitude of sex differences in personality

The author gets at the ecological fallacy [0] several times - the idea that group characteristics are not always useful for prediction of individual characteristics.

I wonder how much of the heat in this conversation generally comes from the assumption that group level tendencies are prescriptive to individuals, though in reality individuals can display a high level of variance within the group.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy

johnny313on Ask HN: What are you thankful for?

My wife, 3 kids, and a loving community of friends. Sometimes hard to remember how important these people are during the ups and downs of regular life.

johnny313on PG&E may cut power to 850k California customers this weekend due to fire risk

Explanation from PG&E: https://www.pgecurrents.com/2019/10/25/forecasts-indicate-po...

johnny313on Ask HN: Parents of HN, what are your best sources for evidence-based parenting?

I have three kids: 4,6, and 8. We read a lot of books when our oldest was born...and learned that most advice is not based on much. Each of our kids is very different, stratiges that worked well with one failed completely with another. We have consistently adapted our approach with a focus on maintaining trust and teaching our "family rule" to be kind to yourself and others. It's hard work.

johnny313on Socialist Rifle Association

same for me, I went to the wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Rifle_Association

johnny313on Menstruation Apps Are Sharing Users' Data

There are a lot of reasons, including as an indicator of overall health.

> “Changes to your cycle, or abnormalities—like irregular or heavy bleeding, or severe pain—can all signal issues that benefit from medical evaluation,” says Rashmi Kudesia, MD, reproductive endocrinologist and clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Houston Methodist. “If something suddenly changes with your cycle, or your period is late, you may not realize it right away it if you’re not keeping track.”

> If you do keep track, it will be easier to head to your gynecologist if funky stuff starts happening—and easier for them to find out what's going on. Dr. Kudesia also mentions tracking your cycle can be helpful in pinpointing your fertility window and making small lifestyle changes around the time of your period (scheduling extra downtime to combat your low energy, or being mindful of your eating habits when your cravings are in full swing). [0]

[0] https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/g26787041/best-period...

johnny313on Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?

No one is thinking about you as much as you are. At the end of the day, people are reacting to their own feelings, values, and ideas as much or more as they are to anything you said. Taking yourself out of the debate - no matter how personal it feels - is always a good first step.

johnny313on Forget Silicon Valley, It Still Pays More to Be a Doctor in America

Maybe a better source for physician salaries: https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/2019-compensation-overvie...

johnny313on The Vietnam War Was Already Lost, but I Had to Go Anyway

I volunteered at 18 just after 9-11, reached the same conclusion pretty quickly...

I fear the US political establishment learned the wrong lesson from Viet Nam. Avoiding the social costs (like the draft) to our current military engagements overseas has allowed the US to be indefinitely at war for 18 years.

johnny313on A giant whiteboard for $14 plus nails

I can't tell if this is serious or not...I love it.

johnny313on Why Our Postwar “Long Peace” Is Fragile (2018)

WWII was the last attempt to capture the wealth of developed nations by invading them.

The Gulf War [0] seems like a much more recent (1990-91) example of this - Iraq invaded Kuwait, taking control of their oil fields and deep water ports.

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

johnny313on Why Our Postwar “Long Peace” Is Fragile (2018)

The irony is that our nation (I am an American) has been at war for over a decade, but much of our society has not. I am a staunch advocate for peaceful conflict resolution, informed in part by my experiences in the war in Iraq. If a larger part of our society had been actively involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (serving in the military, having a loved one deploy for months/years, paying higher taxes to support the war, etc), I wonder if our nation would be more wary of a force-first approach to foreign policy.

johnny313on America Is Regressing into a Developing Nation for Most People

The title may be a bit overstated, but I think the separation between low income working class people and those in more high paying professional jobs is pretty real. I grew up in a rural area, paid for college by serving in the military, then hustled my way into tech (like lots of others). Very few of my friends from high school or the military have had similar luck getting a stable job. When I talk to my current tech coworkers about anything that was very normal as a child (hunting, owning guns, working 20-30hrs a week after school, etc) - its like we are from different planets.

This was on PBS a while back, I think it gets at some of the differences pretty well: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/do-you-live-in-a-bubble...

johnny313on Al-Maʿarri

More in-depth story on Al-Qaeda’s attempt to erase Al-Ma'arri's legacy: https://www.aljumhuriya.net/en/content/al-qaeda%E2%80%99s-wa...

johnny313on African Vernacular Architecture Database (2015)

This reminds me of some of the work Google is doing to build more representative image datasets for machine learning model development [0]. What a great resource!

[0] https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/09/introducing-inclusive-imag...

johnny313on Privacy Policies Are an Incomprehensible Disaster

This really raises the question of what it means to "consent" to something. If you don't actually understand what you are consenting too, is it legally binding?

johnny313on 1060-hour image of the Large Magellanic Cloud captured by amateur astronomers

I love that this was done by five amateur astronomers. Here is a description of the group and their set up: http://www.cielaustral.com

johnny313on Zuckerberg’s Rules Would Hurt Everyone but Facebook

This seems like an attempt at classic regulatory capture.

"Regulatory capture is a form of government failure which occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating." [0]

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