Hacker News Reader

matzabon Sex, AI, and the Apocalypse

That's a niche even among people who read fan fiction, which is a niche among people who read long texts online which is a niche among people who read the anglophone internet which is a niche among people who were on the internet when that type of "discourse" was popular which is a niche among people on the internet now.

You can (and probably will) quibble with any one of these but of course this is a niche. Thinking it isn't is commonly what people in a certain bubble end up believing, though.

matzabon Not all 'open source' AI models are open: here's a ranking

There are no family ties. These are two completely different companies.

Axel Springer is the company that bought Politico (and produces rags like Bild in Germany).

Springer Nature is majority owned by Holtzbrinck, a competitor to Axel Springer.

matzabon Study shows N95 masks near-perfect at blocking escape of airborne Covid-19

> then it is only the selfish segment of society that is being protected

But wouldn't that also protect the unselfish?

matzabon Nvidia H100 GPUs: Supply and Demand

It looks like they didn't scroll past the embedded video, so they didn't even get to the table of contents.

>"HN, you can do better"

- indeed.

matzabon Oregon County Sues BP, Chevron, Shell, Exxon for $51B Climate Damages

That's a brilliant excuse: Lie about the effects of emissions, lobby (and pay) Congress to not do anything about it (or change incentives to maybe use less gas rather than more) and then, when you are getting sued, just argue that the lying didn't affect policy, so it was perfectly fine.

matzabon SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

Well, the launch pad survived this one.

matzabon German car makers putting out of the self driving AI-race

And it's not even VW pulling out as a whole since Audi and others have similar programs. This whole thread is weird.

matzabon Tesla fan sites propagate fake news of chip joint venture, but why?

It's obviously right next to Klaus-von-Bayerische-Motorenwerke-Straße.

They didn't even try to seem legit, did they?

matzabon Have we been thinking about inflation all wrong?

inflation is a hidden tax on savings

That's basically Germany's state motto.

matzabon When McDonalds Came to Denmark

Some still do (it's up to the franchisee iirc) but it's not easy to enjoy a beer from one of those McDonald's paper cups.

matzabon Why we picture bombs as round black balls with a burning wick (2016)

...and Germans.

matzabon Life-size camel sculptures in Saudi Arabia are older than Stonehenge, pyramids

The NYT article they link to in the first paragraph does a good job providing that exact thing:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/science/camels-sculptures...

matzabon A Single Fire Killed at Least 10% of the World's Giant Sequoias, Study Says

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-16/sequoia-...

And it's happening again as we speak.

matzabon Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

Deutschlandfunk alone is worth it imho

matzabon Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

According to TFA (a few paragraphs above your quotes, even) we won't stay at 1.5 degrees.

matzabon On Apple’s “Expanded Protections for Children” – A Personal Story

This is definitely one of those topics where going public can have immediate negative consequences for someone even if it turns out to have been a false positive.

matzabon U.S. Population Growth, an Economic Driver, Grinds to a Halt

The corollary is, that opposition to birth control while ignoring all the other factors you mentioned plays a huge role here - to the detriment of those involved, I would argue.

matzabon NASA investigates renaming James Webb telescope after anti-LGBT+ claims

Refraining from honoring someone is not the same as erasing them.

matzabon Sub-zero water splitting marks a new dawn for solar hydrogen production

This is explicitly aimed at producing energy in cold environments (high altitude, polar regions), so it's less of an issue (and not exactly the point). Anyway, they seem to aim at 12% STH efficiency and provide some examples (assuming 65% hydrogen fuel cell efficiency):

Then, powering a Raspberry Pi computing device (PRPi = 4W) for an autonomous measurement device year-round at the > Neumayer III station (70.68°S, 8.27°W, Tavg,y = −15.5 °C) would prospectively require a module area of 0.41 m2, whereas at Paranal observatory (Chile, 24.63°S, 70.40°W, Tavg,y = 0.4 °C) 0.18 m2 would suffice.

matzabon The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

Honestly, reading comments like these and articles like the OP has convinced me that we, as humans, will not at all be prepared for the next pandemic. And the one after that.

These viruses and their potential recombinations are out there, we don't need some virologist to go out and maybe catch it. People will catch them, we'll just know even less about them when the next pandemic starts.

matzabon HashCow, BTC.TOP have halted China operations after Beijing crackdown on Bitcoin

As always when there is hype, there will be an equal (or even larger) and opposite counter-hype.

Both are rather tiresome.

matzabon Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

I'd say that also counts as "using it".

matzabon The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

That's such a mischaracterisation, I don't even know where to start. That Quay-guy obviously searched for "furin" on pubmed, found some papers (that don't even say that - and most definitely not for any coronaviruses) and thought it fit his thesis. If only viruses and infections were that simple!

matzabon UK finds 30 blood clot cases after AstraZeneca jab

You mean higher? This is not about "normal" blood clots. This is about cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, sometimes in conjunction with thrombocytopenia.

matzabon UK finds 30 blood clot cases after AstraZeneca jab

In Germany incidence of CVST is around .3-.5/100,000 per year. (Higher in women under 50; some undiagnosed cases probably notwithstanding)

Vaxzevira (the A-Z vaccine) has been in use for less than 3 months, ~2.2M doses have been given, resulting in 31 cases. So, worst case, you would have expected around 5 cases at this time.

(Edit: changed acronym to English version, instead of the German one)

matzabon Europe's Vaccine Disaster

A significant part of the vaccines the UK has administered were produced in EU factories. Now that the EU tries to do the same as countries like the UK and the US do - not exporting - they are bullies? Right.

matzabon Bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2°C: study from 2018

Why?

matzabon Bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2°C: study from 2018

This was a Comment (dated October 2018), not a paper.

matzabon Judge blocks Assange extradition to US

This is the full decision (PDF):

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/USA-v-As...

matzabon In Pictures: How much plastic are you eating?

They show the helmet design they are referring to in the gallery below (it's from the caption of the helmet picture on the Reuters site). It's obviously not the kind of helmet you'd fight a structural fire with.