Hacker News Reader

smileypeteon California’s Wildfire Policy Backfired (2019)

Protection of housing from wildfires is somewhat a solved problem thanks to the pioneering research of Jack Cohen, and this excellent episode of the 99% Invisible podcast is well worth a listen:

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-to-burn/

There's plenty of youtube vidoes featuring his research too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL_syp1ZScM

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jack+cohen+wild...

Perhaps a good way to encourage the work to be done is through the offering of lower insurance premiums for housing so protected.

smileypeteon American Airlines bans masks with exhaust valves and vents

>no, that's exactly the misunderstanding that leads to such security theater. distance does nearly all the work. a mask adds marginal benefit when distancing.

FWIW...

'Yuen Kwok-yung, a professor of infectious disease at the University of Hong Kong, has advised his government that all social distancing can be relaxed – but only if people wear masks in enclosed spaces such as on trains and at work, and that no food or drink are consumed at concerts and cinemas.'

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/22/why-we-might-n...

(Yuen Kwok-yung is one of, if not the leading infectious disease specialist in Asia among other things, and has his name on many peer reviewed scientific papers.)

smileypeteon A Princess Is Making Google Forget Her Drunken Rant About Killing Muslims

It's not really down to Google, it's down to the European 'right to be forgotten' law.

The BBC once posted a list of their articles which had been delisted on google:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/1d765aa8-600b-4...

A Guardian article about the BBC list:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/01/bbc-wrong...

Seems to me it's a boon for corrupt politicians and career criminals, on that basis I do not support the law.

smileypeteon War on fat – how I lost 20 kilos by changing my eating habits

> 4 years ago I was at the peak of my weight: 84kgs. For an average tall guy, at 178cm, that is overweight.

That's only slightly over weight:

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-weight/height-weight-ch...

smileypeteon Coca-Cola paid scientists to downplay how sweet drinks fueled the obesity crisis

Refined sugar is fine when used in part to fuel physical activity. Though it's a complete disaster when consumed in excess when sedentary.

140 calories for a can of Coke is pretty modest; I just ate a third of a lemon meringue containing 500 calories - most supermarket food is calorific muck, cheap to manufacture yet tasty enough.

smileypeteon The history of economic growth is a tale of cleanliness

For a far more nuanced and detailed look at life in London in the 1840s, read 'London Labour and the London Poor' by Henry Mayhew

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Labour_and_the_London_P...

https://archive.org/details/londonlabourand00mayhgoog

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55998

The economist article is OK but a little onesided and cheerleading from their typical angle.

smileypeteon Program Obesity: A Code Health Epidemic

Bookmarked, anything with Aaron Hsu is usually well worth a watch. Thanks.

smileypeteon Peter Mertens, Former Head of Audi R&D: “We All Did Sleep”

Another, longer interview with Peter Mertens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W__A569KX2c

The shorter video in the Cleantechnica article seems to be based on a transcript of the above.

smileypeteon Firefox push[ing] irrelevant notifications

I just wish there was a global switch for disabling new features (where possible) by default.

These would then be re-enabled by individual switches, so accepting new updates would just apply security fixes to existing features, and not create usability and security issues from unwanted new features.

Not everyone wants to be the beta tester for endless new features, especially if they prefer stability and are happy with the existing functionality.

smileypeteon Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

>Related Article from The Guardian "News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier"

The author, Rolf Dobelli may be worth checking out, though I don't 100% agree with the article.

A good approach may be to do some independent analysis with the widest variety of sources, then use that going forward.

Eg anti Russian and China bias is coming more and more to the fore these days (not saying their leaders are good, far from it) but once its characteristics are recognised it's easier to ignore and not be influenced by it.

smileypeteon Good Logging

Maybe worth adding that for lower level software it's well worth baking it in to start with, nothing worse than trying to add logging to a non functional ball-of-mud ;-(

smileypeteon No, MI5 should not have more control over social media

Reminds me of:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/19/russia-fake-ne...

>But civil servants identified a sharp increase in the flow of fake news after the Salisbury poisoning, which continued in the runup to the airstrikes on Syria.

One account, @Ian56789, was sending 100 posts a day during a 12-day period from 7 April, and reached 23 million users, before the account was suspended. It focused on claims that the chemical weapons attack on Douma had been falsified, using the hashtag #falseflag. Another account, @Partisangirl, reached 61 million users with 2,300 posts over the same 12-day period.

Here's the Ian56789 bot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5NRD1OiZuU

And here's the PartisanGirl bot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDsDTk9LCgs

I just wonder WTF the government is on, and why the media don't apply the even most cursory checks to what they're claiming.

Also note the following correction:

>This article was amended on 27 April 2018 to replace the word “bot” with “account” in relation to @Ian56789 and @Partisangirl.

:-)

smileypeteon A Conversation with an iTunes Card Scammer

IRLRosie is another one:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_0osV_nf2b0sIbm4Wiw4RQ

Does wacky voices (she's a voice actor) and sometimes she livestreams the calls to scammers.

smileypeteon Bacteria and Colon Cancer

Boiled skin-on potatoes are good; complex carbs, Vitamin C and B6, potassium, fibre, water, but maybe lacking in hipster value.

Simple carbs are great for physical activity in proportionate amounts, but fairly terrible otherwise.

When I had a heavy manual job I'd come home, have a cold beer then knock back a litre of orange juice, probably containing 100g/4oz of sugar. Seemed to go to muscle glycogen though occasionally I'd rush :-)

smileypeteon Write code that is easy to delete, not easy to extend (2016)

Sounds reasonable, I should really have said 'informal version control' where it's used to get stuff out the door and piles on technical debt as well :-o

smileypeteon Write code that is easy to delete, not easy to extend (2016)

Maybe

    drawColouredRectangle("red", x0, y0, x1, y1)

    decideHighlightColour(someDecidingFactor1, someDecidingFactor2)

then call separately? Depends on the number of calls to drawHighlightingRectangle I guess.

Something I've learned recently is to try to think in terms of behaviours, then compose them instead of mixing them together. Also it's easier to juggle the pieces by erring on the side of decomposition initially, then recompose a bit once they're organised, but only if it makes more sense.

smileypeteon Write code that is easy to delete, not easy to extend (2016)

I think that one possible problem with the 'O' in SOLID (open closed principle) is spending excess time second guessing future modifications to the code. The examples are always clear cut, but in the real world it sometimes doesn't work out that way.

OTOH I'd say that the 'L' is worthwhile (Liskov substitution principle) as inheritance can be abused as a kind of 'version control' for functionality, and LSP helps guard against that.

smileypeteon ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

Maybe a deliberate focus on having some 'out of band' information would help, as an antidote to group-think.

A good example would be the early attitudes to face masking from the governments, medical experts, and media of certain countries. Some recognition and consideration of the deep experience and expertise of medical experts in Asia countries where SARS occured could surely have saved many lives.

smileypeteon Meal timings affect your waistline

My current diet is:

* Run a modest calorific deficit with plenty of moderate exercise.

* Optimise food intake for reasonably stable blood sugar levels.

Goes against the current orthodoxy of keto or intermittent fasting#, but so far, so good. Main thing is that high or low blood sugar swings can lead to hunger pangs or sluggishness, this seems to predict excess eating.

# so I've named this diet 'The Unpopular Diet'... :-)

smileypeteon Amazon’s UK FBA operations will be split from the EU

>Amazon solved a fairly large problem with retailers here. They were shit and abusive to the customers.

So what's all this 'comingling' thing about then? I assure you that if AMZN becomes dominant, customer service will get worse not better. Bezos is not a charity.

>I’d rather prefer it if that wasn’t the case for ref but I know British culture well enough to know that we’re lazy and selfish.

Substitute 'Romanian' for 'British' then ask if your racism still sounds OK to you.

smileypeteon Changing the way you sit could add years to your life

No, but their latest podcast covers some of it (from about mid way):

https://www.newscientist.com/podcasts/

And it turn mentions the following paper:

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...

Now... in the past the New Scientist complained about paywalled scientific papers, so now they create a paywalled article from a freely accessible paper? - the irony...!

'Set science free from publishers' paywalls'

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21937-set-science-fre...

smileypeteon On Trouser Pockets

Tangentially related, but relevant to some of the discussion here, and a good read:

Christopher Wylie: can fashion save the world?

http://www.archive.is/hoUbT

https://www.google.com/search?q=Christopher+Wylie+can+fashio...

>'Wylie started work as a fashion trend forecaster, before switching roles to help the Liberal Democrats update their voter targeting. He saw the potential for harvesting Facebook data to help build psychological profiles of its users, which could in turn be used to target them with political ads. It was an idea that, in 2013, got him hired at the SCL Group — the parent company of Cambridge Analytica.

...Fashion and music, Wylie says, are among the best predictors of political orientation. And as such, they have the potential to help shift the political conversation. The following is an edited and abridged transcript of a conversation he had with Imran Amed, the BoF founder, and the FT to explain how fashion is in the perfect position to make the world a better place.'

smileypeteon With coronavirus antibodies fading fast, vaccine hopes fade, too

https://outline.com/Kyqa58

EDIT: FT article may be more informative/balanced, go via a google search to avoid the paywall:

https://www.ft.com/content/2aec0597-1de3-4181-93a0-1da9483d8...

smileypeteon U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

The best defence for Taiwan against China is to be an indispensible trading partner. Once China is self sufficient in IC fab. then increasingly aggressive moves against Taiwan could be more likely. I fear for Taiwan in the long term.

US foreign policy often turns out to be short sighted.

smileypeteon Obesity, walking pace and risk of severe Covid-19 [pdf]

>and now the masks which make it harder to walk outdoors in the heat we have here

No big need to wear a mask outdoors unless in crowds or close conversation, in Japan they call it 'the three C's'

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

If I'm out and about I do hold my breath for a few seconds if a jogger or cyclist passes close by, but if I forget I don't let it bother me.

smileypeteon YouTube terminates 'CraigTube' – 14yo channel, 621 videos lost

Coulda given the old guy a heart attack, he looked so crushed...

smileypeteon YouTube terminates 'CraigTube' – 14yo channel, 621 videos lost

CraigTube and VinylTV is back!

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yVrBZGT4mw

No explanation or apology it seems, but at least the channels are back. :)

smileypeteon In north Michigan woods, feds raid an alleged upscale art forgery factory

Yeah, that lady from France was an expert who truly studied the art itself.

The opening words of Eric Hebborn in the follow on video are illuminating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jKbbajb5pE

Some (most?) of his works are probably hanging in museums and collections, indistinguishable from the genuine thing.

smileypeteon In north Michigan woods, feds raid an alleged upscale art forgery factory

Another well known UK conman/forgery 'mastermind', was John Drewe, who met and manipulated a struggling artist, John Myatt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Drewe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De3S2kkGQow

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/18/magazine/a-20th-century-m...

>'His unorthodox formula of emulsion and K-Y Jelly was fast-drying, allowing him to paint quickly, if obsessively. "I took no trouble technically," he says. "There was a negligence to everything I did."

Even so, his pictures were passing as genuine and selling for tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. He was enjoying a financial success he could never have approached by painting Myatts. Perhaps no other forger of his or any other time has worked so prodigiously and in so many styles...'