Hacker News Reader

starchild_3001on AI Pioneer Thinks AI Is Dumber Than a Cat

Anyone who's spent substantial time using one of the state of the art AIs today can attest that this statement is clueless and ridiculous. Makes me wonder about the fitness of Yann Lecun to lead a major research lab. It does appear to me 1) he's blind to existing data 2) he doesn't know how to collect data (namely spend 10-30 mins with a SoTA AI) 3) He's blinded by his theoretical biases.

AI is clearly in the right track regarding performance and the speed of progress. Is it human level in every task? Not really. It clearly has room to grow. Is it super human in many tasks? I think so. Just learn how to use it. Peace.

starchild_3001on Scientists improve anti-tumor power of CAR-T cells

This is biased reading at its worst. I was simply stating what the authors concluded based on their analysis of 10-20 studies (not just one). This is what they say in the abstract: "The results show that exercise does not reduce all-cause mortality and incident CVD in older adults or in people with chronic conditions, based on RCTs comprising ∼50,000 participants."

One study with 500 people doesn't prove a point.

Of the top of my head I know at least one other study where mid-life lifestyle intervention didn't reduce mortality (it slightly increased it in a statistically non-significant manner). 21 yrs follow up. ~3000 people. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.0...

starchild_3001on Scientists improve anti-tumor power of CAR-T cells

Diet and exercise are universally failed interventions to stop major diseases (CVD, cancer...). People who have a vested interest in them promote them (e.g. exercise specialists, keto experts, vegan gurus, your favorite TV Dr, harvard nutrition dept whose livelihood depends on the effectiveness of "optimal diet" etc), but the results in intervention trials have been extremely disappointing.

1) The best diet studies where people were asked to follow Mediterranean diet only managed to lower CVD and/or mortality by 10s of % points. This is a very poor outcome. At best adds a few years to someone's lifespan. At best. The average Mediterranean dieter fares a lot worse. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26528631/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4368053 Don't get me started about Keto, Vegan etc. Those have even less convincing evidence regarding hard outcomes (e.g. MACE, Cancer etc) though our opinion might change if they ever get tested in large scale.

2) Exercise is even worse. It has virtually zero effect on CVD outcomes, mortality outcomes in trials where participants were asked to change their behaviors. "Exercise did not reduce all-cause mortality and incident CVD in older adults or in people with chronic conditions, based on RCTs comprising ∼50,000 participants" https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=10512580439138189...

It's a myth that diet and exercise will save you from Cancer or CVD. There's virtually zero evidence for that, when you look at things from intervention point of view -- intervention evidence is the only evidence acceptable in science. The rest is pseudo-science or proto-science.

Btw, I believe weight loss is the best thing you can do to live longer (that is if you're overweight or obese). But diets still universally fail. E.g. bariatric surgery probably works, maybe drugs will be shown to work (Tirzepatide/Semaglutide I'm looking at you). A publication on how 90% of obese dieters fail after 1-2 yrs on the same diet: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5764193/

starchild_3001on The Tragedy of Google Search

Buyer beware: Sensation sells (as is portrayed in this news article). Competitors are one click or one setting away. Last I tried switching to DuckDuckGo things didn't go so well -- just overall subpar experience. Bing arguably is a bit better, but that too didn't satisfy, despite the super cool chat feature (deserves kudos for that!).

starchild_3001on Most important papers for quantitative traders

Thanks for sharing! My list of 12 most useful resources for machine learning quants can be found here: http://gokhanmergen.com/quantBibliography.html

This list was compiled in 2009 before I took a full time job in an algorithmic trading company, but it's still relevant :) If anything ML is more relevant than ever in trading, except perhaps Deep Neural Nets, Transformers, Large Language Models etc are the norm today.

starchild_3001on Rapamycin: The unlucky history of an anti-aging drug

Many of us know and follow rapamycin's story. There are some Drs in USA who're willing to prescribe it for longevity. I do hope some billionare will be willing to spend a few million on it to test it in clinical trials. Surely one of the most promising molecules out there, and very little sides when dosed intermittently.

starchild_3001on New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

Correctness might be there. But there are also some grandiose claims in the abstract ("“There are no trigonometric proofs, because all the fundamental formulae of trigonometry are themselves based upon the truth of the Pythagorean Theorem.”) and the argument being novel. I don't have a way to verify these two. That's what the peer review is for.

------------

update: This video refers to another trigonometric proof that doesn't rely on sin^2 + cos^1 = 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6j2nZKwf20

I would write a more modest abstract for this work. Just my $0.02.

starchild_3001on New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

Ok, I read through the proof, and I think I understood it. Thanks for posting this!

Until the authors' work is submitted to a journal and reviewed, it's hard to say everything claimed here is definitely correct & new.

Update: Nice video on the proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQD6lDwFmCc I like what they did :) Seems legit to me.

Btw, law of sines can be proven independently of pythagoras. So using that as a step is ok. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_sines

starchild_3001on Non-occupational physical activity and risk of CV disease, cancer and mortality

Observational studies are just observational studies. Most of them report spurious correlations. Their results cannot be taken at face value. Only through intervention studies you can demonstrate causation. Intervention studies (RCTs) --- the meta-analysis that I linked --- in this case report a null result (no effect) regarding hard end points (CVD and death).

starchild_3001on Non-occupational physical activity and risk of CV disease, cancer and mortality

Real means, not BS. Real means intervention studies. Observational studies can be hypothesis generating, but you cannot derive definitive conclusions from them. Only through intervention studies, you can be definitively sure about the causality.

Most observational studies simply report spurious correlations, and cannot be trusted --- especially when "reverse causality" is a strong possibility. That is people who are healthier and fitter tend to exercise more, therefore they experience less disease, death etc.

Only by taking sedentary individuals, and coaching them to exercise significantly more, and comparing with a control group, you can be sure of the causal benefits.

starchild_3001on Non-occupational physical activity and risk of CV disease, cancer and mortality

Measuring associations is one thing. Intervening in people's lives to reduce disease and mortality with exercise is another. Here's what real science has to say about the latter:

Exercise did not reduce all-cause mortality and incident CVD in older adults or in people with chronic conditions, based on RCTs comprising ∼50,000 participants

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=10512580439138189...

The average sedentary HN reader, take comfort! Being a gym rat is good for you. Forcing yourself to become a gym rat from being sedentary has unclear benefits regarding hard outcomes.

starchild_3001on ChatGPT broke the EU plan to regulate AI

GDPR and DMA that came out of EU internet regulators don't impress me. They make it more arduous to browse the web, reduce the revenue collected by open web (content sites), reduce the quality of internet services, lower the quality of ads, hurt user experience, and hurt businesses who're looking to connect with customers.

Looks like EU will be doing the same with AI, and risk locking these countries out of the benefits of AI revolution.

starchild_3001on Man beats machine at Go in human victory over AI

Good job human(s)! It should be obvious to anyone who's following chess AIs: Progress seems endless; we're constantly discovering tactics and anti-tactics to defeat the latest model. That's why computer ELO is going up on a straight line. Progress in Go is admittedly a bit more obscure. Fewer people are working on it (leela go, katago etc). This article demonstrates that we can expect a similar trend.

starchild_3001on How to write like Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell is an extremely gifted author. He's a poor social scientist. When he wears a social scientist's cloak, and tells engaging and highly believable stories, he's doing a disservice to society. I won't read another Gladwell book (story), nor do I recommend it to anyone.

starchild_3001on Is the Kalman filter just a low-pass filter?

To me the biggest magic of kalman filtering wasn't the low-pass nature (yes it's a multidimensional low pass filter!), but rather issues around system identification. Namely if and when the system equations evolve as much as the hidden state, then things get really interesting! That specific formulation (joint system estimation + Kalman smoothing) was fairly interesting and useful for the applications I worked on. Obviously your mileage may vary :)

As an addendum, I want to say a well designed whitening matrix + IIR filter can replace a Kalman filter, again depending on the application. Just makes things easier to understand, debug etc. Works if your vector is somehow decomposable into roughly independent scalars.

starchild_3001on New Chinese GPU Maker Moore Threads Unveils the MTT S60 GPU

>> Every tech company in China is in part owned or supported by the chinese government.

> So it’s exactly like the US.

Here's a bit of news for you. "China’s Global 500 companies are bigger than ever—and mostly state-owned" - Fortune https://fortune.com/2015/07/22/china-global-500-government-o...

Here's top 500 companies in USA. Do you know how many of them are state owned? I think that number is zero. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_S%26P_500_companies

Are chinese tech companies really state owned? Well they're mostly funded by the government based on this news article (venture capital), so they're at least in part state owned. https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/technology/in-china-tech-is...

"An executive at a Chinese search engine recently summed up the new dynamic: We're entering an era in which we'll be fused together. It might be that there will be a request to establish a Party committee within your company, or that you should let state investors take a stake, you know, as a form of mixed ownership. If you think clearly about this, you really can resonate together with the state."

Us government spending and support compared to these effort is miniscule. Yes, they have some green energy initiatives (e.g. Tesla, Solar City benefited from those). But in the big scheme of things, us public investment in tech is about zero.

Learn some capitalism, my friend :) Remember Chinese (state owned and controlled) capitalism isn't what we call capitalism around here. Chinese capitalism is a bit like "chinese democracy". Not quite the real thing :)

>> China: aiming to invade Taiwan

> China hasn’t invaded anyone for decades. US had.

Not every invasion is wrong. The world needs a police, otherwise bad guys create chaos. China? They think Taiwan belongs to them. Which is crazy if you ask 26M Taiwanese.

starchild_3001on New Chinese GPU Maker Moore Threads Unveils the MTT S60 GPU

Re: Chinese real estate bubble. It's been almost 10 years since news outlets and finance people have claimed a RE bubble in China. Nothing happened. Buyer (of RE and the bubble hype) beware.

"60 mins" from 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxjwhk1ktNw

starchild_3001on New Chinese GPU Maker Moore Threads Unveils the MTT S60 GPU

If you're reading a tech news coming out of China, and aren't thinking about politics, you're doing something wrong.

Every tech company in China is in part owned or supported by the chinese government. Hard to talk about "independent tech". They're more like "national tech".

Today and the next 50 years in tech is being defined by the competition between the two superpowers. Their national objectives differ vastly. China: aiming to invade Taiwan; proving everyone that their totalitarian system is competitive with democracy; proving that they can lead the world. US aiming to stay a leader; maintaining the global stability; maintaining the economic & military supremacy. Both economies are trying to slowly decouple from each other, gain independence, and prove their superiority. This is the story of our ages.

starchild_3001on Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

Let me provide some color for you. Hiring is changing. It's shifting from "oh this person went to good schools, worked for a top company" (self perpetuating loop) to "can you answer this difficult question in 45 mins?" (more noisy, but less biased estimate).

Now, your question is I feel completely wrong. Meaning ever since I joined the work force (2004), I always had 5-7 interviews.

But that aside, the real deal these days is an effort to unbias the hiring process. Meaning put less weight on the resume. Put more weight on the 0.5-1 day you spend with the candidate during the interview process.

Obviously, you need to ask the right kind of questions to measure technical competence. So the Q&A is also heavily skewed towards job-required skills & knowledge (vs puzzles and such).

starchild_3001on First gene therapy for Tay-Sachs disease successfully given to two children

This is actually the 2nd brain gene therapy research I've seen.

In the Phase I trial below, injecting telomerase and klotho AV vectors into CNS/brain was safe and it improved cognitive scores of 5 dementia patients after 1 yr follow up.

Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i__oZyxgLC0

Paper: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/patrick-e-sewell-md-a994774_g...

This space will hopefully get very big. Mice lifespans were extended 25-40% (massive!) through similar techniques. See Dr George Church Gene Therapy for more.

starchild_3001on Ask HN: 27, accidentally became wealthy, lost drive. What should I do?

Your problems may not be caused by the money. 7.5M isn't infinity, you know. Especially if you get married, try to buy a house and have kids, you'll discover that the amount isn't all that much (in sunny california, that is). If you want to start feeling poor again, just move to silicon valley :)

starchild_3001on Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

This is hilarious (what Facebook calls meaningful!). I know people where back and forth comments with them are a lot less than meaningful or desired.

"Meaningful Social Interactions — the back and forth comments between friends that Facebook optimizes for."

starchild_3001on Apollo 68080 – Motorola 680x0 High Performance Processor in FPGA

Wow, this looks like a work of love! Who else would put so much effort into improving a classic (but semi-obsolete) CPU?

starchild_3001on One Bad Apple

Bad Apple it is. Also hypocrite Apple, with their fake (at the very least misleading) privacy stance against internet advertising.

starchild_3001on Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

tdeck, genetics is a statistical phenomena. Your parents being smart/strong/fast runner/good in music etc doesn't turn you into one of these instantly, but they're statistically correlated with you having similar abilities and traits.

How can you argue against this? Isn't this obvious? Isn't this what genetics is all about --- parents' genes being passed to offspring?

You're either blinded by your ideology... or maybe don't understand biology.

starchild_3001on Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

Not sure what data you're talking about. What I've seen so far: SAT <-> Income are correlated => let's not rely on SAT? That's such a BS argument.

Anything related to income will be (statistically speaking) associated with intelligence and other personal traits (perseverance etc). Any of this will be obviously correlated with your kid's SAT --- it's called genetics.

Any other, more sensible data to look at?

starchild_3001on Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

Cancelling SAT (especially subject exams) is the stupidest decision I've seen anywhere. Make access more fair? Sure. Cancel it? Plain wrong!

How do I know? I'm one of those students who didn't have stellar high school grades, but I excelled in subject exams --- those subjects were genuinely interesting to me (math, science). I didn't find the rest of high school interesting, and I wasn't a nerd nerd studying anything my parents told me to study. I turned out "ok" (graduated as the top my class in college, then had a successful career in top tech companies). Without that final exam that gave me the opportunity, I probably wouldn't be typing this message today.

I'm not even counted as "diverse" (because I'm not black or hispanic) despite coming from a muslim family and middle eastern background. I can only select "white", though I'm not really white (european).

Today's admission debates and anti-racist treatments are wrong at so many levels, I don't know where to start.

starchild_3001on The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

I think the worst volume control is on Mac OS Big Sur... the missing Volume Icon In Menu Bar. A second close is the volume controls on the MacBook Pro touch bar. Fairly subpar (push-and-hold).

starchild_3001on Human Rapamycin Longevity Clinical Trials Begin

https://www.afar.org/tame-trial

https://www.google.com/search?q=TRIIM-X+trial

starchild_3001on Judge dismisses FTC and state antitrust complaints against Facebook

A few sentence summary of the ruling: Be rigorous. Justify your claims. Don't get carried away by political motives. Law trumps over politics.