HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

tbirdny

139 karma · joined June 26, 2020

submissionscomments
tbirdny··on The Color of White Light
> It's probably a good idea to buy a few samples of several different types and brands, test them all, and then decide which to buy in quantity for the home.

I'm looking forward to that. I own a bunch of Philips WhiteDial bulbs that are rated CRI90. It would be nice to test that and know how they really compare. No doubt there's a lot of dishonest CRI ratings out there.

tbirdny··on 12k Tons of Dumped Orange Peel Grew into a Landscape Nobody Expected (2017)
I'm surprised they would just throw orange peels away. There are beneficial compounds in orange peels that can be extracted: limonene, hesperidin, naringin, pectin, insoluble and soluble fiber. Or, could be added to animal feed.
tbirdny··on Neanderthals survived on a knife's edge for 350k years
Can you imagine how many grass grazing animals would have been just standing around waiting to be eaten? During the Pleistocene, some regions supported huge, stable herds of grazing megafauna that could provide reliable food. You just needed some friends to help you hunt. In areas with relatively mild climates and predictable seasons, people likely experienced long stretches, even generations, of comparatively low stress and easy resources. Granted, life could quickly become difficult when climate, animal populations, or competition shifted.
tbirdny··on The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
The exchange of value between men and women has changed. Women used to have time but no money. Men had money but no time. Men and women exchanged these with each other. Now everyone has to have a job to even support themselves, and no time to raise a family.
tbirdny··on The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
Because it's not just money. It's time and money. You can have lots of money and nice things, but if you don't have time to raise your kids, you can't do it. And if you had the time, you wouldn't have the money.
tbirdny··on Qwen3-Max-Thinking
I couldn't even ask ChatGPT what dose of nutmeg was toxic.
tbirdny··on The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe
I agree. I would like to buy a new Mac but that would mean I'm forced to use macOS 26. It may be years before I buy a new Mac.
tbirdny··on Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)
"The recommendation to limit dietary saturated fatty acid (SFA) intake has persisted despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Most recent meta-analyses of randomized trials and observational studies found no beneficial effects of reducing SFA intake on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and total mortality, and instead found protective effects against stroke." PMID 32562735 - Jun 2020, Journal of the American College of Cardiology
tbirdny··on Apple reports fourth quarter results
I wish it took 2 hours. For me it's spend 2 hours shopping for the right part, finding it for a good price, and ordering it. Then spend an hour watching youtube videos for how to do it. Then spend 4 hours gathering the right tools, getting the car jacked, tires off, etc., then put everything away, and clean up. That's the best case. I could get the wrong part, my car looks different than the videos, I do it wrong, or break something. I recently replaced my front brakes. I maybe saved $400. I'm proud of myself. I kind of enjoyed it, but it's hard to justify.
tbirdny··on Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly
One could argue the opposite: that the mass entry of women into the paid workforce expanded the labor supply, contributing to wage stagnation and, eventually, the erosion of the middle class. But that wasn’t the only cause. Globalization, declining unions, automation, and regressive taxes were also factors.
tbirdny··on Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly
Before WWII, middle-class married women were strongly discouraged from working for pay outside the home. If their husbands could provide, "respectable" women were expected to stay home as homemakers.
tbirdny··on How can I influence others without manipulating them?
I didn't know Charlie Krik before. After watching these videos, I don't believe he was such a hateful person: Amir Odom: https://youtu.be/N14ywRyTWVI Bill Maher: https://youtu.be/OblCcO7-Alg Jordan Peterson: https://youtu.be/dP0TagcNvCg
tbirdny··on New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care
No one does because everyone needs to have a job to survive in the US today. It used to be that many couples could survive on a single income. Not only did that allow them to better care for their kids, it also allowed them to help their siblings, parents, other family members, friends, neighbors, and community.
tbirdny··on New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care
The reason we need this is because both parents need to work because wages are so low families cannot live on a single income. I wish we could fix that rather than allowing even more people to work putting more downward pressure on wages.
tbirdny··on We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness
Yes, money is a huge factor. So is time. You need both. I see these major factors: housing costs, health insurance costs, and the two-income trap. The fact that both people in almost every couple must have a job just to survive and pay for housing makes it so that no one has any time. If couples could survive on a single income, there would be a lot more time to manage the home, support the family, friends, neighbors, and community. Those are social activities that few have time for anymore.
tbirdny··on OpenAI's ChatGPT Agent casually clicks through "I am not a robot" verification
This is the reason Orb was created. Sam Altman wants ChatGPT to click through CAPTCHAs so we all have to use Orb.
tbirdny··on Psilocybin decreases depression and anxiety in cancer patients (2016)
And it might slow aging: https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/1943824432419811437
tbirdny··on Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup
Numbers used to be painfully slow. It was just maybe 3 years ago or so it improved a lot. It was practically unusable for large spreadsheets. I swear spreadsheets from 20 years earlier performed better on much slower hardware. If you haven't used Numbers for a few years, maybe give it another try.
tbirdny··on U.S. Economy Contracts at 0.3% Rate in First Quarter
The jumps are short squeezes. You get the biggest up days in a bear market. When everyone is shorting and buying puts, if it starts going up a little bit, many of them cover, and to cover they have to buy, so it goes up.
tbirdny··on America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back
America doesn't underestimate it, its president does.
tbirdny··on Migraine is more than a headache – a rethink offers hope
Migraines and epilepsy have a lot in common, including some symptoms and triggers. Drugs and things that lower seizure threshold also tend to cause migraines. Some epilepsy drugs also act as migraine prophylactics.
tbirdny··on Migraine is more than a headache – a rethink offers hope
First, I know different people have different triggers from me. I used to have migraines every few days to every few months from age 13 to 23. These would incapacitate me. I would get the aura and be almost blind for an hour, then throw up a couple times, and have a bad headache for 2-4 hours, then I could function again but still felt crummy for the next 24 hours. I noticed that pickles were a trigger, and I thought "pickles have a lot of sodium". So, out of desperation as something to try, I read the labels of everything I was eating and cut out everything that had more than a little sodium: frozen pizza, frozen dinners, deli meats, etc. At the time I was having migraines every few days, and then I didn't have another migraine for years. I was so glad they stopped. I now doubt it was the sodium. In cutting out sodium, I happen to cut out processed foods, which includes lots of suspicious ingredients. I suspect Tyramine was the main culprit. There's a diet called The Headache Diet that is focused on minimizing Tyramine. Guess what else pickles have a lot of? For last last 30 years, here are all the things that have caused my migraines: Lithium Carbonate (Orotate is OK), Pickled Herring (Tyramine), Soy Sauce (Tyramine), Hyaluronic Acid (synthetic, Mobilee is OK), Tianeptine, Sulbutiamine, and a strobe light. Every migraine I have had in the last 30 years can be explained by those - only 8-12 migraines total. I still precisely control my sodium and eat no processed foods.
tbirdny··on New iMac with M4
I have a Sony 43" 4K and would love a 55" 8K. I think that would be the perfect. I'm really disappointed there's no current option. I'm waiting. Everyone says 8K isn't worth it for movies especially at 55", but I don't want it for movies! It would make my computer "desktop" as big as my physical desktop. I seriously considered the QN700B. I wasn't sure if it would do 60Hz 4:4:4 and wasn't quite ready to buy a new Mac (my current Mac can't do 8K).
tbirdny··on Aristotle – How to live a good life
Just looking at the page and all the animation is fun. It looks nice, but trying to read it with all the distraction is very difficult for me.
tbirdny··on Scientists discover a new hormone that can build strong bones in mice
This is great. But, the root of the problem for most postmenopausal women is simply the lack of estrogen. You need estrogen to make bone. Men and women do. Men are mostly protected from osteoporosis because they convert testosterone to estrogen. Elderly men have more estrogen than postmenopausal women. Their levels go to near zero. It's a tragedy that more doctors don't recommend HRT for older women, at least some level of replacement, maybe not up to peak levels when they were younger. The lack of estrogen causes a lot of suffering.
tbirdny··on Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Yes, 4o was downgrade for me.
tbirdny··on To make a fortune, target bored young men who want to make a fortune
The problem isn't that women have too high standards for how men treat them. Those standards aren't high enough. The problem is women's standards for everything else are too high: looks, height, money, etc. And women are lowering their other standards for those men.

Women tend to want the single best man they can find. Many men seem to enjoy pursing as many women as they can get and are willing to have casual relationships with women that are less attractive and who they would never commit to. Combine that with online dating where women get to choose from a huge number of men. All the women are pursuing the few most attractive men. Those men have lots of options. Many women are sharing the same top men.

tbirdny··on Mental health in software engineering
They say that pessimists see the world more accurately. And, I often think about how programming makes you see the world more accurately. Because, when you're programming, over and over and over again the computer tells you when your program doesn't work. No amount of wishing or insisting will change it. Yelling at your computer is unlikely to fix your program. People who work in other careers, like if they mainly deal with people, can more easily believe in wishful thinking and that everything will just work out because you want it to.
tbirdny··on Two nights of broken sleep can make people feel years older, finds study
Serum iron is a pretty useless test. What was your ferritin?
tbirdny··on Scar tissues make relationships wear out (2013)
Yeah, that and "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" (from the current top comment.)
Page 1 of 2Next →