Hacker News Reader

the_legoon Chen 2023 Paper Raises Serious Concerns About Pediatric Gender Medicine Outcomes

Most damning in that lengthy post is that the paper omits some of the key data collected by the study, including suicidality:

acute suicidality was an exclusion criterion for this study (see section 4.6.4). There were two deaths by suicide in this study, and 11 reports of suicidal ideation, out of 315 participants, and these patients showed no evidence of being suicidal when the study began. This raises the possibility of iatrogenic harm. It would be beneficial to have more data on the suicidality of this cohort, but the next problem is that the authors did not report this data, despite collecting it according to their protocol document.

The 5 reported outcome measures in Chen 2023 are only a small fraction of the original data collected. The authors also assessed suicidality, Gender Dysphoria per se (not merely appearance congruence), body esteem and body image (two separate scales), service utilization, resiliency and other measures. This data is missing from the paper.

the_legoon In win for Google, judge dismisses many claims in DOJ monopoly case

"Yes we barricaded the only paved road to the plaintiff's business, but do they have evidence this harmed them, or mere speculation?"

the_legoon In win for Google, judge dismisses many claims in DOJ monopoly case

> Judge Amit Mehta dismissed one of the more significant claims [...] that alleges that Google rigged search results to boost its own products over those of competitors like Amazon, OpenTable, Expedia, or eBay. Mehta said that these claims were "raised only by the Colorado plaintiffs" and failed to show evidence of anticompetitive effects, relying only on the "opinion and speculation" of antitrust legal expert Jonathan Baker, who proposed a theory of anticompetitive harm.

> "Simply put, there is no record evidence of anticompetitive harm in the relevant markets" resulting from Google allegedly limiting competitors' visibility in search results, Mehta said.

As every business-owner knows, disappearing from Google search barely affects one's traffic. /s

> the court "also dismissed allegations about Google's Android Compatibility Agreements, Anti-Fragmentation Agreements

Contractually forbidding companies from offering competing products is not anti-competitive, good to know. I wish the judge good luck in their imminent well-paid lobbying job for Google.

the_legoon TSMC Not Charging Apple for Defective 3nm Chips

The difference is this way, the price per working chip doesn't change as they improve the process.

the_legoon Ignore “The Safest City in America” Rankings

Selective skepticism. No methodology is good enough if you don't like its conclusions.

the_legoon PSA: Intel Graphics Drivers Now Collect Telemetry by Default

> adobe goes to great technical and legal lengths to ensure it can't be

Could you elaborate? It was my impression they simply didn't care, but I never looked into it.

the_legoon Cute Reputation Management Ops

The story they're trying to bury:

Prosecutors want to confiscate the property in Hampstead, London, after Arif Patel's conviction on Tuesday for a £97million fraud. The 55-year-old and his gang imported and sold knock-off designer gear - https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tax-cheat-convicted-97...

Arif Patel and his gang tried to steal £97m through VAT repayment claims on false exports of textiles and phones. - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lancashire-65264876

the_legoon PSA: Intel Graphics Drivers Now Collect Telemetry by Default

Intel wants to provide the best computing experiences. To accomplish this, we would like your permission to collect, use, and combine information to understand:
The categories of websites you visit, but not the URL itself

Software usage: for example, frequency and duration of application usage such as Intel® Driver & Support Assistant, but not the application content itself such as specific actions or keyboard input.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/topics/idsa-...

the_legoon The Rotten Science Behind the MSG Scare

I commend your wife's and the parent poster's admirable scientific approach.

the_legoon Zoom terms now allow training AI on user content with no opt out

What user content does Zoom the company have access to? Connection metadata, call video, call audio..?

the_legoon Ivy League Demographics

> using the same arguments SFFA made, it looks like Ivies discriminated against whites more than Asians.

Could you elaborate on this?

> whites are the least likely group to take test prep

I'd love a source for this, if you still have it.

the_legoon Ivy League Demographics

> it's not scientific to guess a number because you proved guessing isn't a risk because it's such a non-factor. In general you just remove the non-factor.

But then you don't have a reasonable lower bound, and someone trying to debunk the analysis could, instead of throwing un-falsifiable claims of un-scientificness, make the much stronger accusation that the combined white+Jewish mean SAT score is being unfairly attributed to non-Jewish whites alone.

> They're using scores from across the 100% of college applicants when less than 1% of them apply to Ivy League schools.

Seems relevant to me - it would be very surprising if the mean of the SAT score distribution didn't strongly affect its top percentile. If you're not satisfied with reasonable extrapolation, you can find what the SAT scores are for the top percentile of white/Hispanic/Black students. I wager that sorting the SAT scores by mean or by top percentile gives the same order. But as you say, I failed high school stats, so I'm probably wrong.

the_legoon Ivy League Demographics

Furthermore, why use 1500 SAT score? Because it gives the distribution you like? Harvard's cutoffs are 1100 for Blacks, Native Americans and Hispanics, 1350 for Asian women and 1380 for Asian men, and 1310 for "white wannabe students in states that don’t see a lot of Harvard attendees":

https://nypost.com/2018/10/17/harvards-gatekeeper-reveals-sa...

the_legoon Ivy League Demographics

We can debate the various subtleties of "white" till the cows come home, but that is irrelevant to how accurate those graphs are. Let's assume the graphic erroneously counted 100% of Jews as white, instead of 90%. That would change the estimate of non-Jewish whites in the US from 55.4% to 55.64%, and the estimate of non-Jewish whites in the Ivies from 29.2% to 30.63%.

This changes the under-representation of non-Jewish whites from 0.53 to 0.55.

Is this so significantly different that the entire graphic can be dismissed?

the_legoon Ivy League Demographics

In 2013, the Pew Research Center's Portrait of Jewish Americans found that more than 90% of Jews who responded to its survey described themselves as being non-Hispanic whites, 2% described themselves as being black, 3% described themselves as being Hispanic, and 2% described themselves as having other racial or ethnic backgrounds. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews

the_legoon Ivy League Demographics

> While also insisting they're a small group so it doesn't matter?

Doesn't matter for calculating the non-Jewish White SAT is how I interpreted that. Since white_SAT = (2.4*jewish_SAT + 55.4*non_jewish_white_SAT) / (2.4 + 55.4), it means that even if your Jewish SAT estimate is off by ~100 points, it will only change the non-Jewish White SAT estimate by ~4 points.

Is there something non-scientific about estimates? Or do you think this is not a reasonable estimate, i.e. it may be significantly off? The charge of "non-scientific" is very vague - can you be more specific? What do you think is wrong, and by how much?

the_legoon Ivy League Demographics

If the mainstream discourse was "yes, whites are underrepresented, but they deserve it because they're dumb", that would be progress compared to the current "there are too many whites in the Ivies due to white supremacy (and the SAT is racist)" narrative. Sources:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36992516

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36992739

the_legoon Former Fox News Reporter Ordered by Judge to Reveal Anonymous Source

Does simple non-cooperation with law-enforcement count as "obstruction"?

the_legoon Conservative activist behind US affirmative action cases sues VC fund

The 'Methodology' section of that image (text on the bottom) states it only looks at the fraction of non-international students with a known race. I.e. it subtracts international students and students with race listed as 'unknown' from the total, and considers that the new 100%.

the_legoon Conservative activist behind US affirmative action cases sues VC fund

Presumably that is why mean SAT scores are included - to show that despite having higher SAT scores than Black and Hispanic undergraduates, non-Jewish White undergraduates have a significantly lower acceptance rate.

But even ignoring SAT scores (which, when they favor Whites, are dismissed as racist [1-6]), showing the true representation is not irrelevant - it serves to dispel the carefully curated false impression that Whites are over-represented at the expense of minorities, documented in my other comment.

[1] SAT math scores mirror and maintain racial inequity - https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sat-math-scores-mirror-an...

[2] For years, the SAT has come under attack for having a certain bent. From the Harvard Educational Review to the Princeton Review, the measurement tool has been called a "white preference test." - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sat-system-needs-reform_n_853...

[3] The History of the SAT Is Mired in Racism and Elitism - https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-history-of-the-sat-is-mi...

[4] As our country grapples with its heritage of white supremacy, educators need look no further than the SAT for an example of how systemic racism perpetuates itself. - https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/views/2020/08/17/h...

[5] Dismantling White Supremacy Includes Ending Racist Tests like the SAT and ACT - https://www.tcpress.com/blog/dismantling-white-supremacy-inc...

[6] The California system has become the biggest and best-known American institution of higher education to step away from the use of the two major standardized tests, citing charges that they disadvantage students who are poor, black, and Hispanic. - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/23/us/SAT-ACT-abolish-debate...

the_legoon Conservative activist behind US affirmative action cases sues VC fund

They matter to show how selective and deceitful the reporting has been. Do the following stories give the impression that whites are over-, or under-represented in the Ivies? Are there any stories from illustrious papers such as the NYTimes, Washington Post, or The Guardian, that even hint that whites are the most under-represented group in the Ivy League?

The Supreme Court ruling involving Harvard and the University of North Carolina was a sharp setback to affirmative action policies often used to increase the number of Black, Hispanic and other underrepresented minority groups on campuses. - https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harvard-says-it-will-comply...

The inquiry into one of the nation’s richest and most prestigious universities will examine allegations by three liberal groups that Harvard’s practice of showing preference for the relatives of alumni and donors discriminates against Black, Hispanic and Asian applicants in favor of white and wealthy students who are less qualified. - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/us/politics/harvard-admis...

But several studies have shown that legacy admissions overwhelmingly favor wealthy and White applicants, and critics have described the practice as reverse affirmative action — benefiting such students at the cost of applicants of color and other disadvantaged groups. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/07/28/legacy-a...

when the college admissions scandal, dubbed Operation Varsity Blues, crashed into headlines, it immediately became a showcase of white privilege. - https://time.com/5943645/varsity-blues-college-cheating-scan...

How elite US schools give preference to wealthy and white 'legacy' applicants - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/23/elite-school...

And these strategies, which are legal, certainly help some types of applicants: A 2019 economic study found that recruited athletes, legacies, children of faculty and staff and kids of wealthy donors represented 43% of White admitted students at Harvard. - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/affirmative-action-harvard-supr...

Why Are Ivy League Schools Still Discriminating Against Asians? - https://www.newsweek.com/why-are-ivy-league-schools-still-di...

the_legoon Conservative activist behind US affirmative action cases sues VC fund

The conservative-majority court rejected policies used by many U.S. colleges and universities to use race as one of multiple factors in admissions in order to boost enrollment of Black, Hispanic and certain other minority students. Blum's group had argued that such programs discriminated against white and Asian American applicants.

Discussions about this topic usually happen with nobody bothering to verify, or even explicitly state, their assumptions about the demographics of Harvard/the Ivy League. Effectively arguing in the dark. Let's shed some light on the issue:

https://archive.org/details/ivy-league-demographics (And ask yourselves why such basic information was omitted from nearly all reporting)

the_legoon The Right to Lie and Google’s “Web Environment Integrity”

But the details aren't the issue. It's the entire idea of remote attestation that is repulsive and user-hostile.

Otherwise I agree that examining the details doesn't move the Overton window - the broad idea already did that.

the_legoon The Right to Lie and Google’s “Web Environment Integrity”

> Maybe I don't want my main phone to stop working?

You are conflating the alleged benefit of locking down devices to assure users don't break them [1], with websites and services getting the ability to remotely verify your software/hardware stack is "approved", and block you if it isn't.

It's not about what you want - it's about taking away your ability to choose. The "fun toys" that can be modified to your liking will get increasingly useless as they'll be blocked from large chunks of the web, especially after Google will start pushing WEI if sites want ad revenue, under the logic of preventing click-fraud.

[1] There are plenty of ways to limit unlocking to the technically-savvy, and making it tamper evident to the owner (e.g. a "bootloader unlocked" notification during boot), and many existing phones implement them, so any claims by phone or other device manufacturers that making devices impossible to unlock are outright lies.

the_legoon Blaming Capitalists and Workers for Inflation

> the two must be equally matched in power, else one side would just win

You're confusing actual battle with mere rhetorical arguments, a shouting match. There is no victor, just noise that serves as a distraction.

Besides, the thesis has two parts: what the alleged true cause of inflation is, and how attention is being diverted away from it. They can each be independently true or false.

the_legoon Blaming Capitalists and Workers for Inflation

It's not at all obvious to me - could you explain?

the_legoon Blaming Capitalists and Workers for Inflation

Not central bankers - they are an arm of the government, charged with managing currency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank

the_legoon Fighting for the open web [image]

I.e. home taping is killing music, VCRs should be illegal, etc.. Amazing how the same lie remains effective after being proven false so many times.

the_legoon Why doctors hate their computers (2018)

> Norway has recently changed our health software to Epic

Why? I'm assuming corruption and lobbying by Epic.

the_legoon Ask HN: Is Antitrust Mostly a Farce?

> great companies can have an enormous upside for countries (e.g., taxes and employment)

A company split into multiple still provides taxes and employment. And the employment conditions tend to improve, since there would be more companies competing for employees.

> too strict actions may hamper innovation by signalling to innovators that you will be punished if you achieve too much

And monopolies hamper innovation by reducing the competitive pressure to innovate. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Let's look at what kind of "innovations" Microsoft used to grow - pushed an over-complicated OOXML standard, and implemented it in their products incorrectly, to make it harder for LibreOffice to interoperate, since they were forced to follow a complex standard and reproduce Microsoft's bugs: https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-netwo...

There are countless similar examples, going back to railroads charging more to carry competitor's goods.