Hacker News Reader

Truly a great piece of satirical writing on The Onion. Just one example:

> With a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal.

thecosason A deep-sea 'emergency service' keeps the internet running

After reading this, I don’t know if I can rightly describe myself as being in infrastructure engineering.

thecosason Exploring 120 Years of Timezones (2021)

Makes my head hurt thinking about long timeframe datasets across geographies and accounting for all of that as these continue to shift.

thecosason The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

As an American, I still get hung up when hearing about a government "scheme" [0] in Britain without any negative connotation whatsoever.

[0] https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/scheme.php

thecosason Stem cells reverse woman’s diabetes

You may want to look into Loop [0] or Trio [1] if you don't want to wait for FDA approval on a closed loop system. They have pretty thorough guides, but I know it can be a lot to take on as the person who doesn't have Type 1 and some endocrinologists aren't supportive of the DIY options. That said, both have great communities who are very supportive and helpful, not just with the software. Best of luck to your partner!

[0] https://loopkit.github.io/loopdocs/

[1] https://docs.diy-trio.org/en/latest/

thecosason Stem cells reverse woman’s diabetes

I've had Type 1 diabetes for over 30 years and this is me. I still bolus for meals, etc. but am set up with Loop [0] on my phone and watch, omnipod insulin pumps, and a Dexcom G7 CGM for glucose readings. It's been fantastic. There are other open source projects as well, including Trio [1].

While these treatment options are so much better than even 10 years ago, the supplies can get very expensive if you don't have health insurance (in the US anyway). Luckily I do.

One company working on functional "cures" is Vertex [2]. They have one which requires immunosuppressive drug therapy alongside stem cell treatment (VX-880) and another which involves encapsulated stem cells which does not (VX-264). I'm sure there are many other companies working similarly to the one highlighted in this article.

Personally, given the great control I have right now, my insurance covering a good portion of the supplies, and the relative ease of use of the Loop app, I wouldn't take immunosuppressive therapies.

That said, I know the calculus is different for everyone; it's really a matter of personal circumstance and in some cases, luck.

Either way, I'm glad that research is being done and scientists are working on these various approaches. It's been an incredible 30 years I've been able to see with therapies advancing!

[0] https://loopkit.github.io/loopdocs/

[1] https://docs.diy-trio.org/en/latest/

[2] https://www.vrtx.com/our-science/pipeline/type-1-diabetes/

thecosason MTA Open Data Challenge

Time for someone to crack their knuckles and do a Power Broker-style MTA Open Data mashup :-)

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

thecosason Derek Lowe on AI and Biology

Interesting read, especially considering his most recent post about widespread image and results manipulation for one author's papers being discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41672599

thecosason Relay for St. Jude

Livestream today: https://www.youtube.com/live/D-JZH0FX_TE?si=f6hhskz6zsvJYsUb

thecosason Many FDA-approved AI medical devices are not trained on real patient data

Something like this or something more akin to "when I die, please take all my healthcare records, data from smart watch, etc and make that available to research"?

https://www.tidepool.org/bigdata

thecosason Forbidden Fruit

Alternate title:

Apple Doesn’t Need More Money

thecosason Colors in Japan

Agreed. Reading through this article, it was interesting to think about some fundamental design, categorization, and translation problems this introduces if you’re a company operating at a global scale.

thecosason Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

thecosason Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid

I could see this then pushing more consumers to have their own batteries to store energy when it's inexpensive. Interesting market playing out with energy storage :-)

thecosason The Moral Economy of the Shire

This wikipedia page is a treasure trove of rabbit holes. Thank you!

thecosason The Pumpkin Eclipse

Fair point! That's part of why I added my comment above :-)

thecosason The Pumpkin Eclipse

It does include information which the original article specifically excluded from mentioning: the ISP involved.

"Windstream" is mentioned in the first paragraph of the Ars article, while the Lumen post makes references to "a rural ISP" throughout the post.

thecosason Don't use pixelation for redacting text (2022)

The biggest pixel is a black box over the entire word :-)

thecosason Thinking out loud about 2nd-gen email

Ah, gotcha. Feel like I've got the existing MX stuck in my mental model. Honestly with all of the existing DNS record based "authentication" with SPF, DKIM, DMARC its already a mess for bulk senders too lol.

Thanks for putting these thoughts together :-)

thecosason Thinking out loud about 2nd-gen email

Keeping this as reference for later trolling with fellow email-standards nerds :-)

thecosason Thinking out loud about 2nd-gen email

Trying to wrap my head around how bulk email providers (Salesforce, etc) would operate in this? I guess you could give them a subdomain of your main domain and have a separate MX2 record. This might help silo off newsletter, transactional, and actual person to person messages like many already do in the current environment.

thecosason Digital Democracy: Technology that reveals how decisions are made in California

Tool website is here: https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/

thecosason Self-control signals and affords power

Enjoyed this tidbit from the bottom of the article:

  “To motivate their employees, organizations often want employees to set stretch goals – goals that are challenging and hard-to-reach. However, we found that setting a stretch goal and not meeting it makes someone look less powerful than setting an easy goal and surpassing it,” said Rady School PhD student Shuang Wu, the first author of the paper.

thecosason Show HN: Wallstreetlocal – View investments from America's biggest companies

I think your site may be getting hugged to death right now. I have a feeling you'll learn a lot more about scalability after being on the front page of HN :-)

thecosason FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

Had the same thought! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39621575

Also... does this mean they are direct-to-consumer as well as retail channels? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39622192

thecosason FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

Ah, that makes sense. I'm certain we'll never "know" but just found it interesting and was curious if people knew other trade-offs they may have been making for increased wear time, especially given that would offer a sharp reduction in cost over time for patients (and their insurance companies, etc).

A 50% increase in wear time is HUGE in my opinion.

thecosason FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

"Let me just hyperventilate really quick before I literally plunger this thing into my body" was always how it felt lol.

Agreed that it's gotten old, especially if I'm traveling somewhere. Needing to cart what you needed (plus backups of course) ends up taking up a surprising amount of space.

I will say that making the switch from a tubed pump (t:slim) to a tubeless (omnipod), it's drastically cut down on the waste for pump stuff at least.

thecosason FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

Based on everything I've seen so far, the technology for non-invasive glucose monitoring is still far away. Recently, the FDA even released a warning that any companies claiming they could are misleading people [1][2].

Don't get me wrong; I have had T1D for 30+ years and would love to have reliable, non-invasive, glucose monitoring on my wrist.

We've come so far already from a finger stick that would take 2 minutes to get a result. Have hope :-)

[1] https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/safety-communications/do...

[2] https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/21/24079495/smartwatch-smart...

thecosason FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

Just noticed this line in the press release from Dexcom [1]:

  Stelo will be available for purchase **online** without a prescription starting summer 2024.

I wonder if that means that this will be direct-to-consumer in addition to retail channels (CVS, RiteAid, Amazon, etc).

[1] https://investors.dexcom.com/news/news-details/2024/Stelo-by...

thecosason FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

T1D here too. Fun to see others having an interest in CGMs :-)