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vedtopkar

353 karma · joined September 1, 2012

Stanford MD/PhD student and general programming enthusiast.

Ping me if you ever want to chat.

vedtopkar.com

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vedtopkar··on Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot
I use this one to tie my scrub pants and also to quickly tie my sterile gown when in the operating room. So handy!
vedtopkar··on Study shows most doctors endorsing drugs on X are paid to do so
I think it's the difference between suspicion of the pharmaceutical vs the pharmaceutical company. You can criticize the company without criticizing the treatment.
vedtopkar··on Study shows most doctors endorsing drugs on X are paid to do so
This seems to work: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2819356

Sadly no specifics about the 28 physicians they analyze.

vedtopkar··on FDA considers first CRISPR gene editing treatment that may cure sickle cell
In fact this is exactly how they set the price for these curative treatments. Gargantuan sums but hypothetically on average cheaper than the overall lifetime costs of living with the disease. Lots of recent debates on this in the world of Hepatitis C.
vedtopkar··on Many researchers were not compliant with their published data sharing statement
I'll echo that it's a tremendous amount of work to appropriately format data and metadata for upload to a public repository. It's not as simple as just mass uploading raw data files. It's no surprise that people skirt around this requirement when possible, especially as the size of files and number of samples per paper continues to balloon.

That's not to say that it's not important, but the labor required is vastly underappreciated. I say this as someone who has completed the task for many papers.

vedtopkar··on Social media break improves mental health
Another anecdote: I felt my mental health declining from being sucked into "academic Twitter", which frequently devolves into unnecessary soapboxing in response to preprints or journal articles. I unfollowed all humans and now only follow institutional accounts. It really helped me.
vedtopkar··on Evening use of light-emitting eReaders negatively affects sleep (2014)
They speculate that the harmful component of e-readers is the blue-shifted illumination. I’d be curious if newer e-readers with temperature controllable backlights set to “warm” mitigates some of this sleep harm
vedtopkar··on My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll
It’s honestly so bad. No matter how hard I try, I find myself re-downloading TikTok or Reddit (Apollo) every month and then wasting away all my free time for a week or two before re-deleting them out of disgust. I truly don’t know what the solution is. I would just get rid of my smartphone if life wasn’t quite inconvenient without it.
vedtopkar··on Ask HN: Alternate Email hosting to G Suite
Curious as to why no one is recommending just paying for Google Workspace? $6/month for Google vs $5/month for Fastmail seems similar enough to avoid the hassle of transferring email servers.
vedtopkar··on Researchers looking for mRNA were ridiculed by colleagues
I'm doing my PhD on topics related to mRNA and took a seminar class with Meselson in college. Really crazy how quickly our field has gone from obscure to mainstream this last year.
vedtopkar··on The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company
Sadly I don't know enough to give you a good answer. But I'm certain there are smart people working on it!
vedtopkar··on The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company
Sure, but I never said anything about clinical trials? Just bioequivalence, which is exactly what’s stated in your first link.
vedtopkar··on The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company
I don’t have the best answer for you, but there are a number of considerations apart from the synthesis of the active molecule itself. Delivery vehicle can alter the physiological impact of the active substantially, and so the overall “package” needs to be tested even though the active is already approved.

To my knowledge, generic trials aren’t as involved as their non-generic counterparts for obvious reasons. But they are still non-trivial logistical undertakings.

vedtopkar··on The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company
This is cool, but what they're claiming is puzzling. Perhaps someone here can clarify.

Making generic drugs is non-trivial. The medicinal chemistry may be decades old, but you still need to do trials to demonstrate efficacy equivalency to the non-generic version. Are they really saying they'll do 100 of these trials by the end of the year?

While this is cool, I'm thinking that this type of initiative should be done by the federal government. A generic drug "mint" if you will.

vedtopkar··on I Made a Covid-19 Vaccine in My Kitchen and It Worked – Science Still Sucks
This sentiment is not unique to biomedicine. It's pretty often you see people finger elitism or capitalism for screwing people over because "I can make it myself."

Ethically, you are more than welcome to experiment on yourself. That's your prerogative. But, as has already been expressed here, the issue is once you start giving your creation to others. Even when the science is conceptually very simple, like in the case of nucleic acid vaccines, a huge number of variables can impact the safety and efficacy endpoints for the recipient. That's why trials and regulation are essential.

Are these regulatory systems perfect? Absolutely not (they are in dire need of reform). But they form an essential safety barrier for the general public. Decrying them as class warfare is incredibly naive.

vedtopkar··on Why Doctors Hate Their Computers (2018)
Oh man, this would be a dream...
vedtopkar··on Why Doctors Hate Their Computers (2018)
Totally. "Older" physicians who happen to be tech literate definitely have an easier time transitioning.
vedtopkar··on Why Doctors Hate Their Computers (2018)
Absolutely agree. The frustration with how much time is wasted is certainly universal.

I would kill for a command line EHR, especially if I could edit notes in vim!

vedtopkar··on Why Doctors Hate Their Computers (2018)
Having spoken to a lot of doctors during medical school, it really does feel like a generational thing. Physicians who were trained in the pre-EMR times have a really hard time transitioning. This is partially a UX design failure on the part of EMR companies.

The newer crop of physicians have a much better time using EMRs. Don't get me wrong, they are acutely aware of the ridiculousness that is modern billing-centric medical records. But having been trained in that atmosphere, it definitely appears less painful to their day-to-day.

vedtopkar··on Org-roam: Emacs org file based personal knowledge base system
This is very interesting, will check it out. I really just need a reference capability.
vedtopkar··on Org-roam: Emacs org file based personal knowledge base system
Since these systems have been coming up so much on HN, I have to ask: are there any such softwares that play nicely with images, PDFs, and Word/Excel docs? I've been trying out Devon think and it's pretty good, but I'd prefer to support a FOSS option.
vedtopkar··on DNA is held together by hydrophobic forces
This coverage is incredibly disingenuous. It's been known for a long time that base stacking is the dominant force in keeping a double helix together.

Literally the first sentence of the abstract is "Hydrophobic base stacking is a major contributor to DNA double-helix stability."

vedtopkar··on Show HN: Saag as a Service – macronutrient-portioned Indian spinach curry
I have often joked that if I could eat Saag for every meal for the rest of my life I would. This exactly scratches my itch.

Not even trying to be funny, this is exactly the type of service I have always wanted (down to the choose-your-protein options).

I really hope that there is a lot of demand (though I fear there may not be?). I will surely be a long-time customer.

vedtopkar··on Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles
This is absolutely the right way to go. I'm on the market for a new car for the first time in a long time and the terrible UX decisions car makers are implementing is quite shocking.
vedtopkar··on Editing Babies? We Need to Learn a Lot More First
Do you have a source for this? This may be true in other fields but most genome editing industry work is almost certainly done stateside.
vedtopkar··on How We Wrote a Textbook
As a grad student that has started and re-started writing a textbook for a couple of years, this is super inspiring! I love hearing about clever LaTeX tooling too.
vedtopkar··on James P Allison and Tasuku Honjo win Nobel prize for medicine
Amazing and very well deserved! Checkpoint blockade drugs are in their nascency, and though they aren't a silver bullet, they can be incredibly effective nonetheless. A large number of people will be saved from cancer (and maybe some other ailments too) thanks to these scientists.

As an aspiring medical researcher, stories like these are humbling and inspiring.

vedtopkar··on The Dangers of DNA Testing
It's shocking to me that something so critical to the criminal justice system is not more tightly regulated nor monitored continuously for sensitivity/specificity.
vedtopkar··on Evernote just slashed 54 jobs, or 15 percent of its workforce
I was an Evernote loyalist in the early days of the company, but eventually the apps got too sluggish and too complicated. The product started as a nice interface that got out of your way, but that went out the door as they tried to scale and make actual money.

I was then burned by OneNote (the MacOS app is pretty bad, and has terrible export options).

I now almost exclusively use plain-text files in a Dropbox folder, and I don't regret it at all.

vedtopkar··on iOS 12, reviewed
Thank goodness. The lack of 3rd party password manager integration was infuriating. Glad LastPass is usable natively.
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