Hacker News Reader

wpascon Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

aaaand then?

wpascon Universe expected to decay in 10⁷⁸ years, much sooner than previously thought

The Universe asked me, "Guess what? I'm decaying"

I said, "Dude, you've gotta give me time to guess"

wpascon Reflections on Palantir

I was curious too; here's an HN link spelling it out and discussing in context of working there:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27571707

wpascon Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says

Agreed that his ethnicity is a silly topic to be discussed, but calling Christopher Columbus a "slightly" relevant guy definitely feels like a stretch.

wpascon World-first therapy using donor cells sends autoimmune diseases into remission

thank you and thanks for your n=1, wish you the best with your treatment as well

wpascon Ceres: An ocean world in the asteroid belt

Inyalowda, the more you share, the more your bowl will be plentiful

my favorite show ever, imo best sci fi show ever. Ceres station in the books/show is a really cool idea even though it's got several reasons why it couldn't actually work

wpascon World-first therapy using donor cells sends autoimmune diseases into remission

It's the few instances of new onset IBD and generally the GI side effects. I'm lucky enough to have a pretty solid GI system that I don't want to risk messing with. I get very anxious with medicine, and my ankylosing spondylitis is sufficiently slow moving on MRI and tolerable enough that I prefer not to use the medicines. I had too many strange side effects whilst on Humira/Remicade such that it scares the crap out of me.

wpascon World-first therapy using donor cells sends autoimmune diseases into remission

amen. I've tried 3 tnf inhibitors that have not worked (and had negative side effects). Cosentyx (il 17a inhibitor) kinda scares me. I always like to keep my hopes that some better autoimmune treatments could come soon

wpascon No evidence social media time is correlated with teen mental health problems

Someone commented above, but Jonathan Haidt "the anxious generation" is a place to start for a deeper analysis on the issue. Here is part 1 of a 3 part series of posts of his. I can't speak to the correlations and study directly, but Haidt's work is probably what you're looking for. https://www.afterbabel.com/p/the-case-for-causality-part-1 (the commenter elsewhere linked part 3 which I believe directly refutes this meta analysis)

wpascon SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS

I respectfully partially disagree. Sure, the term "rescue" is a bit over the top and evokes "Apollo 13" vibes. OTOH, Boeing has "$14.8bn in Pentagon contracts in 2022" [1]. Boeing has plane crash issues for years now across more than 1 model. And its space program just had an embarrassing failure. Given their failures, the amount of revenue they get from the US federal gov, and their level of influence over various aspects of defense funding/spending, I do not think this story should be dismissed as an overly sensational, run-of-the-mill story that does not make the news.

IMO, US citizens/taxpayers would be very justified to be pissed about the failures of a company that their tax dollars heavily fund (from the same article I referenced above, its like 37% of their revenue). The series of very public failures that affect people directly (planes) and affect their tax dollars (recent series of failures of their space program) certainly warrants outrage and coverage. that's my 2 cents

[1]: https://www.airforce-technology.com/features/boeing-pleads-g...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2020/01/02/ho...

wpascon 84% want stronger online privacy laws, but Congress's corruption stalls progress

Why wouldn't a congress person in this instance do the opposite? Give a show of hand for sake of TV and voters. Say they voted one way, but then vote the way they might be lobbied/influenced to? The public votes of congress people is frequently a campaign talking issue by virtue of opponents lambasting each other's vote records. How would secret ballots in congress have anything but the opposite effect of what you intend?

wpascon Scientists discover a cause of lupus, possible way to reverse it

For what’s it’s worth, autoimmune drugs are amongst the highest grossing due to their cost. Rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, MS all do have a lot of study. I wouldn’t say it’s enough, but I don’t think the prevalence of me/cfs alters anything due to the high prevalence of the other diseases. Immune disorders are definitely mysterious though

wpascon Show HN: I built an indie, browser-based MMORPG

Only have been on in for like 3 seconds before crashing, the game definitely gave me early RuneScape vibes. Tbt to RuneScape in the school library in like 2006

wpascon Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says

I can't imagine any jurisdiction that tried this would see anything other than large companies prohibiting their software from being used in that jurisdiction. Any company that then grew large would quickly exit. Every iOS update requires 1B+ to sit in escrow?

wpascon Young women fall out of love with dating apps

thank you beltalowda

wpascon Interview with Senior JavaScript Developer 2024 [video]

I know HN is more serious that humorous, but I love his interviews

wpascon Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

This is an unfair parallel, but it's like worrying about businesses who advertise on pornographic sites or on cigarette boxes. Allowing visibility to businesses who advertise on a certain platform could be judged (by society, law, and voters) to be outweighed by the need to restrict youth access to social media. There is a variety of precedent in society and law in restricting youth access to something that is otherwise deemed legal. Just because businesses advertise on social media (in my opinion), the decision to restrict access should not be altered by that advertising strategy.

wpascon Countries That Close Gender Gaps See Substantial Growth Returns

it's very tough to say why, but the countries being referenced by this article as having improved the gender gap certainly have lower rates of reproduction. Whose to say good, bad, or why, but the correlation is present.

wpascon Google cancels contract with an AI data firm that's helped train Bard

and hotdogs

wpascon Nepal bans TikTok and says it disrupts social harmony

TikTok is a Chinese company, how is that an instance of Western Values being pushed?

wpascon Researchers identify 'switch' to activate cancer cell death

I agree that much is changing in cancer therapy, most promisingly around immunotherapies and other immune related strategies, but the 5 year survival rate change over decades is often attributed to earlier detection as opposed to improved treatments.

wpascon Albert Einstein in 1939 composed a message for the people of AD 6939

Ed Witten is uncharacteristically brilliant and yet he (in my opinion) fell prey to the “masses” of physicists who clung to String theory despite its inability to yield results. Imo, that’s a counter example to your point. Thinking differently than other people and outside the masses doesn’t make one smart, take any non Ted Kasinski serial killer

wpascon Omegle 2009-2023

Harassment law would probably suffice with case law and precedent starting to cover the specific type of harassment

wpascon Big Insurance Met Match When Turned Down a Lawyer's Request for Cancer Treatment

https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/29/breast-cance...

It’s not disputed nor unknown that a variety of expensive/newer cancer treatments are not payed for by the NHS. I posted one example but there are many

wpascon Tesla union strike fails in Sweden as workers refused to walk out

Perhaps because the workers feel that their work benefits and compensation as negotiated with Tesla directly are good and would not benefit from introducing the union into that negotiation? You may disagree but it’s not like it’s a completely inconceivable notion (in my opinion)

wpascon Covid's damage lingers in the heart

Lol this metaphor perplexes me. I don't have strong COVID opinions, but I'm really confused by this metaphor, is the plane crash full on COVID? Planes are safer overall of course, but if you introduce the Bayesian prior of given: you have been in a crash, which vehicle would you rather be in, car or plane? I'd probably say car. I got my COVID shot and largely agree that while the vaccine may have some risks, seemingly getting raw COVID w/o vaccines is probably worse. but i don't even care about that in this context, your metaphor has 100% taken me off work task :)

wpascon Wheat gluten spurs brain inflammation in mice

I posted a reply to your main link. I think you overestimate the ability of the tests to rule out issues caused by strange interactions with food and/or constituent components of food. I think you are referring to 1) genetic tests for celiac genes, 2) IgA tests, and/or 3) biopsies for flatten villi. These can rule out celiac specifically, but cannot rule out a variety of other issues that can be a result. (My evidence of that you may not find convincing, but it comes from discussions with several gastroenterologists and rheumatologists that I've worked with).

wpascon Wheat gluten spurs brain inflammation in mice

I believe you are right in the spirit of people overreacting to gluten. However, there may be more mechanisms at play which create more than 2 categories (celiac and non celiac). (I added some links below).

I only post this disagreement with your post as an autoimmune enjoyer who has 0 genes for celiac (although my dad developed full blown celiac at age 55 without any previous symptoms in his life). Having dealt with autoimmune issues for a while and doing a lot of reading and discussions with my various rheumatologists over the years, I find it amazing how little is truly known about the immune system, role of food, role of microbiome, and root causes of auto immune issues. Moreover, the lack of understanding on how auto-immune disease prevalence has gotten way worse in recent decades (at least in the U.S.), way moreso than can be explained by increased reporting/increased life expectancy.

Some Links: NPR discussion on zonulin: A Protein In The Gut May Explain Why Some Can't Stomach Gluten https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/09/459061317/a-...

An overview written by the author mentioned in the NPR Article: Zonulin, regulation of tight junctions, and autoimmune diseases ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3384703/

wpascon Jeff Bezos announces $3.4B NASA contract to land astronauts on lunar surface

Blue Origin hasn't been to orbit yet right? If that is still the case, pretty wild contract to land.

wpascon Giant SpaceX Spiral Appears Amid the Aurora Lights in Alaska's Night Sky

how dare you besmirch the Epstein drive