Hacker News: Herodotus38

New comment by Herodotus38 in "Error by AI scribe during medical appointment leaves patient devastated"

Herodotus38 — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 15:26:36 +0000

I think you are right, These scribe programs can be used to help save time up front, at the cost that you have to spend the time review at the end to review. As others have said, it’s easy to skip the review part when you are distracted, and if most notes are fine with no edits needed you start to think you can get away without reviewing closely.

New comment by Herodotus38 in "Error by AI scribe during medical appointment leaves patient devastated"

Herodotus38 — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 04:12:30 +0000

The doctor probably didn’t even read it and there’s a good chance the AI program wrote the bit about bleeding too. Source: am physician who has tried these programs and doesn’t use them.

New comment by Herodotus38 in "Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions"

Herodotus38 — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 06:23:34 +0000

Thanks for also confirming my suspicions. I did find a Frontiers paper but it also seemed very vague about what they were proposing

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....

New comment by Herodotus38 in "Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions"

Herodotus38 — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 01:51:06 +0000

I was reading the article trying to find a source cited where I could see where the depersonalization symptoms are better described but didn’t find it. Anybody have a better link to primary sources?

New comment by Herodotus38 in "Mathematical texts from a Maya site in Guatemala identify an ancient astronomer"

Herodotus38 — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 02:38:20 +0000

Someone linked to the paper but basically it was pointing out a number was a multiple of X venus years and also Y solar years, but also it was a sum of different multiples of important astronomical values as well.

New comment by Herodotus38 in "Daily pill can double survival time for deadliest cancer, trial shows"

Herodotus38 — Sun, 31 May 2026 16:03:17 +0000

Source article for those interested:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2505783

Paywalled but has a free access option if you make an account.

New comment by Herodotus38 in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

Herodotus38 — Mon, 25 May 2026 19:40:34 +0000

I didn’t realize there was a farsi word chert. I was thinking it was named after my favorite cryptocrystalline silicate mineral.

New comment by Herodotus38 in "Low-Dose Aspirin Usage for Primary Prevention Has Fallen by >50% Since 2018"

Herodotus38 — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:47:27 +0000

Sounds like you have additional and better evidence than the USPTF that made the changes in aspirin for primary prevention. They do have a method to give feedback, and based on my experience a person will respond to you personally. I suggest you submit your information to them.

https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/public-...

New comment by Herodotus38 in "Low-Dose Aspirin Usage for Primary Prevention Has Fallen by >50% Since 2018"

Herodotus38 — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 05:24:38 +0000

Great to see an example of concrete evidence that physicians made changes when the evidence showed a change was needed.

New comment by Herodotus38 in "Dulce et Decorum Est (1921)"

Herodotus38 — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 13:08:09 +0000

Great song. I will check out that version. I first heard a version by The Furies.

New comment by Herodotus38 in "The rise of eyes began with just one"

Herodotus38 — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 04:02:04 +0000

Thank you. For those interested the paper this article is based on is:

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)...?

New comment by Herodotus38 in "Pope tells priests to use their brains, not AI, to write homilies"

Herodotus38 — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 08:53:23 +0000

There are resources that publish homilies for priests to give. Here is an example for English speakers.

https://associationofcatholicpriests.ie/liturgy/sunday-resou...

New comment by Herodotus38 in "Ask HN: Is there anyone here who still uses slide rules?"

Herodotus38 — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 17:04:57 +0000

My grandfather taught me the basics of using it and I still have his, but haven’t used it in decades and need a refresher.

New comment by Herodotus38 in "Baffling purple honey found only in North Carolina"

Herodotus38 — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 05:54:05 +0000

There’s a hopefully unrelated concept called purple urine bag syndrome I have seen. Not completely understood either but this paper thinks due to a combination of dietary tryptophan breakdown from constipation and colonic E coli load, urinary bacteria, and reaction with the plastic tubing of the catheter and bag.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3894016/

New comment by Herodotus38 in "How many video games include a marriage proposal? At least one"

Herodotus38 — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 17:47:53 +0000

I remember that video! 14 years ago it inspired me, to program a text adventure game proposal for my wife (still happily married). Thanks!

New comment by Herodotus38 in "New antibiotic targets IBD and AI predicted how it would work"

Herodotus38 — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 04:54:18 +0000

Not directly since we all have it. It’s a bit confusing from the article but basically they discovered an antibiotic which can target a narrower spectrum than before which will minimize messing up your natural flora and allow drug resistant enterobacter (e coli is a main species, but not the only one) to be over represented. There is an association with ibd and. microbiomes that have e coli over-represented. And there are some subtypes of e coli that appear to be associated, see:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29141957/

New comment by Herodotus38 in "The share of Americans having regular sex keeps dropping"

Herodotus38 — Sat, 30 Aug 2025 17:05:55 +0000

I didn’t see any mention in the article about the rise of obesity as a possible cause.

Aside from the social aspects which could be debated, older obese adult men are more likely to have medical conditions that would decrease their ability to have sex.

I think the other reasons they posted are valid but was expecting a comment on that.

New comment by Herodotus38 in "New protein therapy shows promise as antidote for carbon monoxide poisoning"

Herodotus38 — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 17:33:05 +0000

Ahh I bet that is where the confusion is. I am a physician and I have used methylene blue in severe shock and methemoglobinemia but I was a bit worried the parent comment believed it’s a valid CO treatment.

New comment by Herodotus38 in "New protein therapy shows promise as antidote for carbon monoxide poisoning"

Herodotus38 — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 15:26:28 +0000

Hello, I would be interested if you could give evidence that methylene blue "works great" for carbon monoxide poisoning in humans.

It is not the standard of care in any guidelines I can find from any country. There is a paper from 2018 out of china showing some benefit in a rat model: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bcpt.12940

New comment by Herodotus38 in "A brief history of the absurdities of the Soviet Union"

Herodotus38 — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 19:16:33 +0000

No they were in college in the 80s when things were more open, but Andrei’s point was that compared to a lot of other sciences, molecular biology like cloning genes was decades behind because of the past.