https://gwern.net/complement

Turns out, the wlroots API is so volatile atm that even the developer of the super small compositor DWL has to throw in the towel for now.

> DWL is more interesting as a learning exercise than something to use.

The same is said about DWM, its xorg counterpart, but I, for one, am a happy user of DWM.

> 2025-08-16: dwl IS CURRENTLY UN-MAINTAINED. AT THE PRESENT TIME, I (@fauxmight) DO NOT HAVE THE TIME OR CAPACITY TO KEEP UP WITH wlroots CHANGES.

https://codeberg.org/dwl/dwl

> [Einstein's General Relativity] tells us that the universe is expanding

Does GR really tell us that though?

The way I understood it, GR's differential equations will produce solutions for many different constraints and initial conditions you throw at them. Including the constraints & conditions informed by astronomical observation.

To restore the gut health of humans, there is this thing called "fecal transplant" [1]: use another person's poo to bootstrap the growth of your own gut microbiome.

There is an abundance of mammoth dung in the northern permafrost. When thawed, its microbiome becomes active again, producing methane. [2]

So resurrecting the woolly mammoth as a species is the hardest part. Equipping the first individuals with a proper gut biome will be really easy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_microbiota_transplant

[2] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/melting-permaf...

That's not an assumption that GP makes.

Some excerpts:

> With a genetic condition called alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, which leaves me with a weakened immune system, I had more reason to be personally concerned about Covid than most Harvard professors. I expected that Covid would hit me hard, and that’s precisely what happened in early 2021, when the devoted staff at Manchester Hospital in Connecticut saved my life. But it would have been wrong for me to let my personal vulnerability to infections influence my opinions and recommendations as a public-health scientist, which must focus on everyone’s health.

> Since mid-2021, we have known, as one would expect, that Covid-acquired immunity is superior to vaccine-acquired immunity. Based on that, I argued that hospitals should hire, not fire, nurses and other hospital staff with Covid-acquired immunity, since they have stronger immunity than the vaccinated.

> For scientific, ethical, public health, and medical reasons, I objected both publicly and privately to the Covid vaccine mandates. I already had superior infection-acquired immunity; and it was risky to vaccinate me without proper efficacy and safety studies on patients with my type of immune deficiency. This stance got me fired by Mass General Brigham—and consequently fired from my Harvard faculty position.

I'm not trying to prove anything. I just rely on the judgement of domain experts.

In this thread I cited Cochrane, The Lancet, SciAm and Science Magazine. If you have more reputable sources, please share them here.

>You'll need to come up with a physical basis for this unintuitive hypothesis if you want to be taken seriously.

It's only unintuitive if you stick to the droplet model. SARS-CoV-2 however spreads like smoke through the air, as I documented already extensively in this post:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39234677

That's just one RCT. The Cochrane meta-analysis looked at a bunch of them.

>When the medical field phases out masks because they "have no benefit" I will believe that masking was useless.

You're putting the cart before the horse. In an ideal world, guidelines for the medical field are based on scientific evidence. But there's always a delay.

You better consult the scientific evidence to make up your mind.

When it comes to covid and masking, policymakers will wait as long as possible before aknowledging the evidence, because they know the public hasn't forgotten the draconian masking of school kids yet.

Yes. To their credit, they only looked at randomized controlled trials.

>"Key messages We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed."

In other words: the RCTs don't show an effect to a significant degree.

I hardly see any covid threads here. I happened to see the one of this week. It got 8 comments before being flagged into oblivion.

>That's not for lack of COVID expertise, though most of that expertise is probably Homer-melding-backwards-into-the-hedges when they see the thread.

You cannot have it both ways. Either you flag covid threads preemptively [1] along with a bunch of other users [2], or you try to learn from domain experts in these threads.

But making assumptions about what these experts would have thought of these threads, had they not been flagged down prematurely, is a weird leap of reasoning.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39231535

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39232084

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD...

--> May 2020: "How Coronavirus Spreads through the Air: What We Know So Far"

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-coronavirus-s...

>For months, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization have maintained that the novel coronavirus is primarily spread by droplets from someone who is coughing, sneezing or even talking within a few feet away. But anecdotal reports hint that it could be transmissible through particles suspended in the air (so-called "aerosol transmission"). And the WHO recently reversed its guidance to say that such transmission, particularly in “indoor locations where there are crowded and inadequately ventilated spaces where infected persons spend long periods of time with others, cannot be ruled out.”

>Even if aerosols do not travel farther than most droplets, the oft-touted “six-foot rule” for social distancing may depend on the circumstances, Cowling says. If there is a fan or air conditioner, infectious aerosols (or even droplets, as was suspected in the case of that restaurant in China) could potentially sicken someone farther away who is downwind.

--> October 2020: "Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2"

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abf0521

>Viruses in droplets (larger than 100 µm) typically fall to the ground in seconds within 2 m of the source and can be sprayed like tiny cannonballs onto nearby individuals. Because of their limited travel range, physical distancing reduces exposure to these droplets. Viruses in aerosols (smaller than 100 µm) can remain suspended in the air for many seconds to hours, like smoke, and be inhaled. They are highly concentrated near an infected person, so they can infect people most easily in close proximity. But aerosols containing infectious virus (2) can also travel more than 2 m and accumulate in poorly ventilated indoor air, leading to superspreading events (3).

>Individuals with COVID-19, many of whom have no symptoms, release thousands of virus-laden aerosols and far fewer droplets when breathing and talking (4–6). Thus, one is far more likely to inhale aerosols than be sprayed by a droplet (7), and so the balance of attention must be shifted to protecting against airborne transmission. In addition to existing mandates of mask-wearing, social distancing, and hygiene efforts, we urge public health officials to add clear guidance about the importance of moving activities outdoors, improving indoor air using ventilation and filtration, and improving protection for high-risk workers (8).

--> May, 2021: "Ten scientific reasons in support of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2"

https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(21)00869-2/full...

> First, superspreading events account for substantial SARS-CoV-2 transmission; indeed, such events may be the pandemic's primary drivers. [...]

> Second, long-range transmission of SARS-CoV-2 between people in adjacent rooms but never in each other's presence has been documented in quarantine hotels. [...]

> Third, asymptomatic or presymptomatic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from people who are not coughing or sneezing is likely to account for at least a third, and perhaps up to 59%, of all transmission globally and is a key way SARS-CoV-2 has spread around the world [...]

> Fourth, transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is higher indoors than outdoors and is substantially reduced by indoor ventilation.5 Both observations support a predominantly airborne route of transmission.

> Fifth, nosocomial infections have been documented in health-care organisations, where there have been strict contact-and-droplet precautions and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) designed to protect against droplet but not aerosol exposure.

> Sixth, viable SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in the air. In laboratory experiments, SARS-CoV-2 stayed infectious in the air for up to 3 h with a half-life of 1·1 h. [...]

> Seventh, SARS-CoV-2 has been identified in air filters and building ducts in hospitals with COVID-19 patients; such locations could be reached only by aerosols.

> Eighth, studies involving infected caged animals that were connected to separately caged uninfected animals via an air duct have shown transmission of SARS-CoV-2 that can be adequately explained only by aerosols.

> Ninth, no study to our knowledge has provided strong or consistent evidence to refute the hypothesis of airborne SARS-CoV-2 transmission. [...]

> Tenth, there is limited evidence to support other dominant routes of transmission—ie, respiratory droplet or fomite. [...]

You can't just make up the beneficial effects of something as you go. Can you cite some randomized controlled trials that support your claim?

>Just like forced masking up probably saved tens of thousands of lives.

One year ago, a huge Cochrane meta-analysis of the available RCTs regarding masking has put that idea to bed: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD...

The expertise on HN is indeed unrivaled.

If I want to learn about the quirks of a variational autoencoder in some neural network, I read the discussion between experts here on HN [1].

If I want to learn about protein folding, I can find relevant domain experts answering questions here on HN [2].

But why do you and so many others think that there is a covid-shaped hole in the expertise on HN? Do you really believe that out of all domain experts, the covid ones decided to stay away from here?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39215242

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32262856

I didn't ask you to expend effort in rescuing stories. I took issue with the way you expend effort in burying stories, even before the comment section turns out to go sideways:

> I didn't flag (or see) that story, but I would have.

IMHO story submissions should be judged based upon their own merits. Toxic commenters can be downvoted/banned but the story submitter shouldn't be punished for the misbehavior of others.

> I didn't flag (or see) that story, but I would have.

You mean purely based on the expected awfulness of imagined future comments, instead of the actual comments? If so, with a precrime mindset like that, you're fanning the flames of controversy.

What do you mean: "not an accurate characterization of the content of the article"? The title pretty accurately describes an admission by the former NIAID director in a House Select Subcommittee, according to the WSJ. That admission is the topic of the article.

> And it's disingenuous for you to pretend that the issue is HN users being unwilling to reexamine the public health response to Covid-19, when the submission is clearly flouting HN's rules.

From HN's rules:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait;

I think using the clickbaity original title ("Anthony Fauci Fesses Up") would be flouting HN's rules.

That top comment complains that the HN title is WSJ's informative subheading instead of its clickbaity headline.

I don't understand why this story was removed: "It turns out the six-feet social-distancing rule had no scientific basis", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39200511

On a forum with an overwhelmingly science-minded audience, it bothers me that an important topic like that is deemed untouchable.