Hacker News: kaiabwpdjqn

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "S&P 500 triggers 15-minute trading halt for the second time this week"

kaiabwpdjqn — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 17:52:41 +0000

What’s been going on in Shanghai? How serious has the lockdown been?

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "S&P 500 triggers 15-minute trading halt for the second time this week"

kaiabwpdjqn — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 15:59:53 +0000

So here’s my question. China seems to have done a good job locking down Beijing and preventing an outbreak there. They did not do a good job in Wuhan. Per what you have described above, doesn’t it seem probable that Beijing will see a resurfacing given that relatively few people were exposed to it in the first bout?

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "Covid-19 is now officially a pandemic, WHO says"

kaiabwpdjqn — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 14:49:19 +0000

Spanish Flu disagrees with you

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "S&P 500 triggers 15-minute trading halt for the second time this week"

kaiabwpdjqn — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 14:19:00 +0000

And what if China is wrong, lying, or only temporarily correct, causing the virus to resurface when society resumes?

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat"

kaiabwpdjqn — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 13:22:48 +0000

There’s not much right vs left yet. It’s just the Democrats figuring out who their candidate will be. The pandemic has a very small effect on the US right now. Things are closing but mostly in anticipation of the near future. Almost none of it is in the middle where the right lives.

There’s been some yelling at trump over his poor handling but it’s mostly just virtue signaling at this point. When the elections come around for real we will probably see something of this if/when it has evolved into something more serious here.

I say this in Boston, just a few degrees of separation from some of the COVID confirmed individuals.

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days"

kaiabwpdjqn — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 01:49:15 +0000

> Do you really think some moron bumbled his way into the most powerful office in the world?

Yes, and in light of anecdotes of how decisions are made in the current administration: double yes

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "The flying taxi market may be ready for takeoff: study"

kaiabwpdjqn — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 01:39:50 +0000

The sky is mostly empty space when, and only when, there are not flying taxis at sufficient scale for society to bat an eye

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "Covid-19 is now officially a pandemic, WHO says"

kaiabwpdjqn — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 22:57:07 +0000

CFR in Italy is lower in every age category than in China.

It’s Simpson’s paradox

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "Covid-19 is now officially a pandemic, WHO says"

kaiabwpdjqn — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 18:12:25 +0000

It’s a stupid concern. The reason the government is incompetent is that the government is incompetent. That’s not uniquely American, and there’s no evidence that race has played into any of this. We didn’t exactly change our tune when Italy freaked out. Does that mean we’re racist against Italians?

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "Covid-19 is now officially a pandemic, WHO says"

kaiabwpdjqn — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 17:29:16 +0000

As an Asian American... no, I don’t think racism played into this at all. Would have been exactly the same if it started in London.

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country"

kaiabwpdjqn — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 15:51:43 +0000

I think the real takeaway is from all this is that death rate is a pointless metric. It is highly dependent on the local demographics, it requires precise information which is rarely available, it is biased by the level of care available, it has numerous ways to estimate it all of which are hard to explain and not actual estimates but upper or lower bounds, it tends to naturally decrease over time, etc.

The death rate is lower in China than Italy, but the death rate is lower within each age group in Italy vs China. Most people are too innumerate to understand this statement.

As an aside, I REALLY hate how this guy on twitter says “it could be 5.0%, look at this spreadsheet that assumes 5.0%!” Then refers to a paper as a good analysis which claims 1.6% and a set of facts which differ greatly from all of his assumptions.

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "Flatten the Coronavirus Curve"

kaiabwpdjqn — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 15:03:55 +0000

There’s an important bit in this that depends on age. If you’re young and healthy, in addition to being less likely to die from the disease, you’re also less likely to acquire the disease (exposure level being held equal). If you’re older, you’re more likely to acquire the disease.

This implies the disease will spread much faster in areas with more old people, because more people are vulnerable to it and they are more likely to become infectious themselves. A similar statement could be made for how well integrated the older generations are in a given society.

I don’t live there and have no particular horse in this race, but I would predict the Bay Area will not look like Italy right now for this reason.

Edit: do be careful though. The takeaway is not that young people can ignore this.

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country"

kaiabwpdjqn — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 13:32:45 +0000

well it’s a good thing I didn’t suggest that

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country"

kaiabwpdjqn — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 13:31:05 +0000

what is the treatment then?

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country"

kaiabwpdjqn — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 03:43:32 +0000

My point is that medical staff are trained to respond to many things. Training newbies to respond to one thing would probably be easy and fast. Especially if most people just need fluids, oxygen, and aspirin. Burning out doctors to maximize survival rates up front is... bad

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country"

kaiabwpdjqn — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 02:48:43 +0000

What do the healthcare workers actually do while caring for these people? Is this something that actually requires significant medical knowledge?

What does arrest mean? Is that cardiac arrest? Is that how people are dying? If they’re dying and people aren’t attending, should they even be there at all?

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "“Just walk out” technology by Amazon"

kaiabwpdjqn — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 20:26:48 +0000

I doubt it would be a game changer. Grocery stores already collect this when you use a card for discounts

(They’ll never say no if you ask to put on the store card though...)

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "“Just walk out” technology by Amazon"

kaiabwpdjqn — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 20:21:45 +0000

anyone know if this tech can handle adversarial images? Is it even computer vision based?

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "Why does the coronavirus spread so easily between people?"

kaiabwpdjqn — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 17:07:54 +0000

The data was small but seemed to be worse for former smokers. That’s hard to judge though, because former smokers are likely to have quit due to health problems. I haven’t seen any useful stats on infection rates but I think that’s an interesting idea.

New comment by kaiabwpdjqn in "Turn down the quantum volume"

kaiabwpdjqn — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 16:32:55 +0000

Ok but what I’m looking for is an actual example of an intractable problem.

Breaking crypto is one, I guess, but it’s also one that makes everything worse, so I don’t take that as a useful outcome.