Hacker News: laserson

New comment by laserson in "The Legend of von Neumann [pdf]"

laserson — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 13:56:39 +0000

I read this last year and also recommend!

Waymos cause "way mo" injuries per mile driven than for-hire vehicles in NYC

laserson — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 14:48:03 +0000

Article URL: https://gothamist.com/news/are-waymo-robotaxis-actually-safer-than-nyc-uber-and-taxi-drivers

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49007705

Points: 12

# Comments: 16

New comment by laserson in "AI for Bio has a Fuzzy API problem"

laserson — Thu, 07 May 2026 14:05:27 +0000

Nice essay Ankit!

I think there are two more factors worth touching on that make things difficult in drug discovery:

1. It feels like you're differentiating a bit but I always hear of the APIs being leaky. The selection of a target in the target discovery phase may drive which modalities are even available to try to engineer an intervention (e.g., intracellular vs extracellular targets can be addressed with different types of drugs). Clinical factors can also determine whether a particular modality is appropriate (e.g., keeping drugs refrigerated).

2. Costs create constraints that need to be applied at all the stages of the pipeline. Does gathering evidence during target discovery require a unique assay or access to very rare patient samples? What is the size of the addressable market? If you can only target a narrow patient population, it may not end up justifying the costs involved in running the clinical trials. If your chosen drug modality costs $500k to synthesize one dose, how will it be paid for?

AI for Bio has a Fuzzy API problem

laserson — Thu, 07 May 2026 13:39:27 +0000

Article URL: https://ankitg.me/blog/2026/05/04/fuzzy_api.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48049311

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

Eric Lu Wins International Chopin Piano Competition

laserson — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 00:37:26 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/arts/music/chopin-piano-competition-eric-lu.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45663624

Points: 8

# Comments: 0

New comment by laserson in "Nine things I learned in ninety years"

laserson — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 12:17:23 +0000

There’s a well-known Louis Pasteur quote that I always liked:

“Chance favors the prepared mind”

U.S. Government to Take Cut of Nvidia and AMD A.I. Chip Sales to China

laserson — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 00:49:58 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/technology/us-government-nvidia-amd-chips-china.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44859781

Points: 52

# Comments: 16

New comment by laserson in "Jane Street barred from Indian markets as regulator freezes $566M"

laserson — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 17:48:32 +0000

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/newsletters/2025-07-07/jan...

The Elusive Virtual Cell

laserson — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 03:08:15 +0000

Article URL: https://substack.com/home/post/p-167605121

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44486379

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Alpha School: AI-powered K-12 school in 2 hrs per day

laserson — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:30:14 +0000

Article URL: https://alpha.school/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42976510

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by laserson in "Ask HN: Spending Tracking Tools"

laserson — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 17:43:14 +0000

I'm a big fan of Tiller [1], which is a paid service that basically just connects Yodlee to Google Docs or Excel. It will dump all your transactions and balance info into a spreadsheet and you can do what you want with it. It also has lots of templates for things like budgeting etc. I run a daily cron job that loads the transaction data and produces a nice Jupyter-based report. It will require some custom building, but the API plumbing is done for you.

[1]: https://www.tillerhq.com/

New comment by laserson in "Kagi and Wolfram"

laserson — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 22:35:13 +0000

One thing I miss from Google is relatively seamless integration with maps. Sometimes the address queries just fail for me on Kagi. And even when they don’t, Google’s maps are still far more useful IMO.

Ask HN: Tools to help families with Alzheimer's/dementia

laserson — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 16:34:19 +0000

A close family member of mine is developing Alzheimer's disease. He can still take care of himself but is getting more difficult to converse with. He loses things easily, and every once-in-a-while gives us a scare because he decides to leave the house and doesn't tell us about it.

What tools, devices, apps, etc do you recommend that could improve his safety and/or quality of life (and also our peace of mind)?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39057346

Points: 5

# Comments: 3

Tzadik Records catalog now streaming

laserson — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 03:01:52 +0000

Article URL: https://avantmusicnews.com/2023/09/21/tzadik-records-catalog-to-begin-streaming-on-september-29/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37747483

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by laserson in "Milk bag"

laserson — Mon, 28 Aug 2023 03:40:08 +0000

In Israel they produce single-serving chocolate milk bags, which now mainly serve as a fond dose of nostalgia for me.

New comment by laserson in "Google Maps has become an eyesore"

laserson — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 12:08:17 +0000

I’ve found Citymapper to give far more realistic routes and commute times on the NYC subway.

Family of Henrietta Lacks Settles with Biotech Company

laserson — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 21:13:01 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/science/henrietta-lacks-cells-lawsuit-settlement.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36963034

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

Sequoia to Separate China Business as Political Tensions Rise

laserson — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 19:17:42 +0000

Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/articles/venture-capital-firm-sequoia-to-separate-china-business-as-political-tensions-rise-36e54f85

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36217743

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by laserson in "Apple Music Classical"

laserson — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 12:25:43 +0000

How does this compare with Concertmaster? It's basically a skin on top of Spotify for browsing classical music. It's free and pretty good. (There's also an app.) And I believe there is a version for Apple Music already?

[1]: https://concertmaster.app

Ask HN: How do you manage your contacts?

laserson — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 00:44:04 +0000

My contacts are a gross tangle of partially duplicated records between Google, iPhone, etc.

How do y'all manage your contacts?

There have been lots of startups trying to take on various apps in people's lives (e.g., Superhuman for email, Cron for calendar, etc.). Are there companies focused on managing contacts?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32587869

Points: 10

# Comments: 5